Rajarata
University of Sri Lanka
Department of Languages
Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities
Online Lectures
|
Year
and Semester
|
Year-2
Semester-1
|
|
Subject
|
Syntax
and Semantics
|
|
Subject
Code
|
ENGL
2112
|
|
Course
Unit
|
Introduction
to Syntax -2
|
|
Date
|
05.05.2020
|
|
Time
|
Theory
(10.00 am-11.00 am) Practical (4.30
pm-5.30 pm)
|
|
Lecturer
|
D.N.
Aloysius
|
|
Theory
Hours
|
01
Total No of Hours: 02
|
|
Practical
Hours
|
01
Total No of Hours: 02
|
Introduction to Syntax
Types of Sentence
Structures
Types of sentences
and their syntax modes include simple sentences, compound sentences, complex
sentences, and compound-complex sentences. Compound sentences are two simple
sentences joined by a conjunction. Complex sentences have dependent clauses,
and compound-complex sentences have both types included.
- Simple sentence: Subject-verb structure
("The girl ran.")
- Compound
sentence:
Subject-verb-object-conjunction-subject-verb structure ("The girl ran
the marathon, and her cousin did, too.")
- Complex sentence: Dependent
clause-subject-verb-object structure ("Although they were tired after
the marathon, the cousins decided to go to a celebration at the
park.")
- Compound-complex
sentence:
Four clauses, dependent and independent structures ("Although they
weren't fond of crowds, this was different, they decided, because of the
common goal that had brought everyone together.")
Deep structure and surface structure
In linguistics, transformational syntax is a
derivational approach to syntax that
developed from the extended standard theory of generative
grammar originally proposed by Noam Chomsky in his
books Syntactic
Structures and Aspects
of the Theory of Syntax. It emerged from a need to improve on approaches
to grammar in structural
linguistics.
According to the Chomskyan tradition, language
acquisition is easy for children because they are born with a universal grammar in their
minds. The tradition also distinguishes between linguistic
competence, what a person knows of a language, and linguistic
performance, how a person uses it.
Deep structure and surface structure
concepts are used in linguistics, specifically in the study of syntax in the
Chomskyan tradition of transformational generative grammar. The deep structure
of a linguistic expression is a theoretical construct that seeks to unify
several related structures.
The deep structure of a linguistic expression is a
theoretical construct that seeks to unify several related structures. For
example, the sentences "Ravi drinks
tea. Tea is drunk by Ravi”. mean roughly the same thing and use similar
words. Some linguists, Chomsky in particular, have tried to account for this
similarity by positing that these two sentences are distinct surface forms that derive from a
common deep structure.
Deep Structure: /Ravi drink tea/
Surface Structure: Ravi drinks tea. /Ravi drank tea. /Ravi
will drink tea. The above sentence can be written in present/past and future
tenses. It can be written in simple/continuous/perfect and perfect continuous
forms. And also, it can be written in positive, negative, interrogative and
negative interrogative forms. Moreover, the deep structure, /Ravi drink tea/
can be transformed into passive voice as well. It is now obvious that /Ravi
drink tea/ is the deep structure and all the other sentences come under the
surface structure. Chomsky coined and popularized the terms "deep
structure" and "surface structure" in the early 1960s.
Practical Activity: Write short notes on Deep
Structure, Surface Structure and Universal Grammar.
References:
4.
Lydia
White (2003) Second Language Acquisition and Universal Grammar, Cambridge, Cambridge
University Press.
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