Syntax (5)

Dr. Ansa Hameed

Previously

Syntax: Syntactic Analysis

Immediate Constituent Analysis

Ultimate Constituent Analysis
Phrase Structure Grammar
Transformational Generative Grammar
Todays Lecture

Syntactic Analysis
Some Modern Approaches

Case Grammar
Startificational Grammar
Tagmemics

Brief Review of All Syntactic Analysis Approaches

Case Grammar

Originator: Charles Fillmore

Publication The Case of the Case (1968)
Reaction against Transformational Generative Grammar
A start of a new grammar theory though there is no
fixed theory for it
Other major contributors: Anderson (1971), (1977);
Chafe (1970); Nilsen (1972), (1973); cook (1973);
Mackenzie (1981) ...etc.
Case Grammar

Charles Fillmore
Fillmore (1968b:382) explicitly stated:
I believe that human languages are constrained in such a way
that the relation between arguments and predicates fall into a
small number of types. In particular I believe that these role
types can be identified with certain elementary judgments
about the things that go around us: judgments about who does
something, who experiences something, where something
happens, what it is that changes, what it is that moves, where it
starts out, and where it ends up. Since judgments like these are
very much like the kinds of things grammarians have associated
for centuries with the use of grammatical cases, I have been
referring to the case roles as case relationships, or simply
cases.
Case Grammar

Fillmore divided the basic structure of a sentence in to a

verb and one or more noun phrases
S = V + NP (s)
Each of these noun phrases is associated with verb in
particular case relationship
Example
The peon opened the gate. (subject is agent) Deep
The gate was opened by the peon. (subject is goal) Case
The key opened the gate. (subject is instrument) Relations
Case Grammar

According to Fillmore, the manifestations of the case relations

are language specific. We select the verbs according to case
environments or case frames provided by the sentence.
Example:
The verb open can have following four case frames
1. [-O] The gate opened.
2. [-O + A] The peon opened the gate.
3. [-O+ I] The key opened the gate.
4. [-O+ I+ A] The peon opened the gate with a key.
Can be combined as [-O (I) (A)]
Case Grammar

Charles Fillmore (1968) proposed that the deep structure

of any sentence consists of a MODALITY (it includes
modalities on the sentence as a whole as negation, tense,
mood etc.) and a PROPOSITION (a set of relationships
involving verbs and nouns).

So at very first level sentence is broken in to proposition

(P) and Modality (M) parts and later in cases parts
Case Grammar
S

M P

V O I A

past open K NP K NP K NP

-ed det N det N det N

o the gate with a key by the peon

(M: modality, P: prepositional,V: verb, O: objective case, I: instrumental case, A: agentive case, K: case
marker, Det: determiner, NP: noun phrase)
Case Grammar

In Fillmore's new version of 1970 (Cook 1970b: 18-19), the list

of cases and their definitions reads as follows:
A Agentive instigator/ doer of the action, animate
(The peon opened the gate.)
E Experiencer affected by the action, animate
(He felt the energy.)
I Instrumental force or object causing action or state
(The key opened the gate.)
O Objective semantically most neutral case; which is affected
by the action or sate indicated by the verb
( The peon opened the gate.)
Case Grammar

S Source the origin or starting point

(France is the origin of perfumery products.)
G Goal the object or end point
(He moved to a new house.)
L Locative spatial orientation of the action
(Islamabad is beautiful.)
T Time temporal orientation of the action
(It was raining in the morning.)
C Comitative accompaniment role, animate
(I went there with my friend.)
B Benefactive: benefactive role, animate
(She bought me a new dress.)
Case Grammar

What its good for???

The influence of case grammar on contemporary
linguistics has been significant, to the extent that
numerous linguistic theories incorporate deep roles in
one or other form, such as the so-called Thematic
structure in Government and Binding theory. It has also
inspired the development of frame-based
representations in AI research.
During the 1970s and the 1980s, Charles Fillmore
developed his original theory onto what was called Frame
Semantics. Walter A. Cook, SJ, a linguistics professor
at Georgetown University, was one of the foremost case
grammar theoreticians following Fillmore's original work.
Stratificational Grammar

structural framework developed by Sydney Lamb in the

1960s
Outline of Stratificational Grammar (1966)
It aims to provide an account of the structure of language,
the relationship between meaning and speech.
Stratificational Grammar

Stratificational Grammar, system of grammatical

analysis in which language is viewed as a network of
relationships and linguistic structure is considered to be
made up of several structural layers, or strata.
(Encyclopedia Britannica online)
The framework is called stratificational because one of its
chief features is its treatment of linguistic structure as
comprising several structural layers or strata
Stratificational Grammar

The basic idea:

Language does not have only two levels of deep and surface
structures, rather it has several levels/strata
Each stratum has a different kind of structure or syntax
All languages have 3 major strata: Semology (Semantics),
Phonology, Grammar)

Some strata include:

Phoneme as the unit on the Phonemic strata.
Lexeme as a unit on the Lexical strata.
Morpheme as the unit on the Morphemic strata
Sememe as the unit on the Semantic strata.
Stratificational Grammar

In Stratificational Grammar, a sentence is realized as string

of sounds, a tree of morphemes, and a constellation of
meaning
Thus basic model is representation of realization
Stratificational Grammar
Example: The man killed a thief*.

Declarative Past

The Thing Agent Do Goal Thing (a thief)

Animate kill Animate

human male thief

adult

man
Stratificational Grammar

Positive Point about Statificational Grammar

The originality of stratificational grammar does not reside

in the recognition of three major components of a
linguistic description. The stratificational approach to
linguistic description is distinguished from others in that it
relates grammar to semology and phonology by means of
the same notion of realization that it employs to relate
the lexemic and the morphemic stratal systems within the
grammatical component.
Tagmemics

especially associated with Kenneth Lee Pike

Tagmemic theory is concerned primarily with
grammatical analysis
an offshoot of structuralism
Structuralism ignored functions of a linguistic form and
concentrated only on form. Tagmemics fuses together the
form as well as the function of a linguistic entity
Tagmemics

According to this approach, utterances can be

analyzed simultaneously at three interpenetrating
levels, where each level represents a hierarchy of units.
These levels are lexical (with the minimum unit being
morpheme), phonological (having phoneme as the
minimum unit), grammatical ( in which the minimum
unit is tagmeme).

1. grammatical component: a series of syntactic statements

concerning sentence, clause, phrase, and word level
structures.
2. Lexicon: the formal unit of language
3. Phonological:the phonemic sentence a phonetic realization
in the language.
Tagmemics

Pike rejected the idea of a sentence as being the

minimum unit of grammar and recommended a
hierarchical order and labeling.
It has three semi-autonomous but interlocking levels or
modes -- phonology, grammar and lexicon.
It stresses the hierarchical ordering of grammatical units
into ranks of levels -- morphemes, words, phrases, clauses,
sentences, paragraphs, and discourses.
Tagmemics

Tagmemics, unlike a structural analysis asks for the

function of the categories and not merely their naming.
It is a "slot and filler grammar"; a slot being a position
in construction frame. The filler class is the co-relation
between a grammatical function like subject and class of
fillers like nouns that can fill that function.
But neither the slot nor the filler itself is important, it is
the tagmeme which is significant. The slot is the function
and filler being the category. A tagmeme, therefore, is
the co-relation of a slot and the class of items that can
occur in that slot.
Tagmemics

A tagmeme is defined as "the correlation of the

grammatical function or slot with a class of mutually
substitutable items occurring in that slot. (Pike)
In other words, it is the relation between function and
category.
we have sentence level tagmemes, clause level tagmemes,
phrase level tagmemes, word level tagmemes and
morpheme level tagmemes.
Tagmemics

Sentence level tagmeme

e.g. Sentence: She saw John.
This sentence has 3 tagmemes
Subject + verbal + object
pronoun transitive verb noun
Here, the subject, verbal, and object slots are filled by a
pronoun, a transitive verb and a noun respectively. The
formula for such a sentence = SVO.
Tagmemics
Various levels Tagmemes
Example: "The boy ate all his candy yesterday" has the following
tagmemes:
1. Base -- transitive clause + intonation tagmeme
T -- cl Int: F
2. Clause level tagmeme
S: NP + Pr: tv + O: n+ Tense: past
3. Phrase level tagmeme
Det: det + H: n
4. Word level tagmeme
ate -- Nuc:Verb stem + Tense: past
5. Morpheme level Tagmeme
eat
Tagmemics

Tagmemic has been most fertile as far as the description

of exotic languages is considered. A number of Red Indian
and African languages have been described on the
tagmemic model. It seems that this model is particularly
convenient in describing languages that have not been
studied before.
Syntactic Analysis: Review

Model Sentence:

John bought a red car.

Syntactic Analysis: Review
Immediate Constituent Analysis

Subject Predicate

NP VP NP

V art Adj N

John bought a red car

Syntactic Analysis: Review
Ultimate Constituent Analysis

Subject Predicate

NP VP NP

V tense art Adj N

John buy past a red car

Syntactic Analysis: Review
Phrase Structure Grammar/Transformational Generative
Grammar
S

NP VP

V NP

art AdjP

Adj N

John bought a red car

Syntactic Analysis: Review
Case Grammar
S

M P

V O A

past buy K NP K NP

-ed a car o John

Syntactic Analysis: Review
Stratificational Grammar

Declarative Past

(John)Thing Agent Do Goal Thing (a car)

Animate buy Animate

human male car

adult

man
Recap

Syntax
Paradigmatic View
Syntagmatic View
References
Ahmed, Moumene. Case Grammar and its Implications in Developing
Writing Skills. 1998.
http://www.webreview.dz/IMG/pdf/Case_grammer_and_its_implications_to
_developing_writing_skills.pdf
Edwards, Bruce. Tagmemics Discourse Theory.
http://personal.bgsu.edu/~edwards/tags.html
Falk, Julia. Linguistics and Language. 1978.
Hocket, F. C. A Course in Modern Linguistics. New Delhi: Oxford. 1958
Parsad, Tarni, A Course in Linguistics, 2012, New Dehli: PHI
Rajimwale, Sharad, Elements of General Linguistics, 2006.
Strang, Barbara. Modern English Structure. Edward Arnold. 1968.
Tallerman. Understanding Syntax.
Valin, R. D.V. An Introduction to Syntax. Cambridge Press. 2001
Yule, George. The Study of Language. 1996