An Introduction to syntaxis

• Word classes are semantic criteria, referring to what speakers and writers actually do with verbs, nouns and so on.
• Traditional dictionary explanations of the meaning of individual words can be thought of as embryo descriptions of denotation.
• Nouns are the centre of noun phrases, by means of which speakers and writers refer to entities.
• Words can be grouped into classes based on their semantic criteria, known as word classes.
• Lexical or content words, which include nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs, are known as words that have a denotation.
• Oblique objects are nouns that are complement to a preposition, as in (spoke) about music and (sent the letter) to the manager.
• In languages with sets of case suffixes, grammatical subject nouns take one set of case suffixes and direct object nouns another.
• In examples such as gave a present to Bill, with verbs such as GIVE, SHOW and TELL, to Bill was traditionally called the indirect object.
• Since these are very difficult to distinguish from directional phrases, the notion of indirect object has been abandoned in favor of oblique object but has been kept for the construction with three noun phrases, as in Emma gave Harriet advice.
• Direct object nouns in English immediately follow the verb in the active declarative construction and correspond to the grammatical subject of passive clauses.
• Grammatical or form words, which include the definite and indefinite articles, demonstrative adjectives, auxiliary verbs and others, are known as words that do not refer.
• Four types of criteria are employed to set up word classes: syntactic, morphological, morpho-syntactic and semantic.
• Semantic criteria have to do with meaning, while morphological and morpho-syntactic criteria have to do with what is called inflectional morphology.
• There is one property of inflectional suffixes, the linkage between subject noun and verb.
• Morphological criterion is whether a given word allows grammatical suffixes or not.
• Morpho-syntactic criteria have to do with inflectional suffixes.
• English nouns typically take a plural ending – fish–fishes, cat–cats and dog–dogs.
• Few dependency relations cross clause boundaries, and the constituent structure criteria do not really apply outside single clauses.
• When a complementiser is removed from relative clauses, it leaves a sequence that lacks either the noun phrase which would be to the left of the verb or the noun phrase which would be to the right of the verb.
• A second complication is that WH words seem to be both pronouns and complementisers, whereas that is purely a complementiser.
• The clause is an important unit of analysis because many head–modifier relations are found within the clause and because the criteria for constituent structure, such as transposition, apply best inside the clause.
• The analysis of relative clauses can be made more complex if we take at its face value the definition of pronouns as substituting for nouns.
• Subordinate clauses can also be conjoined.
• Complementiser is a term used in one of the major theories of syntax introducing complement clauses but for all subordinating conjunctions.
• In English, when a complementiser is removed from an adverbial clause or a complement clause, it leaves a sequence of words which make up a complete main clause.
• Relative clauses are introduced by that, which does not change and cannot be preceded by a preposition.
• All the subordinate clauses in a sentence are optional and can occur no matter what verb is in the main clause, hence they are treated as adjuncts.
• Who, whom and which are pronouns that also function as subordinating conjunctions.
• Some nouns in English do not take a plural suffix, for example, sheep, deer – and are said to be invariable.
• There are rules that specify syntactic constructions and that words are listed in the dictionary or lexicon, taken out of the dictionary and inserted into syntactic constructions.
• In any language, there is a large set of phrases and even whole clauses that are not freely built up but fixed.
• Verbs can be divided into subcategories with respect to the number and type of phrases they require, exclude or allow, a phenomenon known as subcategorisation.
• Some verbs, such as disappear, exclude any noun phrase to their right; witness *The magician disappeared the investment funds.
• Active declarative construction requires an animate noun to its left referring to the giver, and a prepositional phrase to its right, also containing an animate noun but referring to the recipient.
• Concrete, count, and human represent properties of nouns, known as inherent properties, and features such as 'concrete' are known as inherent features.
• Clauses contain a finite verb, which is marked for tense, and are marked for aspect and mood.
• Five types of phrase and clause do not always conform to the syntax of written English and may have idiosyncratic meanings.
• There are many different constructions that a given verb can occur in, and there is a system of construction paths leading from the basic ACTIVE DECLARATIVE positive construction out to the other constructions.
• Mood in clauses has to do with two sets of distinctions: making statements, asking questions, and issuing commands, and whether the speaker or writer presents an event as possible, as necessary, or as a fact.
• Lexical items can play an important and even controlling role in English grammar, for instance, blame requires a noun phrase to its right, Emma blamed Harriet, and while it does not require a prepositional phrase it allows one and requires the preposition to be for– Emma blamed Harriet for the mistake.