Syntax {{Refimprove|date=May 2007}} {{otheruses}} {{redirect|Syntactic|another meaning of the adjective|Syntaxis}} {{linguistics}} In [[linguistics]], '''syntax''' (from [[Ancient Greek]] {{lang|grc|συν-}} ''syn-'', "together", and {{lang|grc|τάξις}} ''táxis'', "arrangement") is the study of the principles and rules for constructing [[sentence]]s in [[natural language]]s. In addition to referring to the discipline, the term ''syntax'' is also used to refer directly to the rules and principles that govern the sentence structure of any individual language, as in "the [[Irish syntax|syntax of Modern Irish]]". Modern research in syntax attempts to [[descriptive linguistics|describe languages]] in terms of such rules. Many professionals in this discipline attempt to find [[Universal Grammar|general rules]] that apply to all natural languages. The term ''syntax'' is also sometimes used to refer to the rules governing the behavior of mathematical systems, such as [[logic]], artificial formal languages, and computer programming languages. == Early history == Works on grammar were being written long before modern syntax came about; the ''Aṣṭādhyāyī'' of [[Pāṇini]] is often cited as an example of a pre-modern work that approaches the sophistication of a modern syntactic theory.{{cite book|last=Fortson IV|first=Benjamin W.|title=Indo-European Language and Culture: An Introduction|publisher=Blackwell|year=2004|isbn=1-4051-0315-9 (hb); 1-4051-0316-7 (pb)|page=186|quote=[The ''Aṣṭādhyāyī''] is a highly precise and thorough description of the structure of Sanskrit somewhat resembling modern generative grammar…[it] remained the most advanced linguistic analysis of any kind until the twentieth century.}} In the West, the school of thought that came to be known as "traditional grammar" began with the work of [[Dionysius Thrax]]. For centuries, work in syntax was dominated by a framework known as {{lang|fr|''grammaire générale''}}, first expounded in 1660 by [[Antoine Arnauld]] in a book of the same title. This system took as its basic premise the assumption that language is a direct reflection of thought processes and therefore there is a single, most natural way to express a thought. That way, coincidentally, was exactly the way it was expressed in French. However, in the 19th century, with the development of [[historical-comparative linguistics]], linguists began to realize the sheer diversity of human language, and to question fundamental assumptions about the relationship between language and logic. It became apparent that there was no such thing as a most natural way to express a thought, and therefore logic could no longer be relied upon as a basis for studying the structure of language. The Port-Royal grammar modeled the study of syntax upon that of logic (indeed, large parts of the [[Port-Royal Logic]] were copied or adapted from the ''Grammaire générale''{{cite book|last=Arnauld|first=Antoine|title=La logique|year=1683|edition=5th ed.|location=Paris|publisher=G. Desprez|url=http://visualiseur.bnf.fr/Visualiseur?Destination=Gallica&O=NUMM-57444|quote=''Nous avons emprunté…ce que nous avons dit…d'un petit Livre…sous le titre de Grammaire générale.''|pages=137}}). Syntactic categories were identified with logical ones, and all sentences were analyzed in terms of "Subject – Copula – Predicate". Initially, this view was adopted even by the early comparative linguists such as [[Franz Bopp]]. The central role of syntax within theoretical linguistics became clear only in the 20th century, which could reasonably be called the "century of syntactic theory" as far as linguistics is concerned. For a detailed and critical survey of the history of syntax in the last two centuries, see the monumental work by Graffi (2001). ==Modern theories== There are a number of theoretical approaches to the discipline of syntax. Many linguists (e.g. [[Noam Chomsky]]) see syntax as a branch of biology, since they conceive of syntax as the study of linguistic knowledge as embodied in the human [[mind]]. Others (e.g. [[Gerald Gazdar]]) take a more [[Philosophy of mathematics#Platonism|Platonistic]] view, since they regard syntax to be the study of an abstract [[formal system]].Ted Briscoe, [[2 May]] [[2001]], [http://www.informatics.susx.ac.uk/research/nlp/gazdar/briscoe/gpsg.html#SECTION00040000000000000000 Interview with Gerald Gazdar]. Retrieved [[2008-06-04]]. Yet others (e.g. [[Joseph Greenberg]]) consider grammar a taxonomical device to reach broad generalizations across languages. Some of the major approaches to the discipline are listed below. ===Generative grammar=== {{main|Generative grammar}} The hypothesis of [[generative grammar]] is that language is a structure of the human mind. The goal of generative grammar is to make a complete model of this inner language (known as ''[[i-language]]''). This model could be used to describe all human language and to predict the [[grammaticality]] of any given utterance (that is, to predict whether the utterance would sound correct to native speakers of the language). This approach to language was pioneered by [[Noam Chomsky]]. Most generative theories (although not all of them) assume that syntax is based upon the constituent structure of sentences. Generative grammars are among the theories that focus primarily on the form of a sentence, rather than its communicative function. Among the many generative theories of linguistics are: *[[Transformational Grammar]] (TG) (now largely out of date) *[[Government and binding theory]] (GB) (common in the late 1970s and 1980s) *[[Linguistic minimalism|Minimalism]] (MP) (the most recent Chomskyan version of generative grammar) Other theories that find their origin in the generative paradigm are: *[[Generative semantics]] (now largely out of date) *[[Relational grammar]] (RG) (now largely out of date) *[[Arc Pair grammar]] *[[Generalised phrase structure grammar|Generalized phrase structure grammar]] (GPSG; now largely out of date) *[[Head-driven phrase structure grammar]] (HPSG) *[[Lexical-functional grammar]] (LFG) ===Categorial grammar === [[Categorial grammar]] is an approach that attributes the syntactic structure not to rules of grammar, but to the properties of the [[syntactic categories]] themselves. For example, rather than asserting that sentences are constructed by a rule that combines a noun phrase (NP) and a verb phrase (VP) (e.g. the [[phrase structure rule]] S → NP VP), in categorial grammar, such principles are embedded in the category of the [[head (linguistics)|head]] word itself. So the syntactic category for an [[intransitive]] verb is a complex formula representing the fact that the verb acts as a [[functor]] which requires an NP as an input and produces a sentence level structure as an output. This complex category is notated as (NP\S) instead of V. NP\S is read as " a category that searches to the left (indicated by \) for a NP (the element on the left) and outputs a sentence (the element on the right)". The category of [[transitive verb]] is defined as an element that requires two NPs (its subject and its direct object) to form a sentence. This is notated as (NP/(NP\S)) which means "a category that searches to the right (indicated by /) for an NP (the object), and generates a function (equivalent to the VP) which is (NP\S), which in turn represents a function that searches to the left for an NP and produces a sentence). [[Tree-adjoining grammar]] is a categorial grammar that adds in partial [[tree structure]]s to the categories. ===Dependency grammar=== [[Dependency grammar]] is a different type of approach in which structure is determined by the [[relation]]s (such as [[grammatical relation]]s) between a word (a ''[[head (linguistics)|head]]'') and its dependents, rather than being based in constituent structure. For example, syntactic structure is described in terms of whether a particular [[noun]] is the [[subject]] or [[agent]] of the [[verb]], rather than describing the relations in terms of trees (one version of which is the [[parse tree]]) or other structural system. Some dependency-based theories of syntax: *[[Algebraic syntax]] *[[Word grammar]] *[[Operator Grammar]] ===Stochastic/probabilistic grammars/network theories === Theoretical approaches to syntax that are based upon [[probability theory]] are known as [[stochastic grammar]]s. One common implementation of such an approach makes use of a [[neural network]] or [[connectionism]]. Some theories based within this approach are: *[[Optimality theory]] *[[Stochastic context-free grammar]] ===Functionalist grammars=== Functionalist theories, although focused upon form, are driven by explanation based upon the function of a sentence (i.e. its communicative function). Some typical functionalist theories include: *[[Functional grammar]] (Dik) *[[Prague Linguistic Circle]] *[[Systemic functional grammar]] *[[Cognitive grammar]] *[[Construction grammar]] (CxG) *[[Role and reference grammar]] (RRG) ==See also== {{col-begin}} {{col-break}} * [[Phrase]] * [[Phrase structure rules]] * [[Syntactic category]] * [[List of syntactic phenomena]] {{col-break}} * [[Grammar]] * [[X-bar theory]] * [[Algebraic syntax]] {{col-end}} ===Syntactic terms===
* [[Adjective]] ** [[Attributive adjective and predicative adjective]] * [[Adjunct]] * [[Adverb]] * [[Antecedent-contained deletion]] * [[Appositive]] * [[Article (grammar)|Article]] * [[Grammatical aspect|Aspect]] * [[Auxiliary verb]] * [[Grammatical case|Case]] * [[Clause]] * [[Closed class word]] * [[Comparative]] * [[Complement (linguistics)|Complement]] * [[Compound (linguistics)|Compound noun and adjective]] * [[Differential Object Marking]] * [[Grammatical conjugation|Conjugation]] * [[Grammatical conjunction|Conjunction]] * [[Dangling modifier]] * [[Declension]] * [[Determiner]] * [[Dual grammatical number|Dual]] (form for two) * [[Expletive]] * [[Function word]] * [[Grammatical gender|Gender]] * [[Gerund]] * [[Infinitive]] * [[Measure word]] (classifier) * [[Modal particle]] * [[Movement paradox]] * [[Grammatical modifier|Modifier]] * [[Grammatical mood|Mood]] * [[Noun]] * [[Grammatical number|Number]] * [[Object (grammar)|Object]] * [[Open class word]] * [[Parasitic gap]] * [[Part of speech]] * [[Grammatical particle|Particle]] * [[Grammatical person|Person]] * [[Phrase]] * [[Phrasal verb]] * [[Plural]] * [[Predicate (grammar)|Predicate]] (also verb phrase) * [[Predicative (adjectival or nominal)]] * [[Preposition]] * [[Personal pronoun]] * [[Pronoun]] * [[Restrictive clause|Restrictiveness]] * [[Sandhi]] * [[Sentence (linguistics)]] * [[Grammatical number|Singular]] * [[Subject (grammar)|Subject]] * [[Superlative]] * [[Grammatical tense|Tense]] * [[Uninflected word]] * [[Verb]] * [[Grammatical voice|Voice]] * [[Wh-movement]] * [[Word order]]
==Notes== {{reflist}} ==References== * {{cite book|last=Brown|first=Keith|coauthors=Jim Miller (eds.)|title=Concise Encyclopedia of Syntactic Theories|publisher=Elsevier Science|location=New York|year=1996|isbn=0-08-042711-1}} * {{cite book|last=Carnie|first=Andrew|year=2006|title=Syntax: A Generative Introduction|location=Oxford|publisher=Wiley-Blackwell|isbn=1405133848}} * {{cite book|last=Freidin|first=Robert|coauthors=Howard Lasnik (eds.)|title=Syntax|series=Critical Concepts in Linguistics|publisher=Routledge|location=New York|year=2006|isbn=0-415-24672-5}} * {{cite book|last=Graffi|first=Giorgio|year=2001|title=200 Years of Syntax. A Critical Survey|location=Amsterdam|publisher=Benjamins|series=Studies in the History of the Language Sciences 98|isbn=90-272-4587-8}} ==External links== * [http://www.ling.upenn.edu/~beatrice/syntax-textbook The syntax of natural language] (Beatrice Santorini & Anthony Kroch, University of Pennsylvania) *Various syntactic constructs used in [http://merd.sourceforge.net/pixel/language-study/syntax-across-languages/ computer programming languages] * [http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=1368-0005&site=1 The journal Syntax] [[Category:Grammar]] [[Category:Semiotics]] [[Category:Syntax|*]] [[Category:Greek loanwords]] [[als:Syntax]] [[bn:বাক্যতত্ত্ব]] [[br:Kevreadurezh]] [[bg:Синтаксис]] [[ca:Sintaxi]] [[cs:Syntax]] [[cy:Cystrawen]] [[da:Syntaks]] [[de:Syntax]] [[el:Σύνταξη]] [[es:Sintaxis]] [[eo:Sintakso]] [[eu:Sintaxi]] [[fa:نحو]] [[fr:Syntaxe]] [[gl:Sintaxe]] [[zh-classical:語法學]] [[ko:통사론]] [[hsb:Syntaksa]] [[hr:Sintaksa]] [[io:Sintaxo]] [[id:Sintaksis]] [[ia:Syntaxe]] [[is:Setningafræði]] [[it:Sintassi]] [[he:תחביר]] [[kk:Синтаксис]] [[la:Syntaxis]] [[li:Syntaxis]] [[jbo:genlalske]] [[hu:Szintaxis]] [[mk:Синтакса (граматика)]] [[nl:Zinsbouw]] [[ja:統語論]] [[no:Syntaks]] [[nn:Syntaks]] [[nov:Sintaxe]] [[pl:Syntaktyka (językoznawstwo)]] [[pt:Sintaxe]] [[ru:Синтаксис]] [[simple:Syntax]] [[sk:Syntax (jazykoveda)]] [[cu:Сѷнтаѯь]] [[sl:Skladnja]] [[sr:Синтакса]] [[sh:Sintaksa]] [[fi:Syntaksi]] [[sv:Syntax]] [[ta:சொற்றொடரியல்]] [[th:วากยสัมพันธ์]] [[uk:Синтаксис]] [[wa:Adjinçaedje del fråze]] [[bat-smg:Sėntaksė]] [[zh:语法学]]