SYNTACTIC RULES

Composed by : Gilang ibnu Ginanjar

Syntactic theories is concerned to specify what is and what is not possible

in a language. By using Syntactic rules we can tell that something (sentences or

words) cannot be cathegorized as Language. They have to follow the rules in

order to be called as a correct sentence or phrase of a language. This part of rule

also will explain the relation between rules and sentences. These following

explanation will gives a brief explanation about syntactic rules.

1. The Nature of Phrase Structure Rules.

This is also known as Chomskyan Phrase Structure Grammar, Chomsky

even mentioned that “a grammar is just a set of PS rules”. In this syntactic rule,

we will find out that a syntactic chategory is followed by another sequence of one

or more chategories

C0 C1 C2 ………..C11

These are different way of saying the same thing. One thing that we should stress

about PS rules is that they state that certain structures are possible, in other words

they allow or licence certain structures. If a language has a rule NP Det N

and no other rule with NP on the left hand side, an NP must immediately

dominate a Det followed by an N.

This syntactic rules have been rejected by both GB (Governmen-binding

theory) and PSG (Phrase Structure Grammar). Eventhough it was rejected and not

considered as grammar but we still have to know about it

2. Rules and Sentences

To understand why the PS being rejected we need to know about the rules

and sentence first. This will definitely shown a greal differences to the PS. To

make the ilustration easily to comprehend we will need to know the rule first. This

rules is not based only from one rules but a set of rules.

1

Set of Rules

a. S NP VP S = Sentence

b. NP Det N NP = Noun Phrase

c. VP V NP VP = Verb Phrase

d. VP V S Det = Determiner

N = Noun

Besides knowing the rules, we also need to assign a set of word

Set of Lexicon

a. Kid N

b. Car N

c. Cat N

d. Hit V

e. The Det

f. a Det

g. Kiss V

h. Thought V

S

NP VP

Det N V NP

Det N

The Kid Kiss a Cat

From the trees above we can see that this trees follows the rules S = NP VP and

also contain the second rules NP = Det N and the third rules

S = V NP.

2

the trees above we can see that this trees follows the rules S = NP VP and also

contain the second rules NP = Det N and the third rules

S = V NP and the fourh rules VP = V S

S

NP VP

Det N V S

NP VP

Det N V NP

Det N

The Kid thought the Car Hit a Cat

This is what the rules and sentences related to each other means.

3. Immediate Dominance and Linear Precedence Rules

We noted earlier that both GB and PSG rejects PS rules. The problem with

PS rules is that they miss generalizations about the order of consituents. That is

why they should be replaced by another rules.

Among the PS rules that we might have in a grammar of English are the

following:

1. a. V’ V NP V = Verb

b. V’ V PP P = Preposition

c. V’ V S PP = Prepositional Phrase

d. V’ V NP PP S = Sentence

e. V’ V NP S NP = Npun Phrase

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f. V’ V PP S A = Adjective

2. a. N’ N PP

b. N’ N S

3. a. A’ A PP

b.A’ A S

4. a. P’ P NP

b. P’ P PP

c. P’ P S

d. P’ P NP PP

the fact that PS rules miss generalization about Linear order in this way is a

serious objection to them. The obvious way to avoid this problem is to assume

separate immediate dominance and linear precedence statements. The immediate

dominance is to distinguish them from PS rules by separating the right hand side

categories by commas. A further objection to PS rules is that they obscure

similarities between different language.

4. Non-local Condition on Trees

This is the part where we will find out the difference between GB and PSG

rules. It is natural to ask wether we need non-local condition on trees. PSG

assumes that there is no need for such conditions, but GB assumes that they are

necessary.

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