LNG 201/ENGL 202
Prof. G. Steinberg
Syntax
SYNTAX AND SENTENCE DIAGRAMS
For most students, syntax seems very complicated and difficult, but it’s actually very easy. You need to know a few things, however, and knowing them may require some memorization and practice. On an exam, you will be expected to be able to diagram sentences correctly, but you will not be asked explicitly about any of the terminology or rules that I outline here. You therefore need to know the terminology and rules outlined here only in so far as they enable you to diagram sentences correctly.
Lexical Categories (Parts of Speech)
You need to know the lexical categories of words (what used to be called “parts of speech”). English only has eleven categories altogether:
| Noun (N) | Joe, tea, car, scarf, courage, emotion |
| Verb (V) | enchant, finalize, apply, build, feel, get |
| Preposition (P) | to, in, with, of, on, because of, without, near |
| Adjective (Adj) | slow, quiet, beautiful, good, blue |
| Adverb (Adv) | slowly, quietly, beautifully, well, now |
| Determiner (Det) | the, this, a, those, my, your, his |
| Degree word (Deg) | very, more, quite, too (as in “too fun”), so (as in “so fun”), way (as in “way fun”) |
| Qualifier (Qual) | always, perhaps, often, not, never, almost |
| Auxiliary (Aux) | will, can, may, must, should, could, might, have (as in “have gone”), am/is/are/was/were (as in “was growing” or “am going”) |
| Conjunction (Conj) | and, or, but, so, when, if, while, for, since, because |
| Complementizer (C) | that, whether, if |
To do diagramming, you have to be able to identify the categories of all the words in a sentence. If you’ve had trouble in the past figuring out parts of speech, don’t worry. There are some easy tricks that can help you do it.
If you’re trying to figure out if a word is a noun, for example, try making it plural or possessive (“cows” or “Melvin’s”). If there is neither a plural nor a possessive, it probably isn’t a noun. If you want to be extra sure, try putting the word with a determiner (“my cow” or “a Melvin”).
If you’re trying to figure out if a word is a verb, try making it past tense or try adding “-ing” (“prioritized” or “sinking”). If there is no past tense and no “-ing” form, it probably isn’t a verb. If you want to be extra sure, try putting the word with an auxiliary (“may prioritize” or “could sink”).
If you’re trying to figure out if a word is an adjective or adverb, try making it into a comparative or superlative (“more importantly” or “prettiest”). If it doesn’t work, the word probably isn’t an adjective or adverb. If you want to be extra sure, try putting the word with a degree word (“very importantly” or “quite pretty”).
Most people don’t have too much trouble identifying the other categories, although many people have to memorize which words are determiners, which are qualifiers, and which are degree words in order to keep those categories straight.
The XP Rule
The XP rule says that all phrases in English consist of a head, sometimes preceded by a specifier (and/or modifier), sometimes followed by a complement, sometimes both. In the noun phrase “the boy with glasses,” for example, the head is the noun (“boy”), which is preceded by a specifier (“the”) and followed by a complement (“with glasses”). Because the head is a noun, the phrase is a noun phrase.
The XP rule is a very simple and useful rule. Whenever you are confronted with a phrase (including a sentence to diagram), you know that the phrase is going to follow the XP rule and have a head, which may or may not be preceded by a specifier (and/or modifier) and may or may not be followed by a complement. You just have to figure out which part of the phrase is what in the XP rule.
The XP rule is usually written:
XP → (Specifier) (Modifier) X (Complement).
This notation just means that an XP breaks down into an optional specifier (parentheses in the rule indicate that something is optional), plus an optional modifier, plus an X (the head), plus an optional complement.
So, any phrase can be broken down into its parts and diagrammed according to the XP rule.
Heads, Specifiers, and Complements
Nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, and complementizers are the only lexical categories to function as heads in phrases. So, we’ll talk a lot about whether a phrase is a noun phrase (NP), verb phrase (VP), adjective/adverb phrase (AP), prepositional phrase (PP), or complementizer phrase (CP). For each of those kinds of phrases, there are different possibilities for specifiers and complements to go with the different heads. You’ll have to work at keeping them all straight. Determiners do not go with verbs; degree words do not go with nouns; qualifiers do not go with prepositions; etc. The chart below is a pretty complete list of all possible heads, specifiers, and complements (although I don’t guarantee that the chart is absolutely exhaustive):
| Phrase | Possible Specifier | Head | Examples of Possible Complement(s) |
| Noun Phrase (NP) | Determiner (Det) | Noun (N) | PP, CP, or PP PP |
| Verb Phrase (VP) | Qualifier (Qual) | Verb (V) | NP, VP, AP, PP, NP NP, NP VP, NP PP, PP PP, or NP PP PP |
| Adjective or Adverb Phrase (AP) | Degree word (Deg) | Adjective or Adverb (Adj/Adv) | PP, CP, or VP |
| Prepositional Phrase (PP) | Degree word (Deg) | Preposition (P) | NP, VP (archaic), NP VP, or PP |
| Complementizer Phrase (CP) | Complementizer (C) | S (a complete sentence) |
NOTE that complements are always phrases, never single words. Even if a complement consists of a single word, you must treat it as a phrase – as in “with Tommy” which breaks down into
PP → P NP.
In such a case, treat “Tommy” as an NP that simply consists of a single noun by itself.
Exceptional NPs
There are three kinds of noun phrase (NP) that are unusual. Instead of always following the XP rule, an NP can sometimes take three other forms:
NP → Pronoun
NP → CP
NP → VP
For example,
| she | NP → Pronoun | |
| that John liked Sarah | NP → CP | |
| going to the movies | NP → VP |
Don’t forget or get confused by these exceptions to the XP rule.
Exceptional Vs
Not to be outdone by the exceptional NPs, there is one kind of verb that is a little unusual. In English, our infinitives (verbs when they aren’t marked with any tense or mood) consist of two words instead of one. For example, “to read” and “to learn” are verbs and operate as though they were single words. So, when you see “to” and a verb (“to be,” “to sleep,” “to dream”), treat it as a single word — V.
Examples of Phrases
Some examples of phrases include:
| NP → N | Tommy | |
| NP → Det N | this boy | |
| NP → Det N PP | the memory of her face | |
| NP → Det N CP | the claim that talk is cheap | |
| NP → Det N PP PP | my walk with Diane in the park | BUT NOT “my walk by the house with the awning” (which is just NP ® Det N PP) |
| VP → V | spoke | |
| VP → V NP | gave a speech | |
| VP → V NP | said that she would bring coffee | |
| VP → V VP | loves to go to the movies | |
| VP → V PP | to go to the movies | NOTE: “to go” is an infinitive and is treated as a single word (V). |
| VP → Qual V AP | never becomes very angry | |
| VP → Qual V PP | always thinks of herself | |
| VP → V NP NP | gave the boy a puppy | |
| VP → V NP NP | told Liz that he would bring snacks | |
| VP → V NP VP | gets students to work | |
| VP → V NP PP PP | fixed a soufflé for Diane in the oven | BUT NOT “fixed a soufflé for the sister of a friend” (which is just VP ® V NP PP) |
| AP → Adj | blue | |
| AP → Deg Adj PP | very happy about the wedding | |
| AP → Deg Adj CP | so happy that she came | |
| AP → Adv PP | slowly for a racehorse | |
| AP → Adj VP | happy to go | |
| PP → P | near | AS IN “The end is near.” (meaning “The end is near us.”) |
| PP → Deg P NP | quite without a reason | |
| PP → Deg P NP | too near the porch | |
| PP → P PP | up in the attic | |
| PP → P NP VP | for Jack to get a date | |
| CP → C S | that the senator behaved badly | |
| CP → C S | whether the dog bit the man |
Diagramming Sentences
Diagramming sentences is just a matter of breaking a sentence down into the phrases that make it up, and then breaking those phrases down into their parts (specifiers, modifiers, heads, and complements), and breaking all complements down into their parts (specifiers, modifiers, heads, and complements), and so on and so on.
A sentence (S) itself follows the XP rule, but it’s an odd sort of XP, because its head is an odd sort of head. In a sentence, the head is the inflection (Infl) of the sentence (its tense/mood or auxiliary); the specifier is an NP (what is usually called the subject of the sentence); and the complement is a VP (what is usually called the predicate of the sentence):
S → NP Infl VP
The inflection is not necessarily even a word. It is usually the tense and mood of the sentence (present, past, imperative, perfect, conditional, future, subjunctive). Sometimes (but not always), the mood/tense of the sentence will be indicated by the addition of an auxiliary, which then is the inflection of the sentence (as in “The clock will strike twelve” – where “will” indicates future tense and is therefore the inflection of the sentence).
Some examples include:
| S → NP Infl VP | My neighbor shovels his snow (where the inflection is just the present tense of the sentence – not any particular word) |
| S → NP Infl VP | The boy would like a toy (where the inflection is the auxiliary “would,” which indicates conditional mood/tense) |
Once you have broken a sentence down into its NP, Infl, and VP, you have to break down the NP and VP into their parts (specifier, modifier, head, and complements) and their complements into their parts, etc.
Modifiers
Modifiers are either single words or phrases that can be put into other phrases. Adjectives modify nouns in noun phrases. Adverbs modify verbs in verb phrases. (An adverb may also modify an adjective in an adjective phrase.)
So, in addition to a specifier, head, and complement, NPs and VPs may also have a modifier, which can go either before or after the head. For example,
| the blue hen | NP → Det Adj N | |
| slowly fell | VP → Adv V |
Modifiers are different from specifiers for many reasons. Most importantly, you can never have two specifiers (“the a desk” or “her this house”), but you can have a specifier and a modifier (“the blue desk” or “her old house”), as well as multiple modifiers (“slowly, painfully rises” or “the blue, speckled fish”).
Common Prepositions
| about | besides | inside | since |
| above | between | into | through |
| across | beyond | like | throughout |
| after | but | near | till |
| against | by | of | to |
| along | concerning | off | toward |
| among | despite | on | under |
| around | down | onto | underneath |
| at | during | out | until |
| before | except | outside | up |
| behind | excepting | over | upon |
| below | for | past | with |
| beneath | from | regarding | within |
| beside | in | round | without |
Note: Many of these words are not exclusively prepositions and may function in other capacities (depending on the sense of the sentence). The word “but,” for example, is a preposition in the phrase “nothing but a jerk,” but it’s a conjunction in this sentence. The word “like” is often a preposition (“a friend like you”), but it can also be a verb (“I like you”). The word “past” can be a preposition (“past the corner”), but it can also be a noun (“her past”) or an adjective (“his past mistakes”). Both “for” and “since” function sometimes as prepositions (“since this morning,” “for the party”) and sometimes as conjunctions (“since he was four,” “for she did not understand”). Just keep in mind, prepositions almost always have NPs as complements — never entire sentences.
Phrasal Prepositions
(phrases of two or more words that should be treated as a single word)
| according to | apart from | as for/to | because of | due to | instead of | ahead of |
Specifiers
(a handy list, but I make no guarantees that this list is absolutely exhaustive.)
| Qualifiers (Qual) | always | always works |
| perhaps | perhaps helps | |
| not | not hinder | |
| never | never understands | |
| often | often thinks | |
| sometimes | sometimes operates | |
| ever | ever spoke | |
| Determiners (Det) | a | a house |
| the | the yard | |
| this | this dog | |
| that | that cat | |
| these | these boys | |
| their | their answer | |
| Betty’s | Betty’s job | |
| Melvin’s | Melvin’s house | |
| its | its hair | |
| those | those girls | |
| my | my home | |
| his | his place | |
| her | her room | |
| your | your answer | |
| Degree Words (Deg) | too | too heavy |
| so | so flat | |
| very | very careful | |
| more | more thoughtful | |
| most | most difficult | |
| quite | quite useful |
Exercises
Make a tree diagram for the following phrases and sentences.
-
- the bag
- into the ocean
- walks through the trees
- understands difficult concepts
- his little problem with his health
- The exam will test material from the book.
- John’s friend needs a bit of luck.
- The path to success has potholes.
- People learn from their mistakes.
- I own the best restaurant in town for pasta.