Tutorial syntax

Syntax Tutorial

Members: -Gustavo Flaño

-Alvaro García

-Pablo Montero

Course: General linguistics

Teacher: Dánisa Salinas

Phrase:

A phrase is a small group of words that form a meaningful unit within a clause.

Example: The brown hat.

Clause

A group of words containing a subject and predicate and functioning as a member of a complex or compound sentence.

Example: He is a wise man.

Sentence

A sentence is one or more clauses. It expresses a thought in the form of a statement, question, instruction, or exclamation and starts with a capital letter when written.

Example: Robert was a good king.

Simple Sentence

A simple sentence must have a single clause (a single verb) which is independent, and it cannot take another clause.

Example: I wrote a song.

Compound Sentence

A compound sentence must have more than one independent clause with no dependent clauses. Some specific conjunctions, punctuation, or both are used to join together these clauses.

Example: He ran out of money, so he had to stop playing poker.

Complex Sentence

A complex sentence also has more than one clause but of one them must be an independent clause and the other/others must be (a) dependent clause(es). There are also some particular connectors for the clauses of a complex sentence to be connected.

Example: While I am a passionate basketball fan, I prefer football.

Phrase Structure

S: Sentence

N: Noun

V: Verb

Art: Article

NP: Noun Phrase

VP: Verb Phrase

Adj: Adjective

Pro: Pronoun

PN: Proper Noun

Adv: Adverb

Prep: Preposition

PP: Prepositional Phrase

EXAMPLE:

How to do a tree diagram of a simple sentence.

First step.

You have to separate the Noun Phrase from the Verb Phrase.

Second Step.

You have to find subdivisions.

Final Step.

Fill in individual parts of speech.

Exercise:

The dogs in the park played happily under the cloudy sky.