句法的定义(3)

construction （中心结构）.

Typical endocentric constructions are noun phrases, verb phrases or adjective phrases, e.g.

these popular Chinese singers us youth has been overworked really witty

remarkably

Exocentric construction is a construction whose distribution is not functionally equivalent to any of its constituents. Typical exocentric constructions are : the basic sentence, the prepositional phrase,

the predicate (verb + object) construction, and the connective (be + complement) construction in the corner when it rains The man cried. fly a kite seem angry

3.4 Coordination and Subordination 并列关系和从属关系 Endocentric constructions fall into two main types, depending on the relation between constituents:

Coordination is a common syntactic pattern in English and other languages formed by grouping together two or more categories of the same type with the help of a conjunction such as and, but and or . ? Coordination of VPs:

? [VP go to the library] and [VP read a book ]

? Subordination refers to the process or result of linking linguistic units so that they have different syntactic status, one being dependent upon the other, and usually a constituent of the other.

? The subordinate constituents are words which modify the head. Consequently, they can be called

modifiers.

? two dogs Head

? (My brother) can drink (wine). Head ? Swimming in the lake (is fun). Head

? (The pepper was) hot beyond endurance. Head

? Clauses can be used as subordinate constituents. There are three basic types of subordinate clauses: ? complement clauses

? adjunct (or adverbial) clauses ? relative clauses

4. Syntactic Function

? The syntactic function shows the relationship between a linguistic form and other parts of the linguistic pattern in which it is used.

? Names of functions are expressed in terms of subjects, objects, predicators, modifiers, complements, etc.

4.1 Subject

? In some languages, subject refers to one of the nouns in the

nominative case.

? In English, the subject of a sentence is often said to be the agent, or the doer of the action, while the object is the person or thing acted upon by the agent.

? This definition seems to work for these sentences: ? Mary slapped John. ■ A dog bit Bill.

? but is clearly wrong in the following examples:

? John was bitten by a dog.

? John underwent major heart surgery.

? In order to account for the case of subject in passive voice, we have two other terms “grammatical subject” (John) and “logical subject” (a dog).

? Another traditional definition of the subject is “what the sentence is about” (i.e. topic).

? Again, this seems to work for many sentences, such as

? Bill is a very crafty fellow. ? but fails in others, such as

? (Jack is pretty reliable, but) Bill I don’t trust. ? As for Bill, I wouldn’t take his promises very seriously.

? All three sentences seem to be “about” Bill; thus we could say that Bill is the topic of all three sentences.

? The above sentences make it clear that the topic is not always the grammatical subject. ? What characteristics do subjects have? Word order Pro-forms

Agreement with the verb Content questions Tag question 4.2 Predicate

? Predicate refers to a major constituent of sentence structure in a binary analysis in which all obligatory constituents other than the subject were considered together.

? It usually expresses actions, processes, and states that refer to the subject.

? The boy is running. (process) ? Peter broke the glass. (action) ? Jane must be mad! (state) ? The word predicator is suggested for verb or verbs included in a predicate.

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