A Piece of Linguistics : Syntax

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Assalamu'alaikum my beloved readers. today, we will talk about a piece of linguistics named Syntax. Okay, let's see !!!

Kata syntax berasal dari bahasa Yunani yang merupakan gabungan dari kata syn yang berarti “bersama”, dan kata taxis yang berarti “rangkaian”, “urutan”.  So, syntax is  the set of rules, principles, and processes that govern the structure of sentences in a given language, specifically word order.  Usually, sentence is formed by clauses, clauses are formed by phrases, and phrase is formed by group of words.

A.    Phrase

Phrase is a word or group of words used as a single part of speech. The main types of phrases in English are :

1.      Noun Phrase (NP)

NP is a phrase that comes from nouns (kata benda) yang berfungsi as a subject or object in sentence. Noun phrase usually didahului oleh determiners (kata sandang). Examples :

Ø  The actor

Ø  A panda

Ø  The cats

2.      Verb Phrase (VP)

Verb phrase is te combining of auxilliary verb (kata kerja bantu) and verb. It can add with specifier, complement, and adjuncts. Examples :

Ø  Binar has taken the job.

Ø  He has been coming late every day.

3.      Adjective Phrase (Adj. P)

This phrase come from adjectives (kata sifat) that is used to give the noun  and pronoun sebuah sifat. Example :

Ø  Toni lost his dark brown briefcase.

Ø  The panda eats  a green and long bamboo.

Ø  He was afraid to say no.

4.      Adverb Phrase (Adv. P)

An adverb phrase contains an adverb as its headword that is used to give the verb (kata kerja)an information. Examples :

Ø  Mika usually wake up early.

Ø  She ran quickly.

5.      Prepositional Phrase (PP)

A prepositional phrase consists of a preposition followed by Noun Phrase. Examples :

Ø  She run across the street.

Ø  The book is on the bathroom.

B.    Clause

A clause is a group of related words that contains both a subject and verb.  There are two primary types of clauses, they are :

1.      Independent Clause

Clause yang bisa berdiri sendiri. Karena dia sudah punya Subject and Verb yang telah memiliki ide yang jelas.

2.      Dependent Clause

Clause yang tidak bisa berdiri sendiri, harus ada independent clause yang mengikutinya, karena ide yang disampaikan belum jelas. Also, dependent clause divided into :

a.       Noun Clause

A clause  yang bertindak as noun ditandai dengan adanya wh-words, how, dan that.

b.      Adjective Clause

A clause yang bertindak as adjective ditandai dengan adanya relative pronoun, yaitu who, whom, which, whose, dan that.

c.       Adverb Clause

A clause yang bertindak as adverb ditandai dengan subordinate conjunction, such as when,while, after, before, etc.

C.     Sentence

A sentence is an independent clause that may or may not be combined with other clauses to convey a complete, and sometimes complex. Based on the construction types, sentence divided into :

1.      Simple Sentence

Simple sentence only contains one subject and one predicate. The subject usually the NP of N and the predicate is verb, adjective, or adverb. Example :

Ø  They eat rice for dinner.                          subject

Ø  He goes to school.                                     verb

Ø  We visited Harau last week.

2.      Compound Sentence

There are two or more simple sentences. So that, the number of  subjects and predicates will be more. Example :

Ø  She came home and cooked dinner.                Subject

Ø  He could neither read nor write.                    Verbs

3.      Complex Sentence

Formed by one independent clause and one or more dependent clause. Example :

Ø  Mary went to the store because she needed bread.

Ø  Siska ate Bakwan, while Febti was taking a bath.

   Dependent clause

   Independent clause

D.    Syntactics Tree

To know the structure of the sentence we can do syntactic tree. Let’s see !!

You can watch this video to make sure you understand how to make syntactics tree and menentukan yang mana aja noun phrase dan lainnya. 

You can also open this site to improve your syntax/grammar skill 
http://web2.uvcs.uvic.ca/elc/studyzone/grammar.htm
http://www.linguisticsnetwork.com/exercises/syntax-exercises/
http://www.learnenglishfeelgood.com/esl-english-grammar-exercises.html

References

Baskaran, Loga Mahesan. 2005. A Linguistic Primer for Malaysians. Kuala Lumpur : University Malaya Press.

http://www.ilmubahasainggris.com/linguistic-pengertian-syntax-dan-penjelasan-serta-contohnya/

http://www.orl.devry.edu/tutoring/Phrase,%20Clause,%20Sentence.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syntax

Youtube and Google

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