UNIVERSITY OF PRISTINA
FACULTY OF PHILOSOPHY
DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE
SEMINAR PAPER
SPECIAL COURSE IN SYNTACTIC SYNTAGMATICS
Adjectival phrases in the story of John Steinbeck “The Snake”
Kosovska Mitrovica, June, 2013
Content
2
Introduction................................................................................................................3
Phrases.......................................................................................................................5
Adjectival phrase ……………………………………………………………………………11
Adjectival phrase in the story of John Steinbeck “The Snake”…………………………….15
Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………………..22
Bibliography…………………………………………………………………………………23
Introduction
4
understanding literature and so by analyzing a literary work from linguistic viewpoint, one
covers both the fields.
5
Phrases
The word „syntax‟ comes originally from Greek and literally means „a putting together‟ or
„arrangement‟ and it represents one of thelevels of linguistic analysis which, along with
morphology in a narrow sense, shape thegrammar of a certain language. Syntax deals
withrules of word combinations within the sentence ( units within the constructions ) as
well as the relations amongst the elements of sentence structure.Starting with words as basic
syntactical units, the most emphasis of the syntactical exploration is based on phrases and
clauses.
Sequences of words that can function as constituents in the structure of sentences are called
phrases.” (Burton-Roberts, 1997: 14). According to Burton and Roberts phrases form not only
syntactic units but also semantic units. By this, I mean they form identifiable parts of the
meaning of sentences; they form identifiable parts of the meaning of sentences; they form
coherent units of sense”.
Phrase is a group of words, which makes some sense, but it cannot stand alone because it
does not have complete sense. Phrase is a group of related words but without a Subject and a
Verb. Phrases can be found either in oral or written sentences. Some examples of phrases are
the following:
He works
in the Middle East
.
7
A single word may be a phrase when it is the
head
of that phrase. The head of a phrase is
the phrase’s central element; any other words (or phrases)
in the phrase orient to it, either by
modifying it or complementing it. The head determines the phrase’s grammatical category: if
the head is a noun, the phrase is a noun phrase; if the head is a verb, the phrase is a verb
phrase, and so on. The head can also determine the internal grammar of the phrase: if the head
is a noun, then it may be modified by an article; if the head is a transitive verb, it must be
complemented by a direct object. Heads also determine such things as the number of their
phrases: if the head of a noun phrase (NP) is singular, then the NP is singular; if the head is
plural, then the NP is
plural. Crucially, the head of a phrase may occur alone in the phrase ,
that is, without modification or complementation.
There is a one-way dependence (
⇒
) in the structure of modification. In the phrase
their
rather dubious jokes, rather
is dependent on
dubious,
in the sense that it is only present
because
dubious
is. If we are to omit
dubious
,
rather
will be left without a function, and the
omission would result in an ill-formed string (*
their rather jokes
). Notice, however, that
dubious
is in no way dependent on rather. We can omit
rather
and still be left with a perfectly
good phrase (
their dubious jokes
). And
rather dubious
as a whole is dependent on
jokes
but
not viceversa.
Rather dubious
(the modifier of the phrase) could be omitted (giving their jokes), but jokes
(the head of the phrase) could not (*their rather dubious).
(modifier)
rather
⇒
dubious
(head)
(modifier)
rather dubious
⇒
jokes
(head)
(modifier)
their
⇒
rather dubious jokes
(head)
“A modifier is a subordinate element in an endocentric structure. It is a word or a word group
that affects the meaning of a headword in that it describes, limits, intensifies and/or adds to
the meaning of the head. In the noun cluster
the
blue
shirt
, for example, the word blue
describes
the shirt
; it limits by excluding other colours; and it adds to the plain meaning of
shirt
. Modifiers may appear before or after the heads they modify, and sometimes they are
separated from the head by intervening words” (Stageberg, 1965).
A phrase may function as a verb, noun, preposition, an adverb or an adjective. Therefor we
make differences between the folloeing phrases:
