English Language Unit 3 - SYNTAX

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Subject

\-Noun that the sentence is about WHO OR WHAT is ‘doing’ the verb.

\-Eg. __**HELEN**__ enjoys Biology.

Verb

\-The __ACTION__ or __STATE OF BEING__ in the sentence.

Clause

\-Contains both a __SUBJECT__ and __VERB__.

\-Eg. __Jennifer__ __wants__ some food.

Phrase

\-Part of a sentence that DOES NOT contain both __subject__ or __verb.__

Can be **noun phrase, verb phrase etc.**

**-Eg.** __**The old dog**__ **slept soundly. OR The Wiggles arrived in the** __**big, red car.**__

Object

1) Direct object - answers __‘what’__ or __‘who’__ → eg. Kevin studies Art (asking **what** does Kevin study?

2) Indirect object - answers __‘for whom__’ or ‘__to whom’.__ → eg. Trang bought Sebastian a sandwich (asking whom did Trang buy for).

Complement

\-Anything that completes a sentence BUT IS NOT AN __OBJECT__.

Eg. David is __Hungry__. OR Tamara felt __ill__.

Adverbial

\-Word phrase/clause that shows **place, time, reason, frequency, condition, comparison etc**.

\-Answers the question “where, when, why, how often, under which”.

\-eg. “the cat ate __in the kitchen__” OR “Jenny finished the race __even though she was exhausted__”.

Declarative

\-Makes a **statement.**

\-Eg, “this soup is hot”.

Interrogative

\-Asks a question. Ends with a “?”.

\-Eg. “is your soup too hot?”

\-Can lead to be declarative or imperative.

Imperative

\-Gives a command, direction, or instruction.

\-Usually starts with a verb or politeness marker “please”.

\-Eg. “blow on your soup to cool it”.

Exclamative

\-Shows emotion, ends with exclamation mark.

\-Starts with “how OR what”.

\-Eg. “how how is this soup!”

Fragment

\-This is not a complete sentence.

\-It is missing subject or a verb, or starts with a conjunction.

\-Eg. “‘Macbeth’ by William Shakespeare”. OR “__Although__ Shakespeare wrote ‘Macbeth’”.

Simple

\-One clause (one verb).

\-No conjunctions.

\-Eg. “Linda ate the cake”.

Compound

\-At least **two independent clauses** (2 verbs).

\-At least one conjunction.

\-FANBOYS.

\-eg. “Linda ate the cake __and__ ate all the donuts.”

Complex

\-At least **one independent clause** and **one dependent clause**.

\-At least **one subordinate conjunction** → must be on dependent clause.

Eg. “Linda ate the cake after she went to school”.

Compound-complex

\-At least __two independent clauses__ and at least __one dependent clause__ (3 verbs).

\-One coordinating conjunction and one subordinating conjunction.

\-Eg. “Linda ate all the cakes and donuts after she went to school”

Active voice

\-Consists of subject-verb-object (SVO).

\-Subject is DOING the action.

\-Eg. “__The principal__ __investigated__ __the vandalism of the school__”.

Passive voice

\-SVO.

\-Subject is the RECIPIENT of the action.

\-Consists of **auxiliary verb** (am/is/are/was/were/been/being/be)

before past participle (eaten etc).

\-Eg. “__The vandalism of the school__ __was investigated__ by __the principal__”

\-Can end with ‘by zombies’.

Agentless passive

\-Same concept as passive voice.

\-But doesn’t contain ‘by…’

Reasons for using passives

\-Act to be more formal.

\-Changes focus of sentence to be on object/action rather than the person doing the action.

\-We don’t care who’s doing the action.

Nominalisations

\-Process of turning verbs/adjectives into nouns (adds suffix).

\-ness (happi__ness__).

\-ment (enjoyment)

\-ion/tion/ation/ition/sion (igni__tion__).

\-ism (sex__ism__).

\-ance/ence (relev__ance__).

\-ity/ty (cruel__ty__).

\-y/ry (discover__y__).

\-age (stopp__age__).

\-al (arriv__al)__.

\-dom (free__dom__).

\-ure/ture (mix__ture)__.

\-th/t (grow__th__).

Reasons for using nominalisations

\-The focus is shifted to a concept, not an action or person.

\-Text becomes more abstract & objective (less personal).

\-Less room for responsibility or blame.

Listing (syntactic)

\-3 or more related elements placed together, separated by commas or dot point.

\-Makes text more cohesive.

eg. ‘I like pies, cakes, cats, sports and reading’.

Parallelism (syntactic)

\-2 or more phrases/clauses/sentences are structurally similar & appear near each other.

\-Helps reinforces a point/argument.

eg. ‘I came. I saw. I conquered’.

Antithesis (syntactic)

\-2 or more phrases/clauses/sentences are structurally opposite & contrast with each other.

eg. ‘there’s a long version and a short version’.

Modality

\-Words that indicates likeliness, possibility or request etc.

\-will/would, shall/should, can/could, may, might, must.

\-Verbs with higher modality (higher command) → increases formality.

Coherence

\-**Formatting** → heading and subheadings (font.

\-**Inference** → knowing/understanding what’s ‘left out’; prior knowledge.

\-**Logical ordering** → text that’s structured both visually & textually to make sense eg. TEEAL.

\-**Conventions** → rules the type of text follows.

\-**Consistency** → having the same semantic field.

Cohesion (CARCASS)

\-**Collocation** → words found together (eg. happy birthday).

\-**Anaphoric** → pronoun/substitute comes after referent.

\-**Repetition** → using same words, or variations of the word.

\-**Cataphoric** → pronoun/substitute comes before referent.

\-**Antonymy** → words with opposite meanings to create contrast.

\-**Synonymy** → words with similar meaning to create connections.

\-**Substitution** → using a pronoun/other word in place of a word to avoid repetition.

Information flow

\-**End focus** → following SVO, standard way of writing sentences (eg. Tom walked to the shops).

\-**Front focus** - subject at the front is replaced (eg. Suddenly, Tom bought groceries).