English Syntax

English Syntax

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
MAIN BODY..................................................................................................................................3
CONCLUSION..............................................................................................................................11
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................12

INTRODUCTION
English syntax refers to the set of principles, rules and procedures governing the
linguistics or the structure of the sentences in linguistics or English that is generally represented
in the order of the words. The syntax also pertains to the study of the processes. The English
syntax generally represents the functional elements in the structure of sentences, useful
convention of grammar etc (Miller, 2016). The overview of the English syntax contains elements
of the English language such as sentences and clauses, canonical and non-canonical clauses,
initial listings in the part of speech, phrase, structure of clauses, nouns, adjectives, adverbs,
speech acts, subordinate clauses etc. this report will describe the wh- questions, wh- movements,
wh- subject questions, wh- movements such as copying and deletion and the elaboration of the
movements using tree structures.
MAIN BODY
Wh- movements
Wh movement can be referred to as a syntactic based phenomenon that can be found in
the English language where the interrogative words or the wh – words and phrases tend to depict
a specific work order. Wh- words always appear in the beginning of the sentence unlike general
phrases and tend to take an interrogatory form. In context of linguistics the Wh movement
consists of wh fronting, wh raising or wh- extraction focussing on the placement of the
interrogative words (Saleem, Khan and Zaman, 2018). In simple terms, the wh- movement is the
asymmetry between the type of answers given to question and the syntactical arrangement of the
morphemes or words in any questions. The interrogative structures in the English language
consist of various wh- words like question words which start with wh like when, what, where,
why and who and only one interrogative question does not initiate with wh, that is how (Aarts,
2017). In the English language the wh- movement, words, phrases, clauses and sentences that
begin with wh word represent a particular word order which positions the wh word and the
phrase that contains the wh word in the front of the sentence or the clauses, rather than the
canonical position in the sentence that comes later. It also has to be noted that the wh word
outcomes in a sort of discontinuity which can be further categorised into various types such as
scrambling, topicalization and extraposition and the wh word plays a significant role in the
theory of long-distance dependency (Yáñez-Bouza and et.al., 2019).
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Tree structures for expressing movements
A syntax tree can be described as the breaking down of the sentences which tend to
dominate heads in all segments in the tree. In case of wh- movements there are more segments
which ae added. The wh movements are inspired by the question-based features at C or
complementiser, which helps in the promotion of movement from the interrogative words from
the canonical base place to spec c. This movement is known as the copying+ pasting + deletion.
In this the interrogative words from the bottom are being copied and then being pasted into the
Spec-c and later are being deleted from the bottom, as it alone remains at the top. In totality, the
highest C tends to become the target position of the process of wh movement (Yáñez-Bouza and
et.al., 2019).
In the syntax tree: DP or determiner phrase represents who and what; Prepositional phrase or PP
represents why, where and when; Adverb phrase or AdvP represents how.
When any movement along the syntax tree is developed, the subject-auxiliary inversion of the
words has to be considered that were fronted from T or tense to C or complementizer (Kilby,
2019). The syntax tree for the example sentence: “Who did Lucy see?” is as follows:
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Wh- questions
Wh questions can be referred to as the interrogative words or question words that is
primarily function based word which is utilised in asking a question in any sentence and are
what, where, who, when, whom, whether, which, whose and how. These question words are
utilised and place both in the direct questions and indirect questions. For example: -where are
you going? -She was wondering where you were going (Kilby, 2019). In the English linguistics,
the similar forms of the question words are applied in relative pronouns in specific clauses like
the place where he went and specific adverb clauses like She goes where I go.
The interrogative words in the English language consists of:
 Interrogative determiners like which, whose (individual possessive determiner) and what.
 The pro-form of interrogation: these contain interrogative pronouns like whom, who and
whose, which and what. Interrogative proverbs such as where notifying the location;
whither notifying the goals; whence highlighting the source; how indicating the manner;
when indicating the time; why indicating the reason or cause and whatsoever and whether
highlighting the choice among alternatives (Edelstein, 2020).
In case of the Yes & No questions that start with an interrogative a particle like
 A conjugation of the form be, for instance: Are you feeling okay?
 A conjugation representing forms of do, such as: Do you need to lie down?
 A conjugation formed in help with the other auxiliary verbs that also include contraction,
such as: Can’t she walk any slower?
However, in the English language system there is a possibility of framing questions without
using the wh-questions or interrogative words such as by changing the punctuation or the
intonation in any sentence. For instance: “You’re done exercising?” (Aarts, 2017).
Wh-Object questions
There are two types of questions in the English system where the difference lies in the
subject and the object that performs the actions. Most of the question in the entire language tend
to be object-based questions. The formula that can be used for such question is the QUASM or
the Question words- Auxiliary Verb- Subject- Main verb. This structure is followed for any wh
questions that are based on an object (Abels and Dayal, 2017). For example, the sentences that
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are represented in the simple present tense, the auxiliary verbs utilised are does and do. For
example:
 What do want to eat? I want to eat a peanut butter sandwich
 Who does She like? She likes Samuel.
 Who did John give the book to? (MAIR and LEECH, 2020).
 What is learnt in the English class? Grammar is learnt in the English language class.
The sentences represented in the simple past will use the auxiliary verb, that is, did. For example:
 What did She create? She created art.
 What did the typhoon damage? Typhoon damaged the entire city of North Carolina.
 Who did she lie to? She lied to her mother (Miller, 2016).
Wh- subject questions
When it comes to the subject based questions in the English language, questions are
formed on the basis of what one wants to ask regarding the subject in the sentence, In simple
terms the thig who performed the actions or the person who did something has to be found out
(Kilby, 2019). This type of interrogative form is called a wh-subject question. In order to frame
a wh- subject based question, the wh-question or interrogative word is added to the verb in either
simple present or simple past tense of the grammar and he added to the object. For example:
 Who wanted to drink milkshake? They wanted to drink milkshake.
 Who likes you? Fred likes me (Aarts, 2017).
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 What causes hypertension? High blood pressure causes hypertension
 Who cooked an omelette? Dan cooked an omelette.
 What was the reason for the damage to your car? Accident was the reason my car got
damaged.
 Who lied to Samuel? Caroline lied to Samuel.
 Who gave the book to Sue? Daniel gave the book to Sue (Kilby, 2019).
Wh movements
The movements that are involved in the derivation of the interrogative sentences is
known as the wh- movements (MAIR and LEECH, 2020). There are different types of wh -
movements:
Wh- movement in the main clause
In general terms, wh movements in the main clause can be referred to as wh- phrase or wh-
constituent that contains the front position in any interrogative root sentences. This syntax can be
describe as following:
Case: 1. Theo will see Gemma outside after dinner; 2. Will Theo see Gemma outside after
dinner? (Freidin, 2020).
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In this case, the first sentence can be described as a declarative root sentence while the second is
an interrogative root sentence (Saleem, Khan and Zaman, 2018). From this example case, it can
be observed that in order to frame an English root constituent question, the two conditions that
have to be countered is, firstly, the interrogative constituent has to be in the first position and
secondly, the auxiliary has to be preceded by the subject. In such cases the root interrogatives are
referred to as the I to C movement. Hence it can be concluded that as per the rules and conditions
explained above, both these sentences are ungrammatical (Miller, 2016).
Case: 3. Theo has met whom? 4. Has Theo met whom? 5. Whom Theo has met?
Case: 6. Whom will Theo see after dinner? 7. What should he get?
From the above two cases, it can be observed that the two movements are occurring. Firstly, the
wh phrase is shifting to the place in the front of C, secondly, the I to C movement that is
occurring is increasing the subject -auxiliary inversion. These two are the primary conditions that
are needed in the wh-movement in respect to the main clause (Freidin, 2020).
Whom(i) will(t) Theo t(j) meet t(i) After lunch
Wh- movement in the sub-ordinate clause
The movements along the wh questions are not limited to the main clause in order to
frame question and also tends to appear in the subordinate clauses. However, the actions of wh-
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movements in the subordinate clauses tend to slightly differ in primary aspects such as the order
of the words. The subordinate clause can be further divided into relative clauses and indirect
questions (Tortora, 2018).
Wh movement in indirect questions
In the English language, the wh-movement happens in order to frame questions in subordinate as
well as main clauses, When the question is being developed in the main clause, it is direct
question. When the question is being developed in the subordinate clause, it is known as indirect
question. The difference in both the formations are majorly regarding the word order.
a. She will ask him to go.
b. Whom [1] will [2] she ask to go? [Direct question]
c. I wonder whom [1] she [2] will [3] ask to go. [Indirect question] (Aarts, 2017).
It can be observed from the examples that there is a difference of central word between both
indirect and direct question. In the main clauses, the finite verbs appear in the V2 order, second
position and is marked as 2 subscript b sentence. On the other hand, the indirect questions the
verb appears in V3 order and is marked through 3-subscript in c-sentence.
Wh- movement in the relative clause
Along with subordinated clauses pertaining to direct and indirect questions, the wh movements
tends to happen in relative clauses as well, but they cannot be observed as interrogative. A clause
that modifies nouns and specifies the reference is known as a relative clause. Major relative
pronouns tend to have a similar form such as the corresponding question words and phases like
which, what, where etc (Tortora, 2018). Relative clauses are a part of subordinate clauses and so
the V3 order of the words can be observed in the direct question.
a. He read Joe’s newspaper
b. Joe’s newspaper, which [1] he [2] read [3]: wh movement
c. *Joe’s newspaper which [1] did [2] he read: wh movement is impossible as v2 word
order is in subordinate clause.
It can be observed in the above sentence that the relative pronouns just fronted in the subordinate
clause of b sentence example, similar to the manner they fronted in indirect question. Therefore,
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it can be noted that the v3 word order is obligatory while the occurrence of the v2 word order is
not good, which is demonstrated by c- sentence example (Hu, 2019).
Pied-piping
In English linguistics, pied-piping is the general or informal name for the ability of the
interrogative relative pronouns in dragging different words along with them, as and when taken
to the front. There are various examples of wh movement that involve pied-piping. This process
occurs when a fronted interrogative word drags the whole encompassing phrase in the beginning
of the clause along with it (Hu, 2019). The pied piping is further divided into two categories:
Obligatory and optional.
In obligatory pied-piping, for fronting a wh word, the complete phrase has to be fronted
along with it (MAIR and LEECH, 2020). For example:
a. Sharon is eating Michael’s apple.
b. Whose apple is Sharon eating? – pied-piping of apple
c. Whose is Sharon eating apple? - this sentence is not ideal as pie-piping was not done.
This example above illustrates that pied-piping is necessary various times, particularly when the
wh-word is present in between aa noun phrase or any adjective phrase.
In optional pied-piping, this is done usually with the help of prepositional phrases, as the
wh word can be considered an object of preposition.
a. He showed his magic trick to her.
b. To whom did he show his magic trick? – Pied-piping of the preposition is related with
formal register.
c. Whom did he show his magic trick to? – Piped-piping not present in everyday English
d. The example number c is a case of preposition stranding, which has been allowed in the
English language (Tortora, 2018).
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CONCLUSION
It can be concluded from the above report that wh- movement is the asymmetry between
the type of answers given to question and the syntactical arrangement of the morphemes or
words in any questions. The interrogative structures in the English language consist of various
wh- words like question words which start with wh like when, what, where, why and who and
only one interrogative question does not initiate with wh, that is how. In the report, the various
wh questions were discussed such as yes/no questions, interrogative words, wh object question,
wh- subject questions etc. The wh movements were describes in context to main clauses,
subordinate clauses that contained indirect questions and relative pronouns. Apart from this the
concept of piped-piping was explained along with a brief regarding syntax tree.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Aarts, B., 2017. English syntax and argumentation. Palgrave.
Abels, K. and Dayal, V., 2017. On the syntax of multiple sluicing. In Proceedings of NELS 47.
GLSA publications.
Edelstein, E., 2020. English Syntax. Edinburgh University Press.
Freidin, R., 2020. Adventures in English Syntax. Cambridge University Press.
Hu, J., 2019. Prominence and locality in grammar: The syntax and semantics of wh-questions
and reflexives. Routledge.
Kilby, D., 2019. Descriptive syntax and the English verb. Routledge.
MAIR, C. and LEECH, G.N., 2020. 14 Current Changes in English Syntax. The Handbook of
English Linguistics, p.249.
Miller, J., 2016. Introduction to English syntax. Edinburgh University Press.
Saleem, M., Khan, F.A. and Zaman, A., 2018. Wh-Movement Pattern in the Spoken Discourse of
Teachers: A Syntactic Analysis. Global Social Sciences Review, 3(2), pp.400-420.
Tortora, C., 2018. Understanding sentence structure: An introduction to English syntax (Vol. 12).
John Wiley & Sons.
Yáñez-Bouza, N., and et.al., 2019. Categories, constructions, and change in English syntax.
Cambridge University Press.
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