CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

A. Background of Writing
Syntax means sentence construction: how words group
together to make phrases and sentences. Some people also use
the term grammar to mean the same as syntax, although most
linguists follow the more recent practice whereby the grammar
of a language includes all of its organizing principles: information
about the sound system, about the form of words, how we adjust
language according to context, and so on; syntax is only one part
of this grammar ( Tallerman, 2011: 1).
We also study syntax to develop set rules and constraints on
the language. We call these parameters. These parameters limit
what we can and cant do in a language, helping us establish an
effective and working communicative system. Some linguists
believe that all languages have the same parameters. This idea
is called universal grammar, and was a theory developed by
Chomsky in the 1960s. From these ideas of linguistic parameters,
we can learn, use and teach the correct way to make sentences.
Basically, so we can all understand each other.
B. Problems of Writing
Based on the background above, so the problems that we are going to discuss on
the next chapter are:
1. Syntax and lexical items
2. Individual verbs and subcategorisation restrictions
3. Selectional restrictions
4. Classes of nous
5. Subcategorisation, selection and constructions

6. Fixed phrases
C. Aims of Writing
Based on the above problems, so the aims of writing this articles is to know
about what syntax ad lexical items is,what individual verbs and subcategorisation
restrictions is, what selectional restrictions is, and what classes of nouns is, and
also what subcategorisation, selection and construction is and the last is what
actually fixed phrase is.

CHAPTER II
DISCUSSION
A. Syntax and Lexical Items
As we have already learned from previous chapter about syntax, the writer
also here wants to little bit talk about what syntax is so that you will not forget on
what really we are going to learn. Syntax means sentence construction; how
words group together to make phrases and sentences1. The term syntax is also
used to mean the study of the syntactic properties of languages. In this sense, its
used in the same was as we use stylistics to mean the study of literary style.
Study of syntax is about the classification of words, the order of phrases and
sentences, the structure of phrases and sentences and the different sentence
constructions that language use. On the other hand, the writer have found an
article in the Wikipedia that in the linguistics, syntax is the study of the principles
and processes by which sentences are constructed in particular languages. In
addition to referring to the discipline, the term of syntax is also used to refer
directly to the rules and principles that govern the sentence structure of any
individual language. All the explanation mentioned are basically refers to a
conclusion that the writer can state, syntax is a study that deals with structures of
language or components of language.
To know what lexical items is actually about, firstly we need to know what
lexeme is. A lexeme is a unit of lexical meaning that exists regardless of the
number of inflectional endings it may have or the number of words it may
contain2. It is a basic unit of meaning, and the headwords of dictionary are all
lexemes. Put more technically, a lexeme is an abstract unit of morphological
analysis in linguistics, that roughly corresponds to a set of forms taken by a single
word.
1 Maggie Tallerman, Uderstanding Syntax (UK: Hodder Education,2011),
p.1
2 En.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lexeme, October 20th, 10:03 PM

When you use an English dictionary to look up the different meanings of the
verb watch, you will not be surprised that there are no separate entries for watch,
watches and watched. You will also not feel disappointed if your dictionary does
not contain a separate entry for watching. If you come across the sentence Peter,
watched out! And you want to find out what watched out means, you will not
look for an entry watched out, but rather for an entry watch out. In many
dictionaries, watches, watched and watching are not even mentioned in the entry
for watch. It is simply assumed that the language user does not need this
information. The reason for the absence of this information is that these different
English words are felt to be instantiations of the same word, for which watch is
citation from. So we have to make a distinction between the notion word in
abstract sense (lexeme) and notion word in the sense of concrete word as used
in a sentence. The concrete words watch, watches, watched and watching can be
qualified as word forms of the lexeme watch. We can simply say that lexical items
is word, but in sense of abstract like what the writer has explained above.
Then what is the relationship between syntax and lexical item?. As we know
that syntax is the study of sentence structure, and the sentence is absolutely
formed by words (lexical items), so syntax studies the lexical items and the lexica
items is one of the focus of syntax.
B. Individual Verbs, Complements and Adjuncts
If we discussed the concepts of complement and adjunct, we will know that
every type of phrase has a head, and the modifiers of heads falls into the two
classes of complement and adjunct. The term complement derives from a Latin
verb to fill; the idea conveyed by complement is that a complement expression
fills out the verb (or noun and so on), filling it out or completing it with respect to
meaning3. While in another way, mentioned that complement as a general term to
3 Jim Miller, An Introduction to English Syntax, (Edinburg:Edinburg
University Press Ltd. 2002), p.5

denote any constituent whose presence is required by another element4.

Complements are actually modifiers which typically occur next to the head (but
not always) and which are required or excluded by particular lexical items5.
Example: Sarah devoured the cakes in the kitchen last night.
Sarah and the cakes are complements of devoured. Devoured requires a noun
phrase to its left and a noun phrase to its right. Adjuncts are not necessarily next
to the head; indeed, they are typically at a distance from the verb. They are not
obligatory. Whereas complements complete the meaning of the verb, giving it
both syntactic and semantic completion, adjuncts merely provide additional
information that could be dispensed with. In in the kitchen and last night are
adjuncts. The example mentioned above is acceptable and complete without them
(in the kitchen and last night), adverb of time and location are always adjuncts.
C. Classes of Verb and Subcategorisation Restrictions
1. Classes of Verb
Jim Miller in his book which the tittle is an Introduction to English Syntax
stated that there are 6 classes of verb:
a. Intransitive Verb
An intransitive verb does not require an object (he is walking in the park).
b. Transitive Verb
A transitive verb takes direct object (he is reading book) and only
transitive verbs may be used in the passive voice (the book was returned
by him quickly).
c. Ditransitive Verb
A ditransitive verb is a type of verb that requires both a direct object and
an indirect object in the sentence with it in order for the meaning of the
sentence to be complete. This type of verb is typically used when

4 Bas Aarts, English Syntax and Argumentation, (New

York:Palgrave,2001), p.104
5 Miller, Op.cit, p.49

something is being given or exchanged between two or more parties, as

the something is the direct object and the receiver is the indirect object.
For example:
1) The school board gave the teachers a raise
IO
D.O
2) The exchange student bought her hosts a thank-you-gift.
I.O
D.O
d. Intransitive Locational Verb
Excludes a noun phrase to its right but requires a prepositional phrase. For
example:
1) Mr. Woodhouse sat in an arm chair.
V
PP
2) The responsibility falls on him.
V PP
e. Transitive Directional Verb
Requires to its right both a noun phrase and a directional phrase. For
example:
1) Local people banded together to fight the drug dealers.
NP
directional phrase
f. Copula (Linking Verb)
A linking verb is a verb of incomplete predication: it merely announces
that the real predicate follows6. The important word in the complement is
usually an adjective (The girl is pretty) and a noun (she is a pretty girl).
The more common linking verbs are appear, be, become, look, sound,
seem, etc. For example:
1) The milk tastes sour.
2) The song sounds good.
3) She looks so beautiful.
2. Subcategorisation Restrictions
As well as controlling the number and general type of complements,
lexical verbs control the choice of preposition. For example blame occurs in
the construction in:
a) Eleanor blamed Willoughby for Marrianes uhappiness.
b) Eleanor blamed Marrianes unhappiness on Willoughby.
6 Marcella Frank, Modern English-Practical Reference Guide,
(USA:Prentice-Hal Inc.,1972), p.48

Depending on which way the event is presented, blame requires for and on; no
other prepositions are possible. Similarly, accuse requires the preposition of,
as in Eleanor accused Willoughby of unprincipled behavior.
The constraints that lexical verbs place on number and type of constituents,
choice of preposition and choice of case are known as subcategorisation. We
are dealing with the class or category of verbs, but the different construction
required by different verbs allow us to set up subcategories of verb. Hence the
term subcategorisation. This discussion has not exhausted the topic of
subcategorisation, in particular, we have not looked at combinations of plural
verb and plural noun, singular verb and singular noun.
D. Selectional Restrictions
Constraints affecting the type of lexical noun are known as selectional
restrictions. Selectional restrictions range from large classes of nouns such as
animate and human nouns (shorthand for nouns denoting animate beings and
nouns denoting human beings) to smaller classes such as nouns denoting
liquids. For example, the verb flow requires a subject noun such as water, river, or
larva, as in [the water/river flowed over the embankment]. Consider the sentences
below:
1. The keyboard designed some clothes.
2. The stapler took a break.
3. My colleague broke his feelings.
You will agree that in the world we live in there is something odd about these
sentences: keyboards are not in the habit of designing clothes, staplers dont take
breaks and feelings arent entities of the sentences above on their arguments as
selectional restrictions7. Linguists have suggested that one way of dealing with
selectional restrictions is to assign features to predicates and their arguments. For
example, we might say that the verb design carries a feature [+animate] and that
its Subject must also carry this feature. If it doesnt, the resulting sentence in
deviant. Clearly in (1) the subject expression the keyboard is not an animate entity
7 Bas Aarts, Op.cit, p.98

and the sentence is odd as a result. (2) is strange for the same reason. (3) can also
be handled in terms of features: we might say that the verb break carries the same
feature. In (3) the DO is a abstract NP, and this accounts for its peculiarity. This
way of handling selectional restrictions is a syntactic one: we require particular
elements to be properly matched in terms of features they carry.
In recent years the perspective on selectional restrictions has changed. It is
now felt that they can be handled in a way that does not require a complicated
array of features. An alternatice way dealing with selectional restrictions is to
regard them as being a semantic, rather than a syntactic, phenomenon. This would
account for the fact that (1)-(3) are syntactically well-formed, though odd
meaningwise. It could be argued that selectional restrictions can be handled in
terms of thematic roles. We have already seen that the grammar specifies, in its
thematic structure, which thematic roles a predicate assigns. One possible avenue
of research is to see whether we can predict which selectional restrictions a
predicate imposes on its arguments, simply by looking at the thematic roles the
arguments carry. Consider again sentence (1) above. We have seen that the verb
design in (1) requires a subject with an agent role. We might now reasonably
make the general observation that agents are typically animate entities. If we do
this, then there is no need to stipulate separately for each verb which particular
features it carries. (1) above is deviant simply because a general rules has been
broke, namely the rule that says agents are typically animate entities. The
advantage of handling selectional restrictions in this way is that there is no longer
a reason to set up a separate mechanism in the grammar that hadles them, and the
result is that the grammar becomes more streamlined. Henceforth, then, we will
assume that selectional restrictions are restrictions on thematic roles.
E. Classes of Nouns
Jim Miller divided verb into some subclasses as mention below:
1. Concrete vs abstract nouns
A concrete noun is a word for a physical object that can be perceived by the
senses we can see, touch, smell the object (flower, girl). An abstract noun us
8

a word for a concept it is an idea that exists in our minds only (beauty,
justice, mankind)8.
2. Common vs proper nouns
It is simply stated that common and proper noun is capitalized,
whereas the common noun is not. A common noun is any generic
uncapitalized noun. Here are some examples; ball, tree, flower, moon, dog,
etc.
Notice that these were all single. Here are some plural examples of common
nouns; balls, trees, flowers, moons, dogs, etc.
Common noun is only capitalized when it is at the beginning of a sentence. A
basic definition of a common noun is a person, place or thing or idea that is
not specific to a certain, particular, or named person, place and thing.
In truth, a proper noun functions exactly the same way a common
noun does. However, this proper noun is capitalized. You use them the same
way in a sentence as a common noun, but it retains its capitalization whether
or not it is at the beginning of a sentence. Proper nouns include the days of the
week, the months of the year, countries and brands. Names are all proper
nouns too. Notice how your own first, middle and last name are all
capitalized: they are proper nouns because they indicate a specific or
particular person.
3. Count vs mass nouns
a. Count Nouns
Count nouns are nouns that can be quantified or counted with a number. A
few examples:
Names of persons, animals, plants, insects and their parts: a boy, a
kitten, a rose, an ear, three boys, seven kittens, twelve roses, two ears.
Objects with a definite shape: a building, a balloon, a house, an octopus,
four buildings, six balloons, four houses, two octopi.
Units of measurement and words of classification: a gram, a pound, a
piece, a lump, an item, a bit, a family, a state, a language, a phrase, a word.

8 Marcella Frank, Op.cit, p.6

Some abstract words: a hindrance, a scheme, an idea, a plan, a taboo, a

rest.
Test for count nouns:
1) Count nouns can be quantified by a number.
2) They have singular and plural forms.
3) They can use a, an, or one as a modifier.
b. Mass Nouns
Mass nouns are uncountable by a number. Mass nouns are quantified by a
word that signifies amount9. A few examples:
Materials, food, metals, and natural qualities: bread, cotton, wood,
lightness, adolescence.
Names of liquids, gases, and substances made of many small particles:
cappuccino, oil, smoke, oxygen, rice, sugar, salt, cement, gravel.
Names of language: English, Spanish, French, Latin, Sanskrit, Chinese.
Most gerunds: looking, listening, swimming, running, anticipating.
to measure or classify mass nouns, use of after a measurement: a foot of
wood, a pound of rice, an ounce of courage, a bar of chocolate, a piece of
music, a bag of money.
Tests for mass nouns:
a. Mass nouns are quantified by an amount rather than a number.
b. They have only one form (singular).
c. They cannot have -a, -an, or one before them as modifiers.
d. They can use much as modifiers.
4. Animate vs inanimate nouns
A noun which refers to people, animals and living beings is an animate noun.
Inanimate nouns refer to things that are not alive.
5. Human vs non-human nouns
A human noun refers to people or human being, while non-human nouns refer
to all thing except human.
F. Subcategorisation, Selection and Construction
Last comment in connection with subclasses of nouns is that labels such as
concrete, count and human represent properties of nouns; these properties are
9 www.cws.illinois.edu/workshop/writers/massnouns/, October, 21th 2014,
7:54 AM

10

known as inherent properties, and features such as concrete are known as

inherent features.
All the examples here have been of the Active Declarative construction, that is, ot
the basic construction. See the example below:
1. Frank Churchill gave a piano to Jane Fairfax.
2. Frank Churchill gave Jane Fairfax a piano.
3. A piano was given to Jane Fairfax b Frank Churchill.
Let us say for the sake of the argument that in the active Declarative construction
give requires an animate noun to its left referring to the giver, Frank Churchill,
and a prepositional phrase to its right, also containing an animate noun but
referring to the recipient, to Jane Fairfax. Example (2) is an example of the
ditransitive construction; the same lexical items occur, but the animate noun Jae
Fairfax is noun phrase immediately following the verb and not preceded by a
preposition. In (3), an example of the passive construction, the animate noun
Frank Churchill is not to the left of the verb but to its right, inside a prepositional
phrase, by Frank Churchill.
We could write separate dictionary entries for give for all three constructions,
but this has two drawbacks. We would have to write separate entries for each
construction that a given verb occurs in, and there are many different
constructions. More seriously, we would not capture in our account the system of
constructions, the fact that paths lead from the basic Active Declarative positive
construction out to the other constructions, some directly, some via intervening
constructions. The way round this problem is to state the subcategorisation and
selectional restrictions once for the basic Active Declarative positive construction
and to have the information about restrictions carried from one construction to the
next. (The details of the restrictions carried from one construction to another
differ from one model to another, and it is no easy task to state the details
explicitly; nonetheless, what has been stated above is the goal shared by all the
models of syntax).
G. Fixed Phrases

11

We round off this brief visit to the dictionary by pointing out that we began with
the stereotypical view that there are rules that specify syntactic constructions and
that words are listed in the dictionary or lexicon, taken out of the dictionary and
inserted into syntactic constructions. It turned out that the connection between
syntax and lexical items is closer than we might have imagined, not only with
respect to the number of connections, but also with respect to the powerful role
played by individual lexical items, especially verbs. Over the past fifteen years or
so, analysts have come to realize that in any language there is a set of phrases and
even whole clauses that are not freely built up but fixed. Following the discussion
by Crystall in The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language (pp. 162-3),
we can distinguish various types of fixed phrase, as set out below:
1. Polywords: generally defined as a group of words that acts as a single word,
e.g. of course, in a nutshell, the day after tomorrow, etc.
2. Institutionalized Expressions: give me a break, how do you do?, log time no
see, pleased to meet you, see you soon, come to think of it, it doesnt bear
thinking about, etc.
3. Highly Constrained Phrases: as I was__(saying/mentioning), as far as__(can
see/ can make out/know), I (just) cant think straight, I thought I told you not
to do that.
4. Sentence Builders: my point is that__, let me begin by__, not only. . . but also.
5. Collocations: staple food/diet/industry, wouldnt/wont/ couldnt budge, a
heavy smoker, a heavy drinker.
Crystall also discusses collocations, restricted sequences of words, in the example
above, heavy smoker and heavy drinker qualify as collocations because heavy and
light combine with a limited set of nouns smoker, drinker, eater and sleeper.
The above five types of phrase and clause do not always conform to the syntax of
written English and may have idiosyncratic meanings; a heavy smoker is not a
smoker with a weight problem. It looks as though these phrases and clauses must
be listed as single items in the dictionary, although at the time of writing there are
no explicit descriptions of English or other languages that handle fixed phrases in
an adequate way. What analysts are more and more certain of is that the number

12

of fixed expressions in English (and other languages) and the frequency with
which they are used by speakers and writers is much greater than anyone
supposed forty years ago.

13

CHAPTER III
CLOSING
A. Conclusion
From the explanation of the previous chapter, here the writer can conclude
that Syntax means sentence construction; how words group together to make
phrases and sentences. Then what is the relationship between syntax and lexical
item?. As we know that syntax is the study of sentence structure, and the sentence
is absolutely formed by words (lexical items), so syntax studies the lexical items
and the lexica items is one of the focus of syntax.
On the next sub discussion in the previous chapter, we can simply say that an
individual verb is the main verb or the verb that is stand alone, while
complements are actually modifiers which typically occur next to the head (but
not always) and which are required or excluded by particular lexical items,
adjuncts are not necessarily next to the head; indeed, they are typically at a
distance from the verb. They are not obligatory. Whereas complements complete
the meaning of the verb, giving it both syntactic and semantic completion,
adjuncts merely provide additional information that could be dispensed with.
There are 6 subclasses of verbs according to Jim Miller, they are transitive
verbs, intransitive verbs, ditransitive verbs, intransitive locational verbs, transitive
directional verbs and copula (linking verbs). Besides, he also stated in his book
that there are at least 5 subclasses of nouns, they are; abstract and concrete nouns,
common and proper nouns, count and mass nouns, animate and inanimate nouns
and human and non-human nouns.
On the last explanation on the chapter two is fixed phrase. There are at least 5
kinds of fixed phrases which are stated by Crystall in her book, The Cambridge
Encyclopedia of The Eglish Language, the fixed phrases are; polywords,
institutionalized expression, highly constraint phrases, sentence builders and
collocations.
B. Suggestion

14

The subdiscussion of syntax can be said as a complicated courses to be

learned, so the writer would suggest to all the readers in order to get a clear
understanding about syntax, it will be much better if we all much read books that
are relevant to this subject and try to explore knowledge and experience about
courses of syntax and doing something new that we never done before related to
syntax.

15

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Tallerman, Maggie (2011). Uderstanding Syntax , UK: Hodder Education.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lexeme, October 20th, 10:03 PM
Miller, Jim (2002). An Introduction to English Syntax, Edinburg:Edinburg University
Press Ltd.
Aarts, Bas (2001). English Syntax and Argumentation, New York:Palgrave.
Marcella, Frank (1972). Modern English-Practical Reference Guide, USA:PrenticeHal Inc.
www.cws.illinois.edu/workshop/writers/massnouns/, October, 21th 2014, 7:54 AM

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