Overview

“Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.” (Chomsky). This sentence is nonsense, but it is grammatically correct. Syntax is the structure, not the meaning.

Core Idea

Generative Grammar: The brain has a finite set of rules that can generate an infinite number of sentences. You can understand a sentence you have never heard before.

Formal Definition (if applicable)

Recursion: The ability to put a sentence inside a sentence. “I think that [he knows that [she said that…]]”. This is what makes human language unique (arguably).

Intuition

  • Tree Diagrams: Sentences aren’t strings of beads; they are trees.
    • S (Sentence) -> NP (Noun Phrase) + VP (Verb Phrase).
    • “The cat” (NP) + “sat on the mat” (VP).

Examples

  • Word Order:
    • SVO (Subject-Verb-Object): English (“I eat apples”).
    • SOV: Japanese (“I apples eat”).
    • VSO: Irish (“Eat I apples”).
  • Ambiguity: “I shot an elephant in my pajamas.” (Did I shoot him while I was wearing pajamas, or did I shoot an elephant who was wearing my pajamas?). Syntax explains why both are possible.

Common Misconceptions

  • “Grammar is about not ending sentences with prepositions.” (That’s prescriptive grammar—etiquette. Syntax is descriptive grammar—how people actually speak).
  • “Animals have syntax.” (They have communication, but mostly lack recursion and hierarchical structure).
  • Universal Grammar (UG): The theory that all humans are born with a blueprint for language.
  • Constituency: Groups of words that stick together.

Applications

  • Compilers: Programming languages have strict syntax.
  • AI: Parsing sentences to understand commands.

Criticism / Limitations

Is Universal Grammar real? Some linguists argue language is learned purely from input, without an innate blueprint.

Further Reading

  • Chomsky, Syntactic Structures
  • Adger, Core Syntax