Syntax : GRAMMATICAL FUNCTIONS

GRAMMATICAL FUNCTIONS

A paper

Presented to fulfill the requirement the task of Syntax

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

1. Background of study

We have seen that in a given clause the verb can be regarded as the head, controlling the other major phrases. Two sets of concepts bear on the relationship between the verb in a clause and its complements; one is the set of grammatical functions or grammatical relations, that is, subject, direct object, indirect object/second object and oblique object, and the other is the set of roles such as Agent and Patient.

The first three terms used to be familiar to anyone who studied any of the foreign languages normally offered in British schools – French, German, Spanish, Latin, Russian. They are in constant use in grammars of languages from every part of the world and have been deployed for centuries in the study of European languages, yet it turns out to be far from straightforward to define the concepts, and it has yet to be determined whether they apply to languages which differ greatly from English in their grammar.

B.     Problem formulation

In this paper, the writers have some problem formulation, its are:

1.      What is the meaning of grammatical function?

2.      What are the subject of grammatical function?

3.      What are the examples of grammatical function types?

4.      What are the meaning of oblique object and indirect object of grammatical function?

C.    Purpose of Study

According to the problem formulation, the writers have some purpose of study, such as:

1.    To know the meaning of grammatical function.

2.    To know the subject of grammatical function.

3.    To know the examples of grammatical function types.

4.    To know the meaning of oblique object and indirect of grammatical function.

  

CHAPTER II

DISCUSSION

A.    The definition of grammatical function

The syntactic role played by a word or phrase in the context of a particular clause or sentence. Sometimes called simply function.In English, grammatical function is primarily determined by a word's position in a sentence, not by inflection (or word endings). See Examples and Observations, below.

"The production and interpretation of an utterance act is anchored to the constitutive parts of language: syntax, morphology, phonology, semantics and pragmatics. While syntax is composed of structural units, for instance constituents in traditional grammar, phrases in functional grammar and generative grammar, groups in systemic functional grammar or constructions in construction grammar, it is the linear ordering of the individual parts within a hierarchically structured sequence which constitutes their grammatical function. The adverb really, for instance, realizes the grammatical function of a sentence adverbial with wide scope if positioned initially or finally, as is the case in the utterance really, Sarah is sweet. If the adverb really is positioned medially, it is assigned the grammatical function of the adverbial of subjunctive with narrow scope, as in Sarah is really sweet. Or, the proper noun Mary can realize the grammatical function of object in Sally kissed Mary, and it can realize the grammatical function of subject in Mary kissed Sally. Thus, it is not the grammatical construction as such which is assigned a grammatical function. Rather, it is the positioning of a grammatical construction within a hierarchically structured sequence which assigns it a grammatical function."

B.     The subject of grammatical functions

The most complex grammatical function is that of subject. Consider the example in (1).

(1) The tigers hunt prey at night.

Tigers precede the verb. It agrees with the verb in number, as becomes clear when it is made singular: The tiger hunts its prey at night. In the active construction, it is never marked by any preposition. The corresponding full passive clause is Prey is hunted by the tigers at night; in the passive clause, the subject of (1), the tigers, turns up inside the prepositional phrase by the tigers.

"The above criteria--agreement in number with the verb, never being preceded by a preposition, occurring in the by phrase in the passive--are grammatical, and the noun they pick out in a given Clause is the grammatical subject of that clause."

(1) The tigers hunt prey at night.

Tigers precedes the verb. It agrees with the verb in number, as becomes clear when it is made singular: The tiger hunts its prey at night. In the active construction, it is never marked by any preposition. The corresponding full passive clause, you remember for the last presentation about construction is the relative general patterns that recur in a given language. So Prey is hunted by the tigers at night; in the passive clause, the subject of (1), the tigers, turns up inside the prepositional phrase by the tigers.

The above criteria – agreement in number with the verb, never being preceded by a preposition, occurring in the by phrase in the passive – are grammatical, and the noun they pick out in a given clause is the gram-metical subject of that clause. Tigers have another interesting property it refers to the Agent in the situation described by (1). Many analysts consider that tigers refers to the Agent in the passive sentence too, although it is inside the by prepositional phrase and at the end of the sentence. They call tigers the logical subject, by which is meant that in either syntactic construction tigers denotes the Agent. That is, its role in the situation does not change.

Other analysts maintain that in the passive sentence tigers no longer denotes the Agent but rather the Path by which the action reaches and affects the prey. Such arguments lead us into a very old and unresolved controversy as to whether language corresponds directly to objective reality or whether it reflects a mental representation of the outside world. For the moment, we put this controversy aside; but it will return (possibly to haunt us) when we take up the topic of roles. All we need do here is note the assumptions that lie behind the notion of logical subject, and to understand that in any case the grammatical subject NP in an active construction of English typically denotes an Agent. This follows from the fact that most verbs in English denote actions.

A third type of subject is the psychological subject. In (1), tigers are the starting point of the message; it denotes the entities about which the speaker wishes to say something, as the traditional formula puts it. Example (1) is a neutral sentence: it has a neutral word order, and the three types of subject coincide on the NP tigers. Psychological subject and grammatical subject need not coincide. In This prey tigers hunted, the psychological subject is this prey. (It is what was called ‘topic’ in (7d) in Chapter 3 on constructions.)

In contemporary linguistic analysis, the notion of psychological subject has long been abandoned, since it encompasses various concepts that can only be treated properly if they are teased apart. Again, the details need not concern us. What is important is that in sentences such as (1) the grammatical subject noun phrase typically denotes the Agent and typically denotes the entity which speakers announce and of which they then make a prediction. It is the regular coincidence of grammatical subject, Agent and psychological subject in English and other languages of Europe that makes the notion of subject so natural to native speakers and to analysts. Here, we take the grammatical criteria to be the most important and explore them further. Consider the examples in (2).

(2)        a. Fiona hoped to meet the Prime Minister.

b. Susan intends to reach Kashgar.

c. Arthur tried to bake a cake.

All these examples contain infinitive phrases: to meet the PM, to reach Kashgar, to bake a cake. As was discussed in Chapter 7, such infinitives are nowadays regarded as non-finite clauses, one of their properties being that they have understood subjects: for example, Fionais the understood subject of meet the PM; Fiona is, so to speak, doing the hoping and Fiona is the person who is to do the meeting, and similarly for Susanin (2b) and Arthurin (2c).The infinitive meet in (2a) is dependent on the main verb hoped, and the grammatical subject of the main verb, Fiona, is said to control the under-stood subject of the infinitive.

In the sentences in (2), the main verbs have only one complement, the infinitive. In the examples in (3), the verbs have two complements, a noun phrase and an infinitive.

(3)        a. Fiona persuaded Arthur to bake a cake.

b. Susan wanted Jane to study German.

In (3a, b), the verbs persuaded and want dare followed by a noun phrase, Arthurand Jane, and then by an infinitive phrase. These infinitive phrases too have understood subjects controlled by the noun phrases Arthurand Janeto the right of the verb; Arthur underwent the persuasion and did the baking; Jane was the target of Susan’s wishes and was to do the study-ing. Suppose we expand (3a) to include the ‘missing’ constituents:

(3a) Fiona persuaded Arthur: Arthur to bake a cake.

Suppose we relate the infinitive to a finite clause: Arthur baked a cake. The path from the finite clause to the infinitive involves deleting a constituent; the affected constituent is always the grammatical subject of the non-finite clause, which is why analysts see the subject as pivotal to the infinitive construction.

The sentences in (4) exemplify a different construction.

(4)        a. Ayala went to the ball. Ayala chatted to Jonathan Stubbs.

b. Ayala went to the ball and chatted to Jonathan Stubbs.

The two sentences in (4a) yield the single sentence in (4b) by the ellipsis of the grammatical subject, Ayala, in the second sentence. Only the grammatical subject can be elliptic. Example (5a) cannot be converted into (5b) by the ellipsis of the non-subject Ayalain the second sentence.

(5)        a. Ayala went to the ball. Jonathan Stubbs chatted to Ayala.

b. *Ayala went to the ball and Jonathan Stubbs chatted to.

It does not matter whether the grammatical subject NP denotes an Agent, as is demonstrated by the combining of active and passive sentences in (6).

(6)        a. Ayala went to the ball. Ayala was chatted to by Jonathan Stubbs.

b. Ayala went to the ball and was chatted to by Jonathan Stubbs.

In this construction, too, the grammatical subject is pivotal, in the sense that it is a grammatical subject that is omitted on the way from the (a) to the (b) examples. Furthermore, the understood subject of the second clause in (4b) and (6b) is controlled by the initial grammatical subject.

A third construction in which the grammatical subject NP is central is exemplified in (7).

(7)        a. All the Tringles came to Merle Park.

b. The Tringles all came to Merle Park.

c. Both Jane and Elizabeth were at home.

d. Jane and Elizabeth were both at home.

In (7b), the word all is part of the noun phrase all the Tringles. That noun phrase is the subject, and all can ‘float’ out of the NP to a position next the finite verb, as in (7b). Similarly, both can be part of the subject noun phrase as in (7c) but can float to the same position, as in (7d).

Only subject NPs allow all and both to float. In (8a), all is part of the non-subject phrase all the foxes and cannot float to the left of the finite verb, as shown by the unacceptable (8b), nor to the right, as in the un-acceptable (8c). Nor can both in (8c) and (8d).

(8)        a. Larry Twenty man hunted all the foxes.

b. *Larry Twenty man all hunted the foxes.

c. *Larry Twenty man hunted the foxes all.

d. George built both the houses.

e. *George both built the houses.

f. *George built the houses both.

As with the missing subject in the conjoined clauses in (5) and (6), quan-tifiers can float out of subject noun phrases in both active and passive clauses, as shown by (9a, b).

(9)        a. All the foxes were hunted by Larry Twenty man.

b The foxes were all hunted by Larry Twenty man.

One final property of grammatical subjects is worth mentioning, namely that just as subjects control the understood subjects of non-finite clauses, so they control the interpretation of reflexive pronouns inside single clauses. This is shown in (10), where Augusta and she refer to the same woman called Augusta.

(10) Augusta blamed herself for what happened

In the above discussion, we have talked of grammatical subject noun phrases as having particular properties, but to talk in this way is to take the notion of grammatical subject for granted. We present the state of affairs more accurately if we say that in English various properties attach to noun phrases: denoting an Agent, specifying the entity the speaker wishes to say something about, acting as the pivot of various constructions (coordination, infinitives, both and all floating, reflexives), being involved in person and number agreement with the finite verb. In the neutral active declarative construction of English, these properties converge on one NP, which is accorded the title of grammatical subject.

As the discussion of psychological subject showed, the properties do not always converge on one noun phrase. The psychological subject of (11) is these documents, which does not agree with is in number and person and is not the grammatical subject.

(11) These documents Elizabeth is checking at this very moment.

One property must be added to the list. It is not relevant to English (apart from the pronoun system) but it is central to other Indo-European languages such as Russian. The property is that of taking nominative case, as exemplified in (12).

(12)      a. Ivan tolknul Mashu (‘Ivan – pushed – Masha’)

b. Masha tolknula Ivana (‘Masha – pushed – Ivan’)

In (12a), Ivan is in the nominative case (as the traditional formula puts it) and Mashu is in the accusative case. In (12b), Masha is in the nominative case and I vana is in the accusative case. Analogous changes only show up in the pronouns in English, as in I pushed him and He pushed me.

We conclude this discussion of subject by listing the relevant proper-ties and by pointing out that the list employs concepts that were import-ant for the discussion of constructions in Chapter 3 and of word classes in Chapter 4. In our examination of constructions, in particular the idea of constructions forming a system, we appealed to the concept of a basic construction, which was [DECLARATIVE, ACTIVE, POSITIVE]. This basic construction allows the greatest range of tense, aspect, mood and voice (see Chapters 12 and 13 on grammar and semantics); instances of this construction are the easiest to turn into relative or interrogative clauses; they take the greatest range of adverbs. They are semantically more basic than other clauses; in order to understand, for example, Kate wasn’t helping and Was Kate helping?, it is necessary to understand Kate was helping.

The list of properties that we are to establish relates to the basic construction. In the discussion of word classes, we distinguished between syntactic and morpho-syntactic properties. Subjects have the following major properties:

Syntactic properties:

• Control of reflexives, as in (10)

• Control of all and both floating, as in (7) and (9)

• functioning as pivot in infinitives and coordinate constructions, as in

(3), (4) and (6).

Morpho-syntactic properties:

• being involved in person and number links with the finite verb

• being in the nominative case.

There are two semantic properties. One is simply that grammatical subjects typically refer to Agents. The second is that they refer to entities that exist independently of the action or state denoted by the main verb, whereas there are many verbs whose direct objects does not have this property (see section 8.3 below on direct objects.) For example, in Skilled masons built the central tower in less than a year the direct object, the central tower, denotes an entity that does not exist independently of the action for the simple reason that it is created by the activity of building. Note that the passive clause The central tower was built by skilled masons in less than a year does not contradict what has just been said. The central tower is certainly a subject and denotes the entity created by the building activity, but the passive construction is not basic.

C.    The Grammatical Functions of Direct Objects

Direct objects the concept of direct object is as widely used as that of subject and has just as long a tradition. Nonetheless, it took turns out to be elusive. As with grammatical subject, it is possible to provide criteria for direct objects in English, but the criteria do not necessarily carry over to other languages. Keeping to the [ACTIVE DECLARATIVE] construction, we can say that in sentences such as the NP following the verb is the direct object. "In traditional grammatical descriptions, the grammatical function borne by her in the English example in has sometimes been called the 'indirect object,' and the book has been called the 'direct object':

1.      He gave her a book.

The phrase the book is also traditionally assumed to be the direct object in examples like (42):

2.      He gave a book to her.

The classification of the book as a direct object in both examples may have a semantic rather than a syntactic basis: there may be a tendency to assume that the book must bear the same grammatical function in each instance because its semantic role does not change. View differs: in example 1, the phrase her bears the OBJ function, while in example 2, the phrase a book is the OBJ.

"Within the transformational tradition, evidence for the LFG classification for English came from certain formulations of the rule of passivization, which applies uniformly to 'transform' an object into a subject."

D.    Oblique object and indirect object

Recent work in syntax deploys the concept of oblique object; in English, any noun phrase that is the complement of a preposition is an oblique object, where the prepositional phrase is itself the complement of a verb. In 19, to Onegin, to Egil say and for Jane are oblique objects.

(19)      a. Tatiana wrote to Onegin.

b. Magnus went to Egilsay.

c. Frank bought a piano for Jane.

Phrases such as to Onega in used to be analyzed as containing indirect object nouns, but this concept of indirect object is problematical. Grammars of English would merely refer to verbs such as tell, say, show and give,  which occur in the construction V NP1 TO NP2or V NP2NP1: compare Celia gave the car to Ben vs Celia gave Ben the car, where the car is NP1andBenis NP2. The indirect object was said to be the noun phrase preceded by to, and the relevant verbs were either listed individually or divided into classes labeled ‘verbs of saying’, ‘verbs of giving’ and so on in order to avoid the label ‘indirect object’ being assigned to phrases such as to Dundeein He went to Dundee.

In fact, it is difficult to separate indirect objects from adverbs of directions. It is sometimes suggested that the two can be distinguished on the grounds that indirect object NPs contain animate nouns, whereas adverbs of place contain inanimate nouns denoting countries, towns and other places. If this were correct, we would expect inanimate nouns not to occur immediately to the right of a verb such as sentin (20) and (21).

(20)      a. Lucy sent a letter to Isadore.

b. Lucy sent Isadore a letter.

(21)      a. The Government sent an envoy to China.

b. (*)The Government sent China an envoy.

It has been suggested that (21b) is not correct, but the fault is semantic and not syntactic. Example (21b) has the interpretation that a person is sent to China so that China can use him/her as an envoy. This is a rather unusual situation – at least out of context, (21b) seems odd. The oddness can be removed by substituting different lexical items, as in (22). (22) The company sent China its senior mining engineers to help plan the new mines.

Example (22) presents China not just as a geographical area but as a body that is to benefit from the engineers. With the appropriate interpretation, then, an inanimate noun can occur to the right of the verb. Another suggestion is that indirect objects can occur immediately to the right of the verb but not immediately to the right of genuine adverbs of direction. (Genuine adverbs of direction would not include Chinain (22).) This suggestion is correct, but it still fails to distinguish indirect objects, because an indirect object noun cannot always occur immediately to the right of the verb, as shown by (23).

(23)      a. *The experts attributed Raphael this picture.

b. *I forwarded Winifred the letter.

c. *The manager presented the foreman a gold watch.

d. *Kick John the ball.

e. *Monica hit Martina the ball.

f. *The critics ascribe Shakespeare this play.

The particular examples in (23) have been tested on many classes of students at all levels. Some have accepted some of the examples, especially (23b), but the vast majorities have not accepted any of them. Other evidence that attacks any clear distinction between indirect objects and adverbs of direction is presented in (24)–(25), which illustrate certain syntactic patterns common to indirect objects and adverbs of direction. The first shared property is that both can occur in WH interrogatives with the preposition to at the end or beginning of the clause.

(24)      a. Who did John send a book to?

b. To whom did John send a book?

(25)      a. What place did you travel to?

b. To what place did you travel?

Another property in common is that both can occur in active interrogative WH clauses with to omitted, but not in passive WH interrogatives.

(26)      a. Who did John send the book?

b. What place did John send the book?

(27)      a. *Who was the book sent by John.

b. *What place was the book sent by John?

Indirect objects and adverbs of direction can occur at the front of clauses preceded by only. In such constructions, the preposition to cannot be omitted – compare the indirect object in (28) and the adverb of directions in (29).

(28)      a. Only to the best students would he give this book.

b. *Only the best students would he give this book.

(29)      a. Only to Glasgow would he go by train (because the service is fast).

b. *Only Glasgow would he travel by train.

The same applies to the cleft construction in (30) and (31), where the indirect object to the best students in (30) and the adverb of direction to Stromnessin (31) are preceded by it is.

(30)      a. It is to the best students that he gives this book.

b. *It is the best students he gives this book.

(31)      a. It is to Stromness that he is going.

b. *It is Stromness that he is going.

There is one difference (concealed by the use of what place in (25)): indirect objects are questioned by who…to or to whom, but adverbs of direction are questioned by where. However, this is one difference to be set against a number of similarities, and it could in any case be argued that the difference does not reflect a syntactic category but a difference in the sorts of entities that are the end point of the movement, where being reserved for places, who for human beings. The analysis indicated by the above data is that we cannot maintain the traditional concept of indirect object as the to phrase with verbs such as give and show and that all verb complements introduced by a preposition should be treated as one category, namely oblique objects. The concept of indirect object is not dead, however. Some traditional analyses applied it to, for example, the phrase to Harrietin (32) and to the phrase Harrietin (33).

(32) Emma gave advice to Harriet.

(33) Emma gave Harriet advice.

The label ‘indirect object’ is useful for Harrietin (33). It can be declared to reflect the fact that while Harrietis an object – compare Harriet was given advice by Emma– it is felt by many analysts to be less of a direct object than advice, even though advice in (33) is not next to the verb.

  

CHAPTER III

CONCLUSION

Three major relationships hold between verbs and their complement nouns (and noun phrases) – subject, direct object and oblique object. There are languages in which the concept of subject cannot be easily applied, but in many languages one noun, the grammatical subject, is closely linked to the verb in a clause. The subject noun and the verb are linked in number (in English) and in person and number in other languages. The subject noun controls the interpretation of infinitives and reflexive pronouns; in Emma wanted to help Harriet, help is traditionally described as having an understood subject which is identical with the subject of wanted, namely Emma. In Emma despised herself, the reflexive pronoun herself is interpreted as referring to Emma. Grammatical subject nouns typically, though not always, denote Agents and they are typically first in clauses, thereby being the starting point of the messages conveyed.

Direct object nouns, in English, immediately follow the verb in the active declarative construction and correspond to the grammatical subject of passive clauses – Fiona phoned John vs John was phoned by Fiona. In languages with sets of case suffixes (see Chapter 12), grammatical subject nouns take one set of case suffixes and direct object nouns another. In Indo-European languages, these are nominative for subject and accusative for direct object. Oblique objects are nouns that are complement to a preposition, as in (spoke) about music and (sent the letter)to the manager. In examples such as gave a present to Bill, with verbs such as give, show, and tell, to Bill was traditionally called the indirect object. Since these are very difficult to distinguish from directional phrases, the notion of indirect object has been abandoned in favors  of oblique object but has been kept for the construction with three noun phrases, as in Emma gave Harriet advice.