Syntax examines how words come together to form sentences and is important for understanding grammar. Linguists are descriptivists who create rules based on how people actually speak. Word order is a key aspect of syntax, with different languages having different rules. Syntax also covers parts of speech and helps prevent run-on sentences and incomplete ideas.
Syntax looks at the rules of a language, especially how various parts of sentences go together. While similar to morphology, which examines how the smallest meaningful linguistic units, called morphemes, form into complete words, syntax examines how fully formed words come together to make complete, intelligible sentences. Understanding the syntax of a language is important for understanding what makes a sentence grammatically correct.
The purpose of the syntax
Linguists and grammarians who study syntax aren’t necessarily prescriptive, which means they don’t try to tell people how to form a sentence “correctly”. Rather, they are descriptivists, in that they look at how people actually speak and then create rules that describe what a speech community considers grammatical or ungrammatical. Syntax deals with a number of elements, all of which help to facilitate understanding through language. Without rules, there would be no foundation by which to discern meaning from a bunch of words thrown together; while these rules allow for a virtually infinite number of sentences.
Word order in the construction of language
Perhaps the most important aspect of syntax is how the various parts of speech relate to each other. Every language has rules governing where certain types of words can be used in a sentence and how to interpret the resulting sentence. A new language learner needs to understand how this word order is structured, which can be difficult for someone used to a different language.
In English, the basic order is “Subject-Verb-Object”; this means that in a simple sentence, the first noun sentence is the subject and the next predicate includes the verb sentence and can contain an object. This allows English speakers to understand that in the sentence “The boy kicked the ball”, the “boy” is the subject, and therefore the one who kicks, while the “ball” is the object that is kicked. If someone wrote the sentence “The ball kicked the boy”, the meaning would be reversed in a somewhat strange way, and “The ball kicked the boy” would immediately be recognized as a violation of the basic syntactic order and read as nonsense.
However, not all languages follow the same order. In Spanish, for example, word order is more flexible in most cases and serves to shift the emphasis of a sentence rather than its meaning. Similarly, adjectives in English usually precede the word they describe, while they come after the word described in languages like French.
Parts of speech
Another aspect of syntax covers the various parts of speech used by a language and separates the words of the language into these groups. Each part of speech in turn has various rules that can be applied and other rules that determine when it cannot be used. For example, English makes use of nouns, verbs, adjectives, and other types of words, while different languages may not have a separate class for adjectives or may use classes not found in English. Thai, for example, doesn’t distinguish between adjectives and adverbs, while Japanese has different types of words that serve as adjectives.
Run-Ons and incomplete sentences
By understanding the correct syntax, speakers and writers know how sentences should be broken down. When two or more sentences are improperly combined into one sentence, it usually creates a “run-on.” Similarly, a sentence that does not contain a complete syntactic idea, such as “Swim quickly to the shore”, is considered incomplete. Understanding the rules of language enables speakers and writers to communicate ideas effectively to others.
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