Description
Book SynopsisThis book takes apart and problematises the whole process of identifying and explaining the patterning of words in sentences. It brings together two concepts - syntax and text - that are normally treated separately, and shows how they can best be understood in relation to each other. Part 1, Processing the text, concentrates on getting texts ready for syntactic analysis. Since the data needs to be mediated through the processing of the text, the nature of that processing and its effects on subsequent analysis need to be made explicit. Part 2, Analysing the clause, introduces the relevant syntactic phenomena and the sorts of concepts normally used to explain them. It shows how many of the assumptions of traditional syntactic analysis derive from the languages which form the basis of the European tradition, and that different languages require the so-called "basic categories" of syntactic analysis to be rethought. Part 3, Theorising syntax, sketches the range of syntactic theories available for the "consumer". It gives a sense of developments in the field over the last 50 years not just in terms of the usual "schools", but by picking up on concepts such as the key complementarity between syntagmatic and paradigmatic to characterise the emphases and biases of different theories.
Table of ContentsPreface Part I: Processing the Text 1. Meaning and Structure 2. Processing the Text 3. Linear Sequence and Structural Order 4. Identifying Syntactic Units 5. Bracketing and Labeling Part 2: Analysing the Clause 6. Constituency and Dependency 7. Identifying Clause Functions 8. Analysing Function Structures 9. Words, Groups and Phrases 10. Combining Clauses 11. Information Flow 12. Full Words and Empty Words Part 3: Theorising Syntax 13. Delimiting Syntax 14. Theorising Syntactic Relations (i): case 15. Theorising Syntactic Relations (ii): transitivity 16. Modelling Syntactic Patterning (i): syntagmatic approaches 17. Modelling Syntactic Patterning (ii): paradigmatic approaches 18. 'Doing Syntax:' aims and applications Afterword
