| IV. SYNTAX Syntax is the study of how words go together to form sentences. Or syntax is the branch of grammar dealing with the arrangement of words as elements in a sentence to show their relationship to one another. The study of syntax covers the phrases, clauses, and sentences. 4.1 Phrase Phrase is a group of words that fill the syntactic function (slot) in a sentence. Another definition of phrase is a unit composed, potentially, of two or more words, but which does not have the characteristics of a clause; and which typically, but not always, fills slots on the clause level (Elson,1976:73). Another definition by Warriner (1977) says a phrase is a group of related words that is used as single part of speech and does not contain a verb and its subject. Based on the meaning of the phrase and its constituents, phrases can be classified into endocentric and exocentric. The endocentric phrases can be classified into attributive (subordinative), coordinative, and appositive. And the exocentric can be divided into directive, connective, and predicative. Based on the class or part of speech, phrases can be divided into noun phrase, verb phrase, adjective phrase, adverb phrase, and pre(post)positional phrase. A noun phrase is a phrase that has the head belonging to noun. The attributive endocentric noun phrase can have several attributes such as a noun as in 'father's book' and 'stone house', a possessive such as 'my mother', a verb such as 'flying bird', an adverb such as 'yesterday newspaper', an adjective such as 'beautiful lady', a demonstrative such as 'that book', a numeral such as 'ten horses', etc. When both words in the phrase act as the head such as in 'father and mother', it is called a coordinative noun phrase. In a coordinative phrase both constituents are noun and both are head. The structure of the noun phrase of English is different from that of Indonesian in that the attribute consisting of the adjective and/or the possessive in Indonesian are/is placed after the head while in English the other way around. Notice the phrase in Indonesian 'payung saya' in English 'my umbrella', and 'gadis cantik' in Indonesian in English 'beautiful girl'; both 'saya' and 'cantik' come after the noun, but in English both 'my' and 'beautiful' come before the noun, that is, modifier + head (M+H). In Indonesian it is H + M such as in 'rumah besar' and 'rumah batu'. The phrase of Marind (a language in Merauke) also has M+H such as in 'yaba sah' (big snake); 'yaba' means big and 'sah' means snake. Most of the languages in Irian Jaya when the modifier is a noun usually the order is M+H, but when the modifier is an adjective the order is just the same as that in Indonesian (H+M) except in Marind. The possessive as the modifier is also usually comes before the head, except in Kamoro (Purba, 2000), for instance, in Ekagi 'aniya oa' (rumah saya) where 'aniya' means 'my' and 'oa' means 'house'. Nevertheless, notice 'payung saya itu' cannot be translated 'that my umbrella*' or 'my that umbrella*', it must be 'that umbrella of mine'. When we describe the structure of a noun phrase we should explain the order of the constituent in a long noun phrase and the position of various attribute. In Indonesian for instance one of the long phrase is 'kalung emas saya yang mahal itu'. The order of words in an Indonesian noun phrase is the head (noun) followed by attributes: numeral (usually before the head), possessive, adjective, verb, and demonstrative, such as 'isteri saya yang cantik itu', 'perempuan jelek yang berbaju merah itu'. The order of words in an English noun phrase is demonstrative, numeral, adjective (if there is colour, it must be immediate before the head), possessive, prepositional phrase, such as 'that beautiful girl near the window', 'those two ugly wives of mine near the window', The attributes that can be used in a noun phrase is quantifier (two, many), descriptive (good, black), possessor (your, mother's), demonstrative (this, those), specifier or limiter (the, a, one), identifier (clause following the head: who, which), classifier (in Indonesian: sebutir, buah, bidang), and verbs (gunung berapi, rumah roboh, pohon tumbang, kapal terbang, orang bertopi). A verb phrase is a phrase with a verb head or a phrase that functions as a verb. These are some examples, 'come early', 'often come late', 'just came', 'run fast', 'died suddenly', etc. Besides showing time, manner, frequency, and place, the modifiers of a verb phrase can be showing reciprocality (fight each other), comparison (eat like a pig), tool (cut he tree with an axe), and accompaniment. Warriner (1977) divides verbal phrases into three: participial phrase, gerund phrase, and infinitive phrase. Participial phrase consists of a participle and the related words, such as modifiers and complements, all of which act together as and adjective; e.g. 1) Approaching the curve, the truck slowed down, 2) I could see Frank sitting three seat away, 3) I heard him practicing his trumpet. A gerund phrase consists of a gerund together with its complements and modifiers, all of which act together as a noun; e.g. 1) Looking at the clock is a bad habit, 2) She dislikes gossiping about one's friends, 3) He avoided detection by changing his name. An infinitive phrase consists of an infinitive together with its complements and modifiers; e.g. 1) as a noun: To lay down a good bunt is very difficult; 2) as an adverb: This kind of book is hard to read rapidly; 3) as an adjective: She wants to be the captain. Those that can be used as the modifiers of verb are negator (not), aspects (already, still), modals (should), adverbs of frequency (always), quality (very, enough), adverbs of manner (slowly), and limitation (only). A prepositional or postpositional phrase is a phrase that consists of the relator and the axis. The phrase 'in Jayapura' for instance consists of the relator 'in' and the axis 'Jayapura'. Other examples are 'in the garden', 'from the river', 'to school', 'at home', etc. This phrase is sometimes called relator axis phrase, or directive axis phrase or orienter focus phrase. In English and Indonesian we call it prepositional since the relator comes first, while in some languages such in Japanese and Non Austronesian languages the relator comes after the axis, example: Japanese: Watashi wa gokko e iku. 'I go to school.' I s.maker school to go axis relator Batak Karo, one of languages in North Sumatera, has prepostpositional; example: Nande enggo reh i juma nari. mother already come in field from 'Mother has come from the field.' An adjective phrase is a phrase that functions as an adjective that is modifying the noun, such as 'very good', 'too high', 'smart enough', 'rather stupid', 'not good', 'too bad', etc. in English, and 'lebih baik', 'sama baik', 'paling baik' in Indonesian. 4.1.1 Endocentric A phrase is called endocentric when the form class of the constituents is similar to the form class of at least one of the ICs. Here similar means that the two ranges of privileges of occurrence largely overlap. It means that one the constituents can replace the whole. An endocentric construction involving an attribute is attributive or subordinate; one with no attribute is coordinate. A construction which is not endocentric is exocentric, such as in the garden and visit Bill. |