SyntaxSyntax, a word many people would have heard before, but do many of you actually understand what syntax is and how important it is to the actual existence of our language?
Syntax is important to language as it governs the correct structure of our clauses, phrases and sentences. It is essentially a list of rules that sentences should follow in order for them to make sense. If syntax didn't exist then words could be thrown into sentences in any order, for example: The sentence "Words need order to make sense" could become: "Need words sense make order to" which doesn't make any sense." Another element of language are phrases and their construction which is also an element of syntax, sentences are made up of smaller components called phrases, there are many different types of phrases, including:
For any sentence to make sense it must contain at the very least a noun phrase and a verb phrase, anything that doesn't contain at least a noun phrase and a verb phrase is known as a fragment, and is considered to be bad English. |