| Despite the possibility of exceptions (partially illustrated in the last chapter) it is basically the syntactic structure of the sentence that indicates the author’s intent in using it: declarative, interrogative, or imperative. In order to characterize a particular sentence as one of these syntactic classes the linguist must know something of the order of its component lexicological and phrasal elements. We discuss the most important components in the next chapter. The present chapter describes some of the most important lexitactic rules involved in the formal analysis of the syntax of a sentence. (For a pretheoretical description of English syntax see the basic grammar on this site: Basic Grammar of English. Be aware, however, that its treatment of clauses is confined almost exclusively to the final chapter.) |