How to Identify Syntax

Syntax consists of the rules and structure of natural spoken and written languages. Nouns, verbs, adjectives and tenses are all parts of syntax. They way different parts of a sentence are put together varies between languages and dialects. Each natural language has its own unique rules for syntax. They may be difficult to identify if you have never had an in-depth look into your language's grammar or studied another language.

Difficulty:

Moderately Challenging

Instructions

1. Identify the parts of speech. Before you can really begin to identify the syntactic structure of a language, you need to understand the parts that make up a language. Most people studied these in grade school and it will quickly come back if you've forgotten. Every word in every language is a part of speech. Go through paragraphs and try to identify each word as a noun, verb, adverb and conjunction.

2. Identify the inflection of words within a sentence. Inflection is the way a word is changed to carry different meanings. In English, verbs and nouns are the most commonly inflected parts of speech. The verb "to know" can be inflected to indicated who and when. "You know" and "they knew" are simply different inflections of the same verb. Similarly, any noun in English can be in a singular or plural form. Other languages can be more or less inflected than English. In Spanish, adjectives are also inflected according to gender and in Russian nouns are inflected to indicate gender, tense, and case. Identify the inflection of a word by asking yourself what is the root word, and what does the form it has taken on tell you about its meaning. Identify the inflections of the following sentence: Maria loves to paint flowers.The verb loves is in the present tense and refers to a third person, Maria.The verb "paint" remains in its infinitive, or dictionary form. The noun "flowers" is in the plural form.Look for these inflections and others in languages you speak or are learning. Once you can identify the inflections of a language, building your own sentences becomes much easier.

3. Identify word placement in a sentence. Once the parts of speech and inflections are identified, they must be arranged in a coherent manner. Each language has its own rules of syntax that dictate how sentences flow together. In English, every sentence has a subject and a predicate, a noun and a verb. Adjectives always precede nouns like the words "red plate," whereas in Spanish the adjectives follow nouns, "plato rojo." In English, adverbs can go either before or after a verb like "stomping loudly" or "loudly stomping" but never without a verb, like in "loudly shoes." These are just some examples of the syntactic structure of the English language. Read sentences and paragraphs in your target language and see if you can pick out the rules of sentence structure. Once you understand a good deal about a language's parts of speech, inflections and sentence ordering you'll have begun identifying the syntax of that language.