MICROLINGUISTICS:

Syntax,
Semantics, and
Pragmatics
SYNTA
X
 SYNTAX
It is the arrangement of words
and phrases to create well-formed
sentences in a language” and “the
grammatical structure of words and
phrases to create coherent
sentences.” (Muin, F. 2019)
 SYNTAX
 Word Categories
 Content and Function Words
 Constituents and Constituent
Tests
 Ambiguity
 Tree Diagram
 Noun
English is a beautiful language that
Adjectiv Pronou
people around the world speak every
Conjuncti e
day. Itn
helps them share ideas on andAdverb
connect with
others. A good speaker clearly expresses
thoughts,Interjectio
making conversations more
Prepositio
engaging. Wow!
Conjuncti n English can be nfun to
Verb
learn.
on Although it has many rules, students
can master it with practice. They study
adjective
grammar in school and work hard to
improve their skills.
 WORD CATEGORIES
(PARTS OF SPEECH)
noun pronoun adjective
verb adverb conjunctio
n
prepositio interjectio determiner
n n
 CONTENT AND FUNCTION
WORDS
Theses are words used to form syntactical
constructions.
 Content words - nouns, verbs,
adjectives, & adverbs
 Function words - pronouns,
prepositions, conjunctions, determiners,
auxiliary verbs, & modal verbs
 CONTENT FUNCTION
WORDS WORDS
pronouns, prepositions,
nouns, verbs, conjunctions,
adjectives, & adverbs determiners, auxiliary
verbs, & modal verbs

Carry precise lexical Serve as grammatical

meaning functions
 CONTENT FUNCTION
WORDS WORDS
Open-class (new words can Closed-class (new words
be created and added) are rarely added)

Can be stressed in often unstressed in

speech speech
 CONSTITUENTS
A constituent is a group of words which
“belong together” in a sentence.
They are usually coherent by themselves
and make a coherent contribution to
the meaning of the sentence as a whole.
 CONSTITUENTS
TYPES OF CONSTITUENTS
 Noun Phrase (NP)

 Verb Phrase (VP)

 Prepositional Phrase (PP)
 Adverbial Phrase (AdvP)
Noun Phrase (NP) – A group of words
centered around a noun.
Ex. "The big dog" in The big dog barked.

Verb Phrase (VP) – A verb and its

complements or modifiers.
Ex. "is eating an apple" in She is eating an
apple.
Prepositional Phrase (PP) – A
preposition followed by a noun phrase.
Ex. "on the table" in The book is on the
table.

Adverbial Phrase (AdvP) – An adverb

with modifiers.
Ex. "quite quickly" in He ran quite quickly.
 CONSTITUENCY TESTS
✓ability to stand alone
 Substitution test NOTE: Some tests are
not always clear. Some
 Movement test passes some tests but
 Cleft test not all.
 CONSTITUENCY TESTS

SUBSTITUTION TEST
Replace the phrase with a pronoun or
a single word.
Example:

The dog ate the He ate the bone.

bone.
(The dog -> He)
 CONSTITUENCY TESTS

SUBSTITUTION TEST
Replace the phrase with a pronoun or
a single word.
Example:

The dog ate the The dog ate it.

bone.
(the bone -> it)
 CONSTITUENCY TESTS

SUBSTITUTION TEST
Replace the phrase with a pronoun or
a single word.
Example:

The students saw a The students saw it

movie after class. after class.
(a movie-> it)
 CONSTITUENCY TESTS

SUBSTITUTION TEST
Replace the phrase with a pronoun or
a single word.
Example:

The students saw a *The students saw it

movie about honesty. about honesty.
 CONSTITUENCY TESTS

SUBSTITUTION TEST
Replace the phrase with a pronoun or
a single word.
Example:

The students saw a The students saw it.

movie about honesty.
(a movie about honesty ->
it)
 CONSTITUENCY TESTS

SUBSTITUTION TEST
Replace the phrase with a pronoun or
a single word.
Example:

The president of the

He likes to see it.
company likes to
see big profits.
 CONSTITUENCY TESTS

MOVEMENT TEST
Move the phrase to another position
in the sentence.
Example:

The dog ate the The bone, the dog

bone. ate.
 CONSTITUENCY TESTS

MOVEMENT TEST
Move the phrase to another position
in the sentence.
Example:

The president of the Big profits, the

company likes to president of the
see big profits. company likes to
see.
 CONSTITUENCY TESTS

MOVEMENT TEST
Move the phrase to another position
in the sentence.
Example:

Nimra bought a At that strange little

scarf at that strange shop, Nimra bought
little shop. a scarf.
 CONSTITUENCY TESTS
CLEFT TEST
take two parts of a sentence and divide
them from each other [It is/was X
Example: that/who Y]
The dog ate the bone.
NP: It was the dog that ate the
bone.
✓ The dog is a constituent
 CONSTITUENCY TESTS
CLEFT TEST
take two parts of a sentence and divide
them from each other [It is/was X
Example: that/who Y]
The dog ate the bone.
NP: It was the bone that the dog
ate.
✓ The bone is a constituent
 CONSTITUENCY TESTS
CLEFT TEST
take two parts of a sentence and divide
them from each other [It is/was X
Example: that/who Y]
The dog ate the bone.
*
VP: It was ate the bone that the dog
did.
ate the bone is not a cleftable constituent
 CONSTITUENCY TESTS
✓ability to stand alone
 Substitution test NOTE: Some tests are
not always clear. Some
 Movement test passes some tests but
 Cleft test not all.
 AMBIGUITY
Occurs when a sentence or phrase can be
interpreted in more than one way due to
its structure.
Usually happens when the grammatical
arrangement of words allows multiple meanings,
making it unclear which interpretation is correct.
 STRUCTURAL
AMBIGUITY
When the sentence has multiple possible
syntactic structures.
Example:

“She saw the man with a telescope.”

Did she use a telescope to see the man?
Or did she see a man who had a telescope?
 STRUCTURAL
AMBIGUITY
When the sentence has multiple possible
syntactic structures.
Example:

“He watched the man in the park.”

Was the man in the park?
Or did he watch him while he was in the
park?
 STRUCTURAL
AMBIGUITY
When the sentence has multiple possible
syntactic structures.
Example:

“She likes cooking, her family, and her

dog.”
Does she like cooking her family and her dog?
Or does she like three separate things?
 Example: “She saw the man with a
telescope.”
"Using a telescope, she saw the man.”
(Clarifies that she used the telescope)
OR
“She saw a man who was holding a telescope."
(Clarifies that the man had the telescope)
Example: “He watched the man in the park.”

“While in the park, he watched the man.”

(Clarifies that he was in the park)
OR
“He watched a man who was in the park."
(Clarifies that the man was in the park)
 Example: “She likes cooking, her family, and her
dog.”
“She likes cooking, spending time with her family,
and playing with her dog.”
(Clarifies that she is not cooking her family and dog)
OR
“She enjoys cooking. She also loves her family and
her dog."
(Separates the ideas into distinct sentences)
 TREE DIAGRAM
Visual representation of the hierarchical
structure of a sentence. It shows how
words and phrases are organized and how
they relate to one another within a sentence.

Used to illustrate grammatical relationships

and constituency.
 The dog ate the bone.
Sentence (S)
The dog ate the bone
Noun Phrase (NP) Verb Phrase (VP)

The dog ate the bone

Noun (N) Noun Phrase
Article (Art) Verb (V)
(NP)

the bone
Article (Art) Noun (N)
 The dog ate the bone.
S

NP VP

Art N V NP

Th Art N
dog ate
e
the bone.
 The president of the company likes to see big
profits.
S
The president of the likes to see big
company
NP profits
VP
The of the likes to big
president
NP company
PP see
VP profits
NP
preside
The of the company likes to big profits
Art nt
N P NP V see
Inf Adj N
th to
company see
e
Art N P V
The president of the company likes to see big
profits.
S

NP VP

NP PP VP NP

Art N P NP V Inf Adj N

Art N P V
 TREE DIAGRAM
Used to illustrate grammatical
relationships and constituency.
 SYNTAX
 Word Categories
 Content and Function Words
 Constituents and Constituent
Tests
 Ambiguity
 Tree Diagram
SEMANTI
CS
 SEMANTICS
It the study of the meaning of
words, phrases and sentences. In
semantic analysis, the attempt is to
focus on what the words
conventionally mean. (Yule, 2006)
 SEMANTICS
 What is meaning?
 Semantic Features
 Semantic Roles
 Lexical Relations
 WHAT IS MEANING?
meaning refers to the way language conveys
information, ideas, emotions, and
relationships.

Yule (2006) categorized meaning into:

conceptual meaning and associative
meaning
 WHAT IS MEANING?

CONCEPTUAL MEANING
refers to the literal, dictionary definition of
a word

concerned with the core, essential meaning

of a word, independent of personal or cultural
associations.
Ex. needle
"thin, sharp, steel instrument"
 WHAT IS MEANING?

ASSOCIATIVE MEANING
refers to additional meanings that a word
carries beyond its conceptual meaning. It is
influenced by emotions, experiences, and
cultural factors.
Ex. needle
"pain," "illness," "blood," "drugs," "thread,"
"knitting," or "hard to find."
 WHAT IS MEANING?

CONCEPTUAL ASSOCIATIVE
MEANING MEANING
fixed and universal subjective and
influenced by
Ex. Low-calorieexperience

"producing a small may evoke "healthy"

amount of energy"
 SEMANTIC FEATURES
Semantic features are components of
concepts associated with lexical items or
grammatical units.
essential for analyzing and describing the
meaning and relationships between words in a
language.
 SEMANTIC FEATURES

It is usually plus (+) or minus

(−) sign and it indicates the presence or
absence of that property
SEMANTIC FEATURES
 SEMANTIC FEATURES
Ex. The hamburger ate the boy.

This sentence is syntactically good,

but semantically odd
 SEMANTIC FEATURES
Ex. The hamburger ate the boy.

the subject of the verb “ate” must

denote an entity that is capable of
“eating
 SEMANTIC FEATURES
Ex. The hamburger ate the boy.

So, the feature that the noun “boy”

is “+animate” and the feature that the
noun “hamburger” has is
“−animate.”
 SEMANTIC FEATURES

They break down word meanings into

smaller elements.
They also help explain why words can or
cannot be substituted for one another.
 SEMANTIC FEATURES

The table listens to the radio.

The horse is reading the newspaper.
 SEMANTIC FEATURES

The _____ listens to the radio.

The _____ is reading the newspaper.
 SEMANTIC ROLES
Semantic roles describe the
relationship between a verb and the
noun phrases in a sentence.
They capture who is doing what to
whom in an event.
COMMON SEMANTIC ROLES
Agent Location
Patient (Theme) Source
Experiencer Goal
Instrument
1.Agent – The doer of an action.
John kicked the ball. (John = Agent)

2. Patient (Theme) – The entity affected by

an action or receiver of the action.
John kicked the ball. (The ball = Patient)
3. Experiencer – A being that feels or
perceives something.
Mary loves chocolate. (Mary = Experiencer)

4. Instrument – The means by which an

action is performed.
He cut the paper with scissors.
(Scissors = Instrument)
5. Location – The place where an action
happens.
She is in the kitchen. (The kitchen =
Location)

6. Source – The starting point of movement.

She traveled from New York.
(New York = Source)
7. Goal – The endpoint of movement.
He sent a letter to his friend. (His friend =
Goal)
 Dr. Smith diagnosed the patient with a
stethoscope in the hospital after receiving
test results from the lab and prescribed
medicine to the patient.

Source Location Goal

Patient Instrument Agent
(Theme)
Dr. Smith diagnosed the patient with a
stethoscope in the hospital after
receiving test results from the lab and
prescribed medicine to the patient.

Source Location Goal

Patient Instrument Agent
(Theme)
 LEXICAL RELATIONS
the ways in which words are related to each
other in terms of meaning. These relationships
help in understanding the structure of a
language and how words interact.

Synonym Hyponym Homographs

Antonym Homophones Polysemy
 LEXICAL RELATIONS
SYNONYM ANTONYM
have same or nearly have opposite meanings.
the same meaning.

almost/nearly,
big/large, broad/wide, alive/dead, big/small,
buy/purchase fast/slow, happy/sad
 LEXICAL RELATIONS
HYPONYM HOMOPHONES
a specific type of a same sound, different
broader category meaning/spelling

animal/dog, bare/bear, meat/meet,

dog/poodle, vegetable/ pail/pale, right/write
carrot, flower/rose
 LEXICAL RELATIONS
HOMOGRAPHS Polysemy
same spelling, different the same spelling and
meaning, sometimes multiple related
different pronunciation meanings
"Bank“
pupil (at school / in the A financial institution
eye, race (contest of The side of a river
speed / ethnic group) A set of resources
(involve storage/holding)
 SEMANTICS
 What is meaning?
 Semantic Features
 Semantic Roles
 Lexical Relations
PRAGMATI
CS
 PRAGMATICS
It deals with the study of language in
context—how context influences the
interpretation of meaning in
communication that is beyond just the
literal words used.
 PRAGMATICS
 The Speech Act Theory of John L.
Austin
 The Implicature Theory of Herbert
Paul Grice
 The Speech Act Theory of
John L. Austin
(introduced in How to Do Things with Words, 1962)

Language is not just a tool for describing

reality but also for performing actions.
Austin showed that when we speak, we do
more than just state facts.
The Speech Act Theory of John L. Austin

The Three Levels of Speech

Acts
Locutionary Act
Illocutionary Act
Perlocutionary Act
 The Three Levels of Speech
Acts
LOCUTIONAR basic act of saying something
Y with a specific meaning

ILLOCUTIONA intended function or force

RY behind the utterance
PERLOCUTIONA effect the utterance has on
RY the listener
 The Three Levels of Speech
Acts
LOCUTIONAR basic act of saying something
Y with a specific meaning
Ex. It is cold in here

meaning: The speaker is stating that the

temperature is low.
 The Three Levels of Speech
Acts
ILLOCUTIONA intended function or force
RY behind the utterance
Ex. It is cold in here

meaning: It could be a request to close

the window
 The Three Levels of Speech
Acts
ILLOCUTIONA intended function or force
RY behind the utterance
Ex. It is cold in here
meaning:
A request (asking someone to close the
window).
A complaint (expressing discomfort).
An observation (simply stating the fact).
 The Three Levels of Speech
Acts
PERLOCUTION effect the utterance has on
ARY the listener
Ex. It is cold in here
meaning:
The listener closes the window.
The listener gives the speaker a
blanket.
The listener ignores the statement.
 The Three Levels of Speech
Acts
LOCUTIONAR basic act of saying something
Y with a specific meaning

ILLOCUTIONA intended function or force

RY behind the utterance
PERLOCUTIONA effect the utterance has on
RY the listener
 The Implicature Theory of
Herbert Paul Grice
It revolves around the idea that
communication relies not just on literal
meanings but also on inferred
meanings based on context, shared
knowledge, and conversational norms.
The Implicature Theory of
Herbert Paul Grice
1. The Cooperative Principle
2. Conversational Maxims
3. Implicatures: When Maxims Are
Flouted
 1. The Cooperative Principle
"Make your contribution such as is required,
at the stage at which it occurs, by the
accepted purpose or direction of the talk
exchange in which you are engaged."
2. Conversational Maxims
Maxim of Quantity
Maxim of Quality
Maxim of Relation (Relevance)
Maxim of Manner
 Maxim of Quantity
Provide the right amount of information.
Be as informative as required.
Do not provide more information than
necessary.
Ex. "Where is the nearest gas station?”
❌"There are many gas stations in the city. Some
have cheap fuel, others have good service..."
✔️"It’s two blocks away on Main Street."
 Maxim of Quality
Be truthful.
Do not say what you believe to be false.
Do not say things without adequate evidence.

Ex. "Did you see John at the meeting?”

❌”Yes, he was there," (even though s/he knows
John was absent—this is lying.)
✔️”Yes, he was there." (S/he is stating what they
know to be true.)
 Maxim of Relation (Relevance)
Be relevant.
Ensure your contribution is related to the
topic of discussion.

Ex. “What time is the movie?”

❌"I love watching movies, especially action films.
Do you want me to join you?"
✔️"At 7 PM."
 Maxim of Manner
Be clear. Avoid ambiguity.
Be brief and orderly.

Ex. “How do I get to the train station?”

❌"Well, you go down the road, and there’s this
shop... no, wait, maybe you take the third turn?
Actually, just ask someone else."
✔️"Go straight, take the second left, and it’s on
your right."
 3. Implicatures: When
Maxims Are Flouted
Grice argued that implicatures arise when
speakers appear to violate these
maxims, yet the listener still infers a
meaningful message.
 EXAMPLE OF IMPLICATURE
(Flouting Quantity)

A: "How was the movie?“

B: "Well, the popcorn was good.“
(B does not directly say the movie was
bad, but the implication is clear.)
 EXAMPLE OF IMPLICATURE
(Flouting Quality)

A: "How was the presentation?”

B: "Oh, it was fantastic... if you love
falling asleep."
(B uses sarcasm to imply that the
presentation was boring.)
The Implicature Theory of
Herbert Paul Grice
1. The Cooperative Principle
2. Conversational Maxims
3. Implicatures: When Maxims Are
Flouted
 PRAGMATICS
 The Speech Act Theory of John L.
Austin
 The Implicature Theory of Herbert
Paul Grice
References:
 https://ufal.mff.cuni.cz/~hana/teaching/ling1/06-Syntax.pdf
 https://www.researchgate.net/publication/337398275_Chapter_7_SYNTAX
 https://www.academypublication.com/issues/past/jltr/vol02/06/27.pdf
 https://schemantra.com/blog/2023/08/05/semantic-features/
 https://sharifling.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/the-study-of

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