22.1
SYNTAX IS NOT A TAX ON SIN
Don L. F. Nilsen
Arizona State University
Languages and Linguistics Symposium
March 30-31,1977
Sponsored by:
Deseret Language and Linguistic Society
and
Brigham Young University College of Humanities
In conjunction with
Language & Intercultural Research Center
22.2
S'1NTAX IS
rm A TAX 00 SIN*
OON L. F. NILSEN
If "syntax" is not a tax on sin, then exactly
what is it? This paper will be an attempt to
answer that question. The person who knows syntax kn0ws two things about language: 1) its
basic patterns, and 2) ways of transforming
these basic patterns into non-basic patterns. In
Engl ish there are fi ve bas i c patterns ,. depending
on the type of verbal complementation, as follows:
1) intransitive, 2) linking, 3) transitive,
4) doubly transitive with both a direct object
and an indirect object, and 5) doubly transitive
with both a direct object and an objective complement. In any language, there are two types
of transformations, those that act on a single
sentence and have the effect of changing the
focus, the style, the distribution of old and
new information, or the presuppositions of the
sentence without affecting its truth value, and
those that combine sentences together either
coordinately, or subordinately by demoting one
of the sentences into a word, a phrase, or a
dependent clause. If I had kept my original
title I could stop right here, for I have already
given you an oversimplified overview of the
transformational process. But since the new
title is not a complete definition of syntax,
must continue.
The most basic aspect of syntax consists
of the basic patterns in a particular language.
It is not surprising that graffiti writers use
all of the basic patterns of English. The intransitive pattern is very common, as in the
first part of "Money does talk--it says
"Goodbye." The intransitive pattern is also
frequently used with people's names, such as
"Avis Hertz," "Mark Spitz," "Raquel Welched,"
"Mr. Fox Trots,"or"Rin Tin Tin rusted to death."
The linking pattern is also common for graffiti
writers: "The Abominable Snowman is a pussycat,"
or "Jesus was a long-hair--So was Sampson." To
illustrate the graffiti writers' control of
transitive sentences, consider such examples
as "The early bird gets the worm; the early
worm gets the shaft," "Familiarity breeds
contempt ... and chil dren," and "Graffiti foretells the future." There are also examples of
name-graffiti that are based on transitive
constructions such as "Mohammad Ali has feet of
Clay," "John Birch has Dutch Elm Disease," or
"Winston Churchill has a tar and nicotine rating."
The graffiti that are based on double transitives
are usually based on the confusion of the role
of the two complements either as Indirect
Object plus Direct Object, or as Direct Object
plus Object Complement. This confusion is the
basis for the joke "--Call me a taxi. --OK, you're
a taxi," or for the advertisement "Make yourself
a hero at lunch time," with the word hero possibly
meaning a kind of sandwich. From the graffiti
writer we get the dialogue, "--My mother made me
a nervous wreck. --Do you think she'll make me
one too if I bring her the materials?" Sometimes
it's difficult to know the exact role of the
prepositions in basic sentences, and it is because
of this confusion that the graffitist can say
"I'd get a new car for my wife, if anyone would
swap."
Basic sentences can be classified on the
basis of their function, there being three basic
functions of sentences-- 1) To convey information,
2) To request information, and 3) To request
action. The fourth function, that of verbal
stroking, will not be considered here. Let us
first consider those sentences designed to
convey information. All of the graffiti samples
to this point are samples of positive declarative
statements. You can also convey information
with negative declaratives, as in "Wheat germ
is not contagious," "Gentle Ben is not a laxative,"
"Graffiti is not the Italian Minister of Defense,"
or "Atheism doesn't have a prayer." The stress
can also be moved about in a declarative sentence
in ways that will affect the presuppositions of
the sentence. The presuppositions of a sentence
like "John called Marya virgin, and then he
insulted her" are very different than are the
presuppositions of a sentence like "John called
Marya virgin, and then she insulted him," even
though the original statements in these-two
sentences are similar.
The second function of a basic sentence is
to ask for information. Sentences which do
this are called Interrogatives, and can be placed
into three classes, 1) yes-no questions, 2) information questions, and 3) tag questions. Examples
of yes-no questions would be "Do you care enough
to be apathetic?, "Have you ever fallen asleep
with your eyes open?" or "Will someone please
write an intelligent question on this desk?"
As an example of an information question consider
the philosophical question, "How do you wash
a cello?" And for tag questions, consider, "Chickens
have 1ips, don't they," or "Adam and Eve had belly
buttons, didn't they?" Questions can also be
based on people's names: "Was Andy Hardy?" "Can
Rex Reed?" "Have you seen Jim Nasium?" or "Will
Buckley Gore Vidal?"
Commands, or imperative sentences, are
very common among graffiti writers. There are
tautologies, like "Repeal inhibitions!" and
"Legalize freedom!" and ambiguities, like "Keep
off the grass, and pills!" and logical contradic tions, like "Help! the paranoids are after me,"
and "Join male chauvinism!" and some imperatives
that are more logical than·some people would
want to admit, like "Stamp out old age, Smoke!"
And there are many samples of "support" imperatives, like "Support relief for the oppressed
majority!" or "Support Mental Illness: Join
the Ku Klux Klan!" so many in fact that once
the pattern is firmly established, graffiti writers
can ask you to "Support arches." There are also
the first-person plural imperatives like "Let's
put some life in our funerals!" or "Let's put
the "meri" back in America!" Finally, there are
negative imperatives, like "Never make the same
22.3
mistake twice; make a new one!" or "Don't marry
for money; you can borrow it a lot cheaper!"
There are also imperative graffiti based on
names, like "Bury Goldwater!" or "Remember the
alum, Moe!"
We have just seen how the transformational
process can be used to change the nature of a
speech act, by making a sentence interrogative
or imperative rather than declarative. Now
let us look at a few deletion and reduction
transformations. The conditions for deletion
and the conditions 'for reduction (i .e. pronominali. zation) are exactly the same. That is~ we will
delete or pronominalize something under one of
the following four conditions: 1) the information
is redundant, 2) the information is unnecessary
or irrelevant, 3) the information is unknown,
or 4) the information, although it is not redundant, is relevant, and is known, would have
a negative effect on the speaker (such as a law
suit, or loss of friendship). In some cases,
the deletion is required if the information is
redundant, and impossible if it is not. In
"Mary expected John to go to the party," the
word John cannot be deleted, but in "Mary
expected Mary to go to the party," the word
Mary must be deleted because it is redundant.
Graffitists frequently employ deletion transformations. First consider the sluicing transformation.
Just as a gold miner sluices out more and more
of the non-essential crud, the sluicing transformation can do exactly the same thing. Suppose
we start with a sentence like "I realized that
he should have been working, but ... " The conjoined sentence can be any of the following:
or
didn't
didn't
didn't
didn't
expect
expect
expect
expect
him
him
him
him
to have been working
to have been
to have
to
with varying degrees of acceptability. The
graffitist is using this transformation when he
says, "I've heard of trade schools, and I'd like
to." When we form comparative sentences, we
also delete certain information. In the sentence
"She contributed no more to the marriage than
the baby," we don't know whether the baby is the
subject or object of the verb contributed,
because things have been deleted. However, in
the sentence "A spell i ng bee is smarter than a
talking dog" (is smart), the humor is not based
on the ambiguity of deletion of the words "is
smart," but rather is based on the structure of
"spelling bee"--spelling which sounds like a
bee, as opposed to the structure of "talking dog"
--dog which talks. Another kind of deletion is
with pseudo-intransitive verbs. In the sentence
"The bugs are too young to eat," it's difficult
to know whether the bugs are the subject or the
object of the infinitive "to eat." The Direct
Objects of pseudo-intransitive verbs can be
deleted if they are obvious, so that in a sentence
"We like to sing songs," we can delete songs,
because typically, that's the only thing that
one sings. In the expression "The Lord giveth;
the Lord taketh away" the deleted direct object
is everything, and it is on the basis of this
quotation that the graffitist concludes "The
Lord is an Indian giver." It is on the basis
of various deletion transformations that such
graffiti as the following are possible, "George
Washington was the father of our country, and
of three illegitimate children," "I'm a Marxist,
Groucho type," and "Victory in any war won't
determine who's right--only who's left." Sometimes material is recoverable even when the
deleted material does not occur earlier in the
discourse, as in the graffito: "Chicken Little
was right."
But this last example of deletion is not
typical. Usually there must be an antecedant
for either pronominalization or deletion to
occur. There is a clear antecedant, though not
one we would expect, in "Pray to God and She
will help you." The antecedant is less clear
in "H. Rap Brown deserves one," and still less
clear in "Women's lib is OK--I just wouldn't
want my sister to marry one." These last
examples are what Paul Postal has termed "anaphoric islands." He uses a non-sentence like
"John is an orphan and I don't have any either"
to prove that the antecedant of a pronoun must
be in the surface structure (not just in the
deep structure) of a sentence. In my modern
grammar class I asked my students to give me
examples of anaphoric islands, and I got such
jewels as "I went to the library but they didn't
have the one I wanted," "Paul is a widower and
mine died too," and "I went to the dentist but
I didn't get any fixed." Interrogative pronouns
don't need antecedants--they need postecedants
instead, for they are asking for information
that is presumably to follow. Thus the question
"I'm free, white, and 21. Who wants me?"
is answered by another graffiti writer at the
same desk, "Uncle Sam wants you." But rhetorical
questions are also possible: "If the opposite
of pro is con, what's the opposite of progress?"
Transformations not only delete and substitute elements; they also change the relative
order of elements. The expletive transformation,
for example,delays the subject until after the
verb be and puts the word there in front of
be where the subject used~. It will change
asentence like "Too much water is in our chlorine
supply" into "There's too much water in our chlorine supply." This expletive transformation
also results in such graffiti as "There's too
much month left at the end of the money," and
"There are only two ways to handle a woman, and
nobody knows either one of them." Extraposition
is a similar transformation, but is applicable
only with very complex subjects (like infinitives,
gerunds or that-clauses), and the subject is
moved all the way to the end of the sentence
and is replaced by the expletive it rather than
there. It results in such sentences as "It is
better to have loved and lost--much better."
The cleft transformation uses the verb be to cleave
the sentence into two parts, and the relative
pronoun what to begin the sentence. It will
change "Telephones have hang-ups," and "Grumpy
hippies smoke crabgrass," into such possibilities
as "What telephones have is hang-ups," and "What
grumpy hippies smoke is crabgrass," or into "What
have hang-ups are telephones," or "What smoke
crabgrass are grumpy hippies." Inversion transformations are not uncommon among graffiti writers.
-,
22.4
There is a sign on a bar which uses a kind of
passive construction: "Danger, getting blasted
area," and we are told that Marijuana is not a
question of "Hi, how are you," but rather one
of "How, hi are you?" Of course this last
example was not collected at BYU.
The final function of transformations to be
discussed here is to join sentences together in
various ways. They can be joined coordinately
as in "One swallow does not a surrmer make, but
Humpty Dumpty makes a great fa 11 ," "There's no
fool like an old fool; you just can't beat
experience." "Alcohol is man's worst enemy,
but the Bible says to love your enemies," and
then there is the name graffito, "Irrmanuel Kant,
but Kubullah Kahn." The graffitist must know
about the conjunction process or he would not
have been able to have said, "The only way to
stop smoking is to stop--no ifs, ands, or butts."
There are many ways of conjoining sentences
subordinately. The comparative construction
is one way, as in "It's normally warmer in the
summer than in the country;" or a subordinate
conjunction can be used as in "Due to a shortage
of trumpeteers, the end of the ~lor1d has been
postponed for three months;" or "If you feel far
from God, guess who moved." But the four most
common ways are through the use of the relative
clause, the infinitive, the that-clause, the
gerund or the participial conjunctions. We can
see the relative clause transformation at work
in such graffiti as "What this teacher lacks
in depth, he makes up for in length," "The
family who smokes together, chokes together,"
"A home where the buffalo roam is messy," "He
who doesn't pass the buck is a miser," or
"When guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have
guns." The infinitive transformation can be
seen in "Never to have made a mistake is a
mistake," or "Hit and run means never having to
say you're sorry." The that-clause transformation can be seen in "I went on a drinking diet
for 21 days, and all that I lost was 21 days,"
or "Remember,gir1s, that the way to a man's
heart is through the left ventrical." And the
gerund transformation can be seen in "Love's
not just in the making, but in the knowing,"
or "Studying causes cancer." Present participial
constructions can be seen in "A fox, an ape, and a
bumb1 ebee, were sti 11 at odds, bei ng but three,"
or "The government is expanding to meet the
needs of an expandi ng government." And a past
participle transformation can be seen as having
formed "A watched boy wi 11 never pot."
Probably the most frequently used combining
transformation is based on the pattern "Old
soldiers never die; they just fade away." Once
this pattern is established, we can apply our
knowledge of transformational grarrmar and slotfiller replacements to get such new structures
as "Old blondes never fade, they just dye away,"
"Old burglars never die, they just steal away,"
"Old mail men never die, they just lose their
zip," "Old piano players never die, they just
lose their tinkle," and the one that is most
appropriate for the members of this audience,
"Old teachers never die, they just lose their
class."
The ultimate result of the sentence combining
process is the complete discourse. Following is
a disc9urse dialogue which I'll use to end my presentation with.
--Love is of God
--God?
--Yes, God.
--Well, I'll be damned.
--Probably.
*This paper was originally entitled, "The Transformational Process: An Oversimplified Overview;"
however, since the paper is scheduled for the
"Language Pedagogy" session, an important
educational principle crossed my mind--Good teaching goes from the known to the unknown. I
therefore decided to attempt to discover what
students already know about syntax, by looking
at samples of their graffiti, and to present
this knowledge as part of my paper. The paper,
then, with its revised title, will be an attempt
to present what students (at least some students)
know about syntax (as reflected by their graffiti),
in contrast to what they should know to be effective
cOl11llunicators.
I