Chapter 9 Syntax

Chapter nine focuses on syntax which deals with the structure and ordering of components within a sentence. The chapter begins by discussing a rather novel approach to syntactic analysis which was inspired by the great linguist Noam Chomsky. Chomsky takes a mathematical approach to the structure of language in which there is an explicit formula that will produce well-formed sentences; this is otherwise known as generative grammar. I especially enjoyed the section of the chapter that discussed structural ambiguity. It is amazing how a set of words in the same order can convey completely different meanings. I also found the breakdown of simple sentences to be very interesting. I never put much thought into the analysis of the sentences I use everyday. A simple sentence such as “I will go to the store tomorrow” will probably consist of several constituents that can themselves be broken down into smaller elements. I found this chapter to be helpful because it will serve to increase my writing skills through analysis of my sentence structure.