This chapter provides an introduction to syntactic structure and how it is represented by tree diagrams. It begins (2.1) with an account of the Merge operation by which words can be combined together to form phrases, and phrases combined together to form clauses. It then goes on to examine the nature of heads, complements and specifiers (2.2), and the nature of projections (2.3). Next (2.4), it outlines eight ways of testing syntactic structure, before turning to look at how hierarchical structure (and the relation c-command) plays a central role in the description of phenomena like the licensing of polarity items (2.5) and the binding of anaphors (2.6). It also briefly touches on the possibility of developing a theory of bare phrase structure, and of treating syntactic structures as inherently unordered, with linearisation taking place in the phonological component. The chapter concludes with a summary (2.7), and a set of bibliographical notes (2.8). Accompanying free-to-download materials include a Workbook for students, and an Answerbook and set of PowerPoints for teachers: each of these contain a separate set of materials for each core section of the chapter.

In this chapter, we show that the well-formedness of each phrase depends on its internal and external syntax. The pivotal daughter element is the head, which determines what expressions may accompany it as its syntactic sisters. We observe that a grammar with simple phrase-structure rules raises two important issues: endocentricity (headedness) of a phrase and redundancies in the lexicon. To resolve these two issues, generative grammar has introduced X’ rules, including three key combinatorial rules: head-complement(s), head-specifier, and head-modifier. These rules ensure that each phrase is a projection of a head expression, while recognizing the existence of intermediate phrases (X’ phrases). X’ syntax captures the similarities between NPs and Ss by treating these phrase types in a uniform way. The grammar we adopt in this book (SBCG) follows this direction by using a fine-grained feature system to describe the syntactic and semantic properties of both simple and complex signs. This chapter introduces the basic feature system that we will use in describing the English language. We also examine the patterns of semantic-role expression called argument-structure patterns.