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Syntax I

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  1. Hello everyone,
    As the moderator I want to welcome you all to our online discussion. This forum hopefully will be a great place for us to share our ideas about our interesting subject, SYNTAX.

    Best.

    Syariful

    Comment by smuttaqin | October 13, 2009 |

  2. Hello everyone,

    As the elaboration of our next meeting, there are at least four parts of speech that can be the head of a structure of modification. They are Noun, Verb, Adjective, and Adverb. we have discussed what can modify Noun. Can anyone explain how a verb can be the head?

    Thank you.
    Best.

    Comment by smuttaqin | October 13, 2009 |

    • A verb can be a head in a strusture of modification if followed by adverb (of time, manner, place).
      For example: She works slowly.

      Deka Alifianul(0610330013)

      Comment by dekaalif | October 15, 2009 |

    • This is my comprehension about this chapter
      I’m sorry if i make mistakes.

      verb can be as a head if a verb is followed by adverb but we also have to pay attention of the word orders in the sentence. I can conclude that:
      1. verb can be as a head if the adverb follows it immediately
      example: she walks slowly

      2. it comes before the verb
      examples: he suddenly goes

      3. it is between auxiliary and verb, or between two auxiliaries
      example : I will still wait
      it will sometimes be needed

      Comment by dian budiarti | October 21, 2009 |

  3. Verb can be head if the modifier is adverbial clause, for example: She talks loudly

    Comment by zialr | October 19, 2009 |

  4. verb can be head if it comes after adverb of frequency.
    for example: We usually come at 9.00 am

    Comment by deviee | October 22, 2009 |

  5. Hy everyone…
    I am still a bit confused about structure of complementation.
    Could you explain in brief What kinds of verbs that can be marked as a complement in sentence.

    Thx.

    Comment by erydwicahyani | October 22, 2009 |

    • Verb that can be complement in a sentence is in form of past participle. In our book, the example is: They considered the job FINISHED.

      Comment by 903n | October 22, 2009 |

    • Hi ^^
      according to my understanding about structure of complementation
      I think structure of complementation consists of phrasal verb.
      For instance:
      1. I’m interested in dancing.
      I can say that interested is always followed by preposition ‘in’ only. it is never followed by preposition at, on, or others.

      2. I enjoy listening to the radio.
      I think there are 2 structures of complementation on that sentence. first, ‘enjoy listening’. it is because ‘enjoy’ always followed by gerund, not infinitive. The second one is ‘listening to’. there’s no listening ‘at’ or listening ‘on’.

      Comment by dian budiarti | November 4, 2009 |

  6. From the information I read in our ‘BLUE’ book, verb can be modified by:
    1. Noun
    e.g. He WALKS this way.
    2. Verb. It may be the present participle form in {-ing} or the infinitive (to + base form)
    e.g. The boy CAME running
    They SIT to read
    3. Adjective
    e.g. The dog WENT crazy
    4. Adverb. It can be put on before or after the head.
    e.g. She DRIVES quickly.
    He seldom SPEAKS.
    5. Prepositional phrase
    e.g. My grandmother LIVED in the village.

    Comment by 903n | October 22, 2009 |

  7. Hi everyone,
    Is there anyone who wanna give brief explanation about appositive?
    I still confuse about it.

    Comment by 903n | October 23, 2009 |

    • Hi ^,^
      Well, appositive in my opinion is a noun or pronoun which explain the words before it. It always puts after the words which will clarify. The appositive is usually marked by comma ‘,’ before and after it.(i’m sorry if i’m wrong. i hope Mr.Syaiful will clarify this in class.)
      For example:
      1. Henry II, son of Geoffrey of Count Anjou and Matilda of Normandy, was the first king of House of Plantagenet.
      ‘son of Geoffrey of Count Anjou and Matilda of Normandy’ is an appositive of Henry II. It explains or clarifies further information about Henry II.

      2. Jakarta, the capital city of Indonesia, becomes very crowded each year.
      ‘the capital city of Indonesia’ is the Appositive of Jakarta.

      Comment by dian budiarti | November 4, 2009 |

      • Well, appositive in my opinion is a noun or pronoun which explain the words before it. It always puts after the words which will clarify. The appositive is usually marked by comma ‘,’ before and after it.(i’m sorry if i’m wrong. i hope Mr.Syaiful will be clarified this in class.)
        For example:
        1. Henry II, son of Geoffrey of Count Anjou and Matilda of Normandy, was the first king of House of Plantagenet.
        ’son of Geoffrey of Count Anjou and Matilda of Normandy’ is an appositive of Henry II. It explains or clarifies further information about Henry II.

        2. Jakarta, the capital city of Indonesia, becomes very crowded each year.
        ‘the capital city of Indonesia’ is the Appositive of Jakarta.

        Comment by dian budiarti | November 4, 2009

    • hi nggun,
      i think Appositive is noun, noun phrase, or noun clause which follows a noun or pronoun and it renames or describes the noun or pronoun. Apposition is always located close to the noun or pronoun that described. When the appositive occurs in a phrase, the modifiers in the phrase modify the appositive, not the original noun.
      for example:- Mawar,my old friend is a smoker.
      my old friend is the appositive of mawar.
      In the style of language, Apposition is very useful because it can be used to reduce the words that are not needed and add the appropriate information in a sentence. (www.flyersxpress.net/FreeGuide2Maki)
      for example:
      Phineas T. Barnum was a great American showman. Barnum was near death in 1891 when a New York newspaper asked if he’d like to have his obituary published while he could still read it. (two sentence)

      Become…
      Phineas T. Barnum, a great American showman, was near death in 1891 when a New York newspaper asked if he’d like to have his obituary published while he could still read it. (one sentence)

      Comment by lindam0myji | December 10, 2009 |

    • Based on http://englishplus.com/grammar/00000022.htm, an appositive is a noun, noun phrase, or noun clause which follows a noun or pronoun and renames or describes the noun or pronoun. A simple appositive is an epithet like Alexander the Great. Appositives are often set off by commas.

      Example: We visited the home of Harriet Beecher Stowe, the author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin.
      (The underlined portion is the appositive.)

      Comment by nurf4rah | December 23, 2009 |

    • hii anggun…

      An appositive is a noun or noun phrase that renames another noun right beside it. The appositive can be a short or long combination of words. for example:
      1. The insect, a cockroach, is crawling across the kitchen table.
      2. The insect, a large, hairy-legged cockroach that has spied my bowl of oatmeal, is crawling across the kitchen table.
      in the first example the appositive is “a cockroach”, and the second example the appositive is “a large, hairy-legged cockroach that has spied my bowl of oatmeal”. the different appositives between first and second example is in the second example more descriptive about the object ( a cockroach)

      The important point to remember is that a nonessential appositive is always separated from the rest of the sentence with comma(s).
      1. When the appositive begins the sentence. For example:
      A hot-tempered tennis player, Robbie charged the umpire and tried to crack the poor man’s skull with a racket.

      2. When the appositive interrupts the sentence. For example:
      Robbie, a hot-tempered tennis player, charged the umpire and tried to crack the poor man’s skull with a racket.

      3.And when the appositive ends the sentence. For example:
      Upset by the bad call, the crowd cheered Robbie, a hot-tempered tennis player who charged the umpire and tried to crack the poor man’s skull with a racket.

      Comment by nad08 | December 27, 2009 |

  8. Hi ^,^
    Well, appositive in my opinion is a noun or pronoun which explain the words before it. It always puts after the words which will be clarified. The appositive is usually marked by comma ‘,’ before and after it.(i’m sorry if i’m wrong. i hope Mr.Syaiful will clarify this in class.)
    For example:
    1. Henry II, son of Geoffrey of Count Anjou and Matilda of Normandy, was the first king of House of Plantagenet.
    ’son of Geoffrey of Count Anjou and Matilda of Normandy’ is an appositive of Henry II. It explains or clarifies further information about Henry II.

    2. Jakarta, the capital city of Indonesia, becomes very crowded each year.
    ‘the capital city of Indonesia’ is the Appositive of Jakarta.

    Comment by dian budiarti | November 4, 2009 |

    • Dian you said that appositive always puts after the words which will be clarified.but i think it is possible to put it before the words. for example if i change your example above :
      The son of Geoffrey of Count Anjou and Matilda of Normady,Henry II, was the first king of House of Plantagenet.

      The capital city of Indonesia, Jakarta, becomes very crowded each year.
      What do you think?

      Comment by eigar | November 11, 2009 |

  9. Hi, since we do not learn Chinese box in class. could you please give me a brief explanation how to make Chinese box in the sentence:
    They are washing machine.
    For the sentence is ambiguous, so how can we make the Chinese box of that sentence?
    Could someone explain about perspective and descriptive learning of English?
    Thanx for your help
    I do appreciate it,,

    Comment by dian budiarti | November 4, 2009 |

    • all right, I’m mirza fajrin, let me try to answer your question. to my understanding, Chinese box is almost similar to tree diagram. when we have an utterance, we should consider its category whether it’s noun, adjective, verb, and adverb. we have to put it up into the proper bracket. for instance, A BEAUTIFUL GIRL IS STANDING NEXT TO ME. in the beginning, you have to bracket the the whole parts of the sentence. then, recognize that sentence consists of two big elements NP and VP. (a beautiful girl) is NP, (is standing next to me) is VP. after wards, each of phrase divides into a another smaller parts, NP includes a determiner, adjective, and noun, Each of which is given another separated bracket, and so on. THAT’S IT

      Comment by faj4r | November 10, 2009 |

    • Here is my understanding of making Chinese box based on what I read in our hand book page 294-297:
      1. Each of syntactic boxes contains not one but usually two smaller boxes. So, every words must be put in a box. then,

      ——–
      ‘ HEAD ‘

      Comment by 903n | December 3, 2009 |

    • Here is my understanding of making Chinese box based on what I read in our hand book page 294-297:
      1. Each of syntactic boxes contains not one but usually two smaller boxes. So, every words must be put in a box. then,

      ——– ————
      ‘ HEAD ‘ –> ‘ MODIFIER ‘
      ——–

      Comment by 903n | December 3, 2009 |

  10. all right, let me try to answer your question. Chinese box is similar to tree diagram. it is rather difficult. the use of Chinese box is categorized into the class of word, please decide whether it is noun phrase, verb phrase, and so other. then, each of which should be considered what they belong. for instance, a beautiful girl is standing next to me,a beautiful girl belongs to NP which consists of article, Adjective, and noun, afterward each of single among a, beautiful, and girl should be put in different small box. then, the entire NP also put in the bigger box and so on. the most important one the whole words of the utterance should be put a biggest box. After that, consider the categories. I think, that’s it about all.

    Comment by faj4r | November 4, 2009 |

  11. 1. good evening people, I am mirza fajrin, Does anyone know the difference between OBJECT and COMPLEMENT? because as far as I recognize, both are much alike. could you describe them briefly? thank you.

    Comment by faj4r | November 4, 2009 |

    • 1# Adam saw the monkey.

      2# Adam saw the monkey jumping.

      In both #1 and #2, “monkey” is object.

      In #2, jumping is object complement, because describes the object “monkey”.

      So, to answer your question, a verb acts on the object, and complement describes the object.

      http://www.englishforums.com/English/ObjectAndComplement/cndmq/post.htm

      Comment by eigar | November 18, 2009 |

      • hi mirza,this is marlinda,..
        i think Object is the receiver of the action what the Subject do, for example: I hit the ball (the ball is the object)
        and the Complement is use to explain about the subject or the object, for example like in eigar’s example “jumping” is complement which describes the object, or we usually call object complement..

        Comment by lindam0myji | December 3, 2009

    • Hi,

      A complement describes a verb’s argument (subject or object) more closely:

      1. Sir George is a knight. (Subject complement)
      2. The Queen made Sir George a knight. (object complement)

      Notice that you can put “a knight” in the object slot, in 2.:it can be “The Queen made a knight of Sir George.”

      then,, it is possible to read sentence 2. in such a way that “a knight” is, in fact, the object of the sentence. In that case, “Sir George” gets demoted from direct object of the sentence to indirect object of the sentence. The meaning of the sentence changes quite drastically. It now means: The Queen made a knight for Sir George.
      So, in summary, the sentence # 2 could mean: “a The Queen (Subject) made Sir George (direct object) a knight (object complement.”

      Comment by renggaerlinawati | December 1, 2009 |

  12. Hi everyone…
    Can somebody explain to me about Transformational Grammar, because I’m confuse with that concept

    Comment by zialr | November 12, 2009 |

    • Transformational-generative Grammar,

      a system of language analysis that recognizes the relationship among the various elements of a sentence and among the possible sentences of a language and uses processes or rules (some of which are called transformations) to express these relationships. For example, transformational grammar relates the active sentence “John read the book” with its corresponding passive, “The book was read by John.” The statement “George saw Mary” is related to the corresponding questions, “Whom [or who] did George see?” and “Who saw Mary?” Although sets such as these active and passive sentences appear to be very different on the surface (i.e., in such things as word order), a transformational grammar tries to show that in the “underlying structure” (i.e., in their deeper relations to one another), the sentences are very similar. Transformational grammar assigns a “deep structure” and a “surface structure” to show the relationship of such sentences. Thus, “I know a man who flies planes” can be considered the surface form of a deep structure approximately like “I know a man. The man flies airplanes.” The notion of deep structure can be especially helpful in explaining ambiguous utterances; e.g., “Flying airplanes can be dangerous” may have a deep structure, or meaning, like “Airplanes can be dangerous when they fly” or “To fly airplanes can be dangerous.”

      http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/602647/transformational-grammar

      Comment by eigar | November 18, 2009 |

  13. In David Crystal’s book, I’m a bit confuse about the Deep and Surface structure. From the book I conclude that Deep structure is the meaning of the word and Surface structure is the form of the word, but I’m not quite sure about my conclusion, can anybody explain more about these terms?

    Comment by zialr | November 12, 2009 |

    • hi huda,…
      Like filsa said that the Surface structure corresponds to the actual spoken sentence and the Deep structure underlies meaning of the sentence.
      i read from one source that Deep structure cannot disappear, it is UNDERLYING STRUCTURE. It’s the result of “merge”. How do you generate the sentence “John was killed”? By generating this one >> “somebody killed John” >> this sentence is the DS. Then by transformations you arrive to the Surface Structure.

      The process of merging is this >>

      1) John + kill
      2) John + kill + inflection
      3) John + kill + inflection + someone

      (The original tree has undergone “transformations”)

      As this is not possible, we cannot say it, pronounce it, phonology requires “transformation”, so movement occurs and we reach the Surface Structure.
      (WordReference.com)

      Comment by lindam0myji | December 14, 2009 |

  14. From Wikipedia source, I try to explain transformational grammar in brief. Deep structure is a theoretical construct that seeks to unify several related structures. For example, the sentences “Pat loves Chris” and “Chris is loved by Pat” mean the same thing and use similar words. Some linguists, in particular Noam Chomsky, have tried to account for this similarity by positing that these two sentences are distinct surface forms that derive from a common deep structure. Deep structure is transformed by a sequence of tree rewriting operations (“transformations”) into surface structures.
    Deep structures regards as representing meanings and surface structures as representing sentences expressing those meanings

    Comment by erydwicahyani | November 19, 2009 |

  15. Well, I will try to answer only your second question about prescriptive and descriptive approach in learning English. I don’t have any idea about Chinese box at all. But I recommend you to ask Anggun to help you because she has learnt it from our friends in Pak Lalu’s class.
    Well, in learning English, we have two approaches, descriptive and prescriptive.
    # Descriptive approach:we study and describe about what the
    speakers say in their daily language. E.g. *I didn’t see nobody
    It should be = I didn’t see anybody.
    The first sentence is wrong gramatically because it
    has double negative meanings, didn’t and nobody.
    However,it can be accepted by the native speakers who
    ignore the grammatical error. It depends on their
    region, education level, society, informal situation,
    etc.
    # Prescriptive Approach: we study what the speakers should
    say.
    E.g. * I cannot eat nothing
    It should be = I cannot eat anything.
    It doesn’t matter what the background of the speakers are. All the speakers should follow the grammatical rules to speak correctly.
    That’s my answer. I hope it can help you… *_*

    Comment by nurf4rah | November 23, 2009 |

  16. Hi everyone,…
    Can you explain to me what differences between constituent and phrase,those already discussed in class but i’m a bit confuse

    Comment by lindam0myji | November 26, 2009 |

    • hi marlinda,,,
      i’ll try to answer your question, hopefully it will help you….
      constituent is a word or a group of words that functions as a single unit within a hierarchical structure.

      then,phrase(noun phrases, verbal phrases, etc.) are usually constituents of a clause, but clauses may also be embedded into a bigger structure. For example, in the clause “I didn’t hear what you said,” the subordinate clause “what you said” is embedded into the main clause and is syntactically its object; this can be demonstrated by substituting the pronoun “it” for the subordinate clause “what you said”; the result of this substitution is the clause “I didn’t hear it.”…@_

      Comment by renggaerlinawati | December 10, 2009 |

    • Based on wikipedia.com, a constituent is a word or a group of words that functions as a single unit within a hierarchical structure. Then phrases (noun phrases, verbal phrases, etc.) are usually constituents of a clause, but clauses may also be embedded into a bigger structure.
      For example, in the clause “I didn’t hear what you said,” the subordinate clause “what you said” is embedded into the main clause and is syntactically its object; this can be demonstrated by substituting the pronoun “it” for the subordinate clause “what you said”; the result of this substitution is the clause “I didn’t hear it.”
      I hope you understand the explanation above…

      Comment by nurf4rah | December 23, 2009 |

  17. hi,,,everybody,,

    I’ve read from wikipedia, that noun-phrase can make use of an apposition structure. can you explain more about that????

    Comment by renggaerlinawati | December 1, 2009 |

  18. zialr,i think that
    the Surface structure corresponds to the actual spoken sentence and the Deep structure underlies meaning of the sentence. the single deep idea can be expressed in many different Surface Structures.
    Examples: Boy loves Girl (deep structure).
    The boy kissed the girl (surface structure).
    kiss is the complex part of love..
    ^^
    literature bgt…

    Comment by filsa89 | December 8, 2009 |

  19. could you tell me, how to differ NP and adjP..? let me give you an example : – a beautiful girl, what does it belong to?

    Comment by slij | December 9, 2009 |

    • i think NP and adjP is depend on the place for example if a beautiful girl is in the beginning sentence so it can be called NP because in the pattern of tree diagram the beginning utterance is called NP

      Comment by rizkafm | January 5, 2010 |

  20. (mirza) people. I’m really terrible in dividing words into its position whether it is head or modifier. Does anybody know on how to identify two of them? because it’s almost similar to one another. e.g. study English immediately, which one is the modifier? what phrase does it belong to? thank you.

    Comment by faj4r | December 9, 2009 |

    • in my opinion, to decide which is the head or modifier, we have to make a tree diagram or Chinese box.
      study -> head
      English and immediately -> modifier
      study -> verb
      English -> N
      immediately -> adv..
      so, the example of your sentence called VP because the head is V..

      Comment by slij | December 26, 2009 |

  21. could you tell me, how to differ NP and adjP ? let me give you an example : a beautiful girl.
    what does it belong to ?

    Comment by slij | December 10, 2009 |

    • Based on what I have read in our red book given by p.Syarif, I think we can differ that adjP exist within the branch of NP. For example, A BEAUTIFUL GIRL

      Comment by nurf4rah | December 17, 2009 |

      • I’m sorry, I pressed the wrong tombol so my previous explanation was cut.
        Well, a beautiful girl
        det adj N
        adj P
        hERE, det+adj P+N are included in NP.
        sO, adj P can exist within NP

        Comment by nurf4rah | December 17, 2009

  22. In our discussion in class, we tend to use a complete sentence as an example. Then how about a phrase such as ‘go home’ or ‘listen to me’? Can we analyze it with TG?

    Comment by zialr | December 10, 2009 |

    • I’ll try to answer your question.
      if we look to the syntactic component of the grammar.
      it is stated that the sequence is:

      Phrase structure–>Insertion of lexical items–>Deep structure–>Transformational rules–>Surface structure

      So, I can conclude that if we want to analyze the phrase, definitely we can use the phrase structure to analyze it.

      Comment by rismahardiyanti | December 27, 2009 |

  23. In many examples that given in the class, we tend to use positive sentence. How about negative sentence? because I got difficulties to analyze it

    Comment by zialr | December 10, 2009 |

    • hi zialr,,, as far as I know from our discussion in class, I get the point that negative sentence includes surface structure.
      then, if we want to transform it into the positive sentence, we can apply the deletion.

      For example, “I don’t like carrot”, then it will be “I like carrot” in the positive form (deep structure)by omitting the negative sign.

      Comment by rismahardiyanti | December 27, 2009 |

  24. hi,,,,can anyone help me.,,please???
    i little bit confuse with the surface structure….in our discussion….and also filsa’s answer in zialr’s question….?????@@@??????

    Comment by renggaerlinawati | December 10, 2009 |

    • little bit u said?
      i’m blank
      hehehheeh
      help us please,by answering rengga’s question…

      Comment by filsa89 | December 11, 2009 |

      • Filsa….i’m also confuse with your explanation,about kiss and the part of love,..what do you mean????

        Comment by lindam0myji | December 14, 2009

  25. i’m still confuse about transformation in negative sentence….
    can anyone explain n give example?? thx ^^

    Comment by anggarda22 | December 10, 2009 |

    • uumm…
      hi prita.., I’ll try to answer your question.
      do u mean the transformational process from negative sentence to the positive one?
      If so, then we apply the deletion.
      let me give u the simple example:
      “I do not have a brother” (surface structure), then we omit “do not” so that it changes to the deep structure, “I have a brother”.

      If anyone has more information about that, just tell us..
      Thanks

      Comment by rismahardiyanti | December 18, 2009 |

    • hi anggarda,,I’ll try to answer yourquestion,,,
      This transformation may be used with any of the sentence patterns. To create the negative transformation
      A. with a verb of being as the main verb: Add not to the verb.
      example: bobby is my dog, is original sentence sentence
      bobby is not my dog, is negative transformation
      B. with an action or linking verb that has an auxiliary verb (have or be): Add not to the verb
      example action verb:the dog is eating the bone (is=aux, eating=action. it is the original sentence
      so, the dog is not eating the bone. it is the negative transformation.
      hopefully it can help you,,,,@_

      Comment by renggaerlinawati | December 21, 2009 |

  26. i read about labelled bracketing,it is a method just like tree diagram but it is easier to understand…
    somebody can you explain more about this method?

    Comment by filsa89 | December 11, 2009 |

    • hi filsa rahmantiko…
      Labelled bracketing is a representation of the constituent structure of a string, as a word or sentence, comparable to a tree diagram, in which each constituent is shown in brackets and given a subscript grammatical label, with each bracketed item corresponding to a node in a tree diagram.
      Bracketing is always accompanied by the indication of the syntactic category of the phrasal constituent (e.g. Noun Phrase, Verb Phrase, Relative Clause) enclosed between brackets.

      You can see an example of labelled bracketing on :https://www.msu.edu/course/lin/401/fs07-s3/constituency.pdf

      Comment by adindaramadhany | January 1, 2010 |

    • hai filsa, i just try to answer your question. Bracketing is always accompanied by the indication of the syntactic category of the phrasal constituent (e.g. Noun Phrase, Verb Phrase, Relative Clause) enclosed between brackets, and the labelled bracketing representation encodes the same information as a tree structure but presents it linearly.
      for further information please look
      http://www.ilc.cnr.it/sparkle/wp1-prefinal/node6.html

      Comment by rizkafm | January 5, 2010 |

  27. hi filsa,,
    Labeled bracketing is a way of representing the structure of an expression by writing square brackets (‘[' and ']‘) to the left and right hand side of its component parts, i.e. words or constituents. The brackets carry subscripts, so-called labels, which state the category of the unit in question
    (http://www.glottopedia.de/index.php/Labeled_bracketing )

    Comment by nad08 | December 12, 2009 |

  28. hi guys….
    i have read about transformational rules. it takes a branch of the tree away from one part of the tree diagram, and attach it to a different part.
    can u help me to explain clearly?? and give me the example.
    does it change format of tree diagram?? are there any movements???
    thanx….

    Comment by oktavia21 | December 14, 2009 |

  29. hi guys….
    i have read about transformational rules. it takes a branch of the tree away from one part of the tree diagram, and attach it to a different part.
    can u help me to explain clearly?? and give me the example.
    does it change format of tree diagram?? are there any movements???
    thanx….

    Comment by oktavia21 | December 14, 2009 |

  30. hi guys,,

    i’m going to give a simple explanation about transformation on negative sentence.

    firstly, you have to know the definition of transformation of sentences.
    it is the nature of the sentences can be changed without changing the meaning of the sentences.
    (http://www.english-for-students.com/Transformation-of-Sentences.html)

    then, you will know how to do transformation on negative sentence.
    The negative sentence is usually changed into a affirmative sentence by removing word ‘not’
    (see example 4 in the same web page)

    e.g.:
    • Negative: I was not sure that it was you.
    (when you change it to an affirmative one, you just remove word ‘not’ and replace the opposite word)
    • Affirmative: I was doubtful whether it was you.

    thank you
    AHDA

    Comment by sinho3589 | December 17, 2009 |

  31. hi guys,,

    i’m going to give a simple explanation about transformation on negative sentence.

    well,
    the easy way is you can change the negative sentence into the affirmative one.

    for the clear explanation, visit (http://www.english-for-students.com/Transformation-of-Sentences.html)

    thank you
    AHDA

    Comment by sinho3589 | December 17, 2009 |

  32. Asslamu’alaikum, every body….
    In our class on Thursday Dec 18, I saw in P. Syarif’s slides about extraposition, expletive, and whiz deletion. In slides, it has the examples but I could not understand it. Any one can explain them clearly?? Thanks b4.

    Comment by nurf4rah | December 17, 2009 |

    • Definition

      hii farah….
      Extra position is the process or result of moving an element from its normal place to a place at the end or near to the end of a sentence.
      Example:
      The plumber arrived who we had called earlier. (who we had called earlier has been extra posed from its normal position after plumber.)
      (http://www.sil.org/LINGUISTICS/GlossaryOfLinguisticTerms/WhatIsExtraposition.htm )

      expletives are words that perform a syntactic role but contribute nothing to meaning[1]. Expletive subjects are part of the grammar of many non-pro-drop languages such as English, whose clauses normally require overt provision of subject even when the subject can be pragmatically inferred (for an alternative theory considering expletives like there as a dummy predicate rather than a dummy subject based on the analysis of the copula in the list of references cited here). Consider this example:

      “It is important that you work hard for the exam.”

      Whether or not it is a pronoun here (and linguists today would say that it is one), English is not Latin; and the sentence was and is fully acceptable to native speakers of English and thus was and is grammatical. It has no meaning here; it merely serves as a dummy subject. (It is sometimes called preparatory it or prep it, or a dummy pronoun.)
      ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expletive )

      Deletion is a linguistic process by which a sound present in its underlying phonemic form is removed from the phonetic form in certain environments. For instance, the word infrared is often pronounced [ɪnfərɛd]. Deletion is similar to the process of dissimilation or assimilation because the pronunciation is made easier. However, only in deletion is the segment or sound entirely removed. It is the exact opposite of epenthesis the addition of a sound into a word for more clear pronunciation.
      ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deletion_%28phonology%29 )

      .::nadya karina::.

      Comment by nad08 | December 27, 2009 |

  33. hi everyone…
    There are some ways to test phrase structure, such as substitution test, cleft test and movement test.
    My question is:
    Is it possible that we succeed in substitution test, but fail in cleft test?
    If so, how? Please give me an example so that I can understand easily.
    Thanks a lot. . .

    Comment by rismahardiyanti | December 18, 2009 |

  34. Hi can everyone help me ,,,, about the concept of ambiguity,,???
    Because ,,the ambiguous sentence has more than one meaning…
    Is it right that the ambiguous sentence occurs when a word or a group of word can modify or refer to more than one other word and when a surface structure of the sentence relates to more than one deep structure.?????

    Then,,,as I know,,,there are two types of ambiguity,,,they are Lexical Ambiguity and Structural Ambiguity…can anyone help me to explain that???? thanks,,…@_

    Comment by renggaerlinawati | December 21, 2009 |

    • The lexical ambiguity of a word or phrase consists in its having more than one meaning in the language to which the word belongs. “Meaning” hereby refers to whatever should be captured by a good dictionary. For instance, the word “bank” has several distinct lexical definitions, including “financial institution” and “edge of a river”. Another example is as in apothecary. You could say “I bought herbs from the apothecary.” This could mean you actually spoke to the apothecary (pharmacist) or went to the apothecary (drug store).
      ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ambiguity )
      .::nadya karina::.

      Comment by nad08 | December 27, 2009 |

  35. assalamu’alaikum,everybody…!!!
    I have a question about deep and surface structure.
    In our last meeting, we know that deep and surface structure can occur in the same time in a sentence. However, I am confused, can we explain it into further deep structure? If you think so, can you explain me by giving an example? explaining with the tree diagram is better. Thnks b4.. Wassalam..

    Comment by nurf4rah | December 23, 2009 |

  36. hii everybody…
    i still confuse about intermediate structure, base on i learn that intermediate structure is the process from deep structure until surface structure,,can you explain me by giving example?? thnks guys….^_^

    Comment by nad08 | December 27, 2009 |

    • hi nad…
      based on our handout, I find that intermediate underlying structure is produced when the adverb-moving transformation is applied to a sentence.

      For example:
      The father is weeping silently (deep structure)
      The father is silently weeping (intermediate underlying structure)
      Is the father silently weeping? (surface structure)

      in those examples, we can see that there is a movement of the adverb “silently” from the deep structure to the intermediate underlying structure.

      I hope my explanation can help you…

      Comment by rismahardiyanti | December 27, 2009 |

  37. hi everyone
    i wanna ask about structure of coordination that consist of equivalent units, what the meaning of equivalent units,can u give explanation and example?

    Comment by rizkafm | January 5, 2010 |


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