Saturday, March 22, 2008

What is the third sentence of Noam Chomsky's Syntactic Structures?

"More generally, linguists must be concerned with the problem of determining the fundamental underlying properties of successful grammars."

"generally" is an adverb, an adjunct--I suppose--that modifies the main verb of the sentence. Linguists must be generally concerned? I don't know. Maybe it is a disjunct in that it casts something over the whole sentence. But I don't think so. "More" modifies or intensifies "generally."

linguists: this is the subject of the passive sentence. It is a concrete and count noun.

must be concerned: this is the main verb. It is in the passive voice. "must" is a modal auxiliary. It is deontic? "be concerned" is the passive construction because it has a verb in the past participial form that follows the verb "to be." The tense carrying portion of this verb is "must"--which is, I think, in the past tense.

with the problem: this is a prep phrase that acts as an adverb in that it modifies the main verb. The object of this prep phrase, "problem," could be used as the subject of an active sentence. (Used by whom? Chomsky?) A problem concerns linguists.

of determining the fundamental underlying properties of successful grammars: this is another prep phrase that acts as an adjective. It modifies the word "problem." "of" is the prep. "determining" is a gerund, a verbal noun. "the fundamental underlying properties of successful grammars" is the object of the gerund. What's interesting in this direct object is that there is no comma between "fundamental" and "underlying." If there had been a comma, then that would have indicated that these two adjectives are coordinate--that they carry the same weight. But, because there is no comma, that means that these adjectives are cumulative. Really, the "underlying" must have a strong attachment to "properties"--such that it couldn't change places with "fundamental."

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