SYNTAX

Syntax: Definition and Examples

In linguistics, syntax refers to the rules that govern the ways in which words combine to form phrases, clauses, and sentences. 

It's the concept that enables people to know things like adjectives generally come before the nouns they describe (green chair), how to start a question with a question word (What is that?), that subjects often come before verbs in non-question sentences (She jogged.), prepositional phrases start with prepositions (to the store), helping verbs come before main verbs (can go, will do), and so on. 

Types of Syntax (Sentence Structures)

Types of sentences and their syntax modes include simple sentences, compound sentences, complex sentences, and compound-complex sentences. Compound sentences are two simple sentences joined by a conjunction. Complex sentences have dependent clauses, and compound-complex sentences have both types included.

• Simple sentence: The girl ran. Structure: Subject-verb.

• Compound sentence: The girl ran the marathon, and her cousin did, too. Structure: Subject-verb-object-conjunction-subject-verb.

• Complex sentence: Although they were tired after the marathon, the cousins decided to go to a celebration at the park. Structure: Dependent clause-subject-verb-object.

• Compound-complex sentence: Although they weren't fond of crowds, this was different, they decided, because of the common goal that had brought everyone together. Structure: Four clauses, dependent and independent.