A new approach to syntax

Abstract

This paper describes a new method for syntactic analysis of English. Instead of the conventional subject-predicate structure as a basis for analysis, elementary sentence patterns are used. It is observed that there are two basic sentence formats in English. One, using a transitive verb, consists of the sequence noun, verb, noun, noun. The other, using an intransitive verb, consists of the sequence nou_.._nn, verb, adjective, noun. In each of these basic forms, syntax is specified by the word order. Since there are 64 ways to arrange four words when they are taken one, two, three, and four at a time, there are 12B elementary or cannonical sentences to be studied. The central goal of analysis is to determine the particular c annonical sentence corresponding to a given statement.