EXAMINING SENTENCE AS A TOOL FOR SYNTACTIC ANALYSIS IN ENGLISH AND FRENCH LANGUAGES

T. A. Balogun; G.S. IDOWU

T. A. Balogun French Department, Emmanuel Alayande College of Education, Oyo
G.S. IDOWU English Department, Emmanuel Alayande College of Education, Oyo

Keywords: grammatical units, syntactic analysis, English, French language

Abstract

In this paper, we are exclusively concerned with the part of grammar that deals with the structure of sentences. This is called syntax. Not only the grammatical units of language were explored but the division of selected sentences into constituents (units) was also analyzed. To achieve this feat, sentences were separated into words and finally, words were regrouped on the basis of relationship between them. This paper has gone further to explain how the (agent) or subject of a sentence is identified through grammatical units. The grammatical units were introduced on the hierarchical order [down-up]. The general syntactic framework we have adopted is inspired by the theories of language developed by Noam Chomsky. The choice of this study is based on the assumption that English and French are “closely related and well documented languages” (Tanja et all, 2010:110) and the two (duo) “constitute a minimal pair suitable for micro-comparison (Kayne, 2005). Most learners that were not always comfortable with the syntax and structure of the two languages would be familiar with their components and syntax of English and French languages armed with this work.