Course paper theme: Syntax in Learning language Done by: Group: Scientific adviser: Tashkent – 2023 Contents: introduction chapter I. Syntax in linguistics

CHAPTER II. The difference between syntax and diction
2.1 Syntax in literature
Second language acquisition is studied under a wide range of perspectives, and depending on the perspective and the research question pursued, different methods are meaningfully employed to empirically ground the research. This rich landscape is also reflected in instructed and but the focus on the best way to teach and learn a second language brings with it a particular concern for the generalizability of laboratory research to classroom contexts (cf. Loewen, Reference The generalizability and replicability of results from experimental research is increasingly also a concern throughout the field of as recently illustrated by the call for replication studies with nonacademic subjects (Andringa & Godfroid, Reference Andringa and Godfroid2019) designed to broaden the traditional focus on experiments with academic, college-age subjects.
Combining those two lines of thought, a population that arguably is under researched in are school children in their authentic learning context. In, there were almost 22 million school children in upper secondary schools of them studying two or more foreign languages.Footnote1 Conducting more research in regular foreign language classrooms arguably could help increase the impact of on real-life language teaching and learning in school, which so far seems to be rather limited. While in many countries the language aspects to be taught at a given grade level are regulated by law, where are school curricula actually based on empirically grounded L2 research? Where is it informed by what can be acquired by which type of student at which time using which explicit/implicit instruction methods? In the same vein, textbook writers in practice mostly follow publisher traditions rather than empirical research about developmental sequences, effective task and exercise design, or the differentiation needed to accommodate individual differences. While political and practical issues will always limit the direct throughput between research and practice, scaling up research from the lab to authentic classrooms to explore and establish the generalizability and relevance of the findings in real-life contexts would clearly strengthen the exchange. Note that scaling up as a term from educational science is not just about numbers, but about “adapting an innovation successful in some local setting to effective usage in a wide range of contexts” which requires “evolving innovations beyond ideal settings to challenging contexts of practice.” This has much to offer, in both directions, given that the data from such ecologically valid formal education settings could arguably be an important vehicle for more integration of perspectives focusing on aspects of learning at different levels of granularity. In real-life learning, all social, cognitive, task, and language factors are simultaneously present and impact the process and product of learning. In sum, we conclude with Mackey (Reference Mackey, Loewen and Sato2017) that “in order to better understand the relationship between instructional methods, materials, treatments, and learning outcomes, research needs to be carried out within the instructional settings where learning occurs”.But how can we scale up research to real-life contexts where many factors cannot be controlled and the intervention itself is carried out by others, with many practicality issues and a range of educational stakeholders (teachers, students, parents, administrators, teacher educators, and politicians)? While it seems crucial to establish that the effects piloted in lab studies still show up and are strong enough to be relevant under real-world conditions, how can we methodologically deal with the loss of focus and control this entails and successfully set up intervention experiments that support valid interpretations related to theory when carried out in a real-life setting?Fortunately, this type of challenge is already being tackled by clinical research and educational science, where randomized controlled field trials ( are increasingly the method of choice for conducting empirically informed research in the field, supporting experimentally controllable, generalizable results and ecological validity. These ordering constraints correctly predict noun phrases like a beautiful old Italian touring car, in which beautiful is evaluative (or opinion/observation), old an age, Italian an origin (or provenance), and touring a type (or purpose/qualifier). However, Mark Liberman notes that these ordering constraints can lead to incorrect predictions: ugly is an opinion and big a size, but corpus data shows that big ugly is far more common than ugly big. Liberman also notes that these orders fail to account for strong preferences within categories. For example, long and tall are both sizes, but long tall is generally preferred to tall long Stefanie Wulff summarizes and evaluates a variety of other factors that predict the order of pre-head modifiers in English noun phrases. From a phonological perspective, shorter modifiers typically occur before longer ones, other things being equal. For example, the long intelligent book is generally preferred to the intelligent long book. From a semantic perspective, the more inherent qualities of a thing tend to occur closer to the noun. For instance, solid stainless steel is generally preferred to stainless solid steel because the stainlessness of stainless steel is more inherent than the solidness of solid steel. Also from a semantic perspective, modifiers that "are less dependent on comparison are put nearer to the head noun." For example, the redness of a file can be determined without comparing it to another file but the smallness of a file can only be determined by comparison with another file. Thus, a small red file is generally preferable to a red small file. From a pragmatic perspective, modifiers that "are remembered most easily upon the occurrence of the noun" tend to occur closer to the noun. For instance, blonde tends to be more closely associated with hair than nice is, so nice blonde hair is more likely than blonde nice hair. Also from a pragmatic perspective, more frequently used modifiers tend to occur before less frequently used modifiers. For example, big is a more frequently used word than cold, so we would expect a big cold lake rather than a cold big lake.Some grammars have proposed multiple "zones" for pre-head modifiers in English noun phrases. A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language, for example, proposes four "premodification zones." The pre-central zone is filled by nongradable adjectives, particularly intensifiers such as major and numerous. The central zone consists of the most prototypical adjectives, that is, adjectives that admit intensifiers and comparison and can also appear in predicate position. Within this central zone, evaluative adjectives typically occur first, and the usual order for the rest is nonderived adjectives, then adjectives derived from verbs, and finally adjectives derived from nouns. The post-central zone includes participles and color terms. The pre-head zone includes adjectives denoting provenance, adjectives with the meaning of "relating to (noun)" (such as annual and political), and nouns.The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language proposes two zones: early pre-head modifiers and residual pre-head modifiers. Early pre-head modifiers include cardinal and ordinal numbers numerals (e.g., two, second), superlative adjectives (e.g., largest, youngest), and primacy adjectives (e.g., key, primary). Residual pre-head modifiers include all other pre-head internal modifiers.The category "post-head internal dependents" includes post-head modifiers and complements. Though modifiers tend not to occur between complements and their heads, The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language does not characterize this tendency as a rigid ordering constraint because the order is also affected by the weight of the constituent, with lighter dependents typically occurring before heavy dependents.In the noun phrase the rumor in the city that Minakshi had decreed that no white woman could live for long within sight of her temple, for example, the modifier in the city separates the head rumor from the complement that Minakshi had decreed that no white woman could live for long within sight of her temple because the complement is relatively heavy while the modifier is relatively light.Nouns and adjectives in English can generally be distinguished by their grammatical features: Prototypical nouns can inflect for number while adjectives cannot. Prototypical adjectives can inflect for degree of comparison while nouns cannot. Prototypical nouns head phrases that can function as subject, direct object, and indirect object while prototypical adjectives head phrases that can function as pre-head modifier of nouns and subject-related complement. Prototypical adjectives can be modified by very while nouns cannot. Nouns can head phrases containing determinatives and predeterminatives while adjectives cannot. The following table summarizes some of these characteristics:Inflection number (plural -s) comparative (-er), superlative (-est)Typical functions subject, direct object, indirect object pre-head modifier of noun, suject-related complementTypical pre-head modifier adjective phrase Occurrence with determinatives head phrases containing determinatives do not head phrases containing determinatives In noun phrases such as the boy actor, words like boy do not fall neatly into the categories noun or adjective. Boy is more like an adjective than a noun in that it functions as a pre-head modifier of a noun, which is a function prototypically filled by adjective phrases, and in that that it cannot be pluralized in this position (*the boys actor). However, boy is more like a noun than an adjective in that it cannot be modified by very (*the very boy actor) as adjectives typically can be and in that it cannot be separated from the head noun by an adjective (*the boy talented actor). Further, boy is more like a noun in that it cannot occur alone as a subject-related predicative complement (*the actor is boy). The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language classifies words like boy as nouns.John Robert Ross similarly classifies it as an "adjectival noun", a noun with some adjectival properties.Color terms also exhibit features of both nouns and adjectives. In many cases, the category of these terms can be clearly identified. For example, color terms used as subjects (blue represents hope) or complements (my favorite color is blue) appear to be typical nouns while color terms occurring attributively (the blue light) appear to be typical adjectives. Similarly, color terms marked as plural (the blues in his paintings) appear to be nouns while those marked as comparative (bluer) or superlative (bluest) appear to be adjectives. However, James D. McCawley notes a case in which color terms appear to have features of nouns and adjectives at the same time: a deep blue necktie. In this case, the modifier of blue is an adjective (deep) rather than an adverb (deeply), which suggests that the color term is a noun. However, its function appears to be the same as the blue in the blue light, which is an adjective.Bas Aarts notes that this apparent dual categorization can be avoided by treating phrases like deep blue as adjective-adjective compounds.Phrases like the lucky in the lucky don't need to diet also present challenges. Words like lucky in this case have features typical of a noun; specifically, they appear to head phrases that contain determinatives and have the prototypical functions of noun phrases (such as subject, in this example). However, these words also have features of adjectives. For instance, they can be modified by very (the very lucky don't need to diet) and combine with morphemes that can typically attach only to adjectives, such as un- (the unlucky must diet). Complicating matters further, they can take as pre-head modifiers either adjectives (the ostentatious rich) or adverbs (the completely innocent).Aarts argues that phrases like these are best analyzed as noun phrases with an empty element functioning as the head, yielding an analysis like this: The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language offers a similar analysis, calling words like lucky and innocent in these cases "fused modifier-heads". In other words, they treat these words as adjectives that have fused with an unexpressed head.