Syntax: Immediate Constituents -- Revisited

You know, in syntax, we study how words are related to each other to make a bigger construction: a phrase, a clause, a sentence, or a discourse. Let's take an example from Bahasa Indonesia

"Perusahaan itu membutuhkan seorang penjahit baju wanita."

We know that this sentence has seven words as its constituents. Some words in this sentence have more than one morpheme as the constituents. The term "immediate constituents" refer to the constituents that come closer to each other. We can break the sentence above based on its immediate constituents. Remember, based on syntactic rule, a sentence consists of Noun Phrase (NP) and Verb Phrase (VP). With this is the base, then we have binary cutting system, that is dividing a construction two by two until the construction is not dividable anymore. In the example above:

Perusahaan itu = NP,

Membutuhkan seorang penjahit baju wanita = VP.

"Perusahaan itu" and "membutuhkan seorang penjahit baju wanita" are immediate constituents of the sentence.

"Perusahaan" and "itu" are ultimate constituents of the immediate constituents "Perusahaan itu".

And so on…

 

Then, why do we bother learning or analyzing the immediate constituents?

One of the reasons is that this will help us handle a syntactic or grammatical ambiguity. Have a look at the example above again. Does the company need a female tailor? Or Does it need a tailor for female clothes?

"membutuhkan seorang penjahit baju wanita" can be further analyzed into smaller constituents.

Membutuhkan || seorang penjahit baju wanita

Seorang || penjahit baju wanita

Penjahit || baju wanita

If we follow the analysis of the immediate constituents like this, it means that what the company needs is a tailor to make clothes for female. It is not important whether the tailor is male or female. The meaning will be different, if the analysis is done like the following.

… (similar to the one above)

Seorang || penjahit baju wanita

Penjahit baju || wanita

With this immediate constituents analysis, the sentence means that the company needs a female tailor. Whether the clothes that she makes will be for male or female is not important.

 

Have a look at other examples from English.

• Students don't like annoying professors.
  
  • What does this question mean? It may be either "Students don't like professors who are annoying" or "Students don't like making the professor annoyed". Again the meaning depends on to which constituent "annoying" is immediate.
    
• She hit the man with a stick.
  
  • What does this sentence mean? It may be either "She used a stick to hit the man" or "She hit the man who brought a stick".