Syntactic-Semantic Linearity in Scent of Apples by Bienvenido N. Santos

This investigation emphasizes the syntactic-semantic linearity in Scent of Apples by Bienvenido N. Santos. It points out the analysis of the surface and deep structure of the five selected sentences excerpted from the short story entitled Scent of Apples. It takes up structural analysis which comprises the immediate constituents and the semantic components of the sentences, and description of constituents which contains transformations of sentences according to case. It considers that the five selected sentences reveal surface and deep structures in syntactic-semantic manner. This supposition is supported by the theories of linear grammar that highlights the structure of the sentence and semantic-based grammar which emphasizes meaning or semantic structure of sentences. As such, in this paper, the five selected sentences excerpted from the Scent of Apple by Bienvenido N. Santos are utilized as pattern or model for the linguistic analysis. In instituting the structural analytical data, four phases/stages were observed; Phase 1 for Immediate Constituent Analysis, Phase 2 for Functions/Speech Acts, Phase 3 for Notion/Ideas Expressed, and Phase 4 for Sentence Transforms. It reflects that the five sentences extracted from the short story are all simple sentences. Also, shows that the five sentences function as looking/observing, owning, acquiring, remembering, and inducing something. Likewise, the five sentences declare the following notions: in a condition of being ill, possessing ones habitual action, longing something, possessing something, and influencing something; and that the five sentences construct five sentence transform with five nominative cases, five sentences transform with possessive case, and five sentences transform with objective case. Consequently, it has been determined that the five selected sentences excerpted from the Scent of Apples by Bienvenido N. Santos display the surface and deep structures in syntactic-semantic linearity approach. In this manner, it is commended that English language teachers must create/construct learning tool activities which are fitting to the syntactic and semantic structure of the sentences for the learners to master the structure


Rationale of the Study
The importance of proper sentence construction provides the framework for the clear written expression of ideas. Sentence is the starting point of learning English. It may give meaning in many ways by arranging words accordingly. Its function, form, and notion should be considered and observed.
As language teachers mastery in this language rules must be achieved. Since teachers have the most direct, sustained contact with students and considerable control over what is taught and the climate for learning. On that account, it is vital that the structure of sentences must be taught intently.
This paper attempts to look the language rules that should be given attention specifically in sentence structure. This is an avenue and can be utilized as an effective tool in identifying the surface and deep structure of sentences.
Apparently, through the content of this paper it intends to consider the importance of sentence structure that English teachers should master the rules. Also, includes necessary components of sentence that need to pay attention. The excerpt sample in this paper explains the significance of the rules in grammar.
Theoretical Background of the Study This paper assumes the selected sentences excerpted from Scent of Apples by Bieinvenido N. Santos, reveal surface and deep structures in linearity. This argument is supported by the theories of linear grammar and semantic-based grammar.
Linear grammar focuses on the structure of the sentence, treating the sentence as a string of grammatical categories like beads in a necklace, or alternative as a series of slots to be filled by words of the category appropriated to each slot. This (also called slot-and-filler grammar) description treats the structure of the sentence as a linear pattern, such that the choice of each successive category is dependent upon the category immediately following it.
Semantic-based grammar, focuses on meaning or semantic structure or message of sentences. Furthermore, this model description is also called "case grammar" since it attempts to relate the underlying "notion" or "case categories" to the surface structure (function) or syntax of the sentence (Smolinski [8]). Since meaning can generate different sentences in a certain "notion", this model of linguistic description is also called transformational or generative grammar (Labov [5]). Hence, a sentence can be transformed to several variedly constructed sentences having a common message. The Penn Treebank is a great initiative to construct humongous corpora of English texts to launch enhanced research of natural language processing, speech recognition, integrated spoken language systems as well as theoretical linguistics. These kinds of treebanks are generally used in corpus linguistics (the study of language as expressed in samples or "real world" text) for studying syntactic phenomena. They are also employed in computational linguistics for training or testing parsers. Of course there exist multiple different focuses in different treebanks, but in general there are two main groups. One, which depends on the phrase structure or language constituent parts annotation like the Penn Treebank and the other one focuses finding the relation between words and its dependents, not its order through dependency structure e.g. Prague Dependency Treebank.
To define the syntax and semantics of a natural language, Barwise et al. [4] explored the limitations of first order logic quantifiers for the natural language and established an interesting and important relationship between the syntax, semantics and logic in a natural language. Since then, there were manifold divergent approaches to crack the natural language syntax and semantics. Following are few of the many approaches to crack natural language syntax. The syntax of complex compound words and those involving derivational and inflectional affixation has been studied by Selkirk. In that study, the focus revolve around a syntactic standpoint that encompasses both the structure of words and the system of rules for generating that structure.
Steedman [6] focused on an elaborated study of Natural grammar to find appropriate compatibility with language syntactic structures. I start my journey of syntactic analysis of natural language through the readability. The following section elaborates more on that.
Related Studies Reviewed Languages have been traditionally classified according to their grammatical and syntactic properties, but the truth is that syntax and grammar are not the only factors on which word-order depends: to express pieces of information, context is also relevant. As Firbas [3] points out, "A linguistic element acquires the character of information and participates in the development of the communication and in the fulfillment of the communicative purpose." In other words, the order of pieces of information is significant when speakers utter propositions.
Liddy et al. [2] provided a natural language processing system through semantic vector representation of the text where the text is summarized through it's subject code look up and psycholinguistic. Semantics of natural languages. Semantics is defined as the study of meaning expressed by elements of a language or combinations thereof. As like syntactic, there are numerous different approaches in semantic exploration of natural language.
The syntax of Old English is rather low as compared to Present Day English. Hence, it is predictable that "The shift from flexible word-order to fixed word-order, which was closely related to certain phonological and morphological features of English, was accompanied by a reduction of the power of linear modification as a word-order principle." (Chamonikolasová [1]) In conclusion from the explanation above, it can be said syntactic-semantic linearity is the process relying on intuition and knowledge about language itself. In other words, the way people understand language is heavily based on meaning and context. The process of analyzing natural language with the rules of a formal grammar are applied to categories and groups of words, not individual words. Its theoretical underpinnings require a thorough process of transforming text into meaningful units like words, sentences, different topics, the underlying intent and more.

Linguistic Research Method Used
The method of linguistic research used in this study is structural analysis and description of constituents. The structural analysis consists of the immediate constituents and the semantic components of the sentences. The description of constituents involves transformations of sentences according to case.

Sources of Data
The main source of data is the selection entitled "Scent of Apples" by Bienvenido N. Santos where the five selected model sentences are excerpted.

Data Gathering Process
The procedure in generating the structural data analytical data follow the 4 phases: Phase 1: Immediate Constituents Analysis In this phase, the immediate constituents are identified by indicating below each word in the sentence. The immediate constituents are written using the initials like N for Noun, D, for Determiner, V for verb, and so on.

Phase 2: Functions or Speech Act
In this phase, functions or speech acts are identified by determining the functions or speech acts employed by the immediate constituents in the sentences. Functions or speech acts are identified as doer/subject, receiver, instrument possessing, observing something, and so on.

Phase 3: Notions or Ideas Expressed
In this phase, the notion in the sentence is identified by determining the ideas expressed in the sentence.

Phase 4: Sentence Transforms
In this phase, each sentence is transformed into several constructed sentences using the three cases such as nominative, possessive, and objective.

Results and Discussions
This paper presents the results and discussions focusing on the analytical data derived from the linguistic analysis of the five selected sentences excerpted from Scent of Apples by Bienvenido N. Santos.
The data follows the following sequences for all the five sentences as outlined below: The sentence is a simple sentence made up of immediate constituents pronoun, verb, and adverb. Its function is inducing something. With the idea of influencing something. Which produces the sentence transforms with nominative, possessive, and objective focuses.
This portion summarizes the findings, generalizes them into a conclusion, and offers recommendations.