Syntax for the Mortals

This booklet serves as a comprehensive guide to understanding key concepts in linguistic theory, with a primary focus on syntax. The content is structured into eleven chapters, each delving into different aspects of linguistic analysis. Starting with the fundamental goals of linguistic theory, including propositions, sentences, and the Innateness Hypothesis, the booklet progresses to define syntax and demonstrate its application as a scientific method. Chapters cover the identification and classification of parts of speech, structural relations, and the Binding Theory, which addresses the syntactic constraints governing noun relationships. The core of the booklet is an extensive exploration of X-bar theory, applied to various phrase structures (noun, verb, adjectival, adverbial, and prepositional phrases), including specifiers, complements, and adjuncts. Additionally, the theory is extended to analyze tense and complementizer phrases, reanalyzing sentence structures within this framework. Each chapter includes exercises to reinforce understanding, along with answer keys to support self-assessment.