What is Immediate Constituent Analysis?
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The term Immediate Constituent (IC) was introduced by Leonard Bloomfield, the pioneer of American structuralism, to refer to the major divisions that can be made within a syntactic construction at any level. The immediate constituents of a construction are the two or more units of which it is composed. They are constituents because they compose or constitute the structure. They are immediate because they act directly on one another.
There is an obvious parallelism between immediate constituent analysis and the traditional procedure of ‘parsing’ sentences into ‘subject’ and ‘predicate’, and each of these, where appropriate, into clauses, phrases, and words. For example, in the sentence: Poor John ran away, the two immediate constituents are Poor John (subject) and ran away (predicate). The immediate constituents of each of these two complex forms are poor and John, and ran and away respectively. The simple sentence Poor John ran away whose subject is a noun phrase, made up of the noun John modified by the adjective poor, has a predicate that is a verb phrase, consisting of the verb ran modified by the adverb away. In this way, we have accounted for all the units at various levels.
One can distinguish three periods of development in the theory of constituent structure. Bloomfield himself did little more than introduce the notion and explain it by means of examples. He spoke of a ‘proper analysis’ of the sentence into constituents as ‘one which takes account of the meanings’. His followers, notably R.J. Wells and Zellig S. Harris, formulated the principles of constituent analysis in greater detail and replaced Bloomfield’s somewhat vague reference to ‘taking account of the meanings’ with explicitly distributional criteria. Finally, in the last century, the theory of constituent structure has been formalized and subjected to mathematical study by Chomsky and other scholars.
3.2 The Practice of Immediate Constituents Analysis
This technique, usually referred to as IC analysis, is like structural grammar’s version of Traditional diagrams. The idea here is that sentences are constructed from groups of words, often paired, rather than from single words added one onto the next. These groups of words in turn cluster with other groups, layer upon layer of word pairs and pair groups, which eventually build a sentence. One can begin the IC analysis at the word level and work one’s way up to the sentence, or one can begin with the sentence and work back to the word level.
Let us take the sentence: Poor John ran away. Using an immediate constituent diagram, we would represent the information thus:
In this figure, a box represents a unit or a constituent. The smallest boxes represent the smallest constituents, presented here as words. We thus see that the major division lies between the unit poor John and ran away, in other words, between the traditionalists subject and predicate.
An analysis of the sentence: Poor John kicked his sister ferociously would be represented thus:
We can discern from figure 2 that the major division in the sentence lies between the unit poor John and the unit kicked his younger sister ferociously. The predicate is then broken down first, into kicked his younger sister, then his younger sister, then younger sister, and finally into the individual words. The next division of the subject is into the individual words.
The structuralist’s diagrams have several disadvantages. Although the word order of the sentence is preserved – an improvement on Reed-Kellogg diagrams – such diagrams are rather difficult to read. Furthermore, the categories of the individual words are not indicated, and the syntactic information given is often incomplete. For example, in the figures above, we are not given a complete array of options that indicates which words can fit into which slots. The structural linguists realized this, hence they came up with Test Frames in an attempt to overcome this problem.
Test Frames
Test frames are blank spaces in simple sentences that may be filled in with any example of a particular class of word, such as a noun or an adjective. For example, noun test frames customarily set up any or all of three types of sentence structure as shown below:
The laughs ('The' or 'A[n]' verb)
He was riding a rapidly (subject, predicate, 'the' or 'a[n]' adverb)
Put it on that (subject, predicate, preposition, [modifier])
Notice that each version of the above illustrates a different position, and therefore a different function in the sentence which a noun can fulfill. The blank in (1) calls for a subject, the blank in (2) for a direct object, and the blank in (3) for an object of a preposition. Note that nouns can also serve other functions in a sentence but these three will illustrate the technique.
A test frame exercise demonstrates two important points about English syntax. The first, of course, is that speakers of English know what goes where; they are competent in the use of the language. Even very small children can put the right kind of words into the blanks. Speakers may not know that it is nouns they are inserting – that is, they may not know the jargon of grammatical analysis – but they know what belongs in the noun slots.
The second point is that the English language is quite regular in its signaling of nouns. This signaling is accomplished in two ways; first, by position in the order of words in the sentence (the subject noun, for instance, nearly always comes at the beginning of the sentence), and second, by the use of function words called determiners, words like the, a, an, this, those, my, etc. Determiners will only work with noun test frames, but other kinds of function words can help identify verbs: these are the auxiliary, or helping verb forms be and have, and the modal verb forms like may, will, or can.
Let us show further how IC works in the analysis of English.
Immediate Constituents of Whole Sentences
If there are no sentence modifiers, the IC’s of a sentence consist of the subject as one and the verb or verb cluster as the other. The sign ‘/’ marks the division between the IC in the following sentences:
My friends/were waiting for me at the station.
He/hardly knew what he was doing.
The mountains to the north/were covered with snow.
The people upstairs/complained.
The subject is most likely to be a noun or noun cluster or a pronoun, but it doesn’t have to be as in the following:
Climbing the steps/took a lot out of her.
What she did/can now be told.
Now/is the time to make plans for next year.
Now look at this sentence:
Usually, the boys in the family milked the goats in the morning.
If we divided this sentence between subject and verb, we would get a meaningless unit: usually the boys in the family. Clearly, this is wrong, for usually does not go just with the noun cluster but with everything that follows. Therefore, this sentence must be divided thus:
Usually/the boys in the family milked the goats in the morning.
That is to say, the IC’s of this sentence are the adverb usually as one and the whole following sentence pattern as the other. The meaning usually applies to the whole meaning of what follows, not just to the noun cluster alone. Usually in this sentence is called a sentence modifier – an element which modifies a whole sentence pattern. Here are other examples of sentence modifiers:
Sometimes/we had yam for breakfast Last night/the cat got out.
In the afternoon/John fell from the tree.
When we had finished eating/he washed the dishes.
In all of these examples, the sentence modifiers precede the sentences they modify. This is not the only possible position for them. Sometimes, with special signals operating, they come after the modified sentence or within it.
In sum, then, the IC division of whole sentences may be stated thus: if there is no sentence modifier, the IC’s are the subject as one and the verb cluster as the other; if there is a sentence modifier, the IC’s are the sentence modifier as one and the sentence pattern as the other. With the sentence modifier cut off, the sentence pattern may then be divided into subject and verb cluster:
Usually/the boys/milked the goats in the morning
(mod.) (subj) (pred.)
3.3 Immediate Constituents of Noun Clusters
Noun clusters in English are also arranged in a series of layers, and again, the arrangement is perfectly regular. Consider this sentence:
The young bronze artist from Lagos won the prize
Since there is no sentence modifier, this sentence consists of a subject and a verb cluster:
The young bronze artist from Lagos/won the prize
Now, we have a noun cluster on the left. It consists of a headword artist, with three modifiers before it and one after it. In dividing a noun cluster into its IC’s, we first cut off the modifier after the headword. If there is more than one, we cut off the last one first and work back to the headword:
The young bronze artist/from Lagos
Then, we cut off the first modifier before the headword and work into the headword:
The/young bronze artist/from Lagos
That is to say, the IC’s of the cluster are the young bronze artist as one and the P-group from Lagos as the other. The P-group does not modify the headword alone; it modifies the headword plus the other modifiers. The first modifier before the headword doesn’t just modify artist alone; it modifies young bronze artist. Young modifies bronze artist, and of course, bronze modifies artist. So all the cuts shall go like this:
The young bronze artist from Lagos/won the prize
The young bronze artist/from Lagos
The/young bronze artist
Young/bronze artist
Bronze/artist
Now, suppose the noun cluster were this: the young bronze artist from Lagos who was standing with one leg. We have two modifiers after the headword, a P-group and an S-group. We cut off the last one first:
The young bronze artist from Lagos/who was standing on one leg
The last modifier modifies everything that precedes. The rest of the cluster is cut as before.
3.4 Immediate Constituents of Verb Clusters
The arrangement of IC’s in verb clusters is similar to those in noun clusters except that the direction is reversed. In a noun cluster, we cut off the modifiers after the headword first, then those before it. In a verb cluster, we cut off those before the headword first, then those after it. Take this sentence:
The boys/usually answered rudely when they were questioned.
The verb cluster has the headword answered with one modifier before it and two after it. We cut off the one before the headword first:
Usually/answered rudely when they were questioned
Usually modifies not just the verb but all the rest of the cluster. ‘What did they do usually?’: ‘Answered rudely when they were questioned’. Now, we cut off the last modifier after the headword:
Answered rudely/when they were questioned.
The S-group modifies answered rudely not just answered. But it doesn’t usually, it is part of the construction modified by usually. Answered:
answered/rudely
Auxiliaries before the verb are treated just like any other modifiers:
Rev Sam/was waiting impatiently in the church
was/waiting impatiently in the church
The auxiliary was modifies all the rest of the cluster, giving waiting patiently in the church a particular meaning of time. The rest of the sentence will be cut off like this:
waiting impatiently/in the church
waiting/impatiently
In the church modifies, not just waiting but waiting impatiently.
Objects, adjectives, etc., in the verb cluster are simply treated as units and are cut off in turn:
She/cooked the stew in the morning
Cooked the stew/in the morning
Cooked/the stew
Immediate constituent analysis does not seem to be an improvement in the art of understanding organization within sentences. Generally speaking, immediate constituents are successive words that form a unit. Given a string of three words, such as in the eye, the problem to the structuralists would be to determine which word is more closely associated with – in or eye? The obvious answer, in this case, is eye, and the unit formed by the eye goes with in. An immediate constituent diagram would present the information thus:
However, IC analysis demonstrates two important points about English syntax. The first reinforces what we already knew from using test frames: English syntax is highly positional in structure – English is a word-order language, and words placed next to each other are usually semantically connected. The second point is that groups of words in English do indeed function as single units of syntax. In our examples, the word group poor John functions as subject; the groups kicked his sister ferociously functions as predicate.
4.0 CONCLUSION
In this unit, we have given the major details of constituent analysis and how it works. As an alternative to traditional grammar, we have tried to show the areas where it operates differently both in aims and functions.
5.0 SUMMARY
You have learnt in this unit:
• what structural linguistics is;
• what Immediate Constituent Analysis is; and
• how Immediate Constituent Analysis works in the analysis of English.
6.0 TUTOR-MARKED ASSIGNMENT
1. What do you understand by the term ‘Structural grammar’? Use examples to illustrate your answer.
2. Explain each of the following techniques and evaluate its importance:
(a) Test frames
(b) Immediate Constituent analysis
3. Cut the following constructions into their immediate constituents:
(i) Both the boys live near us
(ii) Fortunately, it was a lovely examination
(iii) The robbers attacked the house near us that was built last year
(iv) He went to the store in his motorcycle
(v) When the facilitator gets here, we can start the exam.
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