Table of Contents
Definitions of Syntax
- (noun) The study of rules governing the arrangement of words and other elements (e.g., punctuation) to create clauses, phrases, and sentences.
- (noun) The formal rules for structuring well-formed clauses, phrases, and sentences.
Example of Syntax
- The American Sociological Association’s Style Guide and the Chicago Manual of Style provide syntactical rules and both are used to guide this dictionary.
Syntax Pronunciation
Syllabification: syn·tax
Audio Pronunciation
Phonetic Spelling
- American English – /sIn-taks/
- British English – /sIn-taks/
International Phonetic Alphabet
- American English – /ˈsɪnˌtæks/
- British English – /ˈsɪntaks/
Usage Notes
- Plural: syntaxes
- Not to be confused with semantics, which relates to the meaning of words.
- Also called:
- phrase structure
- sentence structure
- A (noun) syntactician is a linguist that specializes in studying (adjective) syntactic topics.
Related Videos
Additional Information
- Sociolinguistics Resources – Books, Journals, and Helpful Links
- Word origin of “syntax” – Online Etymology Dictionary: etymonline.com
- Borsley, Robert D. 1999. Syntactic Theory: A Unified Approach. 2nd ed. London: Arnold.
- Chomsky, Noam. 1965. Aspects of the Theory of Syntax. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Related Terms
Cite the Definition of Syntax
ASA – American Sociological Association (5th edition)
Bell, Kenton, ed. 2014. “syntax.” In Open Education Sociology Dictionary. Retrieved February 9, 2025 (https://sociologydictionary.org/syntax/).
APA – American Psychological Association (6th edition)
syntax. (2014). In K. Bell (Ed.), Open education sociology dictionary. Retrieved from https://sociologydictionary.org/syntax/
Chicago/Turabian: Author-Date – Chicago Manual of Style (16th edition)
Bell, Kenton, ed. 2014. “syntax.” In Open Education Sociology Dictionary. Accessed February 9, 2025. https://sociologydictionary.org/syntax/.
MLA – Modern Language Association (7th edition)
“syntax.” Open Education Sociology Dictionary. Ed. Kenton Bell. 2014. Web. 9 Feb. 2025. <https://sociologydictionary.org/syntax/>.