What is Syntax?

Nov 12

If you look it up in the Oxford English Dictionary, you’ll find that syntax is “the arrangement of words and phrases to create well-formed sentences in a language.”

That little compound adjective well-formed carries a lot of weight. What does it mean for a sentence to be “well-formed”?

Let me give you a more straightforward definition: Syntax is the patterns that make up your sentences. Any writing craft happening at the sentence level — that’s syntax.

An Example

We have our basic formula for a sentence in English: noun + verb. That’s really all you need for a complete thought.

“Charles ran.” Done. That’s a sentence.

Now, if you had a paragraph of noun + verb sentences (Charles ran. Charles jumped. Charles smiled.), your syntax would be pretty simple and you’d have a pretty predictable pattern going through your writing.

Nothing wrong with that!

Now if you choose to add detail to it — how Charles ran, why he was running, where he was running to — you can make these choices with the patterns of your syntax in mind. Whatever patterns you choose will have a certain effect on the reader (which we’ll get into). So thinking about syntax can help you produce an intended effect.

Breaking Free of the “Rules”

Many of us grew up learning that writing was a set of grammar rules — a right and wrong way to do it. We were taught to pare things down, strip away the “unnecessary,” simplify. That’s part of why the Hemingway AI App is so appealing: it promises that if we write simply enough, we can sound like Hemingway.

But Hemingway wrote that way because it was his voice. It worked for his subjects, his thoughts, his era. Many great writers work in the opposite direction — lush, winding, layered — and they’re just as powerful. Gabriel García Márquez comes to mind immediately.

Writing isn’t about getting it “right.” Writing is art, just like music.

Syntax as Music

Language is music — a sequence of sounds that create meaning. When you write, you get to play with that music. Alliteration, elision, diction, phrasing — these are some of your instruments. Syntax is the line you play.

In the book “The Art of Syntax,” Ellen Bryant Voigt talks about syntax as the way you make and break patterns in your writing. Making and breaking patterns is at the heart of good writing because it generates emotions beyond the words themselves and their literal meanings. I once heard Robert Hass, the great poet, say that patterns in language make us feel safe, and breaking patterns makes us feel free.

An Example: Sylvia Plath’s “Tulips”

The word flowers has a meaning — you might think of a rose or a lilac — a plant with a stem and bloom. But take that word and put it into a sentence with a pattern, and the word can take on a different meaning simply by its placement:

In Sylvia Plath’s poem, “Tulips,” she repeats a sentence pattern of [complete phrase, complete phrase]. See below:

The tulips are too excitable, it is winter here.

I didn’t want any flowers, I only wanted
To lie with my hands turned up and be utterly empty.

The tulips are too red in the first place, they hurt me.

“The tulips are too excitable” is a complete sentence and should have a period at the end, but it doesn’t. “it is winter here” is also a complete sentence. Pushing these two together with just the breath of a comma is jarring to the reader. These tulips seem to override both the speaker and the English language itself.

Instead of something delicate and beautiful, tulips become something forced, aggressive, overriding what we really want to do, which is pause and rest.

Another Example: W.S. Merwin’s “Thanks”

In this poem we see a transformation of the meaning of the phrase “thank you” through both repetition and sentence placement. Read the whole poem aloud if you can. It will do you good.

Listen
with the night falling we are saying thank you
we are stopping on the bridges to bow from the railings
we are running out of the glass rooms
with our mouths full of food to look at the sky
and say thank you
we are standing by the water thanking it
standing by the windows looking out
in our directions

back from a series of hospitals back from a mugging
after funerals we are saying thank you
after the news of the dead
whether or not we knew them we are saying thank you

over telephones we are saying thank you
in doorways and in the backs of cars and in elevators
remembering wars and the police at the door
and the beatings on stairs we are saying thank you
in the banks we are saying thank you
in the faces of the officials and the rich
and of all who will never change
we go on saying thank you thank you

with the animals dying around us
taking our feelings we are saying thank you
with the forests falling faster than the minutes
of our lives we are saying thank you
with the words going out like cells of a brain
with the cities growing over us
we are saying thank you faster and faster
with nobody listening we are saying thank you
thank you we are saying and waving
dark though it is

Think about how the transformation of this phrase “thank you” towards the end of the second stanza would not have worked if Merwin had not been careful with his syntax. We are seeing the phrase “thank you” change in front of our eyes based on the images that come before it, and the constant beating of the drum that seems to change the phrase every time we hear it again.

And Then, Márquez

Now, one of the greatest sentences ever written, from One Hundred Years of Solitude:

“A trickle of blood came out under the door, crossed the living room, went out into the street, continued on in a straight line across the uneven terraces, went down steps and climbed over curbs, passed along the Street of the Turks, turned a corner to the right and another to the left, made a right angle at the Buendía house, went in under the closed door, crossed through the parlor, hugging the walls so as not to stain the rugs, went on to the other living room, made a wide curve to avoid the dining-room table, went along the porch with the begonias, and passed without being seen under Amaranth’s chair as she gave an arithmetic lesson to Aureliano José, and went through the pantry and came out in the kitchen, where Úrsula was getting ready to crack thirty-six eggs to make bread.”

A high school teacher might mark this a run-on sentence, but Márquez knows what he’s doing. The syntax mimics the flow of blood — unstoppable, steady, deliberate. No periods anywhere in sight because blood flow does not stop. The syntax bolsters the story.

Final Thoughts

Syntax is a tool to create emotion and meaning through patterns in our sentences. When you become aware of it — when you start listening to the music of your own words — you start writing not just to communicate, but to compose. Practice! You’ll get better as you do.

And, if you want more help with writing craft questions like this one, you can book a week’s worth of coaching with me. I’ll review some of your writing and give you feedback, as well as some authors and books to read. You send me pages; I send you notes. Easy!

Happy writing!

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Neysa King