Syntax

Part of speech: noun

Pronunciation: /ˈsɪn.tæks/

Definitions

1. The organization and structure of words in phrases to convey meaning is essential in grammar
2. It encompasses the rules governing sentence construction and word placement within a language
3. The method by which words are properly ordered to form meaningful sentences ; the principles that determine how words can be combined in a language

Etymology: Ancient Greek grammarians used "súntaxis" for something far more general than sentence structure: it meant an arrangement or ordering of things, and the verb it came from, "tássō," meant to arrange, set in order, or assign to a post. The prefix "sún" simply means "together," so the core idea is putting things side by side in a fixed order. Only later did the term narrow to the way words are arranged in a sentence. The English word comes partly from Late Latin "syntaxis" and partly directly from the Greek. Because it reached English through both routes, "syntax" and "syntaxis" are doublets: two forms of one ancient word that arrived by different paths. The Latin form carried the same sense of ordered arrangement, which is why the grammatical meaning developed from a much broader idea of organisation. Read this way, a sentence becomes a small military or administrative formation: each word has an assigned place, and the rules of syntax decide who stands where.

Synonyms: grammar, structure, arrangement, order, construction

Antonyms: disorder, chaos, confusion, anarchy, misconstruction