Quotes About Syntax

The pull between sound and syntax creates a kind of musical tension in the language that interests me.

This linguistic work, however, is not all that they do. They also function in intentionality: the syntax of language is related to the way things can present themselves to us, to the way we can intend and articulate them.

A language teacher I know explained that grammar is just the way we chart relationships in language.

the Creator meant for us to laugh, so humor is deliberately built into the syntax. Even a small slip of the tongue can convert "We need more firewood" to "Take off your clothes.

Who dreamt and made incarnate gaps in Time & Space through images juxtaposed, and trapped the archangel of the soul between 2 visual images and joined the elemental verbs and set the noun and dash of consciousness together jumping with sensation of Pater Omnipotens Aeterna Deus to recreate the syntax and measure of poor human prose and stand before you speechless and intelligent and shaking with shame

since feeling is first who pays any attention to the syntax of things will never wholly kiss you; wholly to be a fool while Spring is in the world my blood approves, and kisses are a far better fate than wisdom lady i swear by all flowers. Don't cry --the best gesture of my brain is less than your eyelids' flutter which says we are for eachother: then laugh, leaning back in my arms for life's not a paragraph And death i think is no parenthesis

Bad grammar makes me [sic].

if(pot.coffee=EMPTY) {programmer->;brain=OFF};

The essential business of language is to assert or deny facts. Given the syntax of a language, the meaning of a sentence is determinate as soon as the meaning of the component words is known. In order that a certain sentence should assert a certain fact there must, however the language may be constructed, be something in common between the structure of the sentence and the structure of the fact.

In order to avoid these errors, we must employ a symbolism which excludes them, by not applying the same sign in different symbols and by not applying signs in the same way which signify in different ways. A symbolism, that is to say, which obeys the rules of logical grammar—of logical syntax. (The logical symbolism of Frege and Russell is such a language, which, however, does still not exclude all errors.)

APHÆRESIS  (APHÆ'RESIS)   n.s.[   figure in grammarthat takes away a letter or syllable from the beginning of a word.

ANASTROPHE  (ANA'STROPHE)   n.s.[  a preposterous placing, from    figure whereby words which should have been precedent, are postponed.

APOCOPE  (APO'COPE)   n.s.[  figure in grammar,when the last letter or syllable of a word is taken away; as, ingeni for ingenii.

std::bind(setAlarm,             std::bind(std::plus<>(),                       std::bind(steady_clock::now),                       1h),             _1,             30s);

Syntax, like government, can only be obeyed. It is therefore of no use except when you have something particular to command such as: Go buy me a bunch of carrots.

Grammar is the grave of letters.

Ma non riuscivo a cancellare le frasi, mi sentivo in mente la loro sintassi bell'e pronta e ne ero spaventata, ne ero affascinata, mi faceva orrore, mi seduceva.

Literary work couldn't seriously force the whirlpool of debris that constituted the real into any grammatical or syntactical order.

A language is a compendium of the history, geography, material and spiritual life, the vices and virtues, not only of those who speak it, but also of those who have spoken it through the centuries. The words, the grammar, the syntax are a chisel that shapes our thought.

that is not just a relative pronoun but also a stand-alone pronoun, a demonstrative adjective, and a conjunction.

British grammarian: "It is clearly desirable that an anaphoric (backward-looking) or cataphoric (forward-looking) pronoun should be placed as near as the construction allows to the noun or noun phrase to which it refers, and in such a manner that there is no risk of ambiguity.

the serial comma—that is, the comma after the penultimate item in a series and just before the conjunction (a, b, and c). Authorities on English usage overwhelmingly recommend using the serial comma to prevent ambiguities.

Backward ran sentences until reeled the mind.

It's hard to get motivated fixing a compile-time syntax error when you can buy a powder that turns a house into a monster.