Think Like a Syntactician

This video introduces syntax as a scientific study of sentence structure and guides students to think like syntacticians by observing data, forming hypotheses, testing ideas, and revising analyses. Drawing on Carnie’s Syntax Chapter 1 and Dharmawan & Hidayati’s English Syntax Onset Unit 1, it explains generative grammar, descriptive and prescriptive grammar, competence and performance, linguistic judgments, and the importance of supporting every syntactic claim with evidence.