Dictionary Definition
Pronunciation: 'sin-"taks
Function: noun
Etymology: French or Late Latin; French syntaxe, from Late Latin syntaxis, from Greek, from syntassein to arrange together, from syn- + tassein to arrange
Date: 1574
1 a : the way in which linguistic elements (as words) are put together to form constituents (as phrases or clauses) b : the part of grammar dealing with this
2 : a connected or orderly system : harmonious arrangement of parts or elements
3 : syntactics especially as dealing with the formal properties of languages or calculi
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 Lorenzo Valla |
Grammarians
Lysias (Greek)Donatus (Latin)Valla (Italian)Linguistic Syntax
Word order example Linguists describe English as an SVO language. This means, subject – verb – object, in that order. Thus: I saw the cat. Here subject = ‘I’, verb = ‘saw’, object = ‘cat’.
Other languages may work quite differently. In Latin e.g. the word order is object first. Thus: Arma virumque cano. [“I sing of arms and the man,” the opening line of Vergil’s Aeneid.] Word-for-word, this is Arms man-and sing-of-I!
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