Both listening and reading are involved in comprehension and are further summarized here. Reading may involve single words while comprehension usually involves a sentence, a paragraph, or an entire discourse. When we read, one of the first things we do is analyze the sequence of words in a phrase or sentence. The most commonly occurring phrases are noun phrases or verb phrases. An example of each might be:
Sentence: She liked the dog
Noun phrase: She
Verb phrase: … liked the dog (verb: liked)
Noun phrase: … the dog
Let us take another sentence: Jim was sad as he walked down the garden path in winter. This sentence contains a noun phrase, a verb phrase, and another noun phrase. When we read a passage, we break it down into meaningful sections—phrases, clauses, and sentences—and analyze these one after another to extract their meaning. As we proceed, we relate the meaning of each successive phrase to that of the preceding one and in this way build our understanding, until at the end we are able to comprehend the whole.
We do this quickly, automatically, and with little conscious effort or thought, unless the passage is very complicated. This kind of analysis of syntax, (that is, the grammatical arrangement of words in a sentence) is called parsing and is essential for comprehension.
While speaking or reading, we usually stop at the end of a phrase or a clause. (A humorous riddle to illustrate this: What’s the difference between a cat and a sentence? Answer: A cat has claws at the end of its paws; a sentence has a pause at the end of its clause.) Do we read sentences phrase by phrase or clause by clause? The answer is—in phrases. Dividing sentences into phrases helps us to divide the sentence into meaningful parts, which we remember while processing its meaning.
Thus, while understanding a sentence, we (a) try to get as much meaning as possible from the words in a phrase; Q>) understand the phrase; (c) make bridges between the phrases, and, finally, (d) spend some time putting it all together at the end of a sentence.
We also pick up cues or signs from the order of words. In the two sentences, Dog bites man and Man bites dog, there are no changes except in the order of the words, yet the meaning is very different. On the other hand, the order of words and the words themselves may be different, while the meaning remains the same. For example: I took a bath before dinner and Before dinner I took a bath. The word order is different but the reader derives the same meaning.
In a truly ambiguous sentence the meaning depends on the context or the mental set of the person, as the words remain the same. Consider the sentence, The fat man doesn’t take his daily meal. The listener wonders, “How could he be overweight then? He must be eating at night.” For an example of a sentence where the context takes on an important role, consider the following advertisement: “If your wife is not happy in The Baker’s Arms, The Feathers may tickle her fancy.” Underneath is the sign of a pub named The Feathers and the sign of a particular brand of beer.
Another important cue or sign that helps us understand syntax is word class. A word may be a noun, an adjective, an adverb, a verb, and so on, and it is important that we understand which class it is. An example makes it clear: my husband was happy compared to my happy husband. Using the two different parts of the sentence, I could say my husband was happy to see a clean oven or my happy husband cleaned the oven.
Here are some other interesting examples: visiting relatives can be boring; flying planes can be dangerous. In these examples the clues for understanding the sentence are provided by the word class. The sentence visiting relatives can be boring can be interpreted in two ways: either the relatives who are visiting can be boring or one could be bored while visiting relatives.
Words may also be conjunctions, articles or prepositions, such as the, and, of. These are also known as the function words. They tell the reader or the listener about the syntax or the meaning of the sentence rather than the content. Consider the following sentence: I told her baby stories. It could mean that I told stories to her baby or that I was telling stories meant for babies. So there is a need to include something that resolves the ambiguity. The next sentence, I fed her dog biscuits, is altered in meaning according to where the word the is inserted: I fed her the dog biscuits or I fed the dog her biscuits.
There are other signs by which we analyze the syntax of a sentence. These are punctuation, word meaning and affixes. It is very easy to understand how punctuation, such as question marks, exclamation marks and quotations, is important, for example, You lost the bag! or You lost the bag?
Word meaning helps us understand syntax. This is where meaning and syntax interact with each other. Consider the sentence, I saw the boy pick up a bat after school. The boy could have picked up a live bat hanging upside down from a tree, but it is more likely that the majority of readers or listeners will understand that the boy picked up a baseball bat to play with. Compare On a stormy night the car took the right turn and ended up in a ditch to On a stormy night the car took the right turn and ended up just in front of his house.
By attaching the appropriate endings for a verb or an adverb we can usually understand syntax better than when these affixes are missing. Children learn to attach affixes very early as they start talking. Adults seem to understand perfectly what the child means even though the affix might be quite inappropriate: Igoed to school, She was badder today. However, sometimes affixes do not help, as in They’re shooting stars or I married my daughter. Both of these sentences can only be understood in terms of context.
The reason for describing, in such detail, how we break down sentences or analyze them in terms of syntax is to highlight the importance of syntax in comprehension. (For further discussion, refer to Just and Carpenter, 1977 or Harley, 1995.) Comprehension is essentially getting at the meaning of the sentence and syntax helps with this.