What is Syntax Anyway?…

…Oh, it is only the backbone, structure, and therefore, balance of the way your words are put down on the page. Syntax is a fancy way of saying “the order in which words are placed in a sentence”. Just being aware of this small detail can put you in great control over your writing. Let’s see how:

Thanks to grammar and rules of the English language that are engrained in our minds from infancy, we can intuit, more or less, normal, natural, or “unmarked” syntax.
However, it is important to note that in writing, we are never under a syntax tyranny. Marked/hyperbated syntax – meaning a sentence whose words that are jumbled and not in their natural positioning – can be a great tool for making writing more effective.

Let’s take a sentence with normal word order (unmarked):
I saw the head of a worm when I took a small bite of my apple.

Now let’s see what happens when we slightly mix up the word order (marked):
I saw the head, when I took a small bite from my apple, of a worm.

Granted, both sentences are equally gross. But notice that by slightly hyperbating the syntax of the simple sentence, the story that it portrays carries more suspense. In the hyperbated sentence, the reader begins to read and is desperate to reach the end in order to see what happens. The first sentence, stoic in its rectitude, tells us the punch line right from the get-go, causing us to lose an element of suspense.

When is this good? When we are in control and know what we are doing. If done properly, syntax can help you draw in a reader and make them want to keep reading. If we take all the words we want to include in our writing and throw them in the blender, the reader will not be able to excavate much of a story from the polysyllabic mess we have created. So be careful – you do not want to be so chaotic that you forfeit meaning. Syntax should engage the reader and bolster the ideas you want to get across, not encrypt your writing to such a point that it is impossible to decipher.

Using Syntax to Bolster Meaning

If you feel you got the picture, great! Just in case, here is one more example. This time, we’ll see how syntax is used to enhance the meaning of the content.

We’ll use the six line poem “Deep Sworn Vow” by W.B. Yeats.

Others because you did not keep
That deep-sworn vow have been friends of mine;
Yet always when I look death in the face,
When I clamber to the heights of sleep,
Or when I grow excited with wine,
Suddenly I meet your face.
Paraphrasing crudely, this incredible poem is about the tortures of unrequited love. Now let’s see how the syntax supports this message. How would the first two lines look unmarked? Probably something like this: “Others have been friends of mine because you did not keep that deep-sworn vow.” Blah. What is the most intimate element of the sentence? The “deep-sworn vow”. Notice how the syntactically marked original buries deep in the sentence the “deep-sworn vow”. The syntax literally reflects the poetic meaning.

Furthermore, the syntax of the first two lines changes the tone which directly affects the message coming across. Unmarked, the lines assume an accusing, perhaps self-pitying tone. Hyperbated, these first two lines are absolutely vulnerable and heart breaking.

The next four lines of the poem also do this. Unmarked, the lines would be something like “Yet when I look death in the face… yadda yadda yadda… I always suddenly meet your face.” What does the marked syntax do here? It demonstrates the contrast between the words “always” and “suddenly”. We’ll take it apart a bit more. There is an internal war going on in the mind of the poem’s speaker. He has the image of his love’s face but he wants to shove it away with adventure, sleep, or alcohol – basically he wants to dull his senses completely. But no matter what he does, the face he is trying to forget pops into his minds eye and takes him by surprise. The speaker stuffs his life with distractions and therefore, the appearance of his love’s face is always sudden and overwhelming. The marked syntax portrays this exactly. Yeats’ syntax is all the more clever, making sure to end the poem with the word “face” – the one image that seems to be tauntingly stamped in the speaker’s mind reverberates loudly in the reader’s own thoughts.

There is only one W.B. Yeats, but there’s nothing saying we can’t learn some valuable lessons from his works.

Good Luck!