SYNTACTIC AND SEMANTIC STUDY ON LYRICS IN CHILDREN SONGS

  A SYN ON

  Present

  

SYNTACTIC AND SEMANTIC STUDY

ON LYRICS IN CHILDREN SONGS

AN UNDERGRADUATE THESIS

  sented as Partial Fulfillment of the Requirement for the Degree of Sarjana Sastra in English Letters

  By

  Student Number: 054214065

  

EPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LETTERS

FACULTY OF LETTERS

SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY

YOGYAKARTA

2009

  DY

  nts

CINDY ABRAM

ENGL DE

GLISH LETTERS STUDY PROGRAMME

  E

  iii

  A Sarjana Sastra Undergraduate Thesis

  A SYNTACTIC AND SEMANTIC STUDY ON LYRICS IN CHILDREN SONGS

  By

  CINDY ABRAM

  Student Number: 054214065 Defended before the Board of Examiners on October 31, 2009 and Declared Acceptable

  BOARD OF EXAMINERS Name Signature

  Chairman : Dr. Fr. B. Alip, M.Pd, M.A. _________________ Secretary : _________________ Member 1 : _________________ Member 2 : Dr. Fr. B. Alip, M.Pd, M.A. _________________ Member 3 : Anna Fitriati, S.pd., M.Hum. _________________

  Yogyakarta, October 31, 2009 Faculty of Letters

  Sanata Dharma University Dean

  iv iv

  But let endurance and steadfastness and patience have full play and do a thorough work, so that you may be perfectly and fully developed, lacking in nothing.

  JAMES 1: 4 v

  

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  Above all, the writer gives highest gratitude to Jesus Christ, my Almighty God, my Savior, my Comforter, and my Shelter. Thank You, Jesus, for giving me this opportunity and for guiding me from the beginning until the end of this study.

  I love You, Jesus.

  Moreover, the writer will not be able to complete this study without help and encouragement from these personages.

  To my Papa, Simon Hariyono, thank you for always encouraging me not to give up on conditions and always surrender all to Jesus. To my Mama,

  

Evangeline Soriton , thank you for giving me so much love and for ‘educating’

me so that I am who I am today. Nothing compares to your love, Pap and Mam.

  To my Oma, Pdt. Lies Soriton and my ‘big’ family, thank you so much for the support and for everything. To my ‘new’ family in Kediri, Bapak, Ibu Suwarno , thank you for always praying for me and

  and Mbak dr. Yohana Kartikasari

  supporting me. And in Surabaya, Prof. Dr. Agustinus Ngadiman, M. Pd., thank you for letting me disturb your afternoon and copying your books.

  To my advisor Dr. Fr. B. Alip, M.Pd, M.A., thank you for guiding me until this study is complete. Thank you for the time, the advice, and the patience.

  And to my co-advisor, Anna Fitriati, S.pd., M.Hum., thank you for the advices. And to all my lecturers in English Letters Department, thank you for all the knowledge you had given me. vi

  To my best friends Galih Asri Nindita D., Fransiska Chandra L., and

  

Elisabeth Ria H. , thank you for supporting me, for encouraging me to move on,

  and for cheering me up when I am down. Come on, girls. Let’s work it out! To all of my friends of “Angkatan 2005”, especially the team of “Wine in the Wilderness”, thank you for the support, guys. And to all the crews of “Grease”, thank you for the opportunity to get involved in the amusements.

  To my pastors, Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Suwondo, thank you for the prayers and the preachings that give me the inspirations to survive. We can do all things through Jesus. Amen. To F4 Community of Youth Fellowship Hagios Family GPdI Sosrowijayan, Yogyakarta; Kak Olin, Bang Modz, Ko Ted, E-

  

Youth, Xtine, Mar-Q, It-Ha, Funny, Obet, Lefran . Thank you, guys, for

  supporting me and praying for me. God bless you all. And to Melda, thank you for all the support and stories. Keep the fire in God, sister.

  To my beloved, dr. Yohanes Sudarmanto, thank you for supporting me endlessly, encouraging me thoroughly, loving me in good times and bad times, and understanding me gently. I thank God whenever I remember you.

  Last but never the least; to all people around me who gave more thoughts and awareness of life, I thank you.

  Cindy Abram vii

  viii

  22 CHAPTER IV: ANALYSIS

  5 D. Definition of Terms

  5 CHAPTER II: THEORETICAL REVIEW

  7 A. Review of Related Theories

  7 B. Theoretical Framework

  19 CHAPTER III: METHODOLOGY

  21 A. Object of the Study

  21 B. Approach of the Study

  21 C. Method of the Study

  24 A. The syntactic categories of the sentences

  1 B. Problem Formulation

  24 B. The sentence structures in the lyrics of the children songs

  29 C. The semantic relationships among the sentences in the lyrics

  37 CHAPTER V: CONCLUSION

  49 BIBLIOGRAPHY

  52 APPENDICES

  54 Appendix 1 : The collected data of declarative sentences

  54 Appendix 2 : The collected data of SVA patterned clause

  59 Appendix 3 : The collected data of SVOA patterned clause

  4 C. Objectives of the Study

  1 A. Background of the Study

  

TABLE OF CONTENTS

TITLE PAGE

  v

  i

  APPROVAL PAGE

  ii

  ACCEPTANCE PAGE

  iii

  MOTTO PAGE

  iv

  DEDICATION PAGE

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION

  vi

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  viii

  LIST OF TABLES

  ix

  ABSTRACT

  x

  ABSTRAK

  xi

  60

  ix

  

LIST OF TABLES

  Table 1 Total findings on types of sentences

  24 Table 2 Total findings on clause patterns

  30 Table 3 Relationships among lyrics in each song

  38

  

ABSTRACT

  CINDY ABRAM. A Syntactic and Semantic Study on Lyrics in Children

  

Songs. Yogyakarta: Department of English Letters, Faculty of Letters, Sanata

Dharma University, 2009.

  Children learn everything from their environment and their experience. Accordingly songs are often used to teach children about themselves, their actions, their surrounding objects, words, and language. Children songs are now used as media of education to educate children as they enjoy singing the children songs.

  Children songs have certain forms that enable the children to memorize and understand what are mentioned in the songs. Hence, there are three problems that are discussed in this study. They are the types of sentence, the clause patterns, and the meaning relationships among sentences or lyrics in songs.

  There are 10 children songs analyzed in this study. They are “Brother John”, “Eensy Weensy Spider”, “Head and Shoulders”, “Hickory Dickory Dock”, “The Farmer in the Dell”, “The Hokey Pokey”, “Row Row Row Your Boat”, “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star”, “The Wheels on the Bus”, and “This Little Piggy”.

  They are observed to find the answers of the problem formulation.

  For the first problem, it is found that the most frequently found type of sentences is the declarative sentence. It is because children songs are supposed to be informative for the children. For the second problem, there are five types of clause patterns found in the clauses on the lyrics of the children songs. They are SVA, SVC, SVO, SVOA, and SV. The most frequently found are SVA and SVOA. Lastly, for the third problem, the meaning relationships that are found among the sentences are entailments and contradictions. Contradiction is the most frequently found among the sentences. It is because contradictions seem to be more attractive and enjoyable for the children so that they can learn the song easier.

  

x

  

ABSTRAK

  CINDY ABRAM. A Syntactic and Semantic Study on Lyrics in Children

  

Songs. Yogyakarta: Jurusan Sastra Inggris, Fakultas Sastra, Universitas Sanata

Dharma, 2009.

  Anak-anak mempelajari apa saja dari lingkungan dan pengalaman mereka. Oleh karena itu, nyanyian sering digunakan untuk mengajarkan kepada anak-anak tentang diri mereka, kegiatan mereka, benda-benda di sekeliling mereka, kata- kata, and bahasa. Nyanyian anak-anak digunakan sebagai sarana edukasi untuk mengajar anak-anak seiring mereka menikmati menyanyikan nyanyian anak-anak tersebut.

  Nyanyian anak-anak memiliki bentuk yang khas yang memungkinkan anak-anak untuk mengingat dan mengerti apa yang disebutkan di dalam nyanyian tersebut. Oleh karena itu, ada tiga hal yang dibahas dalam studi ini. Ketiga hal tersebut adalah tipe dari kalimat, pola klausa, dan hubungan makna di antara kalimat dalam nyayian.

  Ada sepuluh nyanyian yang digunakan dalam studi ini. Nyanyian tersebut adalah “Brother John”, “Eensy Weensy Spider”, “Head and Shoulders”, “Hickory Dickory Dock”, “The Farmer in the Dell”, “The Hokey Pokey”, “Row Row Row Your Boat”, “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star”, “The Wheels on the Bus”, and “This Little Piggy”. Kesepuluh nyanyian tersebut diteliti untuk menemukan jawaban dari rumusan masalah.

  Untuk pertanyaan pertama, ditemukan bahwa tipe kalimat yang paling banyak ditemukan adalah kalimat deklaratif. Hal ini dikarenakan nyanyian anak- anak seharusnya informatif untuk anak-anak. Untuk pertanyaan kedua, ditemukan lima pola klausa pada lirik nyanyian anak-anak. Lima klausa tersebut adalah SVA, SVC, SVO, SVOA, and SV. Yang paling sering ditemukan adalah SVA and SVOA. Dan terakhir, untuk pertanyaan ketiga, hubungan makna yang ditemukan di antara kalimat adalah entailment dan kontradiksi. Yang paling banyak ditemukan adalah kontradiksi. Hal ini dikarenakan kontradiksi lebih menarik untuk anak-anak sehingga mereka dapat lebih mudah mempelajari nyanyian tersebut.

  

xi

  

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION In this first chapter, there are four subtitles. They are Background of the Study, Problem Formulation, Objectives of the Study, and Definition of Terms. In Background of the Study, the description of the study will be presented. The problems answered in Chapter 4 will be presented in Problem Formulation. Objectives of the Study are the part where the writer states the purposes of

  conducting the study. In Definition of Terms, some specific terms used in the title and in the Problem Formulation will be explained.

A. Background of the Study

  Nowadays, songs are used not only for fun or entertainment, but also for learning or educating, especially for children. In kindergartens, preschools, or even elementary schools, children songs are used in the teaching-and-learning processes in the classes. The children songs used may help the children learning words of certain language. The children will understand and memorize them easier than if they have to memorize them sentence by sentence or word by word.

  By singing the words in the songs, the children will develop the knowledge of the language and add as many vocabularies as they can into their memory.

  Radford, Atkinson, Britain, Clahsen and Spencer in Linguistics: an state that “one of the tasks of a child learning his or her language is

  Introduction

  to figure out the sound system. This evolves learning how to distinguish all the

  2 linguistically important differences, and also how to produce them (Radford, Atkinson, Britain, Clahsen and Spencer, 2000: 105).” The children in the early ages are in the stage of trying to repeat the words they hear and gaining as many words as possible without knowing deeply what the meanings of the words are. More is also stated by Phillips that “it is almost true that language learners understand more than they can say, and when children learn their first language they respond to language long before they learn to speak (2003: 15).” Children are able to comprehend the language spoken by people around them although they still cannot articulate it.

  Children have their own ways in learning words. One of the ways is by rhyming. Children make their own rhymes to words they have obtained.

  Rhyme, of course, is the basis of classical European versification, but very small children are aware of rhymes and often play rhyming games with themselves in which they make up nonsense words to rhyme with words they know (Radford, et al, 2000: 130).

  Rhyming is such a fun activity for the children. This activity can help them to learn something more easily. Hence, children can also learn things through songs.

  Howle, in her article, states that although the children are still incapable of understanding the lyrics of songs they are hearing, it will be the basis for their upcoming language development (http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1053/ is_n4_v18/ai_8001205).

  The children tend to take any words that they hear. Then, they can identify the words when they hear it again in the future. Furthermore, Yokebet Megasuryaningsih in her undergraduate thesis says that “song is closely related to

  3 people’s life: mothers sing lullaby songs for their babies, kindergarten teachers teach songs to their students, people listen to songs on the radio, cassettes, etc (2000: 3).” This is supported by Phillips in Young Learners that says “music and rhythm make it much easier to imitate and remember language than words which are ‘just spoken’—if you teach children a song, it somehow ‘sticks’ (2003: 94).” Therefore, learning language by singing or listening to songs is good for children because “music and rhythm are an essential part of language learning for young learners (Philips, 2003: 94).”

  There are ten English children songs used in this study. They are “Brother John”, “Eensy Weensy Spider”, “Head and Shoulders”, “Hickory Dickory Dock”, “The Farmer in the Dell”, “The Hokey Pokey”, “Row Row Row Your Boat”, “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star”, “The Wheels on the Bus”, and “This Little Piggy”.

  They are quite known English children songs throughout the world.

  Most of those songs are anonymous. They are usually transferred widely from mother to children or from teachers to students or even from friends to friends.

  The song “Brother John” has French version, “Frère Jacques”. Both versions are very famous, especially in English-speaking and French-speaking countries. “Brother John” is “believed to be French in origin, and even in the English-speaking world, it is frequently sung in French (http://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/frere_jacques).”

  The song “Hickory Dickory Dock” is also believed to be in French, in a poem, because there is a poem that has same rhyme with it. The French poem is

  4 “Et qui rit des curés d’Oc?” The poem in French is a graceful tribute to the monks of Languedoc. The word ‘Oc’ may refer to Occitania (http://en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/hickory_dickory_dock).

  Other song, “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” is a combination of “the tune of the 1761 French melody “Ah! Vous Dirai-je, Maman” with an English poem “The Star” by Jane Taylor, published in 1806 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ twinkle_twinkle_little_star).” While “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” is a popular English children's song, often sung as a round. It can also be an 'action' song where singers sit opposite one another and 'row' forwards and backwards with joined hands. The tune is credited to Eliphalet Oram Lyte in the publication of The

  

Franklin Square Song Collection in 1881 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/row_row_

  row). And, “This Little Piggy” is first published in 1728 as a song which is also a counting rhyme, that the children would count their toes while singing the song (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/this_little_piggy).

  In this study, the writer wants to analyze the arrangement of the sentences or lyrics in the songs and the semantic relationship between lines in lyrics of children songs.

B. Problem Formulation

  There are three problems discussed in this thesis. The problems are formulated as follows:

  1. What are the syntactic categories of the sentences?

  2. What are the sentence structures in the children song’s lyrics?

  5

  3. What are the semantic relationships among the sentences in the lyrics?

  C. Objectives of the Study

  The objectives of this study are, firstly, to know about the syntactic categories of sentences of the children song’s lyrics by observing what type the sentences are. It is also to identify the sentence structures lay on the children song’s lyrics by determining the clause patterns. And lastly, it is to find out the semantic relationships among the sentences in the lyrics by comprehending the logical relationships among sentences.

  D. Definition of Terms

  There are some terms related to this study that are needed to be defined in order to avoid misunderstanding. They are syntax, semantic, and song.

  1. Syntax Syntax is derived from two Greek elements that are equated to together and arrangement (Poole, 1999: 83). Poole in An Introduction to Linguistics wrote

  “syntax is the study of utterances” (1999: 93). Moreover, he states that syntax is “the structure of phrases and sentences” (1999: 7).

  2. Semantics Fromkin, Blair, and Collins state that “the study of the linguistic meaning of morphemes, words, phrases, and sentences is called semantics” (2000: 151).

  6 More is also stated that “some of the semantic relationships we observed between words are also found between sentences” (2000: 164).

  3. Song In Longman Dictionary of Poetic Terms, Myers and Simms explain that song is “a lyric verse, usually short, accompanied by music” (1989: 286). In addition, “usually, the lyric is simple, direct, and conventional so as not to compete with the music” (Myers and Simms, 1989: 276).

CHAPTER II THEORETICAL REVIEW In this chapter, there are two subtitles. They are Review of Related Theories and Theoretical Framework. In Review of Related Theories, there are

  four theories that will be reviewed. The theories are theory on types of sentence, theory on clause pattern, theory on meaning, and theory on sentential meaning.

  Theoretical Framework describes the contribution of the theories and reviews in solving the problems of the study.

A. Review of Related Theories

  Traugott and Pratt said in Linguistics for Students of Literature that “all sentences in English basically consist of a noun phrase and a verb phrase” (1980: 131) so that analyzing English sentence structures can be started by seeing or defining the noun phrase and the verb phrase of the sentences. Usually a sentence can be defined by identifying the verb phrase of the sentence.

  To analyze the children song lyrics there are four main theories that will be reviewed. They are the types of sentences and clause patterns, theory on meaning, and on sentential meaning.

1. Theory on Types of Sentences

  In Linguistic Terms and Concept, Finch explained that “sentences are normally classified in terms of their form and function” (2000: 118). The

  8 sentences are classified in four main sentence classes (types). In A University

  , Quirk and Greenbaum mentioned that the four main

  Grammar of English

  sentence classes are declarative, interrogative, imperative, and exclamatory (1982: 191). Finch gave more explanation that “these relate to the functions of statement, question, command, and exclamation” (2000:118).

  A declarative contains statement in which the subject is always present and generally precedes the verb. e.g. John will speak to the boss today.

  S

  

V O A

  From the example, it can be seen that the subject comes first before the verb. This kind of sentence pattern can be understood as positive sentence.

  Interrogative is also known as question. Interrogative is sentence that is

  marked by one of these criteria:

  a. The placing of the operator immediately in front of the subject e.g. Will John speak to the boss today?

  aux S

  V O A

  From the example, the possible answer to this question is “No, John will not speak to the boss today” or “Yes, John will speak to the boss today”. This criterion is also known as yes-no question. It is because the only possible respond the addresser may get is ‘yes’ or ‘no’. There are some types of yes-no questions.

  The first is positive yes-no question. It may contain nonassertive items such as and ever. The question containing such forms is generally neutral, with no

  any

  bias in expectation towards a positive or negative response. For example, “Did

  9

  

anyone call last night?” The answer might be ‘yes’ or ‘no’. It depends on the truth

whether there was someone who called or there was not.

  However, a question may be biased toward a positive or negative answer. A question is positive if it uses assertive forms rather than the usual non-assertive forms, e.g. “Did someone call last night?”

  Another type is negative yes-no question. It is a question containing a negative form of one kind or another, e.g. “Isn’t your car working?” It also may combine not (the formal sign of negative orientation) with the assertive items, e.g. “Hasn’t the boat left already?” The possible answer to this question also depends on the truth condition whether the boat has left already or has not.

  A Tag Question consists of a statement and a question. The question tag contains operator plus pronoun, with or without a negative particle; the choice of the operator are determined by the verb phrase in the superordinate clause, e.g. “Joan recognized you, didn’t she?” The most common type of tag question is that the tag question is negative if the statement is positive and vice versa. The choice of operator and pronoun depends on the statement.

  b. The initial positioning of an interrogative or wh-element (wh-interrogatives) and the subject-operator inversion e.g. Who will you speak to?

  Q word aux S V prep

• interrogatives or wh-questions are formed with the aid of one of

  Wh

  interrogative words (or Q-words). The rules are, firstly, the Q-element (i.e. clause

  10 element containing the Q-words) generally comes first in the sentence, and second, the Q-word itself takes first position in the Q-element.

  c. Rising intonation (declarative questions) e.g. You will speak to the BÓSS?

  This type is an exceptional type of yes-no question identical in form to a statement, except for the final rising intonation. Usually this type of question is an emphasized response to a certain statement uttered by the addresser.

  An imperative may mean command which is sentence that normally has no overt grammatical subject, and whose verb is in imperative (has the base form). e.g. Speak to the boss today.

  Ø

  V O A In the example above, the sentence has no subject preceding the verb.

  However, this sentence can be understood to the addressee that the person needs to speak to the boss today.

  An exclamatory is an exclamation which is sentence having an initial phrase introduced by what or how, without inversion of subject and operator. e.g. What a noise they are making!

2. Theory on Clause Patterns

  A sentence may consist of one or more clauses. In A University Grammar

  of English, Quirk and Greenbaum distinguish clause types in seven clause types

  (1982: 167). They are:

  11

  e.g. I put the plate on the table S

  e.g. The child laughed S

  g. Subject + Verb

  V O O

  e.g. She gives me expensive presents S

  f. Subject + Verb + Object + Object

  V O C

  e.g. We have proved him wrong S

  e. Subject + Verb + Object + Complement

  

place

  V O A

  d. Subject + Verb + Object + Adverb

  a. Subject + Verb + Adverb

  V O

  e.g. Somebody caught the ball S

  c. Subject + Verb + Object

  V C

  V C S

  S

  e.g. Mary is kind / Mary is a nurse

  b. Subject + Verb + Complement

  V A _place

  S

  e.g. Mary is in the house

  V These seven clause types are the basic patterns of clause that may be found in sentences. Moreover, to identify clause patterns in sentences, the subject,

  12 object, and adverb of the clauses have to be discovered first. There are some ways to identify subject, object, and adverb. They are suggested below.

  To define a subject, there are some points that are suggested in Quirk and Greenbaum’s A University Grammar of English. They stated that a subject is normally a noun phrase or a clause with nominal function. For examples, a house, three scouts, the beautiful young lady.

  They also stated that a subject takes place before the verb phrase in declarative clauses, and immediately after the operator in questions. For examples, ‘My uncle has a big house’ and ‘Does my uncle have a big house?’ The subject of the examples is ‘my uncle’. In the first sentence, the subject precedes the verb ‘has’. In the second sentence, the subject is after the operator ‘does’. In addition, a subject has number and person concord, where applicable, with the verb phrase (1982: 170).

  To identify an object, there are some ways of identification suggested. An object, like a subject, is a noun phrase or clause with nominal function. It normally follows the subject and the verb phrase. And, by the passive transformation, an object assumes the status of object. For example,

  

Rudy eats an apple.  An apple is eaten by Rudy.

  There are two kinds of object. They are direct object and indirect object. An indirect object precedes the direct object if both objects are present. The indirect object is semantically equivalent to prepositional phrase (1982: 170).

  Furthermore, to define a complement, there are few things to be considered. Firstly, a complement is a noun phrase, an adjective phrase, or a

  13 clause with nominal function, having a co-referential relation with the subject (or object). Then, a complement follows the subject, verb phrase, and (if one present) object. Lastly, it does not become subject through the passive transformation (1982: 170).

  At last, an adverbial is an adverb phrase, adverbial clause, noun phrase, or prepositional phrase. Moreover, it is generally mobile, which is capable of occurring in more than one position in the clause. An adverbial is also generally optional, which may be added to or removed from a sentence without affecting its acceptability.

3. Theory on Meaning

  a. Meaning To understand an utterance or a sentence, it can be derived from the meaning of the words it contains. A word may have more than one meaning. For example, if we suggest the meaning of a word in dictionary, there might be several explanations suggested. It is because one of the characteristics of dictionaries is that “they provide definitions by suggesting words or phrases which, we are given to understand, have the ‘same’ meaning, though what is same-ness is a problem that we shall not be able to escape (Palmer, 1981: 3-4).” Hence, dictionary might be confusing sometimes.

  Moreover, in stating meaning, there might be some problems when the words tend to have “other meaning besides the ‘literal’ meaning of the words (1981: 4).” This might be problem studying semantics, which is the study of meaning, which “meanings do not seem to be stable but to depend upon speakers,

  14 hearers, and context (1981: 7).” Therefore, in learning meaning, understanding the circumstance or the background of the text may help to comprehend the other meaning.

  b. Components In F. R. Palmer’s Semantics, components are defined as “the total meaning of a word being seen in terms of a number of distinct elements or components of meaning (1981: 108).” Moreover, it is said that to recognize components is easy because components are “where words can be set out in a diagrammatic form to represent some kind of ‘proportional’ relationship (1981: 109).” Components set out kinship of a certain word with other words so that some categories will be revealed in order to get more understanding about their relationship.

  In componential analysis, it is allowed to give definitions for words in terms of a few components (1981: 110). Words can be categorized into some categories that counterpart them. As more is stated by Aitchison, “the attempt to divide lexical items into component parts is known as componential analysis (2003: 92).”

  Componential analysis also “attempts as far as possible to treat components in terms of ‘binary’ opposites (1981: 111).” For example, (male) and (female) are binary opposites because the only opposite meaning of male is female, and vice versa. In writing the analysis, it can be written as (+male) to indicate ‘male’ or (-male) to indicate ‘female’. Thus, “a particular component should be stated as a feature of one of the collocated words and as part of the required environment of the other (1981: 140).”

  15 However, the terms ‘component’ and ‘componential analysis’ are not often used nowadays. They are now widely known and mentioned as ‘semantic properties’. As stated by Aitchison that “nowadays, people tend to talk of words having semantic properties, which is somewhat more satisfactory (2003: 93).” c. Meaningful Units

  There are some meaningful units. These meaningful units are important to comprehend what elements forming a meaningful text.

  Firstly, morpheme is the smallest syntactic unit. The fundamental criterion of morpheme is that “a morpheme cannot be cut up into smaller syntactic unit (Aitchison, 2003: 60).” There are two types of morpheme. They are free morphemes which may be attached to another morpheme or can occur by themselves as whole words, and bound morphemes which should be attached to another (2003: 61).

  A bound morpheme is of two main types. They are inflectional morphemes, that do not change either the meaning or the part of speech of the word attached, and derivational morphemes, which generate new meaning or/and new part of speech that form a wholly new word (2003: 61).

  The examples of inflectional morphemes are –ed as in educated, –es as in , and –ing as in floating. The examples of derivational morphemes

  strawberries are –ly as in beautifully, un– as in unacceptable, and im– as in imperfect.

  Bloomfield defined a word as “a minimum free form, the smallest form that may occur in isolation (Palmer, 1981: 33).” A word can be distinguished into three types. They are lexical items, syntactic words and phonological words.

  16 Lexical items are the words that may be found when the words are looked up in the dictionaries. When the word is suggested in the dictionaries, there might be found some suggestions. They are generally known as synonyms. Syntactic words are the forms that a word can transform into. The transformations of the words may happen because of the changing of the tenses, or the changing of the quantity, or the changing of part of speech. Phonological words are the ways a word may be pronounced (Aitchison, 2003: 57-58).

  Palmer stated “the traditional definition of the sentence as ‘the expression of a complete thought’.” Furthermore, Palmer described that “English sentence will consist minimally of a subject noun phrase and a verb phrase as its predicate or complement (1981: 37).” The basic building blocks to create a sentence are noun phrase as subject and verb phrase as predicate. Predicate will explain what the subject does. meaning is different from sentence meaning. “The sentence

  Utterance

  meaning being directly predictable from the grammatical and lexical features of the sentence, while utterance meaning includes all the various types of meaning that we have just been discussing (Palmer, 1981: 40-41).” Utterance cannot be understood if it is not put into sentences. In other words, a context cannot be figured out if it is not placed in a text.

4. Theory on Sentential meaning

  In An Introduction to Language, Fromkin, Blair and Collins explain that the meaning of sentences is constructed, partly “from the meaning of noun phrase and verb phrases (2000: 171).” The meaning of a sentence is influenced by the

  17 meaning of the words constructing the sentence. It is also stated that adverbs may complement or qualify the meaning.

  When sentences are made, there will be possibilities that the sentences may be right (true) or wrong (false). To know the truth of the sentences, as some linguists say, they should have reference. In other words, “the truth or falsehood of these sentences is their reference (2000: 171).” Aitchison also stated about the truth condition. In Linguistics, it is stated that “some semanticists talk about such sentences as being ‘false’, in that they could not possibly be ‘true’; they deal with meaning by working out conditions under which sentences will be either ‘true’ or ‘false’ (2003: 98).” Truth condition may help to recognize anomalous utterances in certain text.

  There are three types of meaning relationship. They are:

a. Paraphrase

  Paraphrase is basically a synonymy. As stated by Traugott and Pratt that “synonymy is the same thing as paraphrase (1980: 203).” The definition of paraphrase is that if a sentence has same truth condition with another sentence, the two sentences can be paraphrases (Fromkin, et al, 2000: 172). The two sentences must have the same real circumstance. For example, there are two sentences:

  The horse threw the rider. The rider was thrown by the horse.

  Syntactically, these two sentences are different. The first sentence is active, then, the second one is in passive voice. However, these sentences deliver

  18 the same truth condition. It can be said that those two sentences are paraphrases because they have the same real circumstances.

  b. Entailment

  Entailment is that when a sentence entails or implies the truth of another sentence (Fromkin, et al, 2000: 172). The sentence that entails another sentence might be the result or even the cause of the entailed sentence. For example, Corday assassinated Marat.

  Marat is dead.

  The first sentence entails the truth of another sentence. It can be seen from the truth conditions or real circumstances of those sentences. For Marat has been assassinated, there will not be other possibilities than that, in the moment of speaking, Marat is dead.

  c. Contradiction

  In contrary to entailment, contradiction is “where the truth of one sentence necessarily implies the falseness of another sentence (Fromkin, et al, 2000: 173).” What is conveyed in the sentence does not lead to what happen in the another sentence. In other words, the sentence does not become the cause or the result of another sentence. Traugott and Pratt also conveyed that contradiction is “in which something is explicitly said to be both X and not-X at the same time (1980: 205).” It is impossible if two sentences that have different truth condition are both truthful all at once. For example,

  19

  Elizabeth II is Queen of England. Elizabeth II is a man.

  The first sentence is true, and then the second is false. The truth of the first sentence saying that Elizabeth II is a queen which is surely a woman (+female) makes the second sentence false. There is no possibility that Elizabeth II is a man (–female). Therefore, they are considered contradiction because the truths of those sentences are contradictory one another.

B. Theoretical Framework

  In writing this study, theories are needed to verify the eligibility of the analyses in this study. This study is a syntactic and semantic study so that the theories used are theory on types of sentences, theory on clause pattern, theory on meaning and theory on sentential meaning.

  The theory on types of sentences is used to help writer analyzing which type of sentence that may be discovered from the data which are the lyrics of children songs. The theory is taken from Quirk and Greenbaum’s A University .

  Grammar of English

  The second theory is theory on clause pattern. This theory is needed because it will help the writer observing the patterns of the clauses applied to the sentences of the lyrics. The theory is taken also from Quirk and Greenbaum’s A University Grammar of English .

  The third theory and the fourth theory are used to help writer finding out the semantic relationship among the sentences in the lyrics, whether or not the sentences have logical relationships one another. The third theory which is the

  20 theory on meaning explains about meaning and its element. And the fourth theory is the theory on sentential meaning which explains about how to discover the meaning connections among sentences. This theory will help the writer to find out the semantic relationships that may or may not relate the sentences (lyrics) in the children songs (data). The theories are taken from Fromkin, Blair, and Collins’ An Introduction to Language and Aitchison’s Linguistics.

CHAPTER III METHODOLOGY This chapter covers three parts. They are Object of the Study, Approach of

  the Study, and Method of the Study. In Object of the Study, the data used in this study will be described. Approach of the Study discusses the approach used for analyzing the data. Lastly, Method of the Study explains the processes of analyzing the data.

  A. Object of the Study

  This study used ten English children songs that are widely known all over the world. The songs are “Brother John”, “Eensy Weensy Spider”, “Head and Shoulders”, “Hickory Dickory Dock”, “The Farmer in the Dell”, “The Hokey Pokey”, “Row Row Row Your Boat”, “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star”, “The Wheels on the Bus”, and “This Little Piggy”. The writers of these songs are mostly anonymous. They are songs that come from English-speaking countries.

  Most of them are songs which have been sung for ages and inherited from generation to generation.

  In this study, the object examined is the lyrics of those children songs.

  B. Approach of the Study

  For this study syntactically and semantically observes the children songs, this study uses syntax and semantics as its approaches.

  22 Syntactically, this study analyzes the children song lyrics by examining the type of each sentence, and then, their clause pattern. It is because syntax is the study about how to put together words and phrases to generate a sentence in language.

  Meanwhile, semantics is studying about meanings of phrases, words, or sentences in language. Meaning is not just about the connotation or denotation of the phrases, words, or sentences, but also about the connection of them. Therefore, semantically, this study examines how the meaning relationships among the sentences in the lyrics are.

C. Method of the Study

  This study is a library research. All of the data are taken from written sources, such as books and articles from internet.

  To analyze the data there were some steps. The first step was dealing with the first problem of this study. The writer analyzed the sentences of the song lyrics trying to find the types of the sentences. Each sentence of the lyrics was being analyzed by categorizing which type each sentence on the lyrics was, whether they were declarative, interrogative, imperative, or exclamatory.

  The second step that writer took was determining the clause pattern arranged on each sentence of the lyrics. This step was taken to solve the second problem. Theory on clause pattern was gained in order to discover the answer to the second problem. The theory was used to analyze the pattern of the clauses on children song lyrics. The sentences were corresponded to seven clause patterns so that each sentence’s clause pattern could be identified.

  23 To find the semantic relationship among the sentences, the writer used the theory on meaning and theory on sentential meaning. These theories would lead to some ways that the writer could use to analyze the semantic relationships. Each sentence was explored whether they made paraphrase, entailment, or contradictory relationships with the sentences preceding and/or following.

CHAPTER IV ANALYSIS RESULTS This chapter contains the answers to problem formulation of the study. There are three questions in the problem formulation. Therefore, the analysis will be divided into three parts in which each part answers one question. A. The syntactic categories of the sentences The sentences on the lyrics have each own type. Each of those sentences is analyzed by indentifying the type of each sentence. As mentioned in the theories, there are four types of sentences. They are

  declarative, interrogative, imperative, and exclamatory. Thus, each sentence on the lyrics of the children songs will be categorized to one of them.

  The total finding on sentences of certain types is listed in table below.

  Types of sentences sentences Declarative

  88 Interrogative

  3 Imperative

  2 Exclamatory

  1 Table 1: Total findings on types of sentences Firstly on the analysis on types of sentences, the sentences which are declarative will be identified. Declarative is basically a statement. It conveys

  25 information in the sentence. It is usually started with a capital letter and ended with a period.

  The writer found that there are 88 sentences of declarative. All of the data of declarative sentences can be seen on appendix 1 in Appendices page.

  The writer found that most of the sentences on the lyrics of the children songs are in declarative. This is because one of the functions of songs, especially children songs, is to inform things. In the lyrics of the children songs case, it is to let the children know words about their surrounding objects, themselves, and their actions. By using declarative sentence, the song writers can easily state the information.

  The writer took some of the data to be presented in the analysis. They are: (1) Morning bells are ringing.

  (2) Down came the rain and washed the spider out. (3) Out came the sun and dried up all the rain. (4) The farmer takes a wife. (5) The wife takes a child. (6) You put your right foot out. (7) Under the water and over the water the paddles slide. (8) Under the water and over the water the row boat glides. (9) The money on the bus goes clink, clink, clink. (10) I had a piggy on the phone.

  Most of the sentences mentioned above are in the usual form of declarative. The subjects of the sentences precede the predicate. For example, in