What is syntax?

**Syntax** is the branch of linguistics that studies the rules and principles governing the structure of sentences in a language. It focuses on how words combine to form phrases, clauses, and sentences, and how different sentence structures convey meaning. Syntax examines the arrangement of words, the relationships between them, and the grammatical rules that dictate how they fit together to create coherent and meaningful expressions. For example, syntax dictates that in English, a typical sentence structure is Subject-Verb-Object (e.g., "The cat (Subject) chased (Verb) the mouse (Object)").