A syntactic analysis of English short stories for children

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 Tập 13, Số 2, 2019Tạp	chí	Khoa	học	-	Trường	ĐH	Quy	Nhơn,	ISSN:	1859-0357,	Tập	13,	Số	2,	2019,	Tr.	15-28
A SYNTACTIC ANALYSIS OF ENGLISH SHORT STORIES FOR CHILDREN
TON NU MY NHAT1*,	TRAN	THI	HONG	CAM2
1 Department of Foreign Languages, Quy Nhon University 
2Graduate	Student,	Course	19,	English	Language	Class,	Quy	Nhon	University
ABSTRACT
Given the increasing technological advancement and widespread use of the online resources for 
education in general and teaching of English as a foreign language in particular, this study is aimed to 
contribute to this endeavor, with particular reference to young learners. It is an investigation of the syntactic 
characteristics of the English short stories targeted at children. The mixed-method was manipulated to 
capture the picture of the structures at the sentence and clause levels across the three age groups - 0 - 3, 
4 - 6 and 7 - 12. The data constitute 30 short stories from the website  The results 
from the analysis reveal that all three groups share all types of sentences and clauses except for verbless 
clauses. However, unequal proportions of different structures across three groups indicate age-specific 
characteristics. The findings demonstrate an increasing complexity in terms of syntactic structures as the 
targeted age-groups are more grown up. The close analysis upholds the pedagogical practicality of these 
resources, which should be harnessed to develop English proficiency of the young learners, especially in 
under-resourced settings.
Keywords:	Clause,	sentence,	short	stories,	syntax,	syntactic	structure.
TÓM	TẮT
Phân tích cú pháp truyện ngắn tiếng Anh dành cho trẻ em
Với sự phát triển ngày càng gia tăng của kỹ thuật và phổ biến các nguồn tài liệu trên mạng, tài liệu 
giáo dục nói chung và dạy học tiếng Anh như một ngoại ngữ nói riêng, bài viết này nhằm đóng góp vào nỗ 
lực chung đó, với sự quan tâm với đối tượng thiếu nhi. Công trình này phân tích những đặc trưng cú pháp 
của các truyện ngắn tiếng Anh dành cho thiếu nhi. Chúng tôi sử dụng phương pháp nghiên cứu phối hợp 
để nắm bắt bức tranh về cấu trúc cú pháp của câu và mệnh đề của truyện ngắn dành cho 3 nhóm - 0 - 3 
tuổi, 4 - 6 tuổi, và 7 - 12 tuổi. Dữ liệu khảo sát là 30 truyện, 10 truyện cho mỗi nhóm, từ trang web http://
storyberries.com/. Kết quả khảo sát cho thấy tất cả các loại cấu trúc câu và mệnh đề, ngoại trừ loại mệnh 
đề vắng động từ, đều được sử dụng trong cả 3 nhóm. Tuy nhiên, có sự khác nhau về tần số xuất hiện của mỗi 
loại cấu trúc ở các nhóm tuổi khác nhau; tần số sử dụng của các câu và mệnh đề phức tạp về cấu trúc lớn 
hơn khi đối tượng được hướng đến lớn tuổi hơn. Công trình phân tích cho thấy giá trị sư phạm của nguồn 
tư liệu này, chúng cần được sử dụng để phát triển năng lực tiếng Anh của thiếu nhi, đặc biệt ở những môi 
trường với điều kiện còn hạn chế. 
Từ khóa: Mệnh	đề,	câu,	truyện	ngắn,	cú	pháp,	cấu	trúc	cú	pháp.	 
*Email: tnmynhat70@gmail.com
Ngày	nhận	bài:	26/12/2018;	Ngày	nhận	đăng:	6/3/2019
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1. Introduction
Research	has	consistently	 shown	 the	multiple	ways	 that	 reading	 literary	fiction	 impacts	
children’s	lives	and	influences	their	brain	development.	The	benefits	range	from	relieving	stress,	to	
developing memory, critical thinking skill, writing skills and empathy and emotional intelligence 
and broadening a child’s outlook (Reddler, 2018). Reddler (2018) states: 
In a world that is focusing more and more on logic, reading is a great way for kids to 
maintain their vibrant imagination while improving their ability to engage with peers, adults, and 
society. Reading allows our sons and daughters to live vicariously through the fictional lives of 
the characters which gives them valuable opportunities to explore new situations, see the world 
from another person’s vantage point, learn about strong emotions from the safety of home, and 
event confront their fears. Reading gives our children the ability to know themselves through the 
stories of others”.
Equally	emphasized	is	the	role	of	short	stories	in	the	field	of	teaching	English	as	a	foreign	
language	 (TEFL)	 to	young	 learners	 (YLs).	Scholars	have	highlighted	 the	potential	benefits	of	
short stories to children (Elliott, 2011; Jennings, 1991; Phillips, 1993; Scott & Ytreberg, 1990; 
Slattery	&	Willis,	2001;	Wright,	2000;).	Children,	teachers,	parents,	and	caregivers	can	turn	
to stories as immeasurable sources both of entertainment and early sources of language input. 
Stories hold a great potential for consolidating lexical and grammatical knowledge and increasing 
cultural knowledge. In class, stories can be exploited to provide chances for follow-up activities 
and good themes for discussions. Wright (2000) maintains that at an early stage of language 
acquisition, stories can supply children with a useful way of new language contextualization and 
introduction, which makes it meaningful and memorable. Jennings (1991) indicates the vital role 
of stories thanks to their opulent potential to supply an authentic model of language use. 
Therefore, in the increasingly digital world, many dedicated people are concerned about 
the fact “that books are dead or that technology is changing how we get our information” and 
have launched various websites offering stories in order to excite and engage children in stories, 
in order to “harness the power of literature to empower children to understand their own evolving 
natures and special place in the world.” [27]. However, the question is: to what extent are these 
significant	free	resources,	the	English	short	stories	for	kids	(ESSKs),	designed	by	native	English	
speakers, are linguistically appropriate to YLs of English as a foreign language (EFL)? This study 
is	one	of	our	attempts	to	delve	into	the	tremendous	benefits	of	these	websites	to	the	YLs	of	EFL.	
As a preliminary research, this study primarily aims to investigate whether or not an increase 
in the age labeled alongside the stories, 0 - 3, 4 - 6, and 7 - 12, corresponds to an increase 
in syntactic complexity of the stories in terms of the grammatical structures formally taught in 
English classes. The research questions are (1) What are the syntactic features of ESSKs for 
the three age groups? And (2) What are the similarities and differences of the structures of the 
sentences and clauses across the three age groups? The following sections will begin with an 
overview of the basic concepts in English syntax according to which the syntactical complexity 
of	 the	stories	was	analyzed.	It	continues	with	 the	definitions	and	features	of	short	stories.	The	
methodology section is to describe the data of the study and delineate procedure of data analysis. 
Ton	Nu	My	Nhat,	Tran	Thi	Hong	Cam
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 Tập 13, Số 2, 2019
The	fourth	part	presents	the	findings	and	discussion.	The	paper	closes	with	some	implications	for	
the teaching of English as a foreign language (TEFL) to young learners (YL). 
2. Theoretical background
2.1. The sentence and the clause 
The structures and functions of language have been subjected to analyses and descriptions 
from	a	range	of	 theories	such	as	Traditional	Grammar,	Structural	Grammar,	Transformational-
Generative	Grammar,	 Cognitive	Grammar,	 Systemic	 Functional	Grammar	 and	 so	 on.	As	 this	
study is practically motivated, the analysis was based on the grammatical frameworks integrated 
in English coursebooks which are widely-circulated in the educational system in Vietnam. In 
the	 following	sections,	 the	definitions,	 the	classification,	and	 the	structure	of	 the	sentence	and	
the clause are heavily withdrawn from the works by Oshima and Hogue (2006) and Quirk, 
Greenbaum,	Leech	&	Svartvik (1985).
2.1.1. The sentence
In the simplest term, by ‘Sentence’, we mean a group of words beginning with a capitalized 
letter and ending with a full stop, exclamation mark, or question mark. Technically, “a sentence is 
a group of words used to communicate ideas. Each sentence is formed from one or more clauses 
and expresses a complete thought”. (Oshima and Hogue, 2006, p. 164). Sentences in English are 
classified	into	simple sentences	(SSs),	compound	sentences	(CpdSs),	complex	sentences	(CplSs)	
and	compound-complex	sentences	(CppSs).	Each	kind	of	sentence	is	determined	by	the	kind	of	
clauses used to form it.
- A simple sentence consists of a single independent clause, such as (1). 
(1) Fresh water boils at 100 degrees Celsius at sea level. 
- A compound sentence is a structure of two or more independent clauses; the clauses can 
be combined in three ways: with a coordinator, with a conjunctive adverb, or with a semicolon. 
(2) Japanese people live longer than most other nationalities, for they eat healthy diets.
(3) Students must take final exams; otherwise, they will receive a grade of Incomplete.
(4) Salt water boils at a higher temperature than fresh water; food cooks faster in salt water.
- A complex sentence consists of one independent clause and one (or more) dependent 
clause (s). Dependent clauses comprise three subcategories: adverb clauses, adjective clauses, 
and noun clauses. 
(5) A citizen can vote in the United States when he or she is 18 years old.
(6) Men who are not married are called bachelors.
(7) Scientists know what caused it.
- A compound-complex sentence is comprised of at least two independent clauses and 
one or more dependent clauses. In other words, to form a compound-complex sentence, any 
combination of dependent and independent clauses is possible as long as there are at least two 
independent clauses and one dependent clause. 
(8) I wanted to travel after I graduated from college; however, I had to go to work immediately.
(9) I could not decide where I should work or what I should do so at first, I did nothing.
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2.1.2. The clause
The	 clause,	 as	 defined	 by	Oshima	&	Hogue	 (2006,	 p.	 174),	 is	 “the building blocks of 
sentences. A clause is a group of words that contains (at least) a subject and a verb”. Many 
others refer to this structure as a composition of at least two constituent elements, one of which 
plays the role of subject, the other, of predicate. The structural components of the clause are also 
referred	 to	 as	 ‘Subject’,	 ‘Verb’,	 ‘Complement’,	 ‘Object’	 and	 ‘Adverbial’	 (Downing	&	Locke,	
2006;	Delahunty	and	Garvey,	2010;	Quirk	et	al.,	1985).	
Structurally,	Quirk	et	al.	(1985)	classify	the	clause	into	three	types	-	finite	clauses	(FCs),	
nonfinite	clauses	(nonFCs),	and	verbless	clauses	(VlCs).
-	A	finite	clause	is	a	clause	whose	verb	element	is	finite,	which	mean	it	is	marked	for	either	
tense or modality and can be simple or complex. For example,
(10) I can’t go out with you because I am studying this evening.
- A	nonfinite	clause	is	a	clause	with	its	verb	element	being	a	nonfinite	verb.	The	nonfinite	
clause always consists of a verb and may be with or without a subject, which is commonly absent. 
Unlike	finite	verb	phrases,	nonfinite	verb	phrases	have	no	tense	or	mood	distinctions.	There	are	
four	 subcategories	 of	 nonfinite	 clauses:	 to-infinitive clauses	 (to-VCs),	 bare infinitive clauses 
(bareCs),	-ing clauses	(V-ingCs),	and	-ed clauses	(V-edCs),	depending	on	whether	the	nonfinite	
verb	is	a	to-infinitive,	bare	infinitive,	V-ing	participle,	or	V-ed	participle.	
(11) The best thing would be for you to tell everybody.
(12) Rather than you do the job, I’d prefer to finish it myself.
(13) The parents having paid for the damaged window, the police were not called.
(14) Covered with confusion, they apologized abjectly.
- A verbless clause is a clause without a verb element, but is nevertheless capable of being 
analyzed into clause elements. Verbless clauses take syntactic compression one stage further than 
nonfinite	clauses	and	like	nonfinite	clauses,	they	are	commonly	with	subjects.	It	is	often	possible	to	
postulate a missing form of the verb be and to recover the subject, when omitted, from the context.
(15) Whether right or wrong, he always comes off worst in argument.
2.2. Short stories
Short	 stories	have	 long	been	of	great	 interest	 to	human	beings.	Attempts	at	a	definition	
have been highly diverse. May (1989, p. 64) maintains the short story is “the structural core of 
all fiction in its derivation from folktale and myth”, and “it has from its beginning been a hybrid 
form combining both the metaphoric mode of the old romance and the metonymic mode of the new 
realism”.	A	short	story	is	also	defined	as	a	brief	fictional	work	written	in	prose,	and	it	deals	with	a	
single character, a single event, a single emotion, or the series of emotions called forth by a single 
situation	(Matthews,	1994).	Similarly,	Baldick	(2001,	p.	236)	defines	a	short	story	as	a	fictional	
prose	tale;	this	genre	does	not	have	specified	length and is too short to be published as a volume 
on its own. According to Abrams (1993), regardless of length, a short story is a narrative that can 
be read at one sitting from half an hour to two hours, and it is limited to a certain unique or single 
effect to which every detail is subordinate. 
Ton	Nu	My	Nhat,	Tran	Thi	Hong	Cam
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 Tập 13, Số 2, 2019
Compared	with a novel, short stories are less complicated. Patea (2012) states that a short 
story	deals	only	with	a	fragment,	an	incident,	a	single	small-scale	event.	It	centers	on	a	scene	or/
and a person cut off from a larger social, historical or existential continuum, and concentrates on 
a moment of awareness rather than a completed action. This genre blends the brevity and intensity 
of the lyric with narrative features such as plot, denouement, character, and events. In spite of 
short	length	and	simple	characterization,	a	short	story	can	reflect	its	writer’s	features	of	narration	
and	ideas	or	thoughts	thanks	to	its	structure	(Gao,	1976).	According	to	Gordimer	(1994),	short	
stories are used to communicate human experience. More importantly, precious moral lessons are 
then also conveyed through such experience. 
3. Research methodology
3.1. Data description
The	data	for	this	research	is	selected	from	the	website		As	claimed	
in the homepage - ABOUT US, this innovative publisher of quality free children’s stories is “a 
beloved place in the hearts, homes, and schools of children all around the world, and currently 
enjoy more than a million reads a month.” [27].
Storyberries was founded by a family driven by a passion to help as many children around 
the world as possible to access quality stories for free. It consists of 3000+ short stories in English. 
Their mission is threefold: (1) To offer best quality collection of children’s stories, allowing 
children the world over to easily read beautiful, age-appropriate stories, enhancing literary 
and fostering an early love of reading; (2) To foster cross-cultural understanding, and (3) To 
humanize technology by encouraging discussion over real-life issues around the pleasurable time 
of reading together. [15]. The categories to be chosen are:
-	AGE:	Age	0	-	3,	Age	4	-	6,	Age	7	-	12,	and	Early	readers;	
- TIME: 5 Min Stories, 10 Min Stories, 15 Min Stories, and 20+ Stories;
-	TYPE:	Picture	Books,	Fairy	Tales,	Chapter	Books,	Poems	for	Kids,	and	Comic	Books.
To address the aim of the present study, it is from the Age category that we selected the 
samples	for	the	data.	Given	the	large	number	of	stories	in	three	groups	-	49,	171,	and	218,	we	
set some criteria for stories to be included in the corpus as follows. Firstly, the stories selected 
are those written by world-famous authors who specialize in writing stories for children such as 
Beatrix	Potter,	Brothers	Grimm,	Hans	Christian	Andersen,	Katharine	Pyle,	and	Danielle	Noakes.	
Secondly, only the stories on bullying, empathy, kindness, honesty and truthfulness were selected 
due to their moral values. Finally, the choice of data was based on the length of the stories. The 
stories are of various lengths, ranging from less than 90 running words to up to above 1400. 
A preliminary analysis in terms of length unfolded the result that the stories of approximately 
90 - 200, 300 - 1000, and of 900 - 1400 predominate the 0 - 3, 4 - 6, and 7 - 12 age groups 
respectively. In view of the number of aspects the stories were analyzed, a limitation to 30 stories 
is sizable. Therefore, 10 stories which meet the three aforementioned criteria from each age-group 
were chosen to serve as the corpus of this study. They are all included in the Appendix in terms 
of code, title, and name of author. 
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3.2. Data analysis
To address the aim set forth, we manipulated the mixed method. While the qualitative 
method was employed to identify and classify the units of analysis, the quantitative method helped 
the researchers approach the picture of the occurrence frequency of the types and subtypes of the 
structures	in	focus.	We	analyzed	the	data	quantitatively	to	arrive	at	finding	out	the	frequency	of	
sentence	and	clause	types	and	subtypes.	On	this	basis,	the	syntactic	characteristics	of	ESSKs	were	
synthesized	to	find	out	their	similarities	and	differences	across	the	three	groups.	The	result	of	the	
analysis	of	the	30	ESSKs	in	terms	of	sentences	and	clauses	is	summarized	in	Table	1.	Next,	the	
sentences	were	classified	into	four	types	-	SS,	CpdS,	CplS,	and	CppSs.	Then,	the	clauses	in	the	
data	were	identified	and	statistically	analysed	in	terms	of	types	and	subtypes,	according	to	those	
summarised in Section 2.1. 
Table 1. Number of sentences and clauses in the ESSKs of three age groups
 Number of 
Age group
Sentences Clauses
0-3 (n = 10) 234 359
4-6 (n = 10) 435 1037
7-12 (n = 10) 526 1784
Total (N = 30) 1195 3180
4. Findings and discussion
4.1. Syntactic features of ESSKs for three age groups
Thirty	 ESSKs	 of	 the	 three	 different	 age	 groups	 were	 analyzed	 in	 terms	 of	 clause	 and	
sentence construction. The results are presented in the Table 2. 
Table 2. The distribution of syntactic structures in ESSKs of the three age groups
Structure Age groups Age group 0-3 Age group 4-6 Age group 7-12
No. % No. % No. %
Se
nt
en
ce
s
SS 140 59.8% 163 37.5% 102 19.4%
CpdS 18 7.7% 84 19.3% 94 17.9%
CplS 59 25.2% 111 25.5% 152 28.9%
CppS 17 7.3% 77 17.7% 178 33.8%
Total 234 100% 435 100% 526 100%
C
la
us
es
FC 313 87.2% 861 83% 1484 83.2%
non-FC 46 12.8% 126 12.2% 260 14.6%
VlC 0 0% 50 4.8% 40 2.2%
Total 359 100% 1037 100% 1784 100%
Ton	Nu	My	Nhat,	Tran	Thi	Hong	Cam
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 Tập 13, Số 2, 2019
Generally,	as	can	been	seen	from	Table	2,	the	stories	written	for	children	in	different	age	
groups use a range of both sentences and clauses, with all the subcategories of these two levels. 
However, the proportions of each type and subtype vary from group to group. 
4.1.1. Age group 0-3
All	 the	 types	 of	 sentences	 and	 clauses	 are	 used,	 but	 there	 is	 a	 significant	 disparity	 among	 their	
distributions.	SSs	are	the	most	frequently	used	(59.8%),	followed	by	CplSs,	(25.2%).	In	contrast,	
both	 CpdSs	 and	 CppSs	 are	 found	 at	 merely	 less	 than	 10%	 (7.7%	 and	 7.3%,	 respectively).	
Constituting	more	than	a	half	of	the	whole	corpus,	SSs	are	dominant	among	the	four	subtypes	of	
sentence structure. 
(16) The sky was blue above. But she did not look up. The river gurgled below. But Little 
Goat did not listen to its song.	[GI-1]
(17) But Little Goat didn’t answer. She just walked along looking for the sweetest grass. 
As she walked along, Little Goat moved further and further away from Mother Goat. Little Goat 
found the sweetest grass. She ate and ate. She had walked far from Mother Goat.	[GI-9]
In (16), there are four sentences, all of which are constantly SSs. In (17), in the total of six 
sentences, SSs contribute four instances which are far more than the others. Moreover, according 
to Oshima & Hogue (2006),