Different words engender different syntactic behaviour, and this aspect of speaker knowledge is represented in the lexicon. The verbs of English occur in a wide variety of syntactic patterns. For example, the verb want and force appear to be similar when we consider such sentence as
The conductor wanted the passengers to leave.
The conductor forced the passengers to leave.
but they differ in another syntactic context :
The conductor wanted to leave.
The condoctor forced to leave.
Try exhibits a thied pattern differing form both want and force in that it is never followed directly by an NP :
The conductor tried him to leave.
Try is, however, similar to want, but not force, in that it can be directly followed by an infinitive (that is, the 'to' form of the verb): the conductor tried to leave.
These differing syntactic patterns of verbs are also specified in the lexicon, thus accounting explicitly for the knowledge spaekers have about these words.
The example given show only a single verb for each pattern, but each verb cited is representative of a class of verbs. For example, expect, need, and wish pattern ina similar way to want; allow,order and persuade pattern in a similar way to force; and condescend, decide, and manage pattern in a similar way to try. Another instance of syntactically based lexical difference is found in the patterns in which believe and say appear, which are quite different from those of want-, force-, and try-class verb :
The teacher believe susan is outstanding.
The teacher say susan is outstanding.
The teacher believe susan to be outstanding
Both believe and say may be followed by a complete sentence. However, only believe can be followed by a 'sentence' in which the verb occurs as an infinitive. As in the previous case, these patterns are repersentative of classes of verbs: suppose and think are like believe; forget and insist are like say. A generalisation emerges when the following example are considered :
The teacher believe themselves to be outstanding.
The teacher say themselves to be outstanding.
Believe-class verbs, but not say-class verbs, can be followed by a reflexive pronoun, a pronoun ending with -selft. The differences in syntactic patterns are part of the lexical rppresentation of these verbs.
The lexicon is a key component in the grammar, containing vast amounts of information on individual words.
