–noun

1. Linguistics. a. the study of the rules for the formation of grammatical sentences in a language.

b. the study of the patterns of formation of sentences and phrases from words.

c. the rules or patterns so studied: English syntax.

d. a presentation of these: a syntax of English.

e. an instance of these: the syntax of a sentence.

2. Logic. a. that branch of modern logic that studies the various kinds of signs that occur in a system and the possible arrangements of those signs, complete abstraction being made of the meaning of the signs.

b. the outcome of such a study when directed upon a specified language.

3. a system or orderly arrangement.

4. Computers. the grammatical rules and structural patterns governing the ordered use of appropriate words and symbols for issuing commands, writing code, etc., in a particular software application or programming language.

Syntax is not prescriptivist – which is to say, it does not attempt to tell people what the objectively correct way to form a sentence is. Rather, it is descriptivist, in that it looks at how language is actually used and tries to come up with rules that successfully describe what various language communities consider to be grammatical or non-grammatical. Syntax deals with a number of things, all of which help to facilitate being understood and understanding language. Without rules of syntax, there would be no foundation from which to try to discern meaning from a bunch of words strung together, whereas with syntax, an infinite number of sentences are possible using a fairly small finite number of rules.