Unit 1

Introductory concepts and categories (I)

Outline• Types of grammatical units– Sentence– Clause– Phrase/Group– Word– Morpheme

• Words– Definition– Classes – The structure of words: Morphology

Types of grammatical unitssentence

clause

phrase/group

word

morpheme

Types of grammatical units• Sentence – grammatical unit consisting of one or more

clauses• Clause – grammatical unit consisting of one or more

phrases• Phrase – grammatical unit consisting of one or more

words• Word – grammatical unit consisting of one or more

morphemes

• Morphemes – grammatical units as parts of words (stems, prefixes, suffixes)

SYNTAX

MORPHOLOGY

Types of grammatical units• Three criteria used to describe grammatical units:– Structure: the elements a grammatical unit is made of

(words in terms of bases and affixes; phrases in terms of heads and modifiers, etc.)

– Syntactic role: the syntactic function that the grammatical unit performs

– Meaning: the type of information expressed by the grammatical unit (adverbs, for ex., express information about time, place and manner)

Words: Definition• Word: basic element of language or minimal free form (free-

standing & mobile)• Different senses of the word “word”:– Orthographic words: words in written language separated

by spaces. Ex.: They wrote us a letter (5 orth. words)– Grammatical words: words may belong to one

grammatical word class. Ex.: orth. word leaves may be either of two gram. words: a verb (3rd person singular form of verb leave) or a noun (plural form of noun leaf)

– Lexeme: set of gram. words sharing the same basic meaning, similar form and same word class. Ex.: leave, leaves, left and leaving are all members of the verb lex. leave

Words: Classes• Words classified according to main function and grammatical

behaviour– Lexical words (also called open class/content words): nouns,

verbs, adjectives and adverbs• carry information in a text/speech act• normally complex internal structure• stressed in speech

– Function words (also called closed class/grammatical words): prepositions, coordinators, auxiliary verbs and pronouns• Indicate meaning relationships

– Inserts (spoken language): oh, ah, wow, yeah, hm, uh-huh• carry emotional & discoursal meaning• don’t form part of syntactic structure (inserted freely in text)

Lexical words• Nouns (common & proper). Characteristics:– Morphological (structure): 1) inflect for plural number &

genitive case (HOWEVER many nouns uncountable and don’t have plural forms); 2) often contain more than one morpheme (ex.: bombshell, singer)

– Syntactic: can occur as head of nominal group being pre- and post-modified. Ex.: The beautiful woman lying on the sand

– Semantic (meaning): commonly refer to concrete physical entities (people, objects, substances), although they can also denote abstract entities (feelings, emotions, ideas)

Lexical words• Lexical Verbs. Characteristics:– Morphological: have different forms signalling tense,

aspect & voice– Syntactic: occur normally on their own acting as central

part of the clause/also occur in final or main verb position of verbal groups

– Semantic: denote actions, processes and states of affairs

Lexical words• Adjectives. Characteristics:– Morphological: many take inflexional suffixes

(-er/-est)/they can be complex in morphology (acceptable, forgetful, influential)

– Syntactic: occur as the head of adjectival group used as modifiers preceeding head of nominal group

– Semantic: describe qualities of people, things & abstractions/ many are gradable

Lexical words• Adverbs. Characteristics:– Morphological: many formed from adjectives adding –ly

(clearly, eagerly), others have no such ending (however, just)

– Syntactic: occur as head of adverbial groups often used as modifiers of adjective or verb

– Semantic: most often express degree of a following adjective/adverb (totally wrong/right now)

Function words• Determiners: usually precede nouns and are used to clarify

the meaning of the noun (definite, indefinite article; demonstrative det.; possessive det.; quantifiers)

• Pronouns: fill the position of a noun or a whole noun phrase (personal, demonstrative, reflexive, reciprocal, possessive, indefinite, relative, interrogative)

• Auxiliary verbs: precede the main or lexical verb in a verb phrase (primary (be, have, do) & modal (will, can, shall, may, must, would, could, should, might))

• Prepositions: linking words introducing prepositional groups/most are short & invariable but can also be complex

• Coordinators & subordinators: indicate a relationship between two units (and, or, but/because, since)

Inserts• Mainly in spoken language• Marked off by break in intonation or speech and by

punctuation mark in writing (Well, we made it)• Used to express speaker’s emotional response to situation:

Wow! That’s awesome!/ Oh! I didn’t know it• Used to signal a response to what has just been said: Yeah, I

will/Hm hm, very good

The structure of words: Morphology

• Lexical words may be made of a single morpheme (stem) or have a more complex structure by means of inflexion, derivation & compounding– Inflexion: lexical words take inflexional suffixes to signal

meanings & roles important to their word class (plural for nouns or past tense for verbs)• Other classes of words are generally invariable

(prepositions, conjunctions, & determiners)

The structure of words: morphology

– Derivation usually involves adding an affix (morpheme attached to the beginning – prefix – or to the end – suffix – of a word)• Different from inflexion because it changes the identity

of a word and creates new nouns, adjectives, verbs and adverbs• It changes the meaning of a word or the class of a word

and creates a new base form for the word (prefixes: ex+president, un+kind; suffixes: boy+hood, central+ize)

The structure of words: Morphology

– Compounding is a form of derivation where a word contains more than one stem (Noun+noun (chair+man); Verb+noun (cook+book); Adjective+noun (blue+bird); Noun+adjective (water+tight))• Three tests to check if the word is a compound:– The word will be spelt as a single word (no spaces)– The word will be pronounced with the main stress

on first element– The word will have a meaning not determined from

individual parts

The structure of words: Morphology

• Apart from compounds, sequences of words behave as a combination:– Multi-word unit: sequence of orthographic words

functioning like one grammatical unit (ex.: on top of)– Idiom: multi-word unit where meaning can’t be predicted

from the meanings of its parts (ex.: make up (one’s) mind)– Collocation: relationship between one/more independent

words commonly appearing together (ex.: broad agreement)

Introduction to phrases/groups• Phrases/groups are higher units into which words are

organized

• A phrase/group may consist of one single word or a group of words

• Phrases/groups can be embedded (i.e. be part of another structure)

– E.g. [They] [passed] [the table [with [the two men]]]

clause

Noun phrase

They

Verb phrase

passed

Noun phrase

the table Prep phrase

with Noun phrase

the two men

They passed the table with the two men

Classes of phrases

• For each type of lexical word there is a type of phrase, where the lexical word is the head (function words are also found):– Noun phrase or Nominal Group– Verb phrase or Verbal Group– Adjective phrase or Adjectival Group– Adverb phrase or Adverbial Group– Prepositional phrase or Prepositiona Group

Noun phrase• Noun phrase/Nominal group: A phrase with a noun as its head

(determiner)+(modifier)+HEAD+(qualifier) d m h q – Ex.: A house/These houses/Her beautiful big charming house

• Abstract nouns can also be followed by complements completing the meaning of the noun (esp. that-clauses and infinitive to-clauses). Ex.: He feels awkward about her refusal to show any sign of emotion

• Proper nouns, pronouns and sometimes adjectives can also be head of NP. Ex.: Thomas lives in Wembley/They said they’d got it/Show me how the impossible can be possible

• NPs can take the syntactic role of subject or object as well as of predicative, adverbial and complement in PPs.

Verb phrases• Verb phrase/Verbal group: a phrase with a primary/lexical

verb as its head: (operator)+(auxiliary)+VERB o x v (ex.: do you go/has gone/go)

• Finite VPs show distinctions of tense (present/past) & include modal auxiliaries (different from non-finite VPs)

• VPs are the essential part of a clause, referring to a type of state/action (the main verb determines the other elements in the clause)

• Sometimes VPs are split into two parts (e.g. in questions, when adverbs and other adverbials are placed in the middle)– What were you doing?– This year has definitely started well

Adjective phrases• Adjective phrase/Adjectival group: A phrase with an adjective

as its head: (modifier)+HEAD+(qualifier) m h q (ex.: good/definitely good/good enough)

• Modifiers answer the question about the degree of a quality• Adjective heads often take complements which answer the

question “In what sense is the adjectival quality to be interpreted?” (ex.: guilty of a serious crime/slow to respond)

• The most important roles of AP are as modifier (attributive) & subject predicative (ex.: a deeply sick man/He’s totally crazy)

• APs may be split into two parts by the noun head (ex.: He’s a really tough player to beat)

Adverb phrases• Adverb phrase/Adverbial group: a phrase with an adverb as its

head: (modifier)+HEAD+(qualifier) m h q (ex.: there/pretty soon/fortunately enough)

• Adverb phrases are different from adverbials: adverb phrases are structures while adverbials are clause elements (adverb phrases, prepositional phrases and adverbial clauses can all function as adverbials)

• Two basic syntactic roles of adverb phrases are: 1) modifier in adjective/adverb phrases (ex.: He was an attractive little creature with a sweetly expressive face); 2) adverbial (ex.: She smiled sweetly)

Prepositional phrases• Prepositional phrase/Prepositional group: a phrase with a

preposition as its head: (modifier)+HEAD+completive m h k (ex.: considerably to the right/on the night of the first day)

• Prepositions can also take complement clauses that behave like NPs (normally wh-clauses and ing-clauses) (ex.: instructions on where they are used/after spending some time in California)

• PPs have two basic syntactic roles: 1) adverbial (ex.: He worked in a shop); 2) modifier/complement of a noun (ex.: He was a teacher of philosophy)

• Stranded prepositions are not followed by their complements (found in direct questions, interrogative clauses and direct clauses; ex.: What more could a child ask for?)

Clauses• Clause: key unit of syntax capable of occurring independently• Clause: complete description of an event/state of affairs (ex.:

Have you got an exam on Monday?/She smiled sweetly)• All clauses may be utterances but not all utterances are

clauses – ex. (1): More sauce? vs. Would you like more sauce?– ex. (2): Thirty pence please vs. It’s thirty pence please

Clauses• Verb is the key element of a clause (valency of the verb

controls kinds of elements that follow it). Five major valency patterns (each term used to refer to both valency and clause pattern):– Intransitive (S+V): Sarah and Michael dissapeared– Monotransitive (S+V+DO): She’s changed her dress– Copular (S+V+SP and S+V+Adv): The Swiss cheese has gone

bad/Marc was in the bathroom– Ditransitive (S+V+IO+DO): You gave her the wrong answer– Complex transitive (S+V+DO+OP and S+V+DO+A): That

makes me so mad/They’re sending us to Disneyland

TRANSITIVE

TYPES OF CLAUSES

• INDEPENDENT & DEPENDENT• FINITE (tensed VP) & NON-FINITE (tenseless VP)• VERBLESS (moodless; minor) CLAUSES• ABBREVIATED CLAUSES

Syntactic elements of clauses

Subject (S)Predicator (P)Direct object (Od)Indirect object (Oi)Prepositional object (Op; Oprep.)Subject complement (Cs)Object complement (Co)Predicator complement (Cp)Adjunct (A)

verb complementation• The verb is the key element of a clause . There are 3 major

valency patterns (one-place, two-place & three-place verbs):→ Intransitive: S+V: Sarah and Michael disappeared→ Copular:

S+V+Cs : The Swiss cheese has gone bad S+V+A: Marc was in the bathroom

→ Monotransitive (S+V+Od): She’s changed her dress→ Ditransitive (S+V+Oi+Od): You gave her the wrong answer→ Complex transitive :

S+V+Od+Co: That makes me so madS+V+Oi+C Loc: They’re sending us to

Disneyland