Lingua inglese 2

English language 2

Language

Definition: it is a complex system of words with a meaning, that is based on a convention on which a community agrees.

It refers to active and passive skills, like reading (passive), listening (passive) and writing (active).

Linguistics

Definition: it is the scientific study of language.

Linguistics includes also:

• Morphology: word formation.
• Syntax: is the study of how words are arranged to form phrases → its structure.

Syntax analyses:

• Function (grammatical roles, like subject, object, adjunct and modifier).
• Form (internal structure of phrases, like noun phrase or verb phrase).

• Semantics: meaning assigned to words and the relation between the words given in the same sentence.
• Phonology: the study of the sound system of a language.
• Phonetics: focuses on physical production and reception of sounds.
• Pragmatics: the meaning of words and sentences in context.

When we are dealing with linguistics, we have to take into consideration its branches:

• Sociolinguistics: the focus is on how a language changes in social contexts, the analysis starts from speech community of people that share a common language, to variations that are the result of geographic origin of a person, situational context, time.
• Psycholinguistics: how a language is processed and understood by the human mind.
• Neurolinguistics: its aim is to understand which parts of the brain are involved when you use language to communicate.
• Field linguistics: collecting and analysing data by observing how a language is used by certain groups of people.
• Applied linguistics: it is a practical application of the study of language (teaching, translation).

Syntax

I. Sentence

“A string of words that begins in a capital letter and ends in a full stop and is typically used to express a state of affairs in the world.”

It refers to written language, because in spoken language we can’t see full stops and capital letters, instead we rely on intonation, pauses and speech rhythm.

The focus is on the order of the units (words) that make up the sentence, and how those units are arranged, rearranged and structured to form grammatical sentences.

English grammatical order is SVO language: Subject, Verb and Object.

II. Constituents

Constituents are a set of words that semantically and grammatically stay together and make sense together.

“Strings of one or more words that syntactically and semantically (i.e. meaning-wise) behave as units”.

Examples:

The cat devoured the fish.

[The cat] - [devoured] - [the fish]

The president blushed.

[The president] – [blushed]

One way to understand if a word group is a syntactic unit is to try exchange it, in this case, with personal pronoun → [He] – [blushed].

[My best friend] - [[likes] - [fast e-bikes]] → double brackets because “like” go together with the object.

Syntactic argumentation → Providing a syntactic argumentation means giving reasons, with linguistic evidence, why certain words or units can/can’t be combined together, rearranged and what effects these changes have.

Syntax operates on a hierarchical structure of linguistic units:

Words >> phrases >> clauses (subject + predicate unit) >> sentences (made of one or more clauses).

Exercise

Explain the reason why the following sentences are ungrammatical:

• Our vicar likes → the verb “likes” requires an object;
• The president a slice of cake ate → issue with SVO order, it would be acceptable if after “the president” there was a comma to express some emphasis;
• We went today to a bullfight → “today” should be put first or last, normally the verb isn’t separated from the preposition;
• Jack put it → grammatically incomplete without a place;
• In the chair Nina sat → issue with SVO order;
• This book is wanted by Martha → the passive form of “want” isn’t usually used with inanimate subject.

What’s in a name?

Words are the basic building blocks of syntax.

Smallest units of meaning in language are morphemes, but in syntax we consider words.

Defining a word precisely can be intuitive but also a bit challenging, for example:

• Dog and dogs are two different words, one is singular and other one plural, yet they both represent the same lexeme (DOG); there is a difference between word form and lexeme.
• The same can be applied to verbs like eat and eats, which share a lexeme but differ in grammatical features.
• Multiple words can combine and function as a single unit, like in duty-free.

A lexeme is an abstract unit of meaning, the dictionary entry of a word. It represents the core idea or meaning that stays the same even when the word changes its grammatical form.

A word form is a specific grammatical version of a lexeme.

Morphology deals with the internal structure of words, while syntax focuses on how words combine to form larger grammatical units.

The president regularly eats big doughnuts in his limousine → we can identify different words that have different functions:

• Nouns → president, doughnuts and limousine.
• Determinative → the, his.
• Adjective → big.
• Verb → eats.
• Preposition → in.
• Adverb → regularly.
• Conjunction.
• Interjection.

Word classes, or parts of speech (POS) are categories typically used to identify a word's grammatical function.

III. Nouns

“Words that denote people, animals, things or places.”

We can consider other criteria to determine the word “nouns” → formal criteria:

• Affixes.
• Plural endings.
• Genitive endings.

Distributional criteria → “the way in which words […] behave syntactically in sentences, i.e. the patterns they typically occur in.”

Nouns can be preceded by:

• Determinatives (the, a, this/these, that/those…).
• Adjectives.

Nouns, just like other word classes, only exist in relation to other words among them, we have to look at what’s around to understand the relationship between words and which kind they are.

The combination of determinative and verb is very likely to tell us that in-between is gonna be a noun.

Noun subclasses

Common nouns can be divided into:

• Countable.
• Non-countable.
• Proper nouns: They always begin with a capital letter and identify unique entities rather than general categories → referring expression.

Pronouns → One of the big functions of the pronoun is to avoid repetition.

Nominative: form used in subject position (I, you, he, she, it, we, they).

Accusative: form used in direct/indirect object (me, him, her, us, them).

• Possessive personal pronouns.

Dependent form → functions as a specifier (my house → your, her, his, our, their).

Independent form → occurs elsewhere (The house is mine → mine, yours, hers, his, theirs).

• Reflexive personal pronouns (myself, yourself, herself etc.).
• Reciprocal personal pronouns (each other, one another).
• Demonstrative pronouns (this/these, that/those).
• Relative pronouns (that, who, which).
• Interrogative or wh-pronouns (which, what).
• Indefinite pronouns (another, few, less, much, many etc.).

N.B. These items are pronouns when they occur independently, but determinatives when placed before nouns.

Example:

Jim walked into the room and everybody looked at him.

Him → personal pronouns in accusative form.

Jim → referent.

We have the pronoun making the referent to the antecedent, because come before.

In this case it is a referring expression because the antecedent is a personal noun.

The exhibition was a success. It ran for six months.

[The exhibition] is the antecedent: [determinative + noun] = noun phrase (NP) → “strings of words whose central element is a noun”. The central element is called “HEAD”.

Noun phrases can be made of modifying elements or just one individual word, but once we identify them, we can also identify the HEAD.

Head of NP

Head = grammatical function (not a word class label).

“A syntactic notion that refers to the grammatical role played by a linguistic unit inside a larger unit such as a phrase or clause”.

Head, Modifier, Specifier >> in phrases.

Subject, Direct Object, Indirect Object, Adjunct >> in clauses.

Exercises

Identify the pronoun and its antecedent:

• Emma told Sophie that she needed to revise for the exam. → ambiguity, could be Emma or Sophie that need to revise for exam.
• The teacher spoke to the student after class, but he didn’t seem to understand the explanation.
• The book was placed on the shelf by the librarian, but it fell off later.
• When Mark called his brother, he was very upset.
• Alex sent a message to Jordan after his meeting.

Look at the sentences below and decide which word is the head of the noun phrase.

• [Government web activity] was frozen during the general election campaign. → the other elements have the function of modifier.
• [Mouse-wielding civil servants across Whitehall] are engaged in a frantic rush to archive old pages full of defunct policies.
• [The Downing Street site] has undergone a few changes too.

IV. Adjectives

“Words that can modify nouns.”

When we extend a phrase to give information, we normally use adjectives.

An adjective phrase is a group of words that functions as an adjective—it modifies a noun or pronoun by providing more information about it.

In English exists a common order of adjectives: determinative > quantity > opinion > size > age > shape > colour > material.

Properties of adjectives

• Gradability.

Very, extremely, less, fairly, hugely, immensely, intensely, rather, reasonably … + ADJ → all these words express gradability.

• Exceptions:

Material (glass window >> *a very glass window).

Nationality (Italian >> *an extremely Italian book).

• Comparative and superlative forms.

Ex:

Big >> bigger >> biggest.

Full >> fuller >> fullest.

Good >> better >> best → suppletion (= no resemblance).

More >> most → analytical forms.

In English, creating comparative and superlative forms is possible with short adjectives, when we have more than a syllable, we have to form comparative and superlative forms analytically.

• Adjectives: distributional characteristics.

Attributive position >> before noun // post-nominal (after a noun).

The person responsible will be punished.

We went to a meeting attended by the attorney general.

Mr Smith is the governor-elect of this province.

Predicative position >> after copula or linking verb.

e.g. appear, be, become, feel, look, remain, seem, smell, sound.

This film seems pretty dull.

She is amazing.

This fabric feels soft.

These adjectives are predicated of the referent of another constituent.

Adjectives function as the Heads of adjective phrases (APs).

Adjective phrases can occur within noun phrases: The difficult test.

[The difficult test] NP.

[The [difficult] test] NP AP.

The extremely difficult test.

[The extremely difficult test] NP.

[The [extremely difficult] test] NP AP.

V. Verbs

Verbs are considered action words (notional definition).

• Every day our boss drinks three coffees.
• The builders worked for many days.

The inflection (-s/-ed): the ending of the verbs which identify the tense.

Tense: the way language encodes the semantic notion of time = it gives the time an action or event occurs.

Agreement: refers to the way words change form to agree with others in a sentence; (between subject and the verb, -s ending expresses the agreement).

Base form: verb form other than third person. To be is an exemption → he, she, it is.

Finite verbs: have a specific tense, person and number.

Non-finite: do not show tense, person and number (infinitives / participles / gerunds).

• Infinitives → to …, bare infinitive (without to-) “You make me cry”.
• Gerunds → -ing form “I enjoy singing”.
• Participles:

Present (-ing form): I am eating (verb), an exciting task (adjective).

Past: the kids are excited; the school is going to be opened next week.

Lexical verbs: main verbs because they can stand on their own in a sentence (only one verb in a sentence).

Lexical verb in time:

• Progressive.

Susan is running → ongoing process.

• Perfect.

Susan has broken two wine glasses → the action took place in the past, but it still has relevance in the present.

Auxiliary verbs: accompany lexical verbs and provide an additional layer of meaning.

Ex. Susan is running.

Aux. lex.

Ex. Susan is friendly → the verb “to be” can be either aux. or lexical, depending on the use.

4 types of auxiliary verbs:

• Modal.

Can/could, may/might, must, ought to, shall/should, will/would.

They are always finite.

They don’t have the typical verb endings.

• Aspectual.

Be, have.

• Encodes the aspect of time.
• Progressive aspect.
• Perfect aspect.

• Passive be.

In shifting from active to passive, we have to switch the object and the subject.

Ex. Bill painted the garden shed → the garden shed was painted by Bill.

• Dummy do.

It doesn’t have any specific meaning functions.

When no other aux. is available, we use a do-support →

Tom drives to work every day.

*Tom not drives to work.

Tom does not drive to work every day.

• Code → The aux. verb remains stranded.

Does Tom drive to work every day? He does.

Tom drives to work every day and so does Bill.

• Emphasis.

Tom DOES drive to work every day.

Acronym: NICE properties of auxiliary verbs.

• Carry the Negative enclitic particle not.
• Invert with the Subject.
• Manifest Code.
• Carry Emphatic stress.

Auxiliaries can combine in the same sentence:

• The company is being taxed once a year.
• The company has been taxed once a year.
• The company has been being taxed once a year.
• The company will have been being taxed once this year.

• It is always the first auxiliary that carries tense (= finite).
• Each aux. determines the form of the verb that follows it.
• There is a strict order of auxiliary verbs.

Verbs are heads of Verb phrases (VPs).

The library recalled these books.

[NP The library] [VP recalled these books].

[NP The library] [VP recalled [NP these books]].

Tree diagram

Adjective phrases: embedding. Adjective phrases can occur within noun phrases:

The difficult test.

[NP The difficult test].

[NP The [AdjP difficult] test].

The extremely difficult test.

[NP The extremely difficult test].

[NP The [AdjP extremely difficult] test].

VI. Adverbs

Modify verbs, adjectives or other adverbs too.

Common endings (not exclusive):

• -ly (likely).
• -wards (backwards).
• -wise (clockwise).
• -ways (sideways).

N.B.

• Not all -ly endings identify adverb forms (friendly, goodly, lively, wooly) → adjectives.
• Some adverbs take comparative and superlative forms.

Adverbs’ subclasses

1. Circumstantial: they provide us with circumstantial information. They are semantically heterogeneous, in terms of meaning there are a lot of variations; they include interrogative adverbs (why, where, when, how).

They can be modified (ex. very often).

She will arrive soon → time (when).

I watch television sometimes → frequency (how often).

They spoke softly → manner (how).

I’ve left my gloves somewhere → place (where).

2. Degree: almost, nearly, quite, just, too, very, extremely, less, more, enough, hardly… → specify the degree to which the adjective they modify applies.

They can’t be modified (ex. *very extremely).

3. Sentence: linking function or modify whole sentence. They are syntactically detached from the sentences they modify.

People tend to put on weight in middle age. However, gaining weight is not inevitable.

Perhaps you can sign on the dotted line.

Probably, we will not be able to go on holiday this year.

These adverbs have scope over a whole sentence and carry modal meaning.

Adverb phrases (AdvPs)

What is the head of an AdvP?

• Many AdvPs consist of a Head only.
• The Head can be modified (my sister works very hard).

A moderately short programme.

[NP A moderately short programme].

[NP A [AdjP moderately short] programme].

[NP A [AdjP [AdvP moderately] short] programme].

Adjective phrase vs. adverbial phrase

A very tall building.

Tall → adjective, modified by the adverb “very”, it describes the noun “building”.

He walks very quickly → the phrase modifies the verb “walks”.

Even when an adjective is modified by an adverb, if the entire phrase is used to describe a noun, it remains an adjective phrase.

If it describes how, when, where, or to what extent an action or state is performed, it’s part of an adverbial phrase.

The very big dog.

[NP The [AdjP [AdvP very] big] dog].

VII. Prepositions

Difficult to define in terms of form because they have no typical endings.

They tend to be short.

They can be:

• Simple: at, behind, besides, by, for, in, of, on, through, with, without, under…
• Complex: by means of, in front of, in spite of.

Their function is to denote the relationship between two entities.

Spatial → The book is on the table.

Metaphorical → She is in big trouble.

Prepositional phrases: The book is on the table.

[[NP The book] [VP is [PP on [NP the table]]]].

Six plants in the shop.

[NP six plants [PP in [NP the shop]]].

VIII. Conjunctions

A closed class of words that have a linking function.

• Coordinating conjunctions.