Appunti per Linguistica inglese, prof Ulrych, libro consigliato A Handbook of present-day English

A Handbook of Present­day English

1. Definitions of Grammar

Grammar refers to a set of rules which allow the production of well­formed

sentences.

Educated native speakers of a language intuitively follow those rules, foreign

learners study them in a more explicit way.

­ descriptive grammar: describes how the language works, drawing from traditions

­ theoretical grammar: analythical models elaborated by linguists which introduce

new

ways of looking at a language and its structures and factors, with the introduction of

a new metalanguage.

The main core of grammar consists in:

Morphology

­ : the study of the internal structures of words according to the

grammatical context in which they occur

Synthax

­ : the study of the way in which words combine to form larger units such

as

phrases, clauses and sentences. The notion of word order is essential .

1.1. The units of grammar

Each unit of grammar combines with other elements to form a larger unit.

Grammatical units can be ordered according to a hierarchy/rank scale.

text, sentence, clause, phrase, word, morpheme

(top­down) (bottom­up)

A text consists of one or more sentences, which consists of one or more clauses,

which consists of one or more phrases, which consists of one or more words, which

consists of one or more morphemes.

Morpheme : smallest linguistic unit of meaning or grammatical function . (un­

happy, 2 morphemes)

Word : a linguistic unit phonologically preceded and followed by pauses,

(orthographically preceded and followed by spaces or punctuation marks), and

carrying a single meaning.

Phrase : linguistric unit which is made up of a word or a group of words . NP (noun

phrases), VP, AdjP, AdvP, PP.

Clause : linguistic unit made up of one or more phrases, and which typically

contains at least one VP.

Sentence : largest linguistic unit, can consist of one or more clauses . There can be

sentences consisting of a single main clause, or more complex sentences consisting of

more clauses.

Text : a sequence of sentences which is coherent and cohesive.

1.2. word, word form, lexeme.

Orthographic word : a linguistic unit which in written form is preceded by a space

and followed by a space or a punctuation mark. A sequence of uninterrupted letters.

There are some problems, though regarding hyphenation or apostrophes, or different

spellings of compounds which have a unified referent (week end, brother­in­law).

According to Plag, a word can be defined in terms of:

Main criteria phonological criteria

: : the word can be defined as the linguistic

unit surrounded by pauses, and having only one main stress. (in this way compounds

consisting of two phonological words, can be considered as one single phonological

word, as it does have only one main stress, and even the possessive, Mary’s)

Criteria of wordhood of internal integrity

: : a word is an indivisible unit which

cannot be interrupted by inserting other material in it, insertions can only be made

between words. But there are exceptions, for example to form the plural of ‘brother­

in­law’ we add –s inside the word: brothers­in­law.

Of meaning : a word is a linguistic unit that expresses a single concept . However,

there are cases in which a long string of words may refer to one concept or one

referent only (the man who left the office) but cannot be considered as one word. This

definition is improper because there are words such as: by, as, for which don’t carry

any meaning.

To summarise: a word can be seen as a linguistic unit, orthographically preceded

and

followed by spaces or punctuation marks, phonologically preceded and followed

by pauses, having one main stress and internal stability, and expressing a single

meaning.

Lexeme : an abstract unit of vocabulary which underlies different variants known as

word forms. word form

The is the physical realization of a lexeme, its concrete

expression. Lexemes are represented by using , word forms by using

CAPITAL LETTERS

italics: dog and dogs are word forms for the lexeme . And the lexeme is

DOG TEACH

realized by the word forms teach, teaching, taught…(I asked him to list all the books=

I ).

ASK HE TO LIST ALL THE BOOK

The technical word to refer to the abstract dictionary unit are: entry , headword and

lemma. The entry is the independent lexical unit listed in the dictionary.

entry

The consists of the main word selected as representative of the lexical unit.

The citation form is the word­form conventionally chosen to represent a lexeme in

a dictionary. For example, in English singular is a citation form.

There are cases in which the same word­form expresses different lexemes: walk, for

example, can represent the lexeme , a verb or , a noun (they generally have

WALK WALK

2 different entries in the dictionary).

1.3 Word classes parts of speech:

Words are grouped in different nouns, lexical verbs, adjectives,

adverbs, conjunctions, prepositions, determiners, pronouns and auxiliary verbs.

They can belong to an open class or a closed class (or can be an insert).

Open classes : can admit new members as new words are often create . Nouns,

lexical content words

verbs, adjectives, adverbs. They are or because are the main

carriers of meaning in a text.

Closed classes : smaller number of items and new words are rarely added . They

don’t carry lexical meaning but they signal the links between different words.

Conjunctions, prepositions, determiners, pronouns, auxiliary verbs.

Inserts are used mostly in the spoken language and have interactional/emotional

meaning (hey, yeah, right, well…).

Nouns (N): lexical words which refer to concrete objects or entities . They can be

common nouns or proper nouns, countable or uncountable.

Verbs (V): express actions, events, states, processes and show the relationship

between the participants in what is referred to by the verb. There can be lexical verbs

and auxiliary verbs.

Adjectives (Adj): lexical words which describe qualities and properties of things or

people and states of affairs. Provide information about the noun or pronoun. They can

be gradable or non­gradable.

Adverbs (Adv): lexical words which can comment on an adjective by expressing

degree (very), or give information about the circumstances of an action (circumstance

adjuncts), disjuncts)

adverbs, or express the writer’s attitude (luckily… stance verbs,

conjuncts)

or provide linking between clauses or sentences (however…

Conjunctions (Conj): function words which link linguistic items . They can be

divided in coordinators and subordinators.

Prepositions (Prep): are function words that link words and express the

relationship between them. They can show a relation in time, space…there can be

simple propositions (before, to, for…) or complex prepositions (next to…). The same

word can behave as preposition and adverb: I was walking around/I walked around

the city.

Determiners (Det): are used before a noun to indicate the type of reference the

noun has. Can indicate indefiniteness (the,a), quantity (some, any), possession (my,

your).

The main determiners in English are: definite article, indefinite article, demonstrative

determiners (this, that…), possessive determiners, quantifiers (some, many…).

Pronouns (Pron): are used to replace nouns when we want to refer to a person, an

object, a situation… which has been mentioned before or whose referent can be

deduced from the context of the situation surrounding the text. A pronoun can be:

personal, possessive, demonstrative (this, that), reflexive, reciprocal (each one, both),

indefinite (all, someone), relative (which, who), interrogative (who? What?).

Auxiliary Verbs (Aux): a small class of verbs which accompany a lexical verb and

cannot usually occur alone. There are primary auxiliaries (can function as lexical

verbs, too) and modal auxiliaries (used to express degrees of certainty and necessity).

Wh­Words

: words which begin with wh­ (and how, and that) and introduce an

interrogative or relative clause.

Numerals

: a set of words referring to numbers or quantity which are used as

determiners, or sometimes as head in noun phrases (Two of the boys left). Can be

cardinal or ordinal.

1.4 Grammatical Functions

grammatical function

The of a word within a clause is the role they have in

relation to the other words surrounding them.

Subject (S): what the sentence is about: its topic . Precedes the verb and determines

whether its number.

Verb (V): predicator, what is said about the subject .

Object : can be Direct (O ) or Indirect (O ). I’ve given Mary (O ) my scarf (O )

d i i d

Complement : provides information about the subject ( subject complement C ) or

s

the object ( object complement C ). You look wonderful (C ), I consider you a friend

o s

(C ).

o

Adverbials: usually optional, can be of different types: circumstance adverbials

( adjunct adverbials

) provide information about the circumstances and are those of

time, place, manner..., stance adverbials (

disjunct adverbials

) express the speaker’s

attitude or comments (frankly, actually, fortunately…), linking adverbials (conjunct

adverbials) have a linking function (however, nevertheless…)

2 Morphology

Morphology is the area of linguistics that deals with the structure or form of

words. The ways in which elements (morphemes) can combine to make up words and

contribute to the construction of meaning and the creation of new words.

Inflectional Morphology , dealing with the changes in the form of words

according to the grammatical context.

Derivational Morphology , dealing with the process of word formation .

morpheme

A is the smallest linguistic unit of meaning or grammatical

function.the minimal, indivisible elements of words that are capable of carrying

semantic content (‘un’ before an adjective carries the meaning of ‘not’) or

grammatical function (plural, past tense, gender…). polymorphemic

Words composed of more than one morpheme are called or

complex words (student+s, play+ed, care+ful…), while others consisting of only one

monomorphemic simple words

morpheme are called or (play, the, girl…)

2.1 Morphemes, morphs and allomorphs

Morphemes morphs

are abstract entities, while are their concrete realization , a

morpheme is realized by a morph.

Morphemes are written in {}, lexeme in , the abstract features

CAPITAL LETTERS

specified by the morpheme (tense, negative, possibility, adjective) are written in

normal letters. The verb played, consist of play+ed=the two morphemes { }+

PLAY

{past}; unhelpful=un+help+ful={negative}+{ }+{adjective}.

HELP

allomorph

An is one of the different phonetic realization of a morpheme.

{past tense} in English is –ed realized phonetically in different ways: [d][t][id] (all

allomorphs of the past tense.

{plural}the allomorphs [s],[z],[iz].

{not} the allomorphs [in],[im],[il],[ir].

indefinite article: graphic allomorph which has two orthographic shapes: a/an

2.2 Types of Morphemes

Two types of morphemes:

Free morphemes : can stand alone as words (the, in, student), free morphemes that

carry the semantic contest of the word (student, party…) are called free roots,

whereas the others (which don’t carry semantic content) are called grammatical

morphemes.

Bound morphemes : cannot occur on their own as separate words but need to be

attached to other morphemes. They can be: affixes (prefixes, suffixes) which precede

or follow another morpheme; or bound roots, roots which cannot occur on their own

as independent words but need to be attached to other morphemes (­ceive: deceive,

conceive, receive…dent­:dental, dentist… ).

Affixes are attached to the root, stem or base of a word. Affixes can be divided into

derivational morphemes (used for deriving new words, ­nesssadness ), inflectional

morphemes (always suffixes in English, with a grammatical function, ­ed, ­s)

2.3 Morphological analysis

Analizing the word unhelpful means saying that it consists of 3 morphemes, each

carrying a specific meaning. {negative}+{ }+{adjective}, bound morph un

HELP

(prefix)+free morph help+bound morph ful (suffix)

2.4 Inflectional Morphology

It deals with changes in the form of words according to the grammatical context. It

is concerned with the inflections that carry grammatical meaning and thus allows us

to form plurals, past tenses or the comparative degree. Words change their forms to

express specific categories such as number, tense, superlative.

Noun inflections : gender, number, case . English has number and partially cases.

Number: count­nouns have two forms: singular and plural. The plural is formed by

adding –s to the singular form of the lexeme, (­s can have different allomorphs). Not

all nouns have plural forms, and there are some with irregular inflections.

Case: express possession by using the genitive case ‘s.

­ cars = car+s = { }+{plural}

CAR

­ singers = sing+er+s = { }+{ }+{plural}

SING ER

­ teeth = { }+{plural} (process of vowel mutation)

TOOTH

­ sheep = { }+{plural} (plural morpheme expressed by a zero morph)

SHEEP

Verb inflections: English lexical verbs have 5 word forms:

rd

­ 3 person singular, present simple, ­s inflection

­ simple past, ­ed inflection

­ past participle, ­ed inflection (for regular verbs)

­ present participle, gerund, ­ing inflection

Irregular Verbs: zero morph (cut­cut­cut), vowel mutation (swim­ swam­swum),

replacive morphs (build­built­built) suppletion (go­went­gone) which takes place

when two or more forms of a lexeme are phonetically different.

Auxiliary Verbs: undergo the process of suppletion, and the modal verbs do not

inflect for person and number and have only 2 forms.

­ cooking = cook+ing ={ }{present simple}

COOK

­ taken = { }+{past participle}

TAKE

­ went = { }+{past}

GO

Adjectives and Adverbs inflection: most adjectives and some adverbs can be

graded. Gradable adjective and adverbs can be inflected to express comparative

(formed by adding the suffix –er)and superlative degree (formed by adding the suffix

–est).

S has all the adjective inflections: small, smaller, smallest.

MALL

But not all adjectives form the comparative and superlative by just adding

inflectional suffixes.

periphrastic forms

Some adopt with more and most.

Some others form the comparative in an irregular way: the forms of the

comparative and superlative can be considered suppletive forms, as those forms

greatly differ from the positive degree: good, better, best.

­ colder=cold+er={ }+{comparative degree}

COLD

­ worst={ }+{superlative degree}

BAD

Determiners and Pronouns inflection.

Determiners such as the demonstratives have the inflection of number (this, these).

Pronouns express the grammatical category of number, but also those of gender

and case. Personal pronouns show person, gender, number and subject/object case.

We can also add the genitive case, expressed by possessive adjectives such as yours,

hers… rd

­ him = { }+{3 person}+{singular}+{masculine}+{object}

HE

3 Syntax

Syntax deals with how words interact and combine to form larger units . Deals with

the structure of larger linguistic units such ad phrases, clauses and sentences.

3.1 Word Order

Grammatical relations and meanings are expressed to a great extent by syntax and

word order than by inflectional morphology.

order of constituents

The specifies and signals their syntactic function . The

function of subject in English is not expressed by case, but by the position of the word

and its relation with other constituents.

Inverting the order of constituents changes the meaning of a clause, since the

function of the two noun phrases varies according to their position within the clause:

Mark beat Luca at tennis ≠ Luca beat Mark at tennis

Other changes of meaning determined by the order of the constituents can change a

statement into a question:

She is happy ≠ Is she happy?

Subject is typically placed before the verb, while the object goes after the verb.

Unmarked

This is the unmarked order of constituents. means typical, most common,

marked

while means untypical, less frequent . In nowadays English, the SVO order is

quite fixed, unmarked I really liked this book. Some variations are possible, but

considered ad marked: this book, I really liked.

3.2 Types of Phrases

Words combine with other words and are arranged into larger constituents, or

phrases. The identification of phrases can be considered intuitive, as we tend to put

together words which we think ‘go together’: ‘the young lady’, ‘the interesting

book’...

phrase

A ( sintagma ) is a meaningful syntactic unit which is made up of one or

more words. modifiers head

There are accompanying words, , which define and modify the .

There are pre­modifiers (precede the head), post­modifiers (follow the head). The

head is the most important word of the phrase, without which the syntactic unit would

not make sense.

There are 5 types of phrases, determined by the headword.

3.2.1 The Noun Phrase

Consists of a noun head, with determiners, pre­modifiers or post­modifiers.

Sometimes a pronoun can replace the noun in the noun phrase. (Mary, that man with

a gun, she).

Determiners= articles, demostratives, possessives, quantifiers, numerals.

Pre­modifiers= Adjectives, or AdjP, NS or NPs (a cute little collie dog)

Post­modifiers=PP (apartment in New York), relative clause, non­finite clause (a

solitary man walking alone), AdjP (something similar), AdvP (holiday abroad), that­

clause (belief that I am going to spend a lot of money), appositive NP (and usually has

an equal status with the head: Obama, the President of the USA).

Ambiguous NPs: young men and women, only the men are young or both?

In English we use the NPs as pre­