Linguistica Inglese di base (Fonetica, Fonologia, Morfologia, Sintassi)

VERB PHRASE ADVERB PHRASE

Modification

Phrases can be internally modified → increase in complexity

The elephant → The small elephant → The small cute elephant

ITALIAN: postmodification → Il bel vestito a pois

ENGLISH: premodification → The nice polka dot dress

Noun phrase (NP)

Head: noun or pronoun

I’ve eaten strawberries today → NP = strawberries

I’ve eaten organic strawberries → NP = organic strawberries

I’ve eaten them. → NP = them

Constituents of NP

Premodification

Determiners: articles, demonstratives, quantifiers (a, the, this, that, most, some, any, several, etc)

Possessive NP (i.e. cat’s food)

Adjectives (i.e. organic strawberries)

Nouns (i.e. dinner lady)

Some of those four clearly young school girls:

SOME OF: determiner THOSE: determiner FOUR: numeral CLEARLY: adverb

YOUNG: adjective SCHOOL: noun GIRLS: HEAD

Postmodification

The baby on the floor → On the floor: Prepositional phrase → modifies the NP

The baby chewing his rattle → Chewing his rattle: non-finite clause

The baby who is running on the lawn → Who is running on the lawn: relative clause

All phrases, except PP, can be made up of 1 word only.

The editor|rejected|the manuscript → the phr. consists of a head (editor) and a pre-head string (the)

People who cycle| get| very wet → head (people) and a post-head string (who cycle)

Determiners

Determiners enable us to take a noun from our mental dictionary and assign reference to it, which

means creating a link between a NP and the object(or place, or person, or notion) it refers to in

the real world.

The articles (indefinite a/an, definite the, zero article Ø), the possessives (his, my, our...) and the

demonstratives (this/that, these/those) are central determiners: they cannot be used together: *the

my books.

Quantifiers

Quantifiers are always pre-heads in English. They provide information on the quantity of the

head noun in the NP, both in terms of number (for countables in the plural) or amount (for

uncountables).

All, both, each, every are positioned at one end of the spectrum and refer to the entire set (for

countables) or the entire amount (for uncountables) of whatever noun they form an NP with.

All is the only quantifier that can combine with a (plural) countable or an uncountable; the others

can only combine with a countable

Affirmative= non-negative → Non-assertive contexts

Declarative= non-interrogative

Adjectives and Adjective phrases (AdjPs)

The head noun of a noun phrase can be modified by one or more adjective phrases (AdjP):

beautiful girls that fascinating book a French white wine

An AdjP can consist of its head alone or be more complex; a complex AdjP within the NP is most

often preceded by an adverb phrase:

an incredibly shocking revelation a lot of really probing questions

When adjective phrases are found within the NP, their function is attributive

Is that beautiful girl your daughter? The tired workers returned home.

When AdjPs are outside the NP and are related to a noun phrase through the verb be or another

linking verb (seem, look, etc.), their function is predicative

That girl is beautiful. Those workers looked tired.

If more than an adjective is used attributively, the order in which the adjectives occur is not free.

The closer an adjective is to the noun head, the more objective the property is that it refers to.

The order in which the different types of adjectives are mentioned is usually as follows:

opinion > size > age > shape > colour > origin > material + HEAD NOUN

[a huge round wooden table]

This is a beautifully presented dish:

This = det Is = verb A beautifully presented dish = NP

(Beautifully presented = AdjP) → [a (beautifully presented) dish] → embedding

Relative clauses

A relative clause (RC) is a post-modifying clausal adjective that is part of a noun phrase. They

provide additional information about the head noun:

The ballroom was positively teaming with [women who are stunningly beautiful].

The relative clause may be ‘restrictive’ (defining) or ‘non-restrictive’ (non defining):

Restrictive relative clause → [The books (which) he reads] are not appropriate for a boy of his age.

Non-restrictive relative clause → [Her son, who is now studying at university], is brilliant.

Function of phrases in sentences

The term sentence is used to refer to the string of words that make up units of meaning and that

end with a full stop, an exclamation mark or a question mark.

The term clause refers to sentences that minimally consist of: a Subject (someone or something)

and a Predicate (what is said about the subject)

Subject Predicate

About 160 people / lost their lives in a cable train fire in Kaprun in 2000.

Each constituent that makes up the Predicate also performs a function:

their lives (NP) → Direct Object

in a cable train fire (PrepP) → Adjunct in Kaprun in 2000 ( PrepP) → Adjunct

Adjunct = when, where and why of the situation referred to in the sentence.

Other functions of phrases in a sentence:

They are English teachers. → Subject Complement

N.B. Subject Complements occur after verbs like be, appear, become and seem.

His name was Benjamin, but they called him Bill. → Object Complement

Sarah financially depends on her husband. → Prepositional Object

Prepositional objects are found with prepositional verbs (look for, listen to, etc.)

Verb phrase

A verb phrase (VP) consists of a main verb (the head), any preceding auxiliary verbs, and any

following constituents that may be present.

Verbs can be marked for present or past. When a verb is marked for tense, it is finite, if it's not, it is

called non-finite.

Non finite verb phrases:

– Base or infinitive form of the verb -ing form as the first or only element

-ed form as the first or only element

Verb phrases can be interrupted by adverbs: They have certainly been told off.

There is a fundamental distinction in English between lexical verbs and auxiliary verbs.

a) Lexical verbs form an open class. b) The set of auxiliaries is a closed class which includes:

-primary auxiliaries: be, have, do

-nine core modal auxiliaries: can, could, shall, should, may, might, must, will, would.

If a VP is composed of a single lexical verb, it will be marked for tense;If auxiliaries are present,

the first will be marked for tense

Aspect

- Present/ past progressive: She is helping her sister → She was helping her sister

- Present/past perfect: She has helped her sister → She had helped her sister

A sentence can include more than one auxiliary: He may haveforgotten his appointment.

Subject-auxiliary inversion

Only auxiliaries can invert with a subject: Have you already had breakfast?

N.B. There are other constructions with subject-auxiliary inversion in English beside interrogatives:

-Never have I been so insulted in my entire life. (preposed negative adverbs)

-Should you need any assistance, please call our toll-free number. (conditionals)

-Wow, can she sing! (exclamations)

-Peter can drive, and so can his sister. (affirmative and negative expressions of similarity)

Ellipsis

After an auxiliary, the rest of the VP can very often be left unexpressed:

-Can you speak Russian? –Yes, I can. Can you? (short answer; short interrogative)

Do-insertion

When there is no auxiliary for not-negation, Subject-auxiliary inversion or ellipsis, English makes

use of the do-insertion and uses it instead of the lexical verb with non-progressive present and past

tenses: Students today don’t take as many exams as in my day. (negation)

My sister always says exactly what she thinks, and so do I. (ellipses)

Do-insertion can be used with an emphatic function in affirmative and contrastive declarative

clauses: -I had a great time last night –So did I. John does know how to throw a party.

Interrogatives

1. Yes-no interrogative or total interrogative

-Has she accepted the position? -Yes/Yes, she has./Of course.

-Do they understand what this means? -No/No, they don‘t./ I don't think so.

(the speaker wants to find out whether the relation between subject and predicate is valid)

2. Information interrogative, wh-interrogative or partial interrogative

-Why did they offer her the position? -Because she was the best qualified.

-When will she give them an answer? -Sometime next week.

(the speaker is looking for information about a subpart of the clause: the reason for something, the

time of an event or the identity of a participant.)

Interrogative tags

A short interrogative immediately following an affirmative or negative declarative clause.

The short interrogative uses the same auxiliary as in that clause and the subject is always a personal

pronoun: Megan 's already started school, hasn't she? Megan hasn't already started school, has she?

They'll never be taken seriously, will they?

Nobody's perfect, are they?

Complementation of lexical verbs - Transitive, ditransitive and intransitive verbs

Lexical verbs require in some cases certain elements (or complements) other than the subject for

their meaning to be complete.

- intransitive verbs → require nothing more than a subject

- transitive verbs → require a direct object (DO)

- ditransitive verbs → require both a DO and an IO (indirect object): Sarah handed Brian the

parcel.

Some verbs can be both transitive and ditransitive: Brian bought Sarah a present.

He bought a present.

The sentence

It must contain one or more clauses.

I quickly shut the door

I quickly shut the door → (INDEPENDENT CLAUSE)

before the dog could come in → (DEPENDENT or SUBORDINATE CLAUSE).

The clause

It constitutes the main structure of a sentence.

It is a unit composed by the 5 syntactic elements:(Subject, Verb, Object, Complement and Adverb)

It usually contains more than one element but must always contain a verb.

Sentences which contain only one clause are called simple sentences.

Multiple sentences can be analysed into more than one clause and are the majority in formal

writing.

Multiple sentences are of two broad kinds: 1. compound 2. complex

1. compound or coordinating sentences: consist of more finite clauses linked together by a co-

ordinating conjunction (and, or, but): The baby was crying but his mother wasn’t listening.

2. complex sentences: contains two or more finite claues linked together so that one is an integral

part of the other: I am going home because it is late.

Markers of subordination

There are two main indicators that a clause is subordinate:

1. Presence of a subordinating conjunction: James left the office because he was tired.

2. The form of the verb phrase: If the verb is non-finite, the clause is a subordinate one:

To pass your exams, you must study. Deprived of oxygen, plants will quickly die.

Main subordinate clause types

1.Adjunct or Adverbial clauses. 2. Relative clauses. 3.Nomina