Riassunto esame Lingua inglese, prof. Mazzaferro, libro consigliato handbook of present-day English

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wing to the notoriously misleading orthography of English, it is often difficult to guess the correct

pronunciation of a word from its spelling. Most dictionaries addressed to foreign learners make use of the

phonetic symbols, called IPA symbols. Many English dictionaries for native speakers don't use the IPA

notation but employ a modified form of orthography, called respelling.

The reason is that native speakers don't normally learn the phonetic notation in a systematic way as a

foreign learners do.

Pronunciation dictionaries are devoted to pronunciation and offer more complete information than a

general dictionary; they contain a wide range of proper, geographical, literary names with variant

pronunciation and usage notes.

14. The pronunciation of English as a lingua franca

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In the 20 century English achieved a primacy as a global language and today it is used as a lingua

franca. This model is based on a core of nuclear norms, which is intend to guarantee the preservation of

mutual intelligibility for international communication.

The Lingua Franca Core: Since pronunciation is the most variable aspect of English, Jenkins states

that it is realistic to single out a number of phonological features which are indispensable in order to

communicate successfully in international contexts. it focuses on norms and pronunciation indispensable

for comprehension, setting specific priorities and objectives. This model may be seen as a common

denominator for the pronunciation of English.

3. The grammar of English

1. Definitions of grammar

The word grammar refers to a set of rules which allow the production of well-formed sentences or

utterances. The rules of grammar are subject to change depending on social, stylistic and geographical

variation. Another important distinction is that between descriptive and theoretical grammar.

Descriptive grammar describes how the language works using traditional and new terminology.

Theoretical grammar are analytical models elaborated by linguists, as Systemic Grammar developed by

Michael Halliday.

Morphology is the study of the internal structure of words. It can be divided into derivational and

inflectional morphology

Syntax is the the study of how words combine to form larger units (phrases, sentences, clauses.)

The units of grammar - each unit of grammar combines with other elements to form a larger unit.

Grammatical units can be ordered in a rank scale:

↓ Text – can be defined as written or spoken stretch of language, a sequence of sentences which

is cohesive and coherent.

↓ Sentence – is the largest linguistic unit and can consist of one or more clauses. It is an instance

of spoken language in use, it is called an utterance.

↓ Clause – contains at least one verb phrase.

↓ Phrase – is made up of a word or group of words. NP, VP, AdjP, AdvP, PP.

↓ Word – is linguistic unit phonologically preceded and followed by pauses, orthographically by

spaces or punctuation marks, and carrying a single meaning.

↓ Morpheme – is a smallest linguistic unit of meaning or grammatical function.

Word, word-form and lexeme

An orthographic word is a linguistic unit followed and preceded by a space or punctuation marks. This

definition may pose some problems in the case of Hyphenation, compounds and apostrophes which have

a unified referent.

Main criteria of wordhood:

• Phonological, unit surrounded by pauses, and having only one stress.

• Internal integrity, word as indivisible unit that can’t be interrupted by inserting other material in it

• Terms of meaning, unit that expresses a single concept.

Word is linguistic unit phonologically preceded and followed by pauses, orthographically by spaces or

punctuation marks, and carrying a single meaning.

Lexeme refers to the word we find in a dictionaries. It is an abstract unit of vocabulary which underlies

different variants known as word-forms.

In lexicography the technical terms used to refer to the abstract dictionary unit are:

- Entry is an independent lexical unit which is listed in a dictionary in alphabetical order. It consists of

the headword.

- Headword the main word selected as representative of the lexical unit, followed by info on its spelling,

pronunciation, word class, inflections, meaning and examples of use.

- Lemma refers to the citation form of a word, word-form which is conventionally chosen to represent

the lexeme in the dictionary.

Word-form is the physical realisation of a lexeme, concrete expression in speech or writing.

Word classes are grouped according to their meaning, their structure and position in a sentence.

• Open classes can admit new members, as new words are often created, called lexical/content

words because they carry the meaning of the text. (nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs).

• Closed classes contain a smaller number of items, rare to add new words, called function or

grammatical words because they link words or units and show how they should be interpreted.

(conjunctions, prepositions, determiners, pronouns and auxiliary verbs)

• Inserts are used in the spoken language, they carry interactional and emotional meaning.

(interjections, attention signals, discourse markers)

I. (N) Nouns are lexical words, they refer to concrete objects or entities. Common nouns are

countable or uncountable.

II. (V) Verbs express actions, events, states and processes. 2 types of verbs: Lexical or main

verbs (open class and carry lexical content) and auxiliary verbs.

III. (Adj) Adjectives describe qualities and properties of things, people, states of affairs. They

provide information about nouns or pronouns. They can be gradable (modified in terms of a

scale) and non-gradable.

IV. (Adv) Adverbs can comment on an adjective by expressing degree, accompany another

adverb or give information about the circumstances of an action, event etc.

V. (Conj) Conjunctions are function words which link linguistic items. 2 types of conjunctions:

coordinators or coordinating conjunctions (for equal grammar status and syntactic role) and

subordinators or subordinating conjunctions (introduce dependent clauses. Express time, place,

condition, concession, purpose, reason).

VI. (Prep) Prepositions are function words that link words or syntactic elements and express the

relationship between them. Most common prepositions consist of one single word - simple

preposition - and two or more words - complex prepositions -.

VII. (Det) Determiners are function words used before a noun to indicate the type of reference the

noun has, they can express definiteness, indefiniteness, quantity, possession.

VIII. (Pron) Pronouns are function words that replace nouns already mentioned before.

IX. (Aux) Auxiliary verbs are small class of verbs which can’t occur alone because accompany

lexical verbs. 2 types of auxiliary verbs: primary auxiliaries (be, have, do) and modal auxiliaries

(can will, may etc.).

X. Wh-words are function words beginning with wh- and introduce interrogative, relative,

exclamative clauses.

XI. Numerals refer to number or quantity which are used as determiners or as heads in NP.

Numerals are of 2 types: cardinals or ordinals.

Grammatical functions

Words can be defined in term of their syntactic or grammatical function within a clause:

• (S) subject – what the sentence is about, its topic.

• (V) verb/predicator – what is said about the subject.

• (O ) direct object (O ) indirect object

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• (C ) subject complement (C ) object complement - info about the subject/object, completes the

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meaning of the verb.

• (A) adverbials – usually optional, express a wide range of meaning. They can be of different

types: Circumstance or adjunct adverbials (information about the circumstances of time, place

etc.), stance or disjunct adverbials (express speaker’s attitude or comments) and linking or

conjunct adverbials (have a linking function)

2. Morphology

The area of linguistics that deals with the structure or form of words, it describes how morphemes can

combine to make up words and contribute to the construction of meaning and the creation of new words.

It is divided into 2 main branches:

• inflectional morphology with changes in the form of words according to the grammatical

context in which they occur.

• Derivational morphology with the process of word formation through affixation.

Morpheme is an abstract entity, the smallest linguistic unit of meaning or grammatical function. They are

minimal and indivisible elements of words, capable of carrying a semantic content.

Polymorphemic or complex words are words composed of more than one morpheme.

Morphs are concrete realisation or representation of morphemes, their physical form.

Two ways of analysis:

I. In terms of morphemes, written into curly braces {} with the lexeme in capital letters and the

abstract features in normal letters. Ex. Played {PLAY} + {past}

II. In terms of morphs. Ex. Played play-ed

Allomorph is one of the different phonetic realisations of a morpheme (alternative/distinct/variant). The

same morpheme can take distinct phonetic shapes but the same features expressed. Examples:

• –ed and –s pronunciation depends on what sounds precedes --- [t] [d] [id] allomorphs of {past

tense}, [s] [z] [iz] allomorphs of {plural}

• {not} expressed by the morpheme {in-} and assimilated to the first sound of the following

morpheme, it has various contexts

before labial consonant [p] [m] -> im-

before [l] -> il-

before [r] -> ir-

Complementary distribution of allomorphs when each morph only occurs in a specific environment

and if we can’t select it-s alternative representation. The selection is phonologically conditioned.

Types of morphemes

Free morphemes can stand alone as words. They can be divided into:

- free lexical morphemes, which carry semantic content

- free functional morphemes, which don’t carry semantic content

Bound morphemes can’t occur on their own as separate words, they need to be attached to another

morpheme.There are 2 main types of bound morphemes:

- affixes, morphemes attached to the beginning (prefixes) or end (suffixes) of another morpheme.

- bound roots, roots that can’t stand alone, often deriving from Latin. Ex. –fer, -ceive

Root is the core of a word, morpheme which determines the meaning of the word.

Ex. Unhappiness root=happy

Base is the form of a word to which affixes can be attached.

Ex. Unhappy base=happy unhappiness base=unhappy

Stem is the part of a word to which inflectional affixes are attached. Ex. Reprinted stem=reprint

2 functional categories:

• derivational morphemes are affixes used for deriving new words, they are considered a tool of

lexical productivity in a language.

• Inflectional morphemes, always suffixes, their role is to express grammatical relations or

functions, they change the form of the word, according to its grammatical function in the

sentence.

Inflectional morpholo