I. O. Macari, Morpho-syntax, Lecture 1 sem.

I, 2020

1. BASIC CONCEPTS ............................................................................................................................... 1

1.1. Language, linguistics and grammar ................................................................................................................. 1

1.1.1. Language and linguistics .................................................................................................................................1
1.1.2. Grammar .........................................................................................................................................................2

1.2. Grammar and its subdivisions ......................................................................................................................... 3

2. GRAMMATICAL RULES AND LINGUISTIC UNITS...................................................................... 6

2.1. Linguistic communication ................................................................................................................................ 6

2.2. Grammatical forms, functions and rules.......................................................................................................... 7

2.2.1. Grammatical form vs. grammatical function. Constituents ............................................................................7
2.2.2. Grammatical rules and linguistic units ..........................................................................................................10

2.3. Discourse ...................................................................................................................................................... 15

2.4. Sentence ....................................................................................................................................................... 16

2.4.1. Subject, predicate, verb phrase ....................................................................................................................18
2.4.2. Operator ........................................................................................................................................................19

1. Basic concepts

1.1. Language, linguistics and grammar

1.1.1. Language and linguistics

A theory book usually starts from the introduction of the subject – English language, in this case - and
continues with the delimitation of the topic, that is, the area in linguistics covered by morpho-syntax and
the relationship between language – linguistics – grammar – morpho-syntax. For this, I will mainly
draw upon the definitions provided by R. L. Trask, in Key Concepts in Language and Linguistics, Sidney
Greenbaum & Gerald Nelson, in An introduction to English grammar and by Geoffrey Leech in A
Glossary of English Grammar, but also upon other authors such as R. A Close (1992), Börjars and
Burridge (2010) and Daniel Kies (2012).
The relationship between linguistics and language can be assimilated to the relation between any science
and its object of study. Thus, the object of the linguistic science is language, considered both individually
– as separate languages analyzed in turns – and in general, in its universal properties. Each approach and
school of linguistics has developed research methods and proposed assumptions intended to clarify the
issues identified as central for the study of natural language.

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 I. O. Macari, Morpho-syntax, Lecture 1 sem. I, 2020

It is generally agreed that languages share a number of universal properties and every individual language is a
combination of these properties with a number of specific features it possesses. Some linguistic schools study
the universal properties of language, while others approach contrastively a large range of languages, looking
for similarities and differences between them. Nevertheless, these are different means to the same end, since
“the ultimate goal of linguistics is the elucidation of the human language faculty (called langage by
Saussure)”. For this, “linguists have usually found it essential to distinguish between the abstract mental
system of rules, principles and constraints which are shared by speakers (called langue by Saussure and
competence by Chomsky, though the terms are not quite equivalent) and the real utterances produced by
individual speakers on particular occasions (Saussure’s parole, Chomsky’s performance) (Trask, 2005, p. 92).
The descriptive (as opposed to 'prescriptive') nature of linguistics “means that linguists do not lay down
hard and fast rules about how to use a certain language, but rather concentrate on describing the rules
which (especially native) speakers seem to have internalized. (Companion to English linguistics:
Introduction to English Language and Linguistics – Reader). Talking of rules and rule violation we have
got to touch upon the distinction between standard and non-standard language, with many
contemporary linguists promoting the idea that “the job of the linguist, like that of the biologist or the
botanist, is not to tell us how nature should behave, or what its creations should look like, but to describe
those creations in all their messy glory and try to figure out what they can teach us about life, the world,
and, especially in the case of linguistics, the workings of the human mind.” (www.goodreads.com)
This does not mean that people should completely give up usage standards; if so, one will no longer prove
his/her ability to recognize social contexts and to react to them properly. Nevertheless, non-standard, or
ungrammatical forms, when used in the appropriate circumstances, are not necessarily the mark of poor
education or of defective logic, but a sign of socio-linguistic awareness.
Going further, Newson et al call “what we have in our heads” – or, put differently, our linguistic
knowledge - a “(finite) set of rules which tell us how to recognize the infinite number of expressions that
constitute the language that we speak” (Newson 2006: 2). They propose to call this set of rules “a
grammar”, at the same time mentioning the line linguists draw between “the actual set of rules existing
inside a speaker’s head from the linguist’s guess of what these rules are. To these linguists, a grammar is a
linguistic hypothesis […] and what is inside the speaker’s head is language, i.e. the object of study for
linguistics.” (2006: 2) They also propose a distinction between “two notions of language […]: the
language which is internal to the mind, call it I-language, which consists of a finite system and is what
linguists try to model with grammars; and the language which is external to the speaker, E-language,
which is the infinite set of expressions defined by the I-language that linguists take data from when
formulating their grammars” (Newson 2006: 3).
1.1.2. Grammar
In David Crystal’s view, grammar is “the structural foundation of our ability to express ourselves. The
more we are aware of how it works, the more we can monitor the meaning and effectiveness of the way we
and others use language. It can help foster precision, detect ambiguity, and exploit the richness of expression
available in English. (Crystal, In word and deed, 2004)
Irrespective of its number of subfields, most authors agree on the fact that grammar is primarily
concerned with the rules (not necessarily described or explicitly prescribed) that govern language use.
Close (1992: 1) went even further and, showing extraordinary insight, predicted the necessity for the
development of corpora to backup grammatical rules.
According to present-day thinking there are rules in English grammar that can be
accurately formulated from the observation and analysis of a large number of examples of
widely accepted educated usage. The rules so formulated can account for the way in which
competent users of the language produce original acceptable utterances, sentences,
speeches and written texts (1992: 1).
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 I. O. Macari, Morpho-syntax, Lecture 1 sem. I, 2020

Actually, the term grammar itself is difficult to define – and the subject matter difficult to swallow, for
that matter! – because it is used sometimes to designate syntax, but also morpho-syntax, or even the study
of the whole system of language, quite like linguistics itself. However, in an oversimplified approach,
English grammar could be described as the whole set of rules identified to form and understand language.
It is “chiefly a system of syntax that decides the order and patterns in which words are arranged in
sentences. The system works largely with the help of what are called grammatical or structural words –
auxiliary verbs, determiners, pronouns, prepositions and conjunctions. These words form a ‘closed set’,
i.e. there is a fixed number of them and new members are not admitted (Close 1992: 1)
In this narrow sense grammar studies the rules governing the combination of smaller and larger units of
language which thus are able to carry more complex messages than the individual morpheme is. Daniel Kies
proposes an interesting model for the combinatory rules in language:
Grammar is about how units of language are sequenced, since quite obviously language
proceeds sequentially, linearly: in speech, one sound is uttered before the next, one
syllable before the next, one word before the next, and so on; in writing, one word
precedes the next, one phrase precedes the next, one clause precedes the next, and so on.
So at some point in the production (and the same is true in the inverse for the perception)
of language, humans must take all their thoughts, requests, desires, and hopes that are
relevant within a particular context of situation and produce language that expresses those
meanings and organizes those ideas sequentially. The same is true in the inverse for the
perception of language (papyr.com).
The idea of grammar itself suggests the sequential arrangement of linguistic units, in which the word is
the fundamental building block of language, with special attention paid to the lexicon, which contributes
essentially to the understanding of the grammar of a language.
For Kies, understanding a paragraph, seen as an instance of language, is to take the steps any linguist
takes when studying the phenomena in language, including grammar:
 observe the language data (by noticing the unusual words in their contexts),
 collect pertinent facts (by noticing words placed near function words like the or of and by noticing
word endings like -s or -ing,),
 make and test a hypothesis,
 reach a conclusion.
In Kies’ opinion, understanding instances of language means understanding and using the fundamental
concepts of grammar: categories, constituency1, and metafunctions. The concept of category allows the
linguist to perceive that certain features groups of words share place them in the same word class so that they
can consequently be labelled as nouns, verbs, adjectives etc. Constituency allows the recognition of the fact
that sequences of words may behave like function units, so that subjects, verbals, objects, complements,
adverbials and different types of phrases can be delimited. Through metafunctions we recognize several
additional facts about a paragraph2.

1.2. Grammar and its subdivisions

1
Constituency is discussed further in 2.2.1.
2
“To understand more about grammar, we must now examine the grammatical constituents of language (categories),
how those constituents combine at different levels (constituency), and how those combinations of constituents can
create meaning (metafunction)” (papyr.com/ hypertextbooks/grammar)

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Traditionally, the main subdivisions of the study of grammar are morphology and syntax, but, due to the
numerous “borderline” linguistic issues, it is difficult to always demarcate between them. Such
interactions between morphology and syntax show that there must be an interface between the
morphological and the syntactic levels. The term interface is used here to propose the assumption that
different kinds of information about linguistic units (in our case, words, phrases, and clauses) can ‘see’
each other.
Etymologically speaking, morphology studies the structure of words: morpho- (before vowels morph-,
word-forming element meaning "form, shape," from comb. form of Gk. morphe "form, shape; beauty,
outward appearance") and -logy (word-forming element meaning "a speaking, discourse, treatise,
doctrine, theory, science," from Gk. -logia (often via Fr. -logie or M.L. -logia), from root of legein "to
speak;" thus, "the character or deportment of one who speaks or treats of (a certain subject);")
(www.etymonline.com).
A simple definition is provided by Leech (2006), and it is useful especially when morphology and syntax
are approached in relation to one another. In his view, morphology is
the part of grammar (and lexicology) which analyses the structure of words. Morphology
is a relatively unimportant part of English grammar because English words have relatively
few inflections (that is changes in the form of a word determined by its grammatical role).
The suffixes of nouns (-s), verbs (-ed, -ing, -s) and adjectives (-er, -est), leaving aside
some marginal and irregular forms, make up the total of English inflectional morphology.
Inflectional morphology is distinguished from derivational morphology, which deals with
the formation of words from other existing words, and belongs to lexicology rather than
grammar. However, derivational morphology is relevant to grammar because derivational
suffixes such as -ness (for nouns), -ful (for adjectives) and -ly (for adverbs) help us to
recognize the members of grammatical word classes. Morphology contrasts with syntax
(Leech 2006: 65-6).
From the etymology of the term syntax (from Gk. syntaxis "a putting together or in order, arrangement, syntax,"
from stem of syntassein "put in order," from syn- "together" + tassein "arrange", www.etymonline.com), one
infers that this subfield is concerned with the grouping of words into larger units of meaning such as phrases,
clauses and sentences. Leech (2006) defines syntax as “the part of grammar which concerns the way words are
combined into sentences” and contrasts it with morphology (the grammar of word structure). He notes that,
because of the relative simplicity of morphology, most of English grammar is concerned with syntax and that, for
this reason, ‘English grammar’ and ‘English syntax’ are often considered equivalent terms (2006: 110).
The following example convincingly illustrates the different approaches morphology and syntax take on
the same linguistic material: Mary wants to actress.
A sequence of correct words as the one above will actually become an ill-formed sentence, unacceptable owing
to an infringement on syntax (not on morphology). The sentence should accordingly read: Mary wants to act.
In line with him, Kies proposes four sentences in order to illustrate the importance of words in the
description of grammar.
1. The water evaporated.
2. The dog evaporated.
3. The water evaporated quickly.
4. The water evaporated the dog.
It becomes obvious that the word evaporate is restricted in its usage in quite specific ways, which make sentences
2 and 4 correct in what regards clause pattern (SV) and (SVO), but incorrect according to the rules of transitivity
and co-occurrence with agent subjects for the verb to evaporate.

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Halliday’s four strata model illustrates what should be simultaneously considered in the analysis of the
production and perception of language, so that instances such as 2 and 4 above should be avoided:
 the context of the language situation,
 meaning (semantics),
 wording (grammar),
 sound patterns (phonology and phonetics).
This is to say that grammar also studies the connection between content (meaning) and expression (form),
especially the meaning of syntactic constructions. Semantics ("science of meaning in language," 1893,
from Fr. sémantique (1883); from Gk. semasia "signification, meaning." www.etymonline.com) should
then be admitted as another subclass of grammar, since particular structures also possess meaning,
without which their analysis would make no sense. This part of grammar is known as semantics - the
study of meaning without reference to situation.
The choice of expression affected by attitudes is the concern of another branch of grammar, namely
pragmatics, which can be defined as the study of meaning with reference to situation.
Applied linguistics is an interdisciplinary language-related field of research that includes language
acquisition and teaching, literacy, discourse analysis, media studies, speech therapy, workplace
communication, translation studies, and a few others. Consequently, the academic fields related to applied
linguistics are linguistics, translatology, education, psychology, sociology, political sciences, computer
science, communication research, anthropology etc.
Registers are varieties of language associated with particular users, uses, and contexts. One of the
primary features of a register is the distinctive words and phrases used in it.
Idiolects are defined as varieties of language that are unique to individual persons and manifested by the
patterns of vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation that they use.
Bachman and Palmer (1996) connect these linguistic sub-domains to corresponding areas of language
knowledge and identify the following types:
A. Organizational knowledge (how utterances or sentences and texts are organized)
o Grammatical knowledge (how individual utterances or sentences are organized)
 Knowledge of vocabulary
 Knowledge of syntax
 Knowledge of phonology/graphology
o Textual knowledge (how utterances or sentences are organized to form texts)
 Knowledge of cohesion
 Knowledge of rhetorical or conversational organization
B. Pragmatic knowledge (how utterances or sentences and texts are related to the communicative goals of the
language user and to the features of the language use setting)
o Functional knowledge (how utterances or sentences and texts are related to the communicative goals
of language users)
 Knowledge of ideational functions
 Knowledge of manipulative functions
 Knowledge of heuristic functions
 Knowledge of imaginative functions
o Sociolinguistic knowledge (how utterances or sentences and texts are related to features of the
language use setting)
 Knowledge of dialects/varieties

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 Knowledge of registers
 Knowledge of natural or idiomatic expressions
 Knowledge of cultural references and figures of speech

In conclusion, if the study of grammar traditionally includes morphology and syntax, more recent
approaches assimilate it to the study of linguistics or even of language and linguistics (Greenbaum & Nelson
2002, Fasold 2008, Mair 2012), thus additionally including in it phonetics and phonology, semantics,
pragmatics and applied linguistics.

2. Grammatical rules and linguistic units

2.1. Linguistic communication

The simplified model of the linguistic communicative process includes a sender communicating a
message to the receiver by using a coding system that allows the sender to encode the message as a
linguistic code that is made up of words.
In the encoding process the sender has several alternative ways of encoding the message. These ways may
differ in attitudes (e.g. Are you ready? is more polite than Why can you never be ready on time?) but also
in the situations in which the act of communication takes place (e.g. here or there will be used to refer to
Iași, depending on whether the sender is in Iași or not).
The end product of the encoding process is a sound wave which is transmitted to the receiver, but, since
the study of the speech sounds is the concern of two other disciplines, phonetics and phonology, I will
not deal with it any further.
Whenever the receiver has access to the same coding system as the sender, either by knowing it or by being
physically able to hear sounds, (s)he decodes the incoming sound waves (i.e. the brain reconstructs the
words and sentences from the incoming frequency information in the sounds of language produced by the
sender). Additionally, the receiver interprets the received message, i.e. tries to identify the sender's mental
attitude, and this can explain the great number of misunderstandings occurring between people speaking to
one another.
The model of linguistic communication is actually more complex because normally the participants take turns
at being speaker (sender) and listener (receiver) in a conversation, because the utterances and their
interpretations will be affected by the speakers' context knowledge and assumptions about each other; because
a receiver will typically act on the utterance (e.g. by hurrying up or by apologizing for not being ready yet).
The linguistic sign is defined by Saussure as the pairing of the signifier and the significant, that is, of an
expression (form, code) and a content (meaning). To put it differently, if people share the same linguistic
code, when one utters or hears a word, all those hearing it will have the same mental representation of what
that word designates by the name associated with it. The pair signifier – significant, has two essential
characteristics, which can be inferred from the quote below:
There is no reason why the object that we call a cat should be called a cat, as witnessed by the fact
that other languages do not use this word to refer to the same object [...] Moreover, there is nothing
about the pronunciation [kæt] that means that it must refer to this object: one can imagine a
language in which the word pronounced [kæt] is used for almost anything else. This kind of

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 I. O. Macari, Morpho-syntax, Lecture 1 sem. I, 2020

linguistic knowledge is not ‘rule governed’, but is just arbitrary facts about particular languages.
(Newson 2006: 4)
In other words, because the relationship between the signifier and the significant is arbitrary, the
linguistic sign is conventional in the sense that the speakers of a language must resort to the same form to
represent the same content because otherwise the receiver will be unable to decode the content encoded
by the sender and communication will become impossible.
A morpheme is a simple linguistic sign and, because it cannot be further subdivided, it is the minimal
linguistic unit able to carry meaning. There are two main classes of morphemes: free morphemes - that
can be used on their own, such as man, nice, go, and bound morphemes (also called affixes) that need a
base, i.e. a free morpheme, to attach to. We can further distinguish between morphemes with grammatical
meaning, i.e. inflectional/grammatical morphemes, and lexical/derivational morphemes.
inflectional word-class derivational morphemes word-class → word-
morphemes class
cats noun Londoner, childhood, artist, Japanese, handful, noun → noun
kingdom, behaviourism, friendship
Mary's
runs verb coverage, arrival, defendant, dependence, user, verb → noun
walked writing, employee, descendant
reading

higher adjective cruelty, strength, freedom, socialist, mentality, adjective → noun

lowest anxiety, childishness, meanness

The inflectional morphemes in the left column above are all suffixes and do not produce significant
semantic changes to the word they attach to, they only connect the word to a particular grammatical
context by generating agreement in number, case, person, tense etc.
Derivational morphemes change the word-class of the root, its meaning, or both. All the derivational
morphemes in the table above are suffixes and change the word-class of the root they attach to and
produce considerable semantic alteration. Derivational morphemes may also be prefixes, and in that
situation they usually do not change the word-class of the root. To illustrate this, consider the adjective
'unhappy', derived from “-happy” (root) + “un-” (prefix). Both 'happy' and 'unhappy' are adjectives, but
their meaning is antithetical.

2.2. Grammatical forms, functions and rules

2.2.1. Grammatical form vs. grammatical function. Constituents

The basic goal of grammar is to provide an understanding of the linguistic units. In order to attain this, it is
necessary to distinguish between grammatical form and grammatical function.
Form includes the designations of word classes (noun, verb, adjective, adverb, pronoun, preposition,
determinative and conjunction)3 and of the phrases (noun phrase, verb phrase, adjective phrase, adverb
phrase, prepositional phrase).

3
Other grammars recognise different word classes from the ones listed here, due to the criteria they use when
defining the boundaries between the classes. For example, in some grammars, pronouns are treated as a subclass
of nouns; in others particles form a separate class.

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Note that, unlike in Romanian, interjections in English grammar are considered parts of speech4 only by the
traditional grammars. They are usually defined as short utterances expressing emotion, which consist of a
word, a phrase or a short clause capable of standing alone.
Any structure is recognized and classified on the basis of its form/`shape', that is, we can assign words to a
word class on the basis of their endings5 (such as -tion for nouns, -al for adjectives, -ly for adverbs, plural –s
for nouns, -s, -ed, -ing for verbs, etc.).6
In the sentence My brothers and I played recreational tennis every weekend, it is on the basis of their endings
that we label brothers as a noun, and played as a verb.
Put differently, these structures do not need to be placed in a context (that is, a sentence) in order to be
assigned to a particular word class. In contrast, functions can only be identified inside structures (such as
sentences, clauses, or phrases), and are the result of the relationships between their constituents.
In the table below, Kolln and Funk (2012, pp. , 106) show that all of the general functions listed on the right -
adverbial, adjectival, nominal, and sentence modifier - can be carried out by all of the general forms listed on
the left - words, phrases, and clauses.
FORM FUNCTION
Word Adverbial
 noun  modifier of verb
 verb
 adjective Adjectival
 adverb  subject complement
 object complement
Phrase  modifier of noun
 noun phrase
 verb phrase Nominal
• gerund  subject
• infinitive  subject complement
• participle  direct object
 indirect object
 prepositional phrase  object complement
 object of preposition
Clause  appositive
 independent clause/sentence
 dependent clause Sentence Modifier
• nominal
• adverbial (subordinate)
• adjectival (relative)

At this point, it would be useful to make an analogy between the grammatical function in English and
funcția sintactică in Romanian, which are very similar. Thus, the five types of clause elements — subject,
verbal, object, complement and adverbial — are defined as functions in the clause, exactly as in the case of
subiect, predicat, complement, atribut in propoziție. A subject, for example, is a subject because it has a
specific function in a clause, but it is realised by/consists of a range of specialized forms/structures7.
However, an additional observation is necessary: in English grammar, functions appear not only at the level
of sentence or clause, but inside phrase as well.
The constituents of a sentence, a clause, or a phrase, are the parts into which it can be divided. For
example, the constituent of the sentence I play tennis every weekend is the clause I play tennis every

4
Part of speech is the term used by traditional grammars for word class.
5
Other criteria, discussed further on, are be used by grammar to label word classes.
6
See 2.7.
7
In Romanian we say ”subiectul este exprimat prin (+ parte de vorbire)”

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weekend; in turn, in the clause I play tennis every weekend several constituents can be identified: I, play,
tennis, every, weekend.
For a better understanding of the concept of constituency, it may be useful to resort to Wekker and
Haegeman’s observations below.
(S)entences have structure, and are not just strings of words which occur in a random order.
The words do not just follow each other like the beads on a string or the carriages of train, all
of which are of the same size and structure, connected with each other in one straight line and
in exactly the same way. The words of a sentence are strictly organized internally: there is an
underlying pattern. (A modern course in English syntax , 1985, p. 21)

The structure of clauses can be revealed by applying certain constituency tests; the basic ones, proposed
at people.umass.edu/.../Constituency%20Tests.pdf are listed below.

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2.2.2. Grammatical rules and linguistic units

In A Teachers' Grammar, R. A. Close briefly reviews the basic rules of English grammars.
It has often been said that English has no grammar, or that, if it has, there are no rules in it. English has
indeed very few of the kind of inflections, on the end of nouns and verbs, that play such an important
part in the grammar of many other languages. English adjectives have no inflections at all, apart from
the -er and -est of short words like longer and longest. We can accurately predict the whole
‘conjugation’ of every verb in modem English from a small set of rules and a fixed list of
irregularities. Nor has English grammar a place for gender8 in nouns. (1992, p. 1)
But what exactly makes us able to predict the fundamental rules governing language use? From a
generative perspective, Newson et al. (2006) explain that, even if the human brain cannot store all the
possible linguistic expressions, it treats language the same way it treats the combinations of numbers. Thus,
though the number of combinations is infinite, humans can write and read any of them, not because all the
numbers are stored in their heads (only the figures 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 9 are, not all their combinations),
but owing to the set of rules that govern the way figures are combined into numbers.
The authors speculate that, similarly, we possess a (finite) set of linguistic rules which enable us to
recognize the infinite number of expressions that constitute the language/languages that we speak. For
this it might be useful to resort once again to Close's distinction between the “solid core of linguistic facts
(men, wrote, he wants to drive)” and the area of choice, the “more nebulous area in which linguistic facts
(I wrote, I have written) are often involved with subtle distinctions of thought, personal attitudes and
points of view, as well as with non-linguistic facts, such as the particular circumstances in which certain
words were uttered” (Close, 1992, pg. 3-4).
Two areas grammar governs (the production of sentences and texts and the description of their structures)
lead us to distinguish between two different kinds of rules. On the one hand there are the usage rules that
must be learned deliberately, called prescriptive rules, defined as “the rules which define a standard form
of the language, and which some authority must explicitly state for the benefit of other speakers.”

8
Gender is discussed further in 5.2.1.

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(Kroeger, 2005, p. 5). On the other hand, there are the descriptive rules “which the native speaker is
usually not aware of – the kind of knowledge about the language that children learn naturally and
unconsciously from their parents and other members of their speech community, whether they attend
school or not. All languages, whether standardized or not, have rules of this kind, and these rules
constitute the grammar of the language.” (Kroeger, 2005, p. 5)
Furthermore, both from a non-native and a pedagogical perspective, it would be remarkably helpful to use
Close's distinction between objective grammar (in his terms, 'grammar as fact') where there is one
correct solution only and subjective grammar, ('grammar as choice') where the language user may
choose between possible solutions having slightly different meanings (such as the choice between the two
aspects of the same tense or between two prepositions with similar meanings).
Stretches of language, either spoken or written, can be divided into meaningful linguistic units characterized in
terms of their
 internal structure (a clause consists of phrases, a phrase consists of words, a word consists of one or
more morphemes)
 function/syntactic role (a phrase may function as a subject, verb, object, complement or adverbial)
 meaning (adverbs, for example, carry information about the time, place, manner, etc. of the action)
 use (also called discourse function, related to their behaviour inside discourse – frequency, register,
etc.)
In Downing and Locke’s view,
Any structure can be considered to be composed of elements which form a configuration of
‘functions’, whether semantic functions such as Agent-Process-Affected or syntactic functions such
as the clause configuration Subject-Predicator9-Direct Object or the modifier-head-modifier
structure of the nominal group. Each of these functions is in turn realised10 by a unit which is itself,
at least potentially, a configuration of functions, and these in turn are realised by others until the
final stage is reached and abstract categories such as subject, head, modifier, etc., are finally realised
by the segments of the spoken or written language. (2006, pp. , 19)
In English, five types of units are usually recognized and hierarchically arranged on a rank scale,
starting from the top:
(discourse)
sentence: |||I play tennis every weekend (if I have time11).|||
clause → ||I play tennis every weekend.||
phrase → I| play| tennis| every weekend|
word → I| play| tennis| every| weekend|
morpheme {I}{ play} {tennis} {every} {week}{end}.
Grammatical units can be combined to form longer written texts or spoken interaction, which is known as
discourse.

9
Predicator is Downing and Locke’s term for verbal.
10
The realisation of an element comprises all the forms it may consist of. For example, the noun phrase is a common
realisation of the subject and of the object. An alternative way to say the same thing is ‘objects commonly consist of
noun phrases.”
11
Unlike in Romanian, in English both I play tennis every weekend and I play tennis every weekend if I have time can be
recognized as sentences, as I will explain further on.

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 I. O. Macari, Morpho-syntax, Lecture 1 sem. I, 2020

For simplicity, it would be useful to agree to use an adaptation of the symbols - proposed by Downing and
Locke (2006: 11) - that mark off the boundaries of each unit, such as those adopted in the example. A triple
vertical line [ ||| ] delineates a sentence consisting of a combinations of clauses. A double vertical line [ || ] is
used for ‘clause boundary’, a single vertical line [ | ] for ‘phrase boundary’ and simply a space for ‘word
boundary’. Morphemes are placed between curly brackets.
Traditional Romanian grammars (including school textbooks) recognize only four levels:
(discursul)
fraza: ||| Joc tenis în fiecare weekend când am timp.|||
propoziția: ||Joc tenis în fiecare weekend.||
partea de vorbire: |joc| tenis| în| fiecare| weekend|
morfemul: joc| tenis| în| fiecare| weekend|
Actually, the phrase rank that is absent from the hierarchy above has an equivalent in Romanian grammar,
namely nivelul grupurilor, which will be briefly dealt with later, but its use is restricted to recent
grammars that have not made it into the mainstream linguistic trend.
The obvious differences in the two rank scales should make you careful with the transfer of both
grammatical knowledge and terminology from Romanian into English. Thus, a sentence is in English the
maximal grammatical unit. It corresponds to the Romanian frază, but because a sentence can be both
simple (consisting of one clause) and complex/ compound (consisting of more than one clause), it also
corresponds to the Romanian propoziție. Consequently, I play tennis every weekend is both a sentence
and a clause, depending on the level of analysis, while Joc tenis în fiecare weekend /când am timp is a
frază made up of two propoziții (Joc tenis în fiecare weekend - main clause and când am timp - temporal
clause) and Joc tenis în fiecare weekend is a propoziție.
Just to better understand the similarities and differences between these grammatical units, let us have a
look at the definitions of sentence and clause (adapted from Geoffrey Leech's A Glossary of English
Grammar, 2006, Hasselgård, Lysvåg & Johansson’s Glossary of grammatical terms used in English
Grammar: Theory and Use (2nd edition), Graham Lock’s Functional English Grammar and R. W.
Zandvoort's A Handbook of English Grammar, 1975) and frază and propoziție (adapted from Gheorghe
Bulgăr, Limba română, fonetică, lexic, morfologie, sintaxă, stilistică, 1995, Teodor Cotelnic et al.,
Gramatica uzuală a limbii române, 2000 and Ion Coteanu, Gramatica de bază a limbii române, 1982).
Sentence Fraza
The sentence is the largest unit of language that grammar Două sau mai multe propoziții reunite prin înțelesul
(traditionally) describes. lor alcătuiesc un întreg sintactic care se numește
frază.
Sentences may be categorized as simple (containing just one
clause) and complex/compound (containing more than one Acest întreg poate să fie construit
clause).
a) numai din propoziții principale (ex. ||| ||Apa
The simple sentence (for example, The teacher corrected him trece||, ||pietrele rămân|| |||.)
amiably enough), can be divided into subject (the teacher)
b) dintr-una sau mai multe propoziții principale și
and predicate (corrected him amiably enough).
dintr-una sau mai multe propoziții secundare. (|||
The complex sentence, (for example, Today’s weather will ||Unde e lac1||, ||se adună broaște2||.|||) 1 – propoziția
be fine, but tomorrow will be cloudy and wet) can be divided secundară, 2 – propoziția principală.
into:
În mod obișnuit, într-o frază există atâtea
||| ||Today’s weather will be fine,|| ||but tomorrow will be cloudy propoziții câte predicate sunt.

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 I. O. Macari, Morpho-syntax, Lecture 1 sem. I, 2020

and wet||.||| În fraza de mai jos sunt trei predicate (băgam,

făceam, se strânsese), deci trei propoziții, ce
In writing, sentences are marked by beginning with a capital
constituie un ansamblu unitar din punct de vedere
letter and ending with a full stop, question mark or
semantic, gramatical și intonațional.
exclamation mark. In spoken language, the definition of a
sentence is more problematic. ||| ||Și mă băgam în ochii moșneagului|| ||și făceam
un tărăboi||, ||de se strânsese lumea ca la comedie
împrejurul nostrum|| |||. (I. Creangă)
Observațiile din ultimul paragraf din coloana din
stânga sunt adevărate și pentru frazele și propozițiile
românești.
Clause Propoziția
A clause is a group of phrases, usually centred around a verb Propoziția este ”unitatea sintactică fundamental,
phrase functioning as verbal. The verbal is defined at clause delimitată prin conținut și structură. Ea conține o
level as the central element, consisting, unlike the Predicate, comunicare deplină (chiar dacă se reduce la un
exclusively of verb words. singur cuvânt); contextul îi dă înțeles, îi
completează semnificația” (Bulgăr 1995: 115).
A clause is defined formally by the elements it may contain.
A clause element is defined as “a word, phrase, or clause that Propoziția simplă este grupul de cuvinte format
has a syntactic function in a clause” (Hasselgård, Lysvåg, & numai din subiect și predicat: Răsare soarele.
Johansson, Glossary of grammatical terms used in English
Este propoziție dezvoltată orice grup de cuvinte
Grammar: Theory and Use (2nd edition)).
care conține cel puțin un element în plus față de
In the example we took above (The teacher corrected him subiect și predicat: (Tu) te sperii.
amiably enough), the elements of the clause (rather than of
În exemplul de mai sus, pe lângă subiect (Tu) și
the sentence.) are: the subject (The teacher), verbal
predicat (sperii), apare și complementul direct te.
(corrected), object (him) and adverbial (amiably enough).
În interiorul frazei, după gradul lor de independență,
The valency12 of the verb (i.e. the head of the verb phrase)
propozițiile sunt de două feluri: principale (când nu
decides how many clause elements need to be present.
depind de altă structură sintactică) și secundare/
Clauses can be main clauses or subordinate clauses, and they subordonate (când sunt o parte neobligatorie a altei
can be finite or non-finite. Usually, a finite clause contains at structuri din frază):
least a subject in addition to the verbal. A main clause can be a
||| ||S-a întors||1, ||când începuse a cânta cocoșii de
complete sentence, or clauses can combine to form complex or
miezul nopții||2.||| (I. Druță)
compound sentences. Most finite clauses contain a subject in
addition to the verbal, while most non-finite clauses do not have Propozițiile principale servesc drept centru de
a subject. organizare a frazei. Prezența lor e obligatorie.
As the above example shows, a clause can be capable of Propozițiile secundare sunt dependente și
standing alone as a complete sentence. Such clauses, called întregesc conținutul altor propoziții în frază.
independent clauses, are distinct from dependent clauses, Prezența lor este, de obicei, facultativă.
which generally cannot stand alone as a complete sentence and Propoziția de care depinde o altă propoziție
are marked by a signal or marker (for example a conjunction (subordonată) poartă numele de regentă. Regenta
such as if ) showing their subordinate status, as in poate fi atât principală în frază, cât și secundară,
||| ||He would gladly help you|| ||if you asked him nicely||.||| subordonată, la rândul ei, altei regente.

12
valency = a feature of lexical verbs. The valency of a verb determines how many clause elements there must be in
a sentence in addition to the verbal. (Hasselgård, Lysvåg, & Johansson, Glossary of grammatical terms used in
English Grammar: Theory and Use (2nd edition)) the discussion of the valency of the verb is continued in 3.9.

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 I. O. Macari, Morpho-syntax, Lecture 1 sem. I, 2020

A main clause cannot normally be omitted from the sentence, Gramatica Academiei remarcă paralelismul dintre
while the presence of the dependent/subordinate clauses is propozițiile subordonate și părțile de propoziție.
optional.
The first stage of analyzing a sentence like I play tennis every weekend, then, is to see if it consists of a
single main clause or of more than one clause. At syntactic level, the constituents are the subject (I) and the
predicate (play tennis every weekend). This is only partly true for the Romanian version: in the analysis of
the frază, the analysis also starts with the identification of the (at least) two clauses, conditioned by the
existence of two predicate (joc and am), In this case, the main clause (Joc tenis în fiecare weekend) is
followed by the subordinate clause când am timp, but the number of constituents is greater than two for
each. Both the predicate and the subject are defined differently in Romanian grammars, unless we adopt
Coteanu's terms of grupul subiectului - including all the elements that are grouped around the subject and
are governed by it, and grupul predicatului13 - including all the elements that are grouped around the
predicate and are governed by it (Coteanu 1982: 282-5).
At this point it would be useful to contrast some basic definitions of the Subject and the predicate in
English (adapted from Geoffrey Leech and R. W. Zandvoort) and Romanian (adapted from Teodor
Cotelnic et al, Gramatica uzuală a limbii române, 2000 and Ion Coteanu, Gramatica de bază a limbii
române, 1982).

Subject Subiect
The word (or words) indicating the person or thing referred to is (are) Subiectul este partea principală de
called the subject of the sentence. propoziţie despre care se comunică
ceva prin intermediul predicatului.
In the following examples (found at thesunmagazine.org) the subject is
in bold, the non-bold word(s) forming the predicate. Iată și câteva exemple:
One can write, think, and pray exclusively of others. Dreams are all Moldova a fost pe vremuri o savană
egocentric. (Evelyn Waugh) tropicală. (www. ziaruldeiasi.ro)
All human beings are also dream beings. Dreaming ties all mankind Senatorul PDL Dumitru Oprea
together. (Jack Kerouac) consideră că decredibilizarea
învățământului românesc prin
People who insist on telling their dreams are among the terrors of the
fraudarea bacalaureatului poate fi
breakfast table. (Max Beerbohm)
stopată. (www.ziaruldeiasi. ro)
Primele păsări de pe Terra aveau patru
aripi. (www.ziaruldeiasi.ro)
Predicate Predicat
Traditional grammars view the predicate as the main part of a sentence Predicatul este partea principală a
or clause whose role is to make a statement (or a question) about the propoziției care denumește o acțiune, o
subject. It is the part that modifies the subject and includes the verbs, stare sau o însușire atribuită subiectului.
objects and phrases governed by the verbal. Predicatul, de fapt, arată ce face, ce,
cine sau cum este subiectul.
More recent approaches come closer to the Romanian definition of the
predicate, seen as the part of a sentence that corresponds mainly to the Copilul râde. (Ce face?)
main verb and any auxiliaries that accompany it.
Copilul este vesel. (Cum este?)
This course exclusively regards the predicate as a functional category

13
The term grupul predicatului covers exactly the meaning of the concept of verb complementation in the English
grammar (see 3.9.1.).

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 I. O. Macari, Morpho-syntax, Lecture 1 sem. I, 2020

of the sentence, with the verbal as its counterpart at clause level.

Copilul este fratele meu. (Ce este? Cine
I don’t use drugs; my dreams are frightening enough. (M. C. Escher) este?)
I dream my painting, and then I paint my dream. (Vincent van Gogh)
(Examples from thesunmagazine.org)
It is now obvious that, in English, the example I play tennis every weekend can be analyzed as a sentence
and then it has two constituents (subject and predicate), but also as a clause, made up of four constituents
(subject, verbal, object, adverbial).
By contrast, the Romanian version Joc tenis în fiecare zi can only be propoziție, with the following
components: subiect subînțeles/inclus în desinența verbală (eu), predicat (joc), complement direct (tenis),
complement circumstanțial (în fiecare weekend).
From the discussion above, it can be inferred that one should be cautious with grammatical knowledge
transfer from one language into another even with seemingly similar terms. Thus, the members of the
pairs phrase – frază, complement – complement can be rated as false friends, while the correspondences
subject - subiect, predicate - predicat, verbal– verb are only partial because inside a pair they share some
features but not all of them.

2.3. Discourse

Sentences are normally part of a spoken or written discourse, so each sentence will normally be tailored to
fit in with other sentences. This means that even if a sentence is incomplete and makes no sense in
isolation, it can still fulfil its communicative purpose in its proper context. For example, in a dialogue, it
is normal to answer a question with a sentence fragment provided it contains the information that the
other speaker asked for, as in:
Q: Where are you from?
A: Iași.
Because speakers take turns in a dialogue, the answers to a question must be related to the previous
speaker's purpose, and not just to the form of the question.
Written discourse is commonly referred to as text, and Wekker and Haegeman’s observations below may
be useful for the understanding of its organization and structure:
[I]t would be naïve to think of texts as being simply made up of lexical items strung one after
another. The items in a text are somehow organized: texts also have a certain structure. Texts
contain one or more paragraphs, often set off by indentation. Paragraphs in turn consist of
sentences, which are usually set off by a capital letter at the beginning and a full stop, an
explanation mark or a question mark at the end. Thus, texts are hierarchically organized into
paragraphs, and paragraphs into sentences. (A modern course in English syntax , 1985, p. 21)
The authors also point to a less common variety of text, the minimal texts containing only one paragraph
made up of one sentence, and illustrate it with notices such as Visitors must not feed the animals and
Shoplifters will be prosecuted. (Wekker & Haegeman, 1985, p. 21)
Grammatical rules concerning the units of grammar (from the morpheme upwards) do not usually refer to
discourse context, but discourse properties may influence the choice of grammatical form. This is obvious
when speakers choose, for example, between a formal and an informal structure according to the speech
situation discourse occurs in.

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 I. O. Macari, Morpho-syntax, Lecture 1 sem. I, 2020

Similarly, context knowledge may influence the interpretation of utterances, making us capable to decode,
for example, jokes, allusions and irony.

2.4. Sentence

Though sentences are difficult to define because of their variety, in written text they can be easily identified,
since the beginning of the sentence is conventionally marked by a capital letter, and the end of the sentence
is marked by a full stop, exclamation mark, or question mark.
According to the possible combinations of main and subordinate clauses in a sentence, sentences can be
classified as:
1. sentence fragments (which do not contain a full main clause). Certain commercials use this
pattern as an effective economical way to convey a message. The following advertisement text is
exclusively made up of sentence fragments: Free. Free to surrender. Free to belong. Wanted by
Helena Rubinstein. (www.precious-womens-perfumes.com)
2. simple sentences consist of a single main clause. The following example (the sentence in bold and
italic) is part of a commercial for The One by Dolce & Gabbana: "You know when it's the one..." She
is the One. (www.precious-womens-perfumes.com)
3. compound sentences consist of two or more co-ordinated main clauses: See her through... Feel
her... A jewel that shines out of the dark... She's a lady, she's a queen. (Bvlgari, Pour Femme by
Bvlgari) (www.precious-womens-perfumes.com)
4. complex sentences contain at least one main clause and one subordinate clause. Only if she
wants it, she'll unveil herself slowly, petal by petal... Seductress from within. (Hypnotic Poison
by Dior) (www.precious-womens-perfumes.com)
According to their function there are four major types of sentences.
1. Declaratives/declarative sentences are mainly used to convey information.
The economic situation we and the rest of the world face remains very difficult.
(www.thesun.co.uk)
2. Interrogatives/interrogative sentences are mainly used to request information.
Does Joe Jonas have a new girlfriend? (www.thesun.co.uk)
Who do you want to win X Factor? (www.thesun.co.uk)
Is environmental injustice more of a problem in rural or urban communities? (thesunmagazine.org)
It is ironic, isn't it? (fgk.hanau.net)
These sentences illustrate four different kinds of questions.
a. The first is an example of a yes/no question, because it can be answered with just a ‘‘yes’’ or ‘‘no.’’
b. The second is called a wh-question because it begins with a wh- word (when, where, what, why, which,
who, whom, how), or another question word. How is a wh- word, though it does not begin with wh-. Unlike
yes/no questions, wh- questions cannot be answered with a ‘‘yes’’ or a ‘‘no,’’ they call for an open-ended
answer.
c. The third sentence is an example of an alternative interrogative, which provides a choice. Alternative
interrogatives are questions that can receive two or more alternative answers. As in the case of wh- questions, a
‘‘yes’’ or a ‘‘no” answer will be nonsensical, unless you want to make a joke like the one below.
Q: Are zebras black with white stripes or white with black stripes?
A: Yes.
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 I. O. Macari, Morpho-syntax, Lecture 1 sem. I, 2020

d. The fourth sentence is called a tag question; it contains a statement followed by a tag, such as will
you?, isn't it?, haven't they? etc.
3. Imperatives/imperative sentences are mainly used to give commands.
Come here at once!
4. Exclamatives/exclamative sentences are mainly used to express strong feeling.
I can’t do X Factor in US and UK! (www.thesun.co.uk)
According to the form of the verb or to the presence or absence of another negative word, sentences can
be either positive or negative.

positive The model shared her joy with fans after the restriction was lifted. (www.thesun.co.uk)
negative Taylor, 22, couldn’t resist cuddling the tot and carrying her through the zoo.
(www.thesun.co.uk)
negative Katie Price is no longer barred from driving after appealing a court ruling that saw her slapped
with a one-year ban. (www.thesun.co.uk)
When the verb phrase contains an auxiliary verb, a positive sentence can be turned into a negative one by
inserting not after the auxiliary (with the contracted alternative -n’t).
positive The teen lothario14 had invited his new love to One Direction’s gig at Madison Square
Gardens tonight. (www.thesun.co.uk)
negative The teen lothario hadn't invited his new love to One Direction’s gig at Madison Square
Gardens tonight.
A positive sentence can be turned into a negative one by inserting some other negative word:
positive The teen lothario had never invited his new love to One Direction’s gig at Madison Square
Gardens tonight.

Multiple negation

Standard English generally allows only one negative in the same clause.
They didn’t say anything. / They said nothing. / Nobody said anything
Non- standard English allows two or more negatives in the same clause
double negation They didn’t say nothing .
corrected They didn’t say anything. / They said nothing. / Nobody said anything
triple negation Nobody never believes nothing I say.
corrected Nobody ever believes anything I say.
double negation I didn’t like it, neither .
corrected I didn’t like it, either .
Negative adverbs include other negatives besides never: barely, hardly, scarcely:
double negation I can’t hardly tell the difference.
corrected I can hardly tell the difference.

14
Lothario (also lothario) is a man who seduces women.[After Lothario, a character in The Fair Penitent, a play by
Nicholas Rowe.] (www.thefreedictionary.com)

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 I. O. Macari, Morpho-syntax, Lecture 1 sem. I, 2020

Standard English allows double negation when the two negatives combine to make a positive. When not modifies
an adjective or adverb with a negative prefix (unhappy, indecisively), it reduces the negative force of the word,
perhaps to express an understatement:
It was a not unhappy occasion. (‘a fairly happy occasion’)
She spoke not indecisively. (‘fairly decisively’)
Occasionally both the auxiliary and the main verb are negated:
We can’t not agree to their demands. (‘It’s not possible for us not to agree to their demands.’) .
Other negative combinations also occasionally occur:
Nobody has no complaints. (‘There is nobody that has no complaints’; ‘Everybody has some complaints.’)
Sentences can be active or passive. In a pair formed by an active sentence and its passive counterpart, the
meaning is basically the same, but the structure is different. Other differences concern the form of the verb:
active The board pulled Christopher Maloney out of last night’s final after he had turned up drunk and
abusive at rehearsals.
passive Christopher Maloney was pulled out of last night’s final after turning up drunk and abusive at
rehearsals. (www.thesun.co.uk)
In English, canonical passives (a form of the verb be or sometimes get + the past participle of a transitive
verb) are more common in formal scientific writing than in colloquial interactions. This is only partly true
about Romanian, but the discussion will be expanded at a further point in the book.

2.4.1. Subject, predicate, verb phrase

The simple sentence has two main constituents: the subject and the predicate. The predicate is, according to
Geoffrey Leech, “the part of a clause or simple sentence which follows the subject and which consists of the
verb phrase together with elements relating to it.” (2006: 89)
The eventual winner, James Arthur, could only manage mid-table or lower until week seven.
(www.thesun.co.uk)
As you can see in the example above, the extended predicate (the part in bold), consists of the verb
phrase, (could manage), which is the most important constituent of the predicate, and all the other
elements of the sentence apart from the subject.
The subject is the element of a clause or simple sentence which normally comes before the verb phrase and
commonly consists of a noun phrase (Leech, A Glossary of English Grammar, 2006, p. 108). Thus, in the
example above, the eventual winner, James Arthur is the subject, preceding the verb phrase could manage.
The subject of a sentence or clause can also consist of a subordinate clause:
That she arrived on time surprised everybody.
Leech enumerates the basic characteristics of subjects:
 they have concord with the finite verb;
 they are placed after the operator in questions: Does the play end happily?;
 they typically refer to the ‘doer’ of an action, with the exception of passive clauses, where the
subject does not refer to the ‘doer’, a role usually taken by the agent (if present) instead: The
show was praised by the critics. (2006: 108)
The subject in a declarative sentence can be easily identified by turning the sentence into a yes–no question.

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 I. O. Macari, Morpho-syntax, Lecture 1 sem. I, 2020

The birds are singing.

Are the birds singing?
This kind of transformation requires knowledge about the operator and its functions, and can be difficult
for the Romanian speaker of English due to the different interrogative patterns in English - where the
operator and subject change places - and in Romanian – where interrogatives have a simpler structure.

2.4.2. Operator
The structure of questions and negative statements employs mechanisms that differ from one language to another.
Such mechanisms include word order and/or intonation change and the insertion of operators, and sometimes a
combination of these. Put differently, each type of clause is formed according to its specific structure.
In English, the operator is required in the canonical interrogative and negative structures. Greenbaum and Nelson
define it as “the first or only auxiliary in the verb15 of the sentence” (2002: 22) and illustrate it with two examples.
In the former, the verbal is could have been imagining and the operator is the first auxiliary, could.
1. You could have been imagining it.
In the latter, the verbal is can get. The operator is can, the only auxiliary.
2. Karen can get to the heart of a problem.
In Leech’s opinion (1992: 80), the operator is “a verb word which has a key role in forming negative,
interrogative, and other types of ‘derived’ clauses or sentences in English. The class of operator verbs
included the modal auxiliaries […]; the finite forms of the auxiliaries have and do; and the finite forms of
the verb be (both as an auxiliary and as a main verb).” Note that operators are part of the verb phrase.
An operator is a verb used in
1. independent interrogative clauses, as in Where do you live?
 Note that this rule does not apply to wh-clauses with the Subject consisting of a wh-word, such as
Who comes with me?
 Also note that, if there is more than one wh- clause element in a clause, only one is placed in initial
position, e.g. Who said what?
2. negative imperatives, as in Don’t go there!, and emphatic imperatives, as in Do be quiet!
1. Note that, although do is not normally used with be, this happens in negative and
emphatic imperatives.
3. after time adverbials (i.e. never (before), rarely, seldom; barely/hardly/scarcely..., when/before;
no sooner... than), as in Seldom do they spare a word to anyone.
4. after only after/later/once/then/when (or any other time expression), as in Only once have I
attempted to call on her and it was enough.;
o Note that after only after/later/once/then/when, the inversion never occurs in the subordinate
clause (if any) introduced by the structure under discussion.
Subordinate clause Main clause
correct [Only when I looked at him closer] [did I recognize my uncle.]
incorrect [Only when did I look at him closer] [I recognized my uncle.]

15
Verb is Greenbaum and Nelson’s term for verbal.

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 I. O. Macari, Morpho-syntax, Lecture 1 sem. I, 2020

o Note that the subordinate clause can be contracted to only when. No change occurs inside it
5. only + other prepositional phrases (only by.../in.../with.., etc.): Only with great efforts did they manage to
get over that ugly story.
6. preposition + no (at no time, in no way, on no account, under/in no circumstances): Under no
circumstances are passengers permitted to enter this area.
7. certain negative words or other elements that are placed initially, e.g. Never have I seen such an
obnoxious person. and Little did she know what was in store for her.
8. after so+adj... that, such+be... that, neither ...nor, nor, as in Such is the fame of the novel that the
writer is invited to give lectures all over the country. and She never liked the country house, and
nor did her son.
The class of operators includes:
 the modal auxiliaries will, can, may, shall, must, would, could, might, should;
 the finite forms of the auxiliaries have and do;
 the finite forms of the verb be (both as an auxiliary and as a main verb).
 the negative contractions of these verbs: won’t, can’t, shan’t, mustn’t, wouldn’t, mightn’t,
shouldn’t, hasn’t, haven’t, hadn’t, doesn’t, don’t, didn’t, isn’t, aren’t, wasn’t, weren’t.
The patterns of transforming a declarative positive clause into a (a) negative, (b) interrogative and (c)
elliptical clause by means of the operator are as follows:
a) declarative positive Negative
The child has eaten the whole cake. Instruction: Place not after the operator or replace the operator by its
negative contraction (n't).
The child has not/hasn’t eaten the whole cake.
b) declarative positive interrogative positive
The child has eaten the whole cake. Instruction: Place the operator in front of the Subject (Subject - operator
inversion).
Has the child eaten the whole cake?
interrogative negative
Instruction: Place not after the operator or replace the operator by its negative
contraction (n't).
Hasn’t the child eaten the whole cake?
c) declarative positive elliptical positive
(His sister hasn’t eaten the whole Instruction: Delete the part that follows the operator.
cake, but) the child has eaten the The child has.
whole cake.
declarative negative elliptical negative
(His sister has eaten the whole Instruction: Place not after the operator or replace the operator by its
cake, but) the child hasn’t eaten negative contraction (n't).
the whole cake. The child has not/ hasn’t.
Because they do not have an operator, the positive statements with a finite main verb other than be must be replaced
by equivalent declaratives in which the dummy operator do is introduced. The auxiliary do is called a dummy
operator because it carries out the role of an operator in the absence of ‘true’ operators such as will and can.
Declarative positives containing a dummy operator are pronounced with stress on the operator and convey emphasis.

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 I. O. Macari, Morpho-syntax, Lecture 1 sem. I, 2020

a) declarative declarative positive with Negative

positive dummy operator
He worked hard last He did work hard last Instruction: Place not after the dummy operator or replace
month. month. the dummy operator by its negative contraction (n't).
He did not/didn’t work hard last month.
b) declarative declarative positive with interrogative positive
positive dummy operator
He worked hard last He did work hard last Instruction: Place the dummy operator in front of the
month. month. Subject (Subject - operator inversion).
Did he work hard last month?
interrogative negative
Instruction: Place not after the operator or replace the operator
by its negative contraction (n't).
Didn’t he work hard last month?
c) declarative declarative positive with elliptical positive
positive dummy operator
He worked hard last He did work hard last He did.
month. month. Instruction: Delete the part that follows the dummy
operator.
declarative negative elliptical negative
He didn’t work hard He didn’t.
last month. Instruction: Place not after the operator or replace the
operator by its negative contraction (n't).

With verb phrases containing more than one auxiliary, the operator is always the first auxiliary. In the
declarative positive clause below, the verb phrase is could have been working and the operator is could,
the first auxiliary:
declarative He could have been working in his office all day.
positive
declarative Instruction: Place not after the operator or replace the operator by its negative contraction
negative (n't).
He could not/ couldn’t have been working in his office all day.
interrogative Instruction: Place the operator in front of the Subject (Subject - operator inversion).
positive
Could he have been working in his office all day?
interrogative Instruction: Place the operator in front of the Subject (Subject - operator inversion). Place
negative not after the operator or replace the operator by its negative contraction (n't).
Couldn’t he have been working in his office all day?
elliptical Delete the part that follows the operator.
positive He could.
elliptical Delete the part that follows the operator. Place not after the operator or replace the operator by its
negative negative contraction (n't).
He couldn’t.

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 I. O. Macari, Morpho-syntax, Lecture 1 sem. I, 2020

Provided that be is the only verb, it is used as an operator even when it is the main verb.
declarative She is a wonderful person.
positive
declarative Instruction: Place not after the operator or replace the operator by its negative contraction
negative (n't).
She is not/ isn’t a wonderful person.
interrogative Instruction: Place the operator in front of the Subject (Subject - operator inversion).
positive
Is she a wonderful person?
interrogative Instruction: Place the operator in front of the Subject (Subject - operator inversion). Place not
negative after the operator or replace the operator by its negative contraction (n't).
Isn’t she a wonderful person?
elliptical Instruction: Delete the part that follows the operator.
positive She is.
elliptical Instruction: Delete the part that follows the operator. Place not after the operator or replace the
negative operator by its negative contraction (n't).
She isn’t.
Similarly, if have is the only verb, it can optionally be used as an operator when it is a state verb
expressing a) possession, b) relationships and c) other states:
a) She has a pet.
b) I have many friends.
c) She often has premonitions.
The patterns are:
declarative I have many friends.
positive
declarative Instruction: Place not after the operator or replace the operator by its negative contraction
negative (n't).
I have not/ haven’t many friends.
interrogative Instruction: Place the operator in front of the Subject (Subject - operator inversion).
positive Have I many friends?
interrogative Instruction: Place the operator in front of the Subject (Subject - operator inversion). Place
negative not after the operator or replace the operator by its negative contraction (n't).
Haven’t I many friends?
elliptical Instruction: Delete the part that follows the operator.
positive I have.
elliptical Instruction: Delete the part that follows the operator. Place not after the operator or replace
negative the operator by its negative contraction (n't).
I have not/ haven’t.
Nevertheless, even with such meanings, the speaker may choose to use have as any other verb, and the
three possible interrogative, negative and elliptical patterns are: (a) make the subject - operator inversion;
(b) substitute get as the main verb; (c) introduce the dummy operator as with other verbs.
declarative I have many friends.
positive

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 I. O. Macari, Morpho-syntax, Lecture 1 sem. I, 2020

declarative I have not/ haven’t many friends.

negative a) Instruction: Substitute get as the main verb.
I have not/ haven’t got many friends.
b) Instruction: introduce the dummy operator
I do not/ don’t have many friends.
interrogative a) Instruction: Make the Subject - operator inversion.
positive Have I many friends?
b) Instruction: Substitute get as the main verb. Make the Subject - operator inversion.
Have I got many friends?
c) Instruction: Introduce the dummy operator.
Do I have many friends?
interrogative a) Instruction: Make the Subject - operator inversion. Place not after the operator or replace
negative the operator by its negative contraction (n't).
Haven’t I many friends?
b) Instruction: Substitute get as the main verb. Make the Subject - operator inversion. Place
not after the operator or replace the operator by its negative contraction (n't).
Haven’t I got many friends?
c) Instruction: Introduce the dummy operator. Place not after the operator or replace the
operator by its negative contraction (n't).
Don’t I have many friends?
elliptical a) Instruction: Delete the part that follows the operator.
positive I have.
b) Instruction: Not possible.
I have got.
c) Instruction: Introduce the dummy operator. Delete the part that follows the operator.
I do.
elliptical a) Instruction: Delete the part that follows the operator. Place not after the operator or
negative replace the operator by its negative contraction (n't).
I have not/ haven’t.
b) Instruction: Not possible.
I haven’t got.
c) Instruction: Introduce the dummy operator. Delete the part that follows the operator.
Place not after the operator or replace the operator by its negative contraction (n't).
I don’t.

Pattern a) is old-fashioned and restricted to formal British English; it is hardly possible in American English.
An example like Have you a prior arrangement? is possible only in formal British English, in American
English it would change to pattern c): Do you have a prior arrangement?.
Have got - pattern b) - is less common in AE16, especially in questions and negatives. In AE, it is perceived as
somehow odd and inelegant in. Pattern c) is the rule in AE and becoming popular with the British English youth.
According to Michael Swan, in AE, in informal speech, people may drop ‘ve (but not ‘s) before got.
I (‘ve) got a problem.

16
American English

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 I. O. Macari, Morpho-syntax, Lecture 1 sem. I, 2020

Got and do forms may be mixed in AE, especially when got forms are followed by short answers, reply
questions and tags.
I’ve got a new apartment. ~ You do? (Swan 2005: 208)
For obvious reasons, the dummy operator do is not used in interrogatives and negatives with got:
Have you got a moment? Do you have got a moment?
She hasn’t got any money. She doesn’t have got any money.
When have is used to talk about a) actions and experiences, b) causing or experiencing actions, c)
obligation, as well as its other meanings, it strictly behaves like any other verb, and needs the dummy
operator do to form the interrogative, negative and elliptical structures.
declarative I have many friends.
positive
declarative Instruction: introduce the dummy operator
negative I do not/ don’t have many friends.
interrogative c) Instruction: Introduce the dummy operator.
positive Do I have many friends?
interrogative c) Instruction: Introduce the dummy operator. Place not after the operator or replace
negative the operator by its negative contraction (n't).
Don’t I have many friends?
elliptical c) Instruction: Introduce the dummy operator. Delete the part that follows the operator.
positive I do.
elliptical c) Instruction: Introduce the dummy operator. Delete the part that follows the operator.
negative Place not after the operator or replace the operator by its negative contraction (n't).
I don’t.
Romanian learners often encounter difficulties when using the English operator because there is no such
mechanism in their native language. Thus, yes/no questions in Romanian simply use a different intonation pattern
to signal interrogatives, the only difference in written form being the use of the question mark instead of the full
stop. The canonical negative simply requires the placing of nu in front of the predicative verb, and the elliptical
form consists in the positive (da) or negative (nu) words only.
Compare the following table with the one above:
declarative positive (Eu) Am mulți prieteni.
declarative negative (Eu) Nu am mulți prieteni.
interrogative positive (Eu) Am mulți prieteni?
interrogative negative (Eu) Nu am mulți prieteni?
elliptical positive (Eu) Da.
elliptical negative (Eu) Nu.

o Note: The subject consisting of the personal pronoun eu is placed between parentheses because it is
normally omitted.
In writing, the difference between the Romanian declarative clauses and the yes/no questions lies
exclusively in punctuation: the full stop is used for the declaratives, and the question mark for the
interrogatives.
In speaking, things are more complex in both languages. Even in English – a positional language, where
the function played by words in the clause depends on the place where they occur - speakers may choose

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to employs stress, pitch and intonation patterns instead of the canonical forms with the operator, in order
to render information about the grammatical structure or about the discourse function in a particular
instance. Nolan (www.ling. cam.ac.uk), offers a convincing example to show that intonation functions as
a punctuation system for spoken language by marking the division between grammatical units:
While eating my dog my cat and I watched television.
His assumption is that with instances in which more than one parse17 is possible, intonation choices
influence meaning.
In writing we would use a comma after ‘dog’ for the more unsavoury interpretation, and after ‘eating’
(and probably another comma separating ‘my dog’ and ‘my cat’) for the pleasanter interpretation. An
intonational equivalent of this comma in these two positions is […] a falling pitch accent followed,
crucially, by a high boundary tone, along with a slowing down before the boundary.
(www.ling.cam.ac.uk)
Nolan also argues that “intonation can indicate discourse function; for instance most people are aware that
saying This is the Leeds train with one intonation constitutes a statement, but, with another, a question.”
This is also true about Romanian, where intonation alone distinguishes between (Eu) Am mulți prieteni
uttered as a declarative or as a yes/no question. Since the Romanian speaker needs no other linguistic means,
the intonation model carries information about a specific speech function, with a falling intonation pattern
for the declaratives and a raising pattern for the yes/no interrogative structure. Nevertheless, wh-questions in
Romanian behave differently, and an inversion – that I would analogically call subject – predicate
inversion - occurs between the subject and the predicative verb, as you can see in the examples below.
declarative positive (Eu) Merg la teatru.
declarative negative (Eu) Nu merg la teatru.
interrogative positive (yes/no) Mergi la teatru?
interrogative negative (yes/no) Nu mergi la teatru
interrogative positive (wh-) Unde mergi (tu)?
interrogative negative (wh-) Unde nu mergi (tu)?
These observations are especially useful for the present discussion, because they point to the most
common error in the interrogative and negative structures produced by the Romanian speakers of English
– the lack the verbal operator (see the examples below).
declarative negative Nu merg la teatru. I not go to theatre.
interrogative positive (yes/no) Mergi la teatru? You go to theatre?
interrogative negative (yes/no) Nu mergi la teatru You not go to theatre?
interrogative positive (wh-) Unde mergi? Where you go?
interrogative negative (wh-) Unde nu mergi? Where you not go?
Note that, unlike in English, in Romanian an auxiliary in a compound tense such as perfect compus or viitor
can never function as operator.18

17
parse = (tr. vb.) 1. to analyze (a sentence) in terms of grammatical constituents, identifying the parts of speech,
syntactic relations, etc. 2. to describe (a word in a sentence) grammatically, identifying the part of speech,
inflectional form, syntactic function, etc. (www.thefreedictionary.com) 3. (also parsing) (noun) the
corresponding process.
18
In Romanian, it is ungrammatical to say Am eu spus ceva greșit?

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