English Grammar I: From the word to the

sentence

THE COMPONENTS OF GRAMMAR

What is Grammar?
Grammar → rules/structure
Grammar is the system by which human beings know a language: the words or
vocabulary, the rules of their pronunciation and for their structure, the possible
combination of words into sentences, and the meaning of words and sentences.
This knowledge is tacit (not explicit).

Components of linguistic knowledge

Linguistics studies language as a system, which has several levels.
Linguistic knowledge (the mental grammar present in speakers’ minds) contains
various components (and they are interrelated).

The lexicon
The lexicon contains all the words a speaker knows.
The lexicon studies the word.
Knowing a word means knowing: its pronunciation, its morphology, its meaning,
and its syntax.
Unit of analysis on this level: word.

Phonology
It’s the study of speech sounds of a particular language.
Competence = knowledge
Distinctive: if you change that sound in the word it changes the word.
Phonological competence lets the speaker produce sounds that form meaningful
utterances; recognize foreign accent; form new words; use adequate phonetic
segments for different grammatical forms; know if a sound belongs to their
language or not; if a sound is distinctive or not.

Phonological competence also includes knowledge about sounds and sound

combinations that may occur at the beginning or at the end of a word, that may
occur together in a syllable, etc.
The basic unit it’s called phoneme.
Morphology
In English, words are composed of bare roots or roots with affixes (prefixes or
suffixes).
Speakers know which combinations are possible and which are not.
The basic unit of morphology it’s called morpheme.

Syntax
Syntax = the sentence
Speakers know how to combine words to create phrases, how to combine phrases
to create clauses, and how to combine clauses to create sentences.
Phrases: sintagmes
Clauses: a sentence within a sentence (oracio subordinada)
Sentence: is the complete thing
Basic unit of analysis: the sentence.
Whenever there’s an asterisk in front of a phrase is because there’s something
wrong.

Semantics
Semantics studies the meaning.
It’s the study of how meaning is conveyed.
Speakers know what expressions in their language mean and how to combine the
meaning of various words in a sentence. Speakers are also able to realize that a
given sentence coveys more than one meaning (it’s ambiguous) or that two
sentences can express a very similar meaning.
- Lexical semantics → the meaning of individual words (unit of analysis:
words).
- Sentence semantics (compositional semantics) → the meaning of
sentences (unit of analysis: sentence).

Pragmatics
It’s the study of the functions of language and its use in context. Meanings may
be inferred from non-linguistic information.
Paraphrases: two phrases that means the same.
Unit of analysis: the utterance.
 GRAMMAR FALLACIES
Are there languages with “little” or “no” grammar?
There are very different types of grammars, as those of Chinese, Turkish, English
or Catalan. But every language has a grammar.
We can say that there are morphologically rich and poor languages, but ALL
languages have a grammar.

Are some grammars simpler and hence more

“primitive” than others?
This view was held in the 18th and 19th C.
Is it simpler to add an inflection to a word (synthetic expression) or to express the
same notion with a separate word (analytical expression)?
Example: the dog’s tail ------ the tail of the dog.
If an area of a language is ‘simpler’, usually another area will be ‘more complex’.

Do some people know the grammar of their

language, others do not?
Everybody knows the grammar of their language, since all native speakers can
speak their mother tongue.
So, unconsciously, everybody knows the grammar of their language.
What some people do not have is conscious knowledge of the rules.
 DESCRIPTIVE AND PRESCRIPTIVE GRAMMAR
Descriptive Grammar
What is a descriptive grammar?
Descriptive grammar is a grammar that 'describes' how native speakers of that
language use it.
Native speakers are the only 'authority’ = the grammar describes what speakers
say.
A descriptive grammar will contain the rules that describe the knowledge of
native speakers.
Examples of rules:
- Det + N = determiners precede nouns
- A + N = adjectives precede nouns
Another rule:
- Demonstratives and nouns agree: they share features (e.g., plural)
Notice that rules a) b) and c) do not vary, all speakers follow these rules.
But, is there variation in the use of language?

Prescriptive Grammar
A prescriptive grammar doesn't describe what native speakers say when they use
their language.
A prescriptive grammar expresses a preference when there is a choice in a
construction that varies (like (11)- (12)).
Why? Prescriptive grammarians consider that there are other 'authorities' like
educated or high-class speakers, great writers, etc.
The rules of prescriptive grammars regulate the choices that speakers have in
certain constructions.
Examples:
- Who did she talk to?
- To whom did she talk?
Choice: place of preposition ('to’)
Final: preposition-stranding
 WORDS AND THEIR MORPHOLOGICAL
PROPERTIES
Morphology
Morphology is the study of words, their internal structure (how they are
formed), and their relationship to other words in the same language.
But what’s a word? How do we define it? It depends on the definition criterion.

What is a word?
Written language: a unit between two spaces (orthographic boundaries).
Spoken language: potential pauses.
Processes that apply in a word: stress, vocalic, harmony, phonotactic
restrictions as marks of word boundaries.
Meaning: the relation between a meaning and a set of sounds, which has a
grammatical use.
BUT: idiomatic expressions kick the bucket = die; phrasal verbs: one or two
words? put on, get up, give in…
Internal cohesion: Mobility and inseparability. Morphemes that appear in a
certain order. Impossibility of insertion of a new element inside a word.
What are the potential problems with each criterion?
One criterion is never enough.
The notion of word is a very complex one, often controversial. A possible
definition would be that a word is a meaningful linguistic unit that can be
combined to form phrases and sentences.

Main criteria to define a word

Phonetic identity (a structured set of phonemes).
Semantic identity (a meaningful unit).
Morphological stability (a structured set of morphemes).
Syntactic mobility (a unit has distribution associated with a certain
grammatical category).

What is a morpheme?
A morpheme is:
- The smallest grammatical unit in a language.
- A meaningful morphological unit of a language that cannot be further
divided.
- Represented between curly brackets { }.
Characteristics of morphemes
They are indivisible: -able /əbl/; book /bʊk/
They have internal stability: comfort - *comablefort - comfortable
They are externally transportable: uncommon, unfamiliar

Types of morphemes

Lexical morphemes: lexical or dictionary meaning.

Independent words: nice
Parts of words, i.e., affixes: amoral
Pragmatical morphemes:
Inflectional affixes: dogs, watching
Function prepositions: on, a, this, or, must

Allomorphs
Variants of morphemes.
Morphophoneme: a morpheme with allomorphs.
{pl}
/z/ after voiced sounds except sibilants
/s/ after voiceless sounds except sibilants
/ɪz/ after sibilants /s, z, ʃ, Ʒ, tʃ, dƷ/
{past}
/t/ after voiceless sounds except /t/
/d/ after voiced sounds except /d/
/ɪd/ after /t,d/

Classification of English morphemes

Types of words, according to their morphological

composition
Simple words: one free root. Ex.: spoon, against.
Complex words: one free root and one or more bound morphemes (inflectional
and/or derivational). Ex.: cooker, forks.
Compound words: two free roots. Ex.: stir-fry, blackbird.
Compound-complex words: two free roots and associated bound morphs.
Ex.: saucepans, carving knives, vacuum cleaner.

Morphological processes: inflection and derivation

Inflectional affixes → NO creation of new words.
Different (inflected) forms of the same word: car (s) – cars (pl)
like (base) – liked (past/past participle)
English inflectional affixes

Derivational affixes → creation of new words.

2 types:
- Class-changing: Instruct + -ion = instruction
- Class maintaining: Child + -hood = childhood

English derivational affixes

Prefixation
Most prefixes do not change the grammatical category of the word, they modify
its meaning. Some examples: unfair, disconnect, undercooked, procommunist,
antisocial, international, exhusband, unilateral.
Suffixation
Worker: deverbal noun
Humanity: deadjectival noun
Hopeful: denominal adjective
Different degrees of productivity. A suffix may have more than one meaning.
 DISTRIBUTIONAL AND MORPHOLOGICAL
PROPERTIES OF MAJOR ENGLISH WORD
CLASSES
Word classes
Grammarians classify words into:
- Parts of speech
- Word classes
- Categories
= finding the common properties of words in a class
Traditional classification into 8 parts of speech: nouns (computer), pronouns
(they), verbs (understand), adjectives (beautiful), adverbs (always), prepositions
(between), conjunctions (because), interjections (wow!)
Definitions
- Nouns: are names of persons, places, things.
- Verbs: denote actions or states of being.
- Adjectives: modify nouns.
- Pronouns: replace nouns.
- Adverbs: modify adjectives or other adverbs.
- Prepositions: indicate relationships between nouns or pronouns.
- Conjunctions: join clauses.
- Interjections: express emotions.
Form and distribution
The traditional approach has been substituted by another one which takes into
account structural features of words: form and distribution.
- Form: the morphological characteristics of words.
- Distribution: the syntactic characteristics of words (where they occur in
phrases and sentences).

The FORM of words includes:

- Infection
Table – tables
Open – opened
- Derivation
Writer, childhood, assignment, nationalize, purify
The DISTRIBUTION of words are the slots where they can appear.
The girl can see a tall tree.

girl = occurs after the (article), follows articles = Noun

see = occurs after can (modal auxiliary), follows auxiliaries = Verb

tall = occurs before tree (noun), precedes nouns, modifies nouns = Adjective
Adjectives

Notice the position of the italicised words:

- The happy child.

- The child is happy.
- *The asleep child.
- The child is asleep.

Adjectives have a wider distribution and not all adjectives can modify nouns.

- Adjectives that precede nouns are called attributive.

- Adjectives that follow verbs are called predicative.

NB: A complete classification of words in a language needs subclasses, since not all the
words in a class follow all its distributional or morphological characteristics.

Major and minor word classes

Major categories:

- have lexical meaning

- open classes (new items)

Minor categories:

- have grammatical meaning

- closed classes (no new items)

Main properties of nouns

NUMBER

Two forms: singular & plural: tree-trees, cat-cats, leaf-leaves, child-children.

Some nouns don’t inflect for number:

- only singular
- only plural
Only singular nouns:

- Mass nouns: flour, silver, sugar

- Proper nouns: Helen, New York
- Some nouns ending in -s: news, phonetics
- Other nouns: aristocracy, furniture

Only plural nouns:

- Some words ending in –s: scissors, glasses, trousers

- Collective nouns: people, cattle, police

Some nouns have irregular plurals

- the -en plural: child-children, ox-oxen, brother-brethren.

- zero morph:
▪ He saw many sheep in the farm.
▪ I have never shot duck.
(but: John likes feeding the ducks in the park)
- Replacive morph: woman-women, tooth-teeth
- (allomorphic) variation of the root: leaf-leaves; house-houses
(pronunciation)
- Foreign plurals: stimulus – stimuli; curriculumcurricula; crisis – crises;
phenomenon - phenomena

CASE

Case is a grammatical category that indicates the function of a noun phrase in the
clause.

Latin or German: nominative, vocative, accusative, genitive, dative, ablative

English: only genitive case: my sister's shoe

Nouns do not change in form:

- My sister speaks German.

- He knows my sister.
- He talked to my sister.

Case and word order: 'free’ vs. fixed

LATIN:

Pater amat fillium.

Pater fillium amat.

Fillium amat pater.

Amat fillum pater.

ENGLISH:

A father loves his children.

* A father his children loves.

* His children loves a father.

* Loves his children a father.

The Genitive
The genitive in English doesn’t always express possession.

There are different forms to express the various genitive meanings:

- genitive's : the president's wife

- of-phrase: the pages of this book
- no genitive form: kitchen table, book cover

What do we observe when plural and genitive cooccur?

cat - cats - cat’s - cats’

man, man’s, men, men’s

GENDER

Gender as a gramatical category in: Catalan, Spanish French, German, and many
other languages.

Gender assignment (masculine, feminine, neuter) is arbitrary and there is no

correspondence between languages

NB: Grammatical gender is an agreement system for noun classes, it is loosely connected
or not connected at all with biological sex or social gender, or may have other meanings:

English: biological sex/natural gender

- masculine: boy, father, uncle

- feminine: woman, grandmother, sister
- common or dual (both he or she): cook, friend, doctor, teacher
- neuter (it): child, baby

Expression of gender in English:

- Derivational suffixes: hero-heroine, actor-actress
- Compounds: woman doctor, male nurse
- Different form masculine / feminine: bull- cow, uncle-aunt, bachelor-
spinster
- Feminine nouns: nature, countries, Christian Church
A first look at the syntactic properties of nouns:
The noun is the head of a noun phrase (NP):

[that silly joke that he told us]

[freedom]

Pre-modifier of another noun: breakfast table

Different elements can precede a noun:

that tree
all her children
a wonderful film

Different elements can follow a noun:

the shop around

the corner the joke that he told us

Main properties of verbs

Morphology - Inflectional forms:

Base form:

- to infinitive
He wanted to study Japanese.

- Bare infinitive
He may study Japanese.
Will he study Japanese?

- general present
They study Japanese.

- Imperative
Study Japanese!

Third person singular:

He studies Japanese.

Present participle:

- with be to form progressive forms

He is studying Japanese.
- Non-finite subordinate clauses
Studying Japanese is not an effort for him.
Past tense:

- simple past
He studied Japanese last year.
- conditional constructions
If he studied Japanese, he would understand her.

Past participle:

- with have to form perfect forms

He has studied Japanese for two years.
- with be to form passive clauses
The problem was studied by experts.
- non-finite subordinate clauses
Horrified by what they had read, they decided to write a letter to the
journal.

Finite and non-finite forms

Finite = show tense and person contrast

→ general present, 3rd person singular and past tense, imperative

Non-finite forms = don’t show tense or person contrast

→ to infinitive, bare infinitive, present participle and past participle.

Regular and irregular verbs

Regular rules:

- add -s to the base: visits

- add -ing to the base: visiting
- add -ed to the base: visited
Syncretism = two identical forms

❖ She composed a song.

❖ She has composed many songs.

➢ She wrote a song.

➢ She has written many songs.

Irregular verbs:
How are these groups different?

- Write - wrote - written

- Put - put - put
- Buy - bought -bought

These three verbs are irregular, but are the 3Sg and the - ing forms irregular?
write, put, buy?

writes, puts, buys

writing, putting, buying

Suppletive forms:

Go - *goed

Why is beware a defective verb?

It lacks some of the forms.

It is only used in imperative and infinitive contexts.

Ex.:

Beware of the dog!

You have to beware of the dog!

Grammatical categories related to the verb

TENSE

- Locates the clause in time.

- It is a deictic category = interpreted in relation to the time of speech.

Timeline:

BEFORE (past) NOW (present) AFTER (future)

Inflectional vs periphrastic

How is past marked in these verbs?

- He walked to the park.

- They sang that song.

Inflectionally: root + affix

How is future expressed?

- He will walk to the park.

- They will sing that song.

periphrastically: X + Y
Future: how is it expressed?

- We will go to the cinema tomorrow.

will + infinitive

- The plane leaves at two o’clock.

simple present

- We’re flying to London tomorrow.

present progressive

- Look at the clouds; it’s going to rain.

be going to + infinitive

- When you arrive, I’ll be having dinner.

will + progressive infinitive

ASPECT

Another way of looking at ‘events’. Are they complete or ongoing?

In English: complete vs ongoing?

- She wrote another song yesterday.

- She was writing a song when I called

= past progressive

Perfect aspect = have + Verb.

- I have studied for the exam

= I know the lesson well

- I have lived in London for a year.

= I still
= “current relevance” of a past event

MOOD

In English = expressed with modals.

Some of the meanings that are expressed with modals:

- You may go to the cinema with your friends.

=
 - You must do your homework first.
=
- He must be deaf.
=

VOICE

Active vs passive voice = refers to whole clause. Notice the change in 'function' of
her plants.

- She waters her plants every day.

- Her plants are watered every day.

NB: These four categories (tense, aspect, mood and voice) affect the meaning of the
clause. They are often expressed by auxiliaries (not by verbs).

Some syntactic properties:

The verb is the head of the verb phrase (VP).

- John [gave Mary a book].

- He [sent a letter].
- The dog [sleeps].

The verb defines the number of required arguments in a sentence.

Main properties of adjectives

Adjectives - inflection

Do adjectives inflect in English?

- I want a cold drink.

- She had two cold drinks.
- * She had two colds drinks.
= not for number.

- This drink is very cold.

- This drink is colder than that one.
= adjectives inflect for comparison.

Positive: cold
Comparative: cold+er
Superlative: cold+est

But not all adjectives have a comparative form.

- *This book is the interestingest book I have ever read.

- This book is the most interesting book I have ever read.
 - This box is empty.
- ? This box is emptier than that one.

There are constraints to adjective inflection:

- Phonological
= number of syllables of the word

- Semantical
= non-gradable adjectives (pregnant, married, full)

*Watch out!

good – * gooder - *goodest

good – better - best

bad – * badder - * baddest

bad-worse-worst

= suppletive forms

Adjectives - Derivation

There are adjective suffixes:

- This is a foolish idea.

- This is a beautiful song.
- This is a lovely picture.

Some syntactic properties of adjectives.

The adjective can be the head of an adjectival phrase (AP).

[ A very beautiful picture ] NP

A [ very beautiful ]AP picture ]NP

- This is a beautiful song. = attributive position

- This song is beautiful. = predicative osition

Main properties of adverbs

- She spoke clearly to them. = manner
- They never arrive on time. = time
- I left my keys there. = place
- This essay is quite good. = degree
Adverbs – inflection (?)
Time adverbs? Always, never
Place adverbs? Here, there
But: He drives fast
He drives faster than her
Adverb - derivation
Adverb suffix: -ly
She looks very happy.
She smiled happily.
But: This is a lovely picture.
Some syntactic properties of adverbs.
The adverb may be the head of an adverbial phrase (AdvP)
She spoke [very quickly] AdvP
Adverbs can occur in many positions:
- Usually they have lunch outside.
- They always have meat for lunch.
- A very long book.
- She speaks very quickly.
- He is always telling the same jokes.

Main properties of prepositions

Of, in, on, at, from…
Prepositions are a closed lexical category → they may be considered a minor word
class.
Most typically, they denote relations in space and time.
- Location (in space or time):
▪ I live in London.
▪ He left in January.
- Goal and source:
▪ I went from Paris to Milan.
▪ I lived there from March till September.
- Path:
▪ I went over the hill.
▪ They lived here through the 90s.

Prepositions do not infect; they are usually morphologically simple.

Most prepositions are simple roots (one morpheme), so they do not derivate. Ex.:
in, from, under…

But compounding is possible: Onto, into, upon, within, without, throughout…

Some syntactic properties of prepositions.

The preposition is the head of the prepositional phrase (PP).

- She walked [to the desk].

- My brother was [in his room].
 PROPERTIES OF MINOR ENGLISH WORD
CLASSES
Pronouns
A relatively small category in Modern English.

Primary semantic function: a pro-form for a noun phrase.

Personal pronouns
Grammatical categories: 1st, 2nd and 3rd person, and sg/pl number; 3sg also has
gender.

NB: The use of singular “they” for gender neutrality of 3sg (“The scientist published their
article.”)

Inflection:

I, you, she, he, it, we, and they

(nominative/subject)

me, you, her, him, it, us, them

(accusative/object)

myself, yourself, herself, himself, itself, ourselves, yourselves, themselves

(reflexive)

mine, yours, hers, his, its, ours, theirs

(independent genitive/possessive)

my, your, her, his, its, our, their

(dependent genitive/possessive)

Interrogative pronouns
What and who (also with the suffix -ever).

Mostly used in interrogative sentences.

What is for inanimate objects. Ex.: What did you buy?

Who is for animate objects (persons). Ex.: Who did you see? Also: Whom did you
see? (accusative)

Relative pronouns
They introduce relative clauses.

The basic relative pronouns are considered to be who (whom, whose), which and
that.
 - Who is used only with its antecedent referring to a person ("The man
who...").
- Which, referring to a thing ("The flowers which ...").
- That, referring to either a person or thing ("The woman that ...", or "The
flowers that ...").
- Whose indicates that the antecedent has a possessive role in the relative
clause ("The man whose daughter I married"). Unlike who, it can refer to
things as well as persons ("I found a car whose battery was dead").

That is used only in restrictive relative clauses, and is not preceded by a comma
("The teacher that looks worn-out", or "The car that looks worn-out"). But who
and which may be used in both restrictive and non-restrictive clauses, and may
or may not take a comma ("The teacher who looks worn-out", or "My teacher,
who ..."), and ("The car which looks worn-out", or "My car, which ...").

Generic pronouns
One = ‘a person in general’. Ex.: One must help oneself.

Also you as generic (slightly less formal). Ex.: You must help yourself.

Reciprocal pronouns
Each other and one another. These pronouns need to appear in the same clause
as the antecedent. Ex.: My parents love each other/one another. (Antecedent:
“my parents”)

Determiners
A closed lexical category.

They combine with a noun to form a noun phrase (NP).

In English, they are typically obligatory in a singular, countable, common noun

phrase (“I have a new cat” vs. “*I have new cat”).

Semantically, determiners are usually definite or indefinite (e.g., the cat versus a
cat).

Morphologically, they are usually simple and do not inflect. They often agree with
the number of the head noun (e.g., a new cat but not *many new cat).

English determiners include:

- definite and indefinite articles: the and a(n).

- demonstratives this and that (pl. these and those).
- quantifiers (e.g., all, many, and none)
- numerals
Conjunctions
They link two elements: e.g., X and Y

[ Mary had tea ] and [ John had coffee ]

Mary bought [ a pencil ] and [ a notebook ]

= X and Y at the same level syntactically
= coordination

Mary had some tea

[ because [ she doesn't like coffee ] ]

X = main clause, Y= embedded clause (not the same syntactic level)
= subordination

Auxiliaries
Auxiliaries are not verbs. AUX is a different category = a minor category.

They have different properties. Properties that verbs do not have:

- Inversion in questions
- Negation
- Emphatic affirmation (positive meaning)
- Ellipsis (VP)
- Tag questions

So, they are a different category, sometimes referred to as ‘operators’.

Examples:

Has John read this book? → Inversion in questions

John didn’t read this book. → Negation

John HAS read this book. → Emphatic affirmation

John has read this book and so has Mary. → Ellipsis

John has read this book, hasn’t he? → Tag questions