Grammar “wrong” in word use and adheres strictly to standard

grammar rules.

The process of describing the structure of phrases and

sentences in such a way that we account for all the THE DESCRIPTIVE APPROACH
grammatical sequences in a language and rule out all
STRUCTURAL ANALYSIS
the ungrammatical sequences is one way of defining
grammar • Its main concern is to investigate the distribution of
forms in a language.

• The method involves the use of “testframes” that

The term 'grammar' covers the proper use of words
and word-forms as well as the grammatical structure
of phrases, clauses, and sentences. While different
word-forms of lexemes are created by the adding of
inflectional morphemes, combinations of words into
more complex units are the domain of syntax proper.
The starting-point of the analysis of sentence
structure is the classification of words into word
classes or, more traditionally, parts of speech
can be sentences with empty slots in them.
In the descriptive approach, “ungrammatical” simply
means “not well-formed” in purely structural terms.
However, the word “ungrammatical” is also used with
a more general meaning. Which of the following
sentences should be considered “ungrammatical” in
your opinion and why?

Parts of Speech CONSTITUENT ANALYSIS

Noun-place, person, thing or idea
Verb-Describe an action, occurrence, or state of being
Adverb-Can modify a verb, adjective,
Pronoun-
The technique employed in this approach is designed
to show how small constituents (or components) in
sentences go together to form larger constituents.
One basic step is determining how words go together
to form phrases

Adjectives-Modifies a noun or pronoun

Articles- (A, an, the)
Prepositions- Shows the relationship between the
different parts of a sentence
Conjunctions- Connects different parts of a sentence
Interjections-To express feeling, give a command, or
greet someone

DESCRIPTIVE GRAMMAR Descriptive grammar

pertains to the language structure as it is naturally
used by speakers and writers. While it acknowledges
the rules of grammar, its primary focus is on
describing actual usage. There are no hard set rules
for descriptive grammar, as many words and phrases
could be used differently based on context and tone Sentence Structure
of voice.
Sentences are not simply chains of words, but have an
PRESCRIPTIVE GRAMMAR Prescriptive grammar internal, mostly hierarchical structure. This
refers to language structure and dictates how grammatical hierarchy can be illustrated by the
language should be used according to established following list of the categories used for the analysis of
grammatical rules. It embodies a sense of “right” and sentence structure:
1. sentences contain one or several
2. clauses contain one or several
3. phrases contain one or several
4. words from different word classes
TYPES OF PHRASES
Different types of phrases are defined by different
types of lexical heads, so each phrase type has its
central, obligatory element: There are noun phrases,
verb phrases, adjective phrases, adverb phrases, and
prepositional phrases
Syntax
The word “syntax” comes originally from Greek and
literally means “a putting together” or “arrangement.”
Syntax is the study of the structure of language,
particularly the way in which words can be put
together to create meaningful phrases, clauses, or
sentences.
Tree Diagram
COMPLEMENT PHRASE
The word that, as used in the previous examples, is
called a complementizer (C). The role of that as a
complementizer is to introduce a complement phrase
(CP).
LINEARITY – accounts for the fact that the words and
morphemes of any English sentence need to be
produced in some sort of sequence since they cannot
all be produced at once
HIERARCHY – accounts for the fact that it is not
sufficient to simply specify the words and morphemes
of an English sentence and give their linear order;
some words group together, and these groups in turn
contribute to other groups and ultimately to a larger
whole
CATEGORIALITY – accounts for the fact that some
words and groups of words behave grammatically in
very similar ways and in ways that are different from
other words or groups of words
Semantics
Semantics is the study of the meaning of words,
phrases and sentences.
Subfields of semantics are lexical semantics, which is
concerned with the meanings of words and the
meaning relationships among words; and phrasal or
sentential semantics, which is concerned with the
meaning of syntactic units larger than the word.
Three Types of Meaning
1. Linguistic meaning encompasses both sense and
reference.
2. Social meaning is what we rely on when we identify
certain social characteristics of speakers and
situations from the character of the language used.
3. Affective meaning is the emotional connotation
that is attached to words and utterances.
REFERENTIAL MEANING - the meaning of a word or
sentence is the actual person, object, abstract notion,
event, or state to which the word or sentence makes
reference.
e.g. The referential meaning of Alexis Rathburton Lexical semantics is the study of how the lexicon is
would be the person who goes by that name organized and how the meanings of lexical items are
interrelated

If the meaning of a word is not like a dictionary entry,

what is it? This question has been debated by
philosophers and linguists for centuries. One proposal
is that the meaning of a word or expression is its
reference, its association with the object it refers to.
This real-world object is called the referent

Example: The denotation or referent of the word

winter , for example, corresponds to the season
between the winter solstice and the spring equinox,
regardless of whether it is cold and unpleasant
In a semantic field, hyponymy may exist at more than
SENSE one level. A word may have both a hyponym and a
superordinate term. We thus have a hierarchy of
Referential meaning may be the easiest kind to
terms related through hyponymic relationships.
recognize, but it is not sufficient to explain how some
Similar hierarchies can be established for many
expressions mean what they mean. For one thing, not
semantic fields, almost without limit. The lower we
all expressions have referents. Neither a unicorn nor
get in a hierarchy of hyponyms, the more marked the
the present king of France has an actual referent in
terms
the real world, but both expressions have meaning.
PART/WHOLE RELATIONSHIPS

A second important hierarchical relationship between

This notion that is closely linked with the concept of
words is the one found in pairs such as hand and arm
meaning is also called connotation, the set of
or room and house. In each pair, the referent of the
associations that a word’s use can evoke.
first term is part of the referent of the second term. A
hand, however, is not “a kind of” arm, and thus the
relationship between hand and arm is not hyponymic.
Word choice is not the only way to communicate
Instead, we call it a part/whole relationship
feelings and attitudes toward utterances and contexts.
A striking contrast is provided by sentences that differ
only in terms of stress or intonation.

The level of meaning that conveys the language user’s

feelings, attitudes, and opinions about a particular
piece of information or about the ongoing context is
called affective meaning.

LEXICAL SEMANTICS SYNONYMY

The lexicon of a language can be viewed as a
compendium of all its words. Words are sometimes
called lexical items, or lexemes.
The branch of semantics that deals with word
meaning is called lexical semantics.
Lexical semantics examines relationships among
word meanings
Two words are said to be synonymous if they mean
the same thing. The terms movie, film, flick, and
motion picture all have the same set of referents in
the real world and are usually taken to be
synonymous terms. To address the notion of
synonymy more formally, we can say that term A is
synonymous with term B if every referent of A is a
referent of B and vice versa
When we assert that two terms are synonymous, we
usually base that judgment on linguistic meaning only.
ANTONYMY The word antonymy derives from the
Greek root anti- (‘opposite’) and denotes opposition
in meaning. In contrast to synonymy and hyponymy,
antonymy is a binary relationship that can
characterize a relationship between only two words at
a time.
Antonymous pairs that have these characteristics are
called gradable pairs.
Coverseness
Converseness characterizes a reciprocal semantic
relationship between pairs of words.
POLYSEMY AND HOMONYMY Two other notions that
are closely related to the basic relationship types are
polysemy and homonymy. Polysemy and homonymy
refer to similarities rather than differences between
meanings. A word is polysemous (or polysemic) when
it has two or more related meanings.
HOMOGRAPHS have the same spelling but different
meanings (and pronunciations), such as dove ‘a kind
of bird’ and dove ‘past tense of dive’ or conduct as a
verb and conduct as a noun, where the verb has
primary stress on the second syllable and the noun
has it on the first syllable
HOMOPHONES have the same pronunciation but
different senses: sea and see, so and sew, two and
too, plain and plane, flower and flour, boar and bore,
bear and bare, or eye, I, and aye
Words are homonymic when they have the same
written or spoken form but different senses. A
narrower definition of homonym limits the term to
word sets that are both homographic and
homophonous
Polysemy and homophony create lexical ambiguity, in
that a single form has two or more meanings.
PARAPHRASE Two sentences that have essentially the
same meaning are said to be paraphrases of each
other. The following pairs of sentences provide
examples of paraphrase.
ENTAILMENT When the truth of one sentence
guarantees the truth of another sentence, we say that
there is a relation of entailment.
CONTRADICTION Sometimes it turns out that if one
sentence is true, then another sentence must be false.
This is the case with the example below.
Pragmatics is the study of how context and situation
affect meaning
Syntactic structure provides only some of the
information needed to interpret a sentence.
Other necessary information comes from pragmatics,
the strategies (above and beyond the grammar) that
guide the way speakers use and interpret language
Pragmatic strategies are sensitive to the speaker’s
and addressee’s background attitudes and beliefs,
their understanding of the context in which a
sentence is uttered, and their knowledge of how
language can be used to inform, to persuade, to
mislead, and so forth
PRESUPPOSITION
The assumption or belief implied by the use of a
particular word or structure is called a presupposition
Compare the following sentences:
a. Have you stopped exercising regularly?
b. Have you tried exercising regularly?
SETTING
All languages have forms whose use and
interpretation depend on the location of the speaker
and/or hearer within a particular setting. Called spatial
deictics, these forms are exemplified in English by
words such as this and here (proximity to the speaker)
versus that and there (proximity to the hearer and/or
distance from the speaker).
DISCOURSE
An additional source of contextual information
relevant to sentence interpretation can be found in
discourse, the connected series of utterances
produced during a conversation, a lecture, a story, or
other speech act.
Speech Act Theory is a foundational part of the study
of pragmatics. It was originally developed by
philosopher J. L. Austin (1975)

LOCUTION: what the speaker literally utters, and,

drawing upon semantic terminology, consisting of
sense and reference

LLOCUTION: the force of what has been said, defined

by social convention in the context in which it is
uttered.

PERLOCUTION: the actual effect of the utterance:

exactly how it is interpreted by the hearer(s).

Politeness can be defined as showing awareness and

consideration of another person’s face.

If you say something that represents a threat to

another person’s self-image, that is called a face-
threatening act.

Whenever you say something that lessens the

possible threat to another’s face, it can be described
as a face saving act.

Negative face is the need to be independent and free

from imposition.

Positive face is the need to be connected, to belong,

to be a member of the group

GOODLUCK SA FINALS!!

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