GRAMÁTICA INGLESA I.Prof. María Jesús Pinar SanzCarlota Regodón Rodríguez

CURSO 2014-2015Unit 1.

Introductory concepts and categories

I. Syntactic elements and structure of the clause.

1. Unit of syntactic analysis: Sentence Clause Group Word Morpheme

1.1. MORPHEME.a) freeb) bound

1.2. WORD.1.2.1. Definition.

A word can typically occur as a minimal free form.They can also be substituted by another word, but not anything else than a word.In addition to be free-standing, they also have a mobility which parts of words do not have.1.2.2. Different senses of the word “word”.

Orthographic words. These are the words that we are familiar with in written language, where they are separated by spaces. For example,They wrote us a letter contains five distinct orthographic words.

Grammatical words. A word falls into one grammatical word class (or ‘part of speech’) or another. Thus, the orthographic word leaves can be either of two grammatical words: a verb (the present tense –s form of leave) or a noun (the plural of leaf). This is the basic sense of ‘word’ for grammatical purposes.

Lexemes: This is a set of grammatical words which share the same basic meaning, similar forms, and the same word class. For example, leave, leaves, left and leaving are all members of the verb lexeme leave. This is the meaning of word that is employed in dictionaries.

1.2.3. WORD CLASSES.All words belong to a category. These categories are known as word classes.1.2.3.1. Open class words (Content, lexical words): nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs. In general they provide the main referential (lexical) meaning of a sentence1.2.3.1.1. Nouns. Common and proper nouns. Nouns have the following characteristics:

Morphological: Inflectional suffixes for plural number, and for genitive case. Many nouns, however, are uncountable, and cannot have a plural form. Nouns quite often contain more than one morpheme: bombshell, singer.

Syntactic: Nouns can occur as the head of the nominal group. The can be pre and post modified.

Semantic: Nouns commonly refer to concrete, physical entities (people, objects, substances). They can also denote abstract entities.

1.2.3.1.2. Lexical verbs. Morphological: Lexical verbs have different forms signalling tense (present

and past), aspect (perfect and progressive), and voice (active and passive). Syntactic. Lexical verbs most frequently occur on their own, as a single-

word verbal group acting as the central part of the clause. They also occur in the final or main verb position of verbal groups.

Semantic: Lexical verbs denote actions, processes, and states of affairs that happen or occur in time.

1.2.3.1.3. Adjectives. Morphological: Many adjectives can take the inflectional suffixes –er and –

est. Adjectives can be complex in morphology: acceptable, forgetful, influential.

Syntactic. Adjectives can occur as the head of an adjectival group. Adjectives and adjectival group are more commonly used as modifiers preceding the head of a nominal group.

Semantic: Adjectives describe the qualities of people, things and abstractions. Many adjectives are gradable.

1.2.3.1.4. Adverbs. Morphological: Many adverbs are formed from adjectives by adding the

suffix –ly. Clearly, eagerly. Others have no such ending: however, just. Syntactic: Adverbs occur as head of adverbial groups. Adverbs are often

used as modifiers of an adjective or another verb. Semantic: Adverbs most often express the degree of a following adjective or

adverb: totally wrong; right now.

1.2.3.2. Closed class words (function, grammatical words): pronouns, determiners, auxiliaries, prepositions and conjunctions. They tend to have a structuring function in sentences.

1.2.3.2.1. Determiners: definite, indefinite article; demonstrative determiners; possessive determiners; quantifiers.1.2.3.2.2. Pronouns: personal, demonstrative, reflexive, reciprocal, possessive, indefinite, relative, interrogative.1.2.3.2.3. Auxiliary verbs: Primary and modal.Primary auxiliaries: be, have, doModal auxiliaries: will, can, shall, may, must, would, could, should, might.1.2.3.2.4. Prepositions. Prepositions are linking words that introduce prepositional groups.Most prepositions are short, invariable forms, but they can also be complex.

1.2.3.2.5. Coordinators and subordinators.

1.2.3.3. Inserts: They are found mainly in spoken language. They tend to be inserted freely in a text. They are often marked off by a break in intonation or speech, or by a punctuation mark in writing: Well, we made it. They generally carry emotional and discoursal meanings, such as oh, ah, wow, used to express a speaker’s emotional response to a situation, or yeah, no, okay used to signal a response to what has just been said.

1.2.4. The structure of words: morphology.Lexical words can consit of a single morpheme (a stem, such as go, book, cat), or they can have a more complex structure created by a process of inflection, derivation or compounding.

1.2.4.1. InflectionLexical words can take inflectional suffixes to signal meanings and roles which are important to their word class, such as ‘plural’ in the case of nouns, and ‘past tense’ in the case of verbs.

1.2.4.2. DerivationDerivation, like inflection, usually involves adding an affix, i.e. a morpheme attached to the beginning of a word (a prefix) or to the end of a word (a suffix). However, this process is different from inflection because inflection does not change the identity of a word (i.e. it retains the same lexeme), while derivation creates new nouns, adjectives, verbs and adverbs.

1.2.4.3. CompoundingInflection and derivation result in complex words, with a stem plus one ore more affixes. Another form of derivation is compounding, which also leads to more complex words. Words that are compounds contain more than one stem. Examples are:

Noun+noun: chair+man; girl+friendVerb+noun: cook+book; Adjective+noun: blue+birdNoun+adjective: head+long

1.2.4.4. Multi word units, collocations and lexical bundles.A multi-word unit is a sequence of orthographic words which functions like a single

grammatical unit: on top of; of course.An idiom is a multi-word unit with a meaning that cannot be predicted from the

meanings of its constituent words: fall in love with, make up one’s mind.A collocation is the relationship between two or more independent words which

commonly appear together (or co-occur). The adjectives broad and wide, for example, are similar in meaning but occur in very different collocations: broad accent, broad agreement, broad daylight, broad shoulders; wide appeal, wide area, wide experiences, wide interest, wide margin.

1.2.5. GROUPS and their syntactic elementsNominal Group (determiner)+(modifier)+HEAD+(qualifier) d m h q

Adjectival Group (modifier)+ HEAD+ (qualifier) m h qAdverbial Group (modifier)+ HEAD+ (qualifier) m h qPrepositional Group (modifer)+ HEAD+ completive m h kVerbal Group (operator)+(auxiliary)+VERB o x v

1.2.6. CLAUSESIndependent. It is complete in itselfDependent. It is necessarily related to an independent clause.Finite/non finite. Minor. They lack all or part of the Mood element (Subject+Finite) and are therefore ‘moodless’. The omitted verb is typically a form of be and is recoverable from the context or the co-text.

Take traveller cheques abroad whenever possible.Sub-types of minor clauses:(a) Wh- questions without a finite verb: Why not sell your car and get a new one?, How about a nice glass of wine? What if the roof leaks while we’re away?

(b) Adjuncts with the force of a command, sometimes with a Subject: Hands off!, Into the shelter, everybody!(c) Proverbs of the type out of sight out of mind

Abbreviated clauses. They consist of the mood element alone, with the rest of the clause ellipted because it is known. Can you? I won’t, Has she?

Syntactic elements of clauses.Subject (S): Fog is dangerous in motorways (SPCsA)Predicator (P) The election campaign ended today (SPA)Direct Object (Od) Ted has bought a new motorbike (SPOd)Indirect Object (Oi) They sent their friends postcards (SPOiOd)Prepositional Object (Oprep) You must allow for price increases (SPOprep)Subject Complement (Cs) He is poweless to make any changes (SPCs)Object Complement (Co) We consider the situation alarming (SPOdCo)Predicator Complement (Cp) She tiptoed out of the room (SPCp)Adjunct (A) The news reached us on Tuesday (SPOdA)Disjunct (D) Unfortunately, it was too late to get to Newcastle in

time (DSPCs)Conjunct (Conj) However, our friends were there (ConjSPA)

UNIT 1. BASIC CONCEPTS 1.

ACTIVITIES

Based on an article published in http://www.alphadictionary.com/articles/ling005.html

1. Answer the following questions:

Does it sound English, German, Russian, Romanian? What can you understand in this poem? What do we know about toves? What do we know about slithy? What did the slithy toves do?

Some of the words and parts of the words are English. The English words are small, less prominent words, barely more prominent in their pronunciation than the parts of words, the prefixes and suffixes. These small words and parts of words (in plain type above) are expressions that tell us nothing about the world, but only about the grammatical categories of the English language. They are called morphemes.

The nonsense parts of the words in the Jabberwocky song above are all noun, verb, and adjective stems, the main parts of words without prefixes or suffixes. Stems are also the linguistic things that refer to the world we live in. Let's call whole words and stems lexemes; they are anything we use in speech that names or refers to things in the real world. Morphemes will then be the words or parts of words that mark the categories of grammar which are the crucial stuff of language.

This poem is English with nonsense lexemes but real morphemes.

2. Define the following terms: Free and bound morphemes. Word, word classes and word formation.

UNIT 1. BASIC CONCEPTS 2

Twas brillig and the slithy tovesDid gyre and gimble in the wabe;

All mimsy were the borogovesAnd the mome raths outgrabe.

Jabberwocky. Through the looking glass.—Lewis Carroll

ACTIVITIES

Based on an article published in http://www.alphadictionary.com/articles/ling003.html

1. Read the following sentences carefully and answer the questions below.

Can colourless green ideas sleep furiously?

Colourful red umbrellas moved

playfully Are they grammatically correct? Do they make sense? Why? What can you say about the structure and meaning of these sentences? Can you identify the different groups in the sentences and their syntactic

function?

2. Read the following sentence carefully and give two possible interpretations.

The British left waffles on the Falkland Islands

Think about syntactic ambiguity and how to resolve it.

Some clues:

Sentence structure, word structure, semantics, grammatical relations.

UNIT 1. BASIC CONCEPTS 3.ACTIVITIES

I. MORPHEMES (from Carstairs-MacCarthy, 2002). Consider the following words:(a) tigers (b) untimely (c) decorating Speakers uniquely decentralising

(d) wholesome (e) consumed (f) leucocyte Gruesome consumption erythrocyte

Divide them into morphemes, noting any instances where you are unsure. What differences are there between the words in each pair?

Are there any morphemes here which have two or more allomorphs? Which of these morphemes are free and which are bound? Are the bound

morphemes all affixes, or are some of them roots or combining forms?

II. Each of the words below contains two or more morphemes: a stem and at least one prefix or suffix.

Write each word, putting a hypen between its morphemes (e.g. dis-agree-d) and underlining the stem (dis-agree-d).

Distinguish between derivational and inflectional affixes: circle derivational affixes and mark inflectional affixes with a wavy line underneath.Disagree reconsideration unemployment reviewed

Overcarefulness exchanging healthier independent

Activity strengthens disrespectful unfortunately

III. Assign word class labels to the word in the sentences below. Be as precise as possible (From Aarts, 2008).

a) Did he answer you directly?b) James flew to Greece last Wednesday.c) It was a sunny day in Madrid.d) Sadly, we had problems when we arrived.e) Why did you say that?

IV. Assign a word class label to the italicised elements in the example sentences below. Give syntactic arguments for your answers (From Aarts, 2008).

a. Did your book arrive yesterday?b. Did you book that flight yesterday?

V. Identify the lexical word class of the underlined words below.a. I was flat on my back.b. I already told him to back off.c. It’s pretty hard to do that.

d. I felt like I was pretty.e. Actually, it’s fun to horse around with danger.f. He’s quite handy on a horse.g. His ability to abstract and formulate higher-level logical categories of

thought will also be compromised.h. At the end of the journey is an abstract sculpture of the universe.

VI. Look at the stretches of language below and answer the questions following them. (From Downing and Locke (1992))

1) The little boy in the red jumper is making a sand castle on the beach.a) Is the little boy a constituent of the whole stretch of language?b) Is on the beach a constituent?c) Is in the red jumper a constituent?d) Is castle a constituent?

2) Tom happened to take the road to the factory by mistake.a) Is the road a constituent?b) Is to the factory a constituent?c) Is by mistake a constituent?d) Is happened a constituent?

From Collins and Hollo (2000)

3) The only person I met was a guy wearing jeans.a) Is the only person a constituent?b) Is was a guy a constituent?c) What are the immediate constituents of a guy wearing jeans?

4) He may have sent the letter to his former girlfriend by mistake.a) Is he may have sent the letter a constituent?b) Is his former girlfriend a constituent?c) What are the immediate constituents of to his former girlfriend?

VII. Say to which class of group each of the following belongs (From Downing and Locke, 1992).

a) the anti-terroist laws.b) Not quite hot enoughc) Within three quarters of an hour.d) Pretty soon.e) Aren’t playing.f) Wide awake.g) The urban young.h) In spite of the bad weatheri) His departure from Moscowj) Over there.

VIII. Divide each of the sentences below into its constituent parts. (From Quirk et al.)

1) Computers are fairly commonplace today.2) Full-scale computers have a large number of programmes.3) We must change all the programmes tomorrow.4) Tomorrow will be a holiday here.5) These bookshelves are becoming very popular in Sweden.6) We have recently added an extra unit to them.7) Will you give it a try?8) On July 7, DDT was sprayed on the marsh from a helicopter.9) We all read too many books too quickly.10) The young man grew restless in his mother-in-law’s house.11) They had made him their son-in-love despite his objections.12) He found his mother-in-law greedy.

IX. A part of each of the sentences below is underlined. Indicate by which of the following linguistic structures the underlined part is being realised (Adapted from Quirk et al.)

a) simple finite verbal group.b) complex finite verbal group.c) simple non-finite verbal group (including infinitive with –to)d) Complex non-finite verbal group.e) Finite clause.f) Non-finite clauseg) Prepositional group.h) Nominal group.i) Adjectival group.j) Adverbial group.

1) Fire can cause great damage to any city.2) The Great Fire of London started in a bakery.3) It burnt furiously for four days.4) Pepys has given us a vivid account of it.5) Who has given a vivid account of it?6) The man who has just spoken is Benjamin Hall.7) They suddenly decide to christen the bell Big Ben.8) The idea occurred to them while Hall was speaking.9) The man who won the contract was Dent.10) The next day we were sitting in the car.11) Leaving us at the gate, they disappeared.12) Leaving us at the gate like that was very thoughtless.13) Hand the man at the gate your ticket.14) I never imagined that such a thing could happen.15) The strange thing is that we never heard of him again.16) I thoroughly enjoyed meeting Peter again.17) Meeting him again has left me very happy.

X. Using one or more of the criteria discussed in class, find the Subjects of the sentences below (Adapted from Aarts, 2008)

a) My friend travelled around the world on a bicycle.b) It was freezing cold in Moscowc) The supporters of the football club down the road destroyed our fence.d) In the Middle Ages people often burnt books.e) There is a rat in the room.f) Yesterday at midnight Harry fell down the stairs.

XI. Assign function labels (Subject, Direct Object, Adjunct, etc.) to the italicised phrases in the following sentences (Adapted from Aarts, 2008).

a) Greg opened a can of coke.b) She arrived last week.c) You will need a comprehensive travel insurance.d) Who said that?e) Benny worked in a shoe factory when he was a student.f) Who will do the cleaning?g) The lecturer from France who talked about Wittgenstein yesterday left.

XII. Construct sentences containing (adapted from Aarts, 2008):

a) a Subject, a Predicator, an Indirect Object and a Direct Object.b) A Subject, a Predicator, a Direct Object and an Adjunct.c) A Subject, a Predicator and an Adjunct.d) A Subject and a Predicator.

XIII. True or False. In the sentence This summer all the students will have vacation jobs in their home towns:

a) The Subject is this summer.b) This summer is an Adjunct.c) Vacation jobs is an Indirect Object.d) All the students is the Subject.e) In their home towns functions as Adjunct.f) The Direct Object is vacation jobs.

XIV. Identify the grammatical functions of the italicised constituents in the following sentences, and then specify how they are syntactically realised.

1) The doctor uses a bicycle to get to work.2) What to do at this point is a big mystery.3) They sold the headmaster faulty computers.4) We deem her very competent.5) Gleefully, Harry ran out of the house.6) Jake left because he was angry.7) He left his car in front of the cinema.8) She doesn’t understand what she wants.9) I would hate to see you cry.10) The policeman made me pay the fine.

Additionally, you can also do the following exercises

McCARTHY, M. and F. O’DELL (1999) English Vocabulary in Use. Upper Intermediate. Cambridge University Press. Chapters 8-14. Word formation.

REDMAN, S. (1997) English Vocabulary in Use. Pre-Intermediate and Intermediate. Cambridge University Press. Chapters 7-12. Word-formation.

EASTWOOD, J. (1999) Oxford Practice Grammar. Oxford University Press. Chapters 1, 2 and 3 (Word classes, sentence structure and direct and indirect objects).

You can do some extra practice with the webpages included here.

Web pages. GENERAL

http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-morphology.htm

Theoretical

http://www.alphadictionary.com/articles/ling005.html

Artículo interesante sobre morfemas y lexemas a partir de un poema de Lewis Carroll.

http://www.ucl.ac.uk/internet-grammar

http://www.ucl.ac.uk/internet-grammar/wordclas/wordclas.htm

Teoría y ejercicios online sobre palabras y tipos de palabras. Tras una introducción

general, habla de cada una de las categorías (noun, verb, adjective, etc.) y plantea

ejercicios.

http://www.ucl.ac.uk/internet-grammar/clauses/clauses.htm

Teoría y ejercicios online sobre cláusulas y su relación con los sintagmas

http://www.ucl.ac.uk/internet-grammar/phrases/phrases.htm

Teoría y ejercicios online acerca de los sintagmas. Asequible.

http://www.english.unitecnology.ac.nz/resources/resources/exp_lang/nouns.html

Sustantivos

http://www.english.unitecnology.ac.nz/resources/resources/exp_lang/phrases.html

sintagmas

http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Morphology_%28linguistics%29. Definición de

morfología. Página teórica.

http://www.edufind.com/english/grammar/subidx.cfm

http://www.universalteacher.org.uk/lang/engstruct.htm Muy interesante.. Diferencia

entre morfología, sintaxis y discurso. Tablas interesantes para handouts en clase.

http://www.studyadvice.hull.ac.uk/LearningResources/StudyGuidesPDFs/index.html

En esta página hay varias guías en formato word o pdf sobre una variedad de temas

relacionados con el estudio del inglés. Entre estas guías mencionamos dos, pero hay

otras relacionadas con el verbo, adverbio o preposiciones.

http://www.studyadvice.hull.ac.uk/LearningResources/StudyGuidesPDFs/

Grammar1.pdf

Word classes basic (basic)

http://www.studyadvice.hull.ac.uk/LearningResources/StudyGuidesPDFs/

Grammar2studyguide.doc

Units of language (basic)

http://www.uottawa.ca/academic/arts/writcent/hypergrammar/partsp.html

Definición de sustantivo, verbo, adjetivo, etc. Teoría.

http://www.uottawa.ca/academic/arts/writcent/hypergrammar/partse.html

Subject, predicator, objects and complements. Teoría.

http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/objects.htm

Definición de objeto directo e indirecto y de los diferentes complementos. Teórica

http://www.arts.auckland.ac.nz/online/langtchg720/ClauseTheory.html

Teoría sobre tipos de oraciones. Se complementa con ejercicios en la página siguiente:

http://www.arts.auckland.ac.nz/online/langtchg720/ClauseExercises.html

http://grammar.uoregon.edu/toc.html

Página muy interesante, que presenta los diferentes apartados que se tratan en esta

unidad. La parte teórica es clara y se complementa con ejercicios con sus

correspondientes soluciones.

Webpages. VERBAL GROUP

http://www.sil.org/linguistics/GlossaryOfLinguisticTerms/WhatIsAVerbLinguistics.htm

Definición y tipos de verbo. Teórica.

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/esl/esltensverb.html

Recoge en cuadros sencillos todos los tiempos verbales con sus principales significados

tanto en voz activa como en pasiva.

http://owl.english.purdue.edu/handouts/grammar/g_actpass.html

Formación de la voz pasiva.

http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/verbs.htm

Aparte de la definición de verbo y de los diferentes tipos de verbos, esta página tiene

enlaces a voz pasiva, verbos estáticos y dinámicos y su relación con el aspecto

progresivo y a los condicionales, entre otros. Tiene también ejercicios interactivos.

http://www.englishclub.com/grammar/

En la página de inicio hay enlaces a los diferentes apartados relacionados con el

sintagma verbal, entre los que podemos destacar la voz activa y pasiva, los phrasal

verbs, tiempos verbales, modales, infinitivos y gerundios, etc. Tras las explicaciones

teóricas hay ejercicios interactivos relacionados con las mismas.

http://www.englishpage.com/modals/modalforms.html

En el menú de la izquierda hay enlaces a la teoría de los diferentes verbos modales y en

el centro de la página hay links a ejercicios interactivos de modales. Interesante.

http://esl.about.com/library/grammar/blmodal.htm

Página con teoría y ejercicios interactivos de verbos modales.

http://www.iei.uiuc.edu/structure/Structure1/modals.html

Estructura y significados de los verbos modales.

Webpages. NOMINAL GROUP

http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/nouns.htm

Definición de sustantivo y temas relacionados. Ejercicios interactivos de

reconocimiento de sustantivos.

http://www.englishclub.com/grammar/nouns.htm

Definición de sustantivo y temas relacionados. Ejercicios interactivos relacionados con

la teoría explicada.

http://www.uottawa.ca/academic/arts/writcent/hypergrammar/nouns.html#noun

Definición y tipos de sustantivos.

http://www.uottawa.ca/academic/arts/writcent/hypergrammar/pronouns.html

Definición y tipos de pronombres.

http://www.geocities.com/pants098/np.html

Definición y tipos de sustantivos y de pronombres.

Webpages. ADJECTIVAL, ADVERBIAL AND PREPOSITIONAL GROUPS

http://www.englishclub.com/grammar/adjectives.htm

Definición de adjetivos. Orden. Comparativos y Superlativos. Teoría y ejercicios.

http://www.uottawa.ca/academic/arts/writcent/hypergrammar/adjectve.html

Definición.

http://www.englishclub.com/grammar/adverbs.htm

Definición, forma y posición de los adverbios. Teoría y ejercicios.

http://www.englishclub.com/grammar/prepositions.htm

Lista de preposiciones. Significados y ejercicios.

Webpages generales

http://www.english.uiuc.edu/cws/wworkshop/writer_resources/grammar_handbook/

grammar_handbook.htm

Teoría sobre sustantivos, verbos, adjetivos, adverbios, preposiciones, conjunciones,

diferentes tipos de sintagmas, funciones sintácticas, cláusulas y oraciones.

http://www.ezschool.com/Tutorials/index.html

En la página de inicio de tutorías hay links al sustantivo, verbo, adverbio, adjetivo y

pronombre. Tras las definiciones, hay ejercicios de reconocimiento muy sencillos.