Descriptive Grammar of English

Transcription

1 Descriptive Grammar of English Syntax & Morphology - summer semester 2011 Duty hours: Monday 18:15-19:15 Aims Marcin Cinciała marcinc@ifa.amu.edu.pl The aim of the course is to introduce the students to English syntax, both from the descriptive perspective and the perspective of generative syntax Content Supplementary coursebooks O'Grady, W., M. Dobrovolsky, and M. Aronoff (1989) Contemporary Linguistics: An Introduction. New York: St. Martin's Quirk, R. and S. Greenbaum (1990) A Student's Grammar of the English Language. Harlow, Essex: Longman. Radford, A. (1988) Transformational Grammar. Cambridge: CUP. Tajsner, P. (2003) Lectures on Structure and Derivation.Poznań: Wydawnictwo Poznańskie. 1. Theories of grammar, descriptivism vs. prescriptivism 2. Morphology 3. Classification of lexical categories 4. Nouns and pronouns 5. Verbs and auxiliaries 6. Adjectives, adverbs and prepositions 7. Noun phrases and their modifiers 8. Verb phrases: aspect, tense, voice and modality 9. Prepositional and Phrasal Verbs 10. Predicates and theta roles 11. Prepositional, adverb and adjective phrases 12. Clauses and sentences DOs and DON Ts You are kindly asked not to miss more than two classes per semester; otherwise a make-up-test will be administered. In order to complete the course you need to pass two tests. These are good for you, as they will deal with issues, which will appear on the final exam. Main coursebooks Wardhaugh, R. (1995) Understanding English Grammar. A Linguistic Approach. Oxford: Blackwell.

2 THEORIES OF GRAMMAR I. Descriptive grammar 1. Morphology 2. Syntax II. Other types of grammar 1. Pedagogical 2. Prescriptive 3. Generative III. E-linguistics vs. I-linguistics IV. Competence vs. Performance V. Grammaticality vs. Acceptability Classification into parts of speech I. Notional definitions of word classes Problems: II. Structural criteria for classification 1. Formal characteristics 2. Distributional properties 1. The mission if USS Enterprise is to boldly go where no man has gone before 2. Hopefully, the weather will clear up tomorrow. 3. It s me who gets the blame for everything. 4. It was the most unique event in the history of the town. 5. Finding the door unlocked, the opportunity to escape revealed itself. Issues to remember from the exercise: - Dangling infinitive, - Sentential vs. VP adverbs - (non)gradability of adjectives - Split infinitive Key words - language, - linguistics, - grammar, - prescriptive grammar, - descriptive grammar, - language faculty, - competence vs. performance. III. Typical vs. peripheral lexical items IV. Problem: Circularity Exercises: What is wrong with the following sentences according to prescriptivists.

3 MORPHOLOGY 1. Words and morphemes (a) morphemes the minimal meaningful units of language, (b) words minimal free forms. 2. Morphology 2. What does morphology deal with? 3. Enumerate the major lexical categories. 4. What is the difference between a bound and a free morpheme? 5. Exemplify and name types of affixes. 6. What is the difference between derivation and inflection? Name three criteria distinguishing derivational affixes from the inflectional ones. 7. What are nouns morphologically marked for? 8. What are verbs morphologically marked for? (a) simple vs complex words, (b) closed vs open classes, (c) morphemes and allomorphs, (d) free vs bound morphemes, (e) derivation through affixation: prefix stem suffix (f) zero derivation (conversion), (g) ablaut, (h) stress shift. 3. Word formation (a) derivation and derivational rules, (b) compounding, (c) clipping, blending and backformation. 4. Inflection (a) inflection vs derivation, (b) nominal inflection, (c) verbal inflection (Wardhaugh 1995: 51-60, 64). Questions: 1. What does it mean that words are arbitrary?

4 WORD CLASSES Parts of speech and their divisions. primary auxiliary concrete countable abstract common concrete VERBS auxiliary semi-auxiliary Lexical modal auxiliary uncountable/mass NOUNS abstract proper intransitive linking S V L NP/AP (pred.) intransitive (pred.) S V I (AdvP/PP) VERBS personal (subject/object) central reflexive/reciprocal possessive (attributive/absolute) transitive monotransitive S V T O DIR complex-transitive S V C O DIR O COMP PRONOUNS relative ditransitive S V G O INDIR O DIR interrogative attributive/postpositive demonstrative indefinite ADJECTIVES predicative

5 ADJECTIVES stative/dynamic gradable/non-gradable inherent/non-inherent 1. How does distribution of words in a sentence help in their classification into the parts of speech categories? 2. There are two expletive subjects in English: what are they and how do they differ? 3. Give examples of parts of speech which have suppletive forms. 4. What does it mean that an adjective is non-gradable? pure adv. ADVERBS compound adv. derived adv. copulative 5. How do nouns and pronouns differ in terms of their morphological marking? (open/closed class, Case marking, person distinction, gender contrast, number forms morphologically related/unrelated). 6. What is the difference between Saxon and Periphrastic Genitive? Refer to their form, meaning and use. coordinating disjunctive adversative CONJUNCTIONS Subordinating Morphological marking (inflection) of different parts of speech Case, number and gender of nouns and pronouns, (a) Saxon vs. periphrastic Genitive (form, meaning and use), (b) tense, aspect, mood and voice of verbs, (c) subject/verb agreement, (d) grading of adjectives and adverbs, (e) suppletive forms, (f) verb forms: infinitive, tensed and participial. Exercises:

6 PHRASES Constituents and constituency 1. What is a constituent 2. Tests for constituency: Pronominalisation Do-so test Elypsis Passive Topicalization Questions Pseudo-cleft formation Cleft test Adverb Placement Sentence fragment test Phrase Structure 1. Head/pre-head/post/head 2. Endocentricity 3. Complements vs. adjuncts Noun Phrases 1. Modifiers within NPs Determiners Pre-/post-determiners Adjectives and their order Nouns Adverbs PPs Relative/appositive clauses 2. The relation between meaning and position A man accused of the crime vs. *an accused of the crime man Someone intelligent vs. an intelligent person Verb Phrases EXERCISES 1. Grammatical systems within the VP Tense Aspect Voice Modality, types of modality Polarity 2. The Structure of VPs Complements and Adjuncts 1. Draw Phrase markers of the following phrases: Your reply to my letter A student of English with long hair A French English teacher The fight after the match Her dislike of men with big egos The house in the wood near the park Wrote the letter in the morning Hit the man with an umbrella 2. Label the functional projections The fence may have been being painted He may have been painting the fence

7 She may still have been being operated on EXERCISES Draw phase markers of the following phrases Prepositional Phrases 1. The function of prepositions 2. The semantics of prepositions Purpose Direction Time Stimulus Possession Accompaniment 3. The syntactic function of prepositions, oblique case. 4. The structure of PPs 5. Prepositions and particles, the difference between prepositional and phrasal verbs Tests: movement question formation relative formation adverb placement 6. Phrasal-prepositional verbs Very fond of Mary in some ways Extremely keen on fishing Test whether the following constructions are phrasal or prepositional verbs Blow up Bring up Come across Call up Call on Adjectival and adverbial phrases 1. The structure 2. Complements and adjuncts 3. Intensifiers 4. Types of adverbial phrases

8 BASIC CLAUSES Clauses: Sentence Simple Sentence Compound sentence Complex sentence Compound-complex sentence Predicates and thematic roles: 1. Types of theta-roles: Agent Patient Experiencer Instrument Theme Goal Source Location Benefactive Temporal 2. Unaccusative and ergative verbs EXERCISES 1. Verb Complementation 2. Passive 1. Label the thematic roles in the constructions below Bob ate the cake with this fingers Jenny likes vodka drinks Sally grows roses The car struck the wall 2. Identify the type of verb and the categories that follow Mary made me happy Marry made me some soup She appears every night She appears angry We consider the idea the solution to all our problems Subjects Complements 1. Location 2. Definitions 3. Subject-verb agreement 4. What can function as a subject? 5. Expletives

9 COORDINATION AND EMBEDDING Coordinate constructions 3. Extraposition 4. Topicalisation 1. Coordinating and correlating conjunctions, conjunctive adverbs 2. Types of constituents that can be coordinated 3. Coordinate Construction Constraint 4. Irreversible binominals Types of embedded clauses 1. Nominal clauses Subject noun clauses Object noun clauses Subject Complement NCl Object Complement NCl Declarative vs. Interrogative Imperative clauses EXERCISES 1. Identify and describe the embedded clauses The exam was more difficult than expected It s easy to say that someone else will do it What happened, I do not know I hate the idea that we should work together The fact that he succeeded is surprising 2. Label the sentences as compound, complex, compound complex I came, I saw, I conquered I ll do it when I m ready What you see is what you get 2. Relative clauses Restrictive Non-restrictive Appositive clauses 3. Adverb clauses Transformations 1. Clefting 2. Pseudo-Cleft formation