Grammar lecture 1
SGSWE 13, 2, 3A
1. Conversation (13)
2. Word classes (2)
a. Lexical
b. Function
c. Multi-word units
3. Phrase structures (3A)
English Department, SU Mon. Sept.9, 2019
HT19 Alan McMillion
Conversation chap. 13
1. Takes place in the spoken medium
2. Takes place in a shared context
3. Avoids elaboration or specification of meaning
4. Is interactive
5. Is expressive of politeness, emotion, and attitude
6. Takes place in real time
7. Has a restricted and repetitive repertoire
8. Employs a vernacular range of expression
9. May have developed some features independently
of written register (e.g. ’s genitive vs. of-
construction)
Conversation chap. 13
Additional features of conversation
1. Performance phenomena: dysfluencies, incomplete
utterances, syntactic blends.
2. The add-on strategy (p. 438)
3. *Prefaces and tags (..., isn’t it?)
4. *Non-clausal units (more coffee?)
5. *Ellipsis (Know what I mean?)
6. *Lexical bundles (a recurring sequence of 3-4 words,
e.g. I don’t know what..., I would like to ....)
7. *Inserts: oh, well, you know, I mean, yeah, mm,
ok...
Conversation chap. 13
Type of inserts (pp 450-453)
1. Interjections ah, oh, wow, ow, whoops
2. Greetings and farewells hi, bye, good morning
3. Discourse markers well, I mean, you know
4. Attention getters hey, say, yo
5. Response getters huh?, eh? right?, okay?
6. Response forms yeah, yes, no, uh huh
7. Hesitators um, uh, ah
8. Polite formulae please, thanks, thank you
9. Expletives shit, Jesus, bloody hell
Linguistic units (categories)
Sentences Jill kicked Jack and Bill fainted.
Clauses Jill kicked the guy next door
Phrases The guy next door
Words Jill, door, the, irremediable
Morphemes cat, run, un-, -able, -ed, -s
Inserts oh, um yeah, well, thanks, shit
Categorization: prototypes
Furniture fruit nouns
chair apple chair
sofa orange dog
desk pineapple Detroit
bench kiwi idea
lamp papaya reading
television (courses)
vase
fan
Modal auxiliary verbs
can, could, will, would, shall,
should, may, might, must
Peripheral
lexical verbs:
ought, need,
dare
Peripheral members: had better, be
going to (gonna), have to, need to,
dare to
Word categories=Word classes
• Word classes are important in language processing;
verbs are particularly central in these processes.
• If we know that an unknown word is a noun, then we
have expectations about the word that are different than
if it were a verb or something else.
• Languages around the world do not all have the same
word classes as English and Swedish, but prototypical
nouns and verbs seem to be fairly universal.
• We can discover what word classes a language has by
looking at how words are distributed.
Distribution
His comical wife
mother
friend
book
idea
walk
category: nouns
Distribution
His comical wife
pretty
intelligent
angry
tall
charming
category: adjectives
Distribution
His wife threw him out the window
out of
in front of
next to
at
category: prepositions
Lexical words Function words Inserts
Verbs: bite, sleep, Prepositions: in, to, at, Interjections: ah, oh, wow,
by, with, concerning ouch
know, be, have, do
Greetings: hi, bye
Pronouns: she, they,
Nouns: book, herself, each other, Discouse markers: well,
house, intelligence, who, which right
dog
Conjunctions: and, or, Attention getters: hey, yo
but, since, because, if,
Adjectives: pretty, although, while
Response getters: huh,
okay, right.
big, intelligent,
certain Numerals: one, third Response forms: yeah, yes,
no, okay, uh huh
Adverbs: happily, Determiners: the, a,
Hesitators: uh, um
this, those, your, some
fast, perhaps,
Polite formulae: please,
unfortunately Auxiliaries: will, might, thank you, pardon me
be, have, do, gonna
See Fig. 2.2-3 Expletives: damn, shit,
See Fig. 2.1 Jesus
Lexical words Function words Inserts
Multi-word units: all of a sudden, on top of, of course, by the way
Idioms: make up one’s mind, kick the bucket, pay lip service
Collocations: broad agreement, wide appeal, bacon and eggs
Lexical bundle: I don’t think that, would you mind,
morphology
• 2.2.4
• Inflection, Derivations, Compounding
– Morphologically complex words: un-read-abil-ity
– Phrasal verbs: lock the dog up
– Idioms: He kicked the bucket ‘died’
– Compounds: a minibar or a mini-bar or a mini bar?
Inflection vs. derivation (2.2.4)
• Inflectional morphemes indicate a
grammatical function of the word:
– sisters ‘more than one sister’
– laughs ‘3 sg present tense’
– came ‘past form of come’
• Derivational morphemes primarily create
new words
– Usually change the word class
– happy > happiness (ADJ > NOUN), but
– weapon > weaponry; kind > unkind
Compounds
• NN, VN, AN, NA, and other types
• Test for compounds:
– Written together
– Stress on 1st part
– Idiomatic meaning
• Examples: girlfriend, guesswork, bluebird,
watertight, care-free, ice cream
Multi-word units
• Idioms: make up one’s mind (the meaning is
not transparent from the parts)
• Collocations: a tendency for words to co-
occur, e.g. broad agreement, broad daylight
• lexical bundles I don’t think, I’d like to
Nouns
Semantic: denote physical and abstract
entities (things, people, substances, places)
Morphology: inflections: plural s, genitive s;
derivations –er, -ness,
Syntax: head of NPs, proper nouns,
classifiers
Lexical Verbs
Semantic: denote activities, events, states
Morphology: inflections: tense –ed, -s (3rd
pers number agreement), -ing & -ed
participles; phrasal & prepositional verbs
(drink something up, apply for)
Syntax: head of VPs, can be preceded by
auxiliary verbs
Adjectives
Semantic: denote qualities, features,
characteristics of entities
Morphology: comparison, gradability (-er, -
est and more/most +adj, very, less)
Syntax: head of APs; used as modifiers of
nouns
Variability in defining
characteristics of adjectives
Example Gradable Descriptive Attributive Predicative
meaning
big + + + +
beautiful + + + +
absolute - ? + +
afraid + + - +
alive ? + - +
different + - + +
lone - + + -
mere - - + -
Adverbs
Semantic: modifiers of events, activities.
Denote manner, degree, time, place.
Morphology: comparison, gradability (-er, -
est and more/most +adv, very); many formed
from adjectives + -ly (quickly)
Syntax: head of Advs; used as modifiers of
verbs, adjectives, adverbs
Prepositions
Single word prepositions:
about, across, after, along, around, as, at, by, down, for,
from, in, into, like, of, off, on, out, over, past, round, since,
than, through, to, towards, with, without, under, up
Complex propositions: two words
such as, as for, except for, apart from, because of, instead
of, out of, regardless of, according to, due to, owing to,
three words
by means of, in spite of, on account of, on top of, in
addition to, with regard to, as far as, as well as
Adverbial particles
about, across, along, around, aside, away, back, by, down,
forth, home, in, off, on, out, over, past, round, through,
under, up,
Borderline cases
-ing words: verbs, nouns, adjectives
-ed words: verbs, adjectives (e.g. stopped v. worried)
See section 2.3.6
Multi-use words: like, run, that, it, all et al.
Some Grammatical word
classes
Pronouns
Determiners
Auxiliary verbs
Relativizers
Numbers
Odd ones, e.g. existential there, infinitive to,
dummy it.
Wh pron V O V N
When you begin to play badminton,
pron aux V A P wh pron V det
you should become aware of how you hold the
N
racket.
O V O A A N
There is no single correct grip;
Adv O V det N
rather there are several grips
rel V pron O V A N
which enable you to produce different shots.
Constructions:
Form-Meaning Pairings
Generalized formal pattern
pattern semantics
Formal patterns
The bigger the better
The sooner we can leave the happier I’ll be
The bigger they are the harder they fall
The more you try the slower you go
The X-er the Y-er
Semantics
The X-er the Y-er
As X changes so changes Y
X
Y
What X doing Y
What’s this fly doing in my soup?
What’s this shoe doing on my desk?
What’s it doing snowing in May?
What are you doing with my wife?
Form: What X doing Y
Meaning: surprise at non-canonical situation
More lexically fixed
Completely fixed all of a sudden, Is that a fact?
e.g. idioms, proverbs. If it ain’t broke don’t fix it.
[someone] kicked the bucket.
Partially fixed As a matter of x (x=fact, course, etc)
e.g. idiomatic expressions The X-er the Y-er: the sooner the better
No fixed lexical parts Billy kicked the cat. (trans)
e.g. composed expressions Bertrand Russell died in 1971. (intrans)
ditranstives
resultatives, caused motion, way-const.
Less lexically fixed
Structures and roles
(forms and functions)
Structures and roles (p.14)
structure = what a thing is by itself, e.g.
a phrase, a word, or a clause
role = what a thing does, how it functions
within a larger unit, e.g. a subject in a
sentence, a modifier in a phrase.
Structures and roles
She threw the cat off the balcony
r
Subject o
predicator d.object object pred. l
e
s
By itself, off the balcony
is a prepositional phrase
(a structure)
Examples of
Structures (forms) Roles (functions)
nouns subject
verbs predicate
adjectives direct object
adverbs indirect object
prepositions complement
auxiliary verbs adverbial
pronouns modifier
phrases (NP, AP, PP, VP) head (of a phrase)
clauses (finite, non-finite, main, subordinate)
Phrases
• Phrases are based on the main lexical word (the
head word) and consist of one or more words that
function as a unit. The head word determines the
phrase type, and other parts of the phrase.
Head word Phrase type
Nouns Noun Phrases NP
Verbs Verb Phrases VP
Adjectives Adjective Phrases AP
Adverbs Adverb Phrases AdvP
Prepositions Prep. Phrases PP
Notions to Know
1. Head of a phrase
2. Complement (necessary addition)
3. Modifier (optional addition)
Adjective Phrases
Modifier Head Complement
very cheerful
happy about the party
quite upset that you left the
party
Adverb Phrases
Modifier Head Complement
quite often
very happily down the road
more slowly than usual
Prepositional Phrases
Modifier Head Complement
in the news
right past the cops
concerning your exam score
Noun Phrases
Determiner Premodifier Head Postmodifier
the loud guy at the bar
some nut on the bus
a silly idea that Jill came
up with
Jessie
it
the king of cat
Sweden’s
Noun phrase structure (theoretical)
NP
DET Nom
Nom PP
AP N
A
The tall woman in the bank
What kind of phrases are the
following?
1. really great
2. very slowly
3. between classes
4. some crumbs on the floor
5. on my desk
6. rather shy at parties
7. the guy in the car with the flat tire
8. on the table with the broken leg
really great
adverb adjective
modifier head
Adjective Phrase
very slowly
adverb adverb
modifier head
Adverb Phrase
between classes
preposition noun phrase
head complement
prepositional Phrase
some crumbs on the floor
quantifier noun prep.phrase
determiner head postmodifier
Noun Phrase
on my desk
preposition noun phrase
head complement
Prepositional Phrase
rather shy at parties
adverb adjective prep.phrase
modifier head complement
Adjective Phrase
the guy in the car with the flat tire
article noun prep.phrase
determiner head postmodifier
Noun Phrase
in the car with the flat tire
preposition noun phrase
head complement
Prepositional Phrase
the car with the flat tire
article noun prepositional phrase
determiner head postmodifier
Noun Phrase
with the flat tire
preposition noun phrase
(head) complement
Prepositional Phrase
the flat tire
article adjective noun
determiner premodifier head
Noun Phrase
The NP
guy
in PP
the car NP
with PP
the flat tire NP
Some abbreviations
Cl/S Clause (Simple sentence)
NP Noun Phrase
VP Verb Phrase
AP Adjective Phrase
PP Prepositional Phrase
AdvP Adverb Phrase
Vgrp Verb group
DO direct object
IO indirect object
SP subject predicative
OP object predicative
A Adverbial (optional or obligatory)
