HISTORICAL BACKGROUND AND

PHONOLOGICAL STRUCTURE

Unit 1 Historical Antecedents to

Modern English
Unit 2 Language and Structure
Unit 3 The Structure of the

MODULE 1 Unit 4
Sound System of English
Syllable Structure in English
Unit 5 Non-Segmental Features of
English
 occasional contacts with merchants and traders from the Roman Empire on
UNIT 1 whose borders they lived. This period of brief contacts started the first of the
many borrowings from Latin. Words like kettle, wine, cheese, butter, cheap,
HISTORICAL ANTECEDENTS TO plum, gem, bishop, church were borrowed into English.
In the 4th century, the Roman power began to fall on evil days following
MODERN ENGLISH attacks from the Goths in the Mediterranean countries. The Anglo-Saxons
began to attack Britain which had been ruled by the Romans since 43 AD. The
Roman influence did not however, extend to other parts of the British Isles. In
Scotland, Wales and Ireland for instance, the Celts, the original inhabitants of
1.0 INTRODUCTION the British Isles including England remained free and wild and made incessant
attacks against the Romans in England. The Roman power, even in England,
Every language has a history. The history of the English language is long was not strong enough to make Latin the national language as was the case in
and complicated. We shall make do with just a notion selecting only the Gaul and Spain. The people continued to speak Celtic with Latin only as an
important milestones. For a fuller discussion of the history of the English official language.
Language read A History of the English Language by Baugh and Cable 1978. The The 4th century saw more and more troubles for the Romans in Britain.
account of the history of English given in this chapter is adapted from this The wild tribes of Scotland and Wales grew more restive; the Anglo-Saxons
source. began to attack the eastern coast; there were growing tensions away to fight in
The history of English begins around 600 A.D. Before then is pre-history. other places. In 410 A.D. the last Roman ruler in England left and took the last
Our linguistic ancestors were savages wandering through the forests of of the legions with him. The Celts were now in possession of Britain but
Northern Europe. Their language was a part of the Germanic branch of the defenceless against the imminent Anglo-Saxon attack.
Indo-European family. The English ancestors spoke a dialect of Low German. According to the eighth century historian, Bede, the Jutes came in 449 to
England in response to an appeal by the Celtic King Vortigen who wanted help
2.0 OBJECTIVES against the Picts. They (the Jutes) later fought with Vortigen and settled
permanently in Kent. Later, the Angles established themselves in Eastern
At the end of this unit you should be able to: England and the Saxons in the West and South. Fighting went on for as long as
one hundred years before the Celts in England were all killed, reduced to
 Say who the English ancestors were and where they came from; slavery or driven into Wales. By 550 A.D. the Anglo Saxons were firmly
 Identify the features of Old English, Middle English and Modern established and English was now the language of England.
English;
 Bring out any differences between Modern English and Middle or Old 3.2 Old English
English; and
 Identify the main events that are responsible for the changes The history of English actually starts about 600 AD when the Anglo-
Saxons were converted to Christianity and learnt the Latin alphabet. The
3.0 MAIN CONTENT conversion was a great advance for the Anglo-Saxons not only spiritually but
also because it established again for them contact with the Roman civilization.
3.1 The Angles, Saxons and Jutes The history of the English Language is often divided into Old English (from
the earliest records about the 7th century to about 1100; Middle English
From the beginning of the Christian era, at the time of the Roman Empire from1100 to 1450 or 1500. Modern English is divided into Early Modern, 1500
about 400 A.D., the speakers of what was to become ‘English Language’ were – 1700 and late Modern, 1700 to the present.
scattered along the northern coast of Europe. Their language was a dialect of England was divided into several kingdoms which were more or less
Low German. Specifically, they spoke many dialects since they were different autonomous. One of the kingdoms, Northumber, the area between the
tribes. Some of the tribes migrated to England and the names of these tribes Humber River and the Scottish border became more advanced, and developed
were Angles, Saxons and Jutes who for convenience were referred to as Anglo- a respectable civilisation. But in the eighth century the Northumbrian power
Saxons. The first contacts of the Anglo Saxons with civilization were some declined and the centre of influence shifted first south to Mercia, the kingdom
of the Midlands and a century later to Wessex, the country of the West Saxons. after the Anglo-Saxons were converted to Christianity. These include: angel,
The most famous king of the West Saxons, Alfred the Great who was not only a candle, priest, martyr, purple, school, spend, oyster etc. But the majority of old
military man but also a champion of learning founded and supported schools English words were native English.
and caused many books to be translated from Latin to English in the West
Saxon dialect. 3.3 Middle English
In the ninth and tenth centuries, the Norsemen came from Denmark and
the Scandinavian Peninsula to attack England. Alfred the Great rebuffed their Between 1000 and 1200 AD important changes took place in the
sporadic attacks on England for some years until the year 866 when the structure of English so that Old English became Middle English. The single
Norsemen landed on the east coast of England. In 877 the struggle ended with event which led to this was the Norman Conquest. The Normans came from
a treaty by which a line was drawn from the North-West of England to the Scandinavia in the early years of the tenth Century, established themselves in
South-East. The Norse were to rule the Eastern side and the Western side was the north of France and established a powerful kingdom. In 1060 AD, under the
to be governed by England. leadership of Duke William, they crossed the English Channel and installed
The effect of this on the English language was a considerable influx of themselves the rulers of England. For many hundred years after this event,
Norse into the English Language. Norse at that time was not so different from England was ruled by kings whose mother tongue was French. French did not
English as to make the two languages mutually unintelligible. There was however become the national language in England because unlike the earlier
however a considerable degree of word borrowing. Examples of Norse words Anglo-Saxon invasion, the Norman Conquest was not a national migration.
in the English language are: sky, give, law, egg, outlaw, leg, ugly, scant, sly, Although a large number of Normans came to England, they came as rulers.
crawl, scowl, take, thrust. It is supposed also that the Norsemen influenced the Consequently, French became the language of polite society, the nobility, the
sound structure and the grammar of English but this is difficult to demonstrate language of literature and education but it did not replace English as the
in detail. language of the people. English was therefore spoken as a vernacular.
However, English, though it survived as a vernacular and the national
A Specimen of Old English language, was deeply affected and therefore changed after the Norman
Conquest. Because it was a language of the common people it became
A favourite illustration of a sample of old English is often the Lord’s simplified; the case system of nouns and adjectives became simplified. People
Prayer probably because it needs no translation. One of the versions is given came to rely more on word order and prepositions than on inflectional
here. endings. The change was also aided by changes in sound. Today English is less
inflected than German, another member of the Germanic group of Indo-
Faeder ure bu de eart on heofonum si pin nama gebalcod. European languages, perhaps because Germany did not experience a Norman
Tohe gume pin rice. Gewurde pin villa on cordan swa swa Conquest.
on heofonum, Urne ge daeghwamlican hlaf syle us to daeg. The effects of the Norman Conquest are more pronounced in vocabulary.
An forgyf us ure gyltas swa swa we forgyfap urum Although after about a hundred years French ceased to be the language of
gyltendum. And ne glel pu us on costnunge ac alys us of many people in England, it continued to be a second language. Till today, it is a
ytele. Sodlice. second language in England and regarded as the epitome of elegance and
sophistication. It was a sign of good breeding in England to spice one’s
Besides the differences in grammar and orthography between the conversation with French words and French ideas. In fact, it was considered
specimen of Old English shown above and Modern English, there are that one was au courant. The last expression shows that this practice is still
observable differences in vocabulary. For one, Old English was more highly with us as one often hears expressions like a la mode, bourgeois and
inflected than Modern English. Most of the Old English words are native proletariat.
English words in the sense that they have not been borrowed from other Thus, all sorts of French words came into English. There were words that
languages but have been a part of English ever since English was a part of the have to do with government: parliament, majesty, treaty, tax, alliance; words
Indo-European languages. Old English however had some borrowed words. We about the church: parson, sermon, baptism, incense, crucifix, religion; words
have seen above some of the ones that came from Norse. A large number too for food: beef, mutton, bacon, jelly, peach, lemon, cream, biscuit. There were
was borrowed while the Anglo-Saxons were still on the continent. These also colour words: blue, scarlet, vermilion; household words: chair, curtain,
include cheese, butter, bishop, and kettle. A large number came into English lamp, towel, blanket, parlour, play words: dance, chess, music, leisure,
conversation; logic, grammar, noun, surgeon, anatomy, stomach. There were The following words: laughed, seemed and stored which were
also ordinary words of all kinds like nice, second, very, age, bucket, gentle, pronounced as two syllables in Middle English also became monosyllabic.
final, fault, flower, cry, count, sure, move surprise, plain. The Great Vowel Shift was the other big event, which made Middle
All these and many more words poured into the English Language English different from Modern English. This involved the shifting of half a dozen
between 1100 and 1500. This did not however turn English into French. English vowels and diphthongs in stressed syllables as can be seen from the examples
remained English in sound structure and grammar although the grammar also below:
felt some influence of the contact. Also, the very heart of the vocabulary
remained English as most of the high frequency words: pronouns, preposition, Middle English Modern English
conjunctions and the auxiliaries as well as many ordinary nouns, verbs and name / a: / name / e /
adjectives were not replaced by the borrowings. Thus, Middle English was still wine / i: / wine / a :/
a Germanic language but it differed from old English in some ways: the sound he / e / he /e : /
system and the grammar changed; speakers relied less on inflectional devices mouse / u: / mouse / au:/
and more on word order and structure to express their meaning. moon /ə / moon / u: /

A Specimen of Middle English This change affected all the words which contained these sounds but
the Middle English spelling was retained thus creating another source of
It appears that Middle English is simpler to us than Old English discrepancy between spelling and pronunciation of Modern English words.
because it is closer to Modern English. It is however doubtful if is not a case of These two changes which constitute the main differences between
exchanging one set of complexities for others. The following passage is taken Middle and Modern English can also be said to account for the differences
from Chaucer’s General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales written in the between English and other Germanic languages like French, Italian and Spanish
fourteenth century: where no vowel shift occurred. The last development which can be said to be
responsible for standardizing the spelling of English, and unifying the various
There was also a nonne, a Prioresse, dialects of English is the invention of the printing press in 1475 by William
That of hir smyling was ful symple and coy, Caxton. Books and reading materials were produced and the printed word
Hir gretteste oath was but by Seinte Loy, became the standard.
And she was cleped Madam Eglentyne,
Fullwell she song the service dyvyne, 3.5 Modern English
Entuned in hir nose ful semely,
And Frenshe she spak ful faire and fetishly In England the dialect of the East Midland became accepted as the
After the scole of Straford-atte-Bowe, literary standard. This does not mean that there were no other dialects. In the
For Frenshe of Parys was to hir unknowne. plays and novels of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries there are often
country gentlemen that speak their local dialects. But the English of the upper
3.4 Early Modern English class and the upper middle class tended to adopt a uniform standard which
was nurtured in the public schools. The public school English has been
The English of Shakespeare’s time is different from the time of Chaucer identified as a variant of the South Eastern English and it became the language
shown above because of a couple of changes that English underwent between of the upper class whatever part of effect and became the agency for the
1400 and 1600 AD. One change was the elimination of a vowel sound in some transmission of a non-localized form of English as the prestigious form.
unstressed positions at the end of words so that words like wine, stone, name By 1770 movement between groups became accelerated what with the
and dance which were pronounced as two syllables in Chaucer’s time were invention of the steamship, the railway, the motorcar and the aeroplane. Man
pronounced as one in Shakespeare’s time. This change is one of the causes of became more mobile and this extended his linguistic exposure. Other
the discrepancy between the spelling and the pronunciation of Modern English developments like the telephone, the radio, the sound film and the television
words because it affected a lot of words other than those, which end with all helped to standardize and spread Modern English.
vowel sounds. The effect of all the above listed developments on the vocabulary was
unprecedented. New objects, new ways of seeing the world, new things to do
and new thoughts brought new words into the language so that nowadays quality of vowels in many two syllable words so that words like wine
there are words like psychedelic, spacelas, floppy discs, computerese, and name which were pronounced as two syllables [wi-ne] and [na-
esperanto etc. Many native forms combined prefixes and suffixes which have me], were now pronounced as one syllable ( e.g. wine [wa n] and
come into the language to form new forms. Technical terms from scientific name [ne m]) but the spellings were retained.
developments have also entered the language. Loan words have also entered  The invention of printing by William Caxton in 1475 standardised
the language and with the spread of English to other parts of the world English spelling and with the production of books and reading
Modern English is full of borrowings from other languages. As was the case materials the printed word became the standard.
with Norse, French and Latin borrowings the process of borrowing and the  In England, the dialect of the East Midlands became the literary
words borrowed throw some light on the nature of the relationship between standard used by the upper and middle class and taught in schools
England and these countries. Also, in the last two hundred years, loan words although other dialects existed.
do not seem to have the cultural meaning they had. For example the following
words borrowed from French do not have exactly the same cultural meaning 5.0 QUESTIONS:
and usage they had: guillotine, regime, and epaulette.
It is interesting to note that English has resisted Celtic loan words despite 1. Who were the Anglo-Saxons? Where did they come from? How did
the fact that they live close to the Celtic communities and have intermarried they come to settle in England?
throughout the period when English has been spoken in Britain. Yet the spread 2. What two events have been responsible for the differences between
of English to other parts of the world has produced other varieties of English Middle English and Modern English?
some of which are spoken as mother tongues. 3. What contributions did the Norman Conquest and the Great Vowel
Shift make to the development of the English Language?
4.0 SUMMARY

You have learnt from this unit that:

 The linguistic ancestors of English were the Angles, Saxons and Jutes
and they were savages who migrated from northern Europe and
settled in England about 400 A.D.
 The history of English actually started about 600 AD when the Anglo
Saxons, having killed and driven out the original inhabitants of
England, the Celts, and settled in England became converted to
Christianity.
 Old English as seen in the Lord’s Prayer differs from Modern English
both in grammar, orthography and vocabulary.
 Between 1000 and 1200 A.D., the Norman Conquest brought the
French language to England.
 English was used as the vernacular while French was the official
language; consequently, English became simplified - the sound system
and the grammar changed; speakers relied less on inflectional devices
and more on word order and structure to express their meaning. UNIT 2
 The elimination of the vowel sounds in unstressed positions so that
words like wine and name which were pronounced as two syllables LANGUAGE AND STRUCTURE
[wi-ne] and [na-me] were pronounced as one syllable, helped to make
Early Modern English different from Middle English.
 Between 1400 AD and 1600 AD the Great Vowel Shift occurred, which
also helped to change Middle English. This involved the change of the 1.0 INTRODUCTION
 … it is difficult to give a
comprehensive definition of language.
Language is one of the most useful and most brilliant of human Any attempt that captures its essential
inventions. By means of language, people who live together are able to characteristics: namely that it is a
interact and express their thoughts and feelings to one another. system made up of phonic or graphic
Language is first perceived as a string of noises organised into a symbols which are arbitrarily chosen
meaningful pattern for the purpose of communication. It can as well be seen as or agreed upon by convention and are
graphic symbols also organised into meaningful patterns. The particular usually learned and used by a speech
patterns of noises or graphic symbols are meaningful particularly to people of community for the purpose of
the speech community where the language is used. These patterns can communication can serve as a
however be learnt by people outside the speech community. reasonable explication (Eka and
Udofot 1996:5)
2.0 OBJECTIVES
A necessary implication of the use of language for the purpose of
At the completion of this unit, you should be able to: communication is that information expressed by language has to be
meaningful to the hearer otherwise communication or interaction does not
 Describe the nature of language; take place. This idea is stressed by Gimson’s (1980: 4-5) description of
 Identify the levels of structure of language; language as:
 List he levels of structure of all units of English grammar; and
 Give a brief description of the units of structure of English …a system of conventional signals
grammar. used for communication by a whole
community. This pattern of
3.0 MAIN CONTENT conventions covers a system of
significant sound units, the inflection
3.1 The Nature of Language and arrangement of words and the
association of meaning with words.
There have been several explanations of language. One which is given
above is that language is the means by which people from the same and All the explanations of language given above agree on certain issues.
related communities interact and express their thoughts and feelings to one First, that language is arbitrary and conventional in the sense that there is
another. This is one way of explaining the term language. There are other ways often no link between a word and what it means. There exists some form of
of explaining this phenomenon. A classic explication is that of Sapir (1921, p. unwritten agreement or convention about the way language is used. This is like
18) which explains language as ‘a purely human and non-instinctive method of saying that flat-topped wooden or iron furniture with four supports is called a
communicating ideas, emotions and desires by means of a system of table not because of any reason other than that the English people by
voluntarily produced symbols. Another famous definition of language was agreement and later by convention call it that. Secondly, that language is non-
given by Hall in his Essay on Language, where language is defined as ‘the instinctive. This means that it is a learned behaviour. Next, that language is
institution whereby humans communicate and interact with each other by human and is used by a group of people (a speech community) whose
means of habitually used oral-auditory arbitrary symbols’ (Hall, 1968, pp. 158). ancestors agreed on how certain symbols were to be used. Also, that although
An examination of these explanations reveals that language is primarily there are animal signs and computer language, for example, it is the speech of
spoken (i.e oral - auditory). Writing is a recent development. There are many human beings that is elaborate and systematic enough to be studied. This
languages that exist only in the spoken form. Another aspect of language shows that language is a peculiarly human behaviour. If conventional symbols
evident in the explications above is that language has structure and is normally have to be associated with meaning, it follows that the words we use in
organized into patterns – phonic (for spoken language) and graphic(for written language and the sentences we make by putting words together have to mean
language). The specific characteristics of language may be summarized thus: something. This underscores the need for words and sentences to have
structure. Knowledge of the elements or parts and patterns of words and
sentences equips you with the means of forming them in the acceptable
manner using the acceptable patterns of a given language. This course is Each group consists of words. Some of the words such as dancing and
designed to arm you with the acceptable means of forming words and gracefully have more than one morpheme. Dancing is made up of {dance} and
sentences in English, using the appropriate structures. the progressive marker {ing} while gracefully also contains two morphemes:
{grace} and the derivational morphemes {-ful} and {-ly}.
3.2 The Structural Approach The structural approach to the study of Language also spread to Europe.
It was the French linguist Ferdinand de Saussure who started people thinking
The Structural Approach to the study of language can be traced to along the lines of modern linguistics in Europe when he drew the distinction
Bloomfield of the American school of Linguistics who in his book Language between diachronic and synchronic study of language. A diachronic study
published in 1933 laid the foundation which was continued by Fries in his book studies the historical development of language while a synchronic describes
The Structure of English published in 1952. Fries analysed living English speech language as it is used at a particular point in time. His lectures, published
using a sentence grammar approach instead of the word grammar approach of posthumously by his students in a course in General Linguistics (Cours de
traditional grammar. Later grammars of English followed this approach until a linguistique généralé) inspired other linguists in Europe namely: Henry Sweet
different approach became available with the publication of Chomsky’s whose ideas were elaborated upon by J. R. Firth of the London School of
Syntactic Structures in 1957 and later Aspects of the Theory of Syntax in 1965. Linguistics.
The structural approach to the study of grammar came as a reaction to From the London School of Linguistics also came Halliday who suggested
traditional grammar which divided all the words in the language into parts of a model of grammar often referred to as Neo-Firthian or Systemic Grammar.
speech according to the functions they perform, and prescribed rather than His model has structure as the surface grammar and meaning as the deep
described their behaviour based on the rules of Latin grammar, paying very grammar. Within the model, morphology studies the structure of words while
little attention to the forms of words and sounds of the language. In other syntax studies the structure of sentences which are built up of words, yet they
words, traditional grammar looked at the functions of words and not at their are ‘not separated as levels but accounted for within the units of the
structure. grammatical rank scale’ (Eka, 1994, p.24). The model discusses four
The term structure is generally used to analyse all the units of grammar fundamental categories of grammar one of which is structure and the others
except the smallest unit - the morpheme. In English we have sentence are unit, class and system.
structure, clause structure, group structure and word structure (Eka, 1994, The Unit category identifies levels: the morpheme, the word, the group,
p.24). The sentence is made up of one or more clauses; the clause is made up the clause and the sentence which are hierarchically related in the sense that
of one or more groups; the group is made up of one or more words and every the upper unit is made up of one or more items of the lower unit next to it (as
word consists of one or more morphemes. for instance the word which is made up of one or more morphemes etc.) The
The sentence: morpheme occupies the lowest rank while the sentence occupies the highest
rank. Structure is used to analyse all the units except the morpheme. The
She was dancing gracefully because the music was melodious. elements of the clause in English are: Subject(S), Predicator (P), Complement
(C), Adjunct (A). All clause structures combine some or all of the elements. The
can be broken down into two clauses: nominal group structure is Modifier (m), Head (h), and Qualifier (q). A modifier
1a. She was dancing gracefully (main clause) is any structure before the head while a qualifier refers to any structure after
1b. because the music was melodious (subordinate clause) the head as in the following example:

Each clause: 1a and 1b is made up of groups such as: The/ new/ students/ of the University of Santo Tomas
m m h q
1c she, gracefully (pronoun/ adverbial group)
1d was dancing (verbal group) Class refers to a set of items with similar characteristics. Items of the
1e because (prepositional group) same class belong to the same unit since they usually have the same structural
1f the music (nominal group) possibilities. One can therefore refer to classes of verbs, nouns, adjectives etc.
1g was (verbal group) and also to their behaviour as a group. For example, verbs act as predicators
1h melodious (adjectival group) while the nouns often operate as head of the nominal group in the structure of
a clause. Every class also has sub-classes as for instance in the cases of nouns
being countable and uncountable (count and non-count nouns), proper and
abstract while verbs can be transitive, intransitive or linking.
System refers to a set of features from which only one has to be
selected as for instance the system of number which allows for choice between
singular and plural; the system of voice of verbs where a choice is made
between active and passive and the system of polarity where the choice is
between positive and negative.
An attempt is made in this course to describe the structure of the
English Language in terms of the sound structure, the sentence structure, the
group structure as well as the word and meaning structure. The emphasis is to
show the constituents; that is what each of these is made up of: the sound
system, the sentence, clause, group and the word.

4.0 SUMMARY

In this unit you have learnt the following:

 Language is a purely human behaviour and that is made up of sounds
and symbols.
 Language is a learned behaviour; it is conventional and arbitrary
 Language is mainly for communication among a speech community
 Language is a system and has four main levels of structure:
phonological, syntactic, lexical and semantic
 The structural approach to the analysis of language is traceable to
Bloomfield of the American School of Linguistics.
 The approach spread to Europe and was developed into the Systemic
Model By the linguists of the London School of Linguistics mainly J.R
Firth and M.A.K. Halliday
 The Structural Approach analyses language at four categories: unit,
class, structure and system. UNIT 3
 Structure is used to analyse all the units of grammar except the
morpheme. THE STRUCTURE OF THE SOUND
5.0 QUESTIONS: SYSTEM OF ENGLISH
1. Distinguish between diachronic and synchronic study of language.
2. Explain the term structure and its use.
3. From the definitions of language given above, make a list of the 1.0 INTRODUCTION
characteristics of language.
Speech sounds are vibrations in the atmosphere. They are produced
by the organs of the body associated with speech. The study of the physical
features of speech sounds is called Phonetics while the study of the sounds of
a particular language in combination is referred to as the Phonology of that
language. In this course you will learn about the Segmental and Non-segmental
phonemes of English and how they function in patterns in the language. The sounds of all human language are classified as either vowels or
consonants. They are called vowels if there is no audible obstruction to the air
2.0 OBJECTIVES as it passes from the lungs to the outside through the mouth or the nose.
Examples of vowel sounds in English are /a: / as in father; /i: / as in people
At the end of this unit you should be able to: and /e/ as in bed. Consonant sounds on the other hand are sounds which are
produced with some form of obstruction of air along the speech tract by one or
 Distinguish between phonetics and phonology; more organs of speech. The numbers of vowels and consonants vary from
 Identify the broad groups of speech sounds and the sounds of English; language to language.
 List the segmental phonemes of English; In English, there are twenty vowel sounds and twenty-four consonant
 Describe the phonetic properties of English sounds and non- sounds. These sounds do not necessarily correspond with the letters of the
segmental phonemes and how the sounds are combined into patterns alphabet. Though there are phonetic languages like Ibibio, Igbo or Yoruba
in speech. where sounds and letters correspond so that a word is pronounced the way it
is written, English is a classic example of a language which is not necessarily
3.0 MAIN CONTENT spoken the way it is written. In the following words the sounds and letters do
not correspond:
3.1 Sound Production
/f/ (sounds and letters) (letters and sounds)
When we speak, we make a string of noises which is perceived as a physics father /a:/
continuous flow of sound. This continuous flow is meaningful to anyone who effect man /æ/
understands the language. Every speech sound is produced as a result of cough ago /a /
exhaled air from the lungs passing through the passage between the vocal philosophy name /e /
cords known as the glottis through the pharynx and out through the mouth or
nose. This exhaled air is called the pulmonic airstream. When the air from the 3.3 Consonants
lungs gets to the larynx (the Adam’s Apple) and the space between the vocal Consonants are described using three criteria: (i) whether they are voiced
cords (the glottis) is closed a lot of pressure builds up and forces the glottis to or voiceless; (ii) organ of production; (iii) manner of production.
open and close very rapidly. This results in the vibration known as voice. Any 3.4 Organs of Production
sound produced with the glottis in this state is referred to as voiced. Examples The organs used to produce speech sounds are also very important
of voiced sounds are /b, d, g, e, u: /. English vowels are produced with the because sounds, especially consonant sounds, are classified according to the
glottis in this state and they are all voiced. If the pulmonic airstream (air from organs used to produce them.
the lungs) gets to the larynx and the glottis is open, the air passes on to the Considering the organs used to produce the sounds the following groups of
pharynx without any vibration. Sounds that are produced with the glottis open consonants can be identified:
are said to be voiceless. Examples of voiceless sounds are /p, s, t, k/. i. Bilabial: These are sounds produced using the two lips. English has
When the air leaves the larynx, it gets to the pharynx and mouth. If the four bilabial consonants. These are /p. b, m, w/.
back part of the roof of mouth called the soft palate or velum is lowered, the ii. Labio-dental: These are sounds produced with the lower lip and the
passage to the mouth is blocked and the air escapes through the nose. These upper teeth. There are only two labio-dental consonants in English.
types of sounds are called nasal sounds. Examples of nasal sounds in English These are /f/ and /v/.
are /m, n, /. If the soft palate is raised when the air from the larynx gets to the iii. Dental: These are sounds produced with the tip of the tongue
pharynx, the air passes through the mouth and the sounds produced with the coming between the two rows of teeth. English has two dental
soft palate raised are called oral sounds. All English sounds except the nasals sounds. These are /ɵ / and / ð /.
i.e. /m, n, / are oral e.g. /p, k, s, r/. iv. Alveolar: These are sounds produced with the tip of the tongue
touching the upper teeth. English has many alveolar sounds
namely /t, d, n, l, r, s, z/.
3.2 The Sounds of English
 v. Palato-alveolar: These are sounds produced with the tip of the (vi) Semi-vowels (approximants). These are sounds produced with the
tongue touching the upper teeth ridge and middle of the tongue organs of production coming together but not completely as in the
simultaneously raised towards the hard palate. Palato-Alveolar case of the other consonants. They are described as gliding
sounds in English include / t d / consonants because they are “distinguished by the absence of
vi. Palatal: These are sounds produced with the front of the tongue friction and a quick smooth glide to the sound that follows” (Udofot
touching the hard palate. English has only one such sound which is and Eshiett 1996: 13). English has two semi vowels. These are /j/
/j/. and /w/.
vii. Velar: These are sounds produced with the back of the tongue
touching the soft palate (the velum). There are three velar sounds in 3.6 Description of Consonants
English. These are /k, g, ŋ/.
viii. Glottal: Glottal sounds are produced in the glottis, that is, the space Any consonant sound can be described using three criteria namely: voice
between the vocal cords. English has only one glottal sound which or voicelessness, organ of production and manner of production.
is /h/. The twenty-four English consonant sounds can be described as follows:
/p/ Voiceless bilabial plosive as in pat, reap, leper
3.5 Manner of Production /b/ Voiced, bilabial plosive as in bed, labour, babe
/t/ Voiceless alveolar plosive as in table, cat, rat
Consonant sounds are also classified according to the way the organs of /d/ Voiced alveolar plosive as in dance, lad, ladder
speech behave during their production. Six groups are often distinguished. /k/ Voiceless velar plosive as in king, market, cook
According to Eka and Udofot (1996: 71-72) the twenty-four consonants of /g/ Voiced velar plosive as in gold, big, bigger
English can be classified as follows: /f/ Voiceless labio – dental fricative as in fish, infant, leaf
(i) Plosives or Stops are those sounds produced through the coming /v/ Voiced labio-dental fricative as in very, alveolar, leave
together of the organs of production to block the air passage coming /ɵ/ Voiceless dental fricative as in thin, bath
from the lungs followed by a sudden release of the sounds through a / ð / Voiced dental fricative as in though, other, bathe
sudden parting of the organs. English plosive sounds are /p, b, t, d, k, /s/ Voiceless alveolar fricative as in city, sister, rice
g/ /z/ Voiced alveolar fricative as in zebra, business, prize
(ii) Fricatives: These are consonant sounds produced by the narrowing /ʃ / Voiceless palato-alveolar fricative as in shoe, mission, push
of the space between the organs of production due to the /ʒ / Voiced palato-alveolar fricative as in vision, garage
movement of the organs towards each other. The sounds produced /h/ Voiceless glottal fricative as in house, inhale
filter through the narrowed space with a hissing sound. English has / t / Voiceless palato-alveolar affricate as in church, teacher, catch
nine fricative sounds which are / f, v, ʃ, ð, s, z, h, ɵ /. / dʒ / Voiced palato-alveolar affricate as in joke, enjoy, judge
(iii) Affricates: Affricates are produced like plosives with the coming /m/* Bilabial nasal as in moon, lamp, calm
together of the organs of production to obstruct the air from the /n/* Alveolar nasal as in navy, nanny, none
lungs followed by a gradual release of the sound. English has two / ŋ/* Velar nasal as in bank, longing
affricates which are / t / and / d /. /l/* Alveolar liquid (lateral) as in look, valley, pull
(iv) Nasals: These are sounds produced with the soft palate lowered and /r/* Alveolar liquid (rolled) as in wrong, marry, mirror
the sound released through the nose. English nasals are three in /w/* Bilabial semivowel as in woman, reward
number. These are /m, n, ŋ/. /j/* Palatal semivowel as in yellow, student/stju---/
(v) Liquids: These are sounds produced with the tongue raised and air
escaping through the sides of the tongue. English has two liquids: the *Note that all nasals, liquids and semi-vowels are voiced.
lateral liquid /l/ produced with the tip of the tongue touching the
alveolar ridge (teeth ridge) and air escaping through the two sides of 3.7 Vowels
the tongue and the rolled liquid /r/ which is produced with the tip of
the tongue repeatedly touching the teeth ridge. English has twenty vowels. Twelve of them are single sounds or
monophthongs. Monophthongs are also referred to as pure vowels. Eight of
the English vowels are double sounds or diphthongs. Vowels are produced 8. /ᴜ/ as in could, cook, pull
without any audible obstruction of the speech tract by the organs of 9. /u: / as in two, stool, through
production. They are characterised by vocal cord vibration or voice. The tongue 10. / ɚ/ as in much, love, blood
and the lips are the most important organs of production of vowels. Vowels 11. /3: / as in girl, early, bird
are therefore described according to the part of the tongue used in its 12. / ‫ כ‬/ as in again, water, director
production and the height to which the tongue is raised towards the hard
palate. The other criterion of description is the posture of the lips. In vowel 3.10 English Diphthongs
production, the lips can be rounded or spread or neutral.
1. /aɪ / as in fight, rhyme, eye
3.8 Description of Vowels 2. /au/ as in house, now, couch
3. /eə/ as in late, tail, day
A vowel can be described as 4. /oᴜ/ as in so, home, know
(i) Front: If produced using the front of the tongue e.g. /i: / 5. /‫כ‬ɪ/ as in oil, joy, destroy
(ii) Back: If produced using the back of the tongue e.g /a: / 6. /ɪə/ as in here, ear, atmosphere
(iii) Central: If produced using the middle of the tongue e.g. / ə/ 7. /3ə / as in air, tear, affair
8. /ᴜə/ as in poor, tour, sure
Considering the height to which the tongue is raised towards (but not touching
the roof of the mouth), a vowel can be described as: 3.11 English Triphthongs

(i) Close: If the tongue is raised very high towards the palate e.g. /i: / English also has triphthongs but these occur in careful and slow
(ii) Open: If the tongue is lowered and lying flat in the mouth e.g. pronunciations. A triphthong can be described as a combination of three vowel
/a: / sounds pronounced together one after the other. For example a careful
(iii) Half-Open or Half-Close: If the tongue lies halfway between the pronunciation of the vowel in the word ‘tower’ begins with the sound /a/and a
two extremes. quick smooth movement to the vowel /u/ and ends with the vowel / / ; thus / a
u /. In English, there are five triphthongs. These are:
When considering the posture of the lips a vowel can be described as
(i) Rounded: if the vowel is produced with rounded lips e.g. /u: / 1. /aɪə / as in fire, tyre
(ii) Unrounded: if the vowel is produced with spread or neutral lip 2. /auə / as in tower, flower
posture e.g. /e/ and /a/ 3. /e3ə/ as in layer, player
4. / auə/ as in sower, lower
It is important to know the part of the tongue and the tongue height as 5. / æə / as in loyal, royal
well as the lip posture of a particular vowel in order to be able to produce the
vowel properly. As already noted, it is only the slow and careful English speaker whose
speech can feature these complex vowels. In rapid or normal speech
3.9 English Monophthongs triphthongs are often reduced to long vowels and diphthongs with the middle
vowel heard slightly or not at all.
English monophthongs are conventionally numbered 1 – 12 as follows:
1. /i: / as in leap, people, seed 4.0 SUMMARY
2. /ɪ / as in lip, sit, village In this unit the following main points have been made:
3. /e / as in fed, friend, bed  Speech sounds are vibrations produced by the human organs of
4. /æ/ as in fan, anniversary speech;
5. /a: / as in father, heart, arm  The study of speech sounds and their properties is called phonetics
6. /ɑ / as in hot, watt, wander while the study of the sounds of a particular language is known as
7. /o: / as in wash, cord, war phonology
  Speech sounds are produced when exhaled air passes through the A sound segment which causes a change in meaning when replaced
various speech organs and are modified by them on their journey by another segment is said to be significant, contrastive or distinctive. Such a
outside through the mouth and sometimes the nose. speech sound may be referred to as a phoneme. Hyman (1975, p. 59) defines
 All human speech sounds can be classified into two broad groups: the phoneme as ‘a minimal unit of sound capable of distinguishing words of
vowels and consonants different meanings. For instance, the following English words: beat, bat and
 Vowels are produced without obstruction to the air in the vocal tract bet are made up of three sounds: beat /bi:t/, bat /bæt/, bet / bet/ but they are
while consonants are produced with obstruction at some point of the different words because of the difference in the middle sound. Similarly, in the
vocal tract words road / r ud / and load / l ud / the difference in meaning of the two words
 English has 44 sounds: 20 vowels and 24 consonants. lies in the difference between the two initial sounds /r/ and /l/. The sounds /i:,
 Consonants are described according to organ of production, manner æ, e, r, l, / are therefore phonemes in English.
of production and whether they are voiced or voiceless The phoneme is also the smallest unit of speech in all languages. In
 Vowels are described according to the part of the tongue used in its French for instance, the difference between the two words: fille (girl) and ville
production i.e whether front, central or back; the height to which the (town) lies in the replacement of / f/ with /v/. Similarly, in Hiligaynon, the two
tongue is raised towards the roof of the mouth; that is whether raised words hisa (envy) and hita (thigh) are different in meaning because of the
high up or pressed down low and the posture of the lips during difference in the middle sound. A way to determine whether a particular sound
production i.e. whether rounded or neutral or spread. is a phoneme or not is to substitute that sound for another in two words which
have the same spelling like the words load and road. The words which are
5.0 QUESTIONS: identical in this way are referred to as minimal pairs. Thus, the words road and
1. Describe how human speech sounds are produced. load; coat and goat; tin and sin; are minimal pairs.
2. Differentiate between vowels and consonants. Each language in the world has its own number of phonemes and uses
them differently from other languages. But within the same language, a
3. How many vowels and consonants are there in the English Language? particular speech sound (phoneme can be realized differently due to, among
other factors, its position in a word or utterance. Experience shows that it is
not possible for the same sound to be pronounced in the same way many
times even by the same person. In the following words: peak, speak, and reap
the pronunciations of the sound /p/ are not the same. In peak, the /p/ is
UNIT 4 pronounced with a puff of air (aspirated); in speak the /p/ is unaspirated while
in reap the final /p/ is not released. The different phonetic realizations of a
THE SYLLABLE STRUCTURE IN ENGLISH phoneme are referred to as allophones. In the above examples the
phoneme /p/ has three different realizations or allophones: the initial or
aspirated /p/, the medial or unaspirated /p/ and the final or unreleased /p/. To
an English speaker, the phoneme he hears is /p/. The difference in quality is
1.0 INTRODUCTION due to the position where the sound occurs in the word. When sounds
combine to form syllable, words and sentences, it is the phonemes that take
part in such combinations.
2.0 OBJECTIVES
When you speak you produce a string of noises which is perceived as
a continuous flow of sound. This continuous flow is meaningful to anyone who At the end of this unit you should be able to
understands. For instance, the English word pen is made up of three sound
 Explain the terms phonemes and allophones;
segments; /p, e, n/. If the middle sound is replaced with other sounds e.g. /e, ɪ,
 Illustrate how speech sounds combine to form syllables and words;
æ / we can have words like pain, pin and pan. Human speech can be broken
 Define the syllable; and
down into units called sounds. Each unit of sound is a segment. When
 Describe the structure of the syllable in English.
segments are put together, they form words and utterances.
3.0 MAIN CONTENT
 syllables which are made up of just one vowel sound but a consonant sound
3.1 The Nature of the Syllable alone cannot make a syllable. In cases where a syllable has no vowel sound to
function as a nucleus some special consonants, because of their sonorous
The syllable has been explained as the smallest unit of language which can nature, can function as the nucleus of a syllable. They are called syllabic
be pronounced with one breath. It is made up of a vowel with or without one consonants. The common syllabic consonants of English are /l/ and /n/ which
or more consonant sounds. When we looked at the sounds of English, it was are sonorous like vowel sounds as in the following: mutton / mᴜtn/. In other
shown that it was possible to say whether a particular sound was a vowel or words, the second syllable of this word has no vowel nucleus. The letter ‘o’ is
consonant on phonetic grounds; that is, in relation to whether the passage of omitted in pronunciation.
air from the lungs to the outside was obstructed or not; or phonologically in
terms of their different distributions and descriptions. Similarly, a syllable may 3.2 The Structure of the English Syllable
be defined phonetically or phonologically. Phonetically, a syllable may be
defined (in relation to how it is produced or how it sounds) as consisting of a As already mentioned, the syllable has a structure; it is made up of the
centre which has little or no obstruction to the air flow and therefore sounds onset (or beginning), the nucleus (or middle) and the coda (or end). The
louder than the end of the syllable where there are greater obstruction to the consonants occupy the onset and coda parts while the nucleus is occupied by
airflow and consequently less loud sounds. The centre of the syllable is called vowels and syllabic consonants. The nucleus is the obligatory part of the
the nucleus the beginning is called the onset while the end is called the coda. syllable, thus there are as many syllables as there are vowels in an utterance.
What might be called a minimum syllable would be a single vowel in The onset and the coda are optional parts. Four possibilities of syllabic
isolation as for example in the words are /a:ɪ /; or /ɪ: ‫כ‬/ and which are preceded structure may occur in a language. One may have ONC (onset, nucleus, coda);
and followed by silence. Some syllables have onset; that is the nucleus is not NC (nucleus, coda); ON (onset, nucleus) and N (nucleus). All four possibilities
preceded by silence but by a consonant sound as in so /s‫כ‬u/ and tea /ti:/. Some occur in English. A syllable that has a coda is called a closed syllable whereas
syllables have no onset but a coda as in arm /a:m/; ought /‫כ‬:t/ and more one that lacks it is called an open syllable.
/mo:/.Some syllables have the onset, nucleus and coda as in sat /sæt/ , run Apart from the above structure which is done in terms of the phonetic
/rən/ and fan /fæn/ . analysis of the syllable, the structure of an English syllable can be described
The main problem about this phonetic description of the syllable is phonologically in terms of the distribution of vowels and consonants. Thus, a
deciding where to divide the syllable. Syllable boundary has been an issue syllable may be made up of a vowel alone e.g oh /‫כ‬u/. This may be represented
where there is no agreement. An example is the word extra /ekstrə/ where the thus V. We may also have a consonant and a vowel as in tea /ti:/. The structure
following suggestions have been given: e+kstrə, ek+strə, eks+trə, ekst+rə and here is CV where “C” stands for consonant and “V” for vowel.
ekstrə +. Normally the second or third option is the usual choice but it is not Taking the consonants at the initial positions first, we may have one
possible to say which one is correct. Looking at the syllable from the consonant initially as in fee /fi: /. We can also have two consonants in initial
phonological point of view proves more useful. This involves looking at the position. These are of two main kinds: first “s” followed by one of /p, t, k, f, n, l,
possible ways the English phonemes combine. It is useful to begin with trying w, j / as in speak, stay, sky, sphere, small, snail, sleep, swear, suit. Second, we
to understand what the constructions are in the initial position of English can have one of /p, t, k, b, d, g, f, v, m, n/ followed by one of /l, r, w, j/. Thus,
syllables. Usually, we find that the syllable can begin with a vowel or with one we may have: play, try, cry, bread, dress, music, new, among others. Finally,
or two or three consonants. No syllable begins with more than three we can have three consonants initially. Here we have /s/ followed by /p, t, k/
consonants. Similarly, we can look at how a syllable ends. Usually, it can end followed by one of / r, j, l, w/which may be explained as vowel-like sounds.
with a vowel or one or two or three (and in rare cases) four consonants. No Examples of words with three initial consonants are: spring, string, screw,
syllable ends with more than four consonants. spurious, stupid, skewer, split, squash. Of these, the sequence /spj/ is not very
Let us recapitulate. A syllable can be described as a unit of speech made common.
up of a vowel with or without one or more consonant sounds. Sounds combine In the final positions we may have one consonant finally as in, face bed,
to form syllables. For instance, in English the word, /g ut/, three sounds:/g/, tape. We may also have two consonants finally as in cats, sweets and hens.
/u/ and /t/ combine to form a syllable, goat, which is also a word. This is a Three consonants may also occur in the final position in words like: facts,
monosyllabic word. Syllables also combine to form words. Some are disyllabic bounds, plunged. Lastly, in the final positions we can have more than three
(two syllables); trisyllabic (three syllables) and polysyllabic (four or more consonants mainly because /s/ or /z/ has to be added to most nouns to form
syllables). Note that every syllable must contain a vowel sound. There are
plurals; and /t/ or /d/ to form past time as in prompts /prəmpts/ and asked
/æskt/. 1. What is a phoneme?
The above information on the structure of the syllable in English may be 2. What do you understand by the term syllable?
summarized thus; 3. Explain the terms, onset, nucleus and coda and how they combine to
1 2 3 form the syllable in English.
Are 0 V O
Car C V O
At 0 V C
Cat C V C
Star CC V O
Start CC V C
Stray CCC V O
Stretched CCC V CC
Strengths CCC V CCC
Prompts CC V CCCC

We therefore have (C ) (C ) ( C ) V (C ) (C ) (C ) ( C ) C0-3 V C0-4 showing the

vowel as the compulsory element.

4.0 SUMMARY

The following are the main points raised in this unit:

 Human speech can be broken down into units called sounds which
can be put together to form syllables, words and utterances. UNIT 5
 When sounds combine to form syllables and words it is the phonemes
that take part in such combinations NON-SEGMENTAL FEATURES OF
 A phoneme is the smallest sound segment that is significant and can
cause a change in meaning if replaced by another sound. ENGLISH
 Variations of a phoneme are called allophones; allophones do not
cause a change in meaning if replaced by another allophone
 A syllable consists of the onset, nucleus and coda if explained
phonetically 1.0 INTRODUCTION
 Phonologically, an English syllable is made up of vowels and
consonants. English phonology, like the phonology of any language, is made up of
 A maximum of three consonants can occur in initial position in the both segmental and non-segmental phonemes. English non segmentals include
syllable in English while a maximum of four consonants can occur at accentuation, rhythm and intonation. These, like segmentals, affect shades of
the final position. meaning and at times cause a breakdown of understanding when not properly
 Every syllable contains a nucleus which occupies the centre of the used.
syllable; where there is no vowel, a syllabic consonant function like
the nucleus of the syllable.
 The structure of the syllable in English can be represented with the
formula: C0-3 V C0-4. 2.0 OBJECTIVES

5.0 QUESTIONS: By the time you complete this unit you should be able to:
  Describe the components of accentuation and how they operate in the word. There are, however, some English words of two syllables with the
English; primary stress on both syllables. Here are some examples:
 Identify the components of rhythm and explain how they operate in
English. 'out'side 'down'stairs
 Describe English intonation tunes and how they function in English. ' in'doors 'four'teen

3.0 MAIN CONTENT Some English words of two syllables have stress on the first syllable
when they are nouns or adjectives and on the second syllable when they
3.1 Accentuation function as verbs as in the following examples:

Accentuation comprises stress, duration and prominence. Simply put, 'present pre'sent
‘stress is the prominence or emphasis given to certain syllables in words when 'record re'cord
they are uttered’ (Udofot & Eshiett 1993: 34). Syllables given such prominence 'progress pro'gress
or emphasis are said to be stressed or accented. Duration, on the other hand, 'convert con'vert
is the timing utilized in the articulation of a syllable as a result of the nature of 'suspect sus'pect
the vowel length and syllable structure. For instance, long vowels appear 'protest pro'test
longer in open syllables and shorter in closed syllables. The vowel sounds in 'increase in'crease
the three words: fee, and feel are the same but because of the nature of the 'conduct con'duct
syllable the vowel /i: / sounds longer in fee than in feel because fee has an 'insult in'sult
open syllable structure while feel has a closed syllable structure. 'reject re'ject
In pronouncing words, some syllables are given more attention and You need to take note of the fact that not every word of two syllables
said with more force. These are called stressed or accented syllables. The sign behave in this way. Only a couple of them exhibit this pattern of stress shift.
[‘] is conventionally used to show such syllables. The sign is placed immediately Some speakers of English over-generalize this rule and extend it to words like
before the syllables e.g. 'nation, e'leven, 'family, re'lation. Any English word of address, mistake which are pronounced with the stress on the second syllable
more than one syllable has at least one stress. In English, the stress pattern is for both nouns and verbs. Since stress in English cannot be shifted at will it is
fixed and should be learnt with the word. important to learn the stress pattern of a new word each time a new word is
encountered.
3.2 Word Stress In words of more than two syllables (polysyllabic words) only one
primary stress is given. Some polysyllabic words can have one or more
In speech, words of one syllable e.g. ‘come’ are normally stressed secondary stress in addition. It is important to note that prefixes and suffixes
when spoken in isolation. When they appear in a sentence, they may or may are hardly ever stressed. Your dictionary should help you to determine where
not be stressed. Words of two syllables have one primary stress which may the stress should occur. Examine the following:
occur at either the first or second syllable as for example in:
'calculate al'ready edu'cation
'blackboard a'way 'hospital em'barrass elec'tricity
'teacher im'prove 'photogragh in'evitable eco'nomic
'English be'long 'injury de'termine advan'tageous
'easy suc'cess 'absolute con'gratulate indivi'duality
'very re'move
Note that in the examples above, the words in the first column have Note that the secondary stress is marked with a stroke below the
their primary stress on the first syllable. In the second column the words have syllable on which it occurs.
their primary stress on the second syllable. There are no hard and fast rules as
to where stress occurs in words. The stress disposition of a word is learnt with 3.3 Sentence Stress
 When words are in company not all categories of words are stressed. isochronous (i.e. of equal length). The stressed syllables together with any
The types of words often stressed in a sentence are the content words: nouns, number of unstressed syllables between the stressed ones form a rhythm
verbs, adjectives, adverbs and the demonstratives and negative markers. group. English and German are examples of languages with stress-timed
Pronouns, articles, auxiliary verbs, prepositions and conjunctions are not rhythm. The utterances of a syllable timed language, on the other hand, can be
normally stressed except for emphasis. In the following examples only, the segmented into parts but the unit of segmentation is the syllable which can be
categories of words specified above are given prominence: stressed or unstressed. It is therefore the number of syllables that determine
the duration of an utterance in a syllable timed language. Ibibio, Yoruba and
French are examples of languages with a syllable timed rhythm. In the
She 'got him 'out of it. following illustration:
I 'want a 'pen 'not a 'pencil.
Do you 'like ‘rice? I 'want a 'pen (English – stress timed).
‘A ‘yin ‘e ‘ka ‘m ‘mi (Ibibio – syllable timed).
Note that in the first example the verb and the adverb are stressed. In
the second example, the verb, the nouns and the negative marker only are In the first (English) utterance, there are two feet each with a stressed
stressed while in the last sentence the main verb and the noun are stressed. syllable. It takes the same time to say I want as it takes to say a pen. In the
The other structural words in the sentence are not stressed. second utterance (Ibibio) all the syllables are stressed and it takes the same
time to say each one of them. The syllables are thus of equal length just as the
feet in a stress timed language are of equal duration. That is the main
3.4 Contrastive Stress difference between a stress timed and a syllable timed rhythm.
It has already been stated in the above section that only certain Rhythm in English is created by the tendency of stressed syllables to
categories of words are given prominence in a sentence. It is however possible occur at roughly equal intervals of time. A stressed syllable together with any
to stress any word (including those that normally should not be stressed) if a unstressed syllables that follow it, form a rhythm unit. In the utterance / ‘b ut
meaning is intended or when the speaker wants to call attention to a particular ɔv ð əm 'left '3:li/ (both of them left early) each rhythm unit is pronounced
word. In this case the word that is stressed becomes the focus of attention. with the same amount of time. Also, the stressed syllables take longer to say
Examine the following: than the unstressed ones. Examine also the following utterance:

'Julia is my daughter (Not Janet). He 'works / in a 'shop/ in the 'market/ with his 'wife.
Julia is 'my daughter (Not yours).
Julia is my ‘daughter (Not a friend). To achieve a proper rhythm, about the same time has to be spent in saying all
the rhythm units. This implies hurrying over the unstressed syllables and
John lives in a 'white house (Not a blue one) spending more time in saying the stressed ones. Note that the stressed
'John lives in a white house (Not Henry) syllables are signalled to the hearer by means of pitch prominence. An
John 'lives in a white house (Not just staying there) utterance containing many content words – nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs
has more accentuation than one having more structural words – pronouns,
Note that only one word is given prominence in the above sentence prepositions, conjunctions. It is the alternation between the prominence given
because of the intended meaning of the speaker. to stressed syllables and lack of prominence of the stressed syllables which
leads to hurrying over unaccented syllables that gives English its rhythm.
3.5 Rhythm Also stressed syllables tend to have the same intervals of time
between them even though the number of unstressed syllables may be
Stress and duration produce rhythm in English. According to different. If there are several unstressed syllables, the rhythm will be fast. If
Abercrombie (1967, p.6) the rhythm of language is produced by the manner in there are no unstressed syllables, the rhythm is slow because the stressed
which stressed and unstressed syllables succeed each other. Languages can syllables are often spoken more slowly. Compare the rhythm of the following
have stress-timed or syllable-timed rhythm. Languages with stress-timed utterances:
rhythm are those whose utterances can be divided into feet which are
 I. The 'boy/ 'jumped. (1977: 108) the expression ‘Thank you’ spoken with a falling tune suggests
The 'lion/ es'caped. genuine gratitude but when spoken with a rising tune only shows politeness or
The 'buffaloes/ 'stampeded. a routine. If one were to receive a favour and use the rising tune, one would be
considered rude.
II. I 'read /the 'book English has two basic tunes: Tune One, which is the falling tune and
He 'looked/ at the 'newspaper Tune Two, which is the rising tune. Tune One starts on a high note and falls on
I 'took/ 'out the/ 'dictionary the last primary stressed syllable. It is used for statements (without
implication) commands, questions which begin with question words and
III. The 'man/ 'drove a/ 'car. exclamations as in the following:
The 'headmaster/ was 'riding/ a 'bicycle.
The 'schoolchildren/ were 'listening/ to the 'radio. 1. My brother bought a new car. (statement)
2. Sit down. (command)
3. What is your name? (Wh-question)
3.6 Intonation 4. What a pretty girl you are! (Exclamation)
The rising tune is used for Yes/No questions, lists, mixed clauses and additional
In natural languages, utterances are spoken with changes in the voice remarks, pitch contrast, keywords as in the following examples:
level or pitch. This tendency of the voice to rise and fall is called tone when it
relates to a word and intonation when it relates to sentences or utterances of 5. Will you go to church next Sunday?
sentence status. A language that uses pitch on words is called a tone language 6. She sweeps the floor, dusts the chairs cleans the louvers and
while a language with pitch variation on sentences is called an intonational washes clothes on Saturday.
language. These variations in pitch are usually significant. Variations in tone 7. When he gets his salary, he goes to his village to see his
result in changes in the meaning of words while variations in intonation results family
in changes in the shades of meaning of the sentences concerned. Similarly, in 8. Can I come in please, she asked politely.
English, the expression ‘thank you’ if said with a falling tune shows gratitude 9. My car is grey, not blue
but if said with a rising tune shows a casual acknowledgement of something 10. You gave him your consent, didn’t you?
not very important or someone whose duty it was to do a job for which he was
thanked. If used in the wrong situation it could show impoliteness or Note also that the falling tune starts on a high note and falls at the last stressed
ingratitude (O’Connor, 1977:108). syllable and continues to fall while the rising tune starts on a low note and rises
at the last stressed syllable and continues to rise.
Intonation Tunes
4.0 SUMMARY
Intonation describes variations of pitch - the way the voice rises and
falls when we speak (cf Udofot and Eshiett: 1996: 44). English Language has its In this unit the following points have been made:
own melody which results from these characteristic rises and falls at  Every English word of more than one syllable carries a primary stress
appropriate places. If this melody is lacking, the utterance sounds on one of the syllables.
monotonous. Most Philippine dialects are tonal. That means that the voice  Stress is the emphasis on a syllable which makes the syllable
rises and falls on words prominent and louder than the other syllables in the word or
(not sentences or words of sentence status). utterance.
When English is spoken with tones of Filipino dialects it sounds funny  Content words are often stressed in a sentence while structural words
to the native speaker. Also, much attitudinal meaning conveyed by intonation are often not stressed except for emphasis.
in English is lost. Apart from this, intonation has grammatical meaning too in  Rhythm is produced by the manner in which the stressed and
English. A certain tune is used to speak a statement and another one used to unstressed syllables succeed each other.
speak a question and a request. Thus, if one uses the tune used for a  Rhythm in English is created by the tendency of stressed syllables to
statement to speak a request, he may sound rude. According to O’Connor occur at roughly equal intervals of time.
  A stressed syllable together with any unstressed syllables that follow
it form a rhythm unit.
 The stressed syllables take longer to say than the unstressed ones.
 To achieve a proper rhythm, about the same time has to be spent in
saying all the rhythm units. This implies hurrying over the unstressed
syllables.
 Intonation refers to the rise and fall of the voice during speech.
 English has two basic intonation tunes: Tune One which is the falling
tune and Tune Two which is the rising tune.
 Tune One - the falling tune starts on a high note and falls on the last
primary stressed syllable and is used for statements (without
implication) commands, questions which begin with question words
and exclamations.
 Tune Two - the rising tune is used for Yes / No questions, lists, mixed
clauses, additional remarks and for pitch contrast.
 The falling tune starts on a high note and falls at the last stressed
syllable and continues to fall while the rising tune starts on a low note
and rises at the last stressed syllable and continues to rise.

5.0 QUESTIONS

1. Discuss and illustrate any two non-segmental features and how they
function in English.

MODULE 2
 SYNTACTIC STRUCTURE

UNIT 1
Unit 1 Word Classes WORD CLASSES / OPEN CLASS ITEMS
Unit 2 Open class Items
Unit 3 Closed class Items 1.0 INTRODUCTION
Class refers to a set of items with similar characteristics. Items of the
Unit 4 Sentence Structure same class belong to the same unit since they usually have the same structural
possibilities. One can therefore refer to classes of verbs, nouns, adjectives etc.
Unit 5 Sentence Types: Structural and also to their behaviour as a group. For example, verbs act as predicators
while the nouns often operate as head of the nominal group in the structure of
and Functional a clause. Every class also has sub-classes as for instance in the cases of nouns
being countable and uncountable (count and non-count nouns), proper and
Unit 6 Clauses in Sentence abstract while verbs can be transitive, intransitive or linking. According to
Ndimele (1993, p. 25)
Structure
In defining word classes, three major criteria
Unit 7 Group Structure are taken into account. They are the form of
 the word, the meaning of the word and most
importantly the function the word performs in
a larger construction.

In this unit the categorization of English words into classes and subclasses is
done to prepare you for studying their behaviour in larger constructions later.

2.0 OBJECTIVES

At the end of this unit you should be able to:

 List the word classes in English;
 Identify the characteristics of the different classes;
 Describe the functions of the classes of words;
 Identify words when used in different word classes.
  Explain the features of nouns - Conjunctions: Join two words or two groups of words e.g. Esther and
 Describe the functions of nouns James, small but mighty
- Interjections: show emotion or strong feeling e.g alas, hurrah, oh!
3.0 MAIN CONTENT
In addition to the eight-word classes above the following are often added
3.1 Word Classes to the closed system items:
- Articles: used with nouns to show whether the thing or person is a
Words are grouped into two broad classes; namely content words which particular one or just anyone e.g. the book, a pen, an orange.
constitute the open class elements, and structural words which make the - Demonstratives: Used to show the person or thing referred to e.g.
closed class elements. These two can be contrasted thus: this, that, those.

a) Open Class Items Each word class exhibits a set of features or characteristics by which it
Open class items are so named because new items or creations are easily can be easily recognized. These different notions include number (singular /
added to them by inflection or derivation. They are defined in the dictionary as plural), voice (active / passive), degree (positive, comparative and superlative),
lexical items with identifiable meaning. They occur in a succession in a given gender (masculine / feminine), person (first, second and third), case
structure. (nominative, possessive and objective), order of occurrence, connection
Open Class consists of: (subordinating and coordinating), tense (past and non-past).
- Nouns: name a person, place, thing, state, action or quality e.g Akpan, Open classes, like closed classes, are structures that are used to realize
Lagos, pen, laughter sentence elements. Together, they form what is generally referred to as parts
- Verbs: act as predicators; express action, state of being e.g. think, be, of speech. They are also referred to in English as form classes or word classes.
run, feel Some writers use the term open class items. The terms refer to the same thing.
- Adjective: describe, modify, limit the noun, pronoun or another Traditionally, there are eight-word classes known as parts of speech:
adjective e.g. strong man, few hours, limited quantity nouns, pronouns, verbs, adverbs, adjectives, interjections, prepositions and
- Adverbs: modify a verb, adjective or another adverb e.g. think quickly, conjunctions. But a word cannot be said to belong to a particular part of
unusually ugly, very slowly speech unless it is used in a context. This is because one word may perform
different functions. For instance, in the following passage, the word round is
b) Closed Class Items used in five different senses:
Closed class items are also referred to as closed system items.
- They are fixed in number in a given language and do not admit new As I round the building, I
members as you find in the open class items think about the fact that our
- They are defined in terms of structural characteristics round world spins round on
- They are mutually exclusive in the sense that two of them of the same its axis, at the same time
kind cannot function together. For example, you cannot say: The book making a circle round the sun
is in under the table as you can do with closed system items as in: He that result in the round of
is a tall dark man. the seasons.

Closed Class consists of The word round in the above sentence functions first as a verb, next as an
- Pronouns: substitute or take the place of nouns: e.g. he, she, it, they, adjective, then as adverb in the next two occurrences and finally as a noun.
ours, himself
- Prepositions, show the relationship between a noun or pronoun and 3.2 Features and Function of Word Classes
some other word
e.g. Jump over the fence Nouns
Place it on the table One of the most important functions of language is to give names to
Stand beside the table. persons, things, places, groups, qualities, ideas, and concepts that we come
across daily. Nouns perform this function in different dimensions. We have experience/experiences, talk/talks, etc. This overlap is explainable in terms of
John, Mongol, goat, stone, Lagos, America, goodness, progress, civilization, particularization in the count usage and generalization in the non-count usage.
democracy, Olympics, etc. The different types of nouns can be discussed in As a guide, count nouns take the articles ‘a’ and ‘an’ in their singular
pairs: forms and are generally classified into singular and plural forms. Examples of
count and non-count nouns:
Proper versus Common Nouns

A proper noun names particular person (Amy, John), places (La Paz,
California), days of the week (Monday, Tuesday), months of the year (January, Count Non-Count
February), institution (National Open University, World Bank), geographical (Singular Plural) --
features (River Niger, Sierra Madre), and languages (English, French, Cebuano). box boxes oil
All proper nouns begin with capital letters when they are written. boy boys water
Common Nouns on the other hand name persons or things that share ox oxen air
class features or essential general characteristics. These include dog, stone, child children sand
table, boy, teacher, farmer, etc. passer-by passers-by livestock
Common nouns can form a unit or a class that needs to be referred to datum data light
as a complete whole. They refer to a group of people, things etc. This class is city cities luggage
called Collective Nouns. Examples are: a crowd of people, a fleet of ships, a man men imagery
battalion of soldiers, a bevy of ladies, a troupe of dancers, a crew of sailors, a table tables equipment
congregation of worshippers, a team of players, a host of angels, a clutch of house houses accommodation
eggs.

Abstract Versus Concrete Nouns

Abstract Nouns name qualities, states, actions, conditions, emotions

which can neither be touched nor seen. Concrete Nouns name objects and Features of Nouns
substances that exist in the physical world of things.
Nouns are generally identified in terms of their morphological
Abstract Concrete structures, number, gender and case or position in the sentence. We shall now
faith lock look at these briefly.
joy table a) Number
goodness stone Nouns express number (singular and plural). Singular nouns are
confidence bottle usually converted or changed to plural forms by the following rules:
truth key i) Addition of ‘s’ to the singular:
favour book pen - pens girl - girls
sweetness fan boy - boys house - houses
chair - chairs book - books
Count versus Non-Count Nouns thing – things clock - clocks
train - trains table - tables
Count or Countable nouns refer to items that are separable into ii) Addition of ‘es’ to forms that end with ‘s’, ‘z’, ‘ch’, ‘sh’ and x
identifiable or numerable units while Non-Count or Uncountable nouns are box - boxes mattress - mattresses
mass nouns which cannot be expressed in terms of singular and plural. Quirk church - churches branch - branches
and Greenbaum (1980, p.60) state that there is a considerable degree of fox - foxes buzz - buzzes
overlap between count and non-count words as seen in difficulty/difficulties, iii) Replacement of ‘-y’ with ‘-ies’
 city - cities baby - babies hero - heroine bull - cow
party - parties lady - ladies nephew - niece cock - hen
iv) Substitution of ‘-f’ and ‘-fe’ with ‘-ves’ bachelor - spinster peacock - peahen
loaf - loaves wife - wives monk - nun son - daughter
knife - knives leaf - leaves
v) Change of medial vowels Common gender refers to nouns that denote both male and female.
man - men mouse - mice They include reader, teacher, pilot, officer, cook, writer, thinker, dancer,
foot - feet louse - lice scholar, singer, buyer, baby.
vi) Addition of ‘-en’ and ‘-ren’ Neuter gender refers to lifeless things or things that are not capable
child - children of reproduction. Examples: paper, chalk, stone, table, book, house, sun, moon,
ox – oxen death, earth, love, sleep. Some of these items can be poetically expressed in
vii) Addition of ‘-es’ to nouns that end in ‘o’ either the feminine or masculine depending on how strongly the user feels
hero - heroes about them or the prevalent convention in the area.
potato - potatoes
viii) Change of ‘-um’ to ‘-a’ c) Case
datum - data memorandum - memoranda
stratum - strata agendum - agenda This refers to the grammatical slots that nouns can fill in expressions.
curriculum - curricula They include:
ix) Retention of original singular form Nominative Case (subject) e.g. Tom is here
sheep - sheep Accusative Case (object or complement) e.g This is Tom.
deer - deer Give me the book.
swine - swine Possessive Case (ownership or possession) e.g. Rita’s dress, Armand’s car.
x) Change of internal ‘i’ to ‘e’
thesis - theses analysis - analyses Problems related to Nouns
basis - bases crisis - crises
xi) Change of one component of the compound words There are some inherent problems related to the use of nouns in
on-looker - on-lookers step-daughter - step- English. We shall highlight some of them and proffer solutions.
daughters
passer-by - passers-by maid-servant - maid- i) Exceptions to the rules of pluralization (non-pluralization).
servants They are some nouns that only function in mass interpretation. They do
by-law - by-laws going-on - not take determiners that indicate number except another unit of expression is
goings-on applied.
xii) Changes in all components of the compound words Examples:
man-servant - men-servants Information - some information
woman-journalist - women-journalists advice - a piece of advice
lord-justice - lords-justices equipment - some equipment
stationery - items of stationery
b) Gender staff - a member of staff
Nouns occur in different groupings according to sex. Four genders are furniture - pieces of furniture
often identified in English namely Masculine, Feminine, Common and Neuter. soap - tablets of soap
Masculine denotes male, while feminine denotes female.
Man - woman uncle - aunt ii) Summation Pluralisation
stallion - mare wizard - witch
fox - vixen widower - widow
 Occurs in nouns which denote entities comprising parts which sometimes In this unit the following points have been made:
are equal or disproportionate. Those that come in pairs are usually expressed
thus: a pair of trousers, a pair of scissors, a pair of pliers, a pair of spectacles.  The words of a language are often categorized into classes known as
Other nouns which go with ‘s’ include annals, surroundings, remains, form classes or parts of speech.
credentials, earnings, means, dregs, thanks, senses, measles, siblings, metrics,  Traditionally, words in English are often categorized into eight classes:
economics, statistics, antics, damages (in law), etc. nouns, pronouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, prepositions,
conjunctions and interjections.
iii) Problem Plurals:  Some classifications include articles and demonstratives among the
There are some idiomatic patterns that defy the grammatical rules relating word classes.
to nouns. Their plural forms are not expressed with the addition of ‘-s’ but by  Words are grouped into two broad classes namely content words
the use of the definite article or determiner ‘the’. These should be noted: which constitute the open class elements and structural words which
The poor are not recognized. make the closed class elements.
The young shall grow.  Open class items are nouns, verbs, adverbs and adjectives, they admit
The dumb need some help. new members into the group; they are defined as lexical items in a
The aged are kept in welfare homes dictionary and can occur in succession.
The elite are to blame.  Closed class items are fixed in number; they do not admit new
members; they are mutually exclusive.
iv) Choice of articles also constitutes a problem in English.  The noun in English is a member of the Open class; it occurs as
Articles are classified into definite (the) and indefinite (a and an). They singular or plural; masculine, feminine or neuter gender and in the
provide different information about the nouns they modify. The general subjective, objective or possessive case.
principles are as follows:  Nouns also perform certain functions in the sentence: they function as
a) Use ‘a; with countable nouns that begin with a consonant: a book, a subjects, objects, complements, object of prepositions and as
goat, a table, a knife, a man, a woman, etc. appositives.
b) Use ‘an’ with count-nouns that begin with a vowel: an egg, an hour,
an axe, an angel, an afterthought.
c) Use the definite article with items that indicate previous knowledge of
the person, or entity e.g. 5.0 QUESTIONS:
(i) The man on the street is good.
(ii) The book on the shelf is mine. 1. State the characteristics of nouns.
d) Use the definite article also to refer to a specific person, thing, event 2. In your own sentences, illustrate the functions of nouns.
or group e.g. The University of Iloilo, the man whose daughter won
the scholarship, The National Association of Women Academics.

v) Changes in usage also affect patterning of nouns.

Some usages are treated as archaic and are being replaced by some
dynamic alternatives that are adjudged right by convention. Examples are:
data (now used in the singular form)
agenda (now used in the singular form)
stadiums / stadia (used interchangeably)
medium / media (used interchangeably)
forums / fora (used interchangeably) UNIT 2
4.0 SUMMARY OPEN CLASS ITEMS (Part 2)
 Whenever a verb functions alone, it can be said to be the main Verb. On
the other hand, the auxiliary verb is a helping verb which indicates tense or
mood of the main verb. The main verb is always a finite verb and it belongs to
1.0 INTRODUCTION the open class.
Examples of the main verb are:

The verb is a very important word class in any language. It is the word - Bernie sings well.
which says what is happening in the sentence. It can express the action - Tara dances gracefully.
performed by the subject (e.g. eat, say), the state that the subject is in (is, are
be,) and possession (e.g. has, have). It can stand alone and still form a sentence The auxiliary verbs comprise the primary auxiliary verbs (do, have, and
that makes sense as in ‘Sing’. It can also combine with the subject alone as in be) and the modal auxiliary verbs (can/could, shall/should, may/might, must,
They Sing and Birds fly. Verbs are best understood in terms of formations and ought to, used to, need, dare).
forms, tense and aspect, voice and mood. The auxiliary verbs belong to the closed class since they are fixed in
Whereas verbs are predicators or words which express action, number and also are not subject to any form of derivation or inflection. They
adverbs and adjectives are modifiers. Adverbs modify verbs and other adverbs are however used informally in contracted forms:
while adjectives modify nouns and other adjectives.
It is - it’s could not - couldn’t
2.0 OBJECTIVES I am - I’m ought not - oughtn’t
I will - I’ll need not - needn’t
At the end of this unit you should be able to: will not - won’t is not - isn’t
shall not - shan’t are not - aren’t
 Describe features of verbs, adverbs and adjectives; would not - wouldn’t am not - ain’t
 Explain functions of verbs, adverbs and adjectives;
 Identify verbs, adverbs and adjectives when used in a sentence. The auxiliary verb also has the following functions:
1. It is used in Yes-No questions e.g.
3.0 MAIN CONTENT - Will you come tomorrow?
- Can you see him?
3.1 Features and Functions of Verbs 2. It is used in negative constructions.
- She does not misbehave.
i) Formation of Verbs - They were not speaking at the meeting.
By the morphological rule of derivation through affixation, verbs as 3. It is used to avoid unnecessary repetition
members of the open class system can be created from other words with the - You spoke to him, did you?
following morphemes –ize, -ate, -ish, -fy, en-, em-, dis- . - You haven’t seen him, have you?
4. It is used for emphasis or determination
E.g. - She does behave well.
-ize : moral - moralize, real - realize - You must read today.
-ate : vaccine- vaccinate, terminal- terminate
- ish : brand- brandish, embellishment- embellish
- fy : electricity- electrify, magnitude- magnify iii) Tense
- en : danger- endanger, courage- encourage One of the most important functions of the verb is the expression of tense
em - : power- empower, body- embody or time reference. Tense is the correspondence between the form of the verb
dis- : grace-disgrace, guise- disguise and our concept of time. Tense indicates the time of occurrence or completion
of an action. Since time is expressed in terms of ‘before the moment of
ii) Main Verbs and the Auxiliaries speaking’ (past), the moment of speaking (present) and after the moment of
speaking (future); and considering that there are two forms of words to C - This is a deserted house
express this time as, for instance, eat and ate, talk and talked, some linguists
identify only two tenses in English: past and non-past. According to Eka (1994: Recall that finite forms of verbs are the forms that show tense distinction.
97) two types of tenses are often identified from the viewpoint of English This means that they occur in one tense or the other. They are also the forms
morphology (i.e. changes that occur in the shapes of English words). From the that occur as verb elements in sentences, take subjects and agree with the
viewpoint of time reference three types are usually recognized -present, past subjects in person and number. The non-finite forms on the other hand do not
and future. Examine the following: show tense distinction neither do they take subjects nor show agreement.
Examine the verb forms in the following pair of sentences
PRESENT PAST FUTURE
I write I wrote I shall write - She hopes to travel next week (finite verb, has a subject
Simple He writes He wrote He shall write which is she and occurs in the present tense)
They write They wrote They shall write - Hoping to travel next week (Verb in the present participle,
I am writing I was writing I shall be writing non-finite form which cannot take a subject.
Continuous He is writing He was writing He will be writing
They are writing They were writing They will be writing Note that any attempt to introduce a subject in the second sentence will
I am writing I have written I shall be writing produce a sentence like:
He has been writing He had been writing He will have been
writing She hoping to travel next week*
They have been writing They had been writing They will This is an unacceptable sentence.
have been writing
Non-finite forms have other uses. In the examples A-C above they function
I have written I had written I shall have written as other parts of speech. In Example A, to sing is a noun phrase gerund also
Perfective He has written He had written He will have written functioning as a direct object of the verb “likes” while the past participle form
They have written They had written They will have deserted functions as an adjective modifying the noun “house” in Example C.
written

iv) Finite and Non-finite Forms v) Active and Passive Voice

The finite forms of the verb exist in the simple present tense form and the When a verb is in the active voice, the subject is the actor of the verb. The
past form. These are the verb forms that can occur as verb forms in clauses subject performs the action of the verb directly. E.g.
and sentences; can show tense distinction; can take subjects and indicate the
subject - verb agreement e.g. - Okon kicked the ball.
- The congregation praised God.
- They enjoy themselves daily. - The girl killed the rat.
- They enjoyed themselves yesterday.
- He enjoys himself daily. For some reasons, the position of the subject and the object or
complement in the sentence may be reversed with the emphasis removed
The non-finite verb does not have the subject concord notion because it from the one who performs the action to the action itself with the object
neither indicates number nor person. Three types of the non-finite verb can be taking the place of the subject and appearing to be the doer of the action (i.e.
isolated. These are: the infinitive which primarily begins with ‘to’ e.g. to sing, to passive voice). E.g.
laugh, to work; the participle and the gerund.
Examples of non finite forms in sentences are: - The ball was kicked by Okon (Okon still the performer)
- God was praised by (someone/people who performed the
A - He likes to sing. action)
B - They like singing
 The passive voice is used when the speaker or writer wants to direct more It should be noted that whereas the ‘noun’ boy takes ‘s’ to agree with the
attention to the action performed than on who performed the action as in singular form the plural form, the verb ‘goes’ sheds ‘es’ to agree with the plural
subject.
- In March, the land is cultivated
- In April, yams are planted viii) Participles and Gerunds
Participles are verb forms which combine with other verbs to indicate
The passive is therefore a useful aspect of literary or expository style. tense and adjectival functions. Participles are used with the auxiliaries have,
When the active voice is used in everyday speech or writing, the description or has or had to form the perfect tense as in the following:
narration is more lively and real.
- I have given her the book.
vi) Transitive and Intransitive Verb - He has gone to Batangas.
Transitive verbs require objects or complements to make full meaning in a
sentence. Consider the following verbs, buy, kill, sing, give. They cannot convey Gerunds are verbal nouns. They are the present participle forms of verbs.
full meaning unless there are completer elements added to them: They always end in ‘-ing’ e.g.

- They buy clothes monthly. - I like reading.

- Hunters kill animals for sale. - Dancing is my hobby.
- Choristers sing songs of praise. - This is a standing committee.
- We give alms to the poor.

Intransitive verbs denote actions that stop with the doer or subject. There ix) Regular and Irregular Forms
is no need for a receiver of the action. E.g The classification of verbs into regular and irregular forms is based on past
tense and the constituent participle. The regular verbs are also called weak
- Men laugh. verbs while the irregular ones are called strong verbs.
- Children sleep often. The regular verb forms the past tense and past participle by the addition
- The bell rang. of the morphemes ‘ed’ or ‘d’ to the present tense form. E.g.

Some verbs may be transitive and intransitive. E.g. call called

walk walked
- Jesus saves. bake baked.
- Jesus saves souls.
- The bell rang loudly The irregular verb does not take ‘d’ or ‘ed’ in forming the past tense or
- The prefect rang the bell. past participle. One way this is done is the change in the vowel. E.g.

A fuller discussion of transitive and intransitive verbs is made in Unit 4, sing sang sung
Section 5. drive drove driven
vii) Singular and Plural Forms break broke broken
Verbs change forms according to the singular or plural forms of the subject wind wound wound
(subject-verb concord or agreement). Only finite verbs respond to singular and forget forgot forgotten
plural subjects e.g. lend lent lent
The boy goes to school (singular subject). begin began begun
The boys go to school (plural subject).
Some irregular verbs take completely new words in the formation of the
past e.g.
go went gone obvious reality that adverbs always cluster around verbs. In these examples,
do did done the issues are better appreciated:
bid bade bidden
lie lay lain - Bassey dances well.
be was been - Inyang dances extremely well.
- Archibong is really tall.
Other irregular verbs do not change their forms when functioning in the
past; that is, the present and the past forms are the same e.g. In the first example, the adverb of manner “well” modifies the verb
‘dances’. In the second illustration, ‘extremely’, an adverb of degree modifies
put put put “well” while in the third example, the adjective ‘tall” is modified by the adverb
let let let “really”. There are many other potential formations like these in English.
burst burst burst
cut cut cut i) Formation of Adverbs
These affixes are used in forming adverbs
x) Stative and Dynamic Forms - ly : exactly, quietly, extremely
Dynamic verbs show action, event or process (Eka, 1996, p. 123). These - wise : clockwise, moneywise
verbs take the progressive aspect which indicates that an action is continuing -ward : forward, backward
through time e.g. a - : away, aside, afloat, afield

- He is eating, drinking and talking. Many adverbs do not have any affixes and should be distinguished from
- They are watching the film. adjectives. Though they may look alike on the surface, syntactically, they
perform different functions e.g. fast, near
Stative verbs do not pattern with the –ing progressive marker. They only - He runs fast
indicate the state of affairs of the entity without showing any continuity. E.g. - His wedding day is drawing near.

- He is resembling his father. (wrong) ii) Degrees of Adverbs

- He resembles his father (right) Adverbs are compared in degrees: positive degree, comparative degree
- They are hating him (wrong) and superlative degree. Examine the following:
- They hate him (right)
- I am feeling cold (wrong) Positive Comparative Superlative
- I feel cold (right) soon sooner soonest
fast faster fastest
Other stative verbs are: possess, understand, belong, smell, seem, hear, far farther farthest
wish, taste, agree, flash, faint, collapse, die, contain, have. aloud more aloud most aloud

3.2 Features and Functions of Adverbs iii) The Position of Adverbs

Adverbs can occur in a sentence initially, medially and finally. According to
Adverbs modify verbs, adjectives and other adverbs, just as adjectives Ndimele (1993: 117), one quality of adverbials of manner is that they can be
modify nouns and nominals. Adverbs answer the questions: Where? When? shifted from one position to another without affecting the grammaticality of
How? and Why? They indicate place, time, manner and degree. the sentence. This can be illustrated thus:
The fact that adverbs modify adjectives and other adverbs sometimes
sound difficult to learners of English, who are made to believe that adverbs - Certainly, I know him.
only specify the mode of action of verbs. The difficulty is strengthened by the - I certainly know him.
- I know him certainly.
 - ish : boyish, childish, mannish
Eka, (1996:149) also observes that even though all the above positions (of - ous : virtuous, riotous, dangerous
the adverb) are known to occur in English utterances it would appear that the - ary : salutary, rotatary, consolatary
one that seems particularly true to the nature of adverbs is the medial -an : Elizabethan, Spartan
position. - ful: hopeful, thankful, faithful
- y : healthy, filthy
iv) Classes of Adverbs -some : loathsome, troublesome,
Adverbs are classified according to functions. - less : faithless, motionless, stainless
- ory : sensory, provisory
(a) Interrogative Adverbs are often used at the beginning of a sentence - able : punishable, workable, movable
to ask a question e.g. - ive : interactive, elective, inventive
- When did you return? - esque: picturesque, grotesque
- How do I put the items together? - ate : affectionate, temperate, desperate
- Where did you keep my book? - al : national, natural, international
(b) Adverbs of Degree answer the question: ‘to what extent’? They - ic : ironic, economic, electronic
mostly modify adjectives and other adverbs, rarely verbs. - like : childlike, manlike
- The man is too slow. - ly : likely, stately, scholarly
- He walks very fast. - ible : sensible, accessible
- She reads till late. - able : movable, readable
(c) Adverbs of Place indicate the location of actions. Some of these
adverbs resemble nouns by nature but their functions are essentially ii) Attributive and Predicative Adjectives
adverbial. They are sometimes called nouns used as adverbs. Syntactically, adjectives can occur before the nominal they describe or
Examples: modify. E.g.
- I am coming home.
- He is going there. - The beautiful girl is here.
(d) Adverbs of Time denote the interval of occurrence of actions. - The clean clothes were ironed.
E.g.
- We trekked all day. Some adjectives occur in the predicate part of the sentence following a
- Let us meet tomorrow. linking verb to describe a nominal in the subject part of the sentence. These
are predicative adjectives e.g.
3.3 Features and Functions of Adjectives
- The woman is beautiful
Things, persons, entities need to be distinguished, differentiated, - The boy is courageous.
limited, specified or described so as to aid our understanding. We ask the
questions: What kind? Which one? How many? For example, we can say a tall According to Ndimele (1993: 102-103), some adjectives can function both
man, this orange or four goats. The words that precede the nouns and also attributively and predicatively e.g.
modify or amplify their meaning are called adjectives.
Generally, adjectives state the attributes or characteristics of nominals - The hungry man is here.
(nouns, pronouns, and noun phrases). Adjectives as modifiers make language - This man is hungry.
lively as they help us to give precise pictures of what we are referring to. - The genuine reason is offered.
- The reason is genuine.
i) Formation of Adjectives
Adjectives take the following affixes iii) Regular and Irregular Adjectives (Comparisons)
 Things and persons that may attract the same adjective or modifier are
not necessarily always the same. They may differ in their degree of quality. iv) Domains of Adjectives
Adjectives exhibit the positive level where no comparison is made as well as These include:
the comparative and superlative degrees of description. The comparative 1. Colour : red, blue, yellowish, forest green, sky-blue
degree is used when two entities are involved while the superlative degree is 2. Shape : oval, triangular, spherical, awkward, round
applied when more than two entities are compared. 3. Age : new, old, young, aged, archaic, weary
4. Height : tall, short, high, low, sky-high
E.g. 5. Weight : light, heavy, in units (kilograms)
- Tito is tall. 6. Interrogation: which book? whose hand?
- Toto is taller than Tito. 7. Number : first, second, one, three
- Tata is the tallest of them. 8. Demonstration : this, that, these, those
9. Composition : sandy, wooden, earthen, watery
As a guide, many monosyllabic adjectives (adjectives with one sound
units) take the ‘er’ and ‘est’ morphemes to form the comparative and v) Nouns Used as Adjectives
superlative forms. These are called Regular or Variable Adjectives. Some nouns in their original or possessive forms can express syntactic
adjectival functions e.g. Christmas party, John’s book, College students,
Examples: summer clothes, etc.
Positive Comparative Superlative
large larger largest vi) Order of Adjectives
tall taller tallest Adjectives can occur in a stretch indicating (a) quality, (b) temperature,
short shorter shortest (c) size, (d) shape (e), colour (f) participials, (g) nationality, (h) nominal
quick quicker quickest. adjective and the headword. This order a-h is only necessary if all the items are
present otherwise only those which occur are indicated in constructions as in:
Some disyllabic and almost all adjectives of three or more syllables are
compared by the use of ‘more’ or ‘most’. Degrees of inferiority may be - A very beautiful rich tall black Nigerian woman
indicated by the use of ‘less’ and ‘least’. These are called invariables Examine - A rich intelligent bare-footed Asian traveller
the following:
Eka (1994: 137) suggests that the order of occurrence of adjectives can
handsome more handsome most handsome easily be determined through a consideration of aspects which strike the
useful more useful most useful observer immediately, followed by those which are comparatively less easy to
dangerous more dangerous most dangerous notice. This position is acceptable from the semantic perspective where
meaning is uppermost in the mind of the user.
A group of adjectives described as irregular adjectives also occur. They
include: 4.0 SUMMARY
good better best
little less least In this unit the following points have been made:
bad worse worst
 The verb is the predicator element in the sentence; it expresses the
Some adjectives cannot be logically compared since the qualities they action performed or the state of the subject.
denote operate in the highest possible level or in absoluteness; their meaning  Verbs can be derived through affixation; they can occur as main or
indicates totality e.g. perfect, empty, mortal, blind, wrong, childless, auxiliary, finite or non-finite, transitive or intransitive forms.
motherless, supreme, omnipotent, fatal, hopeless. One cannot say for instance  Verbs also exhibit features like tense, aspect and voice.
that Sarah is more childless than Esther or that the pot is emptier than the  Some verb forms (participles and gerunds) perform the functions of
basin. other parts of speech.
  Verbs are classified as regular if they form the past tense with the closed class namely: prepositions, conjunctions, pronouns, and interjections.
addition of -d or –ed morpheme or irregular if they change a sound or Generally, these elements have a fixed form in English, they are neither
the whole form of the word; as dynamic if they occur in the inflectionally nor derivationally changeable.
progressive form or stative if they do not.
 Adverbs modify verbs, other adverbs or adjectives; they can be 2.0 OBJECTIVES
derived from other words by the addition of the morphemes –ly,
-ward, -wise. After studying this unit, you should be able to:
 Adverbs occur initially, finally or medially in clauses/ sentences.  Define the features of prepositions, pronouns, conjunctions and
 Adverbs are compared in degree: positive, comparative and interjections;
superlative.  Identify prepositions, pronouns, conjunctions and interjections in
 Adverbs are classified according to functions; thus, we can have sentences.
adverbs of time, adverb of place, degree etc.  Use them in sentences.
 Adjectives precede nouns and also modify or amplify their meaning.
 Like adverbs, adjectives can be derived from other words, and they 3.0 MAIN CONTENT
can also be compared.
 Adjectives can occur in a stretch indicating (a) quality, (b) 3.1 Features and Functions of Preposition
temperature, (c) size, (d) shape (e), colour (f) participials, (g)
nationality, (h) nominal adjective before the headword. The root of this word ‘position’ strongly indicates the meaning and
primary function of the preposition. It is used to indicate the positional
5.0 QUESTIONS: relationship between words in a construction.
Prepositions are ‘hooks’ for making modifiers of nouns and pronouns.
Give the word class and the functions of the underlined words in the A preposition is always accompanied by its object or complement (a noun or a
following passage. pronoun) which it ‘hooks’ to some other parts of a sentence.
Examine these sentences:
A few years past, an errant lunatic was
knocked down by an unknown motorist. He - They live in a bungalow near the village.
was spotted half- dead after a torrential rain - They live in a bungalow in the village.
that had lasted a whole day. The discovery was - They live in a bungalow beyond the village.
instantly reported to the police. When the
police came, it was not to help the injured man The underlined words connect the nouns ‘bungalow’ and ‘village’ to
who was still groaning from his pains, but to other parts of the sentence and also express different relationships between
arrest suspects and put them in a waiting van. them. The sentences are essentially the same in all other respects except in the
difference in meaning attributable to the different prepositions in use.
Therefore, as against the common consideration that prepositions merely link
UNIT 3 words in a sentence, they actually in addition influence the meaning of the
sentence.
CLOSED CLASS ITEMS
i) Simple and Complex Prepositions
Though most prepositions are simple, consisting of single words, there are
other prepositions which are complex, consisting of many words. Simple
1.0 INTRODUCTION prepositions include the following:
above before for since
So far, we have discussed the elements in the open class namely: about behind into toward
nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs. We shall now consider the items in the across below inside through
 after beneath into under In some wh-constructions, exclamations, passive forms and infinitive
against between near up patterns, prepositions may come after the object/complement.
among by of with Some scholars, especially traditional grammarians tend to oppose
around down off within constructions that end with prepositions like those ones, but this argument is
unnecessary since prepositions, like adverbs, can occur at different positions in
ii) Prepositional Idioms a construction. Of course, the principles of formal and informal usages may
The complex prepositions are also called phrasal verbs, prepositional come in handy here.
idioms or prepositional patterns because they are collocative and most times a
change in the preposition completely alters the meaning of the construction. iv) Functions of Prepositions
Prepositions indicate:
e.g.
- Round off - to end i) relationship in space
- Round on - to attack verbally - The cat is near the ball.
- Round about - encircle - This is home away from home.
- Round up - put together ii) location
- The house is beside the hill.
Complex prepositions occur in: - The knife is in the kitchen.
iii) direction
a) Preposition + Nominal + Preposition e.g. in the company of, by - He walked along the street.
means of, in comparison with, in addition to, in place of, in love - The water is flowing downward.
with. iv) duration of a motion
b) Adverbial (Adverb) + Preposition e.g. along with, instead of, apart - The programme is on.
from. - I will sleep at dawn.
c) Verb, Adjective, Conjunction + Preposition e.g. but for, owing to, v) sequence
far from, due to. - A comes before B.
- Call gentlemen after ladies.
Quirk and Greenbaum (1979:145) notes generally that: vi) position (support or opposition)
i) the monosyllabic simple prepositions are normally unstressed in - I will stand by you.
constructions while the polysyllabic prepositions, both simple and - I am against him.
complex, are normally stressed. In complex prepositions, the vii) purpose or intention
stress falls on the word preceding the final preposition. Such - This money is for food.
words are adverbs or nouns. - Everyone needs someone to lean on.
ii) the preposition + nominal + preposition constitutes by far the
most numerous categories, the noun in some complex v) Special Usages of Prepositions
prepositions being preceded by a definite or indefinite article.
1. We travel by sea, land or air.
iii) Postponed Prepositions 2. a. I will see you at 8 o’clock (point of time)
These are patterns which tend to defy the notion that prepositions come b. I will see you at night.
before their objects. E.g. c. I will see you on June 12 (specific day)
d. I will see you in December (not specific)
- What a problem he got into? e. The meeting will commence at 2‘Oclock (Exactly)
- He is a difficult person to talk to or compliment. f. The meeting will commence by 2’Oclock (at or before)
3. I have known him for two years (length of time)
4. Divide this orange between Simon and Ella (two)
 Divide this orange among Simon, Ella and Tonyo (three) 3rd person singular he, she, it him, her, it his, hers, its
5. Stay beside me (near) 3rd person plural they them their
Besides, I need him (also, in addition to your plan)
6. We met on the train, bus, boat or plane. Of these, the most troublesome is the second person which is the
7. I will see you with regard to the journey. same in the singular and plural forms as well as the subject and object
8. I agree with you on the plan. cases. It does not also show gender. This should be particularly noted.
I agree to for traveling tomorrow. b) Relative Pronouns feature in (relative or adjectival clauses). They
9. Let’s see about 3.00 p.m. (approximately) include who, what, which, whom, whose, that, whoever, whichever.
Relative pronouns show contrasts. Usually, ‘who’ and ‘whom’ refer to
3.2 Features and Functions of Pronouns persons while ‘which’, ‘what’ and that refer to things.
c) Interrogative Pronouns are used in asking questions in the
Pronouns belong to the closed class or system of words because like subjective, objective or genitive cases. E.g.
the prepositions, they are fixed in number. The major function of the pronoun
is to substitute nominals (nouns and noun phrases) in order to avoid who are you?
monotonous repetition such as this: which is this?
whose is that?
- Anya told Ryan’s guest that Ryan was away and that Ryan
would return soon. d) Reflexive Pronouns refer to self or selves. They exist in compound
forms and occur in first, second and third persons with appropriate
This is better written as: number as follows:

- Anya told Ryan’s guest that he was away and that he would Person Singular Plural
return soon. 1st person myself ourselves
2nd person yourself yourselves
Note that the pronoun can only substitute or replace a noun that has 3rd person himself themselves.
already been mentioned in a construction. This noun is called an antecedent of herself
the pronoun. itself
Examine the following:
Reflexive pronouns sometimes perform emphatic function. E.g.
The girls are happy; they are dancing.
Many students do not read; they play around. - He himself knows the truth
- I myself cannot imagine that.
i) Types of Pronouns
e) Indefinite Pronouns refer to persons / things in general. They do not
a) Personal Pronouns have persons, number, gender and case which really specify a person or a thing. They include: each, both, all,
constitute the grammatical categories of pronouns. In terms of everyone, everything, anybody, somebody, someone, somewhere,
persons, there are the first, second and third persons which occur in anything, any, nothing, nobody, nowhere, none, little, few, one, etc.
singular and plural forms, function as subjects and objects distinctively f) Reciprocal Pronouns express relationship between two or more
and indicate possession in different forms. This table illustrates the persons or entities. They are
grammatical categories of pronouns:
Subject Object Possessive form each other - (for two) one another -
1st person (singular) I me mine (for more than two)
1st person (plural) we us ours e.g. - Ina and Steff love each other
2ndperson (sing/plu.) you you yours - Ina, Steff and Selphy love one another.
 c) Correlatives occur in pairs. They usually have intervening words
g) Demonstrative Pronouns point at entities. They should not be or phrases between them. They include: either … or, neither nor,
mistaken for adjectives: only … but also, both … and, etc.

- This/that is mine. (pronoun, singular) i) Functions of Conjunctions

- This/that book is mine. (adjective qualifying book) The multiplicity of the functions of conjunctions can easily lead to
- These/those are mine. (pronoun, plural) confusion between them and prepositions or adverbs. The principle is to find
- These/those books are mine. (adjective qualifying books) out the function of each word before attributing it to any part of speech.
Davidson (1959: 573) indicates the following groups of subordinating
3.3 Features and Functions of Interjections conjunctions according to their functions:
- Cause : because, in as much as, since;
This constitutes the smallest group of words in any language. Quirk - Purpose : that, so that, in order that, lest;
and Greenbaum (1979:18) provide some examples in English. These are oh! - Comparison : than, as, as if, as well as;
ah! ugh! phew! - Condition : if, unless, whether, in case;
Interjections usually take exclamatory marks and they merely serve to - Result : that, so that;
express emotions such as fear, surprise, admiration, joy and anger. Common - Time : after, before, since, when, while;
examples are: How wonderful! Look at! Watch out! Alas! - Concession : although, though;
They can also be found in some thoughtful expressions and - Place : where;
expressions of wish or regrets. - Manner : how, as though;
- Degree : as far as, as much as;
E.g. Good morning!
Fare well! 4.0 SUMMARY
Hello! Hi! The main points raised in this unit are:
Goodbye!
Had I known!  Prepositions, pronouns, conjunctions and interjections being
Long live our country! members of the closed class are fixed in number; they cannot
change by inflection or derivation.
3.4 Features and Functions of Conjunctions  Prepositions indicate various relationships between
constructions; they are simple, complex, prepositional idioms and
Conjunctions specifically connect or join grammatical patterns (words, postponed prepositions.
groups, clauses and sentences). Three types of conjunctions are operational  Pronouns substitute nouns and nominals to avoid repetition.
within the closed class. These are subordinators, coordinators and the  The types of pronouns include: personal, interrogative,
correlatives. demonstrative, reflexive, reciprocal and indefinite pronouns.
 Interjections constitute the smallest class of words in any
a) Subordinators join elements of unequal weight. This means that language.
one pattern which is joined to the other is subordinate to it. They  The main function of interjections is to express emotion.
include: after, if, since, that, though, until, till, yet, while, etc.  Conjunctions join grammatical units.
b) Coordinators join elements of equal rank. There are three in  Three main types of conjunctions often identified are:
English, namely: and, but, or. subordinators, coordinators and relatives.

- Grace sings and dances well 5.0 QUESTIONS:

- Ara sings well but dances awkwardly.
- Buy the dress or keep back the money. 1. What are the main functions of pronouns?
2. What is the main function of interjections?
 3. Discuss the different types and functions of prepositions. students did. The second group of words tells us that some persons visit the
study centre but the person is not mentioned. The third group of words says
very little. It does not say who was or what happened nearest to their place of
residence. Nos. 1-3 are therefore not sentences because some important parts
are missing.

2.0 OBJECTIVES

By the time you complete this unit you should be able to:

 Identify the important parts of a sentence

 Describe the elements of a sentence
 Present acceptable and possible sentence patterns in English
 Distinguish between the structural and functional types of
sentences.
 Construct complete sentences in English

3.0 MAIN CONTENT

3.1 Parts of a Sentence

UNIT 4 In order to make a complete sense, a sentence must have a subject,

that is, the person or thing about whom the writer/speaker is talking; and a
SENTENCE STRUCTURE predicate which is what the writer/speaker has to say about the subject.
These are two important terms used to describe the essential parts of
a sentence. The subject is the word or group of words that tells us what or
whom the speaker or writer is talking about. The predicate makes a statement
1.0 INTRODUCTION about the subject. It usually tells what the subject is doing, or what is
happening to the subject.
The sentence is often used to refer to a group of words of different In the following sentences the subjects are italicised and the
word classes or parts of speech which are put together in such a way that they predicates are not.
make “a complete sense”. A period is conventionally used to end a sentence.
The following groups of words are not sentences: 4. My sister lives at Abuja.
5. The bag contains a lot of money.
1. the students of the National Open University 6. The staff of the English Department are very dedicated workers.
2. visit the study centre 7. The bell rang repeatedly.
3. nearest to their place of residence 8. Birds fly.

The above groups of words are not sentences because they do not Note that the predicate can be one or more words. The verb together
express a complete thought. The first group tells us what the writer is talking with other words that follow it form the predicate. In No.8 Sentence the
about but the writer did not complete the sentence by saying what the predicate is made up of only the verb ‘fly’. When the subject is more than one
word, there is often a particular word about which something is said. That 18. The registrar interviewed the candidate. (Sentence)
word is the simple subject. It is usually a noun or a pronoun. 19. Received your message this morning. (Fragment)
Also, in the predicate (when it is more than one word) there is often a 20. With kind personal regards. (Fragment)
word that serves as a key to the predicate. That word is usually a verb which
states the action performed or the state or condition of the subject. Note: The use of fragmentary or incomplete sentences is an
If the verb consists of more than one word, it is called a verb phrase. unsatisfactory way of expressing one’s ideas. It must be avoided.
The verb by itself is called the simple predicate. In the following examples, the
subject is underlined while the simple predicate is italicised.
3.4 Sentence Elements
9. The Nigerian president attended a conference in Accra.
10. The woman had many disappointments. Every sentence must have a basic structure in order to express a
11. My father has bought a new house. complete thought. This basic structure may consist of a subject (noun or
12. The house collapsed. pronoun) and a predicate (verb or verb phrase) (Semmelmeyer and Bolander
1984: 85) as in the following sentence:
Birds fly.
3.2 Compound Subject and Predicate
Many sentences require a third part or an additional word or group of
A sentence may have two or more simple subjects and two or more words in order to express a complete thought. This additional part is needed to
simple predicates. In the following sentences, two simple subjects, “Gil” and complete the idea expressed by the verb. See the following group of words:
“Ely” are joined by a co-ordinating conjunction. In the next sentence, two
simple predicates ‘went’ and ‘helped’ are also joined. They are therefore The teacher flogged
compound predicates.
It contains a subject and a verb but another word or group of words is
13. Gil and Ely are brothers. needed to give more information as regards whom or what the teacher flogged
14. Ana went home and helped her mother. thus:

Some sentences have both compound subjects and predicates as in The teacher flogged the pupil.
the following:
This is a complete sentence. The noun phrase “the pupil” completes
15. My brother and sister washed the clothes and ironed them. the predicate. For this reason, it is called a complement.
16. The students and their teachers went to the auditorium and A complement completes the meaning expressed by a verb. So, every
listened to the inaugural lecture. sentence has the basic structure containing a subject and a verb (S.V.) or a
subject, a verb and a complement (S.V.C.). The type of complement required
by a particular verb depends on the type of verb, that is, the class of verb used.
3.3 Sentence Fragments

Any group of words that lacks any of the two essential parts of a
sentence is a sentence fragment or a fragmentary sentence. A fragment is a 3.5 Complementation
piece of something. It is therefore incomplete. When either the subject or a
predicate or both are missing, the groups of words do not express a complete Complementation is tied up with classes of verbs. This is because
thought and is therefore not a sentence. In the following groups of words verbs are classified depending on the type of complements, they take as
some are sentences and others are fragments. transitive, intransitive or linking verbs.

17. Hoping to see you again. (Fragment) Complements of Transitive Verbs

 there is no direct object and the action does not pass from the doer to the
Verbs which express action that passes from the performer to the receiver. The verb ‘is singing’ and ‘dances’ are therefore intransitive.
person or thing affected take direct object complements as in the following Intransitive verbs take adverbial complements where necessary.
examples:
Alice is singing melodiously. (Adverb of manner)
The mechanic repaired the car. She arrived before nightfall (Adverbial of time)
She sang a song.
He refused my invitation. Some verbs can be used both transitively and intransitively. It is
I saw Grace. necessary to watch out for when there is a direct object in which case the verb
will be transitive and intransitive when the complement is an adverbial. Study
In each of the above sentences, the italicised words are affected by the following:
the action of the verb. They are the direct objects. This is to say that the verbs
in the above sentences are transitive verbs and they take direct objects as a The time-keeper rang the bell.
complement. The bell rang repeatedly.
There are verbs which take two objects: the direct object and the We met the visitors.
indirect object. The indirect object tells to whom or for whom the action is We met last week.
performed. The indirect object is often used after certain verbs: get, give, lend,
offer, read, tell, buy, send, show, make, pay etc. In the sentences below, the
indirect objects are italicised.
The teacher read his pupils a story. Complements of Linking Verbs
She made me a fine dress.
My father gave his driver a Christmas bonus. Linking Verbs do not express action. They express conditions and
states. They have very little meaning of their own but express various ideas in
Complements of Intransitive Verbs relation to the subject. Their main purpose is to link the subject with some
word in the predicate that gives the sentence a meaning. It is for this reason
Verbs that do not express actions that pass from the doer to the that they are referred to as linking verbs.
receiver are intransitive verbs. This means that intransitive verbs do not take A linking verb is always followed by a subject complement. A subject
direct objects because even though they express action the effect of the action complement is simply a noun, pronoun or adjective which refers to the same
is not felt by someone or something. In the following example the intransitive person or thing as the subject. A linking verb therefore links the subject to the
verbs take no objects. noun or adjective often referred to as predicate noun or adjective or pronoun.
Some common linking verbs are: be, feel, look, smell, appear, keep, stay,
Alice is singing. remain turn, sound, prove.
In the following sentences, the predicate noun, adjective or pronoun
In the above example nobody is suffering the effect of the singing. If is not direct objects but subject complements.
the sentence were
My sister is intelligent. (Predicate adjective).
Alice is singing a song. She became a medical doctor (Predicate noun).
This is she. (Predicate pronoun).
then the action of singing would affect the song so to say. Similarly, in the
sentence; A linking verb cannot make a complete predicate. It always requires a
subject complement. That means that My Sister is * or she became* or This is*
She dances gracefully; cannot stand on their own as ‘she cried’ can. They require something to

*
Note: The starred options are incorrect usages
complete the predicate; and as earlier stated linking verbs take subject SVO - I ate the meat.
complements. The students played basketball.
My father paid my fees.
SVOO - They gave their friends presents.
3.6 Sentence Patterns She lent me her book.
Depending on the type of verb, the complement of a verb can be an My father bought my mother a new pair of
object, adverbial, a subject complement or a group of words functioning as any shoes.
of the above. There are therefore five basic sentence elements in the SVOC - His father named him his heir.
traditional classification. Note that these five basic elements are classified as I made her my successor.
four elements in some models. In the Systemic Grammar Model for instance, The company nominated my brother the
four basic grammatical units SPCA are identified. We have identified the three managing director.
types of complements depending on the classes of verb here, which in addition SVAC - She was formerly a beauty queen.
to the subject and the verb (predicator) add up to our five elements. I will remain forever grateful
Subject - S SVOCA - They elected him chairman each year.
Verb - V SVOA - My father put the money in the bank.
Object) Direct Object - 0d She hid her handbag somewhere.
Indirect Object - 01 The students spent their public holiday at
Adverbial - A the beach.
Complement) Subject Complement - Cs
Object Complement - C0 Thus, there can be the following sentence patterns.

Of the five sentence elements: S V O A C, the subject and verb are One Element - V
constant; they are always present while the object, adverbials or complements Two Elements - SV
are variable. Their presence depends on the pattern of sentence and the type Three Elements - SVO
of verb. - SVC
Also, the elements - SVA
Four Elements - SVOO
1. Ocan be direct Od, or Indirect Oi - SVAC
2. C can be Cs or Co that is subject or object complement - SVOC
3. A can be adverbial of time, place, manner, condition, reason etc. - SVOA
Five Elements - SVOCA
Using the five elements SVOAC the following sentence structures or
patterns are possible: NOTE: It should be noted that a sentence may be a word as shown
above. In this case either the subject or predicate is implied.
V - Sing With transitive verbs the following types of sentence patterns are
SV - She is singing. possible:
Birds fly.
The aeroplane has landed. SVO - I drank the beer
SVA - She is singing beautifully. SVOO - She gave me the beer
Funke dances gracefully. SVOA - He poured the beer into my glass;
Femi came immediately.
SVC - My brother is a doctor. On the other hand, the following patterns are possible with
He is very successful. intransitive verbs:
He has become a commissioner for Health. SV - You are joking
 SVC - You are humorous
SVA - Your friend is in the car 5.0 QUESTIONS:

With linking verbs only, the following patterns are possible: Which of the following groups of words are complete sentences and
which are fragments?
SVC - She is beautiful.
SVAC - She was formerly a beauty queen. 1. The sound of the car.
2. The sound of the car alerted us
It is important to note that any of the sentence elements can be a 3. A desirable habit.
word, a phrase or a clause as the following sentences show: 4. Singing in the hall.
5. The dress you gave me.
SVO - Ekaette ate yams (words) 6. Under the table.
SVA - The pen was seen in the bag (SVA=
phrases).
SVA - The biro pen was seen where it
was kept (A= Clause).

4.0 SUMMARY

The following are the important points made in this unit:

 A sentence is a group of words of different word classes which

are put together in such a way that it expresses complete UNIT 5
thought.
 A complete sentence must have a subject and a predicate which SENTENCE TYPES
can be simple or complex.
 A group of words which lacks any of the essential parts is called a
fragment.
 A complement completes the meaning expressed by the verb. 1.0 INTRODUCTION
The nature of the verb determines the type of complement.
Transitive verbs take direct and/or indirect objects; intransitive
verbs take adverbial complements when necessary while linking Sentences can be classified according to the internal structure of the
verbs take subject complements. sentence, that is, the way they are made up. This classification depends largely
 There are five basic sentence elements in the traditional on the number and kinds of clauses which the sentence contains (Semmel
classification; these are: Subject(S), Verb (V), Object (O), Meyer and Bolander, 1984: 199). Every sentence has at least one independent
Adverbial (A) and Complement (C) often represented as SVOAC. clause which carries the idea of the sentence. Some have more than one.
 Of the five elements, the verb is the compulsory element while
the other elements are optional. 2.0 OBJECTIVES
 Sentences can be formed using the five elements as follows: V,
SV, SVO, SVA, SVOO, SVAC, and SVOAC After studying this unit, you should be able to:

 Identify the different types of English sentences; and

 Construct the different types of sentences.
 Another type of sentence is the complex sentence. This is made up of
3.0 MAIN CONTENT one independent clause and one or more subordinate clauses. A dependent or
subordinate clause depends for its meaning on the main clause. It cannot stand
3.1 Simple and Compound Sentences by itself. A subordinate clause is usually introduced by a subordinate
conjunction or a relative pronoun. These connecting words make it clear that
A sentence that contains one independent clause is called a simple the clause depends on another part of the sentence for its meaning. Examine
sentence. For example, the following sentence has only one subject and one the following complex sentences:
predicate and is therefore a simple sentence.
I shall be at home when you come.
Edison joined the army last year. She wore the blouse and the perfume which her son gave her
for Christmas.
A simple sentence can also have a compound subject or predicate as If it rains, I shall stay at home.
in the following examples:
Note that the italicised sections of the above sentences are
Eve and Anne became fashion models (Compound dependent on the main/independent clauses which are not italicised. They
subject) cannot stand on their own. In the first sentence the dependent clause is
They sang and danced at the concert. (Compound predicate) introduced by the subordinate conjunction ‘when’, while in the second
Rose and Anna sang and danced at the concert. sentence it is introduced by the relative pronoun ‘which’. In the third sentence,
(Compound subject compound predicate) the dependent clause is introduced by the subordinate conjunction ‘if’.
A compound subject does not suggest that there are two subjects but Meanwhile, the following sentence which is also a complete sentence
rather that one subject is made up of two nouns or pronouns. Similarly, a contains more than one subordinate clause.
compound predicate does not mean two predicates but one predicate which is
made up of two or more verbs or verb phrases. When he spoke to me, I refused to answer him because he was very
A compound sentence, on the other hand, is made up of two or more impolite.
independent clauses joined by a co-ordinating conjunction to form one
sentence. In the following sentence each of the clauses joined by ‘and’ can The italicised sections are subordinate clauses introduced by the
stand by itself: subordinate conjunctions ‘when’ and ‘because’. Occasionally some sentences
are constructed which have two or more independent clauses and two or more
Peter joined the army and his friend went to a subordinate clauses. They are the Compound Complex Sentences. The next
university. examples illustrate this sentence structure.

When not joined by a conjunction, two independent clauses can be As soon as it starts raining, farmers begin to plant
linked together by a semi-colon. A comma can also be used with a conjunction and they always hope that the rains will come
to link a compound sentence but not a comma alone. regularly.
Examine the following: Before he gained admission into a university, his
mother was always worried and she never
The author wrote many stories for children, and he also stopped planning what he would do when he
wrote a number of poems. finished his university education.
I went to the bank; I later rushed back for my lectures
(semicolon).
3.3 Multiple Sentences
3.2 Complex and Compound Complex Sentences
 A fifth structural sub type of sentence - the multiple sentence is often
identified. A multiple sentence has at least three main clauses and no You did bring the camera or You brought your camera.
subordinate clause. The following are examples multiple sentences: You did buy your watch where? or you bought your watch
where?
I came, I saw, I conquered.
Mary cooked breakfast; Augusta washed the dishes and Tom 3.5 Imperative and Exclamatory Sentences
swept the compound.
My mother was excited at the news; she sang and danced A sentence that gives a command or makes a request is called an
and cried simultaneously. imperative sentence. It usually ends with a full stop and sometimes with an
exclamation mark. The subject of an imperative sentence is seldom expressed.
The first two sentences are made up of three sentences each, while If the subject is not expressed it is the word, ‘you’. Sometimes an imperative
the third one has four verbs (excited, sang, danced, cried) and therefore has sentence begins with a noun that indicates the name of the person to whom
four sentences with the last three sharing the same subject (she). the command or request is given:
Whereas commas are used to separate the first example because they
are very short and are made up of only SV structure, a semicolon is used to Go out of the class (Command)
separate the first part in the other two examples while the coordinating Jesse, (please) give me your pen (Request)
conjunction and is used to join the others. According to Eka (1994: 45) ‘these
variations are largely stylistic but they can also be seen as attempts to avoid Eka (1994: 47-48) identifies four types of imperative:
monotony’. Multiple sentences are often long and involved. Students are
expected to recognize them when they are used but are advised to avoid them (a) Mild Imperative
or use them with care. These are commands which have been rendered mild by the addition
of ‘please’ to show politeness as in the following examples:
3.4 Declarative and Interrogative Sentences
Please sit down.
A sentence that makes a statement is called a declarative sentence. A Give me your pen, please.
declarative sentence ends with a full stop. The normal order is for the subject
to appear at the beginning. However, for variety or emphasis, the subject may The above examples are different from polite requests which involve
appear at other places in the sentence. Here are some examples of declarative changing the structure of the imperatives to questions or statements e.g.
sentences.
Will you sit down, please?
a) The athletes ran down the street. I wonder whether you would mind giving me your pen.
b) Down the street, the athletes ran.
c) My sister is a teacher. (b) Forceful Imperatives
A sentence that asks a question is called an interrogative sentence. Forceful imperatives are sharp and tend to suggest that the speaker is
The interrogative sentence is generally written in an inverted order; sometimes irritated. In the written form, forceful imperatives end with the exclamation
it starts with a verb and sometimes it begins with an adverb: mark instead of the period used to end mild imperatives.
The following exemplify this subtype:
d) Did you bring your camera?
e) Where did you buy your watch? Go out before I shut the door!
Remove your shoes from the rug!
To determine the subject and predicate, the interrogative sentence
should be placed in a normal order. The interrogative sentence ends with a Some forceful imperatives can be coated with pleasantness with the
question mark. For example, Sentences (d) and (e) can be can be rewritten in addition of do and let as in:
the normal order as follows:
 Do bring the car before noon  According to function, four main types of sentences can also
Let us meet today at 4.00pm prompt be identified: the declarative, interrogative, imperative and
exclamatory.
(c) Negative Imperatives  The word ‘there’ often used to start a sentence is not an
Negative imperatives emphasize what should not be done. They adverb but merely used to fill up the space occupied by the
usually begin with the word ‘Don’t’. See the following examples: subject.
 a simple sentence has one main clause and no subordinate
Don’t enter the room without knocking clause
Don’t cross the field  a compound sentence has two main clauses and no
subordinate clause.
(d) Single Word Imperatives  a complex sentence has one main clause and at least one
Single word imperatives are usually verbs which always have the subordinate clause, while a compound complex sentence has
implied subject ‘You’. Examine the following: two main clauses and at least one subordinate clause.
(You) Shut the door  A multiple sentence has at least three main clauses and no
(You) Stand up subordinate clause.

The sentence that expresses strong feeling is called an exclamatory

sentence. It is often written in an inverted order. To determine the subject and
predicate, the sentence should be transposed, that is, written in the normal
order. Exclamatory sentences usually end with exclamation marks. 5.0 QUESTIONS:

What a mess this is! (Inverted Order) 1. Separate the following sentences into dependent and independent
This is what a mess! (Normal Order) *Not in common use. clauses;
Alas, she is dead! a. As soon as it starts raining, farmers begin to plant and they
always hope that the rains will come regularly.
Sometimes, the word ‘there’ is used as an expletive to introduce a b. Before he gained admission into a university, his mother was
sentence. When ‘there’ is used in this way, it is NOT an adverb. It is used always worried and she never stopped planning what he would
merely to fill up the place occupied by the subject. The subject appears later in do when he finished his university education.
the sentence. Examine the following:
2. Discuss the various uses of sentences in communication.
There are many books in my library.
Many books are (there) in my library.

4.0 SUMMARY

The following main points have been made in this unit:

 Sentences can be classified according to their structure and

uses.
 According to structure five main types of sentences can be
identified; these are simple, compound, complex, compound
complex and multiple sentences.
 3.0 MAIN CONTENT

3.1 Clause Types

A clause, as already explained, is a group of words which has a subject

and a predicate. When the group can stand by itself and express a complete
thought it is called an independent or main clause. On the other hand, when
the group of words has a subject and a predicate but cannot stand on its own it
is called a dependent or subordinate or bound clause.
An independent clause is a simple sentence when it stands alone. For
instance, the following sentence is made up of two independent clauses joined
by ‘and’:

The referee blew the whistle and the football match began.
Each clause can be written as a sentence and it will express a
complete thought as in the examples below:
a. The referee blew the whistle.
b. The football match began.
UNIT 6
Subordinate Clauses
CLAUSES IN SENTENCE STRUCTURE
Three types of subordinate clauses are often identified in English.
These are Adjectival Clauses, Adverbial Clauses and Noun Clauses. Each of
these clauses can be used as a part of speech and it performs the functions of
1.0 INTRODUCTION an adjective, an adverb or a noun as the case may be. Note that phrases can
also perform the functions of nouns, adverbs and adjectives. In the following
Clauses are groups of words which can modify other structures. They examples, the italicised groups of words function as parts of speech and are
contain finite verbs and they also have subjects and predicates. They can named after the word class or part of speech whose function they perform.
function like nouns, adjectives, adverbs and sentence elements. A clause is
named according to its function. In the following examples clauses and their The man whose daughter won the essay competition is my
functions are identified. uncle.
(Adjectival clause modifying the noun man)
The bag which you gave me is very lovely. I believe that the girl is honest.
(Adjectival Clause), modifying the noun ‘bag’ (Noun clause – subject complement)
They hurried home because it started raining. Before the doctor arrived, the man had died.
(Adverbial clause of reason) (Adverbial clause (of time) modifying the verb ‘had died’)

2.0 OBJECTIVES Adjectival Clauses

At the end of this unit you should be able to: An adjectival clause is a subordinate clause that functions as an
adjective. That means that it is used to describe a noun or pronoun. An
 Identify clauses and their structure; adjectival clause is usually introduced by a relative pronoun. A relative
 Identify the different types of clauses; pronoun is a pronoun that joins an adjectival clause to some word in the
 Analyse sentences into constituent clauses. independent or main clause. The word to which it joins the clause is the
‘antecedent’ of the relative clause. The pronouns often used in this way are
who, whom, which and that. Who and whom are often used to refer to people
while which refers to things. The pronoun “that” is however sometimes used Note that adverbs modify verbs and other adverbs. The difference
to refer to both people and things although it should refer to things. The between a relative adverb and a simple adverb is that the relative adverb is
following sentences contain relative clauses introduced by relative pronouns. found in an adjective clause and it refers to its antecedent in the main clause.

a) Chika has brought the fruits that you ordered.

(Adjectival clause introduced by that).
b) I like the food which my mother gave me. Adverbial Clauses
(Adjectival clause introduced by which) An adverbial clause is a group of words with a subject and a predicate
c) Children who talk early are usually intelligent. which functions as an adverb. Adverbs tell how, when, where, to what extent,
(Adjectival clause introduced by who) for what reason etc. an action is performed. An adverbial clause answers the
d) This is the man whom you spoke to me about. same questions and also expresses several other ideas which the simple
(Adjectival clause introduced by whom) adverb does not express. An adverbial clause is usually introduced by a
subordinate conjunction. The connecting word is called a subordinate
In the first example, the subordinate clause is italicised. It is an conjunction because the idea expressed by the clause is subordinate to the
adjectival clause which modifies the noun fruits. This clause is introduced by main idea in the sentence. The subordinate clause also shows the relation
the relative pronoun that. The antecedent of the relative pronoun “that” is between the subordinate clause and the word in the main clause which the
fruits. subordinate clause modifies.
In formal constructions, whom is used after prepositions. Adverbial clauses express a number of different ideas. The following
are ten of the important ideas, often, expressed by adverbial clauses: time,
a. To whom did you give the book? manner, place, degree, purpose, result, condition, comparison, concession, and
b. The man to whom I gave the book is in the car. reason. The following subordinate conjunctions are commonly used in
adverbial clauses of various types:
Sometimes an adjectival clause is introduced by the word whose the
possessive form of the pronoun who. In such cases, whose modifies the noun (a) Time: after, before, when, whenever, until, since, while, as
which follows it. When used in this way in an adjectival clause, whose is soon
referred to as a relative adjective. The word relative suggests that whose refers as: Before the doctor arrived, the patient had died.
to its antecedent in the main clause. In the following example the word whose (b) Place: where, wherever;
is a relative adjective modifying the noun woman in the main clause. I parked the car where it could be seen by the security men.
(c) Manner: as, as if, as though:
This is the woman whose baby was stolen. The girl cried as if her heart would break.
The relative adjective also connects the subordinate clause to (d) Degree: that, as … as, not so … as, than;
woman. Irma is not as beautiful as her sister (is beautiful).
(e) Comparison: as, than, so … as, as … as
Adjectival clauses are sometimes introduced by the relative adverbs, The bus arrived earlier than it usually does.
where, and why as in the following examples: (f) Purpose: that, so that, in order that.
Etim worked very hard so that he might meet the deadline.
(g) Condition: If, provided, provided that, unless;
I found the house where my sister lives. I shall go home early if I finish my assignment.
(Adjectival clause modifying ‘house’) (h) Result: that, so that
The test was fixed at a time when we were all free. The food was so delicious that I asked for another plate.
(Adjectival Clause modifying the noun, ‘time’). (i) Concession: although, though, even if
He gave the reason why he resigned his appointment. Although she was ill, she travelled to Abuja last week.
(Adjectival clause modifying the noun, ‘reason’). (j) Reason: as, because, since;
 The students bought the school journal because they were iv) Object of a preposition
compelled to do so. A noun clause is sometimes used as the object of a preposition as in
The adverbial clause is often preceded by the main clause. the following examples:
Sometimes, an adverbial clause is placed at the beginning of a sentence for
emphasis. When that happens, it is usually separated from the main clause Give the message to whoever is available.
with a comma. (Noun clause; object of the preposition ‘to’)
I did not agree with what the doctor said.
Noun Clauses (Object of the preposition ‘with’)
Unlike adjectival and adverbial clauses, noun clauses are not
modifiers. They perform the same function as nouns. Like nouns, the noun v) An Appositive
clause performs any of the following functions: A noun clause is also often used in apposition with another noun, that
is, it is placed near another noun to explain or identify it in some way. We
i) Subject of the Sentence often speak of a person and then add something to explain who he is or
A noun clause like a noun often functions as the subject of a sentence identify him in some way:
as in the following examples.
Mike, who is our driver, is very careful.
What the Chairman proposed was not feasible (Noun Clause – subject) We called on Dr. Bella Black, the one who is a feminist critic.
Where we could rest for the night was our problem (Noun Clause – subject) Manila, which is the Capital of the Philippines, is located in
That you are my sister is not debatable. (Noun Clause – subject) the North.

Notice that the noun clauses in the above sentences are introduced A noun clause is often used in apposition to a word or group of words.
by what, where, how and that. These same words also introduce adjectival or It usually explains an idea, fact, belief, report, rumour etc. Noun Clauses in
adverbial clauses. The way to determine that the clause one is dealing with is a apposition are not set off by commas as in the following examples.
noun clause is to ensure that it performs the functions of a noun.
The rumour that she had an accident spread rapidly.
ii) Direct Object of the Sentence (Noun Clause in apposition with ‘rumour’).
A noun clause frequently serves as the direct object of the verb. A The fact that she passed her examination made her parents
noun clause used as the object completes the verb and, in most cases, answers proud of her.
the question what? asked after the verb, as in the following examples: (Noun Clause, in apposition with (‘fact’).

I believe (what) that you will be promoted. Additionally, an appositive noun clause with that differs from a
(Noun Clause – Direct object). relative clause because that is not an element in the clause structure (subject,
We knew (what) what to do in an emergency. object etc) as it must be in a relative clause (Quirk and Greenbaum 1980: 383).
(Noun phrase – Direct object).
Noun Clauses and the introductory ‘it’
iii) Predicate Noun/Subject Complement Sometimes a sentence begins with an introductory word (for instance
After a linking verb, a noun clause may be used as a predicate noun or ‘it’). It should be noted that in such sentences, the introductory word is not the
subject complement NOT as an object as in the following: real subject of the sentence. The real subject usually appears later. In such
sentences, the real subject is usually a noun clause as in the following
The rumour was that he had died. examples:
(Noun Clause – means the same as rumour)
. This is what you vowed to do. It is evident that you are not the owner
(Noun Clause – means the same as this) (Noun clause – subject)
 The sentence can be rewritten as follows:  An adverbial clause gives information as to the place, time
manner, reason etc. that the action expressed by the verb
That you are not the owner is evident. occurred.
 The noun clause performs the functions of a noun such as serving
In such a sentence as the above, the word ‘it’ simply fills the place as the subject, object, subject complement, object of a
normally occupied by the subject. It is an expletive. Sentences that begin with preposition and an appositive.
an expletive or ‘filling in’ word are usually easy to recognise because they
follow the same pattern. 5.0 QUESTIONS:

It is important that you leave at once Identify the italicized clauses as well as their functions in the
(Expletive) (Noun clause – subject) sentences below:
(It) That you go home at once is important.
(transposed order) (i) The candidates who are successful in the examination will be
admitted.
Words that introduce Noun Clauses (ii) Nobody could understand why the results were late.
A noun clause is often introduced by a subordinate conjunction. The (iii) Whoever wants to succeed must work hard.
following conjunctions are the ones normally used to introduce noun clauses:
that, whether and sometimes whether … or. The main function of the
subordinate conjunction is to join the noun clause to the main clause as in the
following examples:

I wonder whether he will recognise me.

Orion knew that he would be punished.

Other words often used to introduce noun clauses include the relative
pronouns; who, what, whatever, whoever as well as the adverbs how, when,
why and where.

4.0 SUMMARY

In this unit, the following points have been made:

 A clause is a group of words with a subject and a predicate which
can modify other structures and also function as a part of speech.
 When a clause can stand by itself, it is called a main or
independent clause.
 When a clause depends on another part of the sentence, it is
called a dependent or subordinate clause.
 Three types of subordinate clauses are often identified: the
adjectival, the adverbial and the noun clause.
 The adjectival clause functions as an adjective: it modifies a noun.
 The adverbial clause functions as an adverb: it modifies a verb or
another adverb.
  Analyse sentences into constituent phrases; and
 Describe the structure of the nominal, verbal, adverbial and
adjectival groups

3.0 MAIN CONTENT

3.1 Kinds of Phrases

Prepositional Phrase
A prepositional phrase consists of the preposition and its object.
Sometimes a noun which serves as the object of the preposition has modifiers
but the important words are the preposition and the object. Study the
following examples:
UNIT 7
1. She strolled round the building.
ELEMENTS OF GROUP STRUCTURE (Preposition) (Object)
2. The girl in the black lace is a law student.
(Preposition) (Object)

1.0 INTRODUCTION In sentence No.1 for instance the preposition is round, the object is
the building while the prepositional phrase is round the building.
A group refers to a set of more than one word. It can function as any A prepositional phrase usually functions as an adjective or an adverb.
part of speech or sentence element. The group is also called a phrase. For Since adjectives and adverbs modify, the prepositional phrase is also a
example, the verb ‘dance’ is a single word verb but the groups “is dancing, has modifier.
danced, would have danced” are verb phrases. Similarly, there are noun
phrases, prepositional phrases, adjectival phrases when more than one word is Adjectival Phrase
involved. But except for a verb phrase, any group of words that has no subject
and no finite (main) verb is called a phrase. An adjectival phrase is a prepositional phrase that modifies a noun or
Phrases are called by the classes of words to which they belong. They pronoun. It often functions as an adjective. The following examples contain
are also called by the word class to which the most important word in the adjectival phrases.
phrase belongs as shown in the following examples.
3. The man at the gate opened the door for me.
(a) The good woman – noun phrase 4. They took the road near the market.
(b) beautiful and healthy – adjectival phrase
(c) On the table – prepositional phrase In No. 3, the prepositional phrase at the gate modifies the noun gate
(d) Last week – adverbial phrase while the prepositional phrase near the market modifies the noun road in
(e) has been called – verb phrase. No.4. An adjectival phrase, also called adjective phrase, may follow the noun it
describes or it may be used as a predicate adjective after a linking verb as in
2.0 OBJECTIVES the following examples:

At the end of this unit you should be able to 5. She wore a wrapper with blue beads.
6. The injured girl was in a coma.
 Identify phrases and their structure; 7. He drove in a cream coloured car.
 Identify the different types of phrases; 8. The woman was in a terrible rage.
 phrase contains nouns joined by a conjunction. The following are examples of
Notice that in the above examples the prepositional phrases in Nos.5 noun phrases:
and 7 follow linking verbs and therefore function as predicate adjectives while
the ones in Nos. 4 and 6 follow the nouns which they describe. Esther and Naomi;
The students of the Department of English;
Adverbial Phrases: My elder sister and her friends;

An adverbial phrase is also a prepositional phrase which performs the From the three examples above it can be seen that some noun
functions of an adverb: modifying a verb, an adjective, or another adverb. Like phrases have modifiers while some do not have modifiers. The noun phrase
the adverb, the adverbial phrase answers the questions when? where, how? can serve as a substitute for a noun and perform the functions often
and to what extent? Adverbial phrases express additional ideas about the verb performed by nouns (See Module 2: Unit 6).
such as time, place, manner and degree as in the following examples:
3.2 Group Structure
9. I shall come in the evening (time).
10. The children played in the field (place). The Nominal Group
11. Write your name in capital letters (manner)
12. He withdrew from school because of financial The nominal group has a minimum of one and a maximum of three
problems (reason). elements: modifier, head and qualifier usually represented by the letters m h q
alternatively referred to as premodifier, head, and postmodifier. The head is
In No. 9, the adverbial phrase modifies the verb shall come. It gives usually the noun in the group. The head may have a modifier alone as in; that
information about the time that I will come. In No. 10, the adverbial phrase woman, the tree, a table, some water. It may have a head and a qualifier:
modifies the verb played saying where the children played while the adverbial women of our church, trees in the garden. It may have all three as in the
phrases in Nos11 and 12 modify the verbs write and withdraw respectively. In following (m h q):
No. 11, the adverbial phrase gives information about how or in what manner
the name is to be written and in No. 12, the adverbial phrase gives the reason The women of our church;
why he withdrew from school. m hq
Adverbial phrases which modify adjectives and adverbs are not always The trees in the garden;
so easy to identify. As a guide, the adverbial phrase that modifies an adjective m h q
often follows that adjective as in the following examples. A table in the centre of the room
m h q
The woman looked frightened of the man.
She was therefore ready at any time. Of the three elements, the head is the compulsory one. The modifier
and the qualifier are optional elements. This information can be summarized as
Note also that a preposition is not always a single word as in the follows: (m) h (q). Each nominal group has a structure. In a nominal group
following. there may be many modifiers and qualifiers but usually, there is one head
which may be single or compound.
I packed the car in front of our house.
The professor resigned on account of his political The m Element
appointment. We can have a zero-modifier element in a construction that begins
with the head e.g
Noun Phrase
Women of our church.
The noun Phrase contains a noun a modifier and sometimes a
qualifier. These together constitute the nominal group. At other times, a noun
 Where there are modifier elements we can have a maximum of m m m m m m m m m h
eleven modifier elements though in real life it is never necessary to use more
than three or four e.g. The h Element
The h element is usually a noun. It must be present before we can
claim to have a nominal group. The h element also determines the nature of
The tall beautiful young woman the qualifier in terms of concord and meaning as in the following:
m m m m h
beautiful young woman The beds are
m m h John talked
young woman *The book talked (unacceptable except ‘book’ is used in a
m h special way)

Note that the reduction of the number of pre-head modifiers does not We can have single and compound elements e.g
create structural or meaning problems because each modifier modifies the
head. Townsville,
How is this example different from the others? Note that in the last The city of Townsville
example all the elements together modify the head whereas in the previous
examples each of the elements individually modifies the head. A structure in In the above example, Townsville and city form a compound because
which all the elements together modify the head is called a univariate they are coreferential i.e. they function as appositives.
structure as opposed to a multivariate structure where each element modifies Other compound elements include:
the h element. The difference is that in a univariate structure each entry of the
m element describes the one in front of it. Bread and butter
Rice and stew
Patterning of m Element DOEN
There can be many elements within the m element. These include: It is important to note that compound h elements take singular verbs
like single h elements.
- Deictic elements which locate the speaker in space and time
e.g this, that, those; The q Element
- Ordinals e.g One, two, second, fourth etc. The q element usually comes after the h element. The term qualifier is
- Epithet which indicates attributes e.g. young, old, beautiful, said to have emanated from scale and category grammar (Eka, 1994, p 94). The
- Nominals e.g cane, wooden etc. q element can be a single word (often an adjective, a pronoun or an adverb for
example:
Usually, the deitic elements come first followed by ordinals, epithets
and nominals as in the following (DOEN): Someone special (adjective)
h q
m m m m h Helen herself (reflexive pronoun)
My first fine leather bag h q
Deictic ordinal epithet nominal noun The house across the road (adverb)
(m) h q
Occasionally we can have up to two determiners within the deictic
system and as many as five adjectives and two nominals in addition to the The q element can sometimes be a phrase or a group as in the
usual possibilities within the m element as in the following example: following:

All the first three beautiful long woven African cane chairs. The girl in the blue dress (is my niece).
 m h q Note that the single item may also be an auxiliary as in:
A house to live in (is what I need).
m h q I can
I could
Sometimes qualifiers co-occur to function as double or multiple
qualifiers as in: A complex verbal group has the structure (x h i.e. auxiliary + head) e.g

Thomas/ my eldest brother/ the livewire of the family (came home). She has taken the examination.
h q
There can be an extension of the verbal group through the increase of
All/ the/houses/ that my father built/ which we never lived in (were rented as the number of x elements as in the following:
government offices).
m m h q q She must have taken the examination.
Constructions in which many qualifiers co-occur are said to be She might have been helped by her sister.
recursive: showing repetitions of patterns (sometimes in a layered manner) as
in the above examples. At other times they are said to co-occur in a linear A compound verbal group has two or more heads joined or not by a
manner as in the example below: conjunction or not as in

Simon, driver, businessman, politician etc. (is very clever) I came, saw and conquered
The child was frightened, screamed, ran to safety.
Structure of the Verbal Group
The verbal group is the predicator element in a clause whether it A compound complex verbal group has a minimum of an auxiliary and
operates in a dependent or independent clause. The primary structure of the two heads as in the following:
verbal group consists of one or more than one possible elements: the auxiliary
often represented as x and the head often represented as h. The lecturer should teach and examine.
The size of the verbal group depends on the nature of the utterance. x h h
There may be only one auxiliary verb, in which case it will serve as the head The actor had appeared, disappeared and reappeared.
which is normally a compulsory element, as for instance, in the following: x h h h

He may Structure of the Adverbial Group

The structure of the adverbial group may be summarized as follows:
Which may be interpreted to mean ‘he may come/ do it / go’ etc. At
other times, there may be just be main verb. e.g i. It can consist of only the head as in
Jane danced gracefully (head)
He /plays /football ii. It can be made of an intensifier and head as for example in
Her brother runs very fast (intensifier plus head)
In this case the main verb serves as the head. iii. It can comprise of a head and an intensifier as in:
Two factors determine the structure of the verbal group – the size of She writes legibly enough (head + intensifier)
the verbal group and the nature of the composition. Thus, the verbal group in iv. It can consist of an intensifier, a head and an intensifier as in
English may be simple, compound, complex and compound complex. A simple He did very well indeed (intensifier + head + intensifier).
verbal group has just one item usually the head the main verb (h) v. Sometimes there can be multiple intensifiers as in the following:
The dancers performed very very beautifully indeed
She wrote the letter (h) (intensifier + intensifier + head + intensifier).
vi. At times there can be a head within the structure as in
 She should come as soon as possible (head-underlined within the  Groups also have structures: the nominal group usually has the
structure) following elements: m h q; the elements of the verbal group are:
He spoke more brilliantly than I expected (head underlined within x h; the adjectival and adverbial group has the elements
the structure) intensifier + head.
 The elements in each case can come before or after the head and
Structure of the Adjectival Group sometimes both before and after.
The structure of the adjectival group can be summarized as follows:  When many adjectives occur in a row, they all come before the
head.
i. The adjectival group can consist of an intensifier and a head as in:
Very good, quite satisfactory (Intensifier + Head) 5.0 QUESTIONS:
ii. It can also be made up of a head and an intensifier as in :
good enough, happy indeed (Head + Intensifier) 1. What is common between a prepositional phrase and an
iii. Sometimes there may be more than one intensifier as in adverbial or adjectival phrase?
very good indeed, certainly good enough (intensifier + head + 2. What are the functions of nouns which the noun phrase can
intensifier) also perform?
iv. The adjectival group can also have a determiner and a head as in: 3. What do the following elements of the nominal and verbal
an amiable (person); the best (solution) (Determiner +Head). groups stand for: m h q; x h
v. Sometimes there can be a head and a qualifier as in:
difficult to understand, easy to get on with (Head +qualifier)
vi. When adjectives occur in a row all the adjectives precede the
noun head as in the following:
a very beautiful young woman
a fashionable old looking green Senegalese gown
vii. Usually the adjectives follow the following order:
Determiner/other adjectives/size/age/participle/colour/place of
origin/material/head as shown below:
det other size Age participle colour Adj. of origin place material
Head
a very long old looking blue Senegalese Silk boubo

4.0 SUMMARY

The following points have been made in this unit

 Groups are also referred to as phrases.

 A group or phrase refers to a set of more than one word which
can function as a part of speech or word class.
 Phrases are called by the classes of words to which they belong.
 They are also called by the word class to which the most
important word in the phrase belongs.
 Adjectival, Adverbial and Noun Phrases perform the functions of
adjectives, adverbs and noun respectively.
 Most adjectival and adverbial phrases are prepositional phrases.
 MORPHOLOGICAL STRUCTURE

MODULE 3
Unit 1 Basic Units of Word
Structure
Unit 2 The Nature of the
Morpheme
Unit 3 Affixation
Unit 4 Inflection and Derivation
Unit 5 Other Word Formation
Processes
 as part of sentence structure under grammar, the structuralists’ approach saw
morphology as a distinct branch of language study preoccupied with ‘the study
of morphemes and their arrangements in forming words’ (Nida 1949:1).
UNIT 1
2.0 OBJECTIVES
BASIC CONCEPTS
At the end of this unit you should be able to

 Explain and give examples of morphemes and allomorphs.

1.0 INTRODUCTION  Identify the different allomorphic variations
 Analyse words into constituent morphemes

The study of the internal structure of words and the rules governing 3.0 MAIN CONTENT
the formation of words in a language is the preoccupation of the branch of
language study referred to as morphology. Although interest in the study of 3.1 Morphemes and Allomorphs
words, their meaning, structure and function has been a part of grammar from
the classical to the medieval times, the study of word structure did not become The analysis of words into morphemes starts with the identification of
a distinct level of grammatical analysis until the nineteenth century. morphs. ‘A morph is a physical form representing some morpheme in a
Early studies of word structure were more diachronic in nature, language’ (Katamba 1993:24). It is a distinctive recurrent sound segment or a
having more to do with the origins and evolution of languages from a study of sequence of sound segments. In the following sentences:
word formation patterns of different languages. For instance, in the nineteenth
century Franz Bopp produced evidence based on the comparison of sound a. I ate the food.
systems and word formation patterns of Sanskrit, Latin, Persian and Germanic b. You ate the food.
languages to prove that these languages evolved from the same ancestor. This c. She eats the food.
supported a claim earlier made by William Jones in 1786 (cf Katamba 1993:1). d. I eat the food.
Also, between 1819 and 1837, Jacob Grimm published his Deutsche Grammatik e. We eat the food.
tracing the common ancestry of the Germanic and other Indo- European f. You eat the food.
languages through comparing their word formation patterns and sound
systems. the morphs are:
Morphology in this century is synchronic in approach. This means that
it focuses on studying the word structure of a language at some stage of its life a. /a / e. / t/
rather than how the words of the language have changed in form and meaning b. /i:t/ f. /fu:d/
over a period of time. In spite of the general acknowledgement in linguistic
c. /wi:/ g. /ju:/
circles of the place of the study of words and its structure, the discipline of
morphology has not received the attention given to other branches of d. /s/ h /e t/
language like phonology, phonetics and grammar. It was the works of the
American structuralists which brought the study of morphology to the In the examples above each morph represents a separate morpheme.
limelight. Nida’s 1949 course book titled Morphology streamlined the This is however not always the case. Sometimes, the same morpheme
structuralist theory and practice and laid the criteria for the descriptive study is represented by different morphs. For example, the plural morpheme {s} in
of words. English as in ‘books’/buks/ can be represented as {z} as in boys/b‫כ‬ɪz/. The past
Traditional grammar looked at the word as the basic unit of tense of regular verbs in English which is spelled ‘-ed’ is pronounced /t/, /d/, or
grammatical analysis but the structuralists show that words can be analysed in / d/ depending on the last sound of the verb to which it is attached - its
terms of the morpheme which is the smallest unit of speech that has semantic phonological environment.
and grammatical meanings. While traditional grammar treated word structure The Morpheme
 The morpheme has been explained as the smallest unit of speech that
is meaningful (Udofot, 1999: 4). In other words, it is the smallest meaningful
unit of grammatical analysis. A word such as ‘pen’ is a single morpheme while
‘pens’ is made up of two morphemes: the normal meaning of ‘pen’ and the
signal which indicates number. This information is obtained from the /z/
ending in /penz/. The plural morpheme has other variants namely: {s, z} and
the zero plural morphemes /ʃ/ as in ‘sheep’. The term morpheme is sometimes
identical with the term ‘word’ as for example in the words ‘boy’, ‘cat’, and
‘church’ being morphemes and also words. When however, these words take
the additional {s, z, z}, they cease to be single morphemes because they can be
/ d/ /d/ /t/
further broken down into parts (in this case the semantic element of the word
It can be said that / d/, /d/ and /t/ can be grouped together as
and the signal for more than one). At other times, the term morpheme is seen
allomorphs of the past tense morpheme. The notion of distribution is central
as the next in rank to the word in the ranking of grammatical units: sentence,
to the identification of morphemes in any language. By distribution we mean
clause, phrase, word, morpheme (cf. Tomori 1977:16-17). In other words, a
the context in which a particular linguistic element occurs. A set of morphs are
word is said to be a morpheme when it cannot be further broken down into
classified as allomorphs of the same morpheme if
parts without destroying the meaning
Meaning is therefore very important in the study of morphology since
(i) they represent the same meaning or serve the same
morphemes are meaningful units. In the following examples: ‘paints, painting,
grammatical function;
painted’ the words can be broken down into {pe nt} + {s}; {pe nt} + {ɪŋ}; {pe nt}
(ii) they occur in the same contexts.
+ {d}. The word ‘paint’ has meaning in English while the /s/ indicates the
present tense marker, /ɪŋ/ the progressive marker and / d / is the past
When the above criteria are satisfied, the morphs are said to be in
participle marker.
complementary distribution. Thus, the three morphs / d, d, t / which are
realizations of the regular past tense morpheme are in complementary
distribution because each morph only occurs in the context described above
The Allomorph
and are therefore allomorphs of the same morpheme. Similarly, the negative
If different morphs represent the same morpheme, they are referred
morpheme which means not can be realized as / n /, / m / and / ŋ/ as in the
to as allomorphs of that morpheme. Thus, /t/, /d/ and / d/ are allomorphs of
following examples:
the past tense morpheme in English. The past tense morpheme is realized as
(a) / d/ if the verb ends in /d/ or /t/ as for instance in:
inactive /i nækt v /
mend /mend/; mended /mend d/ want /wənt/; wanted /wənt
indecent / indi:snt /
d/.
impenitent / im pen tɪ nint /
(b) /d/ if the verb ends in a voiced sound except /d/ as in:
impossible / impɔsɪbl /
clean /kli: n/ cleaned / kli: nd/
incomplete /ɪŋ kɔmpli:t /
beg /beg/ begged / begd/.
incorrigible / ɪŋk ridbl /
(c) /t/ after verbs ending in any voiceless consonant other than /t/
as in:
It can be noted that the nasal consonant in the various allomorphs of
park /pa:k/ parked / pa:kt /
the morpheme {in} is pronounced the way it is depending on the nature of the
miss /mi s/ missed / mist /.
sound that follows it:
a. / im / is used before labial consonants like /p, b, m /
The relationship between morphemes and allomorphs can be
as in ‘impossible’;
diagrammatically represented as shown below using the past tense morpheme
b. /ɪŋ / is used before velar consonants like / k / and / g
in English:
/ as in ‘incorrigible’;
 c. / in/ is used elsewhere as for example before The allomorph / z / is selected by words which end in alveolar or
alveolar consonants like / t, d, s, z, n / as in alveopalatal sibilants (that is consonants with sharp hissing sounds
‘indecent’;
fishes /fɪʃɛ z/
The three allomorphs / m, ŋ, n / of the morpheme {in} are therefore in bushes /bᴜʃɛz/
complementary distribution in that the use of one in one slot excludes the churches / tʒə: tʒɛz/
other.
The zero allomorph /ʒ / occurs with words which normally do not
Allomorphic Variations have plurals reflected in their morphological shapes as for instance in ‘sheep’
An allomorph as already explained is a member of a family of a and ‘deer’.
morpheme – a variant of a morpheme depending on the environment where it
occurs. The plural morpheme {s} for example changes its nature depending on
the phonological environment where it occurs. The addition of the {s} ii. The Z2 or Possessive Morpheme
morpheme to a word obtains not only in the formation of plurals in English but This morpheme is similar in distribution to the Z1 Morpheme. The
also in the formation of possessives as, for instance, in goat, goat’s, John, only difference is in the orthographic convention. The possessives have the
John’s as well as in changes in verb patterns as a result of changes in person as apostrophe in specific places in words whereas plurals are not written with
in I dance, she dances. The three sets of {s} morphemes are generally referred apostrophes. The distribution of the Z2 morpheme is as follows:
to with the umbrella term the Z Morpheme. When the Z Morpheme relates to
plural formation, it is called Z1 Morpheme; when it is concerned with the a. /s/ occurs with words ending in voiceless sounds except the
formation of possessives, it is referred to as Z2 Morpheme; when it has to do sibilant consonants as in Jack’s / dʒæks/.
with changes in verb forms, it is referred to as Z3 or Concord Morpheme. The b. /z/ occurs after voiced sounds other than sibilants as in
different kinds of Z Morpheme therefore are: Jane’s /dʒe nz/.
c. / ɪz/ occurs after the sibilants as in nurse’s /n3:sɪz/.
Z1 Plural d. /ʒ / occurs with words which end with the sibilants which
Z2 Possessive may be plurals or words that naturally end with the letter ‘s’
Z3 Changes in verb forms as in Jones’ /dʒɔ ns/ and students /stju:dɪnts/

i. Z1 or Plural Morpheme The possessive morpheme, unlike the plural morpheme, does not
In English, the Z1 Morpheme has four allomorphs: /s/, /z/, / z/ and occur frequently because in real life people own things so the possessive
/ʒ/. The allomorph /s/ occurs with words ending in voiceless sounds except /s/, morpheme tends to go more regularly with proper names. Also, the possessive
/ks/ and / t / as in the following examples: is often replaced with of + noun phrase constructions as in: the custom of the
country instead of the country’s customs. This type of construction is often
cats /kæts/ preferable to possessives in some clumsy sounding cases as in the following:
books /buks/
cups /cəps/ a. The eve of St. Agnes instead of St. Agnes’ Eve;
b. The history of Nigeria instead of Nigeria’s history;
The /z/ allomorph occurs with words ending in voiced sounds c. The Vice President of the University of Iloilo instead of
including all vowels and voiced consonants as in the following examples: University of Iloilo’s Vice President.

mangoes / mæng uz/ iii. The Z3 or Concord Morpheme

boys / bɔɪz/ This is the morpheme that shows changes in verb patterns occasioned
bags /bægz/ by changes in person or number, as for instance, in:

I go, she goes.

 Like the other Z morphemes, it is phonologically conditioned as The following points have been made in this unit
follows:
 Traditional grammar saw the word as the basic unit of
a. /s/ after voiceless consonants except sibilants as in walks grammatical analysis but the structuralists saw the morpheme as
/wɔks/. the smallest unit of grammatical analysis.
b. /z/ after voiced sounds other than sibilants as in goes /g z/.  A morph is the physical representation of a morpheme in a
c. / z/after sibilant sounds as in washes /w z/. language.
 A morpheme is the smallest meaningful unit of grammatical
The Z3 morpheme is also often referred to as the third person singular analysis.
present tense morpheme.  An allomorph is a variant of a morpheme which occurs in a
specific environment.
The D or Past Time Morpheme  Allomorphs of a morpheme occur in complementary distribution
The allomorphs /t, d, d/ are phonologically conditioned. In addition to  The Z morphemes and the D Morphemes have at least three
the allomorphs /t/, /d/ and / ɪd/ there is a / / allomorph which occurs where allomorphs.
there is no change in the morphological shape of the verb, as for instance, in  The Z1 or plural morpheme has four allomorphs - /s/, /z/, / ɪ z/
the verbs ‘hit’ and ‘put’ which have the same morphological shapes for both and /ʒ /.
present and the past.  The Z2 or possessive morpheme also has the following
The phonological conditioning noted in the behaviour of the ZI, Z2, allomorphs: /s/, /z/, / ɪz/ and / ʒ/.
and Z3 morphemes is not peculiar to these morphemes. We have noted this  The Z3 or Concord morpheme has the following allomorphs:
behaviour with the D morpheme too and earlier in the various allomorphs of /s/, /z/, /ɪ z/.
the morpheme {-in} The allomorphic variations so far discussed can be  The D or past time morpheme has the following allomorphs:
summarized as follows: /t/, /d/ and /ɪd/ there is a // allomorph which occurs where the
past and present tense forms are the same.
1. For the Z Morpheme  All allomorphs are phonologically conditioned.
a. /s/ becomes [s] in voiceless environments except
sibilants. 5.0 QUESTIONS:
b. /s/ becomes [z] in voiced environments except sibilants.
c. /s/ becomes [ɪz] after sibilants. 1. Explain the terms morphology and morpheme
2. For the D morpheme 2. Discuss the usefulness of morpheme in word formation.
a. /d/ becomes [t] in voiceless environments except after 3. What is an allomorph?
/t/
b. /d/ becomes [d] in voiced environments except after /d/
c. /d/ becomes [ ɪd] after /t/ and /d/
3. For any sibilant suffix in English the different phonetic
representations are as follows;
a. /s/ after voiceless consonants other than the sibilants.
b. /z/ after vowels and voiced consonants like / b, n, d /.
c. / ɪz/ after the alveolar and alveo-palatal sibilants:/ s, z, ʃ,
ʒ, t , d /.

UNIT 2
4.0 SUMMARY
 which are capable of independent existence. When joined together to form
THE NATURE OF THE MORPHEME compound words like “blackboard, teapot, sweetheart”, each of the two
morpheme words still retain meanings of their own which add up to the
meaning of the words of which they are part.
In contrast, bound morphemes are those morphemes which are not
1.0 INTRODUCTION capable of independent existence. They occur usually with some other word-
building element attached to them. Examples of bound morphemes are given
The morpheme is sometimes confused with the syllable but it is below:
different. Syllables are made up of sounds which are grouped together for
pronunciation purposes. For instance, the word ‘star’ is made up of the (a) -ceive as in receive, perceive
sounds /s/, /t/ and /a: / which add up to /sta: /. The division of words into the (b) -mit as in permit, commit
component sound (phonemes) makes it possible for languages to be written (c) -intro as introspect, introduce
using letters. Words can also be broken down into syllables. Some words are Some words are made up of two bound morphemes as is the case in
composed of one syllable as the word ‘pens’ /penz/. Others are made up of ‘introduce’ while many other words are made up of free and bound
two or more syllables as the words ‘today’/t de /, ‘saliva’ /sæ-la -v /, morphemes as in the words ‘pillows’ and ‘cleaner’. The bound morphemes also
‘embarrass’ / m-bæ-r s/ and ‘companion’ /k m-pæn n/. often occur as prefixes and suffixes but never in isolation as words.
While the syllable is the unit of pronunciation, being the smallest
stretch of sound that can be uttered with one breath (Abercrombie, 1975, p. Roots, Stems, and Bases
350), the morpheme is the smallest unit of meaning and of grammatical Some morphemes are the core of words while some are additions and
analysis. For instance, the words ‘today’ and ‘embarrass’ are made up of two appendages (cf Tomori 1977:32). The morpheme which carries the core
and three syllables respectively but they are composed of only one morpheme meaning is referred to as the root of the word. In the word ‘faithfulness’ for
each. On the other hand, the word ‘pens’ is a monosyllabic word (made up of instance, the core of the word or root morpheme is faith. Similarly, in the word
one syllable) but has two morphemes namely: the morpheme {pen} and the ‘naturalisation’ the root morpheme is nature. The root of the word is that part
plural morpheme {s}. Therefore, when we divide words into morphemes, we that is always present.
isolate groups of sounds that have semantic and grammatical meanings, the The stem of the word is that part to which the last morpheme is
fact that they do not constitute syllables notwithstanding. added. It is thus the part in existence before any inflectional affixes (those
additions required by the grammar of a language such as indicators of number
2.0 OBJECTIVES in nouns, tense in verbs etc.). In the words ‘cats’ and ‘learners’, the {s}
morpheme is added to the root ‘cat’ while the agentive morpheme {er} is
At the end of this unit you should be able to added to the root ‘learner’ to mean one who learns. In ‘learners’ the root is
 Differentiate between morphemes and syllables learn while learner is the stem to which the inflectional morpheme {s} is added
 Differentiate between bound and free morphemes to give the additional meaning of ‘more - than - one’. A base on the other hand
 Differentiate between roots, stems and bases is a unit to which any affix can be added. The affix may be inflectional (selected
 Identify some Greek and Latin root and how to use them in word for grammatical reasons) or derivational in which case it alters the meaning or
formation. grammatical category of the base.
A root to which no affix has been added like ‘girl’ can be a base since
3.0 3.0 MAIN CONTENT it can take an inflectional affix like {-s} to form the plural ‘girls’ or a derivational
like {–ish} to turn the noun into an adjective ‘girlish’. In effect, all roots are
3.1 Types of Morphemes bases but roots are stems when they take inflectional suffixes. Thus, although
Free and Bound Morphemes all roots are bases, not all roots are stems. In the word ‘faithfulness’, faith is
the root of the whole word; it is also the stem of ‘faiths’ and the base of
Morphemes are free when they can stand on their own and constitute ‘faithful’ while faithful becomes the base for ‘faithfulness’. This explanation of
independent words as the following words: “black, board, tea, pot, sweet, roots, stems and bases is contrary to Tomori’s (1977:32) analysis which
heart”. Single words as the ones listed above are the smallest free morphemes equates stems with bases rather than with roots. Katamba (1993:45) however
sees all roots as bases but stems as bases only in the context of inflectional culprit
morphology. This is the sense in which we use roots, bases and stems although _______________
we are also aware of Eka’s (1994) use of root and base in the sense in which doc- (teach) doctor one who teaches
Tomori uses root and stem while Francis (1967) employs the terms root, stem docile easily taught
and base as largely synonymous. All the usages referred to above tend to doctrine
overlap in the sense in which root is used. The slight differences in the senses _______________
of base and stem appear idiosyncratic.
Knowledge of the root of words can be used to explain the origin and –gress (march) progress a marching toward
core meaning of words from Latin or Greek. congress a coming together
regressive
_______________
4.0 SUMMARY –laps (fall) relapse fall back (into habit)
elapse to glide away (as time)
The following points have been raised in this unit: collapse
_______________
 The syllable is the unit of pronunciation while the morpheme is loqu-– talk eloquent talking well
the smallest unit of meaning and of grammatical analysis. colloquial chatty
 Free morphemes can stand by themselves as words but bound ventriloquist
morphemes are incapable of independent existence. _______________
 The morpheme which carries the core meaning of a word is the magn – great magnify
root. _______________
 The stem of the word is that part to which the last morpheme is magnitude size
added. magnificent
 A base on the other hand is a unit to which any affix can be _______________
added.
 Although all roots are bases, not all roots are stems. -metre m easure chronometer measures time
 Knowledge of the root of words can be used to explain the origin barometre measures pressure
and core meaning of words from Latin or Greek. thermometer
5.0 QUESTIONS: _______________
–pos put compose put together
Some common Latin and Greek roots are given below. Find the impose put up
missing explanation. depose
_______________
Latin Root Words Meaning
ann- (year) annual yearly
-enn perennial through the years Greek Root Words Meaning
centennial bibl – (book) bibliography list of books
_______________ bible sacred books
` bibliophile
carn- (flesh) carnivorous _______________
_______________
incarnation presence in the flesh path – (feel) sympathy feeling for or with
culp- (guilt) culpable guilty pathology study of diseases
exculpate to be free
 psychopath
_______________ 1.0 INTRODUCTION
phil – (friend) philosopher friend of wisdom
philantrophist friend of man
anglophile New words can be formed in many languages by the addition of
_______________ morphemes to bases. Such morphemes can be added before or after the base.
The morphological process in which morphemes are added to existing words to
pyre – (fire) pyre pile for burning the dead form new words is called affixation. The morphemes so added are called
pyrothenics fireworks affixes. An affix is not capable of independent existence except as an
pyromaniac attachment to another morpheme such as a root, stem or base. Affixes are
_______________ therefore bound morphemes. For example, no English word is made up of an
affix like ‘–al, -er, -ed’ or ‘im’. Similarly, affixes cannot be joined together in a
thermo – (heat) thermometer measures heat recognizable structural bond to form words as the following examples show:
thermostat *im –al, *al – ed, *im –ed.
_______________ There are two types of affixes which generally operate in English:
prefixes which are added before the bases to form new words and suffixes
usually added after the base. A word like ‘unreasonableness’, for instance, is
made up of the root morpheme {reason} after which the prefix ‘un –’ and the
suffixes ‘–able’ and ‘ness’ have been added. Prefixation and suffixation are the
major forms of affixation and therefore major morphological processes in
English.

2.0 OBJECTIVES

At the end of this unit you should be able to:

 Identify common affixes in English;

 Describe prefixation and how it operates in English;
 Describe suffixation and how it operates in English; and
 Explain the meaning of some Greek and Latin affixes and how to
use them in word formation.

3.0 MAIN CONTENT

3.1 Prefixation

As already explained, a prefix is a morpheme that is attached at the

beginning of a root. Many English words derived from Latin and Greek consist
of a familiar root and a prefix. The prefix is usually a syllable or two. The Latin
UNIT 3 prefix sub– means ‘below’ or ‘under’. When added to ‘soil’ for instance, it
modifies the meaning of the root. ‘Subsoil’ is therefore a layer of soil that is
AFFIXATION below the surface soil. If the prefix mal– is added to ‘treat’ it becomes
‘maltreat’ which means ‘treat badly’. Occasionally the prefix alters the word
class of the base as in the following example:
 take the root ‘friend’ we can create a word by adding {-ly} to form ‘friendly’. To
en + danger (noun) becomes endanger (verb). the base ‘friendly’ can be added the derivational prefix -un and the suffix –
ness to form the complex word unfriendliness. This process of forming
Many prefixes in English are from Latin or Greek. complex words such as unfriendliness by the addition of several affixes is the
The common ones are: process of multiple affixations. The process takes place in a number of steps so
Prefix Meaning Prefixed Words that the word formed by one step by affixation becomes the base for the next
un} unkind, unfortunate step as can be seen in the following examples:
in} not inclement, insanitary
im} impossible, imperfect nature natural unnatural naturalization
anti against antidote, anti-aircraft
ante before antenatal 4.0 SUMMARY
intra between intravenous
inter among international The following main points have been raised in this unit:
mis} mismanage  The morphological process in which morphemes are added to
mal} badly maltreat existing words to form new words is called affixation
non not non-fat, non-native  Prefixation and suffixation are the major forms of affixation and
re again revise, rearrange therefore major morphological processes in English.
tele distance telephone, telegram  A prefix is a morpheme that is attached at the beginning of a root.
co together co-operation, co-announcer  Suffixation is a morphological process involving the addition of a
trans across transfer, transfusion morpheme at the end of a root or base.
pre before prefix, prehistoric  The process of forming complex words by the addition of several
per through pervade, percolator affixes is called multiple affixation.
neo new neo-colonialism, neologism  Knowledge of Greek and Latin suffixes helps to explain words we
bene good benefactor, benediction encounter and use everyday
bi two bilateral, bicycle
mono one monotheism, monotransitive 5.0 QUESTIONS:

3.2 Suffixation Some common Greek and Latin suffixes are given below. Supply the
missing words:
Suffixation is a morphological process involving the addition of a
morpheme to a root or base. Many English words derived from Greek or Latin 1. -cide killing insecticide kills insects;
are made up of familiar roots and common suffixes. Like prefixes, suffixes, can A homicide squad investigates killings of people.
be made up of one or more syllables attached at the end of a word to modify Killing oneself is _____________________.
its meaning. Suffixes are of two types namely inflectional and derivational 2. - cracy rule
suffixes which reflect two major word formation processes: inflection and In a _____________________ the people rule.
derivation. Knowledge of Greek and Latin suffixes helps to explain words we In a theocracy priests rule.
encounter and use every day though many of them are common in technical or An autocracy is the government by one person.
scientific fields. Science students for instance encounter many words which 3. -ennial yearly
end in –derm meaning ‘skin’ or ‘tissue’ and –meter which means ‘measure’. A centennial is a one hundredth anniversary.
A ______________ plant lasts through the years.
3.3 Multiple Affixations 4. -fy make
A magnifying glass makes things larger.
It is also possible in English to form complex words by the addition of An _________________ makes sounds stronger.
several affixes (derivational morphemes) to roots and bases. For example, if we 5. - logue speech
 A monologue is a speech addressed to oneself. building: inflection and derivation. Inflectional and derivational morphemes
In a __________ two people speak to each other. behave differently in word formation.
A prologue is a short speech introducing a play.
2.0 OBJECTIVES

At the end of this unit you should be able to:

 Describe inflectional morphemes and their behaviour in word

formation in English;
 Describe derivational morphemes and how they operate in
English; and
 Explain the differences between inflection and derivation as word
formation processes in English

3.0 MAIN CONTENT

3.1 Inflectional Morphemes

Inflectional morphemes always come at the end of words in English.

They are therefore suffixes. By the rules of word formation in English no other
morpheme can be added after an inflectional morpheme. It is also not possible
to have more than one inflectional morpheme at a time. In the word
‘contemplations’ for instance, the root of the word is {contemplate}. The
derivational morpheme is {-ation} while the inflectional morpheme is /z/ which
is spelt‘s’ and it comes at the end of the word. No other morpheme can be
added to ‘contemplations’ after the addition of the inflectional morpheme {s}.
In the following examples none of the words can further be inflected for plural,
possession, comparison or concord:

Word Inflectional suffix Inflected Word

Girl -s girls
John -s John’s
UNIT 4 Go -es goes
Take -en taken
INFLECTION AND DERIVATION Old -er older

An inflectional morpheme does not alter the word class of the root to
which it is added. Inflectional morphemes only modify the form of the word to
1.0 INTRODUCTION enable it fit into a particular grammatical category. For instance, the {s}
morpheme of nouns as in ‘tables’ merely carries the information regarding the
Affixes can be divided into two categories depending on their number of tables in question. The word itself remains a noun. It is for that
functions in word formation. These are derivational morphemes and reason that Katamba (1993:51) describes inflectional morphemes as those
inflectional morphemes. This division recognizes two major processes of word
which ‘do not change referential or cognitive meaning’. The frequently used
inflectional suffixes (English has no inflectional prefix] are shown below: As can be seen in the two groups of examples above, a derivational
affix can cause a major grammatical change from one word class to another as
Suffix Stem Function Example in slave/enslave, power/powerless where a noun becomes a verb in the first
-s Noun plural cats case and an adjective in the second. At times the addition of a derivational affix
-s Noun possessive Mary’s may cause just a minor change as when the base changes to a minor subclass
-s Verb 3rd person singular sings present tense within the same word class as in pig/piglet: both are nouns but one is the
-ed Verb past tense danced diminutive form of the other. This brings us to the addition of some suffixes
-ing Verb present progressive dancing (bound morphemes) which carry emotive undertones as for instance:
-er Adjective comparative degree bigger
-est Adjective superlative degree biggest - nette - kitchenette - smallness
- ish - girlish - bad qualities of
3.2 Derivational Morphemes - like - womanlike - good qualities of
- let - piglet - small of
Derivational morphemes form new words by: - ling - duckling - small of
- ock - bullock - small of
(i) changing the meaning of the base to which they are added as for
instance in the examples clean/unclean which are both The following tables show common derivational prefixes and suffixes,
adjectives; one has a meaning which is opposite to the other. the types of bases to which they can be attached and the words that can be
(ii) changing the grammatical class of the base as for instance the formed together with the word classes of the derived words:
addition of –ly to ‘slow’ forms another word ‘slowly’ therefore
changing the word ‘slow’ from an adjective to an adverb. In Suffix Word Class Meaning Word Class Examples
English, it is, as a rule, possible to form adverbs by adding the of Base of Derived
suffix –ly to an adjectival base. Word
- ment verb result or product noun govern -
Examine the following: of doing the action government
of the verb
1. quick (adjective) - quickly (adverb) - ness adjective quality, state or abstract happy–happiness
2. beautiful (adjective) - beautifully (adverb) condition noun
3. break (verb) - breakage (noun) - ity adjective state or condition abstract depraved–
4. joy (noun) - joyful (adjective) - joyfully (adverb) noun depravity
5. beauty (noun) - beautify (verb) - ship noun state or condition abstract friend–
6. electric (noun) - electrify (verb) noun friendship
7. fat (noun) - fatten (verb) - hood noun status abstract mother–
8. slave (noun) - enslave (verb) noun motherhood
9. father - fatherly (adverb) - ly adjective manner adverb graceful–
10. nation (noun) - national (adjective) gracefully
- al verb pertaining to or abstract refuse– refusal
Sometimes a derivational suffix is added to an already derived base as act of noun
in: - al noun pertaining to/of adjective medicine–
medicinal
natural naturalise naturalization - er verb the kind who does noun read- reader
power powerless powerlessness - or what the verb sail- sailor
beauty beautiful beautifully
 - ar indicates lie- liar open-ended tendency of English words in the sense that there appears to be
agent no upper limit to the number of affixes or the length of forms that may
- ful noun indicates having adjective beauty– function as bases for the formation of new words. We shall observe in this unit
beautiful a tendency of existing words to combine to form compounds. It is this
productive nature of morphology that this unit will examine.

4.0 SUMMARY 2.0 OBJECTIVES

In this unit the following important points have been made: At the end of this unit you should be able to:

 Inflection and derivation are two major word building processes  Explain what a compound word is and how compounds are
in English. formed
 Inflectional morphemes always come at the end of words in  List other minor word formation processes in English.
English. They are therefore suffixes.  Explain and illustrate these processes.
 No other morpheme can be added to a word after an inflectional  Create new words in English following English morphological
morpheme. rules.
 An inflectional morpheme does not alter the word class of the  Analyse compound and newly formed words into their
root but only modifies it to enable it fit into a particular constituent morphemes.
grammatical category.
 A derivational affix can change the word class and the meaning of 3.0 MAIN CONTENT
the base to which it is added. 3.1 Compounding
Apart from the derivation of new words by the addition of affixes
5.0 QUESTIONS: many English words can be formed from two or more bases. This is the process
of compounding and the resulting words are called compounds. In other
1. Distinguish between inflexion and derivation. words, a compound word contains at least two morphemes which can stand
2. What modifications does an inflectional morpheme make to the base on their own as words. In the following example, words are formed from roots
to which it is added? and bases.

a.flash + light flashlight

Verb Noun Noun
UNIT 5 b.play + mate playmate
Verb Noun Noun
OTHER WORD FORMATION PROCESSES c.kind + heart + -ed kindhearted
Adjective Noun Adjective
d.wind + break + -er wind breaker
Noun Verb Noun

Note
1.0 INTRODUCTION Compounding is a very important way of creating new words in
English. According to Quirk and Greenbaum (1975:444) ‘there is no one formal
criterion that can be used for a general definition of compounds in English’ but
In recent years, linguists have extended the domains of morphology some observations about them can be made. For instance, the elements that
to include not only an analysis of the structure of existing words but also rules make up English compounds have some syntactic relations. Quirk and
that guide the creation of new words. In the last three units, we noted an
Greenbaum (1975:444) analyses the compounds ‘playboy’ and ‘call-girl’ as catch on but are usually understood in the environment where they were first
follows: coined. For example, the word “Eraption”, which came to be understood as
term for English so bad it’s become a joke, came from the nickname of former
playboy - the boy plays i.e. subject + verb Philippine president Joseph “Erap” Estrada, who was known for his kind of
call girl - someone calls the girls i.e. verb +object English that has become the butt of too many jokes.
Many neologisms are compounds which are semantically opaque. In
Thus, although the two compound words ‘playboy’ and ‘call-girl’ ‘are present-day English the words walk-man and tallboy are ready examples. A
superficially similar yet the relations of their elements are different.’ tallboy is not a kind of boy but a piece of furniture, while a walk-man is not a
3.2 Creativity kind of man but a type of stereo equipment.

Creativity has sometimes been used in the same sense as productivity 3.4 Clipping
to refer to the capability of human language users to produce an infinite
number of words and utterances using the word formation rules of languages In informal style, English words are formed by the deletion of one or
which are themselves finite. In morphology, creativity can be rule-governed more syllables from a word. This process, referred to as clipping can occur at
when the formation of new words follow the rules and principles learnt and the beginning as in the example phone created from telephone. It also occurs
internalized by the user of the language as, for instance, when abstract nouns and more commonly so at the end as in the case of photo created by the
are formed from verbs in English by the addition of the suffix –ion/ition as in deletion of – graph from photograph. At other times clipping occurs at both
‘addition’ and ‘information’. ends. This process is somehow rare but is attested in a word like flu created
Creativity can also be rule-bending when users bend the rules and at from influenza where the initial syllable - in and the final ones –enza are
times do violence to the everyday meaning of words in an attempt to create deleted to create the word flu. Other clipped words include Mum and Dad,
new words. Creativity of this kind does not follow dutifully the word formation from Mummy and Daddy; lab from laboratory, pub from public house, exam
rules of the language. It is this kind of creativity that allows writers to coin new from examination, cable from cablegram, bus from omnibus and zoo from
words to express their peculiar situations and communicate in a more zoological garden.
memorable way, at times idiomatically. Many compound words and 3.5 Blending
neologisms are formed in this way.
Our preoccupation so far has been with rule-governed word Blending involves clipping of a special kind. Letters, not syllables, of
formation. In this unit, we treat as creativity any word formation process that words are extracted and used to from new words. Blends are also informal and
is rule-bending on the one hand or resulting from the contact of English with have only short life spans. Some of them have however, been fully assimilated
another language. We will also treat the minor word formation processes in as in the following examples:
English: clipping, blending and acronymy as creative rather than productive
processes because there are inherent in them some elements of rule-bending Breakfast + Lunch = brunch
which are not consistent in all the cases but require for different words Motor + Hotel = motel
different treatments as we will see later. Smoke + Fog = smog
Transfer + Resistor = transistor
3.3 Neologisms
An examination of the examples above shows that the selection of
These are words that are coined to express some new phenomena or elements to form blends tends to be idiosyncratic as it does not appear to
the attitude of the speaker or writer. A typical example is snail-mail referring to follow set down rules as regards the number of segments or letters selected
the postal service as opposed to the modern electronic mail. Extension of from the input words. Perhaps the selection obeys (apparently unconsciously)
meaning could be said to be a characteristic feature of neologisms. In the case the phonotactic rules of English because the example smog for instance could
of snail-mail above, the characteristic slow speed of the snail is extended to the not have been *smfog since the sequence / sf / and / smf / are not acceptable
speed of postal services. clusters in English. Similarly, brunch could not have been *brlunch.
Neologisms constitute a very fertile way of expanding the vocabulary.
Many neologisms, also often referred to as, nonce words however take time to 3.6 Acronymy
 2. Explain the terms clipping, blending and acronymy. Which of
Acronymy is the process of creating new words from the initial letters them do you consider the most creative in English word
of existing words. Sometimes acronyms are created from parts of words larger formation and why?
than letters. This is quite a productive process as new acronyms are freely and
daily produced particularly for the names of organizations.
Acronyms can be pronounced as sequences of letters as in P.B.A. for
Philippine Basketball Association, C.O.D. for Cash on Delivery and U.N. for the
United Nations, and the letters represent full words. Sometimes the letters of
an acronym represent elements of a compound or are just parts of a word as in
T.V, or Tee vee for television and GHQ for General Headquarters.
Some acronyms are pronounced as words such as radar for radio
detecting and ranging, UNICEF for United Nations Children’s Fund; VAT for
Value Added Tax, UNESCO for United Nations Educational, Scientific and
Cultural Organization and FIFA for Federation of International Football
Association.

4.0 SUMMARY

In this unit the following important points have been made:

 A compound word contains at least two morphemes which can

stand on their own as words
 Creativity refers to the capability of human language users to
produce an infinite number of words and utterances using the
word formation rules of languages.
 Neologisms are words that are coined to express some new
phenomena or the attitude of the speaker or writer e.g money
laundering
 English words can be formed by the deletion of one or more
syllables from a word. This process, referred to as clipping can
occur at the beginning or end of a word and sometimes at both
ends as in flu from influenza and photo from photograph.
 Blending involves the extraction of letters, not syllables, of words
which are used to form new words as in motel from motor and
hotel
 Acronymy is the process of creating new words from the initial
letters of existing words as in UNICEF or RADAR

5.0 QUESTIONS:

1. What are neologisms?