Syntax

Categories
•Categories can be divided into two main
classes: lexical and functional.
•The lexical categories include Noun,
Verb, Adjective, Adverb, and Preposition
and are called lexical because they carry
lexical meaning. They are also called
content words since they have synonyms
and antonyms.
functional or grammatical categories

•There are also functional or grammatical

categories: Determiner, Auxiliary,
Coordinator, and Complementizer. These
categories are called grammatical or
functional categories since they do not
contribute much to the meaning of a
sentence but determine the syntax of it.
•When languages borrow new words, these
will mainly be nouns, verbs, and adjectives,
i.e. lexical categories. Therefore, the
difference between lexical and grammatical is
often put in terms of open as opposed to
closed categories, the lexical categories being
open (new words can be added) and the
grammatical ones being closed (new words
are not easily added).
Lexical categories

• The five lexical categories are Noun, Verb,

Adjective, Adverb, and Preposition.
Nouns (N) and Verbs (V)
• A noun generally indicates a person, place or thing
(i.e. this is its meaning). For instance, chair, table,
and book are nouns since they refer to things.
• Some of the morphological characteristics of verbs
are that they can express tense, e.g. past tense ending
–ed.
• In English, nouns can easily be used as verbs and
verbs as nouns. Therefore, it is necessary to look at
the context in which a word occurs. Other examples
where a word can be both a noun and a verb are
table, to table; chair, to chair; floor, to floor; book,
to book; fax, to fax; telephone, to telephone; and
walk, to walk. Some of these started out as nouns
and some as verbs. For instance, fax is the shortened
form of the noun facsimile which became used as a
verb as well. Currently, when people say fax.
The fast girl recovered fast after her fast.
Adjectives (Adj) and Adverbs (Adv)

• Adverbs and Adjectives are semantically very similar in that both modify
another element, i.e. they describe a quality of another word.
• An adjective modifies a noun, the quality it describes will be one
appropriate to a noun, e.g. nationality/ethnicity (American), size (big,
large, thin), age (young, old), color (red, yellow, blue), material/personal
description (wooden, human), or character trait (happy, fortunate, lovely,
pleasant, obnoxious).
• Adverbs often modify actions and will then provide information typical
of those, e.g. manner (wisely, fast, quickly, slowly), or duration
(frequently, often), or speaker attitude (fortunately, actually), or place
(there, abroad), or time (then, now, yesterday). As well and also, and
negatives such as not and never, are also adverbs in that they usually
modify the verb.
• When adverbs modify adjectives or other adverbs, they are called degree
adverbs (very, so, too). These degree adverbs have very little meaning
(except some that can add flavor to the degree, such as exceedingly and
amazingly) and it is hard to find synonyms or antonyms. It therefore
makes more sense to consider this subgroup of adverbs grammatical
categories. They also do not head a phrase of their own, and when it looks
as if they do, there really is another adjective or adverb left out.
• Often, an adverb is formed from an adjective by adding -ly. However, be
careful with this morphological distinction: not all adverbs end in -ly, e.g.
fast, and hard can be adjectives as well as adverbs and some adjectives
end in -ly, e.g. friendly, lovely, lively, and wobbly.
Prepositions

• Prepositions typically express place or time (at, in, on,

before), direction (to, from, into, down), causation (for), or
relation (of, about, with, like, as, near).
• They are invariable in form and have to occur before a noun,
as shows, where the prepositions are in bold and the nouns
they go with are underlined:
With their books about linguistics, they went to school.
• Prepositions come before the nouns they relate to and that
adverbs are on their own.
• Prepositions are therefore a category with lexical and
grammatical characteristics.
Some prepositions in English

about, above, across, after, against, along, amidst, among,

around, at, before, behind, below, beneath, beside(s), between,
beyond, by, concerning, despite, down, during, except, for,
from, in, into, inside, like, near, of, off, on, onto, opposite,
outside, over, past, since, through, to, toward(s), under,
underneath, until, up, upon, with, within, without
Grammatical categories

• The main grammatical categories are Determiner, Auxiliary, Coordinator,

and Complementizer,
• Determiner (D)
• The determiner category includes the articles a(n) and the, as well as
demonstratives, possessive pronouns, possessive nouns, some quantifiers,
some interrogatives, and some numerals.
• Determiners occur with a noun to specify which noun is meant or whose
it is.
• There are four demonstratives in English: this, that, these, and those, with
the first two for singular nouns and the last two for plural ones.
• Possessive pronouns include my, your, his, her, its, our, and their.
• Interrogatives such as whose in whose books, what in what
problems, and which in which computer are determiners.
Quantifiers such as any, many, much, and all are usually
considered determiners, e.g. in much work, many people, and all
research. Some are used before other determiners, namely, all,
both, and half. These quantifiers are called pre-determiners, and
abbreviated Pre-D.
• Numerals are sometimes determiners, as in two books, and
sometimes more like adjectives, as in my two books.
Auxiliary (AUX)

• The auxiliary verb functions to help another verb, but does

not itself contribute greatly to the meaning of the sentence.
• Verbs such as have, be, and do can be lexical verbs or
auxiliaries.
a. have a book in my hand.
b. I have worked here for 15 years.
 Coordinator (C) and Complementizer (C)

• Coordinators are relatively simple and join similar categories

or phrases. Complementizers introduce subordinate clauses
and look remarkably similar to prepositions and adverbs. We
abbreviate both as C.
• Coordinators such as and and or join two elements of the same
kind. They are also sometimes called coordinating
conjunctions.
• Complementizers such as that, because, whether, if, and since
join two clauses where one clause is subordinate to the other.
Pronouns
• Pronouns are a hybrid category since they do not carry much lexical
meaning but they can function on their own, unlike articles and
Complementizer, which need something to follow them. This makes
them hard to classify as lexical or grammatical categories.
• Personal pronouns, such as I, me, she, he and it, and reflexive
pronouns, such as myself, yourself, and herself.
• Demonstratives, such as that in that is a problem. Thus, they are very
much like pronouns, but they can in principle have a noun following.
• possessive pronouns that occur on their own, and are therefore not
determiners. Examples are mine, yours, his, hers, ours, and theirs
• Indefinite pronouns, such as anyone, anybody, everyone, someone,
something, and nothing, occur frequently and are in many ways
similar to personal pronouns