Grammar

Introduction to English Linguistics

Dr. Jonas Freiwald

 Set reading

Kortmann (2005), chapter VI (Semantics)

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 Reminder

◼ Morphology
→ Word formation
» Conversion, compounding and other processes
→ Inflectional morphology

3
 Syntax
Seman- Text
tics

Morphol-
Linguistic ogy
Prag- units
matics Meaning in
language
and context

Phonetics
History Linguistics
of
English
Socio-
linguistic Theoretical
perspectives perspectives

Language
change Social
variation General
concepts

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 Reminder Morphology: Derivation vs.
Inflection
Derivation
◼ Creating a new word with the help of derivational affixes
→ Derivational affixes change the lexical meaning of the word
and often change the word class
◼ One kind of word formation
◼ Example: buy → buyer

Inflection
◼ Changing the grammatical form of a word with the help of
affixes
→ Lexically it stays the same word, it’s simply a different form for
grammatical purposes
→ Typically no change in word class
◼ Part of grammar
◼ Example: buy → buys
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 Syntax

◼ The study of the rules that govern how smaller

linguistic units can be combined to form larger units
and ultimately end up with a sentence
◼ In syntax, we are interested in which units are able to
form larger units and in which order they need to
occur to be grammatical

◼ Example: Adjective phrases and noun phrases

→ Adjective phrases can be positioned inside noun phrases to
act as modifiers
→ In English, the adjective phrase needs to precede the head
noun inside the noun phrase
→ [This very old book]NP is extremely valuable.

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 A simple equation

Inflectional morphology + Syntax = Grammar

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 Inflection in English

◼ Present-Day English has only little inflectional

morphology left
◼ Inflection is one (rather limited) way of expressing
grammatical features in English
◼ Largely reduced throughout the history of English
→ Example verb inflection:
Old English: 26 different forms
Present day English: 5 forms

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 Word classes of English

◼ Noun Lexical/content words

or
◼ Adjective Open classes
◼ Verb
◼ Adverb
◼ Determiner/article
◼ Pronoun Function words
or
◼ Preposition Closed classes
◼ Conjunction
◼ Etc.

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 Inflection in English

◼ The kind of inflectional categories that are still available in

English depend on the different word classes
◼ Only four word classes can be inflected: verbs, nouns and
pronouns, and adjectives

◼ Traditional categories
→ 5 for verbs
» Person
» Number
» Tense & Aspect
» Mood
» Voice
→ 3 for nouns and pronouns
» Number
» Case
» Gender
→ 1 for adjectives
» Comparison
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 Inflection: Verbs

◼ Verb inflection is also often referred to as conjugation

◼ Only remaining inflectional forms
→ Base form: pay
→ -s form: pays
→ Past form: payed
→ Present participle: paying
→ Past participle (conflated with past form if it is a weak
inflection): payed
◼ Two basic types of verb inflection
→ Weak inflection: past tense form is marked by a inflectional
suffix
» play – played
→ Strong inflection: past tense form is makred by a change of the
stem
» drink – drank
◼ Limited inflection for auxiliary and modal verbs
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 Inflection: Pronouns

Personal and possessive Relative

pronouns pronouns
Singular Plural
Male persons he, him, his who, whom,
Female persons she, her whose
they, them, their
Ships, vehicles etc. she, her
which
Other things it, its

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 Inflection: Nouns & Adjectives

Nouns
◼ Only remaining inflectional forms
→ Number: singular vs. plural
» book – books
→ Case: common case vs. possessive
» Steve – Steve’s
◼ Nouns used to have a detailed case system in Old
English, similar to Latin, but this was also lost over time

Adjectives
◼ Only one inflectional form
→ Comparison: absolute vs. comparative vs. superlative
» clean, cleaner, cleanest
→ Alternatively formed by an adverb if the adjective has more
than two/three syllables
» beautiful, more beautiful, most beautiful

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Syntagm

◼ The concept of syntagm highlights the fact that

elements have to be ordered in particular way to form
grammatical units
◼ Units that have to be ordered in a certain way are in
a syntagmatic relationship

I don’t like cauliflower.

→ S-V-O
The strange place
→ Det-Adj-N
Außerdem habe ich ihm ein Buch gegeben.
→ Behind the finite verb, the Subject before the Object(s) and
pronouns before noun phrases
 Paradigm

◼ The concept of paradigm describes the fact that only

certain units can replace each other in the same context
to form grammatical units
◼ Units that can replace each other in the same position are
in a paradigmatic relationship

The strange place

The very old place
*The quickly place
→ Only AdjP can replace other AdjP as pre-modifiers in an NP

Jane believes in miracles.

My brother believes in miracles.
*The stone believes in miracles.
→ If the main verb is believe, the Subject can only be replaced by
other sentient Subjects

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 Agreement

◼ Agreement describes the formal match between

syntactically closely related units with respect to their
grammatical categories
◼ It is one of the most important functions of inflectional
morphemes
◼ In English
→ Subject and verb of a finite clause must agree in person &
number
→ Personal and possessive pronouns have to agree with the
preceding noun they replace in gender and number

Examples:
This actor is hopeless. He keeps forgetting his lines.
These actors play their parts extremely well.

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 Agreement

◼ Agreement describes the formal match between

syntactically closely related units with respect to their
grammatical categories
◼ It is one of the most important functions of inflectional
morphemes
◼ In English
→ Subject and verb of a finite clause must agree in person &
number
→ Personal and possessive pronouns have to agree with the
preceding noun they replace in gender and number

Examples:
This actor is hopeless. He keeps forgetting his lines.
These actors play their parts extremely well.

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 Agreement

◼ Agreement describes the formal match between

syntactically closely related units with respect to their
grammatical categories
◼ It is one of the most important functions of inflectional
morphemes
◼ In German
→ Determiner, adjective and noun have to agree in terms of
person, number, and case

Examples:
der alte Tisch
den alten Tisch
die alten Tische

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 Activity: How grammatical relations are
expressed in English

How do you express…

a) that something is the Subject English?

b) third-person, singular verb form in English?
c) negation of the verb in English?
d) a question in spoken and/or written communication in
English?

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 Grammatical relations

Grammatical relations in English are expressed through

a) Word order
▪ Steve saw Mary. vs. Mary saw Steve.
▪ He had forgotten the answer. vs. Had he forgotten the answer?
b) Inflection
▪ The choir meets once a week.
▪ Tunisia is hotter in summer.
c) Function words
▪ Steve saw Mary. vs. Steve did not see Mary.
▪ Brian’s life vs. the life of Brian
d) Intonation
▪ Had he forgotten the answer? (rise in pitch)
e) Orthography
▪ Had he forgotten the answer?
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 Analytic vs. synthetic languages

Synthetic languages
◼ Grammatical relationships are primarily expressed by
inflectional morphology, while word order is less
important
◼ Example: Latin
→ Agricola milites salutat.

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22
 Analytic vs. synthetic languages

Synthetic languages
◼ Grammatical relationships are primarily expressed by
inflectional morphology, while word order is less important
◼ Example: Turkish
→ Avrupalılaştıramadığımızlılardansınız
→ “You are one of those we cannot Europeanise.”
◼ Other examples: Finnish, Latin

Analytic languages
◼ Words are invariable, and grammatical relationships are
shown through word order and/or function words
◼ Example: Chinese
→ 我们去了北京. (Wǒmen qùle běijīng.)
→ 我 (I) 们 (Plural) 去 (go)了(past participle) 北京 (Beijing).
◼ Other examples: Afrikaans, Norwegian, Vietnamese

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 Analytic vs. synthetic languages

The distinction between analytic and synthetic

languages is more of a scale than of binary categories

Turkish Latin French English Chinese

Synthetic Analytic

What about German?

Something to discuss in PIEL!

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 Units of analysis & hierarchy

Grammatical units are hierarchically structured

➔ Words make up phrases, phrases make up clauses and clauses make up sentences
The word is the smallest unit we analyze in grammar
Phrases are an intermediate unit that function as clause elements
Clause, clause complex, sentence represent the upper limit of syntactic analysis

Sentence

clause clause

phrase phrase phrase phrase phrase phrase

word word word word word word word word word word

morpheme morph. morph. morph. morph.morph.morph. morph. morph. morph. ...

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 Phrases

◼ Clusters of words smaller than a clause, forming a

grammatical unit
◼ Traditionally classified into types based on the most
important word class they contain, i.e. the ‘head’
◼ The head is the central element
→ in relation to which all other elements in the unit are
subordinated
→ which determines the syntactic type and position of the unit
→ which gives the whole unit its name

I will never forget those fine warm days in the country

last year.

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 Types of phrases

◼ Noun phrase
All the hot buttered currant buns on the table are
gone.
◼ Verb phrase
The ship must have been sinking.
◼ Prepositional phrase
I met her at the corner of the street.
◼ Adjective phrase
The weather was incredibly cold.
◼ Adverb phrase
I spoke to him very sincerely indeed.

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 NP Modification

Describe or classify
Specifies the reference the head noun
of the head noun

No. Determiner Premodifier Head Postmodifier

1 water
2 a student
3 some new books
4 that girl with the red hair
5 all those fine warm days in the country last year
6 several quite distinct approaches involving the use of x
7 a good trip that I once had
8 the way to solve this

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 Structure of the verb phrase
Modal Primary Main particle
verb auxiliary verb
verb
works
worked
has worked
Her mother was working in Paris.
has been working
could have worked
must have been working
has given up.

In a finite clause, i.e. one marked for tense/modality, you require a minimum of one
finite verb and one main verb
• Finite verb and main verb can be the same verb
Furthermore, the verb phrase can contain modal and auxiliary verbs that express
modality, aspect (perfect, progressive), and voice
29 He [might have been being interviewed].
 Constituency

◼ As you know, a grammatical unit consists of smaller

elements aka constituents
→ Phrases consist of words, clauses consist of phrases, and
sentences consist of clauses
◼ So, each unit at one level consists of one or more
units of the level next below
◼ For instance, the constituents of a clause are its
phrases that represent the clause elements, which
can be identified with the help of constituency tests
→ Question Test, Substitution Test, Movement Test,
Thematization Test

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 Take home message

◼ Syntax
→ The structure of linguistic units to form clauses/sentences

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 Next topic

◼ Expressing meaning with the help of linguistic units

→ Semantics

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