AULA 2

ESTUDOS AVANÇADOS DE
LÍNGUA INGLESA – ESTUDOS
GRAMATICAIS

Prof. Leonardo Felipe Salmoria

INTRODUCTION

Word classes

By the end of this lesson, you will be able to identify the purpose of the
words in their own classes, and their nature. You will also be able to distinguish
the meaning of words with the same morphology and comprehend the features of
each class and their own peculiarities. For this lesson, we will not consider the
verb, because it will be scrutinised in upcoming lessons.
As every language, we have words to describe events and situations, such
as ‘be’, ‘run’, ‘fall’, and also participant words, such as ‘tree’, ‘river’, ‘woman’. And
we see these words with qualities such as ‘old’, ‘green’, ‘tired’, and we combine
these words to establish relationships, because something can be ‘inside’ or
‘above’, and happen ‘before’ or ‘after’, or even ‘cause’ or ‘be caused’ by it (Swan,
2005). These words are thus organised in classes, and this categorization is the
very element of this lesson.

THEME 1 – NOUNS

Considering the syntactic word order SVO, Nouns behave as subject,

object, and complement of clauses (Quirk et.al, 2005). To start, we are going to
observe the different Noun classes, being common and proper, concrete and
abstract, and count and non-count. And then, we are also considering the article
within this section, due to their close relationship. And finally, we will also learn
more about the genitive case.

1.1 Count and non-count nouns

The basic difference between count and non-count nouns lies in the realm
of semantics. Count nouns denote individual countable entities, and the non-count
denote undifferentiated mass or continuum.

[1] “I listen to music when I’m commuting.”

[2] “My house is that one made of brick.”

In [1] and [2] both nouns ‘music’ and ‘brick’ are non-count, being [1] referring
to the idea of a continuum, and [2] to the idea of an undifferentiated mass.

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However, ‘brick’ can be used as a countable noun when regarded as individual
blocks of construction material, with the plural marker ‘s’ in the end.
Uncountable nouns, just like countable ones, can be concrete or abstract,
as you can see in the chart below:

Chart 1 – Substance and countability of nouns

Uncountable Countable
Concrete Butter, milk, sugar, etc. Apple, orange, car, etc.
Abstract Music, homework, etc. Difficulty, remark, etc.
Source: Leonardo Felipe Salmoria, 2023

When referring to countable and uncountable nouns, we must consider the

quantifiers to use along with them. For uncountable nouns we generally use ‘how
much’, and for countable we use ‘how many’ in interrogative sentences.
To refer to a noun as part of a whole we call it Partitive construction.
Partitives can be of quality and of quantity, in both plural and singular.

[3] “A different kind of music.”

[4] “You can make all sorts of things.”

[5] “My piece of advice to you: eat a piece of cake.”

The most usual partitive expression is ‘piece of’ once we can use for both
concrete and abstract nouns, like in [5]. For non-count nouns the partitive can use
different expressions, such as ‘much’ in ‘not much information’.

1.2 Proper and common nouns

Basically, proper nouns are names of specific people, places, months,

days, festivals, etc. This class of nouns do not take the rules for articles: ‘London’,
not ‘The London’, or ‘October’, not ‘The October’, and etc.

[6] “London is bigger than the city of Birmingham.”

Both cities of London and Birmingham are proper nouns, however in [6] we
can see the noun ‘city of’ before ‘Birmingham’, and for that reason we must use
the article. You will learn more about articles in the next section.

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 Different word classes, and even proper nouns, can become common
nouns according to the context. Let’s take the Wild Beats song “Palace” as an
example:

[7] “Baby there's have alls and there are have nots.”

In [4] ‘all’ and ‘not’ behave as nouns, because in the context of the song
Hayden Thorpe is comparing a palace to a squat.

[8] “Where’s the Shakespeare I left on the table?”

In [8] the proper noun Shakespeare can be switched by the common noun
‘book’, and for that reason we use a determiner, in this case the article ‘the’. The
title of the film “The young Victoria” has a proper noun: Queen Victoria, however
in this case the article can be explained by the partitive meaning of Queen Victoria
when she was young.

1.3 The articles

In the English language the articles are ‘a’, ‘an’, and ‘the’. There are noun
clauses that articles are not necessary. The indefinite articles are ‘a’ and its
variation ‘an’, and it is important to differentiate their use; we use ‘a’ before singular
nouns which begins with a consonant: ‘a house’, ‘a professor’, ‘a cat’, etc.; and we
use ‘an’ with singular nouns which begin with a vowel: ‘an apple’, ‘an argument’,
‘an artist’, etc. Note that it is important to observe that it is the sound of the word,
not the letter that is important: ‘an hour’, ‘an MP’, and ‘a university’, ‘a UN
resolution’.
The definite article is ‘the’, and unlike the indefinite articles, it can be used
both with singular and plural nouns: ‘the beach’, ‘the beaches.’ The definite article
is used to refer to something that can be identified in the contextual, or general
knowledge shared by the speaker, and the hearer (Quirk et.al, 2005).

[9] “The Prime Minister has said that rules don’t apply.”

The identity of the Prime Minister is a general knowledge shared among the
people from a country, so the definite article is used to point out how relevant the
title, not the person, is. We can use different nouns before the article in [9], like
‘pope’, ‘president’, ‘chancellor’, etc.
In general, we use the definite article in some specific contexts, which
makes it easier to identify, like the ordinals ‘first’, ‘second’, and so on; also general

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ordinals such as ‘next’ and ‘last’; also ‘same’, ‘only’; and superlative adjectives like
‘best’, ‘biggest’, ‘tallest’.
Some nouns or noun clauses do not need any article. In these cases, we
generally are talking about uncountable nouns in general, abstract nouns, and
plural countable nouns.

[10] “Stars are very bright tonight.”

[11] “Money can buy happiness.”

However, you must bear in mind that even some of the context before
mentioned can follow a definite article if we are talking about a particular noun
(Ducksworth, 2011).

1.4 The genitive case

When referring to Pronouns, the genitive case is related to possessive

pronouns. As we are focusing on Nouns, the genitive case also refers to
possession, in the form -’s for singular nouns, like [12], and some proper nouns
ending with ‘s’, like [13]. There is also the addition of the apostrophe after the ‘s’ in
plural nouns, like [14], or in the case of proper nouns ending with ‘s’ when there
are too many sibilating sounds, like [15].

[12] “The girl’s dress.”

[13] “Paris’s underground system.”

[14] “The spies’ pictures were stolen.”

[15] “Xerxes’ army.”

Note that the processes in [13], [14] and [15] are more about pronunciation,
than morphology (Quirk et.al., 2005). Since the addition of the apostrophe only
makes difference in writing, not in speech, we call this the Zero Genitive.
Naturally, the genitive case does not always follow the -’s form. In these
cases, we can use the of-constructions in prepositional phrases.

[16] “What is the baby’s name?”

[16a] “What is the name of the baby?”

Note that there is no difference in meaning between [16] and [16a], and both
are perfectly usual. However, the genitive cannot be used in all possessive
constructions, either -of or -’s.
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 [17] “The Lord of the Rings”

[17a] “The Rings’s Lord”

[18] “Amanda’s school is just around the corner.”

[18a] “The school of Amanda is just around the corner.”

The usage of the genitive -’s may be regarded as a less formal, more usual
though; however, the idea of a formality in of-constructions is inaccurate, as you
can verify in the absurd recast on Tolkien’s masterpiece of [17a], or in the change
in meaning of [18a]. For that reason, the genitive follows a semantic order too.

THEME 2 – ADJECTIVES

To identify the adjectives, morphology is not helpful at all, for they can have
different suffixes: ‘-able’ {comfortable}; ‘-ful’ {playful}; ‘ish’ {selfish}; ‘-ous’
{dangerous}; ‘-al’ {seasonal}; ‘-ic’ {pre-historic}; ‘-less’ {pointless}; ‘-y’ {spooky}.
And some adjectives have no suffixes, like ‘good’, ‘bad’, ‘great’, ‘little’, etc.
There are, though, some constant suffixes, -ed and -ing, and they have
specific contexts of usage. Note that both suffixes -ed and -ing are related to verbs,
and you will learn more about it in the upcoming lessons. But, for now, we will focus
on the difference in meaning; -ed adjectives usually tell you how someone feels.

[19] “He was bewildered after the morning news.”

[20] “Anna answered the phone surprised with the late call.”

And the ones ending with -ing tell you how something makes you feel, or
the effect something has on people.

[21] “That film was terrifying.”

[22] “Cleaning the house is exhausting.”

Another way to understand how to use them, you should bear in mind the
idea that adjectives ending in -ing tell us what something is like, and the ones
ending in -ed describe the result or effect (Ducksworth, 2011).

[23] “His speech was so boring. Everyone was awfully bored.”

Considering the ever-changing morphology of the adjectives, the highly

sarcastic song “Global warming” by John Grant brings an interesting construction,
even in the title.

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 [24] “Global warming is ruining my fair complexion.”

What element is the noun and what is the adjective? Well, considering the
suffixes -al and -ing, both ‘global’ and ‘warming’ can be adjectives, but in this case,
‘warming’ behaves as the noun. To help you understand it, the adjectives are also
divided into four criteria:

a) They usually occur in attributive function, premodifying a noun, in [25]

‘duckling’ and ‘story’ are modified:

[25] “‘The ugly duckling’ is a sad story.”

b) They usually occur in predicative function, either as subject complement,

like in [26], or as object complement, like in [27].

[26] “The book is sad.”

[27] “He thought the book was sad.”

c) They can also be premodified by the intensifier ‘very’. Note how [26] and
[28] have a small difference in meaning.

[28] “The book is very sad.”

d) They can change into superlative and comparative forms, by adding suffixes
-er or -est, or by using the premodifiers ‘more’ and ‘most’.

[29] “Andersen is the greatest Danish author.”

[30] “‘The little mermaid’ is his most famous story.”

However, not all adjectives possess all of the attributes above, like ‘afraid’,
‘utter’, ‘infinite’, etc. (Quirk et.al, 2005). Some adjectives may become adverbs by
adding a suffix, and that is the very essence of the next theme.

THEME 3 – ADVERBS

Adverbs are mainly modifiers, and also behave as clause elements. The
syntactic function of the latter generally goes with ‘perhaps’, ‘quite’, ‘always’, etc.,
and are usually a peripherical element, since they may be optional.

[31] “Perhaps I’m wrong about it.”

[32] “She quite forgot about it.”

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 Morphologically, the adverb has three types of distinction: Simple adverbs:
‘just’, ‘only’, ‘back’, ‘down’, etc.; the compound adverbs: ‘somehow’, ‘therefore’,
‘hereby’, etc.; and the most usual, the derivational adverbs, which occur by the
addition of the suffix -ly, and generally are created from adjectives: ‘odd’ {oddly},
‘happy’ {happily}, ‘cheerful’ {cheerfully}, etc. Other less common suffixes for
compound adverbs are: -wise {likewise}, -ward {downward(s)}, -ways {‘sideways’}.
As modifiers, adverbs can premodify [33] and postmodify [34] adjectives
and other adverbs [35].

[33] “It was a remarkably good film.”

[34] “I was stupid enough to leave earlier.”

[35] “His explanation was far more easily to understand.”

Some adjectives can only modify adjectives, and the others only adverbs.
Some adverbs resemble adjectives, like the adjective/adverb ‘pretty’ in the song
“Hot scary summer” by the Irish band The Villagers:

[36] “And all the pretty young homophobes looking out for a fight.”

The violent homophobes were not necessarily good-looking, they were only
too young, as ‘pretty’ also behaves as a modifier, here for the adjective ‘young’.
Some adjectives have specific adverbial form other than -ly, like ‘good’ becoming
‘well’, not ‘goodly’; if you are ‘good’ at something, it means you can do it ‘well’.
The usage of the adverbs also encompasses the verb, and the way the
action is performed or happens.

[37] “She speaks slowly but drives fast.”

The adverbs of frequency are ‘always’, ‘usually/often’, ‘sometimes’, ‘hardly

ever/rarely’, and ‘never’, and respectfully they are organised in a gradience from
100% to 0% (Ducksworth, 2011). The adverbs of time are ‘before’,
‘after/afterwards’, ‘while/whilst’, ‘when’, ‘until’, and ‘since’, and they can be reduced
in adverbial clauses.

[38] “While we were walking the dog, we saw him entering that shop.”

[38a] “Walking the dog, we saw him entering that shop.”

Adverbs of place, like the scary grey area Quirk et.al have mentioned, are
mostly prepositional phrases: ‘in the’, ‘next to’, ‘by the’; being ‘here’, ‘there’, ‘inside’,

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‘outside’, etc., the most usual adverbs of place. You will learn more about
prepositions in the very next section.

THEME 4 – PREPOSITIONS

As it was mentioned earlier, there are several intersectional points where

Adverbs and Prepositions intertwine, but basically, a preposition establishes a
relation between two parts, one the prepositional complement, and the other the
rest of the sentence.

[39] “The students at school were playing.”

One-word prepositions are called Simple prepositions, such as ‘in’, ‘at’,

‘for’, etc., and the prepositions with more than one word are called Complex
prepositions, such as ‘up against’, ‘due to’, ‘instead of’, etc. (Quirk et.al, 2005).

4.1 Prepositions of space

The basic prepositions of space are ‘in’, ‘on’, and ‘at’, and we basically use
them to say where things are. To add movement to this space, we can use the
preposition ‘to’. Let’s see the definition for each case:

a) We use ‘in’ to refer to a place that is inside another place, generally a bigger
one.

[40] “I think there are Hooligans in the park again.”

[41] “I love that coffee shop in the shopping centre.”

b) We use ‘on’ to refer to locations on a surface, or some types of public

transport, and also for lines, like rivers, borders, streets, etc.

[42] “I can’t talk, I’m on the bus now. I’m on Bond Street.”

[43] “I live on the edge of London.”

c) We use ‘at’ to refer to a place for specific activities, and for exact positions
or addresses.

[44] “He lives at 84 Charing Cross Street.”

[45] “I’m at home today, it’s my day off.”

d) We use ‘to’ for movements or directions.

[46] “He goes to work every day at 6 o’clock.”

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 Some places take the preposition ‘at’, like schools and universities.
Depending on the position, you can be ‘at’ some place, even if it is ‘on’ a specific
street. Let’s take another The Villagers song “27 strangers”:

[47] “The bus broke down at the graveyard on the edge of town.”

The bus was ‘on’ a street, but the exact location it broke down was ‘at’ some
place, a cemetery, where it was also ‘on’ some specific region, the city limits. The
semantics of the prepositions are very intricated, and for that reason requires
thorough attention.
The other prepositions of space are ‘by’, ‘beside’, ‘with’, ‘near (to)’, ‘close
to’, ‘opposite’, ‘between’, ‘among’, etc., all referring to a position in reference to
another.

4.2 Prepositions of time

The basic prepositions of time are: ‘in’, ‘on’, ‘by’, and ‘at’, and they are used
to explain when something happens. To better exemplify, let’s organise it into a
chart:

Chart 2 – Base prepositions of time

IN ON AT
In the morning On Monday At 6 o’clock
In the afternoon On Tuesday At midnight
In the evening On Wednesday At night
In the summer On December 25 At Christmas
In 2023 On Boxing Day At lunchtime
In December On my birthday At (the) weekend
We use it for parts We use it for days We use it for clock
of the day, of the week, times, mealtimes
months, years, meaning the whole and breaks, and
centuries, day, or specific for time phrases.
seasons. dates.
Source: Leonardo Felipe Salmoria, 2023.

There are some variations for prepositions in American English, like ‘on’
before ‘weekend’. When we talk about nighttime, it can be ‘at night’, when we mean
the whole night, like in [48] or even ‘in the night’, when we mean a specific part of
the night, like in [48a].

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 [48] “My shift is at night.”

[48a] “My neighbour’s baby always wakes up in the night.”

The preposition ‘by’ occurs in idioms such as ‘by day’ or ‘by night’ and can
be replaced by ‘during the day/night’. There are several exceptional cases where
the specific meaning established in the chart 2 can change, like ‘on Monday
morning’, where ‘on’ refers to part of the day, not the whole (Quirk et.al, 2005).
In the complex spectrum of time, we have another context of meaning:
Prepositions of duration: ‘for’, ‘during’, ‘over’, ‘(all) through’, ‘throughout’, ‘from…to’,
‘until’, ‘up to’. Let’s take the classic Cyndi Lauper’s hit “All through the night”, where
the length of the night is relevant:

[49] “All through the night, I’ll be awake, and I’ll be with you.”

And here is the moment where the prepositions intertwine with

conjunctions, because ‘before’, ‘after’, ‘since’, ‘till’, and ‘until’ behave as both
classes at the same time, with a difference in meaning though. Connectors are the
very subject of the following theme.

THEME 5 – CONNECTORS

Basically, conjunctions connect words and phrases. The most usual

connectors are ‘and’, ‘so’, ‘because’.

[48] “I like garlic and onions.”

Some conjunctions are also adversatives, which means they contrast

opposing or different ideas. The most usual are ‘but’, ‘although’, ‘or’, ‘however’.

[49] “I love tomatoes, but I hate Brussel sprouts.”

There are three main types of connectors: Coordinating conjunctions,

subordinate conjunctions, and sentence connectors (Frodesen; Eyring, 2000).
You will learn more about coordination and subordination in the upcoming lessons.

5.1 Coordinating conjunctions

This kind of conjunctions connect ideas in two, or more, independent

clauses, separated by a comma. The most usual ones are ‘and’, ‘but’, ‘for’, ‘or’,
‘so’, ‘nor’, ‘however’, ‘therefore’ and ‘yet’.

[50] “She tried very hard, and never gave it up, yet she failed.”
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 Pragmatics restrict the usage of the usual `and` to connect ideas that are
somehow similar in meaning or convey a logical sequence of terms. [51] presents
an asymmetric coordination:

[51] “Roses are red, and Britain’s capital city is London.”

The position of the coordinators ‘and’, ‘or’, and ‘but’ is always fixed in
between the clauses and cannot be preceded by a conjunction (Quirk et.al, 2005).
The conjunction ‘and’ should not be perceived as basically a ‘+’ sign, like the
infamous Baz Luhrman’s version of Shakespeare’s “Romeo and Juliet”, becoming
“Romeo + Juliet”; let’s take the Roxette song “Milk and toast and honey” as an
example of coordination:

[52] “Milk and toast and honey make it sunny on a rainy Saturday.”

By connecting two nouns, like ‘milk and honey’ or ‘toast and honey’ is implicit
that the two items are somehow mixed, like adding one into the other; but as the
three items are coordinated in a sequence it, though, does not mean they are
mixed in a big bowl, it means they are the ingredients to make a day feels better,
and the combination might be opened to interpretation.

5.2 Subordinating conjunctions

This kind of conjunctions connect ideas within sentences, showing the

relationship between ideas in independent and dependent clauses. The most
usual ones are for time: ‘after’, ‘before’, ‘once’, ‘since’, ‘until’, ‘when’, ‘whenever’,
and ‘while’; for reason: ‘as’, ‘because’, and ‘since’; for contrast: ‘although’, ‘even
though’, ‘though’, and ‘whereas’; for condition: ‘if’, ‘even if’, and ‘unless’; and for
location: ‘where’ and ‘wherever’.

[53] “He said ‘goodbye’ before he left for work.”

[53a] “After saying ‘goodbye’ he left for work.”

In both sentences the meaning is unaltered, but the syntactic function of the
clauses change; in [53] the clause ‘he said goodbye’ is an independent one, and
‘he left for work’ is a dependent one, connected by ‘before’, in a subordinated order;
in [53a], the subordination occurs with ‘after saying goodbye’ as a dependent
clause, and ‘he left for work’ as an independent clause.

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5.3 Sentence connectors

This kind of connectors are not necessarily conjunctions, but adverbs or

prepositional adverbs, or even noun phrases. They are discourse markers, and
they usually express relationships between two or more independent clauses,
sometimes even separated by a period, or a semicolon (Frodesen; Eyring, 2000).

[54] “She was exhausted at the end; consequently, she went home.”

Some of the most usual sentence connectors are ‘also’, ‘in addition’,
‘furthermore’, ‘moreover’, ‘as well’, ‘besides’, ‘in fact’, ‘as a matter of fact’, and
‘actually’, and they convey intensity and addition.

[55] “I cannot live without you. (as a) Matter of fact, I’m on your back.”

The independent clause ‘I’m on your back’ linked with the equally
independent clause ‘I cannot live without you’ by the connector ‘as a matter of fact’
in the oddly romantic song “Walking after you” by the Foo Fighters, is intensifying
the original meaning of the first independent clause. You will learn more about
discourse markers in upcoming lessons.

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REFERENCES

BRITISH COUNCIL. Learning English: Grammar reference, 2023. Retrieved

from: <https://learnenglish.britishcouncil.org/grammar>, on 22 Aug 2023.

COLLINS COBUILD. English Grammar. 1st edition. Suffolk, Great Britain: William
Collins Sons & Co Ltd, 1990.

FRODESEN, J.; EYRING, J. Grammar dimensions: Form, meaning, and use. 4th
edition. Thomson Heinle: Boston, MA. 2000.

LONGMAN. Longman dictionary of contemporary English. Essex, England:

Longman Group UK limited, 1990.

QUIRK, R. et al. A comprehensive grammar of the English language. 20th

edition. Essex, England: Longman Group Limited, 2005.

SCHENDL, H. Historical linguistics. 1st edition. Oxford, Great Britain: Oxford

University Press, 2001.

SWAN, M. Grammar. 1th edition. Oxford, Great Britain: Oxford University Press,
2005.

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