‫االسم \ هدير مجدي محمد عبد الطلب سعد‬

‫رابعة – عام – انجليزي‬

Linguistics

Definitions & Examples:

• Inversions: A linguistic term referring to the rearrangement of elements in a
sentence and reversing (inverting) the normal subject–verb word order in a
sentence. We can use inversion to add emphasis, especially in formal English. It
is common, for example, in political speeches, because it has a persuasive and
impressive effect. To invert a sentence in this way, we put the adverbial (e.g.
never, rarely, not only, etc.) at the beginning and change the normal position of
the subject and the auxiliary verb.
For example,
Not only did they arrive late but they talked throughout the film.
(They not only arrived late but they talked throughout the film.)
• Island: refers to a syntactic structure that blocks movement of certain elements
in a sentence. This means that certain types of phrases or constituents cannot be
moved out of or across certain positions within a sentence due to structural
constraints.
Example:
"I wonder who you saw the movie with."
In this sentence, the phrase "who you saw the movie with" is an island because it
blocks movement of the wh-word "who."
• Lexical category: A lexical category is a syntactic category for elements that are
part of the lexicon of a language. These elements are at the word level or a
grammatical category that classifies words based on their meaning and function,
such as noun, verb, adjective, etc.
Example:
There are major and minor lexical categories.
Major categories: Every language has at least two major lexical categories: Noun and
verb
Many languages also have two other major categories: adjective and adverb
Minor categories: Many languages have minor lexical categories such as:
Conjunctions, particles and adpositions
• Matrix: is a term used to refer to the main clause or overarching structure within
a sentence that contains subordinate clauses or phrases. The matrix clause
provides the context or framework for the subordinate elements and often
governs their interpretation and syntactic relationships.
Example: She said [that she would be late].
In this sentence, the matrix clause is "She said," which contains the subordinate clause
"that she would be late."
• Clues modifier: A word, phrase, or clause that modifies or provides additional
information about a clause within a sentence. Clause modifiers can serve various
functions, such as adding detail, specifying time or location, expressing manner
or reason, or indicating condition. They help to clarify the relationship between
different parts of a sentence and provide context for the main clause.
Example: “Although it was raining, they decided to go for a walk."
- In this sentence, "Although it was raining" is a clause modifier that introduces a
condition (rain) that affects the main clause (they decided to go for a walk).
• Movement test: A method used in syntax to determine the syntactic structure of
a sentence by moving elements around. It involves the movement of
constituents, such as words or phrases, from their original positions to new
positions in order to convey specific meanings or grammatical structures.
Movement is a key aspect of transformational grammar, where it is believed that
constituents can move to different positions in a sentence to create different
interpretations.
• Noun: is a member of a syntactic class that includes words which refer to
people, places, things, ideas, or concepts whose members may act as any of the
following: subjects of the verb, objects of the verb, indirect object of the verb, or
object of a preposition (or postposition), and most of whose members have
inherently determined grammatical gender (in languages which inflect for
gender).
Examples: “rock”, “tree”, “dog” and “person”.
• Oblique: It refers to a grammatical case or construction that typically marks a
noun phrase as having a specific grammatical relationship with other elements in
a sentence, such as indicating the object of a verb, the recipient of an action, or
the location of an event. The oblique case is often used for nouns or pronouns
that do not function as the subject of a sentence.
Example: - "I gave the book to him." (The noun phrase "to him" is in the oblique case,
indicating the recipient of the action.)
• Parameter: refers to a characteristic or feature of a language that can vary
across different languages or dialects. Parameters are often used in generative
grammar theories, such as Principles and Parameters theory, to explain how
languages differ from each other and how they are structured. Parameters are
considered to be innate aspects of Universal Grammar that are set differently in
each language, leading to the diversity of grammatical structures and rules
observed across languages. By adjusting the values of these parameters,
linguists can account for the differences in word order, morphological features,
syntactic structures, and other aspects of grammar between languages.
Example: Word Order Parameter:
- In English, the word order is typically Subject-Verb-Object (SVO), as in "She eats
apples." However, in languages like Japanese, the word order is Subject-Object-Verb
(SOV), as in "彼女がリンゴを食べる" (She apples eats).
• phrase structure rules: are a set of rules that specify the hierarchical structure
of phrases and sentences in a language. These rules describe how words and
phrases can be combined to form larger units, such as noun phrases, verb
phrases, and sentences. Phrase structure rules are a fundamental component of
generative grammar theories, such as transformational grammar. Phrase
structure rules typically consist of two parts: a syntactic category (e.g., NP for
noun phrase, VP for verb phrase) and a structure that specifies how the category
is formed. These rules help linguists analyze the internal organization of
sentences and determine the relationships between different elements within a
sentence.
Example: Sentence → NP VP
- This rule states that a sentence consists of a noun phrase (NP) followed by a verb
phrase (VP). For example:
- "The cat" (NP) "is sleeping" (VP).
• Predicate: is the part of a sentence that contains information about the action or
state of the subject. It typically consists of a verb and any associated elements
that provide additional information about the action or state.
Example: - In the sentence "She is reading a book," the predicate is "is reading a
book."
• Proposition: is a statement or assertion that conveys information about the
world and can be either true or false. It is the meaning or content of a declarative
 sentence, independent of its grammatical form. Propositions are used to
represent the meaning of sentences and are often analyzed in logic and
semantics.
Example: - The proposition "It is raining outside" conveys the information that the
weather consists of rain. This proposition can be true if it is indeed raining outside,
or false if it is not.
• Relative clauses: are subordinate clauses that provide additional information
about a noun or noun phrase in the main clause. They are introduced by relative
pronouns (such as "who," "which," "that," "whom," and "whose") or relative
adverbs (such as "where," "when," and "why").
Example: Main clause: The book is on the table.
Relative clause: which I bought yesterday.
Combined sentence: The book which I bought yesterday is on the table.
• Specifiers: are words or phrases that provide additional information about a
noun phrase. They often appear at the beginning of a noun phrase and help to
clarify or specify the reference of the noun.
Example: In the phrase "the big house," "the" serves as the specifier, indicating that we
are referring to a specific house.
• Subcategories: refer to the various types or classes within a broader category.
Subcategories help to further classify linguistic elements based on specific
characteristics or features.
Example: Within the category of verbs, there are subcategories such as transitive
verbs (e.g., "eat," "read"), intransitive verbs (e.g., "sleep," "run"), auxiliary verbs (e.g.,
"be," "have"), modal verbs (e.g., "can," "may"), and so on. These subcategories help to
differentiate verbs based on their syntactic and semantic properties.
• Subject Constraint: is a principle in syntactic theory that states that a pronoun
cannot be bound by a quantified expression within its local domain. In simpler
terms, a pronoun cannot refer back to a quantified expression that appears within
the same clause or phrase.
Example:
Incorrect: "Every student thinks they are smart."
Correct: "Every student thinks he or she is smart."
• substitution test: is a method used to determine the syntactic category or
structure of a particular word or phrase within a sentence. This test involves
 replacing the word or phrase in question with another word or phrase of a
different category to see if the resulting sentence is grammatical.
Example: "The cat chased the mouse." If we want to determine the category of the
word "chased," we can use the substitution test: - "The cat ran the mouse." (This
substitution results in a grammatical sentence, indicating that "chased" is a verb.)
• Syntactic categories, also known as parts of speech, are classifications of
words based on their syntactic and semantic properties. These categories help
organize and understand the structure of sentences in a language. Common
syntactic categories include nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions,
conjunctions, and pronouns.
Example: Noun: "dog" / Verb: "run" / Adjective: "beautiful"
• Theme: refers to the element of a clause or sentence that is the topic or focus of
the statement. It is what the sentence is primarily about or what the speaker or
writer wants to emphasize.
Example: In the sentence "The cat chased the mouse," the theme is "the cat."
• Trace: refers to a syntactic position that has been left empty due to movement of
a constituent. It represents the original position of the moved constituent within a
sentence structure.
Example: "Who do you think [John saw _ ]?" In this sentence, the bracketed phrase
"John saw" has been moved from its original position after "who" to the end of the
sentence. The empty slot represented by "_" is a trace, indicating where "John saw"
was originally located before movement.
• Transformation: refers to a rule or operation that alters the structure of a
sentence without changing its basic meaning. Transformations are used to
generate different grammatical forms from a single underlying structure.
Example: One common transformation is passivization. Consider the active sentence
"The dog chased the cat." Using the transformational rule of passivization, we can
derive the passive sentence "The cat was chased by the dog."
• Universal grammar (UG): is a theory in linguistics proposed by Noam Chomsky
that suggests that the ability to acquire language is innate to humans, and that all
languages share a common underlying structure or set of principles.
Example: One example of universal grammar is the principle of recursion, which refers
to the ability of language to embed phrases within other phrases indefinitely. For
instance, in the sentence "The cat chased the mouse that the dog bit," the phrase "that
the dog bit" is embedded within the larger phrase "the mouse that the dog bit,"
demonstrating the recursive nature of language.
 • A verb: is a word that expresses an action, occurrence, or state of being in a
sentence. Verbs are one of the main parts of speech in English and play a crucial
role in constructing sentences.
Example: In the sentence "She sings beautifully," the word "sings" is a verb because it
denotes the action being performed by the subject "she."
• Wh-movement, also known as "wh-fronting," is a syntactic process in which a
wh-word (interrogative word) is moved from its original position within a sentence
to the beginning or front of the sentence. This movement often occurs in
interrogative sentences, relative clauses, and certain types of embedded
clauses.
Example:
Original sentence: "John bought a book."
Sentence with wh-movement: "What did John buy?"
In this example, the wh-word "what" has been moved from its original position as the
object of the verb "buy" to the beginning of the sentence, forming an interrogative
sentence. This movement is characteristic of wh-movement.
• Wh-questions, also known as "wh-interrogatives," are questions that begin with
an interrogative word (such as who, what, where, when, why, which, or how).
These questions are used to seek information about various aspects such as
identity, location, time, reason, manner, and quantity.
Example: “Who is coming to the party?” and “What is your favorite color?”
• The X-bar rule: is a syntactic principle in generative grammar that describes the
hierarchical structure of phrases. It suggests that every phrase has a hierarchical
structure with three layers: specifier (XP), head (X'), and complement (YP). The
head is the central element of the phrase, and the specifier and complement
provide additional information about it.
Example: In the phrase "the big red apple," the X-bar rule can be applied as follows:
- X' (phrase level): NP (noun phrase)
- X (head level): N (noun)
- specifier (XP): determiner "the"
- complement (YP): adjectives "big" and "red"
So, according to the X-bar rule, the noun phrase "the big red apple" has the structure
[Spec, N', YP], where N' is the head of the phrase, and YP consists of the adjectives
"big" and "red."