Download Comparative Morphosyntax manual

Comparative Morphosyntax I
Table of Contents
Lesson 1. What's Morphosyntax? 1
Morphology 1
Task 1. 2
Kinds of morphemes 2
Derivation and Inflection 2
Task 2 4
Ambiguity 4
Task 3. 5
Word Formation Processes 5
Task 4. 5
Compounding: 5
Task 5. 6
Reduplication: 6
Task 6. 6
Morpheme-Internal Changes 6
Task 7 6
Suppletion 7
Task 8 7
Blending 7
Task 9 7
Types of Languages 7
Analytic languages 7
Synthetic languages (3 flavours) 8
Task 10 8
Task 11 8
Final Odds and Ends 8
Task 12 9
Syntax 9
What's Syntax? 9
Prescriptive Grammar 10
Generative Grammar 10
Comprehension Questions 10
Practice Quiz 11
Lesson 2. Grammar 13
What is Grammar? 13
Lesson 3. Verb Patterns in English 16
Pattern 1 16
Pattern 2 16
Pattern 3 16
Pattern 4 17
Exercise 17
Pattern 5. Extraposition 18
Pattern 6. Cleft Sentences 19
Practice Quiz 19
Lesson 4. Basic Sentence Patterns in Spanish 21
Pattern #1 21
Pattern #2 21
Pattern #3 21
Pattern #4 21
Pattern #5 22
Pattern #6 23
Revision. 23
Word Classes and Morphological Characteristics 26
Lesson 5. Nouns and Adjectives 26
Nouns 26
Spanish 26
English 26
Adjectives 27
Homework 27
Possessive adjectives 27
Lesson 6. Pronouns and Verbs 28
Pronouns 28
Other Types of Pronoun 28
Numerals 30
Verbs 30
Derivational Analysis 30
Enclisis. 31
Compounding. 31
Lesson 7. The Noun Phrase and its Constituents 34
I. Determiners 34
Definite Articles 34
Indefinite Articles 34
English 34
II. Demonstratives 36
III. Possessives 37
Lesson 8. Mass nouns and Count nouns 38
Exercise 38
Practice Quiz 40
Process Assignment Progress 42
Index 43
Sources 43
Lic. Christian Cristóful ©
Lesson 1. What's Morphosyntax?
This lesson revises some main points of what you have been studying concerning
Morphology and Syntax in Linguistics I & II
Morphology
 Morphology is the study of the structure of words.
Paradoxically, however, the concept of word itself defies simple definition. In English, for
example, words tend to be smaller than the sentence, and we combine words to form
sentences. One tricky thing, however, is that in many languages, a single word can have
"sentence" meaning. Here's an example from Spanish: házmelo. This "word" is actually a
command that is best translated as "do it for me" (do (haz) it (lo) for me (me)). In Swahili,
the word atakusumbua means "s/he will annoy you." Nevertheless, if we take English as
an example, we have a clear sense that sentences can be broken down into smaller units
(words), each of which generally contributes to the meaning of the whole.
For example: Pigs like mud is a sentence containing three words (pigs, like, mud).
If we focus on the word pigs for a second, we notice something interesting. Pigs itself can
actually be decomposed into two parts that are easy to grasp intuitively. Specifically, pigs
consists of pig + s. So, we have a noun "pig", which lets us know we are in the presence
of, well, "pigness" and an additional element "-s" which attaches to the noun and lets us
know that we are dealing with not one pig, but rather, with more than a single pig.
By contrast, the word "mud" can't be broken down in the same way. Of course, we can
break it down into three "sounds" [m + u + d]. (Actually the [u] is a vowel called caret
but we'll ignore this detail for now.) But these three sounds don't each contribute a
meaning to the whole word. In pigs, however, the two parts [pig] and [s] DO each
contribute a meaning. The former tells us about the type of thing that we are referring to in
the world, and the latter contributes information about number.
Each of these two pieces [pig] and [-s] is called a morpheme, and, for our purposes here,
we can define morphemes as the smallest meaningful unit within the word.
Thus, a word like [mud] consists of a single morpheme, while [pigs] has two morphemes.
The word [unbelievable] has three morphemes, while the word unidirectionality has four!

Summing up the basics
 Morphology is the study of word structure and word formation.
 Words, though impossible to define in absolute terms, can be thought of as the
units that are combined to form sentences in a language such as English.
 Just as sentences can be broken down into smaller units (words), we can break
words down into smaller, meaningful parts.
 The smallest meaningful part of a word is called a morpheme.
 Note: not all words have more than one morpheme. Words that have only one
morpheme are also called monomorphemic words (e.g. pig). Words with more than
one morpheme are called polymorphemic words, as in foolishness (fool + ish +
ness).
1
Lic. Christian Cristóful ©
Task 1.
Provide examples of 5 monomorphemic words in English and 5 in Spanish. Do the same with
polymorphemic words
Spanish
English
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Kinds of morphemes
What kinds of morphemes are there in the world?
 Glad you asked!
Let's consider another example: governments.
First, we can agree (I hope) that governments is comprised of three morphemes:
 govern
 -ment
 -s
How are these three parts different from one another? Note that govern is the kind of
morpheme that can also stand on its own, as in the sentence, "Some people think it is a
good idea to govern with an iron fist". Morphemes that can stand on their own are called
free morphemes.
The other two morphemes, [-ment] and [-s], can't stand on their own. Rather, they have to
be attached, i.e. they have to make up part of a larger word. Morphemes that cannot
stand on their own are called bound morphemes.

Important distinction
Free morphemes can stand alone, while bound morphemes cannot.

More important distinctions
There's even more exciting news on the morpheme front. Let's focus more closely on the
two bound morphemes [-ment] and [-s] in the word [govern-ment-s]. Intuitively, we can
sense that there's a difference between them. While [-ment] is added to the verb "govern"
to give us a new word, the noun "government", [-s] simply makes the noun plural. It
doesn't change the part of speech and create a brand new word in the same way that
adding [-ment] to [govern] did. The difference is that [-ment] is a derivational suffix, while
plural [-s] is an inflectional suffix.
Derivation and Inflection
Affixes come in two flavours: derivational affixes and inflectional affixes. Here we'll review
the TESTS we can use to determine whether an affix belongs to one category or the
other.

Derivation: there's a good chance an affix is derivational if
2
Lic. Christian Cristóful ©

it changes the part of speech of the word that it is added to. So, the [-ment] suffix changes verbs to
nouns, as in [govern + ment]. The [-able] suffix changes transitive verbs like "read" and "write" into
adjectives, as in [read + able], etc. This is a very reliable test. If an affix changes the part of speech, it
IS derivational.
 it is not required by the syntax. This test can be confusing at first. What we mean is that we don't
need to add, say, the derivational prefix [un-] to the adjective [kind] in order to agree with the noun
that [unkind] modifies. Contrast this, for example, with the [-s] ending that we put on the end of the
verb in the third person singular, as in "John walk-s a lot." That [-s] is merely there to agree with the
subject of the sentence, "John". That is, it's there because the syntax requires it. So, [un-] is
derivational, but [-s] is inflectional. Again, this is a reliable test.
 it is not very productive. Productivity is another confusing point. A rule of thumb is that derivational
affixes are less productive than inflectional ones. But what does productive mean? Let's look at a
concrete example. With the exception of a very reduced set of nouns (child, ox, mouse, deer and a
handful of others), the plural suffix [-s] can be freely added to any old noun. So, grab a noun, stick [-s]
on the end, and voila, you've got yourself a well-formed plural noun. This is an example of
productivity. The plural is productive because it can be added basically across the board to any noun.
By contrast, think about the [-hood] suffix in English. It also adds to nouns, in this case to make a new
noun, as in [sister-hood]. But can we add it freely across the board? I don't think so. Try adding it to
"desk". Do you think [deskhood] sounds really well formed? How about [rockhood] or [concepthood]
or [emotionhood]? So, [-hood] can actually only be added to a very reduced set of nouns, not simply
to any noun the way that [-s] can. Therefore, we can say that [-hood] is not very productive. (Note,
productivity is a gradient or scalar thing. Some derivational affixes are more productive than others.
The suffix [-able], for example, is more productive than [-hood]. But, the generalization is still useful.
Derivational affixes tend to be less productive than inflectional affixes. This test is useful, but
since "productive" is a fuzzy concept, you have to walk with care.
 it appears "before" an inflectional affix (in general). This is just a way of saying that "inflectional"
affixes are the last things we add, after we've built the main word up. So, if we have [govern + ment +
s], we see that [-ment] is inside of the inflectional [-s]. Be careful, though, because we might have
two derivational affixes in a word, as in [humid -ify -er -s] "humidifiers". Don't assume that [-er] is
inflectional simply because [-ify] appears before it. Both [-ify] and [-er] are derivational, while our
friend [-s], of course, is inflectional. This is a handy rule of thumb, but, as I note, you've got to be
careful.
(Note: derivational affixes can be either prefixes or suffixes in ENGLISH. So, [un-] is a derivational prefix,
while [-ment] is a derivational suffix.)

Inflection: an affix may be inflectional if
 it doesn't change the part of speech to the base that it's added to. So, if we add [-s] to the noun [cat],
we've still got a [cats]. BE CAREFUL WITH THIS TEST. Why? Some derivational affixes don't
change the part of speech. [-hood] is added to nouns to create new nouns. [re-] is a prefix that can be
added to verbs to create new verbs.
 it is required by the syntax. See the comments immediately above. The third singular [-s] suffix of
[run-s] will "agree" with the subject of a sentence like "Mary run-s quickly." The basic insight here is
that inflectional has to do with relations between words, i.e. with information that is important to the
syntax of the sentence.
 it is very productive. Think plural [-s] as a stellar example.
 occurs generally at the margin (outside edge) of a word. This goes back to our generalization that
derivation tends to come inside of inflection.
3
Lic. Christian Cristóful ©
Task 2
Provide examples of 5 English words and 5 Spanish ones. Analyse their morphemes and say
if the individual morphemes are bound or free. Besides, state if the morphemes are
inflectional and derivational.
1. ____________________________________________________________________
2. ____________________________________________________________________
3. ____________________________________________________________________
4. ____________________________________________________________________
5. ____________________________________________________________________
6. ____________________________________________________________________
7. ____________________________________________________________________
8. ____________________________________________________________________
9. ____________________________________________________________________
10. ____________________________________________________________________

Like sentences, words have internal structure!
How do we know this. Imagine a tree diagram for the word [un-use-able]. Note that this
tree has hierarchical structure much in the same way that a syntax tree does. The root of
the tree in this case is an Adjective node, indicating the part of speech of the whole word
"unusable". What we see is that this root dominates a prefix [un-] and another Adjective
node. This means that the word was formed by adding [un-] to the already
morphologically complex word [use + able]. For its part, [use + able] consists of a verb
root [use] and the adjective forming suffix [-able]. That is, we can see that the word is built
up this way in our lexicon (the formal term for our mental dictionary which contains
morphemes and the rules for their combination):
1) add -able to the root use to form [use[able] ]
2) add un- to the stem [use[able]] to form [un[use[able]]]
How do we know that this is the structure of this word? How do we know that [-un] isn't
first added to the verb and that we don't then add [-able]. Simple. We CAN'T add [un-] to
the verb [use] because [unuse] is NOT A POSSIBLE VERB. (See how our derivational
prefix isn't completely productive.) We can, however, add [un-] to the adjective [useable].
So by this reasoning, we can build up the adjective first and then add [un-].
Ambiguity
More evidence for internal structure
Ambiguity gives us more evidence in favour of viewing words as having internal structure.
Consider the following word:
 un-lock-able
This word is ambiguous because it has two clear readings. It can mean "able to be
4
Lic. Christian Cristóful ©
unlocked" or "not able to be locked". Importantly, we can use a tree structure to
disambiguate them, i.e. to reflect their different meanings by accurately representing the
different internal structure of the word, depending on which meaning we want to
characterize.
Task 3.
Provide an ambiguous sentence in English and one in Spanish. In each case, explain the
ambiguity of at least two senses.
English:
1. ________________________________________________________
2. ________________________________________________________
Spanish
1. ________________________________________________________
2. ________________________________________________________
Word Formation Processes

How are words created?
We've talked about how words can be broken down into morphemes, talked about types
of morphemes, and talked about how words, like sentences, have internal structure. Now,
we need to address the processes that we use to build up morphologically complex
words. That's what we'll review here.

A list of terms to know:
 Affixation: a way of building up words by adding prefixes, suffixes, infixes, or a
combination of these. Example: [cat-s] is formed by affixation. In particular, by the
suffixation of the plural morpheme [-s].
Task 4.
Research on the existing 4 kinds of affixation. Provide examples of each
Affix name
Definition
Example
Prefix
Affix that is attached to the beginning of a morpheme
Im possible
Compounding:
a way of building up words by combining two words. Examples: [blackbird], [air
conditioner]. Note that compounding has its own special stress pattern. So, the
words [WHITE HOUSE] are a noun phrase in which "white" describes "house",
while [WHITE house], with more stress on [WHITE] is a compound. Note also that
while [air conditioner] is a compound, the word [conditioner] is itself built up by
affixation!
5
Lic. Christian Cristóful ©
Task 5.
Provide 2 compound words in English and 2 in Spanish
1. ______________________________________________________
2. ______________________________________________________
3. ______________________________________________________
4. ______________________________________________________
Reduplication:
We
don't
have
this
in
English.
But...reduplication is a way of building up
words by repeating either a part or all of the
base word. An example of total
reduplication is found in the Indonesian
word [rumahrumah] 'houses', which is built
by reduplicating the root for house, [rumah].
Partial reduplication is found in the
Philippine language Tagalog, where the
future tense is expressed by reduplicating
part of a verb. So we take the verb [bili] and
reduplicate only the first two sounds to get the future form [bibili].
Task 6.
Research on Samoan language: provide 1 example of a reduplicated word.
Provide the un-reduplicated (original) one so that I can compare it with the
reduplicated one. Submit it in a separate piece of paper. Classify it into total or
partial reduplication
_______________________________________________________________
Morpheme-Internal Changes
Sometimes "adding" morphemes results in changes to a part of the word. We have
some cases of this in English, though not "productive" ones. Think about the past
of the verb [ring]. Is it [ring-ed]? No. Rather, we change the vowel in the middle
from [i] to [a] and we get the (irregular and thus non-productive) past form [rang].
That's an example of a word that is built up by a morpheme-internal change.
Task 7
Provide 2 Spanish examples of morpheme-internal change.
1. ___________________________________________________
2. ___________________________________________________
6
Lic. Christian Cristóful ©
Suppletion
Suppletion is about irregularity taken one step further. Suppletive forms are
morphologically complex forms in which the connection between the base and the
newly created form is not obvious at all. Examples are helpful. We know that the
regular past is formed by suffixing [-ed]. What happens when we make the past of
[go]? The answer is that we get [went], which has NOTHING to do with the root
[go]. This is a case of suppletion.
Task 8
Provide 2 Spanish examples of suppletion.
1. ___________________________________________________
2. ___________________________________________________
Blending
Blending is like compounding in that it involves combining words. BUT, a part of
each word gets lost along the way. Here's some examples:
 motel (a blend of motor + hotel)
 smog (a blend smoke and fog)
Task 9
Provide 2 Spanish examples of blending
1. ___________________________________________________
2. ___________________________________________________
Types of Languages

Typology
Linguists classify languages in terms of the way that they put
morphemes together. Some languages have fairly "impoverished"
morphological processes (English is one), while other languages
have incredibly rich, complex morphological processes (Navajo is
one). This section will review the basis ways that linguists classify
things.
Analytic languages
What we mean by this term is that a language tends to not
make words out of multiple morphemes. In a completely
analytic language, every word would be made up of a single
morpheme, and these one-morpheme words would then be combined to form sentences.
That's why analytic languages are called isolating languages. I actually think "isolating" is
a better, clearer term. Chinese is a very analytic language, and English is also fairly
analytic. Analytic languages often have a rigid word order in their sentences, because
they don't have lots of inflectional affixes to supply information about who is doing what to
whom. So, if English had a rich case system, we might be able to say:
7
Lic. Christian Cristóful ©
 man-object bites dog-subject
 dog-subject bites man-object
and have them mean the same thing. The word order wouldn't matter, because the
subject and object affixes would give us the important information about who the biter and
bitee are. This is, in fact, the way Latin works (and lots of other still "living" languages).
But, since English doesn't have such affixes, we rely on stricter word order to supply the
"biter" "bitee" information.
Synthetic languages (3 flavours)
This is a cover term for languages with richer morphologies. That is, in synthetic
languages, words tend to be morphologically complex, i.e. words tend to be built up by
adding affixes. Here's a list of types of synthetic languages.

Agglutinating. In agglutinating languages, the rule of thumb is that the
morphemes that are joined together are easy to spot or pick apart. Hungarian,
Swahili and Guarani are examples of agglutinating languages
Task 10


Provide a Guarani word. Split it in order to show its agglutination
__________________________________________________________________
Fusional. Fusional languages combine morphemes in such a way as
to make picking out the individual morphemes more difficult. Spanish
and Russian are examples. In Spanish, the stem meaning speak is
hard to isolate. Is it "habl" or is it "habla"?. So, if the morphemes are
easy to pick apart with nice, crisp boundaries, the language is more
agglutinative. When the borders start looking messier between
morphemes, we're talking fusional.
Polysynthetic. Polysynthetic languages are best viewed as the opposite of
analytic languages. If analytic languages represent one end of a continuum in
which words tend to consist of a single morpheme, in Polysynthetic languages,
words always consist of a combination of many morphemes which often result in
full sentence meanings.
Task 11
Conduct a research on polysynthetic languages: On a separate piece of paper list
some of them (at least 3)
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
Final Odds and Ends
A point of confusion: stems and roots.
One thing that confuses people is the difference between a stem and a root. In simple
terms, here's the difference. A root is always a single morpheme. By contrast, a stem
can be (though it doesn't have to be) larger than a single morpheme. It's like squares
and rectangles. A square is a rectangle, but not all rectangles are squares. If I have a
8
Lic. Christian Cristóful ©
word [cat-s], the morpheme [cat] is a root. It is also a stem. But, if I have a word like
[undoable], I have a root [do] to which I add a suffix [-able] to get a stem [doable]. Now, I
can add another affix, [un-] to get the word [undoable].
Task 12
What’s the root and what’s the stem of Outstanding?
_______________________________________________________________________
Now, let's toss in the word base. A base is maximally general cover term for any
morphological material that I add more material to (say via affixation) or that I copy (in
reduplication) etc... So, in [undoable], [do] the root is the base to which I add [able]. Then,
[doable] (the stem) is also a base to which I can add [un-]. Get it?
Syntax
What's Syntax?
Some basics
Words conjure up concepts even though they aren't the concept itself.
So,"horse" is not actually a HORSE, and "cat" is not a CAT. Rather, these are
examples of the arbitrariness of the sign, i.e. of the conventional pairing of
sound and meaning. What we mean by this is that words and the things in the
world that they point to are arbitrarily related. There's nothing inherently feline
in the combination of sounds that makes up the word "cat." Thus, in
Coatzospan Mixtec, a language spoken in Mexico, the word for CAT is
"mishtun", which sounds completely different from the English word but
means the same thing. Since signs
are arbitrary, and one of the things The Mixtec are a Mesoamerican Indian people
living in the mountainous country of Oaxaca in
we have to do when we learn a
southern Mexico. Surviving pre-Spanish documents
language is memorize them. This may bring trace the history of individual Mixtec city-states to
back fond memories of your English classes!
the 7th century AD. The Mixtec were artisans
famous for their gold jewelry, manuscript painting,
Syntax is the study of how we put words stonecarving, and turquoise mosaic work.
together to make sentences. One of the most
interesting things about syntax is that it makes infinite use of finite media. We'll come back
to this point. For now, consider this:
Man bites dog IS NOT EQUAL TO Dog bites man
We know this because we use a code, or set of rules, to translate between orders of
words and combinations of thoughts. This set of rules is called a GENERATIVE
GRAMMAR.
Note: this is NOT the same as a pedagogical or PRESCRIPTIVE grammar. The
study of syntax is not about telling people how they should talk; rather, it is about
understanding the rules that a speech community employs by examining the way that the
members of that community actually DO talk. So, syntax is not about telling you that you
can't start a sentence with a conjunction, or that you can't split an infinitive, or that you
can't strand a preposition at the end of a sentence. In fact, you CAN do all of these things
9
Lic. Christian Cristóful ©
in English, and we do so freely and frequently. Let's keep two important concepts
separate then:
Prescriptive Grammar: A set of artificial rules pertaining to some group's notion of
"correct" usage. Examples from English are rules that prohibit split infinitives, as in the
supposedly incorrect sentence "I wanted Zim to really try hard." Here, the prescriptive
grammarian will tell us that the sentence is incorrect because the word "really" appears
between the words "to" and "try", thus splitting the infinitive "to try". Prescriptive grammar
is notable in that its rules often fly in the face of how many if not all of the speakers in a
speech community actually use the language. And prescriptive grammar is neither what
this course is about nor what serious linguistic scholarship concerns itself with (he says,
while gleefully stranding the preposition with at the end of the phrase).
Generative Grammar
(by Noam Chomsky):
A grammar that reflects the
way a speech community uses a language. A generative grammar
attempts to encode what it is that a speaker of a language knows, i.e. it
characterizes the grammatical knowledge of the speaker. It DOESN'T
prescribe what you can and can't say. The job of the generative
grammar is two-fold. First, it has to characterize all of the sentences
that native speakers judge to be acceptable sentences of their
language. Secondly, it has to rule out sentences that are not possible
sentences of a language. In a broader sense, a generative grammar
must also accomplish these goals within the context of a set of rules
and principles that are applicable across languages.
Comprehension Questions
Do you know what each of the following terms refer to?
Monomorphemic
________________________________________
Polysynthetic
________________________________________
Agglutinating
________________________________________
Generative grammar
________________________________________
Bound morpheme
________________________________________
Root
________________________________________
Node
________________________________________
Internal structure
________________________________________
Analytic language
________________________________________
Inflection
________________________________________
Fusional
________________________________________
10
Lic. Christian Cristóful ©
Practice Quiz
POINTS: ___
GRADE: ___
FIRST YEAR - ENGLISH
3PG
Comparative Morphosyntax - Quiz
37 point practice exam Lic. Christian Cristóful
Facultad de Lenguas Vivas
5 (35-37 pts); 4 (32-34); 3 (29-31); 2 (26-28); 1 (01-25)
PART I: MULTIPLE CHOICE EXERCISES
(one point for each question = 6 points) In the blank
space provided, write the letter of the expression which best completes the sentence. If you don't know, you
should make an educated guess. You will lose half a point for each answer which is left blank.
____ 1.
____ 2.
____ 3.
The smallest meaningful part of a lexical item is called a:
(a) suffix
(b) morpheme
(c) phoneme.
There's a good chance an affix is derivational if it:
(a) changes the part of speech of the word it is added to;
(b) doesn't change the part of speech to the base that it's added to;
(c) is very productive
Spanish is a(n) _________ language: (a) agglutinating; (b) fusional; (c) polysynthetic
____ 4.
The words "house - chair - dog - book - stamp - e-mail - fax" belong to the ________ word class (a) verbs; (b)
adjectives; (c) adverbs; (d) none of them
____ 5.
Linguists classify languages in terms of (a) the way that they put morphemes together; (b) primitive vs
technological; (c) prestige
____ 6.
___________ says that a Generative Grammar does not prescribe what you can or can’t say. (a) Ferdinand de
Saussure; (b) Victoria Fromkin; (c) Noam Chomsky
PART II: ANSWER THE QUESTIONS (two points for each question = 10 points)
1. Explain the ambiguity of "Mary loves visiting professors"
______________________________________________________________________
2. How many morphemes does the English word “antidisestablishmentarianism” have?
______________________________________________________________________
3. What kind of irregularities do the following suffer: tooth→teeth; man→men?
______________________________________________________________________
4. What morpheme is shared by these words? What does it mean? “badness, fairness, goodness,
wellness”
____________________________________________
What's an AFFIX?
5. Provide three additional words containing that
An affix is a bound morpheme attached to a stem
morpheme
____________________________________________
or root morpheme. There are several kinds of
PART III: PROVIDE EXAMPLES (one point for each
question = 5 points)
1. Of an ambiguous sentence in Spanish
___________________________________
2. Of a bound morpheme (underline the morpheme
in the word)
___________________________________
11
affixes: prefixes, as in independency (in_ is
attached to the root); suffixes, as in books (an 's'
is attached to the root); infixes, as in Samoan
language "malolosi" [they are strong] where "lo"
indicates plural (they as opposed to he); and
circunfixes, as in Dutch language "Gewandeld"
[have walked] where "Ge" indicates [have] and "d"
indicates past participle
Lic. Christian Cristóful ©
3. Of a grammatically correct (well-formed)
sentence with no sense at all
___________________________________
4. Of a circumfixed word in Spanish
___________________________________
5. Of a meaningful ill-formed sentence
___________________________________
PART IV: MODIFIED TRUE/FALSE EXERCISES
(one point for each question = 9 points) Circle the letter
"T" if the statement is true and "F" if it is false. If you mark "F", correct the statement. If you don't know, you should make an
educated guess. You will lose half a point for each answer that is left blank.
T F
7.
Words are impossible to define in absolute terms
T F
8.
The sentence "el gato está junto a la pava" is ambiguous
T F
9.
Grammar is impossible to define in absolute terms
T F
10.
The English language possesses affixation, compounding, reduplication, morpheme-internal changes,
suppletion, and blending
T F
11.
The Swahili words “ninasoma” (I am reading); “Anasoma” (s/he is reading) “tunasoma” (we are reading)
indicate that the agglutinating segment “soma” means “to read”
T F
12.
The Swahili words “nitasoma” (I will read) and tutasoma (we will read) indicate that the agglutinating segment
“nita” means “I” and “tuta” means “we”
T F
T F
13.
14.
The Swahili word “Atasoma” means s/he reads
T F
15.
Morphology is the aspect of grammar which contains rules about how words are put together to make
sentences. It is also the speaker's knowledge for those rules.
English has suffixes, prefixes, circumfixes and even infixes
PART V: LOOK AT THE TEXT. If there are grammatically correct sentences, write a
"G" next to it. If they are not, CORRECT the mistakes (1 pt. for each question = 7 pts)
1. My job as an airline pilot is to fly the aircraft and also
2. to take up responsibility for the safety of the passengers
3. and the crew. It's may seem as a glamorous job because
4. I go to the exciting places but that isn't the whole story
5. You don't get much time for sightseeings and,
6. if you are flying on short trips, you sometimes feel a bit
7. like a bus driver, just going backwards and forwarding
12
Lic. Christian Cristóful ©
Lesson 2. Grammar
By the end of this lesson you need to be able to explain and exemplify how grammar is a
classification of signals; a set of patterns; a description of probability or closeness of lexical
sequence; and a set of generational/transformational structure rules.
What is Grammar?
Fill in the Gaps.
I.
Grammar is a classification of the signals that differentiate one sentence
from another. Some of the grammatical signals of English and Spanish are:
a. _______________________________:
The experiment made the alchemist mad vs. the mad alchemist made the
experiment. This pair of sentences has exactly the same ___________________ but
a completely different ______________. What makes this difference?
____________________
Compare: La hija bonita de Don Juan es amiga mía vs. La bonita hija de Don Juan
es amiga mía
La hija bonita implies _________________________________________________,
while la bonita hija makes no such implication.
b. _______________________________: (Phonology is part of Grammar)
There are three principal signals given by it:
a)
It joins phrases together into a single unit, as in
¿Qué está haciendo Leticia?↓
b)
it disjoins phrases which are not a single unit
¿Qué está haciendo Leticia?↓
c)
it marks certain sentence types, such as the interrogative.
¿Cómo te llamás? ↑
Provide examples of each in English (do not translate the examples)
_________________________________
_________________________________
_________________________________
c. _______________________________:
Each word of a sentence probably has a specifiable function, as in “they do not know” not is
seen to add a semantic element to the sentence: that of negation. What’s the function of the
following lexical items?
Have _____________
But ______________
d. _______________________________:
This is a process by which word elements are attached to a lexical unit either to signal some
syntactic function (‘s indicating possessive) or to enable a word to function in a different class
of words (In Spanish capaz, which is an adjective, plus _idad produces a noun)
II.
Grammar is a finite number of sentence patterns, each pattern containing one or
13
Lic. Christian Cristóful ©
more slots within a corresponding class of lexical units may replace one another.
Provide an example for the following pattern: Det + N + V(int) + Adv
______________________________________________________
III.
Grammar is a description of the probability of relationships between lexical units
in sequence.
Some sequences have a probability of zero and some of 100 per cent. For example, the word
arrow has a probability of close to zero in the sequence I think I’ll______, but of close to 100
per cent in the sequence I think I’ll shoot my bow and___________. Provide and example in
Spanish of zero and an example of 100% of probability: ______________________________
IV.
Grammar is a description of the degrees of closeness – or clustering – of lexical
units in sequence.
In the sentence “the naughty girl plays in the yard,” there is a close relationship of the naughty
girl, on the one hand, and of plays in the yard, on the other. These, then, are two IMMEDIATE
CONSTITUENTS of the sentence. Each of these, in turn, contains further immediate
constituents. Describe them:
_________________________________________________________________________
Draw a tree diagram for the sentence above. Write its syntactic rules
V.
Grammar is a set of phrase structure rules for the derivation of simple active
declarative sentences, combined with a set of transformational rules which, when
applied to the sentences derived by the phrase structure rules, add to, subtract from,
or modify the order within them, or combine them in complex ways.
Transform the following sentence into its question form: The boy is going home.
___________________________ Did it add to, subtract from or just modified the order of the
sentence?
Provide a sentence in English and one in Spanish where when changing to the interrogative
form, you need to add lexical items to the sentence.
________________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________________
14
Lic. Christian Cristóful ©
Task 13 (15 process points). Write the answers (just the answers, do NOT copy the whole exercise,
in a separate piece of paper and hand this in next class)
Exercise 13.1. Look at the sentences. If they are grammatically correct, write a "G" next
to them. If they are not, write "U" and CORRECT THE MISTAKES.
Example: There wasn't nobody in the room. anybody
U
1. These young child to whom I spoke answered me insolently
2. Nobody in his right mind are willing to do such a thing
3. Frowning slightly, he went on stoking the furnace
4. Margery seemed paying no attention to us
5. She refused indignantly accompany him to the Junior Ball
6. It was a very good example of what can happen when someone pours glue into a
radiator
7. He had bringed me a large glass of milk
8. The next speaker, a writer of western stories, humorously explain to us some of the
problems he have to solve.
9. We had never in our lives known a Siamese cat that could speak more than three
languages.
10. Besides speak English, she also speaks Chinese
13.2. TAXONOMY (classification): Each box contains some items that have something in
common and belong to the same category. Do some research and say what category they
belong to
These are Syntactic Categories
Example: NP, VP, PP
1. Determiners, auxiliaries, prepositions, conjunctions,
complementisers, intensifiers, (pro)nouns, verbs,
adjectives, adverbs
2. A - an - my - our - your - her - its - their - this - these that - those - every - each - any - no - both - some many - few - several - all - most - more - either –
neither
3. His, my, yours, hers, etc
4. This, that, those, these
5. Either, neither, each, both, all, some, many, few,
something, somebody, someone, anything, anybody,
anyone, nothing, nobody, noone, one, none.
15
Lic. Christian Cristóful ©
Lesson 3. Verb Patterns in English
We will now look at some typical sentence patterns from a functional perspective. The Subject
is usually (but not always) the first element in a sentence, and it is followed by the verb:
Pattern 1
Subject + Intransitive Verb
Subject
David
Verb
sings
The dog barked
Susan
yawned
In this pattern, the verb is not followed by any Object, and we refer to this as an intransitive
verb. If the verb is monotransitive, it takes a Direct Object, which follows the verb:
Pattern 2
Subject
David
Verb
sings
Direct Object
ballads
The professor wants to retire
The jury
found the defendant guilty
In the ditransitive pattern, the verb is followed by an Indirect Object and a Direct Object,
in that order:
Pattern 3
Subject
Verb Indirect Object
Direct Object
The old man
gave
the children
some money
My uncle
sent
me
a present
The detectives
asked Amy
lots of questions
Adjuncts are syntactically peripheral to the rest of the sentence. They may occur at the
beginning and at the end of a sentence, and they may occur in all three of the patterns
above:
16
Lic. Christian Cristóful ©
Pattern 4
(Adjunct)
Subject
Verb
Indirect Object
Direct Object
sings
(Adjunct)
[1] Usually
David
in the bath
[2] Unfortunately
the professor wants
to retire
this year
[3] At the start of the trial
the judge
the photographs
in a private chamber
showed the jury
Pattern 4 is essentially a conflation of the other three, with Adjuncts added. We have
bracketed the Adjuncts to show that they are optional. Strictly speaking, Objects are also
optional, since they are only required by monotransitive and ditransitive verbs, as in the
examples [2] and [3] above.
Exercise
Match the sentences to the patterns:
1. The wall collapsed
A. Subject -- Verb
B. Subject -- Verb -- Direct Object
C. Subject -- Verb -- Indirect Object -- Direct Object
D. (Adjunct) -- Subject -- Verb -- Direct Object
E. (Adjunct) -- Subject -- Verb -- (Adjunct)
2. During the war, many people lost their homes
A. Subject -- Verb
B. Subject -- Verb -- Direct Object
C. Subject -- Verb -- Indirect Object -- Direct Object
D. (Adjunct) -- Subject -- Verb -- Direct Object
E. (Adjunct) -- Subject -- Verb -- (Adjunct)
3. I promised the children a trip to the zoo
A. Subject -- Verb
B. Subject -- Verb -- Direct Object
C. Subject -- Verb -- Indirect Object -- Direct Object
D. (Adjunct) -- Subject -- Verb -- Direct Object
E. (Adjunct) -- Subject -- Verb -- (Adjunct)
4. When he was 12, David moved to London
A. Subject -- Verb
B. Subject -- Verb -- Direct Object
C. Subject -- Verb -- Indirect Object -- Direct Object
D. (Adjunct) -- Subject -- Verb -- Direct Object
E. (Adjunct) -- Subject -- Verb -- (Adjunct)
Indirect Object [IO]: it's the first object
after the verb
Direct Object [DO]: it's the second
object after the verb without prepositions
When we have prepositions there can
never be IO. Ex: for you, to you, for him,
etc
5. Paul hired a bicycle
A. Subject -- Verb
B. Subject -- Verb -- Direct Object
C. Subject -- Verb -- Indirect Object -- Direct Object
D. (Adjunct) -- Subject -- Verb -- Direct Object
E. (Adjunct) -- Subject -- Verb -- (Adjunct)
17
Lic. Christian Cristóful ©
Some Untypical Sentence Patterns
The sentence patterns we looked at on the previous page represent typical or canonical
patterns But you will often come across sentences which do not conform to these patterns.
We will look at some of these here.
Pattern 5. Extraposition
The Subject is sometimes postponed until the end of the sentence. Here are some examples:
In first place is Red Rum
Inside the house were two detectives
More important is the question of compensation
Here, the typical declarative order has been disrupted for stylistic effect. In these examples,
the Subject comes after the verb, and is said to be EXTRAPOSED. Compare them with the
more usual pattern:
In first place is Red Rum
~Red Rum is in first place
Inside the house were two detectives
~Two detectives were inside the house
More important is the question of compensation
~The question of compensation is more important
The Subject is also extraposed when the sentence is introduced by anticipatory it:
It is a good idea to book early
It is not surprising that he failed his exams
In the more typical pattern, these constructions may sound stylistically awkward (like Yoda in
Star Wars):
To book early is a good idea
That he failed his exams is not surprising
Extraposition is not always just a matter of style. In the following examples, it is obligatory:
It seems that he'll be late again
~*That he'll be late again seems
It turned out that his secretary had stolen the money
~*That his secretary had stolen the money turned out
Direct Objects, too, can be extraposed. Recall that their typical position is after the verb
(Pattern 2). However, when anticipatory it is used, the Direct Object is extraposed:
18
Lic. Christian Cristóful ©
He made it very clear that he would not be coming back
Again, the canonical pattern is stylistically very awkward:
*He made that he would not be coming back very clear
Pattern 6. Cleft Sentences
A declarative sentence, such as David studied English at Oxford can be reformulated as:
It was David who studied English at Oxford
This is called a CLEFT SENTENCE because the original sentence has been divided (or
"cleft") into two clauses: It was David and who studied English at Oxford. Cleft sentences
focus on one constituent of the original sentence, placing it after it was (or it is). Here we have
focussed on the Subject David, but we could also focus on the Direct Object English:
It was English that David studied at Oxford or on the Adjunct at Oxford
It was at Oxford that David studied English
Cleft constructions, then, exhibit the pattern:
It + be + focus + clause
Practice Quiz
1. Expand the sentences so that they still belong to the same pattern:
 She cried
The lonely girl who used to sit alone cried
 It barked
_______________________________________________
 The man went out
_______________________________________________
2. Explain the ambiguity: the detective looked hard
1. __________________________________________________________________
2. __________________________________________________________________
3. Finish the sentences using: appear, seem, become, smell, taste, feel, sound
(linking words suitable for ambiguity)






Example: This perfume smells better in winter
Disco music...
Athletes...
Syntax: It is the aspect of grammar
Cashmere sweaters...
which contains rules about how words
Male lions...
are put together to make sentences.
It is speakers' knowledge of those rules.
People...
4. Identify the patterns
 Mr Hoskins looked foolish
 The little girl was upstairs
 I supposed her the maid
Pattern 2
19
Lic. Christian Cristóful ©

















It was inside
The coyotes howled at the moon
It seems rather sad
He became a different person
The men chose Jones their spokesman
I considered it an insult
Harold was in his room
That was really foolish
Sally stayed out
It smelled good
It smelled very good
Bloodhounds smell well
Alfred went home
The beetle died quietly
That sounds interesting
The milk turned sour
He turned quickly
5. Read the text. Underline the DO once, IO twice
Buying a new car
When you shop for a new car at the dealership, a sales person will show you cars on the lot and answer
questions for you.
He will tell you about the standard equipment and suggest options to you. The salesman will then add up
the total cost of the car and give you a price. Usually, the price he gives you is more than you will really
have to pay. You offer him a lower amount. If the salesman thinks your offer is reasonable, you are ready
to sign an agreement.
If you cannot pay the dealer the full cost, you may get a loan from the bank. The bank will charge you
interest for the loan and you will probably repay the bank on a monthly basis. The bank keeps the title of
the car until you repay the loan. When you make your final payment, the bank sends you the title.
6. Add an object complement to each sentence
 The jury believed the defendant...
 The coach called Bruce...
 His children considered their teacher...
 The sport writer thought the baseball player...
A Phrase Structure Tree (= constituent structure tree) is a
tree diagram with syntactic category information
provided. It shows
(1) the linear order of the words in the sentence. (2) the
groupings of words into particular syntactic categories.
(3) the hierarchical structure of the syntactic categories.
20
There is no gender marker for
verbs, either in English or in
Spanish
Lic. Christian Cristóful ©
Lesson 4. Basic Sentence Patterns in Spanish
Pattern #1
Equational Statement
a)
NP
+
El
Usted
Ella
La fiesta
V- ser
es
es
es
es
+
(NP) (Adj) (Adv)
el nuevo cónsul
muy amable
de Argentina
en casa de Juan
Provide one more example:___________________________________________
b)
NP
Ella
Ella
+
V- estar
está
está
+
(Adj)(Adv)
bonita
aquí
Provide one more example:___________________________________________
Pattern #2
Intransitive Statement
NP
+
VP(int)
Ellos
corren
Aquella niña baja de pelo negro come
bien
abundantemente con sus amigos
Provide one more example:___________________________________________
Pattern #3
Transitive Statement
a)
NP
+
Ellos
Los soldados
b)
NP
+
Ellos
Los soldados
Esa
VP(tr)
quieren
mataron
+
NP (DO)
el agua
a los desertores
Pron (DO)
la
los
se
+
VP(t)
quieren
mataron
perdió
Provide one more example:___________________________________________
Pattern #4
Transitive Receiver Statement
a) NP
+
VP(tr)
+
El
dio
El
hizo
NP(DO)
el libro
un traje
+
(para, a)
a
para
+
NP
Juan
mí
b) NP
El
El
+
Pron
le
me
+
VP(tra)
dio
hizo
+
NP(DO)
el libro
un traje
+
(a + NP)
(a Juan)
(a mí)
c) NP
El
El
+
Pron
se
me
+
Pron
lo
lo
+
VP(tra)
dio
hizo
+
(a + NP)
(a Juan)
(a mí)
21
Lic. Christian Cristóful ©
Provide one more example:___________________________________________
Pattern #5
Complement Statement
a)
1. NP
+
VP(t)
+
Ellos
eligieron
Su padre
consideraba
b)
c)
d)
NP(Comp)
presidente
un hombre
+
(a)
a
a
+
NP(DO)
Juan
Juan
2. NP
Ellos
Su padre
+
Pron
lo
lo
+
VP
+
eligieron
consideraba
NP(Comp)
presidente
un hombre
1. NP
Ellos
Ellos
+
VP(t)
+
consideraban
creían
Adj(Comp) +
capacitado
bonita
(a)
a
a
2. NP
Ellos
Ellos
+
lo
la
Pron
+
VP(t)
consideraban
creían
1. NP
Yo
Yo
+
VP(t)
ví
observé
+
(a) NP(DO) +
a los hombres
a los huéspedes
VP(inf) (Comp)
correr
salir a las dos
2. NP
Yo
Yo
+
VP(t)
ví
observé
+
VP(inf) Comp+
correr
salir
(a)
a
a
3. NP
Yo
Yo
+
Pron
los
los
+
VP(t)
ví
observé
VP(int) (inf) (Comp)
correr
salir
1. NP
Yo
Yo
+
VP(t)
ví
ví
+
(a) NP(DO) +
a los hombres
a los huéspedes
VP(_ndo) (Comp)
corriendo
saliendo
2. NP
Yo
Yo
+
Pron
lo
los
+
VP(t)
escuché
ví
VP(_ndo) (Comp)
corriendo
saliendo
+
NP(DO)
Juan
María
+
Adj (Comp)
capacitado
bonita
+
+
e)
NP
El
El
El
+
VP(t)
quiere
dijo
debe
+
VP(inf) (Comp)
ir
estar en casa
tomar cerveza
f)
NP
El
El
Yo
+
VP
tiene
acaba
voy
+
Rel
que
de
a
+
NP(DO)
los hombres
los huéspedes
VP(inf) (Comp)
ir a casa
salir
entrar
Provide one more example:___________________________________________
22
Lic. Christian Cristóful ©
Pattern #6
Indefinite Equational Pattern
a)
Hay
+NP
+
Hay
un señor
Hay
mucha gente
(_ndo)
esperando
+
(Adv)
afuera
afuera
b)
Hay
Hay
Hay
+NP
+
mucho
unos hombres
que
que
que
+VP(inf)
hacer
contratar
c)
Hay
Hay
Hay
+
que
que
que
+VP(inf)
hacer eso
salir
Practice task. Classify the sentences into patterns
Ese can es de China.
La desconsolada niña de mejillas rojas que se asemeja a su madre cuando ésta era
joven, grita con todas sus fuerzas en el viejo granero azul que está detrás de la casa.
Todos los interesados, incluyendo al presidente mismo, le eligieron vocero.
El vaso está vacío.
Los antiguos vecinos eran de la Madre Patria.
La pelota está inflada.
Todos los alumnos, incluyendo al bravucón de la clase, le eligieron tesorero.
El pequeño perro marrón que encontramos en la calle llora en la antigua habitación
pintada de rosa viejo.
Todo el mundo le creía inocente.
Tanto nosotros como ellos le creíamos justo.
Revision.
Classify the sentences into patterns
1. It is me the one who took your money
2. It is not a good idea to cheat when having an exam
3. It was yesterday when she wept
4. Last Monday, Marcela, the one from 2PG passed her exam
5. My sister promised my mother a pair of new shoes
6. Susana’s big black dog barked
7. That he loves Marion is not surprise at all
8. That hospital nurse found many different kinds of medicine
9. The beautiful lady who lives next door told me a secret
10. The crazy child that lives next door writes
 Cleft









30 Point Revision Exam 5 (29-30 pts); 4 (26-28); 3 (23-25); 2 (21-22); 1 (01-20)
23
Lic. Christian Cristóful ©
PART I: MULTIPLE CHOICE EXERCISES (one point for each question = 5 points) In the blank
space provided, write the letter of the expression which best completes the sentence. Only one of the choices is
the correct one. Choose the one which is the best. If you don't know, you should make an educated guess.
YOU WILL LOSE HALF A POINT FOR EACH ANSWER WHICH IS LEFT BLANK.
____ 1.
____ 2.
____ 3.
Words that have only one morpheme are called:
(a) polymorphemic
(b) monosyllables
(c) monomorphemic
The suffix _s in the word governments is:
(a) inflectional;
(b) derivational
The suffix _ment in the word treatment is: (a) inflectional; (b) derivational
____ 4.
Morphologically complex forms in which the connection between the base and the
newly created form is not obvious at all refers to: (a) reduplication; (b) blending; (c)
compounding (d) suppletion.
____ 5.
Isolating languages are also:
(a) agglutinating;
(b) fusional;
(c) polysynthetic;
(d) analytic.
PART II: MODIFIED TRUE/FALSE EXERCISES (one point for each question = 10 points) Circle the
letter "T" if the statement is true and "F" if it is false. If you mark "F", CORRECT the statement. If you don't
know, you should make an educated guess. You will lose half a point for each answer that is left blank.
T F
6. Fusional languages are synthetic
T F
7.There's nothing inherently feline in the combination of sounds that makes up the word
"cat", that's why we say that this is not arbitrary
T F
8. A set of artificial rules pertaining to some group's notion of "correct" usage is known as
prescriptive grammar
T F
9. Grammatical signals are: word order, intonation, function words, and derivation
T F
10. In the sentence "a sales person will show you cars on the lot," "you" is the DO
T F
11. Tooth → teeth. This plural form suffers from reduplication
T F
12. NP, VP & PP are lexical categories
T F
13. The lexical item “sister” is an adjective in the phrase “the sister mountains of the
Himalayas”
T F
14. The lexical item “year” is a noun in the phrase “that 7-year-old boy”
T F
15. Transitive verbs are verbs that must be followed by a noun-phrase direct object.
PART III: PROVIDE EXAMPLES OF (one point for each question = 5 points)
6. Pattern #6b in Spanish
___________________________________
7. A cleft sentence
24
Lic. Christian Cristóful ©
___________________________________
8. Pattern #3 in English
___________________________________
9. A Spanish example of zero probability of relationships between lexical units in
sequence
___________________________________
10. a monomorphemic lexical item
___________________________________
PART IV: CLASSIFY THE SENTENCES INTO PATTERNS (10 points)
It was me the one who dropped the gun
The little white and brown guinea pig died
The little white and brown guinea pig died in the park yesterday
The little girl whose mother had to be taken to hospital urgently, gave John the knife
The choleric men that had voted previously, chose Clinton their spokesman
Javier, el nene de la casa de al lado me lo hizo
La amiga de Casilda que vive frente al banco está hermosa
La prima de Lucia, la chica que habla tres idiomas, se perdió
Hay que tener valor para soportar semejante ejercicio gramatical
¡Yo voy a entrar en la sala, le guste a la señora o no!
BONUS POINT: Provide the lexical categories for the following sentence
"my little pink rabbit lies motionless in the wardrobe"
Task 14. Write the answers (just the answers, do NOT copy the whole exercise. Submit in a separate
piece of paper)
14. 1. Write the syntactic category for: example: boys [NP] play [VP]
Birds fly - The bird sang - The happy bird sang - Neither understood it well - That is strange
14.2. List the following words in the corresponding classes:
Walk - scarf - became - quite - beautiful - new - the - house - pretty - that - somewhat appeared - useful - rather - chair - very – sister - skirt
Nouns
e.g.
computer
Verbs
give
Adjectives
white
Determiners
an
Adverbs
much
14.3. Provide examples using all 18 words from above. A sentence might contain more
than one of the words required.
25
Lic. Christian Cristóful ©
Word Classes and Morphological Characteristics
Lesson 5. Nouns and Adjectives



In linguistic analysis, WORD FORMATION is to be distinguished from sentence formation.
The former is described as the MORPHOLOGY of the language, and the latter as its
SYNTAX. Morphology, then, is the study of words and their components, which in Spanish
and English are STEMS and AFFIXES.
MORPHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS is the study of the formal characteristics, shapes, and
variations of lexical items.
Spanish has inflection in the nouns, adjectives, verbs, and pronouns; English has
inflection in all these except adjectives. All inflectional affixes in both languages are
SUFFIXES attached to the end of stems.
Nouns
Spanish
In Spanish, the class NOUN is associated with an inflectional category: NUMBER.
When does the noun add “_s” and when “_es” to form the plural?
Casa = casas
mes = meses.
Write the rule here________________________________________________
All Spanish nouns have inherent grammatical gender; they are not INFLECTED for gender.
Often they are marked with an /_o/ for masculine and an /_a/ for feminine. Some forms have
common gender, where the same form may be either masculine or feminine. Ex.
______________________________. Gender assignment of any particular noun is arbitrary.
English
English nouns are inflected for two categories:
1. They have a plural, formed by a regular rule with an inflectional affix that we will call S-1.
S-1
/_/
/_s/
/_z/
after _________________
after _________________ consonants
elsewhere (after ____________ consonants and after _______________)
Classify the plural forms according to their final pronunciation
Horses / /; hats / /; bugs / /; dishes / /; bees / /; lips / /; judges / /; days / /
There are numerous irregular plural formations
1)
The above rule with stem modification: _____________ ________ ____________
2)
A completely different set involving other suffixes _____________ _____________
3)
An internal change in the stem: ______________ ________________
4)
A suffix zero, symbolised _ø indicating no formal change in the stem form, but with
plural meaning: __________________ ________________
2. English nouns also have inflection for another category: POSSESSION. Possessive forms
are marked by an inflectional affix S-2. The pronunciation of the possessive is identical to the
plural one.
Classify the possessive forms according to their final pronunciation
Judge’s / /; truck’s / /; mayor’s / /; church’s / /; pilot’s / /; James’ / / king’s / /
26
Lic. Christian Cristóful ©
English nouns also have inherent gender with important grammatical consequences. Male
persons are masculine, female persons are feminine. Some animals are included in this
gender system. Ex. ____________ ____________ _____________
Things and some animals are in the gender category NEUTER.
Exception to these rules: The baby fell down from its cot. The ship lost her captain
Learning problems:
 Pronunciation.
 Negative transference of possessive
 Gender
Adjectives
Spanish adjectives have inflection for two categories: NUMBER and GENDER.
Examples: blanco, blanca, blancos, blancas.
Not all the adjectives are inflected by gender though. El libro azul, la tinta azul. However,
when changing to the diminutive, you need to add the gender marker again: azulito, azulita.
Look for examples of more of these adjectives:
There is a smaller group: the ones that have a shortened form:
Bueno, buen, buena, buenos, buenas
Provide more examples of these:
Homework
Submit (in a separate piece of paper) the answers to these questions next class. Make sure
you state your source. When do you say:
 “Santo” and when “San”?
 “Grande” and when “gran”?
 When “Cien” and when “ciento”?
Possessive adjectives
The shortened form for mío/mía would be “mi” When or where do we place each of them?
Neuter: it has a nominal (nounlike) function, rather than demonstrative
Singular
Plural
Masculine
Feminine
Masculine
Feminine
Est-e
Est-a
Est-os
Est-as
Es-e
Es-a
Es-os
Es-as
Aquel
Aquell-a
Aquell-os
Aquell-as
Neuter
Est-o
Es-o
Aquell-o
Learning problems:
Number and Gender agreement.
Spanish
Singular
Plural
masculine
Blanco
blancos
English
Feminine
Blanca
Blancas
27
white
Lic. Christian Cristóful ©
Lesson 6. Pronouns and Verbs
Pronouns
Pronouns are a major subclass of nouns. We call them a subclass of nouns because they can
sometimes replace a noun in a sentence. When they refer to people, we call them PERSONAL
PRONOUNS
Other Types of Pronoun
As well as personal pronouns, there are many other types, which we summarise here.
Pronoun Type
Object
Possessive
Reflexive
Reciprocal
Relative
(complementizer)
Demonstrative
Interrogative
Indefinite
Members of the Subclass
Example
Me, you, him, her, us, them
I told you to go there
mine, yours, his, hers, ours, theirs
myself, yourself, himself, herself, itself, oneself, ourselves,
yourselves, themselves
each other, one another
The white car is mine
He injured himself playing
football
They really hate each other
The book that you gave me was
really boring
This is a new car
that, which, who, whose, whom, where, when
this, that, these, those
who, what, why, where, when, whatever
anything, anybody, anyone, something, somebody,
someone, nothing, nobody, none, no one
What did he say to you?
There's something in my shoe
Case and number distinctions do not apply to all pronoun types. In fact, they apply only to personal
pronouns, possessive pronouns, and reflexive pronouns. It is only in these types, too, that gender
differences are shown (personal he/she, possessive his/hers, reflexive himself/herself). All other types
are unvarying in their form.
Many of the pronouns listed above also belong to another word class - the class of determiners. They
are pronouns when they occur independently, that is, without a noun following them, as in This is a
new car. But when a noun follows them - This car is new - they are determiners.
A major difference between pronouns and nouns generally is that pronouns do not take the or a/an
before them. Further, pronouns do not take adjectives before them, except in very restricted
constructions involving some indefinite pronouns (a little something, a certain someone).
While the class of nouns as a whole is an open class, the subclass of pronouns is closed.
Exercise
In each of the following sentences a pronoun has been highlighted. What type of pronoun is it?
1. Let's contact one another once
we've made some progress.
2. She wants to do it herself.
3. I can't find them.
28
a) Personal; b) Reflexive; c) Possessive;
d) Relative; e) Indefinite; f) Reciprocal; g)
Interrogative; h)object
a) Personal; b) Reflexive; c) Possessive;
d) Relative; e) Indefinite; f) Reciprocal; g)
Interrogative; h)object
a) Personal; b) Reflexive; c) Possessive;
d) Relative; e) Indefinite; f) Reciprocal; g)
Interrogative; h)object
Lic. Christian Cristóful ©
4. I can't believe it's finally ours.
5. The girl who usually cuts my hair
has won the lottery.
6. He wants to go to Scarborough.
7. Why are you shouting at me?
8. Jim gave me the last copy.
9. Nobody said a word all night.




Pronouns are a small closed class in both Spanish and English. In Spanish there is a full set of
distinctions for PERSON (1°, 2°, 3°) and NUMBER (singular, plural), a partial set of CASE
distinctions (reflexive: se; indirect: me; direct: le, lo, la), specifically marked GENDER forms (malefemale), and a LEVEL OF FORMALITY category in the form of the second person (tú/vos/usted;
ustedes/vosotros).
In some variations of Spanish, a distinction is made between masculine things and person as the
referent of the direct object when singular, le referring to persons and lo to things (Leismo).
The English pronoun system is simpler than Spanish, with distinctions for number, case
(nominative as in woman, and possessive woman’s), and gender.
The following chart of possibilities illustrates the extent of the potential conflict between the two
systems:
English
I
We
You
He
She
It
They
Me
Us
Him
Her
them

a) Personal; b) Reflexive; c) Possessive;
d) Relative; e) Indefinite; f) Reciprocal; g)
Interrogative; h)object
a) Personal; b) Reflexive; c) Possessive;
d) Relative; e) Indefinite; f) Reciprocal; g)
Interrogative; h)object
a) Personal; b) Reflexive; c) Possessive;
d) Relative; e) Indefinite; f) Reciprocal; g)
Interrogative; h)object
a) Personal; b) Reflexive; c) Possessive;
d) Relative; e) Indefinite; f) Reciprocal; g)
Interrogative; h)object
a) Personal; b) Reflexive; c) Possessive;
d) Relative; e) Indefinite; f) Reciprocal; g)
Interrogative; h)object
a) Personal; b) Reflexive; c) Possessive;
d) Relative; e) Indefinite; f) Reciprocal; g)
Interrogative; h)object
Spanish
Yo
Nosotros, nosotras
Tú, vos, vosotros, vosotras, usted,
ustedes, ti, te, os, lo, la, le, los, las, les,
se
Él
Ella
---, lo, la, él, ella, ello
ellos, ellas
mí, me
nos, nosotros, nosotras
lo, le, se, él
la, le, se, ella
los, las, les, se, ellos, ellas
An important problem revealed by this chart is the correspondence of sixteen Spanish
forms to the English pronoun you, which is not formally marked for gender, number, case,
or formality level.
29
Lic. Christian Cristóful ©

Most of the English pronouns have from two to four Spanish equivalents, except them,
which has six.
Numerals
Numerals include all numbers, whether as words or as digits. They may be divided into two
major types. CARDINAL numerals include words like: nought, zero, one, two, 3, fifty-six, 10 a
thousand
ORDINAL numerals include: first, 2nd, third, fourth, 500th
 We classify numerals as a subclass of nouns because in certain circumstances they
can take plurals: five twos are ten; he's in his eighties
 They may also take the: the fourth of July; a product of the 1960s
 And some plural numerals can take an adjective before them, just like other nouns:
o the house was built in the late 1960s
he's in his early twenties
the temperature is in the high nineties

In each of our examples, the numerals occur independently, that is, without a noun
following them. In these positions, we can classify them as a type of noun because
they behave in much the same way as nouns do. Notice, for example, that we can
replace the numerals in our examples with common nouns:
he is in his eighties
the fourth of July
a product of the 1960s

~he is in his bedroom
~the beginning of July
~a product of the revolution
Numerals do not always occur independently. They often occur before a noun, as in
one day; three pages; the fourth day of July
In this position, we classify them as determiners.
Verbs

Verbs in Spanish are inflected for FINITY (finite and non-finite), TENSE (past, non past)
and ASPECT (perfective, imperfective), MOOD (indicative, subjunctive), PERSON (1 st,
2nd, 3rd), and NUMBER (plural, singular).
The Spanish verb carries more information than the English verb.

Verbs in English have five different categories: TENSE, PERSON-NUMBER, and two
PARTICIPLES (imperfective and perfective)
Derivational Analysis

Spanish and English share a number of features in their derivational structure. In both
languages, derivational affixes are stem forming; derivation is a continuing process in both
languages, with some affixes still producing new words; both languages have derivational
prefixes as well as suffixes.
Provide examples of items in Spanish which, though they exist, are not the usual semantic
30
Lic. Christian Cristóful ©
equivalents of English. Then do the opposite with English.
Spanish
English
Competición
Competition
English
Reading
Spanish
Lectura
Spanish
Competencia
English
Lecture
 The comparative and superlative suffixes are another example of derivational affixation.
Example: tall_er; tall_est. Consider the data and provide a rule for doubling the consonant.
Bigger
Hotter
[+consonant] → [double consonant] /
Fatter
 English has a few diminutives: Johnny, cigarette, piglet
 Spanish has at least seven diminutive endings, (some of them metaphorically diminutive,
which results in Pejoration) of which two or three are widely used. The list includes _ito; _illo;
_ico; _ejo; _uelo; _ín, _ucho, as in:
1. ________________
5. ________________
2. ________________
6. ________________
3. ________________
7. ________________
4. ________________

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
The Spanish augmentative suffixes have no counterpart in English. Common suffixes are
_ón; _azo; _ota; _acho; _aco (some of them pejorative):
________________
________________
________________
________________
________________
 In addition to affixation, Spanish has two other derivational processes: ENCLISIS and
COMPOUNDING.
Enclisis.
 It is a process of word formation in which stems from two word classes combine in such a
way that one occurs only with the other. Example: Está dándo-me-lo. Me-lo-está dando.
Provide another example________________________
Compounding.
 When two stems are used to form a new lexical item. English makes extensive use of
compounding; Spanish very limited use.
Examples:
31
Lic. Christian Cristóful ©
Spanish
English
Learning Problems:
Concepts to master in this lesson:

Pronouns: definition; types

Numerals: definition; types

Derivational Analysis

Diminutives

Augmentatives

Enclisis

Compounding
What's the difference between transitive and intransitive
verbs?
A transitive verb is one that must be followed by a nounphrase direct object, while an intransitive verb is one that may
not be followed by a noun phrase direct object. Eg. sleep
33
Lic. Christian Cristóful ©
Lesson 7. The Noun Phrase and its Constituents
NP→ D (Adj) + N (Adj)
I. Determiners
English
{The
D→
{a – some
{Ø
In Spanish the formula is similar
{El
{un
{Ø
D→
Explain the differences between definite and indefinite articles. Explain in which context one might say “open the
door” vs. “open a door”. “Tell me the truth” vs “Don’t tell me a lie”
“The president will speak tonight” “The sun is too hot”
Comparison:
Determiners
Definite Articles
Spanish singular: el, la, lo; plural: los, las
English both sing. and plural: // before a consonant; //
What’s the phonological rule for using the article “el” in Spanish before feminine nouns? Compare the data and
provide the rule.
El agua
El hacha
El aula
la ardilla
la hacienda
la actuación
La + [+ feminine noun] → el + [+ feminine noun] / _
Indefinite Articles
Compare the data and provide the rule for the shortening of the lexical item “uno” in Spanish?
Un mono
Un árbol
Un poco
hacia uno
para uno
de unoun asta
un área
un hada
Uno → un /
English
The patterns of use for the definite and indefinite articles in English are
numerous.
Form
The definite article has only one written form – “The”
There are 2 pronunciations:
/
/ which is used before consonant sounds - The boat, the team
/
/ which is used before vowel sounds - The egg, the MBA course
Each phrase category has its
head. For instance, P is the
head of PP, N is the head of
NP and V is the head of VP
Use
a) At times you must use the definite article because of the noun that follows, for example with some proper
nouns or nouns referring to certain institutions.
b) Usually speakers have to make decisions determined by context and situation about whether or not to use the
definite article.
34
Lic. Christian Cristóful ©
Generic Reference
Referring to a whole class or species of something when you want to generalise:
(1) The Australian people will soon make a decision about the monarchy.
Here the sentence refers to the Australians in general. There are many ways of using articles for generic
reference:
(2) It is amazing what people get up to. (no article + plural count noun)
(3) A woman always ends up working harder than a man. (the indefinite article + singular count noun)
(4) The manager should always take responsibility (definite article + singular count noun)
(5) Love is a marvellous thing. (no article + uncount noun)
The fact that there are different patterns does not mean that we can substitute one pattern for the other.
Common errors include:
i. *The love is very important*
ii.*The people are very strange* (but in specific reference this is fine – The people over there are very strange)
Specific Reference
Where you refer to a specific individual, object or group:
(6) The women in my class have a lot of fun together.
Here the speaker is referring to a limited, specific group of people and not to women in general.
Contrasting use of the definite and indefinite articles.
(7) I’ll meet you at the pub.
(8) Why don’t we meet in a pub?
In (7) the speaker assumes the person she is speaking to knows the pub that she is referring to. Perhaps they
often meet in this pub, or the specific pub has already been referred to in the conversation.
In (8) the speaker may have a specific pub in mind but she does not indicate this in the sentence. She might
mean – let’s meet in a pub, the specific pub is not important – or she might not share knowledge of any pub with
the person to whom she is speaking.
Making the decision to use the definite article
There are many factors to consider. Here are some of them.
Anaphora (referring back to something)
(9) There is a funny smell in the kitchen. I opened the fridge but the smell is not coming from there. I think it
might be gas.
In (9) there are three references to smell. In the first sentence the speaker uses an indefinite article because she
assumes that the smell is new to the listener. In the second sentence she uses the definite article because she is
referring back to the ‘smell’ referred to in the first sentence.
Situational Uses
(10) Please do the washing up before you leave the house.
If I am talking to my son in the situation in (10) I can assume that he understands both that I am referring to the
house that he is in, and that ‘the washing up’ refers to the washing up in the sink, in the kitchen, in that house.
(11) I am going to pick my friend up from the station.
In this situation the speaker is referring to a specific station, probably a station which the speaker and listener
recognise as the ‘normal’ station.
(12) Please pass me the phone
This is similar to the example above. The speaker refers to a phone in the immediate vicinity of the speaker and
listener. If there were many phones in the room the speaker might say – Please pass me a phone
Unique items
(13) I would like to visit the moon so that I could look down on the world and see the north and south poles
Where you are referring to something of which there is only one – the moon, the sun, the pope, the weather, the
King of Spain – you use the definite article.
35
Lic. Christian Cristóful ©
Exercises
1) Complete the sentences below by inserting ‘the’, ‘a’, ‘an’ or by leaving the space blank.
a) She is the oldest woman in ________ world.
b) Once upon a time there was _____ evil king and _____ slightly mad queen. ______ King sold his soul to
______ devil and _____ Queen fell in love with _____ stable boy.
c) Mother said to father, “Please pass _____ salt and do stop making ______ mess with ______ soup.”
d) What _____ lovely day! There isn’t _____ cloud in ______ sky.
2) Complete the sentences below inserting ‘the’ in each space along with an appropriate noun group.
a) We came in through the front door and went out through ________ .
b) It is a great kitchen; ______ is so big that we can buy food for the whole week in advance. ______ is big too,
the other day I cooked _______ .
c) ______ at the hospital wasn’t not very sympathetic about my broken leg but _____ was a lot more caring.
d) I spent the whole evening looking up at _____ but I didn’t see the comet as it passed because of ______.
3) In the following sentences there are two noun groups to choose from in order to finish the sentence.
Choose the noun groups which are correct. In some none are correct, in others only one is correct and
in some both are. Be ready to explain your answers.
a) We should leave now. John will soon be at a station / the station
b) Nobody likes going to the dentist /a dentist
c) People will be able to see the comet / a comet tonight
d) I used to have a beautiful, old trumpet / the beautiful, old trumpet.
e) Don’t wait for the bus / a bus, it might never come. Get the taxi / a taxi.
f) I left the light on when I went to the bed / a bed
II. Demonstratives
 The demonstratives and the possessives can replace the primary determiners in a noun phrase.
 The DEMONSTRATIVES have five forms in a set similar to the determiner el and the subject
pronoun él .
Masculine
Feminine
Neuter
Singular
Plural
Singular
Plural
Esto
Este
Estos
Esta
Estas
Eso
Ese
Esos
Esa
Esas
Aquello
Aquel
Aquellos
Aquella
Aquellas
What do these Spanish lexical items mean, concerning proximity?
Este: _____________________________________________
Ese: _____________________________________________
Aquel: ____________________________________________
 The most striking difference between English and Spanish demonstratives is the inventory; four
English forms carry the semantic load of fifteen Spanish forms. All English forms are neuter
 The almost unique instance of number distinction in the English demonstratives, with a singular
this, that, opposed to plural these, those, is paralleled by Spanish forms which in addition show
distinctions for gender.
36
Lic. Christian Cristóful ©
III. Possessives
 In Spanish, gender distinctions are lost when shortening the possessives. Compare mio, mia with
mi.

English possessives are pronoun forms. There is no shortening in English possessives.
 In Spanish, the possessives are adjectives, with all the forms and distinctions of this class. There
is therefore and agreement relationship between the possessive and the noun it modifies which is
absent in English:
Nuestro coche, nuestra casa ..... our car, our house
 The contrastive Spanish and English patterns do not cause much trouble in first and second
person references, but in third person, where Spanish suyo refers to both singular and plural
possessors, and English –speaking student is often tempted to realign the Spanish forms to fit the
number and gender categories of English with such inappropriate association as his= suyo, her= suya,
their= suyos/as.

In their modifying function, the Spanish possessives can be classified into three patterns:

Before a noun. Example: ________________________

After the verb ser. Example: ______________________

After a noun. Example: __________________________

When possessive forms precede, they are shortened. Example: __________________

An error like esa casa de mía as in that house of mine is very easy to make.
Exercise. Insert a, an, the, or my, his, her, our, your, their if necessary
1. He took off ______________ coat and set to work
2. Why are you standing there with ______________ hands in ______________ pockets?
3. At most meetings ______________ people vote by raising ______________ right hands
4. The bullet struck him in ______________ foot
5. They tied ______________ hands behind ______________ back and locked him in a cellar
6. He took ______________ shoes off and entered on ______________ tiptoe
7. Someone threw ______________ egg which struck the speaker on ______________ shoulder
Learning Problems:
37
Lic. Christian Cristóful ©
Lesson 8. Mass nouns and Count nouns
Mass Nouns: measurement of amount or volume. Examples: _________________________
Count Nouns: measurement of quantity or number. Examples: _______________________
Problems arise when a word classified as mass in one language is count in the other.
Examples: _______________________________________________________________
 When talking about the a/some construction, we can say that “a” is used with nouns in
singular and “some” is used with nouns in plural. What about some used with mass nouns?
______________________________________________
 To make a singular reference to a mass noun, it is necessary to use a COUNTER, such
as piece, bar, grain, bit, item, glass, bucket.
 The two most obvious features of the distinction between mass and count nouns are:
1. The lack of a plural form for mass nouns.
2. The restriction of the indefinite determiner “a” to appearance with singular count
nouns.
Exercise
In each of the following sentences, indicate whether the highlighted noun is count or noncount.
1. The board will meet
tomorrow to consider your
application.
2. The information you gave
to the detective was very
misleading.
3. I thought it was a strange
comment to make.
4. Smoking damages your
health.
Count
Mass
Count
Mass
Count
Mass
Count
Mass
5. Jean is studying music at
college.
Count
Mass
6. I'll have a brandy, please.
Count
Mass
 In Spanish, the same distinctions between mass and count nouns exists, but with fewer
grammatical consequences, in part caused by a frequent crossing of classes. (Are there really
two separate classes, then?)
 Identify the “only” mass nouns (m) and the “only” count nouns (c) in Spanish from the
following list:
harina ( ), libro ( ),
gratitud ( ),
ojo ( ),
obediencia ( ),
uña ( ),
quietud ( ),
virtud ( ),
canción ( ),
justicia ( ),
perro ( ),
constancia ( ),
termómetro ( ),
rectitud ( ),
información ( )
 There is in Spanish an indefinite counter that appears only with mass nouns: un poco de.
38
Lic. Christian Cristóful ©
 In Spanish, the indefinite article and the plural occur only in count constructions.
 Count nouns can be “massified”: What’s the difference between “there’s an egg on your
plate” and “there’s egg on your plate”
 Two problems emerge from a comparison of English and Spanish with respect to massnoun/count-noun distinctions: (1) the discrepancies of class assignment for semantically
equivalent lexical items, and (2) the limitations on the class “mass nouns” in Spanish.
Examples of Mass nouns in English which are equivalent
Spanish
Counter + Mass
Mass Noun
Plural Count noun
noun
Gossip
A piece of gossip
Chismes
Furniture
A piece of furniture
Muebles
to count nouns in
Singular Count noun
Un chisme
Un mueble
A difficult problem for the English-speaking student of Spanish is the ease of converting
Spanish mass nouns to count constructions that cannot be matched in English. They will tend
to avoid the right column:
English mass nouns Spanish mass or count nouns
Two pieces of chalk
Dos barras de tiza
Dos tizas
Two cloves of garlic
Dos cabezas de ajo
Dos ajos
 There are certain mass nouns in English similar to “news” for which Spanish has
count/mass equivalents:
English
Grits
Hives
Oats

Spanish
Sémola
Urticaria
Avena
Science or system names in English with the suffix _ics have usually singular Spanish
39
Lic. Christian Cristóful ©
equivalents
English
Mathematics
Spanish
Matemática
Notice the effect the difference in use of count/mass nouns in Spanish has in English:
Tienes un empleo?
Have you got a job?
Tienes empleo?
Have you got work?
Necesitas una empleada?
Do you need a maid?
Necesitas empleada?
Do you need domestic help?
What's the difference between the ROOT of a word and its STEM?
Well, the root of the word is a nonaffix lexical-content morpheme which
cannot be analysed into smaller parts. For example, the root of the word
indoors is 'door'. The stem -on the other hand- is a root morpheme
combined with affix morphemes; other affixes can be added to a stem to
form a more complex stem. Example: the stem of the word indoors is
'indoor' [it contains the root plus the affix]
Practice Quiz
TP 37
PC:
Grade:
Part I. Circle the letter that corresponds to the expression that best fits the statement
(10p).
01-25=1
26-28=2
29-31=3
32-34=4
35-37=5
1.
Determiners are...
[a]
Nouns and Pronouns
[b] Definite and Indefinite articles
[c]
Articles, possessives and demonstratives
[d] all of the above
2.
The Spanish augmentative suffixes...
[a] Have their English counterpart in words such as big or huge
[a] Have their English counterpart with comparative and superlative suffixes
[a] Have no English counterpart
[a] none of the above.
3.
Enclisis is a process of word formation in which stems from two word classes...
[a]
get separated
[b]
combine
[c] derive
[d]
none of the above
4.
Morphology of the language has to do with
[a]
word formation
[b]
sentence formation [c] word interrelation
[d]
affixation
5.
Exceptions in the inherent English gender category include...
40
Lic. Christian Cristóful ©
[a] it, they
[b] boy, girl
[c] fish, sheep
[d] baby, ship
6.
The Spanish expression “el libro azul” shows us that not all the adjectives in Spanish ...
[a]
are inflected by gender
[b] are inflected by person [c] can be derived
[d]
none of these
7.
Some of the grammatical signals of English and Spanish are:
[a]
word order & intonation
[b]
function words
[c] affixation [d] all of them
8.
An important problem an English speaker studying Spanish would have is the
correspondence of ......................... Spanish forms to the English pronoun you, which
is not formally marked for gender, number, case, or formality level
[a]
12
[b]
7
[c]
16
[d]
20
9.
“Stem” refers to:
[a] suffixes [b] prefixes [c]
10.
s→/_iz/ / _sibilants
An example of counter would be...
[a]
very [b]
an item of
[c]
any number
[d] none of the above
[d]
intense
Part II. Exercise (5p):
Provide examples of items in Spanish which, though they exist, are not the usual semantic
equivalents of English. Then do the opposite with English:
Spanish
English
Spanish
English
Spanish
English
Part III. True or False. Correct the false statements by not just negating the verb. (5):
T
F
1.
"That Julia loves Robert is known to all my friends" is an embedded sentence
T
F
2.
In the sentence "I'd like a glass of milk" the indefinite article "a" is a counter
T
F
3.
The English gender marker for definite articles has no counterpart in Spanish
T
F
4.
"Oats" is an example of a system/science term with "_ics" ending
T
F
5.
"virtud" is a mass nound in Spanish
41
Lic. Christian Cristóful ©
Part IV. Spanish Pronouns (5p)
In the above sentences, replace the DO and IO with enclitic direct and indirect pronouns.
1. Le estoy devolviendo sus cosas a mi novia.
_________________________________________________________________
2. Alguien me regaló un sombrero mexicano.
_________________________________________________________________
3. El profesor me contó la historia de Cristóbal Colon.
_________________________________________________________________
4. Ella me prestó sus notas.
_________________________________________________________________
5. Te estamos prestando dinero, pero tienes que devolver el dinero.
_________________________________________________________________
Part V. Morphemes
Divide the following words by placing a "+" between their separate morphemes
(some of the words may be monomorphemic and therefore indivisible) (5p)
a) Replaces
=
b) Margin
=
c) Airsickness
=
d) Holiday
=
e) Televise
=
Part V. Determiners. Insert a, an or the and possessive adjectives if necessary (7p)
1. There was ________knock on _______ door. I opened it and found _______ small dark
man in _______blue overcoat and _______woolen cap
2. I saw him raise______right and and take _______oath
Bonus point: explain the ambiguity of "Several old dresses from grandmother in beautiful
condition"
Process Assignment Progress
Hw1
Hw2
Hw3
Due
Submited?
42
Hw4
Hw5
Lic. Christian Cristóful ©
Index
Adjectives, 25, 26, 27
Adjunct, 17, 19, 44
Affixation, 5
Agglutinating, 8, 10
Ambiguity, 4
Analytic languages, 7, 8
Blending, 7
Bound morpheme, 10
Case, 28
Chinese, 8
Cleft sentences, 19
Compounding, 5, 31
Constituents, 34
Count nouns, 38, 39
Counter, 39
Demonstratives, 36
Derivational, 3, 30
Determiners, 15, 34
ditransitive, 16, 17
Enclisis, 31
English, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12,
13, 14, 16, 19, 26, 27, 29, 30, 31, 33, 34,
36, 37, 39, 40, 43, 44
Extraposition, 18, 44
Free morpheme, 2
Fusional, 8, 10
Gender, 26, 27
Generative grammar, 10
Homework, 15, 27
Languages, 7
Mass nouns, 38, 39
Mexico, 9
Monomorphemic, 10
Morpheme, 6
Morphology, 1, 12, 26
Morphosyntax?, 1
Nouns, 25, 26, 38
Number, 27
Numerals, 30
Pattern, 16, 17, 18, 21, 22, 23, 44, 45
Polysynthetic, 8, 10
Possessive adjectives, 27
Possessives, 37
Prefix, 5
Prescriptive grammar, 10
Pronouns, 28, 29
Reduplication, 6
Root, 10
Samoan, 6
Spanish, 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 11, 12, 13, 14,
21, 26, 27, 29, 30, 31, 33, 34, 36, 37, 38,
39, 40, 43, 44
Suppletion, 7
Swahili, 1, 8, 12
Syntax, 1, 9
Synthetic languages, 8
Tagalog, 6
Verbs, 25, 28, 30
Sources
This manual is a compilation of sources intended to fit the Morphosyntax syllabus
Fromkin, Victoria & Robert Rodman. An Introduction to Language. 6th Edition. Harcourt Brace.
1998
Fromkin, Victoria. Linguistics. An Introduction to Linguistic Theory. Blackwell Publishers. 2000
Stockwell, Robert et all. The Grammatical Structures of English and Spanish. Chicago Press.
http://www.ucl.ac.uk/internet-grammar. The Survey of English Usage 1996-1998
http://www.sil.org/americas/brasil/fun/englboqz.htm. 1999 SIL International.
http://www.onestopenglish.com/ProfessionalSupport/grammar/grammar.htm
43
Lic. Christian Cristóful ©
Appendix
Tear down these sheets. Use them for the Mid term Quiz
English Patterns
Pattern 1: Subject + Intransitive Verb
Subject Verb
David
sings
Pattern 2:
Subject Verb
David
Direct Object
sings ballads
Pattern 3
Subject
Verb Indirect Object Direct Object
The old man gave the children
some money
Pattern 4
(Adjunct)
Subject
Verb
Indirect Object
Direct Object
(Adjunct)
At the start of the trial
the judge
showed
the jury
the photographs
in a private chamber
Pattern 5 Extraposition
Inside the house were two detectives
Pattern 6 Cleft Sentences
It was David who studied English at Oxford
Spanish Patterns
Pattern #1. Equational Statement
a)
NP
+
El
b)
NP
Ella
+
V- ser +
es
(NP) (Adj) (Adv)
el nuevo cónsul
V- estar +
está
(Adj)(Adv)
bonita
Pattern #2. Intransitive Statement
NP
+
VP(int)
Aquella niña baja de pelo negro come
abundantemente con sus amigos
Pattern #3. Transitive Statement
a)
NP
+
VP(tr)
Ellos
quieren
+
NP (DO)
el agua
b)
+
VP(t)
quieren
NP
Ellos
+
Pron (DO)
la
Pattern #4. Transitive Receiver Statement
44
Lic. Christian Cristóful ©
a)
NP
El
+
VP(tr)
dio
+
NP(DO)
el libro
+
(para, a)
a Juan
+
NP
b)
NP
El
+
Pron
le
+
VP(tra)
dio
+
NP(DO)
el libro
+
(a + NP)
(a Juan)
c)
NP
El
+
Pron
se
+
Pron
lo
+
VP(tra)
dio
+
(a + NP)
(a Juan)
+
NP(Comp)
presidente
+
(a)
a
+
NP(DO)
Juan
+
VP
eligieron
+
NP(Comp)
presidente
+
(a)
a
+
NP(DO)
Juan
Pattern #5. Complement Statement
a)
1. NP
+
VP(t)
Ellos
eligieron
2. NP
Ellos
+
Pron
lo
1. NP
Ellos
+
VP(t)
+
consideraban
Adj(Comp)
capacitado
2. NP
Ellos
+
Pron
lo
+
VP(t)
+
consideraban
Adj (Comp)
capacitado
1. NP
Yo
+
VP(t)
ví
+
(a) NP(DO)
+
a los hombres
VP(inf) (Comp)
correr
2. NP
Yo
+
VP(t)
ví
+
VP(inf) Comp +
correr
(a)
a
3. NP
Yo
+
Pron
los
+
VP(t)
ví
VP(int) (inf) (Comp)
correr
1. NP
Yo
+
VP(t)
ví
+
(a)NP(DO)
+
a los hombres
VP(_ndo) (Comp)
corriendo
2. NP
Yo
+
Pron
lo
+
VP(t)
escuché
+
VP(_ndo) (Comp)
corriendo
e)
NP
El
+
VP(t)
quiere
+
VP(inf) (Comp)
ir
f)
NP
El
+
VP
tiene
+
Rel
que
+
VP(inf) (Comp)
ir a casa
+
(_ndo)
esperando
+
(Adv)
afuera
NP
+
unos hombres
que
que
+
VP(inf)
contratar
+
que
que
+
VP(inf)
salir
b)
c)
d)
Pattern #6. Indefinite Equational Pattern
a)
Hay
+
NP
Hay
mucha gente
b)
Hay
Hay
c)
Hay
Hay
+
45
+
NP(DO)
los hombres