Download 1. Language change and variation in English

1. Language change and variation in English
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concepts of change and variation: how and why
attitudes to language: standard and non-standard
varieties
the main phases in the history of English
causes of the spread of English in the world
present-day English: from English to Englishes
English as a global language: advantages,
disadvantages and future implications
brainstorming on language change and variation
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Do languages change in time?
Why do languages change?
How do languages change?
Why and how do languages vary at a given
time in history?
5. What is “the best form” of a language?
from general to expert knowledge:
some concepts and terms
1. synchrony, diachrony, sociolinguistics, historical
linguistics, history of the language, comparative
linguistics, language family, Indo-European,
Germanic family, Romance or Neo-Latin family
2. causes for language change: “external” (e.g.
historical events, inventions, new ideas) versus
“internal” (e.g. analogy, hypercorrection, push
chain processes)
3. types of change: phonological, morpho-syntactic
and semantic
4. standard and non-standard varieties
Is the study of the history and varieties of English
relevant to university students of English? Yes!
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for cultural reasons
to understand more about present-day English
- the gap between spelling and pronunciation
- the mixed nature of its lexis, e.g. “liberty” vs
“freedom”
- the existence of regular and irregular verbs
- the linguistic situation of present-day UK vs. USA
to reinforce practical competence
- to improve pronunciation and grammatical
correctness
- to expand lexical competence
- to be prepared to understand different varieties of
English
similarities among Indo-European languages
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English
Sanskrit
Greek
Latin
Italian
father
pitar
pater
pater
padre
mother
matar
mater
mater
madre
three
trayas
treis
tres
tre
the Celts
• Indo-European people who lived in Europe
from 2000 BC to 100 AD
• they inhabited the British Isles before the
Roman and Anglo-Saxon invasions
• names of Celtic origin: London, Leeds, Avon,
Thames, Kent, Cornwall
• very few Celtic words in Old English
• Celtic languages spoken today: Welsh, Irish
Gaelic, Scots Gaelic (Breton)
historical periods and linguistic phases
1. The Anglo-Saxon period
1. Old English, OE (700-1150)
2. The Norman period
2. Middle English , ME (1150-1500)
3. Modern period
3. Modern English, ModE (15001900)
Great Britain and Northern Ireland
united under the British crown. New
territories explored and stable
colonies established in America, Asia
and Africa
4. 20th century :
from English to Englishes
English as a global language
4. Present-day English (PDE)
(1900 to the present)
The story/history of English started in a
small island
1. the United Kingdom (UK) of Great
Britain and Northern Ireland is
composed of
England (London)
Scotland (Edinburgh)
Wales (Cardiff)
Northern Ireland (Belfast)
2. Great Britain (GB)/Britain is
composed of
England
Scotland
Wales
3. The Republic of Ireland (Éire)
(Dublin)
Stonehenge (2500 BC)
Stonehenge is a prehistoric monument, one of
the most famous sites in the world. It is a ring
made of standing stones belonging to the
Neolithic/Bronze Age.
The Roman baths of Bath
The Roman Baths complex is a site of
historical interest in the English city of Bath.
It is a well-preserved Roman site for public
bathing.
Clean spa water can be drunk by visitors.
Hadrian’s Wall
Hadrian’s Wall was a defensive fortification
in Roman Britain. Begun in AD 122, during
the rule of emperor Hadrian, it was the first
fortification built across Great Britain.
Major historical events
• Stonehenge, about 3000-2500 BC
• 100 BC the first Celts appeared in Britain
• 55-54 BC Julius Caesar invaded Britain – the
Romans left it in the 5th century
• 5th century: some Germanic tribes (AngloSaxons and Jutes) arrived in England and
forced the Celts to move west and north
Old English (OE) period (700-1150)
• this term refers to Germanic dialects spoken
by Jutes, Angles and Saxons: Kentish, WestSaxon, Mercian and Northumbrian
• the West-Saxon reign was the most important
religious, military and cultural centre in
Europe
• West-Saxon was considered the first standard
written language, associated with political,
military and cultural power in society
Christianisation of Britain
• 6th century
• introduction of the Latin alphabet
• abandonment of the Runic alphabet by the
Anglo-Saxons
• from the 9th to the 11th centuries manuscripts
were translated from Latin into Old English
• Latin and Greek gave Old English a wide range
of words from the Gospel, i.e. related to
religion and spirituality
the Scandinavian Viking invasion (793 AD)
• 8th century
• dark ages recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle,
namely a collection of annals in Old English
chronicling the history of the Anglo-Saxons
• the Danes destroyed all the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms
• King Alfred the Great raised an army and pushed
the Danes out of his kingdom
• King Alfred saved the English language
• King Alfred commissioned the Anglo-Saxon
Chronicle and encouraged the use of English in
writing and in speech
Viking words
obsolete
• thorpe = settlement
• beck = stream
• by = farm
still used
• sky, skin, skirt, run, window, ombudsman
the Gaelic (Celtic) countries in the British Isles
an example of Old English
(from Ælfric’s Colloquy, c. 998, intended to help students
learn how to speak Latin through a conversation manual)
OE:
We cildra biddaþ þe, eala lareow, þæt þu tæce us [...]
Latin:
Nos pueri rogamus te, magister, ut doceas nos [...]
PDE:
Master, we young men would like you to teach us [...]
features of Old English
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Latin alphabet, with some differences from PDE
(e.g. the consonant thorn or þorn <þ>, now <th>,
inherited from the Runic alphabet and still surviving
in Icelandic)
nouns, adjectives and pronouns were inflected for
case, number and gender (synthetic versus analytic
language)
two types of verbs (strong and weak) = regular and
irregular verbs in PDE
word order was free
lexis was mainly Germanic but included words of
Celtic (names of places, e.g. London), Latin (e.g.
schol from schola) and Scandinavian origin (e.g.
landes mann = PDE native)
synthetic/inflectional language
• in linguistic typology, a synthetic language is a
language with a high morpheme-per-word ratio
• grammar is determined by a system of inflections
• the king
se cyning
• of the king
thaes cyninges
• to the king
thaem cyninge
PDE: The king meets the bishop
OE: Se cyning (S) meteth (V) thone biscop (O)
Thone biscop (O) meteth (V) se cyning (S)
Middle English (ME) period (1150-1500)
1066 the Norman conquest – a new ruling class coming
from France went into power: the Normans spoke
French while Latin was the language of the Church
and education; English was still the language of the
majority of the population
1204 the Normans lost their power in favour of English
kings
1215 the Magna Carta Libertatum (in Latin) was forced
onto the king of England by his subjects, the feudal
barons, in an attempt to limit his powers by law and
protect their rights
14th century The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer:
the most authoritative example of written literary
English
1476 introduction of the printing press in England by
William Caxton – invented in Germany by Johannes
Gutenberg but already in use in China in 1040
Norman Britain
• many Norman kings were often totally ignorant of
their country’s language
• government, law and administration were conducted
in French and so was the Church, together with Latin
• the Normans integrated with English society through
marriage
• in the 12th and 13th
century French/English
bilingualism existed in the upper middle classes and
nobility
• gradual shift to English
French vocabulary
• administration: government, treaty, royal, property,
accuse, office, court, crown, marry
• general vocabulary: people, age, country, flower,
large, lesson
• religion: confession, prayer, abbey, tempt
• etymology of country: Middle English – from Old
French cuntree, from medieval Latin contrata (terra)
‘(land) lying opposite’, from Latin contra ‘against,
opposite’
animal vs. meat
pig
calf
cow
deer
sheep
snail
pork
veal
beef
venison
mutton
escargot
Old English snæg(e)l, of Germanic origin; related to
German Schnecke
French, from Old French escargol, from Provençal
escaragol
Geoffrey Chaucer (1340-1400)
The Canterbury Tales
Canterbury Cathedral
From Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales
ME:
Thanne were ther yonge povre scolers two,
That dwelten in this halle, of which I seye.
PDE:
Then there were two young poor scholars,
Who dwelt in this hall, of which I tell.
features of Middle English
• reduction of the case system, particularly in nouns
and adjectives
• development of the future with shall/will and the
present progressive
• introduction of the pronoun she/shoe
• increasingly fixed word order (with some variation)
• French, e.g. marry from marier, and Latin, e.g.
inferior, influence on vocabulary
Modern English (ModE) period
(1500-1900)
• Early Modern English (1500-1800)
• Late Modern English (1800-1900)
Early Modern English (EModE) period
(c. 1500-c. 1800)
• the form of the English language spoken since the Great
Vowel Shift (GVS) in England, completed in roughly 1550
• the GVS was a major change in the pronunciation of the
English language between 1350 and 1700
• the term GVS was coined by the Danish linguist Otto
Jespersen (1860–1943)
• because English spelling was becoming standardized in
the 15th and 16th centuries, the GVS is responsible for
many of the peculiarities of English spelling
The Great Vowel Shift (GVS)
Britain: a united and powerful country
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7 million inhabitants
separation of the Church of England from the Roman
Catholic Church
Queen Elisabeth I established the power of Britain on
the seas
great flourishing of the theatre and literature, e.g.
Shakespeare, the King James Version – the authorized
translation of the Bible
the English Civil War (1642-1651) over the power of
the Parliament versus the power of the Monarchy, i.e.
Parliamentarians versus Royalists
in 1702 England and Scotland were united under the
British Crown
Britain: a colonial world power
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since the 17th century: English trading
companies in India and slave trade in Africa
In the 17th century: stable colonies established
in America, Australia, New Zealand, Canada,
the Caribbean and South Africa
19th century: colonial empire in Asia and
Africa
Queen Elizabeth I (1533-1603)
• 1492: America discovered by Columbus
• 1560s: Triangular trade aka Atlantic triangle
• Queen Elizabeth I backing up Sir Walter
Raleigh and Sir Francis Drake in the antiSpanish campaign in the Caribbean
→ Elizabeth: The Golden Age
William Shakespeare
(baptised 26th April 1564 and died 23rd April 1616)
Shakespeare’s famous quotes
To be or not to be: that is the question.
All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players.
Parting is such sweet sorrow, that I shall say good night till it be
morrow.
What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name
would smell as sweet.
Brevity is the soul of wit.
Love is blind.
We have seen better days.
As dead as a doornail.
Bags and baggage.
Fair play.
I have not slept one wink.
King James Version of the Bible (1611 )
a translation into English from Greek, Hebrew and Latin
the beheading of Charles I during the Civil War (1649)
the spread of English in the colonial era
the British Empire
A quotation from Love’s Labour Lost
by Shakespeare
I praise God for you sir, your reasons at
dinner haue beene sharpe and sententious:
pleasant without scurrillity, witty without
affection, audacious without impudency,
learned without opinion, and strange
without heresie: I did conuerse this quondam
day with a companion…
Late Modern English (LModE) period
(1800-1900)
• simplification of inflection (only ‘s genitive
and -s plural in nouns, the comparative and
superlative endings in adjectives) with the
exception of pronouns
• tendency towards fixed word order
• debate between Neologisers (in favour of
words of foreign origin) and Purists (in favour
of native words)
Standard English (SE)
• Development of a standard form of English
through long processes of selection (London
English) and codification through grammars
and dictionaries
• Development of a standard accent:
Received Pronunciation (RP)
Samuel Johnson (1709-1784)
Samuel Johnson’s
Dictionary of the English Language (1755)
LEXICO’GRAPHER. n.s. [?
lixicographe, French.] A
writer of dictionories; a
harmless drudge, that
busies himself in tracing
the original, and detailing
the signification of words.
the four main periods of English: a summary
Old English (OE)
(700-1100)
● fully inflected
● free word order
● Germanic vocabulary
Modern English (ModE)
(1500-1900)
● very limited inflection
● greater use of fixed word order
● codification of language
Middle English (ME)
(1100-1500)
● reduced inflection
● increasingly fixed word
order
● French influence on
vocabulary
Present-Day English (PDE)
(1900-nowadays)
● language spread and
differentiation
● formation of new varieties
worldwide
● English as a global lingua franca
the reasons for the present predominance of
English in the world: a summary
external reasons:
the colonial and industrial power of Great Britain in
the 18th and 19th centuries; the political, economic
and technological power of the USA in the 20th
century; the number of speakers; the geographical
spread; cultural heritage
internal reasons (myths):
clarity, simplicity, size of its vocabulary, flexibility in
creating new words, adaptability to distant
contexts
Present-Day English (PDE)
(1900-nowadays)
main political and cultural events
1. English is the official – or main – language of
many important countries in the world, e.g. the
UK, the USA, Australia, Canada, New Zealand
2. English has been retained as the official language
(along with other native languages) in more than
70 former British colonies after their political
independence, e.g. India, the Caribbean and
several African countries
3. English has acquired growing importance
worldwide in science, technology, international
organisations and business
Why has English become a global language?
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native varieties of English – English as a Native
Language (ENL or L1)
varieties of English as a Second Language (ESL or L2),
used internationally in former British colonies in the
institutional, media and educational fields
English as a Foreign Language (EFL), English as a
Lingua Franca (ELF), English for Special Purposes (ESP),
e.g. Airspeak, Policespeak, Business English (BE),
English for Academic Purposes (EAP)
within each category there is a continuum from an
educated standard to a very limited form of
communication
The three circles of PDE
The three-circles model
for PDE by Braj Kachru
Native varieties or “Colonial Englishes”
• a set of different but related varieties
which share a common core of grammar
and vocabulary
• differing mainly in pronunciation and
lexis
• the two main native varieties are British
English (BrE) and American English (AmE)
• BrE and AmE provide the norms for EFL
learners
Second language varieties or New Englishes
• used in institutional or educational contexts
in multilingual countries, usually former
British colonies
• have gone through a process of language
contact, e.g. as honest as an elephant
• have been progressively acknowledged as
local standards, e.g. Indian English, Caribbean
English, East-African English
• share common features that are different
from native standard varieties
mistakes or linguistic creativity?
1. I was feeling thirsty, so I bought one
soda
2. Last time she come on Thursday
3. We are having something to do
4. Whenever we go there they be playing
5. She came yesterday, isn’t it?
the speech community of PDE
• bilingualism or multilingualism is the norm
• languages play an important role in the
construction of people’s identities
• language contact
• nativization, hybridization, code-switching
• new coinages: been-to = ‘a person who has
spent a long time abroad’; change-room =
dressing room
English as a Foreign Language (EFL)
- either choose one of the native standards for
production on the basis of proximity, tradition,
personal needs or taste, e.g. British English or
American English
- or favour a non-native model, i.e. English as a
Lingua Franca (ELF)
- be prepared to understand different varieties
English as a Lingua Franca (ELF)
in the past:
contact languages for trade, e.g. pidgins and
creoles in Africa based on English and African
languages
now:
in international scientific conferences, business
meetings or the internet, ELF based on a core of
norms drawing on British and American English
and intended to guarantee mutual international
intelligibility
the predominance of English
advantages
disadvantages
world languages have always
existed
English is ‘killing’ other
languages and cultures
people are becoming lazy in
learning other languages
English expresses a particular
world view and favours its
native speakers (cultural
imperialism)
English has become
uncontrollable
What about interpreters and
translators?
a world language is necessary
in a globalised world
a post-national language may
be useful to world
democracy and citizenship
Who owns English today?
“… the English language ceased
to be the sole possession of the
English some time ago”
(Salman Rushdie, 1991)
the future of English:
from English to Englishes
Will English…?
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go on being a polycentric language comprising several
mutually intelligible varieties?
achieve a balance between identity and international
intelligibility?
remain strong until English-speaking countries are
powerful?
fragment into mutually unintelligible languages as
already happened to Latin and the Romance
languages?
be rejected as a symbol of colonialism, e.g. Malaysia,
or cultural imperialism?
be spoken as a simplified lingua franca by non-native
speakers?
Linguistic variability
all languages are open and dynamic entities
which adapt to the history and culture of the
speech communities in which they are in use
Standard vs. non-standard varieties
a standard variety is the language par
excellence in terms of social prestige, language
functions and domains of use
e.g. the West-Saxon dialect in the OE period, the first standard
written language (9th-11th centuries)
e.g. London English used by Caxton in the ME period (15th
century)
e.g. English used by educated speakers and the mass media all
over the world (21th century)
Sociolinguistics
• a branch of linguistics that studies the
relationship between language and society,
i.e. according to social variables
• social variables: class, gender (men/women),
age (young/old), ethnicity, etc.
• attitudes
(positive/negative)
influence
language change: some variants may be
perceived as more or less prestigious
Labov’s analysis of the pronunciation of the phoneme [r] in
New York City according to social class and style (1960s)
(0-5 = lower class; 5-9 = middle and upper class , e.g. fourth floor)
Hypercorrection
• speakers tend to conform to the more prestigious
linguistic norms
• hypercorrection originates from the over-application of
a perceived rule of grammar or usage: a speaker/writer
who produces hypercorrection believes that the form is
correct through misunderstanding of these rules, often
combined with a desire to appear formal or educate
• hypercorrection is more typical of socially insecure
speakers such as middle classes and women
• e.g. he gave it to you and I vs. he gave it to you and me
Historical or diachronic linguistics
the main paradigm (approach) to the study of
language change
1. comparative linguistics or language
reconstruction
2. the history of language: the changes in a
language over the centuries
Internal and external causes of change
• internal (linguistic factors): regularization, i.e.
the levelling of the OE inflectional case system
e.g. OE stān/a/es/as/e/um → PDE stone
• external: extralinguistic or social factors
(invasions,
technological
innovations,
immigration waves)
Types of language change
• phonological
• morpho-syntactic
• semantic
Phonological change
• sporadic phonological change
• regular phonological change
• unconditioned
phonological
change:
regardless of the phonemic environment
• conditioned phonological change: taking place
in a particular phonetic environment
examples of phonological change
• loss of <r>
e.g. OE spræc → PDE speak
• the split of /n/ and // in the 17th century
e.g. sin vs. sing
• the Great Vowel Shift (from the 15th century)
Morpho-syntactic change
• levelling of the OE case system
• word order in ME
• grammaticalization, i.e. the change from
lexical items to grammatical items
e.g. OE wilan ‘want’ (main verb) →
PDE will (modal verb)
Semantic change
Phonetics and phonology
• accents of English: native, foreign, ‘nativized’
• Received Pronunciation (RP) vs General American (GA)
• phonetics and phonology
• the articulators
• graphemes and phonemes
• homophones and homographs
• International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)
• English phonetics and phonology
accents of English:
native, foreign, ‘nativized’
• accent: the way in which a language is pronounced in
a specific geographical area
• native: UK, USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand
• foreign: where English is a foreign language, e.g. Italy,
Japan
• ‘nativized’: where English is a second language, e.g.
India
Received Pronunciation (RP) and
General American (GA)
• Received pronunciation (RP) or BBC English:
best described accent of English
- public schools
- upper classes
• General American (GA) or American English
phonetics and phonology
• phonetics: the science that studies the
physical characteristics of sound
- articulatory: production
- acoustic: spectro-temporal properties
- auditory: perception
• phonology: describes the organization of the
sound system of a language
the articulators
graphemes and phonemes
• grapheme: a letter of the alphabet , i.e. a
discrete mark in writing or print – between
angle brackets, e.g. <t>
• phoneme: a distinctive sound in a language
capable of creating a distinction in meaning
between two words – between slashes (or
square brackets), e.g. /d/ dog, /l/ log, /f/ fog
silent graphemes
• <t> in castle, Christmas, often (by
some speakers)
• <k> in know, knock
• <l> in walk, talk, folk
• <w> in write, wrong
• <b> in debt, bomb, doubt
English phonology
• segmental: describes the phonemes of a
language and the way they combine
• suprasegmental: describes the units larger
than the phonemes (syllables, rhythm
groups and intonation phrases)
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phonemes and allophones
vowels
the vowel diagram
diphthongs
non-phonemic symbols
sentences in phonetic transcription
phonetic diagram
(11 vowels in English)
trapezio vocalico
(7 vowels in Italian)
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consonants
voicing
syllabic consonants
rhoticity and r-linking
English/Italian phonemes in contrast
passages in phonetic transcription
consonants
• consonants are sounds produced with an
egressive flow of air coming out of the mouth
or the nose accompanied by obstruction or
friction in the articulators
• whereas all vowels are voiced, consonants can
be voiced or voiceless depending on the
vibration or otherwise of the vocal cords
I’ve been reading some interesting research
about how people’s moods are affected by
sunlight. People from southern countries are
supposed to be more outgoing than those
from the north. Some scientists have shown
that if you’re not exposed to a certain
minimum amount of sunlight you may well
become depressed.
The Italian language accepts English
words easily. Some are used in Italian
with completely different meanings. An
example is the word flipper, the game
called pinball in English.
CDs have taken over from records
which developed from a machine called
phonograph. However the inventors of
the phonograph never thought it would
be used for music.
Idioms are not a separate part of the
language which one can choose either
to use or to omit. Instead they form an
essential part of the general vocabulary
of English. Present-day English is
changing and becoming more idiomatic.
Mass tourism in the mountain regions of industrialized
countries began after the Second World War. This new
phenomenon was a result of many factors including
increases in urban population, vacation time and
mobility. Today because of cheap global air travel
almost no mountains in any corner of the world are out
of reach. Damage to the environment caused by
tourists has become increasingly frequent in recent
years but it is not necessarily a destructive force.
Tourism should be better integrated into mountain
areas with a minimal impact on the environment.
OALD www.oxfordadvancedlearnersdictionary.com
CALD dictionary.cambridge.org
MEDAL www.macmillandictionary.com
LDOCE www.ldoceonline.com
Supra-segmental Phonology
• the syllable
• stress
• stress patterns
stress
• prominence given to a syllable
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the result of four acoustic components:
pitch
(altezza)
loudness (volume)
duration (lunghezza)
quality (qualità)
• in phonetic transcription stress is indicated by a vertical
line (stress mark) preceding the stressed syllable
Underline the word which does not have the same stress pattern in the lists below.

trouble
Britain
cigar
jingle
poker

alone
perhaps
respect
Turkey
deny

colleague
outline
someone
control
Monday

upstairs
divert
goodbye
thirteen
freedom

president
dictation
Arabic
diplomat
visitor

imitate
photograph glorify
wonderful
obedient

newsreader important
grandfather homecoming headhunter

vacation
sincerely
suspicion
professor
library

vibration
lefthanded
dangerous
unlikely
organic
• connected speech
• similitude
• linking
• assimilation
• elision
• vowel reduction and weak forms
Connected speech
• continuous stream of sound
• characterised by articulatory
accommodations and sound variability
• three main factors:
- the influence of the phonetic environment
- the rhythmic pattern
- the speed of the utterance
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American English
rhythm
intonation
functions of intonation
punctuation
• pay attention to English punctuation:
comma (,), colon (:), semi-colon (;), full
stop/period (.), dot-dot-dot (…)
• pay attention to initial capital letters:
English, Italian, I, Monday, March, etc.
The Grammar of English
Definitions of grammar
• a set of rules which allow the production of wellformed sentences and utterances
• educated native speakers intuitively follow the
rules of grammar
• foreign learners study grammar in an explicit way
in textbooks
• non-native speakers may develop new rules which
deviate from standard rules
examples
• *I never did nothing to upset her.
(rule: multiple negation is not permitted in English).
The correct sentence is:
I never did anything to upset her)
• *She came yesterday, isn’t it?
(rule: the tag question must contain an auxiliary in
accordance with the type of verb used in the main
clause). The correct sentence is:
She came yesterday, didn’t she?
Descriptive vs Theoretical grammar
• Descriptive grammar describes how a language
works, drawing on a long tradition of
grammatical studies, using both traditional and
new terminology (e.g. subject, embedding)
• Theoretical grammars are new analytical models
developed by linguists to describe a language
(e.g. Systemic-functional Grammar).
• ‘metalanguage’
Morphology and Syntax
• Morphology: the area of grammar dealing with
the internal structure of words
• Morphology can be divided into derivational and
inflectional
• Syntax: the area of grammar dealing with the
way in which words combine to form larger units
such as phrases, clauses and sentences.
The Units of Grammar
• A hierarchy of units (rank scale)
Top down
text
sentence
clause
phrase
word
morpheme
Bottom up 
Morpheme: the smallest linguistic unit of meaning
and grammatical function
e.g. un- , -less, and, glad, -s
Word: linguistic unit preceded and followed by
spaces in written language
A golden sun filled the air with light and the green
sea lapped the sand (15 words)
Phrase: a linguistic unit made up of a word or a
group of words
A golden sun (Noun Phrase= sintagma nominale)
Clause: a linguistic unit made up of one or more
phrases, containing at least a verb phrase
e.g. A golden sun (NP) filled (VP) the air (NP)
Sentence: the largest linguistic unit made up of
one or more clauses
e.g. A golden sun filled the air with light and the
green sea lapped the sand
John told me that he would like to move to Paris
Text: a sequence of sentences which is coherent
and cohesive
Word
• a word is a linguistic unit which in the
written form has a space on either side
(orthographic criterion)
but: weekend, week-end, week end
brother-in-law (cognato)
identity card
Other criteria of wordhood
• Internal stability:
Elephant, elephants
but
brother-in-law, brothers-in-law
• A word expresses a single concept:
but
the (function word), dry, get (polysemy)
Lexeme, word-form
• LIST v.
list, lists, listing, listed
(lexeme)
(word-forms)
• LIST n.
list, lists
(lexeme)
(word-forms)
• TEACH
teach, teaches, taught, teaching
(lexeme)
(word-form)
Lexeme: a unit of vocabulary which includes
different variant form, called word-forms
• Lexicography: entry (voce), headword (lemma)
walk n.
walk v.
lexeme1
lexeme2
(passeggiata)
(passeggiare)
bank n.
bank n.
lexeme1
lexeme2
(money)
(river)
How many words are there in this sentence?
I asked him to list all his books, but
instead of listing them all, he listed
only the relevant ones and his
favourite book
24 or 16?
Word / word-forms / lexemes
List / listing / listed =
3 word forms of the lexeme TO LIST
Book / books = 2 word forms of the lexeme BOOK
He / him / his = three word forms of the lexeme HE
(24 word-forms, 16 lexemes)
Word classes (parts of speech)
•
•
•
9 major word classes:
nouns, lexical verbs, adjectives, adverbs,
conjunctions, prepositions, determiners,
pronouns, auxiliary verbs
3 minor word classes:
inserts or interjections (Wow, Hey), whwords, numerals
some word-forms may belong to more
than one class (e.g. round n. adj. v. prep.
Divide the following words into 2 groups:
pig, autumn, me, explain, they, which,
sing, suddenly, from, today, biology, and,
truth, could, the, extraordinary, since, hot,
announce, in
• pig, autumn, explain, sing, suddenly,
today, biology, truth, extraordinary, hot,
announce
• me, they, which, from, and, could, the,
since, in
Open and closed classes
• open-class words  lexical words  content
words
4 classes:
nouns, (lexical) verbs, adjectives, adverbs
• closed-class words  grammatical words 
function words
5 classes:
conjunctions, prepositions, determiners,
pronouns, auxiliary verbs
open-class words
• length: (generally) polysyllabic
• origin: (generally) Latin, Greek, French,
Germanic origin
• frequency: less frequent
closed-class words
• length: (generally) monosyllabic or
disyllabic
• origin: (generally) Germanic origin
• frequency: more frequent
Nouns (N)
• Nouns are lexical words which refer to concrete
objects or entities
e.g. house (common, concrete, countable), Mary,
London (proper), love (common, abstract), sugar
(common, concrete, uncountable)
• they may take the ’s genitive case (genitivo
sassone)
Verbs (V)
• open class denoting actions or states
• lexical/main/full verbs e.g. I like English
He walked to school
• auxiliary verbs (or auxiliaries) are added to lexical
verbs for various purposes
e.g. I could go faster. (modality)
John is going nowhere. (aspect)
Do you go to school? (question)
I do love him! (emphasis)
Lexical Verbs (V)
• dynamic: referring to physical processes = allow
the progressive form
e.g. to play, to walk, to drink
• stative/state: referring to states and conditions =
do not allow the progressive form
e.g. to know, to love, to believe
Adjectives (Adj)
• Adjectives are lexical words which describe
qualities and properties of things, people,
etc.
e.g. happy, blue, wonderful
- gradable (very happy)
- ungradable (dead, married)
• attributive function: before a noun
e.g. the extraordinary boy
• predicative function: after copular verbs (to be, to
seem, to appear)
e.g. John is tall
• some adjectives are only used in either attributive or
predicative function
e.g.the child is afraid (predicative)
*the afraid child
e.g.the main task (attributive)
*the task is main
Adverbs (Adv)
• Adverbs are lexical words which carry out several
functions:
- degree adverbs express degree (very, really, totally)
- circumstance adverbs provide information about the
circumstances of an event or state, i.e., how, when, and
where (yesterday, now)
- disjuncts allow the speaker to comment on the whole
utterance (probably, unfortunately)
- linking adverbs or conjuncts: connect one sentence or
part of a sentence to another (besides)
Fortunately, today the dog has eaten his
food very quietly outside.
She wasn’t free to go to New York at
Christmas and besides she couldn’t afford
it.
Prepositions (Prep)
• show the relationship between two items
• are typically followed by a noun phrase with
which they form a Prepositional Phrase (PP)
e.g. the dog ran under the table
[the table]=NP [under [the table]]=PP
• simple: single word
e.g. under, over, at, on
• complex: more than one word
according to, on behalf of, with regard to
Determiners (Det)
Function words used before a noun to
indicate definiteness or indefiniteness,
quantity, possession, etc.
e.g. all these sugary cookies filled with jam
and cream
Subclasses of determiners
• articles (indefinite and definite): a, an, the
• demonstrative: this, that, these, those
• possessive: my, your, his, her, their, our,
its etc.
• quantifiers: all, few, many, several, some,
every, each, any, etc.
• cardinal numbers: one, two, fifty, etc.
• ordinal numbers: first, second, third, etc.
Pronouns (Pron)
closed class of words which replace words
avoiding repetitions
e.g. Michelle was offered an exciting new
job and she decided to take it
Subclasses of pronouns
• personal pronouns
e.g. They love football (subject) She loves them
(object)
• possessive pronouns
e.g. This book is mine
• demonstrative pronouns
e.g. This is my friend Tom
• reflexive pronouns
e.g. She hurt herself
• interrogative pronouns
e.g. Whose car is this?
• relative pronouns
e.g. This is the car which/that I want to buy
Auxiliaries (Aux)
A closed class of verbs which accompany lexical verbs
Two subclasses:
• primary auxiliaries
have, be, do
e.g. Liz is looking for a job, Do you speak English? She
has studied a lot
• modal auxiliaries (modality)
can, could, shall, should, will, would, may, might, must,
e.g. I must go now! Would you like a cup of coffee?
Wh-words
A frequently used expression to refer to function
words beginning with wh adverbs (interrogative, relative, exclamative)
e.g. When did you call her?
 pronouns (interrogative, relative, exclamative)
e.g. Whose car is that?
 determiners (interrogative, relative, exclamative)
e.g. Which book did you choose?
Numerals
• cardinal, e.g. one, two, three, etc.
• ordinal, e.g. first, second, third, etc.
• numerals may function as nouns
e.g. The Magnificent Seven
Morphology
Morphology
inflectional morphology deals with changes in the
form of words that have grammatical meaning
e.g. -est signals the superlative of adjectives
derivational morphology deals with the process of
new word formation
e.g. happy  unhappiness
What is a morpheme?
unhappy
cats
un-happy
cat-s
• A morpheme is the smallest unit of meaning or grammatical
function
• free: can stand alone as words
- lexical e.g. pen, book
- functional e.g. if, the
• bound: cannot stand alone and must be linked to another
morpheme (called base or root) e.g. -ly, un-, -able, -ee
- derivational e.g. -ness, -able
- inflectional e.g. -s, -ing
morphemes and morphs
played
unhelpful
impolitely
words
play-ed
{PLAY} + {past}
un-help-ful {negative} + {HELP} + {adjective}
im-polite-ly {negative} + {POLITE} + {adverb}
morphs
(concrete)
morphemes
(abstract)
root and base
root = the core of the word, the morpheme which
determines the meaning of the word
e.g. happy is the root of happiness
bound root = a root that is not independent
e.g. dent- in dentist, dental, dentistry (Latin dens,
dentis)
base = part of the word to which any affixes are
attached (inflectional or derivational)
e.g. happy is the base of unhappy; unhappy is the base
of unhappiness
Identification of units (clauses, phrases, words,
morphemes) in a sentence
example: The young lady bought a pair of very expensive shoes and
walked out of the shop. (sentence)
clauses: the sentence consists of two clauses which are joined by the
coordinating conjunction and:
the young lady bought a pair of very expensive shoes
walked out of the shop.
phrases: the young lady (NP), bought (VP), a pair of very expensive shoes
(NP), walked (VP), out of the shop (PP).
words: the, young, lady, bought, a, pair, of, very, expensive, shoes, and,
walked, out of, shop.
morphemes: the, young, lady, buy, -ed (inflectional morpheme), a, pair, of,
very, expense, -ive (derivational morpheme), shoe, -s (bound inflectional
morpheme), and, walk, out, of, shop
Morpheme identification
handwriting, unmarried, uncomfortable, walked, volleyball, smaller,
unhappiness, employee, unemployment, blackboard, pubs,
businesswoman, headteachers, cheerful, unkindness, unfaithfulness,
dishonest, singers
hand+write+ing
un+marry+ed
un+comfort+able
walk+ed
volley+ball
small+er
un+happy+ness
employ+ee
un+employ+ment
black+board
pub+s
busy+ness+woman
head+teach+er+s
cheer+ful
un+kind+ness
un+faith+ful+ness
dis+honest
sing+er+s
Morpheme identification
unthinkable: un- (bound, derivational prefix), think (free, root),
-able (bound, derivational suffix)
actors: act (free, root), -or (bound, derivational suffix), -s
(bound, inflectional suffix).
computerize: compute (free, root), -er (bound, derivational
suffix), -ize (bound, derivational suffix).
unbelievable - incredible - decolonialised
unbelievable: un- (bound, derivational prefix), believe (free
root), -able (bound, derivational suffix)
incredible: in- (bound derivational prefix), cred- (bound
root), -ible (bound derivational suffix)
decolonialised: de- (bound derivational prefix), colony (free
root), -al (bound derivational suffix), -ise (bound
derivational suffix), -ed (bound inflectional suffix)
PDE regular inflections
nouns
nouns
verbs
verbs
verbs
verbs
adjectives
adjectives
-s
-’s
-s
-ed
-ed
-ing
-er
-est
plural,
possessive case
3rd pers. sing.
past tense,
past participle
gerund
comparative
superlative
• some nouns have irregular plural endings
e.g.
children, teeth, mice, oxen, curricula,
sheep
• uncountable nouns:
e.g.
evidence, advice, equipment,
information
verb inflections
most English verbs are regular and have a paradigm of 5 word forms
and 4 verb inflections
e.g. love / loves / loved / loved / loving
there is a smaller number of very frequently used irregular verbs
e.g. take, took, taken
put, put, put
speak, spoke, spoken
lose, lost, lost
go, went, gone
auxiliaries are very irregular, e.g. the verb to be has forms that differ
from one another, e.g. am, are, is, was, were, been, being (suppletion)
most modal verbs do not inflect and have only two forms, e.g. may,
might, can, could
gradability of adjectives and adverbs
 synthetic comparison:
-er ending
-est ending
(comparative) e.g. warmer
(superlative) e.g. finest
 analytic comparison
more and most e.g. more/most interesting
more quickly
• irregular comparison (process of suppletion)
e.g. good, better, best; little, less, least; much, more, most;
well, better, best; bad, worse, worst
pronoun inflection
pronouns, personal pronouns in particular,
have retained a certain degree of inflection in
PDE
e.g. personal pronouns express number,
gender and case often through suppletive
forms
I - me; we - us, you - you, he - him, she - her,
it - it, they - them
phrase
• a unit of syntax made up of one or
more words
• it contains an obligatory head
element and optional modifiers
The black labrador (NP) was chewing (VP) a
juicy bone (NP) very noisily (AdvP)
types of phrases
Noun Phrase (NP)
Verb Phrase (VP)
Adjective Phrase (AdjP)
Adverb Phrase (AdvP)
Prepositional Phrase (PP)
• except for prepositional phrases (PP), phrases can
be constituted by a single lexical item
• all phrases can be extended by pre-modification or
post-modification
types of Noun Phrases
determiner
-
pre-modifier
-
HEAD
post-modifier
John
-
suitcase
-
My
leather (n.)
A
large, old, blue suitcase
(size, age,
colour)
with wheels
(PP)
more Noun Phrases
det.
pre-modifier
HEAD
post-modifier
The
London
experience
-
-
London’s
churches
-
The
-
London
I know
(clause)
build Noun Phrases
Determiner
The
pre-modifier
ugly, tabby
HEAD
cat
A
nice,
Australian
bloke
The
tall, modern
building
post-modifier
on Paul’s
computer
desktop/on the
desktop of
Paul’s
computer
with a red
Ferrari
in the centre of
town
ambiguity in NPs
• The French history teacher
the (det.) French (pre-mod.) history (pre-mod.)
teacher (head)
[the] [French] [history teacher]
(the teacher of history is French)
[the] [French history] [teacher]
(the teacher teaches French history)
tree diagram
(the teacher of history is French)
NP
det.
mod.
head NP
mod. head
The
French
history teacher
tree diagram
(the teacher teaches French history)
NP
det.
mod. NP
mod.
The
head
head
French history
teacher
TREE DIAGRAM
“An interesting government report about air
pollution”
NP
det. mod.(adj.) mod.(n.)
head
mod.PP
head
C (NP)
mod.(n.) head
An interesting government report about air pollution
relative clause as a post-modifier of a NP
The man who came to dinner
NP
det.
the
head (n.)
man
mod. (clause)
who came to dinner
relative clause as a post-modifier of a NP
The man who came to dinner
NP
det.
head (n.)
mod. (clause)
S:NP
P:VP
V
A:PP
h(prep.) C:NP
h(pron.)
the
man
who
h(v.)
came
h (n.)
to
dinner
complex post-modification
• The proposal for a new building which
the committee put forward last week
- for a new building (PP)
- which the committee put forward last
week (relative clause)
activity
• Analyse the constituent parts
of the following NPs
illustrating with tree diagrams:
1) A luxury apartment in the heart of Oxford
2) That rather disgustingly dirty carpet
3) A very interesting book about Renaissance art
in Italy
frequency of NPs in English
• pre-modification is more common
than post-modification in all registers
• complex pre- and post-modification is
typical of some registers such as
written academic prose and
newspaper headlines
English vs. Italian NPs
Translate these noun phrases into Italian and notice the differences between
the two languages
The Los Angeles Police Department
Il Dipartimento di Polizia di Los Angeles
2. Air pollution
L’inquinamento dell’aria
3. The Birmingham train
Il treno per/da/di (?) Birmingham
4. Stansted airport
L’aeroporto di Stansted
5. The proposal of a national curriculum
La proposta di un curricolo nazionale
6. The country’s leading expert on youth culture
Il maggior esperto del paese sulla cultura giovanile
1.
Italian versus English NPs
English favours premodification (to the
left of the head). NPs are concise and
at times ambiguous
• The Los Angeles Police Department
Italian favours postmodification (to the
right of the head) and the use of
prepositions. NPs are longer and more
explicit
• Il Dipartimento di Polizia di Los Angeles
Verb Phrases: finite/non-finite
• finite verbs or VPs: marked by tense
e.g. John plays the guitar
I enjoyed the concert
• non-finite verbs or VPs: not marked by tense, person or
number
e.g. To arrive on time was their objective
She travelled accompanied by her father
She broke her leg while skiing
Verb Phrases:
tense (form) vs. time (meaning)
• tense: property allowing the verb to
differentiate between present and past
e.g. Jane likes music / Jane liked music
• Unlike in Italian, there is no morphologically
marked form to express the future in English
but a range of forms such as will/shall+
infinitive, going to, simple present, present
progressive
Verb Phrase: aspect
property allowing the verb to give information about
the state or the action
• progressive (or continuous): the action is in
progress
Sarah is helping her sister
• perfect: the action is complete, that is it occurred at
an earlier time and continues to the time of utterance
or is relevant to it
Sarah has helped her sister to take her degree
• perfect + progressive: (often called ‘duration form’)
stresses continuity in the past and includes the time
of utterance
Sarah has been helping her sister since she was 12
Translate into Italian and identify the main
differences between the two languages
1. Sarah helps her sister every Thursday
Sarah aiuta sua sorella ogni giovedì
2. Sarah is helping her sister a lot
Sarah aiuta/sta aiutando molto sua sorella
3. Sarah has helped her sister to recover from illness
Sarah ha aiutato sua sorella a guarire dalla malattia
4. Sarah helped her sister one year ago when she was ill
Sarah aiutò sua sorella un anno fa, quando era malata
5. Sarah has been helping her sister since last May
Sarah aiuta/sta aiutando/ha aiutato sua sorella dallo
scorso maggio
Translate from Italian into English
1. Sono andata a Londra molte volte
I’ve been to London many times
2. Vivo a Londra
I live in London
3. Vado a Londra ogni anno
I go to London every year
4. Vivo a Londra da 5 anni e ne sono felice
I’ve been living in London for five years and I’m happy
5. Ho vissuto a Londra per cinque anni prima di tornare in
Italia
I lived in London for five years before moving back to Italy
6. Vivevo a Londra quando ho incontrato John
I was living in London when I met John
verb phrase: voice
(active vs. passive)
• The singer performed the song
• The song was performed by the singer
• NP1+VP+ NP2  NP2 +be+VPed+ by+NP1
• The singer was performing the song
• The song was being performed by the
singer
functions of the passive
• the agent is unknown or irrelevant
Mr Constable has been murdered
• the focus is on the process to convey
objectivity, especially in academic prose
The results of the tests have been checked
several times
• to disclaim responsibility
He is said to be a womanizer
the passive is more frequent in scientific writing
and in the press
Discuss the concepts of “tense” and “aspect” in the English verb system
and illustrate with examples.
Tense and aspect are grammatical categories of
verbs. Tense refers to the distinction between
present and past forms of verbs (I think vs I
thought), while aspect refers to the state of the
action (progressive or perfect). In English we
may distinguish between progressive and perfect
aspects: I’m reading a book describes an action
in progress and still incomplete, while I’ve read
an interesting book describes a completed action
which is still relevant to the time of the utterance.
In English it is also possible to combine the
progressive and the perfective aspect in
sentences like I’ve been living in London for five
years/ I’ve been living in London since 2007.
Unlike Italian, English does not have a
morphologically marked future tense. To
express future events the most common forms
are will+verb, be+ going to+verb or the present
progressive form, eg We are going to buy a new
car. Tense does not coincide with time. In fact, it
is possible to say The games start next week.
The Verb Phrase: summary
• The VP consists of a head verb, either alone or
accompanied by one or more auxiliaries
• If the VP contains only one verb, it must be a
lexical verb (arrived)
• If the VP contains more verbs, one is a lexical
verb and the others are pre-modifying
auxiliaries or modals (is arriving, has arrived,
may arrive, might be arriving, etc.)
The role of auxiliary verbs
• They are used to express grammatical categories
such as aspect, voice and modality.
• The primary auxiliary be is used to form the
passive voice (the man was hit by a car) and the
progressive aspect (I am working)
• The primary auxiliary have is used to form the
perfect aspect (I have worked)
• The primary auxiliary do is used to form the
negative and interrogative forms (I don’t know,
Do you know?)
modal verbs and modality

they are frequently used in English and belong to
the Germanic core of the language

they express a wide range of meanings referring
either to actions controlled by humans (deontic
modality) or to the levels of certainty of an event
(epistemic modality)

the same modals can express different meanings;
the same meanings can be expressed in different
ways
the main meanings of modal verbs
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
permission e.g. Can I ask you a question? Could I
borrow your notes? (Am I allowed to ask a question?)
ability e.g. I can ski (I know how to do it)
possibility e.g. She may be ill. She might be ill
(Perhaps she is ill)
obligation e.g. You must stop talking. You should pay
attention.
logical necessity (probability) e.g. She must be ill (She
is very likely to be ill)
volition e.g. I’ll do it for you
prediction e.g. It will rain tomorrow
what about modal verbs in Italian?
Translate the following expressions into English:
1. Devi smettere di fumare
You must (personal)/have to (external) stop smoking
2. Dovresti smettere di fumare
You should stop smoking
3. Posso fumare?
Can I smoke?
4. Potrei fumare?
May I smoke?
5. Domani può piovere
Tomorrow it may rain (possibility)
6. Domani potrebbe piovere
Tomorrow it might rain (remote possibility)
7. Domani pioverà
Tomorrow it will rain (forecast)/is going to rain (certainty)
8. Sa sciare molto bene
He can ski very well
9. Sapeva sciare bene quando era giovane
He used to be able to ski well when he was young
Italian has the verbs potere, sapere and
dovere
Some modal expressions are expressed
through the conditional mood or the
future tense, which do not exist as
morphologically marked forms in
English
other phrases
• Adjective Phrase (AdjP)
e.g. extremely important, very unhappy, good at
languages
• Adverb Phrase (AdvP)
e.g. very badly, perfectly well
• Prepositional Phrase (PP)
e.g. in the garden, to London
Syntax
How can a clause be analysed?
Subject (S) + predicate (P), i.e. VP +
other optional/obligatory elements
John (what is talked about) is English
(what is said about the topic)
S and P are the main functional elements
of the clause
S and P are the “immediate constituents”
(Chomsky) of the clause
Clause and clause elements
• A clause is a syntactic unit made up of one or
more phrases, containing at least one VP:
e.g. Run!
John sang.
My brother gave me a beautiful dress.
Did you like the concert last night?
5 major clause elements (constituents)
•
•
•
•
•
Subject (S)
Verb (V)
Object (O)
Complement (C)
Adverbial (A)
Word Order
• Translate the following clauses into English:
 Seguiranno alcuni esempi
Some examples will follow
 Nel capitolo 3 verrà presentata la grammatica
Grammar will be presented in Chapter 3
 Giovanni parla molto bene l’italiano/l’italiano molto bene
John speaks Italian very well
 Odio stirare
I hate ironing
 Piove forte da molte ore
It’s been raining heavily for many hours
• C’è un gatto in giardino
There is a cat in the garden
• The unmarked word order in English is
SVO, while in Italian this order can vary to a
certain extent
• The subject is compulsory in English and
not in Italian
• If there is no subject, a ‘dummy’ subject will
be used (it/there)
The Verb
the verb is the central part of the clause since it
determines the other elements (e.g. verb
complementation or valency)
She was laughing
one-place verb
She was playing the piano
two-place verb
She was very beautiful
two-place verb
She gave him a kiss
three-place verb
She made him happy
three-place verb
clause elements
S
V
O
The black
labrador
(NP)
has bitten
(VP)
Mr Allington
(NP)
C
A
in the garden
(PP)
Optional A
He (NP)
put (VP)
the keys
(NP)
in his bag
(PP)
Obligatory A
Sue (NP)
is feeling
(VP)
very
sleepy
(AdjP)
S
V
O
C
A
It (dummy
subject)
is going
(VP)
to rain
(non- finite
VP)
Armstrong
(NP)
became
(VP)
the first
man on the
moon (NP)
Chris (NP)
made (VP) Sara (NP) really angry yesterday
(AdjP)
(AdvP)
What I don’t
understand
(clause)
is (VP)
why you
lied to me
(clause)
S+V+Oi+Od (di-transitive)
S
V
Oi
(Indirect Object)
Od
(Direct Object)
My
friend
told
me
a lie
Sue
gave
her sister
a glass of wine
John
showed
his friends
his new car
SV (intransitive verb): no complementation
The black labrador was barking
clause
S:NP
det. mod.(adj.)
the
black
P:VP
head (n.)
labrador
aux.
head (v.)
was barking
A new teacher has arrived
SVOd (monotransitive)
Andrew bought a sports car
clause
S:NP
P:VP
V
head (n.)
head (v.)
Andrew
bought
Od:NP
det. mod. (adj.) head (n.)
a
sports
car
My sister plays the piano
SVA (+ an obligatory Adverbial)
The taxi is waiting outside
clause
S:NP
P:VP
V
det.
The
head (n.)
taxi
aux. head (v.)
is
waiting
A:AdvP
head (adv.)
outside
The waiter put the bread on the table
SVCs (copular verb)
The weather has turned very nasty
clause
S:NP
P:VP
V
det.
The
head (n.)
aux. head(v.)
weather
has turned
C:AdjP
mod.(adv.) head(adj.)
very
nasty
The news sounds very interesting
My 80-year-old grandmother is in good health
Copular verbs
• be, feel, seem, appear, look, remain, stay,
become, sound, taste
e.g. I am/feel rather tired (C: AdjP)
She became a nurse (C: NP)
You look extremely happy (C: AdjP)
Mary appeared in good health (C: PP)
That is what I mean (C: clause)
SVOiOd (di-transitive)
Gill told her child a bedtime story
clause
S:NP
P:VP
V
head(n.)
Gill
head(v.)
told
Oi:NP
Od:NP
det. head(n.) det. mod.(n.) h(n.)
her child
a
bedtime story
She should tell me the truth
Di-transitive verbs
• Give, tell, bring, buy, show
e.g. John showed me (Oi) his new car (Od)
They bought him (Oi) a new racket (Od)
Tell us (Oi) the truth (Od)
SVOdCo (complex transitive)
The judges declared Jackie the winner
clause
S:NP
P:VP
V
det. head (n.)
head (v.)
The judges
declared
O:NP
Co:NP
head(n.)
det. h(n.)
Jackie
the winner
Rebecca considers her brother a genious
SVOdA
Terry put the rubbish in the dustbin
clause
S:NP
P:VP
V
head (n.)
O:NP
head(v.) det. h(n.)
A:PP
h (prep)
C:NP
det. h(n.)
Terry
put
the rubbish
in
the dustbin
The driver threw the bottle out of the
window
The 7 basic clause patterns
•
•
•
•
•
•
SV
(intransitive)
The dog is barking
SVA (intransitive+obligatory A)
They are waiting outside
SVCs
(copulative)
You look great
SVOd
(monotransitive)
I miss my family
SVOiOd (di-transitive)
John showed me his new car
SVOdCo (complex-transitive)
The judges declared
Jackie the winner
• SVOdA (transitive with obligatory A)
The waiter put the bread on
the table
In the summer A:PP
high humidity levels S:NP
make P:VP
the weather O:NP
unbearable Co:AdjP
Complement
• Cs (complemento predicativo del soggetto)
It follows copular verbs be, feel, seem, appear, look…
I am/feel tired
You look/ appear/seem tired
• Co (complemento predicativo dell’oggetto)
It follows a direct object and occurs with complex
transitive verbs make, elect, consider, find, call…
This experience made me stronger
I found his reaction stupid
Adverbial
• Optional elements added to the obligatory
elements of the clause
• Circumstance adverbial: additional information
e.g. The taxi is waiting outside
• Stance adverbial: speaker’s feeling / attitude
e.g. Hopefully I will pass all my exams in June
• Linking adverbial
e.g. In conclusion, all’s well that ends well.
Obligatory adverbial
• Adverbials that are required to complete
the meaning of the verb
e.g. Sally put the bread on the table
(obligatory Adverbial)
vs. Sally cut the bread on the table (optional
Adverbial)
Verbs: put, last, live
Adverbials vs. complements
•
•
•
•
•
•
John was very quiet (C)
John was in bed (A)
They are in danger (C)
They are in the garden (A)
You should stay sober (C)
You should stay here (A)
Complements describe or characterize the S (or
O)
Adverbials typically express place or direction
main and subordinate clauses
1. Mary had been waiting for more than an
hour
2. Suddenly, she stood up and went out
3. She said that she was not feeling well
because the air in the room was stuffy
4. She wanted to get some fresh air
• a main clause always contains a finite verb and
typically contains an overt subject
• a subordinate clause cannot stand alone and
needs to be attached to a free-standing clause
• a non-finite clause is always subordinate
• simple clauses consist of a clause, compound
clauses consist of two coordinate clauses,
complex clauses consist of a main and one or
more subordinate clauses.
Types of Clauses
typical functions of clause types
Form
declarative
interrogative
imperative
exclamative
Function
statement
question
directive
exclamation
You’re wearing a new dress.
Are you wearing a new dress?
Buy yourself a new dress!
What a lovely dress you’re wearing!
declarative clauses
• declarative clauses are normally used to make
statements
• declarative sentences typically have an overt
subject, a verb element and any necessary verb
complementation
• declarative sentences may also have optional
adverbials
Philip will see his dentist in London today
interrogative clauses
• yes-no questions:
Are you happy?
• wh- questions:
Where do you live?
• question-tag : She’s Australian, isn’t she?
She doesn’t love him, does she?
So, you have changed your mind, have you?
• the interrogative structure implies a subject-operator
inversion
• any auxiliary which is used to make interrogative
sentences is labelled operator (be, have, do)
• questions tags may have contrastive or constant polarity
marked structures: clefting
• to highlight a particular element of
the sentence
• the focussed element is introduced by
a dummy Subject and followed by a
relative clause
it-cleft structure
Terry plays jazz piano for fun.
It is Terry who plays jazz piano for fun.
It’s jazz piano that Terry plays for fun
It’s for fun that Terry plays jazz piano
The man hit the boy
It was the man who hit the boy
wh-cleft structure
I would like a book for my birthday
What I would like for my birthday is a book
I want a book for Christmas
What I want for Christmas is a book
sentence
• the largest unit of syntactic structure
• a sentence must consist of at least one clause
(main clause)
I agreed to go with them although I wasn’t
really happy with the idea.
• in writing, a sentence starts with a capital letter
and ends with a full stop
• in speech sentences are not always complete
types of subordinate clauses
1.
2.
3.
4.
Nominal
I just hope (that) they will understand
Relative
The man who is sitting next to Tom is John
Adverbial
Call me as soon as you get home (time) because I
have to talk to you (reason). The boy stood on the
box so that he could see better (purpose). Even
though I am tired (concession), I’ll do it.
Comparative
This hotel is not as nice as I expected
types of relative clauses
In what ways do the following relative clauses differ?
which relative pronouns can be used in each
context?
This is the best hotel (that, which, who, whom, whose,
zero pronoun) I was able to find
This hotel, (which, that, who, whose, whom, zero
pronoun) was renewed last year, is one of the best
in the city
The man (which, that, who, whose, whom, zero
pronoun) you see in the photo is my brother
The man (which, that, who, whose, whom, zero
pronoun) is coming towards us is my brother
The music (that, which, who, whose, whom,
zero article) we are listening to is Mozart
We stayed in a lovely hotel, (which, that, who,
whom, whose) owner is a good friend of mine
We stayed in a lovely hotel, (which, that, who,
whom, whose) we booked on the Internet
rule of relative clauses
Relative clauses can be either defining (or restrictive) or nondefining (non-restrictive) depending on whether they define
the antecedent or add extra information (no commas)
The tourists who got up early could see the dawn on the Nile
The use of relative pronouns is conditioned by the
antecedent, whether it is human ( who,whom, whose, that) or
non-human (that, whose, which), whether it plays the role of
subject (who, that, which) or object (whom, that, which, zero
pronoun), whether it is defining (who, whose, whom, that,
which) or non-defining (who, whose, which). (commas are
required)
The tourists, who got up early, could see the dawn on the Nile
conditional sentences
0) If you don’t water plants, they die (obvious)
1) If the weather is nice, tomorrow we will go
to the seaside (it is an open possibility)
* If the weather will be nice, …
2) If the weather were/was nice, we would go to
the seaside (it is unlikely)
*If the weather would be nice,
3) If the weather had been nice, we would have
gone to the seaside (it did not happen)
• My friends sent me an invitation to their
wedding.
• I put some poison for the mice in the garage.
• Chris made Sara really angry yesterday.
• Yesterday the doctor told the patient the good
news
• The car keys are on the table.
• The cash machine is faulty.
The English Lexicon:
From Words to Phraseology
PART 1. Brainstorming on lexis
PART 2. The English lexicon: general
features
some old and new concepts and terms
word/word-form/lexeme
grammatical word/lexical word
vocabulary/lexis/(the) lexicon
entry/headword/lemma
lexicology/lexicography
phraseology
semantics
Lexical level
lexical level = word level

vocabulary: to talk about words collectively
(e.g. large vocabulary, small vocabulary)

lexis:
to talk about the vocabulary of a specific variety
(e.g. English lexis, Italian lexis)

lexicon:
to indicate a list of words with additional information
(e.g. computer lexicon, mental lexicon)
lexis is dynamic
Three processes of lexical innovation:
1. the creation of completely new words (coinage)
e.g. computing terms google (search through Google
engine)
neet= not in education, employment or training
2. the borrowing of words from other languages (loanwords)
e.g. Anglicisms in Italian (spam)
e.g. Italianisms in English (spaghetti)
3 word formation processes internal to the language
(derivational morphology), e.g. prefixes, suffixes,
compounding, semantic shift, etc.
e.g. “to zap” from “moving quickly” to “ keeping
changing TV programmes with a remote control”
 lexis is the level of language most rapidly and
deeply affected by social, historical and cultural
change
meaning is complex

the relationship between “things” and “words”

some words imitate sounds (onomatopoeic) but most
words have an arbitrary connection with “things”
miagolare 
chicchiricchì 
to mew/to miaow
cock-a-doodle-do
acqua 
water/wasser/eau
defining word meaning may prove difficult
William Shakespeare is …
… a famous English playwright of the 16th century
… the greatest playwright of all times
… the author of Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet and many other
tragedies and comedies
… the father of British theatre
… a writer of the Modern English period
… my favourite dramatist etc.
 words refer to, or denote, entities in the world, but this
relationship (reference) can be expressed in different
ways
defining the adjective “honest”
A person who is honest does not tell lies, cheat people or
violate the law
A person who is honest always tells the truth, respects
other people, obeys the law and pays taxes
Someone who is honest can always be trusted
Someone who is honest does not hide things from you
Someone who is honest can be trusted with valuables
and money
etc.
 the meaning of words can be culturally conditioned
defining the noun “bird”
A bird is…


… an animal with the body covered in/with feathers, with
two wings and a beak, which is able to fly. Female birds lay
eggs.
… an animal with feathers, two legs and two wings, which
is able to fly.
But what about penguins and ostriches?
 We conceive a general image, a mental PROTOTYPE
based on our experience and containing the most
distinctive characteristics of the class. Some members are
less central than others.
“butterfly”


Butterflies live only one day
She is a butterfly when she dances
 words denote objects and concepts, but
may have emotional or stylistic connotations
 words can be used in a figurative sense
(metaphorical)
e.g. I’m a domestic god/goddess!
denotation and connotation
words refer to, or denote, objects and concepts
e.g. lion: a wild animal living in Africa

words have stylistic and emotional connotations
e.g. He was a lion (courageous)

Different types of lexemes
1. The computer is an electronic machine which is used for
storing, organizing and finding different types of
information
some words have only one referent or meaning (monoreferential)
2a Mary is a great host
2b The host represents the body of Christ
some words have different unrelated meanings (homonymic)
3a. I saw a mouse running around the kitchen floor
3b. I’ve just bought a brand new mouse for my PC
some words have several related meanings (polysemous)
 the nature of lexemes affects the
organisation of entries in dictionaries
Semantic links between words
1. freedom vs. liberty
(near)-synonymy
2. black vs. white; fast vs. slow; brother vs. sister;
married vs. single
antonymy (or complementarity)
3. flowers, roses, daffodils, violets, tulips, daisies
hyperonymy (superordinates) and hyponymy
(subordinates)
4. cook, roast, simmer, fry, bake, boil, barbecue, etc.
semantic field
Collocations and phraseology
1. I would like to win a post-graduate scholarship to do
research (not *to make research)
2. How do you do?
3. The ups and downs of life (not *the downs and ups)
4. The early bird catches the worm (not *the early cat catches
the mouse)
5. Torrential/heavy rain in Bangladesh (not *strong rain)
6. He has spilled the beans (not *spilled the peas)
7. Headache (not *pain in the head)
“words keep company with other words” and tend to cooccur in preferred or fixed collocations (Sinclair’s idiom
principle versus open-choice principle )
Lexis







is dynamic
refers to the external world
refers to mental concepts
has emotional and stylistic connotations
has one or several referents and meanings
relates to other words in the language
may co-occur with other words in fixed or
semi-fixed patterns
What does knowing a word mean?
receptive vs. productive competence
Part II
The English lexicon
How many words are there in
English?
The problematic notion of words does
not make it easy to count them
There are different ways of counting words:
1. dictionaries
2. corpora
3. speakers’ competence
Samuel Johnson’s
Dictionary of the English Language (1755)
about 42,000 entries
LEXICO’GRAPHER. n.s.
[? lixicographe, French.] A
writer of dictionories; a
harmless drudge, that
busies himself in tracing
the original, and detailing
the signification of words.
The Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles
(OED)
OED features





The project started in the second half of the
19th century
It covers English since the 14th century
The second print edition in 20 volumes + 4
additions has 616,500 headwords and derived
words and phrases
A CD-ROM and an online version, which is
regularly updated, are also available
www.oed.com
OED: a selection from the entry
“spaghetti”


[It., pl. of spaghetto thin string, twine.]
1. a. A variety of pasta made in long thin strings. Occas., a dish
of spaghetti.
1888 MRS. BEETON Bk. Househ. Managem. §2952 Maccheroni, or Spaghetti, a smaller
kind of macaroni,..generally follows the soup.

2. An Italian: usu. contemptuous. slang.
1931 ‘D. STIFF’ Milk & Honey Route iii. 38 Italian hobos are equally rare. They
are the ‘wops’ or ‘spaghettis’.

3. Complex roadways forming a multi-level junction, esp. on a
motorway. colloq
1966 Guardian 4 June 14/2 Details of one of the biggest pieces of
motorway spaghetti so far designed in Britain were published ...
Merriam-Webster’s Third New
International Dictionary:
the American counterpart to the OED
Webster’s
It covers American English since the 18th
century
Its 1963 edition contains about 114,000 word
families (a headword accompanied by its
inflected and derived forms)
It is regularly updated. There are several print
editions and an online edition, which is
freely available
www.m-w.com
other types of dictionaries
in size (college dictionaries, desk dictionaries,
pocket dictionaries)
in addressees (learner’s dictionaries, from 60,000 to
80,000 entries, or for native speakers )
in contents (general or specialised, varieties of
English)
in number of languages (monolingual, bilingual,
multilingual)
learners’ dictionaries
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
Spelling variants
IPA phonetic transcription
Grammatical and syntactic information
Information on frequency
Definitions of various senses
Examples of usage
Sense relations, e.g. antonymy
Register labels (e.g formal, slang)
Frequent lexical collocations
Usage notes
Typical learners’ errors
Use of colours, symbols and figures
Special sections
electronic corpora


corpora are collections of text in electronic form that
are meant to represent a language, or a register of it
several corpora are available for English that can be
analysed through specific software in terms of
frequency and use of words in context
e.g. The British National Corpus (BNC)
The Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA)
What are the most frequently used words in
English?
from the BNC
11.
12.
13.
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
the
of
and
a
in
to
it
is
to
was
determiner
preposition
conjunction
determiner
preposition
infinitive
pronoun
verb
preposition
verb
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
I
for
that
you
he
be
with
on
at
by
pronoun
preposition
conjunction
pronoun
pronoun
verb
preposition
preposition
preposition
preposition
 grammatical words
are the most frequently
used
frequency of lexical words (BNC)

The 10 most frequent nouns are
time, year, people, way, man, day,
thing, child, Mr, government

The most commonly mentioned
animal is horse, followed by dog

The 10 most frequent adjectives are
other, good, new, old, great, high,
small, different, large, local

The most frequently mentioned
colours are black, white, red and
green (the order coincides with the
hierarchy of colors which scholars
have observed in many languages)

The top ten frequency adverbs are
never, always, often, ever,
sometimes, usually, once, generally,
hardly, no longer


rarer nouns are fax, ribbon, ant,
colitis, wheat, spelling, holly,
monarch, voltage, morale
rarer adjectives are rude,
faithful, ministerial, innovative,
controlled, conceptual,
unwilling, civic, meaningful
disturbing
How many words do native speakers
of English know?
It depends on variables such as age, education and
use (receptive or productive)
According to research
 a two-year old child: very limited vocabulary but
growing at great speed
 an English university student: 20,000 word
families
 an adult educated speaker: 50,000 lexemes
The mixed nature of English lexis:
Germanic vs. Romance words
PDE is made of a core (about 40%) of high-frequency
Germanic words that are usually short and refer to
common actions and concepts (e.g. man, woman, day,
child, bread, to go, to get, phrasal verbs)
and
a wider component (about 60%) of less frequently used
words of classical or Romance origin which are usually
longer and used in specialised or formal contexts (e.g.
encyclopaedia, tonsillectomy, parliament, infrastructure)
Germanic/Romance near-synonyms










discover e.g. Columbus discovered a new continent
find out e.g. Her parents found out that she had a boyfriend
continue e.g. The treatment has to be continued for 4 weeks
go on e.g. We can’t go on like this any longer
pig/cow = the living animal
pork/beef = the meat you eat
regal, royal e.g. royal family, regal powers
kingly e.g. kingly manner
return
come back
“true” and “false friends”
between Italian and English
similarity may help (true friends)
e.g. problem, result, company, million,
community
 similarity may be misleading (false friends)
e.g. actually, eventually, argument, factory,
educated, lecture, library, magazine

English loans in Italian and other
European languages
From a “borrowing language” English has become a
“donor language”. Why?
In present-day Italian there are many different types of
Anglicisms and people have different attitudes toward
this phenomenon. What is happening in other
languages?
Comment on the following Anglicisms in Italian. Do they
have an Italian counterpart?
film, mission, management, welfare, governance,
briefing, week-end, pub, scannerizzare, mouse,
computer, talk-show, report, devolution, boom,
impeachment, ghost writer
escort
1 person or a group of people or vehicles that go
somewhere with someone to protect them or
prevent them from escaping 2 someone,
especially a man, who goes with another person
to a formal social event as their partner 2a
someone who is paid to go out socially with
another person. Escort is sometimes used as a
polite way of referring to a prostitute
(Macmillan English Dictionary 2007)
escort
1. sost. m. e f. inv., accompagnatore turistico.
2. sost .f. inv., donna giovane e avvenente che
partecipa, a pagamento, a cene, serate in locali
notturni e sim., non escludendo a priori rapporti
sessuali mercenari. sin. hostess.
(GDU 2007)
shopping
look
baby-sitter
body building
coffee break
team
match
coach
sprint
snowboard
record
goal
>
>
>
<
<
<
>
>
>
>
spese
aspetto
bambinaia
culturismo
pausa caffè
squadra
partita
allenatore
scatto
tavola
primato
rete
variation in English
1. user-related variation
e.g. geographical area (the UK, the USA, etc.),
age, education
2. use-related variation or register model
 what is talked about (field or topic)
 the medium used (e.g. spoken/written,
electronic language)
 the relationship between speakers/writers, e.g.
formal, informal (personal tenor)
Some lexical differences between
BrE and AmE
1. He lives in a lovely apartment in New York
AmE/flat BrE
2. The autumn term will start in September
BrE /fall AmE
3. Where can I find a gas station?
AmE/petrol (BrE)
4.
11/9/2001 BrE
9/11/2001 AmE
Register variation
Tonsillectomy is needed
The doctor recommended that you remove/take
out your tonsils
Influenza A/H1N1 broke out in Mexico last year
Swine flu broke out in Mexico last year
These are my children
These are my kids
This is my offspring
core/basic vocabulary
Choose the most neutral and general lexeme to
refer to someone “who has very little fat on
his/her body”and, with the help of dictionaries,
identify the differences in meaning:
emaciated, skinny, slender, lean, slim, thin
word-formation processes
1.
2.
3.
4.
compounding or compounds
two or more free lexemes are joined to form a new word
(with a new meaning) e.g. schoolday, day school (not a
boarding school)
affixation
one or more bound derivational lexemes are added to a free
morpheme either at the beginning or at the end
e.g. e-mail, childish, childhood, kingdom
conversion or zero derivation
a change of word class without a change in form
e.g. bottle (noun)/to bottle (verb), hard (adj. adv.)
acronym or initialism
the initial letters of a complex expression
e.g. AIDS = Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome
SCUBA = Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus
5. clipping
by eliminating the beginning and/or the end of a lexeme
e.g. flu/influenza
6. blending or blends
the merging of two words into one
e.g. glocal = global + local, motel = motor + hotel
7. semantic change or shift
the change of meaning of existing lexemes
“to zap” from “moving quickly” to “keeping changing TV
programmes with a remote control”
some observations on compounds
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
a blackbird/a black bird
un merlo/un uccello nero
compounds vs. noun phrases
bedroom/paperback
endocentric, exocentric
mother-in-law, forget-me-not, state-of-the-art, sell-by date
multi-word compounds
green tea, checklist, user-friendly
different ways of writing compounds: two words, one word
(solid compounds), hyphenated
green card, user-friendly, handout (v. and n.)
different word classes (nouns, adjectives, verbs)
Observe the differences between English
and Italian compounds
1.
2.
3.
4.
green tea
tè verde
trademark
marchio di fabbrica
zero tolerance
tolleranza zero
coffee break
pausa caffè
some prefixes and suffixes
unhappy, incomplete
immorality, non-morality
maltreat, miscalculate
pro-Obama, antiwar
postmodern, recycle
bilingual, polyglot
multitask, multifunctional
prefixes are usually class
maintaining and affect meaning
in many ways (e.g. opposite,
pejorative, attitude, time)
trainer, reader (nouns)
trainee, employee
formation, pollution
socialism, liberalism
kindness, happiness
reliable, eligible (adjectives)
faithful, beautiful
useless, careless
specialize/se, advertise (verbs)
honestly, carefully (adverbs)
suffixes form nouns, adjectives,
verbs and adverbs, and are
usually class-changing
some old and new affixes
ecology, ecosystem, ecodiversity
psychology, morphology, biology
Europhile, Europhobe, Eurocrats
 many prefixes and suffixes are of classical origin (neo-classical affixes)
workaholic, chocaholic
-aholic from work+alcoholic; chocolate+alcoholic
Cartergate, Camillagate, Katrinagate, sexgate
-gate from the Watergate scandal involving the American president
Richard Nixon in the 1970s
e-mail, e-commerce, e-business
 some new affixes are linked to recent trends and events
conversion or zero derivation
bottle (noun)/to bottle (verb)
to download (verb)/download (noun)
dry (adjective)/to dry (verb)
round: adjective, preposition, adverb, noun, verb
 very common process in PDE because of the
reduction of morphology
read and recognize the following acronyms or
initialisms
IT
Information Technology
WWW
World Wide Web
BBC
British Broadcasting Corporation
IRA
Irish Republican Army
VIP
Very Important Person
RAM
Random Access Memory
NATO
North Atlantic Treaty Organization
 acronyms are read as words whereas in initialisms each letter is read
independently
phraseological phenomena
According to the linguist John Sinclair, there are
two different principles in language:
the IDIOM PRINCIPLE refers to the existence
in language of multi-word lexical patterns that
are units of meaning
the OPEN-CHOICE PRINCIPLE refers to the
part of language that functions according to
predictable grammatical rules
types of “prefabricated language”
social routines (or pragmatic idioms)
e.g. see you later, I’m looking forward to hearing
from you, Have a good day, Can I help you?
discourse organisers
e.g. in other words, to sum up, first of all, for example,
e.g. (exempli gratia), i.e. (id est)
idioms
e.g. to beat about the bush, to kill two birds with one
stone
binomials
e.g. back and forth, pros and cons, bed and breakfast
proverbs
e.g. A friend in need is a friend indeed, Too many
cooks spoil the broth, The more the merrier
simile
e.g. As ugly as sin
slogans and famous quotations
e.g. Ask not what your country can do for you but
what you can do for your country ( J. F. Kennedy)
Yes, we can (B. Obama)
from transparent to idiomatic
(opaque) expressions
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
to see the light at the end of the tunnel
to give someone the green light
white wine
white lie
to take up knitting
it’s a piece of cake
it’s my cup of tea
to go Dutch
lexical collocations
a pervasive feature in English and a major difficulty for learners
Fammi un favore
Un edificio umido
Do me a favour
A damp building
Fammi una torta
Make me a cake
Un clima molto caldo e
umido
Sono stanco morto
A hot and humid climate
I’m dead tired
Occhi umidi
Era ubriaco fradicio
Moist eyes
He was dead drunk
from “frozen” to restricted lexical collocations
1. He shrugged his shoulders
He nodded his head
He shook his finger
2.
He is growing a beard
He is growing vegetables
*He is growing his children
(He is bringing up his children)
lexical collocation
the preferred co-occurrence of two lexemes that
belong to two different word classes and retain
their independent meaning
a word “keeping company” with another word for
reasons other than grammatical ones
e.g. to take up/start/pursue a career
*to make career
open questions in lexicology
1. Eskimos have many words to refer to different
types of snow. What does it mean?
2. Is there a close link between the character of a
language and the spirit of a nation (W. von
Humboldt 1767-1835)?
3. Does a language determine its speakers’ world
view (Sapir and Whorf’s cultural relativism,
20th century)?
words reflect changes in society
HI-FI, TRANSISTOR, VIDEOTAPE
(in the 1950s)
GREEN/GLOBAL WARMING/CHAIRPERSON
(in the 1970s)
WEBSITE/WORLD WIDE WEB
(in the 1990s)
TWEET
(2012)
Computing:
a rapidly developing terminology
1. program, window, menu, mouse, address, disk, bug, spam
words borrowed from general language and acquiring a
specialised meaning
2. floppy disk, hard disk, blog (from web + log), modem (from
modulator + demodulator), download, search engine, to
google
word formation processes
3. CD-ROM (Compact Disk Read Only Memory), FAQs
(Frequently Asked Questions)
acronyms and abbreviations
political correctness:
some taboo areas
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
negro (nigger), black, Afro-American, African-American
Mr, Mrs, Ms
chairman, chairwoman, chairperson, chair
lawyer, lady lawyer, woman lawyer
husband and wife, acompanying person, spouse, partner
disabled, handicapped, differently able, physically impaired

to be politically correct means to refer to different ethnic
and social groups in a respectful and accepted way
the most sensitive areas are race, gender, religion, the
human body and death
the debate started in the USA in the 1970s and it is rather
controversial


The future of English lexis
PDE lexis will accept considerable
geographical variation (e.g. AmE , BrE,
Indian English, Caribbean English)
but
will be shared by global communities of
scientists, professionals and Internet users
(English as a Lingua Franca)