Download The Grammar Book, Chapter 2, part 2

ENGLISH 5050:
English Syntax and Morphology
Robert F. van Trieste, Ph.D.
All quotations, unless otherwise noted, are from Chapter 2 of The Grammar
Book, 2nd edition.
Three criteria: Semantic, Structural, and Functional
 Semantic, “or meaning-based definitions”
– E.g., A noun is the name of a person, place, thing, or idea.
 Structural, “or formal, characteristics”
– “position in a sentence
– adjacent function words
– constituents”
• E.g., a noun would go in the slot in
• The __________ was very amusing.
– Some nouns take the plural -s morpheme and/or the possessive
inflection (suffixes in English)
• John’s books are on the table.
– Noun derivational morphemes
• sadness, kingdom, friction
 Functional criterion
– “defines a part of speech by the grammatical function it plays in
a sentence.
– E.g., “in the following sentence we know in part that the word
glass is a noun because it is the subject of the verb is.
• The glass is dirty.”
– Subject is a functional category.
 It is best “to think of a particular part of speech as being
determined by a cluster of criteria . . . . it is not simple to
define even the most elemental building blocks of grammar,
the parts of speech.”
– Linguistics often prefer to use the terms lexical category
grammatical category, word class, lexical class, syntactic class
or grammatical class instead of part-of-speech.
 “. . . most learners have no difficulty identifying parts
of speech inductively when they have become
familiar with a variety of typical examples. Ironically,
it is not the recognition of a word’s part of speech that
appears to be problematic—it is the definition of the
parts of speech that is elusive.”
– This is true for L1 students in L1 classes.
 What English-speaking six-year-old can’t fill in the
slot with a word of the appropriate grammatical
category?
– The big _________ fell on the floor.
 How many six-year-olds know that the words that fill
the slot are called nouns?
 Major word classes (content words)
– Open classes
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Nouns
Verbs
Adjectives
Adverbs
 Minor word classes (function or structure words)
– Closed classes
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auxiliary verbs
Prepositions
Pronouns
Determiners
Conjunctions
others . . .
Traditional semantic definition
– A noun is the name of a person, place, thing, or idea.
• Is him a noun?
– It refers to a person.
• Is green a noun?
• Are multiplication, mobilization and refusal nouns?
– Don’t they refer to actions?!
• Are behind, ahead and there nouns?
– They indicate places!
• Are difficult, easy and really interesting nouns?
– They seem to refer to ideas!
Structural characteristics
– Noun derivational morphemes
• sadness, kingdom, friction
– Grammatical (inflectional) morphemes
• plural and possessive (genitive)
– John’s books are on the table.
» [Periphrastic genitives use of. Ex. The name of the student . . . .]
– Position
• e.g., “frequently preceded by determiners . . .” and/or by
adjectives.
– Intelligent students do their homework.
– adjective noun
determiner noun
 Functions
– subject of verbs
• Arlene loves syntax.
– direct objects of verbs
• He painted his room.
– subject noun predicates (subject complements)
• Philip is a doctor.
– object noun predicates (object complements)
• They elected Carmen chairperson.
– indirect objects of verbs
• The professor gave the students cake.
– Appositives
• San Juan, the capital of Puerto Rico, is surrounded by water.
– objects of prepositions
• The students are in the pub.
– Vocatives
• Let me tell you, my friend, I do not drink Palmolive.
– Adjectival: i.e., modify other nouns. The glass case . . . .
count
– book/books; table/tables; car/cars; foot/feet;
criterion/criteria
– “can be preceded by the definite article [the] or a/an
(indefinite article) (e.g. a stream, an accident) to form a
noun Phrase;
– can be preceded by numerals (one, two, three ...) to form a
Noun Phrase, and by expressions like several, many, etc.;
– regularly appear in a plural form in addition to a singular
form:
– SINGULAR
PLURAL
– accident, man,
accidents, men,
– foot, analysis
feet, analyses
– This morphological possibility readily identifies a word as
a noun” in English. Analysing Sentences, 2nd edition
noncount (mass)
– “cannot normally be preceded by a/an (*a foam, *a
butter) nor by numerals or similar expressions (*two
foams, *several muds)
– Nor can they normally appear in a plural form (*milks,
*honesties)”Analysing Sentences, 2nd edition
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abstract nouns such as honesty, love, courage
liquids such as milk, beer, oil
gases such as hydrogen, oxygen, air
things made up of small particles such as sand, flour, sugar
miscellaneous items such as meat, bread, cheese, chalk,
money
Common
– collective
• family, team, committee, flock, swarm
Proper
• John
• Puerto Rico
– Is Puerto Rico ONE word in English? In Spanish?