STRUCTURE OF ENGLISH

GRAMMAR

Two areas of study

1. Morphology is the study of how words are formed out of smaller units
a. What are the component morphemes of a word like antidisestablismentarianism?
b. What is the nature of the morphological operations by which they are combined
together to form the overall word?
2. Syntax is the study on how phrases and sentences are structured out of words
a. What is the structure of a sentence like What’s the president doing?
b. What is the nature of the grammatical operations by which its component words are
combined together to form the overall sentence structure?

Traditional grammar: categories and functions

1. The syntax of the language is described through a taxonomy (classificatory list) of the range of
different types of syntactic structures found in the language.
2. The assumption underpinning syntactic analysis is that phrases and sentences are built up of a
series constituents (syntactic units) which belongs to a specific grammatical category and
serves a specific grammatical function.
Example:
Students protested

 The sentence consists of two constituents (the word students and protested)
 Each of the constituents belongs to a specific grammatical category (students-
plural; protested – past tense verb)
 Each serves a grammatical function (students – subject; protested- predicate)
 The overall sentence has a categorical status of a clause which is finite in nature
(denoting of an event taking place at a specific time
 It has a semantic function of expressing a proposition which is declarative in
force
3. Words are assigned to grammatical categories (parts of speech) on the basis of their semantic
properties (meaning); morphological properties ( range of different forms they have) and
syntactic properties (word-order properties relating to the positions they can occupy within
sentences)

Traditionally words are differentiated:

1. Content words/contentives – words which have substantive lexical content

Often have antonyms like tall – short…
2. Function words/functors – words which serve to mark grammatical properties
Has no antonyms e.g pronoun me has no antonym
Example:
Car – contentive
Has a substantive lexical content which denotes an object which typically has four
wheels and an engine
They –functor
Has no descriptive content
Simply marks grammatical properties ( more specifically person, number, case)

Two types of grammatical category

1. Lexical/substantive categories
a. Nouns have a semantic property that denote entities
i. Count noun – has the morphological properties – singular and plural
ii. Mass noun - denotes uncountable mass – sand… sugar…

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 iii. Common noun - have the syntactic property that only (an appropriate kind of a
noun can be used to end a sentence such as They have no … in place of the dots,
a singular noun like car can be inserted a plural noun like friends can inserted, or
a mass noun money can be inserted but not other types of words.
iv. Proper noun - Specific names of persons, things, places, concepts…
b. Verbs have the semantic property that denote actions or events that only an
appropriate kind of verb (in its uninflected infinitive form) can be used to complete a
sentence. From a morphological point of view, regular verbs like cry in English have the
property that they have four distinct form:
i. Bare form (uninflected) - cry
ii. Present tense form - cries
iii. Past tense/perfect participle/passive participle form – cried
iv. Progressive participle form – crying
c. Adjective have a semantic property of denoting states or attributes ( ill, happy, tired,
red, cruel…)
i. They have the syntactic property that they can occur after be to complete a
sentence like They may be…
ii. Can be modified by a degree word like very/rather/somewhat (gradable
property)
iii. They have morphological properties
 Comparative forms ending in –er
 Superlative forms ending in –est
d. Adverbs often have the semantic property that denote the manner in which an action is
performed. Regular adverbs have the morphological property formed form adjectives by
adding the suffix –ly (sadly)
e. Prepositions have a semantic property of marking location (in, on, above, below). They
have the morphological property that they are invariable/uninflected forms (off can’t be
offed)
2. Functional Categories
a. Determiners have the semantic properties of the noun expression they introduce,
marking it as a definite referring expression which is assumed to be familiar with the
addressee/hearer.
i. definite article the
ii. demonstrative determiners this, that, these, those
b. Quantifier denote expressions of quantity such as some, all, no, any, each, most, much,
and the indefinite article a.
c. Pronouns are items which ‘stand in place of’
i. Antecedent refers back to the noun
ii. Personal pronouns
d. Auxillary verbs have the semantic property of marking grammatical properties such as
tense, aspect, voice or mood. They have syntactic property that they can be inverted
with their subject in question.
Example:
It is raining. Is it raining?
e. Subordinating Conjunctions are sometimes called complementizers are functors that
encode sets of grammatical properties.
i. That and if are inherently finite and can only be used to introduce a finite clause
( clause containing a present or past auxiliary or verb e.g. may and can)
ii. By contrast for is an inherently infinitival complementizer so it can be introduced
containing infinitival to.
iii. That introduces a declarative clause
iv. If introduces an interrogative clause
v. Irrealis clause is one relating to a hypothetical event that has not yet taken place
at some stage in the future