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Grammatical categories = When we talk about grammatical categories we refer to specific properties of
a word, that can cause that word and /or a related word to change in form, for grammatical reasons.
. Ex: The boy is playing. = 1boy + sg. Verb
. The boys are playing = 2 or more boys +pl. Verb
The “number” of the word “boy”, influence the form of boy, and, also the form of the related word “be”.

English has more than 20 grammatical categories. These grammatical categories are associated with the
Part of speech.

 Number = Is a property of nouns and pronouns. It can be plural or singular.

 Case = Is a property of nouns and pronouns, and expresses their relationship to the rest of the
sentence.
1. Subjective (soggettivo) = when the word is a subject
2. Objective (obiettivo) = when word is the object (oggetto)
3. Possessive (possessivo) = when the word indicates possession (ownership)
 Person = 1 pers. 2nd pers, 3rd person.
st

 Tense = past, present, future.

 Aspect = simple, continuous, perfect. It expresses the view of the time structure of an activity or
state.
 Gender = masculine, feminine, neuter.
 Mood = relates to the speaker’s feeling about the reality he is saying:
1. Indicative (indicative) = expresses simple statement of facts.
2. Imperative (imperative) = expresses command.
3. Subjunctive (congiuntivo) = expresses something desired or imagined.
4. Voice (voce) = active, passive (only for transitive verbs). Anna mangia la mela.
5. Degree = positive (indicates basic quality: happy, carefully), comparative
(indicates greater quality: happier, more carefully), superlative (indicates the
maximum quality: the happiest, the most carefully).

Language can be approached from different perspectives:

 Traditional approach: Traditional grammars classify words into parts of speech. Typically
traditional grammars name eight parts of speech: nouns, pronouns, adjective, verbs,
adverbs, preposition conjunction , and interjections.
Grammars distinguish between major and minor parts of speech.
Major parts of speech are meaningful, while minor parts of speech cannot stay by
themselves, but together with the major parts they contribute to the sentence’s meaning.
To delimit parts of speech we have 3 criteria:
1. The meaning
2. The inflection variation means the change of a word's form depending on its
grammatical function. The change may involve the addition of affixes or the
change in the sounds of the word, known as vowel gradation. Ex: “s” for plural
nouns.
 3. Syntactic function: Syntax is the set of rules governing how words combine into
phrases. (Normally there is a subject and a predicate).
Every part of speech is characterized by an inflection. Ex: verb may be inflected
for tense, mood, aspect, and voice.
 Structuralist approach: based on this approach, words can be classified in:
a) Open Classes (traditional major parts of speech) (noun, verbs, adjectives,
adverbs). This classes have a large number of items and also can be added new
words by coining or borrowing.
b) Closed classes (traditional minor parts of speech) (conjunction, preposition,
determiners, pronouns, inflectional affixes, etc) include a limited number of
words.
 Generative approach: focused on the study of syntax parts of speech are divided into:
a) Lexical categories (verb, noun, adjective, adverb).They have
meaning, include many items, and allow coining and
borrowing (puoi aggiungere alter parole provenienti da alte
lingue.
b) Functional categories (include all the other parts of speech).
They are meaningless by themselves.

Language can be analyzed also by levels:

1. A phonological level – strings of phonemes (stringhe di fonemi).

2. A morphological level – morphemes and words
3. A syntactic level – phrases and sentences
4. A semantic level – semantic concepts (events, objects, states)

MORPHOLOGY = from Greek: morphe – structure; logie – study

Definition: Is a core part (sub – discipline) of linguistic study. It is the study of the internal
structure of a word. A word is formed by a base to which are attached extra elements.

There are 2 types of word – structure: inflectional and derivational elements. Both add extra
elements to the base.

 Inflectional elements (Inflection) encompasses (comprende) the grammatical markers

for number, gender, case, person, tense, aspect, mood and comparison.
Inflectional elements do not change the category of a word, they just create variants of
the same word, and do not change the category of the word.
 Ex: “goes” is a variant of the word “go”. Boy – boys.
 Derivational elements (Derivation) is a word formation process, that can take place
through affixation, compounding, and conversion.
The process of derivation induces a change in the lexical category of the item, and
introduces also a new meaning.

Inflectional affixes have the following characteristics:

o They produce closure upon words (can no longer attach a derivational element to
them).
o Inflected forms are organized in paradigms (hat – hats, book – books)
o Inflection may evince (manifestare) the suppletion: when one of the forms is not
phonologically related to the other: went – go, better – good.
o A Paradigm can be defective: when it lacks a form (trousers - trouser).

This 2 processes help delimit the LEXICAL CATEGORY of a word: Adjective, Adverb, Conjunction,
Article, Adposition or Preposition, Verb, Noun.
Major Categories are: Verb, Noun, Adjective, Adverb.
Minor Categories are: Conjunctions, Articles, Adposition or preposition, injection, pronouns.
Lexicla categories are also known as: part of speech, word class, grammatical gategory or
grammatical class.

What are affixes?

An affix is added to the root of a word to change its meaning.

 An affix added to the front of a word is known as a prefix. Sometimes prefixes are hyphened [a
prefix is a half word (e.g., anti-, ex-, post-, pre-)]
 An affix added to the back is known as a suffix.

Here are some examples of affixes:

 Incapable
(The affix is the prefix in.)
 ex-President
(The affix is the prefix ex-.)
 laughing
(The affix is the suffix ing.)

You can add to a word:

1. affixes: process known as affixation

2. other words: process known as compounding (combine,compose,form,mix)
3. You can also combine affixation and compounding.
 4. You can substract parts of words by: clipping (which means that you take 2 words cut some
parts of it and you have a new word: smog = smoke + fog; branch = breakfast + lunch); or by
truncation (ex: abbreviations = UK, USA = you pronounce each and every letter; acronyms: NATO
= you pronounce it as a word.
5. You can use a combination of clipping and affixation ex: Richie.

Most Common Prefixes. The four most common prefixes are dis-, in-, re-, and un-, auto-, il-,im-, in-,pre-
,super-, etc.
Most Common Suffixes. The four most common suffixes are -ed, -ing, -ly, and -es/s,-er,- full,- er, - est, -
ion, -tion, -less, - ly, -ment, - ness

Morphemes and morphs

Morphemes are the smallest units of meaning in a language. They consist of a word (such as dog) or a
word element (such as the -s at the end of dogs) that can't be divided into smaller meaningful parts.

Morphemes can have:

1. a low degree of semantic independence (cranberry/ hackberry = the root does mean nothing
without “berry”)
2. a partial degree of semantic independence (- meaning) (no meaning,but they have partial
independence: usually they are from latin: mit; re. Ex: refer, confer, permit)
3. a high degree of semantic independence (+meaning). This type of morpheme can be free or
bound morphemes.

They are commonly classified as either free morphemes (which can stand as a word) or bound
morphemes (which can't stand alone as words).

Many words in English are made up of a single free morpheme:

"I need to go now, but you can stay."

There are 2 criteria of grouping words into morphemes:

1. by the phonemic form (the way they sound)

2. by the context/environment (helps you identify it).

A morph is simply the phonetic representation of a morpheme - how the morpheme is said. This
distinction occurs because the morpheme can remain the same, but the pronunciation changes.

The best example of this is the plural morpheme in English '-s'. '-s' is the morpheme, but the morph
changes in different words:

Cats - '-s' morpheme is pronounced /s/

Dogs - '-s' morpheme is pronounced /z/
Houses - '-s' morpheme is pronounced /ɪz/
This leads onto what an allomorph is. Allomorphs are the varieties of a morpheme, which is closely
related to the morph. The morph is just how you pronounce the morpheme, the allomorph is the
variation in pronunciation.
So, the morpheme '-s' (plural) has three allomorphs with the morph /s/, /z/, and /ɪz/.

An inflectional morpheme is a suffix that is added to a word to assign a grammatical category to the
word. They are grammatical markers that indicate tense, number, possession, or comparison. They do
not change the grammatical category of a word. (work (V) + ed = worked (V)

Accidence is a part of grammar that deals with inflection. It is the way in which a
word is changed or altered in form in order to achieve a new, specific meaning.

The derivational morpheme is an affix that's added to a word to create a new word or a new form of a
word. So derivational morphemes can change the grammatical category (or part of speech) of a word.
For example, adding -ful to beauty changes the word from a noun to an adjective (beautiful).

The elevational elements add meaning to the meaning of the base ex:
write + er = writer = er is a person who does what the base says.
Freez/cool + er = freezer/cooler = is an instrument which freezes/cools.
 Aspect
Aspect (grammatical categories) is a property of verbs, and expresses our view of the time structure of
an activity or state. Indicates time – related characteristics (such as the completion, the duration, or
repetition = this 3 form the temporal structure) of an event.
Shortly is has to do with how an action, state of being or event unfolds in relation to time.

We have a distinction between: Perfective aspect and Imperfective aspect.

Perfective Aspect: highlights actions, states or events as a whole. The view of the action and events are
given from an outside perspective.

The perfective aspect describes events occurring in the past, but linked to the present.

Ex:
 She ate an apple.
 She sang in the choir.
 She walked to the park.

In all the examples, the action is presented, without giving clues about “how often” the actions
happened or how long they took.

The Imperfective Aspect: highlights actions, events, and states, by focusing on their internal
structure, as it relates to time [them can be continuous or habitual (repeating)]

The imperfective aspect can be recognized by the combination BE +VERB(ING).

Ex: She was eating an apple.

She was walking to the park.

The imperfective aspect can be classified in progressive or continuous aspect or habitual aspect.

Progressive aspect: Ex: I was talking to my mother when you called.

They had been living here for a long time when they moved.

I’m cooking dinner diner at the moment, so I’ll have to call you back.

She appears unwell. (exception)

I know Joh for a long time. (exception)

Habitual aspect: is used when an action occurs repetitively:

When I was young, I used to walk to school.

When I was young I would walk to school. In this example if you remove when I was young, the rest of
the phrase “I would walk to school” is no longer a habitual thing.
Aspect can be approached by in 2 ways:

By Viewpoint (perfective an imperfective) which refers to the temporal structuring of the situations.

By Situation type which refers to the classification of verbal expressions into: states, activities,
achievements, accomplishments, semelfactives [how we conceive (concepiamo) of situations or states of
affairs].

Both of the approaches give us information about temporal factors such as: beginning, duration and end.
The differences between them are:

Viewpoint (perfective or imperfective) is signaled by a grammatical morpheme: BE+VB(ING).

The perfective viewpoint gives information about endpoints (beginning and end).
Ex: Mary walked to school. (perfective – past tense – goal/natural endpoint)
Mary walked in the park. (perfective – past tense – no goal/the event simply terminates).

The imperfective viewpoint gives information about internal or other stages.

Ex: Mary was walking to school. (imperfective – be+ing – I don’t know if the goal is reached).

Situation type is signaled by the verb constellation (S+vb+obj/other complements/arguments).

Aspect: Situation types’ features

To distinguish situation types there are 3 features: [+/- stative], [+/-telic], [+/- durative].

[+/- Stative] or [+/- Dynamic]: is the distinction between stasis (a period of state of inactivity or
equilibrium) and motion, and separates situation types in 2 classes:

1. States which are the simplest of situation types, and consist of undifferentiated moments.
States are stable situation and are stative.
2. Events (activities, accomplishments, achievements and semelfactives). Events are doings,
they can be [-stative] or [+dynamic], and they consist of stages/phases and not
undifferentiated moments.

[+/- Telic] or [+/- Atelic]:

Telicity means change/transition, from stage “x” to stage “y”:
Mary ate an apple. + an apple ---------- no apple -

Telicity refers to the goal. Basically, it means that a verb or a verb phrase (VP) has a goal or an endpoint.

Ex: 1) Paul ran the marathon in 2 hours. (is telic this means that Paul completed the marathon = the
action has reached an endpoint).
…….2) Paul ran for 2 hours. (is atelic because we’re not sure if he kept running for more than 2h or if
something else happened or if he just gave up and went to a pub).
The goal can be

 Intrinsic = has a natural endpoint (accomplishment, achievements).

  Arbitrary = the endpoint can be stopped or terminated (activities, semelfactives).

Mary walked in the park. (atelic, it doesn’t have an endpoint, I don’t know if she continues to walk, or if
she has stopped).

Mary walked to the park. (telic, I know she was somewhere and then walked to the park, and arrived to
the park, so the action has reached an endpoint).

Mary ate an apple. (telic, I know that she had an apple, and that she ate it, and now the apple has gone,
the action has an endpoint).

Mary was eating an apple. (atelic, I know that she was eating an apple, but I don’t know if she has
finished it yet, or if she has just taken a small bite from it and then has thrown it away because she didn’t
like it, etc., so the action hasn’t reached an endpoint).

John stood up in a second. (telic, I know that he in that second has stood up, so his stage from before has
changed)

John pushed the cart for hours. (atelic, I don’t know if she is still pushing it, it doesn’t have an endpoint).

The rock fell to the ground. (telic, change of stage/phase given by “to the ground”).

[+/-Durative] or [+/- Instantaneous]:

Distinction between situation types that take time so are durative (activities, states, accomplishments)
and situation types that are instantaneous events (achievements and semelfactives).

The Duration is indicated usually by: for phrases (for today, for a year, for a month, etc.), in phrases (in 3
years, in one day, etc.). Duration is also indicated by the imperfective viewpoint (be-ing), and verbs like
“keep, continue”, also a repeated activity is durative.

Instantaneous events lack of an interval, they happen instantaneously.

She jumped. (instantaneous, because she just jumped once and that’s it)

She was jumping up and down. (durative, is a repeated activity)

The plane takes off/lands. (instantaneous activity, wheels come out and touch the ground, because even
if landing could be a long process, when the wheels come out and touch the earth it is an instantaneous
activity).
 States: states are stable situation (know the answer, be tall, want, desire).
STATES Stative Durative Atelic
There are classified in 2 classes:

Basic-level states: they are separated into:

 Individual level predicates. They are permanent/generic states, because they are properties
that characterize something all the time.
Ex: Cats are domestic animals. (is a generic state, you know that cates are domestic animals).
Tigers are felines.
London is in England.
Romania is a country.
 Stage level predicates. They are temporary states, because they are properties that
characterize something not all the time but at stages. (usually used with the progressive).
Ex: The socks are lying on the bed. (now they lye on the bed but they usually stay in the
wardrobe).

Derived statives: they are events recategorized into states, so the events became individual level
predicates. So, you manipulate the verb and the contest in the phrase, so you have a derived state.

They can be:

 Generative sentence
 Habitual sentence

Ex: Tigers eat meat. (generic, is a state) - activity

My cat eats carrots. (habitual) - activity

He writes novels (habitual).

Also perception verbs (see), verbs of feeling (like,love) verbs of mental states (know, understand) may be
manipulated into states.

Ex: I saw the city hall from my window. (state).

I like music (state)

 Activities
Activities are also called PROCESSES, because: the term activity is associated with human subjects, while
the term process is associated with both the human subjects (He slept), and the activities that are not
cases of human agency (the ball moved).

Processes Atelic Durative Dynamic

Processes have an arbitrary endpoint, because they don’t have a goal or a natural endpoint. In fact,
processes may simply “stop” or “terminate” but they never “finish”.

Process sentences consist in a verb constellation that describes a process situation. This verb
constellation can be formed by:

 Atelic verb + compatible complements: ex: play chess, think about, walk in the park, laugh, etc.
Ex: He played chess yesterday. (atelic, durative, dynamic = activity, nu stiu cate games)
He played two games of chess yesterday. (telic, durative, dynamic = acc., e telic pt ca scrie 2)
 Atelic durative verb + cumulative or uncountable complement (eat cherries, write letters, drink
wine, give me 2 coffees). Uncountable noun = mass noun – in loc sa spui give me two cups of
coffee, you say give me 2 coffees, and so on. Because when you specify it is no more a process:
EX: He wrote letters yesterday (atelic, durative, dynamic = activity)
He wrote 10/the letters yesterday (telic, durative, dynamic = accomplishment).

Activities are compatible with “for phrases” (atelic, durative), “in phrases”, “at” (he read at a book = he
hasn’t finish/ he read the book = acc. He has finished) and “spent + time” (he spent 3 hours running).

Any part of the process is of the same nature as the whole process. If x is a process and is true at I
(interval), then x is true at all the subintervals of the interval (I), which are longer then a moment.
Accomplishment