◦ Process of describing the structure of phrases and sentences

Chapter 8 - Phrases and sentences: grammar 1

Phonemes Morphemes Words Phrases Sentences Discourse

Chapter 8 - Phrases and sentences: grammar 2

◦ Nouns – words used to refer to person, place, thing, or idea

◦ Verbs – words used to refer to various kinds of actions and states involving people and things in events

◦ Adjectives – words used, typically with nouns, to provide more information about the things referred to

◦ Adverbs – words used, typically with verbs, to provide more information about actions, states and events; some adverbs (really, very etc.) used with adjectives to modify information about things

Chapter 6 - Words and word formation 3

• Articles (a, an, the) – words used with nouns to form noun phrases classifying those “things”

• Prepositions – words used with nouns in phrases providing information about time, place, and other connections involving actions and things

• Pronouns – words used in place of noun phrases typically referring to people and things already known

• Conjunctions – words used to make connections and indicate relationships between events

Chapter 8 - Phrases and sentences: grammar 4

Number Person Tense Voice Gender

Chapter 8 - Phrases and sentences: grammar 5

Chapter 8 - Phrases and sentences: grammar 6

Prescriptive approach – view of grammar as set of rules for the “proper” use of English – traditional analysis

Descriptive approach – view of grammar as how language is used - structural analysis, immediate constituent analysis

Structure and ordering of components within a sentence

Chapter 9 - Syntax 7

Generative grammar is a set of explicit rules for well-formed sentences.

Generative grammar defines the syntactic structures of a language.

Chapter 9 - Syntax 8

Subject

Predicate

Objects

Complements

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Noun phrase (NP) Verb phrase (VP) Prepositional phrase (PP) Sentence (S) Adjective phrase (AP) Determiner (Det) Adjective (Adj) Noun (N) Preposition (P) Adverb (Adv) Auxiliary verb (Aux)

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Phrasal categories – NP & VP

Lexical categories – Noun & verb

Functional categories – Det, Aux, & Comp

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Deep structures – basic structures of sentences which are specified by the phrase structure rules. Variants on those basic sentences structures are derived via transformations.

Surface structures – structures resulting from the application of transformational rules.

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Two distinct underlying interpretations Example – Annie whacked a man with an

umbrella.

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Show relationships among elements in sentence.

One kind of relationship is between head and complements (other members of phrase).

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Phrase structure rules – state that the structure of a phrase of a specific type will consist of one or more constituents in a particular order; generate structures

Lexical rules – specify which words can be used when constituents are rewritten

Chapter 9 - Syntax 15

An element that turns a sentence into a complement, i.e., if, whether, that.

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A syntactic rule that applies to an underlying phrase structure tree of a sentence (either deep structure or an intermediate structure already affected by a transformation) and derives a new structure by moving or inserting elements, e.g.,the transformation rules of wh movement and do insertion relate the deep structure sentence John saw who to the surface structure Who did John see.

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Active to passive voice Statement to question Yes to No Changing verb tenses – using auxiliary

verbs

Chapter 9 - Syntax 18