LINGUISTICA INGLESE I, Appunti di Linguistica Inglese

Scarica LINGUISTICA INGLESE I e più Appunti in PDF di Linguistica Inglese solo su Docsity! LINGUISTICS Around the concept of linguistic lays many misconceptions. We can identify in particular: - linguists love formal grammar (whereas they follow descriptivism and not prescriptivism); - job: places or their opportunities; (only university/translators or interpreters); - linguists are people who speak many foreign languages (polyglot). Linguistics is the scientific study of language systems which describe language in all its aspects and creates theories as to how it works. Linguistics is descriptive, NOT prescriptive, so it describes the language that people actually use being interested in what is said, not what they think ought to be said so not how they should use that language, prescribing rules of correctness. In fact, prescriptivism can lead to an imposition or a rule’s enforcement since its rules are usually based on prejudice or reflect social structures (e.g., the belief that a socially prestigious class is linguistically superior, so people tend to copy them). Linguistics doesn’t force language into a Latin-based framework. In the past, many traditional textbooks have assumed that Latin provides a universal framework into which all languages fit. Language is used to communicate with others or teach people; however, language is not always spoken, an example is sign language which is obviously defined as language even though it’s not orally produced. Language can be divided in different domains:  Phonetics studies the concrete sounds used in a language  Phonology studies how sounds function in a systemic way  Morphology studies the structure of words  Syntax describes structure of phrases, clauses, and sentences as well as a word category  Semantics studies the meaning of words and the relationship between words and meaning  Pragmatics focuses on the influence of situation on the interpretation of utterances ~ general explanation ~  PHONETICS : is the study of speech sounds in spoken language which study how SS are created, their physical characteristics and how are categorized (everyone who knows a language knows how to segment sentences into words and words into sounds as we are able to segment a continuous stream of speech into distinct parts) SS can be distinguished in: - acoustic phonetics that focuses on the physical properties of the sounds - auditory phonetics that focuses on how listeners perceive the sounds (perception) - articulatory phonetics that focuses on how the vocal tract produces the sounds of language (production) Spelling, or orthography, does not consistently represent the sounds of language > (spelling ≠ phonetics). One of phonetics most interesting aspects is that of UKL (Unconscious Knowledge of Language), also called NSI (Native Speaker Intuition), which is the unconscious knowledge of your native language that is when you already know the rules of your native language and, regarding phonetics, how something is pronounced naturally, without someone’s explanation. (Ex: ‘r’ sound)  PHONOLOGY : studies how SS form patterns, what sounds are, how they combine into words, so it deals with their functions and interaction which differ from language to language (which also explain why languages sound so different from one another) and explains why certain phonetic features are important to identify a word. It can be also defined as the linguistic aspect of phonetics as it doesn’t deal with SS physical nature rather than their functions (for this reason, we cannot know how a word is pronounced by relying on phonology only)  MORPHOLOGY : is the study of the structure of words and of their classification in a particular language. It considers principles of word formation: - how sounds combine into meaningful units such as prefixes, suffixes, and roots - which of these are distinctive and predictable variants - what processes a language characteristically uses, such as compounding or suffixing  SYNTAX : is the study of the order and arrangement of words into larger, hierarchical units and the relationship between them, as well as the structure and types of sentences (such as questions or commands), of clauses (such as relative or adverbial clauses), and of phrases (such as prepositional or verbal phrases)  SEMANTICS : is the study of how meaning is conveyed in words, phrases, or clauses. This meaning can be either related to the outside word (lexical meaning) or to the grammar (grammatical meaning). However, in studying it we consider both lexical semantics (the meaning of individual words) which touches the relationship between words such as synonymity and antonymity, and sentence semantics (the meaning of their interaction) that involves the relationship between syntax and semantics, as in the different meanings of the subject of a sentence in a passive/active form. Discourse semantics studies the relationships between a sentence and the context in which it’s embedded.  PRAGMATICS : is the study of what words mean in a certain situation (For example, in the context of a driver and a passenger in a car stopped at a traffic light, the phrase The light is green uttered by the passenger is not simply a description but performs the pragmatic function of advising the driver to step on the gas pedal and move into the intersection) Traditionally it was not part of the subdivision but was added in recent years [So, what linguists do is look at language, notice patterns, create an explanation (hypothesis), test the hypothesis, start over at 1 and revise the hypothesis given the greater amount of data] PHONETIC AND PHONOLOGY 2. the state of the velum: nasal or oral -> the velum is lowered or not -> orality (air escapes through the mouth)/nasality (air escapes through the nose) 3. the place of articulation: the location where the stricture or place of maximum interference occurs for the pronunciation of the consonants and what articulators are involved 4. the manner of articulation: the amount of stricture, whether it is complete, partial (called “close approximation”), or relatively open (“open approximation”). In fact, there are several manners in which articulation can be accomplished: they may completely close off the oral cavity for an instant or a relatively long period, they may narrow the space or may simply modify the shape of the vocal tract by approaching each other. According to the place of articulation, consonants are classified in: Bilabial > lips are brought together. The lower lip is active, and the tongue is in rest position Labiodental> the lower lip is brought up against the upper front teeth. The tongue is in rest position Interdental> the tip (or the apex) of the tongue protrudes between the teeth or touches the back of the upper teeth Dental> the tip or apex of the tongue touches the back of the upper teeth. Alveolar> the tip or apex of tongue makes contact with the alveolar ridge Alveolar-palatal> the front of the tongue is raised to an area between the alveolar ridge and the palate Palatal > the front of the tongue makes contact with the palate Velar> the back (dorsum) of the tongue makes contact with the velum Uvular> the back of the tongue touches the uvula. However, this sound doesn't exist in English Glottal> the vocal cords, functioning as articulators, make a brief closure According to the manner of articulation we have: Stop or plosive> complete closure of the two articulators with the velum raised, so made by fully blocking the air as it leaves the body Fricative > close approximation of the two articulators, the air is partially obstructed so that a turbulent airflow is produced, resulting in a hissing, or rubbing sound as the air has to squeeze through a small gap Affricate > consisting of a stop released slowly into homorganic fricative Nasal> complete closure of the two articulators with the velum lowered so the air is released through the nose (almost all consonants are oral, only 3 are nasal) Approximant> one articulator approaches another not to the extent that a turbulent air stream in produced and can be divided into 3 categories: laterals, retroflex and glides or semivowel. They’re all gather together as they don’t involve friction in any part of the vocal tract. Lateral> the soft palate is in raised position, the tip of the tongue is in contact with the upper ridge teeth, so the center portion of the tongue is an obstacle allowing the air to only pass around both free sides of the tongue Retroflex> tongue is curled back behind alveolar ridge towards the palate + Laterals and retroflex are referred to as liquid Glides> involving a glide to or from a vowel. They are sounds articulated like a vowel so without stricture or closure of the air stream, but they function as consonants to begin or end syllables ~ clarification ~ STOPS [ʔ] > glottal, stop is used in English in certain accents for example when pronouncing a double -tt-, so to replace /t/ before vowel sounds and at the end of words (bottle, butter), especially it’s considered to be characteristic of Cockney (London) speech. It’s also increasingly typical of many types of British English dialects that final /p, t, k/ as in shop, shot, shock, have the oral closure reinforced by a glottal closure [ʔ]. It’s not considered a distinctive sound. On the other hand, if someone pronounce it as “buh-rer” then it’s a flap, produced especially by American speakers that tend to “flap” the [t] so that it is pronounced with a flap which sounds like /d/ when it is in intervocalic position. /p/, /b/ > bilabial, stops, voiceless – voiced (as in public, bitter) the mouth is in the same position for both sounds, and there is a small explosion of air when the lips open. - <b> can be silent (comb, climb). - <ph> is pronounced as /f/ (phone) and <p> is sometimes silent (psychology). /t/, /d/ > alveolar, stops, voiceless – voiced (as in team, door) there is a small explosion of air out of the mouth when the tongue moves away from the alveolar ridge behind the teeth - /t/ can be silent (listen, castle) or it can be assimilated to the following segment. One of the most studied cases in many dialects of American English is the /t/ and /d/ in word-final deletion. A /t, d/ deletion is the absence, at a phonetic-phonological level, of apical (=alveolar) stops /t/ and /d/ in word final consonant clusters (which is when two or more consonants are together) and it concerns the surrounding sounds. Research carried out on /t, d/ deletion shows that the alveolar stops /t/ and /d/ are more likely to be deleted when followed by consonant. However, it’s been shown that it depends on the following segment: if /t/ and /d/ can re-syllabify onto the following segment, then they are accepted as syllable and are not deleted. If this syllable is not accepted as it doesn’t form any existing syllable, then they’re more likely to be deleted. This can be considered the first type of elision. (EX: can’t label > deleted as tl is not an acceptable syllable; can’t rain > pronounced as t can re-syllabify with r in tr (ex: train)). Instead, they are less likely to be deleted when followed by vowels as they can as well resyllabify onto the following segment. /k/, /g/ > velar, stops, voiceless – voiced (as in coffee, great) - <gn> in English can have either a silent /g/ (sign, foreign) or /g/ can be split from the next phoneme (ig/norant) - the vowel sound is a bit longer before /g/ than before /k/ in pairs like bag and back. - In some words beginning with <k>, the K is silent (know, knife). voiceless stops /p, t, k/ => native English speakers produce the voiceless stops [p, t, k] as aspirated in some environments, but unaspirated in others. They are aspirated at the beginning of a word, of a stressed syllable whereas they are not at the beginning of an unstressed syllable and in any other position, like at the end of a syllable or the end of a word. Even if a syllable is stressed, a voiceless stop is unaspirated if it follows [s]. In English, voiced stops are never aspirated. FRICATIVE /f/, /v/ > labiodental, fricative, voiceless – voiced (as in feel, very) /θ/, /ð/ > dental, fricative, voiceless – voiced (as in thin, that) The voiced version is represented with an Irish symbol (adopted by the Anglo-Saxons) called an “eth” or barred “d” and the voiceless version is represented with the Greek letter theta. They are both representation of <th> /s/, /z/ > alveolar, fricative, voiceless – voiced (as in sun, zoo) - <s> can be silent (aisle, island). /ʃ/, /ʒ/ > post-alveolar, fricative, voiceless – voiced (as in sheep, vision). The first phoneme can be found in every position in a word, whereas the second one can be only found in the middle. /h/ > glottal fricative only occurs before a vowel sound. Phonetically, in some accent of England, Wales and Australia, word initial /h/ is dropped and in words like him, her, have etc. when it appears in non-initial and weakly accented positions. In the West country the locals never pronounce [h] making this phenomenon known as h dropping. Phonologically is a consonant, however, in some part of England it behaves as a vowel. AFFRICATES /tʃ/, /dʒ/ > post-alveolar, affricate, voiceless – voiced (as in chin, joke) NASAL /m/ > bilabial, nasal, voiced (as in mouth) /n/ > alveolar, nasal, voiced (as in name) [ŋ] > velar, nasal, voiced: is a phoneme in English (as in thing) In Italian is an allophone of /n/ which occurs before /k/ and /g/ and nowadays it can be considered like that in English too. Moreover, in English the velar nasal /ŋ/ has not always had a phonemic status. It never occurs in initial position. Words that have the orthographic <ng> will usually use the tongue’s tips is and which ranges from the center of the palate to the back of velum. - according to the high-low axes, they can be high, mid (divided into close-mid and open-mid) and low according to the tongue position. ~ high-low axes ~ - close (high) vowels > when any part of the tongue is moved very close to the roof of the mouth - mid vowels > when the tongue is between the close and open position - open (low) vowels > when the tongue is in low position FRONT AREA Front vowels are produced with the front part of the tongue raised at the highest point in the palatal region. The front vowels are all unrounded. In the high (or close) front area, there are two possible sounds: - [i] > the close front tense vowel represented by the lower-case I we can find this sound in: beat, many - [I] > the close-mid front lax vowel represented by the small capital I we can find this sound in: big, inch In the mid front area, there are two possible vowels: - [e] > the upper-mid front vowel represented by the lower-case e This sound is not common in English but can be found in other languages like German leben or French été. So many dialects of English have no pure "e". - [ɛ] > the open-mid front vowel represented by the Greek epsilon we can find this sound in: met, hair In the low (or open) front area, there is one possible vowel in English: - [æ] > the low front vowel represented by the Old English symbol called ash. It’s a ligature of a and e. we can find this sound in: hat, map CENTRAL AREA In the central area, vowels are produced when the central part of the tongue moves towards the center of the hard or soft palate. So, they are produced in the palatal-velar region and are all unrounded. Central vowels are made with the tongue relatively flat. In the mid central area, there are two sounds: - [ə] > the most central vowel represented by the Hebrew schwa. The lips are neither rounded nor spread, sound not open nor closed and all articulators are in a relaxed or neutral position. Many small grammatical words are normally pronounced with schwa in connected speech when they’re followed by a consonant. These words are function words (prepositions auxiliary verbs, articles pronouns conjunction). Many of them have two pronunciations: - weak form in connected speech. It can change pronunciation (the [di] before a vowel sound) - strong forms when at the end of a sentence, when emphasized, when said in isolation. This sound is found in unstressed syllables and before [r] (hurt). This vowel is often a reduced vowel, that is, another vowel sound will be centralized to schwa when it loses stress. we can find this sound in: mother, about - [ʌ] > the open-mid central vowel represented by a “inverted v”. It’s a central vowel that occurs in words like cup (for this reason is also referred to as cup vowel). We can find this sound as well as words spelled with <o> instead of the usual <u>. This is due to the Anglo-Saxon orthography as before the Normans conquest in 1066 they had <u> before m, v and n as explained by Peter Trudgill. However, when too many m, v, n and u were together, it was impossible to establish where one letter started, and another stopped making it difficult to distinguish consonants and vowels. For this reason, Normans had replaced <u> with <o> to make this distinction possible. This sound occurs only in stressed syllables. we can find this sound in: butter, luck In the low central area, there is one sound: - [a] > the low central vowel represented by the lower-case a. This sound doesn't usually occur in English, but we can find it in others like German machen. However, it can be used as a starting point for diphthongs. (aʊ) BACK AREA The back vowels are all articulated with the back of the tongue in the velar region, are all rounded except one. In the high back area, there are two possible vowels: - [u] > the high back tense vowel represented by the lower-case u. we can find this sound in: through, moon - [ʊ] > the high back lax vowel represented by Greek upsilon. we can find this sound in: could, book In the mid back area, there are two possible vowels: - [o] > the upper mid back vowel represented by the lower-case o, but this sound doesn't exist in English as a monophthong. - [ɔ] > the close-mid back vowel represented by the backwards c, called an “open o”. In some dialects, it occurs only before [r] we can find this sound in: shore, crawl In the low back area, there are two possible vowels: - [a] > the low back vowel represented by the lower-case script a, this is the only back vowel which is not rounded. we can find this sound in: calm, father - [ɒ] > the low back vowel represented by the upside-down script a. we can find this sound in: hot, body LONG VOWELS i: > close jaw front tongue spread lips u: > close jaw near back tongue rounded lips ɜ: > mid jaw center tongue unrounded lips ɔ: > mid jaw back tongue rounded lips ɛ: > open mid jaw front tongue unrounded lips ɑ: > open jaw center tongue unrounded lips Long vowel sounds are shortened if the following sound is a voiceless consonant (ex: /u:/ > prove > proof > /u/) DIPHTHONGS Diphthongs are a combination of two vowels and our mouth and tongue move from one position to another (≠ monophthong: a vowel sound in which the tongue stays in one position). They can be divided into: centering > when it ends in /ə/ closing > when it ends with other vowels such as /ʊ/ or /ɪ/ In English there are only 7 diphthongs: /ɪə/ > close mid, near front, unrounded > mid, center, unrounded we can find this sound in: fear, career /ʊə/ > close mid, slightly back, rounded > mid, center, unrounded The diphthong /ʊə/ is often replaced with long single (monophthong) vowel sounds in GB English, such as the long sound /ɔː/ or a long version of short sound /ʊ/. we can find this sound in: curious, jury /aʊ/ > open, center, unrounded > close-mid, slightly back, rounded we can find this sound in: house, bound /əʊ/ > open-mid, center, unrounded > close-mid, slightly back, rounded we can find this sound in: slow, alone /eɪ/ > mid, front, unrounded > close-mid, near front, unrounded we can find this sound in: rain, bake /ʌɪ/ > open, center, unrounded > close-mid, near front, unrounded we can find this sound in: bright, height /ɔɪ/ > open-mid, back, rounded > close-mid, near front, unrounded we can find this sound in: toy, choice SUPRASEGMENTAL FEATURES Segmental features include consonants, vowels, and diphthongs. Suprasegmental features are those articulatory features which include more than one single segment. They deal with features of pronunciation since they determine the prosody of spoken language and include stress, intonation, rhythm, pitch in connected speech. Each language has phonotactic constraints: i.e., restrictions to which sounds can occur together that can vary from language to language as one of that language can accept certain characteristic that the other doesn't such as number of consonant sounds in a cluster or number of vowels. In spoken language there is no pause corresponding to the gap between written words. Phonetic variability is caused by the influence of the phonetic environment, rhythm, and the speed of the utterance. There are various phenomenon including linking or catenation, elision, and assimilation. Type strong + strong + weak > with full vowel on the first syllable and primary stress on the second syllable -> (sensation [senˈseɪʃn]) Type strong + weak + strong > with a full vowel on the first syllable and primary stress on the third syllable -> (understand [ˌʌndəˈstænd]) Pitch and intonation Intonation is the variation of voice pitch in connected speech. Main functions of intonation are: - attitudinal (feeling and attitudes; other prosodic and paralinguistic features) - grammatical (segmentation in meaningful units) - accentual (stress on nucleus indicating focus of information) - discourse (connected to accentual): end-focus for new information. Foregrounding can take place also through intonation An intonation phrase is an utterance with its intonation pattern (tone) and a nucleus (punctuation roughly reflects the segmentation in chunks). The nucleus is the syllable receiving the greatest prominence and carrying intonation movement (usually the last prominent lexical word in an intonation phrase). Intonation plays an important role in grammar and discourse, influencing the meaning of large stretches of speech. Tonality refers to the segmentation of longer stretches of connected speech into shorter meaningful chunks. A tone may be rising or falling, or a combination of these: - rising > questions and incomplete clauses - falling > statements - fall-rise > uncertainty and doubt - rise-fall > surprise and admiration, or strong emotions Pitch and intonation may be difficult to acquire in a foreign language (Italians seem to have a narrower pitch range than British speakers) MORPHOLOGY In morphology we move from the smallest segment of language (sounds) to the larger one (words). Morphology is the area of linguistics that deals with the internal structure or form of words (so it’s a subdivision of grammar). Many words can be divided into the smallest meaningful units of a language called morphemes. (Therefore, a morpheme can’t be broken down further into smaller meaningful parts) [EX: 'used' = root 'use' + past definite suffix '-ed': they both have a meaning and can’t be further divided]. The morpheme is not necessarily equivalent to a word but may be a smaller unit. An important distinction is that between morphemes and a word prosodic element, i.e., its syllables. The division of a word is based not on sound but on meaning. [EX: the noun ‘moralize’ contains the three syllables ‘mo-‘, ‘-ra-‘, ‘-lize’, but only two morphemes, ‘moral-‘, ‘-ize’: contrary to the syllables, each morpheme has a stable meaning, which remains the same even if the respective morphemes appear in a different context]. In fact, morphemes have two characteristics, both of which are necessary: - it must be identifiable from one word to another in a consistent fashion (i.e., in similar positions) - it must contribute in some way to the meaning of the whole word A morpheme also has the following characteristics: - it has internal stability since nothing can be interposed in a morpheme - it is externally transportable - it has positional mobility or free distribution, occurring in various contexts. Morphemes are represented within curly braces {x}. ~ basic terminology ~ In a world we can find: ROOT > a (usually free) morpheme around which words can be built up through the addition of affixes, it may attach to other free or bound morphemes. It carries the principal lexical or grammatical meaning. The root = what you find when you strip all other morphemes off of a complex word. [Ex: recharging if you strip off all the affixes (‘-re, ‘-ing’) you get the root: ‘charge’] BASE > an element to which additional morphemes are added. (it’s also called stem). A base can consist of a single root morpheme or can also contain already others morpheme [EX: serious= base to form 'seriousness' > seriousness = base to form unseriousness] AFFIX > a bound morpheme which attaches to a base. Based on its position regarding the root it can be a: PREFIX: attached to the front of a base SUFFIX: attached to the end of a base INFIX: which are inserted inside a root We can distinguish two types of morphemes: FREE MORPHEME > morpheme that can stand alone as an independent word and can act as a base. BOUND MORPHEME > morpheme that cannot stand alone as an independent word but must be always attached to another free morpheme/word. They have little meaning when alone, but they do bring meaning to the new word and are therefore considered units of meaning. Morphemes can be lexical or grammatical (this classification is based primarily on meaning). - Lexical morphemes express lexical, or dictionary, meaning. They can be categorized into the major lexical categories, or word classes: noun, verb, adjective, or adverb. They constitute open categories, to which new members can be added. Lexical morphemes are generally independent words (free roots) or parts of words (derivational affixes and bound roots). - Grammatical morphemes express a limited number of very common meanings or express relations within the sentence. They do not constitute open categories; they can be exhaustively listed. Their occurrence is (entirely) predictable by the grammar of the sentence because certain grammatical meanings are associated with certain lexical categories, for example, tense and voice with the verb, and number and gender with the noun. Grammatical morphemes may small but independent “function words” belonging to the minor word classes including preposition, article, demonstrative, conjunction, auxiliary, and so on (e.g., of, the, that, and, may) or parts of words (inflectional affixes) The two main processes to form a word are inflection and derivation. - Inflection deals with patterns of word structure that are determined by the role of words in sentences. It’s the process of adding very general meanings to existing words, not the creation of new words. In fact, it consists of affixes which combine with their root to simply indicate basic grammatical categories that is the same of the base. Even this category’s affixes are grammatical in nature and establish a relationship between two or more words. In English there are only 8 inflectional suffixes which are added to nouns, verbs, and adjectives: nouns > s plural, ‘s possessive verbs > s third person singular, -ed past definite, -ing present participle/gerund, -en perfect participle adjectives > er comparative, est superlative  SAXON GENITIVE > it refers to the forms of the possessive associated with the apostrophe. Its name derives from its origin as, along with the plural ending, it’s the only noun inflections surviving from Old English or Anglo-Saxon. The Saxon genitive can be used: - alone with a place reference: (see you at Tom's) (+ also used to refer to shops, restaurants using the name or job title of the owner (Luigi’s). - with nouns referring to people, groups of people, countries, and animals. - to express belonging to or ownership (John’s bag) - to express where someone works or studies or spends time (John’s room) - a family relationship (John’ sister) - qualities (John's patience) - fixed expressions (in a year's time, for God's sake! today's newspaper). - Derivation is the process by which affixes combine with roots to create new words. Derivational prefixes do not normally alter the word class of the base word (that is, a prefix is added to a noun to form a new noun with a different meaning), whereas derivational suffixes usually change both the meaning and the word class (that is, a suffix is often added to a verb or adjective to form a new noun with a different meaning and a new grammatical class (adj: quick > adv: quickly). So, it’s the process through which existing words become new words. Derivation is much less regular, and therefore less predictable, than inflectional morphology (moreover, suffixes tend to have less specific meanings than prefixes). (For example, we can There are standards contexts and exceptions where the -s is not used, for example: - verbal -s in the subjunctive - possessive -s when the form “x of y” is employed - plural -s in irregular nouns. Nowadays it’s difficult to think of the verbal third person singular without the -s morpheme. But, actually in British Isles they often speak without the -s. To know where the verbal -s come from, we need to go back to Middle English as in that period they had different suffixes: - in the Northern part of England: the first singular person was “thanke-Ø”, with no morpheme marking it whereas all the others had “thanke-s” marking it. - In the Midlands: the first singular person was “thanke-Ø”, with no morpheme marking it in the 2 nd and 3 rd singular person it was “thanke-s(t)/th. For all plural there was a different pattern which is marked by “n” (thanke-n) - As to Southern England: the first singular person was “thanke-Ø”, with no morpheme marking it the second had “thanke-st” the other had “thanke-th” The e is pronounced with a schwa that later on disappeared, and that’s how we arrived to thank, which is used in present English. It’s from Modern English that we have the only distinction of the 3rd person singular with the -s. This is part of SE as this is what we are also taught in school, however, there are still some regional variations in the U.K.; for instance, in the South-West of England people still have some sort of suffixes to mark the verbs. -> Old forms survived in the Southwest: all the other voice have s, and the 2nd sing. person in marked with -st -> the Somerset speaker uses -s for all voices -> a Devon farmer could use is and was in 3rd plural (the houses is) However, in East Anglia the reverse happened. These is no distinction, no -s including for the 3rd singular person. East Anglia had Norwich as one of the biggest cities of the country that also had influence of linguistics features. While Norwich native English speakers were hearing and using less the 3rd singular person {-eth} because they were hearing the {-s} more and more, all the South emigrants were learning English as second language with simplified patterns, but they basically never adopted the {-s} variant. That’s why nowadays in Norwich, in East Anglia the {- s} at the 3rd singular person is not used since it’s no part of this dialect. According to Trudgill this made the difference because of the contacts between the arrive of immigrants and the variation language. This is the only geographical area in the UK where we have the absence of the 3rd person singular -s, so they say “she think, he dance, etc.”. For this reason, it’s also referred to as singular zero. After the Middle English period we have Early modern English and Late modern English before arriving at present day English. STANDARD VS NON STANDARS ENGLISH One of the language main characteristics is variability (it’s an inherent characteristic) as all languages and language varieties are variable. There are two types of variations: - in pronunciation only (accent differences) - in syntax, morphology, etc. (dialect differences: what counts as a dialect is not primarily a linguistic matter, it is socio-political and cultural). In detail variation can occur at a phonetic, phonological, lexical, grammatical level. Boundaries are linguistically arbitrary, and reflect sociological, political, and/or cultural boundaries. Usually, people use different varieties of a language based on the situation they are in, so we can vary our grammar, lexicon, pronunciation according to: - people we are talking to - style > formal vs. informal situation > variation in formality (ceremonial use, casual speech) - geography - social factors > social class, age, gender, ethnicity, education - register > variation associated with occupational or social groups. Using a particular register helps a speaker construct an identity at a particular time and place - genre > recipes, newspaper articles, advertisements, poetry, song lyrics, not associated with particular occupations Standard English (SE) can be recognized by the use of a very small range of forms rather than their non-standard equivalents. Since some people use SE all the time and, in all situations, from the most casual to the most formal, it covers most registers and it’s not limited to any particular accent. A standard language is the variety language that has been codifies in dictionaries and grammars. In fact, different definitions have been given to SE: - according to the Oxford dictionary > the form of the English language widely accepted as the usual correct form. - according to the Merriam - Webster dictionary > the English that with respect to spelling, grammar, pronunciation and vocabulary is substantially uniform though not devoid of regional differences, that is well established by usage in the formal and informal speech and writing of the educated and that is widely recognized as acceptable wherever English is spoken and understood. - according to the Collins English dictionary > English which is characterized by idiom, vocabulary etc., that is regarded as correct and acceptable by educated native speakers. - according to the C ambridge dictionary > a standard language is a variety of language that is used by governments, in the media, in schools and for international communication. There are different standard varieties of English in the world, such as North American English, Australian English, and Indian English. Although these standard varieties differ in terms of their pronunciation, there are few differences in grammar between them. In contrast, there are non- standard forms of a language that are used, for example, in different regional dialects and these non-standard varieties are different from each other. But something is missing from these definitions: - An explanation of the origin(s) of standard English; - An indication or acknowledgement that standard English is itself subject to diachronic change; - For most definitions, an indication that standard English itself comes in different varieties; - Most definitions do not mention the existence of English as the global language and the fact there are more non-native speakers than native speakers of English. Moreover, for most there is a descriptivist approach, however, the adjective “correct” appears twice implying a prescriptive attitude. Linguistics say that SE is a class dialect based on written norms. Unusually, in England, the standard language is strongly associated with a powerful class accent, Received Pronunciation (or BBC, Queen’s, Oxford etc. English). [Paul Ker swill ] SE speakers have a full range of styles, including swearing and slang. The social convention in most English- speaking societies is for SE to dominate relatively formal social situations. [Peter Trudgill] Written Australian, Indian, British English are understood by all English speakers… we can describe this international kind of written English as standard English. [David Crystal] Standard English is not a language, a style, an accent, a register. Then Peter Trudgill claims SE as a dialect. (‘‘Standard English is an unusual dialect in a number of ways. It is for example, by far the most important dialect in the English-speaking world from a social, intellectual and cultural point of view; and it does not have an associated accent’’) RP (Received Pronunciation) is the standard accent associated to British English and usually this means it's not a spontaneous accent. Standard English is not a set of prescriptive rules. Typically, Received Pronunciation, abbreviated to (RP), is taught to non-native English speakers. ‘Received’ means what was ‘accepted in most polite circles of society’ in the nineteenth century. The English spoken nowadays in the UK must've changed a lot from a chronological point of view. RP is also known as Standard Southern British English (SSBE). RP has traditionally been the accent of those educated at public schools, which in the UK are private (i.e., selective, and fee-paying). Grammarians usually decide to pick up the dialect which basically was most prestigious from a social point of view, so they decided today's Standard English because it was the dialect spoken by the upper class back then in the 19th century. We usually think that standard language is very prestigious because we have this ideology that whatever is standard is perfect but from a linguistic point of view all dialects are equally ok, so is linguistically not acceptable to disregard other accents or other non-standard forms. Trudgill claims that RP is not the accent of any particular region, unlike historically: RP has originated in the speech of London and the surrounding area. Only 3% -5% of the population of England was estimated to speak RP at the beginning of the twenty-first century. Trudgill argues that when L2 learners of English arrive in the UK for the first time they face difficulties in understanding English mostly in terms of pronunciation differences that will immediately strike them. Trudgill and Hughes et al. noted two main reactions to this experience: - the learner, if confident of his ability, could convince himself that the natives do not speak English ‘correctly ’. Because from another prospective you were taught standard English so you would expect everybody to speak SE, but this is wrong. - they might think that the English he was taught was not ‘real’ English. Word types > the different vocabulary items that occur in a text [Ex. The birds and the deer and who knows what else (ten tokens and 8 word types)] Words can also be classified as: lexical words, function words and inserts. (Newspaper writing has the highest density of lexical words, while conversation has the lowest. Conversation has more use of inserts than the other registers). Lexical words are the main carriers of information in a text or speech act. They can be subdivided into the following word classes (or parts of speech): nouns, lexical verbs, adjectives, adverbs. They are an open class as they can grow in time with the addiction of those elements (also thanks to affixes) making them the most numerous word family as they are indefinitely large. They often have a complex internal structure and can be composed of several parts (un + friend + ly). They can be heads (main words) of phrases and are the words stressed most in speech (in fact they are generally the words that remain if a sentence is compressed in a newspaper headline). Function words are prepositions, auxiliary verbs, pronouns. They usually indicate meaning relationships and shows how the units are related to each other. They belong to closed classes which contains a limited number of members (new members cannot be easily added like pronouns, articles). Function words tend to occur frequently. Inserts are found mainly in spoken language. They do not form an integral part of a syntactic structure but tend to be inserted freely in a text. They are often marked off by a break in intonation in speech or by a punctuation mark in writing (‘Well’, ‘...’). They can also carry emotional and discoursal meanings (oh, ah, wow, yeah, no, okay). Generally simple in form, but with an atypical pronunciation (hm, uh-huh, ugh, etc.). The different word classes have different morphology so different rules for how to form them Lexical - Lexical words can consist of a single morpheme (a stem) or they can have a more complex structure created by a process of inflection, derivation or compounding.  Inflection : inflectional suffixes signal important meanings and roles (plural, past tense, etc.) Word classes marked by inflection are: - nouns (plural, genitive) - verbs (tense, number, aspect) - adjectives and adverbs (comparative and superlative) whereas prepositions, conjunctions and determiners are invariable and have only one form  Derivation : usually involves adding an affix, a morpheme attached at the beginning or to the end of a word (prefix or suffix) ≠ inflection because inflection does not change the identity of a word (it remains the same lexeme), while derivation creates new words changing the meaning or word class of a word, and often both, and in effect it creates a new base form for the word as words can be built up using a number of different affixes.  Compounding leads to more complex words. They contain more than one stem: Noun + noun: chairman, boyfriend Verb + noun: cookbook, guesswork Adjective + noun: bluebird, flatfish Noun + adjective: headlong, watertight A compound is genuinely a compound and simply a sequence of two words when: - the word will be spelt as a single word, without spaces between the two words - it will be pronounced with the main stress on the first element - it will have a meaning which cannot be determined from the individual parts Sequences of words that behave as combination are: - multi-word unit > a sequence of orthographic words which functions like a single grammatical unit (on top of) - idiom > a multi-word unit with a meaning that cannot be predicted from the meanings of its constituent words (fall in love) - collocation > the relationship between two or more independent words which commonly co- occur (broad/wide + nouns) - lexical bundles: a sequence of words which co-occur very frequently (I don’t think/Would you mind) There are four main classes of lexical words: nouns, lexical verbs, adjectives, and adverbs. Nouns and verbs are the most common types of words; Nouns and adjectives are more frequent in the expository or ‘information-giving’ registers (news and academic writing); Verbs and adverbs are more frequent in the other registers: conversation and fiction writing The classification of lexical words is not always clear-cut, and some words have borderline status between the two classes (ex. words ending in -ing can be nouns, verbs, and adjectives). To decide what class a word belongs to, it is useful to apply tests of three kinds based on different domains: - Morphological: analyse what form a word has (e.g., in terms of stems and affixes) - Syntactic: analyse what syntactic role a word plays in phrases or other higher units - Semantic: analyse what type of meaning a word conveys. NOUNS Morphologically > nouns have inflectional suffixes for plural number and for genitive case (however, many nouns are uncountable and therefore cannot have a plural form: gold, information, hair, knowledge, money). Quite often contain more than one morpheme (compound nouns, nouns with derivational suffixes) Syntactically > nouns can occur as the head of a noun phrase common nouns can be modified by many kinds of words before and after them, while proper nouns rarely have any modifiers. Semantically > nouns commonly refer to concrete entities (book, friend) or denote abstract entities (freedom, wish) One of the key parts of English grammar is the noun phrase, which consists of a head alone, or a determiner + head (the + common or proper noun or pronoun (so nouns or pronouns can function as head). In addition, noun phrases can be extended by the use of modifiers and complements. Nouns are used to name concrete things or abstract concepts. Nouns can act as the subject, object, complement of a verb or can be placed in adverbial phrases. We can recognise a noun in a quick way if it is possible to place the definite article the in front of it. There are several subcategories of nouns: - proper/common nouns - concrete/abstract nouns - titles - countable/uncountable - collective nouns - compound nouns - attributive nouns  CONCRETE VS ABSTRACT NOUNS Concrete nouns refer to physical entities or substances. Abstract nouns refer to abstractions such as events, states, times, and qualities. The distinction between concrete and abstract nouns is purely semantic: it has no real grammatical role, since abstract nouns, like concrete nouns, can be countable, uncountable, common, or proper.  COUNTABLE VS UNCONTABLE NOUNS Countable concrete nouns refer to persons, objects, places (student, chair, town) and, most importantly, refer to entities which can be counted > they have both a singular and a plural form. Both in the singular and in the plural, there is a contrast between indefinite and definite, signalled by articles: a cow v. the cow;  cows v. the cows Uncountable concrete nouns refer to substances, materials, liquids, gases (steel, water, air) and, most importantly, refer to something which cannot be counted: they do not vary for number. They cannot occur with the indefinite article a(n), but they allow a contrast between definite and indefinite: the milk v.  milk There are some nouns which are used in the singular but can be used with either the singular or the plural form of the verb (> the government is/are making an important decision). There are some nouns (subjects of study, sports and games, some illnesses) which look plural but are used as singular nouns (> phonetics is a fascinating subject). There is a group of nouns which are uncountable in English and countable in Italian. These are singular in form, and singular in behaviour and are usually used to refer to an abstract idea (advice, information, knowledge, music etc). Many nouns can be both countable and uncountable, but with a difference of meaning (> we are having chicken for dinner/male chickens are called cocks) Also, many basically uncountable nouns have countable uses: - tea/teas (cups of tea) - wine/wines (types of wine) - kindness (the quality of being kind)/a kindness (a kind action) - plural geographical names (the Cayman Islands, the Great Smoky Mountains) - buildings with public functions, such as hotels, restaurants, theatres, museums, and libraries (the Ritz, the Metropolitan Museum) - names of ships (the Titanic, the Santa Maria) - many newspapers and some periodicals (The New York Times, The Guardian) Sometimes proper nouns can behave like common nouns. The following show typical uses: - a person or family called x > I haven't been in touch with the Joneses for ages NUMBER Number is the term for the contrast between singular and plural: - The singular form of nouns is the unmarked and most common form - Plural nouns are formed from the singular by inflectional change, normally the addition of a suffix. When a word changes from singular to plural, there can be some differences regarding: - pronunciation > [s] or [z] - spelling > according to the final letter it can be: > words ending in s, z, x, sh, ch > -es (box/boxes, bus/buses) > consonant letter + y >-ies (lady/ladies, army/armies) > vowel letter + y > -s (Boy/boys, day/days) > if the singular ends in –o, the spelling of the plural is - os or -oes (pianos, radios, videos or heroes, potatoes, volcanoes) Irregular plurals can be divided into native English plurals and plurals borrowed from other languages. A small number of native English words have irregular plurals such as: - changing the vowel > man/men, foot/feet, tooth/teeth, woman/women, goose/geese, mouse/mice - adding – (r)en > child/children, ox/oxen - voicing the last consonant > /f/ changes to /v/ > calf/calves, knife/knives, leaf/leaves, life/lives, shelf/shelves, thief/thieves, wife/wives, wolf/wolves Some words borrowed from Latin and Greek keep their original plurals, although often the regular plural is an alternative > curriculum/curricula, formula/formulae, appendix/appendices, crisis/crises, criterion/criteria, phenomenon/phenomena. There are also plural forms which do not change from singular to plural and can be used with singular and plural concord > zero plural. Some examples: - some animal nouns: fish, sheep, deer, salmon - some quantifying nouns: dozen, hundred, million, foot, mile, when they are used as part of a numerical quantity - others such as dice Plural-only nouns and singular nouns in -s can be confusing because: - they look singular but are actually plural, like people, police, staff, cattle - they look plural but are actually singular, like news, measles, mumps, checkers. GENDER Gender: masculine, feminine, personal, and neuter Gender is not an important grammatical category in English: there’s no inflections for nouns or determiners. Gender is also an area where the language is changing. Four semantic gender classes can be distinguished: masculine > male people feminine > female people personal > people regardless of whether they are female or male neuter > inanimate and abstractions There are four major ways of specifying masculine and feminine contrast in nouns: 1. using totally different nouns (son-daughter) 2. using derived nouns with masculine and feminine suffixes –er/or, -ess (waiter-waitress, actor- actress, lion-lioness) 3. Using a modifier, such as male, female, man, woman (male nurse, woman doctor) 4. Using nouns in - man, - woman (chairman, policewoman) There are two reasons for the preference of male terms over female terms: - speakers and writers refer to males more frequently than to females. - the masculine terms are often used to refer to both sexes. For example, the masculine noun manager is used to refer also to women. In recent decades, efforts have been made to avoid masculine bias by using gender-neutral nouns (using -person instead of -man or -woman). Nowadays people can tell us what pronouns they prefer, that’s part of respecting them. Sometimes people just don’t want to share their pronouns and it’s safe to use they/them/theirs unless that person tells you otherwise. LEXICAL VERBS They are distinct from auxiliary verbs like can and will (function words) while be, have and do are both lexical verbs and auxiliaries, they are referred to as primary verbs. Morphologically > different forms to express the tense (present and past), aspect (perfect, progressive, etc), and voice (active and passive). Often have more than one morpheme (multi-word verbs and derived verbs) (EX. bring up, rely on, look forward to) Syntactically > lexical verbs most frequently occur on their own, as the central part of the clause, they also occur in the final or main verb position of verb phrases Semantically > lexical verbs express actions, processes, and states of affairs that happen or exist in time. They also define the role of human and non-human participants in such actions, processes, or states [EX: you-ate-Chinese food] There are six major kinds of variation in the structure of verb phrases. 1. Tense: present and past (see and saw) 2. Aspect: - unmarked (also called simple aspect) (sees) - perfect (has seen) - progressive (is seeing) - perfect progressive (has been seeing) 3. Voice: active and passive (see and is seen) 4. Modality: unmarked and with modal verb (see and will/can/might see) 5. Negation: positive and negative (see and doesn’t see) 6. Finite clause type (also called 'mood'), which are divided into: - declarative (you saw) - interrogative (did you see?) - imperative /subjunctive (see) TENSE In English, finite verb phrases can be marked for only two tenses: present and past. Verb phrases that are marked for tense are called tensed verb phrases. Other main verb phrases may include a modal verb. However, these two options cannot occur together: a finite verb phrase either has a modal or is marked for tense, but not both. Non-finite phrases, as in to-clauses and ing-clauses, do not include either tensed or modal. Simple present tense > often refers to present time. There are three major meanings for simple present tense when it refers to present time: - describe a state that exists at the present time - refer to a habitual action, an activity repeated on occasion, rather than to a state of being - describe an action that is happening at the present time Simple past tense > is most often used to refer to past time. In fictional narrative and description, the use of simple past tense is common for describing imagined past states and events. In addition, simple past tense is sometimes used for a situation at the present time. In this case, the past tense gives information about stance. It is usually used with verbs like think, wonder, and want. Furthermore, in some types of dependent clauses, the simple past tense is used as the subjunctive, to show hypothetical or 'unreal' conditions. In special cases, simple present tense is used to refer to past events or future events. > When it refers to past time, it is called the historic present tense. This use is most common in conversation. > When the present tense is used to refer to future time, it occurs with a time adverbial that refers to the future or an adverbial clause of time or condition that has future time reference. The past tense is usually used for the reports. If a speaker is reporting the speech of someone else, there is also a corresponding shift in pronouns. However, reported speech also occurs with other tenses. There is no way to mark future tense on verbs in English: instead, future time is usually marked in the verb phrase with a modal (will or shall) or semi-modal (be going to, for present or past tense). ASPECT Aspect adds time meanings to those expressed by tense, it analyses whether an event is completed or is continuing. There are two aspects in English: perfect and progressive (sometimes known as 'continuous'). Verbs that do not have aspect marked on them are said to have simple aspect. subject predicatives.) They are usually gradable and can be modified by very. Some participial forms (like broken or frozen) can occur as both passives and predicative adjectives. Passives can occur as either short or long passives. In short passives (also called agentless passives) the agent is not specified long passives contain a by-phrase which, in typical cases, specifies the agent of the action Short passives are common in academic prose and news, where the agent is not important (researchers in general, for example). In contrast, conversation is generally much more concerned with the experiences and actions of people. It therefore usually expresses the agent as subject, and rarely uses passive voice. Long passive it is most common in academic writing, and least common in conversation. There are three main reasons to choose the long passive: - to accord with the information-flow principle: the preference for presenting new information at the end of a clause. This means that given information is placed before new information. - to accord with the end-weight principle. This means that a 'heavier' element of the clause, in this case the agent, is placed at the end, where it does not hold up the processing of the rest of the clause. - to place initial emphasis on an element of the clause which is the topic, or theme, of the current discourse. There are many transitive verbs and single-object prepositional verbs that rarely occur in the passive voice. Some of this usually take a post-predicate complement clause rather than a simple noun phrase as direct object; these complement clauses make it difficult to form the passive voice, for example, we cannot say: *To be another friend was pretended by me. Two-object prepositional verbs usually allow the passive voice. In English verb phrases, the passive can combine with perfect and/or progressive aspect. Perfect aspect and passive voice are both common in academic prose and news. Perfect passive verb phrases with present tense show past time with present relevance (through perfect aspect) and they reduce the importance of the agent (through the passive voice). The passive with progressive aspect is rare. ADJECTIVES Morphologically > many adjectives can take the inflectional suffixes -er (comparative) and -est (superlative) (cheap- cheaper- cheapest) They can be complex in morphology: - derived adjectives: acceptable, forgetful, influential - compound adjectives: colour-blind, home-made, ice-cold. Semantically > they describe the qualities of people, things, and abstractions. Many adjectives are gradable: they can be compared and modified for a degree or level of the quality ADVERBS Morphologically > many adverbs are formed from adjectives by adding the suffix -ly, but others not. A few adverbs allow comparative and superlative forms (sooner/soonest; faster/fastest) Syntactically > adverbs can occur as head of adverb phrases (more slowly than I had expected). They are often used as modifiers of an adjective or another adverb (really old, very soon) Otherwise, they can act as adverbials in the clause (again soon) Semantically > adverbs most often express the degree of a following adjective or adverb (totally wrong, right now) As elements of clauses, adjectives and adverb phrases have a wide range of meanings: - they can modify an action, process, or state, by expressing such notions as time, place, and manner (I learned German quite quickly) - they can convey the speaker’s or writer’s attitude towards the information in the rest of the clause (Surely that child’s not mine) - they can express a connection with what was said earlier (It must be beautiful, though) Function - Function words are divided in different classes: determiners, pronouns, auxiliary verbs, prepositions, adverbial particles, coordinators, subordinators DETERMINERS They normally precede nouns and are used to help clarify the meaning of the noun and to specify the kind of reference a noun has. They are only found in noun phrases. Determiners are used in front of nouns to indicate whether you are referring to something specific or something of a particular type. You use a specific determiner when people know exactly which thing(s) or person/people you are talking about. The specific determiners are: - the definite article > the > indicates that the referent (i.e. whatever is referred to) is assumed to be known by the speaker and the person being spoken to (or addressee) - the indefinite article > a or an > makes it clear that the referent is one member of a class - demonstrative determiners > this, that, these, those > indicate that the referents are ‘near to’ o ‘away from’ the speaker’s immediate context - possessive determiners > my, your, her, his, its, our, their > tell us who or what the noun belongs to - indefinite quantifiers > every, some, all etc. > specify how many or how much of the noun there is - numerals > (cardinal) one, two, three; (ordinal) first, second; (fraction) half of… (multipliers); once, twice - Determiner-like uses of wh-words > what, which, whose Sometimes more than one determiner occurs in the same noun phrase (all the books). In such cases, the determiners occur in a fixed order. For this purpose, we distinguish between central determiners (the most common type), predeterminers (which precede central determiners when both occur) and post determiners (which follow central determiners). - central determiners > articles, demonstratives, possessives - predeterminers > all, both, half, multipliers - post determiners > ordinal numbers, semi-determiners (same, other, next), quantifying determiners (many, few, etc.) Special kinds of nouns behave in a similar way to quantifying determiners and semi-determiners (a kind of, a sort of, masses of). THE ARTICLES The most common determiners are the articles the and a/an, which signal definite and indefinite meaning. When no determiner occurs before the noun, it is useful to say that there is a zero article. The definite article and the indefinite article both take a different pronunciation when the word begins with a vowel: /ə/ a house; /ən/ an apple - /ðə/ the house; /ðɪ/ the apple. THE The goes with both countable and uncountable nouns. It marks the noun as referring to something or someone assumed to be known to speaker and addressee. There are different usage: - anaphoric use > after unknown entities have been introduced, they can be treated as 'known' and named by the in later references. This is called anaphora: the phrase with the refers back to a previously mentioned item. - indirect anaphoric use > in indirect anaphora, the earlier noun is not repeated, but an associated noun is used with the (The Mercedes… the steering wheels) - Use of the with synonyms > sometimes, indirect anaphora involves the use of a different noun referring to the same thing or person - cataphoric use > cataphora can be thought of as the opposite of anaphora. Here definite reference is established by something following later in the text, especially some modifier of the noun - situational use > the often occurs because an entity is known from the situation - idiomatic use > (by the way, at the end of the day, etc.) A/AN The indefinite article a/an is used only with singular countable nouns. - specific use > is often used to introduce a new specific entity into the discourse, then referred to by the, pronouns or definite noun phrases. - unspecific use > is also used where the noun phrase does not refer to any specific individual - classifying or generic use > it can also serve to classify an entity (My husband is a doctor), or to refer generically to what is typical of any member of the class (A doctor is not better than his patient). ZERO ARTICLE The zero article signals indefiniteness with uncountable nouns (wine) and plural countable nouns (people). The reference here is to an indefinite number or amount. Zero article phrases commonly express non-specific or generic reference. But there are also some special uses of the zero article with singular countable nouns, where otherwise we expect the or a/an to occur: - meals as institutions (for dinner) - places as institutions (the ceremony took place in church) - predicatives with unique reference > when a predicative noun phrase names a unique role or job, either a zero article or the is used (he was re-elected OPEC president) - means of transport and communication > the zero article is found mainly after the preposition by (travel by air/car or send by mail/e-mail) PRONOUNS Pronouns fill the position of a noun or a whole noun phrase (so, they can be seen as economic devices). They are divided in: - personal pronouns > I, you, etc. > refer to the speaker, the addressee(s), and other entities - demonstrative pronouns > this, that, etc > refer to entities which are ‘near to’ or ‘away from’ the speaker’s context - reflexive pronouns > myself, herself, etc. > refer back to a previous noun phrase, usually the subject of the clause - reciprocal pronouns > each other > like reflexive pronouns, refer to a previous noun phrase, but indicate that there is a mutual relationship - possessive pronouns > yours, mine, etc. > closely related to possessive determiners, usually imply a missing noun head - indefinite pronouns > have a broad, indefinite meaning. Some of them are compound words consisting of quantifier + general noun (everything, someone, nobody, etc.); others consist of a quantifier alone (all, some, many, etc.) - relative pronouns > who, whom, which > introduce a relative clause - interrogative pronouns > what, who, which, whom, whose > ask questions about unknown entities. (Most relative and interrogative pronouns belong to the class of wh-words) Personal pronouns Nominative > I, you, he, she, it, we, you, they Accusative > Me, you, him, her, it, us, you, them Genitive > Mine, yours, his, hers, ours, yours, theirs Personal pronouns have different forms according to: - number > singular, plural - person > first person, third, etc - case > nominative (subject), accusative (object), possessive (genitive) - gender > masculine, feminine, neuter ~ person ~ - first-person pronouns refer to the speaker/writer. - second-person pronouns refer to the addressee(s). - third-person pronouns refer to other people or entities, which are neither the speaker/writer nor the addressee. They are usually anaphoric, that is they are used as a reference to antecedent. Anyway, they can be also cataphoric, that is anticipating someone later specified. - first person plural is typical of written style and places the focus on shared human experience or knowledge, including the speaker's. - second person plural is typical of spoken English; choice of this generic pronoun appeals to common human experience, inviting empathy from the hearer. - third person plural also common in speech, can be roughly replaced by 'people'. Another pronoun capable of expressing the meaning 'people in general' is the generic pronoun one which it occurs in formal speech or in writing. we > can vary according to context. It can be inclusive, including the addressee(s) or it can be exclusive, excluding the addressee(s) but including other people. The speaker can make the reference more explicit by adding other words to we such as all. you > is similar to ‘we’ in inviting different interpretations. The plural use can sometimes be specified by a following nominal expression (‘you two’ ‘you guys’ ‘you all’ (y’all)) it > also acts as a dummy pronoun, which does not have a specific reference, but has the role of 'place filler', particularly as an empty subject. Most of the personal pronouns have a distinction between nominative and accusative case forms. Sometimes the accusative form spreads in popular usage into contexts traditionally reserved for the nominative form: - after forms of be > “it’s me” (the correct form is ‘it’s I’) - after as and than > comparative constructions > “She’s as bad as me” (I should be used traditionally) - stand-alone noun phrase > “Who told him? Me” (it should be I) The POSSESSIVE pronouns (mine, yours, his, etc.) are like possessive determiners, except that they constitute a whole noun phrase. Own follows the pronoun to make the possessive noun phrase emphatic. REFLEXIVE pronouns end with -self in the singular and -selves in the plural. The most common use of reflexive pronouns is in their basic reflexive role > to mark some other element of the clause as referring back to the subject. They can also have an emphatic use > reflexive pronoun can be used for emphasis, immediately following the emphasized noun phrase. [EX. “I’ll do the preparation myself”] DEMONSTRATIVE PRONOUNS They can often be considered as alternatives to the pronoun ‘it’, but they carry greater communicative weight as they are pronounced with stress. The most common are ‘that’ in conversation and ‘this’ in academic writing. They are used also to introduce > this is Anne. INDEFINITE PRONOUNS There are three main classes of indefinite pronouns: the compound pronouns, the quantifiers and the pronoun one. - compound pronouns > every/some/any/no + body/one/thing > they refer to indefinite persons or things - quantifying pronouns are identical to determiners form. Most of them are followed by of + definite nouns phrase (some of, both of, each of). However, they can also stand-alone > I’ll have the same. - one has two uses: 1. it can substitute > can replace a countable noun mentioned before. Unlike other indefinite pronouns, one and ones can follow a determiner or semi determiner or adjective (the one, another one, those ones, the last one). 2. generic pronoun > (generic ones, one’s, oneself) > it is used to refer to people in general. Generic ‘one’ is impersonal and formal in tone. In this use, one is singular and has no plural form. There are pronoun uses corresponding to semi-determiners (others, another, the other, the latter, the last, such). AUXILIARY VERBS They are added to a main verb to help build verb phrases. They precede the main or lexical verb in a verb phrase. Can be used in a contracted form as well (-’s, ’re, ’ve, ’d, ’ll). They are divided into primary and modal auxiliary: - Primary auxiliaries (be, have, do) have inflections, they are normally unstressed and can also act as main verbs. They show how the main verb is to be understood: - have > used for the perfect aspect - be > is used for the progressive aspect and for the passive voice - do > is used for negative statements and in questions (do insertion) - Modal auxiliaries (they are 9: will, can, shall, may, must, would, could, should, might) express modality, such as possibility, necessity, prediction, and volition. Each modal is historically the past tense of the modal directly above it (will-would, etc., except must). In practice the modals can be regarded as invariable function words, with no inflections such as ing and ed. Modals occur as the first verb in a clause, and are followed by the base form of another verb, usually the main verb (I can live here; they would have) There are also marginal modal form such as be going to > semi modal PRIMARY VERBS BE As a main verb, be -the copula- is the most important copular verb in English. It links the subject noun phrase with a subject predicative or an obligatory adverbial. As an auxiliary verb, ‘be’ has two distinct grammatical functions: - progressive aspect (be + ing-participle) - passive voice (be + ed-participle) These two auxiliary uses of ‘be’ can occur together in the same clause (the progressive passive) HAVE It is a transitive main verb; similar to get, have can be used with many different meanings: - showing physical possession - telling family connections - describing eating or drinking - showing where something exists - linking a person to an abstract quality - linking an inanimate subject to an abstract quality In addition, the verb ‘have’ occurs as part of the semi-modal have to (meaning must) Have occurs in a number of idiomatic multi-word phrases (have a look) As an auxiliary verb, have is the marker of perfect aspect. Past tense ‘had’ marks past perfect, and present ‘has/ have’ marks present perfect. They are also grouped into three categories based on their meanings: - the permission/possibility/ability modals In academic prose, could, may, and might are used almost exclusively to mark logical possibility. Can > used for both ability and logical possibility; it usually expresses ability, but it is often ambiguous with a logical possibility meaning and is also relatively common with permission meanings Could- might > used most commonly for logical possibility, just as they are in academic prose. They usually express doubt, with could showing the greatest degree of uncertainty or tentativeness. May > rarely used in conversation. It usually expresses logical possibility rather than permission - the obligation/necessity modals and semi-modals Should - have to > usually personal obligation (less ‘threatening’ when expressing obligation) Must > particularly interesting because its distribution is the opposite of what people might expect. The logical meaning (logical necessity) is most common in conversation; the personal meaning (personal obligation) is most common in academic prose. Both must and should are also relatively common in academic prose for expressing logical necessity. - the volition/prediction modals and semi-modals These verbs all express future time meanings. The differences lie in whether the modal expresses a personal intention to perform some future act, or just the prediction of the probability of something occurring in the future. Will - would > used for both volition and prediction. In the case of would, the meaning is often hypothetical. The combination of first-person pronoun + would can also express advice Be going to – will > can express intention or prediction. This meaning is also related to future time and prediction: by showing intention, the speakers also predict future events (most commonly intention to do something). It is rare in academic prose. Shall > used to mark personal volition in both conversation (especially BrE) and academic prose. Shall is typically in a question in conversation where it is used to make an offer or suggestion (mainly BrE). In both registers, shall is usually used with I or we as subject. ‘Be going to’ and ‘used to’ are used mostly to mark time distinctions: Be going to > a common way of marking future time in conversation and fictional dialog. The marking of future time often involves personal volition. Used to shows past habitual behaviour or a past state. However, used to can also represent an adjective + preposition, meaning 'accustomed to'. This meaning is also common in conversation. Modals cannot combine with tense, but they can combine with aspect and voice: modal with perfect aspect (modal + have + ed-participle). modal with progressive aspect (modal + be + ing-participle) modal with passive voice (modal + be + ed-participle) CLAUSES The clause is the key unit of syntax, capable of occurring independently. It is useful to think of the clause as a unit that can stand alone as an expression of a 'complete thought'. The verb phrase is the central element in each clause as it determines the other elements that are required in that clause. In fact, the valency of the verb controls the kinds of elements that follow it. We have five major valency patterns that are differentiated by the required clause elements that follow the verb within the clause: 1. intransitive pattern (S + V) > they disappeared 2. mono-transitive pattern (S + V + Direct Object) > verbs which take only do > she changed her dress 3. copular patterns (S + V + Subject Predicative or S + V + Adverbials (express place and direction)) > His skin was very pink 4. ditransitive pattern (S + V + IO + DO) > verbs which take a S and 2 objects > you gave her the wrong kind of egg 5. complex transitive patterns (S + V + DO + Objective Predicative or S + V + DO + A) All patterns which have an object following the verb (mono-transitive, ditransitive, and complex transitive) are given the generic term transitive. Most common verbs allow more than one valency pattern. Many verbs can take both intransitive and mono-transitive patterns, but these verbs differ in their preference for one pattern over another. (For example, stand, change, and meet are possible with both valency patterns. However, stand usually occurs as an intransitive verb with an optional adverbial whereas mono- transitive stand is rare and found primarily in conversation and news in idiomatic expressions (to stand a chance or ‘can't stand someone or something). Change and meet most commonly occur in the mono-transitive pattern). (V) VERB PHRASE > the verb phrase is the central element of the clause because it expresses the action or state to which other elements relate, and it controls the other kinds of elements and meanings that can be in the clause. (S) SUBJECT > The second most important element is the subject since all VP include one. There are six criteria that deal with structure: - the subject is a noun phrase - it occurs with all types of verbs. - Subject pronouns are in the nominative case. (For example, he, she are the forms of the pronouns used as subject, while the accusative forms him, her are used as object) - The subject precedes the verb phrase (except in clauses with inversion, such as questions) - The subject determines the number of the verb phrase, depending on whether the subject is singular or plural. - The subject noun phrase of a transitive verb can be moved after the verb and preceded by ‘by’ to make a clause with a passive verb. From the meaning point of view: - The subject denotes the most important participant in the action or state denoted by the verb. With transitive verbs, this is generally the doer or agent of the action. - The subject generally represents the topic, i.e., the entity that the clause is about. But sometimes English requires a subject, even if the subject has no actual meaning (It's warm in here). In these cases, English uses it as a pronoun that fills the place of the subject but has no content → dummy pronoun. (D) DIRECT AND (I) INDIRECT (O) OBJECT > an object is a noun phrase. - It usually follows the verb. - It only occurs with transitive verbs. - It is in the accusative case - The object noun phrase of a transitive verb can be moved to become subject of the corresponding passive clause. The object can be direct or indirect: direct object > three valency patterns contain direct objects. A direct object generally follows immediately after the verb, except where an indirect object intervenes. Direct objects denote the entity affected by the action of the agent. indirect object > an indirect object occurs after ditransitive verbs such as give and tell and comes before the direct object. As for their semantic role, indirect objects generally denote people receiving something or benefiting from the action of the verb. In passive forms it becomes the subject. (S) SUBJECT AND (O) OBJECT (P) PREDICATIVE A predicative can be an adjective phrase, a noun phrase, or occasionally a prepositional phrase. It follows the verb phrase and (if one is present) the direct object. It has the semantic role of characterizing a preceding noun phrase. There are two major types of predicative, the subject predicative and the object predicative: Subject predicative > characterize or specify the subject noun phrase. - It immediately follows the verb phrase. - The main verb has to be a copular verb, such as be, seem, become. - Subject predicative are also sometimes called 'subject complements'. Object predicative > characterize or specify the direct object noun phrase. The distinguishing features of the object predicative are: - It generally immediately follows the direct object. - The main verb has to be a complex transitive verb, such as make, find, consider. - The object predicative is sometimes called the 'object complement'. (A) ADVERBIALS They are divided into obligatory and optional obligatory adverbials > some verbs take an adverbial in order to complete their meaning (If you remove the adverbial, you will have an incomplete clause). This is known as an obligatory adverbial that can occur with two patterns: the copular pattern or the complex transitive pattern. > Her book is on the table - copular pattern > I treated her badly, very badly - complex transitive pattern Obligatory adverbials usually express place or direction, although they can also express time or manner meanings. common genitive nouns are collective nouns, usually referring to human organisations or place nouns. It is easy to find examples where the genitive construction and the of-phrase seem to be free variants. (The car's owner vs the owner of the car). Yet in practice there are several factors which favour the choice of one construction over the other: - the semantic class of the noun > personal nouns, especially proper nouns, are much more likely to be used in the genitive. Inanimate and abstract nouns with the of-construction - the meaning relation between the two nouns > there are many different meaning relations that can exist between the genitive noun and the main noun. Some meanings favour the genitive, while others favour the of-construction meaning relations favouring the genitive: > possessive genitive (The family’s car) > attributive genitive (Martha’s courage) > subjective genitive (Anne’s recognition of the priority...) Meaning relations favouring the of-phrase: > objective construction where the noun after of has a role like the objects of a verb (the murder of a woman) > in the same noun phrase: subjective + objective (The Government’s denial of the need) Genitives tend to occur in fixed collocations (nature’s way, at death’s door, for God’s sake, for goodness’ sake). Genitive constructions are generally according to length short, whereas of-phrases are often longer. In English there is the preference of end-focus, e.g., presenting given information first, and new information at the end of the construction > the genitive, coming first, tends to express given information, while the of-phrase, following, tends to introduce new information. A last important factor is register: of-phrases are more common, especially in academic writing; less common in normal conversation. Instead, news writing prefers the genitives. VERBS Main verbs play a central role in clauses. They usually occur in the middle of a clause, and they are the most important element in the clause because they determine the other clause elements. The pattern of these other clause elements is called the valency pattern. However, auxiliary verbs, on the other hand, occur before a main verb and qualify the meaning of the main verb. Verbs can be grouped into three major classes according to their ability to function as main verbs or auxiliary verbs: - lexical verbs > (run, eat, think, etc) > function only as main verbs. - primary verbs > (be, have, do) > can function as both auxiliary and main verbs. - modal verbs > (can, could, shall, should, will, would, may, might, must) > function only as auxiliary verbs The class of lexical verbs is an open class, which means that the English language is always adding new lexical verbs. They are much more common than primary verbs or modal verbs in conversation and fiction. Most lexical verbs have regular endings for forming past and present tense (call, calls, called). However, many of the most common lexical verbs in English can have irregular morphology (sleep – slept). One distinctive feature of English grammar is that lexical verbs often occur as multi-word units (look at). Although many verbs have more than one meaning, we find it useful to distinguish seven semantic categories: activity verbs, communication verbs, mental verbs, causative verbs, verbs of occurrence, verbs of existence or relationship, and verbs of aspect. - Activity verbs > usually refer to a volitional activity that is, an action performed intentionally by an agent or 'doer' (a person who does something) They can be transitive, taking a direct object (they’ll eat it), or intransitive, occurring without any object (they ran). The twenty most common are > bring, get, make, play, take, buy, give, put, try, come, go, move, run, meet, use, follow, leave, pay, show, work - Communication verbs > are a special subcategory of activity verbs that involve communication activities, particularly verbs describing speech and writing: ask, offer, talk, call, say, tell, claim, speak, thank, describe, suggest, write - Mental verbs > refer to mental states and activities. These verbs do not involve physical action. Some of the verbs convey volition; others do not. Mental verbs express a wide range of meanings: - mental states or processes (think, know, believe, doubt) - emotions, attitudes, or desires (love, want, hate, prefer) - perceptions (see, taste) - the receiving of communication (read, hear). Many mental verbs describe mental activities that are relatively dynamic in meaning (study, discover, decide) - Causative verbs > indicate that something or somebody is responsible for something to happen, and they are followed by a derived noun as the direct object (this information enables the formulation of precise questions). In other cases, the resulting action or event is expressed in a complement clause that follows the causative verb (What caused you to be ill?). There are only a few common causative verbs (allow, help, let, require) - Verbs of occurrence > report events that occur without an actor (the lights changed) (become, grow, change, happen, develop, occur, die) - Verbs of existence or relationship > report a state of existence (stay, exist) or a logical relationship (include, involve, contain) that exists between entities. Some of the most common existence verbs are copular verbs (seem, appear). - Verbs of aspect > characterize the stage of progress of an event or activity. These verbs usually occur with a complement clause following the verb. Some common aspect verbs are: begin, continue, keep, start, stop The twelve most common lexical verbs in English are all activity or mental verbs, except for the verb say. > Activity verbs: get, go, make, come, take, give > mental verbs: know, think, see, want, mean > Communication verb: say SAY > is the most common lexical verb overall. In all registers, this verb is most common in the past tense. Native English speakers commonly replace ‘say’ with the quotative verb BE LIKE (‘he was like ‘no way, get out of here’’). (Tagliamonte & Hudson found the use of BE like more among women than men, in their York data) Say can be also replaced by GO (she went ‘What are you doing?’). (Go is also found to be used more by women and by middle-class speakers in Newcastle and Derby) GET > is so common because it is extremely versatile. Although it is often used as an activity verb, it actually has a wide range of meanings and grammatical patterns. The major meanings of get include: - obtaining something (activity) > See if they can get me... - moving to or away from something (activity) > get in the car - causing something to move (causative) > we had to get these pictures into an album - causing something to happen (causative) > It gets people talking - changing from one state to another (occurrence) > She’s getting ever so sad now - understanding something (mental) > Do you get it? In addition to these meanings, ‘get’ in the perfect form ‘have got’ is equivalent to the primary verb have with a static meaning > have you got any plans for this weekend? Also used as auxiliary verb to create a passive construction, the so-called ‘get passive’ > I got caught once before. It also occurs in idiomatic multiword phrases > to get rid of /get away with It is considered an informal word and is therefore avoided in formal writing (in its place obtain, cause, encourage, become, understand) Verbs can be used in different registers: > GO/COME > conversation and fiction > MAKE/TAKE > fiction and news. Idiomatic expressions (To take advantage of/ To make a mark) > MENTAL VERBS > conversation > GIVE > common in all registers MULTI-WORD VERBS Many multi-words verbs function like a single verb. These combinations usually have idiomatic meanings. They fall into four classes: 1. phrasal verbs > a verb followed by an adverbial particle signifying location or direction (find out, carry out, pick up, etc.) 2. prepositional verbs > a verb followed by a preposition (look at, talk about, listen to) 3. phrasal-prepositional verbs > they contain both an adverbial particle and a preposition (get away with) 4. other multi-word verb constructions Many of those are idiomatic. Such combinations function semantically as a single unit that can often be replaced by a single lexical verb, as in the following sentences: I also have to bear in mind > remember The triumph came as a surprise to many > surprise You have to take into account > consider - Verb + verb combinations such as make do (with) and let NP go/be - Verb + noun phrase combination There are a few verbs - such as take, make, have, and do - that can be used for many meanings. These verbs can combine with noun phrases to form idiomatic verbal expressions. In many cases, the combination also includes a following preposition. For example: make fun of, have a look at; take care of; do your hair COPULAR VERBS Copular verbs are used to associate an attribute with the subject of the clause. The attribute is usually expressed by the subject predicative following the verb > You're very stupid > You is the subject, and the phrase very stupid is the subject predicative that specifies the attribute that is associated with the subject. The copula be links this attribute to the subject. Many copular verbs are also used to locate the subject of the clause in time or space. Times and places are expressed by an obligatory adverbial of position, duration, or direction that occurs after the copula. (I was in the kitchen). Several verbs can function as either a copular verb or a transitive/intransitive verb, depending on the context. There are many verbs that can function as copular verbs which fall into two main categories: current copular verbs and result copular verbs. > Current copular verbs have two subclasses: -the first identifies attributes that are in a continuing state of existence > be, seem, appear, keep, remain, stay. - the other reports sensory perceptions > look, feel, sound, smell, taste (occur with adjectival complements to report positive or negative evaluations) BE has two common functions: - to characterize the subject noun phrase in some way (Tomorrow could be a sunny day) - to identify the subject noun phrase (That's our back yard). Adjective phrases are also very common as subject predicatives of be. The most common of these predicative adjectives, express stance. In conversation, these are mostly general evaluative terms. In most cases, these adjectives occur without complements after them. In contrast, academic prose uses a larger range of predicative adjectives that express more specific evaluations. In most cases, these adjectives occur with a complement clause or prepositional phrase. Prepositional phrases are less common as complements of be. They are used for two functions: - as a subject predicative describing a characteristic of the subject - as an adverbial expressing position or direction SEEM > is the most common, it’s used with: - to-complement clause > (seems to) - adjectives, especially conveying attitudes, surprise and possibility in fiction > (seems nice) - adjectives of likelihood in academic prose + that-clauses > (seems likely that…) - prepositional phrase expressing an attribute of the subject > (seemed in control) APPEAR > it’s used with: - to-complement clause - adjectives of likelihood in academic prose and news REMAIN > particularly common in academic prose and news, it’s used with: - adjectives, often reporting absence of continuation KEEP > used typically with adjectives - subject is usually an animate being STAY > used typically with adjectives - subject y is usually human LOOK > evaluates physical appearance FEEL > reports an assessment of physical or mental state of being SOUND > evaluates sound perceptions, also, reactions to ideas or suggestions SMELL > evaluates smell perceptions TASTE > evaluations of taste perceptions Here, the copular verb identifies the sense (sight, hearing), while the predicative adjective reports the evaluation. > Result copular verbs identify an attribute that is the result of a process of change > become, get, go, grow, prove, come, turn, turn out, end up, wind up (the majority describe a process of change. They differ in their specific meanings, collocational preferences, and register distributions). Copular verbs differ in their meanings and in the complements that they take. Overall, most copular verbs occur with an adjective phrase as the subject predicative, but some verbs are also strongly associated with other structures, such as a noun phrase or complement clause. Some verbs are limited to one type of complement, while others occur with many. BECOME > is used to describe the process involved in changing from one state to another. In academic prose, it often refers to an impersonal process of moving from a state of ignorance or disbelief to one of knowledge. GET > is usually used to describe a person changing to a new state. Many of the adjectives, mark some affective or attitudinal stance. GO > is usually used to describe a change towards an undesirable state, especially in conversation and fiction. It describes changes experienced by humans and other natural processes. GROW > it describes gradual change; often makes an implicit comparison with an earlier state through use of comparative adjective as complement. COME > usually describes a change to a better condition. TURN > with adjective refers to colour change TURN OUT > to emphasize END UP > describes a negative event or state ADJECTIVES Certain characteristics are typical of adjectives, although not all adjectives have them. If they do, they are referred to as central adjectives, when they have fewer characteristics, they are peripheral adjectives. Morphologically > central adjectives can be inflected Syntactically > Central adjectives serve both attributive and predicative syntactic roles. In attribute position, an adjective is part of a noun phrase. Predicative adjectives characterize a noun phrase that is a separate clause element. Semantically > central adjectives are descriptive. They typically characterize the referent of a nominal expression. In addition, they are gradable, which means that they can show different degrees of a quality. Gradable adjectives can take comparative and superlative forms and can be modified by an adverb of degree. Peripheral adjectives share not all of the defining characteristics. Many peripheral adjectives occur in only attributive or predicative roles, but not both. Specific adjectives have a strong preference for predicative or attributive position. New adjectives can be formed through 3 processes: using participial forms, adding derivational suffixes and compounding. PARTICIPIAL ADJECTIVES Both -ing and -ed participial forms can be used as adjectives. Most participles are derived from verbs. When a participle follows the verb be, it is sometimes difficult to know whether to analyse it as adjective or verb. New participial adjectives can also be formed by adding a negative prefix. Many -ing and -ed participial forms can serve both attributive and predicative functions. However, participial adjectives are more common with attributive uses. ADJECTIVES WITH DERIVATIONAL AFFIXES Adjectives can be formed by adding a suffix to a noun verb. Adjectives can be formed from other adjectives. Derived adjectives are the most common in academic prose, most of all with the suffix - al. ADJECTIVAL COMPOUNDS Adjectival compounds are made from a combination of more than one word resulting in a compact expression of information. In some cases, the individual items in a compound can be derived from other words. The reduplicative compound is more common in conversation. These compounds are different from other compounds because the two parts rarely occur separately.