Syntax and Grammar - Pedrazzini, Sintesi del corso di Lingua Inglese

Scarica Syntax and Grammar - Pedrazzini e più Sintesi del corso in PDF di Lingua Inglese solo su Docsity! Lesson 1 11 word classes, known as “parts of speech” These four word classes stand out for three reasons: - They are crucial for conveying information. For example, when you add together one word from each of the four classes to make a sentence, you get a rather precise picture of something going on in the real world, with each word making its own contribution to that picture. (Young cheetahs mature quickly). - Unlike other word classes, these words have derivational morphology: we can form nouns, adjectives, verbs and adverbs by adding suffixes, for example: teach+er, wonder+ful, class+ify, sober+ly. - These classes have a very large number of members. Defining word classes: form, function and meaning (a) Form: We can tell the class of a word partly from its form, made up of stems and affixes: (i) Derivational suffixes are characteristic of certain word classes: e.g., electric-ity (noun); electr-ify (verb); electric-al (adjectives). (ii) Inflectional suffixes can be added to change form of a word: box → box-es (noun); work → work-ed (verb); tall → tall-er (adjective). These purely grammatical endings can be simply called inflexions, and, compared with some other well-known European languages, English has only a few of them. (iii) In some less regular cases, English words have inflexions which involve some other change in the form of a word, e.g. a change of vowel (man - men, sing - sang), or in a few extreme cases a complete change in the word (go - went). (b) Function: We can tell the class of a word by the way it occurs in certain positions or structural contexts. Put differently, words have certain functions or roles in the structure of a sentence. For example, in The cook does not actually cook the meal we can recognize the first cook as a noun and the second as a verb because of their functions. (c) Meaning: This is a less reliable criterion, as already pointed out. But if you learn to recognise certain semantic types of word (i.e., word types classified according to meaning), such as action verbs, state verbs, abstract nouns, etc., this will help you to check the purely structural criteria, those of form and function. Lesson 2 Defining ‘content word’ classes in terms of function, form and meaning 5.5.1 Nouns The class of nouns is by far the most numerous word class. (a) Function: Nouns can function as the head of a noun phrase: Donkeys Our town The worst journey ever Stanley’s historic meeting with Livingstone A good way to recognize noun phrases is to see whether a word sequence will fit into a frame like Have you heard about..? or How much do you know about…? It is also generally possible for a noun phrase to begin with the, and so a useful test for a noun is whether it can fit the frame the —--. For example: Donkeys = How much do you know about donkeys? / The donkeys (b) Form: (i) Many nouns have characteristic suffixes: e.g. -er (singer), -ism (fascism), - ion or -ation (caution), -ity (university), -ness (goodness). There are many exceptions where these endings do not signal a noun: e.g., longer is an adjective, linger is a verb. (ii) Most nouns can change their form from singular to plural by adding -s or -es or by some other change of form (woman - women; foot - feet). (c) Meaning: Nouns typically refer to physical things: people (student), objects (book), places (city), substances (gold), etc. These nouns are called concrete nouns; but there are also abstract nouns referring to events, states, times, etc.: birth, happiness, life. Members of such a large class of words as nouns will obviously not all behave in the same way. We distinguish the various subclasses in terms of form (i), function (ii) and meaning (iii): (i) Count/non-count nouns: Count nouns (e.g. table, dog, idea, mile) refer to things that can be counted, and so they can have a plural form (tables, etc.). Non-count nouns, on the other hand, refer to substances, qualities, etc., that we do not think of as coming in countable ‘lumps’: these nouns normally have no plural. Notice, however, that the same form Adverbs are a particularly vague class of words to define. We can distinguish three major types of adverbs, but there is considerable overlap between them. 1. Most adverbs add some kind of circumstantial information (of time, place, manner, etc.) to the state of affairs expressed in the main part of the clause: [(We) (sold) (the car) (hurriedly) (yesterday)]. 2. Some adverbs modify adjectives and other adverbs in terms of degree (fairly new, very hurriedly, etc.) 3. Sentence adverbs, which apply semantically to the whole clause or sentence, express an attitude to it, or a connection between it and another clause or sentence: [(So) (the whole thing) (was) (frankly) (too awful for words)]. The adverb So clearly connects what follows with what was said in an earlier sentence, while frankly tells us something about the speaker’s attitude to what they are talking about. All three types can be illustrated with the same adverb, seriously, which is a circumstantial adverb in [a], a degree adverb in [b] and a sentence adverb in [c]: a. They listened to her complaints seriously (=in a serious manner) b. This cake is seriously scrumptious (=to a serious degree) c. Seriously , do you mean that? (= I’m asking you seriously) (a) Function: the primary function of an adverb is to be the head (or main word) of an adverb phrase. It can stand alone as a minimal adverb phrase, or it can be preceded and/or followed by another word, which is often itself an adverb. a. [She spoke (softly)] b. [She spoke (very softly indeed)] c. [She spoke (too softly for me)] These examples show us a second function: an adverb can act as modifier in an adjective phrase or in an adverb phrase. (b) Form: (i) Many adverbs are formed by adding -ly to an adjective (ii) In addition, a few adverbs resemble adjectives, in having comparative and superlative forms: soon - sooner - soonest; well, better, best. (iii) Then there is a major group of adverbs that have no suffix and do not resemble adjectives. Among these adverbs are some of the most common: now, then, so, too, etc. (c) Meaning: Adverbs express many different types of meanings, especially as adjuncts in the clause. We can only give some important categories, and to distinguish them, it is useful to use a question test; for example, home answers to the question Where…? In the following exchange: a. Where did Stefan go? He went home. Unlike these, sentence adverbs, for example fortunately, probably, actually and however, do not answer questions. They can be divided into two main types: 1. Attitude (or stance) adverbs: fortunately, actually, perhaps, surely 2. Connecting adverbs: so, moreover, however, therefore, though. For example, in a. fortunately is an attitude adverb, while in b. however is a connecting adverb: a. [(Fortunately) (elephants) (can’t fly)]. b. [(Some of them) (can run) (pretty fast), (however)]. Lesson 3 Here are brief definitions of the function classes, with listings of their most common members. 5.6.1 Determiners Determiners begin noun phrases, and are sometimes obligatory. If the head of a noun phrase is a singular count noun, then some determiner has to be added. a. *[(Dog) (bit) (man)] = not acceptable in English. b. [The dog) (bit) (a man)] The and a/an are the most common determiners, and are important enough to have their own unique names: they are called respectively the definite article and the indefinite article. Some common determiners: the, a/an, this, that, these, all, some, any, no, every, each, many, which, what, his, our 5.6.2 Pronouns Pronouns are words which are in a sense ‘dummy’ nouns or noun phrases, because they have a generalised or unspecific meaning. For example, the pronoun she can refer to any female person. Because they usually stand alone in a noun pgrase, we consider pronouns to be the head of such phrases, though they are limited as to what words can be added to them. Some common pronouns: I, me, mine, myself, we, he, she, it, they, this, that, these, everything, some, many, who, which, what. densely packed information, while conversation is less dense, and relies a lot on shared contextual information. Lesson 4 Box 5.2 A hierarchy of units The sentence is the largest unit of language that we are concerned with in grammar. Words, too, are little grammatical units, but to show how words pattern in sentences, we need to be able to recognize units that are intermediate in size between a word and a sentence. The terms most commonly used fot these intermediate units are phrase and clause. A typical sentence is composed by a hierarchy of units, one inside another. This can be shown by bracketing: we will show phrases by enclosing them in round brackets ( ), and clauses by enclosing them in square brackets [ ]: Each of the four NAVA word classes can be the main word of a phrase, which is called after the word. That is, there are noun phrases, adjective phrses, verb phrases and adverb phrases: (my hair) → is a noun phrase because its main word is a noun (has been growing) → is a verb phrase because its main word is a verb (very untidy) → is an adjective phrase because its main word is an adjective (just recently) → is an adverb phrase because its main word is an adverb We can make these four phrases into a single clause by joining them in sequence: a. [(My hair) (has been growing) (very untidy) (just recently)] A unit can consist of one or more than one unit of a lower ‘rank’. For example, a phrase can consist of one word or more than one word. We see this when we compare example a. above with a similar example, b. b. [(Beards) (grow) (untidy) (quickly)] The whole of this sentence is a single clause and each phrase consists of a single word. For that matter, a whole sentence can consist of a songle word. Shout! is a sentence consisting of just one clause consisting of just one phrase consisting of just one word: c. [(Shout)]! 6.1 Classes of phrase There are five classes of phrases. Of these, noun phrases, adjective phrases and adverb phrases all have the same basic structure: (Modifier(s)) Head (Modifier(s)) where the brackets indicate optional elements. This means that the main word, the head of the phrase, is the only word that has to occur in the phrase. The modifiers are all optional. Of the remaining two types of phrase, prepositional phrases (PP) begin with a preposition (such as of, in, at, with, on), which is followed by a noun phrase (NP): a. (on (Friday)) → In this prepositional phrase, on is the prepositional and Friday is a single-word noun phrase.) b. (with (incredible force)) c. (at (our meeting yesterday)) d. (on (a bright, cold, winter afternoon)) e. (off (the wall)) f. (in (a colourful new outfit)) 6.2.1 Embedded phrases We presented the hierarchy of units (clause - phrase - word) such that a unit (e.g., a clause) higher in the scale consists of one or more examples of the next lower unit (e.g., phrases). 6.4 A preview of clauses Many sentences consist of a single clause, for example: Subject = NP VP Object = NP [(Some greedy person) (ate) (my cucumber sandwiches)] This clause contains three phrases, an NP + VP + NP. The first NP is known as the Subject, and the NP at the end is known as the Object. 6.4.1 Subjects and Objects Most clauses have a Subject which is an NP and which precedes the VP. Here we regard the VP as the pivotal element in the clause, and as there is only one VP in the structure of a clause, we don’t need to bother about a second label for its function. In contrast, there can be more than one NP in a clause. However, not all clauses have an Object. a. Subject = NP VP [(Lazy Mary) (was yawning)] In Lazy Mary NP is the ‘form’ label and Subject is the ‘function’ label. 6.4.2 Adjuncts a. Subject = NP VP Object = NP Adjunct = AdvP [(Sam) (admires) (Kylie) (very much) Example a. contains another type element of clause structure: here we will call phrases such as very much Adjuncts - that is, phrases which are not intimately connected with the verb in describing an event or state of affairs, like the Subject and Object, but which rather describe incidental circumstances such as the time, place or manner (the ‘when’, ‘where’, and ‘how’) of an action, event ot state. In a., very much is an adverb phrase, telling us about the degree or extent of Sam’s admiration. Like most Adjuncts, it is optional. Two other points to notice about Adjuncts is that (a) they can occur in various positions in the clause, and (b) more than one or two of them can occur in the same clause. a. Sub. = NP VP Adju. = AdvP Adju. = PP Adju. = PP [(The committee) (is meeting) (promptly) (at our house) (at 7pm)]. b. Adju. = PP Sub. = NP Adju. = AdvP VP Obj. = NP Adju.=AdvP [(On Saturday) (the Doe family) (usually) (ate) (their dinner) (early)] Example a. has three Adjuncts: all placed at the end, after the VP. In example b. the first adjunct is in front position, before the Subject; the secon is in a medial position; the third is the end, after the Object. Lesson 5 6.3 Noun phrases (NP) and related types of phrases We saw that words can be classifies into various word classes. But when we examined how these words behave in phrases, we found ourselves using terms like head and modifier. These are not labels for words classes as such, but fot the kinds if role they have in relation to other words, that is, to the function they perform in a phrase. Like words, phrases can be classified partly by their external function and partly by their internal form. By ‘form’ we mean the way the structure of the unit is made up of other, smaller constituents. Typically, a phrase is composed of head and modifiers. The meaning words convey is another factor in classifying them. The same can be said about phrases. Let’s take NPs as an example. In a simple NP like the book, the head noun book has a fairly general meaning, and might refer to any book you can think of. If i tell you to go to the library bookcase and to Bring me (the book), most likely you will not know which book to bring. But if I add an adjective Bring me (the green book), you will have a better idea which book to choose, especially if I combine more than one adjective in the single phrase: Bring me (the large thick green book). In an NP, adjectives function as modifiers, adding more info. About the head, telling us what book or which book is intended. A similar information-adding role is performed by modifiers (especially PPs) following the head: Bring me (the large thick green book (on the top shelf)). 6.5 More on the structure of the NP The structures of NPs are very diverse, but the chief elements are these: (a) The head of an NP can be: (i) most often, a noun: (the doll), (dear Margaret) (ii) a pronoun: (it), (herself), (everyone (in (the street))) (iii) less usually, an adjective (the absurd), a numeral (all fifteen), or a genitive (Joan’s). → [(If you offer them three types of ice cream,] (the greedy) (will take) (all three)]. (b) The words preceding the head of an NP can be: (i) Determiners (ii) Numerals (iii) Adjectives (iv) Nouns (v) Genitives (vi) Adverbs (c) The modifiers following the head of an NP can be: 6.6 The verb phrase (VP) The verb phrase is central to the clause. We will distinguish between finite and non-finite clauses. For now we limit ourselves to the finite clauses, which means that we concentrate on the fullest kind of VP, the finite verb phrase (the kind if VP that has present or past tense). Stucture: (Auxiliary/ies) Main verb With a number of auxiliaries form zero up to four. Most commonly, the VP consists of one verb, the main verb, which expresses the general idea of what is happening in the clause: what action, event or state of affairs is being described. The auxiliaries are rather like modifiers, but they add not so much information as a perspective or viewpoint on the action. This modality (viewing the action as filtered through concepts such as possibility and necessity), aspect (how we view the action or event in temporal terms - as being in progress, or as completed, etc.), and active vs passive voice. In Table 6.1, we have replaced the general ‘Auxiliary’ label by some more specific function labels: Modal, Perfect, Progressive and Passive. The Modal slot is filled by one of the modal auxiliaries such as will, can, could. The Perfect slot is always filled by the auxiliary have, and the Progressive slot is always filled by the auxiliary be; similarly, the Passive slot is always filled by be, and the main verb slot can be filled by any full verb, including one of the primary verbs (be, have, do), which can either be auxiliaries or main verbs. Enlarged structure of the VP: (Mod) (Perf) (Prog) (Pass) Main verb The terms ‘Modal’, ‘perfect’, ‘progressive’ and ‘passive’ describe the kinds of different meaning expressed by an auxiliary, when it is combined with a following verb. For example: 7.1.3 Direct and Indirect Objects One more thing about Objects. There can be two, one or zero of the, in a clause. Suppose someone asks you: ‘What have you been doing?’ You could answer in three slightly different ways: a. [(I) (have been writing)] SV b. [(I) (have been writing) (a thank-you letter)] SVO c. [(I) (have been writing) (Auntie Becky) (a thank-you letter)] SVOO Example a. has no Object NP after the VP. Example b. has one Object, and c. has two. In example c., the two Objects are different names: a thank-you letter is called Direct Object, and Aunt Becky is called Indirect Object. These labels go back to the semantic notion that the Object refers to the ‘doer’. A thank-you letter refers to the thing affected most closely by my action of writing. Auntie Becky, on the other hand, refers to someone who is indirectly affected by the writing action. Indirect Objects typically identify people who benefit as a result of the action. 7.2.6 The ‘dummy’ auxiliary do One structural rule says: ‘Auxiliaries are optional’. A verb phrase does not have to have any auxiliary verbs. In fact, most VPs have no auxiliary: a. [(Great Uncle Silas) (drinks) (several screwdrivers a day)] Here the VP has a main verb drinks, but no auxiliary. Another structural rule, this time for forming questions, says ‘Reverse the order of the Subject and the auxiliary’. But if (auxiliaries being optional) there is no auxiliary, how can we obey the second rule and form a question? b. Does Great Uncle Silas drink several screwdrivers a day? The ‘magic auxiliary’ do fills the gap, acting as the missing auxiliary which is not found in the declarative sentence. Whenever we need an auxiliary, and there is no auxiliary available from the declarative from, do (or does or did) come to the rescue. The same thing as the questioning from happens with the negative form: c. The taxi arrived late. → The taxi did not arrive late. Lesson 7 7.1 Clause structure Like words and phrases, clauses can be viewed either from ‘inside’, in terms of form or structure; or from ‘outside’, in terms of their function in sentences. We start with an ‘inside’ view of the clause. The main elements in clause structure are: the Subject (usually an NP), the VP (verb phrase) and the Object (usually an NP). These three elements are often abbreviated to S, V and O: and English is often said to be an SVO language, because these three elements usually occur in that fixed order. In (The cat) (chased) (the rat), the cat is the Subject, chased is the VP and the cat the Object, and it would be hard to not put them in any other order. We also introduced another kind of element in the clause structure: the Adjunct (A), which adds to a clause an extra piece of information (usually optional) about time, place, manner, etc. We can specify the structure of a clause in terms of symbols such as ‘SVO’, ‘ASAVA’, like this: (a) Wh-questions. Wh-words do not all belong to the same word class. For example, who is a pronoun, what and which are pronouns or determiners, and when, where and how are adverbs. Although it begins the clause, the following examples show the wh-phrase or word can occur in various ‘slots’ in the clause structure: a. Who has been eating my porridge? [Who is the Subject; no inversion occurs.] b. What excitement have I missed? [What is the Object; compare the declarative: I have missed some excitement.] c. When will we know the results? [When is an Adjunct of time; compare the declarative: We will know the results on Friday] d. In which town are you staying? [In which town is an Adjunct of place. In form, it is also a PP.] (b) yes-no questions are interrogative clauses which can be answered ‘yes’ or ‘no’. They do not have any wh-word at the front, but they have inversion of Subject and auxiliary. a. Is she really going to Oslo? → She really is going to Oslo. b. Could you pass me that drink? → You could pass me that drink. c. Are you kidding? → You are kidding. d. Have you tried my monster cookies? → You have tried my monster cookies. Lesson 8 Box 7.2 Three types of embedded clause The most important types of embedded clause are adverbial, complement and relative clauses. Adverbial clauses typically begin with a conjunction such as if, when, because, while. They fill the function of Adjunction in the main clause, and can take different positions: a. [[If you buy the food], I’ll do the cooking]. b. [I am very excited [because this is my first podcast]]. c. [You will find, [when you get older], [that the mind often wanders]]. The term ‘adverbial clause’ recalls that adverbs and adverb phrases often function as adjuncts, and can have a similar role of elaborating time, manner, reason, etc. with respect to the main clause. Complement clauses are so called because they are typically required to complete the meaning of the rest of the main clause. They can also be called ‘noun clauses’ or ‘nominal clauses’, because their function is similar to that of noun phrases, filling Subject and Object slots, for instance. In a. and b., they fill the slot of Object and Complement respectively: a. [Angie asked herself [what the problem was]] b. [The funny thing is [that the dog didn’t bark in the night]]. The embedded clause is introduced by a wh-word in a. and the conjunction that in b. These are two important types of complement clause. Such constructions are often called reported speech, as contrasted with direct speech: Direct speech: Reported speech a. ‘[Is it all a mistake?]’ [Jamie maintained [that it was all a mistake].] b. ‘[What is the problem?]’ [Angie asked [what the problem was].] Relative clauses The zero options However, there is also often the further possibility, in both complement and relative clauses, to omit the word that. We can call these clauses ‘zero complement clauses’ or ‘zero relative clauses’, illustrated with: - Complement clause zero complement clause Gus felt [that nobody loved him]. → Gus felt [nobody loved him]. - Relative clause zero relative clause The people [that I stayed with]. → the people [I stayed with]. 7.5 Non-finite clauses The three main types of non-finite clause are underline in these examples: a. They advised the minister [to leave the building immediately]. b. [Opening her eyes suddenly], Meg caught a glimpse of a retreating figure. c. The information [given to the press] was totally and deliberately false. Unlike the types of subordinate clauses discussed up to now, these begin with a non-finite verb. The three kinds of non-finite verb illustrated here are: (a) Infinitive (normally preceded by to): e.g., to leave, to open, to give. (b) -ing form (also called ‘present participle’): e.g. leaving, opening, giving. (c) -en form (also called ‘past participle’): e.g. left, opened, given Non-finite clauses have no finite verb, and generally have no Subject. Like the finite embedded clauses, non-finite clauses have various functions in the main clause they are part of. Lesson 9 7.5 Simple, compound and complex sentences A sentence is the unit that defines the upper limit of grammatical structure. Two important devices for combining clauses: coordination and subordination (embedding). It is also worth remembering that sentence complexity is not just a matter of combining clauses. Box 7.3 A traditional classification of sentences (a) Simple sentences consisting of just one clause: - [They gave me access to the site]. - [Have you seen my trainers?] (b) Compound sentences consisting of two or more coordinated clauses: - [Use it] or [lose it] - [I didn’t buy you a pint] but [I did link you to my website]. - [It’s my birthday], and [I enjoy making other people happy].