DESCRIPTIVE GRAMMAR
Lecture one
Dr Marek Kuczyński
Lexical Caterogies (Parts of Speech)
Content words
(open word-class)
Function words
(closed word-class)
Lexical Categories
(Parts of Speech)
1. Noun: Who? What?
2. Adjective: Like what? modifies nouns
3. Verb: Do what? Be what? Happen what? Have
what? – actions, states, phenomena, events,
processes
4. Adverbs: How? Where? When? modifies
verbs, adjectives and other adverbs
(drive slowly, quite beautiful, very early
Parts of Speech (cont.)
5. Pronouns replace nouns (I, you, it, them),
6. Prepositions indicate relations in time, space
or grammatical function (to, from, during, of,
with, without),
7. Conjunctions join words or phrases (and, but,
or),
8. Determiners point at object, express
reference type (generic, definite: the, this, my),
9. Particles different functions (No, not, to)
1. Prescriptive and descriptive approach to grammar
a) Prescriptive approach
Rule
speech production
assessment
(rule-driven)
b) Descriptive approach
Language data
(L1 speakers)
regularities
rules assessment
(data-driven)
2. Deep structure and surface structure
Deep structure:
the actual belief or
mental representation of a situation
not necessarily verbalized
(You may actually think to yourself
without speaking to yourself
or others)
Surface structure:
The linguistic expression
of a belief or mental
representation
1 DS -> many SSs
One deep structure
(conceptual) may be
expressed by more than
one surface structure
(linguistic expression):
examples
a) John sent Mary a letter. (S1)
b) John sent a letter to Mary. (S2)
c) Mary was sent a letter by John.
(S3)
d) A letter was sent to Mary by
John. (S4)
conclusion
In the above, the same
semantic value
(meaning)
can be obtained from
different syntactic operations.
(one DS = many SSs)
This is like in mathematics:
The same numerical value
can be obtained from
different
arithmetical operations:
example
Value: 10
Operations (examples)
a) 5 + 5 b)5+3+2
c) 5x2 d) 15-5
3. Structural ambiguity
One surface structure
may correspond
to more than one
deep structure
FIRST INTERPRETATION
a) I saw a man with
binoculars
Saw what?
A man with binoculars
SECOND INTERPRETATION
b) I saw a man with
binoculars
How did I see the man?
With binoculars
(One SS corresponds
Ambiguity
Doctor to patient:
Treating you will be difficult
BECAUSE OF ALCOHOL.
Patient:
So I’ll come
when you sober up.
Ambiguity
Psychiatrist to patient:
You are healthy now.
Patient:
That’s too bad – For the last
year I’ve been Napoleon
and now I’m nobody again.
3. Grammatical categories
These correspond
to traditional
markers
of sentence structure
Agreement
- time
- number
- person
- gender, etc
Voice
- active
- passive
Passive: Object becomes
subject
Aspect
-simple
- progressive
- perfect
- combined (e.g.
simple, perfect;
simple, progressive)
The importance of aspect
I have been married
for two years.
I am married for two years*
Aspect
We are 2nd year students
for one month*.
(I hope not)
Mood
- declarative
- interrogative
- imperative etc
Gender
- masculine
- feminine
- neuter
Case
- nominative (Who? What?)
- genitive (Whose? Of what?)
- dative (To whom? To what?)
- accusative (Whom? What?)
- instrumental (With what?)
- locative (About what?)
- vocative (!)
Word vs. phrase
Word – lexical unit, e.g. a noun, adjective
etc. A word is part of vocabulary.
Man, idea, emotion
Phrase – syntactic unit, part of sentence.
A young man, an original idea
4. Identifying sentence components
(phrases)
A phrase is a component
of a sentence (clause)
which answers
one of the following
questions:
NP
Who? What?
(Noun Phrase)
She,
Susan,
My sister,
The girl in the picture
VP
Do what? Be what?
(Verb Phrase)
Work,
Is working,
Has done,
Should have told me
Adj.P
Like what?
(Adjective Phrase)
Modifies nouns
Big,
Very big,
Very big indeed
Adv.P.
How? Where? When?
(Adverb Phrase)
Modifies verbs, places occurrences in time, space,
speaks of the manner in which sth. is done.
Slowly,
Over there,
Right now
PP
We also have
a different category:
Prepositional Phrase
Preposition + Noun Phrase
At the bar
Which may modify:
A Noun
(The man in your car)
or a Verb Phrase
(Met her at the station)
Phrases have functions
e.g. a NP. may be a subject:
The man in the car
is waiting for the girl.
Or an object:
They fined the man in the car.
Functions of phrases
e.g. a VP is the predicate:
He saw a big bird.
They have been married
for three years.
Clause: Subject + Predicate
I work.
My boss works.
My boss works hard.
The man over there is waiting for you.
Descriptive grammar is very useful.
That we shall win the battle is obvious.
Her husband and children love her.
Subject predicative
The man is her husband.
The class seems so boring.
He was appointed spokesperson.
Object
I saw your husband.
The teacher examined the students.
The government raised the taxes.
Object predicative
I find your story incredible.
The PM appointed the agent
his minister.
He called his enemies thugs.
Adjunct
I’ll see you after the class.
You’ll win the game by playing well.
You’ll learn this stuff if you study
systemmatically.
5. Finite and non-finite clauses
Finite: contains tense
(present or past in
English)
examples
I go to school (present)
I am going to school (present)
I have done it (present)
I gave it to the boss (past)
I was working (past)
I had done it by then (past)
We will discuss it (present)
Non-finite:
No tense information
Having done homework, …
This being so difficult, …
How about playing tennis?
Thank you for now
Remember to do
your homework
