Summary English Language Structures A

PART ONE: INTRODUCTION TO GRAMMAR
1. Introduction: What is grammar?

 Phonology = how the language system combines features into phonemes and
phonemes into words
 Phonetics = how the speaker produces the fixed set of meaningful speech sounds
and all their combinations
 Morphology = studies the relationships between words and morphemes
o Infectional morphology = the study of how words can take different guises
to show grammatical meanings
 e.g.: the plural is shown by adding a suffix -s (books + -s)

o Derivational morphology (= word formation = lexical morphology) = the
study of how new words are formed from existing words
 e.g.: you can form a noun form a verb by adding suffix -ion (interaction)
 e.g.: you can form a verb from a noun by adding suffix -ize (fantasize)
 e.g.: you can merge existing words into new ones: chillax, bromance,
wurfing, …

 Lexicology = operates at word level only, which is concerned with LEXICAL ITEMS,
mainly words (such as: dictionary, etymology – origin of words, …)
o Lexicology is the study of their history, meanings, and usage
o Lexicography lists and describes LEXICAL ITEMS in dictionaries

 Syntax = (‘grammar’ in its narrow, traditional sense) = the study and description of
the structure of sentences, the way in which parts of a sentence are internally
organized and arranged, and the way they relate to one another

 Pragmatics = focuses on discourse and the communicative aspects of language
which is broken down in utterances (= a sentence that expresses a speech act, with
the speaker having a particular purpose in mind: statements, commands,
exclamations, questions, requests, offers, suggestions, …)


2. Levels of Grammatical Analysis

Grammatical Analysis can be carried out on different levels, units or ranks. We will
distinguish 6 levels:

- Discourse (consists of …)
- Sentence (consists of…)
- Clause (consists of …)
- Phrase (consists of…)
- Word (consists of…)
- Morpheme (consists of…)

, 2.1 Discourse

This is the HIGHEST LEVEL of grammatical analysis, also called ‘text level’.

Sentences in a paragraph display features of COHESION (=words are being replaced by
synonyms)
Cohesion can also take the form of ELLIPSIS (= elements are simply left out instead of being
repeated or replaced by synonyms)

2.2 Sentence
= a group of words that forms a statement, command, exclamation or question. It contains
a subject and a verb.
It begins with a capital letter and ends with one of the marks: .?!

2.3 Clause
= deelzin
= Clauses are immediate constituent of a sentence

COUNT: number of VP’s

There are main clauses and subordinate clauses/subclauses.

 Main clause
o Can stand on its own
o Could be structurally independent or textually dependent
o You can move it around
o Their order is fixed

 Subclause
o Cannot stand on its own, structurally dependent

2.4 Phrase
= a group of words belonging together which fulfils a syntactic function in the clause

2.5 Word

2.6 Morpheme
= smallest meaningful unit of grammar.

, 3. Categories in Grammatical Analysis: form, function and meaning
3.1 FORM (class/type)

 SENTENCE LEVEL
- Simple (S) enkelvoudige zin
- Compound (Cd) samengestelde zin met nevensch
- Complex (Cx) samengestelde zin met ondersch
- Compound-Complex (Cd-Cx)
- Complex-Compound (Cx-Cd)

 CLAUSE LEVEL
- Main clause
- Subclause
o Finite
o Non-finite
 To-inf
 Bare inf
 -ing (present participle)
 -ed (past participle)
o Verbless

 PHRASE LEVEL (Formal Structure of the clause)
- NP
- GenP
- VP
- AdjP
- AdvP
- PrepP

 WORD LEVEL
OPEN CLASS
- Noun (common – proper)
- Verb (lexical – primary aux – modal aux)
- Adjective
- Adverb

CLOSED CLASS
- Determiner (pnadirq)
- Pronoun (pprrrdiq)
- Preposition
- Particle
- Conjunction (co – sub)
- Interjection

, 3.2 FUNCTION (function)
 CLAUSE LEVEL (Functional structure of the clause)
- V
- S
- DO (lw)
- IO (mw)
- PO
- CS
- CO
- By-ag
- Adverbial (adjunct, conjunct, disjunct)
- Co-or/Sub-or

 PHRASE LEVEL
- Determiner (only in NP)
- Premodifier
- Head
- Postmodifier
- Prepositional Complement (only in PP & only FUNCTIONAL)

4. Grammatical Analysis at SENTENCE level

CLAUSE COUNT: #VPs

 Simple (S)
o 1 main clause (=1)
o ___________

 Compound (Cd)
o at least 2 main clauses (=min. 2) & connected by and/or/but/-/,/;
o ____and/or/but_____ + _____

 Complex (Cx)
o 1 main clause and at least 1 subclause (= 1 + min. 1)
o _____
______ +______

 Compound-Complex (Cd-Cx)
o at least 2 main clauses (connected by…) and at least 1 subclause (=min. 2 +
min. 1)
o _____ and/or/but/ ______ + ________
o ______ + _______

 Complex-Compound (Cx-Cd)
o 1 main clause and at least 2 subclauses (= 1 + min. 2)
o ______
______+_____ +_____