THE GRAMMAR OF ENGLISH

1
THE GRAMMAR OF ENGLISH

• CHAPTER 3

2
WHAT IS GRAMMAR?

• Different meanings
• ETYMOLOGICALLY LINKED TO WRITTEN LETTERS, BUT
  GRADUALLY HAS ACQUIRED A WIDER MEANING
• IMPLICIT KNOWLEDGE OF HOW LANGUAGE WORKS
• EXPLICIT KNOWLEDGE OF HOW LANGUAGE WORKS
• THE RULES FOR THE PRODUCTION OF CORRECT LANGUAGE
• DIFFERENT TYPES OF GRAMMAR PEDAGOGICAL/NORMATIVE,
  DESCRIPTIVE, THEORETICAL (e.g. Hallidays
  systemic grammar)

3
WHAT IS GRAMMAR MADE OF?

• Grammar language
• Phonology
• Morphology
• Word-formation
• Syntax
• Lexis and phraseology
• Semantics
• Text and discourse
• Punctuation

• The central core of grammar
• morphology
• inflectional (and derivational, see Chapter
  4)
• syntax

4
MORPHOLOGY

• THE STUDY OF THE INTERNAL STRUCTURE OF WORDS
• e.g. the plural s inflection for nouns and
  the ed inflection for verbs

5
SYNTAX

• THE WAY IN WHICH WORDS COMBINE TO FORM LARGER
  UNITS OF MEANING
• e.g. phrases, clauses, sentences
• Example word order in a noun phrase or in
  statements and questions
• e.g. She is a beautiful girl
• NOT She is a girl beautiful

6
IN PRESENT-DAY ENGLISH

• limited presence of inflectional morphology
  compared to Old English (and other languages such
  as Italian or German)
• and
• greater importance of syntax and word order in
  signalling grammatical relations

7
GRAMMATICAL UNITS

• TEXT
• SENTENCE (frase complessa)
• CLAUSE (frase semplice
• /principale o
  subordinata)
• PHRASE ( not frase but
  
• 
  sintagma/gruppo)
• WORD
• MORPHEME

8
What is a MORPHEME?

• Unhappy un-happy
• Cats
  cat-s
• A morpheme is the smallest unit of meaning or
  grammatical function
• Lexical e.g. pen, book
• Functional or grammatical e.g. if, the
• free can stand alone as a word e.g. basket,
  woman
• bound cannot stand alone and must be linked to
  another morpheme (called base or root) e.g. -ly,
  un-, -able, -ee

9
MORPHEMES and MORPHS

• Played play-ed
  PLAY past
• Unhelpful un-help-ful
  negativeHELP adjective
• WORDS MORPHS MORPHEMES
• (concrete)
  (abstract)

10
ALLOMORPHS

• -ed
• the morph that indicates past tense can be
  realised phonetically in different ways
  (allomorphs) depending on the phonological
  context
• e.g. Raised d
• looked t
• decided Id

11
TWO BRANCHES OF MORPHOLOGY

• INFLECTIONAL DEALS WITH CHANGES THAT HAVE
  GRAMMATICAL MEANING
• e.g. est signalling the superlative of
  adjectives
• DERIVATIONAL DEALS WITH THE PROCESS OF NEW WORD
  FORMATION
• e.g. un-happ(y)i-ness (see Chapter 4)

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WHAT IS A WORD?

• Marys brother-in-law lost his identity card
  during the week-end
• How many words are there in this clause?

13
HOW MANY WORDS ARE THERE IN THIS SENTENCE?

• I asked him to list all his books, but instead
  of listing them all, he listed only his favourite
  book
• 20 or 14 or a number in between?

14
IT DEPENDS ON THE CRITERIA OF WORDHOOD USED

• Phonological a word is preceded and followed
  by pauses
• Orthographic a word is preceded and followed
  by spaces or punctuation marks
• Prosodic a word takes one main stress
• Internal integrity a word is an indivisible
  unit
• Semantic a word has a single meaning

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Word/word forms/lexemes

• List/listing/listed 3 word forms of the LEXEME
  TO LIST
• Book/books 2 word forms of the LEXEME BOOK
• He/him two word forms of the LEXEME HE

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WORDS IN DICTIONARIES

• ENTRY an independent lexical unit in
  alphabetical order
• HEADWORD the main word of the entry
• LEMMA the canonical form, e.g. the singular for
  nouns

17
Words are traditionally grouped into

• WORD CLASSES
• OR
• PARTS OF SPEECH

18
HOW MANY AND WHAT ARE THEY?

• NOUNS
• VERBS ( LEXICAL vs. AUXILIARY VERBS)
• ADJECTIVES
• ADVERBS
• ARTICLES or DETERMINERS
• PRONOUNS
• CONJUNCTIONS
• PREPOSITIONS
• INTERJECTIONS/INSERTS e.g. oh, yes, right

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OPEN AND CLOSED CLASSES

• open-class words ? lexical or content words wide
  and open membership mixed etymological origin
  4 classes nouns, (lexical) verbs, adjectives,
  adverbs
• closed-class words ? grammatical or function
  words limited membership and high frequency of
  use short usually of Germanic origin 5
  classes pronouns, determiners, auxiliaries,
  prepositions, conjunctions

20
MULTIPLE CLASS MEMBERSHIP

• the same word form may belong to more than one
  word class
• e.g. fast (adj.), fast (adv.), fast (n.)
• park (n.), to park (v.)
• can (n.), can (aux.)
• only the co-text, i.e. the surroundings of the
  word, allows the reader/listener to understand
  the difference
• word stress helps disambiguation
• e.g. rebel (n.) ?????, rebel
  (v.) ??????

21
NOUNS

• Open class with a naming function
• common (city, house) or proper (London, Mary, the
  White House)
• Concrete (bread) or abstract (love)
• Countable (book/books) and uncountable or mass
  (milk, furniture, information)
• may take the s genitive case (genitivo sassone)

22
VERBS lexical and auxiliary verbs

• open class denoting actions or
  states
• lexical /main / full verbs e.g. I like English
• 
  He walked to school
• auxiliary verbs (or auxiliaries) are added to
  lexical verbs for various purposes
• e.g. I could go faster. (modality)
• John is going nowhere. (progressive aspect)
• Do you go to school? (question)
• I do love him! (emphasis)

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LEXICAL VERBS

• dynamic referring to physical processes allow
  the progressive form
• e.g. to play, to walk, to drink
• Stative/state referring to states and
  conditions do not allow the progressive form
• e.g. to know, to love, to believe
• 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• Some can be both , e.g. to feel

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ADJECTIVES

• Open-class with a
  descriptive function
• attributive function, before a noun
• e.g. the extraordinary boy
• predicative function, after copular verbs (to be,
  to seem, to appear) e.g. John is tall
• some adjectives are only used in either
  attributive or predicative function
• e.g. the child is afraid (predicative)
• the afraid child but the freightened child
• e.g. the main task (attributive)
• the task is main but the task is crucial /
  
• 
  important

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GRADABILITY OF ADJECTIVES

• most adjectives are gradable
• it is possible to indicate to what extent the
  quality referred to by an adjective applies by
  using intensifiers
• e.g. lucky
• very lucky extremely lucky
• some adjectives are not gradable
• e.g huge extremely huge
• unique very unique

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ADVERBS A very heterogeneous class

• Fortunately, today the dog has eaten his food
  very quietly outside
• comment when
  how / how /where
• provide information about how, when, and where
• allow the speaker to comment on the whole
  utterance
• express degree with adjectives or other adverbs

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Subclasses of adverbs

• Circumstance adverbs or adjuncts give additional
  information about an element of the sentence
• e.g. The surgeon completed the operation
  carefully
• Stance adverbs or disjuncts provide a comment on
  the sentence
• e.g. Frankly, I should have told her what
  happened
• Linking adverbs or conjuncts connect one
  sentence or part of a sentence to another
• e.g. She wasnt free to go to New York at
  Christmas and besides she couldnt afford it.

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CONJUNCTIONS

• join linguistic elements
• coordinating conjunctions, or coordinators
• e.g. and, but, or
• subordinating conjunctions, or subordinators
• - simple, e.g. because, although, when
• - complex, e.g. as far as, in order to

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PREPOSITIONS

• show the relationship between two items
• typically followed by a noun phrase with which
  they form a Prepositional Phrase (PP)
• e.g. the dog ran under the table
• simple single word
• e.g. under, over, at, on
• complex more than one word
• according to, on behalf of, with regard to

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DETERMINERS

• Function words used before a noun to indicate
  definiteness or indefiniteness, quantity,
  possession
• e.g. all these sugary cookies filled with jam and
  cream
• The main subclasses are
• Articles (indefinite and definite) a, an, the
• demonstratives this, that, these, those
• possessives my, your, his, her, their, our, its
  etc.
• quantifiers all, few, many, several, some,
  every, each, any, etc.
• cardinal numbers one, two, fifty, etc.
• ordinal numbers first, second, third, etc.

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PRONOUNS

• closed class of words which replace words thus
  avoiding repetitions
• e.g. Michelle was offered an exciting new job and
  she decided to take it
• Main subclasses
• personal pronouns
• e.g. They love football (subject) She loves
  them (object)
• possessive pronouns
• e.g. This book is mine
• Demonstrative pronouns
• e.g. This is my friend Tom
• reflexive pronouns
• e.g. She hurt herself
• interrogative pronouns
• e.g. Whose car is this?
• relative pronouns
• e.g. This is the car which/that I want to
  buy

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AUXILIARIES

• A closed class of verbs which accompany lexical
  verbs
• Two subclasses
• primary auxiliaries
• have, be, do
• e.g. Liz is looking for a job, Do you speak
  English? She has studied a lot
• modal auxiliaries (modality)
• can, could, shall, should, will, would, may,
  might, must,
• e.g. I must go now! Would you like a cup of
  coffee?

33
WH-WORDS

• A frequently used expression to refer to function
  words beginning with wh-
• adverbs (interrogative, relative, exclamative)
• e.g. When did you call her?
• pronouns (interrogative, relative, exclamative)
• e.g. Whose car is that?
• determiners (interrogative, relative,
  exclamative)
• e.g. Which book did you choose?

34
NUMERALS

• cardinal, e.g. one, two, three, etc.
• ordinal, e.g. first, second, third, etc.
• numerals may function as nouns
• e.g. The Magnificent Seven

35
PDE REGULAR INFLECTIONS

• NOUNS - s plural,
• NOUNS -s possessive or genitive
• case
• VERBS - s 3rd pers. sing.
• VERBS - ed past tense,
• VERBS - ed past participle
• VERBS -ing -ing form, gerund
• ADJECTIVES -er comparative
• ADJECTIVES -est superlative

36
NUMBER in English NOUNS

• Most nouns add -s e.g. girls, toys, cars
• some nouns add -es e.g. tomatoes, branches,
  knives
• the pronunciation of the inflectional ending
  -s/-es depends on the phonetic context, i.e.
  there are three allomorphs of the plural morpheme
  -s
• e.g. cakes /s/ (preceded by the voiceless
  consonant /k/)
• beans /z/ (preceded by the voiced consonant
  /n/)
• judges /iz/
• some nouns have irregular plural endings
• e.g. children, teeth, mice, oxen, curricula,
  sheep (see p. 131)
• uncountable nouns
• e.g. evidence, advice, equipment,
  information

37
POSSESSIVE CASE IN ENGLISH NOUNSThe s genitive
versus the of-form. Synthetic versus analytic
option

• SAY WHETHER THE FOLLOWING EXAMPLES ARE ALL
  ACCEPTABLE AND DISCUSS THE RULE OF THE s
  GENITIVE versus THE OF FORM
• Johns car is fast
• the car of John is fast
• the students protest is still going on
• the protest of the students is still going on
• the car of the friend who is visiting me was
  stolen last night
• The friend who is visiting mes car was stolen
  last night
• yesterdays newspaper
• the newspaper of yesterday
• the journeys end
• The end of the journey
• The legs of the table
• the tables legs

38
S or of GENITIVE

• Johns car is fast
• NO the car of John is fast
• the students protest is still going on
• the protest of the students is still going on
• the car of the friend who is visiting me was
  stolen last night
• NO The friend who is visiting mes car was stolen
  last night
• yesterdays newspaper
• NO the newspaper of yesterday
• the journeys end
• The end of the journey
• The legs of the table
• NO the tables legs

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VERB INFLECTIONS

• MOST ENGLISH VERBS ARE REGULAR AND HAVE A
  PARADIGM OF 5 WORD FORMS and 4 VERB
  INFLECTIONS
• e.g. Love/loves/loved/loved/loving
• THERE IS A SMALLER NUMBER OF VERY FREQUENTLY
  USED IRREGULAR VERBS
• e.g. put, put, put
• lose, lost, lost
• take, took, taken
• speak, spoke, spoken
• go, went, gone
• AUXILIARIES ARE VERY IRREGULAR, e.g. The verb
  to be has forms that differ from one another ,
  e.g. am, are, is, was, were, been ( PROCESS OF
  SUPPLETION)
• MOST MODAL VERBS DO NOT INFLECT AND HAVE ONLY
  TWO FORMS, e.g. may, might, can, could

40
GRADABILITY OF ADJECTIVES AND ADVERBS

• Synthetic comparison
• -er ending (comparative) e.g. warmer
• -est ending (superlative) e.g. finest
• versus
• phraseological/analytic comparison (for
  polysyllabic words)
• more and most e.g. more/ most
  interesting
• more quickly
• irregular comparison (process of suppletion)
• e.g. good better best little, less, least
  much, more, most
• well, better, best bad, worse, worst

41
PRONOUN INFLECTION

• Pronouns, and personal pronouns in
  particular, have retained a certain degree of
  inflection in PDE.
• e.g. personal pronouns express NUMBER,
  GENDER and CASE often through suppletive forms
• I-me we-us, you-you, he-him, she-her, it-it,
  they-them

42
PHRASE ( SINTAGMA/GRUPPO)

• a unit of syntax made up of one or more words
• it contains an obligatory head and optional
  modifiers
• The black labrador (NP) was chewing (VP) a juicy
  bone (NP) very noisily (AdvP)

43
TYPES OF PHRASES

• NOUN PHRASE (NP) my friend Paul / Tom
• VERB PHRASE (VP) is/ is laughing
• ADJECTIVE PHRASE (AdjP) very tall/ absolutely
  brilliant
• ADVERB PHRASE (AdvP) quietly, never
• PREPOSITIONAL PHRASE (PP) in the garden/ on
  Monday
• except for prepositional phrases (PP) phrases can
  be constituted by a single lexical item
• all phrases can be extended by pre-modification
  or post-modification

44
TYPES OF NOUN PHRASES
determiner pre-modifier HEAD post-modifier
- - John -
my leather (n.) suitcase -
a large, old, blue (size, age, colour) suitcase with wheels
45
MORE NOUN PHRASES
det. pre-modifier HEAD post-modifier
The London experience -
- Londons churches -
The - London I know
46
AMBIGUITY in NPs

• The French history teacher
• the (det.) French (pre-mod.) history (pre-mod.)
  teacher (head)
• the French history teacher
• (the teacher of history is French)
• the French history teacher
• (the teacher teaches French history)

47
tree diagramThe French history teacher the
teacher of history is French

• NP
• det. Pre-mod.Adj
  headNP
• 
  modN head N
• The French history
  teacher

48
tree diagramThe French history teacher the
teacher teaches French history

• NP
• det. Pre-mod.NP
  HeadN
• Pre-modAdj. HeadN
• The French history teacher

49
COMPLEX POST-MODIFICATION

• The proposal for a new building which the
  committee put forward last week
• -for a new building (PP)
• -which the committee put forward last week
  (relative clause)

50
TREE DIAGRAM An interesting government report
about air pollution

• NP
• Det. Mod.(adj.) Mod.(N.) HeadN
  Post-ModPP
• 
  HeadPrep C NP
• 
  
• 
  Mod.N HeadN
• An interesting government report about air
  pollution

51
FREQUENCY OF NPs IN ENGLISH

• PRE-MODIFICATION IS MORE COMMON THAN
  POST-MODIFICATION IN ALL REGISTERS
• COMPLEX PRE- AND POST-MODIFICATION IS TYPICAL
  OF SOME REGISTERS SUCH AS WRITTEN ACADEMIC
  PROSE AND NEWSPAPER HEADLINES

52
ENGLISH/ITALIAN NPs

• Translate these noun phrases into Italian and
  notice the differences between the two languages
• 1. The Los Angeles Police Department
• Il Dipartimento di Polizia di Los Angeles
• 2. Air pollution
• Linquinamento dellaria/atmosferico
• 3. The Birmingham train
• Il treno per/da /di (?) Birmingham
• 4. The proposal of a national curriculum
• La proposta di un curricolo nazionale
• 5. The countrys leading expert on youth culture
• Il maggior esperto del paese sulla cultura
  giovanile /Il maggior esperto di cultura
  giovanile del paese

53
Italian versus English NPs

• English favours premodification (to the left of
  the head). NPs are concise and at times ambiguous
  
• Italian favours postmodification (to the right
  of the head) and the use of prepositional
  phrases. NPs are longer and more explicit

54
VERB PHRASEs finite/ non-finite

• finite verbs or VPs marked by tense
• e.g. John plays the guitar
• I enjoyed the concert
• non-finite verbs or VPs not marked by tense,
  person or number
• e.g. To arrive on time was their objective
• She traveled accompanied by her father
• She broke her leg while skiing

55
VERB PHRASES TENSE versus TIME

• TENSE property allowing the verb to
  differentiate between present and past TIME
• e.g. Jane likes music / Jane liked music
• Unlike in Italian, there is no morphologically
  marked form to express future time in English
  (but a range of forms such as will/shall
  infinitive, going to, simple present, present
  progressive etc. see 148-149)

56
VERB PHRASE ASPECT

• Property allowing the verb to give information
  about the state or the action
• Progressive ( or continuous) the action is in
  progress at the time of utterance
• Sarah is helping her sister
• perfect the action is complete, that is it
  occurred at an earlier time and continues to the
  time of utterance or is relevant to it
• Sarah has helped her sister when she was in her
  teens
• perfectprogressive ( often called duration
  form) stresses
• continuity in the past and includes the time
  of utterance
• Sarah has been helping her sister since she was
  12

57
Translate into Italian and identify the main
differences between the two languages

1. Sarah helps her sister every Thursday
2. Sara aiuta sua sorella tutti i giovedì
3. Lately Sarah is helping her sister a lot
4. Ultimamente Sara sta aiutando/aiuta molto sua
   sorella
5. Sarah has helped her sister to recover from her
   illness
6. Sara ha aiutato sua sorella a riprendersi dalla
   malattia
7. Sarah helped her sister one year ago when she was
   ill
8. Sara ha aiutato/aiutò sua sorella un anno fa
   quando era malata
9. Sarah has been helping her sister since last May
10. Sara sta aiutando/aiuta/sua sorella dal maggio
    scorso.

58
Translate from Italian into English

• Sono andata a Londra molte volte
• I have been to London several times
• Vivo a Londra
• I live in London
• Vado a Londra ogni anno
• I go to London every year
• Vivo a Londra da 5 anni e continua a piacermi
  molto
• I have been living in London for 5 years and I
  still enjoy it a lot
• Ho vissuto a Londra per 5 anni prima di tornare
  in Italia
• I lived in London for 5 years before coming back
  to Italy
• Vivevo a Londra quando ho incontrato John
• I was living in London when I met John

59
VERB PHRASE VOICE

• The singer performed the song
• The song was performed by the singer
• NP1VP NP2 ? NP2 beVPed byNP1
• The singer was performing the song
• The song was being performed by the singer

60
FUNCTIONS OF THE PASSIVE

• the agent is unknown or irrelevant
• Mr Constable has been murdered
• the focus is on the process to convey
  objectivity, especially in academic prose
• The results of the tests have been checked
  several times
• to disclaim responsibility
• He is said to be a womanizer
• More frequent in scientific writing and in the
  Press

61
MODAL VERBS AND MODALITY

• MODALS ARE FREQUENTLY USED IN ENGLISH AND
  BELONG TO THE GERMANIC CORE OF THE LANGUAGE.
• THEY EXPRESS A WIDE RANGE OF MEANINGS
  referring either to actions controlled by humans
  ( DEONTIC MODALITY) or to the levels of certainty
  of an event (EPISTEMIC MODALITY). The same modals
  can express different meanings. The same meanings
  can be expressed in different ways.

62
THE MAIN MEANINGS OF MODAL VERBS

• PERMISSION e.g. Can I go to the loo? Could I
  borrow your notes? (Am I allowed to ask a
  question?)
• ABILITY e.g. I can ski, (I know how to do it)
  
• POSSIBILITY e.g. She may be ill . She might be
  ill (Perhaps she is ill)
• OBLIGATION e.g. You must stop talking. You
  should pay attention, You have to do it. This
  needs to be done
• LOGICAL NECESSITY e.g. She must be ill (She is
  very likely to be ill)
• VOLITION e.g. Ill do it for you
• PREDICTION e.g. It will rain tomorrow

63
WHAT ABOUT MODAL VERBS IN ITALIAN?

• Translate the following expressions into English
• Devi smettere di fumare
• You must stop smoking
• Dovresti smettere di fumare
• You should stop smoking
• Posso fumare?
• Can I smoke ? May I smoke?
• Potrei fumare?
• Could I smoke? Might I smoke?
• Domani può piovere
• It may rain tomorrow
• Domani potrebbe piovere
• It might rain tomorrow
• Domani pioverà
• It will rain tomorrow
• Sa sciare molto bene
• She can ski very well
• Sapeva sciare bene quando era giovane

64
OTHER PHRASES

• ADJECTIVE PHRASE
• e.g. Beautiful/ (really) beautiful
• ADVERB PHRASE
• e.g. Slowly/ (fairly) slowly
• PREPOSITIONAL PHRASE
• at University / at (Turin) University ( see
  pp. 153-158)

65
Analysis of prepositional phrases

• in the classroom
• In ( Head prep) the classrom (C NP)
• near Rome
• Near ( Head prep) Rome (C NP)

66
HOW CAN A CLAUSE BE ANALYSED?

• First into Subject predicate
• John ( what is talked about) is English
  (what is said about the topic)
• Then into the 5 main functional elements of the
  clause
• S (Subject),
• V (Verb or Verb Phrase or Predicator ),
• O (Object) complemento oggetto
• C (Complement) predicato nominale, del soggetto o
  delloggetto
• A (Adverbial) vari tipi di complementi . They are
  often optional.

67
WORD ORDER in PDE

• Translate the following clauses into English
• Seguiranno alcuni esempi
• Some examples will follow
• Nel capitolo 3 verrà presentata la grammatica
• Grammar will be presented in Chapter 3
• Giovanni parla molto bene litaliano /litaliano
  molto bene
• John speaks Italian very well
• Odio stirare
• I hate ironing
• Piove forte da molte ore
• Its been raining heavily for many
  hours
• Cè un gatto in giardino
• There is a cat in the garden
• CONCLUSION
• The unmarked word order in English in SVO, while
  in Italian this order can vary to a certain
  extent
• The subject is compulsory in English , and not in
  Italian. If there is no subject, a dummy
  (empty) subject will be used (it/there).

68
THE VERB

• IS THE CENTRAL PART OF THE CLAUSE SINCE IT
  DETERMINES THE OTHER ELEMENTS ( e.g. verb
  complementation or valency)
• She was laughing one-place verb
• She was playing the piano two-place verb
• She was very beautiful two-place verb
• She gave him a kiss three-place
  verb
• She made him happy three-place verb

69
CLAUSE ELEMENTS
S V O C A
The black labrador (NP) has bitten (VP) Mr Allington (NP)
He (NP) put (VP) the keys (NP) in his bag (AdvP)
Sue (NP) is feeling (VP) very sleepy (AdjP)
70
S V O C A
It (dummy subject) is going to rain (VP)
Armstrong (NP) became (VP) the first man on the moon (NP)
Chris (NP) made (VP) Sara (NP) really angry (AdjP) yesterday (AdvP)
What I dont understand (clause) is (VP) Why you lied to me ( clause)

71
SVOiOd
S V Oi (Indirect Object) Od (Direct Object)
She gave me a kiss
She gave her sister a glass of wine
She gave Od a glass of wine Oi to her sister
72
SV (intransitive verb). No complementation The
black labrador was barking

• clause
• SNP PVP
• det. mod.(adj.) head (n.) aux.
  head (v.)
• the black labrador was
  barking

73
SVOd (monotransitive)Andrew bought a sports car

• clause
• SNP
  PVP
  
• V OdNP
• head (n.) head (v.)
  det. mod. (n..) head (n.)
• Andrew bought a
  sports car

74
SVOd (monotransitive)Andrew bought a sports car

• clause
• SNP
  PVP
  
• V OdNP
• head (n.) head (v.)
  det. mod. (adj.) head (n.)
• Andrew bought a
  sports car

75
SVA ( an obligatory Adverbial)The taxi is
waiting outside

• clause
• SNP
  PVP
• V AAdvP
• det. head (n.) aux. head
  (v.) head (adv.)
• The taxi is waiting
  outside

76
SVCs (copular verb)The weather has turned very
nasty

• clause
• SNP
  PVP
• V CAdjP
• det. head (n.) aux. head(v.)
  mod.(adv.) head(adj.)
• The weather has turned
  very nasty

77
Copular verbs

• be, feel, seem, appear, look, remain, stay,
  become, sound, taste
• e.g. I am / feel rather tired (C AdjP)
• She became a nurse (CNP)
• You look extremely happy (CAdjP)
• Mary appeared in good health (CPP)
• That is what I mean (C clause)

78
SVOiOd (di-transitive)Gill told her child a
bedtime story

• clause
• SNP
  PVP
• V OiNP
  OdNP
• head(n.) head(v.) det. head(n.)
  det. mod.(n.) h(n.)
• Gill told her child
  a bedtime story

79
Di-transitive verbs

• Give, tell, bring, buy, show
• e.g. John showed me (Oi) his new car (Od)
• They bought him (Oi) a new racket (Od)
• Tell us (Oi) the truth (Od)

80
SVOdCo (complex transitive)The judges declared
Jackie the winner

• clause
• SNP PVP
  
• V ONP CoNP
• det. head (n.) head (v.)
  head(n.) det. h(n.)
• The judges declared Jackie
  the winner

81
SVOdATerry put the rubbish in the dustbin

• clause
• SNP PVP
• V ONP APP
• 
  
• head (n.) head(v.) det. h(n.) h
  (prep) CNP
• 
  det. h(n.)
• Terry put the rubbish in
  the dustbin

82
Adverbial

• Optional elements added to the obligatory
  elements of the clause
• Circumstance adverbial additional information
• e.g. The taxi is waiting outside
• Stance adverbial speakers feeling / attitude
• e.g. Hopefully I will pass all my exams in June
• Linking adverbial
• e.g. In conclusion, alls well that ends well.

83
Obligatory adverbial

• Adverbials that are required to complete the
  meaning of the verb
• E.g. Sally put the bread on the table (obligatory
  Adverbial)
• vs. Sally cut the bread on the table (optional
  Adverbial)
• Verbs put, last, live

84
Adverbials vs. complements

• John was very quiet (C)
• John was in bed (A)
• They are in good health (C)
• They are in the garden (A)
• You should stay sober (C)
• You should stay here (A)
• Complements describe or characterize the S (or O)
• Adverbials typically express place or direction.

85
TO SUM-UP THE CLAUSE ELEMENTS S/V/O/C/A

1. SV
2. The baby is crying
3. SVA
4. The concert lasted three hours
5. SVOd
6. She is playing tennis
7. SVOdA
8. She put the rubbish in the dustbin
9. SVCs
10. She is Indian
11. SVOiOd
12. He gave her a kiss
13. SV OdCo
14. They elected her dean of the faculty

86
MAIN AND SUBORDINATE CLAUSES

• Mary had been waiting for more than an hour
• Suddenly, she stood up and went out
• She said that she was not feeling well because
  the air in the room was stuffy
• She wanted to get some fresh air
• a main clause always contains a finite verb and
  typically contains an overt subject
• a subordinate clause cannot stand alone and needs
  to be attached to a free-standing clause
• a non-finite clause is always subordinate
• simple clauses consist of a clause, compound
  clauses consist of two coordinate clauses,
  complex clauses consist of a main and one or
  more subordinate clauses.

87
TYPES of CLAUSES

• TYPICAL FUNCTIONS OF CLAUSE TYPES
• FORM FUNCTION
• declarative statement
• interrogative question
• imperative
  directive
• exclamative exclamation
• Shes wearing a new dress.
• Is she wearing a new dress?
• Buy yourself a new dress!
• What a lovely dress shes wearing!

88
DECLARATIVE CLAUSES

• declarative clauses are normally used to make
  statements
• declarative clauses typically have an overt
  subject, a verb element and any necessary verb
  complementation and may also have optional
  adverbials
• Philip will visit his dentist in London today

89
INTERROGATIVE CLAUSES

• yes-no questions Are you happy?
• wh- questions Where do you live?
• Question-tag Shes Australian, isnt she?
• She doesnt love
  him, does she?
• So, you have
  changed your mind,
• have
  you/havent you?
• the interrogative structure implies a
  subject-operator inversion
• any auxiliary which is used to make interrogative
  sentences is labelled operator (be, have, do)
• Questions tags may have contrastive or constant
  polarity ( p. 166)

90
MARKED SENTENCE STRUCTURES

• This book, I really liked it
• EMPHASIS IN SPEECH
• Terry plays jazz piano for fun.
• It is Terry who plays jazz piano for fun.
• Its jazz piano that Terry plays for fun
• Its for fun that Terry plays jazz piano
• It-CLEFT
• I would like a book for my birthday
• What I would like for my birthday is a book
• WH-CLEFT
• CLEFTING
• to highlight a particular element of the
  sentence
• the focussed element is introduced by a dummy
  Subject and followed by a relative clause

91
SENTENCE

• I agreed to go with them (main clause) although I
  wasnt really happy with the idea. (subordinate
  clause)
• the largest unit of syntactic structure
• a sentence must consist of at least one clause
  (main clause)
• in writing, a sentence starts with a capital
  letter and ends with a full stop
• in speech sentences are not always complete

92
TYPES OF SUBORDINATE CLAUSES

• NOMINAL I just hope (that) they will understand
• RELATIVE The man who is sitting next to Tom is
  John
• ADVERBIAL Call me as soon as you get home (time)
  because I have to talk to you (reason) .The boy
  stood on the box so that he could see better
  (purpose). Even though I am tired (concession),
  Ill do it.
• 4. COMPARATIVE This hotel is not so nice as I
  expected

93
TYPES OF RELATIVE CLAUSES

• IN WHAT WAYS DO THE FOLLOWING RELATIVE CLAUSES
  DIFFER? WHICH RELATIVE PRONOUNS CAN BE USED IN
  EACH CONTEXT?
• This is the best hotel (that, which, who, whom,
  whose, zero pronoun) I was able to find
• This hotel, (which, that, who, whose, whom, zero
  pronoun) was renewed last year, is one of the
  best in the city
• The man (which, that, who, whose, whom, zero
  pronoun) you see in the photo is my brother
• The man (which, that, who, whose, whom, zero
  pronoun) is coming towards us is my brother
• The music (that, which, who, whose, whom, zero
  article) we are listening to is Mozart
• We stayed in a lovely hotel, (which, that, who,
  whom, whose) owner is a good friend of mine
• We spent the night in a farm, (which, that, who,
  whom, whose) was very relaxing

94
Accepted options

• This is the best hotel (that, which, zero
  pronoun) I was able to findThis hotel, which was
  renewed last year, is one of the best in the
  cityThe man (that, who,whom, zero pronoun) you
  see in the photo is my brotherThe man (that,
  who) is coming towards us is my brotherThe music
  (that, which, zero article) we are listening to
  is MozartWe stayed in a lovely hotel, whose
  owner is a good friend of mine We spent the
  night in a farm, which was very relaxing

95
RULE OF RELATIVE CLAUSES

• Relative clauses can be either defining ( or
  restrictive) or non-defining (non-restrictive)
  depending on whether they define the antecedent
  or add extra information. Commas are required for
  defining clauses.
• The use of relative pronouns is conditioned by
  the antecedent , whether it is human ( who,whom,
  whose, that) or non-human ( that, whose, which),
  whether it plays the role of subject (who, that,
  which) or object (whom, that, which, zero
  pronoun), whether it is defining ( who, whose,
  whom, that, which) or non-defining (who, whose,
  which).
• There are some fuzzy areas of usage (e.g.
  who/whom)

96
CONDITIONAL SENTENCES (periodo ipotetico)

• 1) If the weather is nice, tomorrow we will go
  to the seaside (it is an open possibility)
• NO If the weather will be nice,
• 2) If the weather were/was nice, we would go to
  the seaside ( it is unlikely)
• 3) If the weather had been nice, we would have
  gone to the seaside (it did not happen)

97
Activity 1 build acceptable noun phrases filling
all the boxes
determiner pre-modifier HEAD post-modifier
MY BEST FRIEND IN TURIN
THESE ELEGANT FLATS IN THE CITY CENTRE
A NEW BOOK ABOUT SHAKESPEARE
98
ACTIVITY 2 Give a top-down scale of the main
grammatical units with an example for each

• SENTENCE Call two taxis, please, because there
  are ten of us
• CLAUSE (main clause) Call two taxis (
  subordinate clause) because there are ten of us
• PHRASE Noun phrase two taxis or Verb phrase
  call
• WORD taxis, call, two, please
• MORPHEME taxi (free lexical morpheme) , -s
  (bound grammatical morpheme)

99
ACTIVITY 3 Give examples of declarative clauses
containing the given verbs and having the
patterns indicated

• 1. Show A time S V Oi Od
• Last night Mary showed us a very interesting
  documentary
• 2. Make S V Od Co
• You have made me very happy
• 3. Be /seems S V Cs
• I am Italian or This seems a good idea

100
ACTIVITY 4 Identify the clause elements in the
following examples

• 1. I am getting really angry
• I (S) am getting (V) really angry (Cs)
• 2. Perhaps we should invite Mary
• Perhaps (A) we (S) should invite (V) Mary
  (Od)
• Its going to rain
• It (S)s going to rain (V)

101
The woman hit the boy with the umbrella

• Use a tree diagram to show that this clause is
  ambiguous
• The woman (S) hit (V) the boy with the umbrella
  (Od)
• Or
• The woman (S) hit (V) the boy (Od) with the
  umbrella (A)