TOPIC 1; INTRODUCTION

1.1- The notion of grammar

 Grammar: the system by which human being know a language:

o Words or vocabulary
o Rules of their pronunciation
o Structure
o Possible combinations of words into sentenced
o Meaning of words and sentences

Ethimiology: Gramma “letter of the alphabet” tekhne “art of letters”

Grammar is a set of rules the speaker has to follow to be grammatical.

Additionally, this term involves words, sentences, lexicon… between
others.

The definitions all mention:

 Rules
 Knowledge
 Different components of a language

Also introduce a key term: ungrammatical

1.5- Grammatical categories

 Grammatical category: class of linguistic expressions (words) which

share a common set of properties.
 Major categories: open classes
o Noun
o Verb
o Adjective
o Adverb
1. All items of each category have broadly the same grammatical
properties
2. The classes are indefinitely extendable
 3. The items have lexical meaning

 Minor categories: closed classes

o Pronouns
o Determinants
o Auxiliaries
o Prepositions
o Conjunctions
4. All items in each category have the same grammatical properties
5. It is very rare to have a new member added
6. The items have no lexical meaning, but contribute grammatical
information

1.2- Linguistics and the components of language

 Linguistics: the study of language systems.
o One of its most important aims is to reveal how the speaker
knows the language.
o The scientific study of languages
o What is language?
 Language s a human capacity, it is known by all
individuals.
o What is linguistic knowledge?
 Linguistic knowledge is a grammar and a grammar of a
language includes all that we know about a language.

 The lexicon
o Contains all the words that a speaker knows
o The unit of analysis is the word
o Knowing a word implies:
 Knowing its pronunciation
 its morphology
 its meaning
  its syntax

 Phonology
o Study of the structure of speech sounds in a particular
language.
o The speaker knows which sounds exist in their language
o Ex: in English /x/ does not exist
o /ph/ does exist, but its not distinctive
 The /ph/ sound does not exist → physics
o The basic unit of analysis is the phoneme
o Minimal pairs are two words which are pronounced the same
way and have the same sounds but one.
 Dog and doll

 Morphology
o Study of the structure and properties of words in a particular
language.
o Ex: in English words can be composed of bare roots, or roots
with affixes (prefixes or suffixes)
o The basic unit of analysis is the morpheme
 Morpheme, unit of a language that cannot be further
divided
o Ex: uncomfortable exists, discomfortable does not

 Syntaxis
o Study of the arrangement of words into a larger unit
 How we combine words
o The basic unit of analysis is the sentence
o Ex: Jane Austen was a wonderful author / not: Was a wonderful
author Jane Austen

 Semantics
 o Study of how meaning is conveyed
o Speakers are able to realize if a certain sentence is ambiguous
(has more than one meaning) or that two similar sentences
can express very different meanings
o Lexical semantics (meaning of individual words): unit of
analysis is the word
o Sentence semantics: unit of analysis is the sentence
o Ex: John is old- old means old of age
o John is an old friend- means I have known John for a very long
time

 When writing make sure to not be ambigouse

o I saw a man with binoculars
 was the man wearing binoculars or the speaker?

 Pragmatics
o Study of the function of language and its use in context.
o Speaker know which structures to use in specific situations
o Ex: the us of tu et vous in French
o The basic unit of analysis is the utterance
 An utterance is something that was said (to utter, to say
 Is the the boss in? The light is on in her office Oh, thanks
 Separate this does not make sense, we need
context to understand. It implies something

1.3- The notion of grammaticality

 Rules of grammar allow speakers to distinguish between

grammatical and ungrammatical constructions.
o What does this say on the notion of grammaticality? if a
sentence does not follow the rules its not grammatical→
ungrammatical
  They also allow us to describe grammatical sentences and, hence,
determine what is wrong with ungrammatical ones.
o Ex:* I’d like to can swim
 can (as all modal verbs) does not have a non-
finite form.
 non-finite: infinitiu, gerundi, participi. Therfore,
modals do not have a non-finite form
 Modal verbs in English are used with non-finite verb
forms to express modality (possibility, necessity, ability,
etc.).
 She asked we needed what
 in questions the wh- object precedes the subject
 (Ungrammatical structures are conventionally preceded by an
asterisk (*))

❗Non-finite verb forms do not show tense, person or number. They

remain unchanged and cannot serve as the main verb of a sentence
by themselves.

There are three types of non-finite verbs: gerunds, participles,

and infinitives.

 Gerunds all end in -ing: skiing, reading, dancing, singing, etc.

o Gerunds act like nouns and can serve as subjects or
objects of sentences.
 A participle is used as an adjective or an adverb.

1.4- Form and Function

 It is very important to distinguish between form and function in

language.
 Form
 o Refers to the structure or shape of a word or phrase. It's about
how a word is constructed or how it changes in different
contexts.
 Nouns: Their form changes with pluralization (e.g., "cat"
becomes "cats").
 Verbs: Their form changes to show tense (e.g., "walk"
becomes "walked").
 Adjectives: Their form can change to show degrees
(e.g., "big," "bigger," "biggest").
 Example**:** Verb form: "play" (base form),
"played" (past tense), "playing" (present
participle).
 That cat → determinant + noun = noun phrase
o This includes Word classes, Phrases and Clauses
 You can know what is a clause because you can replace
it with the word “this”

 Function
o Refers to the role or job a word or phrase performs in a
sentence. It's about how a word contributes to the meaning of
the sentence.
 Nouns: Can function as subjects (who) (e.g., "The cat
sleeps") or objects (what) (e.g., "I see the cat").
 Verbs: Describe actions or states (e.g., "She runs" -
action, "She is tired" - state).
 Adjectives: Modify nouns (e.g., "The blue sky" - "blue"
describes "sky").
 Example: Verb function: In "She plays the
piano," "plays" is the action that "She" performs.
 The cat → Noun phrase = She (S) showed (V) me
(IO) that cat (DO)
o Function → Direct Object
 That cat (S) is furious
 o Function → Subject
o This includes subject, predicate, object, adverbial,
complement and modifier

Form and function in different aspect

 In morphology:
o -ing (suffix)
 Form: /ing/ (sound)
 Function: attached to verbs to present a participle
o -er (sufix)
 Form→ adding -er
 Function → Can make nouns, comparative adjectives
 Fast-er (comparative adjective) =used to create
comparative adjectives
 Work-er → we get a noun
 In syntax:
o Noun
 Form: variable syntactic category which typically shows
singular and plural forms
 Function: only category that can be head of the NP
(noun phrase). Other functions compliment in the NP.
o Noun phrases
 Form: phrase head by a noun which can be pre-modified
by a variable number of determinants, adjectives…
 Function: subject and object. Other functions are
complement of a preposition, subject complements and
adjunct.
 That big dog (subject) is chasing my cat (object)
o who? the big dog / what? my cat
 In pragmatics:
o Yes/No interrogatives
 Form: auxiliary+ subject+ rest of the predicate
  Function: ask a question, make a statement or issue a
command
 Are you coming to the party? question
 Can you pass me the remote? command
 Did you know that she was getting married?
statement

 There is no one-to-one relationship between form and function.

 One category can fulfil different functions, and the same function
can be realized by different categories.
o The suffix -er
 Attached to a verb: person who carries out the action
 Attached to a noun: practiser of (philosopher)
 Attached to an adjective: comparative
o Homonymy, when one form (word) has two meanings
o Synonymy, when a function (meaning) can be expressed by
two words
o The function of a request/command can be carried out by
different form
 imperative: listen to me, please
 interrogative, will you please listen to me?
 declarative, I want you to listen to me
o What is the function of each of these examples?
 Request/ Command

 The function of subject (S in S.V.O) can be realised by different

forms:
o NP: My mother is in the kitchen
o Clause: That Peter arrives early is almost impossible
o Adverb: Tomorrow is my birthday
o PP: After four is fine
Exercise 5 (word document)

 Which different forms can fulfil the function object? with

examples (SVO)
o Noun phrase → She sowed me that cat
o Non-finite verbs → I like running (running is considered a ful
clause bc you can sub for this)
o Finite clause→ Mary (S) wanted to know (V) were I had seen
John (O)
 Is finite because we know the tense of the verb

 Which different forms fulfil the notion plural? with examples

o -s (suffix) inflected→ Adding “-s” make words plural (Regular
plural)
o -en (suffix) inflected → Adding “-en” (Irregular)
o “oo” → to “ee” → Changing double o for double e (Irregular)