MORPHOLOGY

For this chapter, please refer to the

highlighted parts in the PDF file (pages
212-225).

GRAMMAR
English Grammar
 We need a way of describing the
structure of phrases which will account
for all of the grammatical sequences
 and rule out all the ungrammatical
sequences.
 The process of describing the structure
of phrases and sentences in such a way
that we account for all the grammatical
sequences in a language and rule out
all the ungrammatical sequences is one
way of defining grammar.
 The phrases and sentences can be
described as ill-formed or well-formed:
  For example, the phrase the lucky boys
is a well-formed phrase in English, but
∗boys the lucky ∗lucky boys the are
not at all well-formed (We use an
asterisk ∗ to indicate that a form is
unacceptable or ungrammatical.)

Traditional Grammar
The terms ‘article’, ‘adjective’ and
‘noun’ come from traditional grammar,
 which has its origins in the description
of languages such as Latin and Greek.
 Since there was a well-established
grammatical description of Latin, based
on earlier analyses of Greek, it seemed
appropriate to adopt the existing
categories from this description and
apply them in the analysis of newer
languages such as English. Because
Latin and Greek were the languages of
philosophy, religion and scholarship,
 the description of the grammatical
components of these languages was
taken to be the best model for other
grammars.
 We have inherited a number of terms
from the model that are used in
describing those basic grammatical
components, known as the “parts of
speech,” and how they connect to each
other in terms of “agreement.”
The parts of speech
The terms for the parts of speech, or
word class, are nouns, adjectives,
verbs, adverbs, prepositions, pronouns,
and conjunctions. (Please go to page
248-249 for definitions and examples).
Agreement
Traditional grammatical analysis has also
given us a number of other categories,
including ‘number’, ‘person’, ‘tense’,
‘voice’ and ‘gender’. These categories
can be discussed in isolation, but their
role in describing language structure
becomes clearer when we consider them
in terms of agreement. Please go to
page 250-251 for definitions and
examples.
Grammatical gender
 Grammatical gender is based on the
type of noun, such as masculine or
feminine or neuter. Natural gender is
based on a biological distinction
between male, female or neither male
nor female.
 For example, Spanish has two
grammatical genders, masculine and
feminine, illustrated by the expressions
(el= is used before masculine singular
nouns) e.g. el sol (‘the sun’) and (la= is
 used before feminine singular nouns)
e.g. la luna (‘the moon’).
Also, Arabic has two grammatical
genders, such as:
‫ =هذه شمس‬feminine
‫=هذا قمر‬masculine
The grammatical category of gender is
very applied in describing a number of
languages (including Latin) but may not
be appropriate for describing forms in
other languages such as English.
The Prescriptive Approach
 An approach taken in eighteenth-
century England.
 It is an approach to grammar that has
rules for the correct proper use of the
language, traditionally based on Latin
grammar.
 Some familiar examples of prescriptive
rules for English sentences are:
1- You must not split an infinitive.
 2- You must not end a sentence with a
preposition.
 Following these types of rules,
traditional teachers would correct
sentences like Who did you go with? 
With whom did you go? (Making sure
that the preposition with was not at the
end of the sentence).

Captain Kirk’s infinitive

 The infinitive in English has the form to
+ the base form of the verb, as in to
go, and can be used with an adverb
such as boldly. Captain Kirk always
used the expression to boldly go. This is
an example of a split infinitive.
 You can better think that there are
different structures in English than
those found in Latin, rather than think
of the English forms as ‘bad’ because
they are breaking a rule of Latin
grammar.

The Descriptive Approach

Describing the regular structures of
the language as it is used, not
according to some view of how it
should be used is called the
Descriptive Approach. Analysis
collects samples of the language they
 are interested, and they describe the
structures of the language.
 We have got two different types under
this approach:
1- Structural Analysis.
2- Immediate Constituent Analysis.
Please refer to page 257-258 for
definitions and examples.
Subjects and Objects
Please refer to Figure 7.4 and Table 7.2
to understand the different functions of
noun phrases in a sentence, page 259-
260.

Word order
 The linear order of constituents in a
sentence (e.g., Subject–Verb–Object),
used in language typology to identify
different types of languages.
 The English word order sequence is not
the only possible, or even the most
common word order among languages.
 The most common pattern is
Subject–Object–Verb (SOV), as
illustrated in the Japanese sentence in
Table 7.3, with the verb at the end of
the sentence. Japanese is a verb-final
language. Refer to page 261 for more
word order examples from other
languages.
Language Typology
 The use of word order patterns such as
SVO or VOS to talk about different
“types” of languages is part of a more
general area of study known as
language typology.
 Language typology: is the
identification of a language as one of a
specific type, often based on word
order such SVO or SOV. This is the
study of similarities in the grammatical
structures of languages that allow them
to be classified as members of the
same type or group.

SYNTAX
 If we concentrate on the structure and
ordering of components within a
sentence, we are studying what is
 technically known as the syntax of a
language. The word “syntax” comes
originally from Greek and literally
means “a putting together” or
“arrangement.”

Syntactic rules
When we set out to provide an
analysis of the syntax of a language,
we try to adhere to the “all and
only” criterion. This means that our
 analysis must account for all the
grammatically correct phrases and
sentences and only those
grammatically correct phrases and
sentences in whatever language we
are analysing.

Generative grammar
 Generative grammar is a small and
finite (i.e., limited) set of rules that are
capable of producing a large and
 potentially infinite (i.e., unlimited)
number of well-formed structures.
 This small and finite set of rules can be
used to “generate” or “produce”
sentence structures and not just
describe them.
 This type of Generative grammar
should be capable of revealing the
basis of two phenomena:
1- how some superficially different
phrases and sentences are closely
related (Deep and Surface Structure).
2- how some superficially similar
phrases and sentences are in fact
different (Structural
Ambiguity).
 1. Deep and Surface Structures
Charlie broke the window.
The window was broken by Charlie.
Their syntactic forms are different. One
is an active sentence, the other is a
passive one. So, it can be said that they
differ in “surface structure, however,
their deep structures are identical.
They carry the same meaning. The
deep structure is an abstract level of
structural organisation in which all the
elements determining structural
interpretation are represented.
Surface 1 Surface 2

Deep structure

1. Structural Ambiguity
I once shot an elephant in my pyjamas.
 This sentence is structurally
ambiguous, since it has two underlying
interpretations which would be
represented differently in the deep
structure.
--- part of the underlying structure of the
first sentence could be something like: “I
shot an elephant (while I was) in my
pyjamas.” In the other interpretation,
part of the underlying structure would be
something like: “I shot an elephant
(which was) in my pyjamas.” There are
two different underlying structures with
the same surface structure.

Please refer to (chapter 8) for

examples, clarifications and the rest of
the topics we discussed in the class
(Syntactic Analysis- Phrase Structure
Rules- Lexical Rules- Tree Diagrams)
(Pages 293-299).