grammar.doc

21/03/2011

Phrases and sentences: grammar

1.      So what is grammar?

Grammar is understood as a system of rules describing the structure of phrases and sentences on the basis of which we would be able to rule out all ungrammatical sentences.

To sleep soundly- to enjoy deep sleep

2.      Types of grammar

a)      mental grammar: a form of internal linguistics knowledge which operates in the production and recognition of appropriately structured expressions in that language. This grammar is subconscious and is not the result of any teaching.  (psychologists)

b)     linguistics etiquette: identification of proper or best structures to be used in a language (interesting for sociologists)

c)      grammar in linguistics: the study and analysis of structures found in a language, usually for the purpose of creating a description of a given language. (most interesting for linguists).

3.      Grammar- long tradition

(categories taken from latin)

In linguistics ‘grammar’ has a long tradition. In traditional approach, deriving from ancient languages such as Latin or Greek.

·         Adjective: a word used before a noun or a pronoun to describe it, as in ‘young girl’, young is an adjective

·         Adverb: a word describing a verb, an adjective or another adverb, as in: ‘She sung beautifully’: beautifully is an adverb.

·         Article: a word used before nouns to indicate if the noun refers to a particular example of something, or to identify the noun as already known. The English language has three articles: 2 indefinite: ‘a’ and ‘an’; and one definite article ‘the’.

·         Conjunction: a word (and, because) which joins sentences.

·         Noun: a word referring to objects (table), places (home, gaming house), people (sister), qualities, or ideas (anger). Nouns can be used as subjects or objects of a verb. For example (all nouns in bold), There is no end to the variety of online games. From action tostrategy, you can spend hours online, playing without spending a single penny. Of course, if you prefer, there are many sites where you can try your luck and play for real money.

·         Preposition: a word (in, at, over, behind) used before a noun, a pronoun, or gerund to indicate location, time, or direction.

·         Pronoun: a word used instead of a noun or a noun phrase, for example ‘she’ instead of ‘Mary’. They refer to things already known.

·         Verb: a word describing an action or a state, such as: go, come, see.

4.      Traditional categories (borrowed from Latin)

·         Agreement

·         Number

·         Person

·         Tense

·         Active/passive voice

·         Gender

a)      agreement- certain word go together

b)     number

On nouns and adjectives (adjectives eg in Polish: białe myszki)

SINGULAR – no special marking

PLURAL – special marking

DUAL number – więcej niż dwie wersje (w polskim: oczami, oczyma)

Plurality:

-          suffixation – końcówka liczby mnogiej - depends on previous sound, may be “s” after voiced, “z” after voiceless etc.

-          irregular nouns: in borrowings, but not only: goose – geese

-          conversion (zero affixation) the plural is the same as in plural: fish – fish

-          supplition – totally deferent: person – people

c) gender

Encodes the sex of the reference

-          masculine – connected with sex

-          feminine – connected with sex

-          neuter – non-sex

czasem trudno jest znaleźć counterpart:

dziekan – dziekanka

marynarz – marynarka

policeman – police officer

CASE

Nouns, In Polish: adjectives – encodes object aims, location, movement toward sth, encodes various actions

d)     person- (1st, 2nd, 3rd)

e)      tense (equivalent of time)

f)       active/passive voice (the action is done to the subject)

5.      Two major approaches

·         Prescriptive (starts with the rules)

·         Descriptive (starts with the samples)

Prescriptive: it claims that the structure of English should be analyzed as the structure of Latin. Even today we can find linguists who support this kind of viewing English grammar.

The best known rules:

-Never split the infinitive

-Never end a sentence with a preposition

If something do not obey rules it is ungrammatical.

Descriptive: grammatical description of Latin may be good for some languages (Italian, Spanish) but completely inappropriate for others. In this approaches they take samples and try to describe some patterns on those languages.

6. Structural analysis- descriptive approach use it

One type of descriptive approach is structural analysis used to learn the distribution of forms in a given language. This method involves the use of ‘test-frames’ which can be sentences with empty slots.

The _______________ makes a lot of noise.

There are many words to fill this slot- we can say that they belong to the same category: nouns. But forms such as Cathy, the dog etc. do not fit it.

7. Immediate constituent analysis (rozbiór gramatyczny zdania)

Sentence constituent- cześć zdania

·         Prepositional phrase (PP) ‘to the wedding’

·         VP- verb phrase

·         Prep- preposition

·         NP- noun phrase

·         PN-proper noun

·         Pro-pronoun

NP is followed by the VP never VP followed by the NP

Exercise:

1.      The cat chased the dog.

2.      John slowly shuffled to the kitchen.

3.      A very old sailor almost certainly went for a walk.