Individual words

INDIVIDUAL WORDS

English grammar is traditionally divided into 9 word classes: Nouns (boy, girl), Pronouns (you, me), Verbs (go, see), Articles (the, an), Adjectives (yellow, nice), Adverbs (slowly, very), Prepositions (to, at), Conjunctions (but), Interjections (no!). 

- Rank Shift: Words usually associated with one grammatical class. When are used in another category (He's a me person).

- Open Category: There is no fixed number. For example, there is no fixed numbers of lexical verbs. English will continue expanding, and with every new generation there will be new verbs indicating new actions, activities, etc. (download, clone). These are lexical verbs because they indicate an actual concept.

- Closed Category: These verbs are not lexical, but grammatical. They have no real meaning but a grammatical function. For example auxiliary verbs (be, have, do). There is only a fixed number of auxiliaries.

IDENTIFYING WORD CLASSES

2 criteria:

- Inflectional Morphology: refers to the way, the form of a word changes to show a change in meaning or grammatical function: come/came (infinitive/simple past) quick/quickly (adjective/adverb). It also includes: The plural form of nouns; The third person present singular form of the verb; The -ing form; Comparatives/Superlatives; Adverbial form -ly.

- Syntactic Position: it is very important in English because English an isolating/analytic language. The grammatical status is determined very much but the position of the word is in a particular clause or sentence.

GRAMMATICAL CATEGORIES

NOUNS

They can be countable and uncountable. Uncountable nouns have no plural form and we do not use it with a, an.

PRONOUNS

They are a closed class. The subject of pronouns consist of: Personal Pronouns--I, you (Subject pronouns, or Object pronouns (me, you, her)); Reflexive Pronouns (myself, yourself); Emphatic/Intensive Pronouns ( I saw him myself!, They did it themselves!); Demonstrative Pronouns (this, that).

VERBS

They can be grouped into 3 main classes (according to whether the verbs function as main verbs or auxiliary verbs).

1. Lexical Verbs: function only as main verbs (run, eat, think). It is an open class which means that the English language is always adding new lexical verbs. Most lexical verbs have regular endings for forming past and present tense (call, calls, called); however, many of the most common lexical verbs in English have irregular morphology (run-ran).

2. Primary Verbs: they can function as both auxiliary and main verbs (be, have, do). These verbs form a separate class because they can be used either as a main verb or as an auxiliary verb (He does my washing MAIN - He doesn't look at the numbers AUXIL).

3. Modal Verbs: function only as auxiliary verbs (can, could, shall, should, will, would).

VERB+ADVERBIAL PARTICLE (Phrasal Verb): They put up my cousin, he turned on the light - the particle is stressed in pronunciation. If the VP (phrasal verb) is transitive and the direct object is a noun, the word order is variable - He turned on the light, he turned the light on.

VERB+PREPOSITION: Count on - preposition is not stressed, word ordered is invariable.

VERB+ADVERBIAL PARTICLE+PREPOSITION: Stand up for my rights --- rivendicare: word order is invariable.

VERB+NOUN: Take a bath - the noun is syntactically restricted, we don't say "took the bath". Sometimes the combination are idiomatic ("bite the dust").

VERB+ADJECTIVE: Be drunk - a copular (linking) verb and predicative adjective express a unitary meaning, which it is generally not possible to express by a single word.

TYPICAL CLAUSE ELEMENTS OF A DECLARATIVE SENTENCE

A simple sentence consists of a single independent clause, which may be one of seven types. The types differ according to whether one or more clause elements are obligatorily in addition to the S(ubject) and V(erb). The V element in a simple sentence is always a finite verb phrase. O(bject) and C(omplement). The most common complements are: Subject Complement (She is a doctor) and Object Complements (We made her the president). A(dverbial).

SV: the sun (S) is shining (V).

SVO: the lesson (S) interested (V) me (O).

SVC: your dinner (S) seems (V) ready (C).

SVA: my office (S) is (V) in the next building (A).

SVOO: I (S) must send (V) my presents (O) an anniversary card (O).

SVOC: most students (S) have found (V) her (O) reasonably helpful (C).

SVOA: you (S) can put (V) the dish (O) on the table (A).

THE COMMUNICATIVE STRUCTURE OF SENTENCES

The communicative force of the word in a sentence depends a lot on the position of the word in that group of words. There are several possibilities of changing word order:

Fronting: It occurs when clause elements which are usually after the verb are placed at the beginning of a sentence or clause. He fell down (SVA) - Down he fell (ASV).

Cleft sentence: this is a sentence which has been divided into 2 parts, each with its own verb, to emphasise a particular piece of information. They usually begin with "it" plus a form of the verb "be" followed by the element which is being emphasised. I love Maria - It is Maria who I love.

There are 4  basic types of clause/sentence:

1- DECLARATIVE: I am rich / I am not rich

2- INTERROGATIVE: Is she French?

3- IMPERATIVE: Drink the milk!

4- EXCLAMTORY: What a good dog!

SENTENCE COMPLEXITY

There are 4 main types:

1- Simple sentence: I love chocolate; she lives in Italy.

2- Compound sentence: He is a small boy but he is very strong.

3- Complex sentence: When it rained, we went inside.

4- Minor sentence: Open from 5 to 7; shut on Sunday.