5. Linguistics chapter 7 Flashcards
What is English grammar?
English has strict rules for combining words into phrases. The article (the) must go before the adjective (lucky) which must go before the noun (boys).
So in order to be grammatical, this type of phrase must have the sequence article adjective + noun. 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 the grammar of a language.
What is traditional grammar and what languages does it come from?
The terms “article” “adjective” and “noun” label the grammatical categories from traditional grammar which originates in Latin and Greek. Grammar school was originally used exclusively for an institution where Latin was taught. And since there was a well-established grammatical description of Latin based on 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.
They are known as “part of speech” and they connect to each other in terms of “agreement”.
What are the different parts of speech; there are 8 important.
Each part of speech is also known as word class, and there are eight important ones.
Nouns→Are words used to refer to people (boy) objects (backpack) creatures (dog) Places (School) qualities (roughness) Phenomena (earthquake) and abstract ideas (love). proper nouns- Capital.
Articles→ Are words (a, an, the) are used with nouns to form noun phrases classifying those “things” You can have a banana or an apple or we definite them as already known; I´ll take the apple. The indefinite article is a or an. The definite article is the.
Adjectives→Are words used typically with nouns, to provide more information about the things referred to (large) objects. a (strange) experience.
Verbs→ Are words used to refer to various kinds of actions (Go, talk) and states (Be, have) Involving people and things in events (Jessica is ill and has a sore throat so she can’t talk or go anywhere).
Adverbs→Are words used typically with verbs, tp provide more information about actions, states and events (Slowly, yesterday) Some adverbs (Really, very) are also used with adjectives to modify information about things (Really large objects move slowly. I had a very strange experience yesterday.)
Prepositions→Are words (at, in, on, near, with, without) used with nouns in phrases providing information about time, place, and other connections involving actions and things. At five o’clock- In the morning - on the table- near the window- with a knife- without a thought.
Pronouns→ Are words (she, herself, they, it, you) used in place of noun phrases, typically referring to people and things already known. She talks to herself. They said it belonged to you.
Conjunctions→Are words (and, but, because, when) used to make connections and indicate relationships between events. Chantel´s husband was so sweet and he helped her a lot because she couldn’t do much when she was pregnant.
What is agreement? Tense, active voice, passive voice.
The verb loves “agrees with” the noun Cathy in “Cathy loves her dog”.
This agreement is partially based on the category of number, that is whether the noun is singular or plural.
It is also based on the category of person, which covers the distinctions of first person (involving the speaker “I”). Second person (involving the hearer “You”) and third person (involving any other “he, she, it, Cathy”) so the different forms of English pronouns can be described in terms of person and number.
In addition the form of the verb must be described in terms of another category called tense. In this case loves is also in the present tense which is different from the past tense loved.
The sentence is in the active voice describing what Cathy does (she performs the action).
Passive voice which can be used to describe what happens to Cathy (she doesn’t perform the action) as in Cathy is loved by her dog or just Cathy is loved.
Tell me about the final category in agreement, female and male entities.
The final category in agreement is gender, which helps describe the agreement between Cathy and her. We have to describe this relationship in terms of natural gender mainly derived from a distinction between male and female. The agreement between Cathy and her is based on the reference to female entities She, her and male entities he, his and things or creature when the sex is unknown or irrelevant “it”, its and non-binary they is also used to mark agreement.
E.g Female gender
Cathy loves her dog
third person, present
E.g Let’s ask an expert.
First person, future non-binary gender
We´ll benefit from their advice.
What are grammatical genders and natural gender? What are their differences?
There is a common distinction found in languages in grammatical gender. Whereas natural gender is based on sex (male and female), grammatical gender is based on the type of noun (masculine and feminine) and is not tied to sex and in this system nouns are classified according to their gender class and articles and adjectives have different forms to “agree with” the nouns gender.
We should emphasize that this gender distinction is not based on a distinction in sex. The French noun in le livre (the book) is grammatically masculine, but neither we nor the French people consider a book to be biologically male. Grammatical gender is an important category in many languages.
Masculine and feminine
Spanish two grammatical genders; el sol (the sun) and la luna (the moon).
German three genders; der Mond (the moon) Die sonne (the sun) neuter das feuer (the fire)
Spanish (el or la) and German (der, die, das) correspond to differences in gender class.
What is the prescriptive approach? key “proper use”
They are rules for the “proper” use of English. The proper use of language is still found today and is characterized as the prescriptive approach and some old-style prescriptive rules are;
You must not split an infinitive; you must not end a sentence with a preposition. Traditional teachers would correct sentences like; Who did you go with? to With whom did you go?. Also, Mary runs faster than me TO Mary runs faster than I.
It is important to know “linguistic etiquettes” but not all of the origins of some of these rules have to be followed.
Tell me about Captain Kirk´s Infinitive?
The infinitive in English has the form to+ the base form of the verb; such as to go and it can also be used with adverbs such as boldly. Televise Star Captain Kirk used to say “To boldly go” and this is an example of a split infinitive. Teachers would have expected him to say To go boldly or Boldly to go; so that the infinitive doesn´t split. In Latin, Capitaneus Kirkus would not even have the opportunity to split his infinitive because infinitives are single words and just do not split- but in English it is a typical feature of the use when speaking and writing regularly; to boldly go, to solemnly swear, to never ever get back together. There are structures in English that differ from those found in Latin.
What is the descriptive approach?
The descriptive approach was when analysts collected samples to describe regular structures in language/English but it became clear in the nineteenth century that all categories of traditional english does not fit all languages, so they went on to different methods. It was misleading to non-europeans like spanish.
What is structural analysis? What is its main concern?
The method involves “test-frames” which can be sentences with empty slots in them and there are a lot of forms that can fit into these slots to produce good grammatical sentences of English and as a result we can propose that all these forms fit in the same test-frame, they are likely to be examples of the same grammatical category, a “noun” (N).
The ————————— makes a lot of noise
I heard a——————————– yesterday
However, there are many forms that do not fit into those test-frames. Examples would be Cathy, someone, the dog, a car, etc. Because we wouldn’t say The Cathy or The the dog. They require different test-frames.
——————————— makes a lot of noise.
I heard————————– yesterday
Among other forms that comfortably fit these test-frames are it, the big dog, an old car, Ani Difranco, the professor with the Scottish accent. And many other examples of the same grammatical category a “noun phrase” or (NP). Observing that it fits only in this second set of test-frames.
*The it makes a lot of noise.
What is constituent analysis?
It is designed to show how small constituents/components go together to form larger constituents and determine how words go together to form phrases. Here are nine constituents; The old woman brought a large snake from Brazil. The question is how do these nine constituents go together to form constituents at the phrase level? It is not appropriate to put them together like this;
The old———–woman brought——–brought a large———-snake from——Brazil
We don’t normally think of these combinations as phrases in English rather that the phrase-like constituents here are a combination of the following types; The old woman, a large snake, Brazil (noun) from Brazil (prepositional phrase) bought (verb)
The old woman——bought——-a large snake—–from Brazil
When we use this kind of diagram we determine the types of forms that can be substituted for each other at different levels of constituent structure. One advantage of this type of analysis is it shows rather clearly that pronouns (she, it) and proper nouns or names (Brazil) though they are single words can be used as noun phrases and fill the same constituent space as longer phrases.
Noun phrase- The old woman- SHE
verb— bought- KEPT
Noun phrase- A large snake- IT
Prepositionalphrase- from Brazil- IN A CAGE
What are subjects and objects?
We use the term “noun phrase” when we describe the form of the expression (it has a noun or a pronoun in it).
We use “subject” and “object” to describe the different functions of noun phrases in a sentence.
We can normally identify the subject as the first noun phrase before the verb and object as the noun phrase after the verb.
The other phrase at the end is an adjunct; often a prepositional phrase which provides additional information such as where, when, how.
Subject— The old woman–She
Verb— Brought– Kept
object— A large snake– It
Adjunct/preposition– From Brazil– In a cage
We can distinguish between noun phrases used as subjects versus objects. The subject is frequently the person or thing that the sentence is about and often the one who performs the action of the verb. The object usually represents the person or thing that undergoes the action. The subject noun determines the form of the verb as singular or plural. English also makes a clear distinction between pronouns used as subjects (I, he) and those used as objects (me, him).
Subjects;
The first noun phrase
Controls the verb singular or plural
Often performs the action
Pronouns; I, he, she, we, they
Objects;
The noun phrase after the verb
No influence on verb
often undergoes the action
me, him, her us, them
What is word order? What are the four most common ones.
The basic line order in English is NP-V- NP and their typical grammatical functions are subject verb object (SVO) and this type of analysis is traditionally discussed in terms of word order. But the English sequence is not the only one, or even the most common word order among languages. The most common is actually Subject-object-verb (SOV).
SOV- in Japanese VSO- Scottish VOS- Madagascar.
English
(SVO)—–Subject——-Verb———–Object
NP V NP
John saw the big dog
What is language typology?
Linguistic typology is to study the ways in which the languages of the world vary in their patterns. It is concerned with discovering what grammatical patterns are common to many languages and which ones are rare.
Why do we study grammar, how does it help us?
Analyzing those ordering rules to capture the different basic patterns exist in most of the world´s language and one of the advantages of having this information is that it may help explain some of the problems second language learners face when they try to acquire a language that simply does not have the same structural organization as their first language.
If you are used to referring to The dog big or a bottle of wine red, you may unthinkingly employ those structures in a language that expects the big dog or a bottle of red wine. By helping students and teachers notice critical grammatical differences of this type between languages, we may be able to develop better awareness of what the learning task is and what might be beneficially included in language teaching materials.
