Constituents & word categories Flashcards
What is a constituent?
a word or a string of words which syntactically behaves as a unit in a larger construction; building blocks of a language
What constituency tests do you know?
- Substitution
- Movement
- Sentence fragment
How does the substitution test work?
replacing a word/string of words with a single word
My sister and Anna are baking a cake.
She and Anna.. correct!
My sister and Anna talk. correct!
My sister and she baking a cake… Anna are (wrong!)
How does the movement test work?
Moving a word/string of words to a different place
A cake is being baked by my sister and Anna.
How does sentence fragment work?
asking a question
Who is baking a cake? My sister, Anna, My sister and Anna
If the chunk of language can stand alone as an answer, it is a constituent.
How can we represent constituency structure?
- Tree diagrams
- Brackets
What is a syntactic class/syntactic category/part of speech/word class?
determined by the grammatical properties a constituent shares with other forms;
a category in the system of grammar in which constituents have the same or similar grammatical properties
e.g. nouns, adverbs, adjectives, verbs, phrases, clauses
What is a syntactic function?
the syntactic function/role a constituent plays in a construction
e.g. Subject, Object, Predicate, Predicator, Adjunct, head, modifier
Which word classes are open classes?
- Nouns
- Verbs
- Adjectives
- Adverbs
easy to add new members e.g. cringe, lowkey
Which word classes are closed classes?
- Prepositions
- Subordinators
- Coordinators
- Determinatives
- Pronouns
- Auxiliary verbs incl. modal verbs
Which criteria do we use to identify a word’s syntactic class?
- Semantic characteristics (meaning)
- Morphological characteristics (form)
- Syntactic characteristics (position/use)
What types of Nouns do you know?
- Proper nouns
- Common nouns
- Pronouns
What are the properties of nouns?
- Semantic (concrete & abstract things)
- Morphological (typical derivational suffixes, inflectional suffixes)
- Syntactic function (sentence level, phrase level)
Concrete: people, places, things & Abstract: advice, happiness
typical derivational suffixes: -er, -nes, -sion, .. & inflectional suffixes: plural s (number), genetive’s (possessive)
Sentence level: Subject, Object & Phrase level: Head of noun phrase
Which types of pronouns do you know?
- Personal
- Possessive
- Reflexive
- Reciprocal
- Demonstrative
- Interrogative
- Relative
- Indefinite
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Personal pronouns?
- Nominative case: I, you, he, she, it, we, they
- Accusative case: me, you, him, her, it, us, them
- (Anaphoric reference)
Possessive pronouns?
mine, yours, his, hers, ours, theirs
Reflexive pronouns?
myself, yourself, himself, herself, itself, ourselves, themselves
Reciprocal pronouns?
each other, one another
Demonstrative pronouns?
this (closer in space/time), that (further away in space/time)
Interrogative pronouns?
who, whom, whose, what, which
Relative pronouns?
who, whom, whose, which, that
The book that you lent me was fascinating.
Indefinite pronouns?
some, any, each, one, either, neither, none, all, both, many, much, few
Adjectives have three syntactic uses, name them.
- Attributive use (premodifies the noun)
- Predicative use (after verbs like be/seem/look)
- Postpositive use (postmodifies the noun)
I bought a new coat. - attributive use
The sky is blue. - predicative use
The participants present listened to the lecture. - postpositive
There are three types of adverbs, name them.
- Circumstantial adverbs (modifies verbs)
- Degree adverbs (modifies adjectives & adverbs)
- Sentence adverbs (modifies a sentence)
how a particular action is carried out e.g. The bride signs beautifully. - circumstantial adv.
how much/manner e.g. The bride is very beautiful. - degree adv.
modify a sentence e.g. Unfortunately, we won’t make it. - sentence adv.
What are verb inflections?
- Tensed/finite -> present, past
- Non-tensed/non-finite -> infinitive, present participle (-ing form), past participle (-ed form)
What is a finite verb?
a verb which is marked for tense & in agreement with the sentence’s subject
There are two types of verbs, name them.
- Lexical (main) verbs
- Auxiliaries
What auxiliaries do you know?
- Primary (be, have, do)
- Modal (will/would, can/could, may/might, shall/should, must)
always finite & NICE
What are the NICE properties of auxiliaries?
- Negation (cannot, don’t)
- Inversion ((I will) see you-> (Will I) see you? )
- Code (He never sings, but Bro does.)
- Emphasis (I do like it.)
What do prepositions look like?
- simple: at, behind, by, for, in, like, of, on, through, with
- complex: by means of, in front of, in spite of
direction, time, place
occur mostly before NPs
What is a stranded preposition?
a preposition that occurs at the end of the sentence
“This is the book that I told you about.”
Prescriptive grammarians regard stranded prepositions as ungrammatical.
There are three types of Determinatives, name them.
- Predeterminatives
- Central determinatives
- Postdeterminatives
Which Predeterminatives do you know?
half, all, both, such, quite, rather
Which types of Central determinatives are there?
- Articles (the, a, an)
- Demonstratives (this, that, these, those)
- Possessives (her, our, my)
- Interrogatives (which, what)
- Quantifiers (any, some, no, enough, every, each, neither, much, more, most)
- Genitive phrases (the captain’s)
Which types of Postdeterminatives are there?
- Cardinal numbers (one, two, three)
- Ordinal numbers (first, second, ..)
- Quantifiers (many, several, few, a dozen, little)
What are Coordinators?
they connect phrases
and, but, or
What are subordinators?
signify a hierarchy in phrases, one depends on another
e.g. because, until, as, if, although, whereas
Which types of plural do you know?
- Regular (hat-hats)
- Irregular (Curriculum-Curricula)
- Pluralia tantum: differ in meaning (brain/s)
- Summation plurals (clothes, trousers, binoculars)
- zero plural: police, cattle, people
