Module 6 Flashcards
Grammar
-The structure of phrases and sentences in a language
-A broader topic
-Grammar classes are commonly taught from prescriptive perspective
-A word myay not aways belong to the same grammatical category
-Words can belong to different categories depending on context
~Consider the following sentences
*Swimming is my favorite sport
*I am swimming in the river
**In the first sentence, swimming is a noun
**In the second sentence, swimming is a verb
-It is possible to avoid a lot of these issues by separating semantics from grammatical structures
~look at the types of constructions or phrases (groupings of words) in which different types of words occur
~Focus on grammatical structure rather than the semantics (meanings) of the words
*Semantics (meaning) is different level of structure than grammar (organization of words and phrases)
*Modern linguistic approaches to grammar focus on words in terms of ‘syntactic categories,’ rather than ‘parts of speech’
**Remember ‘syntax’ refers to word order
Syntax
-Focused on word order patterns in language, specifically, and is one element of a language’s grammar
Prescriptive grammar
-Consider grammatical forms that are “preferable” compared to others
~In terms od social preference: you should use a certain grammatical form in order to sound ‘intelligent,’ ‘respectable,’ or ‘educated’
~Based on the idea that out of all the varieties of a language, there is one that is most ‘correct’ or ‘proper’
~What is “grammatical” is determined and reinforced by powerful social groups
Remember some of the prescriptive grammar rules
-You should not split an infinitive
~”I want to never sleep again” = No
-You should not end a sentence with a preposition
~”Where’d you get that from?” = No
-There is nothing about the structure of Latin grammar that makes it objectively ‘right’ or ‘better’ than the grammar of other languages
~There’s no reason to expect all languages to conform to Latin grammar patterns
~Perceptions of Latin as an ‘ideal’ form of language are based on social biases, not features of the language itself
-Similarly, a common argument against the use of double negatives in English is that it is not “mathematically logical”
~”Two negatives equal a positive! Show when you say “I don’t want no turkey,” you really mean “I want turkey!”” - says the impassioned prescriptivist
~What is not clear; however, is why language should be expected to operate like math
*And even in math, sometimes two negatives equal a negative
**Who decided that combining two phrases is like multiplication, and not like addition, instead?
Some languages prefer double negatives
-Spanish
~No tengo ninguno
~”I don’t have none”
~”I don’t have any”
~In some languages double negatives are required
*So there is no inherent linguistic reason to oppose them
*In fact, the prescriptive rules against double negatives in English correlate with social prejudices
The use of double negatives in English is associated with certain social groups
-Rural folks, particularly from the south and Appalachian regions
-Certain ethnic groups, like Hispanics and Africa Americans
-People who are uneducated
-People who speak English as a second language
~In American society, there are negative social stereotypes associated with these social groups
~Those negative social perceptive have been imposed on their ways of speaking as well
~”You don’t want to sound like an ignorant hillbilly, do you?” (Rude)
~”Do you even know how to speak your own language?” (Rude)
Prescriptive vs descriptive
-There ARE ‘rules’ to language
~people use language in very systematic ways
~There are underlying structural rules that speakers of language internalize and know
~These rules do not have to be imposed by an authority (teachers or government) speakers acquire them naturally by being exposed to languages
*If you are born into a community of English speakers, you do not have to go to school and take an English grammar class in order to speak English
**Although you might need to go to school to learn the prescriptive rules of English
-Consider the following two phrases
~Handle off broke door the
~The door handle broke off
~Which of these phrases would occur to English?
*There are not varieties of English that put words in the order shown in the first sentence
-How do we determine and describe a language’s grammar
~Prescriptivists
*Think about the way they and others they know use language
*Invent examples and counter-examples
*Decide what sounds correct?/proper (grammatical), and what sounds incorrect/improper (ungrammatical), in their opinion
**Typically an assortment of “grammar professionals” or “language authorities” will convene and decide what is right and wrong
**Often corresponding with what they themselves have internalized by being educated by other prescriptivists
~Descriptivist
*Describe language as it is used rather than making value judgments (goo/bad, proper/improper)
**Rather than saying “this sounds good” and “this sounds bad,” we look at data and determine: “some speakers use this structure sometimes” or “most speakers use this structure most of the time” or “after listening to a thousand different speakers of the language, there is no evidence that any of them use this structure”
*Grammar defined in terms of the structures that are actually used by speakers
**Any structure that is used and understood by native speakers of a language is considered grammatical
-Prescriptive view of grammar
~”Speakers of English should not split infinitives because it makes them sound uneducated.”
*Split infinitives are ungrammatical in English by prescriptivist standards
-Descriptive view of grammar
~”Many speakers of English do split infinitives when they speak, regardless of their level of education.”
*Split infinitives are grammatical in English by descriptivist standards
Parts of speech
-Distinctions are traditionally based on the semantics of the words (What they mean)
~This is the approach most people learn in a regular language arts curriculum
Noun
-Words that refer to people, objects, places, creatures, qualities, phenomena, abstract ideas, types of actions
~Boy, roughness, ideals, storm, school, swimming
Articles
-Words used to classify or identify nous
~A banana, THE apple, To swim, THIS, THAT
Adjectives
-Words used to describe nouns
~red, large, strange, tiny, shallow, uninteresting
Pronouns
-Words used in place of nouns, referring to things already established in the discourse
~he, she, it, they, us, we, them
Conjunctions
-Words used to make connections and indicate relationships between things and events
~For, And, Nor, But, Or, Yet, So
Verbs
-Words used to refer to actions and states (events)
~to be, to have, to throw, to kick, to swallow, to sleep
Adverbs
-Words that describe actions, states, and events. Can also be used to modify adjectives
~he sat QUIETLY, she did it YESTERDAY, REALLY fat cows don’t move much
Prepositions
-Words that provide information about temporal relationships, spatial relationships, or other relationships between things and/or actions
~AT noon, BY the lake, WITH a smile on his face
Agreement
-In most languages, words must agree with each other in terms of different grammatical categories
~Number
Number
-Singular or plural
~”The dog walks” vs “The dogs walk”
~The verb form changes depending on if the noun doing the verb is singular or plural
Person
-Distinguishes between first person (the speaker), second person (the addressee), and third person (others)
~”I” vs “You” vs “he/she/it”
~”I walk” vs “She walks”
~The verb form changes depending on the person of the noun
Tense
-Involves temporal (time) distinctions, such as past, present, and future
~”I go” vs “I will go” vs “I went”
~The verb form changes depending on tense
Voice
- Describes the relationship between an action and its participants
~Active
~Passive
Active `
-“Cathy loves her dog”
~The subject actively engages in the action
Passive
-“Cathy is loved by her dog
~The subject experiences the action
Gender
-Can distinguish between gender of nouns
~In English
*“she vs he”
-In English, we can make distinctions based on biological sex/gender identification
~”Cathy put her shoes on” vs “Jim puts his shoes on.”
-Many languages incorporate grammatical gender (feminine, masculine, neuter)
~All nouns in the language are assigned a grammatical gender (even those nouns which have no biological sex/ identifiable gender)
-Consider Spanish
~”La mesa es pequena” vs “El libro es pequeno”
~”The table is small” vs “The book is small”
~”Table” and “book” are not inherently male or female
*They are assigned a grammatical gender
**In most cases, nouns that do have biological sex are assigned the corresponding grammatical gender
-Some languages have GENDERLECTS
~This means there are certain words that are used based on the gender of the speaker or listener (usually the speaker)
-In Kukama, an indigenous language spoken in Peru:
~Male speech (top) vs Female speech (bottom)
*uri tsenu ikian yawara=kana=ui tana ku=kuara
*ai tsenu ajan yawara=nu=ui penu ku=kuara
*“She heard the dogs in our yard”
Test Frames
-To determine syntactic categories, we can use test-frames (sentences with empty slots)
~The _____ make a lot of noise.
~Forms which fit into the same test frame belong to the same syntactic category
*Rather than saying all nouns reference “person, place, or ting,” we can say that nouns are a class of words that can be preceded by an article (like “a” or “the”) and followed by a verb
-Categorizing words synactically gives us a sense of which words can go together in a phrase or sentence and which cannot
-For example, you can differentiate nouns and pronouns by their syntactic position in a sentence. They both refer to people/place/things but:
~Nouns: can be preceded by articales and adjectives (in English)
~Pronouns: cannot be preceded by articles and adjectives
*the BOY unnecessary ROUGHNESS, SCHOOL, an ugly STORM
*the HE, unnecessary IT, IT an ugly IT
Constituent Analysis
-Words from different syntactic categories can be combined together to from phrases (also called “constituents” of a sentence)
-Consider the sentence
~An old man brought a shotgun to the wedding.
*If you were to group the sentence into it’s composite ‘parts,’ which groupings of words would make the most sense?
**An old man
**brought
**a shotgun
**to the wedding
Phrases
-Language users have intuition about which words “go together” in a sentence (based on experience with the language)
-Word that “go together” to perform a function in a sentence are called Constituents
-Also called phrases
~In this class, you’ll only be asked to identify the three main types of phrases in a sentence
*Noun phrase- describes the entities involved in the event in the sentence
*Verb phrase- describes the event in the sentence
*Prepositional phrase- describes temporal, spatial, interactional, relationships between noun phrases or verb phrases in the sentence.
Noun Phrases (NP)
-Consists of a noun or pronoun and the words that go with it
~Articles, adjectives, prepositional phrase, quantifiers
-Is an entity involves in whatever is happening in the sentence
~Is the subject (the person/thing that is doing the action), or an object (receiving/being affected by the action, or an object of a preposition)
* the brown COW
*twelve GEESE under a log
*a GIRL with scissors
* the Concept of syntax
*an old shape-shifting alien MOBSTER
**the nucleus of the main noun phrase is bolded
Verb Phrases
-Consists of a verb and the words that go with it
~Adverbs, perpositional pharses, noun phrases
-Refers to the main thing that is going on in the sentence
~THe action, event, process, state, activity that the sentence describes
*SLEEP in a bunkbed
*WENT RUNNING last week
*LIKE eating hamburgers at a picnic table on the beach
*SWALLOWED the ice cube
*IS a butterfly expert
*SINGS
**most sentences in most languages require a verb phrase
Prepositional phrase
-Consists of a preposition and the worrds that go with it ~Usually an NP -Refers to spatial and temporal relationships and circumstances involving entities and actions in the sentence *AT the long table by the door *UNDER the big green tree *IN the gloomy weather *FOR my brother *AFTER the office party *WITH a fork
Phrases can have other phrases inside them
-Noun Phrases (NP)
~Consists of a noun or pronoun and the words that go with it
ARticles, adjectives, prepositional phrases, quantifiers
~Is an entity involved in whatever is happening in the sentence
the brown cow
*twelve geese [under a log]
*a girl [with scissors]
*the concept [of syntax]
**The [] are prepositional phrases
* twelve geese under [a log]
*some yellow flowers by [the road]
*a girl with [scissors]
*the concept of [syntax]
** The [] have otehr NPs inside them
-Verb phrases
~Consist of a verb and the words that go with it
*Adverbs, prepositional phrases, noun phrases
~Refers to the main thing that is going on in the sentence
*the action, event, process, state, activity that the sentence describes
**sleeps in [ a bunkbed]
**ran [home]
**like eating tacos at [the picnic table on [the beach]}
**swallowed [the ice cube]
**The [] have NP inside them
**sleeps [in the bunkbed]
**likes eating tacos [at the picnic table [on the beach]]
**The [] have prepositional phrases
-Prepositional phrases
~refers to spatial and temporal relationships or circumstances involving entities and actions in the sentence, or establishes semantic rules
*at [the long table by [the door]]
*under [the big green tree]
*in [the gloomy weather]
*for [my brother]
*after [the office party]
*with [a for]
**The [] usually have a NP inside them
*at the long table {by the door]
**can have other PPs inside them
Consituent Analysis
-Three tests
~Replacement test
~Movement test
~Question test
Replacement test
- Replace constituent with a pronoun or generic adverb like “there” or “then”
- THE FLUFFY WHITE DOG ate the bacon on the floor
- IT ate the bacon on the floor
- The fluffy white dog ate THE BACON on the floor
- The fluffy white dog ate IT on the floor
- The fluffy white dog ate the bacon ON THE FLOOR
- The fluffy white dog are the bacon THERE
Movement test
- Mover the constituent somewhere else in the sentence
- The fluffy white dog ate bacon ON THE FLOOR
- ON THE FLOOR, the fluffy white dog ate
- He ate salad WHILE RIDING THE BUS
- WHILE RIDING THE BUS,, he ate salad
Question test
-Ask a question where one of the constituents is the answer
~The fluffy white dog ate the bacon on the floor
*Who ate bacon on the floor?
**The fluffy white dog
*What did the fluffy white dog eat?
**Bacon
*Where did the fluffy white dog eat bacon?
**On the floor
