SYNTAX Flashcards
What are main verbs/ Lexical verbs?
Verbs that can head a VP in a clause (sentence)
What are auxiliary verbs?
Verbs that cannot head a VP in a clause (sentence)
In the sentence ‘my sister will have been released from custody by next Wednesday’ which are the main verbs/ which are the auxiliary verbs?
Main verbs=
Released
Auxiliary verbs= Will/have/been
Which verbs are classed as auxiliary?
–> Have and Be when indicating progressive and perfective aspect
–> Modals, which express necessity , obligation, ability, permission.
what participles are verbs with ‘-ing’ ???
Present participles
HOWEVER, what is important to note about these ‘ing’ present participles ?
They do not carry tense , therefore they can be used to refer to the past, present and future.
What is a simple present construction?
when a sentence contains only a main verb, tense is expressed on that verb.
e.g He walks home/ He walked Home.
What is the perfective aspect?
‘Have’ is the auxiliary that appears in sentences which have perfective aspect. The event expressed in the verb has been completed- the verbal element following auxiliary have is a past participle.
e. g:
- I have seen only three films…..
- The violinist had objected…
What is progressive aspect?
‘Be’ is the auxiliary that appears in sentences which have progressive aspect.
- The action expressed by the main verb is ongoing and not completed.
e. g:
- sue is reading horror stories
- food was flying everywhere.
Present participles characteristics:
- appear with form of auxiliary ‘to be’
- TENSE can be past or present
- syntactically= progressive aspect
- can be used as adjectives (smoking gun)
Past participles characteristics:
- appear with form of auxiliary ‘have’ to indicate completion of action (e.g i have seen, the violinist had objected…)
- used with participle ‘be’ to express passive voice (e.g john was sprung, the BMW was stolen…)
- three types of morphology (e.g : ed, en, or strong verbs such as swum)
- can also be used as adjectives (the arrested men… )
What are some examples of Modal verbs?
e.g may, can, should, must, will
What are the function of modal verbs?
add something to the interpretation of the sentence. (e.g may adds notion of permission, can adds ability, should adds desirability , must adds obligation and will /shall = express futurity.
What are intransitive verbs?
Examples?
Require only one argument: the subject; they have no complements
e.g Reubin Sighed, Dorothy arrived, Sam died…
Subject + Verb
What are mono transitive verbs?
Examples?
Require two arguments: A subject and a complement.
Subject + Verb + Direct object
e.g Dorothy criticised henry, Richard need a haircut, Caxton printed the essay.
