Week 0

Question 1

Functions

Answer 1

Subject, predicate, head, modifier, complements

Question 2

Categories

Answer 2

1. Major categories: nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs
2. Minor categories: determiners, prepositions, conjunctions
3. Pheasant; NP, VP

Question 3

Count vs. mass nouns

Answer 3

Count nouns:
1. Indefinite article: a friend
2. Sg/plural: friends
3. Combines with numerals: two ships
4. Combines with many, not much many ships

Mass nouns:
1. Doesn’t occur with indefinite article
2. Doesn’t take sg/plural sands
3. Doesn’t combine with numerals two sands
4. Combines with much, not many much sand

Question 4

Common vs. Proper noun

Answer 4

Common: the book, the sugar
Proper: John, London, Hamlet

Question 5

NP

Answer 5

1. The + N forms a NP
2. N is the head
3. N is a lexical category
4. NP is a phrasal category
5. Noun is often combined with a determiner

Question 6

Determiners

Answer 6

They belong to a closed class of grammatical words.

1. Articles: a/an, the
2. Empty determiners: ø
3. Demonstratives: this, that, these, those
4. Some wh-words: which, whose, what
5. Some quantifiers: some, any, no, each, every
6. Possessives: my, your, its, her, his, our, their, John’s

Question 7

The empty determiner

Answer 7

They burned books yesterday (which is indefinite, compare with “they burned a book yesterday”).

Soup cures all problems (generic).

I want to leave today.

Question 8

Don’t confuse quantifiers with…

Answer 8

1. Pre-determiners (all, half, both)
2. Adjectives (many, one, few, three)

Question 9

What’s in a NP?

Answer 9

1. Head noun
2. Determiner
3. Premodifier
4. Post modifier
5. Complement