week 1- syntax 1 Flashcards

1
Q

what is pedagogical grammar?

A

Grammatical analysis and instruction designed for second-language students.
Explains how to form sentences and helps people to build grammatical structure.
Not used often.

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2
Q

what is theoretical grammar?

A

derive theory of how certain patterns came about

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3
Q

what is prescriptive grammar?

A

focuses on the distinction between what some people do with language and what they ought to do with it. Tells people what they should and shouldn’t do. Don’t use much.

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4
Q

what is descriptive grammar?

A

find out how people use language and how we describe it. very important.

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5
Q

what is wide meaning?

A

covers all patterns, rules and regularities of language. includes phonetics, phonology, morphology etc.

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6
Q

what is narrow meaning?

A

only about the structure. above word level.

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7
Q

What might a theory of sentence structure look like?

A
D= determiner 
N= noun 
V= verb 
VP= verb phrase 
NP= noun phrase 
S= sentence 
The cat sleeps
- given these rules: 
VP = V 
NP = Det + N 
S = NP + VP
  • the S is the largest bit of the sentence. S branches to NP and VP.
    NP branches to D and N.
    VP branches to V.
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8
Q

what is a sentence?

How may this definition vary depending on what you’re investigating?

A

Oxford definition:
A set of words that is complete in itself, typically containing a subject and predicate, conveying a statement, question, exclamation, or command, and consisting of a main clause and sometimes one or more subordinate clauses.

Depends on what you are interested in investigating •  in syntactic theory: typically the largest unit over which rules of syntax operate (e.g. as we will see later: things that fit into a tree structure)

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9
Q

what is the predicate?

A

the bit that comes after the subject.

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10
Q

what are the open word classes?

A

N- Noun (boy, table, school, dog, roughness, earthquake, love, Bob)
PN- Proper noun (Bob, Cardiff) works like a N  
V- Verb (go, talk, be, have)
A- Adjective (large, happy, smelly)
Adv- Adverb (slowly, yesterday, really)

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11
Q

what are the closed word classes?

A

Pro- Pronoun (she, herself, they, it, you) works like a N
D- Determiner (a, the, this, these) incl. possessive pronouns (my, your, our, her)
Deg- Degree adverb (too, so, very, more, quite) sometimes: ‘particle’
Aux- Auxiliary verb (will, can, may, must, should, could)
Con- Conjunction (and, or, but)
P- Preposition (at 4.00, on the table, with a knife)*
C- Complementiser (that, whether, if, since, because)

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12
Q

what is the infinitive ‘to’

A

Infinitive ‘to’ is not a preposition, but part of the verb

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13
Q

How do we identify meaning–based parts of speech?

A
  •  nouns: things
  •  verbs: actions
  •  adjectives: attributes of nouns
  •  adverbs: attributes of verbs
  •  prepositions: indicating location in space/time
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14
Q

How do we identify inflection type in parts of speech?

A
  •  nouns: plural -s
  •  verbs: past tense –ed / 3rd person sing. –s
  •  adjectives: comparative –er / -est
  •  adverbs: derived from adjectives with –ly
  •  prepositions: no inflection possible
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15
Q

How do we identify distribution in parts of speech?

A
  •  nouns: with a determiner (the bus)
  •  verbs: with an auxiliary (can sing)
  •  adjectives: with a degree word (very rich)
  •  adverbs: with a verb (breathe slowly)
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