Week 4 Flashcards
Lexical verbs
Verbs that belong to the general vocabulary of a language.
• Open class
• Can’t be used for y/n questions
• Walk, drink, give, seem, google
Auxiliary verbs
Restricted kind of verb. Do be have, but also can/could, will/would, shall/should, may/might, must, need.
• Closed class
• Can be used to make y/n questions
• Primary auxiliaries: do be have
• Modals: can, would, may, must, will
What must a verb phrase always have?
It must have a lexical verb and may contain auxiliary verbs.
The witch may have poisoned the prince.
Which inflections do lexical verbs take?
-s, -ing, -ed, -en. And will always be present or past.
What are the sub-categories of lexical verbs?
- Mono-transitive: DO
- Intransitive: no DO/IO
- Ditransitive: DO and IO
- Complex-transitive: DO and OC
- Complex-intransitive: SC
Adjunct
Modifiers of VPs; they provide circumstantial information on how/when/where/why.
May 6
Conjunct
Modifiers of sentences that convey discourse relations (connect sentences to each other). They modify the entire sentence.
Therefore, moreover, however, nevertheless, thus, incidentally, for a start, by contrast, in other words, in summary.
Disjunct
Modifiers of sentences that convey a speaker’s opinion. They modify the entire sentence.
Of course, frankly, regrettably, hopefully, rather awkwardly, probably, perhaps, of course, for me, as a matter of fact.
Function vs form
Function: a dependency relation with respect to a sister constituent.
Form: the syntactic category of a constituent (noun, NP, verb, VP, etc.)
What must the predicate contain?
At least one verb and it may contain complements and/or adverbials.
Adverbial
An adverbial is a phrase that functions as a modifier of a VP or as the modifier of the sentence.
• Adjuncts
• Disjuncts
• Conjuncts
Order of VP adjuncts
The most natural order is manner, place, time, reason.
Sam secretly (manner) bought the lotion at Boots (place) on Sunday (time) because it was cheap (reason).
What is the similarity between adverbs and adverbials?
Many adverbs can function as both adjunct and disjunct.
Differences between the adverbials (XP)
Adjuncts are modifiers of verbs, are sisters to the VP, not the verb itself. Can be AdvPs, PPs, NPs and sentences.
Disjunct and conjunct are modifiers of the subject and are sisters to it, can be AdvPs or PPs.
Dummy do
The use of the auxiliary verb “do” to form questions or negatives. It does not add semantic content but serves a syntactic function.
“Do you like pizza?”
“I do not know.”
