Modulo teorico inglese II - Sintassi

English language II syntax

Professor

Cristiano Broccias

Material

• Book: An Introduction to the English Grammar by Elly van Gelderen
• Course slides
• English syntax Berk

Chapter 1: Introduction to English grammar, important differences

Knowledge can be implicit, acquisition through usage, or explicit, acquisition through rules. The knowledge of L1 is the knowledge that a learner has about phonology, morphology, grammar, and language, which he or she is conscious of and able to report in some way. Grammar can be descriptive or prescriptive. It describes how the language is used and explains how the language should be used.

Chapter 2: Word classes

Word classes/categories are divided into:

• Lexical categories/content words: They carry the lexical meaning of a sentence. It is an open category.
• Grammatical category/function words: They determine the syntax of a sentence. It is a closed category.

Lexical categories

• Nouns — In morpho-syntactic terms, nouns are often preceded by "the"; they can be pluralized and singularized.
• Verbs — In morpho-syntactic terms, verbs can express tense; at the 3rd singular person, they end with -s; they can be preceded by an auxiliary.
• Adjectives — They are modifiers to nouns. According to their position, we distinguish into attributive adjectives (if they precede the noun they modify) and predicative adjectives (if they come after the copula verbs).
• Adverbs — They are modifiers to verbs, but they can also modify other adverbs and adjectives (called in this role degree adverbs).

Grammatical categories

• Pronouns — They replace nouns and phrases (e.g., "I'd like the blue jumper, not the red one."). Various types of pronouns include personal, possessive, reflexive, indefinite (note that in some cases pronouns can refer to something or someone unknown, for example, "Someone nicked my keys"), demonstrative, numerals, and wh-pronouns.
• Determiners — They are modifiers to nouns; articles, possessive (genitive), and demonstrative forms are all considered determiners. (!Attention! Don’t confuse between determiner and pronoun: a determiner needs a noun to go with, a pronoun doesn’t.)
• Prepositions — They are invariable in form and occur always before a noun. They can be simple (on, under, before, etc.) or complex (on top of, next to, etc.).
• Conjunctions — Two types:
  • Coordinators, join two elements of the same kind (and, or, but)
  • Subordinators, join two clauses where one is subordinated to the other (that, because, if)
• Auxiliary — They function to help another verb, they can’t occur on their own. They are divided into primary auxiliaries and modals.

*1 COPULA VERB: Verb "be" and perceptions verbs. More at chapter 4

*2 MODALS: Remember that modals express modality! (there is an exercise on modality in the exam!!) More at chapter 6

Chapter 3: Phrases

Attention: Don’t confuse! Phrase = sintagma (it) not “frase” Frase = sentence/clause. Sentences can be divided into groups of words that belong together. The group of words is called a phrase. Each phrase in a sentence has an element which is more important than the others. This element is the head of the phrase and it determines the type of the phrase. We distinguish into 5 types of phrases:

• Noun Phrase (NP), the noun is the head.
• Verb Phrase (VP), the verb is the head (VPs include obligatory material, called complements). The VP contains one lexical verb and, optionally, up to four auxiliaries.
• Adjective Phrase (AdjP), the adjective is the head.
• Adverb Phrase (AdvP), the adverb is the head (not the degree adverb! The degree adverb modifies another adverb or adjective, so we never find it alone).
• Prepositional Phrase (PP), the preposition is the head, and an NP always follows the preposition [fixed structure].

Chapter 4: Functions in the sentence

Previously we saw phrases, labelled as NP, VP, AdjP, AdvP, PP, which are the form of the sentence. Phrases have functions in the sentence, but the form of a phrase and the function that a phrase plays in a sentence is something different and should be kept separate.

Form vs. Function

Form ≠ Function

• NP: Subject
• VP: Predicate
• AdjP: Complement
• AdvP: Adverbial/Modifier
• PP: Complement in some contexts

Subject and Predicate

Every complete sentence has a subject and a predicate. The subject is usually realized by an NP (and sometimes by a clause as we will see). The predicate is always realized by a VP.

Tests to determine the subject:

1. Inversion with the auxiliary e.g., "The pig will want to eat soon" → "Will the pig want to eat soon?"
2. Verb agreement e.g., "The pig wants to eat" → "The pigs want to eat soon."
3. Tag question e.g., "Koalas are cute, aren’t they? This baby is cute, isn’t he?"

Complements

A complement is a word, phrase, or clause that is necessary to complete the meaning of a given expression. We have already seen that the VP has obligatory complements (until an intransitive verb occurs). NPs, AdjPs, PPs can potentially have complements.

Summary of complements:

• Direct object
• Indirect object
• Prepositional object
• Subject complement/predicate
• Object complement/predicate
• Object/complement of preposition
• Adjective complement
• Noun complement
• Verb complement

Direct Object

The direct object answers to the question “what/who” about the verb. For example:

• One million people saw (what?) — last night’s documentary D.O.
• She saw (who?) Thomas D.O.

The direct object can become a subject through passivization. For example:

• Tom read the letter → The letter (subject) was read by Tom.

Indirect Object

The indirect object expresses the goal or the beneficiary of the action of the verb. It answers to the question “to whom/for whom”. It can occur with prepositions “to” and “for” before the noun, or without prepositions. For example:

• I gave Tom I.O. a letter / I gave a letter to Tom (to whom? to Tom)
• I made Harry some soup / I made some soup for Harry (For whom? for Harry)