The guiding principle in this course is that a word’s part of speech is determined by what role it plays in the sentence. Words that look the same might be different parts of speech depending on what they’re doing.
Noun (N) – Nouns are words that represent people, places, things, and ideas. If you can put ‘the’ in front of it and it’s a complete phrase, a word is definitely a noun. Some nouns don’t allow ‘the’, though. Nouns can be common or proper, singular or plural, and function as part of noun phrases to act as the subject of sentences (though they can also be objects or complements). Nouns can be singular or plural.
Examples of nouns: dog, freedom, Kentucky, John, meals, deer, sand, fights, running (in Running is my favorite activity), destruction, group, party
Pronoun (Pro) – Pronouns stand in for noun phrases in syntax. This means that they don’t come along with adjectives or determiners. There are a number of kinds of pronouns—the most familiar ones are personal pronouns like I, you, me, he, she, us, ourselves, we, me, etc. Other pronouns are demonstratives (like this in this is nice or those in those were my favorite). In this class, we’ll consider most of the ‘possessive pronouns’ like my or your to be determiners because they function like determiners. Many question words like who or what, and ‘empty’ words that stand in as subjects of sentences, like it and there in it’s raining or there’s a dog in the house can function as pronouns.
Adjective (Adj) – Adjectives describe nouns. Adjectives usually appear in the noun phrase before a noun and after any determiners. (the hungry dog, five tired students) but can also appear in the predicate after a linking verb (the dog is hungry, five students seem tired.) Adjectives often have comparative or superlative forms (better, best, more careful, most careful). Adjectives do not describe anything that isn’t a noun or pronoun—if a word is describing a verb, another adjective, or an adverb, it’s an adverb instead.
Determiner (D) – Also known as determinative. Goes with a noun and specifies something about that noun (but doesn’t quite describe it the way an adjective does.) Articles are one type of determiners (a, the, an) but demonstratives (this cat, these shoes) that go with nouns, possessive ‘pronouns’ like my, your, her (with nouns), possessive nouns like ‘Mike’s’ or ‘York College’s’, quantifiers with nouns (many, most, some), numerals with nouns (one cat, seventeen cats, zero cats) and the question word which with a noun are all also determiners. Determiners are always part of noun phrases and come before any adjectives describing the head noun.
Main Verb (V) – This category is also called lexical verbs. These include the ‘action’ verbs but not all indicate actions (other indicate situations or states of being). Every sentence in standard English has to have a main verb, which is the most important word in the predicate (head of the Verb Phrase functioning as the predicate). A sentence with multiple clauses will have one main verb for each clause. The main verb generally indicates the main action, situation, or relationship in the sentence. Main verbs can have different forms, like the past tense, and most of them change form in the 3rd person singular (I walk but he/she/it walks)
Examples of verbs: hit, been, jammed, running (in she is running), becomes, slept, falling, dies, bring.
Aux Verb (Aux) – Auxiliary verbs or helping verbs are a closed class in English. The modal verbs are can, could, may, might, shall, should, will, would, and must. These are always auxiliary verbs, and never main verbs (except for ‘canning’ or ‘willing’ as verbs, with different meanings). The other auxiliary verbs are forms of be, do, and have, which are words which can sometimes act as main verbs.
Auxiliary verbs are never the only verb in a sentence, so if one of those three words are the only verbs in a sentence, they’re acting as main verbs. More than one auxiliary verb can work together to modify the main verb, like in I might have been shopping yesterday.
Adverb (Adv) – Adverbs modify (and describe) things that aren’t nouns, from verbs, adjectives, and other adverbs, all the way up to entire sentences. Adverbs are kind of the ‘catch-all’ or ‘garbage heap’ of language, and it’s pretty much impossible to give a concise and complete definition of what an adverb is, because different adjectives have different properties. Some are made from adjectives + ly but not all -ly endings are adverbs (lovely and ugly are adjectives, no adverbs). Adverbs generally answer some questions about the things they modify, like ‘how’, ‘when’, and ‘to what extent.’ Adverbs are the only things that can go between Aux verbs and main verbs, and if something can move around a lot in the sentence without changing the meaning (especially to the front and back of the sentence) then it’s probably an adverb.
Examples of adverbs: yesterday (in yesterday we went to the store) very (in very good) often (in we go to school often), not (in I’m not sorry) and many more.
Preposition (P) – Prepositions express a relationship between (mostly) nouns and noun phrases and other things in language. Again, this is one of the messier categories to define. This is a fairly large but fairly closed class of words, and most of them are short words. They can express relations in real space or time (before, after, to, from, in, out, over, under) or more metaphorical relationships between words (of, for).
Complex prepositions can be multi-word phrases like next to or instead of.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preposition_and_postposition deals with adpositions across languages (we call them prepositions in English because they usually come before noun phrases). It’s an OK resource for understanding them as of September 2020.
Particle (P) – Particles are words that usually look like prepositions that actually work as part of main verbs. An example is up in run up a bill at a restaurant. Up here does not indicate a direction but changes the meaning of the verb run. In run up a tree at a park, up is functioning as a preposition, as it doesn’t change the meaning of the verb and relates to the tree. *Note that in this class, we’re going to consider particles a part of the Preposition (P) category, even though they have different functions to some extent.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phrasal_verb gives an overview of the phenomenon as a whole, but uses a different and more specific definition of ‘particle’ than we are using in this class, as of September 2020.
Coordinating Conjunction (Co) – Also known as coordinators, these words combine two equal categories, like nouns, verbs, noun phrases, verb phrases, or clauses. Coordinators are a closed class that is fairly easy to remember. And, but, and or/nor are the most common coordinators and are always coordinating conjunctions. For, yet, and so can also be coordinators but might be functioning in other categories as well. There are complex coordinators (correlative conjunctions in the Wikipedia articles) that consist of multiple words like ‘as much … as’ and ‘neither … nor’
Subordinating Conjunction (Sub) – These words attach a subordinate or dependent clause to a matrix or independent clause. These words are harder to precisely understand until we get to clauses and their relationships. Because and that are some common subordinators, but there’s a longer list as well.
Interjection (Int) – These are words like hello, wow, and yeah, that don’t really participate in syntax. They are not a main focus of the course, as they don’t generally enter into relationships with other words, syntactically.
When we examined the structure of verb phrases, we looked at phrases that contained only one verb. This simplification let us understand the basic structure of complements like direct objects, subject complements, and so forth, without unnecessary complications, but many verb phrases are more complex, containing multiple verbs. For example, in a sentence like (1), there are two verbs, has and eaten, in the same phrase (1) Jonathan has eaten my sandwich The verb has in this sentence is a member of a subset of verbs called auxiliaryverbs.[1] The purpose of this chapter is to explore the system behind these auxiliary verbs, and particularly how these auxiliary verbs relate to the concept of tense.
——
Notes
[1] Grammar books designed for younger students often call auxiliary verbs “helping verbs.”
Tense
At some point in your schooling, you were almost certainly introduced to verb tenses. We’ll develop a precise understanding of tense in a moment, but for now, think back to what you were taught. What is tense? How many different tenses can you remember learning for English? Take a moment to jot down what you can remember before continuing.
I have asked these questions of many students over the years. By far the most common answers are that tense has something to do with the time of the sentence and that there are three tenses: past, present, and future. Some people, perhaps remembering their foreign-language classes, will list more tenses, with names like pluperfect and so on. Some grammar books have long lists of inflections of verbs with names like the past perfect tense (for example, “had played”), or the future progressive tense (for example, “will be playing”).
If you never could keep all these straight, you are not alone. One reason you may have problems is that the story that most schoolbook grammars tell about tense is not particularly accurate. These books are frequently vague about just what tense is, and they implicitly lump together separate elements of the verb phrase into this single category. One consequence of this muddled pedagogy is that students come away with the sense that anything having to do with the verb should be called a tense. It is easy, for example, to find instances of journalists or other educated people talking about the “passive tense” (it’s actually a voice, as we will see in a later chapter).[1]
Before I reveal how we will actually treat tense, I would like to step you through a short exercise that will show some of the problems with the traditional conception of tense. To begin, fill in the sentence “Marissa ________ her dog” with the form of the verb walk that is appropriate for each of the three primary tenses that you were taught: past, present, and future. Write these down so you will have something to refer to as you look at the next set of examples.
Form used in the present tense: ________________ Form used in the past tense: ________________ Form used in the future tense: ________________
Pay attention in particular to what distinguishes one form of the verb from another. (Note that the form of the present-tense verb that you wrote could have been different if we had used a different subject, for example, they. This difference is separate from tense, and so to keep things simple, all of the examples that follow will use will employ similar subjects so that we only need to consider one form for each tense.)
Now consider the following sentences. For each one, look at the underlined verb. What tense does each one have? Don’t be distracted by the meaning of the sentence. Just look at the form to answer this.
(2) My flight leaves at 10 pm. (3) Marissa walks her dog each evening. (4) Your mother tells me you plan to go to law school. (5) Sherry will be sorry that she missed seeing you this evening. (6) If he studied, he could pass the upcoming test.
Now look at the time of the action to which each verb refers. Do you see the problem?
In sentence (2), you may have been tempted to declare leaves a future-tense verb, but compare the form to our previous list. It is actually a present-tense form, although the sentence refers to a future event. In sentence (3), walks is a present-tense verb, but notice that the time it describes is not really now. This statement can be true even if the dog-walking is not occurring at the moment of the statement, for example if it’s morning. Sentence (4) also contains a present-tense verb, tells, but the act of telling clearly took place before the statement, and so refers to past-time. In sentence (5), missed is in the past tense, but notice that this event (the missing) is ongoing during the time that the sentence is being uttered. From the frame of the speaker, it occurs in the present time. In sentence (6), the proposed action (studying), along with the test, lies in the future, but studied is a past-tense form.
What is going on here?
These examples illustrate that tense does not always equate simply with time. When we use the term tense, we are referring to a grammatical form. Time, however, is a semantic concept that can be expressed in ways other than a grammatical marking of the verb. In sentence (2), for example, the futurity of the action is conveyed not by the verb but by the prepositional phrase at 10 pm. Further, tense can be used, in extended senses, to convey meanings other than time. In sentence (6), the past tense marks not past time but the speaker’s opinion that the subject is unlikely to actually study and that the situation is therefore a hypothetical one.
Once we appreciate this crucial distinction between form and meaning, we are ready to look at exactly what tense is. As we will define it, tense refers to a grammatical form, or system of forms, whose primary function is to refer to a point in time.
This definition of tense is narrower than the one typically given in schoolbooks. Note in particular that while pointing to a time is the primary function of tense, it is not the only function. Further, this function doesn’t involve every possible aspect of time, only reference to basic points in time. As we will discover shortly, there are other features of a temporal situation that are conveyed with different means.
How many tenses does English have? By now, I hope I have convinced you to mistrust the simple explanations of the schoolbooks. Let’s return to the examples of the basic tenses that we produced before:
Tense according to the schoolbooks:
Tense
Example
Present
walks
Past
walked
Future
will walk
Looking at these forms, the future seems very different While the present and the past are formed synthetically, that is by means of an inflection, the future is formed analytically, that is by means of an auxiliary verb. By itself, that difference may not be decisive—the comparative degree of adjectives, for example, can be expressed either synthetically (quieter) or analytically (more pleasant)—but enough differences distinguish the traditional future tense from the present and past tense forms that it does not make much sense to lump them together.
First, in terms of grammatical structure, will is not unique. It operates like many other auxiliary verbs, verbs which are sometimes called conditionals, but which we will call modal verbs. Examples of other modal verbs are can, may, should, or must.These verbs will be the subject of the next section, but for now notice that each of these combines with another verb in exactly the same way: the auxiliary is followed by the bare form of the verb:
(7a) Marissa will walk her dog. (7b) Marissa can walk her dog. (7c) Marissa may walk her dog. (7d) Marissa should walk her dog. (7e) Marissa must walk her dog.
In terms of the semantics, there are various shades of meaning conveyed by the different modal verbs. Sentences 7a-e differ in the degrees of possibility or obligation that they express, but all of these sentences refer in some way to an event that has not yet occurred. In other words, the situation is located in the future. Thus will is not unique in picking out a future time. Moreover, there are some contexts in which will is not the normal way we refer to a future action. For example, suppose you have plans to go to a party tomorrow, and a friend asks you to see a movie with her. Which response would be normal to decline that invitation?
(8a) Sorry, I will go to the party. (8b) Sorry, I’m going to the party.
Sentence (8b), of course, would be the normal response. English speakers regularly use the second form to refer to future action when there is a definite plan. Indeed, if we think about the contexts in which (8a) might be acceptable, we can see that (8a) expresses more than just the future time of an event. It also conveys the speaker’s firm determination. You might say it, for example, in response to someone who has told you that you should stay home and study. (“Sorry, I WILL go to the party.”) This additional element, telling us something about the speaker’s attitude in addition to the time, is frequently conveyed by other modal auxiliaries.
(9) She must have been drunk.
As in (8a), sentence (9) expresses a conclusion about the speaker’s attitude or understanding of a situation. As we will see shortly, expressing this sort of meaning is one of the common functions of modal auxiliaries.
Finally, and perhaps most strikingly, in sentences with multiple verbs, will appears in contexts with present-tense verbs. Conversely, the closely related would appears in contexts with past-tense verbs.
(10a) Scientists predict that the volcano, which has been inactive for many years, will erupt at any moment. (10b) Scientists predicted that the volcano, which had been inactive for many years, would erupt at any moment.
Notice that the highlighted verbs in (10a) are present tense, and the highlighted verbs in (10b) are past tense. Moreover, we cannot substitute would for will or vice versa.
(10c) *Scientists predict that the volcano, which has been inactive for many years, would erupt at any moment. (10d) *Scientists predicted that the volcano, which had been inactive for many years, will erupt at any moment.
Sentences (10a) and (10b) illustrate the tendency of tense consistency. In other words, unless there is some overriding reason to switch tenses, the basic tense of a sentence will remain consistent throughout. In short, will is consistent with present-tense verbs and inconsistent with past-tense verbs.
Taken together, all these observations lead to a surprising conclusion: English does not have a future tense. English tenses are expressed by inflections on the verb. That means that English has only two tenses: present and past. Will is an auxiliary and part of a different verbal system, that of mood. Will does have a tense, but as examples 10a-d show, it is a present-tense verb.
This conclusion differs dramatically from what is typically taught in schoolbook grammars, but it is not new-fangled linguistics. The two-tense nature of English, and of other Germanic languages,[2] was first recognized in the early nineteenth century, and is currently the standard account in the reference works used by professional linguists. That so many books used in primary and secondary education still cling to an outdated description is scandalous but unfortunately typical of the disconnect between the authors of such books and linguistic scholarship.
—— Notes
[1] As far as I know, no grammar book actually calls the passive voice a tense. The problem, in this instance, is not with the actual labels used but with the failure to teach how the overall system actually works in a way that students retain.
[2] English is classified as a Germanic language because, despite heavy later borrowings of French, Latin, and Greek words, its core words and grammar are most closely related to languages like German, Dutch, Swedish, etc., all of which belong to the Germanic family of languages.
What do you mean there’s no future tense?
Some people have trouble accepting that English lacks a future tense. If you are in that group, there are several points to keep in mind. First, remember that tense is not the same as time. To say that English lacks a future tense does not mean that it has no way of referring to the future. It has many ways to do that. In English, the future is a time-reference, but not a tense. Second, English may lack a future tense, but other languages do have one, particularly languages you are likely to have studied in school, such as Spanish, French, or Latin. Indeed, the tense system of Latin is partly at fault for the way that tense is taught today. When the early grammarians sat down to write the first grammars of English, they took Latin as the model, and simply filled in the categories that worked for Latin with their nearest English equivalents. It should not be surprising that different languages should vary in how many tenses they have. After all, one of the reason that languages are different is because they follow different sets of rules. There is nothing logically necessary about dividing time up into past, present, and future, and even given a three-fold distinction, there is no logical requirement that each distinction must be expressed through tense.
Mood
In the previous section, I briefly introduced you to the modal auxiliaries when I argued that will does not constitute a separate tense marker. To understand the function of modal auxiliaries, you need to know two related terms: modality and mood.
Modality refers to a set of related concepts primarily involving the attitude of the speaker of a sentence towards the reality of a particular assertion. What exactly that means is complicated and best illustrated with an example:
(12a) Tad programs computers for a living. (12b) Tad must program computers for a living.
In sentence (12a), the speaker asserts the truth of a proposition. In (12b), by contrast, the speaker qualifies the proposition. The situation is presented not as one the speaker knows directly but as one the speaker has inferred. In other words, in (12b), must indicates something about the speaker’s mental state. These sentences, therefore, contrast in their modality.
Mood refers to a grammatical system that is primarily used to convey modality. The difference between mood and modality is parallel to the difference between tense and time. Like time, modality is a semantic concept; like tense, mood is a grammatical realization of a concept. For the most part, English expresses mood analytically, through a system of modal auxiliaries.[1] As with tense, mood does not always correspond in a simple fashion with modality. One modal verb can express several different modalities, depending on the context. And just as time can be expressed in different parts of a sentence, for example by prepositional phrases, modality can be indicated with things other than auxiliary verbs:
(13) I heard his supposed apology.
In sentence (13) the adjective supposed expresses the speaker’s conclusion that the apology is not a valid one, for example because it lacks sincerity. Words such as supposed, then, express modality, but not mood.
Sentence (12a) represents the default situation, one without a modal verb, in which the speaker simply indicates that something is true. This unmarked situation is called the indicative mood, although since this is the ordinary case, we usually don’t mention it unless we’re contrasting it with another mood.
In some grammar books, the presence of a modal auxiliary is said to mark the conditional mood. This label reflects the fact that modal auxiliaries commonly appear in sentences that express a condition:
(14) If you build it, they will come.
However, the label conditional is not ideal. There are many other situations in which modal auxiliaries appear other than the conditional structure. Further, many conditional sentences do not use modal auxiliaries:
(15) If he got a ticket to the concert, he was lucky.
Because modal auxiliaries express a variety of different modalities, we will not try to lump them all into a single mood. Instead, we will simply call such verb phrases modal, and if we need to distinguish among them, we will do so by their meaning.
—— Notes
[1] Exceptions to the analytical nature of English mood are the constructions traditionally called the “subjunctive”, which are marked on the verb itself. They play a fairly small role in the grammar of English, but are more prominent in languages like Spanish, French, or Latin.
Characteristics of Modal Verbs
There are a small number of modal verbs, and they display distinct features that set them apart from other auxiliary verbs.
The Principal Modal Auxiliaries:
Present Tense
Past Tense
can
could
may
might
must
—
ought
—
shall
should
will
would
This set of verbs differs from other auxiliaries in the following ways:
They do not agree in the third-person singular, as do other auxiliaries and lexical verbs. (16) *She cans play the piano beautifully.
They are followed by a bare infinitive form of another verb. Most other verbs use the infinitive with to. Ought is an exception to this rule. It does require a to-infinitive but otherwise behaves like other modal verbs. (17a) *They must to work on the project. (17b) They want to work on the project. (17c) They ought to work on the project.
They have no non-finite forms (present participle, past participle or infinitive). As a consequence, they cannot appear in places in the verb phrase where one of these forms would be required: (18) *Robertson was shoulding here tonight. (19) *The Senate has mayed ignore its own rules. (20) *I would like to will take you out to dinner.
A different way putting this last point would be to say that all the modal verbs have an inherent tense, as indicated in the table above. That table is organized in two columns to show you the relationship between present and past tense forms. In other words, would is the past-tense of will, could the past tense of can, etc.
Because modal verbs are specialized function words, the formal realization of tense may not always correspond with time reference. We frequently use all of these verbs to discuss future or potential events, and so these verbs may not intuitively feel like normal present or past tense verbs. But there are important ways in which the tense of these modals remains relevant.
Sentences with multiple verb phrases often establish a consistent tense, either present or past. As we saw in the previous section, the pair will/would participates regularly in this sequence of tenses. So does can/could:
Past-tense Sequence: (21a) Scientists said that the volcano, which had been dormant for many years, could erupt at any time. (21b) *Scientists said that the volcano, which had been dormant for many years, can erupt at any time.
Present-tense Sequence: (21c) Scientist say that the volcano, which has been dormant for many years, can erupt at any time. (21d) *Scientist say that the volcano, which has been dormant for many years, could erupt at any time.
The situation is more complicated with the pairs shall/should and may/might. In earlier stages of the language, these verbs were once used systematically just as the other two pairs still are. In contemporary English, however, other factors to make the relationship more complex.
Shall, for example, is rare apart from formal contexts, and should has developed uses that are unrelated to its past-tense status. But shall is incompatible with past-tense sequences, and should substitutes for shall in such contexts.
(22a) We shall read Austen during the course. (22b) We know that we shall read Austen during the course. (22c) *We knew that we shall read Austen during the course. (22d) We knew that we should read Austen during the course. (22e) We know that we should read Austen during the course.
Sentence (22a) is certainly formal, but it is a possible sentence, and when we add another present-tense verb, as in (22b), shall remains a possibility. But when we add a past-tense verb, as in (22c) and (22d), only should is grammatical.
Sentences like (22e) complicate the analysis. In this case, we have should, which I have been arguing is a past-tense verb, in a sequence with present-tense know. In this case, however, should takes on a different meaning. In (22a), shall is more or less equivalent to will. In (22e), it is essentially equivalent to ought to. Notice that (22d) can support either meaning. In the first sense, it indicates future in the past, equivalent to would (i.e., will + the past tense); in the second, it indicates what the speaker believes the right course of action is. This other use for should has no present-tense equivalent, and can be used in either context. There is no particular reason to think that should somehow shifts its tense when it has the meaning ought to and maintains its traditional tense in other cases. Rather, this is the a case of an idiomatic usage that overrides the ordinary patterns of tense usage. Such irregularities are, from the perspective of someone trying to learn the language, unfortunate, but they are a reality in all languages.
The usage of may and might is currently in flux. The traditional distinction, using might as a past-tense equivalent to may persists in some varieties of English. In others, however, speakers have reanalyzed the two verbs as separate, unrelated forms. To tell which variety you speak, examine the following sentences. How would you judge the grammaticality of (23a)?
(23a) ?I knew he may let us down. (23b) I knew he might let us down.
If (23a) sounds strange to you, your variety of English still preserves, at least in some contexts, might as a past-tense equivalent of may. If they both sound acceptable, then your variety of English no longer treats these verbs as a related pair. The fact that sentences like (23a) were historically, and for many speakers still are, ungrammatical is sufficient evidence for us to continue to classify may and might as related pairs. Lending further support to this choice, there are some uses of might that reflect “modal remoteness”, a concept that will be explained in the next section.
The remaining two verbs in our list, must and ought have no past-tense equivalents, so they do not participate at all in the alternation of tenses described above for the other modal verbs. One interesting point to note about both verbs is that historically, they derive from the past tenses of other verbs. Over time, however, speakers of English have reanalyzed them so that now they behave purely as present-tense verbs.
(24a) *She must finish the project two days ago. (25a) *You ought to visit your mother last week.
Neither verb is compatible with a past-time reference by itself. If we want to use must or ought in a past-time context, we have to use an alternate method of indicating past time:
(24b) She must have finished the project two days ago. (25b) You ought to have visited your mother last week.
This method, known as the perfect, will be explained later in the chapter.
Progressive
Consider the difference between the following sentences: (33a) Cerise worked efficiently (33b) Cerise was working efficiently Sentence 33a, which uses the simple past tense, refers in general to a completed action. Sentence 33b refers to the action as being in progress at some particular time. The construction illustrated in 33b is known as the progressive. It is formed with a form of the verb BE and a form of verb ending in -ing. Although some schoolbook grammars call this construction a tense, that label is not accurate. Notice that 33a and 33b do not make a distinction in the time of the event. They could well describe the same action. The sentences differ in how they view the action’s internal structure, a feature of language known as aspectuality. So instead of speaking of a “progressive tense,” we will talk of a “progressive aspect.”
Aspect and Aspectuality
[to be added]
Present Participles
A form of the verb ending in -ing is traditionally called a present participle, or occasionally an -ing participle. Although we will use the traditional term, note that “present” does not mean that the participle has a tense of its own. Phrases formed with present participles are not limited to appearing in present-tense sequences:
(36) Reaching the summit of the mountain, Bob let out a shout of triumph.
In the example above, the act of reaching the summit does not occur in the present. It occurs simultaneously with the action of shouting, which is in the past tense. To form a present participle, all you need to do is take the base form of the verb and add –ing: spend + -ing = spending be + -ing = being make + -ing = making As the final example shows, there may be a minor spelling change, but that should not obscure the basic regularity of the whole process. Present participles are completely regular in English. Every verb forms it exactly the same way, even the so-called irregular ones. Although every present participle ends in -ing, not every word that ends in -ing is a present participle:
(37) The painting on the wall is a copy of a Rembrandt. (Noun) (38) The host was charming to her guests. (Adjective)
(39) Veronica was charming her guests. (Participle)
While painting in the first sentence is clearly a noun (among other things, it follows a determiner), the other two may need glossing. In the second sentence, charming is an adjective. It denotes a quality of the host, and thus the verb is simply was. In the final example, Veronica is doing something to her audience; i.e., charm is a transitive verb. Notice that while you can add the degree adverb very to the adjective in (38), you cannot do so to the participle in (39):
(38b) The host was very charming to her guests.
(39b) *Veronica was very charming her guests.
Meaning and Use of the Progressive
The progressive is most commonly used to indicate a temporary condition, namely that: 1. the event takes time to occur, rather than happening all at once; 2. the event lasts for a limited time. With some verbs, the progressive shows that the event is not necessarily complete:
(40) Simple past: I read Margaret Atwood’s latest novel yesterday.
(41) Past progressive: I was reading Margaret Atwood’s latest novel yesterday.
Because progressives specify a block of time, they are frequently used for actions that overlap some other point in time:
(42) When Mark came home he found that his girlfriend was throwing all his belongings out of the window.
Because the simple present often implies habitual action, the present progressive is typically used to refer to an individual event that has a present time referent:
(43a) What does Mark do over there in the corner?
(43b) What is Mark doing over there in the corner?
Sentence 43a only makes sense if Mark performs some action regularly in the corner. For this reason, a number of ESL textbooks call the present progressive the “present tense,” a potential source of confusion for ESL learners. Because the progressive stresses a temporary state, it generally cannot be used with verbs that describe a permanent quality or state of being:
(44) *He is knowing English very well.
(45) *She is being from Guatemala.
(46) *Norma is having red hair.
The progressive can be used with some state verbs to imply a temporary state. In the a-versions of the sentences below, the situation is permanent, where the b-version implies that the state has a finite duration. Simple present:
The most important phrase types, in that they are the typical constituents at the heart of a sentence, are the noun phrase (NP) and the verb phrase (VP). In this chapter, we will explore the structure of phrases headed by other parts of speech. Of these, prepositional phrases present the most challenges, and we will spend the most time on them. We will also look briefly at the structure of adjective phrases, adverb phrases, and determiner phrases.
Prepositional Phrases
Prepositional phrases are often optional modifiers in the sentence rather than the central elements. Nonetheless, prepositional phrases appear over and over, and so it’s worth examining how these phrases work in some detail.
We have already defined prepositions as a class of words that most commonly express relationships of space or time, or which mark syntactic functions.
Examples of Prepositions:
Spatial Relationship: behind the house Temporal Relationship: after the party Syntactic Function: the crux of the matter
Like other major word classes, prepositions are the heads of their own phrases. Prepositions are typically followed by a complement, called the object of the preposition. Most of the time, the object of the preposition is a noun phrase. In other words, the abstract phrase structure generally looks like this:
As we will see shortly, there are exceptions to this rule, but this pattern is so typical that it is worth memorizing. If you see a word that you think is a preposition, look for the noun phrase after it.
Functions
Prepositional phrases have a variety of functions. They can modify a noun, as in “the child with a runny nose,” or verbs, as in “she came from Panama.” When PPs modify verbs, they have functions that can often be filled by adverb phrases, or occasionally by other phrase types as well. Constituents that function in this role are sometimes called adverbials, because these constituents answer adverb-like questions such as when, where, how, or why. Similarly, PPs that modify nouns are sometimes called adjectivals. But be careful with these terms. They do not imply that the PPs actually become adverbs or adjectives. Remember that adjective and adverb are categories for words, not for phrases. The terms adverbial and adjectival simply tell you what sort of constituent the phrase modifies. Because this information can also be conveyed by a tree diagram, we won’t use these particular terms much, but you should be aware of them, since other works on English grammar use them frequently. We will have more to say about the various roles that PPs fill after we have finished our survey of phrase types.
Infinitive ‘to’
Not everything that looks like a preposition actually behaves like one. For example, the word to followed by a verb phrase forms an infinitive phrase. These infinitive phrases, which we will examine more closely in a later chapter, are verb phrases, not prepositional phrases. We can see this if we contrast infinitive to with the preposition. (1a) My kids always want [to go] [to Disneyland]. In this sentence, the verb want has two constituents that begin with to, but the first is followed by the verb go, and the second by an NP. There are several ways in which the first instance of to behaves very differently from the second. Most prepositions, including to, allow the degree words right or straight. The infinitive marker does not: (1b) My kids always want to go straight to Disneyland. (1c) *My kids always want straight to go to Disneyland. The infinitive marker also permits ellipsis. That is, the verb phrase after the infinitive marker can be omitted if it can be understood from context. The preposition cannot: (1d) My kids always want to. (1e) *My kids always want to go to. Finally, if we say that infinitive to is a preposition, we must conclude that “to go to Disneyland” functions as a PP, but notice that other PPs cannot be substituted for an infinitive phrase: (1f) *My kids always want to Disneyland. (1g) *My kids always want by the car. We will label the infinitive marker INF, but will not analyze the structure of infinitive phrases until later.
Particles
Compare the following two sentences:
(2) Ken looked up her number. (3) Ken looked up her dress.
A little scrutiny will show that up does not have the same function in both sentences. For example, while we can create a cleft sentence with up her dress, we can’t do the same thing with up her number:
(2a) *Up her number is what Ken looked. (3a) Up her dress is where Ken looked.
Also, we can move up to the end of the first sentence, but not the second:
(2b) Ken looked her number up. (3b) *Ken looked her dress up.
Both these rearrangements demonstrate that up her dress forms a constituent, but up her number does not.
Additionally, we can replace up her dress with other phrases that indicate direction:
(4) Ken looked across the courtyard. (5) Ken looked under his bed. (6) Ken looked away from the accident.
But we cannot do the same thing with up in (2) and still have the verb mean the same thing. In other words, the meaning of looked up as a compositional unit differs from that of looked by itself.
Finally, sentence (3) allows right/straight modification, but sentence (2) does not:
(2c) *Ken looked right up her number. (3c) Ken looked right up her dress.
All of these differences indicate that up in in (3) behaves like a typical preposition, but in sentence (2) it does not. Words that function in this unusual way are called . A particle forms a one-word phrase that can, but doesn’t have to, appear between the verb and the direct object. Historically, most particles derive from prepositions, but their behavior is so different from ordinary prepositions that we will classify them separately. Particles usually combine with the verb to produce a specific idiomatic meaning that is different from a verb and a prepositional phrase.
Because up her number in sentence (2), does not constitute a single constituent, we analyze her number as a direct object, which makes look a transitive verb. Thus we will diagram the sentence like this:
If the particle follows the verb, the diagram looks like this:
These diagrams imply that we consider particles to be separate constituents within the verb phrase. Some grammar books call verb + particle combinations “multiword verbs.” That name implies that the particle is actually part of the verb. We won’t use that terminology—the particle isn’t actually part of the verb. The fact that it can appear after the direct object demonstrates that. But we still must be able to distinguish verbs with particles from free combinations of verbs and prepositional phrases. Fortunately, the test is relatively straightforward. If the sentence can be transformed so that the word appears after the object, it’s a particle:
(7a) The bank turned down the Johnsons (7b) The bank turned the Johnsons down.
Notice that if the object is an unstressed pronoun, the particle cannot appear between the verb and the direct object. In this case, it must come after the object:
(7c) The bank turned them down (7d) *The bank turned down them.
If you can create a cleft sentence by moving the word along with the noun phrase, then it’s a prepositional phrase:
(8a) I put my socks in the drawer. (8b) In the drawer is where I put my socks.
This test, though, is not definitive. If you can move the phrase, it is a PP, but some verbs are followed by prepositional phrases that cannot be moved:
(9a) Jane disposed of the remaining objections. (9b) *It was of the remaining objections that Jane disposed.
We continue to call of the remaining objections a prepositional phrase because of cannot be moved like true particles:
(9c) *Jane disposed the remaining objections of.
Prepositions Without NP Complements
The presence of a noun phrase after a preposition is so common that traditional grammar books often state that a preposition must always be followed by a noun phrase. Certain exceptions, however, make it clear that we cannot accept that assertion.
First, prepositions will sometimes have other prepositional phrases as complements:
(10) The plane emerged from behind the cloud.
From and behind are both prepositions. But notice that from behind the cloud forms a single constituent. You can move it to the front of a cleft sentence:
(10a) From behind the cloud is where the plane emerged.
One way to save this phrase for a traditional definition of prepositions would be to assume that from behind is a complex preposition. In other words, that a two-word sequence has become fossilized and functions as a single unit. But that interpretation won’t work. We can move “behind the cloud” independently of from:
(10b) Behind the cloud is where the plane emerged from.
At the same time, we cannot interpret from as a particle, since it does not behave like other particles. In particular, we can’t move it to the end of the sentence:
(10c) *The plane emerged behind the cloud from.
The prepositional phrase behind the cloud is actually nested inside a larger PP, headed by from:
A certain number of prepositions also occur with an adjective as a complement:
Examples of P + Adj Combinations at first at last for certain for sure in brief in private of late of old
Some prepositions can take clauses as complements:
(11) We arrived [after [the party had finished]].
Traditional grammar books classify after in (11) as a subordinating conjunction. But once we realize that prepositions don’t need to be followed by noun phrases, there seems to be no reason to make this distinction, and we will not do so.
Sometimes, a word that seems to be a preposition appears alone. Compare these sets of sentences:
(12a) Rivera looked up the stairs. (12b) Rivera looked up. (13a) I saw him before the party. (13b) I saw him before.
Traditional grammar treats the italicized words in (12a) and (13a) as prepositions, but those in (12b) and (13b) as adverbs, once again arguing that the (b) sentences have no noun phrase following up and before, and therefore they must be some other part of speech.
But do up and before really behave like other adverbs? Notice that they can be modified by right/straight, like prepositions and unlike adverbs.
(12c) Rivera looked straight up. (12d) *Rivera looked straight quickly to his left. (13c) I saw him right before. (13d) *I saw him right immediately.
So even though up and before appear in one-word phrases, they continue to behave like prepositions more than like adverbs. To make an analogy with verbs, some prepositions can be intransitive, and do not need any complement at all.
We have already looked a bit at what nouns are and at some of their properties. Noun phrases can be extremely complex. In this chapter, we will explore some fundamentals of how noun phrases are structured. We won’t cover everything. In particular, we’ll leave certain issues of complex layering, where the NP contains many different elements, to a later chapter.
We will start by looking more closely at nouns themselves. In the previous chapter, we discovered that there are different types of verbs, and that those verb types influenced the structure of the verb phrase. With nouns as well, there are different subtypes, and those types play a role in the structure of the noun phrase.
Noun Subtypes
Nouns differ as to what other words can occur in the same noun phrase.
Consider, for example, how we can complete a frame sentence like “I saw ____.” with different NPs.[1]
(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)
(5)
Fred
*Netherland
*cat
trash
stone
*the Fred
*the Netherland
the cat
the trash
the stone
*a Fred
*a Netherland
a cat
*a trash
a stone
*some Fred
*some Netherland
*some cat
some trash
some stone
*the Freds
the Netherlands
the cats
*the trashes
the stones
*Freds
*Netherlands
cats
*trash
stones
The elements of this table flagged with asterisks are ungrammatical as completions for the given frame.[2] In short, different nouns have different restrictions on what determiners they can take and on whether or not they can be made plural. This behavior is regular enough among groups of nouns that we can say that there are subtypes of nouns. We can explain the behavior of the nouns above by introducing two subdivisions: proper vs. common nouns, and count vs. non-count nouns.
—— Notes
[1] The frame sentence is deliberately brief to allow it to make sense with a wide variety of nouns, but because of this vagueness, some people don’t see why some of the items in column 5 are not flagged as ungrammatical. If you’re in that group, try expanding the frame sentence a bit to give yourself more context. For example, add (“in the courtyard”).
[2] Some here should be read as the unstressed determiner with the meaning “an unspecified quantity,” not the stressed word, which often means something like “a remarkable” (e.g., “She is some tennis player.”)
Proper vs. Common Nouns
The distinction between proper and common nouns is probably familiar to you from your earlier education. Fred and Netherlands are instances of proper nouns. A proper noun is a type of noun that refers to a specific person, place, or thing (Evelyn, Cairo, Saturday, etc.) Common nouns refer to classes of things (cat, trash, stone, etc.) rather than particular ones. All nouns that are not proper are common.
The behavior of proper nouns is illustrated in the first two columns of the table above. Most proper nouns behave like Fred in column 1. They do not allow a plural form (*Evelyns, *Cairos, etc.) and do not appear with determiners (*a Baltimore, *some Evelyn, etc.). Some proper nouns do appear in a plural form and with a determiner: the Netherlands in column 2, for example. But these proper nouns still behave differently from common nouns. There is no contrast in number; the Netherlands cannot be made singular (*the Netherland), and the determiner cannot be varied the way it can with ordinary common nouns:
(1) *I went to Netherlands. (2) *I only had time to visit a Netherland.
There are also singular proper nouns that take an article, such as the Kremlin. Here too, there is no plural counterpart (*the Kremlins) and the article cannot be varied.
Expressions like Princeton University or the United States of America are frequently called proper nouns as well, but this a somewhat misleading simplification. Remember that noun is a category label for an individual word. Strictly, the proper nouns here are Princeton and America. University and states are common nouns, and united is an adjective. The complete expressions are proper names. A proper name contains a proper noun, and may contain other elements. If there is only a proper noun in the NP, it is still a proper name.[1]
In some situations, a proper noun can be converted to a common noun and can be plural or take a determiner:
(3) The Newtons of this world perceive connections that the rest of us have never even thought to look for.
Here, a proper name has been made to stand for a whole class, and hence behaves like other common nouns.
Proper names have a few structural peculiarities. We won’t go into them in detail in this course, but we will discuss the patterns that may cause problems for your analysis when we review NP structure at the end of the chapter.
—— Notes
[1] The proper noun does not need to be the head of the proper name. For example, in the United States of America, the head is states.
Count vs. Mass Nouns
Common nouns can be subdivided according to what determiners they permit. Nouns such as those in column (3) of the table above can be made plural with no determiner (as in cars), and they can take the indefinite article a/an (as in a car). Words that behave this way are typically regarded as referring to entities that are seen as individual, countable units, and hence they are known as count nouns. Count nouns can be either concrete items (computer, book, house, etc.) or abstract ideas (goal, belief, hope, etc.).
Nouns that behave like the one in column (4) are called mass nouns (or non-count nouns). They typically refer to things that are viewed as a mass rather than individual units, or which have no precise shape or boundary. Mass nouns also can be either concrete (milk, wool, spaghetti, etc.) or abstract (happiness, communism, integrity). They cannot usually be made plural (*two wools), nor do they take the indefinite article (*a wool). If we want to count mass nouns, we must add a count noun to specify the quantity (two glasses of milk).
Count/Mass as a Function
Nouns like those in column (5) (brick, cake, paper, stone, etc.) can take all the determiners that count nouns can take, as well as all the determiners that mass nouns can take. There is, however, a distinction in meaning. With stone or some stone, the mass-noun uses, noun phrase refers to the material; with stones, the count-noun use, the noun phrase refers to individual items. The stone, which can be used for both mass and count nouns, is ambiguous: we may be thinking of either material or an item. Often, context will make it clear which use is intended:
(4) The stone used in this building comes from Italy (5) The stone that broke the window was lying on the floor.
In sentence (4), stone is used as a mass noun; in sentence (5) it is used as a count noun. Additionally, some nouns that are typically either mass or count can be pressed into service the other way. For example, butter is typically a mass noun, and it seems strange to say two butters, but we can use it in a count sense in a sentence like the following:
(6) She likes butters from Wisconsin better than those from other states.
For this reason, we say that nouns are not inherently mass or count, but are rather used in mass or count functions.
Noun-Phrase Structure
As the preceding discussion shows, some nouns can appear alone in a noun phrase, without a determiner or any other word. These nouns include many proper nouns, mass nouns, plural count nouns, and pronouns. (Remember, we are treating pronouns as a subtype of nouns.) Diagrams of such phrases are about as simple as they come:
[1]
Only a little more complex is the case of a noun appearing with a determiner. Determiners are extremely common in noun phrases. You will encounter a great many noun phrases that contain them. If you are still unclear about the category of determiner, you may want to review the relevant section of chapter 3 at this point
—— Notes
[1] For the purposes of diagrams in this course, we will label proper nouns as “PropN” and pronouns as “Pro,” although it would be equally correct (although less specific) to label them as “N”. We will not distinguish mass from count nouns in the diagram.
The Determinative Function
Another fairly common type of NP is one containing a genitive:
(7) Garth’s reply
This NP looks almost the same as the NPs above, but Garth is a proper noun, not a determiner. And yet Garth seems to occupy the same “slot” in the noun phrase. Notice that we can use either a determiner or the proper noun, but not both:
(7a) the reply (7b) *the Garth’s reply (7c) *Garth’s the reply
At this point, you may be ready to assume that Garth’s actually is a determiner, but that conclusion leads to some unfortunate consequences. First, we would have to say that any noun could change its part of speech simply by adding the genitive inflection. In other words, the category of determiner, which we have already described as containing a small number of words that have a principally grammatical function becomes an open-ended set. Further, this slot isn’t just occupied by genitive nouns. It can be occupied by entire phrases:
(8) The President of Liberia’s mistake
If we’re going to call these determiners too, then we are saying that entire phrases can be described as a word category, making a mess of our descriptive system. The solution to this puzzle is to recognize that the contrast between (7) and (7a) is one of two different forms, a determiner on the one hand and a genitive noun on the other, that share a common function. We will call this function the determinative.[1] In its most basic semantic role, a determinative indicates the definiteness of a noun phrase. That is, it tells us whether the NP has a specific referent or not.
One interesting thing to note about the genitive inflection is that it doesn’t behave like a normal inflection (for example plural -s).
(8a) *The President’s of Liberia mistake
The mistake was not that of Liberia but of its president, and yet we find the ‘s inflection at the end of the whole phrase and not attached to the head noun, president. Indeed, in informal varieties of English, the word to which the ‘s attaches doesn’t even have to be a noun:
(9) The guy I was talking to’s resume (10) The woman he plans to marry’s opinion
In contrast, the plural -s inflection attaches to the head noun, not the end of the phrase.
(11) The Presidents of Liberia (11a) *The President of Liberias
Because the genitive inflection appears at the end of the entire phrase when the phrase contains more than one word, and because phrases often contain only one word, there is no good reason to assume that the genitive behaves differently with individual nouns than it does with multi-word phrases. Nevertheless, we will keep our diagrams simpler by omitting the NP node when the genitive is a single word.[2] We will diagram genitive NPs this way:
Notice in the diagrams above that the genitives are labeled for their function. We will use “det.” as an abbreviation for the determinative function. Don’t confuse this with the word category label D, for determiner. Also note that in the music’s beat, there are actually two determinatives. The music is the determinative for beat and the is the determinative for music. In other words, each NP has its own determinative slot. Because determiners prototypically fill the determinative function, we won’t bother to indicate this function in our diagrams when they are playing their ordinary role.
Pronouns fit easily into the above scheme. Since they are a type of noun, we treat them just like other one-word genitives:
Notice that the second example above, like the music’s beat, also contains two determinatives, but in this instance we did label our as a determinative because it is not a determiner.
—— Notes
[1] There is an unfortunate difference in terminology regarding the terms determiner and determinative. In The Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language, a work which was published in 1984 and which served as a major reference for a generation of other works on English grammar, the terms are used as they are in this text: determiner is a lexical category and determinative is a function. However, the major recent reference grammar, The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language, reverses the terms’ denotation. There, determiner is the function and determinative is the lexical category. The authors of the Cambridge Grammar provide no explanation for this switch, which is unfortunate as it is certain to breed confusion. As most other works use determiner for the lexical category, I have retained the more traditional terms here.
[2] If the inconsistency bothers you, see the aside “On Simplified Diagrams” at the end of chapter 7 for a detailed explanation of my reasoning.
Modifiers and Other Dependents
Noun phrases don’t just contain nouns and determinatives, of course. They also contain elements such as adjectives.
(13) these diligent workers
In (13) the adjective diligent is a modifier of the head noun workers. Modifier is a general term for optional elements in a phrase that add descriptive information about the head word. We have already seen some modifiers in the verb phrase: the adjuncts. The noun phrase also resembles the verb phrase in that it can contain contain complements. Distinguishing modifiers from complements in noun phrases, however, is much trickier than distinguishing them in verb phrases, and we will not do so in this course. Instead, we will content ourselves with simply lumping noun-phrase modifiers and complements into the broader category of dependent.
As we explore how to handle phrases such as the one in (13), we will consider several alternatives that we will wind up rejecting. Although you can skip to the end results, I strongly encourage you to follow along with the reasoning. The alternative analyses are ones that are used in other grammar books that you may encounter, and understanding why we should prefer one analysis over another is an important part of navigating grammar.
To explore the constituency of such phrases, I would like to begin looking at a traditional diagram to see what structure it assumes. A conventional Reed-Kellogg diagram of (13) would look like this:
This diagram tells us that these and diligent are both dependents of workers, but makes no further distinctions. If we translate this to a tree diagram, we get the following structure:
Although the labels on the tree diagram add more information, both diagrams make the same assertion about the phrase’s internal structure: we can distinguish the head word from the dependents, but otherwise there is no internal structure to the NP. Is this the correct account? In particular, do the words diligent workers form their own constituent? This question arises because diligent workers can function as a noun phrase in its own right. For example,
(14) You should give a raise to diligent workers.
So at first glance, it would seem logical to diagram diligent workers as a noun phrase within the larger NP.[1] Such a diagram would look like this:
If we are going to use this criterion for phrase-hood, though, we get an odd result if the NP is singular: this diligent worker, because diligent worker cannot function as a full NP.
(14a) *You should give a raise to diligent worker.
The criterion that first led us to suppose this might be an NP, however, is suspect. The question is not, “Can this string of words function as a phrase in any context,” but, “Does this string of words function as a phrase in this particular context.” Let’s apply our constituency tests to (14).
Remember that one of our tests is to create a cleft sentence, attempting to move the string of words we are testing to the front of the sentence. By this criterion, these diligent workers is a phrase but diligent workers is not, at least not when it is preceded by a determiner:
(14b) These diligent workers are whom you should give a raise to ___. (14c) *Diligent workers are whom you should give a raise to these ___.[2]
Another test, pronoun substitution, yields a similar result. We can substitute the pronoun them for these diligent workers, but not for diligent workers alone:
(14d) You should give a raise to them. (14e) *You should give a raise to this them.
If we apply the same tests to the singular form, this diligent worker, the results are be the same: this diligent worker is a phrase, and diligent worker is not.
(14f) This diligent worker is whom you should give a raise to ___. (14g) *Diligent worker is whom you should give a raise to this ___. (14h) You should give a raise to her. (14i) *You should give a raise to this her.
At this point, we can reject the hypothesis that there are two nested NPs in this phrase. But before we revert to our first hypothesis that there is no internal structure to the NP, consider one further piece of data:
(15) If this diligent worker deserves a raise, that one does too.
As the parallel structure makes clear, one doesn’t just substitute for worker. It replaces diligent worker, even though that unit passes none of our tests for phrase-hood. In short, diligent worker is a grammatical constituent&mdah;it behaves as a single unit—but it is not a phrase. To account for this behavior, we will introduce a constituent that it intermediate between individual words and NPs. Traditional grammar has no name for this unit, but we will call it a nominal, abbreviated “Nom.” With the addition of the nominal, a diagram of this diligent worker looks like this:
This diagram indicates that the words diligent worker form a constituent, the nominal, and that this constituent combines with the determiner this to form a complete noun phrase.
The nominal also helps explain the constituency of prepositional phrases that appear within noun phrases. Consider, for example, a phrase like (16):
(16) a poem by Keats
Once again, we must decide how to represent the constituency of the phrase. The “flat” view would be diagrammed like this:
But there is good reason to believe that the noun and the PP also form a nominal. Consider a sentence like (17):
(17) Elizabeth read every essay by Coleridge and poem by Keats.
Here, the determiner every must apply to each part of the coordination. In other words, and links the constituents essay by Coleridge and poem by Keats. Like diligent worker, these units will not pass our tests for phrase-hood. Once again, they are an intermediate unit; they are nominals. Our diagram will therefore look like this:
—— Notes
[1] One text that uses just such an analysis is Max Morenberg, Doing Grammar. 3rd. ed. Oxford UP, 2002.
[2] The “___” indicates the location of the clefted constituent in the original sentence.
Generalizing the Pattern
Let us pause a moment to take stock of our NP structure. We’ve only looked at a few relatively simple NPs, but already we have a number of different cases:
1.One-noun NPs, e.g., John, students, 2.Determinative + N, e.g., that book, Alison’s divorce, 3.Determinative + modifier + N, e.g., the unpleasant boy, 4.Determinative + N + modifier, e.g., the dog on the sofa.
Is there any general pattern here? We can easily formulate a general principle for cases 3 and 4 if we say that dependents other than determinatives combine to form nominals, whether those dependents appear before or after the head noun, and determinatives combine with nominals to form NPs.
Case 2 can be unified with this same formulation if we assume that book in that book or divorce in Alison’s divorce also constitute one-word nominals. We have already seen one-word phrases, so this assumption is not a stretch. In that case, our diagram would look like this:
There is support other than theoretical symmetry for this analysis. One, which as we have seen substitutes for a nominal, can replace book alone. For example:
(18) This book has water damage, but that one is in perfect condition.
For this reason, we will assume that there is always a nominal level in every NP. As a practical matter, however, diagrams that show every single nominal become unwieldy and harder to read. We add a label that, because it is completely predictable, doesn’t add much useful information. So in our diagrams, we will only show a nominal node if it branches.
What about case 1? Our assumption about nominals will apply here too. In other words, if we were diagramming non-branching nominals, a diagram of a one-word NP would look like this:
The only thing that distinguishes this case from the others is the lack of a determinative. We will call such NPs bare because of this absence. One way to make our analysis consistent for all cases would be to represent the determinative slot as present but not filled by any audible word. In other words, we assume that every NP is formed by combining a determinative with a nominal.
The question then becomes, what are we to make of this empty slot, which I have represented with the character ?. Much of the recent technical literature on syntax assumes that there is actually something in the slot, a silent determiner, often called a zero determiner. According to this view, the zero determiner behaves like other determiners in the sense that it helps specify the interpretation of the nominal. Notice, for example, that the meaning of the bare NP cats is not the same as the determined NP the cats. Of course that change in meaning is no proof that there is actually a silent determiner present in the bare NP. We could also simply say that the determiner slot in such cases is truly empty and attribute the difference in meaning to the absence of a determiner rather than the presence of a silent one. The theories that posit zero determiners typically have theory-internal reasons for doing so. But with the scheme that we are developing here, there is no particular reason to prefer one hypothesis over the other, and so we will apply Occam’s razor[1] and assume that there is, in fact, no determiner. Further, in keeping with our attempt to keep our diagrams free of unnecessary clutter, we will not diagram these empty determinative slots. In other words, we will diagram one-word NPs as shown earlier in this chapter, showing neither the nominative level nor the empty determinative.
Bare NPs do not always consist of one word. How should we represent phrases like stray cats? If we drew a diagram showing all our levels, it would look like this:
If we remove the empty determinative slot from our diagram, we get the following:
Although there’s nothing wrong with this representation, we can simplfy our diagrams still further and omit the nominal level in this case too. This leaves us with a relatively simple diagram:
To summarize, we assume that nominals are present in all noun phrases, but the diagrams in this course will only show them if there is a branch both above and below the nominal. If you find it more helpful to show these hidden levels, then by all means put them in your own diagrams, but do so consistently.
—— Notes
[1] The principle that entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity. In other words, prefer the hypothesis that creates the fewest complications. Postulating a silent entity is more complex than postulating simple absence.
Heads and Projection
Some students find the concept of nominals to be confusing. Remember that nominals are simply another constituent of grammar. Like other constituents such as phrases and clauses, they function as units. Like phrases, nominals also have heads. Remember that head words are important because their features play a role in how the entire phrase functions within the sentence. That’s why we name the phrase after the category of its head word. One way to think of this is that the properties of the word carry over to the phrase. Looking at how this works in a tree diagram, we can think of the properties of the head word as percolating up from the individual word to the phrase. The following diagram represents this “percolation” by showing the edges between the head words and their parent nodes as arrows.[1]
With the diagram serving as a visual metaphor, we can say that the features of the head word project upward in the diagram. In the case of the phrase this diligent worker, the noun worker is the ultimate head of the whole phrase, as well as immediate head of the nominal diligent worker. But in the larger sentence, worker is not the head of any higher unit. There is no arrow from the direct object to the VP because the direct object doesn’t head the VP, the verb does. This observation gives us a way of conceptualizing the difference between nominals and NPs. Looking at the diagram, we can see that each phrase is the maximal projection of a head word. In other words, the head word’s features project up to the phrase level and no further. The nominal is a constituent that has a noun as its head, but it is not the maximal projection. A unit higher up in the tree also has the same word as its head.
—— Notes
[1] For present purposes, we treat the clause as non-headed, which is the traditional assumption.
In the previous chapter, we examined some of the basics of sentence structure. Over the next few chapters, we will deepen our understanding by studying how the most important phrase types are structured. Because every sentence has a predicate, and every predicate is a verb phrase, every sentence is ultimately structured around a verb. We will therefore begin with verb phrases.
In Chapter 3, we saw that some words shared enough structural principles that they deserved to be grouped into a category: verb. Although the members of this category have certain things in common, they do not all behave identically. In particular, verbs differ with respect to what attributes can appear within their phrase. Different verbs require different attributes. Consider, for example, what attributes can appear after a verb like neglect:
(1a) Reginald neglected his hygiene. (1b) *Reginald neglected. (1c) *Reginald neglected hygienic (1d) Reginald neglected his chores. (1e) *Reginald neglected his hygiene his chores. (1f) *Reginald neglected his chores unpleasant.
As these examples show, neglected requires exactly one noun phrase to follow it (1a and 1d). It does not permit us to drop the NP (1b) or to replace it with an AdjP (1c). It also doesn’t allow two NP’s (1e) or one NP and one AdjP (1f). All of these permutations, however, are possible with other verbs:
(2a) Reginald primped. [verb only] (2b) Reginald seems hygienic. [verb + AdjP] (2c) Reginald gave his barber a tip. [verb + NP + NP] (2d) Reginald found his chores unpleasant. [verb + NP + AdjP]
Because the verb determines the rest of the structure, we will say that the verb licenses (i.e., permits) these constituents, which are known as complements. Thus neglected licenses a single noun phrase after it, and no other pattern. In this instance, we could say that the verb requires a noun phrase, rather than simply permitting one. One complement that is required by every verb is the subject.[1] But in many cases, verbs license multiple patterns:
(3a) Susan ate dinner. (3b) Susan ate.
As the examples above show, eat can be followed by a noun phrase or by nothing at all. To call the complement required, therefore, can be misleading if you assume that “required” means only one pattern is permitted.
Although verbs differ in what complements they license, there are a relatively small number of patterns that occur very frequently. We can, therefore, group verbs into subtypes based on what complements they license. The following patterns are essential to recognize.
Transitive Verbs (VT)
As the examples in (1) above show, verbs like neglected must be followed immediately by a noun phrase called the direct object.
(4) Bob kicked John.
In (4), John is the direct object. In this case, which is the prototypical situation, the direct object is used to indicate the thing affected by the verb.[1]
Verbs that have direct objects are known as transitive verbs. Note that the direct object is a grammatical function rather than a form. That function is usually filled by a noun phrase.
One useful test for transitive verbs is to see if you can change the sentences in which they appear into passive equivalents. The direct object of the active sentence becomes the subject of the passive version:
(5a) The fans applauded Jennifer’s performance. [active] (5b) Jennifer’s performance was applauded by the fans. [passive]
If a sentence can be made passive, it is transitive. Be aware, however, that a small subgroup of transitive verbs (e.g., cost, resemble), do not have a passive equivalent. So if you cannot make a sentence passive, the verb may not be a transitive verb, but you need to check more closely.
We will label transitive verbs VT, which stands for “verb-transitive.”
Notes:
[1] When we talk of the usual range of meaning for the direct object, we are indicating its semantic function, or thematic role as it is often called. The usual name given to this particular role is the patient. We won’t have much to say about these semantic roles, but they should not be confused with grammatical roles like direct object. Note also that the direct object actually plays a much wider range of roles than the patient, but in these cases, it still has the same grammatical properties as the central cases in which the NP is a patient.
Intransitive Verbs (VI)
Some verb are distinguished by what doesn’t appear after them. These verbs are not followed by either a noun phrase or adjective phrase:
(6a) A howl rose. (6b) *The audience rose a howl (7a) Margaret slept. (7b) *Margaret slept her bed.
We call these verbs intransitive and will label them “VI.”
Unlike other types of verbs, intransitives can end sentences. Note, however, that intransitive verbs are not required to end the sentence. They can be followed by adverbs, prepositional phrases, and other optional elements:
(8) A howl rose from the audience. (9) Margaret slept peacefully.
Such optional elements are called adjuncts of the verb phrase. Adjuncts can be added to any of the subtypes of verbs and don’t serve to distinguish one subtype from another. We will return to adjuncts, and how to tell them apart from complements, after we have finished our survey of verb patterns.
Linking Verbs (VL)
Some other verbs can be followed by a noun phrase, but this NP bears a different relationship to the subject.
(8a) Lewis remained an obstinate man.
In this case, the NP to the right of the verb does not identify an object that is separate from the subject, as was the case with transitive verbs. Effectively, this NP renames the subject. If we think about what’s going on here in terms of predication, the second NP predicates something (that is, it makes an assertion) about the subject. Contrast that with transitive sentences like (4) above, repeated here for convenience:
(4) Bob kicked John.
Here, the second NP (Bob) doesn’t predicate anything about the subject (John) directly. Only the entire verb phrase does the predication. For this reason, these phrases are not called objects but subject complements, because they complete (complement) the meaning of the subject.
Because the NP after the verb is not a distinct object, linking verbs are not transitive. They are a special kind of intransitive verb, one with complex predication.[1] One consequence of being intransitive verbs is that linking verbs cannot be made passive:
(8a) *An obstinate man was remained by Lewis.
Linking verbs can also be followed by an adjective phrase, in which case the AdjP describes some characteristic of the subject:
(9) The president looked haggard.
Whether this phrase is an AdjP or an NP, it fills the same grammatical role: subject complement.[2]
Linking verbs are a small class. Some examples: seem, become, remain, taste, smell, feel. We will label such verbs VL.
BE
The most common verb in English, and also the most irregular, is to be. This verb is generally considered a linking verb. Like other linking verbs, BE[3] can take a subject complement, either an NP or an AdjP:
(10) That toddler is a hyperactive child. [NP: subject complement] (11) Dorothy Parker was witty. [AP: subject complement]
Unlike other linking verbs, you can also follow BE with a modifier that indicates a place, either literally or metaphorically:
(12a) My mother was in the next room. [PP: place]
Ordinary linking verbs do not permit this construction:
(12b) *My mother became in the next room.
We will label BE as another linking verb, but you should be aware of its differences from other members of this category. Later we will find still more ways in which BE is an exceptional verb.
——
Notes
[1] Many grammar books treat linking verbs as a separate category, neither transitive nor intransitive, but we are considering transitivity to be a binary quality. Any verb can be categorized as transitive or intransitive, but there is more to verb-phrase structure than just transitivity.
[2] Some grammar books call subject complements either predicate noun or predicate adjective depending on whether they are noun phrases or adjective phrases, but we will not use those terms, because they blur the distinction between form (NP or AdjP) and function (subject complement).
[3] By writing the verb in capital letters, we mean any of the forms of the verb. In this instance, BE includes am, are, is, was, were, be, been, and being.
Ditransitive Verbs (VD)
The transitive verbs we examined above had only one mandatory phrase following them. Some verbs, however, are followed by two noun-phrase objects: one is the object acted upon (the direct object), the other is the recipient of the direct object. The NP that receives the direct object is called the indirect object. It gets this name because it is presumed to be less directly affected by the verb than the direct object. Notice that the indirect object comes before the direct object:
I.O.
D.O.
(13a)
The school board gave
the teachers
a raise.
I.O.
D.O.
(14a)
The exchange student bought
her hosts
a thank-you gift.
Because such verbs have two objects they are called ditransitive verbs, in contrast with the monotransitive VT verbs. There is no generally accepted label to distinguish this verb type from ordinary monotransitive verbs, so we will label them VD.
Verbs that allow this two-noun-phrase pattern often have an alternate form where a prepositional phrase serves the same function as the indirect object:
(13b) The school board gave a raise to the teachers. (14b) The exchange student bought a thank-you gift for her hosts.
Many grammar books label these prepositional phrases indirect objects, but technically they are not. The prepositional phrases here play the same semantic role as the equivalent indirect objects, a role known as the recipient, but remember that semantic roles differ from grammatical roles. Recipient is a semantic role, indirect object is a grammatical role.[1] A verb can only be VD if it is followed by two noun phrases. If it is followed by only one NP, it is an ordinary monotransitive (VT) verb.
Ditransitive verbs can be made passive just like monotransitive ones. The passive forms of ditransitive verbs move one object into the subject position and leave the other in the original place. Usually, however, it is the indirect rather than the direct object that is moved. Moving the direct object typically sounds slightly strange:
(15a) Teachers were given a raise by the school board. (15b) ?A raise was given the teachers by the school board.
—— Notes
[1] Notice that our logic here in distinguishing indirect objects from PPs with the same semantic role is exactly parallel to the uncontroversial treatment of by-phrases in passive sentences (e.g., “John was kicked by Bob”). There, the by-phrase expresses the role of the actor, the same role played by the subject in the active equivalent (“Bob kicked John”). But no one would call by Bob the grammatical subject of the passive sentence. That role is filled by John.
Complex Transitive Verbs (VC)
Some verbs are followed by two phrases, but they have a different order and function from VD verbs: (16) My grandpa calls [teenagers] [blithering idiots]. In (16), we have two NPs after the verb, but notice that the relationship between the two is not what we saw with ditransitive verbs. The first NP, teenagers is not receiving idiots. It’s not an indirect object at all. In fact, it’s the direct object of calls (the thing that’s being named). The second NP isn’t receiving anything either. It’s renaming the direct object. If that sounds similar to what an NP after a linking verb does that’s no accident. This too is a complement, but since it refers to the object, we will, sensibly enough, call it an object complement. An object complement renames or defines a quality of the direct object. Like subject complements, object complements can also be adjective phrases: (17) Some linguists consider [Noam Chomsky] [mistaken]. Just as linking verbs are a type of intransitive verb with complex predication, these verbs are a form of complex predication for transitive verbs. We will label such verbs VC.
Summary of Patterns
The following diagram above is not a sentence diagram. It shows how the different subtypes of verb relate to one another.
Here is a summary list of the five patterns we have learned, with the elements presented in linear order. This list is deliberately abstract. To see examples of sentences of these types, see the preceding sections:
1.Intransitive: subject + VI 2.Linking: subject + VL + subject complement 3.Transitive: subject + VT + direct object 4.Ditransitive: subject + VD + indirect object + direct object 5.Complex Transitive: subject + VC + direct object + object complement
And here are diagrams of the same patterns, showing how they typically appear in a clause:
Instransitive:
Linking: Note: to be can have subject complements of other phrase types, e.g., PP, etc.
Transitive:
Ditransitive:
Complex Transitive:
Looking at the list above, it becomes evident that the subject is the only complement that is found in every pattern. Subjects are also unusual in that they are not part of the verb phrase; they are known as external complements. All the other complements are internal complements; that is, they are part of the verb phrase and hence part of the predicate.
To analyze sentences fluidly, you need to learn these verb patterns thoroughly. You should be able to look at the constituents after a verb and say to yourself, “This pattern means that this verb is of type __”. Note that if you consult a major reference grammar such as A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language or The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language, you will find more subtypes of verbs. These other patterns, however, are minor variations on the basic ones we have presented. If you understand these five, the subtler variations will be relatively easy to understand.
Just as words can fall into several different parts of speech, verb can employ several different patterns. For this reason, you can’t just assume that a particular verb will always fall into one subtype. You must look at the sentence in which that verb appears.
Adjuncts
When we discussed intransitive verbs, we introduced the concept of an adjunct. Since these optional elements of the verb phrase play no role in deciding which verb pattern is used in a particular sentence, you don’t need to worry about them while you’re figuring out what pattern is used. In practical terms, this means you can disregard adverb phrases and prepositional phrases when determining the verb subtype.[1] (Note that we’re not ignoring them entirely; we’re just putting them aside temporarily while we figure out the basic pattern of the verb phrase.)[2]
Simply ignoring adverb phrases and prepositional phrases, however, will not be enough to allow us to distinguish all complements from all adjuncts. Under some conditions NPs and AdjPs can also be adjuncts. If we don’t distinguish those adjuncts, we can misanalyze our sentences.
(18) My wife fed the dog freshly-cooked chicken. (19) My wife fed the dog Tuesday morning.
In both (18) and (19), two NPs follow the verb fed. (18) is straightforward. The dog receives the chicken; we have a pattern of indirect object + direct object. On the other hand, if we try to fit (19) to the same pattern, things seem strange. Is Tuesday morning being fed to the dog? Clearly not. The other pattern with two NPs, VC, doesn’t make much sense either. For that to work, Tuesday morning would be the object complement. But clearly that phrase isn’t renaming the dog. Tuesday morning actually tells us when the action occurred. In other words, it is an adjunct, and fed in (19) is of type VT, with only a direct object as a complement.
If all this seems very intricate, don’t despair. First, the better you know the basic patterns, the easier it will be to spot the unusual cases. Second, there is a relatively simple test to distinguish complements from adjuncts: do so substitution. The phrase do so, changed as necessary for the appropriate tense and number, can be used to replace a verb phrase and all its complements. It does not replace the adjuncts, however:
(18a) My wife fed the dog freshly-cooked chicken yesterday, and I did so today. (19a) My wife fed the dog Tuesday morning, and I did so Wednesday evening. (19b) *My wife fed the dog Tuesday morning, and I did so the cat.
In (18a), did so replaces the verb and both noun phrases (fed the dog freshly-cooked chicken). In (19a), it replaces fed the dog, but as (19b) shows it cannot replace fed in the morning, or even fed alone.
—— Notes
[1] Some verbs (e.g., put) do require certain prepositional phrases; strictly speaking, such prepositional phrases are actually complements rather than adjuncts. But since none of our verb subtypes involve prepositional phrases, you do not need to distinguish between PP complements and adjuncts for this course.
[2] In some grammar books, you will find verb-phrase adjuncts called adverbials. This label is meant to express the traditional notion that such prepositional phrases and other constituents function in the same roles that adverbs do, while keeping distinct the form (AdvP, PP, etc.) from the function (adverbial). Although the desire to distinguish form and function is sound, I don’t use the term because in practice I have found that the similarity in form between adverb and adverbial produces continuing confusion.
Syntax concerns the way that words are arranged into larger units. That is, words are the basic units—the building blocks—of syntactic analysis. The largest unit that syntactic analysis usually considers is the sentence. For this reason, syntax is often equated with the study of sentence structure, even though the things we analyze may not always be complete sentences. Language, of course, rarely consists merely of isolated sentences. We string sentences together into larger units—paragraphs, essays, books. When we spend a great deal of time focused on sentence-level analysis, as we will in the following chapters, it’s easy to lose sight of the larger purposes of syntactic study. So before we plunge into the forest, it’s worth considering why we should spend so much effort on the task.
Some people—and I count myself among them—find that syntax has its own inherent fascination. I won’t hold it against you, however, if you’re not one of those people. There are still many good reasons to learn something about syntax. Writing in any sort of formal context—a college paper, a memo at work, or a newspaper article—requires some knowledge of syntax. To understand the conventional rules for sentence punctuation, for example, you must first understand clause and phrase structure. Beyond mere mechanics, a thorough understanding of syntax also gives you a way to take control of your own writing. When you understand how sentences are put together, you will be able to analyze your own writing and understand the structures that you have been using intuitively. You will also be able to see what other options are available to you, how it might otherwise be done. Those who write for a living or who help others with their written expression—teachers, editors, etc.—have an even greater need to know how to analyze syntax.
When we analyze a sentence, we take it apart to determine what function each unit in the sentence has. This process is known as parsing a sentence. You can probably do some basic parsing already, even if you have never heard of the term. For example, if you can identify the subject of a sentence, you have analyzed the sentence and identified the role of one important item in it. Congratulations, you have just parsed a sentence, although not completely.
Over the next ten chapters, we will develop a progressively more detailed account of English syntax. As we begin our study, you should be aware that syntax is an interrelated system. As a result, learning how to analyze it can be challenging because to understand one part you often need to know about something else. Occasionally we will have to introduce a term before defining it completely. In these cases, you may find it helpful to reread earlier sections after you understand the concept. We start with relatively general points and refine our account as we learn more about the various components of grammar. As our account grows more detailed, we will be able to analyze more and more complex sentences. From time to time, this added complexity will force us to refine our account when our first approximation turns out to be inadequate. Although it may seem more convenient to work from the beginning with a single “correct” system, that method is actually impractical. If we did so, we would drown in detail before understanding the basics.
The chapters that follow do contain many details, but they will not be exhaustive. No book can give a complete account of something as flexible and multifaceted as a human language. Even more important than all the terminology and diagrams that we use to describe syntactic structure are the basic principles that will let us think through problems on our own. When we turn to examine real-world language, as opposed to the deliberately controlled sentences of grammar books, we must understand the principles that underlie grammatical structure and apply our knowledge.
Constituency
If we look at the components of a sentence, we can say that a sentence consists of a string of words. But if we look more closely, it’s easy to see that the words aren’t all equal. Instead, they occur in groups. Consider the famous opening sentence of Leo Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina:
(1) All happy families resemble one another, but each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.
It’s not very helpful to think of the individual words in isolation. What, for example, is the relationship between each and resemble? In fact, they don’t have a direct relationship. They are more closely related to other words in the sentence than they are to each other. We can appreciate some of this structure by dividing the sentence into some of its component parts.
First, we can see that this sentence breaks down into two halves:
a:
All happy families resemble one another,
b:
but each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.
And in each of these parts, we can identify smaller units, for example[1]
a:
[All happy families]
resemble
[one another],
b:
but
[each unhappy family]
is unhappy
[in its own way].
How do we know that these words I have put in brackets are in fact units? In a variety of ways. For example, we can substitute a single pronoun they for “all happy families” or it for “each unhappy family.” And “in its own way” could be the answer to the question “how is each unhappy family unhappy?”
These units are constituents in the sentence. A constituent is any word or group of words that functions together as an entity. Most rules of syntax do not, in fact, apply to individual words but to larger constituents. There is no limit, in principle, to the size of a constituent. It may be one or two words, or it may be hundreds of words long.
At its heart, grammatical analysis involves deciding what the constituents are in a sentence. Syntax consists of the rules by which different constituents relate to one another, so constituency is the central issue in grammatical analysis, and in interpreting sentences in general. The most important constituents we’ll be working with are phrases, clauses, and sentences.
Notes
[1] This is a very brief and informal analysis, and we have only singled out a few of the constituents in this sentence. In other words, don’t think that this analysis is anywhere near complete.
Phrases
The constituent that we will see most is the phrase. A phrase consists of a single main word, called the head of the phrase, and other words that modify or give grammatical information about the head. These other words in the phrase are called the phrase’s attributes. Informally, we might say that the head word is the main idea of the phrase.
(2) Russia’s proposal at the conference
The phrase in example (2) is talking about a kind of proposal. Russia’s and at the conference tell us what specific proposal we’re talking about. Proposal, therefore is the head word.[1]
The lexical category of the phrase’s head gives its name to phrase. Thus a noun is the head of a noun phrase (abbreviated NP), a verb the head of a verb phrase (VP), and so forth. Since proposal is a noun, (2) is a noun phrase.
Other Examples:
(3a)
baked him a cake
Verb Phrase (VP)
(3b)
fond of pecans
Adjective Phrase (AP)
(3c)
very quickly
Adverb Phrase (AdvP)
(3d)
to the lighthouse
Prepositional Phrase (PP)
Apart from simply being a convenient way to name phrases, the relationship between the head word and the phrase type captures a significant fact of syntax: the category of the head word plays an important role in determining where in the sentence the phrase can go, as well as a variety of grammatical rules such as agreement between subject and verb.
(4) {The [contract] between the boards of the two companies} [was] nullified by regulators.
For example, in sentence (4), contract is the head word of the NP which is the subject. The whole subject, therefore is singular, and agrees with the verb was, despite the two plural nouns (boards and companies) which are closer to the verb in terms of linear order, but which are actually buried in prepositional phrases.[2]
This example also illustrates another important point: phrase structure is hierarchical. That is, phrases can nest within phrases to any level of complexity. Thus the subject of (4), “the agreement between the boards of the two companies,” contains two prepositional phrases, each of which itself contains a noun phrase. We can show this relationship in a diagram:
Take a moment to study this diagram. We will refine it later with additional details, but it’s important that you recognize what information it’s trying to communicate. It shows that the whole noun phrase contains three parts: a determiner, the, the head noun, agreement, and a prepositional phrase, between the boards of the two companies. In turn, that prepositional phrase consists of its head word, between and a noun phrase, the boards of the two companies. That noun phrase contains yet another prepositional phrase, of the two companies, which contains its own noun phrase, the two companies. That’s what we mean when we say that phrase structure is hierarchical: one phrase can contain another phrase inside it.
Viewed this way, even the most elaborate sentence can always be broken down into a handful of relatively simple patterns that repeat over and over.
One final note on phrases: in ordinary, non-technical usage, the word phrase means “more than one word.” Thus you will sometimes encounter books that use the expression “word or phrase” to explain concepts like the subject. As we have defined phrases here, however, that expression is redundant. Because the attributes of a phrase are often optional, it is possible to have a phrase that consists of a single word.
(5) Computers intimidate many people. (6) The young man was naïve.
In sentence (5), computers is a noun in a phrase with no attributes. It is a noun phrase all by itself. In sentence (6), naïve is a one-word adjective phrase. Treating these constituents as phrases, and not just individual words, allows us to account for many aspects of grammar in a simpler and more consistent fashion than if we treated them differently.
Notes
[1] This semantic test works reasonably well for prototypical cases, but be careful. There are many cases where the idea of the phrase won’t really match the structural head. In other words, this notional definition of the head is meant to get you started with the easy cases, but it’s only a rough guide. As you look at the examples that follow, pay attention to the structural patterns first, and meaning second.
[2] We are, of course, speaking of Standard English when we refer to subject-verb agreement rules. Some people do from time to time operate by a principle of attraction, making the verb agree with the nearest noun rather than the head noun of the whole phrase.
Form and Function
Labels like NP, VP, etc, tell us the structural form of a constituent. Form alone, however, does not tell us everything about how a constituent works in the sentence. We must also consider its function.
(7) Her dog chases rabbits.
For example, her dog and rabbits in (7) are both noun phrases, but they have different functions in the sentence. Although we haven’t yet specified these functional roles, we can already see that each noun phrase has a different role in the sentence. The dog is doing the chasing, and the rabbits are being chased. The role of her dog is probably already familiar to you: it serves as the subject of this sentence. Rabbits plays a role known as the direct object, which we will study in the next chapter.
(8a) His happiness was evident. (8b) That he was happy was evident.
Although subjects are typically noun phrases, they need not be. The underlined constituents in (8a) and (8b) are both subjects, but these two subjects are realized by different forms. The first is a noun phrase while the second is a clause (another term we’re about to get to). In other words, just as the same form can serve different functions, the same function can have different forms.
(9) Shelly wrote a short story. (10) The baseball player underwent elbow surgery.
If we consider constituents that are underlined in (9) and (10) above, we can see that they both have the same form (NP) and that they are both subjects, but in another way their functions are different. Shelly in (9) plays the role of the actor; she performs an action. The baseball player, however, is not the actor in (10); the surgery is performed upon him. He plays the role of the experiencer, commonly called the patient. (That’s the general term, and not just because this particular sentence is about a medical procedure.)
Notice that in discussing these roles, we are invoking the meaning of the sentence. They are, in other words, semantic roles, and they are not the same thing as grammatical roles like subject and direct object. Grammatical roles are defined by structural relationships within the sentence, semantic roles by relationships of meaning.
Keep in mind these distinctions. The form of a constituent, its grammatical function, and its semantic function, do not exist in one-to-one relationships. We will see many instances as we proceed where there are prototypical relationships. For example, subjects prototypically are NPs and actors. But as soon as you start to generalize and assume, for example, that subjects are always actors, you will get into trouble. You will save yourself a great deal of confusion if you distinguish form, grammatical function and semantic function carefully. As we proceed, take note of when we are discussing form and when we are discussing function.
Clauses
A clause is a constituent consisting of two parts: a subject and a predicate. The concepts of subject and predicate are probably already familiar to you from your earlier schooling. In terms of meaning, we can say that the subject is the part of the clause about which something is asserted, and the predicate makes that assertion. These definitions are vague, and eventually we will need to be more precise. We will describe a clause in terms of structure once we’re better able to describe how that structure works.
(11)
Subject and predicate are both grammatical functions. The predicate is realized by a verb phrase, and in the most common case, the subject is realized by a noun phrase. Notice that in the diagram above, we indicate both the grammatical form (the phrase type) and the function. The two are separated by a colon. Thus our notation follows the pattern form: function.[1]
One important point to note about subjects is that they frequently consist of more than one word.
(12)
Many students are taught in grade school to identify the word senator alone as the subject. However, notice that senator is merely the head noun of the subject. The determiner the and the prepositional phrase from California are also part of the subject. In other words, subjects and predicates, along with other grammatical functions we will encounter later, are functions of phrases, not of individual words. As we noted above, however, those phrases may consist of only one word from time to time.
Notes
[1] Some theories of grammar do not mark functions as a matter of principal. Such theories attempt to give the most parsimonious account possible, and in this way of looking at things, grammatical roles such as subject are predictable from the structure. Although it may be redundant to mark such roles, we do so here for pedagogical reasons. We are primarily interested in describing all the relevant grammatical features in a way that is relatively easy to interpret, and to that end, we will tolerate a certain amount of redundancy.
Sentences
Traditional grammar books, especially in their early chapters, often give the definition for the clause that we used in the previous section as the definition for a sentence. That simplification works for simple sentences, which often consist of only a single clause, but will not hold up under scrutiny:
(13a) George seems quite relieved. (13b) It’s obvious George seems quite relieved. (13c) George seems quite relieved, but his brother remains uneasy.
In each example, George seems quite relieved is a clause. But only in (13a) is the clause equivalent to the sentence. In (13b), the clause is embedded into a larger sentence. It is known as a subordinate clause. In example (13c), the clause is linked by coordination to another clause, but neither one is contained inside the other. In the next few chapters, we will be dealing with simple, one-clause sentences like (13a), but it’s important to keep in mind that real sentences frequently contain more than one clause. We will return to multi-clause sentences after developing an understanding of basic clauses.
Another understanding of the sentence commonly found in traditional grammars defines a sentence to be a group of words that expresses a complete thought. Like the notional definitions of parts of speech, though, this leaves much to be desired. How can (13a) count as a complete thought while the identical string of words in (13b) and (13c) do not? How do we tell what counts as a complete thought? The more we think about it, the emptier this definition appears.
(14a) The founding of the college by Leland Stanford. (14b) Leland Stanford founded the college.
Most people would have no problem saying that (14b) is a sentence while (14a) is not, but do they not contain all the same information? And why do we even think that (14a) is complete? If this sentence appeared in a larger essay, would it not be reasonable to claim that the whole essay expresses the writer’s complete thought, and that this sentence is just a fragment of that thought? The traditional definition relies on a preexisting intuition of what constitutes a sentence. In other words, it takes for granted that we understand what it means to be complete without ever actually defining completeness.
For the moment, we will define the sentence negatively and say that it consists of at least one clause that is not contained in a larger grammatical unit. That is, if we look at texts that contain multiple sentences, the only relationship among sentences is one of simple sequence, as sentences are placed one after another.[1] Note that there are additional restrictions on what is and is not a sentence, but they will be easier to define after we have studied more types of phrases and clauses.
Notes
[1] We are not considering here the “orthographic” sentence—that is a string of words that begins with a capital letter and ends with a period, question mark, or exclamation point. While this often, especially in formal writing, aligns with syntactic sentences, the two do not necessarily coincide.
Constituency Tests
William Powell: So I’m a hero … I was shot twice in the Tribune. Myrna Loy: I read where you were shot five times in the Tabloids. Powell: It’s not true … he didn’t come anywhere near my Tabloids.” —From “The Thin Man”
Many jokes, such as the banter between William Powell and Myrna Loy above, depend on an ambiguity in the sentence structure. Loy means that she read the story in the Tabloids, but Powell plays on the idea that he was shot in the Tabloids, and therefore that the tabloids are a body part. In effect, Powell reanalyzes the original statement in order to make his joke. Such ambiguities are frequent in all sorts of language, not just jokes.
(15) The Red Cross evacuated the refugees from Sudan.
This sentence can be interpreted as saying either that the refugees were evacuated from Sudan or that they were from Sudan. You may be predisposed to read this sentence with the first interpretation. In fact, the second version may seem as if it means the same thing. But consider sentence (15) in the following context:
After Hurricane Katrina struck the New Orleans, Maria Veracruz, a long-time worker for the Red Cross, experienced a feeling of deja vu. When she arrived in the stricken city, she saw faces that she had encountered only six months before on the dusty plains of East Africa. With full appreciation of the irony, the Red Cross evacuated the refugees from Sudan for a second time.
With this larger context, we are now primed to read the sentence according to the second grouping. But whichever interpretation we apply to (15), it’s important to notice that our interpretation is reflected in the constituency of the items in the sentence. We can show the structure of each interpretation visually by means of diagrams:
The first diagram shows a line extending from the prepositional phrase (PP) to the noun phrase (NP), indicating that the prepositional phrase is part of (i.e., a constituent of) the noun phrase. This grouping reflects the second interpretation above. Notice that not only does it imply a particular meaning—the refugees are originally from Sudan—but it also indicates that the complete string of words, the refugees from Sudan, acts as a unit. So, for example, if we ask, “Who did the Red Cross evacuate?” we would answer “The refugees from Sudan.” Or if we expressed the idea in the passive voice, we would say
(15a) The refugees from Sudan were evacuated by the Red Cross.
The second diagram shows a line extending from the prepositional phrase directly to the verb phrase. This diagram reflects the first interpretation above: the refugees are evacuated from Sudan. By connecting the line directly to the verb phrase, we indicate that from Sudan gives information that modifies the verb evacuated rather than the noun refugees. Notice that in this interpretation, the noun phrase the refugees is also part of the verb phrase, but the noun phrase and the prepositional phrase do not form a single unit. For example, the passive form would be
(15b) The refugees were evacuated from Sudan by the Red Cross.
In other words, the string of words the refugees from Sudan does not behave as a single structural unit (constituent) under this reading of the sentence.
Sometimes, particularly once you become more familiar with syntax, the constituency of words in a sentence will be intuitively obvious. At other times, however, you will need to think carefully. To tell if words are constituents, if they are working together or not, you can try several tests.
Substitution is a particularly good test. If you can replace the candidate phrase with a pronoun (e.g., they or it) it’s a noun phrase:
(16a) The golfers were forced off the course by the approaching lightning. (16b) They were forced off the course by the approaching lightning.
Verb phrases can usually be replaced with do so:
(17) Yolanda has saved for retirement since her 20s. John has done so only since he married.
Prepositional phrases can often be replaced by a single word (traditionally identified as an adverb):
(18a) She went to the bar. (18b) She went there.
You can also demonstrate phrase structure if the words will move as a unit. In other words, it is often possible to recast a sentence so that it still has more or less the same meaning but so that its elements appear in a different order. Sometimes, you can do this by simple rearrangement:
(19a) They found their guest waiting in the den. (19b) In the den, they found their guest waiting.
Movement can also be shown by creating a so-called “wh-cleft” sentence.[1] Wh-cleft sentences are formed by rearranging a basic sentence in this fashion:
(20a) That woman left her abusive husband. (20b) Her abusive husband is whom that woman left.
The cleft sentence has the form:
moved item + form of TO BE + wh-word + clause
Notice that only phrases move—you can’t cleft a single word, or any other string of words that doesn’t constitute a phrase:
(20c) *Husband is whom that woman left her abusive. (20d) *Abusive husband is whom that woman left her. (20e) *Her abusive is whom that woman left husband.
One other test that often works is to see if the candidate phrase could be the answer to a (normal) question.
(21) Where did they find their guest? In the den.
But there is no natural question about the content of the sentence that could elicit “found their” as an answer.[2]
These tests for constituency are important to understand when you come to analyze sentences for yourself, so it’s a good idea to take some time to make sure you fully understand how to apply them.
Notes
[1] The name comes from the presence of a wh- word (who, why, etc.). There are also other types of cleft sentences.
[2] Of course you can ask questions such as “what are the second and third words of the sentence,” but those aren’t sentences about the content of the sentence.
Finding Subjects and Predicates
Two of the most important constituents to identify are the subject and the predicate. In simple sentences, finding the subject is intuitively obvious. In elaborate sentences, we need to be more systematic. We can find the subject of even the most complex sentences by noticing a property of English grammar.
(22a) Samantha was expecting a phone call. (22b) Was Samantha expecting a phone call?
(23a) He has been cheating on his wife again. (23b) Has he been cheating on his wife again?
(24a) The senator could retire after the current session. (24b) Could the senator retire after the current session?
(25a) That talented writer is a drunken sot. (25b) Is that talented writer a drunken sot?
If we think of questions as being formed from the equivalent statement, we can see that yes-no questions are formed by moving the italicized verb from one side of the subject to the other.[1] The verbs that move are either auxiliary verbs or a form of the verb to be.
We can use this fact of English grammar as a test for our subjects. Simply turn the clause into a yes-no question (or if it’s already a question, change it to a statement) and observe the position of the moving verb. This technique will work even when the subject is very long and contains many elements inside it:[2]
(26a) The man who walked barefoot for ten miles across the burning-hot desert is thirsty. (26b) Is the man who walked barefoot for ten miles across the burning-hot desert thirsty?
Sometimes the statement form of a sentence doesn’t have an auxiliary verb. In this case, a dummy verb, a form of the verb to do, is inserted:
(27a) Bob thinks he is a good musician. (27b) Does Bob think he is a good musician?
Although it may seem that this process violates the general pattern, there is an alternate form that we can use when we want to emphasize a point, perhaps when responding to someone else’s assertion that Bob is not confident in his musical abilities:
(27c) Bob does think he is a good musician.
So even here, we can apply our subject-finding test, by contrasting the yes-no question with the emphatic form rather than the plain statement.
Once we have identified the subject, the rest of the clause is the predicate.
Notes
[1] The technical term for the verb that moves is the operator.
[2] There are some sentences (other than questions), where the ordinary order of subject and verb is inverted (e.g., “From his workshop have come many outstanding paintings.”) In such cases, this test becomes a little more complicated. Turning this into a question will require significant reordering (“Have many outstanding paintings come from his workshop?”) Notice, though, that the question form forces the actual subject (“many outstanding paintings”) back to its default position, and we can then turn this question back into a statement that uses the more ordinary word order (“Many outstanding paintings have come from his workshop.”)
Diagrams
Q. Please explain how to diagram a sentence. A. First spread the sentence out on a clean, flat surface, such as an ironing board. Then, using a sharp pencil or X-Acto knife, locate the ‘predicate,’ which indicates where the action has taken place and is usually located directly behind the gills. For example, in the sentence: ‘LaMont never would of bit a forest ranger,’ the action probably took place in a forest. Thus your diagram would be shaped like a little tree with branches sticking out of it to indicate the locations of the various particles of speech, such as your gerunds, proverbs, adjutants, etc. —Dave Barry, Ask Mr. Language Person
Grammarians like diagrams. You may have been compelled to draw something this in school:
from Reed and Kellogg, Graded Lessons in English, p. 60
Sometimes, students spend so much time drawing diagrams that they come to think of them as all there is to grammar. So what’s the point of diagrams? Diagrams show you the constituency of sentences visually. As we have said above, constituency is one of the central issues of syntax, so diagrams make important assertions about language, but keep in mind that diagrams are only a tool, a method of showing what you understand about sentence structure that other people will be able to apprehend rapidly.
Diagrams drawn with the method illustrated above are known as Reed-Kellogg diagrams, after the authors who developed this system in the 1860s. Although such diagrams are frequently encountered in junior high and high school textbooks, they are rarely found outside the schoolroom. Of course, Reed-Kellogg diagrams are meant to be pedagogical, so that limitation is not necessarily a bad thing. They do capture a number of important features of sentence structure in a clear visual layout. In the diagram above, for example, we can quickly appreciate the core of the sentence and how the other elements relate to that core.
For the purposes of giving a truly accurate structural view of a sentence, however, Reed-Kellogg diagrams have many limitations. One drawback is that to understand these diagrams, you need to learn the significance of a relatively wide variety of different symbols. In this diagram alone we have thick horizontal line, thin horizontal lines, different kinds of slanting lines, and a dotted line. And there are a number of other symbols for structures not found in this example. More significantly, notice, in the diagram above, that determiners like the, adverbs like very, and prepositions like of are all indicated in the same way: by writing them on a slanting line. In other words, no distinction is made among these three very different word classes. As we develop our account of English syntax, we will see other ways in which Reed-Kellogg diagrams give a misleading picture of English syntax.
Linguists favor a different method for representing structure, known as a “tree diagram.” You have already seen several of these tree diagrams, but we have not stopped to look closely at them. They get their names because they look somewhat trees turned upside down, and they show the various constituents branching off. Tree diagrams are used in many disciplines other than linguistics, for example, computer science. They are very good at showing structures that are hierarchical. As language is organized this way, it is a good candidate for representation with tree diagrams. The following is an example of the sort of tree diagram that we will be using for this course:
(28)
Tree diagrams have several advantages over Reed-Kellogg diagrams. They are drawn by following a few simple principles, so you don’t have to remember what different line shapes and orientations signify. Despite that simplicity, tree diagrams can represent phrase structure accurately. One practical disadvantage, however, is that they become unwieldy for very long sentences. In comparison, Reed-Kellogg diagrams are more compact. That is, you can more easily fit your analysis of a longer sentence on one page if you use Reed-Kellogg notation than if you use tree notation.
Both tree and Reed-Kellogg diagrams are unreasonably awkward to use in certain contexts, for example in an e-mail or on-line posting where graphics may not be available. In such places, you may also run across other attempts to show syntactic relationships using only ordinary characters. One possibility is to use labeled brackets. The brackets substitute for the lines in showing how the constituents are grouped:
All the same information is here, but unfortunately, this method tends to lack visual clarity. It’s difficult to grasp the constituency of the sentence at a glance the way you can with a diagram. Still another method to indicate constituents uses horizontal lines and labels above (or below). These are a kind of flattened tree diagram, which have the advantage of saving space:[1]
|----------------------- Clause ------------------------------| |---------------- VP: predicate -----------------| |--------PP: agent--------| |-NP: subj-| |AP: SComp| |-----NP: obj-prep----| N VL Adj P Adj N Mozart remains beloved by contemporary audiences.
We will generally use tree diagrams in this course. As long as the diagram accurately conveys the sentence structure, however, the exact diagramming scheme we use does not make too much difference.[2] The purpose of diagrams is merely to help us visualize the structure. They are the tools, not the ends, of grammatical analysis.
—— Notes
[1] Making such diagrams legible requires that you use a fixed-space font such as Courier rather than the more ordinary proportional fonts used by default in word processors and web pages.
[2] Note that this requirement makes Reed-Kellogg diagrams unsuitable. Their representation of verb phrases in particular is lacking.
Principles for Drawing Tree Diagrams
Different textbooks present different variations on the tree diagram, depending on the details of their analysis. The basic principles, however, remain constant, and if you understand them, you should be able to grasp the diagrams’ essence no matter what the details. Tree diagrams are most often drawn above the item being diagrammed.[1] A tree consists of nodes. A node has a label, for example NP for noun phrase, VP for verb phrase, and so on. The node at the very top of the tree, the one from which all the others ultimately derive, is called the root of the tree. The nodes are connected by lines, known as edges. The terminal nodes of our diagrams, the ones without any children, are known as the leaves of the tree. They will contain labels for the word categories (parts of speech) of each word. (The following examples contain details that we haven’t introduced yet. Don’t worry about these yet. It’s only important here that you understand the general message that the diagram is meant to communicate.)
Borrowing terminology from genealogical trees, the nodes below another node are sometimes called the children of that node. A node that has children is a parent node. Just as with people, parent nodes can themselves be children of other parents. If we need to talk about nodes that are children of children, we call them descendants. Unlike genealogical trees, however, it is important to note that while a node may have several children, it only has one parent. Also, each line should connect to one child node. Do not show two edges connecting to a single word.
Further, you should always space out your nodes so that edges do not cross one another. This practice is merely for visual clarity. In principle, there’s no reason why the lines must never cross.
Sometimes, we will not want to analyze a sentence completely. Initially, we will lack the knowledge to analyze everything in a sentence. Later on, with more complex sentences, we may choose to ignore details that aren’t relevant to our purpose. In these cases, we will indicate an unanalyzed constituent by using a triangle.
An unanalyzed constituent
—— Notes
[1] Tree diagrams can also be drawn under the sentence, although in this course we will follow the more common practice.
One of the first things that people noticed when they started thinking about language as language was that words tend to fall into categories and that the members of these categories behave in similar ways. The traditional name for those categories is the “parts of speech.” In this chapter, we will look at these word categories and see how the traditional account is somewhat misleading, as well as inaccurate. With a more accurate idea of word categories, we will be equipped with the basics that we need to begin studying sentence structure.
The Traditional View: Parts of Speech
You may have forgotten much of the grammar you were taught in school, if you were taught any at all, but most people can remember the parts of speech, at least the major ones. What is a noun? You probably said “a noun is a person, place, or thing.” A verb? It describes an action, right? What about a preposition? You may have had more difficulty here, but perhaps you learned that prepositions tell you what an airplane can do to a cloud (go through, under, into, etc.). All of these definitions are well-entrenched in our educational system, but linguists are happy with none of them. If we scrutinize them, the traditional parts of speech turn out to be problematic. Consider the traditional definitions of noun and verb:
Noun: A noun is a person, place or thing. Verb: A verb describes an action or state of being.
These definitions cover what we might call prototypical cases. Nouns often do label objects in the real world (car, tree, apple, etc.) and verbs most commonly express action (run, play, eat, etc.). But what do we do with abstract nouns like love or destruction. One easy way out is to add “idea” to the definition, but this change comes at a severe cost, for “idea” can be taken to encompass just about everything. Consider sentences such as
(1) John gave him a shove. (2) John shoved him.
What allows us to say that shove in sentence (1) functions as a noun, but shoved in sentence (2) functions as a verb? The meaning of both sentences, after all, is essentially the same. And how do we account for verbs like hear or undergo? In a sentence like
(3) Vivica underwent a tonsillectomy as a child.
the subject does not really perform an action, nor does the verb describe a mere state of being. It actually describes a change of state. If we broaden our definition to say that a verb tells us something about some person or thing, it becomes difficult to explain the difference between verbs and adjectives. The traditional definitions of parts of speech founder because they look for semantic definitions. These definitions may cover the canonical situations acceptably, but any definition that covers all cases becomes so vague as to be useless for making discriminations. Another problem with the common way of presenting parts of speech stems from their origins in Latin grammar. The term part of speech, and most of the labels themselves, were borrowed from the study of Latin.[1] When English was first subjected to grammatical analysis, Latin was the language of educated Europeans, and it was presumed to represent an ideal, logical grammar. Therefore the earliest writers of English grammar books simply applied the terminology and classification they knew from Latin to the description of English. Because the two languages have significant grammatical differences, however, the fit was not perfect. Most Latin grammars described eight parts of speech: nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, and interjections. If one didn’t look too closely at the details, these categories worked, more or less, for English. But there were many problematic cases that troubled grammarians from the start. How, for example, should one handle the word the, or the word to when it appears in front of a verb? Latin had no direct equivalent to either word, but some grammarians tried to force these words to fit the Latin categories anyway. Therefore the was considered an adjective and to was called a preposition. Other grammarians disagreed, creating new categories for these words. This disagreement was never resolved in traditional grammar, and to this day, different textbooks make conflicting statements about these words.[2] — Notes [1] “Part of speech” is a literal translation of the Latin pars orationis. [2] Today, the reason some textbooks differ is likely that they have been influenced by more recent linguistic grammars, but even in the nineteenth century there was never perfect consensus. See, for example, Goold Brown, The Grammar of English Grammars, 6th ed. (1862), who argues for ten parts of speech. This lack of consensus is worthy of note because some textbooks confidently speak of eight parts of speech as if the whole issue had been settled centuries before.
The Linguistic View
Given all this confusion over the concept of parts of speech, it’s reasonable to ask if we can’t just jettison the concept completely. Why do we really need to know what a noun is? In fact, the problems with traditional parts of speech have prompted some linguists to abandon the term part of speech completely. They have not, however, given up on the idea behind the label. The term part of speech simply means “a word category.” In other words, it reflects the important observation that words can be grouped into categories because they behave similarly. For example, consider how we can complete the following sentence frames:
(4) She has no ____. (5) She can ____.
The first sentence can be completed with words like bicycle, shoes, worries, ability, home, etc., that is, with nouns, but not with words like went, happy, in, or cheerfully (verb, adjective, preposition, and adverb respectively). The second sentence works with words such as hide, fly, delay, lie, cry, etc. (verbs), but not shoes, beautiful, happily, into, etc. Such sentence frames show that there’s more to a word than its meaning. Words also belong to categories, and knowing membership in a particular category lets us predict where the word can fit in the sentence.
(6) *My sons both graduation high school.
A sentence like (6) is ungrammatical because the slot that graduation occupies in the sentence requires a verb, not because the general meaning of graduation is inaccurate.
Some linguists avoid the term parts of speech and prefer to speak simply of categories. What is gained by changing the terminology?
It is true that “parts of speech” is misleading if we take the expression literally, as components of language. Clearly, there are many more parts to language than word categories. On the other hand, “part of speech”, as a term of art, differs little in its basic meaning from category.
It’s really the implication of the term–its association with old grammar books–that causes some to avoid it. I, however, find it hard to see enough difference between the two terms to justify abandoning so familiar a term as “part of speech.” Although traditional definitions are muddled, in practical terms, older grammarians meant largely the same thing as modern linguists do with major categories such as noun, verb, or adjective. Even where old fashioned grammarians could not explain the parts of speech adequately, they would still assign the majority of words to the same categories linguists do. (The exceptions, we will see shortly.) In other words, even if traditional grammarians did not define what they were doing very well, their intuitions about these categories led them to many of the same conclusions. So the lexical categories are essentially the same thing as the parts of speech. The fact that the details differ doesn’t really affect that essential similarity.
The insistence upon the generic term category, however, does have the virtue of emphasizing just what the parts of speech are, something that is opaque in the traditional term. For that reason, we will use part of speech and category interchangeably, keeping in mind that using the traditional term does not imply we accept the details of traditional classification uncritically. Instead, we will examine how these categories can be redefined to better reflect the way they actually work.
Testing Category Membership
If we are going to do more than simply accept the traditional parts of speech uncritically, we need to establish some sort of theory of word categories, a set of principles that will let us decide where the traditional categories work and where they need revision. Armed with this procedure, we will find that traditional grammars describe some categories that have no real existence in Present-day English. They also conflate other categories which are actually distinct.
Our basic procedure will be to look for elements that are grammatically distinct in English. In other words, we must find structural reasons to distinguish one item from another. For example, we can justify distinguishing verbs from nouns based on the relationships they enter into:
(7) Brown should denounce the need to memorize grammatical definitions. (8) Brown’s denunciation of the need to memorize grammatical definitions.
In example (7), denounce belongs to a category (verb) that can take an -ed inflection to indicate past time (for example, “Brown denounced it.”). It can also follow an auxiliary verb (in this instance, should). It can also, in turn, be followed by a noun phrase (the need) that functions as something called the direct object. (Don’t worry if some of these terms are unfamiliar. We will cover them in the upcoming chapters.) One way to speak about these possibilities is to say that denounce can enter into a variety of structural relationships with other elements in a sentence. These relationships are not a matter of the word’s meaning. Notice that a wide variety of different words can replace denounce. If we were to substitute them, the sentence’s meaning would change entirely. Yet all those words appear in the same structural contexts.
The word denunciation in (8) enters into an entirely different series of relationships, even though its meaning is quite similar to that of denounce. It can be preceded by a definite article (the) or a noun phrase marked with the so-called “possessive” (‘s), it can take a plural -s inflection, and it can be modified by an adjective (for example, “Brown’s quick denunciation). If we try to make denunciation fit into any of the patterns that work for denounce, we get ungrammatical nonsense:
(8a) *Brown’s denunciationed of the need to memorize grammatical definitions. (8b) *Brown’s can denunciation of the need to memorize grammatical definitions. (8c) *Brown’s denunciation the need to memorize grammatical definitions.
As a result, we say that denunciation belongs to a different category (noun).
We will use both procedures repeatedly both to explain how we arrive at our categories and to figure out which category any particular word belongs to.
Another important point about word categories is that they exist within a hierarchy. That is, we will recognize both primary categories and subcategories. For example, we accept the primary category of noun, but not all nouns behave the same way. Words like Gina and car are both nouns and share properties such as the ability to appear as the principal word in a subject. But they also differ in the words that appear with them. Car, as long as it is singular, must appear with a word like the or a. Gina, on the other hand, cannot appear with these words:
(9) *Car is in the driveway. (10) *The Gina was late for work.
We therefore say that car and Gina belong to the same primary category, but different subcategories.
Primary Categories
Contemporary linguistics describes some word categories differently from traditional grammar books, and introduces several new distinctions.
One distinction that is sometimes made is between lexical categories and functional categories. Lexical categories contain the content words–nouns, verbs, etc. These are the words that carry the primary meaning of the sentence. There are also words that carry little specific meaning of their own. Their main purpose is to serve as the glue to hold the content words together. Such words belong to functional categories. Although this distinction is conceptually useful, it’s not always easy to assign categories clearly to one group or the other. Prepositions, as we will see, have some lexical qualities and some functional qualities.
For that reason, we will not make too much of the lexical vs. functional distinction. Instead, we will simply describe the primary categories. We will examine how these categories work in more detail as we learn more about sentence structure. For now, here’s a brief overview.
Nouns (N)
Although I have already tried to show why the traditional definition of a noun (person, place, or thing) is inadequate, now that we have come to define what nouns are, I am going to start with that definition anyway. Am I contradicting myself? Not really. Nouns do refer to people, places, and things, but that doesn’t exhaust the extent of their reference. People, places, and things are prototypical nouns. If we’re studying a new language, the category that we will call “noun” in that language will be the one that includes these core objects.[1] We will start with these core nouns, observe the patterns that they exhibit, and then use those patterns as a structural test for other words whose category membership may be less clear.
Let’s begin with a few examples of such core nouns: teacher, house, car.
All of these words use the same suffixes. They change form to distinguish singular from plural by adding -s:
One teacher, two teachers One house, two houses One car, two cars
They also take a different suffix that is traditionally called the possessive (‘s for singular nouns, s’ for plural ones) although for reasons we will come to later, it’s more accurately called the genitive.
the teacher’s credential the house’s roof the car’s engine
Nouns can also be formed from preexisting verbs, adjectives, other nouns by adding certain suffixes, e.g., -ment, -tion, -hood, etc. So the presence of such a suffix is good evidence that the word you are looking at is a noun. (See the section on morphology for more information on this process.)
These morphological tests work for a wide variety of nouns, but not all. For example, there are some nouns that form the plural irregularly (e.g., mouse/mice), or show no difference in form at all (e.g., sheep, deer, etc.). Nevertheless, we still want to assign these words to the same category because in other respects they behave just like the more regular words.
Another set of tests looks at the context in which a word can appear in phrases or sentences. As was indicated above, nouns can appear in sentence structures such as the frame in (4), repeated here for convenience:
(4) She has no _____.
Nouns can also appear as the subjects of sentences:
(11) Deprivation is growing among the unemployed.
Nouns also follow certain function words known as determiners (see below), such as the, a(n), my, that, etc. Thus we can say the enrollment, but not *the enroll.
—— Notes
[1] Although the claim is not entirely uncontroversial, most linguists believe that every human language distinguishes at a minimum between nouns and verbs.
Pronouns (Pro)
Pronouns are words like he, she, or you that let us cross-reference another entity somewhere else in the discourse or in the real world. Traditional grammars state that pronouns replace nouns, but it would be more accurate to say that they replace noun phrases.
(12a) [The airplane parked on the tarmac] appeared damaged. (12b) It appeared damaged.
In (12b), the pronoun it does not replace just the word airplane of (12a); it replaces the entire string of words, the airplane parked on the tarmac. Replacing only airplane with a pronoun yields an ungrammatical sentence:
(12c) *The it parked on the tarmac appeared damaged.
Pronouns serve the same functions in a sentence that nouns do, most notably they are the heads of noun phrases. They largely observe the same syntactic rules as nouns, for example subject-verb agreement. For these reasons, we will consider pronouns to be a special type of noun rather than an independent word category.
We will use the term referent for the entity to which the pronoun refers. The referent does not necessarily have to be named linguistically. For example, if you and I are standing on a street corner and observe an automobile weaving in and out of traffic at a high rate of speed, you might say to me, “He’s driving recklessly.” The context of the situation tells me that the referent for he is the car’s driver without your needing to use that noun phrase. However, pronouns often do refer to other noun phrases, and in this common situation those noun phrases are called antecedents.
Sometimes, we will need to note what pronoun refers to what antecedent. In this case, we will use a subscript notation. For example:
(13) Genevieve helped Albertj with hisj physics homework.
In (13), the letter j indicates that the pronoun his refers to Albert. In other words, j serves as a co-referencing variable. We can use such subscripts to make assertions about particular interpretations of pronouns. For example:
(14) *Genevievej made herj a sandwich.
We mark (14) as ungrammatical not because it has no sensible interpretation but because her cannot be understood to apply to Genevieve. If her referred to any female other than Genevieve, the sentence would be acceptable.
Pronouns come in several varieties: Personal pronouns I, you, he, she, etc. usually refer to a previously mentioned noun phrase or to a clearly implied person. Reflexive pronouns myself, yourself, themselves, etc. most commonly refer to the subject of the clause they are in.
(14) The graduating seniorsj threw themselvesj a party.
Because of this requirement that reflexives refer to the subject, reflexive pronouns usually cannot appear in subject position
(15) *Himself went to the party.
For the same reason, transitive verbs with reflexives in the direct object cannot be made passive:
(16a) Ron Howard cast himself in his own movie (16b) *Himself was cast by Ron Howard in his own movie. Indefinite pronouns: somebody, anyone, everything, nothing, etc. don’t refer to specific nouns. Interrogative pronouns: what, who, or whom, replace a noun phrase in forming a question. Relative pronouns: who, whom, which, whose, replace a noun phrase in a relative clause.
Interrogative and relative pronouns occur as parts of more complex structures, which we will study in a later chapter.
Verbs (V)
In terms of their distribution, verbs are words that can appear after auxiliaries. In the frame sentence (5), repeated for convenience, can is the auxiliary:
(5) She can ____.
We will have more to say about auxiliaries later. For now, we can simply note that they are words like can, could, will, would, shall, should, may, might, or must. In most grammar books, auxiliaries are considered a special type of verb, and that is how we will treat them. But it’s important to note that auxiliaries do not behave like most other verbs. In particular, they fail most of the tests for verb-hood given here. For example, the frame sentence (5) cannot be filled in with another auxiliary.
(12) *She can might.[1]
That fact has led some linguists to treat auxiliaries as a separate word category. We will explore the logic for keeping them as a subclass of verbs when we examine the structure of verb phrases.
Morphologically, verbs change form to distinguish tense, and, in the present tense, the third-person-singular from other persons and numbers. Thus we contrast They walk, the present tense, from They walked, the preterite (past tense), and He/she/it walks from I/you/we/they walk. Verbs also take the suffix –ing.
Note, however, that these morphological tests don’t work for every verb. Just as there are some exceptions as to how nouns form the plural, there are some exceptions to how verbs form the preterite. Almost every verb does allow -ing to be added, but there are one or two odd cases, such as beware.
—- Notes
[1] In some regional varieties of English, for example in North Carolina, two auxiliary verbs actually can appear together in the so-called double-modal construction, e.g., “I might could loan you the money.” Such sentences, though, are ungrammatical for all the standard varieties of English.
Adjectives (Adj)
Adjectives typically specify characteristics of nouns, or they limit the application, as in “the large refund,” “an enthusiastic participant,” or “purple prose.” Most often they appear before a noun, although they can also appear in their own phrases after certain verbs known as linking verbs, as in “Wilma looks cheerful.” or “They were happy.”
Morphologically, most adjectives are gradable. That is, they express the grammatical category known as degree. The basic form of the adjective, which expresses a quality, is known as the positive degree. To express a greater intensity of one of two items, the comparative degree is used, either by adding the suffix –er or with the word more and the basic adjective. To express the greatest intensity among three or more items, the superlative degree is used, either with –est or most.
Gradable adjectives can be tested by adding the word very in front of them. Thus
(13) She is very slow (14) *Very fools waste time. (15) *He very adores her.
Some adjectives, however, describe an all-or-nothing state, and aren’t gradable. The very test sounds rather odd with these words, as in
(16) ?They were very present at the assembly.
In such cases, the very test won’t help us decide whether present is an adjective. Notice, however, that present does pass the other structural tests for an adjective given above. For example, it can appear after a linking verb like were:
(16b) They were present at the assembly.
Adverbs (Adv)
In traditional grammar, adverb was a catch-all category for everything that was difficult to analyze. Unfortunately, this had the effect of making the category heterogeneous. Some words that are traditionally called adverbs show very different distributions from other words in the same caategory. In some cases, we will not categorize these words as adverbs at all. We will note such cases as they occur in later chapters. We will begin, however, with the most obvious cases.
Adverbs are characteristically used to modify verbs. That is, they perform the same function for verbs that adjectives do for nouns. And indeed, adjectives and adverbs are often closely related, but they do not appear in the same function:
Modifying Nouns
Modifying Verbs
adj.
new cars
*They new drove.
adv.
*a suddenly change
It changed suddenly.
Many adverbs can also modify adjectives, and some can also modify words of other categories (except nouns), as well as complete phrases and clauses.
verb modifier: The pedestrian appeared suddenly. adj. modifier: The suddenly hazardous situation took us by surprise. clause modifier: Suddenly, the pedestrian stepped into the street.
verb modifier: I almost wrecked the car. adj. modifier: His confusion was almost comical. adv. modifier: She almost never misses a meeting. prepositional phrase modifier: The situation was almost beyond repair.
(Note: if you’re having trouble seeing why these adjectives and adverbs are modifying the things that I say they are, you might want to read the chapter on phrase structure, and then return to this section.)
Morphologically, many adverbs are formed from adjectives by adding the suffix –ly. Like adjectives, they are also frequently gradable, and can use the comparative and superlative. The very test also works for adverbs.
(20) She exercises very frequently.
Prepositions (P)
A preposition relates one unit in the sentence to something else in the sentence. Prepositions often express relations of space or time, or they mark various grammatical roles. Words like in, to, over, and through are prepositions. As their name implies, they precede something, usually a noun phrase. The phrase that follows a preposition is called the object of a preposition.
(21) in [the yard] (22) throughout [the ages]
Prepositions are slightly different from the categories we have already examined. They often have distinct meanings of their own, but many prepositions play a more purely functional. Prepositions form a small, relatively closed set of words. There are only a few hundred prepositions in English, as opposed to tens of thousands of nouns, verbs, adjectives, or adverbs. It’s easy to invent new nouns, verbs, adjectives, or adverbs. New prepositions, however, are added to the language only rarely.
Prepositions do not have inflectional endings, so we cannot apply morphological tests to prepositions. However, like adjectives, many prepositions are gradable. These prepositions can be preceded by degree words such as right or straight:
(23) She walked right into the wall.
Not every preposition is gradable, however. Of is a preposition, but it cannot be modified by right/straight.
(24) *The relaxed days right of summer were my favorite.
The ungradable prepositions have what are called grammaticalized uses. In other words, the preposition’s meaning is not distinguishable from the grammatical construction in which it occurs. For example, compare the use of by in the following sentences:
(25a) His blind date stood by the fountain. (26a) The report was completed by a committee of experts.
In (25a), by has an identifiable spatial meaning. This use is not grammaticalized. In (26), however, by has no spatial meaning. Indeed, it’s hard to say what independent meaning it has. Its function is grammatical: it specifies the following noun phrase (a committee of experts) as the actor in the sentence. Notice that (25a) is gradable, but (26a) is not:
(25b) His blind date stood right by the fountain. (26b) *The report was completed right by a committee of experts.
Secondary Categories
The remaining categories are called secondary not because they are unimportant but because they have many fewer members than the primary categories. There are tens of thousands of words in the primary categories (with the exception of prepositions) but only a handful of words in the remaining categories.
Determiners (D)
Determiners are words that appear before nouns and specify ideas such as definiteness, quantity. Traditional grammar books often lump determiners in with adjectives and pronouns, but we will treat them as a primary category. Determiners play an important role in noun phrases. For now we merely list the most common determiners. We will return to them in more detail when we look at NP structure.
Articles
The definite article, the, is used to introduce something that can be identified uniquely within the context of the utterance or of general knowledge. For that reason, the is typically used for “old” information. If I say “bring the chair,” I assume you already know which chair I’m talking about.
The indefinite article, a/an is used for situations were the reference is not uniquely identifiable. If I say “bring a chair”, I don’t have any particular chair in mind.
Demonstratives
The demonstratives are this, that, these, and those. Like definite articles, they refer to old information. But they also point to specific things: this book or those children.[1] That “pointing” establishes a relative spatial relationship, which is reflected in the contrast between this/these, used for items that are close to the speaker, and that/those, used for items that are further away from the speaker, relatively speaking.
Quantifiers
Many determiners express a notion of quantification. That is they specify how much or how many of the head noun there are. Here’s a list of some common quantifiers:
all
any
both
each
either
enough
every
few
fewer
less
little
many
more
most
much
neither
no
none
several
some
sufficient
what
whatever
which
whichever
Numerals
One kind of determiner that deserves separate attention is the numeral.[2] Numerals appear in one of two forms: cardinal (one, two, three, etc.) and ordinal (first, second, third, etc.). When numerals appear in front of a noun in order to quantify it (two birds, four cats, etc.) they are determiners. Numerals can also appear as independent nouns in their own right. We will return to this point when we examine the structure of noun phrases.
—— Notes
[1] The technical term for this pointing function is deixis.
[2] We use the term “numeral” in order to distinguish from linguistic number (singular/plural).
Coordinators (Co) and Subordinators (Sub)
Traditional grammars typically have a category called the conjunction and distinguish between coordinating conjunctions and subordinating conjunctions. In point of fact, these two classes of words do not behave the same way at all, and so there is no good reason to think they are subtypes of a larger category. For that reason, we will treat these words as belonging to separate categories.
Coordinators
Coordinators are words that join grammatically equal units together. The principal coordinators are and, but, or, and nor.
Subordinators
Words whose function is to establish an unequal grammatical relationship, (e.g., that, for, to, whether, if).
(27) She asked me whether it was raining
Most subordinators can also function as other parts of speech: for and to can be prepositions, that can be a determiner, etc.), and so we will return to look at subordinators, and how to distinguish them from other parts of speech, more closely in later chapters.
Interjections (Int)
Interjections are words like oh, hey, ouch, or aha. They stand apart from other parts of speech in that they do not combine with other words in larger syntactic structures. Their primary function is to express feeling rather than to make a proposition about something. Some words—particularly curses like damn—are primarily verbs but can function as interjections: (28) Damn, I’m late for work again.
Language is an extremely complex system consisting of many interrelated components. As a result, learning how to analyze language can be challenging because to understand one part you often need to know about something else. The bulk of this book concerns English sentence structure, which largely falls under the category of syntax, but there are other components to language, and to understand syntax, we will need to know a few basics about those other parts.
This chapter has two purposes: first, to give you an overview of the major structural components of language; second, to introduce some basic concepts from areas other than syntax that we will need to make sense of syntax itself.
We can think of language both in terms of a message and a medium by which that message is transmitted. These two aspects are partly independent of one another. For example, the same message can be conveyed through speech or through writing. Sound is one medium for transmitting language; writing is another. A third medium, although not one that occurs to most people immediately, is gesture, in other words, sign language. The message is only partly independent of the medium because while it is certainly possible to express the same message through different media, the medium has a tendency to shape the message by virtue of its peculiarities.
When we look at the content of the message, we find it consists of a variety of building blocks. Sounds (or letters) combine to make word parts, which combine to make words, which combine to make sentences, which combine to make a discourse. Indeed, language is often said to be a combinatorial system, where a small number of basic building blocks combine and recombine in different patterns. A small number of blocks can account for a very large variety indeed. DNA, another combinatorial system, uses only four basic blocks, and combinations of these four blocks give rise to all the biological diversity we see on earth today. With language, different combinations of a small number of sounds yield hundreds of thousands of words, and different combinations of those words yield an essentially infinite number of utterances.
The major components we are concerned with are the following:
Phonology: The patterns of sounds in language.
Morphology: Word formation.
Syntax: The arrangement of words into larger structural units such as phrases and sentences.
Semantics: Meaning. Semantics sometimes refers to meaning independent of any particular context, and is distinguished from pragmatics, or how meaning is affected by the context in which it is uttered. We, however, will not adopt that narrow interpretation, under the assumption that there really is no such thing as completely decontextualized meaning.
Phonology
Section contributors: Saul De Leon, Jodiann N. Samuels and an anonymous ENG 270 student.
Language varieties sound different from one another because the way language varieties have different inventories of speech sounds. The sounds that you hear—combined into words that make sense—is called phonology. There is no restraint to the number of distinct sounds that can be constructed by the human vocal apparatus. To that end, this unlimited variety is harnessed by human language into sound systems that are comprised of a few dozen language-specific categories known as phonemes (Szczegielniak). Phonology is the systemic study of sounds used in language, their internal structure, and their composition into syllables, words, and phrases. Sounds are made by pushing air from the lungs out through the mouth, sometimes by way of the nasal cavity (Kleinman). Think about this: All humans have a different way of pronouncing words that produce various sounds. Someone’s tongue movement, tenseness, and lip rounding (rounded or unrounded) are some examples in which sounds or even words are produced in different ways. Consider, for example, the sound of the consonant /ð/ represented by the written <th> in the English word <the>—this sound does not exist in French, but we can understand someone whose first language is French when they pronounce the same word with a /z/. Linguistics as a discipline is concerned with the regulation of sound patterns that speakers of any language produce that is geared toward communicating effectively. Phonology uses abstract models of human speech and language and thus explains the patterns that are used and how different rules interact with each other. Phonology is concerned more about the structure of sound instead of the sound itself; “Phonology focuses on the ‘function’ or ‘organization’ or patterning of the sound” (Aarts & McMahon pg. 360)
In this chapter, you will learn that all languages have an inventory of sounds (essentially, they have different numbers of phonemes) and rules for those sounds. By way of illustration, in English, the phoneme /ŋ/,the last sound in the word ding, will never appear at the beginning of a word.
Throughout this section, we will use the conventional / / slashes to indicate International Phonetic Alphabet representations of phonemes (the sounds of language) and < > brackets to indicate orthography (the way things are spelled in the standardized English writing system)
Phonemes
Buzz. Pop. Hiss. Say the following out loud: Vvvv. It has a “buzz” sound that ffff does not have, right? Keep in mind that the “buzz” sound is caused by the vibration of your vocal folds. When you are speaking to someone, you automatically ignore nonlinguistic differences in speech (i.e., someone’s pitch level, rate of speed, coughs) (Szczegielniak). Speech sounds are produced by moving air from the lungs through your larynx, the vocal cords that open to allow breathing—the noise made by the larynx is changed by the tongue, lips, and gums to generate speech. Most importantly, however, sounds are different from letters that are in a word. For example, a world like English has seven letters (E-n-g-l-i-s-h), six sounds (/ɪŋɡlɪʃ/), and two syllables. We often tend to think of English as a written language, but when studying phonology, it’s important not to conflate sounds and letters. This is more often true in English than in many other languages that use alphabets for their scripts; not only are the correspondences between sounds and letters not always one-to-one, sounds are often pronounced in many ways by different people.
Phonemes are a vital part of speech because they are what dictates how a sound of letter or word is distinguished which differentiates the meaning of words. Sometimes a letter is more than one phoneme (<x> is often pronounced /ks/) and sometimes two or three letters are used to represent a single sound (like <sh> for the phoneme /ʃ/ ).
The sounds of a word can be broken down into phonemes, the smallest units of sound that distinguish meaning. These basic sounds can be arranged into syllables and a metrical phonological tree can be used to simplify breaking up a syllable (i.e. Diagram A) (AAL Alumnae, Gussenhoven & Haike).
Diagram A
Example: The word plant.
Image source: AAL Alumnae. All About Linguistics, all-about-linguistics.group.shef.ac.uk/branches-of-linguistics/phonology/.
A syllable consists of an initial sound or onset and followed by another sound called a rhyme. A rhyme is further split into a nucleus which are the vowel sounds and the coda which are the consonants that come after the nucleus. The onset is simply the consonants before the rhyme. These aspects are all brought together to identify the differences of languages due to each language’s unique phonemes and syllable structures. (AAL Alumnae, n.d.).
Generally, decoding the entirety of a language’s structural system is ambitious as linguists face the challenge of the evolution of language and simply that some are dying out too quickly. So, this has forced linguists to adapt to a goal to identify common factors across languages. They rely on components such as cognitive factors (characteristics that influence an individual’s learning capabilities), phonetic factors (the speech production system), and social factors (the human experience) (Gussenhoven & Haike, 2017, p. 5).
This is an important segue into the distinction between phonology and phonetics. Phonetics involves the study of the way sound is produced by certain parts of the body. The synchronous use of body parts such as but not limited to the mouth, teeth, tongue, voice box or larynx, and pharynx are involved with making speech sounds and what sounds exist in a language. In relation, phonology is the arrangement of these speech sounds and how they are treated. Furthermore, it can even analyze the distinction between distinctive accents or challenges native speakers may face attempting to acquire another language when facing phonemes that are not a part of their language (FSI, n.d.; Gussenhoven & Haike, 2017, p. 17).
There are about 200 phonemes across all known languages; however, there are about forty-four in the English language and the forty-four phonemes are represented by the twenty-six letters of the alphabet (individually and in combination). The forty-four English sounds are thus divided into two distinct categories: consonants and vowels. A consonant gives off a basic speech sound in which the airflow is cut off or restrained in some way—when a sound is produced. On the other hand, if the airflow is unhindered when a sound is made, the speaker is producing a vowel. (DSF Literary Resources). Even with diphthongs, or sequences of two vowels, your tongue changes when you say a different vowel.
Phonology and Phonetics
Phonology involved a fair degree of formal analysis and abstract theorizing. The primitive objective of phonology is to understand the system of rules that a speaker uses in considering the sound of the language (Hayes). Thus—to be crystal clear—phonology is more theoretical, concerning not directly with the physical nature of speech sounds, but with the unconscious rules for sound patterning that are found in the mind and brain of a person who speaks a particular language. Think of someone who simply studies the sound pattern of a language—a phonologist—and consider how sounds flow in the air from person-to-person and how sounds vary with context (often in a compounded way). On this score, phonology is like other elements of grammar, (for instance, morphology, and syntax), and there are distinct rules that characterize how sound patterning reflects information that arises within these components (Hayes). On the contrary, phonetics is the study of speech sounds: how sounds are produced, how they are perceived, and what their physical properties are. There are three branches of phonetics: 1). Acoustic: the physics of sound 2). Auditory: how the ear processes sound and 3). Articulatory: how we produce speech sounds. There is, indeed, a phonetic system that linguistics use to record speech sounds. Significantly for present purposes, linguists use the phonetic alphabet called the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), which uses a different symbol to represent each phoneme. Many of the (IPA) letters are like the English alphabet and it is also important to note that linguists don’t all necessarily follow this accepted international standard (California State University, Northridge).
Minimal Pairs and Allophones
Understanding how to pronounce and to make a clear distinction of letters is essential to the structure of a language sound system. In English and other languages, there are many words that sound similar to one another, but differ in a single sound, like ‘pit’ and ‘bit’, or like ‘leap’ and ‘leave’. Linguists call these minimal pairs. “Minimal pairs are word that differs in one phoneme” (McArthur Oxford Reference). Even though they end identically both words are completely unrelated to each other in meaning. Minimal pairs are useful for linguists because they provide comprehension into how sounds and meanings coexist in language. They tell us which sounds (phones) are distinct phonemes, and which are allophones of the same phoneme.
Allophones are a related concept, in which a single phoneme can be produced differently in different circumstances. For example, the phoneme /k/ in the word ‘kite’ is aspirated, meaning it’s accompanied by a puff of air. But in the word ‘sky’ there is no puff of air along with the /k/ sound. We still think of these as the same sound, and they don’t occur in the same positions, which makes them allophones of a single phoneme.
Allophones are determined by their position in the word (potential, impartial, essential, etc.) or by its phonetic environment. Speakers often have issues with hearing the phonetic differences between allophones of the same phoneme because these differences do not serve to distinguish one word from another. In English, the t sounds in the words “hit,” “tip,” and “little” are all allophones (Britannica)—they are all the same sound, though they are different phonetically in terms of voice and articulation.
Phoneme and Phonemic Awareness
By the age of five, without developmental restrictions, a child would have learned how to speak a language. Also, at this developmental stage they would have innately acquired their language structure through their environment or experience (Gussenhoven & Haike, 2017, p. 1, 94). Phonological awareness is the capacity of a child to realize words are comprised of various sound units. This allows the child to understand that words begin with basic sound units such as /b/, /a/, /t/ in the word ‘bat’ are a part of a more complex, larger sound “chunks” or syllables (K12 Reader, 2019).
A child that has strong phonological awareness should be able to dissect a syllable, blend phonemes, and recognize related forms (“cat” from the larger word catalog). Additionally, phonemic awareness is a subset of phonological awareness that gauges the child’s ability to identify the differences in a string of words such as in an alliteration (i.e. tongue twisters: She sells seashells by the seashore), a rhyme, and the ability to blend or fragment phonemes (K12 Reader, 2019).
Syntactic Structure
Both syntax and phonology are components of language; however, they are not often linked as they cover two different disciplines. What they both address at their core is the structure of the language. Danish linguist Louis Trolle Hjelmslev developed the theory that rather than exploring the separate fields of linguistics independently they should be viewed synchronously. His model of ‘analogie du principe structurel’ would influence other works to create parallels to compare syllable structure of onsets and rhymes to that of the NP/VP (noun phrase and verb phrase) split in clausal organization.
Phonology and syntax represent layers of a combination of sounds that are quintessential to a language. The ways in which phonology and syntax relate are manifold. Firstly, syntax is how the words are arranged in a sentence (the word order), and the rules that indicate how words can be combined to form sentences in a language, and on the other hand, phonology is the sounds that are heard when someone speaks, or read a speech out loud and both syntax and phonology interface with each other because both are key elements of the structure of language at different levels.
FIS. “Phonetics and Phonology.” Language Differences – Phonetics and Phonology. Frankfurt International School. https://esl.fis.edu/grammar/langdiff/phono.htm Accessed 09 September 2020.
Aarts, Bas, and April McMahon. The Handbook of English Linguistics. 1. Aufl. Williston: Wiley-Blackwell, 2008. Print.
De Lacy, Paul V. The Cambridge Handbook of Phonology. Cambridge University Press, 2007. Print.
McArthur, Tom, Jacqueline Lam-McArthur, and Lise Fontaine. Oxford Companion to the English Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press USA – OSO, 2018. Print.
Philipp Strazny. Encyclopedia of Linguistics. 1st ed. Chicago: Taylor and Francis, 2013. Web.
Speech vs. Writing
Section contributors: Terrell McLean and two anonymous ENG 270 students.
We first learn to speak when we are children, and we do this for at least five years of our lives before we learn to write. Once we learn to do both of these, we think we have mastered the ways of communicating, forgetting that: 1) these two are not the only ways we communicate, and 2) the line, in some cases, is blurred concerning the difference between speech and writing.
Linguists have given more attention to oral communication, giving it more authority and validation, which suggests that written communication is secondary—we learn to speak before we learn to write. However, both speech and writing are forms of language use and deserve equal amounts of recognition.
Differences between Speech and Writing
Let’s take a deeper look at writing and speech. What are some of the distinctions between them? Writing is edited; we can more easily delete or rewrite something over again to make sure how we want to come across is shown in our writing. We can prewrite and brainstorm, which is an effective way of writing (Sadiku 31). This is something we cannot do as we speak. Another reason writing is different from speech because writing is not something everyone can do. Literacy, or the ability to read and write, is not universal, though it is more common today than in previous eras. In some communities today, there are individuals who do not have the skill of writing amongst their neighbors who can. Among the 7000+ languages that exist in the world, more than 3,000 do not have a written language (“How Many Languages in the World Are Unwritten?”) and only 23 languages are spoken by half the population of the world (“Languages in the World”). Written language has historically been seen as a mark of prestige.
The majority of people learn how to speak by the time they are two years old. As we communicate through speech, we have the option of speaking informally or formally. Someone who only speaks formally might find that others say, “You talk like a book” (Bright 1); the book being a textbook or some form of an academic book. However, we all lean towards informal speech when we are surrounded by people we are comfortable with or when we want to be casual.
A greater range of expression is available when using speech because you can use the tone of your voice to express how you feel when you talk about a certain topic. However, the way you use your voice can have many meanings. For example, shouting can mean that you are angry, excited, or surprised. Sometimes you might have to use an extra sentence to connect your tone of voice to how you feel. With writing, a lot of this paralinguistic content (pitch contours, tone of voice) is not available to the reader, but there are strategies writers use like writing in all capital letters or using various forms of punctuation (not a feature available in speech) to compensate.
Finally, a distinction of writing is its durability. Composed messages are passed on through time as well as through space. With writing, we can keep in touch with somebody nearby or on the opposite side of the world (although advances in communication technology have made this true of speech as well).
Similarities between Speech and Writing
In the sections above, we’ve examined differences between speech and writing, but these two forms of language and communication do have similarities as well. Let’s take the example of formal and informal writing and speech. As mentioned before, we can talk informally—talking casually in conversations, or when you’re talking to someone close to you—and this can be done by using slang, short words, and a casual tone of voice. While writing is often thought of as formal by nature, informal writing can also be acceptable in a number of contexts, like freewriting. This is one of the ways we can write informally. In this form of writing, we can write down all the things that come to mind, however we want to write it; it doesn’t matter the quality of the writing or how we produce sentence structure (Elbow 290). Informal writing can also be found in much of what is called Computer-Mediated Communication, or CMC. One example is personal blogs, which are often different from more formal news articles. Blog posts have more flexibility to be informal because most people write with a conversational tone to appeal to their audience.
Writing has often been differentiated from speech by the nature of its participation. According to classical views, when we write, we write by ourselves; writing is done independently. Speech on the other hand is understood to take more than one person because we need at least two people to hold a conversation; therefore, speech is dependent on another person. However, technology has blurred the lines here as well. For example, take the CMC mode of the internet forum (Elbow 291). This media is a form of constant writing where we can continuously respond to people without interruption. This has been set in place since the 70s and one that is popular today that has a collection of forums pertaining to different topics is Reddit. YouTube is also a great example of this because while we watch a video on a particular topic, we can then respond in the comment section immediately and give our own opinions. This conversation can continue with the person in the video and other people that may agree or disagree with you.
Prescriptivism and Descriptivism in Writing
Language is presented in many forms but one of the most traditional and lasting of them all is that of written works. These include folktales that pass along valuably moral messages from one generation to the next, stories detailing societies of old, and many genres of fiction and nonfiction. While oral histories were transmitted (and still are in some cultures), the more common situation today is that a society’s output is represented in written work. Written works take the values, thoughts and viewpoints of a time period and turn them into a time capsule.
Even with that, there are those on the one hand who wish to standardize and those on the other hand who wish for a certain grammatical freedom mostly present in speech. Those who wish for written language to be more uniform are known as prescriptivists. Those who agitate for more freedom and a written language which reflects the freedoms of speech could be called descriptivists. As noted in 63 Grammar Rules for Writers by Robert Brewer, “On one hand, grammar rules are necessary for greater understanding and more effective communication.” (Brewer, Writer’s Digest). Prescriptivists would agree with this, arguing that both reading and writing become easier with clear guidelines of what certain things should look like. However, another thing noted by Brewer is that “On the other hand, there are just so many rules (and so many exceptions to the rules). It can be overwhelming.” (Brewer, Writer’s Digest). While strict prescriptivism has its advantages, it can be overwhelming to those who want to write freely without confinement to rules. Also, it can limit the artistic expression one may possess. So even though both seek make writing more accessible, the ways that they promote it are different. One wants to make writing more uniform and homogenized, while the other seeks freedom and diversity in the words used.
Speech, Writing, and Syntax
Syntax is the way words are arranged to form sentences, and is a part of all linguistic communication, regardless of whether it is written or spoken. However, there can be differences in the syntax of speech vs. writing. In a study with 45 students, Gibson found that speech “has fewer words per sentence, fewer syllables per word, a higher degree of interest, and less diversity of vocabulary” (O’Donnell, 102). In another study that Drieman did in Holland, he found that speech, compared to writing, has “longer texts, shorter words, more words of one syllable, fewer attributive adjectives, and a less varied vocabulary” (O’Donnell, 102).
While many think of prescriptive rules applying primarily to written grammar, speech is seen as more lenient, allowing for fluidity nor replicated in written works. However, it comes with own fair share of complexities and rules that need to be managed, one of them being syntax. Syntax is the structuring of words and their overall arrangement in relation to each other. Even though grammar isn’t as strict when it comes to writing a lot of the same principles follow, words need to flow in a cohesive manner that is understandable to others. Even with slang and regional dialect coming into play, syntax creates a cohesive use of language during a conversation. Even in complex usages of language such as code-switching (the use of multiple language varieties in a single discourse event) the necessity for clear structure and communication lies under all of that. In Code Switching and Grammatical Theory the idea is presented that even with code switching in the middle of a sentence, there is a grammatical structure: “In individual cases, intra-sentential code switching is not distributed randomly in the sentence, but rather it occurs at specific points” (Muysken, 155).
Conclusion
Even though both speech and writing require the use of syntax to remain cohesive, the differences between writing and speech are clear and abundant; as Casey Cline writes, “Speech is generally more spontaneous than writing and more likely to stray from the subject under discussion.” (Cline, Verblio). Written works, on the other hand, are usually seen as something that must stay grammatically correct, thus not being able to always mimic the freedom of speech. As put in Grammar for Writing? “… Grammar is frequently presented as a remediation tool, a language corrective.” (Debra Myhill, 4). However, formal speech and informal writing have existed for a long time, and new communications technologies have increasingly challenged the distinctions between speech and writing.
References
Bailey, Trevor. Jones, Susan. Myhill Debra A. “Grammar for Writing? An investigation of the effects of contextualized grammar teaching on students’ writing”. University of Exeter, 2012.
Chafe, Wallace, and Deborah Tannen. “The Relation between Written and Spoken Language.” Annual Review of Anthropology, vol. 16, 1987, pp. 383–407. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/2155877. Accessed 22 September 2020.
Elbow, Peter. “The Shifting Relationships between Speech and Writing.” College Composition and Communication, vol. 36, no. 3, 1985, pp. 283–303. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/357972. Accessed 22 September 2020.
“How Many Languages Are There in the World?” Ethnologue: Languages of the World. https://www.ethnologue.com/guides/how-many-languages
“How Many Languages in the World Are Unwritten?” Ethnologue: Languages of the World. https://www.ethnologue.com/enterprise-faq/how-many-languages-world-are-unwritten-0. Accessed 6 October 2020.
Muysken, Pieter. “Code-Switching and Grammatical Theory”. One Speaker, Two Languages: Cross-Disciplinary Perspectives on Code-Switching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Text, 1995 pp.155.
Contributors: Paul Junior Prudent and an anonymous ENG 270 student
Definition
Morphology is a branch of linguistics that deals with the structure and form of the words in a language (Hamawand 2). In grammar, morphology differs from syntax, though both are concerned with structure. Syntax is the field that studies the structure of sentences, which are composed of words, while morphology is the field that studies the structure of the words themselves (Julien 8).
Morphemes
In language, some words are made up of one indivisible part, but many other words are made up of more than one component, and these components are called morphemes. A morpheme is a minimal unit of lexical meaning (Hamawand 3). So, while some words can consist of one morpheme and thus be minimal units of meaning in and of themselves, many words consist of more than one morpheme. For example, the word “peace” has one morpheme and cannot be broken down into smaller units of meaning. Peaceful has two morphemes, peace the state of harmony that exists during the absence of war, plus -ful, a suffix, meaning full of something. Peacefully has three morphemes: peace + –ful + –ly, with the final morpheme –ly indicating ‘in the manner of’. So really, peacefully contains three units of meaning that, when combined, give us the meaning of the word as a whole. Words can have a lot more than three morphemes, however (Kurdi 90).
Comparative Morphology
In some languages, there are only simple words and compounds, and therefore very little morphology—most of the grammatical complexity is syntactic in these languages. Languages like these are referred to as having an isolating morphology. On the other end of the scale, languages that combine many morphemes to produce words are referred to as polysynthetic. Polysynthetic essentially means that the language is characterized by complex words consisting of several morphemes, in which a single word may function as a whole sentence. Modern English is closer to the isolating end of the spectrum, while still having a productive morphology. Languages like this are known as analytic languages, in which sentences are constructed by following an order of words.
Types of morphemes
Morphemes can be further divided into several types: free and bound. Free morphemes are the morphemes that can be used by themselves. They’re not dependent on any other morpheme to complete their meaning. Open-class content words (generally speaking, nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs) such as girl, fish, tree, and love are all considered free morphemes. As are closed-class function words (prepositions, determiners, conjunctions, etc.) such as the, and, for, or it (Hamawand 5). Bound morphemes are another class of morphemes that cannot be used by themselves and are dependent on other morphemes.
Bound morphemes are further divided into two categories: affixes and bound roots (Kurdi 93). Bound roots are roots that could not be used by themselves. For example, the morpheme -ceive in receive, conceive, and deceive cannot stand on its own (Aarts et al. 398). Affixes occur in English primarily as prefixes and suffixes. Prefixes are morphemes that can be added to the front of a word such as pre- in preoccupation, re- in redo, dis- in disapprove or un– in unemployment. Morphemes that can be added to the end of a word (a suffix) such as –an, -ize, -al,or -ly. In other languages, there are morphemes that can be added to the middle of a word called infixes, and morphemes that can be added to both sides of a word called circumfixes. English also has limited infixation, usually in casual speech and involving taboo language: consider abso-goddamn-lutely or un-fucking-believable. In terms of function, affixes can be divided into two categories of their own: derivational affixes and inflectional affixes (Hamawand 10).
Types of affixes
Derivational affixes are affixes that when added to a word create a new word with a new meaning. They’re called derivational precisely because a new word is derived when they’re added to the original word, and many times these newly created words belong to a new grammatical category. Some affixes turn nouns into adjectives like beauty to beautiful, some change verbs into nouns like sing to singer, and some change adjectives to adverbs, like precise to precisely. Still others turn nouns to verbs, adjectives to nouns, and verbs to adjectives. Other affixes do not change the grammatical category of the word they’re added to. Adding -dom to king yields kingdom, which is still a noun, and adding re- to do yields redo, still a verb. We use derivational affixes constantly and they’re a very important part of English because they help us to form the majority of words that exist in our language (Aarts et al. 527-529).
In English, the other type of affix, inflectional affixes are suffixes that when added to the end of the word don’t change its meaning radically. Instead, they change things like the person, tense, and number of a word. And in English, there are a total of eight inflectional affixes:
The third person singular –s as in Anakin kills younglings,
the past tense -ed as in Ron kissed Hermione,
the progressive –ing as in Han is falling into the sarlacc pit,
the past participle –en in the Emperor has fallen and cannot get up,
the plural –s in vampires make the worst boyfriends,
the possessive -‘s in that’s Luke’s hand isn’t it,
the comparative –er in the car is cooler than Kirk, and
the superlative –est in that’s the sweetest thing I’ve ever seen.
Compared to other languages English has very few inflectional affixes. (Aarts et al. 510).
The Relationship between Morphology and Syntax
Morphology and Syntax are two different but related fields in English grammar. Syntax studies the structure of sentences, while morphology studies the formation of words. However, both domains must interact with each other at a certain level. On one level, the morpheme should fit a syntactic representation or a syntactic structure. And in another level, the morpheme can have its syntactic representation. That notion is called “the syntactic approach to morphology” by Marit Julien (8).
References
Aarts, Bas, and April McMahon. “The Handbook of English Linguistics.” The Handbook of English Linguistics, 1. Aufl., Wiley-Blackwell, 2008.
Hamawand, Zeki. Morphology in English Word Formation in Cognitive Grammar
Continuum, 2011.
Julien, Marit. Syntactic Heads and Word Formation A Study of Verbal Inflection. Oxford
University Press, USA, 2002.
Kurdi, Mohamed Zakaria. “Natural Language Processing and Computational Linguistics 1: Speech, Morphology and Syntax.” Natural Language Processing and Computational Linguistics 1, John Wiley & Sons (US), 2016.
Lexical Semantics
[To be added]
Need help with the Commons?
Email us at commonshelpsite@gmail.com so we can respond to your questions and requests. Please email from your CUNY email address if possible. Or visit our help site for more information:
[1]
