Yule Ch9: Grammar

 

Prescriptive Grammar:

·      A type of “linguistic etiquette”

 

·      Sets out the rules of the standard language

 

·      Grammarians of the 18th & 19th centuries thought based rules on Latin and Greek or “logic”

o    No prepositions at the end of the sentence

o    Don’t split infinitives

o    Don’t use “double negatives”

 

·      English has done all these things throughout its history

o    Prepositions and particles have always been placed in final position (cf. German)

o    In Middle English, two-part infinitive (to+V) formed and could be split then.

o    English has always used double negatives

 

   OE: Ne biđ đær nænig ealo gebrowen mid Estum

            Not  is  there not any ale   brewed   among Estonians

 

Descriptive Grammar:

·      Describe the way people actually use grammar

·      Our occupation here

Parts of speech (a simplistic account):

 

·      Noun:  Person, place, or thing

o    Jeff, Eugene, cloud, happiness

 

·      Adjective: Provide more information about nouns

o    pretty, nice, good, abstract

 

·      Verb: refer to actions or states

o    run, think, be, become

 

·      Adverbs: Provide more information about verbs or adjectives

o    Slowly, well, very, quite

 

·      Prepositions: Used in phrases with nouns to provide information about time, place, or instrument

o    at, in, on, near, over, with, by

 

·      Pronouns: Used in place of nouns

o    She, himself, this, that, which, what

 

·      Conjunctions: Used to connect and indicate relationships between events and things

o    and, but, or, although, if

 

·      Article: a, an, the

 

Agreement: 

·      Verbs agree in number and person with their subject

 

 

Spanish

German

 

Singular

Plural

Singular

Plural

1

voy

vamos

gehe

gehen

2 informal

2 formal

vas

va

vais

van

gehst

gehen

geht

gehen

3

va

van

geht

gehen

 

Tense:

·      Verbs can be present (go), past (went), future (will go), etc.

 

Voice:

·      Verbs can have active or passive voice

 

Active:  I read the book.

Passive:  The book was read by me.

 

Gender:

·      Nouns and pronouns can have gender

o    She, he

o    la luna (f), el sol (m)

o    der Mond (m), die Sonne (f), das Feuer (n)

Constituent Analysis

 

·      Smaller constituents (parts) go together to form larger constituents.

 

People who study linguistics write weird sentences.

 

Tests for constituent structure:

 

·      Substitution

They write weird sentences.

Who writes weird sentences.

People who study linguistics do.

 

·      Movement

They often write weird sentences, people who study linguistics.

 

·      Stand alone

What do people who study linguistics do?

   -- write weird sentences

Who writes weird sentences?

   -- people who study linguistics

Phrase Structure

 

·      By looking at the constituent structure in many sentences, we can determine the phrasal categories of a language.

 

·      Phrasal categories are named for their “head” or obligatory member

o    English sentences are of the form Noun Phrase (NP) followed by a Verb Phrase (VP)

 

 [People who study linguistics]NP [write weird sentences]VP

[John and Mary]NP [love to go out dancing all night]VP

[It]NP [is so unfair]VP

[The woman who lived on a farm by the river east of town]NP [took her tomatoes to the Saturday market to sell and try to get some money]VP

 

·      We can find more constituents in English than just NP and VP

 

[[[The]art [crazy]adj [linguists]N]NP [[love]V [[weird]adj [grammar]N] NP]VP]S

 

 

 

 

                                S

 

 

              NP                                  VP

 

 

 

                                                              NP

 

 

art       adj          N             V        adj            N

 

The    crazy    linguists    love    weird    grammar