Resume of English Morfosintax.

STRATEGY:

Looking for another way to say / describe an unknown word / concept by using synonyms:

• It looks like…
• It is used for…

MORPHEME:

• It is the smallest meaningful element of a language
• The smallest bit of language which has meaning and its meaning contrasts with all other morphemes.
• Each morpheme has to be different in meaning

MORPHOLOGY:

Level of structure between phonological and syntactic analysis

MORPHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS:

To take words and divide them in order to make an analysis.

Untruthful = un+ tru(e) + th + ful

SELECTION:

It is the determination of the entities to be use in any syntactic or morphological construction (sentences). The possibilities are taken from paradigms (noun, verbs, adjectives, etc.)

ARREGMENT:

Sequencing in a syntactic structure.

MODIFICATION:

Syntactic process of changing items according with their surroundings, it doesn’t always happen.

INFLECTION:

Is not a universal issue, Chinese has none at all, Latin is highly inflected. English is inflected but Spanish is even more. The more inflected a language is the more information a word has on its own:

              SPANISH                ENGLISH

Fuí {Person             I

                           {Sentence         You        went

                                      S/He

LIPSUS:

Eliminate elements that are grammatically correct but they are not needed to transmit meaning:

Are you coming with us?

1. We have to determine the pattern or selection.
2. The arrangement of elements
3. Modification

MORPHEME                         MEANING

-S-                                          [z1] Noun, plural suffix

                                               [z2] Possessive = John’s

                                               [z3] Verb suffix = 3rd person singular

ALLOMORPHS:

Variation of morphemes referring to pronunciation:

CAN (NOUN)

*She cans tomatoes

*She can go with us

MORPHOPHONEMIC CHANGES:

A change of the morpheme and phoneme:

Bring – Brought

Mouse – Mice

ASSIMILATION / SUBSTITUTION:

One or more sounds come to be articulated like another sound:

                                       * GOING TO             GONNA

* WON’T YOU             WONTCHA

* CAN’T YOU             CANTCHA

AGGLUTINATIVE:

Affixes which are added to another word with little morphophonemic change an in successive order. Each one has meaning compose strings of units none of which has any independent word like status

DERIVATION:

It is that section of morphology that deals with the relation of words basis:

                    Purebred

PURE          Purity

                    Impure

They are more complicated to describe than inflective forms. Sometimes derivation change pronunciation:

Legal        Legality

GROUPS OF WORDS

1. - Words containing more than one base:

• Tape worm
• Blue beard              } COMPUNDS
• Four teen

2. - Words containing one base accompanied by one or more derivate affixes:

• Retape
• Bluish              } COMPLEX
• Forty

GRAMMAR CONSCIOUSNESS RAISING TASKS:

Students deduce grammar rules by looking at sentences. They give rules, not the teacher

TRADITIONAL CONCEPTS IN GRAMMAR:

• General technical vocabulary to describe the concepts use. Concepts are too broad:
• NOUN
• VERB
• AGREEMENT
• PLURAL
• CLAUSE
• The speech is a classes of words
• It is base on written language
• Semantic meaning of words. There is no one only meaning per word
• There is no analysis of the concept of phrasal verbs

WORD (BLOOMFIELD)

It is a Minimum free form. The smallest bit of speech that can occur in isolation.

CHOMSKY’S TRANSFORMATION TEORY:

KERNEL –             John saw Mary

                              NP1 + V + NP2

Mary was seen by John

NP + AUX+ BE + EN + V + NP1

What we need is a theory that won’t simply allow us to replace one element by another, but also to take a sentence and completely rearrange it.

NP = Noun Phrase

V = Verb

AUX = Auxiliary

STRUCTURE:

SURFACE                                         DEEP

Physical arrangement                               Meaning of

THE SENTENCE

John saw Mary

                                   } Same surface structure, different deep structure

John hit Mary  

             

Transformational grammars allows to state all kinds of relationships that otherwise wouldn’t be stated or regarded as purely semantic.

GENERATION:

A grammar must generate all and only the grammatical sentences of a language. The grammar must be design so that by following his rules and conventions we could produce any possible sentences in a language.

To generate is to predict what could be sentences of the language or to specify precisely what sentences are.

Any corpus has a finite set of rules and infinite number of possibilities.

Grammar is explicit; it indicates just what the possible sentences of the language are. Traditional grammar isn’t, it is vague.

PEDAGOGIC GRAMMAR:

TRADITIONAL GRAMMAR:

Ruled-based grammar. Based on what people say.

CHOMSKY’S:

S = SENTENCE = The man read a book.

1. S – NP + VP
2. VP - V + NP
3. NP – DET + N
4. V – [Read]
5. DET – [The] [a]
6. N – [man] [book]

RULE

NP + VP                                                   1

NP + V + NP                                            2

DET + N + V +DET + N                           3

DET + N + READ +DET + N                    4

THE + N + READ + A + N                        5

THE + MAN + READ + A + BOOK           6

 

S

NP                          VP

DET   N                   V   NP

                                                 

                                                   DET    N

                  The      man     read     a      book

CHOMSKY’S T - RULES:

SENTENCE

NOUN        &       VERB

PHRASE

                                                   V                                   NP

             ARTICLE      NOUN PL     VERB       PAST                 ART     NOUN

                                                        (Steam

                                                         simple

                                                         form)

              The           boys            watch              ed                 the          game

PHRASE STRUCTURED RULES:

Its function is developing the category ‘noun’ into a set of grammatical features.

T – RULES:

They are applied to give final output of syntactic component of the description, not the division of the sentence into smaller parts but the alteration of structure in various ways.

NOUN:

According to Chomsky it should be divided into:

1. COMMON AND NON – COMMON
2. COUNTABLE OR UNCOUNTABLE
3. NON – COMMON (NAMES)

      3.1) ANIMATE

      3.2) INANIMATE

BOY= {Noun + non – common + countable + animate + human}

VERB:

Must be specified according to the syntactic environment in what they occur

TRADITIONAL GRAMMAR:

It stresses the underline universality of language as a human faculty. Chomsky sees in the understanding of language our best key to human mind and nature.

Chomsky views grammar as a device of some sort for producing all of grammatical and none of the grammatical sentences of the language. One test of acceptability to the native speaker.

GRAMMATICAL GENDER:

It is a change in grammar structure in adjectives, articles, adverbs

NUMBER:

There are three types of number classification:

1. Adding ‘s’ at the end of the word = cat – cats
2. Zero ending = sheep – sheep
3. Change vowel = mouse – mice

The only word in English language that changes its pronunciation:

House          Houses

                                               /s/                 /z/ /z/

The only article that pluralizes:

This = Those / These

PERSON:

1st PERSON = The one who is speaking

2nd PERSON = The person who’s spoken to

3rd PERSON = The person or thing spoken about

• There has to be concordance between the person and the verb form
• In non inflective languages the person can be identify by the pronoun

I

You

S/He

We

You

They

• in the imperative form the subject is implied, but in other cases it is necessary the use of the pronoun

(You) sit down

WE = A person talking on behave of a group of people

YOU (PLURAL) = Thy, thee, thine, thou (previous forms of YOU)

THEY = People or things spoken about

EDITORIA WE = Can be use even when talking to one person:

• NURSE: “How are we doing this morning”
• MR. JONES: “I don’t know about you but I feel terrible!”

PEDAGOGIC GRAMMAR:

It is a grammar for teaching and learning. It is casually designed for teachers but it is also design for students as well

1. Detection of a particular grammar point that is causing problems
2. Analysis of the linguistic and psycholinguistic processes of this particular point
3. Linguistic description of the specific grammar point that is being detected
4. Design a series of exercises for this particular grammar point based on the problem detected

TENSE

TENSE                  ASPECT

PRESENT            Simple, continuos, perfect, etc.

PAST                   Participle, simple, perfect, continuous

FUTURE              Simple, perfect, continious, simple continuous, idiomatic future

There are 3 tenses in English: PRESENT, PAST AND FUTURE, the rest are refer as ASPECTS

ASPECT

It refers to the completation, duration, continuation, momentereaness and similar concepts of an action.

Tense don’t always refers to time

TENSLESS:

Combination of all tenses:

I’m Mexican (yesterday, today and tomorrow)

SENTENCE:

Is putting together what goes together, referring to the meaning:

• A red brick house (Made of bricks)
• A brick – red house (The color of the house)

• Chomsky has got no control devices by which the structure of a sentence is signal
• The structural signals maybe different from one language to another.

REPLACEMENT

It is a way to avoid repetition in sentences

DELETION:

It is to eliminate something already mention

LINEAR ORDERING:

It is the arrangement of the sentence. The order of words

HIERARCHICAL ORDERING

Determines what goes together in a sentence

The   cat   scratches   the   dog

The human mind is capable to produce very long sentences.