sign in sign up
<<
Home , Grammatical category, Mass noun, Syntactic category

Describing the grammatical CAS LX 522 system n Our goal is to describe the systematic I grammatical knowledge that people have.

n To describe how can be combined (and how they cannot be combined) into Week 2a. Categories sentences requires classification of words into different groups that each share syntactic properties, the syntactic categories.

Grammatical categories

n Nouns generally are used to refer to something, n A is a class of expressions a person, an , an abstract idea. which share a common set of grammatical properties. n Nouns can often have a . n But: sheep, deer n But: furniture n Some that we know when we see: n But: policy decisions n frog, utensil, liberty: n The distinction between singular and plural is a n jump, know, donate: grammatical distinction. The difference between n smooth, intense, magenta, likely: dog and cat is a difference of content, whereas n rapidly, halfheartedly, effectively, well: the difference between dog and dogs is n on, under, aboard: preposition predictable if you know what dog means. Predictable things are part of the .

Inflectional n Morphology like the plural -s in English n Verbs carry inflectional morphology that that marks a grammatical property is reflect tense and aspectual properties. inflectional morphology. BASE PERF PAST PRES PROG sew sewn sewed sews sewing go gone went goes going n In a sense, these markings reflect meaning. speak spoken spoke speaks speaking see seen saw sees seeing come came comes coming wait waited waits waiting meet met meets meeting cut cuts cutting

1 Derivational morphology and Derivational morphology category n Inflectional morphology is distinguished from n Derivational morphology often seems to be derivational morphology, which can be seen as sensitive to category and can change words from changing or adding to meaning. one category to another. n noun Æ adjective: ish, like, esque n un: tie, untie. n verb Æ noun: er, n iN: possible, impossible, regular, irregular, tolerable, n adjective/adverb adjective/adverb: iN, un intolerable Æ n adjective Æ noun: ness n re: retie, rewrite. n … n The point is: we need to recognize categories of n This is still at a fairly intuitive level, of course… words to adequately describe/explain .

Sharing properties Distribution n There are a number of morphological n One of the best definitional characteristics hints (but they are not completely reliable, of a is its distribution. due to irregularity): n In general, you can substitute something n nouns can have a plural (+s, usually) with another thing of the same syntactic n verbs inflect for 3sg (usually) category. n verbs inflect for tense/aspect: ing, en/ed. n Obvious is an adjective. n can often be emphasized with very, n It is obvious that Pat likes Tracy. as can . n It is likely that Pat likes Tracy. n adverbs often end in ly. n So, likely is also an adjective.

Distribution Lexical and functional n They have no noun. n Nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs: These are lexical categories. They carry significant and n They can verb. arbitrary meaning, and they are open-class (new n They are adjective. ones can be invented). n But not all words are of this kind (except maybe n Very adverb, very adjective. on telegrams). n so long as it makes sense (e.g., with gradable n Telegram: Ancient form of instant messaging. adjectives; #they are very absent) n Sentences are held together by little “function n Right preposition words” as well. These are the functional categories. n right over the house

2 Lexical and functional n Functional categories are more like the syntactic n Determiners generally come before a noun, and “glue” of a sentence, concerned more with come in a few different types. grammatical properties. n Articles: the, an. n Determiners: the, a(n) n Quantificational determiners: some, most n Quantifiers (determiners): some, every n Interrogative : which n : that, this, those n Demonstratives: that, this n : my, your n Possessive pronouns: my, your, their n Any old pronouns: you, him, they n These types are similar to… and different n Infinitival to from… one another. For now, we’ll lump them n Auxiliaries/Modals: have, be, do, can, should together. n : that, for, if

Determiners v. adjectives Determiners v. adjectives n Can we lump determiners together with n The big fluffy pink rabbit adjectives? Maybe we could have a simpler n The my rabbit theory of categories if we just put determiners n The that rabbit and adjectives together. n Every my rabbit n They both come before nouns (in English) n To properly describe the distribution of these n They both seem to “modify” the noun. elements, we really need to separate them into n Tall building. two classes. Lumping them together will not n That building. give us a simpler descriptive system. n n A building. Determiners cannot co-occur with other determiners, and must precede any adjectives. n My building. n Adjectives can occur with other adjectives.

Regarding chairs and furniture Pronouns n Nouns can be broken up into two classes, the n Pronouns differ from nouns in a couple of mass nouns that refer to “stuff” and the count ways, and should be considered a nouns that refer to things we can count. Furniture is a , chair is a . functional category. n The use of determiners is sensitive to this n The pronouns of English express person, difference. What are you looking for? *Chair, *fancy number, and gender (3rd person). chair, a chair, that chair, furniture, fancy furniture. n 1st person: I, me, we, us n It seems that in a fragment response, you need to have a determiner if you’re going to use a count n 2nd person: you noun. An adjective won’t do, hence adjectives n 3rd person: he, she, him, her, they, them, it can’t be the same as determiners.

3 Case Auxiliaries and modals n Pronouns differ from regular nouns in that n Different from verbs: have, be, do, will, can, might. they give an indication of their function in n In questions, auxiliaries “invert” with the , verbs don’t. the sentence. They are marked for case. n Will you leave? Can you leave? Do you leave often? *Leave you often? n Subject: he, she, I, they n Auxiliaries occur before not, verbs don’t. n Non-subject: him, her, me, them n You will not leave. You did not leave. *You left not. n You and it do not vary regardless of n Notice the extra do: “do-support”. function, but they could hardly be of a n Auxiliaries are responsible for things like tense, mood, modality, aspect, . Grammatical different category that I/me, they/them. things.

Infinitival to Infinitival to like a modal? n I like to go to the movies. n To and modals (can, might, should) seem to appear in the same place (between the subject and a bare verb form). n Kind of looks like a preposition, but it’s not. Prepositions take nouns, to as a P has n I like that John can pick up his dry-cleaning. a kind of contentful meaning (endpoint of n I’d like for John to pick up his dry-cleaning. a path). Infinitival to takes (bare) verbs only, means nothing (apart from “untensed”).

I (a.k.a. INFL) Complementizers n This whole class of functional elements (modals, n Pat will leave. to, auxiliaries) seem to be responsible for tense n I heard that Pat will leave. (and subject agreement, as we’ll discuss). n I wonder if Pat will leave. n These are the things reflected by the verbal inflectional morphology. n I am anxious for Pat to leave. n These elements seem to behave basically alike, so we’ll suppose they are of a single category, I n It is perfectly possible to embed a sentence inside (for ). another one. When we do this, it is indicated n In many , are marked with with a (introducing a a special inflectional ending, not unlike finite ). verbs. So, we might take to to be marking a special kind of tense: untensed (non-finite).

4 The P for v. the C for The D that v. the C that n For is of course a preposition (I looked for n Same kind of thing holds for that. you for three hours), but not when it is n I like that movie. introducing . n I heard that the movie involved guinea pigs. n He headed right for the back row. n *He’d like right for the class to be over. n Sometimes you can replace for clauses n *He expressed interest in the class to be over. with that clauses. n Who would you vote for in the primary? n It is important that Pat votes. n *Who are you anxious for to win the primary? n It is important for Pat to vote.

So… [A labeled ] [N brackets ] n Lexical categories: n A common way of indicating the syntactic n N: noun A: adjective Adv: adverb categories of words is by using labeled brackets, putting [brackets] around the and marking n V: verb P: preposition the first one with a syntactic category label. n Functional categories: n [N Pat] [I is] [A anxious] [C for] [N Tracy] n I: inflection/aux/modal D: determiner [I to] [V win] [D the] [N election] [P in] n C: complementizer PRN: [N November] [Adv decisively].

T

T T T T T T T T T

5