2 levels of description in the study of language sound sequences as represented in phonetic alphabet an described in terms of their features sequence of morphemes eg the lucky boys ID: 656653
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Slide1
Chapter SevenGrammarSlide2
Introduction
•
2 levels of description in the study of language
--sound sequences as represented in phonetic alphabet an described in terms of their features
--sequence of morphemes (
e.g.
the lucky boys
)
With these descriptions, we could characterize all the words and phrases of a language in terms of their
phonology
and
morphology Slide3
Grammar
•
These words can only be combined in a limited number of patterns:
e.g
the lucky boys
–acceptable or grammatical
*
Boys the lucky
*
lucky boys the
(unacceptable or ungrammatical)
English has strict rules in combining words into phrases. Hence the sequence:
article + adjective + noun Slide4
Grammar
:
•The process of describing the structure of phrases and sentences in such a way that we account for all the
correct grammatical
sequences in a language and rule out all the ungrammatical
sequences.
•Swahili, Tagalog, Arabic and Turkish all have their own ways of forming grammatical phrases and sentences. Slide5
Traditional Grammar
•
The grammar of Latin and Greek was taken as the model for other
grammars,
including
English, because there were well-established grammatical descriptions of them.
Latin and Greek were the languages of scholars, religion, and knowledge.
•The best- known terms from the traditional grammar is used in describing parts of speech. Slide6
The parts of speech:
•
Nouns
, articles, adjectives,
verbs
,
adverbs
,
prepositions
,
pronouns
,
conjunctions
(Refer to pg.
82) Slide7
Agreement
•
Traditional grammatical analysis has also given
us
a number of other categories such
as:
number, person, tense, voice and gender.
•These categories are clearer when we consider them in terms of agreement.
•E.g.
loves
( the
verb
) agrees with
(the
noun)
Cathy
in the sentence:
Cathy loves her dog Slide8
Cont…
•
The agreement
(between verb and noun) is
based
on:
the category
number
, i.e. the noun is plural or singular.
It
is also based on the category
person
(first, second, third). The different forms of pronouns are used (I, you,
he/she/it). Hence, third
person singular (noun--Cathy) agrees with the verb loves (not love).
Tense
—
verb
loves
is a present tense.
Voice
– active or passive - here in the active voice (describing
what Cathy does
)
Gender
–
her (natural gender– male and female entities) e.g. he/she; his/her; it
(..loves
her
dog)Slide9
Grammatical gender
•
English– Biological gender or natural
gender (male and female)
•Other languages such as Arabic, German and Spanish use grammatical
gender/ nouns are classified according to their gender class
(masculine and feminine)
and not
tied to sex
. Slide10
Cont…
•
Spanish has 2 grammatical genders—masculine and feminine; e.g.
el sol
(the sun);
la
luna
(the moon)
•German uses
3 genders
– masculine
der
Mond
(the moon); feminine
die
Sonne
(the sun), and neuter
das
Feuer
(the fire)
•The different forms of the articles in both Spanish and German examples correspond to differences in the gender class of the nouns.
•French
le livre
(the book) is grammatically
masculine but is not considered to be biologically male!
Arabic
أشرقت الشمس (مؤنث)
however the sun is not considered a female!
Latin also has grammatical
gender.
So the grammatical gender category is useful in a number of languages but
not in English
.Slide11
Traditional analysis
In traditional grammar books, tables were presented to describe English verbs and compare them to Latin verbs
•
The forms for the Latin verb
Amare
(to love) are listed on pg.85.
It is clear from the table that each Latin verb is different according to categories of number and person but in English they are all the same but one.
Thus, in English, it makes more sense to say the categories of ‘person’ and ‘number’
describe different pronouns
and not verbs as in Latin (one of the arguments against the traditional approach)Slide12
1- The prescriptive approach18
th
c.
The prescriptive approach– “proper use of English” borrowed from the structure of sentences in Latin.
•
E.g
–
you must not split the infinitive;
you must not end a sentence with a preposition
•Who did you go with? With whom did you go?
•Mary runs faster than me. Mary runs faster than I.
•Don’t begin a sentence with I OR AND
•These are all prescriptive rules Slide13
Captain Kirk’s infinitive
•
You must not split the infinitive
•The English infinitive has the form
to + the base form of the verb
as in
to go
/ it
can be used with an adverb
e.g.
boldly
.
•
To boldly go
… (star trek)
his teacher would expect him to say
to go boldly
or
boldly to g
o…so that the adverb does not spilt the infinitive.
•This is from
Latin (ire)
because Latin infinitives are single words and just do not split. Slide14
2- The descriptive approach
20
TH
c.
•
The categories and rules that were appropriate or Latin grammar just did not seem to fit the non-European languages.
•So analysts collected samples of the language they were interested in and attempted to describe the regular structures of the language
as it was used
not according to some view of how it should be used. Slide15
2/a Structural Analysis
•
One type of descriptive approach is structural analysis.
•Its main concern is
to investigate the distribution of forms in a language
. The method uses “test-frames
” with
empty slots.
•Examples on
pg
87 Slide16
E.g.The ________ makes a lot of noise.
I heard a __________ yesterday.
Forms that fit in the slots (car, child, donkey, dog, radio)/ they are likely to be examples of the same grammatical category; i.e. ‘noun’
We notice that other forms do not fit in the slot, e.g., Cathy, someone, the dog, a car. So, we propose another test frame:Slide17
E.g.
_________ makes a lot of noise.
I heard ________ yesterday.
Other forms that fit this test frame e.g. (
it
, the big dog, an old car, the professor with the Scottish accent…)/ examples of the same grammatical category, i.e., ‘noun phrases’
Therefore, the definition of ‘pronouns’ can be updated from ‘words used in places of nouns’ to ‘words used in place of noun phrases and nouns’
As a result, a
description
of the
sentence structures
in a language can be produced.Slide18
2/b Constituent analysis
•
Another descriptive approach is constituent analysis.
•How small
constituents (components)
form larger constituents
./ i.e., determining how words go together to form phrases
•Example–
‘An
old man brought a shotgun to the wedding
.’ it has 9 constituents/ how do they go together to form larger constituents (phrases)?
An old man brought brought a shotgun to
to
the (wrong)Slide19
Noun phrase
Verb phrase
Prepositional phrase
an
old
man
brought
a
shotgun
to
the
weddingSlide20
Using this diagram can help us determine which forms can be substituted for each other.
It also shows that proper nouns and pronouns can be, though they are single words, can be used as ‘noun phrases’ and fill the same constituent space as longer phrases. (see pg. 88)Slide21
2/c Labeled and bracketed sentences
Another type of diagram that is designed to show how the constituents in a sentence can be marked by using labeled brackets.
E.g. ‘the dog loved the girl.’
They are bracketed at:
The word level [the] , [dog]
The phrase level [the dog] , [loved the girl]
And the sentence level [the dog loved the girl]
Then we label each constituent with grammatical abbreviations (see p. 89)
This procedure reveals to us the
hierarchal organization
of these
constituents.
Thus,
c
onsituent
analysis
is
useful for describing the structure of English sentences and how words and phrases are combined to form grammatically correct sentences (not only English but other languages as well.)Slide22
Examples1.
A
Gaelic
sentence:
“the boy saw the black dog” (see p. 90)
The diagram shows that It follows a (V NP NP) structure, unlike the English (NP V NP) structure
2. Arabic sentence:
الأسود الكلب الولد رأى →
Saw the boy the dog the black
In the Arabic sentence, the verb comes first, also, the adjective goes after the noun, unlike in English.
This kind of analysis may help us understand why foreign language learners produce grammatically incorrect sentences of the target language.