Morphology & Syntax Dr. - PowerPoint Presentation

Slide1

Morphology & Syntax

Dr.

Monira

Al-

Mohizea

Slide2

Introduction to syntax

What is SYNTAX?

Grammar

: Words (and Phrases)

Introducing word class

Problems in definitions of word classes

Slide3

What is Syntax??

Definition:

The word syntax derives from the Greek word

syntaxis

, which means

arrangement

. 

Morphology

deals with

word formation

out of morphemes;

syntax

deals with

phrase

and

sentence

formation

out of

words

.

Syntax

is the grammar, structure, or order of the elements in a language statement.

Slide4

Word class

A

ny

piece of language,

written

text or a

spoken

piece of dialogue, consists of

words

.

But..

how many kinds of words are there?

What do ‘words’ make up?

DISCUSS??

Slide5

There are

11

word classes —

commonly known as '

parts of

speech

’).

'word-

chunks’ form

larger units

— phrases —

syntax matters.

We will now consider 4 of the 11 word classes,

—

nouns, adjectives, verbs and adverbs

(NAVA)

words.

Slide6

NAVA ‘content words’

Consider the following:

Word classes Examples

Noun

girl

,

water, beauty

Adjective

good

,

watery, calm

Verb (full verb)

sing

,

walk, become

Adverb

now

,

safely, here

Slide7

Answers

Word classes Examples

Noun girl, water, beauty

Adjective good, watery, calm

Verb (full verb) sing, walk, become

Adverb now,

safely,here

Slide8

Importance of NAVA words

(1)

They are crucial

to

convey

information

(e.g.

when

we add one

word from each of the four classes to make a sentence,

we get

a

clear picture

of something going on in the real world, with each word making its own contribution to that

picture.

E.g.

Young ( ?) cheetahs ( ?) mature (? ) quickly (? )

This is why words of these classes are often called

'content words'

.

Slide9

Importance of NAVA words(2)

NAVA words have

derivational

morphology:

W

e

can form

nouns, adjectives, verbs

and

adverbs

by

adding suffixes,

e.g.,

teach

+er

,

wonder

+ful

,

class+ify

,

sober

+ly

.

These

classes have a

large

number of members: English has

thousands

of nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs

.

In

comparison to this,

other word classes have a very small membership, of 50 or less.

Slide10

In real life- experiment

English has

thousands

of nouns, verbs, adjectives and

adverbs. In comparison to this,

other word classes have a very small

proportion,

of 50 or less.

Any Dictionary of English would include almost near 100% are NAVA words as headwords.

Now, take a random paragraph or two of a text,

e.g. a

novel, and count the number of running words that are NAVA words, and the number that are

not, what do

you

find ? (corpus??)

about

35

% to

60

% of

the words are

???? words

.

Slide11

Conclusion..

The conclusion we can draw is that words

which are not

NAVA words, although small in number, tend to occur more frequently.

Words

like the, of, it, and tend to

appear on

almost every line of text, whereas words

such as,

young, cheetahs, mature

and

quickly

occur much more rarely.

T

he

'non-content'

words are called

function words

,

because their usefulness

does not lie in

the information content they convey,

but in signaling

grammatical

function

and

grammatical structure

.

The other seven word classes, apart from the content

are: ???

Slide12

Consider and label the following:

Word classes Examples

Determiner

the, a, this, some, all

Auxiliary

(verb)

can, will, may, be, do

Pronoun

1, she, all, him, anyone

Numeral*

one, two, 15, fifth, 10th

Preposition

of, in, on, at, horn, to, as

Discourse

oh, well, yes, okay,

Conjunction

and, or, but if, when, as

Marker*

gee, right, heck, wow

Slide13

'Function word' classes

Word classes

Examples

Determiner the

, a, this, some, all Auxiliary (verb)

can

, will, may, be, do

Pronoun 1

, she, all, him, anyone

Numeral*

one, two, 15, fifth, 10th

Preposition

of, in, on, at, horn, to, as

Discourse

markers

oh

, well, yes, okay,

Conjunction

and, or, but if, when, as

Marker* gee

, right, heck, wow

*In

some ways numerals and discourse markers are like content classes, but for now we place them among the function classes

.

Slide14

Consider the following sentences:

M

ake

a list, in four columns, of the

italicized

words which

are :

(

i

) nouns

, (ii) adjectives, (iii) verbs, and (iv)

Adverbs

, ignoring other words

New cars are very expensive nowadays.

I understand that even Dracula hates werewolves.

I have won more rounds of Golf than you have had hot dinners.

Mention the reason behind your classification, and think about a definition of each word class:

Slide15

NAVA ‘Content words’

‘A noun is a naming word: it refers to a thing, person, substance, etc.’

‘An adjective is a word that describes something about a noun: it denotes a quality.’

‘A verb is a doing word: it refers to an action.’

‘An adverb is a word that says something about other types of words, such as verbs, adjectives and adverbs.’

Such definitions are largely

semantic

,

i.e. they rely on properties related to meaning of the word.

Slide16

Problems of ‘semantic definitions’ (1)

They are problematic

because:

(1) they are sometime vague

and

(2) they maybe wrong,

e.g. I have won more rounds of

Golf

than you have had hot

dinners

.

Most typical members of the class of nouns are words as Karen, chairs, dogs =>

i.e

, referring to people , animal, things, or substance that we can see and touch.

Anything that we

can see and touch

are called ‘concert nouns’

Slide17

Problems of ‘semantic definitions’ (2)

The verb definition as ‘doing word’ applies to went looked, and won, but not easily to are, hate and understand.

The definition can be improved if we specify that it denotes states and actions. However, difficulty still applies as these words are also vague



E.g. the

girls

seemed

hungry

.

What does ‘

seem’

here refer to?

Hungry fits ‘state’ word more than ‘seem’.

This definition fails to keep word classes apart. ??

Slide18

Conclusion

Compare the following:

hates

in

Dracula hates werewolves

with

hatred

in

Dracula's hatred of

werewolves

What can you conclude?

Slide19

Defining word classes: form, function & meaning

We can not just rely on

meaning

when recognizing word classes

.

Therefore,

instead of

only relying on ‘a

single-line

definition’.

E.g.

'a

verb is a doing word'

, it is best to

consider the

definition of a word class

combining

three elements:

form, function

and

meaning.

Slide20

(1) Form…

We

can tell the class of a word partly from its

form

, made up of

(1)

stems

and

(2)

affixes

:

D

erivational

suffixes

are characteristic

of certain word classes:

e.g

.,

electric-

ity

(

N

)

;

electr

-ify

(

V

)

; electric-

al (

ADJ

).

I

nflectional

suffixes

can

be added to change the

form

of a word:

E.g. box => box

-

es

(

N

);

work

=> work-

ed

(

V

)

; tall

=>

tall-

er

(

ADJ

). These grammatical

endings can be simply called

inflections

, and compared to some

European

languages (e.g.

, German)

, English has only a few of

them.

In

some

cases

, English words have

inflections

which involve

change

in the form of a word,

(e.g

. a change of

vowel, man => men)

, or

a complete

change in the word

(e.g. go => went

).

Slide21

(2) Function…

We

can tell the class of a word by the way it occurs in certain positions or structural contexts.

i.e.,

words have certain

functions

or roles in the structure of a sentence.

E.g. Consider the following:

The

cook

(?) does

not actually

cook

(?) the meal

.

How can we differentiate between

cook

Obviously

there is no

clear difference

of

form

to help us, so it most be the

position

of the word in relation to other words that tells us its

class, i.e.

context

.

Slide22

(3) Meaning…

Meaning

is a less reliable

criterion as discussed, but it is not entirely useless.

R

ecognizing

certain semantic types of word (i.e., word types

classified

according to

their meaning

), such as

action verbs

,

state verbs

,

abstract nouns

, etc.,

as it can help to

check the purely structural

criteria

(those

of form and

function).

Slide23

Definitions

In English

there

are verbs that are not normally used in the

Continuous Tense,

because they describe

state

rather than

an

action

. They are called

state verb

(

or non

-progressive verbs

). E.g.

like, love, hate

,

prefer, remember, forget, believe, etc.

 

The verbs that can be used in the Continuous Tense are called

action verbs

 

(or

dynamic

verbs

)

. E.g. read.

N.B. a

few verbs

can

be both

state

and

action

verbs

depending on their

meaning.

I

think you made a

mistake

. (think

=

believe ) VS.

I

am thinking about my mum

now. (

think

= mental

process).

An

abstract

noun

refers to something with which a person cannot physically

interact (e.g. love). A

concrete

noun

is a person, place or

thing (e.g. Mohammad, Riyadh, chair).

Slide24

Thank You..