GRAMMATICAL UNITS

Written by Lucas Nhan

I.  Morpheme and Word:

Morphology:

1. The study of morphemes and their different forms (allomorphs) and the way they combine in word formation.

2. A morpheme system.

5-Rank HIERARCHY: are widely used model the study of grammar.

Morphemes: Morphemes are the smallest meaningful units in a language. A morpheme can not be divided without altering or destroy its meaning.

 Morpheme <= > Lexical Meaning + Grammatical Funtion

Eg.: “books” includes 2 morphemes:

- Morpheme “book_” is lexical morpheme.

- Morpheme “_s” is grammatical morpheme.

Free Morpheme: Are morphemes which can stand alone as independent words since(because) they carry full semantic weight. Eg: ‘care’ in ‘carefully’; ‘happy’ in ‘unhappiness’; ‘order’ in ‘disorder’.

Bound Morphemes:  Are morphemes which can not stand alone in the language. They only modify the meaning or grammatical function of a free morpheme.

Roots: A root morpheme (or root) is the basic form to which other morphemes can be attached.

In English, most roots are free morphemes but not all. For instance, in “chronology”, “chronograph”, “chronic”, all contain root “chron_” but it can not be a free morpheme because it never occurs alone as a word. Similarly, “innovative” and  “novice” contain a root “nov” which can not be a free morpheme.

Stems: are also forms to which other morphemes can be attached. Stems differ from roots in that they may be made up of more than one morpheme. All roots are stems but many stems are not roots (but contain them). Stems are sometimes created by the juxtaposition of two roots in a compound. Stem can also be formed by adding meaningless elements to certain roots.

Eg.: “baby” and “sit” are roots (and stems), “babysit” is a stem (but not a root) because “-er” can be attached to it (“babysitter”).

Affixes: is a general term for Prefixes and Suffixes, which are both bound morphemes. Prefixes are morphemes added before a word to form a new word. Suffixes are morphemes added after a word in the formation of a new word.

Infix: is a bound morpheme occurring right inside another morpheme, unlike the other affix types. English has no infix but it is common in the languages of the world.

Lexical Morphemes: express meanings that can be relatively easily specified by using dictionary terms or pointing out examples of things, events, or properties which the morphemes can be used to refer to. Eg: tree, above, anti, ism…

Grammatical Morphemes: Any morpheme is “grammatical” if it fits either (or both) of the two characteristics:

1.      It expresses a very common meaning or is specifically required in some context.

2.      It expresses an elation within the sentence rather than denoting things, activities, etc.

Inflectional Morpheme: Creates a new form of the old word when it is attached to that word. Inflectional morpheme can change the grammatical function of the word. Inflectional morphemes include 8 kinds: together with Nouns (s, ‘s), with Adjectives (er, est), with Verbs (s/es, ing, ed, en).

Derivational Morpheme: Creates (or derives) a new word when attached. Derivation morpheme can change the meaning of the word.

Inflectional Morphology: studies the way in which words vary (or inflect) in order to express grammatical contrasts in sentences, such as singular/plural or past/present tense. The inflectional morpheme does not change the part of speech of the root or the stem. Eg: ‘s’ in ‘boys’, ‘es’ in ‘potatoes’…

Derivational Morphology: studies the principles governing the construction of new words, without reference to the specific grammatical role a word might play in a sentence. Eg: ‘drinkable’ from ‘drink’, ‘taxation’ from ‘tax’…

Allomorph: is the different variant of the same morpheme. Eg:

‘Boards’ and ‘watches’ è have the same function but different in spelling è Allomorphs.

‘reader’, ‘visitor’, ‘beggar’ è the same function but different in spelling è Allomorphs.

‘books’ (/s/), ‘pens’ (/z/), ‘oranges’ (/iz/) è the same presentation in writing but different in pronunciation.

‘listened’ (/d/), ‘worked’ (/t/), ‘visited’ (/id/) è the same function, the same kind of morpheme, but different in pronunciation.

OTHER WAYS OF FORMING NEW WORDS:

1. Compounding: Compound words are words which contain at least two roots. Eg: football, handbook, toothpick…

A list of English compounds:

a/ Compound Nouns:

1.      N + N: boyfriend, girlfriend, roommate, classroom.

2.      V + N: pickpocket, breakfast, logbook, washing machine.

3.      N + V: sunshine, rainfall, haircut.

4.      Adj + N: greenhouse, software, redhat.

5.      V + V: make-believe.

6.      Particle + N: downtown, in-crowd.

7.      Adv + N: onlooker, bystander.

8.      Verb + Particle: dropout, cop-out, take-off, drawback.

9.      Phrase compounds: mother-in-law, son-in-law.

b/ Compound Verbs:

N + V : skydive.

Adj + V: fine-tune.

Particle + V : overbook.

Adj + N: brownbag.

c/ Compound Adjectives:

1.      N + A : Card-carrying, childproof

2.      V + A : fail-safe

3.      A + A : open-ended

4.      Adv + A : cross-modal

5.      Particle + A : overqualified

6.      N + N : coffee table

7.      V + N : roll-neck

8.      A + N : red-brick, blue-collar

9.      Particle + N : in-depth

10.  V + V : go-go, make-believe

11.  A/Adv + V : high-rise

12.  V + Particle : see-through, tow-away

d/ Compound Adverbs: up-tightly, cross-modally.

e/  Neoclassical Compounds: astronaut, hydroelectric, mechanophobe

2.   Conversion (Zero-derivation): a word changes its class without any change of form, e.g., carpet à to carpet.

3.  Acronyms: Another word-formation process turns word-initial letter sequences into ordinary words. Eg: NATO from North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

4.   Brand names : This word-formation process turns brand names into common nouns, sometimes verbs: Xerox (v, n), Kleenex, scotch tape.

5.   Blends : Two words merge into each other, e.g., brunch (breakfast + lunch), chunnel (channel + tunnel), telex (teleprinter + exchange), motel (motor + hotel), smog (smoke + fog).

6.   Clippings : This process creates an informal shortening of a word, often to a single syllable, e.g., ad (advertisement), gents (gentlemen), flu (influenza), telly (television).

7.   Extending the domain of derivational morphemes : This word-formation process is making a derivational morpheme more productive than it was. Acquisition. Eg, -ize à containerize, prioritize.

II.  PHRASE:

A phrase is a group of words which form a grammatical unit. A phrase does not contain a finite verb and does not have a subject-predicate structure. It is used as a single part of speech.

Eg: the cat ran under the chair.

1. Adjective Phrase: is a phrase that functions as an adjective. Eg: The man on the bench is drunk.

2. Adverbial Phrase: is a phrase that functions as an adverb. Eg: After dinner, we went to the movie. The lecture begins at one o’clock. She did it for no particular reason. She hit the man behind the ear.

3. Endocentric Phrase: Most phrases can be seen as expansions of a central element (the head), and these are often referred to as “endocentric” phrases (also as basic phrase). They have the same grammatical function as the central word or the head:

    The cars

     The big cars

All the big cars

All the big cars in the garage

The internal structure of an endocentric phrase is commonly described in a three-part manner:

PREMODIFIER + HEAD + POSTMODIFIER

4. Exocentric: Phrases can not be analyzed in this way are then called “exocentric” phrases:

Inside the cars;

Functional Formula:

(1) Noun Phrase:   (Premodifier) + Head + (Postmodifier)

Her nose à Premodifier + Head

Printers of good quality à Head + Postmodifier

(2) Verb Phrase:   (Auxiliary) + Head + (Object/Complement) + (Modifier)

She is walking à Aux + Head

He gave me a drink à Head + Object

Paul is a good man  à Head + Complement

(3) Adjective Phrase:  (Intensifier) + Head + (Complement)

Difficult questions à Head alone.

Very difficult questions à Intensifier + Head

Aware of the matter à Head + Complement

Quite aware of the matter à Intensifier + Head + Complement

(4)    Adverb Phrase:  (Intensifier) + Head

Very carefully à Intensifier + Head

(5)  Prepositional Phrase:  Head + Object

On the table; Of good quality; From the center

III.  CLAUSE and SENTENCE:

1. Sentence:

- A combination of words and a largest grammatical unit.

- Contains its own subject and predicate.

- Its meaning is complete and independent in use.

- Can contain a clause or more than a clause.

2. Clause:

- A combination of words which form a grammatical unit.

- Contains its own subject and predicate.

- Its meaning is incomplete. A clause can not be used independently.

- Is part of a sentence. A clause can contain a phrase or more than a phrase.

3. Phrase:

- A combination of words which form a grammatical unit.

- Does not contain a finite verb and does not have a subject-predicate structure.

- It is used as a single part of speech.

A number of clause types:

S + V : The girl is dancing.

S + V + O : The girl kisses her dog.

S + V + C : The girl is sick.

S + V + A : The girl lay on the ground.

S + V + O + O : The girl gave her dog a bone.

S + V + O + C : The girl called her dog Honey.

S + V + O + A : The girl beat her dog yesterday.

S + V + O + C + A : The girl made him happy often.

(S: Subject; V: Verb; O: Object; A: Adverbial; C: Complement)