Forthcoming in this series F. AARTS and J. ARTS English Syniactic Structures ‘An introduction to units and structures in contemporary written English IVAN POLDAUF English Word Stress ANALYZING ENGLISH An introduction to descriptive linguistics HOWARD JACKSON City of Birmingham Polytechnic SECOND EDITION © PERGAMON PRESS ‘Oxford - New York » Toronto « Sydney + Paris » Frankfurtux. usa, CANADA AUSTRALIA FRANCE FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF GERMANY Pereamon Press Lt (OXS OW, Fagland Pergamon Pres ne, Maxwell House, Faivew Pas imford, Now York 10523, U.S.A. Pergamon Press Canada Lid, Suite 104, 180 Consumers Road, Willoweele, Ontario MAY 1P9, Canada Pergamon Press (Aust) Pi. Lid, P.O. Box SH, Pts Point, N°.W. 2011; Austin Peigamon Press SARL, 24 rue des Beoes, 75240 Pats, (Codex 05, France Pergamon Press GmbH, 6242. Kronberp-Taunus, ammerwet 6, Federal Republic of Germany Headington Hit Hall, Oxford ‘Copyright © 1982 Pergnon Press Lid AIL righ eserved No part ofthis publication may be dnl edn feral eetinor aed ‘ny form or by any meant: electron, leona imac wpe, chanical phoning, reading or ‘herwse, wou permission in hing ro the pub her Fit eiton 1960 Reprine1982 Sezond eon 1982 LUbrary of Congres Cataloging in Publication Data Jackson, Howard, ‘Analying English, (Language courses) Tes inde 1 English anguape-Grammar-1950 1. Tle, Series. PELIGIE RD 2)B1-23834 AACE rks Library Cataloguing in Publieation Data Jackson, Howard nalyzing English; an introduction to descriptive igus 2nd ed (Language courses) 1 Engi rege Le I fn PEL ISBN 0-08-025567-4 Printed nGreat Briain by A. Wheaton & Co. Lit, Exeter for HilaryContents Acknowledgements Introduction Part One: Sounds Making sounds English consonants English vowels Sounds and their variants Sounds in connected speech Combining sounds intonation Part Two: Structures 8, Grammar and sentences, 9. Word classes 10. Phrases 1—noun phrases 1. Phrases 2—verb phrases 12. Phrases 3—adjective phrases, adverb phrases, prepositional phrases 13, Clauses 1—strueture and types Jd. Clauses 2—dependent clauses \Fext 1—rearranging items fext 2—cohesion Part Three: Words 17. Morphemes 18. English morphology 19. Dictionary information 20. ‘Grammar’ of words 21. Relations between words Conclusion and further reading Key to exercises International Phonetic Alphabet Index 2 2 2 48 35 n 8 83 9 102 109 4 19 2s 136 138 Ist 153Acknowledgements This book came into being over a number of years in the course of teaching the analysis of the modern English language (o students on the English degree at Birmingham Polytechnic, Like many students of English coming to study for a dogree which includes a fair proportion of linguistic work, after the purely literature courses they have pursued at. school they find the ways of thinking and the analytical approach required for this work at first often new and strange. I am {grateful to all those students who bore with my attempts to find the most satisfactory way of introducing the modern linguistic study of English, 1 would also like to thank Vaughan James of the Pergamon Institute of English for his help and advice in the preparation of the manuseript for publication. And owe a debt, asin many other things, to my wife Hy Introduction Many people associate the term ‘linguistics’ with the philosophy of language (Wittgenstcin and the like), with learning foreign languages, or with abstract, ‘mathematical symbolism supposedly charting the language that we speak and write. ‘Now linguisties does have something to do with all these three activities, and the third of them in particular occupies the attention and energies of many scholars ‘working in the field of linguistics. Perhaps the most well-known, but by no means only, scholar falling into this category is Noam Chomsky, who initiated the “transformational generative’ school of linguistics. Such scholars are often referred to as “theoretical linguists, Their aim is to construct a unified model or theory to ‘explain’ the nature of individual languages and of human language in general. Like all theoretical sciences, theoretical linguistics aims to make as explicit as possible its axioms and procedures, so that its hypotheses and theories can be adequately tested. The explicitness required demands a measure of formalism, and for this theoretical linguistics looks, like fther sciences, to mathematics and symbolic logic. This makes many linguisties books daunting to the uninitiated and difficult for the layman to gain access to, ‘Much modern linguistics over the past 25 years has been of this kind, often concentrating on individual problems of description at a quite abstract level, However, not all linguistics is like that. More important, in the opinion of this author, and complementary to the kind of approach outlined in the previous paragraph is a branch of linguistics referred to as ‘descriptive’ linguistics. This ‘approach starts with a language as it is spoken and written, withthe data of actually occurring utterances and sentences, and seeks to analyze, catalogue and describe ‘that data and that language. Descriptive linguistics is about describing languages rather than about constructing theories and models. It must, of course, use categories of description, but these arise inductively from a consideration of the language data rather than deductively from the axioms of a theory. Jn many ways, descriptive linguistics isthe successor to ‘traditional grammas’, as it used to be taught in schools. And it is ironic that, while in recent years great advances have been made in the description of contemporary English, the education system in Britain no longer demands that pupils should be acquainted with the nature and structure of their mother tongue. In the seventies a number of significant reference works have been published, distilling the latest knowledge about the English language, among them the Grammar of contemporary English by R Quitk, § Greenbaum, G Leech and J Svartvik, published by Longman in 1972. ‘This present book is aimed at those wishing to discover the techniques and insights Of linguistics as applied to the description of the contemporary English language. ‘Such persons might be students in further or higher education undertaking a coursexX Introduetion in linguistics oF English language, without any school background in language analysis. Or they might be teachers or advanced learners of English as a Foreign Language, secking the beginnings of a systematic linguistic description of modern English. Or they might be interested lay people wishing to know what this still relatively new science of linguistics has to say about the nature of the language they speak. ‘i ‘The book is divided into three sections, dealing with Sound (ie pronunciation), ‘Structures (je grammar) and Words (ie vocabulary and meaning). The terminology used is, much of it, derived from traditional grammar, and it relates directly to that found in A Grammar of contemporary English and similar works. Each chapter presents a framework of analysis for the point being discussed, and is provided with fn exercise, to give practice in applying the analytical techniques presented in the chapter. Solutions to the exercises are given in a Key at the end. The aim of the ook is 10 show how linguistic analysis and description is done and to lead the reader to make his own analyses. It is intended that the book may be used seltinstructionally, or i could be used by a teacher. And it is hoped that after working through the book the reader will then be able to make practical analyses of any English sentence or text himself—with the aid of the reference works cited in the Conclusion, Part One: Sounds| | 1. Making sounds Speaking and writing ‘We can transmit our language in two ways: either by speaking or by writing. We are all conscious of what writing invalves: the use of a pen or pencil in our hands, the ‘making of special marks (letters) on paper. But we are not at all conscious of what speaking involves, It involves sound coming out of our mouths. But how is that sound produced? And how does it relate to the letters that we write? Afterall itis the same language, whether we speak it or write it ‘The reason we are more conscious of writing is because we had to be taught how to write, how to hold the pencil correctly, how to shape the letters so that they could be recognized hy someone else, But we learned to speak on our mother’s knee. [No one told us how to make the right sounds, what to do with our tongues or our lips. All natural languages have been transmitted by speech, but not all by writing. ‘And all normal healthy people have learned to speak their language in childhood, but not all have Ieamed to write, In this sense speech is prior to writing and characteristic of us as human beings. When we speak we use over half of our bodies to do so, from the diaphragm, situated below the lungs, to the mouth and nose in our faces. Speech is quite simply ‘column of air, that originates in the lungs, and is modified in various ways before its passage through the lips, and s0 out of the mouth and into the air. Like any other sound, speech is the vibration of the the air to make sound waves. In this case the, vibration, and the characteristics of the sound waves are determined by the human vocal organs. ‘What we have just described is the most usual basis of speech, ie egressive lung ‘ir—air originating in the lungs and passing outwards. It is also possible to speak while breathing in, with ingressive lung air. We sometimes speak like this in ‘moments of tension, but it is not a normal way to produce speech sounds. However, ingressive mouth air sounds, produced when drawing air into the mouth but not into the lungs, do occur. For English speakers the tut-tut sound is made like this, and in some languages such sounds are regularly used. Egressive mouth air sounds also occur; for English speakers blowing a raspberry or giving a kiss are sounds of, this kind, But for articulating the sounds of English words egressive lung air is virtually always used in normal English speech. ‘Vocal cords ‘As air is expelled from the lungs, it passes up the windpipe (trachea) and into the larynx (see Figure 1). In the larynx is found the glottis, the passage between the ‘vocal cords (oF vocal folds). Here the air coming from the lungs receives its first4 Analyzing English major modification. The vocal cords, despite their name, are not to be imagined like strings of a guitar or piano. They are a pair of fleshy, lip-like membranes, that are hinged at the front and may be moved together or apart in order to impede or allow the passage of air through the glottis The action of the vocal cords (ie the state of the glottis) determines whether a sound being produced is voiced or voicelesss.When the vocal cords are brought close together, but not shut tightly, the air escaping from the lungs eauses them to Figure 1: The vocal organs vibrate: this is called voicing, and a sound produced while the vocal cords are Vibrating is a voiced sound, When the voeal cords are apart, no vibration occurs, and sounds produced with the glottis in this state are voiceless sounds. This is also the state of the glottis for normal breathing, The vibratory action of the vocal cords ‘may be easily demonstrated by blocking up the ears and producing alternately an s And ax sound. The s isa voiceless sound and the z a voiced sound, The articulation of the latter should induce a buzzing sensation There are two further possible states of the glottis, which are both of marginal interest to the production of speech. One is when the vocal cords are brought tightly together and the glottis is completely closed. We do this when we are lifting, heavy objects, and it occurs in speech as a momentary action, in the production of the ‘glottal stop’, familiar from the Cockney pronunciation of the t in butter. The other state of the glottis is intermediate between vibrating and completely open: the vocal cords are brought together, but not sufficiently for vibration to occur. This is the state of the glottis associated with whispering, ‘Summarizing, there are four possible states of the glottis: 1, Open and relaxed, wsed for normal breathing and making voiceless sounds; 2. Vibrating, used for making voiced sounds; 3. Completely shut, used for making the glottal stop; Making sounds 5 4. Close together but not vibrating, used for whispering. (Only the first two are of importance in the description of speech sounds, giving us the categories of voiceless and voiced sounds. A speech sound must belong to one or the other of these categories, and this is determined by the state ofthe glottis at the time of its production. (Oral and nasal sounds As the column of air passes beyond the glottis, through the pharynx, there are two possible ways of escape from the face: either through the mouth, or through the nose. At the back of the mouth, as an extension of the root, isthe soft palate, oF volum. This is under muscular control and may at any time be in one of two positions: either raised, or lowered, Ifthe soft palate is raised, the passage through the nose is blocked and air may escape only through the mouth. Ifthe soft palate is. lowered, the passage through the nose is free, and air may escape both through the nose and through the mouth, Sounds produced with the soft palate lowered are nnasal or nasalized sounds. Sounds produced with the soft palate raised and air escaping only through the mouth are called oral sounds. Indeed we assume that sounds are oral unless we use the term nasal or nasalized. The difference between oral and nasal sounds may be illustrated from the word sudden. In a normal, fairly rapid pronunciation of this word, the final two sounds are da. The only respect in Which these sounds differ from each other is that d is an oral sound and n is a nasal sound. If you monitor your pronunciation carefully you should be able to feel the action of the soft palate in the transition from d to n, i from a raised to a lowered position ‘The function of the soft palate is, then, either to allow or not to allow the passage of air through the nose. When it is lowered it does not restrict the escape of air through the mouth. However the eseape of air through the mouth may be restricted in other ways, and air may be escaping only through the nose. For example, in the pronunciation of m, air cannot escape from the mouth because the lips are tightly shut, so that the escape of air is only through the nasal cavity. The most complex modifications of the column of air that originated in the lungs take place in the mouth. Here we are concemed with two aspects of articulation: firstly, the manner of articulation; and secondly the place of articulation, The ‘manner of articulation refers to the way in which a sound is made, and the place refers tothe position in the mouth at which the sound is made. A number of sounds made in different ways may be made at the same position, ‘Manner of articulation With manner of articulation we frst of all make a broad distinction between sounds that are produced without any obstruction in the mouth, and those that are made with some kind of obstruction, The former we call vowels and the latter consonants. ‘The differing quality of vowel sounds is determined by the openness of the mouth, the configuration of the tongue and the shape of the lips. The quality of consonant6 Analyzing English sounds is determined by the kind of obstruction to the passage of air (or elasure), 8 well as by the place of articulation. igure 2: Near closure fors Complete closure ‘A umber of kinds of closure may be identified. First there is the complete closure, when a total obstruction is made to the flow of air. When the soft palate is raised and air is prevented from escaping through the nose, air-pressure will build up behind the obstruction, and may then be released with an explosion. Sounds produced in this way are called plosive sounds (or sometimes stops). Such a sound in English isthe intial b in bin, Here the complete closure is made by the two lips. Obviously the closure, the build up of air-pressure, and the plosion are momentary activities; but they are all three stages in the articulation of plosive sounds. If, with a complete closure, the soft palate is lowered, then air may escape through the nose. Sounds made in this way are called nasal sounds, eg m in English man, where the closure is again made by the lips. Figure 3: Complete closure for g Near closure ‘A second kind is a near-closure. Here the air is allowed to escape, but not freely. ‘The escaping air causes friction at the point of near-closure, and the sounds produced in this way are called ftieative sounds. Such a sound in English is the initial v of van, Here the near-closure is between the bottom lip and the top front teeth, with friction resulting. Laterals ‘A third kind is made with the front of the tongue forming a complete closure, but With the air being allowed to escape over the sides of the tongue, Sounds produced in this way are called lateral sounds, since the air escapes laterally. Now, the air Making sounds 7 escape may be completely free, as in the case of the initial 1 of English lid, or the sides of the tongue may be raised, so that air escapes only with friction, as in the initial 11 of Welsh Lian-, This latter sound is called a lateral fricative. Intermittent closure A fourth kind is an intermittent closure, In making sounds with an intermittent closure, « complete closure is made very quickly and repeated several times. Such a sound isthe rolled r, sometimes heard with an emphatic (or Scottish) pronunciation ‘of F in, for example, red. Here the intermittent closure is between the tip of the tongue and the back of the upper front teeth. An intermittent closure may, however, involve only one such closure, in which case itis called a Napped sound, sometimes heard when F occurs between vowels eg in very. Near closures without friction ‘A fifth and final kind is a near-closure, like the second kind, but without friction. The articulators come close together, but not close enough for friction to occur. ‘These sounds are called frietionless continuant sounds. Such a sound isthe intial w in wer. Here the near-closure occurs between the two lips. These sounds could be classed as vowels, since they are made without any obstruction to the air-flow through the mouth, but they are usually regarded as consonants, at least as far as English is concerned, because they act like consonants in all other respects, especially in syllable and word structure. These, then, are the categories that we use to describe the manner of articulation of sounds. There is first ofall the broad distinction between vowels and consonants, ‘and then among consonants we distinguish between plosives, nasals, fricatives, laterals, rolls and flaps, and frictionless continuants. Place of articulation Now let us consider the place of articulation of sounds. From what has been said about the distinction between vowels and consonants, it will be clear that ‘consonants are easier to describe for place of articulation than vowels, since it is possible to feel where the obstruction is taking place in the mouth. Nevertheless, ‘vowel sounds may be described in terms of their place of articulation Vowels ‘wo sets of categories are relevant to this description. The first involves the ‘openness of the mouth and height of the tongue, for which the categories are close, half-close, half-open, open (an alternative corresponding set of categories is also sometimes used: high, mid-high, mid-low, low). The second involves the general configuration the tongue and the area of the mouth in which the sound is made, the categories here are front, eentral, back. A third set of categories i relevant to the description of vowel sounds, involving the shape ofthe lips; the categories are8 Analyzing English ‘rounded and spread (also referred to as unrounded). Ilustrating from English, the vowel sound in beat, represented by the letters ea, isa close front vowel with spread lips; the vowel sound in boot, represented by the letters 09, is a close back vowel with rounded lips Figure 4 Vowel Chart showing and 00 close ST Ty . WG | 5, are involved, In making consonant sounds, two parts of the mouth, or articulators, For the majority, one of these articulator isthe tongue, oF atleast some part of the tongue. Since this is so, the label for tongue, (from Latin lingua), is not usually included in the description of the place of articulation of the sound. Consonants We will begin our review of places of articulation at the front of the mouth. The Figure 6: Labio.dental f Jace involves the two lips as articulators, and sounds made here are called bilabial sounds (from Latin labium). They may be illustrated trom the initial b in bit, which is bilabial plosive, or the initial m in men, which is a bilabial nasal. At the next place of articulation the bottom lip makes a closure with the top front teeth; these sounds are called tabio-dental sounds. In English the inital fof fun isa labio-dental fricaive ‘The other consonant sounds all involve the tongue as one of the articulator. First, consonants are made by the articulation of the tip of the tongue and the back of the "upper front teeth; these are called dental sounds (from Latin dens). In English the final sound in teeth, represented by the letters th, isa dental fricative, Next, a sound ‘Making sounds 9 is made by the articulation of the tongue and the bony ridge just behind the upper front teeth. The part of the tongue used is that just behind the tip, called the blade, Figure 7: Dental Figure &: Alveolar d and the bony ridge is called the alveolar ridge, which ‘made in this position —alveolar sounds. In English the initial d of din is an alveolar plosive. The next area of the roof of the mouth, behind the alveolar ridge, is called the hard palate. An articulation occurs between the hard palate and the part of the Figure 9: Palatal y tongue behind the blade, called the front of the tongue. These sounds are called palatal sounds; in English the intial sound of yes, represented by the letter y, is a palatal frictionless continua. If you run your tongue over the roof of your mouth you will feel the hard palate being replaced by a soft area, called the soft palate or velum. There is an articulation between this area and the back of the tongue, making velar sounds: in English the intial g of ge isa velar plosive. The velum extends into the uvula, the piece of flesh that you can see dangling atthe back of your mouth when you look in, mirror. The uvula articulates with the back of the tongue to produce uvular sounds. In French the sound is often uvular roll, with the uvula making an intermittent elosure against the back of the tongue. Moving further back in the ‘mouth we come to the pharynx; itis possible for an articulation to occur between the back or root of the tongue and the pharynx, giving a pharyngeal sound. No such10 Analyzing English sounds ovcur in English or the European languages; they are typical, however, of ‘Arabic, Proceeding beyond the pharynx we come to the glottis, where the position Figure 10: Velarg of the vocal cords may produce glottal sounds, We have mentioned the production of the glottal stop (the Cockney pronunciation of the tt in butter) by means of a complete closure in the glottis. From this description of the possible places of articulation for speech sounds it will bbe clear that for purposes of description, the tongue is divided into a number of identifiable areas as is also the roof of the mouth. Beginning at the front end, the Figure arts ofthe tongue and root of the mouth Team 7 parts of the tongue that are distinguished are: tip, blade, front, back, root. The areas of the roof of the mouth are alveolar ridge, (hard) palate, yelum (ie soft palate), uvula, Deseribing speech sounds In deseribing speech sounds there is a convention well worth following. When labelling a vowel sound, give first of all the category for height, then the one for the general area of the mouth, and then the one for the position of the lips. Thus, the Vowel of heat is described as a close front spread vowel, Vowels are assumed to be Making sounds 11 voiced, ie articulated with the voeal cords vibrating, since this is predominantly the ‘case. And in English, at any rate there is no regular distinction to be made between voiced and voiceless vowels. In labelling consonant sounds however, voicing is portant and is given frst, then the place of articulation, and finally the manner of articulation. Thus, the b of beat is described asa voiced bilabial plosive, and the fof fun as a voiceless labio-dental fricative. International Phonetic Alphabet It will have become clear that the Roman alphabet, which we use for writing English, is by no means adequate for representing the diversity of speech sounds that we use for speaking English. The inadequacy becomes evident if we reflec that thete ate over 40 distinguishable speech sounds in English, while our alphabet contains only 26 symbols. To make the point more concrete, consider that we have {0 use a pair of letters (th) to represent the single voiceless dental fricative sound at the end of teesh, Moreover, this same pair of letters also serves to represent the voiced dental fricative sound, as found at the beginning of shen. So in representing speech we make use of the International Phonetic Alphabet, developed by the International Phonetic Association. This alphabet is based on the Roman alphabet, but with the addition of symbols from other sources. We shall be introducing the symbols that are necessary for representing English speech sounds in the following chapters, and the complete alphabet is given on page 151. Exercise 1 ‘Make a, description of the following speech sounds in the way recommended eg the b of beat—voiced bilabial plosive; the en of bea—close front spread vowel 1 the € of beat 2. tho v of van 3. the k of kiss 4 the th of thin 5. the mof now 6 7 8 the a of bath the p of pin the €e of seed the 0 of bole 10. the Lof like 11, the g of go 12, the # of 002. English consonants In the previous chapter we defined consonants as those speech sounds which are produced with some kind of closure in the mouth, restricting the escape of air. And ‘we distinguished among consonants according to the place in the mouth that the closure occurs (place of articulation) and according to the kind of closure made (manner of articulation). These factors, along with the state ofthe glottis (voicing), determine the kind of consonant sound that is produced. We shall now take each of these classes of consonants in turn, discover which sounds are used in English, and introduce the phonetic symbol for each sound from the International Phonetic Alphabet. Fricatives The largest group of consonants in English comprises the fricatives, sounds that involve a near-closure with friction resulting between the articulators, In most cases there is a voiced and a voiceless fricative occurring at each place of articulation. Bilabial fricatives, where the friction occurs between the two lips, have symbols taken from the Greek alphabet: for the voiceless bilabial fricative the symbol is, igure 12: Bilabialiative and for the voiced bilabial fricative 8, These sounds do not regularly oceur in hglish, except in certain contexts as variant sounds for labio-dental fricatives (see Chapter 5). ‘The labio-dental fricatives have the familiar symbols f and v for the voiceless and voiced variety respectively. Friction occurs between the lower lip and the upper front teeth. These sounds occur regularly in English words, in all positions, eg initially in feignivain; medially in referee(reverie; finally in lifelive. When the phonetic symbol is a familiar one, as in this ease, it should not be assumed that English consonants 18 when the corresponding letter occurs it always represents the sound that the phonetic symbol stands for. So, in the case of the letter f for example, the word ‘written of is in fact pronounced with a voiced labio-dental fricative as the final sound, ie represented by the phonetic symbol . Figure 13: Dental fricative In producing dental friatives the friction occurs between the tongue tip and the back of the front teeth. For some speakers the tongue tip actually protrudes between top and bottom teeth, and these sounds are sometimes called interdental fricatives. One symbol is taken from the Greek alphabet: for the voiceless dental fricative the symbol is; and for the voiced dental fricative—8, which is a specially invented symbol. These sounds occur in all positions in English words, eg thiefthis; lethaltleather; clothiclothe. Iveolar frgative ‘The alveolar fricatives have familiar symbols, s for the voiceless alveolar fricative, and z for the voiced alveolar fricative. Again, it should be noted that not all ‘occurrences of the letter $ are voiceless alveolar fricaives, ie symbolized phoneti- cally by s; eg rise has a voiced alveolar fricative as its final sound, represented phonetically by 7. With alveolar fricatives the friction is between the tongue tip or blade and the alveolar ridge. But they differ from dental fricatives not only in place Of articulation, but also in the shape that the tongue takes up in the articulation of the sound. With alveolar fricatives in English the tongue is shaped so that there is a groove down the centre line along which the air passes, whereas with dental fricatives the tongue is relatively flat with only a narrow slit. So s and 2 are groove fricatives in English, while @ andO are slit ficatives. The alveolar fricatives occur in