Grammar

Chapter 7
Introduction to
Grammar
● What do we mean when we say
grammar?
● What concepts do we use?
● What are some fundamental concepts
for Grammar in Linguistics?
 Who Remembers?

● Linguistic Expressions
○ Sequences of sounds that can be represented by the phonetic
alphabet and can be described in terms of features
■ [ðəlʌkibɔɪz]
■ ‘the lucky boys’
● Morpheme
○ The smallest meaningful unit of a language
■ The luck-y boy-s
What is Grammar?
● When you think of the word “grammar” what do
you think of?

● Do you know any grammatical rules for the

English language? If yes, create a list with 2-3
people nearby.
 What’s the
matter?
The lucky boys
*boys the lucky
*lucky boys the

• Not all phrases are well-formed

• From the data we know we need: article +
adjective + noun
• Why?
 ● “The process of describing the
structure of phrases and

Gramm
sentences in such a way that we
account for all the grammatical
sequences in a language and rule

ar
out all the ungrammatical
sequences is a grammar” pg. 98
(Yule).

● A description of the acceptable

phrases and sentences of a
language
 How do we describe these
rules?
● Grammatical categories, i.e. the parts of speech

● Generalizations such as “noun”, “verb”, and “adjective” let

us describe the behavior of groups of words in a language
that let us create rules

● The Parts of Speech are not universal!

 Why do we need categories?

● Studying grammar allows us to capture basic patterns

observed in human communication
● Grammars facilitate comparisons between languages that
encode information in different ways
● Studying the grammars of the words languages allows us to
discover what is ( and maybe isn’t) cognitively possible for
humans
The Parts of
Speech
Some of the basic and most common
categories
Nouns
● Nouns refer to people, objects,
creatures, places, qualities,
phenomena, and abstract ideas. The
“things” of a language
○ dog, roughness, love

● In English, you can identify a noun if

it can grammatically use an article
and take the –s possessive
morpheme
○ A dog, the roughness, the love
○ dog -> dogs
Articles
● Articles are “a/an” and “the”. These are a
subset of the class called determiners.
Articles are used to form noun phrases and
classify them as known or unknown entities
○ “Tom saw an apple today.”
○ “Tom saw the apple today.”

● In English, determiners can be identified

because there can only be one in a sentence
○ An apple
○ His apple
○ *an his apple
Adjectives
● Adjectives are used typically with
nouns to provide more information
about the thing being referred to
○ An apple
○ A red apple, a large apple, a sweet
apple

● In English, adjectives can be found

to the left of the noun they describe
but after the article
Verbs
● Words used to refer to various kinds
of actions or states involving people
or events
○ walk, talk, be, have

● Verbs can be identified because they

accept verbal morphology like the
past tense –ed (obvious exceptions)
○ Talked
○ Walked
Adverbs
● Adverbs are used to provide more information
about the actions, states, and events in a sentence.
They are typically used with verbs, but they can
modify the whole phrase or intensify adjectives
○ The puppy quickly ate.
○ Tom saw the apple today.
○ The really cute puppy

● In English, some adverbs can be identified by

having –ly suffixes. Adverbs can also often move
freely around the sentence
○ Quickly, the puppy ate.
○ Today, Tom saw the apple.
Prepositions
● Words that are used with nouns to
provide information about the time,
place, and other connections involving
actions and things. They also describe
the relationship between two nouns in a
sentence.
○ In the morning
○ On the table
○ With a knife
● Prepositions can be identified with this
childhood phrase: anywhere a mouse
can go (up, under, around, in, to, from,
etc.)
Pronouns
● Words that take the place of nouns
and noun phrases
○ She, he, it, them, they, you
○ Tom saw an apple in the park yesterday.
○ Tom saw it in the park yesterday.

● Pronouns can be identified because

you can swap between them and
nouns easily
Conjunctions
● Words that are used to make connections
and indicate relationships between events
○ And, or, but
○ Because
○ When

● Conjunctions can be identified because they

often introduce or connect larger phrases
together
○ I want cookies and ice cream.
○ When I go out, I drink milk.
Agreement
and Word
Categories
Other Descriptors of Language
Structure
 What is
Agreement?
Cathy and love “agree” with
one another
In number
Singular vs plural
In person
Cathy loves her dog
First, Second, Third

Agreement is the relationship

between element in that
they match along some
category
Other Grammatical Categories
● Number ● Voice
○ Singular vs plural ○ Active
○ Dual, trial ○ Passive
● Person ● Gender
○ First, Second, ○ Masculine
Third ○ Feminine
○ Inclusive,
Exclusive
● Tense
○ Past

○ Present
○
 A Note on Grammatical
Gender
● Gender in this context is ● Grammatical Gender is
not based on human another way to refer to a
gender or sex language that has
○ el libro ‘the book’ systematic categories
■ Masculine nouns can belong in
■ singular ○ Spanish allows two
● Traditional grammatical categories, masculine
theory states nouns as or feminine
“masculine” or “feminine” ○ El libro vs la silla
so these terms persist ● Some languages have
many more than 2
possible noun categories,
e.g. Zulu
Prescriptive vs
Descriptive
Approaches to
Grammar
 Let’s think about your rules
for English
Prescriptive Rules Descriptive Rules
● Never split an infinitive ● Subjects and Verbs must
● No double negatives agree in number and person
● Don’t end a sentence with ● Subject Verb Object is the
a preposition dominate word order
● Don’t start a sentence ● Verbs conjugate for present
with a conjunction and past tense
 Which do we care about?
Prescriptive Descriptive
●Approaches
What you “should” do to ●Approaches
Factual descriptions of how
speak correctly the language is being used
● Tied to notions of by speakers
“proper” language ● Bottom-up approach
● The definition of “proper” ● Modern Linguistics is
is problematic if concerned with Descriptive
interrogated analyses
Types of Descriptive
Analysis
Structural Analysis
What are the forms of the
language?
How are they distributed?
What governs their appearance?

Car, child, donkey, etc. The old car, The professor,

A noun category etc.
exists Noun phrases exist
Types of Descriptive
Analysis
Constituent Analysis
What pieces of the language go together to form larger
pieces?
What lets these pieces form?
Where are the boundaries in larger discourses?

The old woman brought a large snake from Brazil.

the old the old woman

woman brought brought
a large a large snake
snake from from Brazil
Brazil
We can assign roles to these
constituents
Building a Descriptive
Grammar
Let’s describe the English Language
 Subjects, Objects, and
Adjuncts
● Subject ● Adjuncts
○ First, Second, Third ○ other phrases that provide
○ The thing performing the where, when, or how the
action subject verb-ed the object
○ The first person noun phrase ○ often prepositional phrases
before the verb such as “from Brazil”
● Object
○ First, Second, Third (in
pronouns)
○ The thing undergoing the
action
○ The noun phrase after the
verb
 Language Typology Word Order
● Word order is the basic linear order
of the constituents of a language
○ Subject – Verb – Object (SVO)
■ Declarative Sentences
● There can be more than one word
order in a language
○ Verb – Subject – Object (VSO)
■ Interrogative Sentences
○ Object – Subject – Verb (OSV)
■ Topicalization
 Chapter 7 Summary

● The Parts of Speech ● Agreement ● Structural Analysis

○ Nouns ● Grammatical ● Constituent
○ Articles (Determiners) Categories Analysis
○ Adjectives ○ Person ● Roles
○ Verbs ○ Number ○ Subject
○ Adverbs ○ Tense ○ Object
○ Prepositions ○ Voice ○ Adjunct
○ Pronouns ○ Gender / Noun ● Language Typology
○ Conjunctions Class ○ Word Order
● Prescriptivism vs
Descriptivism