Grammar bitch

What are the differences between lexical and function words? Provide definitions and relevant examples.

What are the differences between lexical and function words? Provide definitions and relevant examples.

Lexical words carry meaning (you can describe those words to someone (chair, table, folder etc.)), function words carry functional (grammatical) information (hard to define their meaning but they have some grammatical function in the sentence (there, here, before, on, off etc.))

Word Classes:

1. Lexical words

2. Function words

3. Inserts

Inserts

Inserted remarks (ugh, umm, like etc.)

What is a noun phrase?

A phrase formed by a noun and all its modifiers and determiners

Define and provide examples of head, modifier, compliment

Head - the main word in a phrase (the noun completion is the head of the noun phrase [the completion of the task]

Modifier - modifies the meaning of another element of the sentence (young is a modifier of the NP [a young woman] which modifies the head (woman) of the NP), precedes the noun

Complement - word or word group that completes the predicate in a sentence ('difficult' is a complement in the phrase [Math is difficult])

What are the main types of nouns?

1. Countable - nouns that you can count on your fingers (jars, bags, shirts)

2. Uncountable - nouns thar you cannot count on your fingers (milk, metal, rain)

3. Proper nouns - any kind of names (Anna, Australia, Apple (brand name), Sunday)

4. Common nouns - nouns that describe a type of person, thing, or place or that names a concept (adult, camera, country)

What are the main types of determiners?

1. Zero article

2. Indefinite article - 'a/an'

3. Definite article - 'the'

4. Possessive - 'my/your'

5. Demonstrative - 'this/that, these/those'

6. Quantifier - 'every/each, either/neither, any, no, all, many, some, (a) few, enough, several, both, much, some, (a) little'

7. Numeral - 'one, two/three etc.'

Determiners

Function words used to specify the kind of reference a noun has

What are the different types of nouns according to their morphological composition?

• Simple nouns - don't have prefixes and suffixes (chair, table, room, map)

• Derivative nouns - nouns that have prefixes, suffixes or even both (reader, inability, kindness)

• Compound nouns - nouns built from two or more stems (sunflower, rainfall, snowball, blackbird)

What are the main syntactic functions of the noun?

1. The Subject [Lucy went for a walk]

2. Direct object [I love Lucy]

3. Indirect object [Give her a kiss]

4. The Predicative [This is Lucy]

5. The Complement [Lucy is astonishingly beautiful]

6. The Adverbial modifier [Let's meet at Lucy's)

What are the main semantic groups of nouns?

1. Abstract - refer to abstract things that aren't physical entities or substances like events, states of being, times, qualities (party, love, midnight, beauty)

2. Concrete - refer to physical entities or substances (desk, pen, wall, sandwich)

???????????What are the main functions of articles with common nouns?

The Indefinite article with singular nouns

1. The nominating function - when we want to name an object, to state what kind of object is meant; the main function of the indefinite article with countable nouns (I gave her a pen)

2. Oneness

The Indefinite article with uncountable nouns and with nouns which have no reference to the category of countability

1. The aspective function

The definite article with countable nouns (sg and pl)

1. The defining function - definite article serves to single out an object or several object from all the other objects from the same class (As we stood on the steps, we felt the smell of fallen leaves coming from the garden)

2. The generic function

The definite article with uncountable nouns

1. Restricting -

The definite article with nouns which have no reference to the category of countability

1. The defining function

Zero article with plural nouns

1. The nominating function

2. More-than-oneness

Zero article with uncountable nouns

1. The nominating function

Limiting attribute

Quality or characteristic of an object which makes it distinct from all the other objects of the class (That he should help a promising young man was perhaps 'the most important consideration' of all)

Descriptive attribute

Is used to describe an object or give additional information about it. It doesn't single out an object but only narrows the class to which it belongs (Give me 'a book' ----> Give me 'an English book' ----> Give me 'an interesting English book')

Describe the use of articles with countable nouns modified by adjectives

Limiting (the right, the principle, the main idea)

Descriptive (a flat white house, a high solid wall, a beautiful blonde girl)

Describe the use of articles with countable nouns modified by numerals

Cardinal numerals are descriptive. (He had refused (zero article) three invitations to the party

Ordinal numerals are usually limiting. (the second bell rang, a third cup of tea)

0 article 'in chapter 5' because 5 belongs to chapter

Describe the use of articles with countable nouns modified by participles

Depends on the context. Participles: Pre-position (a newly painted house); Post-position (the fence surrounding the garden)

Describe the use of articles with countable nouns modified by -ing forms

• of/at/for Tend to be limiting (the thought of leaving him...) (It is a question of instructing and training the new members)

Describe the use of articles with countable nouns modified by an infinitive

Descriptive; situation is important (an hour to spare; a meeting to be held in March)

Describe the use of articles with countable nouns modified by attributive clause

g

??????Describe the use of articles with countable nouns modified by appositive clauses

f

Describe the use of articles with countable nouns modified by nouns in the common case

Describe the category of number in English

Nouns, pronouns, determiners and verbs can be singular or plural in English

How are the plural forms of nouns formed? What are the spelling rules of regular plurals?

By adding -s to the singular (cow - cows, hero - heroes, baby - babies, wife - wives)

Nouns ending in -s, -sh, -ch, -x form the plural by adding -es to the singular (class - classes, match - matches, dish - dishes)

A few nouns form their plural by making some changes to inside vowels (foot - feet, woman - women, mouse - mice)

How is the plural of compound nouns formed?

By pluralizing the semantic head (the word that conveys the primary meaning): doctor of philosophy - doctors of philosophy; passerby - passersby;

What are irregular plurals?

Plurals that are note formed by adding -s or -es at the end (woman - women, foot - feet, man - men)

Describe the category of case in English

Case shows a noun's or a pronoun's relationship with other words in a sentence

Main cases:

• the Genitive case

• The common case

What are the rules of the genitive case formation?

With singular nouns and with plural nouns not ending in s it is usually formed by adding 's to the word (dog's dinner; men's room)

With plural noun we add s' (dogs' dinner (dinner of multiple dogs))

With singular noun ending in s we can add either 's or s' (Chris' hat; Chris's hat)

We can also form genitive case by preceding the noun with ''of'' (the edge of the table)

What is the difference between the specifying and classifying genitive?

Specifying - it can be replaced by the of-phrase (glory's edge - the edge of glory), it is used with proper names or it could also be used with collective nouns (the government's decision)

Classifying (descriptive) - denotes a quality and refers to a whole class of similar objects (a girls' school --> a school for girls). It is also used with nouns denoting time and distance (an hour's trip, a week's time)

What is the group genitive?

’s may be added not only to a single noun, but to a whole group of words (Jack and Anne's house (the house belongs to Jack and Anne), the Prime Minister of England's residence)

What is the double genitive?

A phrase in which possession is indicated by 'of' and followed by the possessive from of a noun (a friend of Anne's)

??????????What are the main uses of the articles with countable nouns modified by nouns in the genitive case?

What are the main uses of the articles with countable nouns modified by prepositional phrases?

Attributes may be expressed by nouns with various prepositions. Depending on the context or the situation, they may be either descriptive (a marriage with a boy in a jazz band) or limiting (the boats in the harbor).

What are the tendencies for using the genitive (ʼs) or the of structure?

What is the difference between anaphoric and cataphoric use of the definite article?

Anaphoric - the phrase with the refers back to a previously mentioned item (A boy just walked into a busy street. The boy looked confused as to why it was so busy.)

Cataphoric - definite reference is established by something following later in the text ('It's' nice, 'the table')

Describe and illustrate the generic function of the definite article

Reference is generic when a noun phrase refers to the whole class, rather than just one or more instances of the class and all three articles can be used

('A doctor' is not better than his patient; 'Doctors' are not better than their patient; 'The doctor' is not better than his patient)

What are the main tendencies in the use of articles with countable nouns in predication, apposition and other syntactic patterns?

Explain the difference in use of object pronouns (me, you, him…), possessive determiners (my, your, his…) and possessive pronouns (mine, yours, his…)

What is the difference between central and peripheral adjectives?

Central adjective has to fulfill this criteria:

1. Can be inflicted

2. Can be both predicative and attributive

3. They are descriptive

4. They are gradable

(e.g. surprising - peripheral because can’t be inflicted although is both predicative (the gift is surprising) and attributive (surprising gift), descriptive (describes a noun e.g. surprising gift) and gradable (a bit surprising, very surprising, the most surprising)

Peripheral adjectives don’t fulfill one or more of the criteria

Therefore, the difference between central and peripheral adjectives is that peripheral adjectives don’t have one or more of the central adjective characteristics.

Give some examples of adjectives used attributively and predicatively. ????????Adjectives with a- prefix are usually… attributive or predicative?

Attributive (a nice man, an evil witch, a malicious virus)

Predicative (a man who is nice, a witch who is evil, a virus that is malicious)

Explain and illustrate the three ways of forming new adjectives: participial forms, derivational suffixes, compounding.

1. Participle forms - adjectives are derived from verbs and usually end in -ed or -ing (reading glasses, baked beans, broken table)

2. Derivational suffixes - adjectives are derived from nouns by adding a suffix like -ish, -al, -ly, -like, -ous, -ary, -ic, -less, and ful (normally, tasteless, gastric etc.)

3. Compounding - adjectives are made by putting two words together (fast-paced, well-known, quick-witted)

What are the main rules for the adjective order in groups of adjectives? In paired adjectives?

List the syntactic roles that adjectives can take. Give some examples and explain the syntactic structures involved.

What are the main morphological categories of adverbs? Give some examples.

What are the main syntactic functions of adverbs? Give some examples of adverbials of time, frequency, place, direction, and manner.