Lexical categories

prescriptive approach

rule-driven, speech production, assessment, formal use

descriptive approach

data-driven, language data, regularities, assessment, informal use

deep structure

belief or mental representation of a situation, doesn’t have to be verbalised, one may be expressed by more than one surface structure

surface structure

linguistic expression of a belief or mental representation

structural ambiguity

one ss may correspond to more than one ds

grammatical categories

agreement, voice, aspect, mood, gender, case

adjunct

phrase which provides additional information about event described by verb phrase

verb phrase

begins with a verb and ends where we can finish the sentence

verb group

begins and ends with a verb

noun phrase

subject or object

adjective phrase

modifies a noun phrase

adverb phrase

modifies a verb phrase

prepositional phrase

preposition + noun phrase

subject

entity performing the action

object

entity affected by the action

direct object

directly affected by the subjects action

indirect object

indirectly affected by the subjects action

predicate

phrase which describes the qualities of the subject

finite clause

contains tense, limited in quantity

non-finite

no tense information

productivity

finite resources create infinite number of syntactic possibilities