Lin204 UofT

pronouns

pronouns function as the head of a noun phrase

personal pronoun

i, you, he, he, it, we, they, myself, him, her

possessive pronoun

mine, ours, yours, his, hers, theirs,

demonstrative pronouns

this, that, these, those

quantifier pronouns

all, some, any, one, another; everybody, someone, many, much, little, less

wh- pronouns / interrogative words

who, whom, whose, what, which, whatever

determiners

determiners function as words at the beginning of a noun phrase, preceding headers and modifiers, and specifying mode of reference

articles

the, a/an

possessive determiners

my, our, your, his, her, its, their

demonstrative determiners

this, that, these, those

quantifier determiners

all, some, any, one, another; everybody, someone, many, much, little, less (same as pronouns)

wh- determiners/interrogative words

what, which, whose, whatever, whichever

modal (auxiliary) verbs (necessity)

can, may, must, ought, shall, should, will

modality

viewing the action as filtered through concepts of necessity/possibility

aspect

how we view the action/event in temporal terms -- in progress, completed, and ACTIVE vs PASSIVE. active always includes tense.

present perfect

use the present tense of the auxiliary verb 'have', and perfect because they use that auxiliary in combination with the past participle of the main verb. ("I have left" "Sue has died")

pluperfect/past perfect

combines past tense with perfect aspect: "I had eaten"

past perfect progressive

combines perfect progressive aspect with past tense: "had been running", "had already been working"

perfective aspect

the action has taken place in the past; "has fallen" (perfect aspect, present tense), "had fallen" (perfect aspect, past tense). PERFECTION IS TO HAVE, PROGRESSION IS TO BE.

progressive aspect

the action is still in progress at time of speaking; "was falling" (progressive aspect, past tense), "is falling" (progressive aspect, present tense). PERFECTION IS TO HAVE, PROGRESSION IS TO BE.

modal construction: can swim

modal auxiliary -- infinitive

passive construction: was eaten

be + past participle (-en form)

ANALYSIS: spoken discourse/unscripted dialogue

- look out for sentences without verbs (and therefore without CLAUSE STURUCTURES)

- discourse markers which tend to stand alone w/o being integrated into clauses/sentences

- well-behaved picture of grammar is typically mere idealization, especially in spoken language

ANALYSIS: academic writing

- rare in spoken english, passive verb phrases (e.g. "was eaten") are common esp. in academic writing

- scientific writing usually contains an IMPERSONAL ETHOS, bolstered by AGENTLESS PASSIVES (no "by"-phrase, e.g. if the agent is unknown -- "The car was stolen", if the agent is irrelevant -- "Data was measured", or if you want to make people forget about the agent ("Mistakes were made")

- scientific writing typically focused on DOMAIN OF INQUIRY; arguably does not matter which people did the experiments, human doer/agent is irrelevant

ANALYSIS: grammar of headlines

- goal of a headline writer is to convey as much of an interesting story as possible while reducing the number/length of words. SAVING SPACE IS IMPERATIVE; headlines typically give COMPRESSED versions of the story

- e.g. omission of the verb 'to be', definite article 'the'

- tendency of headlines to rely on JUXTAPOSED NOUNS in the noun phrase, e.g. 'MOSES BABY', 'BUS BLAST'. these noun sequences are favorite devices for compressing meaning

- headlines reduce the number of function words as far as possible, relying on CONTENT WORDS which convey most information/communicate a story to the reader

agentless passives

AGENTLESS PASSIVES (no "by"-phrase, e.g. if the agent is unknown -- "The car was stolen", if the agent is irrelevant -- "Data was measured", or if you want to make people forget about the agent ("Mistakes were made")

declarative clause

have a subject and verb phrase in that order: SV: SOPHIE WATERED the flowers.

imperative clause

typically have no subject, with a verb in plain form (like the infinitive): HAVE fun, GET a life.

subordinating conjunction

introduces a subordinate clause: 'that', 'while', etc

three most important types of embedded clause

adverbial, complement, and relative clauses

adverbial clause

typically begin w/ conjunction such as 'if', 'when, 'because', 'while'. they fill the function of adjuncts in the main clause and can take different positions: "IF YOU BUY THE FOOD, I'll do the cooking" "I am very excited BECAUSE THIS IS MY FIRST PODCAST" "You will find, WHEN YOU GET OLDER, that the mind often wanders"

adverbial clauses, like adverbs and adverb phrases which function as adjuncts, have a similar roll of elaborating time, manner, reason, etc with respect to the main clause. they are similar in function to adverbs like 'then', 'therefore', and 'later'

complement clause

typically required to complete the meaning of the rest of the main clause. their function is similar to that of noun phrases, filling the subject and object slots: "angie asked herself WHAT THE PROBLEM WAS", "the funny thing is THAT THE DOG DIDN'T BARK IN THE NIGHT"

complement clause: reported speech

one of two important types of complement clauses: they report what someone said/thought, rather than representing the utterance directly. "jamie maintained THAT IT WAS ALL A MISTAKE", "angie asked WHAT THE PROBLEM WAS"

relative clause

resemble adjectives in that they modify a noun (known as the ANTECEDENT) in a noun phrase, and tell us more about what the noun denotes

an OLD house = a house WHICH WAS BUILT LONG AGO
a WEALTHY man = a man WHO HAS LOTS OF MONEY OR PROPERTY
an EDIBLE fungus = a fungus THAT CAN BE EATEN or a fungus THAT YOU CAN EAT

the zero option (for complement/relative clauses)

omits the word 'that'

zero complement clause

instead of complement clause "Gus felt [that nobody loved him]", zero complement clause "Gus felt [nobody loved him]"; instead of complement clause "I think [that she was on TV]", zero complement clause "I think [she was on TV]"

instead of relative clause "a book [that everyone hates]", zero relative clause "a book [everyone hates]"; instead of relative clause "the people [that i stayed with]", the zero relative clause "the people [i stayed with]"

adjunct (type of clause)

phrases which are not intimately connected with the verb in describing an event/state of affairs, like Subject and Object, but which rather describe incidental circumstances such as time/place/manner ('when', 'where', 'how') of an action/event/state.

adjuncts take the form of either: ADVERBIAL PHRASE or PREPOSITIONAL PHRASE.

'promptly', 'at', 'at', 'on', 'usually', 'early', 'to', however

genitive (head of a noun phrase, not a determiner/modifier)

JOAN'S pet, TOKYO'S skyline