Grammar II: 2nd Mid-term Exam

Structural Grammar is the approach by which utterances are analyzed in terms of its syntax. It assumes that linguistic entities are made up with small components: sentences are made up with words, which in their turn, are made up with morphemes whose components are phonemes.

Structural Grammar analysis is carried out by first identifying the immediate constituents of a construction or a sentence. ICs of any construction are connected by means of one of five grammatical ties:

1. Coordination: In coordination, the ICs are syntactically equal. They are coordinated with or without a conjunction and in diagramming an equal sign is placed in between the ICs in question. [+1a]
2. Predication: It is the relationship between a subject and a verb with its complements and modifiers. [+1b]
3. Modification: It is the grammatical tie that takes place between an adjective and its noun, or a verb and its adverb. It also happens when an adjective modifies a phrase or when a and adverb modifies a clause. In this context, it is useful to consider the "head" of a construction, which is the single word that gets modified, the word that could stand by itself. [+1c]
4. Subordination: In subordination, functions words play an important role. They subordinate one construction to another. In this way, we can talk about subordination by preposition, by a subordinating conjunction, by a relative pronoun. [+1d]
5. Complementation: It has to do with completing the meaning of a verb. There are five types of complementation, which are: direct object, indirect object, objective complement, relative object, and subjective complement. It is important to consider that "verbals" (participles, gerunds and infinitives) take complements as well.

Structure Words

There are four large classes of structure words: determiners, prepositions, conjunctions and pronouns.

>Determiners: They all patter with nouns, and operate like a signal that one is coming. We can further divide them into

>>>Regular Determiners:

• articles: the, a.
• demonstratives: this, that, these, those.
• quantitatives: all, some, much, several, few, any.
• distributives: each, either, neither.
• possessives: my, yours, his, her, our.

>>>Predeterminers: They are words that generally occur before articles, demonstratives or genitives. For example: all, both, only, just, half.

>>>Postdeterminers: They are generally placed after an article or other determiner.

• cardinals: zero, ten, two.
• ordinals: first, second, third.
• quantifiers: much, several, some, any, etc.
• phrasal quantifiers: a lot of, a number of, etc.

Noun Clusters. Modifiers before the headword. Premodification

_Determiners and Adjectives are the most common kind of noun cluster.

_Nouns 

_Verbs: "ing" verbs, naming the action the noun is doing: "running water"; "ed" verbs, naming the action the noun undergoes: "wounded soldier"

_Adverbs is also possible but not too frequent: "the above mention" 

Noun Clusters. Modifiers after the headword. Postmodification

_Adverbs: Not all adverbs can post modify a noun; they are usually adverbs of place "a tree outside". 

_P-groups modify a noun by means of a preposition and relate the noun with which they form a unit to the one its modifies: "The house of my mum" ("my mum" is related to "house".)

*Often many question arise as to whether certain words are adverbs or prepositions. They are preposition when followed by a noun with which they form a unit, and they are adverbs when they answer where, when, how, or to what degree.

_S-groups: They take a noun and introduce it to a larger pattern. For example: "The man at the back who was smiling" (at the back: P-group; who was smiling: S-group)

Verb Cluster

Most of the times, verbals, as nouns, occur in the company of other words that modify them. These words are:

_Adverbs, which are the most common modifiers of verbs.

_S-groups, which  are somewhat different from those that occur in noun clusters, since they are introduced by a different set of subordinator, such as: because, while, if, after, before, when.

Function Units in Sentence Patterns

Function units are the positions occupied by words in the basic patterns, so we talk about F.U. subject,  F.U. object,  F.U.  noun modifier,  F.U.  verb modifier,  F.U.  sentence modifier.

Meanings of Function Units
>Subject
1. Doer of the action: "I take the bus every morning."
2. That which is described: "It seemed tiring."
3. That which is identified: "He became my friend when he married my sister".
4. Undergoer of the action (passive voice) "The report was written by him."

>Complement
1. That which identifies the subject: "He is a doctor"

>Object
1. Undergoer of the action: "The dog bit him"

>Verbs modifying nouns
1. The action that the noun is doing (ing form): "running water"
2. The action that the noun undergoes (ed form): "wounded soldier"

Verb Clusters in the Different Function Units

The most common position for a verb cluster is the predicate. However, non-finite verb clauses may occur in any of the different positions: noun modifier, sentence modifier, parts of P-groups, subjects, objects, complements etc.

 >Verb clusters as noun modifiers
Besides the "ing" form which is very common, the "ed" form and "to" infinitive may occur as well. Examples of "to" infinitive: "He has a dream to become a singer." "They had a desire to have kids one day."

>Verb clusters as parts of P-groups
"He was accused of committing the crime"

>Verb clusters as sentence modifiers

Amazed by the events, she left the room.

>Verb clusters as subject, object, or complement
Being your own boss is very delighting.

Determiners

Determiners are function words used to specify the kind of reference a noun has. They vary in accordance to the noun they occur with, that is, if whether the noun is known or unknown to the addressee, or whether it is singular, plural or uncountable. The different types of determiners are the following:

• Articles: They are the most common determiners. They signal definite or indefinite meaning with the and a respectively. Sometimes no article happens before a noun, as with uncountables, and in such cases it is accurate to refer to it as zero article.
• Possessives: They express possession and make a noun definite. The possessives are: my, our, your, his, her, its, their.
• Demonstratives: They specify whether the noun is singular or plural, and whether it is near or distant in space or time. They are widely used to make reference either backwards (anaphoric reference) or forwards (cataphoric reference) within a text.
• Quantifiers: They describe the quantity or amount of something. Some of them are: all, both, every, each, many, little, few, etc.
• Numerals: They divide into Cardinal Determiners (like one, two) and into Ordinal Determiners (like first, second).