Sentence Structure

1. Sentence Structure Parts of speech

2. Inflections and Form Classes • Form Classes • Parts of speech that can be defined/described in terms of the forms taken • Nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs • An inflection is an ending that changes grammatical role (it is also a morpheme). • ed is a verb inflection indicating past tense • talk talked • s is a noun inflection indicating plural or possessive • girl girls or girl’s or girls’

3. Nouns and Noun Phrases • A phrase is a word or group of words functioning as a unit • Traditionaldefinition of a noun – person, place, thing, or idea • Formal definition of a noun – a word that can be made plural or possessive, that occupies the headword position in a noun phrase, and that is usually signaled by a determiner

4. Noun terminology • Case – a noun’s syntactic function • PDE has three pronoun cases • Subjective (or nominative)—subject or predicate nominative • Objective—direct object, indirect object, object of preposition • Possessive—indicating possession • PDE has two noun cases • Possessive • All other noun functions

5. More noun terminology • Number • PDE has two numbers for nouns • singular • plural • Gender • With few exceptions (ie., ships) PDE has natural not grammatical gender • People and some animals have natural gender • Most nouns are neuter in gender

6. Noun signalers • Noun phrases contain a headword, the noun itself • Most noun phrases are signaled by a determiner • an article: a, an, the • a demonstrative pronoun: this, that, these, those • a possessive • other, several, some, etc.

7. Verbs and Verb Phrases • Traditional definition of a verb – words denoting action, being, or state of being • Formal definition of a verb – a word that can be used in present and past tenses, and that has both an –s form and an –ing form • Note that English verbs have no “form” for the future. In English, the future is only expressed through auxiliaries or adverbially

8. Verb terminology • be verbs – am, are, is, was, were, etc. • linking verbs – link subjects to complements • action verbs – express action of a subject • intransitive verbs – action verbs that do not take objects • transitive verbs – action verbs that do have objects (direct or indirect)

9. Verb Principal Parts • Infinitive or base form – laugh • 3rd singular or –s form – laughs • always regular in PDE • Simple past tense or –ed form – laughed • Past participle – laughed • Present Participle – laughing • always regular in PDE

10. Adjectives • Traditional definition of adjective – word that modifies a noun or pronoun • Formal Definition of adjective – word that has a comparative and superlative form, that can pattern with a qualifier such as very and that fits into the “adjective test frame”— • “The ____ NOUN is very ____”

11. Adverbs • Traditional definition of an adverb – word that modifies a verb, adjective, or other adverb • Formal definition of an adverb – word that has a comparative and superlative degree, can pattern with a qualifier such as very, may end with the derivational suffix –ly, and may be movable, and answers the “adverb questions”: when, where, how, to what degree