Lengua Inglesa II 2009-2010 Topic 3: Grammatical Units Subtopic 1: Units and Boundaries Subtopic 2: The Noun Phrase

1. Lengua Inglesa II2009-2010Topic 3: Grammatical Units Subtopic 1: Units and BoundariesSubtopic 2: The Noun Phrase Tom Morton IV-bis 205 tom.morton@uam.es

2. 3.1 Grammatical Units 1. Units and rank scale • Unit: “any stretch of language which constitutes a semantic whole and which has a recognised pattern that is repeated regularly in speech and writing” (Downing & Locke, 1992:9) • Rank-scale: • units arranged from biggest to smallest • a clause is made up of phrases • a phrase is made up of words • a word is made up of morphemes

3. 3.1 Grammatical Units 3. Boundaries between units

4. 3.1 Grammatical Units 3. Boundaries between units • Boundaries between units are not always easy to identify: Mary saw the man with a pair of binoculars a) Mary / saw / the man with a pair of binoculars. b) Mary / saw / the man / with a pair of binoculars. • Tests to identify boundaries: • Fronting: Can you say “with a pair of binoculars, Mary saw the man”? Does it have the same meaning? • Wh-questions: Who did Mary see? • Clefting: it was X that Mary saw. • Passivisation:

5. 3.1 Grammatical Units 3. Boundaries between units • Identify the boundaries in the following units (a) Wait! (b) //People [who live in the North] tend to be taller.//

6. 3.1 Grammatical Units 4. Types of Words Types of words • Closed class words: a limited number of words in the class (pronouns, articles, conjunctions, intensifiers, etc.) • Sometimes called: grammatical words, function words • Open Class words: an unlimited number of words in the class, and new ones can be created: nouns, verbs, adjectives, descriptive adverbs. • Sometimes called: lexical words, content words

7. 3.1 Grammatical Units 5. Types of Phrases Types of Phrases • Phrases are classified, depending on the head, into: NP, VP, AdjP, AdvP, PP. • Phrases perform various syntactic functions: Subject (S), Predicator, Direct Object (Od), Indirect Object (Oi), Prepositional Object (Oprep), Complement of the Subject (Cs), Complement of the Object (Co), Adjunct (A), Disjunct (D), Conjunct (Conj).

8. 3.2 The Noun Phrase 1. What is a Noun Phrase? • A noun phrase (or NP) is a grammatical unit which has a noun or pronoun as its head. • NPs usually refer to a person, thing, place or time. • Can refer to an event (the bombing of Bagdad) • Can include: • Proper nouns: Sir John Oswald, M.D. • Common nouns: my doctor

9. 3.2 The Noun Phrase 1. The Structure of the Noun Phrase Structure of the Common Noun Phrase: Determiner^Quantifier^Epithet^Classifier^Thing^Qualifier

10. 3.2 The Noun Phrase 2. The Head of the Noun Phrase (Thing) The head of an NP: • Almost always a noun (book, tree, etc.) • May be an abstract noun (my love, true colours) • May be a process, sometimes realised by a gerund noun (the running of the bulls) • Sometimes an adjective can act as the head: “the quick survive” “he sunk a red”

11. 3.2 The Noun Phrase 2. The Head of the Noun Phrase (Thing) Nouns and Agreement: • NUMBER AGREEMENT: • The Head has to agree in number with determiner (a cat, some cats). • But note: ‘the’ is neutral: the cat / the cats • The head of an NP acting as Subject has to agree in number with the Finite verb: The boy swims/The boys swim • No agreement with the adjective premodifiers: A beautiful girl / two beautiful girls • NO GENDER AGREEMENT: unlike Spanish, English does not inflect for gender. • INFLECTION FOR CASE: only with pronouns (he/him/his)

12. 3.2 The Noun Phrase 3. The Determiner slot • The Determiner specifies WHICH ONE? • ‘the’: one which you can identify from context (the heading) • ‘this’: one which you can identify from context, close by (e.g., this slide) • ‘that’: one which you can identify from context , not so close (e.g., that desk) • ‘my’: the one that belongs to me. • ‘a’: one that has not yet been introduced (‘along came a dog’)

13. 3.2 The Noun Phrase 3. The Determiner slot • Specific: • Definite article: the • Demonstratives: this, that, these, those • Possessive: my, your, his.... • Wh-determiners: which, what, whose... • General: • Indefinite article: a,zero article • Negative: no • Universal: every, each • Existential: some, any • Dual: neither, either • Quantitative: enough

14. 3.2 The Noun Phrase 3. The Determiner slot The English Genitive • Possessive genitive: John’s car (→John has a car) • Subjective genitive: The boy’s application (→ The boy applied) • Objective genitive: The family’s support (→ X supports the family) • Genitive of origin: The girl’s story (→ The story the girl told) • Descriptive genitive: Women’s college (→ A college for women) • Genitive of measure/partitive genitive: 10 days’ absence (→ The absence lasted 10 days)

15. 3.2 The Noun Phrase 4. The Quantifier slot • Cardinal: • Specific: seven boats • Nonspecific: many boats • Ordinal: I liked the first one

16. 3.2 The Noun Phrase 5. Epithets and Classifiers • Epithets provide qualities of the Head: • Colour (red), Size (big), Texture (smooth), Quality (good), material (steel) etc. • Answer the question: what is it like? • Classifiers provide the class of thing. • An electric car, a used car salesman, legal consul • Answer the question: what kind of thing is it? • Epithets are generally realised by adjectival phrases • Classifiers often realised by NPs (car salesman) • Same words can serve both functions: A sick person vs. Sick leave • Epithets nearly always come before Classifiers:a large car seller NOT a car large seller

17. 3.2 The Noun Phrase 5. Epithets and Classifiers • Epithets can be objective or subjective: • If the Classifier is an NP, generally it is singular and has no determiner of its own: • the (used car) seller  the (used cars) seller • the (cat) burglar  the (the cat) burglar

18. 3.2 The Noun Phrase 6. Qualifiers Qualifiers are post-modifiers: Prepositional Phrase: the man from Australia Finite clauses: • Clauses introduced by temporal conjunctions:The days before he died • Relative clause: the man who I saw • Wh fact clause: the question whether there is life on Mars • that-clause: the claim that there is life on Mars Non-finite clauses: • Infinitive clause: the desire to be free • Pres. participle clause the man driving the car • Past participle clause the man driven by hunger Temporal NP the show this morning