French grammar and grammatical analysis

1. French grammar and grammatical analysis Lecture 2 What is grammar (2) Dr Rachel Hoare

2. Exercise: Identify agreements Marier le sérieux avec l’humour L’espècehumaineestmenacée d’un mal pernicieux: celui de se prendre au sérieux. Sans douteest-ilnaturelque le sport n’échappe pas à cefléau. Pourtantrienn’est plus anti-conformiste, par essence, qu’un champion. Fort de cetteconstatation, on pourraits’attendre à cequenossportifssachent faire prevue de moins de retenueque la moyenne de leursconcitoyens.

3. Lecture 2 - Outline • Dictionary usage • Pronunciation of French – International Phonetic Alphabet • Syntactic classes • What is a word? • What is a noun? • What is meant by Gender? • What is meant by number? • What are articles?

4. International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) • The IPA is used in dictionaries to indicate the pronunciation of words. • The IPA has often been used as a basis for creating new writing systems for previously unwritten languages. • The IPA is used in some foreign language text books and phrase books to transcribe the sounds of languages which are written with non-Latin alphabets. It is also used by language learners.

5. Dictionary use • Oxford Hachette • hierarchical organisation by: grammatical category sense category

6. Hierarchical organisation of a dictionary entry Kindly / ‘kaindli / I adj [person, nature] [smile, interest] [voice] [face] she’s a ~ soul

7. Hierarchical organisation of a dictionary entry Kindly / ‘kaindli / I adj [person, nature] gentil/ille [smile, interest] bienveillant [voice] plein de gentillesse [face] sympathique she’s a ~ soul

8. Hierarchical organisation of a dictionary entry Kindly / ‘kaindli / II adv 1 (in a kind nice way) [speak, look, treat] to speak ~ of someone 2 (obligingly) she ~ agreed to do

9. Hierarchical organisation of a dictionary entry Kindly / ‘kaindli / II adv 1 (in a kind nice way) [speak, look, treat] avec gentillesse to speak ~ of someone 2 (obligingly) gentiment she ~ agreed to do

10. The translation process‘he treated her kindly’ • Identify the problem word or phrase • Look it up and choose the appropriate grammatical category • Choose the appropriate sense category • Choose the most appropriate phrase included in the sense • Note the translation

11. The translation process‘he treated her kindly’ • Identify the problem word or phrase (kindly) • Look it up and choose the appropriate grammatical category (II adv) • Choose the appropriate sense category 1 (in a kind nice way) • Choose the most appropriate phrase included in the sense (treat) • Note the translation (avec gentillesse)

12. English and French grammar: some preliminaries • Meaning: (a) generalities (b) cognates (c) idioms • Classification (parts of speech) • Use (role played in a sentence)

13. (1) Meaning (a) • (a) Generalities: • (i) An English word must be connected with a French word that has an equivalent meaning. • (ii) Sometimes, knowing one French word will help you learn another • (iii) Usually, there is little similarity between words.

14. Meaning (b) • (b) Cognates: sometimes two words are the same or very similar in both English and French. These words are called cognates. • (table, la table) • Faux-amis sensible photographe • (c) Idioms: when words in combination take on a special meaning: faire la queue

15. Classification (a) • English and French words are classified in eight categories traditionally called parts of speech. noun article verb adverb pronoun preposition adjective conjunction

16. Classification (b) Eg: ‘what’: • (1) What’s happening? • (2) What time is it? • (3) Do what you want!

17. Classification (b) eg: ‘what’: • (1) interrogative pronoun: ‘qu’est-ce qui se passe? • (2) determiner: ‘quelleheureest-il?’ • (3) relative pronoun without antecedent: ‘faiscequetuveux’

18. (3) Use (a) • A word must be identified according to the role it plays in the sentence. • Each word plays a specific role • Determining this role or function will help you to choose the correct French equivalent and to know what rules to apply.

19. Use (b) Functions: • subject • direct object • indirect object • object of a preposition • Ex. Zidane headbutted the wise-cracker • Zidane delivered a headbutt to the wise-cracker

20. Subject of the sentence • The subject of a sentence is the person, place, thing, or idea that is doing or being something. • You can find the subject of a sentence if you can find the verb. • Ask the question, "Who or what 'verbs' or 'verbed'?" and the answer to that question is the subject. • e.g. Je suis allé en vacances

21. Direct object • A direct object is a noun or pronoun that receives the action of a verb or shows the result of the action. • It answers the question "What?" or "Whom?" after an action verb. • A verb which takes a direct object is called a transitive verb. • e.g. Il a vu Pierre

22. Indirect object • The indirect object is the noun or pronoun that receives the direct object. • Typically, an indirect object can be found by asking who or what received the direct object. • e.g. J’ai envoyé une lettre à Jean.

23. Object of a preposition • Prepositions are small words that create a relationship between other words in a sentence by linking phrases to the rest of the sentence: à, de, dans, entre • The nouns that follow them are objects of the preposition. • e.g. Sophie a donné une lettre à Pierre.

24. Use (c) ‘what’ • What is on the table? • What is she doing? • What are you talking about?

25. Use (c) ‘what’ • What is on the table? Qu’est-ce qui est sur la table? (Subject) • What is she doing? Qu’est-ce qu’elle fait? (Direct object) • What are you talking about? (Object of a preposition) tu parles de quoi?

26. What is a noun? • A person • A place • A thing or animal • An idea (peace, love, grief etc.) • Proper Nouns • Common Nouns

27. What is gender? • In English, the gender corresponds to the sex of the person we are replacing (masculine, feminine, neuter – the tree in front of me is an oak.) • What about “she is a fine ship”? • In French, has to be either masculine or feminine • No neuter

28. What is number? • When a word refers to one person or thing = singular • When a word refers to more than one = plural • Collective nouns refer to a group of persons or things but they are considered to be singular, e.g. a JF language class has 10-12 people in it.