AI05 10a English

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Basic facts about the English grammar, page 1CSI 4106, Winter 2005

Basics of the grammar of English Words, phrases, clauses

Words

Open classes; nouns and verbs

Distribution patterns

Nouns, pronouns, verbs, tenses

Inflection

Noun phrases

Simple clauses, categories

Questions

Roles

Prepositional phrases

Clausal subjects / complements

Verb phrases

Modifiers

Compound clauses

Relative clauses

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Words, phrases, clauses

The building blocks of expressions in naturallanguages are words, phrases, clauses.

There is a semantic motivation for some ofthese fundamental constructions:

noun phrases correspond to entities that haveproperties (expressed by adjective phrases,relative clauses,and so on);

verb phrases correspond to situations withroles (noun phrases, prepositional phrases)

and qualities (adverbial phrases).

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Words, phrases, clauses (2)

The clause level

Simple and compound clauses. Coordinate clause.

Major and subordinate clauses.

The word level Morphology: book books, make making.

Derivation: white whiteness, quick quickly.

We bought him a book because he likes to read

simple clause simple clause

compound clause

major clause subordinate clause

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Words

Criteria for distinguishing words are quitearbitrary, though the simplest test (groups ofletters between non-letters) works okay.

Words are not the lowest level of description.

Morphemes, e.g., pre+book+ing, un+glue+d.antidisestablishmentarianism

There are fouropen classes of words (noun,verb, adjective, adverb) and closed classes

(including articles, conjunctions, prepositions,numerals, pronouns).

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Words (2)

There are two criteria for word classification.

Semantics: situations - roles - properties. Distribution: words in the same class canoften be interchanged.

Distribution can be tested by diagnosticcontexts, positive and negative.

Example: adjectives.

+ This is a ________ book.

+ The book is very ________.

- This ________ is new.- I want to ________ it to you.

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Words (3)

A word may fit more than one pattern. Thishappens quite often, because word classesare not disjoint. Examples:

compoundis an adjective, a noun, a verb;

baris a noun, a verb, a preposition.(The verb-noun ambiguity is frequent in English.)

Classify various in these sentences:

John decided to a big, and juicy .

Put your the table.

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Words (4)

Nouns

Proper nouns: Jimmy, Greece, IBMCommon nouns:

mass nouns (sand, milk, ...)

count nouns (all others)

Pronouns

Personal (I, him, ...)

Possessive (its, hers, ...)

Interrogative/relative (whom, which, that, ...)

Demonstrative (this, those, ...)

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Words (5)

Nouns and personal pronouns have cleardistributional differences (* marks incorrectexpressions).

a man is running

* a Jim is runninga box ofsand * a box ofbook

the book is mine * the book is which

a white elephant * a white he

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Beyond words

Verb groups

In English, there are five basic forms:

infinitive eat, drink, walk

present 3rd person eats, drinks, walks

simple past ate, drank, walked

progressive (present participle) eating, drinking, walking

perfective (past participle) eaten, drunk, walked

In French, there are about sixty forms.

There also are at least 48 English tenses, most of themexpressed analytically, that is, using auxiliary verbs (allforms ofbe, have, do, plus will, would and so on).

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Beyond words (2)Selected English tenses

Tense Example Examplecontinuous

present go / goes am / are / is going

past went was / were going

future will go will be going

present perfect have / has gone have / has been going

past perfect had gone had been going

future perfect will have gone will have been going

How would we add negation?

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Inflection

Words usually have forms with the same meaningand different functions in a sentence. Examples:

he him was were

long longer book books

Such forms have different inflectional categories.

Nouns can be inflected by case and number;

adjectives by case, number, genderand degree;

verbs byperson, number, genderand tense.

Inflection in English is quite simple, compared withsuch languages as Russian, and even French.

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Inflection (2)

French English

donnais, donnais, donnait gave, gave, gavedonnions, donniez, donnaient gave, gave, gave

dernier, derniers last, last

dernire, dernires last, last

English cases Russian cases

Water is good. ... voda ...

There is no water. ... vody ...

I wonder at water. ... vode ...

I see water. ... vodu ...

I wash with water. ... vodoy ...

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Inflection (3)

Case: nouns and pronouns

The mansubjective spoke. Hesubjective spoke.

We saw the manobjective. We saw himobjective.

Person and number: verbs

I walk/walked1st, sg I am/was1st, sg

yousg walk/walked2nd, sg yousg are/were2nd, sg

he walks/walked3rd, sg he is/was3rd, sg

we walk/walked1st, pl we are/were1st, pl

youpl walk/walked2nd, pl youpl are/were2nd, pl

they walk/walked3d, pl they are/were3d, pl

sg = singular, pl = plural

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Noun phrases

Terry Winograd, Language as a Cognitive Process: Syntax, Addison-Wesley, 1983

Segment Function Examples

Determiner Pre-determiner half; both; all

sequence Determiner the; a; those; every

Ordinal first; second; last

Cardinal one; three; many

Modifiers Describers big; blue; enchanted

Classifiers stone; singing

Head Head walls; people; ones

Qualifiers Restrictive qualifier in town; who fly

Nonrestrictive qualifier , which you know

------------------ Possessive marker s

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Noun phrases (2)

Examples, short and long, with head marked

he Jimmy

a man

all the first three big stone walls in town, which you know

all those many enchanted blue singing people who flyElements that precede the head

Specifiers describe definiteness, cardinality, and so on.

Modifiers (adjectives, nouns) narrow down the meaning.

Elements that follow the head

Postmodifiers: relative clauses, prepositional phrases.

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Simple clauses

A simple clause is not really simple. It is, however,

usually built around a single verb, though with manyadditional elements more in a while.

A clause can be in one of three moods:

declarative I will buy it.

interrogative Will I buy it? What will I buy?imperative Buy it!

A clause has a tense the same as the verb.

Finally, some clauses can be active or passive:

John hit Jim Jim was hit [by John]

John felt sick * Sick was felt [by John]

John slept ???

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Questions

There are two types of interrogative clauses. They

are, in a sense, derived from declarative clauses.He bought two books today.

He did buy two books today.

Yes/no questions

Did he buy two books today?

Wh-questions[Who] bought two books today?

[What] did he buy today?

[When] did he buy two books ?

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Roles

A clause consists of a verb group surrounded by nounphrases that serve as role descriptors.

One syntactic role that is always present in an Englishclause is the subject. It may not be the agentor theexperiencer(see conceptual graphs).

Yesterday John gave Mary a book. subject

Yesterday John gave Mary a book. indirect object

Yesterday John gave Mary a book. direct object

Yesterday John gave Mary a book. modifier

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Roles (2)

The number of roles depends on the verb.

Intransitive verbs have one role [subject]:Jim has laughed. The child is sleeping.

Transitive verbs have two roles [subject, direct object]:

The man rode a pony. He should wash his face.

Bi-transitive verbs have a subject, direct object, indirect object:

Tom gave Mary flowers. Tom gave flowers to Mary.

Verbs with 4 roles: move[who what from-where to-where].

A verb may have several role patterns:

Tom bought flowers. Tom bought flowers for Mary.

Examples of incorrect clauses (too many / too few roles):* Jim sold. * Jim slept a book.

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Roles (3)

Four most common syntactic forms of roles

Noun phrase in a specific position:

subject

direct object

indirect object

Prepositional phrase

Embedded clause

Modifier

Examples of the last three follow shortly.All role-fillers are jointly called complements.

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Prepositional phrases

The syntax is verysimple: a preposition followed by a

noun phrase. The meaning tends to be quite complex,and there are many roles, jointly determined by thepreposition and the noun phrase.

Examples of relations between roles and prepositions:

with instrument, accompaniment

He ate cake with a spoon.

He went home with them.

by agent, location

He was hit by a stranger.He sat by the door.

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Prepositional phrases (2)

More examples:

in ???

at ???

on ???

for ???

(there are many more prepositions, but not allthat many roles).

Prepositional phrases also qualify nouns:

I met a man with a dog.

I met a man in a coat.

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Embedded clauses

Clausal subjects

Honour means much to him.To jump over the lazy dog means much to him.

Jumping over the lazy dog means much to him.

Clausal direct objects

John wants peace.

John wants to give Mary a book.John wants Jim to give Mary a book.

John considers the consequences.

John considers giving Mary a book.

Clausal indirect objects

John sent a note to Mary.

John sent a note to whom it may concern.

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Verb phrases

Verb phrases also have a deceptively simple top-

level syntax: a verb with complements. Thecomplexity arises from the richness of the structureof complements.

We can now define the syntax of a declarativeclause. (In the example grammars, we will call themsentences.) We keep the noun phrase in the subjectposition separate.

clause nounPhrase, verbPhrase.

All other noun phrases, prepositional phrases and

so on are part of the verb phrase.verbPhrase verb, complements.

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Modifiers

Much of the interesting complexity comes from

modifiers expressions that introduce place,time, manner and many other additional elementsof a situation. Here are examples of structuresand their meaning.

Adverb

Obviously, he wants to go.Prepositional phrase

He wants to go for a walk.

Embedded -ing clause

He wants to go whistling a tune.

Noun phraseHe wants to go tomorrow.

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Modifiers (2)

Ordinal

First, he wants to go.

A comparative construction

He wants to go as soon as possible.

Another embedded clause

He wants to go as if he danced.

In theory, we can have as many modifiers aswe please, but there are practical limits. This isan almost unrealistic example:

More than ever, tomorrow he wants to goquicklyfor a walkwhistling a tune.

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Modifiers (3)

Examples of simple clauses with subjects, qualifiers and

modifiers:A man is walking.

A man with a cane is walking down the lane.

A man who seems tired is walking slowly.

A man is walking and whistling a tune.

A man with a cane who seems tired is slowlywalking down the lane and whistling a tune.

In the last two examples there is the complication of

and, but it is still a simple clause it has one subjectand one, though far from elementary, verb phrase.

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Compound clauses

There are co-ordinate clauses and subordinate

clauses, constructed using conjunctions.X and Y are simple clauses.

Subordinate conjunctions a few examples

X if Y

X when Y

X because Y

Co-ordinate conjunctions

X and Y

X or Y

either X or Yneither X nor Y

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Compound clauses (2)

Co-ordination is a difficult construct, expensive to

recognize, because a conjunction may appear betweenany two constituents.

Hansel saw the witch.

Hansel and Gretel saw the witch.

Hansel and Gretel saw the witch and her house.Hansel and Gretel saw and killed the witch.

Hansel and Gretel saw the witch and killed her.

Hansel and Gretel saw the witch and ran.

Hansel and Gretel saw the witch and her house and ran.

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Relative clauses

the man who went for a walk

the man he knows best

the book that you gave to Mary

the book that you gave Mary

the faireverybody went to

the book that Bill promised he would tell Johnto remember to give to Mary

Note how similar this is to questions.

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Relative clauses (2)

But not everything is possible. We cannot lift anoun phrase just from anywhere. These areexamples of incorrect lifting.

* the book John gave and the golden magicring to Mary

* the book I read a note that John gave to Mary

Relative clauses are hard to analyze, especiallyif we want to reject such incorrect structures.Not to worry: we will manage, at least partially.Stay tuned.