The Grammatical Categories of Words and their Inflections

How do words fit in phrases?

(Kuiper and Allan, Ch. 2.1)

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Word and lexeme

Examine the following simple dictionary entry

sept , n. Clan, esp. in Ireland.

Word and lexeme

A lexeme is a three part symbol:

form (or a number of forms)

syntactic category

meaning

Lexemes also have non linguistic properties, useage.

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Inflection & stem

Inflected forms of TRY.

try, tries, tried, trying, as in the following sentences: The horse must try, The horse tries, The horse tried, The horse is trying.

Each is a grammatical word form. The grammatical endings which create these different grammatical word forms are termed inflections.

Stem

is the form of the lexeme to which they are attached.

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Morphological processes

The processes whereby words come to have internal structure such as a stem and inflection are morphological processes

The categories for which words inflect are often called morphosyntactic categories. e.g. tense which accounts for the past tense inflection -ed in tri-ed is an example of a morphosyntactic category.

Properties such a present tense or past tense are therefore morphosyntactic properties.

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Inflection of nouns

Regular plural inflection

snapper snappers

bee bees

rosella rosellas

box boxes

Some nouns mark their plural in other ways

foot feet

mouse mice

louse lice

child children

ox oxen

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Other nouns never mark their plurals overtly

sheep sheep

deer deer

Still other nouns never occur without the plural marker, e.g. scissors and trousers.

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Exercise

Divide the nouns below into the following groups: nouns that can take a(n), nouns that can take the, nouns that have a plural form, and nouns that refer to things that can be counted.

alligator, wombat, Pittsburg, video, lawnmower, butter, Fred.

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Your answer should look like this:

a(n) the plural count

alligator √ √ √ √

wombat √ √ √ √

Pittsburg x x x x

video √ √ √ √

lawnmower √ √ √ √

butter x √ x x

Fred x x x x

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Exercise Find the nouns in the following poem:

The sick rose

Oh rose, thou art sick!

The invisible worm,

That flies in the night

In the howling storm,

Has found out thy bed

Of crimson joy,

And his dark, secret love

Does thy life destroy.

William Blake

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Inflection of adjectives

Adjectives may take two different endings, giving three forms, e.g.

big bigger biggest

tall taller tallest

Not all adjectives take the -er and -est endings, but use more and most, e.g.

evil more evil most evil

incredible more incredible most incredible

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Exercise

Divide the adjectives below into three groups: those which take the -er and -est endings, those which take more and most, and those which take neither of the above.

high, wide, dead, red, medical, ugly, narrow, absolute, painful, final

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Answers

-er, -est more, most neither high √ x x

wide √ x x

dead x x √

red √ x x

medical x x √

ugly √ √ x

narrow √ x x

absolute x x √

painful x √ x

final x x √

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Exercise Find the adjectives in the following poem:

The Lily

The modest Rose puts forth a thorn,

The humble Sheep a threat’ning horn;

While the Lily white shall in love delight,

Nor a thorn nor a threat stain her beauty bright.

William Blake

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Inflection of verbs

Verbs in English can belong to five different grammatical word forms: V-s V-ed V-ing V-en

call calls called calling called

Irregular forms: eat eats ate eating eaten

put puts put putting put

bring brings brought bringing brought

meet meets met meeting met

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Find the verbs in the following poem:

Nurse’s Song

When the voices of children are heard on the green

And whisp’rings are in the dale

The days of my youth rise fresh in my mind,

My face turns green and pale.

Then come home my children, the sun is gone down,

And the dews of night arise,

Your spring & your day are wasted in play,

And your winter and night in disguise.

William Blake

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Exercise

Identify the grammatical category of the underlined words in the following passage:

Joanna's pink Ducati completed the journey from Malmö to Ravenna in just under two days.