English Morphosyntax
Leitung: Dr. Alexander Tokar
Sprechstunde: Dienstag, 12.15-13.30
tokar@phil-fak.uni-duesseldorf.de
http://www.englishmorphosyntax.blogspot.com/

Basic concepts
Session 1

Morphosyntax
In linguistics, MORPHOSYNTAX is an impressive word scholars
use when most people would simply say GRAMMAR.
http://web.cn.edu/kwheeler/lit_terms_M.html
Do linguists want to impress other people???
GRAMMAR is the branch of linguistics that deals with SYNTAX and
MORPHOLOGY.
http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=grammar
GRAMMAR = MORPHOLOGY + SYNTAX
OR
GRAMMAR = MORPHOSYNTAX

Morphosyntax
 MORPHOSYNTAX is the branch of linguistics concerned with the
study of MORPHOLOGY and SYNTAX (Oxford English Dictionary).
 SYNTAX is the study of the principles governing how words can
be assembled into sentences (Huddleston & Pullum 2005: 6).
 MORPHOLOGY deals with the internal structure of words.
 MORPHOLOGY comprises two branches:
1) LEXICAL MORPHOLOGY which studies word-formation (i.e., processes
like compounding, derivation, conversion, blending, etc.).
2) INFLECTIONAL MORPHOLOGY which studies grammatical categories;
e.g., tense, aspect, case, voice, etc.

Approaches to grammar
Grammar I. Louise Nieroba/Conor Geiselbrechtinger:
Grammar I, in conjunction with Grammar II, prepares students for the
grammar section of the BA Sprachpraxis Modul 1 AP and the
‚Sprachprüfung‛ (MPO). The course covers the following grammatical
areas: all the verb forms (tense, aspect and voice), gerunds, infinitives
and that-clauses, inversion.
PRESCRIPTIVE APPROACH
=
TO TELL PEOPLE HOW THEY SHOULD USE THE LANGUAGE
English Morphosyntax (Grammar). Alexander Tokar
DESCRIPTIVE APPROACH
=
TO DESCRIBE THE GRAMMATICAL SYSTEM THAT UNDERLIES THE WAY
PEOPLE USE THE LANGUAGE

Some descriptive grammars
 1534. William Lily. Rudimenta Grammatices Latinae Linguae.
 1585. William Bullokar. Bref Grammar for English.
 1634. Charles Butler. English Grammar.
 1892-1898. Henry Sweet. A New English Grammar, Logical and
Historical.
 1909-1940. Otto Jespersen. A Modern English Grammar on Historical
Principles.
 1985. Randolph Quirk et al. A Comprehensive Grammar of the English
Language.
 1999. Douglas Biber et al. Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written
English.
 2002. Rodney Huddleston & Geoffrey Pullum. The Cambridge Grammar
of the English Language.
 2005. Rodney Huddleston & Geoffrey Pullum. A Student’s Introduction
to English Grammar.

Approaches to Grammar
Prescriptive grammar Explanatory grammar
The Principal design of a Grammar of The first business of grammar […] is
any Language is to teach us to to observe the facts and phenomena
express ourselves with propriety… with which it has to deal, and to
and to enable us to judge of every classify and state them methodically.
phrase and form of construction, A grammar which confines itself to
whether it be right or wrong. The plain this is called a descriptive grammar.
way of doing this, is to lay down rules When we have a clear statement of
and illustrate them by examples. But such grammatical phenomena we
beside shewing what is right, the naturally wish to know the reason of
matter may be further explained by them and how they arose. In this way
pointing out what is wrong (Lowth descriptive grammar lays the
1758; cited in Iofik & Chaxoyan 1967: foundations of explanatory grammar.
11). (Sweet 1892; cited in ibid. p. 23 )

English Morphosyntax
English Morphosyntax (Grammar). Alexander Tokar
DESCRIPTIVE APPROACH
=
TO DESCRIBE THE GRAMMATICAL SYSTEM THAT UNDERLIES THE WAY
PEOPLE USE THE (ENGLISH) LANGUAGE
What is meant here by THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE?
Copula deletion in Black English:
From Kaplan (1995: 13)
My brother in his room
That girl reading a magazine
We late
=
NON-STANDARD ENGLISH

English Morphosyntax
English Morphosyntax (Grammar). Alexander Tokar
DESCRIPTIVE APPROACH
=
TO DESCRIBE THE GRAMMATICAL SYSTEM THAT UNDERLIES THE WAY
PEOPLE USE THE (ENGLISH) LANGUAGE
What is meant here by THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE?
 In this lecture we will be concerned with STANDARD ENGLISH!!!
 STANDARD ENGLISH is by no means intrinsically superior to NON-
STANDARD VARIETIES such as Black English; it is just the dialect of the
powerful (Kaplan 1995: 20).

Phonology
John Key
The Prime-Minister of New Zealand
wish you the very best
two members of parliament
messengers
 The words best, members, and messengers are pronounced with [ɪ].
 GOOSE ~ NURSE merger
 NEAR ~ SQUARE merger
These are very noticeable features of the New Zealand accent!!!
What about grammar???

Grammar
Key says it wasn’t easy sending SAS into danger
Prime Minister John Key says he is well aware of the danger New Zealand’s
Special Air Service (SAS) troops face in Afghanistan and sending them there
again wasn’t an easy decision. Mr Key announced today 71 of the elite troops had
arrived in Afghanistan. New Zealand would provide three rotations of SAS troops
during the next 18 months. ‚I recognise this is a dangerous environment,‛ Mr Key
said at his post-cabinet press conference today. ‚The Italians lost six people last
week, that is the very real risk our people face, and it wasn't an easy decision to
send them.‛ Mr Key said the SAS, who are part of an international force, were
there with the aim of helping stabilise Afghanistan. ‚I think the alternative is that
we are left with a country where control is ceded to the Taleban, where in all
probability more terrorist activities will be planned and schemes will be hatched.‛
The New Zealand Herald, September 21, 2009
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10598719

Grammar
 As pointed out by Huddleston & Pullum (2005: 1-2):
The many varieties of English spoken around the world differ mainly in
pronunciation (or ‘accent’), and to a lesser extent in vocabulary, and those
aspects of language […] do tend to give indications of the speaker’s
geographical and social links. But things are very different with GRAMMAR,
which deals with the form of sentences and smaller units: clauses, phrases
and words. The grammar of Standard English is much more stable and uniform
than its pronunciation or word stock: there is remarkably little dispute about
what is grammatical (in compliance with the rules of grammar) and what isn’t.

Standard languages. Features.
 SELECTION – a particular variety must have been selected as the
one to be developed into a standard language.
 CODIFICATION – some agency such as an academy must have
written dictionaries and grammar books to ‘fix’ the variety, so that
everyone agrees on what is correct.
 ELABORATION OF FUNCTION – it must be possible to use the selected
variety in all the functions associated with central government.
 ACCEPTANCE – the variety has to be accepted by the relevant
population as the variety of the community – usually, in fact, as the
national language.
From Hudson (1996: 33)

Different senses of grammar
 As stated earlier, GRAMMAR is the branch of linguistics that deals
with SYNTAX and MORPHOLOGY.
 Hence the term MORPHOSYNTAX.
 But GRAMMAR can also refer to all the unconscious knowledge that
a native speaker has about his or her language (Kaplan 1995: 25)
such as, e.g.,:
• structure of words and sentences;
• pronunciation rules;
• meanings of words and sentences;
• discourse organization.
GRAMMAR = COMPETENCE
in the Chomskyan sense

Competence
 One manifestation of COMPETENCE is the ability to judge whether a
given combination of elements (e.g., sounds, words) is GRAMMATICAL
or UNGRAMMATICAL, i.e.,
 POSSIBLE or IMPOSSIBLE in the language under consideration:
She takes not the money***
I will must work late***
She has finished her thesis last week***
A friend of mine was become by Ed***
She was reading book***
From Huddleston & Pullum (2005)
 These sentences are UNGRAMMATICAL, i.e., outside of what is allowed
by the CONSTITUTIVE RULES/COMPETENCE for English (Kaplan 1995: 4).

Syntax
 SYNTAX is the study of the structure of SENTENCES.
 A SENTENCE is the largest independent syntactic unit of a language
which is not embedded in any larger construction (Kortmann 2005:
124).
??????
(I) This is a good idea
Corpus of Contemporary American English (henceforth, Coca Corpus)
(II) I don’t know if this is a good idea
Coca Corpus
(III) This is a good idea and he needs to do it as soon as possible
Coca Corpus
What is the difference between these sentences?

Classification
(I) This is a good idea
(II) I don’t know if this is a good idea
(III) This is a good idea and he needs to do it as soon as possible
 Sentence (I) has the form of a CLAUSE, i.e., a syntactic construction
consisting of a subject (this) and a predicate (is a good idea).
 This is an example of a SIMPLE SENTENCE.
 In (II), the clause this is a good idea is embedded in a larger
syntactic construction: I don’t know if this is a good idea.
 This is an example of a COMPLEX SENTENCE.
 Sentence (III) has the form of a coordination of two syntactically
independent clauses: this is a good idea and he needs to do it as
soon as possible.
 This is an example of a COMPOUND SENTENCE.

Clauses
 A CLAUSE is a syntactic construction which consists of a SUBJECT and
a PREDICATE:
Subject Predicate
This is a good idea
Subject Predicate
He broke the record
How do we know this???
1. The PREDICATE describes a property of the person or thing referred
to by the SUBJECT:
Being a good idea is a property of this.
2. The PREDICATE describes a situation (breaking a record) in which
the SUBJECT (he) plays some role.

Errors in defining the subject
Subject Predicate
This is a good idea
Subject Predicate
He broke the record
SUBJECT = PERFORMER OF THE ACTION
(I) He broke the record
Coca Corpus
(II) He was attacked by a […] white shark […]
Coca Corpus
 In (II), the subject he is not the performer of the action SHARK ATTACK.

Errors in defining the subject
Subject Predicate
This is a good idea
Subject Predicate
He was attacked by a white shark
SUBJECT = TOPIC
i.e., what the clause is about
(I) He was attacked by a white shark
(II) This is a good idea
(III) It’s warm
 In (III), the dummy subject it is not what the clause is about.

Syntactic criteria of subject-hood
1. The default position of the SUBJECT is before the (main) verb:
He was attacked by a white shark
Was attacked he by a white shark***
By a white shark was attacked he***
2. When a personal pronoun with distinct nominative and accusative
forms functions as the SUBJECT, it appears in the nominative:
He was attacked by a white shark
Him was attacked by a white shark***
3. The SUBJECT agrees with the verb in number and person:
He was attacked by a white shark
He were attacked by a white shark***
from Huddleston (2002: 236-237)

Syntactic criteria of subject-hood
4. Subject-auxiliary inversion creates an interrogative:
He was attacked by a white shark
Was he attacked by a white shark?
He by a white shark attacked was?***
5. Interrogative tags attached to a declarative clause contain a subject
pronoun that agrees with the SUBJECT of that clause:
He was attacked by a white shark
He was attacked by a white shark, wasn’t he?
He was attacked by a white shark, wasn’t it/she/I?***
6. In general, the SUBJECT is an obligatory element:
He was attacked by a white shark
Was attacked by a white shark***
He was attacked
from Huddleston (2002: 238-239)

Syntactic criteria of subject-hood
1. The default position of the SUBJECT is before the (main) verb:
It’s warm
Is it warm? subject-auxiliary inversion
Is warm it***
2. When a personal pronoun with distinct nominative and accusative
forms functions as the SUBJECT, it appears in the nominative:
It’s warm
-----------------------------------------------
3. The SUBJECT agrees with the verb in number and person:
It’s warm
It are warm***
from Huddleston (2002: 236-237)

Syntactic criteria of subject-hood
4. Subject-auxiliary inversion creates an interrogative:
It’s warm
Is it warm?
It warm is?***
5. Interrogative tags attached to a declarative clause contain a subject
pronoun that agrees with the SUBJECT of that clause:
It’s warm
It’s warm, isn’t it?
It’s warm, isn’t he/she/I?***
6. In general, the SUBJECT is an obligatory element:
It’s warm
’s warm***
from Huddleston (2002: 238-239)

Subject
 The SUBJECT may be expressed by:
1) a noun:
A man was pouring tea from a large copper pot with a very long spout
Coca Corpus
2) a pronoun:
He was attacked by a white shark
This is a good idea
3) a numeral:
A twister raced through […] Mississippi, injuring at least 28 people . Two
were asleep inside their trailer home when it was wrapped around a tree
Coca Corpus

Subject
 The SUBJECT may be expressed by:
4) a substantivized adjective or participle:
The poor are twice as likely as the nonpoor to rent rather than own their
homes, according to a Labor Department study
Coca Corpus
The defeated are forgotten as quickly as the Cherokees
Coca Corpus
5) Any other word when it is substantivized:
“And” is a conjunction
“A” is the first letter of the English alphabet

Subject
 The SUBJECT may be expressed by:
6) a gerund:
Driving is a wonderful thing
Coca Corpus
7) an infinitive:
To err is human
8) a clause:
That the president looks like them is thrilling
Coca Corpus

Subject
 With regard to the meaning of the SUBJECT, sentences can be
classified into:
 PERSONAL SENTENCES, i.e., those whose SUBJECTS denote a certain
person or thing or some abstract notion:
He was attacked by a white shark
This is a good idea
These are DEFINITE-PERSONAL SENTENCES.
They say […]
One must plan for unintended consequences […]
Coca Corpus
These are INDEFINITE-PERSONAL SENTENCES.
 IMPERSONAL SENTENCES, i.e., those whose SUBJECTS do not refer to any
person or thing:
It’s warm

Impersonal sentences
 IMPERSONAL SENTENCES may denote:
a) natural phenomena (e.g., weather):
It is hot for September
Coca Corpus
b) time/distance:
How much will it take for you to drop all this mess?
Coca Corpus
How far is it to your destination?
Coca Corpus
c) state of things:
It’s time that we challenged our non-existence
Coca Corpus

Predicates. Classification
 The PREDICATE describes a situation in which the person or thing referred
to by the SUBJECT plays some role:
He broke the record
 The PREDICATE describes a property of the person or thing referred to by the
SUBJECT:
This is a good idea
 Given this semantic difference, PREDICATES can be classified into:
 VERBAL PREDICATES, i.e., those which express processes developing in
time:
He broke the record
 NOMINAL PREDICATES, i.e., those which express qualitative characteristics of
the subject:
This is a good idea

Nominal predicates
 From a semantic point of view, NOMINAL PREDICATES can be further
classified into:
a) nominal predicates of BEING (in a certain state):
It’s warm
He felt safe with her […] (Coca Corpus)
She seemed surprised by this (Coca Corpus)
b) nominal predicates of BECOMING (i.e., of passing into a new state)
That data became even more important […] (Coca Corpus)
Instead, matters immediately grew worse (Coca Corpus)
The conversation soon turned into a battle (Coca Corpus)
c) nominal predicates of REMAINING (in a certain state):
[…] the fracture remained stable without fixation (Coca Corpus)
I kept quiet (Coca Corpus)
I stayed awake (Coca Corpus)

Structure of the predicate
He broke the record
This is a good idea
 The predicates broke the record and is a good idea can be
segmented into:
a) the PREDICATORS broke and is;
b) the PREDICATIVES the record and a good idea which complement the
meanings of the PREDICATORS broke and is.
Subject Predicator Predicative
That data became even more important
The fracture remained stable without fixation
Driving is a wonderful thing
He was attacked by a white shark

Predicatives
 The PREDICATIVE may be expressed by:
1) a noun:
He became president
Coca Corpus
2) a pronoun:
It’s me
Coca Corpus
3) a numeral:
Her father left home when she was three
Coca Corpus

Predicatives
 The PREDICATIVE may be expressed by:
4) an adjective or a participle:
It was great
Coca Corpus
The place was deserted
Coca Corpus
5) an infinitive:
[…] nobody is to blame
Coca Corpus
6) a gerund:
Seeing is believing
Coca Corpus

Predicatives
(I) He became president
versus
(II) He met the president
Differences between the predicatives of (I) and (II)?
 In (I), became president is a NOMINAL PREDICATE OF BECOMING.
 In (II), met the president is a VERBAL PREDICATE.
 In (II), the predicative the president denotes a participant of the
MEETING-event described by the verbal predicate.
The president is an OBJECT!!!
 In (I), the predicative president denotes a new characteristic of the
subject which he has acquired as a result of another event (e.g.,
WINNING PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS).
President is a COMPLEMENT!!!

Syntactic differences
1. COMPLEMENTS, but not OBJECTS, can be expressed by adjectives:
He became president
He became important
He met the president
He met important***
2. COMPLEMENTS, but not OBJECTS, can be expressed by a bare noun:
He became president
He met president***
3. OBJECTS, but not COMPLEMENTS, correspond to the subject of an
associated passive clause:
He met the president
The president was met by him
He became president
President was become by him***

Syntactic differences
1. COMPLEMENTS, but not OBJECTS, can be expressed by adjectives.
2. COMPLEMENTS, but not OBJECTS, can have the form of a bare noun.
3. OBJECTS, but not COMPLEMENTS, correspond to the subject of an
associated passive clause.
4. COMPLEMENTS, but not OBJECTS, can be expressed by pronouns in
the nominative:
It’s me
It’s I
She accused him of consorting with terrorists
Coca Corpus
She accused he of consorting with terrorists***
from Huddleston (2002: 253-254)

Objects
I don‘t think that people gave the President the right information
Coca Corpus
 Both the President and the right information are participants of the
GIVING-event described by the verbal predicate.
 Neither the President nor the right information can be replaced by
an adjective:
People gave important right***
 Neither the President nor the right information can be replaced by
a bare noun:
People gave President right information***
 Both the President and the right information correspond to the
subject of an associated passive clause:
The President was given the right information (by people)
The right information was given to the President (by people)

Objects
People gave the President the right information
 Both the President and the right information are OBJECTS.
The right information is a DIRECT OBJECT.
The President is an INDIRECT OBJECT.
 DIRECT OBJECT is MORE DIRECTLY affected by the event described by
the verbal predicate:
 For example, in the sentence under analysis, the right information is
metaphorized as a physical object that changes its spatial location.
Cf. She gave him the book
 The main syntactic difference is that the INDIRECT OBJECT precedes
the DIRECT OBJECT (when they occur in the same verbal predicate):
People gave the President the right information
People gave the right information the President***

References
 Bauer, Laurie & Paul Warren. 2004. New Zealand English: phonology. In:
Kortmann, Bernd (ed.) Handbook of varieties of English. vol. 1, 580–603,
Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
 Corpus of contemporary American English. http://www.americancorpus.org/
(September 27 2009).
 Ganshina, Mariya & Natalia Vasilevskaya. 1964. English grammar, 9th edn. rev.
Moskva: Vysshaya shkola.
 Huddleston, Rodney. 2002. The clause: complements. In: Rodney Huddleston
and Geoffrey Pullum. The Cambridge grammar of the English language, 213–
323, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
 Huddleston, Rodney & Geoffrey K. Pullum. 2005. A student’s introduction to
English grammar. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
 Hudson, Richard. 1996. Sociolinguistics, 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.

References
 Iofik, Lyubov’ & Lyudmila Chaxoyan. 1967. Readings in the theory of English
Grammar. Leningrad: Prosveshenie.
 Kaplan, Jeffrey P. 1995. English grammar. Principles and facts. Englewood
Cliffs: New Jersey.
 Kortmann, Bernd. 2005. English linguistics: essentials. Berlin: Cornelsen.
 Lakoff, George & Mark Johnson. 1980. Metaphors we live by. Chicago: The
University of Chicago Press.
 Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd edn. 1989. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
 WordNet. http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn (September 27 2009).