Main characteristics

1. Syntax and Morphology

2. (discourse)
 Sentence
 Clauses
 Phrases
 Words
 Morphemes
(phonemes/graphemes)

3. WORD
STRUCTURE
Morpheme
smallest
meaningful
elements of
language
Bound Free
derivational inflectional
WORDS

4.  Affixes: a morpheme attached to the beginning of a word a
prefix) or to the end of a word (a suffix), which changes the
meaning or word class, and in effect creates a new base form for
the word.
prefixes: ex + president, un+ kind, re+read, a+ broad
suffixes: boy + hood, central+ ize, green+ ish, exact+ly
Note: words can be built up using a number of different prefixes and
suffixes, and thus contain several morphemes:
Industri+al+, industri+al+ize, industri+al+iz+ation, post+industri+al

5. Inflectional suffixes signal meanings and roles; they do not change the
identity of a word.
-s (plural)
-s (present tense)
-’s (genitive)
-ed (past tense; past participle)
-ing (present participle)
-er, est (comparative, superlative)
Note: inflections follow derivational suffixes
central+iz+ed, build+er+s

6.  Noun + noun: bed + room; police + man.
 Verb + noun: cook + book; guess + work.
 Adjective + noun: blue + bird; flat + fish.
 Noun + adjective: head + long; water + tight.
How to recognize them:
1. The word will be spelt as a single word.
2. It will be pronounced with the main stress on the first
element.
3. Its meaning cannot be determined by the individual parts.

9.  LEXICAL
i. carriers of information
ii. Subdivided into word
classes.
iii. Open class
iv. Complex internal
structure.
v. Heads of phrases.
vi. Stressed in speech.
.
 FUNCTIONAL
i. Indicate meaning
relationships between
lexical words.
ii. Help us interpret units
containing lexical words.
iii. Close d class.
iv. No internal structure.
v. Usually not stressed in
speech.

10.  NOUNS, LEXICAL VERBS, ADJECTIVES, ADVERBS
To decide what class a word belongs to, it is useful to
apply tests of three kinds:
1. Morphological: what forms does a word have? (internal
structure)
2. Syntactic: what syntactic roles does a word play in
phrases or other higher units?
3. Semantic: what type(s) of meaning does a word convey?

11.  Morphological :
inflectional suffixes (plural, genitive)
derivational suffixes (er, ness, ment, ship, etc.)
compound nouns: more than one morpheme.
 Syntactic:
head of phrases: a new book about the cold war.
can generally be modified before and after.
 Semantic:
concrete, physical entities: people, objects, substances.
abstract entities: qualities and states.

12.  Morphological: different forms signaling tense, aspect and
voice.
write, writes, wrote, writing, written.
 Syntactic:
central part of the clause (nucleus).
final or main verb position of verb phrase.
 Semantic:
denote actions, processes, and states of affairs that happen or exist in
time.
define the role of human an non-human participants in such actions,
processes, or states.

13.  Morphological:
inflectional suffixes –er, -est.
derivational suffixes -able, -ive, -ful, etc.
compound color-blind; home-made; ice-cold.
 Syntactic:
head of adjective phrase: very dark, guilty of charge.
modifiers of nouns.
following the verb: it’s hot; we’re happy.
 Semantic:
describe qualities of people, things, and abstractions.
many are gradable: they can be compared and modified for the degree
or level of the quality: heavier, very heavy, extremely heavy.

14.  Morphological:
many formed from adjectives + -ly.
a few allow comparative and superlative forms.
 Syntactic:
head of adverb phrase: very noisily, more slowly.
modifiers of an adjective or another adverb.
adverbials.
 Semantic:
express degree, time, place, manner, etc.
can convey the speaker’s or writer’s attitude
express a connection with what was said before.

15.  Determiners
 Pronouns
 Auxiliary verbs
 Prepositions
 Adverbial particles
 Coordinators
 Subordinators

16.  Definite and indefinite articles: the, an, a.
 Demonstrative determiners (adjectives): this, these,
that, those.
 Possessive determiners (adjectives): my, your, his, her,
etc.
 Quantifiers: every, some, any, few, etc.
 Numerals:
cardinals one, two, three, etc.
ordinals first, second, third, etc.

17.  Personal : subjective: I, you, he, she, it, we, they.
objective: me, you, him, her, it, us, them.
 Demonstrative: this, these, that, those.
 Reflexive: myself, yourself, themselves, etc.
 Reciprocal: each other; one another.
 Possessive: mine, yours, hers, his, ours, theirs, its.
 Indefinite: somebody, noone, everything, etc.
 Relative: that, who, which.
 Interrogative: what, which, who.

18.  Primary auxiliaries: be, have, do.
 Modal auxiliaries:
will, can, shall, may, must, would, could, should, might.
 Semi-modals:
going to, have to, ought to, used to, be able to.

19. Prepositions
Introduce prepositional phrases.
They are followed by its
prepositional complement, a
noun phrase.
in the school on the
table at the cinema. about you
most are short, invariable forms:
about, after, around, as, by,
down, into, like, off, since, etc.
Others are complex: in spite of, in
addition to, with regard to,
owing to, due to, apart from.
A small group with a core
meaning of motion.
Closely linked to verbs.
Generally follow the verbs.
Closely bound in meaning.
Used to build phrasal verbs.
The most important: about,
around, across, along, aside,
away, back, by, down, over,
past, etc.
go away, break down, turn on.
Adverbial particles

20.  He is in the house vs He is in.
 They’re running around the park . vs they’re running
around.
 He’s passing by the bank. vs he’s passing by.
 The plane is flying over the house vs the plane is flying
over.

21. coordinating conjunctions
 Cumulative: and
 Alternative: or
 Adverstive: but
 Illative: so
Correlative: neither…nor;
both…and, either… or.
Subordinating conjunctions
if
when
as soon as
while
because
so that
although