This slide show covers terms for parts of speech, structural analysis, and grammatical constituents. It is for a introductory linguistics course.

1. Analysis of
Grammatical Structure
• Parts of Speech
• Agreement
• Structural Analysis
• Grammatical Constituents

2. Parts of Speech/Word Class
articles
a, an, the
determiners
a, the, other, some, these...
nouns
house, experience, Ronald…
pronouns
you, me, they…
adjectives
red, tall, furious…
verbs
run, bark, ruminate…
adverbs
quickly, mostly, very…
prepositions
in, under, with, to…
conjunctions
and, but, or…

3. Agreement
The relationships between words are based on agreement.
Words have to agree in the following ways:
number singular/plural
person first/second/third person
tense past/present/future
gender natural (male/female)/grammatical
voice active/passive voice

4. Structural Analysis
Structural analysis helps to investigate the distribution of forms in
a language. For example: many English sentences follow and SVO
pattern:
Subject Verb Object
[The earthquake] [shook] [the house].
Different languages prefer different word order. Here is Japanese:
Subject Object Verb
[Masuda-ga] [tegami-o] [kakimasu]
Masuda letter write.
(Masude writes a letter)

5. Test Frames
Examples:
The_____________ gets wet when it rains.
_____________ melt in the summer heat.
Have you seen ___________.
The old building by the library ________________.
Ø Forms that fit into the same test-frame likely belong to the same
grammatical category [noun/noun phrase/verb phrase/etc.]

6. Constituent Analysis
• Small constituents (articles, nouns, etc) combine to form
larger constituents:
Ø noun phrases
verb phrases
prepositional phrases
clauses
sentences
And speakers arrange these constituents according to the conventions
of the grammatical rules of the language they are speaking.

7. ;{prescriptivism & descriptivism};
Ø Prescriptive grammarians are interested in
formulating grammatical and usage rules that
should be followed by speakers of the language.
Ø Descriptive linguists use structural analysis to
help them describe the structural rules as they are
applied by speakers of a language.

8. Constituency
How would you group the words in the following sentence?
Ø The Danish captain sang salty shanties.

9. Constituency
How would you group the words in the following sentence?
Ø The Danish captain sang salty shanties.
The Danish captain sang salty shanties.

10. Constituency
How would you group the words in the following sentence?
Ø The Danish captain sang salty shanties.
The Danish captain sang salty shanties.
[S [subject (NP)] [Predicate (VP)]]
The Danish captain sang salty shanties

11. Constituency
How would you group the words in the following sentence?
Ø The Danish captain sang salty shanties.
The Danish captain sang salty shanties.
[S [subject (NP)] [Predicate (VP)]]
The Danish captain sang salty shanties
[S [NP[Det] [Adj] [N]] [VP [[V] [NP[Adj] [N]]]]
The Danish captain Sang salty shanties.

12. Phrase Structure Rules
q General schema:
X à Y Z
“X consists of Y followed by Z”

13. Phrase Structure Rules
Noun Phrase (NP)
• John N
• the boy Det N
• a little boy Det Adj N
• a boy in a bubble Det N PrepP
Phrase structure rule for NPs:
NP à (Det) (Adj) N (PrepP)
(where ‘()’ indicated optionality)

14. Phrase Structure Rules
Prepositional Phrase (PrepP)
• in Moscow Prep N
• to the store Prep det N
Phrase structure rule for PrepPs:
PrepP à Prep NP

15. Phrase Structure Rules
Verb Phrase (VP)
• sang V
• ate the cake V NP
• ate the cake hungrily V NP Adv
• sang a song in the shower V NP PrepP
• drove into the lot slowly V PrepP Adv
Phrase structure rule for VPs:
VP à V (NP) (PrepP) (Advl)