The document provides an overview of syntax and morphology in English, explaining how grammatical structures form clear sentences. It discusses different parts of speech, including open-class and closed-class words, and the hierarchical structure of phrases and clauses. Additionally, it describes morphemes, distinguishing between free and bound morphemes and their roles in word formation and meaning.

1. Syntax and Morphology

2. SYNTAX
the grammatical and
structural basics of
English.

3. SYNTAX
• Syntax helps us to make
clear sentences that “sound
right,” where words, phrases,
and clauses each serve their
function and are correctly
ordered to form and
communicate a complete
sentence with meaning.

4. SYNTAX
• Syntax helps us to make
clear sentences that “sound
right,” where words, phrases,
and clauses each serve their
function and are correctly
ordered to form and
communicate a complete
sentence with meaning.

5. PARTS OF SPEECH
groups of words that
make up the
grammar of the
English language

6. OPEN-CLASS WORDS
(changeable and
accepts new words,
such as nouns,
adjectives, verbs, and
adverbs)

7. CLOSED-CLASS WORDS
(changeable and accepts new
words, such as nouns, adjectives,
verbs, and adverbs) (function
words and rarely accepts new
words, such as prepositions,
conjunctions, pronouns,
complementizers, determiners,
and auxiliary verbs)

8. CONSTITUENTS
groups of words that
go together and fit
into larger units,
which are then built
into sentences.

9. WORD --> PHRASE --> CLAUSE -->
SENTENCE
Let’s look at the following sentence:
The happy boy jumped swiftly over the rock by
the pond.
The smaller constituents (i.e. the happy boy,
the pond, the rock- all noun phrases) fit into
larger constituents (i.e. by the pond-
prepositional phrase), and even larger
constituents (the rock by the pond- bigger
noun phrase). These constituents follow a
hierarchical structure:

10. 5 TYPES OF PHRASES
noun phrases,
verb phrases,
adjective phrases,
adverb phrases, and
prepositional phrases.

11. CLAUSES
This composed of noun
phrases as the subject and
verb phrases as the
predicate. Some clauses
can stand independently as
a sentence, and others are
dependent or subordinate.

12. COMPOUND SENTENCES
This formed by joining
two independent
clauses, joined by a
conjunction or
punctuation
(semicolon or colon).

13. CLOSED-CLASS WORDS
(changeable and accepts new
words, such as nouns, adjectives,
verbs, and adverbs) (function
words and rarely accepts new
words, such as prepositions,
conjunctions, pronouns,
complementizers, determiners,
and auxiliary verbs)

14. Blogging, bromance, ridonkulous.
These are some newer words
that have been added to
English to describe new
concepts, ideas, and current
trends.

15. Though they may seem
spontaneous and
unstructured at times,
these and all words use set
patterns of word formation,
structure, and meaning,
outlined in the study of
MORPHOLOGY

16. • All words are made up of
small units called morphemes,
some of which can be used
independently (i.e. and, dog,
fun), and some of which are not
independently words but hold
meaning (i.e. prefixes: un-, re-;
suffixes: -ing, -ly).
MORPHOLOGY

17. Words or morphemes that keep the
same form every time used and are
unchangeable, including
conjunctions (i.e. and), pronouns
(i.e. he, she), auxiliary verbs (i.e.
may, can), determiners (i.e. the, a),
prepositions (i.e. of, from), and
inflectional suffixes (i.e. XXX).
CLOSED CLASSES

18. Words that have morphemes that
change depending on the grammar
and meaning of a sentence,
including nouns (i.e. dogà dogs),
verbs (i.e. walkà walking),
adjectives (i.e. poor), adverbs (i.e.
poorly), and derivational affixes
(i.e. prefixes: in-, un-; and suffixes:
- ly, -s).
OPEN CLASSES

19. In both open and
closed morpheme
groups, morphemes
can be separated into
free and bound
morphemes:

20. Words that are made up
of only one morpheme
and can stand alone as
an English word (i.e.
quick, up). Most root
words in English are free
morphemes.
FREE MORPHEMES

21. Morphemes that
cannot stand alone as
a word, and must be
attached to a free
morpheme.
BOUND MORPHEMES

22. This can change the meaning of the entire
word, but does not change the meaning of the
root word or the part of speech. It includes
all suffixes, plural –s (dogs), possessive –s
(doctor’s), third-person singular present –s (he
walks), progressive –ing (he is walking), past
tense –ed (he walked), past participle –ed/-en
(he has walked/taken), comparative –er
(funnier), and superlative –est (funniest).
INFLECTIONAL BOUND MORPHEMES

23. This often changes the part of
the speech of the word, like
from a noun to a verb, and the
meaning of the word. These
include prefixes (i.e. anti-, pre-,
un-) and some suffixes (i.e. –
ness, -er both change verbs to
nouns).
DERIVATIONAL MORPHEMES