The document introduces grammatical units from the sentence level down to the morpheme. It discusses the types of grammatical units and how they are classified based on their structure, syntactic role, and meaning. It then covers words in more depth, defining them, discussing their classes as either lexical/content words or function words. Finally, it examines the internal structure of words through morphology and how words can be comprised of stems, prefixes, suffixes, and can be inflected, derived, or compounded.

1. Unit 1
Introductory concepts and categories
(I)

2. Outline
• Types of grammatical units
– Sentence
– Clause
– Phrase/Group
– Word
– Morpheme
• Words
– Definition
– Classes
– The structure of words: Morphology

3. Types of grammatical units
sentence
clause
phrase/group
word
morpheme

4. Types of grammatical units
• Sentence – grammatical unit consisting of one or more
clauses
• Clause – grammatical unit consisting of one or more
phrases
• Phrase – grammatical unit consisting of one or more
words
• Word – grammatical unit consisting of one or more
morphemes
• Morphemes – grammatical units as parts of words
(stems, prefixes, suffixes)
S
Y
N
T
A
X
M
O
R
P
H
O
L
O
G
Y

5. Types of grammatical units
• Three criteria used to describe grammatical units:
– Structure: the elements a grammatical unit is made of
(words in terms of bases and affixes; phrases in terms of
heads and modifiers, etc.)
– Syntactic role: the syntactic function that the grammatical
unit performs
– Meaning: the type of information expressed by the
grammatical unit (adverbs, for ex., express information
about time, place and manner)

6. Words: Definition
• Word: basic element of language or minimal free form (free-
standing & mobile)
• Different senses of the word “word”:
– Orthographic words: words in written language separated
by spaces. Ex.: They wrote us a letter (5 orth. words)
– Grammatical words: words may belong to one
grammatical word class. Ex.: orth. word leaves may be
either of two gram. words: a verb (3rd person singular
form of verb leave) or a noun (plural form of noun leaf)
– Lexeme: set of gram. words sharing the same basic
meaning, similar form and same word class. Ex.: leave,
leaves, left and leaving are all members of the verb lex.
leave

7. Words: Classes
• Words classified according to main function and grammatical
behaviour
– Lexical words (also called open class/content words): nouns,
verbs, adjectives and adverbs
• carry information in a text/speech act
• normally complex internal structure
• stressed in speech
– Function words (also called closed class/grammatical words):
prepositions, coordinators, auxiliary verbs and pronouns
• Indicate meaning relationships
– Inserts (spoken language): oh, ah, wow, yeah, hm, uh-huh
• carry emotional & discoursal meaning
• don’t form part of syntactic structure (inserted freely in
text)

8. Lexical words
• Nouns (common & proper). Characteristics:
– Morphological (structure): 1) inflect for plural number &
genitive case (HOWEVER many nouns uncountable and
don’t have plural forms); 2) often contain more than one
morpheme (ex.: bombshell, singer)
– Syntactic: can occur as head of nominal group being pre-
and post-modified. Ex.: The beautiful woman lying on the
sand
– Semantic (meaning): commonly refer to concrete physical
entities (people, objects, substances), although they can
also denote abstract entities (feelings, emotions, ideas)

9. Lexical words
• Lexical Verbs. Characteristics:
– Morphological: have different forms signalling tense,
aspect & voice
– Syntactic: occur normally on their own acting as central
part of the clause/also occur in final or main verb position
of verbal groups
– Semantic: denote actions, processes and states of affairs

10. Lexical words
• Adjectives. Characteristics:
– Morphological: many take inflexional suffixes (-er/-
est)/they can be complex in morphology (acceptable,
forgetful, influential)
– Syntactic: occur as the head of adjectival group used as
modifiers preceeding head of nominal group
– Semantic: describe qualities of people, things &
abstractions/ many are gradable

11. Lexical words
• Adverbs. Characteristics:
– Morphological: many formed from adjectives adding –ly
(clearly, eagerly), others have no such ending (however,
just)
– Syntactic: occur as head of adverbial groups often used as
modifiers of adjective or verb
– Semantic: most often express degree of a following
adjective/adverb (totally wrong/right now)

12. Function words
• Determiners: usually precede nouns and are used to clarify
the meaning of the noun (definite, indefinite article;
demonstrative det.; possessive det.; quantifiers)
• Pronouns: fill the position of a noun or a whole noun phrase
(personal, demonstrative, reflexive, reciprocal, possessive,
indefinite, relative, interrogative)
• Auxiliary verbs: precede the main or lexical verb in a verb
phrase (primary (be, have, do) & modal (will, can, shall, may,
must, would, could, should, might))
• Prepositions: linking words introducing prepositional
groups/most are short & invariable but can also be complex
• Coordinators & subordinators: indicate a relationship
between two units (and, or, but/because, since)

13. Inserts
• Mainly in spoken language
• Marked off by break in intonation or speech and by
punctuation mark in writing (Well, we made it)
• Used to express speaker’s emotional response to situation:
Wow! That’s awesome!/ Oh! I didn’t know it
• Used to signal a response to what has just been said: Yeah, I
will/Hm hm, very good

14. The structure of words: Morphology
• Lexical words may be made of a single morpheme (stem) or
have a more complex structure by means of inflexion,
derivation & compounding
– Inflexion: lexical words take inflexional suffixes to signal
meanings & roles important to their word class (plural for
nouns or past tense for verbs)
• Other classes of words are generally invariable
(prepositions, conjunctions, & determiners)

15. The structure of words: morphology
– Derivation usually involves adding an affix (morpheme
attached to the beginning – prefix – or to the end – suffix –
of a word)
• Different from inflexion because it changes the identity
of a word and creates new nouns, adjectives, verbs and
adverbs
• It changes the meaning of a word or the class of a word
and creates a new base form for the word (prefixes:
ex+president, un+kind; suffixes: boy+hood, central+ize)

16. The structure of words: Morphology
– Compounding is a form of derivation where a word
contains more than one stem (Noun+noun (chair+man);
Verb+noun (cook+book); Adjective+noun (blue+bird);
Noun+adjective (water+tight))
• Three tests to check if the word is a compound:
– The word will be spelt as a single word (no spaces)
– The word will be pronounced with the main stress
on first element
– The word will have a meaning not determined from
individual parts

17. The structure of words: Morphology
• Apart from compounds, sequences of words behave as a
combination:
– Multi-word unit: sequence of orthographic words
functioning like one grammatical unit (ex.: on top of)
– Idiom: multi-word unit where meaning can’t be predicted
from the meanings of its parts (ex.: make up (one’s) mind)
– Collocation: relationship between one/more independent
words commonly appearing together (ex.: broad
agreement)

18. Introduction to phrases/groups
• Phrases/groups are higher units into which words are
organized
• A phrase/group may consist of one single word or a group of
words
• Phrases/groups can be embedded (i.e. be part of another
structure)
– E.g. [They] [passed] [the table [with [the two men]]]

19. clause
Noun
phrase
They
Verb
phrase
passed
Noun
phrase
the table
Prep
phrase
with
Noun
phrase
the two men
They passed the table with the two men

20. Classes of phrases
• For each type of lexical word there is a type of phrase,
where the lexical word is the head (function words are
also found):
– Noun phrase or Nominal Group
– Verb phrase or Verbal Group
– Adjective phrase or Adjectival Group
– Adverb phrase or Adverbial Group
– Prepositional phrase or Prepositiona Group

21. Noun phrase
• Noun phrase/Nominal group: A phrase with a noun as its head
(determiner)+(modifier)+HEAD+(qualifier) d m h q
– Ex.: A house/These houses/Her beautiful big charming house
• Abstract nouns can also be followed by complements
completing the meaning of the noun (esp. that-clauses and
infinitive to-clauses). Ex.: He feels awkward about her refusal
to show any sign of emotion
• Proper nouns, pronouns and sometimes adjectives can also
be head of NP. Ex.: Thomas lives in Wembley/They said they’d
got it/Show me how the impossible can be possible
• NPs can take the syntactic role of subject or object as well as
of predicative, adverbial and complement in PPs.

22. Verb phrases
• Verb phrase/Verbal group: a phrase with a primary/lexical
verb as its head: (operator)+(auxiliary)+VERB o x v (ex.: do you
go/has gone/go)
• Finite VPs show distinctions of tense (present/past) & include
modal auxiliaries (different from non-finite VPs)
• VPs are the essential part of a clause, referring to a type of
state/action (the main verb determines the other elements in
the clause)
• Sometimes VPs are split into two parts (e.g. in questions,
when adverbs and other adverbials are placed in the middle)
– What were you doing?
– This year has definitely started well

23. Adjective phrases
• Adjective phrase/Adjectival group: A phrase with an adjective
as its head: (modifier)+HEAD+(qualifier) m h q (ex.:
good/definitely good/good enough)
• Modifiers answer the question about the degree of a quality
• Adjective heads often take complements which answer the
question “In what sense is the adjectival quality to be
interpreted?” (ex.: guilty of a serious crime/slow to respond)
• The most important roles of AP are as modifier (attributive) &
subject predicative (ex.: a deeply sick man/He’s totally crazy)
• APs may be split into two parts by the noun head (ex.: He’s a
really tough player to beat)

24. Adverb phrases
• Adverb phrase/Adverbial group: a phrase with an adverb as its
head: (modifier)+HEAD+(qualifier) m h q (ex.: there/pretty
soon/fortunately enough)
• Adverb phrases are different from adverbials: adverb
phrases are structures while adverbials are clause elements
(adverb phrases, prepositional phrases and adverbial clauses
can all function as adverbials)
• Two basic syntactic roles of adverb phrases are: 1) modifier in
adjective/adverb phrases (ex.: He was an attractive little
creature with a sweetly expressive face); 2) adverbial (ex.: She
smiled sweetly)

25. Prepositional phrases
• Prepositional phrase/Prepositional group: a phrase with a
preposition as its head: (modifier)+HEAD+completive m h k
(ex.: considerably to the right/on the night of the first day)
• Prepositions can also take complement clauses that behave
like NPs (normally wh-clauses and ing-clauses) (ex.:
instructions on where they are used/after spending some time
in California)
• PPs have two basic syntactic roles: 1) adverbial (ex.: He
worked in a shop); 2) modifier/complement of a noun (ex.: He
was a teacher of philosophy)
• Stranded prepositions are not followed by their complements
(found in direct questions, interrogative clauses and direct
clauses; ex.: What more could a child ask for?)

26. Clauses
• Clause: key unit of syntax capable of occurring independently
• Clause: complete description of an event/state of affairs (ex.:
Have you got an exam on Monday?/She smiled sweetly)
• All clauses may be utterances but not all utterances are
clauses
– ex. (1): More sauce? vs. Would you like more sauce?
– ex. (2): Thirty pence please vs. It’s thirty pence please

27. Clauses
• Verb is the key element of a clause (valency of the verb
controls kinds of elements that follow it). Five major valency
patterns (each term used to refer to both valency and clause
pattern):
– Intransitive (S+V): Sarah and Michael dissapeared
– Monotransitive (S+V+DO): She’s changed her dress
– Copular (S+V+SP and S+V+Adv): The Swiss cheese has gone
bad/Marc was in the bathroom
– Ditransitive (S+V+IO+DO): You gave her the wrong answer
– Complex transitive (S+V+DO+OP and S+V+DO+A): That
makes me so mad/They’re sending us to Disneyland
T
R
A
N
S
I
T
I
V
E

28. TYPES OF CLAUSES
• INDEPENDENT & DEPENDENT
• FINITE (tensed VP) & NON-FINITE (tenseless VP)
• VERBLESS (moodless; minor) CLAUSES
• ABBREVIATED CLAUSES

29. Syntactic elements of clauses
Subject (S)
Predicator (P)
Direct object (Od)
Indirect object (Oi)
Prepositional object (Op; Oprep.)
Subject complement (Cs)
Object complement (Co)
Predicator complement (Cp)
Adjunct (A)

30. verb complementation
• The verb is the key element of a clause . There are 3 major
valency patterns (one-place, two-place & three-place verbs):
→ Intransitive: S+V: Sarah and Michael disappeared
→ Copular:
S+V+Cs : The Swiss cheese has gone bad
S+V+A: Marc was in the bathroom
→ Monotransitive (S+V+Od): She’s changed her dress
→ Ditransitive (S+V+Oi+Od): You gave her the wrong answer
→ Complex transitive :
S+V+Od+Co: That makes me so mad
S+V+Oi+C Loc: They’re sending us to Disneyland