Traditional grammar : categories and functions
The syntax of a language is described in terms of a taxonomy(classificatory list) of the range of different types of syntactic structure found in the language. Syntactic analysis in the traditional grammar is that phrases and sentences are built up of a series of constituent (syntactic units), each of which belongs to a specific grammatical category and serves a specific grammatical function. Ex : students protested It would traditionally be said that the sentence consist of two constituents => students and protested The specific grammatical category : students => plural noun Protested=> past tense verb The grammatical function : Student => subject Protested => predicate The overall sentence students protested has the categorical status of a clause which is finite in nature (by virtue of denoting an event taking place at a specific time) and has the semantic function of expressing a proposition which is declarative in force (in that it is used to make a statement rather than ask a question). The example above in traditional grammar is the simplest type of finite declarative force. In which a nominal subject is followed by a verbal predicate. The difference types word, traditionally there are : - content words/ contentives : word which have substantive lexical content - function word / functors : words which essentially serve to mark grammatical properties. The different between the two : - a noun like car has substantive lexical content in that it denotes an object which typically has four wheels and an engine and it would be easy enough to draw a picture of typically car. - Because they have lexical content, content word often have antonyms ex: tall >< short, increase >< decrease, outside >< inside - By contrast, a pronoun such as they has no descriptive content and you cant draw a picture of they, but rather is a functor which simply marks grammatical (more specifically, person, number and case) properties in that it is a third person plural normative pronoun. - A typical word like pronoun me has no obvious antonym.
From content and function, word have two different types of grammatical category : - lexical / substantive categories : categories whose members are content words.
1. noun (N)
Semantic property : they denote entities Ex : bottle is noun since denotes object to contain liquids Water is noun since denotes a type of liquid John is noun since denote a specific person Subtypes of noun : count noun : in that it can be counted singular : one horse, a book plural : two horses, some books
- mass noun : uncountable noun : Ex : money, furniture - Common noun : which can be modified by a determiner like the Ex: boy => the boy - proper noun : cant be modified
2. verb (V)
Semantic property : denote action or event Syntactic property : verb have the property that only an appropriate kind of verb can be used to complete a sentence such as they can .. so, word like stay, leave, hide and cry are all verbs and hence can be used in place of dots here ( but words like apple, under, pink and if arent) Morphological property : they have 4 distinct forms 1. bare form : cry 2. present tense : cries 3. past tense/perfect participle/passive participle : cried 4. progressive participle : crying
3. Adjective (A) Semantic property : denotes state or attributes
Ex : ill, happy, tired etc. Syntactic property : that they can occur after be to complete sentence like they may be. And hey denote a gradable property which can exist in varying degrees and can be modified by a degree word like vary/rather/somewhat. Morphological property : many adjectives have comparative form ending er and superlative form ending est. Ex: big-bigger-biggest
4. Adverb (ADV)
Semantic property : denotes the manner in which an action is performed Ex: she sings well. Syntactic property : an adverb is the only kind of word which could be used to end sentence such as he behaved , he treats her.. , she worded the statement Morphological property : that formed from adjectives by the addition of the suffixly Ex : sad - sadly
5. Preposition (Prep)
Semantic property : marking location Ex : in/on/off/inside/outside/under/above/below etc. Syntactic property : can be modified by right in the sense of completely, or by straight in the sense of directly. Ex : He fell right down the stairs He went straight to bed Morphological property : they are invariable/uninflected forms Ex : off has no past tense form offed, no superlative form offest etc.
Functional category : categories whose members are function words.
1. Determiner : a category includes the definite article the and the demonstrative
determiners this/that/these/those. Semantic property : determine specific semantic properties of the noun expression that they introduce marking it as a definite referring expression. Ex : the => shall we take the car ?
2. Quantifier : denoting expression of quantity such as some/all/any/each/every etc. 3. Pronoun : items which are said to stand in place of and there are a number of
different pronoun Ex : John has a red car and Jim has a blue one. The word one is traditionally said to be a pronoun because it has no lexical semantic content of its own, but rather takes it content from its antecedent (one refers back to noun car ) however, from morphological perspective, the pronoun one behaves like a regular count noun in that it has a plural form ending s
ex : Ill take the green apples if you havent got any red ones. We could say one is Npronoun( pronominal noun) by contrast, ex : many miners were rescued, but some died. The word some seems to function as a Qpronoun(pronominal quantifier) ex : these apples are ripe, but those arent. the word those seems to be a Dpronoun(pronominal determiner) indeed, some linguist have argued that so-called personal pronoun like i/me/you//we/us/he/him/she/her/it/they/them are also D-pronoun. The rationale for his is that some such pronoun can be used as dterminers which modify a following noun ex: we republicans dont trust you democrats we : determiner modifying the noun republicans you: determiner modifying the noun democrats note : because there are a number of different types of pronoun, some linguist prefer to refer to them by using more general term proform.
4. Auxiliary
Semantic property : marking grammatical properties such as tense, aspect, voice or modal. Syntactic property : they can be inverted with their subject in question Ex : a. he has/had [gone] b. she is/was [staying at home] c. they are/were [taken away for questioning] d. he really does/did [say a lot] e. you can/could [help us] f. they may/might [come back] g. he will/would [get upset] h. I shall/should [return] a & b : (perfect progressive ) aspect c : (passive) voice d : expletive/dummy auxiliary(one with no intrinsic lexical semantic content) e-h : modal
