Basics of the grammar of English

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Basics of the grammar of English

• Words, phrases, clauses
• Words
• Open classes nouns and verbs
• Distribution patterns
• Nouns, pronouns, verbs, tenses
• Inflection
• Noun phrases
• Simple clauses, categories
• Questions
• Roles
• Prepositional phrases
• Clausal subjects / complements
• Verb phrases
• Modifiers
• Compound clauses
• Relative clauses

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Words, phrases, clauses

• The building blocks of expressions in natural
  languages are words, phrases, clauses.
• There is a semantic motivation for some of these
  fundamental constructions
• noun phrases correspond to entities that have
  properties (expressed by adjective phrases,
  relative clauses,and so on)
• verb phrases correspond to situations with roles
  (noun phrases, prepositional phrases) and
  qualities (adverbial phrases).

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Words, phrases, clauses (2)

• The clause level
• Simple and compound clauses.
• Coordinate clause.
• Major and subordinate clauses.

simple clause
simple clause
We bought him a book because he likes to read
major clause
subordinate clause
compound clause

• The word level
• Morphology book ? books, make ? making.
• Derivation white ? whiteness, quick ? quickly.

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Words

• Criteria for distinguishing words are quite
  arbitrary, though the simplest test (groups of
  letters between non-letters) works okay.
• Words are not the lowest level of description.
• Morphemes, e.g., prebooking, unglued.
• antidisestablishmentarianism
• There are four open classes of words (noun, verb,
  adjective, adverb) and closed classes (including
  articles, conjunctions, prepositions, numerals,
  pronouns).

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Words (2)

• There are two criteria for word classification.
• Semantics situations - roles - properties.
• Distribution words in the same class can often
  be interchanged.
• Distribution can be tested by diagnostic
  contexts, positive and negative.
• Example adjectives.

This is a ________ book.
The book is very ________.
- This ________ is new.
- I want to ________ it to you.
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Words (3)

• A word may fit more than one pattern. This
  happens quite often, because word classes are not
  disjoint. Examples
• compound is an adjective, a noun, a verb
• bar is a noun, a verb, a preposition.
• (The verb-noun ambiguity is frequent in English.)
• Classify various O in these sentences
• John decided to O a big, O and juicy O.
• Put your O O the table.

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Words (4)

• Nouns
• Proper nouns Jimmy, Greece, IBM
• Common nouns
• mass nouns (sand, milk, ...)
• count nouns (all others)
• Pronouns
• Personal (I, him, ...)
• Possessive (its, hers, ...)
• Interrogative/relative (whom, which, that, ...)
• Demonstrative (this, those, ...)

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Words (5)

• Nouns and personal pronouns have clear
  distributional differences ( marks incorrect
  expressions).

a man is running ? a Jim is running a box of
sand ? a box of book the book is mine ? the
book is which a white elephant ? a white he
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Beyond words

• Verb groups
• In English, there are five basic forms
• infinitive eat, drink, walk
• present 3rd person eats, drinks, walks
• simple past ate, drank, walked
• progressive (present participle) eating,
  drinking, walking
• perfective (past participle) eaten, drunk, walked
• In French, there are about sixty forms.
• There also are at least 48 English tenses, most
  of them expressed analytically, that is, using
  auxiliary verbs (all forms of be, have, do, plus
  will, would and so on).

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Beyond words (2)

• Selected English tenses

Tense Example Examplecontinuous
present go / goes am / are / is going
past went was / were going
future will go will be going
present perfect have / has gone have / has been going
past perfect had gone had been going
future perfect will have gone will have been going
How would we add negation?
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Inflection

• Words usually have forms with the same meaning
  and different functions in a sentence. Examples
• he him was were
• long  longer book books
• Such forms have different inflectional
  categories.
• Nouns can be inflected by case and number
• adjectives by case, number, gender and degree
• verbs by person, number, gender and tense.
• Inflection in English is quite simple, compared
  with such languages as Russian, and even French.

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Inflection (2)

• French English
• donnais, donnais, donnait gave, gave, gave
• donnions, donniez, donnaient gave, gave, gave
• dernier, derniers last, last
• dernière, dernières last, last
• English cases Russian cases
• Water is good. ... voda ...
• There is no water. ... vody ...
• I wonder at water. ... vode ...
• I see water. ... vodu ...
• I wash with water. ... vodoy ...

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Inflection (3)
sg singular, pl plural

• Case nouns and pronouns
• The mansubjective spoke. Hesubjective spoke.
• We saw the manobjective. We saw himobjective.
• Person and number verbs
• I walk/walked1st, sg I am/was1st, sg
• yousg walk/walked2nd, sg yousg are/were2nd, sg
• he walks/walked3rd, sg he is/was3rd, sg
• we walk/walked1st, pl we are/were1st, pl
• youpl walk/walked2nd, pl youpl are/were2nd, pl
• they walk/walked3d, pl they are/were3d, pl

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Noun phrases
Segment Function Examples
Determiner Pre-determiner half both all
sequence Determiner the a those every
Ordinal first second last
Cardinal one three many
Modifiers Describers big blue enchanted
Classifiers stone singing
Head Head walls people ones
Qualifiers Restrictive qualifier in town who fly
Nonrestrictive qualifier , which you know
------------------ Possessive marker s

• Terry Winograd, Language as a Cognitive Process
  Syntax, Addison-Wesley, 1983

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Noun phrases (2)

• Examples, short and long, with head marked
• he
• Jimmy
• a man
• all the first three big stone walls in town,
  which you know
• all those many enchanted blue singing people who
  fly
• Elements that precede the head
• Specifiers describe definiteness, cardinality,
  and so on.
• Modifiers (adjectives, nouns) narrow down the
  meaning.
• Elements that follow the head
• Postmodifiers relative clauses, prepositional
  phrases.

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Simple clauses

• A simple clause is not really simple. It is,
  however, usually built around a single verb,
  though with many additional elements more in a
  while.
• A clause can be in one of three moods
• declarative I will buy it.
• interrogative Will I buy it? What will I buy?
• imperative Buy it!
• A clause has a tense the same as the verb.
• Finally, some clauses can be active or passive
• John hit Jim ? Jim was hit by John
• John felt sick ? Sick was felt by John
• John slept ? ???

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Questions

• There are two types of interrogative clauses.
  They are, in a sense, derived from declarative
  clauses.
• He bought two books today.
• He did buy two books today.
• Yes/no questions
• Did he buy two books today?

Wh-questions Who ? bought two books
today? What did he buy ? today? When did
he buy two books ??
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Roles

• A clause consists of a verb group surrounded by
  noun phrases that serve as role descriptors.
• One syntactic role that is always present in an
  English clause is the subject. It may not be the
  agent or the experiencer (see conceptual graphs).
• Yesterday John gave Mary a book. subject
• Yesterday John gave Mary a book. indirect object
• Yesterday John gave Mary a book. direct object
• Yesterday John gave Mary a book. modifier

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Roles (2)

• The number of roles depends on the verb.
• Intransitive verbs have one role subject
• Jim has laughed. The child is sleeping.
• Transitive verbs have two roles subject, direct
  object
• The man rode a pony. He should wash his face.
• Bi-transitive verbs have a subject, direct
  object, indirect object
• Tom gave Mary flowers. Tom gave flowers to Mary.
• Verbs with 4 roles move who what from-where
  to-where.
• A verb may have several role patterns
• Tom bought flowers. Tom bought flowers for Mary.
• Examples of incorrect clauses (too many / too few
  roles)
• Jim sold. Jim slept a book.

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Roles (3)

• Four most common syntactic forms of roles
• Noun phrase in a specific position
• subject
• direct object
• indirect object
• Prepositional phrase
• Embedded clause
• Modifier
• Examples of the last three follow shortly.
• All role-fillers are jointly called complements.

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Prepositional phrases

• The syntax is very simple a preposition followed
  by a noun phrase. The meaning tends to be quite
  complex, and there are many roles, jointly
  determined by the preposition and the noun
  phrase.
• Examples of relations between roles and
  prepositions
• with instrument, accompaniment
• He ate cake with a spoon.
• He went home with them.
• by agent, location
• He was hit by a stranger.
• He sat by the door.

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Prepositional phrases (2)

• More examples
• in ???
• at ???
• on ???
• for ???
• (there are many more prepositions, but not all
  that many roles).
• Prepositional phrases also qualify nouns
• I met a man with a dog.
• I met a man in a coat.

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Embedded clauses

• Clausal subjects
• Honour means much to him.
• To jump over the lazy dog means much to him.
• Jumping over the lazy dog means much to him.
• Clausal direct objects
• John wants peace.
• John wants to give Mary a book.
• John wants Jim to give Mary a book.
• John considers the consequences.
• John considers giving Mary a book.
• Clausal indirect objects
• John sent a note to Mary.
• John sent a note to whom it may concern.

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Verb phrases

• Verb phrases also have a deceptively simple
  top-level syntax a verb with complements. The
  complexity arises from the richness of the
  structure of complements.
• We can now define the syntax of a declarative
  clause. (In the example grammars, we will call
  them sentences.) We keep the noun phrase in
  the subject position separate.
• clause ?? nounPhrase, verbPhrase.
• All other noun phrases, prepositional phrases and
  so on are part of the verb phrase.
• verbPhrase ?? verb, complements.

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Modifiers

• Much of the interesting complexity comes from
  modifiers  expressions that introduce place,
  time, manner and many other additional elements
  of a situation. Here are examples of structures
  and their meaning.
• Adverb
• Obviously, he wants to go.
• Prepositional phrase
• He wants to go for a walk.
• Embedded -ing clause
• He wants to go whistling a tune.
• Noun phrase
• He wants to go tomorrow.

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Modifiers (2)

• Ordinal
• First, he wants to go.
• A comparative construction
• He wants to go as soon as possible.
• Another embedded clause
• He wants to go as if he danced.
• In theory, we can have as many modifiers as we
  please, but there are practical limits. This is
  an almost unrealistic example
• More than ever, tomorrow he wants to go quickly
  for a walk whistling a tune.

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Modifiers (3)

• Examples of simple clauses with subjects,
  qualifiers and modifiers
• A man is walking.
• A man with a cane is walking down the lane.
• A man who seems tired is walking slowly.
• A man is walking and whistling a tune.
• A man with a cane who seems tired is
  slowly walking down the lane and whistling a
  tune.
• In the last two examples there is the
  complication of and, but it is still a simple
  clause  it has one subject and one, though far
  from elementary, verb phrase.

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Compound clauses

• There are co-ordinate clauses and subordinate
  clauses, constructed using conjunctions.
• X and Y are simple clauses.
• Subordinate conjunctions a few examples
• X if Y
• X when Y
• X because Y
• Co-ordinate conjunctions
• X and Y
• X or Y
• either X or Y
• neither X nor Y

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Compound clauses (2)

• Co-ordination is a difficult construct, expensive
  to recognize, because a conjunction may appear
  between any two constituents.
• Hansel saw the witch.
• Hansel and Gretel saw the witch.
• Hansel and Gretel saw the witch and her house.
• Hansel and Gretel saw and killed the witch.
• Hansel and Gretel saw the witch and killed her.
• Hansel and Gretel saw the witch and ran.
• Hansel and Gretel saw the witch and her house and
  ran.

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Relative clauses

• the man who ? went for a walk
• the man he knows ? best
• the book that you gave ? to Mary
• the book that you gave Mary ?
• the fair everybody went to ?
• the book that Bill promised he would tell
  John to remember to give ? to Mary

Note how similar this is to questions.
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Relative clauses (2)

• But not everything is possible. We cannot lift
  a noun phrase just from anywhere. These are
  examples of incorrect lifting.
• the book John gave ? and the golden
  magic ring to Mary
• the book I read a note that John gave ? to
  Mary
• Relative clauses are hard to analyze, especially
  if we want to reject such incorrect structures.
  Not to worry we will manage, at least partially.
  Stay tuned.