Lexical Semantic Categories Most nouns can add a plural –s.

• Nouns- are names of persons, places or things. The possessive ’s only appears on nouns.
• Verbs- are words that express time while showing action, condition,
Suffixes like –er and –ism appear on nouns.
or facts that something exist.
• Adjectives- describe a noun or give a noun or pronoun a more specific Pronouns - The main function of the personal pronoun is to take the place of
meaning. a noun in a sentence.
• Adverbs- modify verbs, adjectives or other adverbs.
- It can be used as a subject or an object (direct, indirect, object of the
• Prepositions- are words that relate a noun or pronoun that appears
preposition) in a text/speech, and can serve as a good way to help
with it to another word in the sentence
you avoid repetition of specific nouns.

Personal pronouns
Grammatical categories
singular plural
• Determiner - is a word that introduces a noun. It always comes
1st person I , Me. My. Mine We, Us, Our, Ours
before a noun, not after, and it also comes before any other
2nd person you, your, yours you, your, yours
adjectives used to describe the noun.

• Auxiliary - functions to help another verb, but does not itself 3rd person he, him, his, she, her, They, them, theirs,
contribute greatly to the meaning of the sentence. hers, it, its their

• Coordinator- are also called coordinating conjunctions.

• Complementizer- are also called subordinating conjunctions or Reflexive and Intensive Pronouns
subordinators.
Singular Plural
st
Lexical – refers to the meaning of the word 1 Myself Ourselves
2nd Yourself Yourselves
Semantic – refers to the denotative meaning 3rd Himself, herself, itself Themselves
Lexical semantic - branch of linguistics that's concerned with the study
of lexical meaning Demonstrative pronoun
Nouns- are names of persons, places or things. Singular Plural
• Syntax This, that These, those

Nouns are often preceded by the, this, that, or a.

Interrogative pronoun
If a noun is followed by another noun, a preposition must come
between them. • what, which, who, whom, whose

• Morphology
Indefinite pronouns – refers to non-specific beings, objects, or places.
Indefinite pronouns can represent either count nouns or noncount nouns.

Verbs- are words that express time while showing action, condition, or facts
that something exist.

• Syntax

Verbs can be introduced by have, be or will.

Verbs can be followed by a noun.

• Morphology Adverbs- modify verbs, adjectives or other adverbs.

Suffixes like –ed on verbs express tense.
Some verbs change their vowels to express tense.
e.g., come ~ came.
Many verbs add an –s in the third person singular.
Adjectives- describe a noun or give a noun or pronoun a more specific
meaning.
- Don’t usually end in -ly
- Describe qualities typical of nouns, such as nationality, color, size,
etc.
- End in –ly in many cases (fast and now are exceptions).
- Describe qualities of verbs: place, manner, time, duration, etc., and
degree of adjectives and adverbs.
Prepositions- are words that relate a noun or pronoun that appears with it to
another word in the sentence
• have invariable form
• occur before a noun or a noun phrase
• often express relations of time or space.
• sometimes have very little referential meaning
 • The standard examples of grammatical functions from
traditional grammar are subject, direct object, and indirect object.

Auxiliaries – function to help another verb, but do not themselves contribute

greatly to the meaning of the sentence.

Determiners - are words that introduce a noun. They always come

before a noun, not after, and they also come before
any other adjectives used to describe the noun.

Coordinator- are also called coordinating conjunctions.

• They can join two verbs, two nouns, two adjectives, two phrases, or
two independent clauses.

• Simply put, they bring ideas together.

FANBOYS – for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so.

Complementizer- are also called subordinating conjunctions or

subordinators.

• join two clauses where one clause is subordinate to the other.

• performs two functions within a sentence. First, it illustrates the

• Grammatical Syntactic- In linguistics, grammatical relations (also importance of the independent clause.
called grammatical functions, grammatical roles, or syntactic • it provides a transition between two ideas in the same sentence. The
functions) are functional relationships between constituents in a transition always indicates a place, time, or cause and
clause. effect relationship.
 • connects an independent clause to a dependent clause. • AdvP

Subordinating Conjunctions: • PP

After Because Now that Until RULES!!!

Although Before Since Whenever
As As if So that When • … are generative.
As if Even if than Where • … give different analyses syntactically ambiguous sentences.
As long Even though Though Wherever
As soon as In order that Till While Noun Phrase (NP)
As though Lest Unless Adjective Phrase (AdjP)
Adverb Phrase (AdvP)
Verb Phrase (VP)
1. The Phrase Prepositional Phrases (PP)
❑ The Noun Phrase (NP)

❑ The Adjective Phrase (AdjP) and Adverb Phrase

(AdvP)

❑ The Verb Phrase (VP)

❑ The Prepositional Phrase (PP)

2. Phrases in the Sentence

3. Coordination of Phrases

4. Finding Phrases

5. Building Trees

Phrase Structure

■ A phrase is a syntactic unit headed by a lexical category such as Noun,

Adjective, Adverb, Verb, or Preposition.

■ Phrases are named for their heads:

• NP

• VP

• AdjP
 GRAMMAR AND OUR KNOWLEDGE OF LANGUAGE

SYNTAX - It refers to the arrangement of words and phrases to create well-

formed sentences in a language.

EXAMPLES:

 On the mat the cat sat.

The cat sat on the mat.

 To the movies we are going.

We are going to the movies.

 While watching a movie, people who text on their phone are very
annoying.

People who text on their phone while watching a movie are very annoying

Morphology- It refers to the study of words, how they are formed, and their
relationship to other words in the same language. It analyzes the structure of
words and parts of words, such as stems, root words, prefixes, and suffixes.

PHONOLOGY - It is the branch of linguistics that deals with systems of sounds

(including or excluding phonetics), within a language or between different
languages.

SEMANTICS - It is the linguistic and philosophical study of meaning in

language, programming languages, formal logic, and semiotics.

AMBIGUITY - It is a type of meaning in which a phrase, statement or

resolution is not explicitly defined, making several interpretations plausible.

DESCRIPTIVE GRAMMAR – describe

PRESPECTIVE GRAMMAR – prescribes