CHAPTER 2: SENTENCE STRUCTURE – FUNCTIONS

We went through this part quite quickly in class, so for revision, please complete the summary
below (some words may be used more than once):

category centre complement head modifier

obligatory one one-way optional predicate

sisters subject two-way

Constituents have their function in respect of their _____________.

Functional relation between ___________:

- 2 most common ICs in a sentence: ___________ and ___________. The relation

between them is __________ dependency.

- Modification: _____________ dependency between a ___________ and its

___________. The ___________ depends on the ___________ and is ___________ .
The head is ___________.

- Complementation: _____________ dependency between a ___________ and its

___________. The ___________ and the ___________ are both ___________.

- The head is the ___________ ___________ of a phrase. There is only ___________

head in one phrase. The ___________ of the head determines the ___________ of the
phrase.

CHAPTER 3: CATEGORIES

1. First, make a distinction between lexcial categories and phrasal categories. Lexical categories
are N, V, A, Adv, P. What are their corresponding phrasal categories?

If you want to know more about each of these categories, read more in the book, pp. 45-55. We
won’t explain these categories in details in class but focus on the phrase markers of AP, AdvP
and PP.

2. Now let’s try to draw some basic phrase markers for these phrases: You start at the top with a
phrasal category. This node, if possible, branches into its immediate constituents. Each
constituent is then labeled with either a lexcial category (if it can’t be analyzed anymore) or a
phrasal category that can be further analyzed.
a. delicious b. very delicious c. surprisingly

d. surprisingly delicious e. obviously artificial f. more obviously artificial

g. in the future h. now

3. Co-ordinate phrases (p.55-58).

- How is a co-ordinate phrase different from an ordinary phrase?

- How many heads are there in a co-ordinate phrase?

- What are the immediate constituents of a co-ordinate phrase? Are there any conditions that
must be met to have a grammatical co-ordinate phrase?

Look at examples [31] – [37] (p.57). Pick out the grammatical co-ordinate phrases and then
draw the phrase markers for these phrases.

CHAPTER 4: THE BASIC VERB PHRASE

Read pp.65-67 and answer the following questions.

1. What are some elements in a full VP?

2. How are lexical verbs sub-categorized?

There are 6 sub-categories of lexical verbs. Now please read pp.68-77 and take notes of these
sub-categories:

- the name of sub-category

- whether complements are required

- the number of complements required

- the function and phrasal category of the complement

- how to represent basic VPs with phrase markers for each sub-category.