Chapter 3: Verbs and the verb phrase

3.1 Types of verbs: according to the function

Lexical verbs: for example: walk, talk, play

Auxiliary Verbs:

a) Primary: do have

b) Modal: can, may, shall, must, need

3.2 Verbal forms and the verb phrase

There are 5 forms: the base, the –s, the past, the –ing participle and the –ed participle.

Example Symbol Form Function

call V base a) Present
tense,
except 3rd
person
b) Imperative
c) Subjunctive
d) The bare
infinitive: he
may call.
rd
calls V-s -s form 3 person singular
present tense
called V-ed past Past tense
Calling V-ing -ing participle a) Progressive
aspect: be
+ing
b) In –ing
participle
clauses:
calling early,
I found her
at home.
called V-ed participle -ed participle a) Perfective
aspect: have
+ed
b) Passive voice
c) In –ed
participle
clauses.

3.3 Morphology of lexica verbs

There are two heads: regular and irregular

The differ in the –ed form.

Regular lexical verbs: we can predict the other forms if we know the base of such verb.

There are certain pronunciation rules.

The treatment of the –y: in bases ending in –y the y is replaced by an I

In bases ending in –ie, this is replaces by a y before the –ing inflection.

Deletion of –e

Final –e is regularly dropped before the –ing and –ed inflections

Ex: shave shaving shaved

Exceptions: -ee; -ye; -oe; -ge

Irregular lexical verbs

a) They either don’t have a d or t inflection.

b) They tipically have variation in their base vowel
c) They have a varying number of distinct forms

 The V-ed (past) is identical with V-ed (participle). Suffixation is used but voicing is
variable, there is vowel identity in all the parts:

Ex: burn- burnt

Bend- bent

 Change of the base vowel:

Ex: Bereave- bereft

Beseech-besought

Lose- lost

 All three parts V, V-ed (past) and V-ed (part) are identical, but no suffic or change of
the badse vowel:

Ex: Bet

Shut

 They are identical, no suffixation and with change of base vowel:

Ex: bleed-bled

Find-found

 V-ed (past) is regular and V-ed (part) has two forms one regular and the other nasal.

Ex: V V-ed (past) V-ed (part)

Saw sawed sawn

 V-ed (past) and V-ed (part) are irregular, the latter always suffixed and usually with –
en. There are variations.
Ex: V V-ed (past) V-ed (part)

Break broke broken

Bear bore borne

Bite bit bitten

Fall fell fallen

 Both are irregular; there is no suffixation but there is always some vowel change.

Ex: V V-ed (past) V-ed (part)

Begin began begun

The auxiliaries: do, have and be

Do

It has two forms, present and past, it can be non-negative (do or did), uncontracted negative
or contracted. These last three forms are for every auxiliary.

Have

The forms are: base form (have or ´ve), the –s form, past, -ing form and –ed participle.

Be

It has a base form (be)

Present: 1st, 2nd and 3rd person singular and plural.

Past: 1st, 2nd and 3rd person singular and plural.

-ing form

-ed participle

The modal auxiliaries: can, could, may, might, shall, should, will, would, must, ought to, used
to, need and dare.

Marginal modal auxiliaries: Used always take the to-infinitive and occurs in the past tense.

Dare and need can be constructed either as modal auxiliaries (with bare inf and with no
inflected –s form) or the lexical verbs (with to-inf and with inflected –s form). The lexical verb
construction is far more common.

Modal auxiliary construction: He needn’t go now

Lexical verb construction: he doesn’t need to go now.

3.23 Finite and non-finite verb phrases

a) Finite verb phrases have tense distinction

He studies/studied English
 b) Finite verb phrases occur as the verb element of a clause. There is person and number
concord betqeen the subject and the finite verb.
I +am You/we/they +are He/she/it +is
With most lexical verbs concord is restricted to a contrast between 3 rd and non 3rd
person singular present.

He reads/ They read the paper every morning

With the modal auxiliaries there is no concord:

I/you/he can play the cello

c) Finite verbs have mood. Subjunctive, imperative and indicative.

d) The non-finite forms of the verb are the inf, the –ing participle and the –ed participle.
Nonfinite verb phrases consist of one or more such items.

Finite verb phrases:

o he smokes heavily
o He is working

Nonfinite verb phrases:

o to smoke like that must be dangerous

o I found him working

3.24 The modal, perfective, progressive and passive auxiliaries follow a strict order in the
complex verb phrase:

1) Modal, it is always followed by an inf

o He would visit

2) Perfective, followed by an –ed form

o He had visited
o He would have visited

3) Progressive, always followed by an –ing form

o He was visiting
o He would have been visiting

4) Passive, always followed by an –ed form

o He was visited
o He would have been visited

Types of contrast that are expressed in the verb phrase: Apart from mood, tense, aspect there
is a verb-phrase contrast.

a) Voice, involving the active passive relation

o A doctor will examine the patients
The patients will be examined
b) Questions, they require subject movement and they involve the use of an aux as
operator.
 o John sang
Did john sing?
c) Negation makes analogous use of operators
o John sang
John didn’t sing
d) Emphasis
o John DID sing
e) Imperatives
o Don’t you go yet
o Go home

3.26 Tense, aspect and mood

Tense: correspondence between the form of the verb and concept of time

Aspect: the manner in which the verbal action is experienced or regarded

Mood: relates the verbal action to such conditions as certainty, obligation, necessity, and
possibility.

Present

Present

Types of present:

1) Timeless, simple present

2) Limited, expressed with the present progressive
3) Instantaneous, with either simple or the progressive form

Past

The past tense can mean: That the action is taken place at a particular point of time or over a
period, this period may be extending up to the present or relating to the past. If it is relating to
the past it may have been completed or not.
Past and the perfective

The choice of the perfective aspect is associated with time orientation and consequently also
with various time-indicators (lately, since, so far).

Ex: Adverbials with simple past: referring to a period in the past

I worked yesterday

Adverbials with present perfect: referring to a period beginning in the past and stretching up
the present.

Ex: I have worked since last January

Adverbials with either simple past or perfect

I have worked/worked today/for an hour

3.32 Indifinite and definite

The perfective has an indefiniteness which makes it an appropriate verbal expression for
introducing a topic of discourse. As the topic narrows, the definiteness is marked by the simple
past.

o He says that he has seen a meteor at some time

o He says that he saw the meteor last night

Past perfect

Same rules for the perfect tense and taking into account that the point of relevance to which
the past perfect extends is a point in the past.

Past and the progressive

As with the present, the progressive when used with the past specifies the limited duration of
an action:

Ex: I was writing with a special pen for a period last night but my hand grew tired.

It indicates a time span within which another event:

While I was writing, the phone rang

It has the ability to express incomplete action with the progressive is illustrated by the
contrasting pair:

He read a book that evening

He was reading a book that evening

Habitual activity expressed by the progressive:

At that time, we were bathing every day

The perfect progressive

Limited duration or incompleteness and current relevance or it also expresses an specially

recent activity, the adverb just is very common in these cases.
3.35 Verbal meaning and the progressive

The progressive only applies to dynamic verbs. These verbs fall into five classes while the
stative verbs in two classes.

Dynamic:

1) Activity verbs: abandon, say, throw, work

2) Process verbs: change, grow, mature
3) Verbs of bodily sensation: ache, feel, hurt
4) Transitional event verbs: arrive, die, fall, land
5) Momentary verbs: hit, jump, tap

Stative:

1) Verbs of inert perception and cognition: adore, hear, imagine, love, realize, know
2) Relational verbs: apply to, belong to, deserve, cost, owe, own, sound, seem.

The future

Will and shall + inf

Be going to + inf

 The “going to” denotes future fulfilment of the present. Future of present intention:
When are you going to get married?
 The other meaning is future of present cause:
She’s going to have a baby.

Present progressive

This refers to a future happening anticipated in the present (fixed arrangement, plan or
programme), the adverbials are useful to denote the time.

Simple present

Used in subordinate that are conditional or temporal, it may represent unusual certainty or to
talk about fixtures: When is the football match?

Will/shall + progressive

This can denote a future as a matter of course: will/shall + be + ing.

It avoids the volition or insistence

Ex: He´ll do his best

He will be doing his best

Be to + inf

This expresses arrangement, command or contingent future.

Be about to + inf

It expresses near future, or imminent fulfilment.

3.44 Future time in the past

The same structures can be used in the past when seen from a past viewpoint.

1) Aux verb construction with would

2) Be going to +inf: we were going to give you our address
3) Past progressive: I was meeting him in Buenos Aires
4) Be to + inf: used for something arranged
5) Be about to: he was about to hit me

3.45 Mood

Mood: expressed in English to a minor extent by the subjunctive

Ex: So be it then!

3.46 The subjunctive

There are three categories:

a) The mandative subjunctive in that clauses has only one form, the base (V)
b) The formulaic subjunctive also consists of the base (V) but is only used in clauses in
certain set expressions which have to be learnes as wholes
o God save the queen
o Heaven forbid
o Suffice it to say that…
c) The subjunctive were is hypothetical in meaning and Is used in conditional clauses and
subordinate clauses after optative verbs like wish.

Modal past

In closed or unreal conditions involving all other verbs than be, it is the past tense that conveys
impossibility: I wondered if you would like a drink.

3.48 The uses of modal auxiliaries

Can:

1) Ability
2) Permission
3) Theorical possibility
o The road can be blocked

Could:

1) Past ability
2) Present or future permission
3) Present possibility
4) Contingent possibility or ability in unreal conditions.

May/ might:

1) Permission
2) Possibility

Shall:
 1) Willingness
2) Intention on the part of the speaker
3) Insistence

Should:

1) Obligation and logical necessity

2) Putative: it is odd that you should say this to me
3) Contingent use: we should love to go abroad
4) In rather formal real conditions: if you should change your mind, please let me know.

Will:

1) Willingness, polite requests

2) Intention
3) Insistence
4) Prediction

Would:

1) Willingness
2) Insistence
3) Characteristic activity in the past
4) Contingent use in the main clause of a conditional sentence
5) Probability

Must:

1) Obligation
2) Logical necessity

Ought to: Obligation, logical necessity and expectation.

Tense of the modals:

3.55 The modals and aspect:

The perfective and progressive aspects are excluded when the modal expresses ability or
permission or when shall/will express volition.
The other aspects we have among modals are: a) possibility b) necessity c) prediction

Chapter 4: Quirk

Nouns, Pronouns and the basic noun phrase

4.1 Basic noun phrase

It tipically functions as subject, object and complement of sentences and as a complement in

prepositional phrases.

4.2 Noun clauses

Los asteriscos son usos no aceptados.

1) Proper Nouns
2) 3) 4) Common nouns
a) Count nouns 2)
b) Non count nouns 3)
c) The ones that combine both characteristics 4)

4.5 Determiners

Determiner Singular Plural Count Non count

The/ Possesives    
Some/any
No
Zero article   
Some/any
unstressed
Enough
This/that   
A/an 
Every
Each
Either/neither
These/those 
much 
4.6 Closed system premodifiers

They occur before the head of the noun phrase. These form three classes: predeterminers,
ordinals and quantifiers.

Predeteminers:

All, both, half: these only occur before articles or demonstratives but since they are
themselves quantifiers, they do not occur with quantitive determiners.

All, both and half have the of-construction (optional with nouns and obligatory with personal
pronouns):

o All the meat or all of the meat

o All of it

All and both: can be after the head

o The students all passed their exams.

Double, twice, three/four…. Times

The second type of predeterminer includes double, twice, three times occur with non-count
and plural count nouns and with singular count nouns that denote number.

The fractions one third, two fifths used with non-count and singular and plural nouns can also
be followed by determiners.

Cardinal numerals

All numerals co-occur with plural count nouns. Exception: one

Ordinal numerals and general ordinals

Ordinal numerals co-occur only with count nouns. Exception: first. All ordinals usually precede
any cardinal numbers in the noun phrase.

Quantifiers:

Two groups of closed-system quantifiers

1) Many, (a) few and several: plural count nouns

2) Much and (a) little: non-count nouns

There is another group of phrasal quantifiers that can occur with both non-count and plural
count nouns: plenty of, a lot, of, lots of.

Others are restricted to non-count nouns: great, good (deal of) large, small (quantity or
amount of).

Or to plural count nouns: great, large, good + noun

Other phrasal quantifiers:

1) General partitives: two pieces of information

2) Typical partitives: a slice of cake
3) Measures: a pint of beer

4.16 Reference and the articles

Specific/generic reference

o A lion and two tigers are sleeping in the cage : SPECIFIC

o Tigers are dangerous animals : GENERIC

With non-count nouns only the zero article is possible: Music can be soothing

4.17 Systems of article usage

Generic reference

- Nationality words and adjectives as head

a) Plural personal
b) Singular non-personal abstract
Non-count and plural count nouns

When they have generic reference, both concrete and abstract non-count nouns, usually also
plural count nouns, are used with the zero article.

4.20 Specific reference

Indefinite and definite: there is a correspondence between aspect and reference in respect of
generic and specific.

Common nouns with zero article: There are a number of count nouns that take the zero article
in abstract or rather specialized use in idiomatic expressions.

Ex: go into/take a look at…the school

1) Institutions (often with at, in, to)

2) Means of transport (with by)
3) Times of the day and night (particularly with at, by, after, before)
4) Meals
5) Illnesses
6) Parallel structures

Article usage with common nouns in intensive relation

English requires the definite or indefinite article with the count noun complement.

1) Intensive complementation
2) Complex transitive
3) Complex transitive

The complement of turn and go, however, has zero article.

If it is a reference it requires the definite article: John became the genius of the family.

Unique reference

Proper nouns: they are don’t share the same characteristics of common nouns as article
contrast. But when the names have restrictive modification to give a partitive meaning to the
name, proper nouns take the definite article.

1) Personal names: with or without appositive titles: Dr Watson, Lady Churchill.

2) Calendar items: names of festivals, names of months and days of the week
3) Geographical names: names of continents, countries, cities and towns, lakes,
mountains.
4) Name + common noun

Proper nouns with definite article: the difference between an ordinary common noun and a
common noun turned name is that the unique

Proper nouns which retain the phrasal definite article:

a) Without modification: The guardian

b) With premodification: the Washington Post
c) With post modification: the House of commons
d) Ellipted elements: The Tate (gallery)
These proper nouns are used with the definite article:

1) Plural names: The Netherlands

2) Geographical names: The pacific (ocean)
3) Public institutions, facilities: The Globe
4) Newspapers: the Economist

Number: invariable nouns

The English number system comprises singular which denotes one and plural denotes more
than one.

Count nouns are VARIABLE (singular and plural number) or have INVARIABLE plural.

Invariable nouns ending in –s

a) News: the news is bad today

b) Some diseases
c) Subject names in –ics
d) Some games: checkers
e) Some proper nouns: Brussels

Plural invariable nouns

Summation plurals: countability can be imposed by means of a pair of, pairs of.

Variable nouns: regular plurals: variable nouns have two forms, singular and plural, the
singular being the form listen in dictionaries.

a) Treatment of –y
Beside the regular spy: spies
With proper nouns: the Kennedys
b) Nouns of unusual form sometimes pluralize in `s
c) Nouns in –o have plural in –os, with some exceptions having either optional or
obligatory –ces

Compounds:

a) Plural in first element: attorney general: attorneys general

b) Plural in both fist and last element: woman doctor: women doctors
c) Plural in last element: assistant doctor: assistant directors.

Irregular plurals: they are by definition unpredictable and have to be learned as individual
items.

Mutation: mutation involves a change of vowel in the following seven nouns: foot: feet

The –en plural: the child: children

Zero plural:

Some nouns have the same spoken and written form in both singular and plural. Invariable
nouns are either singular (this music is too loud) or plural (all the cattle are grazing in the field).
Zero plural nouns can be both sing or plural (this sheep looks small; all those sheep are mine):
 - Animal names
- Quantitive nouns
- Nouns in –(e) s
- Foreign plurals
- Nouns in –us (latin)
- Nouns in –a (latin)
- Nouns in –um; -ex, -ix (latin)
- Nouns in –is; -on (greek)
- French nouns or in Italian -o
- Hebrew nouns

Gender:

Personal masculine or feminine nouns:

Type 1: has no overt marking that suggests correspondence between marc or fem

Type 2: derivational relationship

Personal dual gender: artist, fool, musician.

Common gender: intermediate between personal and non-personal.

Collective nouns: these differ from other nouns in taking as pronoun substitutes either singular
or plural without change of number in the noun.

a) Specific: army, class

b) Generic: the aristocracy
c) Unique: the Arab league
Case:

Common/genitive case: the common case is like “boy” and the marked genitive case is “boy`s”

The forms of the genitive inflection: the –s genitive of regular nouns is realized in speech only
in the singular.

Meanings of the genitives:

a) Possessive genitive
b) Subjective genitive
c) Objective genitive
d) Genitive of origin
e) Descriptive genitive
f) Genitive of measure and partitive genitive
g) Appositive genitive

The choice of genitives –s

a) Personal names: George Washington’s statue

b) Personal nouns
c) Collective nouns
d) Higher nouns

The group genitive: it is used with such post modifications as in someone else´s house.

The genitive with ellipsis: my car is faster than John´s (than john`s car)

Double genitive: an -of genitive can be combined with an –s genitive in a construction called
the double genitive. The noun with the –s genitive inflection must be definite and personal.

Ex: an opera of Verdi`s

Pronouns:

Characteristics that distinguish them from nouns:

1) They do not admit determiners

2) They often have an objective case
3) They often have person distinction
4) They often have overt gender contrast
5) Singular and plural forms are often not morphologically related
Case: Common (somebody) and genitive (somebody´s)

Common case is replaced by subjective and objective

Subjective: I/we/he/they: who

Objective: me/us/his/them: who (m)

Genitive: my/our/his/their: whose

Person: personal, possessive and reflexive pronouns have distinctions in person.

Gender: in 3rd person singular, the personal, reflexive and possessive pronouns distinguish in
gender between masculine (he, him, himself and his) with the feminine ones and non-personal
(it, itself, its).

Number: the 2nd person uses a common form for singular and plural in the personal and
possessive series but has a separate plural in the reflexive (yourself, yourselves)

Personal pronouns: they usually precede clauses, when a subordinate clause precedes the
main clause, it may anticipate its determining to the bank.

The objective forms are used as objects as a prepositional complement.

Reflexive pronouns: They replace a co referential noun phrase, normally within the same finite
verb clause: john has hurt himself

Reciprocal pronouns: they can be used freely used in genitive

The students borrowed each other´s notes.

Possessive pronouns: they combine functions with pronominal functions. In the latter respect
the co referential item they replace may be in the same clause or a neighboring one.

Relative pronouns:

a) The wh questions reflects the gender

- Personal: who, whom, whose
 - Non-personal: which, whose
b) That is a general purpose relative pronoun
c) Zero is used identically to that.

Interrogative pronouns: they are identical in case and form relations with relative pronouns.

a) Interrogative determiners
b) Interrogative pronouns:
-personal
-non personal
-personal and non-personal

Demonstrative pronouns: they have number contrast and can function both as determiners
and pronouns. The general meaning of the two sets can be stated as near and distant
reference: this, that, these, those.

Universal pronouns and determiners: each, all, every and the every compounds (everybody,
etc).

Partitive pronouns: some/any/none combinations with body, thing, where.

Nonassertive usage: using any or nonassertive forms:

 a) Negatives: not, never, no, neither, nor
b) Incomplete negatives: hardly, little, few, least, seldom, etc
c) Implied negatives: before, fail, prevent, hard and too
d) Questions and conditions.

Quantifiers: their use is in respect of the count and non-count reference: many, much, few,
little, several, and enough.

Numerals: the uses of one: 1) numerical one 2) replacive one to substitute an anaphoric
substitute for a singular or plural count noun. 3) Indefinite one means people in general.

Cardinals and ordinals: They can both function as premodifiers or pronominally /they are
preceded by an article)

Chapter 2: Morphology: the study of the structure of words

Words must be classed into at least two categories: simple and complex. A simple word such
as tree seems to be a minimal unit; there seems to be no way to analyze it, or break it down
further, into meaningful parts. On the other hand, the word trees is made up of two parts: the
noun tree and the plural ending, spelled -s in this case.

The basic parts of a complex word—that is, the different building blocks that make it up—are
called morphemes.

Trees is made up a of base morpheme: tree and a plural morpheme: -s

Morphemes are categorized into two classes: free morphemes and bound morphemes. A free
morpheme can stand alone as an independent word in a phrase. A bound morpheme cannot
stand alone but must be attached to another morpheme.

Certain bound morphemes are known as affixes (e.g., -s), others as bound base morphemes
(e.g., cran-). Affixes are referred to as prefixes when they are attached to the beginning of
another morpheme (like re- in words such as redo, rewrite, rethink) and as suffixes when they
are attached to the end of another morpheme (like -ize in words such as modernize, equalize,
centralize). The morpheme to which an affix is attached is the base (or stem) morpheme. A
base morpheme may be free (like tree; tree is thus both a free morpheme and a free base) or
bound (like cran-).

Parts of Speech

Each word belongs to a category.

1) Nouns
 2) Verbs
3) Adjectives
4) Adverbs
5) Prepositions

Open- versus Closed-Class Words

The open-class words are those belonging to the major part-of-speech classes (nouns, verbs,
adjectives, and adverbs). The closed class words are the function words. They have a
grammatical function: Function words in English include conjunctions (and, or), articles (the, a),
demonstratives (this, that), quantifiers (all, most, some, few), and prepositions (to, from, at,
with).

Neologisms: First, new words can be added, and the meaning of already existing words can be
changed. Second, new words can enter a language through the recombining of existing
morphemes (called derivational morphology.)

Coined Words: Entirely new, the two components of words (sound and meaning), speakers
coin a new word by inventing a new sound sequence and pairing it with a new meaning

Acronyms: The words radar and laser are acronyms. In acronym formation the first letter (or
letters) of a sequence of words is (are) used to spell a new word.

Alphabetic abbreviations: CD, ER, PC.

Clippings: ‘‘Clipped’’ abbreviations such as prof for professor and photo op for photographic
opportunity are now in common use.

There are also orthographic abbreviations such as Dr. (doctor), Mr. (misTer), AZ (Arizona), and
MB (megabyte), where the spelling of a word has been shortened but its pronunciation is not
(necessarily) altered.

Blends New words can also be formed from existing ones by various blending processes: for
example, camcorder (from camera and recorder), infomercial (from information and
commercial).

Generified Words: The words kleenex and xerox illustrate another technique for creating new
words, namely, using specific brand names.

Proper Nouns: People´s names to represent something. Ex: guillotine (an instrument of
execution) was named after its inventor, Dr. Joseph Guillotin.

Borrowings: Direct: Yet another way to expand our vocabulary is to ‘‘borrow’’ words from
other languages. Speakers of English aggressively borrow words from other languages. We
have kindergarten (German), croissant (French), aloha (Hawaiian), and sushi (Japanese).

Borrowings: Indirect: An interesting type of borrowing occurs when an expression in one

language is translated literally into another language.

Changing the Meaning of Words: A new meaning can become associated with an existing
word

Change in Part of Speech: A word can be modified by changing its category. For example, the
nouns Houdini, porch, ponytail, and people can be used as verbs: to Houdini one’s way out of a
closet, to porch a newspaper, to ponytail her hair, and to people an island.
Metaphorical Extension Metaphorical: extension is another way in which the meaning of an
existing word is modified, thus resulting in new uses. When a language does not seem to have
just the right expression for certain purposes, speakers often take an existing one and extend
its meaning in a recognizable way

Broadening Metaphorical: extension is not the only mechanism by which already existing
words can be put to new uses. Sometimes the use of existing words can become broader. For
example, the slang word cool was for a style in jazz and now it has a different meaning.

Narrowing: The use of a word can narrow as well. A typical example is the word meat

Semantic Drift: Over time the meanings of words can change, or drift.

Reversal: Finally, reversals of meaning can occur. In certain varieties of American slang, the
word bad has come to have positive connotations, with roughly the meaning ‘‘emphatically
good.’

Compounds and Compounding

In English (as in many other languages) new words can be formed from already existing words
by a process known as compounding, in which individual words are ‘‘joined together’’ to form
a compound word. Often, the hyphen is used when a compound has been newly created or is
not widely used. When a compound has gained a certain currency or permanence, it is often
spelled closed up, without the hyphen.

The Agentive Suffix -er

Agentive nouns are formed by adding the suffix -er to a verb.

The Suffix –able

The suffixx -able also introduces a new element of meaning, roughly ‘‘able to be X’d,’’ where X
is the meaning of the verb. For example, breakable means roughly ‘‘able to be broken,’’
movable means ‘‘able to be moved,’’ and so on. CATEGORY AND SEMANTIC CHANGE.

Transitive verbs like die, go cry, sleep, rest, sit, run ARE NOT TAKING –ABLE the subject of V þ
able is always understood as the object (that which ‘‘undergoes’’ the action) of V. For this
reason, if (at a tennis match) we say Kim isn’t beatable, we mean that no other player can beat
Kim (Kim is understood as the object of beat); we do not mean that Kim is unable to beat other
players.

The Diminutive Suffix -y/-ie: PRAGMATIC CHANGE

It does not change the part of speech of the base (both dad and daddy are nouns); and it
causes no obvious semantic change (in the sense that both dad and daddy denote the same
persons, except that the form daddy is used in baby talk or intimate family contexts).
(Although -y does not cause a semantic change, it does change the context of appropriate use,
which is a pragmatic change.

Backformation: a morphologically simple word is misanalysed. Ex: the nouns peddler (or
pedlar), beggar, hawker, stoker, scavenger, swindler, editor, burglar, and sculptor all existed in
the language before the corresponding verbs to peddle, to beg, to hawk, to stoke, to scavenge,
to swindle, to edit, to burgle, and to sculpt. Each of these nouns denoted a general profession
or activity, and speakers simply assumed that the sound at the end of each one was the
agentive suffix -er. Having made this (mistaken) assumption, speakers could then subtract the
final -er and arrive at a new verb.

Noun inflectional suffixes

a) Plural marker -s
b) Possessive marker ’s
Mary–Mary’s

Verb inflectional suffixes

c) Third person present singular marker -s

d) Past tense marker -ed
e) Progressive marker -ing
f) Past participle markers -en or -ed

Adjective inflectional suffixes

g) Comparative marker –er

fast–faster
(She is faster than you)
h) Superlative marker –est
fast–fastest
(She is fastest)

The distinction between inflectional and derivational affixes in English is based on a number of
factors. First, inflectional affixes never change the category (part of speech) of the base
morpheme (the morpheme to which they are attached). Second, inflectional and derivational
suffixes occur in a certain relative order within words: namely, inflectional suffixes follow
derivational suffixes. Third, certain derivational affixes create new members for a given part-
of-speech class, whereas inflectional affixes always attach to already existing members of a
given part-of-speech class. Finally they can be distinguished in terms of semantic relations.

To sum up, then, inflectional affixes indicate certain grammatical functions of words (such as
plurality or tense); they occur in a certain order relative to derivational; and they are not
associated with certain changes that are associated with derivational (such as category
changes or unpredictable meaning changes). Inflectional are often discussed in terms of word
sets called paradigms. For example, the various forms that verbs can take (bake–bakes–baking)
form a set of words known as a verb paradigm.

Problematic aspects of morphological analysis:

Three of these problems in isolating the base of a complex word involve productivity, false
analysis, and bound base morphemes

Types of derivational affixes:

Chapter 3: