CONCEPTOS MORFO

*NICE properties: NICE is an acronym for the four syntactic characteristics that
distinguish auxiliary verbs from lexical verbs in English Grammar. Negation: the negation
can never follow a lexical verb, but yes after an auxiliary by adding a negative word. “I do
not like that”. Inversion: auxiliary verbs admit subject-verb inversion. “Will you marry me?”
Code: pro-forms can be supplied by auxiliary verbs to avoid repetition. She loves eating
and so does he. Emphatic affirmation: we can use auxiliary verbs to express emphasis to
the sentence. “I do learn in high school”

*Stative and dynamic adjectives Tall y careful.

ON MORPHOLOGY:

Morph: It is a word segment that represents one morpheme in sound or writing. For
example, the word infamous is made up of three morphs: -in, -fam(e), -eous, each of
which represents one morpheme. A morph that can stand alone as a word is called a
free morph. A morph that can’t stand alone as a word is called a bound morph; the
endings -er (as in bigger), -ed (as in walked), and –s (as in homes) are bound morphs
(affixes). While a morpheme is an abstract unit of meaning a morph is a formal unit with a
physical shape.

Morpheme: It is a meaningful linguistic unit consisting of a word or a word element. It

can’t be divided into smaller meaningful parts. They are classified as either free
morphemes or bound morphemes. Ex: Bird, play, dance, -ing.

Complementary distribution: Is the mutually exclusive relationship between two

different elements of the same kind. It exists when one element occurs in an
environment where the other element never occurs. Two different word forms
(allomorphs) can actually be different “faces” of one and the same word (morpheme).
Examples of complementary distribution are the exclusive relationship between Paris and
Parisian, or part and partial.

Base morph: A base is any form to which affixes of any kind can be added to create new
words. For example, touchable can act as a base for prefixation to give untouchable...”

Allomorph: Different ways in which a morpheme can be detected. They are

environmentally restricted, they cannot be thrilly used. They have complementary
distribution. Ex: partial/part.

Free morphs: Morphs that are free because of their capacity of distribution. They can
stand by themselves because they have communicative value on their own. Ex: Boy,
gas, stop...
Bound morphs: They have a meaning, but they don’t have a communicative value on
their own, they have to be attached to something else. EX: -er,-ly,-dom, -ee, as in
happily.

Component morphs: They have meaning, but it can only be identified through
diachrony. EX: sent-, in Sentiment, sentimental, sentimentalism.

Inflectional morpheme: It is an affix that is added to a word to assign a particular

grammatical property to that word. Inflectional morphemes serve as grammatical
markers that indicate tense, number, possession, or comparison. Unlike derivational
morphemes, inflectional morphemes do not change the part of the speech of a word
and they obey morphosyntactic rules. Moreover, they block the expansion of words.
EX: -ing, 3rd person, -ed past...

Derivational morpheme: It is an affix that’s added to a word to create a new word or a

new form of a word. Derivational morphemes can change the part of the speech of a
word. They have morphological characteristics. Moreover, there are no syntactical rules
that force to use of a specific derivational ending. EX: {neighbour}NOUN + {-hood}:
neighbourhood NOUN.

Lexeme: an abstract unit embracing all the possible forms with specific grammatical
information which conform its verbal system or paradigm. For example, BARK: It’s
compound by at least three. A) of the dog B) the rough surroundings of trees C) related to
shipping.

Grammar category: They are abstractions, groups of elements that seem to behave in
the same way (phonological, syntactical, pragmatic level…). EX: number, aspect, tense...

Homonymy: Homonymy indicates formal identities between lexemes. The lexemes

coincide in form but differ in meaning. EX: Mary can open the can (each “can” have a
different meaning, the first one is possibility and the second is an object).

Clitic: It is a morpheme that has syntactic characteristics of a word, but depends

phonologically on another word or phrase. In this sense, it is syntactically independent
but phonologically dependent. They can belong to any grammatical category, although
they are commonly pronouns and, determiners or prepositions. EX: In "what's
happening?" the "s" in "what's" is a clitic.

Bending/ Portmanteau morph: It is a linguistic blend of words or combination of the

parts of two words, usually the beginning of one word and the end of another. A
portmanteau word fuses both the sounds and the meanings of its components. EX:
BRUNCH: breakfast + lunch, SMOGE: smoke + fog.

Compounding: This is the term applied to the process by means of which at least two
words (which are usually free bases) are put together to form a new word. It is one of the
most productive processes in English word formation. Compound words cannot
separate, they obey that the words have internal stability. EX: silverfish, blackbird.

Syncretism: identical forms within the same lexeme, a specific form of linguistic
homophony. Indicates identity in form within the same lexeme. For example, buy. I buy,
you buy, we buy... Identical forms that belong to the same lexeme.

Acronymy: Process in which a lexical item is formed from the initial letters or sounds of a
series of words. They can be pure acronyms (UNESCO), Hybrids (VAT) or
Abbreviations (BBC).

Back derivation: is the reverse process of derivation (“hence back derivation”). When we
attach a morpheme to a base morpheme what we get is a more complex lexical item
from a simple one. EX: A / A (king) + B (dom) = AB (KINGDOM), which is the normal
process.

Back-formation: is the process that occurs the other way round. The simpler element is
the resulting form that departs from a more complex one. EX: CD / C – D = C. For
instance, (50) Television → {Televise} + {ion}.

ON SENTENCE:

*Competence: Speaker and hearer’s knowledge that native speakers have of their own
language (something abstract).

*Utterance: individual speech production at any given moment/ time/ place (something
more tangible).

*Sentence: It is a linguistic unit consisting of one or more words that are grammatically
linked. A sentence can include words grouped meaningfully to express a statement,
question, exclamation, request, command or suggestion. A sentence is a set of words
that in principle tells a complete thought; thus it may be a simple phrase, but it conveys
enough meaning to imply a clause, even if it is not explicit. EX: I like cheese.

*Clause: It is a group of words containing a subject and a predicate and forming part of a
compound or complex sentence.

*Sentence elements: The elements of a sentence are traditionally classified in terms of

their forms or functions.

*Simple sentence: It is a sentence with only one independent clause that does not have
another clause functioning as one of its elements. However, a simple sentence may have a
clause functioning within a phrase.
*Complex sentence: It is a sentence that contains an independent clause and at least
one dependent clause. It is regarded as one of the four basic sentence structures in
English along with the simple sentence.

* Function: Internal relation kept between words in respect of one element. Ex: Subject,
object.

Adjunct: A structure that is adjunctoing to the sentence structure, not separated by

means of commas or pauses. They indicate time, space, manner, purpose... Normally
appear at the end, or in the beginning or bt the auxiliary verb and the lexical word. EX: I’ll
see you there.

Disjunct: A subtype of adverb that is disjunct or separated from the sentence structure.
They are important because through them you can feel the presence of the speaker. EX:
“Frankly, you are wrong.”

Conjunct: They conjoying and cohesive ideas. They are separated from the rest of the
sentence and are not required by any verb. Ex: For instance, Nevertheless, On the one
hand.

Pro-form: A proform is an anaphoric (refers back to a previous element) form that is

understood to repeat the context of a previous word or phrase word by replacing it, and it
is used to avoid repetition. / Element with a replacive function. Ex: there, then, so.

Lexical verbs: they carry the lexico-semantic meaning of the sentence, and they can
appear on their own as the main verb. They also normally appear in different tenses or
paradigms (present tense, past participle, infinitive, gerund...) EX: I like cheese.

Auxiliary verbs: They have a set of syntactic properties that are exclusive to them.
(NICE properties) They cannot be the main verb of the sentence, they just make
contributions in term of aspect, move, voice, tense, tone... Ex: I have eaten cheese.

Operator: The operator is the first auxiliary verb that appears in the sentence. The nice
property must be assigned to the operator, without counting the number of the auxiliary
verbs that appear in the sentence. Ex: This building may have been being built.

Complex transitive verb: It requires two completing structures, an object, and a

complement. The complement is predicated on the object, go back to it. There is a co-
reference between the object and the complement. Ex: I consider him a fool.

Stative verbs: They reject imperative and progressive construction. Ex: I think that
you’re nuts.

Non-stative verbs: They accept imperative and progressive constructions. Ex: She is
being considered for the post.
*Aspect: is the different ways of viewing the internal temporal constituency of a
situation” Ex: Progressive aspect and perfect aspect.

Epistemic feature of modal auxiliaries: The modals that do not primarily involve human
control of events, but do typically involve human judgment of what is or is not likely to
happen. Ex: That must be my husband.

Deontic feature of modal auxiliaries: These modals involve some kind of intrinsic
human control over events. Ex: You must be more careful.

Predicative position: They predicate something of something else. They are not included
in a noun phrase. Normally they appear after copulative verbs and in complex transitive
constructions. She made me happy.

Attributive position: The adjective is right before the head, so the adjective belongs to a
noun phrase. The adjective appears in a prenominal position, right before the head of
the noun phrase. The big boat is here.

Postpositive position: There are other adjectives that are in a minor position. When the
adjective is situated after the noun phrase. You cannot postpone an adjective at random,
there must be a reason. They end up clarifying some meaning. She was somewhere
unknown.

Central adjective: There are adjectives that can occupy both positions, attributive and
predicative. There is no degree in the semantic reading of the sentence or the adjective.
The adjective does not change its meaning, nor the sentence either. Ex: The
organization made ruthless demands. Their demands were ruthless.

Peripheral adjective: Either attributive or predicative functioning and semantic change.

Ex: The main reason *The reason is main. She is an old friend ≠ My friend is old.

Transitive verbs: all of them have at least one object. EX: I found the key.

Monotransitive verbs: those verbs which have one completing structure, an object. EX:
“I quick the ball”.

Ditransitive: those verbs which have two different completing structures that are no
related between them, two objects. EX: “I give you an apple” .

Adjunctive transitive verbs: because one of the completing structure apart from the
object, we have an adverbial, an adjunct. EX: “I put the book on the table” = “put”
requires the location where that element has to be found.

Copulative verbs: It does not require an object but another completing structure linked to
the subject, a complement. The difference with the monotransitive is that the object
refers back to the subject. Whereas monotransitive verbs don’t have relationship. EX: I am
famous.

Adjunctive verbs: it requires just an adverbial, an adjunct. EX: “She lives in Paris”.

- Finite clause: must contain a verb that shows tense. They can be the main clause or a
subordinate clause.

- Non-finite clause: contain a verb that doesn't show tense. Only in a subordinate clause
(usually). The subject is the same as the subject in the main clause. For example: "I had
something to eat before leaving" or "After having spent six hours at the hospital...". Los
verbos "had ... to eat" or "having spent" don't indicate a specific time in the clause.