GRAMMAR I

1- What is Grammar?
- Syntax
- Phonetics
- Morphology
- Semantics
 Syntax
1.1- Definition:
* Discipline that examines the rules of a
language that dictate how the various parts of a
sentence go together.
* It looks at how words are formed into
complete sentences.
* NOTE: The way different parts of a sentence are put
together varies between languages and dialects. Each natural
language has its own unique rules for syntax.
 Syntax
1.2- Characteristics:
* a- It is not prescriptivist:
It does not attempt to tell people
what the objectively correct way to
form a sentence is.
 Syntax
1.2- Characteristics:
* b- It is descriptivist:
It looks at how language is actually
used and tries to come up with rules that
successfully describe what various
language communities consider to be
grammatical or non-gramatical.
 Syntax
1.3- Importance:
* a- It helps to facilitate being
understood and understanding language.
* b- Without rules of syntax there would
be no foundation from which to try to
discern meaning from a bunch of words
strung together .
 Syntax
1.3- Importance:
* c- With syntax an infinite number of
sentences are possible using a fairly small
finite number of rules:
 Syntax
1.4- Parts:

*A) Inflection: How the end of a word might

change to tell a listener or reader
something about the role that word is
playing: Bob danced. Bob is dancing.
The boy is sad. The boys are sad.
 Syntax
1.4- Parts:

* B) Parts of speech: It separates the words into groups:

verbs, adjectives, adverbs, etc.
* Each part of speech has various rules.
* The most important aspect of syntax is how the various
parts of speech connect together.
* In English the order is: Subject + verb + object
 Morphology
2.1- Definition:

* Identification, analysis and description of

the structure of words
* It studies patterns of word formation within
and across languages, and attempts to formulate
rules that model the knowledge of the speakers
of a language.
 Morphology
2.2- Rules:
* They tend to be relatively
regular: If one sees the noun
MORPHEMES for the first time, for
example, one can deduce that it is
probable related to the word
MORPHEME.
 Morphology
2.3- Types of language:
A) Polysynthetic language:
- Words are made up of connected morphemes (the smallest meaningful unit in a
language) .
- Language in which words are composed of many morphemes.
UNBELIEVEABLE: 3 morphemes (un, believe, able)
a.1- Fusional/inflected L.
- One form of a morpheme can simultaneously encode several meanings.
LLAMA
- Phonemes are squeezed together and often changed dramatically in the
process.
- Words change form according to grammatical function or category: tense, mood,
voice, aspect, person, number, gender and case.
a.2- Agglutinative language:
- Morphemes are connected but remain more or less unchanged.
- We add affixes (morphemes) to the base of a word:
paint, painted
 Morphology
2.3- Types of language:
B)Analytic or isolating language:
- A great majority of morphemes remain
independent words.
- Words are composed of a single morpheme.
frighteningly: 4 morphemes
fright (noun), en (converts the noun to a
verb), ing (converts the verb to an adjective),
ly (converts the adjective to an adverb)