E_English Grammar Course

Chapter I
Elements of grammar
 Issues
1. Introduction to Grammar

2. Morphemes and Words

3. Ways of word formation

4. Parts of speech

5. Parts of a sentence

6. Types of phrases, clauses, sentences

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1 Introduction to Grammar

Grammar

In global sense

In narrow sense
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1 Introduction to Grammar

Grammar

In global sense
• equals competence, a body of knowledge that a
native speaker has about his/her language which
Inhim/her
enables narrowto sense
speak and understand it.
• includes word and sentence structure rules,
pronunciation rules, meaning of words/ sentences,
and discourse organization rules.
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1 Introduction to Grammar

Grammar • refers only to the formation of the word and sentence

structures.
•In global
consists sense
of morphology, the study of words and word
formation, and syntax, the study of phrases, clauses,
and sentences.

In narrow sense
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2 Morphemes and Words

discourse

sentence

phrase

word

morpheme
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2 Morphemes and Words

I found
myself
discourse useless.

hated
sentence enjoying

hated,
I actually felt tired of phrase enjoying
sitting doing nothing.
And I hated enjoying
the unemployment enjoy,
benefit. I found myself word -ing
useless. Then I decided
to look for a job.
morpheme
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2 Lexical item – meaning

LEXICAL ITEM = A basic unit of meaning …

• A single word
(E.g.: man, boy)
• Less than a word
(E.g.: terr in terror)
• More than one word
(E.g.: to rain dogs and cats)
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2 Lexical item – meaning

LEXICAL ITEM & MEANING

Lexical item and meaning has arbitrary relationship.

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2 Morpheme - Word

MORPHEME = A minimal meaningful unit

E.g.: re/try
boy/s
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2 Morpheme - Word

WORD = An independent meaningful unit.

E.g.: try
boy
turn
return
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2 Types of morphemes
Occurrence Free Bound
Types (words) (affixes)
Grammatical Function words: inflectional
prepositions, pronouns, (suffixes)
conjunctions....

Lexical Content words: derivational

Nouns, verbs, adverbs, (prefixes, suffixes)
adjectives
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2 Inflectional vs. Derivational morphemes

Inflectional morphemes Derivational morphemes

modify the meaning of an item can change meaning of the

but not change its parts of stem and typically, they
speech. change the part of speech.

2 Inflectional vs. Derivational morphemes
Inflectional morphemes
are changes in words to
express their semantic and
syntactic relationships to other
words in the sentence.
E.g.: ‘s’ in ‘Bush says’
indicates the present tense and
the subject is third person and
singular.
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Derivational morphemes
indicate semantic relationships
within words.
E.g.: the morpheme ‘ful’ in
‘beautiful’ has no connection
with other morphemes beyond
the word.

2 Inflectional vs. Derivational morphemes
Inflectional morphemes
are regularly distributed. They
occur with all or most
members of a word class.
E.g.: ‘s’ (3rd person singular
present) occurs with most
verbs.
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Derivational morphemes
do not occur across whole
classes.
E.g.: not all verbs take the
derivational suffix ‘al’ as
refuse, propose.
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2 Inflectional vs. Derivational morphemes

Inflectional morphemes Derivational morphemes

typically occur away from the occur close to the root, before
root. inflectional morphemes.

E.g.: the plural morpheme ‘s’

occurs at the end of a word,
after all other morphemes.
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2 Inflectional vs. Derivational morphemes

Inflectional morphemes Derivational morphemes

-s: 3rd person singular present There are a large number of

-ed: past tense derivational morphemes,
-ing: present participle which can be prefixes or
suffixes.
-en: past participle
-s: Plural
-s: possessive
-er:comparative
-est: superlative
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2 Inflectional vs. Derivational morphemes

 Work in groups of 3
 Each group make a list of 5
inflectional and 5 derivational
morphemes
 The fastest group win the game
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3 Morphological processes of word formation

Prefixation: adding a prefix to the base

E.g.: Non-stop
Predict
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3 Morphological processes of word formation

Suffixation: adding a suffix to the base

E.g.: Economist
Grammatical
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3 Morphological processes of word formation

Conversion: a change of word-classes

without affix.

E.g.: Import (n), (v)

Abstract (n), (adj)
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3 Morphological processes of word formation

Compounding: word formation from two or

more bases.

E.g. Greenhouse effect

Desktop computer
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3 Morphological processes of word formation

Clipping: shortening a word

E.g.: Phone from telephone

Photo from photograph
Flu from influenza
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3 Morphological processes of word formation

Reduplication: word formation from two or

more either identical or slightly
different elements.

E.g.: Goody-goody
Tick-tock
Seesaw
Wishy-washy
Tip-top
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3 Morphological processes of word formation

Blending: word formation from two

separate forms.

E.g.: Motel from motor and hotel

Smog from smoke and fog.
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3 Morphological processes of word formation

Acronym: word formation from initial

letters of a series of words.

E.g.: TV from television

FAQ from frequently
asked question.
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3 Morphological processes of word formation

Others Coinage E.g.: aspirin

Borrowing E.g.: boss, piano

Backformation E.g.: opt (option)

Sound + stress interchange E.g.: conduct

Sound imitation E.g.: kiwi

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3 Morphological processes of word formation

 Each student receives an affix

 Group yourselves into prefixes and
suffixes
 Each student gives an example of
his/her affix
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4 Parts of speech
Parts of speech

Closed system Open class

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4 Parts of speech
Parts of speech

Closed system Open class

Open
• comprises functional class
words such as
articles, demonstratives, pronouns
prepositions, conjunctions, and
interjections
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4 Parts of speech
Parts of speech

Closed system Features: Open class

• unextendable number of members
• reciprocally exclusive
• reciprocally defining
• unstressed in spoken language
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4 Parts of speech
Parts of speech

Closed system
• comprises notional/ lexical words
Open class

such as nouns, verbs, adjectives, and

adverbs
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4 Parts of speech
Parts of speech

Closed system
Features: Open class
• extendable number of members
• combinability
• having certain syntactic functions
• stressed words in spoken language
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4 Parts of speech
 Decide if the following words belong
to closed-system or open class
blue open
head open
the closed
that closed
summarize open
which closed
you closed
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5 Parts of a sentence
Parts of a sentence

Subject Predicate Operator

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5 Parts of a sentence
Parts of a sentence

Subject Predicate Operator

What is being discussed – theme.
E.g.: Her parents visit her sick uncle
every day.
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5 Parts of a sentence
Parts of speech

Subject Predicate Operator

What is being said about the subject – rheme.

E.g.: Her parents visit her sick uncle

every day.
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5 Parts of a sentence
Parts of speech

Subject
What Predicate
helps to change a sentence into: Operator
- interrogative
E.g.: Do her parents visit her every day?
- negative
E.g.: Her parents do not visit her every day.
- emphatic
E.g.: Her parents do visit her every day.
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5 Parts of a sentence
Parts of speech

Subject Predicate Operator

• include BE & HAVE
E.g.: I am a student and I have a part-time job. Lexical verbs

• include BE & HAVE

Primary
E.g.: I am cooking. Auxiliaries
• include will, shall, Modal
should, can, might, etc.

E.g.: I can cook.

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5 Parts of a sentence

Sentence elements
Subject
Verb
Object
Complement

Adverbial
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5 Parts of a sentence

Sentence elements
+ Cs (1)
Subject Intensive
+ A (obli)
(2)
Verb
intransitive
mono-transitive
Object Extensive
(3)
(4)

Complement transitive di-transitive (5)

complex-transitive
Adverbial (6,7)
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5 Parts of a sentence

Sentence elements He is lovely. SVCs (1)

intensive
He is out of the office. SVA (obli)

Subject (2)
He is crying. SV (3) intransitive extensive
Verb He broke the vase. SVO (4) transitive

Object He sent me an e-mail. SVOO (5)

He found the play SVOCo (6)

boring.
Complement He put the vase on SVOA (obli)
the table.
Adverbial (7)
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5 Parts of a sentence

Sentence elements
Subject Stative Not progressive form

Verb E.g.: The food he cooked tasted very

Object good.
Dynamic Progressive form

Complement
E.g.: She is tasting the food he’s cooked.
Adverbial
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5 Parts of a sentence

Sentence elements
Subject
Verb
direct (Od)
Object
indirect (Oi)
Complement

Adverbial E.g.: He sent me (Oi) a postcard (Od).

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5 Parts of a sentence

Sentence elements
Subject E.g.: His brother who is a teacher (Cs)

Verb considers me his best friend (Co).

Object Subject Complement (Cs)

Complement
Object Complement (Co)
Adverbial
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5 Parts of a sentence

Sentence elements
Subject
Verb
E.g.: He goes fishing on Tuesday. (Aopt)
Object
His birthday is on Tuesday. (A obli)
Complement
optional
Adverbial
obligatory
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6 Types of phrases, clauses, sentences

Syntax

Phrase Clause Sentence

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6 Types of phrases, clauses, sentences

Syntax

Phrase Clause Sentence

Noun phrase E.g.: All these books are mine.

Verb phrase E.g.: John has been looking for Jane.

Adjective phrase E.g.: Tom is a very interesting man.

Adverb phrase E.g.: He ran quite fast.

Prepositional phrase E.g.: He’s lecturing on the new technology.

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6 Types of phrases, clauses, sentences

Syntax

Phrase Clause Sentence

In terms of Clause’s In terms of functions of In terms of kinds of verb
elements & verb patterns the clause phrases
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6 Types of phrases, clauses, sentences

Syntax

Phrase Clause Sentence

In terms of Clause’s In terms of
• SVA: functions
John of
is at home In terms of kinds of verb
elements & verb patterns • SVCs: theJohn
clause
is a doctor. phrases
• SVO: John has cured many serious patients.
• SVOO: He gives his patients the same
prescription.
• SVOA: He put the prescription in a secret file.
• SVOCo: He calls his patients big fish.
• SV: He’s going out.
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6 Types of phrases, clauses, sentences

Syntax

Phrase Clause Sentence

In terms of Clause’s In terms of functions of In terms of kinds of verb
elements & verb patterns the clause phrases

• Finite clause
E.g.: He took her out of the blue.
• Non-finite clause
E.g.: Coming to the town, he visited his parents.
• Verbless clause
E.g.: If possible, come to see us.
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6 Types of phrases, clauses, sentences

Syntax

Phrase Clause Sentence

In terms of Clause’s In terms of functions of In terms of kinds of verb
elements & verb patterns
• Subordinate the clause phrases

• Superordinate
E.g.: She said that you hit her first.
subordinate
superordinate
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6 Types of phrases, clauses, sentences

Syntax

Phrase Clause Sentence

E.g.: All these books are mine. Simple
E.g.: He was watching T.V and she was cooking. Compound
E.g.: He didn’t want to talk to whoever he met in Complex
the London workshop.
Complex compound
E.g.: Having seldom talked anyone before, the
child simply wide opened his beautiful eyes
and looked at the stranger.
Homework
 Exercises 4-7, 10-13 Workbook