1.

Grammar, Grammatical
Structure of English,
Morphemes

Mgr. Juraj Datko, PhD.;

Summer 2020/2021
 GRAMMAR (= morphology + syntax)

It is the study of rules governing the use of a language.

Prescriptive approach to grammar:
- prescribes grammatical norms;
- tells how to use the language in order to speak correctly;
- brands all non-standard structures as deviations from correct usage.
There isn’t no other way. (= There’s some other way.)
There isn’t any other way. (= There’s no other way.)
Descriptive approach to grammar:
- describes how language is used in practice (what people actually say);
- gives differences between formal and informal language (e.g. sentences used in
dialects).
I was grippin grain. (= I was holding a wooden steering wheel.)
I’m tippin on fo, foes. (= I’m cruising on four Cadillac wire wheels from 1984.)
Who called Jodie? It was him. / It was he. (rule: When pronouns follow non-
action verbs such as is, was, were, appear, or seem, subjective case is used.)
 MORPHOLOGY (Greek: morphé /=form,
structure/ + logos /=word/)

It is a branch of linguistics that studies word structure.

It studies how words are formed out of smaller units called morphemes.

Morpheme:
- is the smallest meaningful unit in a given language (L. Bloomfield, 1933);
- may have different realisations (allomorphs) in different context (e.g. do,
does, don´t).

Allomorphs:
- are variants of a single morpheme (e.g. plural marker -s: creatures /kriːtʃ
əz/, clicks /klɪks/, boxes /bɒks ɪ(ə)z/).
 SYNTAX (Greek: syn /=together/ + assein
/=arrange/)
It is a branch of linguistics that deals with the structure of sentences.

In English, affirmative sentences follow the SVO(MPT) pattern:

I play tennis with my friends, at the sports center, on Saturday mornings.

(S)ubject (V)erb (O)bject Adverb of (M)anner Adverb of (P)lace Adverb of (T)ime

WHO DOES WHAT HOW / WHERE / WHEN

 GRAMMATICAL STRUCTURE
OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

Synthetic languages (e.g. French, all Slavic languages):

Languages in which syntactic relations within sentences are expressed by
inflection. Práve teraz šoférujeme naše nové auto. Naše nové auto práve
teraz šoférujeme.
Analytic(al) languages (e.g. English, Chinese, Vietnamese, Afrikaans):
Languages in which syntactic relations within sentences are expressed by
grammatical words (e.g. prepositions, auxiliary verbs) and fixed word
order. We are driving our new car at the moment.

Word order is not significant and morphology is highly significant in a

synthetic language, whereas morphology is not significant and syntax is
highly significant in an analytic(al) language.
Analytic(al) verb-forms (function word(s) + full word):
- Function words only express grammatical categories of P, N, T, A, V, M.
- Full (i.e. content or notional) words (infinitive or participle) have lexical
meaning.
- Analytic(al) verb-forms include:
⮚ continuous forms: I am reading.
⮚ perfect forms: He has come.
⮚ forms of the future: I’ll see you tomorrow. It’s going to snow.
⮚ interrogative forms: Does he enjoy tennis? Were the dogs barking?
⮚ negative forms: Mary doesn’t drink coffee.
⮚ forms of the passive voice: The entire house was painted by Tom.

Synthetic verb-forms (inflectional morphemes + inner flexions):

- inflections: reads watching worked written
- inner flexions: wrote stole spoke began became
 MORPHEMES

Free morphemes:
Morphemes that can stand alone to function as words. They comprise
simple words (i.e. words made up of one free morpheme) and compound words
(i.e. words made up of two or more free morphemes).
■ lexical = have lexical meaning (e.g. run, well, smartphone, fat)
■ functional = have grammatical meaning; include auxiliary verbs, pronouns,
prepositions, articles, or conjunctions (e.g. can, on, the, and, but)

Bound morphemes:
Morphemes that cannot stand alone to function as words. They can only be
attached to free morphemes.
■ derivational = can change word class; are not limited in number; include
prefixes (untie), infixes (gemology), and suffixes (breakable).
■ inflectional = can change grammatical categories; do not form new words;
are limited in number (works, worked, working, written; pens, Mark’s,
taller, the tallest).
TASK:
Analyze the morphemic structure of the following words.

Example: unbelievable = un – bound, derivational morpheme, prefix;

believe – free, lexical morpheme; able – bound, derivational morpheme, suffix

tourists = forget-me-not =
against = Egyptians =
assignment = irresistible =
disqualified = misinterpret =
imperative = submit =
Facebook = geography =
encountered = uncommon =
realize =