Unit 3 Sentence

Structure Categories
(Word classes)
Week 4
MAIN CONTENTS

1. Nouns

2. Lexical and phrasal categories (noun and noun phrase)

3. Adjectives and adverbs

4. Adjective phrases and adverb phrases

5. Prepositions and prepositional phrases

6. Coordinate phrases
INTRODUCTION

Consider the phrase:

two rather dubious jokes

If we omit dubious, the remaining string is ungrammatical.

Can you explain?

*two rather jokes.

INTRODUCTION

Consider the phrase:

two rather dubious jokes

Why can’t rather modify jokes or two?

The reason lies in the CATEGORY the word belongs to.

INTRODUCTION

Consider the following words:

plans, extremely, could, clever

Decide which words belongs to the same category as jokes, which to the
same category as dubious, and which to the same category as rather
INTRODUCTION

Now think about your thinking process:

How can you decide which words belong to the same category?
INTRODUCTION

Words of the same CATEGORY will have the same DISTRIBUTION.

E.g. two jokes dubious jokes

two plans dubious plans

*rather jokes *rather plans

INTRODUCTION
• There are LEXICAL CATEGORIES (e.g. nouns, verbs).

• There are also PHRASAL CATEGORIES (e.g. noun phrases, verb phrases)

• Similar to the word level, two phrases belong to the same phrasal category if they have
the same DISTRIBUTION

i.e. they can occupy the same positions in sentence structure and have the same range of
functions.

E.g. They told two rather dubious jokes.

They made two extremely clever plans.

1. NOUNS
1. NOUNS
What is a noun?

Traditionally, a noun is defined as the name of a person, place, or thing.

However, there are some limitations in this traditional definition:

• thing has to be interpreted very broadly to include

e.g. substances, abstract concepts, collections of things.

• certain words, e.g. behind and ahead, might be said to stand for places, but
they are not normally taken to be nouns.
1. NOUNS

Another criterion to decide a word’s category is based on the

WORD FORMS/its MORPHOLOGICAL possibilities:

e.g. Nouns have a genitive (or possessive) form: e.g. Bill’s; mother’s

Can you find any other morphological features of nouns?

• inflectional morphology: -s/-es ending of plural form

• directional morphology: some typical suffixes of nouns

e.g. –ness, -ment, -hood, -ity; -tion, -ation
 1. NOUNS
SUB-CATEGORIES of nouns - Nouns can be categorized in different ways:

Criterion NOUNS
Grammatical and
Contrast
semantic features
Concrete Common Collective Count One-word
Common Proper nouns vs. nouns nouns vs. nouns vs. nouns vs.
Pronouns
nouns nouns Abstract vs. Proper Material Non-count Compound
nouns nouns nouns nouns nouns

Type
1. NOUNS

The other major SUB-CATEGORIES of the noun category

Proper Nouns Count Nouns

NOUN
Mass/Non-
Common Nouns
count nouns

Nouns that can

be both mass
and count
1. NOUNS

PRACTICE:
Identify all the nouns in the following passage
1. NOUNS

PRONOUNS are used to stand in place of complete Noun Phrases (NPs).

Other examples of pronouns:

2. LEXICAL AND PHRASAL CATEGORIES
(NOUN AND NOUN PHRASE)
2. LEXICAL AND PHRASAL CATEGORIES (NOUN AND NOUN PHRASE)

An NP is a phrase that contains and is centered on a noun.

E.g. two rather dubious jokes is an NP and it contains the noun jokes.

Why does it have to be of the same category as jokes?

2. LEXICAL AND PHRASAL CATEGORIES (NOUN AND NOUN PHRASE)

This can be seen by considering what pronoun could be used to replace

the NP in a sentence:
2. LEXICAL AND PHRASAL CATEGORIES (NOUN AND NOUN PHRASE)

An NP is a phrase that contains and is centered on a noun.

E.g. two rather dubious jokes

Why does it have to be of the same category as jokes?

2. LEXICAL AND PHRASAL CATEGORIES (NOUN AND NOUN PHRASE)

In a NP, The head noun determines

• the NUMBER (singular or plural)

• the GENDER (masculine, feminine, or neutral)

2. LEXICAL AND PHRASAL CATEGORIES (NOUN AND NOUN PHRASE)
2. LEXICAL AND PHRASAL CATEGORIES (NOUN AND NOUN PHRASE)
2. LEXICAL AND PHRASAL CATEGORIES (NOUN AND NOUN PHRASE)

[13] Max confuses me.

2. LEXICAL AND PHRASAL CATEGORIES (NOUN AND NOUN PHRASE)

For proper nouns, i.e. NAMES, they do not admit any modification.

[12] Plans confuse me.

[13] Max confuses me.

Constituent
tests
2. LEXICAL AND PHRASAL CATEGORIES (NOUN AND NOUN PHRASE)

[The ducks] are paddling away.

*The they are paddling away.

2. LEXICAL AND PHRASAL CATEGORIES (NOUN AND NOUN PHRASE)

PRACTICE

Decide whether plans in [10] is a full NP or not.

[10] Two extremely clever plans confused me

2. LEXICAL AND PHRASAL CATEGORIES (NOUN AND NOUN PHRASE)

The discussion so far has also illustrated the close relation between
FUNCTION and CATEGORY.

• The subject function reveals the NP category.

• The predicate function reveals the VP category.

E.g. Ducks paddle.

3. ADJECTIVES AND ADVERBS
3. ADJECTIVES AND ADVERBS

Dubious and clever are adjectives.

Any words that has the same DISTRIBUTION as those words is an

adjective.

Many adjectives have typical suffixes, e.g. –able, -al, -ate, -ful, -ic, -ing, -
ish, -ive, -less, -ous, -y.

Can you find examples of adjectives with these suffixes?

E.g.
3. ADJECTIVES AND ADVERBS

• Many common adjectives tend not to have characteristic endings

e.g. nice, old, hot, dull, short, tight, full, long, quick, blue, yellow, etc
• Many adjectives have the morphological possibility of taking a
comparative (-er) and a superlative (-est) suffix
e.g. newer – newest, subtler – subtlest.
• Others do not but may be modified by the comparative and superlative
degree adverbs more, most/less, least
e.g. *beautifuller/*beautifullest, *dubiouser/*dubiousest
• Some adjectives have irregular comparative and superlative forms
e.g. good-better-best; bad-worse-worst
3. ADJECTIVES AND ADVERBS

DEGREE ADVERBS
3. ADJECTIVES AND ADVERBS

• Adjectives that accept the –er/-est inflection or modification by degree

adverbs are called GRADABLE ADJECTIVES.

E.g. happier/happiest, very happy

• Many adjectives are NON-GRADABLE, i.e. they do not accept the –

er/-est inflection or modification by degree adverbs.

E.g.
3. ADJECTIVES AND ADVERBS

FUNCTIONS OF ADJECTIVES
Subject Object
Modifying Postpositive
complement/ complement/
nouns adjectives
predicative predicative

something better;
She is gentle. He wants to make the worst conditions
My beautiful garden
He looks confident. her happy. imaginable; all those
present; five feet tall
3. ADJECTIVES AND ADVERBS

PRACTICE:

Identify adjectives, degree adverbs, and nouns in the following

paragraph:
4. ADJECTIVE PHRASES
AND ADVERB PHRASES
4. ADJECTIVE PHRASES AND ADVERB PHRASES

• Rather dubious, extremely clever, too modest are Adjective Phrases.

• Adjective Phrases (AP) are centered on adjectives (A).

• Like NPs, an AP can consist of an unmodified head, a simple adjective.

4. ADJECTIVE PHRASES AND ADVERB PHRASES

Can you identify APs in

Aldo’s quite delicious pizzas
Luigi’s inedible pizzas
4. ADJECTIVE PHRASES AND ADVERB PHRASES

• In phrase markers, the degree adverb will be labelled as DEGREE,

shortened to DEG.

• Can you draw the phrase marker for

very energetic
4. ADJECTIVE PHRASES AND ADVERB PHRASES

GENERAL ADVERBS are also used to modify adjectives in APs.

E.g.

The vast majority of general adverbs (including some degree adverbs)

are formed from adjectives + -ly.
4. ADJECTIVE PHRASES AND ADVERB PHRASES

• Like degree adverbs, general adverbs can modify adjectives within APs
E.g. theoretically untenable, oddly inconclusive, immediately recognisable

• General adverbs differ from degree adverbs in specifying a much wider

range of concepts than just degree.

• General adverbs can be modified by degree adverbs to form ADVERB

PHRASES (AdvPs)

e.g. very oddly, quite frankly.

• An AdvP can consist of just a simple (general) adverb.

4. ADJECTIVE PHRASES AND ADVERB PHRASES

PRACTICE:

Draw labeled phrase marker of the phrase

more obviously artificial

5. PREPOSITIONS AND
PREPOSITIONAL PHRASES
5. PREPOSITIONS AND PREPOSITIONAL PHRASES

Recall the discussion of beside a stream.

• beside is a preposition (P) and the head of the phrase

• the whole phrase is a PREPOSITIONAL PHRASE (PP).

• a stream functions as complement to the head

PREPOSITIONS are generally short words that express relations

e.g. to, at, from, with, towards, in, off, by, up, down, since, before, after,

The relation is not always about location or time

e.g. at great speed, like a maniac, under pressure, off work.

5. PREPOSITIONS AND PREPOSITIONAL PHRASES

Basic forms of PP

PP = P + NP PP = P
e.g. away, aside, aboard, abroad,
e.g. beside a stream; to Max along, upstairs, downstairs,
onwards, upwards, downwards
5. PREPOSITIONS AND PREPOSITIONAL PHRASES

• then or now are here treated as prepositions that function as PPs

they can replace the whole PPs expressing temporal locations

e.g. in those days then

at the moment now

• then or now are categorized as adverbs in traditional grammars.

6. CO-ORDINATE PHRASES
6. CO-ORDINATE PHRASES

We learnt that only one word can be the head of a phrase, but there is
an exception for CO-ORDINATE PHRASES.

Max and Adrian should be treated as a single subject, using some tests:

(1) Subject test

(2) Substitution test for constituency

6. CO-ORDINATE PHRASES

Draw a phrase marker for this co-ordinate phrase

Max and Adrian

They are NPs within the co-ordinate NPs

(they can be replaced by pronouns)

e.g.
6. CO-ORDINATE PHRASES

PRACTICE:
Consider the following strings.
Decide which are well-formed phrases and which not. Why?
6. CO-ORDINATE PHRASES

This very general principle provides a useful test of

(a) constituency, and (b) category:

• Only constituents can be co-ordinated.

• The category of one constituent can reveal the category of the other in
the co-ordinated phrase.
6. CO-ORDINATE PHRASES

Can you identify the phrasal categories of these strings?

Can you draw their phrase markers?

[38] [39]
6. CO-ORDINATE PHRASES

PRACTICE:

Analyze and draw a phrase marker for

up and down the staircase

6. CO-ORDINATE PHRASES

Analyze and draw the phrase marker for

in the foundations and under the rafters

6. CO-ORDINATE PHRASES

The discussion so far has once again illustrated how the concepts of
CONSTITUENCY, FUNCTION, and CATEGORY are related.

FUNCTION can help us understand the ungrammaticality of strings that are

co-ordinations of different categories

They will be ungrammatical if the co-ordination has no FUNCTION.

E.g.1: Max and quickly

E.g.2: (He was) in trouble and very worried

6. CO-ORDINATE PHRASES

PHRASAL CATEGORIES (NP, VP, AP, PP, AdvP) have a variety of functions:
subject, predicate, modifier, or complement.

LEXICAL CATEGORIES (N, V, A, P, and Adv) have only one function

they always function as HEAD of the appropriate phrasal category.

FURTHER READINGS

1. Main types of nouns (pp.56-64) – Student Grammar of Spoken and

Written English (Biber, Conrad & Leech, 2002)
2. Word Classes (pp.34-45) – An Introduction to English Syntax
(Miller, 2002)
3. Adjectives and adverbs (pp.186-220) - Student Grammar of
Spoken and Written English (Biber, Conrad & Leech, 2002)
4. Adjectives and adverbs (pp.129-157) – A Student’s Grammar of
the English Language (Greenbaum & Quirk, 1990).
5. Prepositions and prepositional phrases (pp.188-203). A Student’s
Grammar of the English Language (Greenbaum & Quirk, 1990).