French grammar and grammatical analysis Lecture 3 Words and sentence structure

Today’s lecture (1) Words: recap on: meaning parts of speech function form (2) Structure of the sentence: the noun phrase

What’s in a word? When you learn French, you must look at each word in four ways: Meaning Part of speech Function Form

(1) Meaning An English word may be connected to a French word that has a similar meaning: boy, a young male child, has the same meaning as the French word garçon

idiomatic expressions expressions in which the meaning of a group of words is different from the meaning of the words taken individually. e.g. to fall asleep to take a walk

(2) Parts of speech In English and French words are grouped according to how they are used in a sentence. There are eight groups corresponding to eight parts of speech: nouns articles verbs adverbs pronouns prepositions adjectives conjunctions

In order to choose the correct French equivalent of and English word, you will have to identify its part of speech. e.g. ‘plays’ John plays squash verb = John likes plays noun =

(3) Function In English and French the role a word plays in a sentence is called its function. Nouns can have the following functions: subject direct object indirect object object of a preposition

Identify the function of ‘him’ John sees him John gives him the book

(4) Form In English and French, a word can influence the form of another word, that is, its spelling and pronunciation. This matching is called ‘agreement’ and it is said that one word ‘agrees’ with another.

Syntactic rules Syntactic categories Sentence structure Syntactic rules Syntactic categories

Syntactic rules determine the order of words in a sentence Tree diagram: hierarchical structure of the sentence. Go over divisions. NP and VP Each of the natural groupings in the diagram is a member of a large family of similar expressions. For example, l'enfant belongs to a family which includes un prof, votre voisin, ce chat noir, il and countless others. Each member of this family can be substituted for l'enfant without affecting the grammaticality of the sentence, although the meanings would of course change. Un prof a trouvé le chien Votre voisin a trouvé le chien etc….. A family of expressions that can substitute for one another without loss of grammaticality is called a syntactic category.

Syntactic categories (1) the Noun Phrase NP’s always contain some form of a noun. e.g. Noun phrase (NP) - may function as ‘subject’ or ‘object’ in a sentence, and only NP's may do so.

Nouns What is a noun? person, animal, place, thing, event, idea common noun/proper noun/pronoun

Terms used to talk about nouns: gender number count or non-count function (subject, object)

What is gender? In English, nouns themselves do not have a gender, but sometimes their meaning indicates a gender based on the biological sex of the person or animal the noun stands for. In French, all nouns have a grammatical gender; they are either masculine or feminine

What is number? When a word refers to one person or thing it is singular When a word refers to more than one it is plural Collective nouns refer to a group of persons or things but they are considered to be singular, e.g. a JF language class has 10-12 people in it.

Count vs Non-count nouns Count nouns: nouns which designate objects which can be counted. (2) Non-count nouns: nouns which designate an object which cannot be counted.

French Articles: Les articles français As a general rule, if you have a noun in French, there is virtually always an article in front of it, unless you use a possessive (mon, ton, etc.), demonstrative (ce, cette, etc.), or some other determiner.

French Articles: Les articles français There are three kinds of articles in French: definite articles indefinite articles partitive articles

French articles Definite Indefinite Partitive Masc le un du Fem Before vowel Plural

French articles Definite Indefinite Partitive Masc le un du Fem la une de la Before vowel l’ un’/une de l’ Plural les des

French Definite Articles Les articles définis The French definite article corresponds to the in English. There are four forms of the French definite article:

French Definite Articles Les articles définis Singular Plural masc fem before vowel le la l’ les le garçon le père la fille la mère l’ami l’homme les filles

Indefinite articles: singular forms The singular indefinite articles in French correspond to a, an, or one in English. un and une: the singular has a different form for masculine and feminine.

Indefinite articles: plural form The plural indefinite article corresponds to some in English. des: the plural indefinite article is the same for masculine and feminine nouns.

French indefinite articles Singular Plural Masc Fem un une des un garçon une fille des garçons un ami une amie des filles

Meaning and usage of the French indefinite article: singular form The indefinite article usually refers to an unspecified person or thing. I found a book. He wants an apple.

Plural Indefinite article The plural indefinite article means some: I bought some apples. Do you want some books?

Indefinite article When referring to a person's profession or religion, the indefinite is not used in French, although it is used in English: Je suis professeur - I am a teacher. Il va être médecin - He's going to be a doctor.

Indefinite article In a negative construction, the indefinite article changes to de, meaning any: I have an apple ==> I don't have any apples.