1. DESCRIÇÃO E ANÁLISE MORFOSSINTÁTICA DO INGLÊS
Prof John Corbett
USP-CAPES International Fellow

2. Today’s session Course introduction
How do we classify sentence constituents?
Meaning
Form
Function

3. Course introduction Course topics: Basic introduction to syntax
Word structure (morphology)
Grammatical systems
Grammar teaching for EFL/ESL

4. Provisional schedule of classes
1. Form, function & meaning
2. Parts of speech
3. Phrase structure
4. Embedded phrases
5. Clauses
6. Embedded clauses & sentence types
7. Word structure
8. Allomorphs
9. Number, gender, & person
10. Case, degree & definiteness
11. Tense, aspect, & finiteness
12. Mood, modality & voice
13. Teaching grammar deductively
14. Teaching grammar inductively
15. Course review

5. assessment Most assessment done via moodle
4 of the weekly quizzes (ungraded) 40%
1 Graded test %
1 Group video project 20%
1 Individual reflective essay 20%
Total %

6. Basic reading
ANDERSON, W.; CORBETT, J. Exploring English with Online Corpora. 2nd edn. London: Palgrave Macmillan, BRINTON, L.; BRINTON, D. The Linguistic Structure of Modern English. Philadelphia, PA: John Benjamins Publishing Company, Thornbury, S. How to Teach Grammar. Harlow: Longman, 1999.

7. Help!? Personal details Name John Corbett Email jcorbett@usp.br
Office location AUCANI building, Level 3, Room 10
Office hours To be arranged (and publicised on moodle)
Any questions?

8. An Introduction to Sentence Structure
Q: What is grammar?

9. An Introduction to Sentence Structure
Q: What is grammar?
A: The classification of sentence constituents (parts of speech) and an account of how they combine.
Classification = paradigmatic relations
Combination = syntagmatic relations

10. Classification according to Meaning
Fiona has picked me up in her arms and is rocking me like a baby.

11. Meaning Different kinds of thing in the world: Fiona/me/baby arms
Fiona has picked me up in her arms and is rocking me like a baby.
Different kinds of thing in the world:
Fiona/me/baby
arms

12. Meaning Different kinds of action: pick rock
Fiona has picked me up in her arms and is rocking me like a baby.
Different kinds of action:
pick
rock

13. Meaning Different kinds of location? up in
Fiona has picked me up in her arms and is rocking me like a baby.
Different kinds of location? up in
Something to do with comparison?
like

14. Meaning
Fiona has picked me up in her arms and is rocking me like a baby.
Something to do with identification?
her arms
a baby

15. Meaning Something to do with addition? and
Fiona has picked me up in her arms and is rocking me like a baby.
Something to do with addition?
and

16. Form Fiona has picked me up in her arms and is rocking me like a baby.
Some items have only one form: up, and, a
Some items have two forms, singular and plural: arm/arms; baby/babies
Some items have multiple forms: have, has, had, having, etc

17. Form A regular verb: forms of ‘to pick’ Regular Infinitive: (to) pick
Present: pick, picks
Past or Preterite: picked
Perfect (have/has/had) picked
2 basic forms: pick(s) + picked

18. Form A very irregular verb: forms of ‘to be’ Irregular
Infinitive: (to) be
Present: am, are, is, ’s
Past or Preterite: was/were
Perfect (have/has/had) been
Many different forms, resulting from the merger of two historically different verbs, Old English waeron and beon.

19. Function Questions about function: What kind of words go together?
Fiona has picked me up in her arms and is rocking me like a baby.
Which words function as modifiers, and which as headwords in the phrases?

20. Function: ‘The Tarzan Test’
Identifying Modifiers and Headwords:
A big, grey cat was prowling near the wood shed.
Which words can you delete and still communicate the basic idea?
CAT-PROWLING-NEAR-SHED Headwords
A-BIG-WAS-NEAR-THE-WOOD Modifiers

21. Prepositions Prepositions precede noun phrases:
The angry leopards sprang into the forest.
up the tree.
across the stream.
over the rock
through the wood.
under the blanket
etc.
Substitution test

22. Question…
Ok, so we can use meaning, form and function to classify parts of speech.
So, how would you classify the word ‘baby’?

23. Some problems … a) I use Johnson’s baby powder.
b) It keeps my skin baby soft.
c) Baby yourself with Johnson’s.

24. Some problems … a) I use Johnson’s baby powder.
Nouns can modify other nouns - baby + powder
b) It keeps my skin baby soft.
Nouns can modify adjectives - baby + soft
c) Baby yourself with Johnson’s.
Nouns can turn into verbs - I baby you, she babied him, etc.

25. Testing grammatical models
In the last 30 years, linguists have been collecting large quantities of electronic text, which are searchable. Among the best of these is the Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA).

26. Playing with concordances
Go to
Click on ‘KWIC’ (key word in context)
Type in your search item, eg ‘my’ or ‘bouncing’ or ‘highly’…
If you want, choose a section (eg ‘Spoken’, ‘Academic’…) or choose the whole corpus

27. Using coca: basic kwic search

28. Checking results…
Scroll down the page and look at the concordance results. The results show you the keyword (‘highly’) in its context.
The COCA KWIC search colour codes parts of speech. What do you notice about the colours of the words following ‘highly’?

30. Things to notice highly addictive highly ambiguous highly amused
‘Highly’ tends to be found in contexts such as:
highly addictive
highly ambiguous
highly amused
highly analytical
highly appropriate
highly autobiographical

31. Things to notice
In other words…
highly + adjective

32. Things to notice We can say that ‘highly’…
Is a word ending in –ly (form)
It usually modifies an adjective (function)
It has an intensifying meaning.
Conclusion: ‘highly’ is an intensifying adverb.

33. Searching for other intensifying adverbs

34. [adverb] + addictive
Notice the number of modifiers that end in –ly.

35. Summary
Grammar is the study of the constituents (‘bits’) that make up sentences.
Breaking sentences down into their constituent parts is called ‘parsing’.
‘Parsing’ breaks sentences into:
Clauses (Subject, Predicator, Object, etc)
Phrases (Noun Phrase, Verb Phrase, etc)
Words (Noun, Verb, Adjective, Preposition, etc)
Morphemes (Prefix, Root/Stem, Suffix/Inflexion)

36. Summary
The criteria that we use to identify grammatical constituents are:
Meaning (eg does the constituent express a thing, an action, a place etc?)
Form (what does the constituent look like, eg does it have a particular kind of ending?)
Function (what other constituents does the target constituent ‘go with’?)

37. Check out this week’s grammar quiz on moodle!
Postscript
Check out this week’s grammar quiz on moodle!
See you next week!