LEVELS GRAMMAR, MORPHOLOGY
LEVELS • GRAMMAR • A) rules for the combination of units • B) linguistic discipline about the combination of units • C) a book describing the rules • narrow sense: morphology + syntax
LEVELS • • • • • •
broad sense: + phonology, semantics structure of a language - grammatical relations 2 basic types of relations: A) syntagmatic B) paradigmatic Syntagmatic: combination of elements in a concrete linguistic string, horizontal axis of combination, syntagm (=phrase)
LEVELS • Paradigmatic • relations between units present and those not present, but possible, vertical axis of selection • Paradigm – a set of related forms/items • • •
Her friend bought a new computer. his uncle sold an old book their teacher found a nice apartment
LEVELS • Grammatical rules; prescriptive and descriptive grammar • Traditional pedagogical grammar – recommendations how people should talk • abacus - abaci abacuses • It is I/me • descriptive rules: how people actually talk, all possible relations, not just recommended
LEVELS • stylistics or sociolinguistics • u vezi s tim / *u vezi toga / *u vezi sa to • Parts of speech and grammatical categories • Parts of speech • traditional grammar, Latin • based on meaning and form of words
LEVELS • inflected and not inflected words • open and closed classes of words • nouns, pronouns, adjectives, numbers, verbs, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, exclamations, particles, articles • Nouns: names of persons, animals, things ...
LEVELS • personal, common, collective, mass, abstract • Prounouns: referring to persons, things etc; replacing nouns or standing in front of nouns; • personal, interrogative, relative, possessive, demonstrative • Adjectives: denoting characteristics of nouns
LEVELS • in front of a noun – attributive function • part of a predicate – predicative function • This book is interesting. • Numbers: amount of something or order of something; cardinal and ordinal • Verbs: denote an activity or a state, function as the predicate; dynamic and stative, regular
LEVELS • irregular, transitive and intransitive, reflexive, lexical and auxiliary • Adverbs: modify the predicate, adjectives and other adverbs; intensifiers (very quickly) • Prepositions: in front of nouns, indicate spatial and temporal relations, direction,
LEVELS • possession, etc. • Conjunctions: linking words, phrases and clauses • Exclamations: indicate emotions, attitudes • Particles: have a grammatical function, e.g.
LEVELS • Serbian NE, LI, English NOT • Articles (in some languages): in front of a noun or after the noun (e.g. Macedonian), not inflected or inflected • Overlappings: WALK, ROUND • based on meaning, sometimes difficult to
LEVELS • explain (e.g. abstract nouns, prepositions, exclamations) • other criterion: classes according to their function: • A) nominals • B) adjectivals • C) adverbials • D) verbals
LEVELS • GRAMMATICAL CATEGORIES • Parts of speech related to grammatical categories; • a system of at least two members which denotes a grammatical meaning, e.g. case, tense, gender, number; • members are mutually exclusive • gender, number, case, person, tense, aspect,
LEVELS • mood, voice, comparison, definiteness • typical nominal and verbal categories • all languages do not have all these categories • • • •
Gender A way to classify nouns, pronouns male, female and neuter some languages only 2 genders (French: m/f)
LEVELS • some American Indian and African languages: living – not living, or shape • natural gender: gender corresponds to biological gender (English) • grammatical gender: no such correspondence (Serbian), e.g. knjiga, f; orman, m • English: persons, professions, family relations
LEVELS • (m/f), things, ideas (n), animals (n or m/f) • Persons: • A) nouns denoting both genders (teacher, friend); male/female student, man/woman servant • B) different words: brother - sister, king – queen • C) suffix -ess; actor–actress, waiter–waitress,
LEVELS • borrowed words: fiancé – fiancée, czar/tsar – czarina/tsarina • • • •
Animals: A) one word (n): frog, snake male/female frog he/she-goat, he/she-wolf
LEVELS • cock/hen-pheasant, • bull/cow-elephant • B) different words: bull – cow, stallion – mare • C) –ess, lion – lioness
LEVELS Number • quantity of persons or things • singular and plural • some languages - dual, trial • nouns: countable and uncountable • pronouns , verbs
LEVELS • Case • indicates the function of nouns/pronouns in a clause, e.g. • subject, object, possession, recipient etc. • seven cases in traditional grammar, usually with suffixes
LEVELS • independent (upravni, nezavisni) • oblique (zavisni, kosi); nominative and vocative • declension: set of case forms • syncretism: two or more cases, same form e.g. in Serbian SINOVIMA
LEVELS • in some languages function indicated by the position in a clause, not by cases (e.g. subject, object) • Person • pronouns, verbs • 1st person – the one who speaks/writes
LEVELS • 2nd person – to whom sb is talking/writing • 3rd person – participant in a conversation or about whom sb is talking/writing • Singular and plural • 1st person plural: inclusive plural (we+you), exclusive plural (we, without ‘you’ implied) • informal and formal (ti – vi; you)
LEVELS • in some languages, more than these two possibilities (Korean, Japanese; status) • deictic category – determined in a context, concrete situation; (noun: deixis)
LEVELS • Tense • also deictic • location of a situation in time, in relation to the point of speech • present, past and future • also subdivisions, e.g. in Serbian aorist, imperfekat, pluskvamperfekat, futur II
LEVELS • conjugation – set of tense forms of a verb • Aspect (glagolski vid) • imperfective and perfective verbs in Serbian, e.g. pisati – napisati
LEVELS • Mood (glagolski način) • • • • •
speaker’s attitude indicative (statement of fact), subjunctive (wish, intention, doubt imperative He wishes he knew the way.
LEVELS • Voice • relation between the subject, verb and object • active (subject – agent), passive (subject – patient)
LEVELS Comparison • adjectives, adverbs • how much a certain feature is present • positive, comparative, superlative degree
LEVELS • Definiteness • in some languages, articles • in Serbian: definite and indefinite form of adjectives (zelen, indef - zeleni, def) • not all these categories in all languages • syncretism: one form may indicate several categories, e.g. SINGS