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Introducción gramática inglesa, Apuntes de Gramática y Composición

Universidad de La Laguna (ULL)Gramática y Composición

Asignatura: Gramática inglesa I. Profesora: Ana Candelaria Díaz Galán. Curso: 2019-2020

Tipo: Apuntes

2019/2020

Subido el 13/01/2020

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Introduction
1. Linguistics and language description
What is Linguistics?
Linguistics is the scientific study of language. It involves analysing language form, language
meaning, and language in context. Linguists traditionally analyse human language by observing
an interplay between sound and meaning.
What is language?
The main function of language is to communicate. Communication is intentional (you are
willing to inform). Information which is not intentional is not communication (sneezing = a
cold).
Do animals communicate?
Yes, animals can communicate with other members of their own species
What is then the difference between human and animal communication?
1. Human language can be used to talk and reflect on language and its uses (reflexivity).
2. It allows humans to talk about events and things not present in the immediate
environment or even about places, events or things whose existence we cannot be sure of
(displacement).
3. There is no natural connection between a linguistic form and its meaning
(arbitrariness).
Linguistic signs
Language consists of signs. Signs belong to three types:
− iconic: they resemble what they represent (i.e photographs).
− indexical: they have a connection with the thing they represent (smoke to fire, symptom
to an illness).
− symbolic: they are only conventionally related to the thing they represent (a flag to a
nation, a wedding ring to marriage). Most language is symbolic. The relation between the
linguistic sign and what is signifies is arbitrary.
4. Humans are continually creating new expressions and novel utterances by manipulating
their linguistic resources (productivity).
5. Human language is transmitted culturally while animal communication is instinctive.
We have a predisposition to acquire language but a specific language (English, Spanish,
Urdu…) has to be learnt (cultural transmission).
6. Human language has a physical level at which we produce sounds and another level at
which we produce meaning (duality), so with a limited set of sounds we can produce a large
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Introduction

1. Linguistics and language description

What is Linguistics? Linguistics is the scientific study of language. It involves analysing language form, language meaning, and language in context. Linguists traditionally analyse human language by observing an interplay between sound and meaning. What is language? The main function of language is to communicate. Communication is intentional (you are willing to inform). Information which is not intentional is not communication (sneezing = a cold). Do animals communicate? Yes, animals can communicate with other members of their own species What is then the difference between human and animal communication?

  1. Human language can be used to talk and reflect on language and its uses (reflexivity).
  2. It allows humans to talk about events and things not present in the immediate environment or even about places, events or things whose existence we cannot be sure of (displacement).
  3. There is no natural connection between a linguistic form and its meaning (arbitrariness). Linguistic signs Language consists of signs. Signs belong to three types: − iconic: they resemble what they represent (i.e photographs). − indexical: they have a connection with the thing they represent (smoke to fire, symptom to an illness). − symbolic: they are only conventionally related to the thing they represent (a flag to a nation, a wedding ring to marriage). Most language is symbolic. The relation between the linguistic sign and what is signifies is arbitrary.
  4. Humans are continually creating new expressions and novel utterances by manipulating their linguistic resources (productivity).
  5. Human language is transmitted culturally while animal communication is instinctive. We have a predisposition to acquire language but a specific language (English, Spanish, Urdu…) has to be learnt (cultural transmission).
  6. Human language has a physical level at which we produce sounds and another level at which we produce meaning (duality), so with a limited set of sounds we can produce a large

number of sound combinations (words) which are distinct in meaning (i.e. /t/ ,/o/,/n/ = “ton”, “not”). Is human language homogeneous? What are the factors which determine variation in language? Variation may depend on:

  • Users (speakers). The characteristics of language user which affect language include: − diatopic variation: regional origin. − diastratic variation: social-class membership, age, gender. These factors may affect lexis, grammar and pronunciation. Variety: a set of linguistic items with similar geographical or social distribution (sociolect). Dialect: usually a variety of a language employed in a certain geographical area. Not a derogative term.
  • Use (situation). No user of language employs one uniform variety of language. Language also varies according to the use to which it is put. Language variation according to use has been called style but more technically it is referred to as register. Register will depend on three factors which usually combine: − Tenor: the relationship between speaker and addressee (called tenor), which is often shown by greater or less formality. − Mode: the medium in which the language is transmitted. The mode usually means the difference between written and spoken language (which involves the use of intonation or non- verbal communication). Consider also, “new” modes of communication (e.g. e-discourse, computer mediated discourse ...) and especially multimodality (involves the complex interweaving of word, image, gesture and movement, and sound, including speech. These can be combined in different ways and presented through a range of media). − Field or Domain: the activity in which language plays a part. The use of language will depend on the activity we are engaged in. For instance, the vocabulary and structures employed in a seminar about chemistry will be different from the language used in a conversation about the weather. The language of an official document is different from that of an advertisement. Specialized languages, jargon, etc. Sociolinguistics: the sociolinguist’s aim is to move towards a theory which provides a motivated account of the way language is used in a community, and of the choices people make when they use language.
  • Categories used to analyze a language: o all languages have nouns o all languages have vowels o not all languages have prepositions, future tenses or cases
  • The dominant order of words is VSO and noun + adj. (marked/unmarked).
  • If a language has gender categories in the noun, then, it has gender categories in the pronouns. [implicational universals]. Universal grammar “Syntax—no other animal seems to have it.” We have to assume that something that is so much at the basis of human achievement is an evolved capacity. (Gould) You inherit many of the principles and processes in your language. The 5000 or so languages are very similar. (Lasnik) From the human point of view, we are all very different, but from the point of view of some Martian, we would all look alike, just as from the human point of view, all frogs look alike. From the frog point of view, frogs look very different from each other (Chomsky) The differences between human languages is trivial compared to the differences between human languages and other animal communication systems. (Gleitman)
  1. There are two major ground plans in building a language: (Slobin)Relying on the order of words to convey the meaning of your overall thought, e.g. English.
  2. Changing the ending of words one by one and then shuffling them around, e.g.Latin How many uses 1 vs. 2?
  • Most languages use a little of each; it may change over time back and forth. (Miller)
  • English is more like (1) but may be moving toward (2) “—’ve(would’ve, could’ve)”. (Slobin) If English, then, what kind of English? − Modern English or, for instance, 14th century English? − The evolution of the language? (synchronic, diachronic) Periods of the English Language − Old English: before 1100 − Middle English : 1100 to 1500 − Early Modern English: 1500 to 1700 − Modern English: after 1700

What is Standard English? Standard English is used to describe the variety which is today most widely accepted and understood either within an English-speaking country (for example Standard American English) or throughout the English-speaking world (Standard General English, understood as supra- regional language, or ‘standard of standards’). Linguists tend to agree that Standard English is most easily identified in print (irrespective of pronunciation which varies considerably from place to place), that is, the variety used by most newsreaders on radio and television networks (BBC;CBS, NBC, etc.) and that it relates to social class and level of education. It is the written form used by all educated writers in neutral or formal style. As standard British English is remarkably similar to other national standards, for example the American, Australian and Canadian standards, it has been claimed to be the written form used by writers of English throughout the world. This ‘monocentric’ view has been challenged by some scholars, who hold that English has became ‘pluricentric and that it is therefore more correct to speak of ‘Englishes’ rather than of ‘English’.

2. Grammar

What is understood under the heading “grammar” may vary considerably from one author to another. Basically, “grammar” studies language but, for instance, David Crystal (ibid pp. 92-93), lists six different types of grammar:

  1. Prescriptive grammar: a manual that focuses on constructions where usage is divided, and lays down rules governing the socially correct use of language. These grammars were a formative influence on language attitudes in Europe and America in the 18th^ and 19th^ centuries. Their influence lives on in the handbooks of usage widely found today.
  2. Pedagogical grammar: a book specifically designed for teaching a foreign language, or for developing awareness of the mother tongue. Such teaching grammars are widely used in schools, so that many people have only one meaning for the term grammar: a grammar book
  3. Descriptive grammar: an approach that describes the grammatical constructions that are used in a language, without making any evaluative judgement about their standing in society. These grammars are commonplace in linguistics, where it is standard practice to investigate a “ corpus ” of spoken or written material, and to describe the patterns it contains.
  4. Reference Grammar: it’s a grammatical description that tries to be as comprehensive as possible, so that it can act as a reference for those interested in establishing grammatical facts, whether contemporary or historical.
  5. Theoretical grammar: an approach that goes beyond the study of individual languages to determine what constructs are needed in order to do any kind of grammatical analysis and how these can be applied consistently in the investigation of human language. It is thus a central notion in the investigation of linguistic universals.

Although there is no consensus of opinion, it has been customary to set up at least four levels of study. These levels would be the components of a grammatical description of a language.

  1. The sound level: t is concerned with the study of human speech sounds in general. Phonetics: it will study all speech sounds, not just those of a particular language and it deals with questions such as: how are sounds produced? how are they transmitted? how can they be classified? Phonology: each language selects from the total range of human speech sounds. The task of Phonology is the study of the selection made by a particular language and the systematic functioning of the selected items in that language Phonology, then, differs from Phonetics in being language-specific
  2. The morphological level: this level is concerned with the study of meaningful units called morphemes. Morphemes can be defined as the smallest meaningful units of grammatical description, since they cannot be analyzed any further at this level. Morphology studies the internal structure of words, that is, the ways in which morphemes function as constituents of word structure. Types of morphemes An example: “disagrees” = dis + agree + s “Agree” is a free morpheme, it can occur on its own. The other two are bound morphemes, they must always co-occur with free morphemes. Bound morphemes are also called affixes Types of affixes Affixes added to the beginning of a word are called prefixes: dis– agrees Affixes added to the end of a word are suffixes: disagree-s English words English words, generally, consist of one or more free morphemes (store - book = bookstore) or combinations of free and bound morphemes (washes, washing, washed, washable, bookstores).
  3. The syntactic level Combining morphemes, we can get words. Combining these words, we can form larger grammatical units called phrases. These, in turn, combine to form sentences. Sentences are considered the basic unit of syntactic analysis. Play+ er + s = “players” [word] The + players = “the players” [phrase]

The players + have arrived [sentence] [phrase] + [phrase] Syntax: at the syntactic level we study the set of rules that specify which combinations of words or of phrases are grammatical and which are not. We call this study syntax. Syntactic rules In English, the article precedes the noun: the players, *players the The complement of a preposition is a noun phrase, an – ing clause or a wh-clause: He was afraid of the audience [noun phrase] speaking in front of an audience [-ing clause] what the audience could think [wh- clause] BUT: He was afraid of to speak [infinitive clause] Structure and word-order. Syntax determines the sequences of words that are acceptable in a language and the relationships among the words. The network of relations between the elements of a sentence is called its structure. The order in which the words in a structure appear is known as word-order.

  1. The semantic level: this level is concerned with the study of the meaning that the different units convey. Semantics: traditionally it would study meaning relations: synonymy, antonymy, hyponymy, …etc. Since the 1980s, theories of grammar have paid much more attention to issues of lexical meaning. Some lexical properties, like Aktionsart (lexical aspect) have effects in the sentence: − He died slowly and painfully (process) − *He expired slowly and painfully (punctual) Semantics investigates the meaning of individual units as well as that of whole sentences.Two sentences may contain the same words with the same meanings and signal entirely different messages: − Mary loves John / John loves Mary − I would like to marry you / I would like you to marry

Relationships The units we have just mentioned are not isolated elements, they are closely related among themselves. In order to create morphemes, we need the phonemes. By combining morphemes, we can create words. Joining words according to the grammatical rules we can form a phrase, a unit of syntactic description smaller than the sentence. Finally, combining phrases we can form sentences. Rankscale

  1. Combine phonemes /p/ /r/ /i/
  2. to get morphemes: pre-
  3. Combine morphemes pre- + suppose + d
  4. to get words: presupposed
  5. Combine words has + presupposed
  6. to get phrases: [has presupposed]
  7. Combine phrases to get sentences: [Your boss] [has presupposed] [too many things] A grammatical hierarchy of units We have, thus, established a hierarchy of units of linguistic description: morphemes function as constituents of words, words function as constituents of phrases and phrases as constituents of sentences. This hierarchy has been called rankscale (phonemes – morphemes – words – phrases – sentences). Rankshift Sometimes the units do not follow the order established by the rankscale. Units can be constituents of other units of the same rank or of units a step lower in the rankscale. Ex.: a word can be a constituent of another word: book is a constituent of bookcase and both are words. In this case word + word = word. Function and Category One fundamental distinction concerning the units is that between their function versus their category or class. Units can be described: considering their individual characteristics, their category or considering their role in a linguistic structure, their function. Ex: Categories: Noun Phrase Verb Phrase NP [Your boss] [has presupposed] [too many things] Functions: subject predicator direct object Bear in mind that we can have functions at the level of the sentence (e.g. Subject) and at the level of the phrase (e.g. head).

Outline of Functions and Categories Category Function − Word − Phrase − Clause − Sentence Sentence level Phrase level − Predicator − Subject − Verb complements − Adverbials − Head − Modifier − Determiner − Prepositional complement − Lexical verb − Auxiliary Verb Parsing The process by which we divide sentences and phrases into constituents has been called parsing. Sentences and phrases can be split into different constituents, each of them with a specific function, these constituents are said to be in a relationship of constituency. Constituents and Immediate constituents Once the concept function has been introduced, we can revise that of constituency. A constituent is a unit that is part of another, but when that unit has a function in it is said to be an immediate constituent (IC) of the unit. Ex.: In this sentence we have only 3 immediate constituents (2NPs and 1 VP): Categories: Noun Phrase Verb Phrase NP [Your boss] [has presupposed] [too many things] Functions: subject predicator direct object Since there are functions at sentence level and at phrase level, elements can be ICs of sentences or of phrases.