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CAP 1 (VOCABULARY,MORPHEMES)

-The vocabulary (or lexis) of a language is made up of all the words in that language.

A word is an item of language that can stand alone as a complete unit of meaning.



-Words can be built up out of smaller units of meaning called morphemes.

Morphology is the branch of linguistics that studies the structure of words in terms

of morphemes. The analysis of words into morphemes is called morphemic

analysis.



-Morphemes can be either free or bound. A free morpheme (LOVE) can occur on its

own as a word, while a bound morpheme (-ER in the word LOVER) is only ever

found as part of a word.



-Most bound morphemes are affixes. Affixes can be added to the beginning of a

word, in which case they are called prefixes (UN- in the word UNHAPPY); or they

can be added to the end of a word, in which case they are called suffixes (-NESS in

the word HAPPINESS).

-Most English affixes are either inflectional affixes (also called inflections) or

derivational affixes. Inflections are always suffixes, they signal a grammatical

relationship. Derivational affixes can be either prefixes or suffixes. They may

indicate a different meaning of a word or a different part of speech (or word class).



-Affixation and compounding are two major types of word formation in English.

Affixation involves forming new words by adding prefixes and/or suffixes to

existing words (e.g. usual  unusual; sexual  bisexual), and gives rise to derivatives.

Compounding involves combining two or more existing words, and gives rise to

compounds (e.g. boyfriend, business class).



-Paraphrasing is the most common translation procedure used to translate the

English words formed with derivational suffixes that have no direct equivalents in

Italian. Paraphrasing is also used when there are no direct equivalents of English

compounds.



-Italian adverbs formed by adding the suffix {MENTE} to adjectives cannot be

combined with one other, whereas in English two adverbs formed with the

corresponding suffix {LY} can occur together. In this case the modified adverb is

translated by means of a paraphrase (“entirely correctly” si può dire ma non

“perfettamente correttamente”).

CAP 2 (COLLOC,SYNON,ANTON)

-Collocation is the tendency of certain words to occur together regularly in a given

language. Words that are bound together by collocation are called collocates (si

dice “great number/quantity ma non si dice “great amount”).



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CAP 1 (VOCABULARY,MORPHEMES)

The vocabulary (or lexis) of a language is made up of all the words in that language. A word is an item of language that can stand alone as a complete unit of meaning.
Words can be built up out of smaller units of meaning called morphemes. Morphology is the branch of linguistics that studies the structure of words in terms of morphemes. The analysis of words into morphemes is called morphemic analysis.
Morphemes can be either free or bound. A free morpheme (LOVE) can occur on its own as a word, while a bound morpheme (-ER in the word LOVER) is only ever found as part of a word.
Most bound morphemes are affixes. Affixes can be added to the beginning of a word, in which case they are called prefixes (UN- in the word UNHAPPY); or they can be added to the end of a word, in which case they are called suffixes (-NESS in the word HAPPINESS).
Most English affixes are either inflectional affixes (also called inflections) or derivational affixes. Inflections are always suffixes, they signal a grammatical relationship. Derivational affixes can be either prefixes or suffixes. They may indicate a different meaning of a word or a different part of speech (or word class).
Affixation and compounding are two major types of word formation in English. Affixation involves forming new words by adding prefixes and/or suffixes to existing words (e.g. usual unusual; sexual bisexual), and gives rise to derivatives. Compounding involves combining two or more existing words, and gives rise to compounds (e.g. boyfriend, business class).
Paraphrasing is the most common translation procedure used to translate the English words formed with derivational suffixes that have no direct equivalents in Italian. Paraphrasing is also used when there are no direct equivalents of English compounds.
Italian adverbs formed by adding the suffix {MENTE} to adjectives cannot be combined with one other, whereas in English two adverbs formed with the corresponding suffix {LY} can occur together. In this case the modified adverb is translated by means of a paraphrase (“entirely correctly” si può dire ma non “perfettamente correttamente”). CAP 2 (COLLOC,SYNON,ANTON)
Collocation is the tendency of certain words to occur together regularly in a given language. Words that are bound together by collocation are called collocates (si dice “great number/quantity ma non si dice “great amount”).

propositional meaning are called polysemic words, while words that have one propositional meaning are known as monosemic words.

Wordplay (or pun) is a witticism that often relies for its effect on playing with the different meanings of a polysemic word or on bringing two homonyms together in the same utterance.
Metaphor is a figurative expression that enables us to talk of one thing (the topic) in terms of another (the vehicle) (e.g. the sky is crying).
Puns in the source language cannot always be rendered in the target language owing to mismatches in homonymy and polysemy across languages. Translators adopt a variety of translation procedures to overcome these difficulties as summarized by Dirk Delabastita (1996). The main challenges that translators meet with regard to metaphor consist in recognizing and correctly interpreting metaphor in the source language as well as relaying it in the target language. CAP 4(IDIOM,LEXICAL PHRASES)
A significant part of the vocabulary of a language consists of fixed (or frozen) expressions that are complete units of meaning made up of more than one word. They are generally known as multi-word units because, being semantically equivalent to single words, they represent single lexical items rather than flexible combinations of words.
An idiom is a multi-word unit whose meaning cannot be generally inferred from the meaning of the individual words (e.g. it’s raining cats and dogs). Idioms vary from being semantically opaque to being semi-opaque to being relatively transparent. Idioms can be recognized fairly easily when they refer to unreal events or conditions, when they do not follow the grammatical rules of the language, or when they have a simile-like structure. Idioms that have a literal as well as an idiomatic meaning and idioms that have an apparently direct equivalent in the learner's or translator's native language but convey a different meaning are fairly difficult to recognize. Idioms with a literal and an idiomatic meaning are often used in wordplay.
Mona Baker (2011) has identified six common translation procedures adopted by translators when translating idioms:

using an idiom of similar meaning and form;
using an idiom with similar meaning but different form;
borrowing the source language idiom;
translation by paraphrase;
translation by omission of a play on idiom;
translation by omission of entire idiom.

A lexical phrase is a multi-word unit whose meaning can be generally inferred from the meaning of the individual words. Lexical phrases are chunks of language of varying length and complexity. They are semantically transparent and perform a number of functions.
James R. Nattinger and Jeanette S. De Carrico (1992) group lexical phrases into 4 main types:

polywords (short lexical phrases that allow no variability and are continuous; e.g. by the way) institutionalized expressions (lexical phrases of sentence length, invariable and mostly continuous; they includes proverbs and formulas for social interaction e.g. have a nice day) phrasal constraints (short/medium length lexical phrases that allow variation and are mostly continuous; e.g. a year ago, Dear…) and sentence builders (lexical phrases that provide the framework for whole sentences, they allow considerable variation and are both continuous and discontinuous; e.g. I think that…). CAP 5(NO,ADJ,ADV,PRON)

Words are classified into word classes on the basis of their semantic, morphological, and syntactic features. Nouns (abbreviated as N) refer to concrete and abstract objects as well as people. Most English nouns express the grammatical relationship of number. They can all occur in the possessive case ‘s and can be derived from adjectives and verbs. They can combine with the definite article to form a complete phrase. There are 5 categories of nouns: common, proper, countable, uncountable, and collective.
Pronouns (abbreviated as pro-N) replace nouns to refer to a person, thing, situation, place, or animal that has been mentioned earlier. There are 8 sub-classes of pronouns: personal, indefinite, reflexive, reciprocal, possessive, demonstrative, interrogative, and relative.
There are 2 main types of verbs: lexical verbs (abbreviated as V) and auxiliary verbs (abbreviated as Aux). Lexical verbs refer to actions, processes, states, or events. Their inflectional morphology encodes the third person singular in the present tense, the past tense, the present participle, and the past participle. There are different forms for the past tense and the past participle of irregular verbs. Auxiliary verbs accompany the lexical verb and are of two types: modal verbs and primary verbs. Modal verbs are further subdivided into core modals and marginal modals.
Adjectives (abbreviated as A) denote qualities or states relating to things like shape, taste, size, colour, or judgments. Typical adjectives are gradable and have an absolute, a comparative, and a superlative form. Adjectives can be derived from nouns or verbs.
Adverbs (abbreviated as Adv) describe a verb, an adjective, or another adverb. There are several types of adverbs: manner, degree (or intensifier), time, frequency, duration, place, probability, linking, sentence, broad negative, focusing, interrogative, and relative.
English and Italian differ as regards the way in which they encode the grammatical category of gender in nouns, adjectives, and pronouns. This mismatch requires the use of appropriate translation procedures in order to conform to the principle of political correctness or in order not to reveal the gender of a character when the writer wishes to keep it vague.

A pronoun phrase (abbreviated as pro-NP) is a phrase with a pronoun as head. Pronoun phrases are usually analysed as a sub-class of the NP and in most cases, they consist of a single pronoun.
Whereas English has a great facility for creating lexically dense noun phrases, the Italian syntax does not allow premodification to the same extent. The Italian equivalents of complex English noun groups are usually noun phrases where the head is postmodified by non-finite or finite clauses, and/or prepositional phrases, adjectives, and adverbs. When translating Italian noun phrases into English, opinion and fact adjectives are placed in the following order: opinion + size + other qualities + age + shape + temperature + colour + pattern + origin/ nationality + material + purpose/type + head noun. CAP 8 ( VERB PHRASE / VERB CONSTRUCTION)
A verb phrase (abbreviated as VP) is a phrase with a lexical verb head. A verb phrase may contain a single lexical verb or a string of verbs comprising one or more auxiliary verbs and a lexical verb. Finite verb forms give rise to finite VPs, non-finite verbs give rise to non-finite VPs. The form of the first verb of the verb string determines whether a verb phrase is finite or non-finite.
Tense, aspect, mood, and voice are the 4 grammatical categories of a verb. The tense of a verb indicates the time when an action, state, or event takes place. In English, verbs change their finite form to express only two tenses, i.e. present and past, while the future is conveyed by various other means. The aspect of a verb refers to whether an event is complete or in progress. English distinguishes between two aspects: the perfective and the progressive (or continuous). The perfective aspect is of three types: present perfective, past perfective, and future perfective. The progressive aspect of a verb indicates that an action is, was, has been, will be or will have been in progress over a period of time. The mood of a verb indicates the attitude of the speaker towards what he/she is saying. There are 4 moods: indicative, imperative, subjunctive, and conditional. The voice of a verb refers to the relationship between the verb and its subject in the clause. Voice can be of two types: active and passive.
There are significant differences between English and Italian as regards the four grammatical categories of tense, aspect, mood, and voice. As for the indicative mood, some of the main discrepancies are: a) in Italian the progressive aspect does not apply to perfective tenses, b) Italian has two types of past simple tenses, while English has one, c) in Italian there are two types of past perfect simple tenses, whereas in English there is one. CAP9 (ADJ ADV PREPOS PHRASE)
An adjective phrase (abbreviated as AP) is a phrase with an adjective as head. In its simplest form an AP consists of a single adjective that can be found in attributive, predicative, or postpositive position within a sentence. In an AP the head can also be premodified by an adverb or postmodified by:

a preposition phrase (I’m getting bored with my present job)
a to-infinitive clause (the government is keen to avoid further conflict with the unions)
a that-clause (it’s not at all certain thet Manchester United will win this year)

an ing-clause introduced by a prepositionou interested playing tennis tomorrow?) Many adjectives are postmodified by particular prepositions followed by an NP or a VP. A number of adjectives are postmodified by a to-infinitive clause. Some adjectives are followed by different prepositions.

An adverb(ial) phrase (abbreviated as AdvP) is a phrase with an adverb as head. The structure of an AdvP often consists of a single adverb. Sometimes the head is premodified by an intensifying adverb. A small number of adverbs used to indicate the speaker's opinion of what is being talked about (curiously, funnily, interestingly, oddly, strangely) are often postmodified by the adverb enough. Adverb phrases of manner, place, time, and duration normally go at the end of a clause. If there is more than one AdvP in a clause the usual order is: manner + place + time/duration (They live near now; place + time). Adverb phrases of frequency normally go before a lexical verb but after the primary verb be or the first auxiliary of a VP. The following adverb phrases of frequency can also go at the beginning or the end of a clause: sometimes, usually, normally, frequently, often, occasionally. Adverb phrases of definite frequency such as daily, weekly, monthly, yearly normally go at the end of a clause. Adverb phrases of probability normally go before a lexical verb but after the primary verb be and after the first auxiliary. In negative clauses they normally go before the negative. Maybe and perhaps normally go at the beginning of a clause.
A preposition(al) phrase (abbreviated as PP) consists of a preposition and a noun phrase. PPs give information on: 1. Place (in the office) 2. direction (to the beach) 3. distance (for miles) 4. time (on Tuesday) 5. duration (since yesterday) 6. manner (with difficulty; by car) 7. cause (because of the snow) 8. Purpose (for sheer entertainment; per puro divertimento) 9. Concession (despite the difficulties).
PPs function as postmodifiers of NPs and APs. Many head nouns in NPs are postmodified by particular prepositions (e.g. difficulty with his exams). Many NPs in preposition phrases are preceded by particular prepositions (e.g. on television). Many lexical verbs are followed by PPs with particular prepositions (e.g. care for somebody). Prepositional phrases are found in idiomatic expressions.
As regards specialized discourse, translations from English to Italian tend to be characterized by different kinds of transpositions at phrase level in keeping with the stylistic preferences of Italian scientific and technical writing, which is normally more formal, more abstract, and more verbose than English. CAP 10 (SUBJECT VERB OBJECT)
The Subject (abbreviated as S) refers to the theme or topic of the sentence, the doer of an action performed by the Verb, or the undergoer of an event or state indicated by the Verb. The Subject is an obligatory element in most sentences and usually appears before the lexical verb in declarative sentences (I love jazz) and after a primary verb or the first auxiliary verb in interrogative sentences (Are you vegetarian?). The Subject determines the number agreement with the verb in the present tense. The Subject slot can be filled in by a noun phrase or a pronoun phrase and by certain kinds of subordinate clause.

The Adverbial can also express a personal comment. This kind of Adverbial is called disjunct Adverbial (dA) (frankly, of course, luckily, fortunately, actually, to my regret) and appears most frequently at the beginning of the sentence.

The Adverbial can also link two clauses or sentences together. This kind of Adverbial is called conjunct Adverbial (cA) (nevertheless, moreover, thus, finally, in conclusion, in other words) and usually occurs at the beginning of the sentence. The Adverbial slot can be filled in by an adverb phrase, a preposition phrase, a noun phrase, or by certain kinds of finite or non-finite subordinate clause.
In English declarative sentences grammatical functions normally combine in seven typical (or unmarked) patterns as follows:
1. S+V (the market crashed)
2. S+V+aA (share prices could rise further)
3. S+V+sC (Santa Maria di Leuca is a pretty coastal resort)
4. S+V+dO (interest rate increases have undermined confidence)
5. S+V+dO+aA (we will see you next week)
6. S+V+iO+dO (she sends you her best regards)
7. S+V+dO+oC (I regard creativity as a gift)
In Italian the word order of declarative sentences is more flexible compared to English. Translators working into and out of the two languages often re-order the sentence structure in the source language to achieve fluency and readability in the target language. CAP 12(CLAUSE)
A clause is a structure of language minimally consisting of the Verb slot. There are two broad types of clause: main and subordinate. A main clause can stand alone as a simple sentence. Main clauses can be of 4 types: declarative, interrogative, imperative, and exclamative. The function of declarative clauses is to make a statement. They are characterized by 7 different types of structure: 2 intransitive, 1 intensive, 2 mono-transitive, 1 di-transitive, and 1 complex-transitive. The structure of interrogative clauses is normally characterized by subject-auxiliary inversion. The typical function of interrogative clauses is to ask questions in order to seek information about something. Depending on the kind of question they ask and the kind of reply they expect, interrogative clauses are classified as: 1. yes/no questions 2. wh-questions 3. alternative questions 4. tag questions 5. reply questions 6. rhetorical questions 7. exclamatory questions. Imperative clauses minimally consist of one verb in the imperative mood, except for the first person plural imperative, which requires let's = let us) + the infinitive without to. Imperative clauses have different functions: 1. giving orders (keep off the grass) 2. making invitations (come to my party on Saturday) 3. giving warnings (watch out!) 4. making requests (help me with the luggage please) 5. making offers (have a nice cup of tea) 6. making suggestions (let’s go for a walk this afternoon) 7. expressing good wishes (have a nice Christmas) 8. expressing an imprecation (go the hell!). Exclamative clauses have a regular structure consisting of what a/how + NP/AP + S

V. They express excitement, admiration, shock, annoyance, or surprise. Main clauses can combine to form compound sentences. Compound sentences are multiple sentences made up of two or more main clauses (or simple sentences)

linked by coordinating conjunctions or simply by punctuation marks such as colon or semicolon. The structure underlying compound sentences is called parataxis.

A subordinate clause normally cannot occur on its own to form a simple sentence because it depends on the main clause, as such it always fills in, partly or completely, one of the slots within the sentence, except for the Verb slot. Subordination is the way in which one main clause combines with one or more subordinate clauses to form multiple complex sentences, whose underlying structure is known as hypotaxis. When clauses are linked by coordination and subordination they form multiple compound-complex sentences.
There are 2 main types of subordinate clause: finite and non-finite.
Finite subordinate clauses normally contain a subject as they are built around a verb in a finite form. There are 3 main types of finite subordinate clauses: that-clauses, adverbial clauses, and wh-clauses. 1. That clauses usually begin with the subordinating conjunction that, called a complementizer, whose function is to connect the subordinate clause to the main one. A that-clause can be the postmodifier in a noun or an adjective phrase. It can also have the function of subject, extraposed subject, direct object, or subject complement within the sentence. That-clauses often have the function of direct object after reporting verbs. In this case they express an indirect statement. 2. Adverbial clauses have an adverbial function within the sentence and begin with a great variety of complementizers. Adverbial clauses having the function of adjunct adverbial express the notions of time, duration, frequency, place, manner, reason, condition, concession, contrast, result, comparison, or purpose. 3. Wh-clauses are subdivided into relative clauses and indirect questions. Relative clauses begin with a wh-word that has the function of complementizer and a grammatical function within its own clause. There are 5 types of relative clause: defining, non-defining, free, indefinite, and sentential.
Indirect questions are a type of indirect speech. They can have the function of direct object or subject complement within the sentence and begin with the following complementizers: 1. conjunctions: if, whether 2. interrogative pronouns: who, whom 3. interrogative pronouns and determiners: which, whose, what 4. interrogative adverbs: where, when, why, how.
Non-finite subordinate clauses do not normally contain a subject as they are built around a verb in a non-finite form, which is not marked for person or number. There are 3 main types of non-finite subordinate clause: bare infinitive, to-infinitive, for-infinitive, wh-infinitive, -ing participle, and -en participle. A bare infinitive clause is usually the postmodifier in a noun phrase that has the function of direct object after let, make, and verbs of perception such as see, hear, feel, watch, listen to, notice (e.g. you can’t make me go away).

LINGUA INGLESE III LUMSA, Appunti di Lingua Inglese

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CAP 1 (VOCABULARY,MORPHEMES)