Grammatical units are meaningful elements which combine with each other in a structural pattern.

The types of grammatical units can be graded according to size of unit.

Morphemes are parts of words. For example, un+friend+ly contains three morphemes.

The part of grammar which studies morpheme is morphology, while the part of grammar dealing

with other types of grammatical units is known as syntax.

In general, grammatical units are described in terms of four factors: their structure, their syntatic

role, their meaning and the way they are used in discourse.

What are words?

Words are generally considered to be the basic elements of language.

There are different senses of “word”:

- orthographic words: these are the words that we are familiar with in written language, where they

are separated by spaces;

- grammatical words: a word falls into one grammatical word class or another.

For example, the word “leaves” can be either of two grammatical words: a verb (the present tense -s

form of the verb leave) or a noun (the plural of leaf);

- lexemes: this is a set of grammatical words which share the same basic meaning, similar forms

and same word class. For example, leave, leaves, left and leaving are all members of the verb

lexeme “leave”.

Three major families of words

words can be grouped into three families, according to their main function and their grammatical

behaviour: lexical words, function words and inserts.

- lexical words are: nouns, adjectives, lexical verbs and adverbs.

- function words are: prepositions, coordinators, auxiliary verbs and pronouns.

- inserts are found in spoken language and are inserted freely in a text. For example: well, yeah,

bye.

The structure of words: morphology

Lexical words can consist of a single morpheme or they can have a more complex structure, created

by a process of inflection, derivation or compounding.

- inflection: lexical words can take inflectional suffixes to signal meanings and roles which are

important to their word class, such as plural in the case of nouns, and past tense in the case of verbs.

- derivation, like inflection, usually involves adding a prefix or a suffix. However, derivation creates

new nouns, adjectives, verbs and adverbs and so changes the meaning of a word class.

For example, un+kind.

- compounding is another form of derivation. Words that are compound contain more than one stem

(radice).

For example: noun+noun girlfriend

verb+noun cookbook

adjective+noun bluebird

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Grammatical units are meaningful elements which combine with each other in a structural pattern. The types of grammatical units can be graded according to size of unit. Morphemes are parts of words. For example, un+friend+ly contains three morphemes. The part of grammar which studies morpheme is morphology, while the part of grammar dealing with other types of grammatical units is known as syntax. In general, grammatical units are described in terms of four factors: their structure, their syntatic role, their meaning and the way they are used in discourse. What are words? Words are generally considered to be the basic elements of language. There are different senses of “word”:

orthographic words: these are the words that we are familiar with in written language, where they are separated by spaces;
grammatical words: a word falls into one grammatical word class or another. For example, the word “leaves” can be either of two grammatical words: a verb (the present tense -s form of the verb leave) or a noun (the plural of leaf);
lexemes: this is a set of grammatical words which share the same basic meaning, similar forms and same word class. For example, leave, leaves, left and leaving are all members of the verb lexeme “leave”. Three major families of words words can be grouped into three families, according to their main function and their grammatical behaviour: lexical words, function words and inserts.
lexical words are: nouns, adjectives, lexical verbs and adverbs.
function words are: prepositions, coordinators, auxiliary verbs and pronouns.
inserts are found in spoken language and are inserted freely in a text. For example: well, yeah, bye. The structure of words: morphology Lexical words can consist of a single morpheme or they can have a more complex structure, created by a process of inflection, derivation or compounding.
inflection: lexical words can take inflectional suffixes to signal meanings and roles which are important to their word class, such as plural in the case of nouns, and past tense in the case of verbs.
derivation, like inflection, usually involves adding a prefix or a suffix. However, derivation creates new nouns, adjectives, verbs and adverbs and so changes the meaning of a word class. For example, un+kind.
compounding is another form of derivation. Words that are compound contain more than one stem (radice). For example: noun+noun girlfriend verb+noun cookbook adjective+noun bluebird

Multiword units, collocations, and lexical bundles.

- a multiword unit is a sequence of orthographical words which functions like simple grammatical unit. For example “on top of” - “of course”;

an idiom is a multi-word unit that cannot be predicted from the meanings of its constituent words. For example “fall in love” - “make up (one’s) mind.
collocation is the relationship between two or more indipendent words, which commonly appear together. For example, the words “broad” and “wide” have the same meaning but are used in different contexts.
lexical bundle (gruppi lessicali) are sequence of words which co-occur very frequently. For example: “I don’t think” - “Would you mind” Lexical word classes There are four main classes of lexical words: nouns, adjectives, lexical verbs and adverbs. They are described according to three main criteria:
morphological: the form of words;
syntatic: what syntatic role has a word;
semantic: the type of meaning a word has. Nouns
morphological: nouns have inflectional suffixes for plural number and for genitive; they can be uncountable. Moreover, there are compound nouns (bomb+shell) and nouns with derivational suffixes (sing+er – friend+ship).
syntactic: nouns can occur as the head of a noun phrase. For example, a new book about the cold war.
semantic: nouns commonly refer to concrete physical entities (people, objects, substances) but they can also denote abstract entities, such as qualities and states (freedom, wish, friendship). Lexical verbs There are auxiliary verbs like can and will, and primary verbs (be-have-do).
morphological: lexical verbs have different forms, signaling tense (present/past) aspect (perfect/progressive) and voice (active/passive). -syntactic: lexical verbs occur on their own, a single word verb, as the central part of the clause. They can also occur in the final or main verb position of verb phrases.
semantic: lexical verbs denote actions, processes and states of affairs that happen or exist in time.

Auxiliary verbs There are two kinds of auxiliary verbs: primary auxiliaries and modal auxiliaries.

primary auxiliaries are “be-have-do”
have is used to form the perfect aspect (I’ve done);
be is used to form the progressive aspect or continuous (She was thinking);
be is also used for the passive voice (It was sent over there).
do is used in negative statements and in questions (Did she sell it? I don’t know).
modal auxiliaries : they express possibility, necessity, prediction and volition. The modals are: will-can-shall-may-must-would-could-should-might Prepositions Most prepositions are short, invariable forms: about, after, around, as, at. Prepositions can be linked to a preceding verb, such as: rely on- confide in. Complex prepositions: they have a meaning that cannot be derived from the meaning of the single parts; for example: such as, apart from, except for, by means of, in spite of, on top of, as far as. Adverbial particles They are a small group of words with a core meaning of motion: about, across, around, in, off, on, out. Coordinators There are two types of words called conjunctions: coordinators and subordinators. Coordinators are: and, but, or, nor and they can be combined with another word to make a correlative coordinator: (both..and – either...or) subordinators are: while, because, as, after, if, since. They show the connection between the main clause and the subordinate clause. There are also complex subordinators that may consist of more than one word: as long as, as soon as, as if.

Special classes of words

Wh-words, existential there, the negator not, the infinitive marker to, and numerals.
Wh-words introduce clauses as: interrogative, relative, complement and adverbial. The interrogative wh-words are:
Interrogative pronouns: who, whom, what, which;
Interrogative determiners: what, which, whose;
Interrogative adverbs: when, where, how, why. The relativizers can be:
relative pronouns: who, whom, which, that;
relative determiners: which, whose;
relative adverbs: when, where, why. The complementizers can be: what, whatever, where. The adverbial clause links: whatever, however. Existential there There is/There are. The negator not. The main use of the negative nor is to make a clause negative. The infinitive marker to. It is used as a complementizer preceding the infinitive form of verbs. Numerals: cardinals and ordinals.
Cardinals answer the question “How many?”
Ordinals answer the question “Which?”

Linguistica Inglese Longman cap. 2, Schemi e mappe concettuali di Lingua Inglese

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