Descriptive grammar

Descriptive grammar

Grammatical categories

November 5th, 2008

Structure of the talk

Structure of the talk



Grammatical categories



Number



Gender



Person



Case



Degree

Grammatical categories

Grammatical categories



Grammatical categories –
grammatical morphemes which
express grammatical notions
such as number or tense.



Grammatical morphemes:

1.

free roots

2.

bound affixes

Synthetic and analytic

Synthetic and analytic

languages

languages



Classical Latin or Greek (synthetic
languages) the grammatical
categories are expressed by
inflectional endings.



In analytic langauges (English,
French) the grammatical categories
are expressed by word order,
function words and a few inflections

Periphrasis

Periphrasis



Periphrasis – a phrase containing
a word that is functionally
equivalent to an inflection:

-

The possessive: the cat’s leg vs.
the leg of a table

-

Tense distinctions: worked vs. will
work

Overt and covert

Overt and covert

categories

categories



Overt categories – categories have
explicit or formal realisations on
the relevant part of speech (e.g.
visited, watched)



Covert categories – a function
word is used is used to express a
category (e.g. will have)

Inventory of grammatical

Inventory of grammatical

categories

categories



Nominal categories: number,
gender, person, case, degree,
definiteness



Verbal categories: tense, aspect,
mood, voice

Number

Number



Singular and plural



Number is expressed by inflection:

1.

In count nouns (dog/dogs)

2.

In demonstratives (this/these)

3.

In the 1st and 3rd p of personal

pronouns, possessive determiners

(my/our), possessive pronouns

(mine/ours) and reflexive pronouns

(myself/ourselves)

The category of number

The category of number



Most languages distinguish
between singular and plural



Dual number (for two of
something) is found in a relatively
large number of languages, e.g.
Standard Arabic

Gender

Gender



In linguistics the word gender means kind

rather than sex



Grammatical gender – gender not

related to the sex of the object

denoted



Natural gender depends on the sex of

the object in the real world



Natural genders: masculine, feminine,

common (dual) and neuter (sexless)

Gender in English

Gender in English



In English gender is expressed by
inflection only in personal pronouns in
the 3rd person singular (he, she, it)



In the first and second person plural it
is common (we, you)



In the third person plural they is
either common (the people) or neuter
(the boats)

Gender in English nouns

Gender in English nouns



In nouns gender is a covert
category shown by the
cooccurrence of a relevant pronoun,
e.g. the boy ... he, the girl .... she.



There is nothing about the
morphological forms of the nouns
which would indicated they are
either masculine of feminine.

Gender expressed overtly

Gender expressed overtly



Derivational feminine suffixes: -ine

(hero/heroine), -ess (god/goddess)



Common gender suffixes: -er (driver), -ist

(artist), -ian (librarian)



Compounds such as lady-, -woman, girl-



Separate forms: boy/girl/child or

rooster/hen/chicken



Separate forms for masculine and

feminine: uncle/aunt, horse/mare,

bachelor/spinster

Special cases

Special cases



Lack of a common gender for the
3rd person singular: Every child
should have their coat on

Complicated gender

Complicated gender

systems

systems



In SiSwati (a Bantu language) there are
12 genders, each marked with a prefix,
e.g.

-

um – persons – umfana – boy

-

li – body parts – lidvolo – knee

-

si – instruments – sitja – plate

-

in – animals – inja – dog

-

bu – abstract things – bubi – evil

Person

Person



1st person – the speaker



2nd person – the hearer/addressee



3rd person – the person or thing spoken about



Person distinctions are expressed by the

inflected forms of the pronouns:



Personal pronouns: I, you, he, they



Personal possessive determiners: my, your, their



Personal possessive pronouns: mine, yours,

theirs



Personal reflexive pronouns: myself, yourself,

themselves

Generic person

Generic person



One – all persons, e.g. One
shouldn’t smoke.



3rd p for 2nd p – your honour



3rd p for 1st p – the writer, your
teacher



1st p for 2nd p – we won’t do that
(editorial we)

Case

Case



Case – the relationship of a noun
phrase to a verb or to other noun
phrases in the sentence.



Nominative case – the function of
subject



Genitive case – the function of
possessor



Objective case – the function of object

The case system of

The case system of

English

English



Nominative: I, we, you, he, she, it, they, who



Genitive: my/mine, our/ours, his, her/hers,
its, their/theirs, whose



Objective: me, us, you, him, her, it, them,
whom



Dative: the function of indirect object can be
expressed either by word order or
periphrasis with to or for, e.g. He gave the
book to Jane. vs He gave Jane the book

The genitive

The genitive



Possessive genitive: Felix’s cat



Subjective genitive: the Queen’s arrival



Objective genitive: the city’s destruction



Genitive of origin: Shakespeare’s plays



Genitive of measure: an hour’s time



Partitive genitive: member of the crowd



Appositive genitive: the city of London

Ambiguities

Ambiguities



The shooting of the hunters



The child’s picture



The woman’s book

Degree

Degree



The category relates to adjectives and
adverbs



The category can be expressed either by
inflection or periphrasis



Positive – fast, beautiful, quickly



Comparative – faster, more beautiful,
more quickly



Superlative – fastest, most beautiful, most
quickly

Special cases

Special cases



bad/worse/worst – suppletion



nigh/near/next – the old positive form
has been lost and the old
comparative has become the positive



It is common to use the superlative in
the comparison of two items, e.g. Put
your best foot forward.

Definiteness

Definiteness



Definite – a referent that is known to
the speaker and hearer



Indefinite – a referent that is not known



Definiteness is a covert category,
obvious only in the presence of an
article



All proper nouns are intrinsically
definite

The definite article ‘the’

The definite article ‘the’



For something previously mentioned



For a unique or fixed referent: the

president, the sun, the Suez Canal



For a generic referent: the unemployed



For part of the immediate physical

context: the board, the beamer



For something identified by a modifying

expression: the house on the corner

The indefinite article ‘a/an’

The indefinite article ‘a/an’



For something mentioned for the first
time



For something which cannot be
identified, e.g. I need a friend



For a generic reference: I am a
teacher



Equivalent to any



Equivalent to one