Sounds of English

PHONE

The word phone may refer to any speech sound or gesture considered as a physical event without
regard to its place in the phonology of a language: an unanalyzed sound of a language (Loos et al. 1997).
In contrast, a phoneme is a set of phones or a set of sound features that are thought of as the same
element within the phonology of a particular language (Crystal 1971, p. 180).

PHONEMES

Phonemes are the linguistically contrastive or significant sounds (or sets of sounds) of a language. Such a
contrast is usually demonstrated by the existence of minimal pairs or contrast in identical environment
(C.I.E.). Minimal pairs are pairs of words which vary only by the identity of the segment (another word
for a single speech sound) at a single location in the word (eg.[mt] and [kt]). If two segments
contrast in identical environment then they must belong to different phonemes. A paradigm of minimal
phonological contrasts is a set of words differing only by one speech sound. In most languages it is rare
to find a paradigm that contrasts a complete class of phonemes (eg. all vowels, all consonants, all stops
etc.).

ALLOPHONES

Allophones are the linguistically non-significant variants of each phoneme. In other words a phoneme
may be realised by more than one speech sound and the selection of each variant is usually conditioned
by the phonetic environment of the phoneme. Occasionally allophone selection is not conditioned but
may vary form person to person and occasion to occasion (ie. free variation).

A phoneme is a set of allophones or individual non-contrastive speech segments. Allophones are

sounds, whilst a phoneme is a set of such sounds.

Allophones are usually relatively similar sounds which are in mutually exclusive or complementary
distribution (C.D.). The C.D. of two phones means that the two phones can never be found in the same
environment (ie. the same environment in the senses of position in the word and the identity of
adjacent phonemes). If two sounds are phonetically similar and they are in C.D. then they can be
assumed to be allophones of the same phoneme.

CONSONANTS

In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial
closure of the vocal tract. Examples are [p], pronounced with the lips; [t], pronounced with the front of
the tongue; [k], pronounced with the back of the tongue; [h], pronounced in the throat;[f] and [s],
pronounced by forcing air through a narrow channel (fricatives); and [m] and [n], which have air flowing
through the nose (nasals). Contrasting with consonants are vowels.

MANNER OF ARTICULATION

In articulatory phonetics, the manner of articulation is the configuration and interaction of the
articulators (speech organs such as the tongue, lips, and palate) when making a speech sound. One
parameter of manner is stricture, that is, how closely the speech organs approach one another. Others
include those involved in the r-like sounds (taps and trills), and the sibilancy of fricatives.

PLACE OF ARTICULATION

In articulatory phonetics, the place of articulation (also point of articulation) of a consonant is the point
of contact where an obstruction occurs in the vocal tract between an articulatory gesture, an
active articulator (typically some part of the tongue), and a passive location (typically some part of the
roof of the mouth). Along with the manner of articulation and the phonation, this gives the consonant
its distinctive sound.

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VOWELS

In phonetics, a vowel is a sound in spoken language, such as an English ah! [] or oh! [o], pronounced
with an open vocal tract so that there is no build-up of air pressure at any point above the glottis. This
contrasts with consonants, such as English sh! [], where there is a constriction or closure at some point
along the vocal tract. A vowel is also understood to be syllabic: an equivalent open but non-syllabic
sound is called a semivowel.

DIPHTHONGS

A diphthong (/df/ or /dp/;[1] Greek: , diphthongos, literally "two sounds" or "two

tones"), also known as agliding vowel, refers to two adjacent vowel sounds occurring within the
same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: that is, the tongue moves
during the pronunciation of the vowel. For most dialects of English, the phrase "no highway cowboys"
contains five distinct diphthongs.

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TRIPHTHONGS

TRIPHTHONGS
A triphthong is a glide from one vowel to another and to a third, all produced rapidly and without
interruption.
- e + = e . as in layer, player
- a + = a. as in lire, fire
- + = , as in loyal, royal
- + = u, as in lower, mower
- a + = au, as in power, hour.

RECEIVED PRONUNCIATION

Received Pronunciation (RP) is the standard accent of Standard English in England, with a relationship
to regional accents similar to the relationship in other European languages between their standard
varieties and their regional forms.[1] RP is defined in the Concise Oxford English Dictionary as "the
standard accent of English as spoken in the south of England",[2] although it can be heard from native
speakers throughout England and Wales.[3][4] Peter Trudgill estimated in 1974 that 3% of people in
Britain were RP speakers.[5]

English Morphology
MORPHEME

In linguistics, a morpheme is the smallest component of word, or other linguistic unit, that
has semantic meaning. The term is used as part of the branch of linguistics known as morpheme-based
morphology. A morpheme is composed by phoneme(s) (the smallest linguistically distinctive units of
sound) in spoken language, and by grapheme(s) (the smallest units of written language) in written
language.

TYPES OF MORPHEMES

Free morphemes, like town and dog, can appear with other lexemes (as intown hall or dog
house) or they can stand alone, i.e., "free".
Bound morphemes like "un-" appear only together with other morphemes to form
a lexeme. Bound morphemes in general tend to be prefixes and suffixes. Unproductive, non-
affix morphemes that exist only in bound form are known as "cranberry" morphemes, from
the "cran" in that very word.
Derivational morphemes can be added to a word to create (derive) another word: the
addition of "-ness" to "happy," for example, to give "happiness." They
carry semantic information.
Inflectional morphemes modify a word's tense, number, aspect, and so on, without deriving
a new word or a word in a new grammatical category (as in the "dog" morpheme if written
with the plural marker morpheme "-s" becomes "dogs"). They
carry grammatical information.
Allomorphs are variants of a morpheme, e.g., the plural marker in English is sometimes
realized as /-z/, /-s/ or /-z/.

AFFIXES

An affix is a morpheme that is attached to a word stem to form a new word. Affixes may be derivational,
like English -ness and pre-, or inflectional, like English plural -s and past tense -ed. They are bound
morphemes by definition; prefixes and suffixes may be separable affixes. Affixation is, thus, the linguistic
process speakers use to form different words by adding morphemes (affixes) at the beginning
(prefixation), the middle (infixation) or the end (suffixation) of words.

3
English Phrases
PHRASE

A phrase is a small group of words that adds meaning to a word. A phrase is not a sentence because it is
not a complete idea with a subject and a predicate.

In English there are five different kinds of phrases, one for each of the main parts of speech. In a phrase,
the main word, or the word that is what the phrase is about, is called the head. In these examples, it is
printed in bold. The other words in the phrase do the work of changing or modifying the head.

In a noun phrase, one or more words work together to give more information about a noun.

all my dear children

the information age
seventeen hungry lions in the rocks
In an adjective phrase, one or more words work together to give more information about an adjective.

so very sweet
earnest in her desire
very happy with his work
In a verb phrase, one or more words work together to give more meaning to a verb. In English, the verb
phrase is very complex.
In an adverb phrase, one or more words work together to give more information about an adverb.

especially softly
formerly of the city of Perth
much too quickly to see clearly

In a prepositional phrase, one or more words work together to give information about time, location, or
possession, or condition. The preposition always appears at the front of the phrase.

after a very long walk

behind the old building
for all the hungry children
in case it should happen again

Sentence Patterns in English

KERNEL SENTENCES

A kernel sentence is a form of a sentence that is always active and affirmative. It is the form that does
not contain any marked expression, mood or voice, it is passive. An example of a kernel sentence is;

The boy closed the door.

CLEFT SENTENCES

A cleft sentence is a complex sentence (one having a main clause and a dependent clause) that has a
meaning that could be expressed by a simple sentence. Clefts typically put a particular constituent
into focus. This focusing is often accompanied by a special intonation.

It-cleft: It is Jaime for whom we are looking.

Wh-cleft/Pseudo-cleft:[1] What he wanted to buy was a Fiat.
Reversed wh-cleft/Inverted pseudo-cleft: A Fiat is what he wanted to buy.
All-cleft: All he wanted to buy was a Fiat.
Inferential cleft: It is not that he loves her. It's just that he has a way with her that is
different.
There-cleft: And then there's a new house he wanted to build.

4
 If-because cleft: If he wants to be an actor it's because he wants to be famous.

Coordination and Subordination

Coordination and Subordination are ways of combining words, phrases, and clauses into more complex
forms. The discussion below examines coordination and subordination of clauses.

COORDINATION uses coordinating conjunctions, conjunctive adverbs (with appropriate punctuation),

or punctuation to combine short independent clauses into a single sentence. Coordination implies the
balance of elements that are of equal semantic value in the sentence.

Example:
The football game has been postponed. We'll have to do something else. (2 simple sentences with no
coordination or subordination, but note how coordination occurs below).

SUBORDINATION uses subordinating conjunctions or relative pronouns to transform independent

clauses (main clauses or ideas) into dependent clauses (subordinate clauses or ideas). Subordinate
clauses are subordinate to (and thus hold less semantic value than) the independent clause(s) to which
they are linked.

Example:
The football game has been postponed. We'll have to do something else. (2 simple sentences with no
coordination or subordination but note how subordination occurs below)

Example:
The lab results confirm our diagnosis. They have been sent to the attending physician. (2 simple
sentences with no coordination or subordination but note how subordination occurs below)

A note about one type of subject of a verb, a false subject of sorts.

5
Expletives are words that serve a placeholder function in a sentence and often fill in for the real
subject of a clause. Expletives often begin sentences and miscue the reader as to what the real subject
is. Common expletives are "there," "it," and "here." When you see the words "there," "it," or "here"
followed by a "to be" linking verb (e.g., was, were, is, are), you should check whether the sentence is
starting with an expletive. See if you can reorder the sentence so that the real subject precedes the
verb. Reordering the parts may help you identify the grammatical subject.

"There is a car across the street" should really read as:

A car is across the street.

"It is hard to write well" should really read as:

To write well is hard.

"Here is the report about the oil spill" should really read as:
The report about the oil spill is here

When we start discussing style in more detail, we will first discuss expletives as miscues and ways that
writers waste words and delay meaning. By the end of the course, we will discover that effective writers
can use them sparingly to delay information and intentionally shift the sentence.

Clauses in English
What is a clause?

A clause is a part of a sentence. There are two main types: independent (main clauses), dependent
(subordinate clauses).

Independent Clauses

An independent clause is a complete sentence; it contains a subject and verb and expresses a complete
thought in both context and meaning.

For example: The door opened.

Independent clauses can be joined by a coordinating conjunction to form complex or compound

sentences.

For example: Take two independent clauses and join them together with the conjunction and: " The
door opened." "The man walked in." = The door opened and the man walked in.

Dependent Clauses

A dependent (subordinate) clause is part of a sentence; it contains a subject and verb but does not
express a complete thought. They can make sense on their own, but, they are dependent on the rest of
the sentence for context and meaning. They are usually joined to an independent clause to form a
complex sentence.

Dependent clauses often begin with a a subordinating conjunction or relative pronoun (see below) that
makes the clause unable to stand alone.

For example:

The door opened because the man pushed it.

Dependent clauses can be nominal, adverbial or adjectival.

A nominal clause (noun clause) functions like a noun or noun phrase. It is a group of words containing a
subject and a finite verb of its own and contains one of the following: that | if |whether

For example:

I wondered whether the homework was necessary.

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Noun clauses answer questions like "who(m)?" or "what?"

An adverbial clause (adverb clause) is a word or expression in the sentence that functions as an adverb;
that is, it tells you something about how the action in the verb was done. An adverbial clause is
separated from the other clauses by any of the following subordinating
conjunctions:after | although | as | because | before | if | since | that | though | till | unless | until |
when |where | while

For example:

They will visit you before they go to the airport.

Adverbial clauses can also be placed before the main clause without changing the meaning.

For example:

Before they go to the airport, they will visit you.

!Note - When an adverb clause introduces the sentence (as this one does), it is set off with a comma.

Adverb clauses answer questions like "when?", "where?", "why?"

An adjectival clause (adjective clause or relative clause) does the work of an adjective and describes a
noun, it's usually introduced by a relative pronoun: who | whom | whose | that | which

For example:

I went to the show that was very popular.

This kind of clause is used to provide extra information about the noun it follows. This can be to define
something (a defining clause), or provide unnecessary, but interesting, added information (a non-
defining clause).

For example:

The car that is parked in front of the gates will be towed away. (Defining relative clause.)

Information contained in the defining relative clause is absolutely essential in order for us to be able to
identify the car in question.

My dog, who is grey and white, chased the postman. ( Non-defining relative clause)

A non-defining relative clause is separated from the rest of the sentence by commas. If you take away
the non-defining clause the basic meaning of the sentence remains intact.

For example:

My dog chased the postman.

Adjective clauses answer questions like "which?" or "what kind of?"

Summary

An adjective clause functions as an adjective (modifies a noun or pronoun); an adverb clause functions
as an adverb (describes a verb, adjective or other adverb); a noun clause is used as a noun (subject of a
verb, direct object, indirect object, predicate nominative or object of the preposition).

!Note - The difference between a clause and a phrase is that a phrase does not contain a finite verb.

Relative Clauses

A relative clause follows the noun it modifies. It is generally indicated by a relative pronoun at the start
of the clause, although sometimes you can tell simply by word order. The choice of relative pronoun, or
choice to omit one, can be affected by the following:-

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Human or Non-human?

We make a distinction between an antecedent that is a human who(m) and an antecedentwhich is

a non-human which.

Who(m) is used when the antecedent is a person.

That is used to refer to either a person or thing.
Which is used to refer to anything exept a person.

I met a man and a woman yesterday. The woman, who had long blonde hair, was very pretty.

The man she was with, was the man that / who won the race.

The race was the one that I lost.

The man, to whom the winnings were given, was with the woman who was very pretty.

!Note - Whom is not used much in spoken English.

Restrictive or Non-restrictive?

Restrictive relative clauses are sometimes called defining relative clauses, or identifying relative clauses.
Similarly, non-restrictive relative clauses are called non-defining or non-identifying relative clauses.

In English a non-restrictive relative clause is preceded by a pause in speech or a comma in writing, unlike
a restrictive clause.

For example:-

The builder, who erects very fine houses, will make a large profit.
This example, with commas, contains a non-restrictive relative clause. It refers to a specific builder,
and assumes we know which builder is intended. It tells us firstly about his houses, then about his
profits.

The builder who erects very fine houses will make a large profit.
This second example uses a restrictive relative clause. Without the commas, the sentence states that
any builder who builds such houses will make a profit.

Restrictive Non-restrictive

Human Nonhuman Human Nonhuman

Subject who, that which, that who which

Object who, whom, that, which, that, who, whom which

After preposition whom which whom which

Possessive whose, of whom whose, of which whose, of whom whose, of which

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Phone

The word phone may refer to any speech sound or gesture considered as a physical event without
regard to its place in the phonology of a language: an unanalyzed sound of a language (Loos et al. 1997).
In contrast, a phoneme is a set of phones or a set of sound features that are thought of as the same
element within the phonology of a particular language (Crystal 1971, p. 180).

Phoneme

Phonology as the study of the distinctive sounds in a language, and the concept of distinctiveness is
captured by the notion of a phoneme. A phoneme is a distinctive or contrastive sound in a language.
What distinctive means in this context is that the sound makes a difference in meaning and has
communicative value. Different phonemes make contrasts in words. For example, /n/, /l/ and /t/ are all
phonemes because they serve to make contrasts in words, as in nab, lab, tab. Here we see how the
phonemes of a language are determined, by means of what are called minimal pairs. A minimal pair is a
set of different words consisting of all the same sounds except for one. The one sound which contrasts is
then determined to be a phoneme since it makes a difference in meaning (it differentiates one word
from another). For example, we could set up a phonetic environment, or a sequence of sounds, such as
an environment containing the sound sequence /t/. If we then establish a blank slot preceding this
sequence, /_t/, and substitute different consonants in this slot, we can see if we get different words. If
we do, then each of these consonants is a phoneme.

/_t/: pat, bat, sat, mat, gnat, fat, that, vat, cat

We can conclude that /p/, /b/, /s/, /m/, /n/, /f/, //, /v/, and /k/ are all phonemes. Thus, bat and cat, for
example, form a minimal pair, as do gnat and vat.

This same concept of a minimal pair holds true for vowels as well. Consider, for example, a phonetic
environment such as /p_t/. Substituting different vowels in the empty slot, we can generate numerous
minimal pairs:

/p_t/: pit, peat, pate, pot, pout, put, putt, pat, pet

We can conclude that /I/, /i/, /eI/, /#/, /a~/, /~/, /%/, //, and // are all distinct phonemes.

Allophone

An allophone (from allos other phn sound) is a predictable variant of a phoneme.

Allophones are the individual members of a class of sounds (a phoneme), or the pronounceable or
concrete realizations of an abstraction (a phoneme). We speak of the phonetically similar variants of a
sound as the allophones of a (particular) phoneme. To take a real example from English, consider
the aspirated [th] and the nonaspirated [t]. They are phonetically very similar, but not identical.
Allophones are nondistinctive (noncontrastive) variants of a phoneme, since substituting one allophone
for another allophone of the same phoneme will not lead to a different word. Replacing [th] with [t] in
top, or [t] with [th] in stop, will not lead to different words, just slightly odd-sounding ones. Allophones
of a phoneme are predictable: they are conditioned by the phonetic environment, which determines the
appearance of one or another allophone. Thus, we can say that the aspirated version of /t/ is predicted
by its position word (or syllable) initially before a stressed vowel; the nonaspirated version is predicted
by all other phonetic environments.

Consonant sounds

Speech is a phonetic continuum, a continuous, smoothly flowing set of movements, not a set of discrete
and isolated movements. It is convenient, however, to segment the speech chain into syllables, and to
divide these in turn into consonants and vowels. A syllable consists necessarily of a vowel; optionally, it
may begin and/or end with a consonant. A vowel is the nucleus or acoustic high point of a syllable; it is
articulated for a longer time than surrounding consonants. While vowels tend to continue the airstream,
consonants tend to break it.

Classification of consonants

A consonant is defined as a speech sound which is articulated with some kind of stricture, or closure, of
the air stream.

Consonants are classified according to four features:

1. The state of the glottis: in vibration (voiced) or open (voiceless);

2. The state of the velum: lowered (nasal) or raised (oral);
3. The place of articulation: the location where the stricture or place of maximum interference
occurs and what articulators are involved; and
4. The manner of articulation: the amount of stricture, whether it is complete, partial (called
close approximation), or relatively open (open approximation).The term
approximation refers to the two articulators approaching (or approximating) one another.

In describing the place of articulation for consonants, it is traditional to list the active and then the
passive articulator. Consonants involve a rather large number of discrete places of articulation.

1. bilabial: the lips are brought together (the lower lip is active); the tongue is not involved but
remains in the rest position (its position when you say ah for the doctor) e.g. the sound of
b in English;
2. labiodental: the lower lip is brought up against the upper front teeth; again the tongue is in rest
position e.g. the sound of f in English;
3. dental: the tip of the tongue (or apex) protrudes between the teeth or touches the back of the
upper teeth e.g. the sound of t in Spanish or th in English;
4. alveolar: the tip of the tongue makes contact with or is in close approximation to the alveolar
ridge e.g. the sound of d in English;
5. alveolopalatal: the front, or blade, of the tongue is raised to an area between the alveolar ridge
and the palate e.g. the sound of sh in English;
6. palatal: the front of the tongue is brought up against the palate e.g. the sound of y in
English;
7. velar: the back, or dorsum, of the tongue is brought into contact with the velum e.g. the sound
of g in English;
8. uvular: the back of the tongue touches the uvula;
9. pharyngeal: the root of the tongue (specifically, the epiglottis) is moved backwards against the
wall of the pharynx; and
10. glottal: the vocal cords, functioning as articulators, make a brief closure.
Each of the various places of articulation just examined may combine with a number of different
manners of articulation to produce consonant sounds:

1. stop: (oral stop) involving complete closure of two articulators with the velum raised (velic
closure) e.g. the sound of p in English;
2. nasal: (nasal stop) involving complete closure of two articulators with the velum lowered (
velic opening) e.g. the sound of n in English; for every stop position in English, there
is a nasal articulated in the same position (homorganic);
3. fricative: (or spirant) involving close approximation of two articulators; the air stream is
partially obstructed so that a turbulent airflow is produced, resulting in a hissing or rubbing
sound e.g. the sound of s in English;
4. affricate: consisting of a stop released into a homorganic fricative e.g. the sound of ch in
English; this sound is analyzed either as a complex or a simple sound;
5. trill: (or roll) involving complete closure alternating intermittently with open
approximation, that is, a rapid vibration of the active articulator against the passive articulator
(this sound in not common in English except for the Scottish r made with an apical trill);
6. flap: (or tap) involving momentary complete closure in which the active articulator strikes
the passive articulator only once; it is one strike of a trill and similar to a stop except that the
tongue is more tense and controlled than in a stop; and
7. approximant: one articulator approaches another but generally not to the extent that a
turbulent air stream is produced; there is usually open approximation in the three different
types of approximants:
a. lateral: involving complete closure of the central portion of the vocal tract, with the
lateral passage of air; the air may pass around the sides with no stricture (open
approximation) e.g. the sound of l in English or, in languages other than English,
with some stricture (close approximation);
b. retroflex: involving the underside of the tongue curling back behind the alveolar ridge
towards the palate e.g. the sound of r in English; laterals and retroflexes are
called liquids;
c. glide (or semivowel): involving a glide to or from a vowel; this sound is articulated like a
vowel (with no stricture) but functions as a consonant to begin or end syllables e.g.
the sound of w in English.

Vowel sounds

In phonetics, a vowel is a sound in spoken language, such as an English ah! [] or oh! [o], pronounced
with an open vocal tract so that there is no build-up of air pressure at any point above the glottis. This
contrasts with consonants, such as English sh! [], where there is a constriction or closure at some point
along the vocal tract. A vowel is also understood to be syllabic: an equivalent open but non-syllabic
sound is called a semivowel.
In all oral languages, vowels form the nucleus or peak of syllables, whereas consonants form
the onset and (in languages that have them) coda. However, some languages also allow other sounds to
form the nucleus of a syllable, such as the syllabic l in the English word table [te.bl] (the stroke under
the l indicates that it is syllabic; the dot separates syllables), or the r in Serbo-Croatian vrt [vrt] "garden".

Vowel Classification

The articulatory features that distinguish different vowel sounds are said to determine the
vowel's quality. Daniel Jones developed the cardinal vowel system to describe vowels in terms of the
common featuresheight (vertical dimension), backness (horizontal dimension) and roundedness (lip
position). These three parameters are indicated in the schematic IPA vowel diagram on the right. There
are however still more possible features of vowel quality, such as the velum position (nasality), type
of vocal fold vibration (phonation), and tongue root position.

Height

Vowel height is named for the vertical position of the tongue relative to either the roof of the mouth or
the aperture of the jaw. In high vowels, such as [i] and [u], the tongue is positioned high in the mouth,
whereas in low vowels, such as [a], the tongue is positioned low in the mouth. The IPA prefers the
terms close vowel and open vowel, which respectively describe the jaw as open or closed.

Backness

Vowel backness is named for the position of the tongue during the articulation of a vowel relative to the
back of the mouth. In front vowels, such as [i], the tongue is positioned forward in the mouth, whereas
in back vowels, such as [u], the tongue is positioned towards the back of the mouth.

Roundedness

Roundedness refers to whether the lips are rounded or not. In most languages, roundedness is a
reinforcing feature of mid to high back vowels, and is not distinctive. Usually the higher a back vowel is,
the more intense the rounding
Received Pronunciation

Received Pronunciation (RP) is the standard accent of Standard English in England, with a relationship
to regional accents similar to the relationship in other European languages between their standard
varieties and their regional forms.[1] RP is defined in the Concise Oxford English Dictionary as "the
standard accent of English as spoken in the south of England",[2] although it can be heard from native
speakers throughout England and Wales.[3][4] Peter Trudgill estimated in 1974 that 3% of people in
Britain were RP speakers.[5]

Phonological features of RP

Consonants

Nasals and liquids (/m/, /n/, //, /r/, /l/) may be syllabic in unstressed syllables.
Voiceless plosives (/p/, /t/, /k/, /t/) are aspirated at the beginning of a syllable, unless a
completely unstressed vowel follows.
Aspiration does not occur when /s/ precedes in the same syllable, as in "spot" or "stop". When a
sonorant /l/, /r/, /w/, or /j/ follows, this aspiration is indicated by partial devoicing of the
sonorant.[46] /r/ is a fricative when devoiced.
Syllable final /p/, /t/, /t/, and /k/ may be either preceded by a glottal stop (glottal
reinforcement) or, in the case of /t/, fully replaced by a glottal stop, especially before a syllabic
nasal (bitten [bn ]).
The glottal stop may be realised as creaky voice; thus, an alternative phonetic transcription
of attempt [temt] could be [temm t].
As in other varieties of English, voiced plosives (/b/, /d/, //, /d/) are partly or even fully
devoiced at utterance boundaries or adjacent to voiceless consonants.

Vowels

RP's long vowels are slightly diphthongised. Especially the high vowels /i/ and /u/ which are
often narrowly transcribed in phonetic literature as diphthongs [i] and [u].[54]
"Long" and "short" are relative to each other. Because of phonological process affecting vowel
length, short vowels in one context can be longer than long vowels in another context.[45] For
example, the long vowel /i/ in 'reach' /rit/ (which ends with a voiceless consonant) may be
shorter than the short vowel // in the word 'ridge' /rd/ (which ends with a voiced consonant)..
Conversely, the short vowel // becomes longer if it is followed by a voiced consonant.
Thus, bat is pronounced [bt] and bad is[bd]. In natural speech, the plosives /t/ and /d/ may
be unreleased utterance-finally, and voiced consonants partly or completely devoiced (as
in [bd ]); thus distinction between these words would rest mostly on vowel length and the
presence or absence of glottal reinforcement.[47]
Unstressed vowels are both shorter and more centralised than stressed ones. In unstressed
syllables occurring before vowels and in final position, contrasts between long and short high
vowels are neutralised and short [i] and [u] occur
 (e.g. happy [hpi], throughout [uat]).[57] The neutralisation is common throughout many
English dialects, though the phonetic realisation of e.g. [i] rather than []
The centring diphthongs are gradually being eliminated in RP. The vowel // (as in "door",
"boar") had largely merged with // by the Second World War, and the vowel //(as in "poor",
"tour") has more recently merged with // as well among most speakers,[58] although the
sound // is still found in conservative speakers (and this is still the only pronunciation given in
the OED).
RP also possesses the triphthongs /a/ as in ire, /a/ as in hour, // as in lower, /e/ as
in layer and // as in loyal. There are different possible realisations of these items: in slow,
careful speech they may be pronounced as a two-syllable triphthong with three distinct vowel
qualities in succession, or as a monosyllabic triphthong.
Diphthongs

A diphthong, also known as a gliding vowel, refers to two adjacent vowel sounds occurring within the
same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: that is, the tongue moves
during the pronunciation of the vowel. For most dialects of English, the phrase "no highway cowboys"
contains five distinct diphthongs.

Diphthongs contrast with monophthongs, where the tongue doesn't move and only one vowel sound is
heard in a syllable. Where two adjacent vowel sounds occur in different syllablesfor example, in the
English word re-electthe result is described as hiatus, not as a diphthong. A list of English diphthongs
are as follows.

Diphthong Example

Closing

/e/ /be/ bay

/a/ /ba/ buy

// /b/ boy

// /b/ beau

/a/ /ba/ bough

Centring

// /b/ beer

/e/ /be/ bear

// /b/ boor

(formerly //) /b/ boar

Triphthongs

In phonetics, a triphthong is a monosyllabic vowel combination involving a quick but smooth movement
of the articulator from one vowel quality to another that passes over a third. While "pure" vowels,
or monophthongs, are said to have one target articulator position, diphthongs have two, and
triphthongs three.

As two syllables Triphthong Loss of mid-element Further simplified as

[a.] [a] [a] [a]

[.] [] [] []

[.] [] [] []

[e.] [e] [] []

[.] [] [] -
Morphology
Morphology is the study of the ways in which words are formed and the functions of the parts
that make up the whole of the word.

Morphemes
Like phonemes, morphemes are distinct grammatical units from which words are formed. But
unlike phonemes, morphemes have unique meanings. For instance, the words seen /sin/ and lean
/lin/ are distinguished by one phoneme, but the phonemes /s/ and /r/ have no inherent meanings
themselves. On the other hand, when you put the phonemes /dg/ together, they form a unit that
has a different meaning from the unit formed by /kt/: dog vs. cat. A morpheme is not the same
thing as a word, though. For instance, the string of phonemes /dgz/ (dogs) means something
different from /dgd/ (dogged) or /dgi/ (doggy). Furthermore, the /z/, /\d/, and /i/ seem to mean
more or less the same thing in /legz/ (legs), /rg\d/ (ragged), and /kti/ (kitty). But /z/, /\d/, and
/i/ are not words. The logical conclusion is that each of these words has two morphemes with
meanings like plural, having the quality of, and affectionate diminutive. Likewise, it
seems logical to conclude that the words dogs and legs, dogged and ragged, and doggy and kitty
share common morphemes.

We can identify a morpheme by three criteria:

1. It is a word or part of a word that has meaning.

2. It cannot be divided into smaller meaningful parts without violation of its meaning or
without meaningless remainders.
3. It recurs in differing word environments with a relatively stable meaning.

Take the word straight /stret/. It is obviously recognised as a word by English speakers.
Although we can divide it up in all sorts of ways (trait /tret/, rate /ret/, ate /et/), they all mean
something different and leave us with meaningless remainders like /s-/, /st-/, and /str-/. The unit
/stret/ occurs with relatively stable meaning in words like straighten, a straight line, and
straightedge. Thus it fits the criteria for a morpheme. Likewise, consider the words bright (light)
and brighten (make light). We might conclude that the en in brighten is a morpheme with a
causative meaning, and we certainly find that elsewhere in words like deepen, soften, stiffen.

A note on how to represent morphemes: Morphemes are normally represented using their most
common English spelling surrounded by curly brackets: for instance, the morpheme in the simple
word dog is represented {dog}. This is called morphemic transcription. Note that it refers to
the meaning, not the pronunciation. What happens when the same morpheme has multiple
pronunciations, as with the plural s, pronounced /s/ in words like cats and /z/ in words like
dogs? You use the same transcriptions. So cats would be represented as {cat} + {-s pl} and
{dogs} would be represented {dog}+ {-s pl}. The - and pl are not strictly necessary, but they
may help clarify the meaning. For instance, consider the word walks in He walks in the park.
Here the /s/ does not mean plural; it means present tense. In both cases, the morpheme can
only be attached to another morpheme, which is what the - indicates. By placing these extra
markers in your morphemic transcription, you make it more clear. Often this is necessary
because some morphemes sound the same but mean something difference. The plural and
present tense morphemes are one example. Another is the /\r/ sound in wider and baker, which
has two different meanings: comparative and agent (i.e. one who does something). The
words would be transcribed {wide} + {-er comparative} and {bake} + {-er agent} In some cases
the same morpheme may have two different spellings, as in baker and actor. The latter would be
transcribed {act} + {-er agent}.When performing morphemic transcriptions, you should include
as much information as you feel necessary in order to assure that your reader knows which
morphemes you are talking about.

Allomorphs
When a single morpheme takes more than one form, as the {-s pl} morpheme does, each form is
called an allomorph. Here is another example: the indefinite article a also occurs as an in certain
circumstances. There is only one morpheme {a} with two allomorphs /e/ (or /\/) and /n/. Most
allomorphs are phonemic variants; that is, they are slightly different pronunciations of the same
morpheme. In many cases, the choice of allomorph depends on where the morpheme occurs in
the word. For instance, in the present tense verb talks the {-s present tense} allomorph is /s/, but
in begs it is /z/. In many cases the choice of allomorph is determined by the presence of another
morpheme. For instance, in the word pronounce the allomorph of {nounce} (which means
something like say) is /nauns/, but in pronunciation it is /n\ns/ because of the morphemes at
the end of the word. (Many of my students in fact mispronounce and misspell the word
pronunciation as pronounciation. This is an unconscious simplifying of the morpheme into only
one allomorph.) Another example is the change of stress in words like tom and atmic (the
indicates which syllable is stressed). Not only does the stressed syllable change when you add {-
ic}, but some of the phonemes change. The morpheme {atom} in fact has two allomorphs:
/t\m/ and /\tm/.

The phenomenon of allomorphy (that is, the existence of multiple allomorphs for a single
morpheme) occurs for a large number of reasons. Sometimes the reason is phonological
assimilation (as in cats and dogs). Sometimes allomorphs were created by phonological
processes that took place in the past. For instance, {wolf} has the allomorphs /wlf/ and /wlv/
(in the plural wolves). The reason is that sometime around five hundred years ago /f/ became /v/
before the {-s pl} morpheme: hence we have variants like wife/wives and leaf/leaves. The
process is no longer active, which is why we say the Toronto Maple Leafs, not the Toronto
Maple Leaves. About the same period in history, /e/ and // changed to /i/ in stressed syllables,
although we still spell these vowels as if they were pronounced the old way (in words like see,
flee, etc.). However, the change did not occur if the stressed syllable was followed by two more
syllables, so we end up with morphemes like {supreme} with two allomorphs /suprim/ and
/suprm/ (supreme/supremacy). A similar process also explains the allomorphy in words like
divine/divinity and pronounce/pronunciation. We could also call the vowel changes in the past
tenses of some verbs allomorphs of the normal past tense inflection, as in the forms talk/talked
and run/ran. So we would transcribe them something like {talk} + {-ed past tense} and {run} +
{-ed past tense}.

Components of Words
Every word must have at least one morpheme, but it may have more than one. Morphemes that
can stand alone and have meaning as a word are called free morphemes. Morphemes that cannot
stand alone but must be attached to another morpheme to have meaning are called bound
morphemes. Hence there is a major difference between morphemes like{bright}, a free
morpheme, and {-en}, a bound morpheme. A base is the part of a word that carries its principal
meaning. Often it can be a free morpheme, such as {bright}, but it can also be bound. Most bases
that are bound morphemes come in words of foreign origin. For example, the {sent} in consent
and dissent has nothing to do with sending; it comes from the Latin word sentire to feel.

A word must contain one base and may contain one or more bound morphemes called affixes.
An affix is a generic term for a bound morpheme that is not a base. If it occurs before the base it
is called a prefix. If it occurs after the base, it is called a suffix. There is also a type of affix
called an infix, which actually goes in the middle of the base. These are very rare in English, but
two important examples are the vowel changes in man/men and run/ran. Clearly these vowel
changes represent plural and past tense morphemes.

Some important observations:

1. Prefixes and suffixes can be piled on top of each other, as in insubordinate:
prefix prefix base suffix suffix
{in-} {sub-} {ord} {-in} {-ate}
2. Infixes can only occur within the base, which is not possible to represent easily in
standard morphemic notation:
singular plural present tense past tense
man {man} men {man} + {-s pl} run {run} ran {run} + {-ed past tense}

Derivational and Inflectional Affixes

Some affixes have the effect of creating new words, although the end result may or may not have
a closely related meaning. For instance, the affix {-en} added to {gold} will produce golden, the
adjective form of gold. The prefix {con} added to {sent} will produce consent, whereas the
prefix {dis} added to {sent} will produce dissent, quite a different meaning! Affixes of these
types are called derivational morphemes. Sometimes derivational morphemes change the part
of speech, converting, say a verb to a noun or vice versa (like break/breakage), or a noun to an
adjective (like day/daily). Sometimes they derive a new word of the same part of speech like
camp/camper. They can even have feminine meaning, like fianc/fiance or baron/baroness.
Sometimes they have diminutive meanings like dog/doggy, cat/kitten. English has a great variety
of derivational suffixes, in part because it has borrowed many from other languages. Note:
derivational morphemes are always prefixes or suffixes. Inflectional affixes (or just
inflections) are morphemes which supplement the meaning of the base with information about
the grammatical significance of the word in a particular sentence. Hence the introduction of the
underlined inflections in the following sentences does not change the basic meanings of the
words but does give us essential information such as How many?, When?, and How
much?.

1. The boy played with the dog/dogs.

2. The boys dog played with him.
3. The boy plays/played with the dog.
4. The boy is happy/happier/happiest when playing with the dog.
The inflectional system in English can be summarised as follows:

Inflection Name Examples

Noun Inflections
{-s pl} Noun plural dogs, bushes
{-s poss} Noun possessive boys, boys, mens*
Verb Inflections
{-s 3rd sg pres} 3rd person singular present runs, catches
{-ing vb} present participle discussing
{-ed past} past tense chewed
{-d past part} past participle chewed, eaten**
Adjective Inflecions
{-er comp} comparative bolder, sooner, nearer
{-est super} superlative boldest, soonest, nearest

* English spelling distinguishes the possessive from other {-s} morphemes using apostrophes,
but this is not in the pronunciation.
** -en is a very common variation from {d} in the past participle. Well talk about the reasons
for this below.

Note: inflectional morphemes are always suffixes or infixes. Suffixes that do not have one of
the inflectional meanings listed above are not inflectional; they are derivational.

Inflections often have allomorphs such as /s/ and /z/ for {-s pl}, or even the so-called zero-
allomorph in words like two sheep and two fish, where the plural morpheme is not
pronounced, or in words like ran, where the {-ed past} morpheme is an infix. Some students find
it confusing to represent these allomorphs with the more common English spellings s and ed.
If you find this confusing, you may omit the spellings and just write {noun plural}, {past tense},
{comparative}, etc. All that is really important is that you be clear which morpheme you are
indicating.

Historically, English had many more inflexions, and some of them still occur infrequently. Here
are some examples;

1. Noun plurals: ox/oxen, child/children, man/men, sheep/sheep.

2. 3rd person singular present: speaketh, pleaseth.
3. Past participle: driven, caught, slept.

Word Paradigms
The above account of the inflectional system of Present-Day English is a somewhat simplified
version of all the inflectional categories found in the language. When looking at the history of
the language it is better to examine the inflectional system in terms of paradigms, tables showing
all the inflectional forms of a word. Historically, English words had many more inflectional
forms than they do today.
Noun Paradigms
Today, nouns may be categorised in terms of number (singular or plural) and case (possessive
or not). A paradigm for all the forms of a noun is called a declension, and to write a paradigm
for a particular noun is called declining the noun. Here is an example of the declension for the
words stone, ox, and man.

Singular Plural
Not Possessive Case stone, ox, man stones, oxen, men
Possessive Case stones, oxs, mans stones, oxens, mens

Put another way, we can say that the inflections of these nouns are as follows:

Singular Plural
Not Possessive Case -- -es, -en, vowel change infix
Possessive Case -s -es, -ens, vowel change infix + -s

Today, most nouns follow the pattern of stone, but historically many words were declined with
different inflections. In Old English, nouns had four or five different cases, not just a possessive
one. For more information on this, see the section on Pronouns below and the section on
Subjects and Predicates in the file entitled Phrases.

Verb Paradigms
Verbs are categorised in terms of number (singular or plural) and person (first, second, and
third). First person refers to the person speaking (I or we); second person refers to the person
being addressed (you); and third person refers to someone or something who is neither speaking
nor being addressed (he, she, it, or they). A paradigm for all the forms of a verb is called a
conjugation, and to write a paradigm for a particular verb is called conjugating the verb. Here is
an example of the conjugation for the words talk and take:

Singular Plural
First Person talk, take talk, take
Second Person talk, take talk, take
Third Person talks, takes talk, take

Put another way, we can say that the inflections of these verbs are as follows:

Singular Plural
First Person -- --
Second Person -- --
Third Person -s --

As you can see, only the third person singular has a separate inflection. Historically, however,
there were more separate forms. You can still see this in the verb be: I am, you are, he/she/it is,
they are. There are separate forms for the past tense:

Singular Plural
 First Person -ed, infix (talked, took) -ed, infix (talked, took)
Second Person -ed, infix (talked, took) -ed, infix (talked, took)
Third Person -ed, infix (talked, took) -ed, infix (talked, took)

Here we can see that all the forms are the same, regardless of person and number.

Verbs can be either finite or non-finite. Finite verbs are verbs with a present or past tense
inflection and generally indicate action occurring in the present or past time. Non-finite verbs are
either infinitives, verbs with no inflections which are often preceded by the word to, or
participles, verbs which often accompany auxiliaries (see the file entitled Phrases). There are
two types of participle, the present participle (talking, taking) and the past participle (talked,
taken). Participles indicate aspect: whether the action of the verb is ongoing or completed. The
present participle indicates progressive aspect (ongoing, repetitive, or habitual action), and the
past participle indicates perfective or perfect aspect (completed action). The following
sentences illustrate how they work.

I talk (present tense)

I talked (past tense)
I am talking (present progressive), I was talking (past progressive)
I have talked (present perfect), I have talked (past perfect)

I take (present tense)

I took (past tense)
I am taking (present progressive), I was taking (past progressive)
I have taken (present perfect), I have taken (past perfect)

Taking all this together, we can say that verbs have five principal parts: the infinitive, the
present tense, the past tense, the present participle, and the past participle.

Infinitive Present Tense Past Tense Present Participle Past Participle

(to) talk, (to) take talk(s), take(s) talked, took talking, taking talked, taken

Adjective and Adverb Paradigms

Adjectives and adverbs have inflections for the comparative (-er) and superlative (-est). Some
words have suppletive forms: that is, forms that use a different word: good, better, best; bad
worse, worst. In Old English, the word ma big, great had the comparative forms mare and
mast. These have become the words more and most, and some adjectives and adverbs today are
made comparative or superlative with these words rather than with inflections.

Pronouns Paradigms
Like nouns, pronouns are declined: that is, inflected for number and case. But, like verbs, they
are also inflected for person. For pronouns, Present-Day English has three cases: subjective,
objective, and possessive:

First Person Singular Plural

Subjective I we
 Objective me us
Possessive my our

Second Person Singular Plural

Subjective you you (older ye)
Objective you (older thou) you
Possessive your (older thy) your

Third Person Singular Plural

Subjective he, she, it they
Objective him, her, it them
Possessive him, her, it (older his) their

The subjective case is used for the subject of a verb, and the objective case is used for the direct
object or indirect object of a verb and for the object of a prepositions, as the following sentences
demonstrate:

I take.
He takes me.
He gives me the book.
He gives it to me.

For more information on subjects, direct objects, indirect objects, and objects of prepositions, see
the files entitled Phrases and Five Sentence Types.

Word Formation
At the end of the day, morphemes combine into the linguistic units we identify as words. Exactly
how we identify them as words is something that really isnt known. The nature of the problem is
illustrated by variations in English spelling. For instance, Websters Ninth New Collegiate
Dictionary lists the words woodchuck and woodcock as one word, but on the same page lists
wood duck and wood louse as two. Are there any formal criteria for differences in the printed
form? In fact, many combinations of free morphemes are written as two words in English where
they would be written as one word in German.

For our purposes it is not important to dwell on how we identify words, since most of the time
we intuitively identify words. If you want a test which is generally successful, try pausing
between potential words. If you can insert a pause without stranding a meaningless (and
therefore probably bounded) morpheme before or after the potential word, it probably is a word.
There is one way this test yields lousy results. English contains many verbs consisting of two
parts: verbs like call up (telephone), keep on (continue), take off (depart). If you separate the two
parts, the meaning changes. Although we spell these verbs as two words, they are really one
word. The part we spell separately is called a particle. Generally these particles occurred at the
beginning of the word (in forget and begin, for instance) in the early history of English; however,
from the nineteenth century onwards words with the particle at the end of the word have
developed in large numbers. Well be looking at these verbs in greater detail later.
Simple, Complex, and Compound Words
A simple word consists of a single free morpheme: like slay, flea, long, or spirit. Complex
words consist of either two bound morphemes (matricide, televise, exclude, cosmonaut), or a
bound morpheme and a free morpheme (lioness, telephone, eraser, pyromania). Compound
words consist of two free morphemes.

Compound words bear a strong resemblance to grammatical constructions consisting of more

than one separate word. In fact, they often imply concepts that can be expressed by grammatical
constructions:

1. subject + verb earthquake (when the earth quakes)

2. verb + object killjoy (someone who kills joy)
3. verb + adverbial downpour (when something pours down)
4. subject + adjective high chair (a chair that is high)

Innumerable jokes have been based on word plays which pun on the resemblance of compound
words with grammatical constructions consisting of two separate words. Heres one: So the
cannibal chief says to his victim, What did you do for a living? The victim replies, I was an
associate editor. The chief answers, Cheer up. After tonight youll be an editor-in-chief
Normally compound words can be distinguished from grammatical constructions by different
stress patterns. For instance, It was a hard ball is stressed differently from They play
hardball.

Word Etymologies
We now get to look at the interesting subject of how words are formed historically. Many of you
notice that new words are created all the time, but fewer of you probably think about the fact that
this has been going on for centuries. What is old now was once new. Some words, including
many of our everyday words can actually be traced back some 5,000 years or more (though you
have to reverse all the phonological changes that theyve been subjected to). In addition, many
words in English have been borrowed from other languages like French and Latin. Any good
dictionary will give you the origin or etymology of a word, whether it goes back to Old English,
the earliest form, or whether it has been borrowed from another language.

But English speakers do not rely on the current stock of vocabulary and borrowing from other
languages. There are a number of other processes by which new words are created. Well quickly
go through a numbers of them.

1. Borrowing: loanwords as just described.

2. Compounding: weve already discussed this.
3. Derivation: by adding derivational suffixes to word bases, new word can be created.
Examples are: dis-advise, de-plane, tele-play, eco-system, counselor-ship, and Mc-
Anything.
4. Invention: some words are totally made up by stringing together meaningless phonemes.
Examples are Kodak, nylon, dingbat, goof, and blurb.
5. Echoism: words whose sound suggests their meaning. Examples such as hiss, peewee,
clang, quack, whisper. This is often called onomatopoeia.
 6. Clipping: words created by cutting off the beginning or the end of a word, or both,
leaving a part to stand for the whole. Examples are: lab, dorm, prof, exam, plane, phone,
flu, fridge, sitcom, math(s). Cf. Also US English pissed.
7. Acronymy: acronyms are words formed from the initials or beginning sounds of a
succession of words Examples are: MP (Member of Parliament or military police), NATO
(North Atlantic Treaty Organisation), and radar (radio detecting and ranging).
8. Blending: words formed by fusing two words into one. Examples are: brunch, simulcast,
motel, smog.

Here are two more. Back-formation is when a word consisting of two bound morphemes has one
of the morphemes removed, turning the remaining bound morpheme into a free one. For
instance, if you ask, What does a feeper do? the answer is, He feeps. Historically, many
words have been created like this. The words peddlar, beggar, swindler, and editor all pre-
existed the verbs peddle, beg, swindle, and edit, which were created from them. Folk etymology
is when a new word is created to explain an historical form of the word which the speaker
doesnt understand. For instance, the word female comes from French femelle, Latin femella. It
does not contain the morpheme {male}, but rather {fem} (woman) + {ella} (diminutive).
However, from the fourteenth century on, English speakers began to associate the string of
phonemes /mel/ in this word with the morpheme {male} and so altered the spelling.
Noun Phrase (NP)

Expansions of NP

NP N dogs
Det N the dogs
Det A N the large dogs
Det AP N the loudly barking dogs
Det N PP the dog in the yard
Det A N PP the ferocious dog behind the fence
Det AP N PP the wildly yapping dog on the sofa
Pro He
PN (Proper Noun) Goldy

The noun (N) is the only obligatory element in the first seven expansions of NP below and serves as
head; the other elements are all optional. The adjective (A) or adjective phrase (AP) precedes the N
and the prepositional phrase (PP) follows the N; both serve as modifiers of the noun (modifier of N),
expressing a quality of the noun, answering the question which dogs?.

Det here stands for determiners, a set of grammatical words that are somewhat like modifiers, but
actually serve the function of specifier of N (a one-way dependency), making more precise or
definite the phrase that follows. Det includes quite a diverse set of grammatical words:
demonstratives (Dem), articles (Art), wh-words (Wh-), possessives (Poss), and quantifiers (Q).

Det {Dem, Art, Wh-, Poss, Q}

Dem {this, that, these, those}
Art {a, an, the}
Wh- {which, what, whose}
Poss {my, our, their, Johns, the mans }
Q {some, any, every, each, neither, more }

The ellipses () indicate that these are not complete listings of the members of the sets Poss and Q.
Poss includes both possessive adjectives such as my and possessive nouns such as Johns or Sallys.
(It may even include an entire noun phrase, as in that angry mans (dog), where the -s inflection is
being attached to the end of the noun phrase that angry man.) We can account for this
phenomenon by the following rule:

Poss NP -s (my, our, their )

The pronoun (Pro)6 and the proper noun (PN) stand alone and cannot co-occur with the AP, the Det,
or the PP.

*The fierce he in the yard. *The fierce Goldy in the yard.

Adjective Phrase (AP)

Expansions of AP

AP A happy
Deg A very happy
Adv A blissfully happy
Deg Adv A very blissfully happy
A PP dear to me, tired of him, glad about that

The category of degree adverbs (Deg) includes words which are traditionally defined as adverbs,
since they modify both adjectives and adverbs:

Deg {more, most, less, least, very, quite, rather, least, exceedingly, awfully, absolutely, pretty }

A is the obligatory element and head of the phrase; all of the other elements are optional. The
elements preceding the A are modifiers or specifiers, but the PP following bears a different
relationship to the A; it serves as complement (complement of A). Although we will indicate it as
optional in our rules, it is not optional if a complement-taking adverbial structure such as aware of,
afraid of, curious about, obvious
to, or angry at is selected. The PP does not express a quality or degree of the A but rather
completes it.

It is quite common for more than one adjective to occur as modifier of the N, as in the long, blue,
silken scarf. Moreover, each of the adjectives can be modified by Deg or AdvP, as in the very long,
quite pale blue, silken scarf.

Adverb Phrase (AdvP)

Expansions of AdvP

AdvP Adv quickly

Deg Adv very quickly

Deg is an optional modifier and the Adv is head of the phrase.

Prepositional phrase (PP)

Expansions of PP

PP P NP on the beach
P P NP from behind the door
P P P NP out from under the table
P NP on the beach
P P NP from behind the door

The P is the head of the PP, but unlike the other categories, the P cannot stand alone in the PP. It
must be followed by an NP, what is traditionally known as an object of the preposition (OP).
It also appears that Ps can have specifiers as well as objects. Like determiners or degree adverbs,
these forms specify or limit the prepositional phrase. They include the words right, straight, and slap
(in some dialects) and phrases measuring time and space, such as three seconds or one mile:

right after lunch, two feet behind me, straight along this route, two minutes before my arrival

These specifiers are termed as (PSpec):

PSpec {right, straight, slap, one mile, three seconds }

Verb phrase

Verbs fall into different classes based on the type of complement structures that they require. This is
called the verb subcategorization. The particular structure or structures in which a verb can occur
can be represented formally in a subcategorization frame

1. Intransitive verb (intrans), e.g. arrive, cry, laugh, or swim, with the following subcategorization
frame:

____ # By then aunts, uncles and cousins had arrived.

Some in the audience laughed.

With an intransitive verb, no complement is required or allowed.

2. Transitive verb (trans) (also known as monotransitive), e.g. hit, eat, kill, or tie, with the following
subcategorization frame:

____ NP I dug a giant hole. (COCA:MAG)

The complement of the verb here is a noun phrase functioning as a direct object (dO) .While
traditionally a direct object is defined as the person or thing affected by the action of the verb, it is
the NP immediately dominated by the VP. The direct object follows the verb directly (i.e. it is not
preceded by a preposition).

3. Ditransitive verb (ditrans), e.g. give, send, tell, lend, buy, offer, or show, with the following
subcategorization frames:

____ NP1 NP2 Maggies niece sent her flowers.

____ NP2 PP[to/for NP1] Huber sent flowers to teachers

The combined subcategorization frame is as follows:

____ NP {NP, PP[to/for NP]}.

NP1 serves the function of indirect object (iO), while NP2 serves the function of direct object. An
indirect object is the goal or benefactive of the action; it always denotes something which is animate
or is conceived of as animate.
4. Copula(tive) verb (cop), e.g. become, seem, appear, feel, be, grow, or look, and with the following
subcategorization frame:

____ NP She is a computer software analyst. (COCA:NEWS)

____ AP She seems perfectly relaxed. (COCA:MAG)

____ PP He was in a good mood. (COCA:SPOK)

The complement here serves the function of subject complement (sC). A subject complement
characterizes the subject: it identifies, locates, or describes the subject, as in Bill is the leader, Bill is
in the living room, and Bill is irritable. It expresses either a current state or a resulting state of the
subject, as in Bill is rich vs. Bill became rich. Any copulative verb can usually be replaced by be (She
seems perfectly relaxed She is perfectly relaxed).

5. Complex transitive verb (complex trans), with the following subcategorization frame:

____ NP NP I consider him a real colleague.

____ NP AP She made him uneasy.

____ NP PP You regard that as a problem?

Or more concisely:

____ NP {NP, AP, PP}

There are two subclasses of verbs in this category:

a. nonlocative: find, consider, make, think, elect, call, hold, regard (as), take (for), devote (to); and

b. locative: hang, put, place, lay, set, touch, shoot, pierce.

The complex transitive verb combines the transitive and the copulative structures. The first NP is a
direct object; the second element is an object complement (oC). The object complement
characterizes the object in the same way as the subject complement characterizes the subject: it
identifies, describes, or locates the object (as in We chose Bill as group leader, We consider him a
fool, She laid the baby in the crib), expressing either its current state or resulting state (as in They
found him in the kitchen vs. She made him angry). It is not possible to delete the object complement
without either radically changing the meaning of the sentence (e.g. She called him an idiot She
called him) or making the sentence ungrammatical (e.g. He locked his keys in his office *He locked
his keys). Be or some other copula verb can often be inserted between the direct object and the
object complement (e.g. I consider him to be a fool, We chose Bill to be group leader, They found him
to be in the kitchen).

6. Prepositional verb (prep), with the following subcategorization frame:

____ PP Arvydas had insisted on the scorpion.

Colleen stood on her tiptoes.

Here the entire prepositional phrase serves as a complement of the verb. Thus on the scorpion is the
complement of insisted. We call this PP a prepositional complement (pC).

There are two subclasses of verbs in this category:

a. locative: stand, lie, lean, hang, sit, flow; and

b. nonlocative (idiomatic): agree (to), work (for), depend (on), look (into), refer (to), insist (on),
respond (to).

In the case of nonlocative prepositional verbs, the verb and preposition seem to form a close
syntactic and semantic unit, and the particular preposition occurring with a verb is idiosyncratic and
must be learned (e.g. to is used rather than on with refer: refer to, *refer on). In the nonlocative
cases, it is often possible to replace the prepositional verb with a simple verb (e.g. She asked for a
raise She requested a raise). The locative cases often express a copulative relationship (e.g.
Colleen stood on her tiptoes Colleen is on her tiptoes).

7. Diprepositional verb (diprep), e.g. confer, talk, or consult, with the following subcategorization
frame:

____ PP PP I argued with the officers about little things.

This is a limited set of verbs that can often be prepositional, with only a slight difference in meaning:

a. diprepositional: We talked with our parents about buying a house. (discussed a specific topic)

b. prepositional: We talked with our parents. (conversed generally)

Expansions of VP

VP V NP open a package
V NP NP write a friend a letter
V NP PP give an excuse to the teacher
V AP feel lonely
V NP AP make the dog angry
V PP jump into the pool
V PP PP talk about the problem with a friend
 Clauses in English Finite / Non-finite
Clauses
Finite clauses

Finite clauses are those clauses containing a subject and finite verb (marked for tense, person, and
number). There are three main types of finite dependent clauses: that-clauses, adverbial clauses,
and wh-clauses. Wh-clauses may also be independent.

That-clauses

That-clauses are so named because they usually begin with the subordinating conjunction that.

Subject: That coffee grows in Brazil is well known to all.

Direct Object: I know that coffee grows in Brazil.
Direct Object (after indirect object): He told his mother that coffee grows in Brazil.
Subject Complement: My understanding is that coffee grows in Brazil.
Complement of Adjective: He is certain that coffee grows in Brazil.
Complement of N: His claim that coffee grows in Brazil is correct.
Extraposed Subject: It is well known that coffee grows in Brazil.

Form. We begin with the internal structure of the clause. The subordinating conjunction that which
begins the clause has no function within the clause, but serves to connect the clauses. We say that it
syntactically subordinates the second clause to, makes it dependent on, or embeds it in the first
clause. That is thus a marker of subordination which we call a complementizer (Comp). The
remainder of the clause after that is a fully formed Sentence:

it has a finite verb;

it may have any number of auxiliaries: that coffee might have been growing in Brazil;

it may be passive: that coffee was grown in Brazil;

it may be negative: that coffee doesnt grow in Brazil; and

it may itself be complex: that though coffee tastes good, it is bad for your health.

Function. In all cases, the that-clause has a nominal function; it is functioning as an NP would: it
answers the question what?. In fact, that-clauses may serve virtually all of the functions served by
NPs.

Deletion of the complementizer. Sometimes that does not appear, as in He thinks the world is flat. In
these cases, we assume that the Comp position was originally filled and that there was then deletion
of the complementizer.
We find that that can always be deleted when the clause has the following functions ( denoting the
deleted that):

Direct object: I know coffee grows in Brazil.

Direct object after indirect object: He told his mother coffee grows in Brazil.
Complement of an adjective: He is certain coffee grows in Brazil.

Adverbial clauses

Causes that perform adverbial functions are called adverbial clauses. These clauses express the
adverbial notions of time (1), manner (2), and reason (3) that is, they answer the questions when?,
how?, and why? and are comparable to PPs and AdvPs such as (1) {at noon, yesterday}, (2)
{curiously, with a happy expression}, and (3) out of fear. However, adverbial clauses can express a
wider range of adverbial notions, such as condition (4), concession (5), contrast (6), result (7),
comparison (8), and purpose (9). Adverbial clauses may also function as disjunct and conjunct
adverbials.

1. The words popped out before I had time to check them.

2. He searched the empty bar as if he were looking for assistance.
3. Meg felt embarrassed because she wore only a thin T-shirt.
4. And theres coffee on the counter if you want it.
5. I frowned, although I wasnt sure why.
6. The bureaucracy is tediously slow, while the legislature works at light speed.
7. I came to England in such a hurry that I only packed one pair of shoes.
8. She earns less and works harder than she did in a corporation.
9. She wanted to keep talking so that the conversation would not end.

Adverbial clauses may also function as disjunct and conjunct adverbials.

if I may speak frankly (dA) although these are important considerations (cA)

if I judge accurately (dA) while were on the subject (cA)

unless I am mistaken (dA) in case you dont know (cA)

Disjunct adverbial clauses are much more common than conjunct adverbial clauses.

Like the that-clause, the adverbial clause includes a fully formed S, with the similar restriction that it
cannot be interrogative or imperative. Also like the that-clause, it begins with a complementizer,
but in adverbial clauses, a much greater variety of lexical items serve as complementizers.

Comp {while, since, because, although, if, when, so that, as, such, before, after, until, as long as,
as soon as, by the time that, now that, once, inasmuch as }

We generate adverbial clauses at the end, but like other adverbials, they move fairly freely to the
beginning of the sentence.

Wh-clauses

There are three types of wh-clauses:

 wh-questions;
relative clauses; and
indirect questions.

The first is a type of main clause; the second two are types of subordinate clauses

Wh-questions

Like an adverbial clause, the wh-question always begins with a complementizer, in this case, who,
whom, whose, what, which, why, when, where, and how. Note that with the exception of how, all of
the complementizers begin with wh-, hence the name wh-words. However, an important difference
between adverbial clauses and wh-questions is that the complementizer in the wh-clause, the wh-
word, always has a function in its own clause. If the wh-word is removed, the clause usually becomes
incomplete.

Forms of the Interrogative Wh-Complementizer

a. Pronoun

What happened when the cows escaped the ranch? (subject)

Who asked questions? (subject)
What did we learn today? (direct object)
Whom did they most admire? (direct object)
Who did you give that to? (indirect object)
Who did you vote for? (object of preposition)
What did you call me? (object complement)

b. Determiner

Whose dog was hurt?

Which country is the biggest threat to U.S. security?
What role did Britain play?

c. Adverb

Why didnt I say that?

When had she become a coward?
Where would you draw the line?
How will women respond?

d. Degree Word

How important has art been to your work? (modifying Adjective)

How often do you meditate? (modifying Adv)

Who, whom, and what function as interrogative pronouns. They are standing for NPs. Whose,
which, and what are interrogative determiners since they precede nouns or adjectives. Why, when,
where, and how are interrogative adverbs; the answers provided are generally adverbial phrases or
clauses. Finally, how is also an interrogative degree word; like all degree words, these may modify
either adverbs or adjectives

Relative clauses

The second kind of wh-clause is the relative clause. The function of relative clauses is different from
the functions of the other embedded clauses that we have studied. Relative clauses always serve an
adjectival function; they are modifiers which follow the noun, analogous to PPs:

The girl with red hair = The girl who has red hair

Forms of Relative Clauses

Relative pronoun (animate)

They have eight children who are black belts.

I have three children that play sports at the high school and college level.
This program owes much to several individuals who I wish to recognize at this time.
People whom I hardly knew said hello to us.
The only person to whom I will tell the entire story is my sister, Annabel.
The bum at the corner whom she gave fifty cents to most days would probably love this life.

Relative pronoun (inanimate)

This gets to be a little bit like a scene in a movie which I havent seen.
I hope you like a movie that isnt about violence or sex.
This is a matter about which many people feel very strongly.
take the defense cuts which everybodys already agreed on

Relative determiner

Angie turned and saw him, coming toward her out of a long hallway whose end she could
not see.
She was rejected by one kid whose mother said she wasnt pretty enough.
Howard himself, holding a long fishing rod from the end of which dangled a fair-sized fish.

Relative adverb

Had it happened last year when she hit thirty?

I see no reason why we cant all just get along.
I look for a place where she cannot see me.

Relative clauses express a quality or feature of the noun modified. They answer the question
which?. The noun in the main clause that is modified is called the head noun, or the antecedent
(that which goes before); the head noun can serve any function in the main clause (e.g. subject,
object, object of preposition, etc.). We say that the wh-word refers back to the head noun. The head
noun therefore goes before the relative.

Deletion of the relative pronoun or adverb is permitted in certain cases, similar to the deletion of
that. The relative pronoun can be deleted when it is serving as direct object, indirect object, or
object of the preposition (if pied piping has not occurred). It may also be possible to delete the
relative adverb.

Direct Object : People I hardly knew said hello to us.

Indirect Object: The bum at the corner she gave fifty cents to most days would probably
love this life.
Object of the Preposition: take the defense cuts everybodys already agreed on
Relative Adverb: I see no reason we cant all just get along. I look for a place she cannot
see me.

But the relative can never be deleted if:

v it is a subject pronoun
*They have eight children are black belts.
*I hope you like a movie isnt about violence or sex.
v it is a determiner
*She was rejected by one kid mother said she wasnt pretty enough.
v pied piping has occurred
*This is a matter about many people feel very strongly.

There are two types of relative clauses, traditionally called restrictive relative and nonrestrictive
relative (or appositive). A restrictive relative clause is necessary to identify which person or thing
(denoted by head noun) is being talked about; it restricts, limits, or picks out the referent(s) from a
larger set or referents. In a nonrestrictive relative clause, the head noun is sufficiently restricted or
limited in order to be identified; the relative clause simply adds additional (or parenthetical)
information. Consider the following examples:

1. An appeal was made to the Prime Minister, who turned it down.

2.
a. People are looking for a leader who gives them a sense of direction.
b. I want to start with the leader whos stepping off the stage.

The relative clause is (1) is nonrestrictive because the head noun has a unique referent and is hence
identifiable; the relative clause adds only additional information that is not necessary for identifying
which leader is being spoken about. The relative clauses in (2) is restrictive because the relative
clauses are needed to restrict the referent in each case; without the relative clauses, you would not
know which leader or what kind of leader was being discussed. A relative clause following a proper
noun is always nonrestrictive, and the relative clause following an indefinite or generic NP (with a,
any, as in 2a) is always restrictive. Usually, however, it is the context which determines whether a
noun phrase is sufficiently identified (without the relative clause) or not.

There are formal differences between the two types of relative clauses as well:
 nonrestrictive clauses are set off by commas in writing, by comma intonation (pauses) in
speech;
that cannot be used in a nonrestrictive relative clause (e.g. *An appeal was made to the Prime
Minister, that turned it down); and
nonrestrictive clauses do not allow deletion of the relative pronoun (e.g. *I ran into Erica, who I
know from work).

Indirect questions

The third kind of wh-clause is indirect questions. The functions of the indirect question clause are
the same as those of the that-clause. That is, they serve various nominal functions. Like the that-
clause, the indirect question clause cannot function as indirect object nor as object complement and
may be extraposed when serving as subject of the main clause.

Indirect Questions

Function indirect wh-question indirect yes/no question

1. Subject How he could lose all that Whether he can succeed in that
music is anyones guess. remains to be seen.

2. Direct Object He asked which beach we I asked whether his zoo had any
would go to. baboons.
3. Direct Object after Indirect We asked them why they like we asked them whether they
Object this particular book. thought stricter gun control
would actually reduce violent
crime.

4. Subject Complement The question is what theyll do The question is whether it is

5. Object of Preposition
6. Complement of Adjective
7. Complement of Noun
when they get here.
I whined in my journal about
how quickly pens seem to lose
their ink.
And people are uncertain what
tomorrow is going to bring.
I couldnt really answer the
question why I wanted a son.
justified.
there are questions about
whether his company can
survive
He was uncertain whether he
ought to cry too.
there is serious question
whether it will miss us or not.

A number of changes occur when direct questions are shifted to indirect questions, including the
shifting of verb tenses, pronouns, and certain adverbs (such as here and now).

a complementizer either if or whether is supplied for yes/no questions.

wh-movement is retained in wh-questions
subjectauxiliary inversion is undone

In the indirect yes/no question, if or whether always function as pure complementizers; that is, they
have no function other than as markers of subordination. Like that in that clauses, they are
generated in Comp position in D-structure. In indirect wh-questions, the wh-words serve a dual role,
as they do in relative clauses, serving as complementizers embedding the indirect question into the
main clause and as pronouns, determiners, adverbs and degree words within their own clauses.

Nonfinite clauses

Nonfinite clauses are formed with a nonfinite verb, a verbal element that is not marked for person,
number, or tense. By definition, nonfinite clauses are always dependent, or embedded, since a main
clause must have a finite verb.

Forms of nonfinite clauses

The verbal element in nonfinite clauses may take one of four forms, usually determined by the verb
in the main clause.

The Bare Infinitive

The first nonfinite form is the bare infinitive (what we have encountered before as the stem form of
the verb), as in the following:

The teacher made me do it.

I saw Aaron leave.

The bare infinitive is very limited, occurring after verbs of causation (e.g. make) and of perception
(e.g. see), as well as modal auxiliaries.

The to-infinitive

The second nonfinite form is the to-infinitive. It consists of to followed by the stem form of the verb
or auxiliary.

Simple active: I want to give you a present.

Perfect active: He seems to have left.
Progressive active: Sally appears to be doing well.
Perfect progressive active: He seems to have been doing better recently.
Simple passive: She wants to be given more responsibility.
Perfect passive: He seems to have been overlooked.
Progressive passive: ?To be being asked stupid questions all the time bothers
him.
Perfect progressive passive: ?To have been being asked stupid questions all the time
bothered him.

The -ing participle

The third nonfinite form is the -ing participle, or present participle. It too occurs in a number of
different forms, always beginning with an -ing form:

Simple active: He stopped working there a year ago.

Perfect active: Having arrived late, she missed much of the concert.
Progressive active: ?Being asking
Perfect progressive active: Having been writing for a long time, she took a break.
Perfect passive: He resents having been asked to help.
Progressive passive: She doesnt like being left out of the plan.
Perfect progressive passive: Having been being given so much attention pleases him.

When the -ing participle has a nominal function, it is known as a gerund (e.g. Paying taxes is a bit like
going to the dentist.)

The -en participle

The fourth nonfinite form is the -en participle, consisting of the past participial form of the verb. It
has only one form:

Simple passive: The book given to him yesterday is very valuable.

Omissions from nonfinite clauses

A characteristic of nonfinite clauses is that they are often incomplete, missing obligatory elements
such as subject or direct object. For this reason, nonfinite clauses are called phrases in traditional
grammar. But they are better understood as deriving from complete clauses by the omission of
obligatory elements. These omissions are called PRO, or big PRO (PRO for pronoun); PRO refers
to the phonetically null subject and object NPs of nonfinite clauses. PROs may be of two types:
controlled or indefinite (arbitrary).

A controlled PRO is one in which the missing element in the nonfinite embedded clause is identical
to an element in the main clause, such as the subject, object, or indirect object. The omitted
element can be supplied from the main clause to reconstitute a complete clause, as follows:

I want [PRO to do well]. < I want [I do well]

In the sentence above, the PRO in the nonfinite clause is said to be controlled by the subject of the
main clause, and since the PRO is the subject of the nonfinite clause, we call it a subject PRO.

The second type of PRO is an indefinite PRO. This is one in which the missing element in the
nonfinite clause can be filled with the general you or one, not with any specific element from the
higher clause. The two types of PROs can occur in the same clause.

a. Controlled PRO:

1. Subject PRO controlled by subject of higher S:

The man S[PRO sitting at the desk] is the clerk. < the man is sitting at the desk
|_____
I wondered -s[when PRO to call him]. < I call him
|__________________

She demonstrated her determination S [PRO to succeed]. < she succeed

|________________________________

S [PRO Faced with an ultimatum], they gave in. < they are faced with an ultimatum
___________________________|

2. Subject PRO controlled by object of higher S:

We persuaded him S[PRO to try again]. < he try again

|_____

S[PRO
Running five miles] exhausted me. < I run five miles
____________________________|

I saw a picture S[PRO painted by Renoir]. < a picture painted by Renoir

|________

3. Subject PRO controlled by indirect object of higher S:

I told Karen S[when PRO to leave]. < Karen leave when

|___________

4. Object PRO controlled by subject of higher S:

The question is too difficult S[for Bill to answer PRO]. < Bill answer the question
|_________________________________

5. Object PRO controlled by object of higher S:

We have a job S[for Paul to do PRO]. < Paul do the job

|_________________

6. More than one controlled PRO in the same clause:

She gave John the book S[PRO to return PRO]. < John return the book
|_____________
|_________________

Subject PRO controlled by indirect object of higher S

Object PRO controlled by object of higher S

I need a knife S[PRO to cut the bread with PRO]. < I cut the bread with a knife
|_______________
|___________________________

Subject PRO controlled by subject of higher S

 Object (of preposition) PRO controlled by object of higher S

b. Indefinite PRO:

S[PRO Running five miles] is exhausting. < you run five miles

S[PRO To leave now] would be wrong. < you leave now

Its time S[PRO to start dinner]. < you start dinner

c. Controlled and Indefinite PRO in the same clause:

That question is too difficult S[PRO to answer PRO]. < You answer that question
|_______________________________

Object PRO controlled by subject of higher S

Indefinite subject PRO

The best answer S[PRO to give PRO] is no answer. < You give the answer
|________________

Object PRO controlled by subject of higher S

indefinite subject PRO

 What is a pseudo-cleft sentence?
Definition
A pseudo-cleft sentence is a kind of cleft sentence in which the subordinated clause is
a relative clause headed by an interrogative pro-form. In English they are of the form:
wh-relative clause + be + X
X can be a constituent of one of many varieties.
The so-called 'inverted' pseudo-cleft sentence reverses the order of the two
constituents:
X + be + wh-relative clause
Examples
Pseudo-cleft Inverted pseudo-cleft
What John gave to Mary
Flowers were what John gave to Mary.
were flowers

What is a cleft sentence?

Definition

A cleft sentence is a complex sentence in which a simple sentence is expressed using

a main clause and a subordinate clause. In English the prototypical cleft sentence has
the following form:
it + be + X + subordinate clause

X can be a constituent of one of many varieties.

Discussion

X and the subordinate clause together carry the same meaning as their
corresponding simple sentence. However, the primary focus of the cleft construction is
on an element, often marked by intonation, that introduces new information. This
element appears either as X or in the subordinate clause.
Example (English)

No, it is his callousness that I shall ignore.

Its corresponding simple sentence is No, I shall ignore his callousness. The primary
focus of the cleft sentence may be marked by intonation, as in following sentences:
 No, it is his callousness that I shall ignore.
No, it is his callousness that I shall ignore.
Coordination and Subordination

Coordination and Subordination are ways of combining words, phrases, and clauses into more complex
forms.

Coordination: linking together words, groups of words (clauses), or sentences of equal type and
importance, to put energy into writing. Coordinating Conjunctions: and, or, nor, for, but, so, yet,
either/or, and neither/nor. Coordination implies the balance of elements that are of equal semantic
value in the sentence.

Two principles of Coordination:

a. By combining words and groups of words, unnecessary repetition is avoided; and

b. By combining whole sentences, relationships between the thoughts are revealed.

Example: Over the past decade many African American students have chosen to complete their formal
education at Southern colleges and now in the city of Atlanta there is a major educational center built
expressly to accommodate this upsurge of interest in the New South. (Two main clauses are given equal
emphasis and connected by the coordinating conjunction and )

Subordination: uses subordinating conjunctions or relative pronouns to transform independent clauses

(main clauses or ideas) into dependent clauses (subordinate clauses or ideas). Subordinate clauses are
subordinate to (and thus hold less semantic value than) the independent clause(s) to which they are
linked. Subordination clearly emphasizes which words, groups of words (clauses), or sentences are the
most important in the writing.

Subordinate Conjunctions: Takes into account five (5) factors -- (1) Time: when, after, as soon as,
whenever, while, before; (2) Place: where, wherever; (3) Cause: because, since, in order that, so that; (4)
Contrast/Concession: although, as if, though, while; and (5) Condition: if, unless, provided, since,as long
as.

Example: Because CSUN is located in the San Fernando Valley, the university has become very attractive
to students living in the inner city who want to stay close to home and yet not face the pressures of city
life. (Dependent clause introduced by the subordinating conjunction because; independent or main
clause begins with the university)
TYPES OF SENTENCES: SIMPLE, COMPOUND, COMPLEX, and COMPOUND-COMPLEX

A simple sentence consists of an independent clause, so it contains a subject and a verb. It does NOT
contain either a dependent clause or another simple sentence. Examples of simple sentences

Short simple sentence: The dog barked.

Long simple sentence: Leaning first this way and then that, the large tan dog with a wide black collar
barked loudly at the full moon last night from under the lilac bush in the shadow of the north side of the
house.

The simple sentence may have a compound subject: The dog and the cat howled.

It may have a compound verb: The dog howled and barked.

It may have a compound subject and a compound verb: The dog and the cat howled and yowled,
respectively.

A compound sentence consists of two or more simple sentences joined by

(1) a comma followed by a coordinating conjunction (and, but, or, nor, for, yet, so): The dog barked, and
the cat yowled.

(2) a semicolon: The dog barked; the cat yowled.

(3) a comma, but ONLY when the simple sentences are being treated as items in a series:

The dog barked, the cat yowled, and the rabbit chewed.

A complex sentence consists of a combination of an independent clause and a dependent clause. An

example with a relative clause as the dependent clause:

The dog that was in the street howled loudly.

A student who is hungry would never pass up a hamburger.

An example with a subordinating conjunction creating the dependent clause:

End: The dog howled although he was well fed.

Front: Because the dog howled so loudly, the student couldn't eat his hamburger. Middle: The dog,
although he was well fed, howled loudly.

A compound-complex sentence consists of a combination of a compound sentence and a complex

sentence.

As the dog howled, one cat sat on the fence, and the other licked its paws.
 Chapter Six
Transformational Generative Grammar

Transformational Generative Grammar (TGG)

A major development in linguistics took place with the publication of the book
Syntactic Structure in 1957 by Noam Chomsky. This book forms the basis of the
Transformation Generative Grammar that has come to replace the old grammatical
systems and, provide a more precise and efficient tool for analyzing a language.

What is Transformational Generative Grammar

We have noted that in Phrase Structure Grammar. PS rules convert a
grammatical category into a more explicit representation, VP -- > V + NP, for example;
or a symbol into a class for which it stands, Vs -- > come. We have seen some of the
limitation of PSG. It cannot account for transformational relationships. Samran sees a
kite and A kite is seen by Samran cannot be considered two different sentences. The
second sentence is only a transformation of the first obtained through a re-arrangement,
and morphemic changes in the terminal string, transformation being a method of stating
how the structure of sentences in languages can be generated or explained formally as
the result of specific transformations applied to certain basic sentence structure.

What is a Kernel Sentence?

While in the earlier work (1957) Chomsky focused his attention on the distinction
between the kernel and complex sentences the simple, active, affirmative, declarative
kernel sentences being directly produced by PS rules, and the rest being produced on
transformation and combination with a kernel sentence, all this was changed in his 1965
version which revised the notion of complex sentences being derived from the basic
kernel sentence.
Chomsky distinguished between two types of sentence:
1. Kernel Sentences
2. Transform Sentences
 Kernel sentences are the basic constructions, and from these the rest of the
complex constructions are made. Other sentences are transformations of the kernel
sentences.
Essentially, a kernel sentence is made up of a noun phrase (NP) followed by a
verb phrase (VP).
S -- > NP + VP
For example, if we have the kernel sentence
a) Prasit sat under the tree
We can have its transformations in the construction as follows.
b) Prasit didnt sit under the tree
c) Did Prasit sit under the tree?
d) Didnt Prasit sit under the tree?
e) The tree was sat under by Prasit
f) The tree was not sat under by Prasit
g) Was the tree sat under by Prasit?
h) Wasnt the tree sat under by Prasit?
We observe here how different derivations of the kernel sentence a) are obtained
by means of optional transformation. These transformations may be called b) negative
and interrogative e) passive, f) passive and negative g) passive and interrogative, etc.

Deep and Surface Structure

Transformation Generative Grammar (TGG) had its first exponent in Noam
Chomsky, an American Linguist who tried to answer several questions left unanswered
by the structuralists. Structuralism, as has been seem earlier, is primarily Corpus bound,
as both the phoneme and the morpheme are units of form rather than meaning.
Structuralism analyses the data of a given corpus by means of inductive method. It does
not take cognizance of competence of a native speaker of a language to produce an
infinite number of sentences from a finite set. It also fails to account for the ambiguities
in sentences and their interrelatedness. An adequate grammar must provide for the
facts of the languages that it is productive, complex and arbitrary. It must establish the
relationship of various sentences and account for the deep and surface structure of
sentences. It must, for example, explain the relationship between sets of sentences like:
(a) 1. He kicked a dog.
2. A dog was kicked by him.
(b) 1. Why did you go there?
2. You went there for some reason.
(c) 1. Where do you live?
2. You live somewhere.
The relationship and all steps in the relationship between the deep and surface
structures have been stated by the term transformational.
Let us look at the following diagrams.
s

Deep structure Suriya kicks the ball

Surface structure Suriya kicks the ball

Deep structure Suriya passive kicks the ball

Passive transformation

Surface structure The ball is kicked by Suriya

In these examples we can see a likeness between the two sentences they are
derived from the same deep structure. The difference is due to the effect of a
transformation which we shall call passivissation, that is applied in the second derivation
and not the first.
 VP -- > (passive) + Vt + NP

NP VP

Suriya passive Vt NP
ball

the ball by Suriya

was
The ball was kicked by Suriya

Similarly, let us take another sentence

The old bus broke down
Deep structure [the bus [the bus was old] broke down]

Relative transformation

[the bus [which was old] broke down]

be-deletion transformation

[the bus [old] broke down]

Adjective movement transformation

Surface structure The old bus broke down

 The old bus broke down can be put through the which transformation to obtain
the following surface structure The bus which was old broke down.
The transformational process can be described as follows:
if an NP + S sequence occurs, dominated by an NP, and if that S dominates an
NP whose referent is the same as the NP in the NP + S sequence, then the dominated
NP ultimately becomes either who or which. This is known as relative transformation.

NP VP
broke down
NP S

Det. N NP VP

The bus
det N was old
the bus

relative transformation

which
The bus which was old broke down.

All sentences in every language have both a deep structure and a surface
structure. It is the deep structure of a sentence that tells us what the speaker means by
the sentence and it is the surface structure that shows how he actually uses it in
communication, a transformation functions as a link between the deep structure of a
sentence and its surface structure.
As the name implies, TG grammar is both transformation and generative. It goes
a step further from structural grammar. It not only analyses sentences, divides them into
parts and shows the functions of various parts but also completely rearranges them and
shows the inter-relatedness between sentences. It takes up the basic and kernel
sentence first. A basic or kernel sentence, it may be pointed out, is simple, assertive,
declarative, and active in form. Here are some examples:
Kernel sentence:
Somsak is playing tennis.
I ate a mango.
They spoke the truth.
Non-kernel sentence:
Is Somsak playing tennis? (Interrogative)
Somsak is not playing tennis. (Negative)
A mango was eaten by me. (Passive)
Who ate a mango? (Question form)
Why did they speak the truth? (Question form)
They spoke the truth when they were forced. (Complex sentence)
They did not speak the truth. (Negative)
They spoke the truth but told a new story. (Compound sentence)
All the non-kernel structures or complicated structures can be thought of as
having been derived from their kernel forms with the help of some transformations. A
sentence like: Where did you go last year? can be derived from the kernel sentence:
You went somewhere last year by applying certain transformations.
Transformational analysis not only shows the inter-relatedness between
sentences but also explains the ambiguities between sentences that appear identical
but are transformations from different kernels. Here is, for example, a sentence:
Flying planes can be dangerous.
The sentence is ambiguous for we cannot tell what is dangerous, the planes that
fly or the act of flying planes. We can, however, resolve this ambiguity by showing that
the same sentence can be analysed as being transformations from two different sets of
kernel sentences. The present sentence can be derived from the following two different
sets:
 1. Some people fly planes. This can be dangerous.
2. Planes fly. They can be dangerous.
Similarly, here is another set of sentences:
(a) Surasak is eager to please.
(b) Surasak is easy to please.
The kernel sentences for (a) are:
1. Surasak is eager (for something).
2. He pleases (someone).
The kernel sentences for (b), however, are:
1. It is easy.
2. Someone pleases Surasak.
Examples can be multiplied but, it needs to be noted here is that while a set of
two sentences may have the same surface structure, they may have different deep
structures. It is through TG grammar alone that one can apply different transformations
to kernel sentences to arrive at the desired surface structures.
It must by now be apparent that a kernel sentence has to first be analysed with
the help of Phrase structure rules as discussed under Immediate Constituent Analysis
and then made to pass through transformational rules to arrive at a surface structure. A
kernel sentence is the deep structure to which a string of transformations is applied to
generate the surface structure. TG grammar is revolutionary in the sense that it presents
a system that gives us an idea of the possible processes in which a child learns a
language or produces an infinite variety of sentences, many of which he or she has not
heard before. Thus, TG grammar illustrates how we get from one state, or stage, in a
language to another. It does not merely describe a given sentence, it does much more
as it provides descriptions of many possible sentences in the language. A native
speaker of a language understands both, the deep structure as well as the surface
structure of a sentence. He can easily apply the various transformational rules to
produce sentences which he has never heard before. That is what Chomsky meant
when he talked of the competence (the intuitive knowledge of a speaker of a language
about the system of his language) and performance (the actual production of language)
of a user of a language.
 It would be useful to list the various PS rules:
1. S --- > NP + Pred. phr.
2. NP --- > Restrictor Pre-determiner Determiner Ordinal Quantifier
Adjective phrase Classifier - noun
3. Pred. phr. --- > VG - NP
Prep. phr. + ------
Adj. phr.
Adverbial
4. VG --- > Aux. + V
5. Aux. --- > Tense + (Modal) + (Perfective) + (Progressive) + (Pass.)
6. Tense --- > Present
Past
7. Modal --- > will
shall
can
may
8. Perf. --- > have-en
9. Prog. --- > be-ing
10. Pass. --- > be-en
11. Prep. phr. --- > Prep + NP

Phrase Structure Rules (PS rules)

The Phrase Structure Rules according to Noam Chomsky are:
S ----- > NP + Aux + VP
VP ----- > V + (NP)
V ----- > Vi
Vt
Be
Have
S = Sentence
----- > = rewrite as
NP = Noun Phrase
Aux = Auxiliary
VP = Verb Phrase
V = Verb
Vi = Intransitive Verb such as sleep, walk, talk
Vt = Transitive Verb such as see, hit, kick
Be = Verb to be, such as is, am, are
Have = Verb to have, such as have has

Example I Intransitive Verb

S ----- > NP + Aux + VP
VP ----- > V
V ----- > Vi
Vi ----- > sleep, walk, talk

Tosapol + present + walk ----- > Tosapol walks.

Tree diagram

NP Aux VP

N Tense Vi

Tosapol present walk

Example II Transitive Verb
S ----- > NP + Aux + VP
VP ----- > Vt + NP
Vt ----- > see, hit, kick

Robert + present + see + Pongtep ----- > Robert sees Pongtep

Tree diagram

NP Aux VP

N Tense Vt NP

Robert present see Pongtep

Example III Verb be

S ----- > NP + Aux + VP
VP ----- > Be + NP
Be ----- > is, am, are

Somjai + present + be + a + student ----- > Somjai is a student.

Tree diagram

NP Aux VP

N Tense V NP

Somjai present Be a student

Transformation Rules
Rule I: Interrogative Rule

NP-tense be Interrogative tense be

have -- > have -NP
modal -- > modal

Example
Tree diagram

the girl will play ---->

Question the girl will play

will the girl play

Rule II: Affix switch rule

- Tense Modal Modal -Tense

main -- > Main
verb verb
have have -ing
be be
do do -en
 Here are some examples involving the application of these rules for deriving the
surface structure of sentences from their kernels:
1. Surface structure: Is she playing?
The kernel sentence or the deep structure in the case of this sentence is:
She is playing.
Analysis : She pres. be ing play.
Interrogative rule: press be she ing play.
Affix switch rule: be pres. she play ing.

(is) (playing)

2. Has Pranom been writing a letter? (Surface Structure)

Pranom has been writing a letter. (Kernel).
Analysis: Pranom pres. have en be ing write a letter.
Interrogative rule: pres. have Pranom en be ing write a letter.
Affix switch rule: have pres. Pranom be en play ing a letter.

(has) (been) (writing)

3. Could you repeat the answer?

Kernel sentence: You could repeat the answer.
Analysis: you past can repeat the answer.
Interrogative rule: past can you repeat the answer.
Affix switch rule: can past you repeat the answer.

(could)
 4. Have you seen the Palace?
Kernel sentence: You have seen the Palace.
Analysis: you pres. have en see - the Palace.
Interrogative rule: pres. have you en see the Palace.
Affix switch rule: have press you see en the Palace.

(have) (seen)

5. Would she join the party?

Kernel sentence: She would join the party.
Analysis: she past. will join - the party.
Interrogative rule: past. will she join the party.
Affix switch rule: Will past he join the party.

(would)

Rule III: Do-Support Rule.

In some sentences, a do-support has to be supplied.

Tense (NP) Do-supp. Tense-do- (NP)

-- >

Here is an example:
Surface structure: Did Wattana meet him?
Kernel sentence: Wattana met him.
Analysis: Wattana past. meet him.
Interrogative rule: past Wattana meet him

Here is a situation where, as a result of the interrogative rule, only the tense is
placed outside the NP as there is no be or have or modal attached to the tense. Now,
the tense is a Bound Morpheme. It cannot stand alone. It must be attached to some
verbal element (not to any NP like Wattana). Therefore, a dummy verb, namely do, is
supplied here to be attached to the tense. This rule is called the do-support rule. It
states: Support the tense with do when the tense is followed by a non-verbal item. So
the third step in the above series of transformations is:
Do support: past do Wattana meet him.
Now, one can apply the affix-switch rule.
Affix: do past Wattan meet him

(did)

Another example:
Derive the structure: Did Bunjob accept your proposal?
Kernel sentence: Bunjob accepted your proposal.
Analysis: Bunjob past accept your proposal.
Interrogative rule: past. Bunjob accept your proposal.
Do-support: past do Bunjob accept your proposal.
Affix: do past Bunjob accept your proposal.

(did)

Wh type questions
In order to derive why-questions, two more transformation rules have to be
applied. These rule are:
1. wh substitution
2. wh fronting
The following examples will make it clear as to how, and in what order, these
rules are applied.
Surface structure: Why did you kick him?
Kernel: You kicked him for some reason.
Analysis: you past kick him for some reason.
Wh subs: you past kick him why.
 Interrogative rule: past you kick him- why.
Wh front: why past you kick him.
Do supp. why past do you kick him.
Affix: why do past you kick him.

(did)
The order in which the T-Rules are applied are:
1. W - Who-substitutions
2. I - Interrogative rule
3. W - Wh-fronting
4. D - Do-support
5. A - Affix-switch rule
A kernel sentence may need some or all of these transformations to arrive at the
surface structure. The order of transformation rules, however, remains the same in all
cases.
More Examples:
1. Where did you go yesterday?
Kernel: You went somewhere yesterday.
Analysis: you past go somewhere yesterday.
Wh-sub: you past go where yesterday.
Interr.: past you go where yesterday.
Wh-front: where past you go yesterday.
Do-supp.: where past do you go yesterday.
Affix: where do past you go yesterday.

(did)
2. How did you learn all that?
Kernel: You learnt all this somehow.
Analysis: you past learn all this somehow.
Wh-sub: you past learn all this how.
Interr.: past you learn - how all this.
Wh-front: how past you - learn all this.
Do-supp.: how past do you learn all this.
Affix: How do past you learn all this.

(did)

3. When has she returned from Bangkok?

Kernel: She has returned form Bangkok at sometime.
Analysis: she pres. have en return from Bangkok at some time.
Wh-sub: she pres. have en return from Bangkok when.
Wh-front: When pres. have she en return form Bangkok.
Affix: when have pres. she return en from Bangkok.

(has) (returned)
Note: It may be noted that this derivation does not need a Do-support rule.

4. What does Mathematics teach you?

Kernel: Mathematics teaches you something.
Analysis: Mathematics pres. teach you something.
Wh-sub: Mathematics pres. teach you what.
Interr.: pres. Mathematics teach you what.
Wh-front: what pres. Mathematics teach you.
Do-supp.: what pres do Mathematics teach you.
Affix: what do pres. Mathematics teach you.

(does)
 5. Who presided over the meeting?
Kernel: Someone presided over the meeting.
Analysis: someone past preside over the meeting.
Wh-sub: who past preside over - the meeting.
Interr.: past who preside over the meeting.
Wh-front: who past preside over the meeting.
Affix: who preside over past the meeting.

(presided over)

Rule IV: Negation.

Negation rule is another of the important rules of transformation. This rule is
applied as follows:

Modal Modal
Tense - be Neg. Tense - be -not
have . -- > have

Tree diagram
S

the girl will play --->

Neg the girl will play

the girl will not play

 Note: If there is no modal or be or have, after the tense, not is placed directly
after the tense, i.e.

Tense Neg. Tense - not

-- >
Examples:
1. Surface structure: I will not walk.
Deep structure or Kernel sentence: I will walk.
Analysis: I pres. will walk.
Neg.: I pres. will not walk.
Affix: I will pres. not walk.
(will)
2. Surface structure: She did not sleep.
Kernel: She slept.
Analysis: she past sleep.
Neg.: she past not sleep.
Do-supp.: she past do not sleep.
Affix: she do past not go.

(did)
Negative Contraction Rule

Not neg. cont. -- > nt

Note:
When not is contracted to nt, it is attached closely to the verbal item preceding
it, i.e. to modal, be or tense, nt moves wherever these items move.
Examples:
1. Did not he play tennis?
2. Is not she a fool?
3. Why did not you speak the truth?
Rule V: Passivisation
Passivisation Rule

NP1 Aux. V NP2 Pass. NP2 Aux. en V by NP1

Examples
1. Surface structure: She was seen by him.
Kernel: He saw her.
Analysis: he past see her.
Pass.: she past be en see by him.
Affix: she be past see en by him.

(was) (seen)

2. Orders have been obeyed.

Kernel: (They) have obeyed the orders.
Analysis: they pres. have en obey the orders.
Pass.: the ordered - pres. have en be-en obey by them.
Affix: the orders have pres. be en obey en.

(have) (seen) (obeyed)

3. The match will be won by us.

Kernel: We will win the match.
Analysis: we pres. will - win the match.
Pass.: the match pres. will be en win by us
Affix: the match will press be win - en by us

(will) (won)
 Tree diagram
S

the girl will play ---->

Question the girl will play

will the girl play

Transformational rules, as have been seen, help us to understand the operations

that go on in the mind of the child as he frames complicated language structures in his
mind. TG rules are generative in the sense that with the help of TG rules one can
produce any number of possible sentences in the language.
It may, however, be pointed out that the TG grammar has its own limitations.
Research in the field of grammar is a continuing process. Many new theories, the
Montatiue Grammar, Fillmores Case Grammar, Scale and Category Grammar or
Systemic Grammar based on the Firthian School have come up. Maybe, in the years to
come, we may have better theories of grammar that provide more insight into the
learning and teaching of language.

What is Transformational Grammar (TG)?

The shortcoming and inadequacies of the phrase-structure grammar, particularly
its inability to account for transformational relationships led Chomsky to devise a
grammatical system that would cover the entire language directly by repeated
application of a rather simple set of translations to the strings given by phrase structure
grammar. Transformation is an act of transforming one sentence into another, from
deep structure into surface structure. Chomskys theory claims that sentences have a
surface structure and a deep structure.
If we take a sentence like I met her which is an active sentence we can
transform it into she was met by me by rules of passivisation which can be shown as
below:
NP1 + V + NP2 (Active)
NP2 + IS + Ven + by +NP1 (Passive)
The two sentences are not considered different, the second one only a
transformation of the first.
In the same way Has she seen me? Is only a transform of she has seen me
obtained through a process of permutation.
Broadly, there are three basic components of transformational model.
(a) The Phrase-structure component which consists of a sequence of rules, or the
form X -- > Y. it begins with the initial symbol sentence (S) and constructs derivation
through the application of the rules of F.
Noam Chomsky formalized this system of analysis and also pointed out its basic
limitations. He formalized it by means of a system of generative rules which explicity
assign the correct constituent structure to sentences. Such systems are called simple
phrase-structure grammars. Consider the following system of rules which will generate
and characterize the sentence.
Example : The girl will write a letter.
1. S -- > NP + VP
2. VP -- > Verb + NP
3. NP -- > Det + N
4. Verb -- > Aux. + main verb
5. Det. -- > a
6. N -- > girl, letter
7. Aux. -- > will
8. Main verb -- > write
 Each of these rules is in the form X Y, where X is a single element and Y is a
string. (String is a technical term and means a sequence of elements or symbols). The
arrow is to be interpreted as an instruction to replace the element that occurs to its right
(rewrite X and Y)
In the present case it is exemplified by the + girl + will + write + a + letter. The
labeled bracketing, associated with a terminal string generated by a phrase structure, is
called a phrase maker.

(b) The transformational component introduces changes in the morphemes of the

terminal strings produced by the P.S. component. Transformations are either obligatory
or optional (such as passivisation of an active sentence). A basic distinction between
Kernel sentences and transforms is made here. There are, in brief, core sentences, the
most primary having the S - - >NP + VP structure. All other structures, having a relative
or subordinate clause, interrogative, passives, etc. are said to be derived forms or
transformations of kernel sentences.
For examples.
1. She saw a dog
Its various derivations would be
2. She did not see a dog
3. Did she see a dog?
4. Didnt she see a dog?
5. A dog was seen by her
6. A dog was not seen by her
7. Was a dog seen by her?
8. Wasnt a dog seen by her
The different forms that we see from (2 8) are the derivations of the basic
kernel sentence (1) : they have been obtained or generated by applying the optional
transformation rules.
The notion of the Kernel sentence was abandoned by Chomsky later on (1965
Aspects of the Theory of Syntax). But, this motion still remains a very convenient step to
understanding the essential transformational process. Chomsky later on added a
semantic component too, to understand and explain the role of meaning. He also
changed the PS component and renamed it as base component which generated the
basic sentence patterns of a language.

(c) The morphophonemic component transcribes the transformational output by

rewriting the morphemic representation into a proper string of phonemes. The Syntactic
Structure cites these examples.
i) walk -- > /wO:k/
ii) take + past -- > /tUk/
iii) hit + past -- > /hIt/
iv) /D/+/past -- > / D/ + /-id/ (where D= /t/ or /d/)
The transformational model thus may be shown as follows.

PS rules

Deep structure PMs

Transformational rules

Surface structure PMs

Morphophonemic PMs

Phonological representations

Transformation rules can rewrite a string as another string. To show how

the sentences of a language are interrelated. The components of grammar in
terms of this model are:
 Initial element (S)

Phrase structure component

Transformational component

Morphophonemic component

Phonological representation of sentence

The modified model of grammar can be show diagrammatically as follows:

//S//

PS rules

Pre-
lexical rules

Lexical Surface structure

Transformation constraints

semantic Base PMs non-lexical Surface Phono-

rules transformation structures logical
Deep rules
structures

semantic Phonetic
representations representations
Classification of English Sentences
English sentence can be classified into two types: basics and transforms. The
basic sentences are those fundamental or elementary sentences which all other kinds of
sentences are derived from. The transformational sentences are those that are derived,
with the help of the well-formed basic sentence, by applying the rules of transformation.
The following are examples of basic and transformational sentences.
Basic Transform
The girl is good. The good girl is there.
Samran smiles. Samran and Popthong smile.
The doctor punishes the nurse. The nurse is punished (by the doctor)
A man is here. Is a man here?
The boy is coming. The boy who is coming is small.

Sam smiles.
Sam and Robert smile.
Robert smiles.
The child who is bad.

The child is bad. The child bad.

The bad child.

A woman is there.
The woman who is good is there.
The woman is good.
Structures of Basic Sentence
Rewrite Rule
The basic rewrite rule of English basic sentences may be formulated as the followings:
S NP + VP

N
NP

Det + N

Nprop
Nindef.
N Npp.
Ncom.

Art
Det (pre Art) + Demon + (Num)

VP Aux + MV
Aux Tense + (M) + (Aspect)
Aspect (have + participle) + (be + ing)
NP
be + Adj.
MV Adv - p
Verbals

VI
VT + NP
NP
Verbals Vb +
Adj.
Vs + Adj.
Vh + NP
Nprop. Robert, Samran, Amy, Thongpool, Phetchabun, Thailand etc.
Nidef. someone, anyone, everyone, no one, somebody, anybody,
nobody, something, anything, everything, nothing.
Npp I, you, we, they, he, she, it.
Ncom girl, boy, cat, dog, water, chair etc.
Pre-Art some of, any of, a few of, one of, a lot of, two of .. etc.
Art the, a, an, some,
Demon this, these, that, those.
Num one, two, three, first, second.
Tense present, past.
M can, will, shall, may, must.
Adj. good, beautiful, small, bigm etc.
Adv p here, there, at home, in the class, etc.
VI occur, run, go,
VT take, read, see,
Vs seem, taste, look, feet,
Vh have, cost, weigh, total,
Vb become, remain,

Notes
English basic sentences contain two main parts; a noun phrase and a verb
phrase. So the simple rewrite rule may be : a sentence consists of () a noun phrase
(NP) plus a verb phrase (VP).
S NP + VP
As the rule above, the NP functions as the subject of the basic sentence and
comes before the VP. The VP functions as its predicate.
The following are examples of the English basic sentence consisting of two main
parts: NP and VP.
Samran is here.
Someone is coming.
 I have a note.
You must come.
That girl looks pretty.
Some of the girls sit down.
They throw away the magazines.
NP
The NP may be a noun (N) alone or a noun preceded by the determiner (Det.)
N
NP
Det. + N
The noun may be a proper noun (Nprop.), an indefinite pronoun (Nindef.), a
personal pronoun (Npp.), or a common noun (Ncom.). The determiner (Det.) occurs only
before a common noun (Ncom.). So we have a modified rewrite rule for the N. as
Nprop. Nprop.
Nindef. Nindef.
N or NP
Npp Npp
Ncom. Det + Ncom

Ex.
N Det + N
Sam A book
Someone a few of the people.
I Those boys
You dogs
They boys
She water
VP
The VP consists of an auxiliary (Aux.) plus a main verbal (MV.). Here the rewrite
rule may be formulated as.
VP Aux + MV
Example.
Aux + MV
Tense + go = go, goes, went.
Tense + may + eat mango = may/ might eat mango
Tense + can + come = can/ could come.

Auxiliary (Aux.)
The auxiliary is an obligatory element occurring in the VP. It usually occurs in the
first position of the VP string in a simple sentence. See the rule.
VP Aux + MV.
The rule means every VP must contain an auxiliary and a main verbial.
There are three major elements of the Aux. In English: Tense, modal (M), and
aspect. This may be formulated as.
Aux Tense + (M) + (Aspect)
In the rule, tense is not in parentheses, and so it is obligatory. That is, every Aux.
must contain Tense. The other elements " modal and aspect" are in parentheses, and
therefore they are optional. That is, the Aux. may, but need not, contain modal and / or
aspect
Tense
Tense + M
Aux.
Tense + Aspect
Tense + M + Aspect
M can, will, shall, may, must
Aspect (have + participle) + ( be + ing)
The following are the structures of the VP consisting of one or more elements of
the Aux.
 Aux.
1. Tense
2. Tense + M
3. Tense + have + participle
4. Tense + be + ing + MV
5. Tense + M + have + participle
6. Tense + M + be + ing
7. Tense + M + have + participle + be + ing
Ex.
1. eat
2. may eat
3. have eaten
4. are eating
5. may have eaten
6. may be eating
7. may have been eating

Tense
"Tense" in English is an obligatory element occurring in the verb phrase. That is,
every VP. must contain Aux. and every Aux. must contain Tense
There are two tenses in English : Present and Past
present
Tense

past

All tenses are formed by combination of Aux. and the verb form, modal, have or
be, by means of the obligatory rule of the affix-transformation. (T.Af.)
T. Af. : Af + V V + Af.
Af present, past, participle, - ing
V verb, modal, have, be
 plays
present + play play + present =
play
present + can can + present = can
past + write write + past = wrote
past + have have + past = had
is
present + be be + present = am
are
was
past + be be + past =
were
Main Verbals (MV)
The MV. may be any one of the following structures :
1. Be plus an NP., Adj., or Adv -p
2. Intransitive verb (VI)
3. Transitive verb (VT.) plus an NP.
4. Verb of the become class (Vb.) plus an NP. or Adj.
5. Verb of the seem class (Vs.) plus and Adj.
6. Verb of the have class (Vh.) plus and NP.
Thus the rewrite rule may be formulated as:
NP
be + Adj.
Adv-p
VI
VT + NP
MV NP
Vb +
Adj.
Vs + Adj.
Vh + NP
Adverbial
In the expanded VP structure, the adverbial may be optionally put at the position
after the MV. See the rewrite rule:
VP Aux. + MV + (Adv.)
A sentence "He walks slowly"
is the string he + present + walk + slowly
Aux. MV Adv.
By T - Af he + walk + present + slowly
By Phonological Rule He walks slowly.
The adverbial in English may be classified into four main kinds:
1. an adverbial of manner (Adv. -p)
2. an adverbial of place (Adv - t)
3. an adverbial of frequency (Adv-f)
4. an adverbial of time (Adv-t).
So the rewrite rule for the Adv. can be formulated as.

Adv. (Adv-m) + (Adv-p) + (Adv-f) + (Adv-t)

Example
She walks slowly in the park everyday at six o'clock.
Adv-m Adv-p Adv-f Adv-t
"She walks slowly" is a basic sentence
But
"She slowly walks" is a transformed sentence.
Only the Adv-m can immediately occur after the MV with VI and VT. Only the
Adv.p can immediately occur after the MV with Vb. Vs and Vh. The Adv.- f and Adv.- t
can immediately occur after any kind of MV construction.
 MV

NP
be Adj.
Adv-p
VI
+ (Adv-m) + (adv-p) + (adv-f)+ (adv+t)
VP Aux. + VT+NP
NP
Vb +
Adj.
Vs + adj.
Vh + NP

Structures of Transformational Sentences

Transformational sentences are derived from well-formed basic sentences by
applying the rule of transformation. For example, a sentence "May I go there?" is derived
from a basic sentence "I may go there?"
I may go there ==== > May I go there?
The rewrite rules have generated strings of elements (largely morphemes) that in
the bold sentences. They haven't quite generated sentence. For example, the rule did
not generate this sentence.
You are here. But they generated the string.
You + present + be + here.
Before this string presents a grammatical sentence, the order of elements in the
string will be rearranged, that is, the present as a tense must shift to the position after be
by T.Af.
you + present + be + here you + be = present + here
By phonological rule:
be +present are = You are here.
T - Af.
X + Af + V + Y ==== > X + V + Af + Y
Af tense, participle, or - ing
V M, have, be, or verb
The affix transformation (T-Af) is obligatory and applied after all other
transformations. Its effect is, therefore, to produce a transform of the terminal string.
Example:
A sentence : Sam is going.
is string : Sam + present + be + ing + go ==== >
By T.Af : Sam + be + present + go + ing
Phonological rule : Sam is going
T - do:
X + Tense + Y ==== > X + Tense + do + Y
Y stands for anything that is not M, have, or be.
This transformation is applied to the terminal string to produce negative or
question sentences.
Example:
A sentence : She plays tennis.
is the string : She + Tense + play + tennis ==== >
By T- Negative : She + Tense + not + play + tennis ==== >
By T-do : She + Tense + do + not + play + tennis ==== >
By T - Af : She + do + Tense + not + play + tennis ==== >
Phonological rule : She does not play tennis.

Questions
There are two main kinds of questions in English: Those that can be answered
by saying "Yes" or "No" and those that can not be.
1. Yes/No question :
We call the questions that can be answered "Yes" or, "No" Yes/No questions.
Yes/No questions are derived from basic sentences by applying the rule of the Yes/No
question transformation (T - yes/no Question). The transformational rule for Yes/No
questions can be formulated as follows.
 T - Yes / No question rule
NP + Tense - M + X ==== > Tense - M + NP + X
NP + Tense - have + X ==== > Tense - have + NP + X
NP + Tense - be + X ==== > Tense - be + NP + X
NP + Tense - Verbal ==== > Tense + NP + Verbal

Note
When the Tense of the statement string is followed by a Verbal instead of M,
have or be, the Tense alone reverses with the NP subject. Then the T - do is applied to
it.
Example
A sentence : Sam may run.
Base string : Sam + Tense + may + run ==== >
T -Yes/No Question : Tense + may + Sam + run ==== >
T - Af. : may + Tense + Sam + run
Phonological Rule : May Sam run?
May + present = May

Sentence : She eats banana.

Base string : She + Tense + eat + banana ==== >
T - Yes/No Question : Tense + she + eat + banana ==== >
(Tense Tense + do / if the element following it is not a verb)
T - do : Tense + do + she + eat + banana ==== >
T - Af. : do + Tense + she + eat + banana
Phonological Rule : Does she eat banana?
Do + present = Does

These are examples of basic sentences changed into Yes/No Question:

Dang should work ==== > Should Dang work?
Dang had worked ==== > Had Dang worked?
Dang was working ==== > Was Dang working?
Dang worked ==== > Did Dang work?
Phonological Rule
shall + past = should
have + past = had
be + past = was, were
do + past = did

2. T. wh - Question
The question that can not be answered by saying "Yes" or, "No" will be called
"Wh-Question". We call then Wh-Questions because most of them begin with an
interrogative word, such as, who, what, where, why, when, starting with the letters wh.
T - wh - question rule
X + Adv - P + y ==== > When + X+ y
X + Adv - t + y ==== > When + X + y
X + Adv - m + y ==== > How + X + y
X + Adv - f+ y ==== > How often + X + y
Who
X + NP + Y ==== > +X+Y
What
The rules of the Wh-Question transformations are applied to the string of
morphemes that result from a T- Yes/No Question. They thus are built from the structure
of Yes/No Questions. Then an interrogative word replaces some sort of structure from
the base string, where replaces adverbial of place, when replaces adverbial of time,
how replaces adverbial of manner, how often replaces adverbial of frequency, and who
or what replaces a noun phrase.
Example
A sentence She is here.
Base string she + present + be + here ==== >
T Yes/No Question present + be + she + here ==== >
T wh Question where + present + be + she ==== >
T Af where + be + present + she
Phonological rule Where is she?
 A sentence Robert walks slowly.
Base string Robert + present + walk + slowly ==== >
T Yes/No Question present + Robert + walk + slowly ==== >
T wh Question How + present + Robert + walk ==== >
T do How + present + do + Robert + walk ==== >
T Af How + do + present + Robert + walk
Phonological rule How does Robert walk?

All the whQuestion Transformations (T- wh Question) will apply only to the
strings resulting from T Yes/No Question. The symbols X and Y mean whatever occurs
in the positions indicated, or nothing, if nothing occurs there. The interrogative words
replace adverbial and noun phrase in base strings when T- wh Question applied.
Somsri came yesterday. ==== > When did Somsri come?
He is in the class. ==== > Where is he?
The girl walks slowly. ==== > How does the girl walk?
They run everyday. ==== > How often do they run?
Somebody is coming. ==== > Who is coming?
A pen is here. ==== > What is here?

Example
A sentence She came yesterday.
Base string She + past + come + yesterday ==== >
T Yes/No Question Past + she + come + yesterday ==== >
T wh Question When + past + she + come ==== >
T do When + past + do + she + come ==== >
T Af When + do + past + she + come
Phonological rule When did she come?
 A sentence Somebody is here.
Base string Somebody +present + be + here ==== >
T Yes/No Question present + be + somebody + here ==== >
T wh Question Who + present + be + here ==== >
T Af Who + be + present + here
Phonological rule Who is here?

3. Negative
The basic English sentence can be transformed into a negative sentence by
applying the rule of negative transformation (T neg.)
You can eat. ==== > You can not eat.
We know Somsri. ==== > We do not know Somsri.
She has written a letter. ==== > She has not written a letter.
Saart is here. ==== > Saart is not here.

The rule for the negative transformation can be formulated as.

T neg. rule
NP + Tense M + X ==== > NP + Tense M + not + X
NP + Tense have + X ==== > NP + Tense have + not + X
NP + Tense be + X ==== > NP + Tense be + not + X
NP + Tense Verbal + X ==== > NP + Tense not + Verbal + X
As the rule, if the NP functioning as the subject is followed by an M, have or be,
the negative morpheme not is added after the M, have or be, otherwise the not is
added after Tense in the transform. The Tense which is not followed directly by an M,
have, or be must be transformed to Tense + do ( T do)
Example
A sentence Sam can play.
Base string Sam + present + can + play ==== >
T neg Sam + present + can + not + play ==== >
T Af Sam + can + present + not + play ==== >
Phonological rule Sam cannot play.
 A sentence She speaks English.
Base string She + present + speak + English ==== >
T neg She + present + not + speak + English ==== >
T do She + present + do + not + speak + English ==== >
T Af She + do + present + not + speak + English
Phonological Rule She does not speak English.

4. T - passive
In English, the basic sentence can be transformed to passive by applying the
rule of passive transformation (T- passive). The rule for passive transformation can be
formulated as:
T - passive rule
NP1 + Aux. +VT + NP2 + X ==== > NP2 + Aux. + be + participle +
VT + (by + NP1) + X
The woman has written a letter ==== > A letter has been written (by the woman)
This transformation can be applied to any string that has a VT. The object of the
basic sentence becomes the subject of the transformation sentence. The subject of the
basic sentence may or may not be expressed in a prepositional phrase with by in the
transformed sentence.
Example
A sentence "I meet Bryan."
Base string I + present + meet + Bryan ==== >
T- passive Bryan + present + be + participle + meet + (by + me) ==== >
T- Af Bryan + be + present + meet + participle + (by + me) ==== >
Phonological Rule Bryan is met. (by + me)

5. T - Imperative
The basic sentences that begin with you will can be transformed to the
imperative sentence by applying the rule of imperative transformation (T- imp.)
You will go away. ==== > Go away
You will come here. ==== > Come here
 The rule for imperative transformation can be formulated as:
T - imp rule
PP2 + present + will + MV + Y ==== > MV + Y
The T - imp. deletes PP2 present and will in the string of a basic sentence.
Example
A sentence "You will come here."
Base string You + present + will + come + here ==== >
T - imp. Come + here ==== >

6. Transitive Verbal Transformation ( T- VT)

T - VT Rule

Prt Art.
X + Vt + + NP ==== > X + Vt + NP + +Y
Compl. Compl.
This is obligatory for Vt + compl + NP constructions if the complement (Compl.)
is not long and complicated, otherwise it is optional
Somsak thought Somsri was foolish.
Somsak thought anyone who disagreed with him foolish.
Somsak thought foolish anyone who disagreed with him.
T - VT is obligatory for Vt + prt + NP construction if the NP is a personal pronoun
otherwise it is optional.
Somsak put them away.
Somsak put away the newspapers.
Somsak put the newspapers away.

Example
A sentence "Somsak throws it away."
Base string Somsak + present + throw + away + it ==== >
T - VT Somsak + present + throw + it + away ==== >
T - Af Samsak + throw + present + it + away
Phonological rule Somsak throws it away.
 MV VT + NP
VT Vt1 + part, Vt12 + part
Vt throw, put, take
Prt away, out, off
prt particle
Part participle

7. Objective Transformation (T - obj)

T - obj rule
VT Vt
X + Vh + NP + Y ==== > X + Vh + NP + O + Y
Prep. Prep.
This is obligatory whenever the NP is a personal pronoun the Phonological rule
then convert
I+O me we + O us
You + O you He + O him
She + O her It + O it
They + O them
Example
A sentence "I saw her"
Base string I + past + see + she ==== >
T - obj I + past + see + she +O ==== >
T - Af I + see + past + she + O

8. Relation Clause Transformation (T-Rel.)

T - half - Rel. rule
who
X + NP + Y ==== > NP + which +X+Y
that
 T - Full - Rel. rule
1. X (1) - NP (2) - v (3)
==== >
2. Z (4) - NP (5) -W (6)
who
(4) + (5) + which + (1) + (3) + (6)
that
Everybody knows Samran.
==== >
Everybody loves him.
Everybody who knows Samran loves him.
I saw Mali.
==== > Mali, who I saw, spoke Chinese.
Mali spoke Chinese.
When the NP is an indefinite pronoun the following clause is regularly restrictive
and not set off by commas.

9. Comparative Transformation (T. - comp)

T. - comp. Rule
a. Insert: NP + Aux. + be + Adj.
==== >
Matrix : NP + Aux. + be + Adj.
Result : NP + Aux. + be + Adj. + -er + than + NP + ( + Aux. + be) (+ Adj.)
Preecha is old.
==== >
Pantakan is old.
Preecha is older than Pantakan (is old.)

b. Insert: NP + Aux. + be + Adj.

====>
 Matrix : NP + Aux. + be + Adj.
Result : NP + Aux. + be + more + Adj. + than + NP (+Aux + be) (+adj.)

Lisa is beautiful
==== >
Noi is beautiful.
Lisa is more beautiful than Noi is beautiful.

10. Superlative Transformation (T.Sup.)

T - Sup. Rule.
a. Insert: NP + Aux. + be + Adj.
==== >
Matrix : NP + Aux. + be + Adj.
Result : NP + Aux. + be + the + Adj. +- est + of + NP

b. Insert: NP + Aux. + be + Adj.

==== >
Matrix : NP + Aux. + be + Adj.
Result : NP + Aux. + be + the + most + Adj. + of + NP

Insert : The boys are tall.

Matrix : Vichai is tall.
Insert : The men are handsome.
Matrix : Sansak is handsome.
Result : Vichai is the tallest of the boys.
Sansak is the most handsome of the men.
Note The T - comp. is used for two people or things.
The T - sup. is usually used for more than two people or things.
Revision of Basic English Sentence (Tree Diagrams)
Indicating the elements of basic English sentences by using tree diagrams
Tree diagrams.
1. Monthong is a student.
S

NP VP

N Aux. MV

Nprop. Tense be NP

Present Det Art N

Indef. Ncom.

Count.

Monthong -s be a student
String : Monthong + - s + be + a + student.
T Af : Monthong + be + - s + a + student.
Phonological rule : Monthong is a student.

Note
Phonological rules operate in the production of the actual sentence.
2. He was young. S

NP VP

N Aux. MV

Npp. Tense be Adj.

PP3 past

He - be young
String : He + + be + young. ==== >
T Af : He + be + young.
Phonological rule : He was young.
3. Somebody is in the class.
S

NP VP

N Aux MV

Nindef. Tense be adv-p

present

somebody be in the class.

String : Somebody + -s + be + in the class. ==== >
T Af : Somebody + be + -s + in the class.
Phonological rule : Somebody is in the class.
4. The girl has gone.
S

NP VP

Det. N Aux. MV

Art Ncom. Tense Aspect Verbials

Def. Count. present have + part VI

Vi1

The girl -s have - go

String : The +girl + -s + have + + go. ==== >
T Af : The + girl + have + -s + go + .
Phonological rule : The girl has gone.
5. Some of these boys wrote letters.
S

NP VP

Det. N Aux. MV

Pre Art Demon N.com. Tense MV

D1 count past VT NP

Vt Det. N

Art. N.com

Indef. Count.

Some of these boys write letters.

String : Some of + these + boys + + write + + letters. ==== >

T Af : Some of + these + boys + write + + + letters.
Phonological rule: Some of these boys wrote letters.
6. Three students become teachers.
S

NP VP

Det. N. Aux. MV

Art. Num. N.com. Tense Verbals

Indef. Num.C. count present Vb NP

Det. N

Art. N.com.

Indef. count.

three students become teachers

String : + three + students + + become + + teachers. ==== >

T Af : + three + students + become + + + teachers.
Phonological rule: Three students become teachers.
7. Some of these two girls remain beautiful.

NP VP

Det N Aux. MV

Pre Art Demon Num Ncom Tense Verbal

D1 Num.C count present Vb Adj.

Some of these two girls remain beautiful.

String : Some of + these + two + girls + + remain + beautiful. ==== >

T Af : some of + these + two + girls + remain + beautiful.
Phonological rule: Some of these two girls remain beautiful.
8. A lot of the women had been here.
S

NP VP

Det N Aux. MV

Pre Art Art N.com Tense Aspect be Adv-p

Def. Count past have part

A lot of the women have -en be here

String : A lot of + the + women + + have + -en + be + here. ==== >

T Af : A lot of + the + women + have + + be + -en + here.
Phonological rule: A lot of the women had been here.
9. They look handsome.
S

NP VP

N Aux. MV

Npp. Present Verbal

PP 3 look handsome

They look handsome.

String : They + + look + handsome. ==== >
T Af : They + look + + handsome.
Phonological rule: They look handsome.
10. It costs four dollars.

NP VP

N Aux. MV

Npp Tense Verbal

PP 3 present Vh Np

Det N

Art Num Ncom

Indef Num C count

It -s cost four dollars

String : It + -s + cost + - + four + dollars. ==== >

T Af : It + cost + -s + - + four + dollars.
Phonological rule: It costs four dollars.

T - Af Af + V V + Af
Af. Affixes = Tense, - participles, - ing
V = Modals, have , be and verbs.
Abbreviations and Symbols to use in Revision of Basic English Sentence
1. Act. active voice
2. Adj. adjective
3. Adv Adverb or adverbial
4. Adv-p adverb of place
5. Adv-m adverb of manner
6. Adv-t adverb of time
7. Af affix (morpheme)
8. Art Article
9. Aux auxiliary (verb)
10. Com common (noun)
11. Comp comparative (degree)
12. Compl complement
13. Count countable (noun)
14. Conj conjunction
15. Def Definite (article)
16. Demon demonstrative
17. Det determiner
18. Imp imperative
19. Indef indefinite (article, pronoun)
20. Ins insert (sentence)
21. Int intensifier
22. Inter interrogative (word, sentence)
23. M modal (auxiliary)
24. Mod modifier
25. MV main verb
26. Matr matrix (sentence)
27. N noun
28. Neg negative (word, sentence)
29. Nindef indefinite pronoun
30. NM noun modifier
31. NO number marker
32. NP noun phrase
33. Nprop proper noun
34. Npp personal pronoun
35. Num numeral
36. Zero (morpheme)
37. O object morpheme
38. Obj objective
39. Part past participle
40. Pass passive voice
41. Pl plural
42. pos possessive (morpheme, word)
43. Prep preposition
44. Prt particle
45. Q question
46. Rel. relative (Pronoun)
47. S sentence
48. Sub subordinator
49. Subj subjective
50. Sup superlative (degree)
51. T transformation
52. Uncount uncountable (noun)
53. V verb
54. Vb become class verb
55. Vh have class verb
56. VI intransitive verb
57. VP verb phrase
58. Vs seem class verb
59. VT transitive verb
60. Wh interrogative words e.g. where, when. etc.
______
Summary
Transformation Generative Grammar (TGG) answered several questions that the
structuralists had left unanswered. Structuralism is not cognizant of the fact of
competence of a native speaker of the language to produce an infinite number of
sentences. Language is productive and complex. A sentence has a deep structure and
surface structure. It is the result of several transformations applied to a deep structure (a
kernel sentence) that one arrives at the surface structure of a sentence. TG grammar
shows this inter-relatedness between different sentences. It also helps to remove
ambiguities between sentences that appear identical but are transforms from different
Kernels. Some of the important transformational rules are as follows:

1. Interrogative Rule

NP-tense be Interrogative tense be

have -- > have -NP
modal -- > modal

2. Affix switch rule

- Tense Modal Modal -Tense

main -- > main
verb verb
have have -ing
be be
do do -en

3. Do-Support Rule.
Tense (NP) Do-supp. Tense-do- (NP)
-- >
4. Negation.

Modal Modal
Tense - be Neg. Tense - be -not
have -- > have

5 Passivisation
NP1 Aux. V NP2 Pass. NP2 Aux. en V by NP1

English Sentence
The English sentence can be classified into two types: basics and transforms.
Basic sentences are those fundamental or elementary sentences which all other kinds of
sentences are derived from. Transformational sentences are those that are derived, with
the help of well-formed basic sentences, by applying the rules of transformation.
The basic rewrite rule of English basic sentences may be formulated as follows:

S NP + VP

N
NP

Det + N

Nprop
Nindef.
N Npp.
Ncom.

Art
Det (pre Art) + + (Num)
Demon
VP Aux + MV
Aux Tense + (M) + (Aspect)
Aspect (have + participle) + (be + ing)
NP
be + Adj.
MV Adv - p
Verbals

VI
VT + NP
NP
Verbals Vb +
Adj.
Vs + Adj.
Vh + NP