CHAPTER 1 Basic concept of grammar (Locke and Downey, 2006)

MENU

BASIC CONCEPT OF GRAMMAR

By : Hamid Darmadi

MODULE 1

MODULE 2

MODULE 3

POSTGRADUATE PROGRAM

OF ENGLISH EDUCATION

FACULTY

TANJUNGPURA UNIVERSITY

KALIMANTAN BARAT

1.1. COMMUNICATIVE ACTS

The basic concept that language is for communication.

We can distinguish various type of communicative act

(speech act) by which people communicate with each

other: making statements, asking questions, giving

directives in order to get the action from the hearer:

making an offer or promise, thanking or expressing an

exclamation.

Asking and stating are basic communicative acts. The

thing asked for or stated may be something linguistic

(information or an opinion) or it may be something non-

linguistic (types of goods and services) which may be

verbalised.

J : If you like, I’ll come into your shop tomorrow

and get some more model aeroplane kits.

C : O.K. Don’t forget to bring the bill you this time.

J : I won’t.

: Do you enjoy working there?

C : It’s all right, I suppose. Gets a bit boring. It’ll do

for a while.

J : I would have thought you were good at selling things.

C : I don’t know what to do really. I’ve had other jobs.

My Dad keeps on at me to go into his business. He

keeps offering me better wages,

but the last thing to do is to work for him!

SPEECH ACT

OFFER

PROMISE

QUESTION

STATEMENTS

STATEMENT

STATEMENT

REMINDER

EXCLAMATION

J : why?

C : why? You don’t know my old man!

I wouldn’t work for him!

He always wanted me to, but we don’t get on…

D’you think it’s possible to get me on a part-time

Youth Leadership Course?

J : I’ll ring up tomorrow, Chris, and find out for you.

C : Thanks a lot.

SPEECH ACT

QUESTIONS

ECHO

QUESTIONSEXCLAMATION

S

THANKING

STATEMENT

QUESTION

OFFER /

PROMISE

1.2 THE CONTENT OF COMMUNICATION

Any happening or state in real life, or in an imaginary world

of the mind, can be expressed through language as a

situation or state of affairs. Used in this way, the terms

‘situation’ or ‘state of affairs’ do not refer directly to an

extra-linguistic reality that exists in the real world, but

rather to the speaker’s conceptualisation of it.

The components of this conceptualisation of reality are

semantic roles or functions and may be described in very

general terms as follows:

1. Processes (actions, events, states, types of behaviour)

2. Participants (entities of all kinds, not only human, but

inanimate, concrete and abstract, that are involved in the

processes

3. Atributes (qualities and characteristics of the participants

4. Circumstances (any kind of contingent fact or subsidiary

The following example from the text shows one possible

configuration of certain semantic roles :

The kind of meaning expressed by these elements of

semantic structure is representational meaning, or

meaning that has to do with the content of the message.

I ‘ll come into your

shop

tomorrow

participant process circumstance circumstance

1.3 THREE WAYS OF INTERPRETING

CLAUSE STRUCTURE

The clause or simple sentence is the basic unit that

embodies our construal of representational meaning and

interpersonal meaning. It is also the unit whose elements can

be reordered in certain ways to facilitate the creation of

textual meaning. The textual resources of the clause, such

as the active-passive alternative, enable the representational

strand and the interpersonal strand of meaning to cohere as

a message.

CLAUSE

STRUCTURE

Each type of meaning is encoded by its own

structures; the three types of structure combine to

produce one single realisation in words

Interpret

AS REPRESENTATIONAL

AS EXCHANGE

AS MESSAGE

1.3.1 The clause as representation:

transitivity structures

The elements of structure or functions in the transitivity

structures include :

Agent, recipient, affected, process, attribute and

circumstance. Some of these make up the semantic

structure of the following example:

Janice will give Chris the bill tomorrow

Agent Process

(action)

recipient Affected Circumsta

nce (time)

1.3.2 The clause as exchange: mood

structures

When a speaker interacts with others to exchange

information, or to influence their behaviour and get things

done, she adopts for herself a certain role, such as

‘questioner’ and, inn doing so, assigns a complementary

role, such as ‘informant’, to her addressee.

The exchange of information is typically carried out by the

indicative mood or clause type, as opposed to directives,

which are typically expressed by the imperative mood.

Within the indicative, making a statement is associated

characteristically with the declarative, and asking a

question with the interrogative.

In a declarative clause, the Subject precedes the Finite.

Declarative

Interrogative

In the interrogative structure, the positions of Finite

operator and Subject are reversed, the Predicator and the

rest of the clause remaining the same.

Janice will give Chris the bill tomorrow

Subject Finite

operator

Predicator Indirect

Object

Direct

Object

Adjunct

Will Janice give Chris the bill tomorrow

?

Finite

operator

Subject Predicator Indirect

Object

Direct

Object

Adjunct

1.3.3 The clause as message: thematic

structures

The speaker organises the international content of the

clause so as to establish whatever point of departure is

desired for the message. This is called the Theme, which in

English coincides with the initial element or elements of the

clause. The rest of the clause in the Rheme:Janice will give Chris the bill tomorrow

Theme Rheme

Janice will give Chris the bill tomorrow

Experiential Agent Process Recipie

nt

Affected Circumstance

Interperson

al

Subjec

t

Finite +

Predicato

r

Indirect

Object

Direct

Object

Adjunct

Textual Theme Rheme

1.3.4 Combining the three types of structure

1. Chris will be given the bill ( by Janice) tomorrow.

2. The bill will be given to Chris tomorrow (by

Janice).

3. Tomorrow, Chris will be given the bill (by Janice).

It can be seen that the three types of structural elements

do not coincide (vertically) in the same way as they do in

the typical active declarative clause. So, the configuration

for 1 are illustrated below.Chris Will be

given

the bill By Janice tomorrow

Recipient Process Affected Agent Circumsta

nce

Subject Finite +

Predicator

Direct

Object

Adjunct Adjunct

Theme Rheme

2.1 SYNTACTIC CATEGORIES AND

RELATIONSHIPS

The basic syntactic concepts include the structural

units which can be arranged by rank, the classes into

which these units can be divided, and the elements of

which they are composed.

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2.2 TESTING FOR CONSTITUENTS

This testing for constituents can be done by applying

certain tests in order to identify whether a particular

sequence of words is functioning as a constituent of a

higher unit or not.

For instance, the following sequence, which constitutes a

grammatical clause or simple sentence, is ambigous:

Muriel saw the man in the service station.

Two interpretation are possible, express graphically as

follows:

1. ||Muriel|saw|the man in the service station||

2. ||Muriel|saw|the man||in the service station||

In version 1, the prepositional phrase in the service station

forms part of the constituent whose head-word is man (the

man in the service station) and tells us something about

the man; whereas in version 2 the same prepositional

phrase functions separately as a constituent of the clause

and tells us where Muriel saw the man.

Evidence for this analysis can be sought by such

operations as (a) coordination (b) wh-questions, (c)

clefting, (d) passivisation and (e) fronting. Tests (b) to (e)

involve moving the stretch of language around and

observing its syntactic behaviour. Testing by coordination

involves adding a conjoin that realises the same function.

Only stretches of language that realize the same function

can be conjoined:

(a) It can be seen that different types of conjoin are required

according to the function of in the service station:

(i) Muriel saw the man in the service station and the

woman in the shop.

(ii) Muriel saw the man in the service station and in the

shop

(b) The wh-question form and the appropriate response will

be different for the two versions:

(i) Who did Muriel see? – the man in the service station.

(ii) Where did Muriel see the man? – in the service

station.

(c) Clefting by means of it + that-clause highlights a clause

constituent and thus yields two different results:

(i) It was the man in the service station that Muriel saw.

(ii) It was in the service station that Muriel saw the man.

Wh-clefting gives the same result:

(i) The one Muriel saw was the man in the service

station.

(ii) Where Muriel saw the man was in the service station.

(d) Passivisation. The passive counterpart of an active

clause usually contains a form of be and a past participle:

(i) The man in the service station was seen by Muriel.

(ii) The man was seen by Muriel in the service station.

(e) A constituent can sometimes be fronted, that is, brought

to initial position:

(i) The man in the service station Muriel saw.

(ii) In the service station Muriel saw the man.

2.3 UNITS AND RANK OF UNITS

A unit will be defined as any sequence that constitutes a

semantic whole and which has a recognised pattern that is

repeated regularly in speech and writing.

In English, it is useful to recognize four structural units

which can be arranged in a relationship of componence on

what is called a rank-scale:Unit Bounda

ry

marker

Example

Clause : || ||the effect of the accident are very serious||

Group : | |the effects of the accident |are | very serious|

Word : a space The effect of the accident are very serious

Morphe

me :

+ {EFFECT} + {PLURAL}, realised by the morphs effect

and -s

The relationship between the units is, in principles, as

follows. Looking downwards, each unit consist of one or

more units of the rank below it. Thus, a clause consist of

one or more groups, a group consist of one or more words

and a word consist of one or more morphemes.

More exactly, we shall say that the elements of structure of

each unit are realized by units of the rank below.

2.4 CLASSES OF UNITS

2.4.1 Classes of Clauses

A. Finite and non-finite clauses

the status as finite or non-finite depends on the form

of the verb chosen. Finite verbs, and therefore also

finite clauses, are marked for either tense or modality,

but not both. If the speaker wishes to express tense or

modality, together with person and number, a ‘finite’

form of the verb is chosen, therefore, such as is, eats,

locked, went, will stay and the clause is then called a

FINITE CLAUSE.

The function of the finite is to relate the verb to the

speech event.

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If the verb-form does not signal either tense or modality,

the verb and the clause are classified as NON-FINITE.

The non-finite verb forms are:

- the infinitive (bare infinitive), e.g. be, eat ,lock , go;

- the to-infinitive;

- the participial –ing form (being, eating, locking,

going); and

- the past participial form -en (been, eaten, locked,

gone).

B. Independent and Dependent Clause

The distinction between those are an

independent clause which is complete in itself, that is,

it does not form part of a larger structure, whereas a

dependent clause is typically related to an

independence clause. This is illustrated in the

following sentence:

All grammatically independent clause are finite.

Dependent clauses may be finite or non-finite.

According to the example, the finite dependent clause

‘before they went on holiday’ can be replaced by a

non-finite clause ‘before going on holiday. The

dependent status of non-finite is signaled by the form

itself.

They locked up in the house (indep.cl), before they went on holiday

(dep.cl).

Only independent clauses have the variations in clause

structure that make for the different clause types:

declarative, interrogative, imperative and exclamative.

For Examples :

Jack’s flat is in Hammersmith. (declarative)

Is his address 20 Finchley Road? (interrogative)

Give me Jack’s telephone number. (imperative)

What a large apartment he has! (exclamative)

Dependent clauses, even when finite, do not have these

possibilities.

C. Finite dependent clauses

there are seven kinds of finite dependent clause

which are illustrated in this section:

NO Fin.Dep.Claus

es

Examples

1. Circumstantial As soon as she got home, Ann switched on the

television.

2. Relative Paul took one of the red apples that his wife had

bought that morning

3. Nominal :

(that-clause) He saw that the bottles were empty

(wh-nominal

relative clause)

What I don’t understand is why you have come here

(wh-

interrogative

clause)

I’ll ask where the nearest Underground station is.

(dependent

exclamative)

She said how comfortable it was.

NO Fin.Dep.Claus

es

Examples

4. Comparative The result are much better than we expected

5. Supplementive

(units)

Built of cypress, brick and glass, the house

exhibits many of the significant contributions

that Wright made to contemporary

architecture.

6. Verbless Book your tickets well in advance, whenever

possible (=whenever it is possible)

7. Abbreviated Can you?

I won’t, has she?

2.4.2 Classes of groups

Groups are classified according to the class of the

word operating as the main or ‘head’ element. Headed

by a noun, an adjective, an adverb and a verb

respectively, we can identify the following classes:

* Nominal Groups (NG) films, wonderful films

by Fellini

*Verbal Groups (VG) return, will return

*Adjectival Groups (AG) good, quite good at

languages

*Adverbial Groups (AdvG) fluently, very fluently

indeed

2.4.3 Classes of words

Words are classified grammatically according to the traditional terminology which are divided into two main classes;

(1) Open classes : Noun, Verb, Adjective, Adverb. These classes are those that freely admit new members into the vocabulary.

(2) Closed classes : Preposition, Pronoun, Article, Conjunction.

2.4.4 Classes of morphemes

Words are made up of morphemes. The consideration to be an abstract category that has either a lexical or a grammatical meaning.

For Examples :

A word such as ‘EFFECT’ already indicated and can

2.5 THE CONCEPT OF UNIT STRUCTURE

2.5.1 Syntactic elements of clauses

Here we simply list and exemplify the clause elements

within common clause structures.

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Subject (s) Jupiter is the largest planet SPCs

Predicator (p) The election campaign has ended SP

Direct Object (Od) Ted has bought a new motorbike SPOd

Indirect Object (Oi) They sent their friends postcards SPOiOd

Prepositional Object (Op) You must allow for price increases. SPOp

Subject Complement (Cs) He is powerless to make any changes. SPCs

Object Complement (Co) We consider the situation alarming. SPOdCo

Locative/Goal Complement

(Cloc)

We flew to Moscow. SPCloc

Circumstantial Adjunct (A) The news reached us on Tuesday. SPOdA

Stance Adjunct (A) Unfortunately, we could not reach York

in time

ASPOdA

Connective Adjunct (A) However, other friends were present. ASPCs

2.5.2 Syntactic elements of groups

In Nominal groups, Adjectival groups, and Adverbial Groups.

NG : dmhm: those| beautiful| paintings| by Goya

AdjG : mhc : extremely| difficult| to translate

AdvG : mhm : very| carefully| indeed

In verbal group.

v : plays

ov : has| played [have + -en]

oxv : will| be| playing [will+[be+-ing]]

oxxv : must| have| been| played [must+[have+-

en][be+-en]]

2.5.3 Componence, realization, and function

Clf

S P Od A

NG VG NG AdvG

d m h o v d h h

Def noun noun aux v def noun

adv

The bus strike will affect many people

tomorrow BACK

3.1 NEGATIVE AND INTERROGATIVE

CLAUSE STRUCTURES

The verb’s corresponding negative forms normally have n’t

added to the positive forms. The following are irregular:

can’t (from cannot), shan’t (from shall not), won’t (from will

not).

When n’t follows a consonant –as in didn’t, wouldn’t –it is

pronounced as a separate syllable.

The inflectional n’t forms are used in spoken English and in

informal written styles that imitate speech.

The full form ‘not’ is used in formal written styles and for

emphasis –as in the play was not success, rather than the

play wasn’t a success.

3.1.1 The finite operator

The operator is a verb, of one of the following types: primary, modal or do.

1. primary: positive: am, is, are, was, were, have, has, hadnegative: am not (aren’t in negative-interrogative),

isn’t, aren’t, wasn’t, weren’t, haven’t, hasn’t, hadn’t

2. Modal: positive: can, could, will, would, shall, should, may, might, ought

negative: can’t, couldn’t, won’t, wouldn’t, shan’t, shouldn’t, may not, mightn’t, oughtn’t

3. The ‘do’ operator: positive: does, do, did

negative: doesn’t, don’t, didn’t.

And also lexical auxiliaries for primary verbs ‘be’ (be about to, be sure to, be going to,etc) and have (have to, have got to)

Less commonly used semi-modals (dare, need) can be used with with will, should and would. They also behave to require the do-operator. (e.g.Didn’t dare)

3.2 CLAUSAL NEGATION

In clauses, negation is usually made with the particle ‘not’,

by negating the finite operator or a non-finite operator.

If no other auxiliary is present, a form of do (do, does, did,)

is brought as operator.

P : That man is the Secretary

N : That man is not / isn’t the Secretary

P : He took the car

N : He didn’t take the car.

P : Ed always does the dishes.

N : Ed doesn’t always do the dishes.

operator lexical verb

Some operators admit an alternative type of abbreviation

with the subject in negative clauses. This occurs usually

only with a pronoun. Both types are used in spoken

English.

They aren’t ready They’re not ready

He hasn’t finished He’s not finished

3.2.1 Interrogative clauses

Yes/no interrogative

Positive-interrogative : Is that man the Secretary?

Negative-interrogative: Isn’t that man the secretary?

Wh-interrogative

When did you see him last?

Who came to see you?

Why don’t you tell her?

Another way of negating a clause is by using a non-verbal

‘nuclear’ negative word (nobody, nothing, no or never).

e.g. Nobody came after all.

In many cases a similar idea can be expressed by using

either no-negation or not-negation + any.

3.3 NO-NEGATION VS NOT-NEGATION +

ANY

Do you know

anyone called

Stern?

I don’t know anyone called Stern (not-

negation + any)

I know no-one called Stern (no-

negation)

3.4 ANY AND OTHER NON-ASSERTIVE

WORDS

Standard English does not favor cumulative negation, that

is a ‘not’ negative together with one or more nuclear

negatives in one clause, such as “We’re not going

nowhere”.

1st negation|2nd negation

Instead the first negative item is followed throughout the

rest of the clause by one or more non-assertive items such

as ‘any’.

“We’re not going anywhere with any of our friends”.

In order to be used in a negative clause they must be

preceded by ‘not’ or a negative word.

As opposed to SOME and its compounds (assertive;

factual meaning) occur in positive declarative meaning,

ANY (non-assertive; non-factual meaning).

We have some very good coffee. (declarative, factual)

This coffee is better than any I have ever tasted.

(comparative, non-factual)

Here is a summary of assertive and non-assertive

ASSERTIVE NON-ASSERTIVE

Determiners/Pronouns Some Any

someone anyone

Somebody anybody

something Anything

Adverbs somewhere Anywhere

sometimes Ever

already Yet

still Any more/ any longer

A lot much

3.5 THE SCOPE OF NEGATION

By the scope of negation we mean the semantic influence

that a negative word has on the rest of the clause that

follows it. Typically, all that follows the negative form to the

end of the clause will be non-assertive and within the

scope of negation.

1. He didn’t reply to any of my letter

2. He didn’t reply to some of my letter

The non-assertive form ‘any’ in clause 1 expresses the scope

of negation as extending to the end of the clause. On the

other hand, example 2 implies that some letters received a

reply, while other didn’t. so ‘some’ is outside of the scope of

negation.

3.7 EXPANDING LINGUISTIC UNITS

3.7.1 Coordination

The following are examples of coordination of various

classes of elements:

Morphemes in a word : pro- and anti- abortionists

Heads of nominal groups : books, papers and

magazines

Modifier in a NG : a beautiful and astonishing sight

3.7.2 Subordination

Similarly, the following are examples of subordination

of various classes of elements:

Modifier in a NG: A very lovable, (if rather dirty), small boy.

Cs in a clause: He is quite brilliant (though totally

unreliable).

Adjunct in a clause: We arrived (late(though not too

late)) for the wedding.

Dependent clauses: I’ll let you borrow the CDs (as soon

as I’ve finished) [provided you bring them

back [when I need them]]

3.7.3 Embedding

A kind of subordination by which a clause functions as a

constituent of another clause or of a group. This is a

pervasive phenomenon in both spoken and written English.

Clause at S [that he left so abruptly] doesn’t surprise

me.

Clause at Od I don’t know [why he left so

abruptly].

Clause at c in PP I’m pleased about [Jane winning a prize].

Clause at m in NGThanks for the card [you sent me].

Clause at A [After they had signed the contract] they

went off to celebrate.

Group in group [[[Tom’s] sister’s] husband’s] mother

the box [on the top of the cupboard [in my

bedroom]].

REFERENCES

Locke, P. and Downing, A. 2006. English

Grammar: A University Course, 2nd Edition. New

York. Routledge

THANK YOU

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