1. Descriptive Grammar – 2S, 2016 Mrs. Belén Berríos
Unit 1: Basic Concepts
Descriptive Grammar – 2S, 2016
Mrs. Belén Berríos

2. Contents Grammar Hierarchy of concepts Morpheme Word Phrase Clause
Sentence

3. Concepts

4. Grammar
“Grammar is the business of taking a language to pieces, to see how it works.” (David Crystal)
“(the study or use of) the rules about how words change their form and combine with other words to make sentences.” (Cambridge Dictionary)
“Grammar is essentially a limited set of devices for expressing a few kinds of necessary meaning that cannot be conveyed by referential vocabulary alone.” (Michael Swan)
“The set of rules that allow us to combine words in our language into larger units.” (Sidney Greenbaum & Gerald Nelson)

5. Grammar
Phonology
Grammar
Semantics
Orthography

6. Sentence Hierarchy of concepts Clause 1 Clause 2 Phrases Words
Morphemes
Clause 2

7. Hierarchy of concepts
These units can be organized organized by rank/hierarchy
This organization is not related to importance of the elements, but they are part of each other
Higher
Lower
A sentence consists of 1 or + clauses
A clause consists of 1or + phrases
A phrase consists of 1 or + words
A word consists of 1 or + morphemes

8. Morpheme A morpheme is the smallest unit of grammar
They can be called Stems and Affixes
Stems: main part of a word and they can happen alone
Affixes: they are added at the beginning or end of a stem. They are of two types:
Prefix: before the stem
Suffix: after the stem

9. Morpheme
Suffixes
There are two types of suffixes: Derivational and Inflectional
Derivational: change the grammatical class
e.g. from noun to adjective
nature  + al  natural
Inflectional: keep the class, change the form
e.g. singular vs plural
house  + s  houses
Deeper references at: English Grammar for Today, Chapter 2, 2.5 pages 24-26

10. Word Words Simple One Morpheme Complex Two or more morphemes
Stem + Affixes

11. Word There are word which are formed by one stem e.g. there
When a word has a stem plus affixes, it is usually called a complex word
e.g. teach + er  teacher
Words with two stems together are called compounds
e.g. class + room  classroom
Words can be of two main classes:
open and closed

12. Phrase Units intermediate between clause and word, thus:
A phrase is made up of word(s)
A clause is made of phrase(s)
A phrase in itself has not a clear meaning, it needs to be connected to other phrases inside a clause to have a understandable meaning

13. Phrase
There different classes of phrase, according to its main content:
Noun phrases
Verb phrases
Prepositional phrases
Adjective phrases
Adverb phrases

14. Clause A clause is the major/biggest unit a sentence can be composed
In some cases, a sentence can be formed by one clause
According to the quantity and relation of the clauses, the sentence can have different classifications: simple, compound or complex

15. Sentence It is the largest unit of language (in grammar)
Sentences are at the top of the hierarchy tree, since they can contain all of the rest of grammatical units
In studying grammar, we usually take a sentence to be divided or analyzed to its minimum

16. Sentences Some books also classify sentences into:
Declaratives (statements)
Interrogatives (questions)
Imperatives (directives)
Exclamatives (exclamations)
Sentences can also be:
Positive/Negative
Active/Passive

17. Notations and Tests Notations Tests Bracketing Tree Diagrams Expansion
Substitution
Subtraction
Movement

18. Notations and Tests Bracketing: Example:
Clauses square brackets
Phrases ( ) round brackets
Words are separated by spaces
Morphemes can be divided by a hyphen
Example:
(My husband) (play-s) (basket-ball) (on Saturday)

19. Notations and Tests Tree Diagrams:
Visual picture of the relation of the constituents
It’s an upside-down tree
(Basic) Symbols used in a tree
Se: Sentence
Cl: Clause
Ph: Phrase
Wo: Word

20. Notations and Tests
Se Cl Ph Ph Ph Ph Wo Wo Wo Wo Wo Wo (My husband) (play-s) (basket-ball) (on Saturday)

21. Form vs. Function
Grammatical units can be classified or studied from two different points of view:
Form: a term related to their nature/composition and their constituents
E.g. noun, adjective, adverb phrases, etc.
Function: the use of certain units to form other bigger units. It can tell where it goes or how it can be used
E.g. Subject, object, etc.