1. French grammar and grammatical analysis
Lecture 3
Words and sentence structure

2. Today’s lecture (1) Words: recap on: meaning parts of speech function
form
(2) Structure of the sentence: the noun phrase

3. What’s in a word?
When you learn French, you must look at each word in four ways:
Meaning
Part of speech
Function
Form

4. (1) Meaning
An English word may be connected to a French word that has a similar meaning:
boy, a young male child, has the same meaning as the French word garçon

5. idiomatic expressions
expressions in which the meaning of a group of words is different from the meaning of the words taken individually.
e.g. to fall asleep
to take a walk

6. (2) Parts of speech
In English and French words are grouped according to how they are used in a sentence.
There are eight groups corresponding to eight parts of speech:
nouns articles
verbs adverbs
pronouns prepositions
adjectives conjunctions

7. In order to choose the correct French equivalent of and English word, you will have to identify its part of speech.
e.g. ‘plays’
John plays squash
verb =
John likes plays
noun =

8. (3) Function
In English and French the role a word plays in a sentence is called its function.
Nouns can have the following functions:
subject
direct object
indirect object
object of a preposition

9. Identify the function of ‘him’
John sees him
John gives him the book

10. (4) Form
In English and French, a word can influence the form of another word, that is, its spelling and pronunciation.
This matching is called ‘agreement’ and it is said that one word ‘agrees’ with another.

11. Syntactic rules Syntactic categories
Sentence structure
Syntactic rules
Syntactic categories

12. Syntactic rules determine the order of words in a sentence
Tree diagram: hierarchical structure of the sentence.
Go over divisions.
NP and VP
Each of the natural groupings in the diagram is a member of a large family of similar expressions. For example, l'enfant belongs to a family which includes un prof, votre voisin, ce chat noir, il and countless others. Each member of this family can be substituted for l'enfant without affecting the grammaticality of the sentence, although the meanings would of course change.
Un prof a trouvé le chien
Votre voisin a trouvé le chien etc…..
A family of expressions that can substitute for one another without loss of grammaticality is called a syntactic category.

13. Syntactic categories (1) the Noun Phrase
NP’s always contain some form of a noun.
e.g. Noun phrase (NP) - may function as ‘subject’ or ‘object’ in a sentence, and only NP's may do so.

14. Nouns What is a noun? person, animal, place, thing, event, idea
common noun/proper noun/pronoun

15. Terms used to talk about nouns:
gender
number
count or non-count
function (subject, object)

16. What is gender?
In English, nouns themselves do not have a gender, but sometimes their meaning indicates a gender based on the biological sex of the person or animal the noun stands for.
In French, all nouns have a grammatical gender; they are either masculine or feminine

17. What is number?
When a word refers to one person or thing it is singular
When a word refers to more than one it is plural
Collective nouns refer to a group of persons or things but they are considered to be singular, e.g. a JF language class has people in it.

18. Count vs Non-count nouns
Count nouns: nouns which designate objects which can be counted.
(2) Non-count nouns: nouns which designate an object which cannot be counted.

19. French Articles: Les articles français
As a general rule, if you have a noun in French, there is virtually always an article in front of it, unless you use a possessive (mon, ton, etc.), demonstrative (ce, cette, etc.), or some other determiner.

20. French Articles: Les articles français
There are three kinds of articles in French:
definite articles
indefinite articles
partitive articles

21. French articles Definite Indefinite Partitive Masc le un du Fem
Before vowel
Plural

22. French articles Definite Indefinite Partitive Masc le un du Fem la une
de la
Before vowel l’
un’/une
de l’
Plural
les
des

23. French Definite Articles Les articles définis
The French definite article corresponds to the in English.
There are four forms of the French definite article:

24. French Definite Articles Les articles définis
Singular
Plural
masc
fem
before vowel le la l’
les
le garçon
le père
la fille
la mère
l’ami
l’homme
les filles

25. Indefinite articles: singular forms
The singular indefinite articles in French correspond to a, an, or one in English.
un and une: the singular has a different form for masculine and feminine.

26. Indefinite articles: plural form
The plural indefinite article corresponds to some in English.
des: the plural indefinite article is the same for masculine and feminine nouns.

27. French indefinite articles
Singular
Plural
Masc
Fem un
une
des
un garçon
une fille
des garçons
un ami
une amie
des filles

28. Meaning and usage of the French indefinite article: singular form
The indefinite article usually refers to an unspecified person or thing.
I found a book. He wants an apple.

29. Plural Indefinite article
The plural indefinite article means some:
I bought some apples. Do you want some books?

30. Indefinite article
When referring to a person's profession or religion, the indefinite is not used in French, although it is used in English:
Je suis professeur - I am a teacher. Il va être médecin - He's going to be a doctor.

31. Indefinite article
In a negative construction, the indefinite article changes to de, meaning any:
I have an apple ==> I don't have any apples.