Grammatical Structures in English

1. Quennie V. Ancheta

2. -To understand current
ideas, we need to
know where they came
from.

3. Can’t we just observe language and
describe it without bothering with
difficult things like theories?
The human mind always operates with
some notion of the way the universe works.
The human mind finds it easier to
understand things if we break it down into
smaller pieces

4. Language exists in
people’s heads
Language is ‘rules’ that
we know: competence

5. –You can observe what goes in and
out of the box, but you can’t observe
what goes on inside which changes
the input to the output
–By studying the input and output we
can imagine what must be going on
inside
–Imagined processes = theory

6. American structuralism (C1900 – 1960)
Transformational Grammar (1957 – 1964)
Standard Generative Theory (1964 – 1980)
Government and Binding Theory
Generalised Phrase Structure Grammar
Lexical Functional Grammar (1980 –
present)
Minimalist Programme
Optimality Theory (1993 – present)

7. We can only study what we can observe
We can observe sound
– So we can study phonetics
If we assume that phonology is based on
phonetics, we can study phonology too
If we assume that morphology is based on
phonology, we can study morphology
If we assume that syntax is based on
morphology, we can study syntax
We can’t study semantics – leave that to
philosophers

8. –The unit of phonology (phoneme) is a
collection of phones (observable) and
distinguished in terms of the distribution
of phones
–The unit of morphology (morpheme) is a
combination of phonemes and
distinguished in terms of distribution
–The unit of syntax (word) is a combination
of morphemes, distinguished by
distribution

9. Rationalist approach
–The mind exists and can be studied
–Some knowledge comes from the mind
itself
Discovery procedures are foolish and
limiting
–You get your data from wherever you can
find it (not limited to observable data – i.e.
Intuition also acceptable)

10. …is that branch of
linguistics that is most
concerned with developing
models of linguistic
knowledge.

11. phonology,
morphology
syntax
semantics

12. …is the study of the
articulation, the
perception and the
physical aspects of
speech sounds.

13. Articulatory phonetics
Auditory phonetics
Acoustic phonetics

14. Articulatory phonetics analyses the movements
of speech organs by which certain sounds are
produced.
Auditory phonetics is concerned with the
perception of speech sounds through the ear
(hence auditory), and begins with the anatomy
of this organ in a similar way to articulatory
phonetics.
Acoustic phonetics studies the physical aspects
of speech sounds.

15. …is the branch of theoretical
linguistics concerned with
speech sounds at a higher
level than phonetics, i.e their
structure and organisation in
human languages.

16. …is the study of word
structure.

17. “A person who knows a
language has mastered a
system of rules that assigns
sound and meaning in a
definite class of possible
sentences.”
- Noam Chomsky

18. …is the study of
language structure
and word order.

19. Speakers of a language recognize the
grammatical sentences of their
language and know how the words in
a sentence must be ordered and
grouped to convey a certain meaning.
All speakers are capable of producing
and understanding an unlimited
number of new sentences that have
never before been spoken or heard.

20. They also recognize ambiguities,
know when different sentences mean
the same thing, and correctly interpret
the grammatical relations in a
sentence, such as subject and direct
object. This kind of knowledge comes
from their knowledge of the rules of
syntax.

21. The notion of structure stays
–Words group into phrases
–Phrases group into sentences
New type of rule for producing structure
–S  NP VP
A set of such rules makes a Phrase
Structure Grammar
–Grammar is a set of rules that are part of
the mind

22. But phrase structure rules are not enough
to describe human languages
–Discontinuous constituents
[A man with blue eyes] walked into a
shop
[A man] walked into a shop [with blue
eyes]
To describe this phenomena we need
transformations
–Rules which alter structures to form other
structures (e.g. By moving things about)

23. What does the grammar manipulate?
– From structuralism we have always assumed that
words are the basis of syntax
– But transformational analyses started to discover
that units smaller than words undergo syntactic
processes:
He is always sad
He always phones his mother
– Some have suggested that this leads to a theory
where syntax always manipulates items smaller
than the word and that words are constructed by
syntax

24. …is the study of
intensive meaning in
words and sentences.

25. www.wikipedia.com
Barker, Chris: Oxford Studies in Theoretical
Linguistics; Oxford University Press;2007.
Chomsky, Noam Current Issues in Linguistic
Theory. The Hague: Mouton.1964
Fromkin, Victoria: Introduction to
Linguistics: Cengage Leraning Asia, 2010.
Lyons, John: Introduction to Theoretical
Linguistics; Cambridge University Press;
Melbourne, Australia; Digital Printing 2001.

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