An Overview of Grammar and Linguistics - Phase - I

"II. Elements of Grammar"
Randolph Quirk & Sidney Greenbaum
[notes by Pat Conner]
FIVE ELEMENTS OF GRAMMAR
• PARTS OF A SENTENCE
• PARTS OF SPEECH
• STATIVE AND DYNAMIC
• PRO-FORMS
• QUESTION AND NEGATION

You should note first of all that we're primarily concerned here with the grammar of the structure we call a sentence. Most scholars of language agree that the sentence is the basic unit of human languages, although we sometimes argue about just what constitutes a sentence. There are rules for the way we choose and combine the sounds in our language (the study of this is called phonology); there rules for the way groups of sounds combine to make up meaningful units in words (we call this morphology); there are rules for how all of these must be mapped out into a sentence. (This we call syntax.) The five sections we're given to represent the elements of grammar in fact represent what might be called syntactic domains. Each of these is addressed under each element

• PARTS OF A SENTENCE

o This is the domain of the functional parts of a sentence: subject, predicate, complement, object, etc. If we were building a house, the parts of the sentence would be the walls, the doorways, the windows, the roof, and other integral parts.
 subject and predicate
 operator, auxiliary, and predication
 range of operators
 an "operator" is that part of the verb phrase which is handled in different ways, depending on whether you're asking a questions, making a statement, etc. If you have to supply one, you use "do."
 sentence elements
 subject
 verb
 complement
 object
 adverbial
 complements and objects
 objects fill out verbs. Ordinarily, you can't merely "hit"; you have to hit something. That something is the object. Complements, on the other hand, fill out (or complete) nouns.


• PARTS OF SPEECH

o The parts of speech are the minimal building blocks of the parts of the sentence. Subjects, predicates, complements, objects, all make use of these building blocks in prescribed ways. If we were building a house, the parts of speech would be bricks, two-by-fours, tar paper, 4 x 8 sheets of plywood, and other bits which can be fashioned into wall and doors and steps.
 A list parts of speech
 Open class items
 noun
 adjective
 adverb
 verb
 Closed system items
 article
 demonstrative
 pronoun
 preposition
 conjunction
 interjection (really a closed system?)

• STATIVE AND DYNAMIC

o This is the first domain of transformation in which we see a sentence shifting the way items are regarded. On the edge of a soccer field in Cambridge, England, there is a little square building which used to be a public toilets; now it is a bicycle shop. Just as buildings can shift greatly the context in which we consider them, so sentences can do the same things by moving between the stative and dynamic.

• PRO-FORMS

o This is the domain of substitution and compression. Once a speaker has acquainted the hearer with a clear concept, that concept can be signaled through the use of a small number of words. I cannot think of a good analogy to this in the non-linguistic world, but it may be like a computer program which "compresses" a file to make it smaller in such a way that another computer can guess what has been removed from what is present and thus reconstitute the program. It is part of the power of language that we have to stretch so far for an analogy.

• QUESTION AND NEGATION

o This is the domain known as displacement or the ability to consider subjects which are not present and which may not exist or to deny what someone else has asserted.
 Wh-questions
 Yes-no questions
 negation and non-assertion (be sure to understand the chart at 2.20.

Main verbs have meaning on their own (unlike helping verbs). There are thousands of main verbs, and we can classify them in several ways:

Transitive and intransitive verbs

A transitive verb takes a direct object: Somebody killed the President. An intransitive verb does not have a direct object: He died. Many verbs, like speak, can be transitive or intransitive. Look at these examples:
transitive:
• I saw an elephant.
• We are watching TV.
• He speaks English.
intransitive:
• He has arrived.
• John goes to school.
• She speaks fast.

Linking verbs

A linking verb does not have much meaning in itself. It "links" the subject to what is said about the subject. Usually, a linking verb shows equality (=) or a change to a different state or place (>). Linking verbs are always intransitive (but not all intransitive verbs are linking verbs).
• Mary is a teacher. (mary = teacher)
• Tara is beautiful. (tara = beautiful)
• That sounds interesting. (that = interesting)
• The sky became dark. (the sky > dark)
• The bread has gone bad. (bread > bad)

Dynamic and stative verbs

Some verbs describe action. They are called "dynamic", and can be used with continuous tenses. Other verbs describe state (non-action, a situation). They are called "stative", and cannot normally be used with continuous tenses (though some of them can be used with continuous tenses with a change in meaning).

dynamic verbs (examples):
• hit, explode, fight, run, go

stative verbs (examples):
• be
• like, love, prefer, wish
• impress, please, surprise
• hear, see, sound
• belong to, consist of, contain, include, need
• appear, resemble, seem

Regular and irregular verbs

This is more a question of vocabulary than of grammar. The only real difference between regular and irregular verbs is that they have different endings for their past tense and past participle forms. For regular verbs, the past tense ending and past participle ending is always the same: -ed. For irregular verbs, the past tense ending and the past participle ending is variable, so it is necessary to learn them by heart.

regular verbs: base, past tense, past participle
• look, looked, looked
• work, worked, worked

irregular verbs: base, past tense, past participle
• buy, bought, bought
• cut, cut, cut
• do, did, done

Here are lists of regular verbs and irregular verbs.

Often the above divisions can be mixed. For example, one verb could be irregular, transitive and dynamic; another verb could be regular, transitive and stative.

These meaning-based categories have grammatical implications for our students, too. Perhaps not as challenging for most students as the generic/specific use of nouns and articles, but important nevertheless.

Stative vs. Dynamic is a way of classifying different types of verbs--or at least different meanings that verbs can have. Stative refers to "state of being" rather than "action." For example, sentences with be are descriptions of states of being rather than of activities: She is a teacher. He is a sociologist. Dynamic refers to "actions" and "activity" in verb meanings: He walks to class. They eat lunch in the cafeteria. The contrast is often used in ESL/EFL to help students understand why they can or cannot use a progressive verb form. That is, progressive verbs refer to actions rather than states of being. That's why this sentence is wrong: *They are knowing English very well. The verb know generally is used for a "state of being" rather than an action, and so it can't be used in the progressive form (most of the time).

This meaning has been overgeneralized a bit in ESL/EFL materials where we have lists of verbs divided into groups of Stative Verbs and Dynamic Verbs. Here's the actual situation: some verbs are just about always used for stative meanings; some verbs are just about always used for dynamic meanings; but...verbs can be switched from one class to the other for special purposes. For example, verbs like taste or smell can be either actions or states of being: He was tasting the soup for salt when he dropped the box of salt in the pan. The soup tastes pretty salty now.

Assertive vs. Nonassertive is a way of talking about the difference between positive sentences and related negative sentences and questions. The idea is that positive sentences "assert" something while negative sentences and questions do not.

Assertive Examples

They have been to France already
They had some French bread for dinner
They saw somebody running out of the restaurant.

Nonassertive Examples

They haven't been to Egypt yet.
They haven't had any Egyptian bread yet.
Did they have any French wine?
Did they see anybody they recognized?

Pro-forms & Ellipsis

Here we just need to notice three things for now:
1. Pro-forms is a category that includes pronouns and pro-verbs. (I know, but it's true that in a question like What did he do? the word do is called a pro-verb that stands in the place of a verb with real meaning.)
2. Ellipsis is the leaving out of words. In the following sentence, the phrase "go to Egypt" is not repeated but is understood: They will go to Egypt, and I will, too.
3. Pro-forms and ellipsis are often talked about together because they have similar functions in context. They are both ways of repeating things without repeating them exactly. And they are both ways of tying sentences together in larger units.

He will study sociology next semester.
The first auxiliary is used to form the negative and the question. That first auxiliary is called the operator

Negative
He won't study sociology next semester