Lecture 3 - Summary

Levels of description II (continued from lecture 2)

4.2 Verb phrases

4.2.1 Elements in the verb phrase

The obligatory element in the verb phrase (i.e. its head) is the main verb, or lexical verb. In addition, the verb phrase may contain elements from four different verb categories:

modal auxiliaries: CAN, MAY, MUST, SHALL, WILL, etc. These are used to convey various types of meaning, primarily the speaker's views of the likelihood that what s/he says is true (e.g. You must be tired) or the speaker's attempt to impose her/his will on the hearer (e.g. You must come in now).

grammatical auxiliaries: certain uses of BE, HAVE and DO (e.g. She is writing a letter / She has written a letter / Did she write a letter?).

auxiliary equivalents: e.g. BE POSSIBLE, BE NECESSARY, BE ALLOWED TO, BE OBLIGED TO, HAVE TO. These are expressions which are close in meaning to the modal auxiliaries. Unlike those, however, the auxiliary equivalents may be preceded by modal or grammatical auxiliaries: It must be possible to find him / They may have been allowed to use the car.

catenatives can be provisionally described as lexical verbs which are used as if they were auxiliaries: She appears to be happy / He tends to avoid confrontation / They got caught in the trap / She stopped talking.

These elements must occur in the order

(modal aux) + (grammatical aux('s)) + (aux equivalent(s)) + (catenative(s)) + main verb.

4.2.2 Negation

The negator not is not regarded as part of the basic verb phrase, but if the speaker wishes to negate the clause, not (sometimes contracted to n't) is inserted after the first auxiliary in the verb phrase (I haven't met her / He isn't working just now). If there is no auxiliary in the verb phrase, not is inserted after the main verb BE (She isn't at home); with any other main verb, a form of the auxiliary DO has to be added: (He didn't go out after dinner).

4.2.3 Finiteness

The term finite verb is used about present tense and past tense forms of a verb (She plays the harp / He slept late). In addition, modal auxiliaries and imperative verb forms (Go home!) are also regarded as finite forms.

There are three non-finite verb forms in English: the infinitive (with or without the infinitive marker to, e.g. (to) go), the present participle (going) and the past participle (gone).

A verb phrase may contain at most one finite verb; it is always the first element in the verb phrase. Such a verb phrase is known as a finite verb phrase; a verb phrase with no finite verb is known as a non-finite verb phrase.

4.3 Adjective phrases

An adjective phrase has an adjective as its head. In addition, we may find modifiers and complements in the adjective phrase.

Three types of modifiers can be recognized: premodifiers, postmodifiers and split modifiers:

a premodifier in an adjective phrase is typically an adverb or an adverb phrase: very happy, absolutely true, quite incredibly small.

postmodifiers in adjective phrases are rare, with the exception of enough: true enough.

a split modifier is typically an adverb phrase which has been split so that the adverb is placed before the adjective and the complement in the adverb phrase is placed after the adjective: more difficult than she expected.

A complement in the adjective phrase is a phrase or clause placed after the adjective: fond of pizza, cheaper than ever, (I am) afraid we can't help you.

4.4 Adverb phrases

An adverb phrase has an adverb as its head. As regards modifiers, it is similar to the adjective phrase:

premodifier: (She drove) very slowly, (He drove) quite incredibly fast.
postmodifier: (It happened) often enough.
split modifier: (She drove) more slowly than was necessary.

4.5 Prepositional phrases

A prepositional phrase consists of two obligatory elements: the preposition and its complement (to Canterbury, in the street, after the concert).

If the complement is made up of an interrogative pronoun or a relative pronoun, it may be separated from the preposition and placed first in the clause: Who did you give the letter to? / the sofa which she was sitting on.

5. Clauses

Clauses are grammatical constructions which are used to represent events or situations typically involving one or more participants (The dog was chasing the cat / The sky is blue / It is raining). In addition, the message expressed by some clauses can be described as true or false.

5.1 Clause elements

In accordance with the rank scale principle (cf. lecture 2), a clause is made up of one or more phrases (occasionally we may find a rank-shifted clause instead of a phrase, but for our present purposes we may simply regard such a clause as the equivalent of a phrase). Each phrase making up the clause has a specific grammatical function in the clause. The labels used for these functions (or clause elements) in EGTU are the following:

subject (S): The dog was chasing the cat. / He gave her a rose.
verb (V): The dog was chasing the cat. / He gave her a rose.
direct object (dO): The dog was chasing the cat. / He gave her a rose.
indirect object (iO): He gave her a rose.
subject predicative (sP): He was amusing. / John became a lieutenant.
object predicative (oP): She found him amusing. / They made him a lieutenant.
adverbial (A): She lives in London. / He went to Paris last week.

5.2 Syntactic functions of phrases

The way the different phrase types can be used as clause elements and as rank-shifted elements within other phrases can be summarized as follows:

Phrase type	Syntactic function in clause	Syntactic function in phrase
Noun phrase (NP)	Subject; direct object; indirect object; subject predicative; object predicative	Complement in PP; premodifier in NP; used in apposition to other NP
Verb phrase (VP)	Verb	-
Adjective phrase (AdjP)	Subject predicative; object predicative	Premodifier in NP; postmodifier in NP; split modifier in NP; (head in NP)
Adverb phrase (AdvP)	Adverbial	Modifier in AdjP, AdvP, NP
Prepositional phrase (PP)	Adverbial	Postmodifier in NP; complement in AdjP; (premodifier in NP)

The parentheses in the third column indicate uses that are subject to restrictions. For examples, see section 2.8 in EGTU.

5.3 Clause types

Clauses can be classified in two different ways: the difference between a finite clause and a non-finite clause is based on the type of verb phrase functioning as V (finite or non-finite), whereas the difference between a main clause and a subordinate clause is based on the finiteness of the V and the presence or absence of a subordinator (subordinating conjunction or relative pronoun; cf. lecture 2):

· a main clause has a finite V but has no subordinator;
· a clause with any other combination of finiteness and presence/absence of subordinator is a subordinate clause.

Clause types will be discussed in detail in lectures 19-23.

6. Sentences

Sentences are most easily identified in written text, where the beginning of the sentence is conventionally marked by a capital letter, and the end of the sentence is marked by a full stop, exclamation mark or question mark. Depending on what combinations of main and subordinate clauses we find in the sentence, we can recognize the following sentence types:

a sentence fragment does not contain a full main clause. The following advertisement text is primarily made up of sentence fragments (underlined): Indigestion? Reach for Rennie. Now in handy strips - for on-the-spot relief. Rennie.
a simple sentence consists of one single main clause: The dog was chasing the cat.
a compound sentence consists of two or more co-ordinated main clauses: Mary sang, and John played the piano. / John likes Cajun food, but Mary can't stand it.
a complex sentence contains at least one main clause and one subordinate clause: John went home because he was tired.

7. Discourse

A sentence normally does not exist in isolation, but is part of a spoken or written discourse. Each sentence will normally be tailored to fit in with the other sentences in the discourse. For example, in dialogue it is perfectly normal to answer a question with a sentence fragment which provides just the information that the other speaker asked for:

Q: Where is the squirrel?
A: In the tree.

When someone answers a question, it is also essential to relate the answer to the perceived purpose of the previous speaker's question, and not just to the form of the question:

(The Pipe Major in a Scots Guards battalion cycles past an officer.)
Officer: Do you have the time, Pipe Major?
Pipe Major: Yes, sir, indeed I do, sir. (Cycles on.)

Although a great number of grammatical rules concerning the units on the rank scale (from the morpheme upwards) can be formulated without reference to a specific discourse context, it is nevertheless important to keep in mind that properties of the discourse may influence the speaker's/writer's choice of grammatical form. Similarly, what we know about the wider context in which an utterance is made may influence our interpretation of that utterance. Lectures 24 and 25 will be devoted to the relationship between grammar and spoken/written discourse.