1. Language change and variation in English

• concepts of change and variation: how and why• attitudes to language: standard and non-standard

varieties• the main phases in the history of English• causes of the spread of English in the world• present-day English: from English to Englishes• English as a global language: advantages,

disadvantages and future implications

brainstorming on language change and variation

1. Do languages change in time?

2. Why do languages change?

3. How do languages change?

4. Why and how do languages vary at a given time in history?

5. What is “the best form” of a language?

from general to expert knowledge: some concepts and terms

1. synchrony, diachrony, sociolinguistics, historical linguistics, history of the language, comparative linguistics, language family, Indo-European, Germanic family, Romance or Neo-Latin family

2. causes for language change: “external” (e.g. historical events, inventions, new ideas) versus “internal” (e.g. analogy, hypercorrection, push chain processes)

3. types of change: phonological, morpho-syntactic and semantic

4. standard and non-standard varieties

Is the study of the history and varieties of English relevant to university students of English? Yes!

1. for cultural reasons2. to understand more about present-day English

- the gap between spelling and pronunciation- the mixed nature of its lexis, e.g. “liberty” vs“freedom”- the existence of regular and irregular verbs- the linguistic situation of present-day UK vs. USA

3. to reinforce practical competence- to improve pronunciation and grammaticalcorrectness- to expand lexical competence- to be prepared to understand different varieties ofEnglish

similarities among Indo-European languages

• English father mother three

• Sanskrit pitar matar trayas

• Greek pater mater treis

• Latin pater mater tres

• Italian padre madre tre

the Celts

• Indo-European people who lived in Europe from 2000 BC to 100 AD

• they inhabited the British Isles before the Roman and Anglo-Saxon invasions

• names of Celtic origin: London, Leeds, Avon, Thames, Kent, Cornwall

• very few Celtic words in Old English

• Celtic languages spoken today: Welsh, Irish Gaelic, Scots Gaelic (Breton)

historical periods and linguistic phases

1. The Anglo-Saxon period

2. The Norman period

3. Modern periodGreat Britain and Northern Ireland united under the British crown. New territories explored and stable colonies established in America, Asia and Africa

4. 20th century : from English to Englishes

English as a global language

1. Old English, OE (700-1150)

2. Middle English , ME (1150-1500)

3. Modern English, ModE (1500-1900)

4. Present-day English (PDE)

(1900 to the present)

The story/history of English started in a small island

1. the United Kingdom (UK) of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is composed of

England (London)Scotland (Edinburgh)Wales (Cardiff)Northern Ireland (Belfast)

2. Great Britain (GB)/Britain is composed of

EnglandScotlandWales

3. The Republic of Ireland (Éire)(Dublin)

Stonehenge (2500 BC)

Stonehenge is a prehistoric monument, one ofthe most famous sites in the world. It is a ringmade of standing stones belonging to theNeolithic/Bronze Age.

The Roman baths of Bath

The Roman Baths complex is a site ofhistorical interest in the English city of Bath.

It is a well-preserved Roman site for publicbathing.

Clean spa water can be drunk by visitors.

Hadrian’s Wall

Hadrian’s Wall was a defensive fortificationin Roman Britain. Begun in AD 122, duringthe rule of emperor Hadrian, it was the firstfortification built across Great Britain.

Major historical events

• Stonehenge, about 3000-2500 BC• 100 BC the first Celts appeared in Britain• 55-54 BC Julius Caesar invaded Britain – the

Romans left it in the 5th century• 5th century: some Germanic tribes (Anglo-

Saxons and Jutes) arrived in England and forced the Celts to move west and north

Old English (OE) period (700-1150)

• this term refers to Germanic dialects spokenby Jutes, Angles and Saxons: Kentish, West-Saxon, Mercian and Northumbrian

• the West-Saxon reign was the most importantreligious, military and cultural centre inEurope

• West-Saxon was considered the first standardwritten language, associated with political,military and cultural power in society

Christianisation of Britain

• 6th century

• introduction of the Latin alphabet

• abandonment of the Runic alphabet by theAnglo-Saxons

• from the 9th to the 11th centuries manuscriptswere translated from Latin into Old English

• Latin and Greek gave Old English a wide rangeof words from the Gospel, i.e. related toreligion and spirituality

the Scandinavian Viking invasion (793 AD)

• 8th century

• dark ages recorded in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle,namely a collection of annals in Old Englishchronicling the history of the Anglo-Saxons

• the Danes destroyed all the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms

• King Alfred the Great raised an army and pushedthe Danes out of his kingdom

• King Alfred saved the English language

• King Alfred commissioned the Anglo-SaxonChronicle and encouraged the use of English inwriting and in speech

Viking words

obsolete

• thorpe = settlement

• beck = stream

• by = farm

still used

• sky, skin, skirt, run, window, ombudsman

the Gaelic (Celtic) countries in the British Isles

an example of Old English(from Ælfric’s Colloquy, c. 998, intended to help studentslearn how to speak Latin through a conversation manual)

OE:

We cildra biddaþ þe, eala lareow, þæt þu tæce us [...]

Latin:

Nos pueri rogamus te, magister, ut doceas nos [...]

PDE:

Master, we young men would like you to teach us [...]

features of Old English• Latin alphabet, with some differences from PDE

(e.g. the consonant thorn or þorn <þ>, now <th>,inherited from the Runic alphabet and still survivingin Icelandic)

• nouns, adjectives and pronouns were inflected forcase, number and gender (synthetic versus analyticlanguage)

• two types of verbs (strong and weak) = regular andirregular verbs in PDE

• word order was free

• lexis was mainly Germanic but included words ofCeltic (names of places, e.g. London), Latin (e.g.schol from schola) and Scandinavian origin (e.g.landes mann = PDE native)

synthetic/inflectional language

• in linguistic typology, a synthetic language is alanguage with a high morpheme-per-word ratio

• grammar is determined by a system of inflections

• the king se cyning

• of the king thaes cyninges

• to the king thaem cyninge

PDE: The king meets the bishop

OE: Se cyning (S) meteth (V) thone biscop (O)

Thone biscop (O) meteth (V) se cyning (S)

Middle English (ME) period (1150-1500)1066 the Norman conquest – a new ruling class coming

from France went into power: the Normans spokeFrench while Latin was the language of the Churchand education; English was still the language of themajority of the population

1204 the Normans lost their power in favour of Englishkings

1215 the Magna Carta Libertatum (in Latin) was forcedonto the king of England by his subjects, the feudalbarons, in an attempt to limit his powers by law andprotect their rights

14th century The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer:the most authoritative example of written literaryEnglish

1476 introduction of the printing press in England byWilliam Caxton – invented in Germany by JohannesGutenberg but already in use in China in 1040

Norman Britain

• many Norman kings were often totally ignorant oftheir country’s language

• government, law and administration were conductedin French and so was the Church, together with Latin

• the Normans integrated with English society throughmarriage

• in the 12th and 13th century French/Englishbilingualism existed in the upper middle classes andnobility

• gradual shift to English

French vocabulary

• administration: government, treaty, royal, property,accuse, office, court, crown, marry

• general vocabulary: people, age, country, flower,large, lesson

• religion: confession, prayer, abbey, tempt

• etymology of country: Middle English – from OldFrench cuntree, from medieval Latin contrata (terra)‘(land) lying opposite’, from Latin contra ‘against,opposite’

animal vs. meat

pig pork

calf veal

cow beef

deer venison

sheep mutton

snail escargot

Old English snæg(e)l, of Germanic origin; related to German Schnecke

French, from Old French escargol, from Provençal escaragol

Geoffrey Chaucer (1340-1400)The Canterbury Tales

Canterbury Cathedral

From Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales

ME:

Thanne were ther yonge povre scolers two,

That dwelten in this halle, of which I seye.

PDE:

Then there were two young poor scholars,

Who dwelt in this hall, of which I tell.

features of Middle English

• reduction of the case system, particularly in nouns and adjectives

• development of the future with shall/will and the present progressive

• introduction of the pronoun she/shoe

• increasingly fixed word order (with some variation)

• French, e.g. marry from marier, and Latin, e.g. inferior, influence on vocabulary

Modern English (ModE) period (1500-1900)

• Early Modern English (1500-1800)

• Late Modern English (1800-1900)

Early Modern English (EModE) period(c. 1500-c. 1800)

• the form of the English language spoken since the GreatVowel Shift (GVS) in England, completed in roughly 1550

• the GVS was a major change in the pronunciation of theEnglish language between 1350 and 1700

• the term GVS was coined by the Danish linguist OttoJespersen (1860–1943)

• because English spelling was becoming standardized inthe 15th and 16th centuries, the GVS is responsible formany of the peculiarities of English spelling

The Great Vowel Shift (GVS)

Britain: a united and powerful country

• 7 million inhabitants• separation of the Church of England from the Roman

Catholic Church• Queen Elisabeth I established the power of Britain on

the seas• great flourishing of the theatre and literature, e.g.

Shakespeare, the King James Version – the authorizedtranslation of the Bible

• the English Civil War (1642-1651) over the power ofthe Parliament versus the power of the Monarchy, i.e.Parliamentarians versus Royalists

• in 1702 England and Scotland were united under theBritish Crown

Britain: a colonial world power

• since the 17th century: English tradingcompanies in India and slave trade in Africa

• In the 17th century: stable colonies establishedin America, Australia, New Zealand, Canada,the Caribbean and South Africa

• 19th century: colonial empire in Asia andAfrica

Queen Elizabeth I (1533-1603)

• 1492: America discovered by Columbus

• 1560s: Triangular trade aka Atlantic triangle

• Queen Elizabeth I backing up Sir WalterRaleigh and Sir Francis Drake in the anti-Spanish campaign in the Caribbean

→ Elizabeth: The Golden Age

William Shakespeare(baptised 26th April 1564 and died 23rd April 1616)

Shakespeare’s famous quotes

To be or not to be: that is the question.

All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players.

Parting is such sweet sorrow, that I shall say good night till it be morrow.

What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.

Brevity is the soul of wit.

Love is blind.

We have seen better days.

As dead as a doornail.

Bags and baggage.

Fair play.

I have not slept one wink.

King James Version of the Bible (1611 )a translation into English from Greek, Hebrew and Latin

the beheading of Charles I during the Civil War (1649)

the spread of English in the colonial era

the British Empire

A quotation from Love’s Labour Lostby Shakespeare

I praise God for you sir, your reasons atdinner haue beene sharpe and sententious:pleasant without scurrillity, witty withoutaffection, audacious without impudency,learned without opinion, and strangewithout heresie: I did conuerse this quondamday with a companion…

Late Modern English (LModE) period (1800-1900)

• simplification of inflection (only ‘s genitiveand -s plural in nouns, the comparative andsuperlative endings in adjectives) with theexception of pronouns

• tendency towards fixed word order

• debate between Neologisers (in favour ofwords of foreign origin) and Purists (in favourof native words)

Standard English (SE)

• Development of a standard form of English through long processes of selection (London English) and codification through grammars and dictionaries

• Development of a standard accent:Received Pronunciation (RP)

Samuel Johnson (1709-1784)

Samuel Johnson’sDictionary of the English Language (1755)

LEXICO’GRAPHER. n.s. [? lixicographe, French.] A writer of dictionories; a harmless drudge, that busies himself in tracing the original, and detailing the signification of words.

the four main periods of English: a summary

Old English (OE)(700-1100)● fully inflected● free word order● Germanic vocabulary

Middle English (ME)(1100-1500)● reduced inflection● increasingly fixed word

order● French influence on

vocabulary

Modern English (ModE)

(1500-1900)

● very limited inflection

● greater use of fixed word order

● codification of language

Present-Day English (PDE)

(1900-nowadays)

● language spread and differentiation

● formation of new varieties worldwide

● English as a global lingua franca

the reasons for the present predominance of English in the world: a summary

external reasons:

the colonial and industrial power of Great Britain inthe 18th and 19th centuries; the political, economicand technological power of the USA in the 20th

century; the number of speakers; the geographicalspread; cultural heritage

internal reasons (myths):clarity, simplicity, size of its vocabulary, flexibility in

creating new words, adaptability to distantcontexts

Present-Day English (PDE)

(1900-nowadays)

main political and cultural events

1. English is the official – or main – language ofmany important countries in the world, e.g. theUK, the USA, Australia, Canada, New Zealand

2. English has been retained as the official language(along with other native languages) in more than70 former British colonies after their politicalindependence, e.g. India, the Caribbean andseveral African countries

3. English has acquired growing importanceworldwide in science, technology, internationalorganisations and business

Why has English become a global language?

1. native varieties of English – English as a NativeLanguage (ENL or L1)

2 varieties of English as a Second Language (ESL or L2),used internationally in former British colonies in theinstitutional, media and educational fields

3. English as a Foreign Language (EFL), English as aLingua Franca (ELF), English for Special Purposes (ESP),e.g. Airspeak, Policespeak, Business English (BE),English for Academic Purposes (EAP)

4. within each category there is a continuum from aneducated standard to a very limited form ofcommunication

The three circles of PDE

The three-circles model for PDE by Braj Kachru

Native varieties or “Colonial Englishes”

• a set of different but related varietieswhich share a common core of grammarand vocabulary

• differing mainly in pronunciation andlexis

• the two main native varieties are BritishEnglish (BrE) and American English (AmE)

• BrE and AmE provide the norms for EFLlearners

Second language varieties or New Englishes

• used in institutional or educational contextsin multilingual countries, usually formerBritish colonies

• have gone through a process of languagecontact, e.g. as honest as an elephant

• have been progressively acknowledged aslocal standards, e.g. Indian English, CaribbeanEnglish, East-African English

• share common features that are differentfrom native standard varieties

mistakes or linguistic creativity?

1. I was feeling thirsty, so I bought onesoda

2. Last time she come on Thursday

3. We are having something to do

4. Whenever we go there they be playing

5. She came yesterday, isn’t it?

the speech community of PDE

• bilingualism or multilingualism is the norm

• languages play an important role in theconstruction of people’s identities

• language contact

• nativization, hybridization, code-switching

• new coinages: been-to = ‘a person who hasspent a long time abroad’; change-room =dressing room

English as a Foreign Language (EFL)

- either choose one of the native standards forproduction on the basis of proximity, tradition,personal needs or taste, e.g. British English orAmerican English

- or favour a non-native model, i.e. English as aLingua Franca (ELF)

- be prepared to understand different varieties

English as a Lingua Franca (ELF)

in the past:contact languages for trade, e.g. pidgins andcreoles in Africa based on English and Africanlanguages

now:in international scientific conferences, businessmeetings or the internet, ELF based on a core ofnorms drawing on British and American Englishand intended to guarantee mutual internationalintelligibility

the predominance of English

advantages

world languages have always existed

a world language is necessary in a globalised world

a post-national language may be useful to world democracy and citizenship

disadvantages

English is ‘killing’ other languages and cultures

people are becoming lazy in learning other languages

English expresses a particular world view and favours its native speakers (cultural imperialism)

English has become uncontrollable

What about interpreters and translators?

Who owns English today?

“… the English language ceased to be the sole possession of the English some time ago”

(Salman Rushdie, 1991)

the future of English:

from English to Englishes

Will English…?

1. go on being a polycentric language comprising severalmutually intelligible varieties?

2. achieve a balance between identity and internationalintelligibility?

3. remain strong until English-speaking countries arepowerful?

4. fragment into mutually unintelligible languages asalready happened to Latin and the Romancelanguages?

5. be rejected as a symbol of colonialism, e.g. Malaysia,or cultural imperialism?

6. be spoken as a simplified lingua franca by non-nativespeakers?

Linguistic variability

all languages are open and dynamic entitieswhich adapt to the history and culture of thespeech communities in which they are in use

Standard vs. non-standard varieties

a standard variety is the language parexcellence in terms of social prestige, languagefunctions and domains of use

e.g. the West-Saxon dialect in the OE period, the first standardwritten language (9th-11th centuries)

e.g. London English used by Caxton in the ME period (15th

century)

e.g. English used by educated speakers and the mass media allover the world (21th century)

Sociolinguistics

• a branch of linguistics that studies therelationship between language and society,i.e. according to social variables

• social variables: class, gender (men/women),age (young/old), ethnicity, etc.

• attitudes (positive/negative) influencelanguage change: some variants may beperceived as more or less prestigious

Labov’s analysis of the pronunciation of the phoneme [r] inNew York City according to social class and style (1960s)

(0-5 = lower class; 5-9 = middle and upper class , e.g. fourth floor)

Hypercorrection

• speakers tend to conform to the more prestigiouslinguistic norms

• hypercorrection originates from the over-application ofa perceived rule of grammar or usage: a speaker/writerwho produces hypercorrection believes that the form iscorrect through misunderstanding of these rules, oftencombined with a desire to appear formal or educate

• hypercorrection is more typical of socially insecurespeakers such as middle classes and women

• e.g. he gave it to you and I vs. he gave it to you and me

Historical or diachronic linguistics

the main paradigm (approach) to the study oflanguage change

1. comparative linguistics or languagereconstruction

2. the history of language: the changes in alanguage over the centuries

Internal and external causes of change

• internal (linguistic factors): regularization, i.e.the levelling of the OE inflectional case system

e.g. OE stān/a/es/as/e/um → PDE stone

• external: extralinguistic or social factors(invasions, technological innovations,immigration waves)

Types of language change

• phonological

• morpho-syntactic

• semantic

Phonological change

• sporadic phonological change

• regular phonological change

• unconditioned phonological change:regardless of the phonemic environment

• conditioned phonological change: taking placein a particular phonetic environment

examples of phonological change

• loss of <r>

e.g. OE spræc → PDE speak

• the split of /n/ and // in the 17th century

e.g. sin vs. sing

• the Great Vowel Shift (from the 15th century)

Morpho-syntactic change

• levelling of the OE case system

• word order in ME

• grammaticalization, i.e. the change fromlexical items to grammatical items

e.g. OE wilan ‘want’ (main verb) →

PDE will (modal verb)

Semantic change

Phonetics and phonology

• accents of English: native, foreign, ‘nativized’

• Received Pronunciation (RP) vs General American (GA)

• phonetics and phonology

• the articulators

• graphemes and phonemes

• homophones and homographs

• International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)

• English phonetics and phonology

accents of English:native, foreign, ‘nativized’

• accent: the way in which a language is pronounced in a specific geographical area

• native: UK, USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand

• foreign: where English is a foreign language, e.g. Italy, Japan

• ‘nativized’: where English is a second language, e.g. India

Received Pronunciation (RP) and General American (GA)

• Received pronunciation (RP) or BBC English: best described accent of English

- public schools

- upper classes

• General American (GA) or American English

phonetics and phonology

• phonetics: the science that studies the physical characteristics of sound

- articulatory: production

- acoustic: spectro-temporal properties

- auditory: perception

• phonology: describes the organization of the sound system of a language

the articulators

graphemes and phonemes

• grapheme: a letter of the alphabet , i.e. a discrete mark in writing or print – between angle brackets, e.g. <t>

• phoneme: a distinctive sound in a language capable of creating a distinction in meaning between two words – between slashes (or square brackets), e.g. /d/ dog, /l/ log, /f/ fog

silent graphemes

• <t> in castle, Christmas, often (bysome speakers)

• <k> in know, knock

• <l> in walk, talk, folk

• <w> in write, wrong

• <b> in debt, bomb, doubt

English phonology

• segmental: describes the phonemes of a language and the way they combine

• suprasegmental: describes the units larger than the phonemes (syllables, rhythm groups and intonation phrases)

• phonemes and allophones

• vowels

• the vowel diagram

• diphthongs

• non-phonemic symbols

• sentences in phonetic transcription

phonetic diagram(11 vowels in English)

trapezio vocalico(7 vowels in Italian)

• consonants

• voicing

• syllabic consonants

• rhoticity and r-linking

• English/Italian phonemes in contrast

• passages in phonetic transcription

consonants

• consonants are sounds produced with anegressive flow of air coming out of the mouthor the nose accompanied by obstruction orfriction in the articulators

• whereas all vowels are voiced, consonants canbe voiced or voiceless depending on thevibration or otherwise of the vocal cords

I’ve been reading some interesting research

about how people’s moods are affected by

sunlight. People from southern countries are

supposed to be more outgoing than those

from the north. Some scientists have shown

that if you’re not exposed to a certain

minimum amount of sunlight you may well

become depressed.

The Italian language accepts English words easily. Some are used in Italian with completely different meanings. An example is the word flipper, the game called pinball in English.

CDs have taken over from records which developed from a machine called phonograph. However the inventors of the phonograph never thought it would be used for music.

Idioms are not a separate part of the language which one can choose either to use or to omit. Instead they form an essential part of the general vocabulary of English. Present-day English is changing and becoming more idiomatic.

Mass tourism in the mountain regions of industrializedcountries began after the Second World War. This new phenomenon was a result of many factors includingincreases in urban population, vacation time and mobility. Today because of cheap global air travelalmost no mountains in any corner of the world are out of reach. Damage to the environment caused by tourists has become increasingly frequent in recentyears but it is not necessarily a destructive force. Tourism should be better integrated into mountain areas with a minimal impact on the environment.

OALD www.oxfordadvancedlearnersdictionary.com

CALD dictionary.cambridge.org

MEDAL www.macmillandictionary.com

LDOCE www.ldoceonline.com

Supra-segmental Phonology

• the syllable

• stress

• stress patterns

stress

• prominence given to a syllable

• the result of four acoustic components:

- pitch (altezza)

- loudness (volume)

- duration (lunghezza)

- quality (qualità)

• in phonetic transcription stress is indicated by a vertical line (stress mark) preceding the stressed syllable

Underline the word which does not have the same stress pattern in the lists below.

trouble Britain cigar jingle poker

alone perhaps respect Turkey deny

colleague outline someone control Monday

upstairs divert goodbye thirteen freedom

president dictation Arabic diplomat visitor

imitate photograph glorify wonderful obedient

newsreader important grandfather homecoming headhunter

vacation sincerely suspicion professor library

vibration lefthanded dangerous unlikely organic

• connected speech

• similitude

• linking

• assimilation

• elision

• vowel reduction and weak forms

Connected speech

• continuous stream of sound

• characterised by articulatory accommodations and sound variability

• three main factors:

- the influence of the phonetic environment

- the rhythmic pattern

- the speed of the utterance

• American English

• rhythm

• intonation

• functions of intonation

punctuation

• pay attention to English punctuation:

comma (,), colon (:), semi-colon (;), full

stop/period (.), dot-dot-dot (…)

• pay attention to initial capital letters:

English, Italian, I, Monday, March, etc.

The Grammar of English

Definitions of grammar

• a set of rules which allow the production of well-formed sentences and utterances

• educated native speakers intuitively follow the rules of grammar

• foreign learners study grammar in an explicit way in textbooks

• non-native speakers may develop new rules which deviate from standard rules

examples

• *I never did nothing to upset her.

(rule: multiple negation is not permitted in English).

The correct sentence is:

I never did anything to upset her)

• *She came yesterday, isn’t it?

(rule: the tag question must contain an auxiliary in

accordance with the type of verb used in the main

clause). The correct sentence is:

She came yesterday, didn’t she?

Descriptive vs Theoretical grammar

• Descriptive grammar describes how a language

works, drawing on a long tradition of

grammatical studies, using both traditional and

new terminology (e.g. subject, embedding)

• Theoretical grammars are new analytical models

developed by linguists to describe a language

(e.g. Systemic-functional Grammar).

• ‘metalanguage’

Morphology and Syntax

• Morphology: the area of grammar dealing with

the internal structure of words

• Morphology can be divided into derivational and

inflectional

• Syntax: the area of grammar dealing with the

way in which words combine to form larger units

such as phrases, clauses and sentences.

The Units of Grammar

• A hierarchy of units (rank scale)

Top down

text

sentence

clause

phrase

word

morpheme

Bottom up

Morpheme: the smallest linguistic unit of meaning

and grammatical function

e.g. un- , -less, and, glad, -s

Word: linguistic unit preceded and followed by

spaces in written language

A golden sun filled the air with light and the green

sea lapped the sand (15 words)

Phrase: a linguistic unit made up of a word or a

group of words

A golden sun (Noun Phrase= sintagma nominale)

Clause: a linguistic unit made up of one or more

phrases, containing at least a verb phrase

e.g. A golden sun (NP) filled (VP) the air (NP)

Sentence: the largest linguistic unit made up of one or more clauses

e.g. A golden sun filled the air with light and the green sea lapped the sand

John told me that he would like to move to Paris

Text: a sequence of sentences which is coherent and cohesive

Word

• a word is a linguistic unit which in the

written form has a space on either side

(orthographic criterion)

but: weekend, week-end, week end

brother-in-law (cognato)

identity card

Other criteria of wordhood

• Internal stability:

Elephant, elephants

but

brother-in-law, brothers-in-law

• A word expresses a single concept:

but

the (function word), dry, get (polysemy)

Lexeme, word-form

• LIST v. (lexeme)

list, lists, listing, listed (word-forms)

• LIST n. (lexeme)

list, lists (word-forms)

• TEACH (lexeme)

teach, teaches, taught, teaching (word-form)

Lexeme: a unit of vocabulary which includes

different variant form, called word-forms

• Lexicography: entry (voce), headword (lemma)

walk n. lexeme1 (passeggiata)

walk v. lexeme2 (passeggiare)

bank n. lexeme1 (money)

bank n. lexeme2 (river)

How many words are there in this sentence?

I asked him to list all his books, but

instead of listing them all, he listed

only the relevant ones and his

favourite book

24 or 16?

Word / word-forms / lexemes

List / listing / listed =

3 word forms of the lexeme TO LIST

Book / books = 2 word forms of the lexeme BOOK

He / him / his = three word forms of the lexeme HE

(24 word-forms, 16 lexemes)

Word classes (parts of speech)

• 9 major word classes:

nouns, lexical verbs, adjectives, adverbs, conjunctions, prepositions, determiners, pronouns, auxiliary verbs

• 3 minor word classes:

inserts or interjections (Wow, Hey), wh-words, numerals

• some word-forms may belong to more than one class (e.g. round n. adj. v. prep.

Divide the following words into 2 groups:

pig, autumn, me, explain, they, which,

sing, suddenly, from, today, biology, and,

truth, could, the, extraordinary, since, hot,

announce, in

• pig, autumn, explain, sing, suddenly,

today, biology, truth, extraordinary, hot,

announce

• me, they, which, from, and, could, the,

since, in

Open and closed classes

• open-class words lexical words content words

4 classes:

nouns, (lexical) verbs, adjectives, adverbs

• closed-class words grammatical words function words

5 classes:

conjunctions, prepositions, determiners, pronouns, auxiliary verbs

open-class words

• length: (generally) polysyllabic

• origin: (generally) Latin, Greek, French,

Germanic origin

• frequency: less frequent

closed-class words

• length: (generally) monosyllabic or

disyllabic

• origin: (generally) Germanic origin

• frequency: more frequent

Nouns (N)

• Nouns are lexical words which refer to concrete

objects or entities

e.g. house (common, concrete, countable), Mary,

London (proper), love (common, abstract), sugar

(common, concrete, uncountable)

• they may take the ’s genitive case (genitivo

sassone)

Verbs (V)

• open class denoting actions or states

• lexical/main/full verbs e.g. I like English

He walked to school

• auxiliary verbs (or auxiliaries) are added to lexical

verbs for various purposes

e.g. I could go faster. (modality)

John is going nowhere. (aspect)

Do you go to school? (question)

I do love him! (emphasis)

Lexical Verbs (V)

• dynamic: referring to physical processes = allow the progressive form

e.g. to play, to walk, to drink

• stative/state: referring to states and conditions = do not allow the progressive form

e.g. to know, to love, to believe

Adjectives (Adj)

• Adjectives are lexical words which describe qualities and properties of things, people, etc.

e.g. happy, blue, wonderful

- gradable (very happy)

- ungradable (dead, married)

• attributive function: before a noun

e.g. the extraordinary boy

• predicative function: after copular verbs (to be, to seem, to appear)

e.g. John is tall

• some adjectives are only used in either attributive or predicative function

e.g.the child is afraid (predicative)

*the afraid child

e.g.the main task (attributive)

*the task is main

Adverbs (Adv)

• Adverbs are lexical words which carry out several functions:

- degree adverbs express degree (very, really, totally)

- circumstance adverbs provide information about the circumstances of an event or state, i.e., how, when, and where (yesterday, now)

- disjuncts allow the speaker to comment on the whole utterance (probably, unfortunately)

- linking adverbs or conjuncts: connect one sentence or part of a sentence to another (besides)

Fortunately, today the dog has eaten his food very quietly outside.

She wasn’t free to go to New York at Christmas and besides she couldn’t afford it.

Prepositions (Prep)

• show the relationship between two items

• are typically followed by a noun phrase with which they form a Prepositional Phrase (PP)

e.g. the dog ran under the table

[the table]=NP [under [the table]]=PP

• simple: single word

e.g. under, over, at, on

• complex: more than one word

according to, on behalf of, with regard to

Determiners (Det)

Function words used before a noun to indicate definiteness or indefiniteness, quantity, possession, etc.

e.g. all these sugary cookies filled with jam and cream

Subclasses of determiners

• articles (indefinite and definite): a, an, the

• demonstrative: this, that, these, those

• possessive: my, your, his, her, their, our, its etc.

• quantifiers: all, few, many, several, some, every, each, any, etc.

• cardinal numbers: one, two, fifty, etc.

• ordinal numbers: first, second, third, etc.

Pronouns (Pron)

closed class of words which replace words avoiding repetitions

e.g. Michelle was offered an exciting new job and she decided to take it

Subclasses of pronouns

• personal pronouns

e.g. They love football (subject) She loves them(object)

• possessive pronouns

e.g. This book is mine

• demonstrative pronouns

e.g. This is my friend Tom

• reflexive pronouns

e.g. She hurt herself

• interrogative pronouns

e.g. Whose car is this?

• relative pronouns

e.g. This is the car which/that I want to buy

Auxiliaries (Aux)

A closed class of verbs which accompany lexical verbs

Two subclasses:

• primary auxiliaries

have, be, do

e.g. Liz is looking for a job, Do you speak English? She has studied a lot

• modal auxiliaries (modality)

can, could, shall, should, will, would, may, might, must,

e.g. I must go now! Would you like a cup of coffee?

Wh-words

A frequently used expression to refer to function words beginning with wh-

adverbs (interrogative, relative, exclamative)

e.g. When did you call her?

pronouns (interrogative, relative, exclamative)

e.g. Whose car is that?

determiners (interrogative, relative, exclamative)

e.g. Which book did you choose?

Numerals

• cardinal, e.g. one, two, three, etc.

• ordinal, e.g. first, second, third, etc.

• numerals may function as nouns

e.g. The Magnificent Seven

Morphology

Morphology

inflectional morphology deals with changes in the

form of words that have grammatical meaning

e.g. -est signals the superlative of adjectives

derivational morphology deals with the process of

new word formation

e.g. happy unhappiness

What is a morpheme?

unhappy un-happy

cats cat-s

• A morpheme is the smallest unit of meaning or grammatical function

• free: can stand alone as words

- lexical e.g. pen, book

- functional e.g. if, the

• bound: cannot stand alone and must be linked to another morpheme (called base or root) e.g. -ly, un-, -able, -ee

- derivational e.g. -ness, -able

- inflectional e.g. -s, -ing

morphemes and morphs

played play-ed {PLAY} + {past}

unhelpful un-help-ful {negative} + {HELP} + {adjective}

impolitely im-polite-ly {negative} + {POLITE} + {adverb}

words morphs morphemes

(concrete) (abstract)

root and base

root = the core of the word, the morpheme which determines the meaning of the word

e.g. happy is the root of happiness

bound root = a root that is not independent

e.g. dent- in dentist, dental, dentistry (Latin dens, dentis)

base = part of the word to which any affixes are attached (inflectional or derivational)

e.g. happy is the base of unhappy; unhappy is the base of unhappiness

Identification of units (clauses, phrases, words, morphemes) in a sentence

example: The young lady bought a pair of very expensive shoes and walked out of the shop. (sentence)

clauses: the sentence consists of two clauses which are joined by the coordinating conjunction and:the young lady bought a pair of very expensive shoes walked out of the shop.

phrases: the young lady (NP), bought (VP), a pair of very expensive shoes (NP), walked (VP), out of the shop (PP).

words: the, young, lady, bought, a, pair, of, very, expensive, shoes, and, walked, out of, shop.

morphemes: the, young, lady, buy, -ed (inflectional morpheme), a, pair, of, very, expense, -ive (derivational morpheme), shoe, -s (bound inflectional morpheme), and, walk, out, of, shop

Morpheme identificationhandwriting, unmarried, uncomfortable, walked, volleyball, smaller,unhappiness, employee, unemployment, blackboard, pubs,businesswoman, headteachers, cheerful, unkindness, unfaithfulness,dishonest, singers

hand+write+ing

un+marry+ed

un+comfort+able

walk+ed

volley+ball

small+er

un+happy+ness

employ+ee

un+employ+ment

black+board

pub+s

busy+ness+woman

head+teach+er+s

cheer+ful

un+kind+ness

un+faith+ful+ness

dis+honest

sing+er+s

Morpheme identificationunthinkable: un- (bound, derivational prefix), think (free, root), -able (bound, derivational suffix)actors: act (free, root), -or (bound, derivational suffix), -s (bound, inflectional suffix).computerize: compute (free, root), -er (bound, derivational suffix), -ize (bound, derivational suffix).unbelievable - incredible - decolonialised

unbelievable: un- (bound, derivational prefix), believe (free root), -able (bound, derivational suffix)

incredible: in- (bound derivational prefix), cred- (bound root), -ible (bound derivational suffix)

decolonialised: de- (bound derivational prefix), colony (free root), -al (bound derivational suffix), -ise (bound derivational suffix), -ed (bound inflectional suffix)

PDE regular inflections

nouns -s plural, nouns -’s possessive caseverbs -s 3rd pers. sing.verbs -ed past tense, verbs -ed past participleverbs -ing gerundadjectives -er comparativeadjectives -est superlative

• some nouns have irregular plural endings

e.g. children, teeth, mice, oxen, curricula, sheep

• uncountable nouns:

e.g. evidence, advice, equipment, information

verb inflections

most English verbs are regular and have a paradigm of 5 word forms and 4 verb inflectionse.g. love / loves / loved / loved / loving

there is a smaller number of very frequently used irregular verbse.g. take, took, taken

put, put, putspeak, spoke, spokenlose, lost, lostgo, went, gone

auxiliaries are very irregular, e.g. the verb to be has forms that differ from one another, e.g. am, are, is, was, were, been, being (suppletion)

most modal verbs do not inflect and have only two forms, e.g. may, might, can, could

gradability of adjectives and adverbs

synthetic comparison:

-er ending (comparative) e.g. warmer

-est ending (superlative) e.g. finest

analytic comparison

more and most e.g. more/most interesting

more quickly

• irregular comparison (process of suppletion)

e.g. good, better, best; little, less, least; much, more, most; well, better, best; bad, worse, worst

pronoun inflection

pronouns, personal pronouns in particular,

have retained a certain degree of inflection in PDE

e.g. personal pronouns express number, gender and case often through suppletive forms

I - me; we - us, you - you, he - him, she - her, it - it, they - them

phrase

• a unit of syntax made up of one or more words

• it contains an obligatory headelement and optional modifiers

The black labrador (NP) was chewing (VP) a

juicy bone (NP) very noisily (AdvP)

types of phrases

Noun Phrase (NP)

Verb Phrase (VP)

Adjective Phrase (AdjP)

Adverb Phrase (AdvP)

Prepositional Phrase (PP)

• except for prepositional phrases (PP), phrases can be constituted by a single lexical item

• all phrases can be extended by pre-modification or post-modification

types of Noun Phrases

determiner pre-modifier HEAD post-modifier

- - John -

My leather (n.) suitcase -

A large, old, blue

(size, age,

colour)

suitcase with wheels

(PP)

more Noun Phrases

det. pre-modifier HEAD post-modifier

The London experience -

- London’s churches -

The - London I know

(clause)

build Noun Phrases

Determiner pre-modifier HEAD post-modifier

The ugly, tabby cat on Paul’s

computer

desktop/on the

desktop of

Paul’s

computer

A nice,

Australian

bloke with a red

Ferrari

The tall, modern building in the centre of

town

ambiguity in NPs

• The French history teacher

the (det.) French (pre-mod.) history (pre-mod.)

teacher (head)

[the] [French] [history teacher]

(the teacher of history is French)

[the] [French history] [teacher]

(the teacher teaches French history)

tree diagram (the teacher of history is French)

NP

det. mod. head NP

mod. head

The French history teacher

tree diagram (the teacher teaches French history)

NP

det. mod. NP head

mod. head

The French history teacher

TREE DIAGRAM

“An interesting government report about air

pollution”

NP

det. mod.(adj.) mod.(n.) head mod.PP

head C (NP)

mod.(n.) head

An interesting government report about air pollution

relative clause as a post-modifier of a NP

The man who came to dinner

NP

det. head (n.) mod. (clause)

the man who came to dinner

relative clause as a post-modifier of a NP

The man who came to dinner

NP

det. head (n.) mod. (clause)

S:NP P:VP

V A:PP

h(prep.) C:NP

h(pron.) h(v.) h (n.)

the man who came to dinner

complex post-modification

• The proposal for a new building which

the committee put forward last week

- for a new building (PP)

- which the committee put forward last

week (relative clause)

activity

• Analyse the constituent parts

of the following NPs

illustrating with tree diagrams:

1) A luxury apartment in the heart of Oxford

2) That rather disgustingly dirty carpet

3) A very interesting book about Renaissance art

in Italy

frequency of NPs in English

• pre-modification is more common

than post-modification in all registers

• complex pre- and post-modification is

typical of some registers such as

written academic prose and

newspaper headlines

English vs. Italian NPsTranslate these noun phrases into Italian and notice the differences between

the two languages

1. The Los Angeles Police DepartmentIl Dipartimento di Polizia di Los Angeles

2. Air pollution L’inquinamento dell’aria

3. The Birmingham train Il treno per/da/di (?) Birmingham

4. Stansted airportL’aeroporto di Stansted

5. The proposal of a national curriculum La proposta di un curricolo nazionale

6. The country’s leading expert on youth cultureIl maggior esperto del paese sulla cultura giovanile

Italian versus English NPs

English favours premodification (to the

left of the head). NPs are concise and

at times ambiguous • The Los Angeles Police Department

Italian favours postmodification (to the

right of the head) and the use of

prepositions. NPs are longer and more

explicit• Il Dipartimento di Polizia di Los Angeles

Verb Phrases: finite/non-finite

• finite verbs or VPs: marked by tense

e.g. John plays the guitar

I enjoyed the concert

• non-finite verbs or VPs: not marked by tense, person or number

e.g. To arrive on time was their objective

She travelled accompanied by her father

She broke her leg while skiing

Verb Phrases:

tense (form) vs. time (meaning)

• tense: property allowing the verb to

differentiate between present and past

e.g. Jane likes music / Jane liked music

• Unlike in Italian, there is no morphologically

marked form to express the future in English

but a range of forms such as will/shall+

infinitive, going to, simple present, present

progressive

Verb Phrase: aspect

property allowing the verb to give information about the state or the action

• progressive (or continuous): the action is in progress

Sarah is helping her sister

• perfect: the action is complete, that is it occurred at an earlier time and continues to the time of utterance or is relevant to it

Sarah has helped her sister to take her degree

• perfect + progressive: (often called ‘duration form’) stresses continuity in the past and includes the time of utterance

Sarah has been helping her sister since she was 12

Translate into Italian and identify the main

differences between the two languages

1. Sarah helps her sister every Thursday

Sarah aiuta sua sorella ogni giovedì

2. Sarah is helping her sister a lot

Sarah aiuta/sta aiutando molto sua sorella

3. Sarah has helped her sister to recover from illness

Sarah ha aiutato sua sorella a guarire dalla malattia

4. Sarah helped her sister one year ago when she was ill

Sarah aiutò sua sorella un anno fa, quando era malata

5. Sarah has been helping her sister since last May

Sarah aiuta/sta aiutando/ha aiutato sua sorella dallo scorso maggio

Translate from Italian into English

1. Sono andata a Londra molte volte

I’ve been to London many times

2. Vivo a Londra

I live in London

3. Vado a Londra ogni anno

I go to London every year

4. Vivo a Londra da 5 anni e ne sono felice

I’ve been living in London for five years and I’m happy

5. Ho vissuto a Londra per cinque anni prima di tornare in

Italia

I lived in London for five years before moving back to Italy

6. Vivevo a Londra quando ho incontrato John

I was living in London when I met John

verb phrase: voice

(active vs. passive)• The singer performed the song

• The song was performed by the singer

• NP1+VP+ NP2 NP2 +be+VPed+ by+NP1

• The singer was performing the song

• The song was being performed by the singer

functions of the passive

• the agent is unknown or irrelevant

Mr Constable has been murdered

• the focus is on the process to convey objectivity, especially in academic prose

The results of the tests have been checked several times

• to disclaim responsibility

He is said to be a womanizer

the passive is more frequent in scientific writing and in the press

Discuss the concepts of “tense” and “aspect” in the English verb system

and illustrate with examples.

Tense and aspect are grammatical categories of

verbs. Tense refers to the distinction between

present and past forms of verbs (I think vs I

thought), while aspect refers to the state of the

action (progressive or perfect). In English we

may distinguish between progressive and perfect

aspects: I’m reading a book describes an action

in progress and still incomplete, while I’ve read

an interesting book describes a completed action

which is still relevant to the time of the utterance.

In English it is also possible to combine the

progressive and the perfective aspect in

sentences like I’ve been living in London for five

years/ I’ve been living in London since 2007.

Unlike Italian, English does not have a

morphologically marked future tense. To

express future events the most common forms

are will+verb, be+ going to+verb or the present

progressive form, eg We are going to buy a new

car. Tense does not coincide with time. In fact, it

is possible to say The games start next week.

The Verb Phrase: summary

• The VP consists of a head verb, either alone or

accompanied by one or more auxiliaries

• If the VP contains only one verb, it must be a

lexical verb (arrived)

• If the VP contains more verbs, one is a lexical

verb and the others are pre-modifying

auxiliaries or modals (is arriving, has arrived,

may arrive, might be arriving, etc.)

The role of auxiliary verbs

• They are used to express grammatical categoriessuch as aspect, voice and modality.

• The primary auxiliary be is used to form the passive voice (the man was hit by a car) and the progressive aspect (I am working)

• The primary auxiliary have is used to form the perfect aspect (I have worked)

• The primary auxiliary do is used to form the negative and interrogative forms (I don’t know, Do you know?)

modal verbs and modality

they are frequently used in English and belong to the Germanic core of the language

they express a wide range of meanings referring either to actions controlled by humans (deonticmodality) or to the levels of certainty of an event (epistemic modality)

the same modals can express different meanings; the same meanings can be expressed in different ways

the main meanings of modal verbs

1. permission e.g. Can I ask you a question? Could I

borrow your notes? (Am I allowed to ask a question?)

2. ability e.g. I can ski (I know how to do it)

3. possibility e.g. She may be ill. She might be ill

(Perhaps she is ill)

4. obligation e.g. You must stop talking. You should pay

attention.

5. logical necessity (probability) e.g. She must be ill (She

is very likely to be ill)

6. volition e.g. I’ll do it for you

7. prediction e.g. It will rain tomorrow

what about modal verbs in Italian?Translate the following expressions into English:

1. Devi smettere di fumare

You must (personal)/have to (external) stop smoking

2. Dovresti smettere di fumare

You should stop smoking

3. Posso fumare?

Can I smoke?

4. Potrei fumare?

May I smoke?

5. Domani può piovere

Tomorrow it may rain (possibility)

6. Domani potrebbe piovere

Tomorrow it might rain (remote possibility)

7. Domani pioverà

Tomorrow it will rain (forecast)/is going to rain (certainty)

8. Sa sciare molto bene

He can ski very well

9. Sapeva sciare bene quando era giovane

He used to be able to ski well when he was young

Italian has the verbs potere, sapere and dovere

Some modal expressions are expressed through the conditional mood or the future tense, which do not exist as morphologically marked forms in English

other phrases

• Adjective Phrase (AdjP)

e.g. extremely important, very unhappy, good at languages

• Adverb Phrase (AdvP)

e.g. very badly, perfectly well

• Prepositional Phrase (PP)

e.g. in the garden, to London

Syntax

How can a clause be analysed?

Subject (S) + predicate (P), i.e. VP +

other optional/obligatory elements

John (what is talked about) is English

(what is said about the topic)

S and P are the main functional elements

of the clause

S and P are the “immediate constituents”

(Chomsky) of the clause

Clause and clause elements

• A clause is a syntactic unit made up of one or

more phrases, containing at least one VP:

e.g. Run!

John sang.

My brother gave me a beautiful dress.

Did you like the concert last night?

5 major clause elements (constituents)

• Subject (S)

• Verb (V)

• Object (O)

• Complement (C)

• Adverbial (A)

Word Order

• Translate the following clauses into English:

Seguiranno alcuni esempi

Some examples will follow

Nel capitolo 3 verrà presentata la grammatica

Grammar will be presented in Chapter 3

Giovanni parla molto bene l’italiano/l’italiano molto bene

John speaks Italian very well

Odio stirare

I hate ironing

Piove forte da molte ore

It’s been raining heavily for many hours

• C’è un gatto in giardino

There is a cat in the garden

• The unmarked word order in English is

SVO, while in Italian this order can vary to a

certain extent

• The subject is compulsory in English and

not in Italian

• If there is no subject, a ‘dummy’ subject will

be used (it/there)

The Verb

the verb is the central part of the clause since it

determines the other elements (e.g. verb

complementation or valency)

She was laughing one-place verb

She was playing the piano two-place verb

She was very beautiful two-place verb

She gave him a kiss three-place verb

She made him happy three-place verb

clause elements

S V O C A

The black

labrador

(NP)

has bitten

(VP)

Mr Allington

(NP)

in the garden

(PP)

Optional A

He (NP) put (VP) the keys

(NP)

in his bag

(PP)

Obligatory A

Sue (NP) is feeling

(VP)

very

sleepy

(AdjP)

S V O C A

It (dummy

subject)

is going

(VP)

to rain

(non- finite

VP)

Armstrong

(NP)

became

(VP)

the first

man on the

moon (NP)

Chris (NP) made (VP) Sara (NP) really angry

(AdjP)

yesterday

(AdvP)

What I don’t

understand

(clause)

is (VP) why you

lied to me

(clause)

S+V+Oi+Od (di-transitive)

S V Oi

(Indirect Object)

Od

(Direct Object)

My

friend

told me a lie

Sue gave her sister a glass of wine

John showed his friends his new car

SV (intransitive verb): no complementation

The black labrador was barking

clause

S:NP P:VP

det. mod.(adj.) head (n.) aux. head (v.)

the black labrador was barking

A new teacher has arrived

SVOd (monotransitive)

Andrew bought a sports car

clause

S:NP P:VP

V Od:NP

head (n.) head (v.) det. mod. (adj.) head (n.)

Andrew bought a sports car

My sister plays the piano

SVA (+ an obligatory Adverbial)The taxi is waiting outside

clause

S:NP P:VP

V A:AdvP

det. head (n.) aux. head (v.) head (adv.)

The taxi is waiting outside

The waiter put the bread on the table

SVCs (copular verb)

The weather has turned very nasty

clause

S:NP P:VP

V C:AdjP

det. head (n.) aux. head(v.) mod.(adv.) head(adj.)

The weather has turned very nasty

The news sounds very interesting

My 80-year-old grandmother is in good health

Copular verbs

• be, feel, seem, appear, look, remain, stay, become, sound, taste

e.g. I am/feel rather tired (C: AdjP)

She became a nurse (C: NP)

You look extremely happy (C: AdjP)

Mary appeared in good health (C: PP)

That is what I mean (C: clause)

SVOiOd (di-transitive)

Gill told her child a bedtime story

clause

S:NP P:VP

V Oi:NP Od:NP

head(n.) head(v.) det. head(n.) det. mod.(n.) h(n.)

Gill told her child a bedtime story

She should tell me the truth

Di-transitive verbs

• Give, tell, bring, buy, show

e.g. John showed me (Oi) his new car (Od)

They bought him (Oi) a new racket (Od)

Tell us (Oi) the truth (Od)

SVOdCo (complex transitive)

The judges declared Jackie the winner

clause

S:NP P:VP

V O:NP Co:NP

det. head (n.) head (v.) head(n.) det. h(n.)

The judges declared Jackie the winner

Rebecca considers her brother a genious

SVOdA

Terry put the rubbish in the dustbin

clause

S:NP P:VP

V O:NP A:PP

head (n.) head(v.) det. h(n.) h (prep) C:NP

det. h(n.)

Terry put the rubbish in the dustbin

The driver threw the bottle out of the

window

The 7 basic clause patterns

• SV (intransitive) The dog is barking

• SVA (intransitive+obligatory A) They are waiting outside

• SVCs (copulative) You look great

• SVOd (monotransitive) I miss my family

• SVOiOd (di-transitive) John showed me his new car

• SVOdCo (complex-transitive) The judges declared

Jackie the winner

• SVOdA (transitive with obligatory A)

The waiter put the bread on

the table

In the summer A:PP

high humidity levels S:NP

make P:VP

the weather O:NP

unbearable Co:AdjP

Complement

• Cs (complemento predicativo del soggetto)

It follows copular verbs be, feel, seem, appear, look…

I am/feel tired

You look/ appear/seem tired

• Co (complemento predicativo dell’oggetto)

It follows a direct object and occurs with complex

transitive verbs make, elect, consider, find, call…

This experience made me stronger

I found his reaction stupid

Adverbial

• Optional elements added to the obligatory

elements of the clause

• Circumstance adverbial: additional information

e.g. The taxi is waiting outside

• Stance adverbial: speaker’s feeling / attitude

e.g. Hopefully I will pass all my exams in June

• Linking adverbial

e.g. In conclusion, all’s well that ends well.

Obligatory adverbial

• Adverbials that are required to complete

the meaning of the verb

e.g. Sally put the bread on the table

(obligatory Adverbial)

vs. Sally cut the bread on the table (optional

Adverbial)

Verbs: put, last, live

Adverbials vs. complements

• John was very quiet (C)

• John was in bed (A)

• They are in danger (C)

• They are in the garden (A)

• You should stay sober (C)

• You should stay here (A)

Complements describe or characterize the S (or

O)

Adverbials typically express place or direction

main and subordinate clauses

1. Mary had been waiting for more than an hour

2. Suddenly, she stood up and went out

3. She said that she was not feeling wellbecause the air in the room was stuffy

4. She wanted to get some fresh air

• a main clause always contains a finite verb and typically contains an overt subject

• a subordinate clause cannot stand alone and needs to be attached to a free-standing clause

• a non-finite clause is always subordinate

• simple clauses consist of a clause, compound clauses consist of two coordinate clauses, complex clauses consist of a main and one or more subordinate clauses.

Types of Clauses

typical functions of clause types

Form Function

declarative statement

interrogative question

imperative directive

exclamative exclamation

You’re wearing a new dress.

Are you wearing a new dress?

Buy yourself a new dress!

What a lovely dress you’re wearing!

declarative clauses

• declarative clauses are normally used to make

statements

• declarative sentences typically have an overt

subject, a verb element and any necessary verb

complementation

• declarative sentences may also have optional

adverbials

Philip will see his dentist in London today

interrogative clauses

• yes-no questions: Are you happy?

• wh- questions: Where do you live?

• question-tag : She’s Australian, isn’t she?

She doesn’t love him, does she?

So, you have changed your mind, have you?

• the interrogative structure implies a subject-operator

inversion

• any auxiliary which is used to make interrogative

sentences is labelled operator (be, have, do)

• questions tags may have contrastive or constant polarity

marked structures: clefting

• to highlight a particular element of

the sentence

• the focussed element is introduced by

a dummy Subject and followed by a

relative clause

it-cleft structure

Terry plays jazz piano for fun.

It is Terry who plays jazz piano for fun.

It’s jazz piano that Terry plays for fun

It’s for fun that Terry plays jazz piano

The man hit the boy

It was the man who hit the boy

wh-cleft structure

I would like a book for my birthday

What I would like for my birthday is a book

I want a book for Christmas

What I want for Christmas is a book

sentence

• the largest unit of syntactic structure

• a sentence must consist of at least one clause (main clause)

I agreed to go with them although I wasn’t really happy with the idea.

• in writing, a sentence starts with a capital letter and ends with a full stop

• in speech sentences are not always complete

types of subordinate clauses

1. Nominal

I just hope (that) they will understand

2. Relative

The man who is sitting next to Tom is John

3. Adverbial

Call me as soon as you get home (time) because I have to talk to you (reason). The boy stood on the box so that he could see better (purpose). Eventhough I am tired (concession), I’ll do it.

4. Comparative

This hotel is not as nice as I expected

types of relative clauses

In what ways do the following relative clauses differ?

which relative pronouns can be used in each

context?

This is the best hotel (that, which, who, whom, whose,

zero pronoun) I was able to find

This hotel, (which, that, who, whose, whom, zero

pronoun) was renewed last year, is one of the best

in the city

The man (which, that, who, whose, whom, zero

pronoun) you see in the photo is my brother

The man (which, that, who, whose, whom, zero pronoun) is coming towards us is my brother

The music (that, which, who, whose, whom, zero article) we are listening to is Mozart

We stayed in a lovely hotel, (which, that, who, whom, whose) owner is a good friend of mine

We stayed in a lovely hotel, (which, that, who, whom, whose) we booked on the Internet

rule of relative clauses

Relative clauses can be either defining (or restrictive) or non-defining (non-restrictive) depending on whether they definethe antecedent or add extra information (no commas)

The tourists who got up early could see the dawn on the Nile

The use of relative pronouns is conditioned by the antecedent, whether it is human ( who,whom, whose, that) or non-human (that, whose, which), whether it plays the role of subject (who, that, which) or object (whom, that, which, zero pronoun), whether it is defining (who, whose, whom, that, which) or non-defining (who, whose, which). (commas are required)

The tourists, who got up early, could see the dawn on the Nile

conditional sentences

0) If you don’t water plants, they die (obvious)

1) If the weather is nice, tomorrow we will go

to the seaside (it is an open possibility)

* If the weather will be nice, …

2) If the weather were/was nice, we would go to

the seaside (it is unlikely)

*If the weather would be nice,

3) If the weather had been nice, we would have

gone to the seaside (it did not happen)

• My friends sent me an invitation to their

wedding.

• I put some poison for the mice in the garage.

• Chris made Sara really angry yesterday.

• Yesterday the doctor told the patient the good

news

• The car keys are on the table.

• The cash machine is faulty.

The English Lexicon:

From Words to Phraseology

PART 1. Brainstorming on lexis

PART 2. The English lexicon: general

features

some old and new concepts and terms

word/word-form/lexeme

grammatical word/lexical word

vocabulary/lexis/(the) lexicon

entry/headword/lemma

lexicology/lexicography

phraseology

semantics

Lexical level

lexical level = word level

vocabulary: to talk about words collectively

(e.g. large vocabulary, small vocabulary)

lexis: to talk about the vocabulary of a specific variety

(e.g. English lexis, Italian lexis)

lexicon: to indicate a list of words with additional information

(e.g. computer lexicon, mental lexicon)

lexis is dynamic

Three processes of lexical innovation:

1. the creation of completely new words (coinage)

e.g. computing terms google (search through Google

engine)

neet= not in education, employment or training

2. the borrowing of words from other languages (loanwords)

e.g. Anglicisms in Italian (spam)

e.g. Italianisms in English (spaghetti)

3 word formation processes internal to the language

(derivational morphology), e.g. prefixes, suffixes,

compounding, semantic shift, etc.

e.g. “to zap” from “moving quickly” to “ keeping

changing TV programmes with a remote control”

lexis is the level of language most rapidly and

deeply affected by social, historical and cultural

change

meaning is complex

the relationship between “things” and “words”

some words imitate sounds (onomatopoeic) but most words have an arbitrary connection with “things”

miagolare

to mew/to miaow

chicchiricchì

cock-a-doodle-do

acqua

water/wasser/eau

defining word meaning may prove difficult

William Shakespeare is …

… a famous English playwright of the 16th century

… the greatest playwright of all times

… the author of Hamlet, Romeo and Juliet and many other tragedies and comedies

… the father of British theatre

… a writer of the Modern English period

… my favourite dramatist etc.

words refer to, or denote, entities in the world, but this relationship (reference) can be expressed in different ways

defining the adjective “honest”

A person who is honest does not tell lies, cheat people or violate the law

A person who is honest always tells the truth, respects other people, obeys the law and pays taxes

Someone who is honest can always be trusted

Someone who is honest does not hide things from you

Someone who is honest can be trusted with valuables and money

etc.

the meaning of words can be culturally conditioned

defining the noun “bird”

A bird is…

… an animal with the body covered in/with feathers, with two wings and a beak, which is able to fly. Female birds lay eggs.

… an animal with feathers, two legs and two wings, which is able to fly.

But what about penguins and ostriches?

We conceive a general image, a mental PROTOTYPE based on our experience and containing the most distinctive characteristics of the class. Some members are less central than others.

“butterfly”

Butterflies live only one day

She is a butterfly when she dances

words denote objects and concepts, but

may have emotional or stylistic connotations

words can be used in a figurative sense

(metaphorical)

e.g. I’m a domestic god/goddess!

denotation and connotation

words refer to, or denote, objects and concepts

e.g. lion: a wild animal living in Africa

words have stylistic and emotional connotations

e.g. He was a lion (courageous)

Different types of lexemes

1. The computer is an electronic machine which is used for storing, organizing and finding different types of information

some words have only one referent or meaning (monoreferential)

2a Mary is a great host

2b The host represents the body of Christ

some words have different unrelated meanings (homonymic)

3a. I saw a mouse running around the kitchen floor

3b. I’ve just bought a brand new mouse for my PC

some words have several related meanings (polysemous)

the nature of lexemes affects the organisation of entries in dictionaries

Semantic links between words

1. freedom vs. liberty

(near)-synonymy

2. black vs. white; fast vs. slow; brother vs. sister; married vs. single

antonymy (or complementarity)

3. flowers, roses, daffodils, violets, tulips, daisies

hyperonymy (superordinates) and hyponymy(subordinates)

4. cook, roast, simmer, fry, bake, boil, barbecue, etc.

semantic field

Collocations and phraseology

1. I would like to win a post-graduate scholarship to do research (not *to make research)

2. How do you do?

3. The ups and downs of life (not *the downs and ups)

4. The early bird catches the worm (not *the early cat catches the mouse)

5. Torrential/heavy rain in Bangladesh (not *strong rain)

6. He has spilled the beans (not *spilled the peas)

7. Headache (not *pain in the head)

“words keep company with other words” and tend to co-occur in preferred or fixed collocations (Sinclair’s idiom principle versus open-choice principle )

Lexis

is dynamic

refers to the external world

refers to mental concepts

has emotional and stylistic connotations

has one or several referents and meanings

relates to other words in the language

may co-occur with other words in fixed or

semi-fixed patterns

What does knowing a word mean?

receptive vs. productive competence

Part II

The English lexicon

How many words are there in

English?

The problematic notion of words does

not make it easy to count them

There are different ways of counting words:

1. dictionaries

2. corpora

3. speakers’ competence

Samuel Johnson’s

Dictionary of the English Language (1755)

about 42,000 entriesLEXICO’GRAPHER. n.s.

[? lixicographe, French.] A

writer of dictionories; a

harmless drudge, that

busies himself in tracing

the original, and detailing

the signification of words.

The Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles (OED)

OED features

The project started in the second half of the 19th century

It covers English since the 14th century

The second print edition in 20 volumes + 4 additions has 616,500 headwords and derived words and phrases

A CD-ROM and an online version, which is regularly updated, are also available

www.oed.com

OED: a selection from the entry

“spaghetti” [It., pl. of spaghetto thin string, twine.]

1. a. A variety of pasta made in long thin strings. Occas., a dish of spaghetti.

1888 MRS. BEETON Bk. Househ. Managem. §2952 Maccheroni, or Spaghetti, a smaller

kind of macaroni,..generally follows the soup.

2. An Italian: usu. contemptuous. slang.1931 ‘D. STIFF’ Milk & Honey Route iii. 38 Italian hobos are equally rare. They

are the ‘wops’ or ‘spaghettis’.

3. Complex roadways forming a multi-level junction, esp. on a motorway. colloq

1966 Guardian 4 June 14/2 Details of one of the biggest pieces of

motorway spaghetti so far designed in Britain were published ...

Merriam-Webster’s Third New International Dictionary:

the American counterpart to the OED

Webster’s

It covers American English since the 18th

century

Its 1963 edition contains about 114,000 word families (a headword accompanied by its inflected and derived forms)

It is regularly updated. There are several print editions and an online edition, which is freely available

www.m-w.com

other types of dictionaries

in size (college dictionaries, desk dictionaries,

pocket dictionaries)

in addressees (learner’s dictionaries, from 60,000 to

80,000 entries, or for native speakers )

in contents (general or specialised, varieties of

English)

in number of languages (monolingual, bilingual,

multilingual)

learners’ dictionaries

1. Spelling variants

2. IPA phonetic transcription

3. Grammatical and syntactic information

4. Information on frequency

5. Definitions of various senses

6. Examples of usage

7. Sense relations, e.g. antonymy

8. Register labels (e.g formal, slang)

9. Frequent lexical collocations

10. Usage notes

11. Typical learners’ errors

12. Use of colours, symbols and figures

13. Special sections

electronic corpora

corpora are collections of text in electronic form thatare meant to represent a language, or a register of it

several corpora are available for English that can be analysed through specific software in terms of frequency and use of words in context

e.g. The British National Corpus (BNC)

The Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA)

What are the most frequently used words in

English?

from the BNC

1. the determiner

2. of preposition

3. and conjunction

4. a determiner

5. in preposition

6. to infinitive

7. it pronoun

8. is verb

9. to preposition

10. was verb

11. I pronoun

12. for preposition

13. that conjunction

14. you pronoun

15. he pronoun

16. be verb

17. with preposition

18. on preposition

19. at preposition

20. by preposition

grammatical words are the most frequently used

frequency of lexical words (BNC)

The 10 most frequent nouns are time, year, people, way, man, day, thing, child, Mr, government

The most commonly mentioned animal is horse, followed by dog

The 10 most frequent adjectives are other, good, new, old, great, high, small, different, large, local

The most frequently mentioned colours are black, white, red andgreen (the order coincides with the hierarchy of colors which scholars have observed in many languages)

The top ten frequency adverbs are never, always, often, ever, sometimes, usually, once, generally, hardly, no longer

rarer nouns are fax, ribbon, ant, colitis, wheat, spelling, holly, monarch, voltage, morale

rarer adjectives are rude, faithful, ministerial, innovative, controlled, conceptual, unwilling, civic, meaningful disturbing

How many words do native speakers

of English know?

It depends on variables such as age, education and use (receptive or productive)

According to research

a two-year old child: very limited vocabulary but growing at great speed

an English university student: 20,000 word families

an adult educated speaker: 50,000 lexemes

The mixed nature of English lexis:

Germanic vs. Romance words

PDE is made of a core (about 40%) of high-frequency

Germanic words that are usually short and refer to

common actions and concepts (e.g. man, woman, day,

child, bread, to go, to get, phrasal verbs)

and

a wider component (about 60%) of less frequently used

words of classical or Romance origin which are usually

longer and used in specialised or formal contexts (e.g.

encyclopaedia, tonsillectomy, parliament, infrastructure)

Germanic/Romance near-synonyms

discover e.g. Columbus discovered a new continent

find out e.g. Her parents found out that she had a boyfriend

continue e.g. The treatment has to be continued for 4 weeks

go on e.g. We can’t go on like this any longer

pig/cow = the living animal

pork/beef = the meat you eat

regal, royal e.g. royal family, regal powers

kingly e.g. kingly manner

return

come back

“true” and “false friends”

between Italian and English

similarity may help (true friends)

e.g. problem, result, company, million,

community

similarity may be misleading (false friends)

e.g. actually, eventually, argument, factory,

educated, lecture, library, magazine

English loans in Italian and other

European languages

From a “borrowing language” English has become a“donor language”. Why?

In present-day Italian there are many different types ofAnglicisms and people have different attitudes towardthis phenomenon. What is happening in otherlanguages?

Comment on the following Anglicisms in Italian. Do theyhave an Italian counterpart?

film, mission, management, welfare, governance,briefing, week-end, pub, scannerizzare, mouse,computer, talk-show, report, devolution, boom,impeachment, ghost writer

escort

1 person or a group of people or vehicles that go

somewhere with someone to protect them or prevent them from escaping 2 someone, especially a man, who goes with another person to a formal social event as their partner 2asomeone who is paid to go out socially with another person. Escort is sometimes used as a polite way of referring to a prostitute

(Macmillan English Dictionary 2007)

escort

1. sost. m. e f. inv., accompagnatore turistico.

2. sost .f. inv., donna giovane e avvenente che partecipa, a pagamento, a cene, serate in locali notturni e sim., non escludendo a priori rapporti sessuali mercenari. sin. hostess.

(GDU 2007)

shopping spese

look aspetto

baby-sitter > bambinaia

body building > culturismo

coffee break > pausa caffè

team < squadra

match < partita

coach < allenatore

sprint > scatto

snowboard > tavola

record > primato

goal > rete

variation in English

1. user-related variation

e.g. geographical area (the UK, the USA, etc.),

age, education

2. use-related variation or register model

what is talked about (field or topic)

the medium used (e.g. spoken/written,

electronic language)

the relationship between speakers/writers, e.g.

formal, informal (personal tenor)

Some lexical differences between

BrE and AmE1. He lives in a lovely apartment in New York

AmE/flat BrE

2. The autumn term will start in September

BrE /fall AmE

3. Where can I find a gas station?

AmE/petrol (BrE)

4. 11/9/2001 BrE

9/11/2001 AmE

Register variation

Tonsillectomy is needed

The doctor recommended that you remove/take out your tonsils

Influenza A/H1N1 broke out in Mexico last year

Swine flu broke out in Mexico last year

These are my children

These are my kids

This is my offspring

core/basic vocabulary

Choose the most neutral and general lexeme to refer to someone “who has very little fat on his/her body”and, with the help of dictionaries, identify the differences in meaning:

emaciated, skinny, slender, lean, slim, thin

word-formation processes1. compounding or compounds

two or more free lexemes are joined to form a new word (with a new meaning) e.g. schoolday, day school (not a boarding school)

2. affixation

one or more bound derivational lexemes are added to a free morpheme either at the beginning or at the end

e.g. e-mail, childish, childhood, kingdom

3. conversion or zero derivation

a change of word class without a change in form

e.g. bottle (noun)/to bottle (verb), hard (adj. adv.)

4. acronym or initialism

the initial letters of a complex expression

e.g. AIDS = Acquired Immune Deficiency SyndromeSCUBA = Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus

5. clipping

by eliminating the beginning and/or the end of a lexemee.g. flu/influenza

6. blending or blends

the merging of two words into one

e.g. glocal = global + local, motel = motor + hotel

7. semantic change or shift

the change of meaning of existing lexemes

“to zap” from “moving quickly” to “keeping changing TV programmes with a remote control”

some observations on compounds

1. a blackbird/a black bird

un merlo/un uccello nero

compounds vs. noun phrases

2. bedroom/paperback

endocentric, exocentric

3. mother-in-law, forget-me-not, state-of-the-art, sell-by date

multi-word compounds

4. green tea, checklist, user-friendly

different ways of writing compounds: two words, one word (solid compounds), hyphenated

5. green card, user-friendly, handout (v. and n.)

different word classes (nouns, adjectives, verbs)

Observe the differences between English

and Italian compounds

1. green tea

tè verde

2. trademark

marchio di fabbrica

3. zero tolerance

tolleranza zero

4. coffee break

pausa caffè

some prefixes and suffixes

unhappy, incomplete

immorality, non-morality

maltreat, miscalculate

pro-Obama, antiwar

postmodern, recycle

bilingual, polyglot

multitask, multifunctional

prefixes are usually class maintaining and affect meaning in many ways (e.g. opposite, pejorative, attitude, time)

trainer, reader (nouns)

trainee, employee

formation, pollution

socialism, liberalism

kindness, happiness

reliable, eligible (adjectives)

faithful, beautiful

useless, careless

specialize/se, advertise (verbs)

honestly, carefully (adverbs)

suffixes form nouns, adjectives, verbs and adverbs, and are usually class-changing

some old and new affixes

ecology, ecosystem, ecodiversity

psychology, morphology, biology

Europhile, Europhobe, Eurocrats

many prefixes and suffixes are of classical origin (neo-classical affixes)

workaholic, chocaholic

-aholic from work+alcoholic; chocolate+alcoholic

Cartergate, Camillagate, Katrinagate, sexgate

-gate from the Watergate scandal involving the American president Richard Nixon in the 1970s

e-mail, e-commerce, e-business

some new affixes are linked to recent trends and events

conversion or zero derivation

bottle (noun)/to bottle (verb)

to download (verb)/download (noun)

dry (adjective)/to dry (verb)

round: adjective, preposition, adverb, noun, verb

very common process in PDE because of the

reduction of morphology

read and recognize the following acronyms or

initialisms

IT

Information Technology

WWW

World Wide Web

BBC

British Broadcasting Corporation

IRA

Irish Republican Army

VIP

Very Important Person

RAM

Random Access Memory

NATO

North Atlantic Treaty Organization

acronyms are read as words whereas in initialisms each letter is read independently

phraseological phenomena

According to the linguist John Sinclair, there are two different principles in language:

the IDIOM PRINCIPLE refers to the existence in language of multi-word lexical patterns that are units of meaning

the OPEN-CHOICE PRINCIPLE refers to the part of language that functions according to predictable grammatical rules

types of “prefabricated language”

social routines (or pragmatic idioms)

e.g. see you later, I’m looking forward to hearingfrom you, Have a good day, Can I help you?

discourse organisers

e.g. in other words, to sum up, first of all, for example, e.g. (exempli gratia), i.e. (id est)

idioms

e.g. to beat about the bush, to kill two birds with onestone

binomials

e.g. back and forth, pros and cons, bed and breakfast

proverbs

e.g. A friend in need is a friend indeed, Too many

cooks spoil the broth, The more the merrier

simile

e.g. As ugly as sin

slogans and famous quotations

e.g. Ask not what your country can do for you but

what you can do for your country ( J. F. Kennedy)

Yes, we can (B. Obama)

from transparent to idiomatic

(opaque) expressions

1. to see the light at the end of the tunnel

2. to give someone the green light

3. white wine

4. white lie

5. to take up knitting

6. it’s a piece of cake

7. it’s my cup of tea

8. to go Dutch

lexical collocationsa pervasive feature in English and a major difficulty for learners

Fammi un favore

Do me a favour

Fammi una torta

Make me a cake

Sono stanco morto

I’m dead tired

Era ubriaco fradicio

He was dead drunk

Un edificio umido

A damp building

Un clima molto caldo e umido

A hot and humid climate

Occhi umidi

Moist eyes

from “frozen” to restricted lexical collocations

1. He shrugged his shoulders

He nodded his head

He shook his finger

2. He is growing a beard

He is growing vegetables

*He is growing his children

(He is bringing up his children)

lexical collocation

the preferred co-occurrence of two lexemes that

belong to two different word classes and retain

their independent meaning

a word “keeping company” with another word for

reasons other than grammatical ones

e.g. to take up/start/pursue a career

*to make career

open questions in lexicology

1. Eskimos have many words to refer to different

types of snow. What does it mean?

2. Is there a close link between the character of a

language and the spirit of a nation (W. von

Humboldt 1767-1835)?

3. Does a language determine its speakers’ world

view (Sapir and Whorf’s cultural relativism,

20th century)?

words reflect changes in society

HI-FI, TRANSISTOR, VIDEOTAPE

(in the 1950s)

GREEN/GLOBAL WARMING/CHAIRPERSON

(in the 1970s)

WEBSITE/WORLD WIDE WEB

(in the 1990s)

TWEET

(2012)

Computing:

a rapidly developing terminology

1. program, window, menu, mouse, address, disk, bug, spam

words borrowed from general language and acquiring a specialised meaning

2. floppy disk, hard disk, blog (from web + log), modem (from modulator + demodulator), download, search engine, to google

word formation processes

3. CD-ROM (Compact Disk Read Only Memory), FAQs

(Frequently Asked Questions)

acronyms and abbreviations

political correctness:

some taboo areas

1. negro (nigger), black, Afro-American, African-American

2. Mr, Mrs, Ms

3. chairman, chairwoman, chairperson, chair

4. lawyer, lady lawyer, woman lawyer

5. husband and wife, acompanying person, spouse, partner

6. disabled, handicapped, differently able, physically impaired

to be politically correct means to refer to different ethnic

and social groups in a respectful and accepted way

the most sensitive areas are race, gender, religion, the

human body and death

the debate started in the USA in the 1970s and it is rather

controversial

The future of English lexis

PDE lexis will accept considerable

geographical variation (e.g. AmE , BrE,

Indian English, Caribbean English)

but

will be shared by global communities of

scientists, professionals and Internet users

(English as a Lingua Franca)