the structure and form of words
DESCRIPTION
Section 1: Word Classes Words are the center of language. Learning grammar encompasses classification of words into groups or categories. Let’s look at Discovery Activity 1 to see how much you know about the different word classes (or parts of speech), even if you are not always sure of the labels.TRANSCRIPT
The structure and form of words
Grammar For Teachers Chapter 2 The structure and form of words
Morphology Section 1: Word Classes Words are the center of
language. Learning grammar encompassesclassification of words into
groups or categories. Lets look at Discovery Activity 1 to see how
much you know about the different word classes (or parts of
speech), even if you are not always sure of the labels. Discovery
Activity 1: Introduction to Parts of Speech
Look at the following words. system in big communicate between
confidentiality relevant obey
undershatterblizzardwarnwearybesiderebellionhappy On a separate
sheet of paper, make 4 columns. Label these columns Group A, Group
B, Group C and Group D as you see below. Without using a dictionary
or any other reference tool, try to place the different words that
you think belong together in the different columns. The first four
words have already been done for you as a sample. After you have
categorized as many words together as you can, explain why you
grouped them as you did. Group A Group B Group C Group D system in
big communicate Group A Group B Group CGroup D
system in big communicate confidentiality between relevant obey
rebellion under weary shatter blizzard beside happy warn Each of
these four groups represents a word class. Even without knowing the
labels for each group, you should have been able to place the words
in the list together with other words performing the same function.
Group A consists of nouns; Group B consists of prepositions; Group
C of adjectives; and Group D of verbs. 4. Now take your paper and
make two new columns, Group A and Group B.
5. Using the new list of words below, try to place the different
words that you think belong together in the different columns.
There are just two groups this time. As you group this new list of
words, consider whether any of the words can belong to more than
one group. Try to explain why or why not.
harmremindcancercupscreamdatestrugglequeenpoison announce style
write Group A Group B Your grouping of the words in the second list
should look like this:
Group A Group B harm harm remind cancer cup cup scream scream date
date struggle struggle queen poison poison announce style style
write Here Groups A and B again represent different word classes.
Group A represents words that are verbs and Group B words that are
nouns. Some of the words fit into both groups; for example harm can
be either a verb or a noun. You can harm (verb) someone or you can
suffer harm (noun). Notice: The group or class to which a word
belongs is not always obvious without context, context and sentence
position are key to clarifying the function of a word or phrase in
English because word order is highly fixed. Words need to be placed
in a certain order. This helps us to understand their function and
meaning. Form in English does not necessarily equal function; and,
word order is fixed, meaning that words in English have to occur in
a particular sequence. Context and Function How are the sentence
position of a word and its function related? The following
sentences illustrate again the importance of context in assigning
function and/or class. In both sentences you can see that the same
word appearing in different contexts has a different function: (1)
She made a wish on a star. (2) They wish to learn more about
effective research practices. Context lets native and near-native
speakers know the function of a word without necessarily knowing
how they know it or without knowing the labels for what they know.
ESL/EFL learners, on the other hand, dont have this type of
knowledge because they are learners of English. Context is critical
in determining meaning.
Words without context can be difficult to understand. Therefore
grammar taught without context may have little meaning for ESL/EFL
learners. The next Two Discovery Activities highlight the
importance of context in understanding meaning and function.
Kidnapped Child Found by Tree British Left Waffles on
Gibraltar
Discovery Activity 2: News Headlines Look at the newspaper
headlines. Underline the words you find ambiguous, i.e. have more
than one meaning. Explain what these different meanings are. 1
Kidnapped Child Found by Tree British Left Waffles on Gibraltar EMT
Helps Raccoon Bite Victim Kids Make Nutritious Snacks Discovery
Activity 3: Context
Look at the following pairs of sentences. Think about how context
alters the function and meaning of the words in each pair. Consider
how in English form is not equal to function. Use the questions
below to help you. a) I practice my talk every morning. b) I talk
every morning before the practice. a) I practice my talk every
morning.
b) I talk every morning before the practice. The purpose of this
activity is to highlight the importance of context in understanding
the meanings and functions of individual words. Words that look the
same may have different meanings and functions depending upon where
they occur in a sentence. In Sentence (a), practice is an action
word (verb) referring to what I (the subject) is doing. Talk refers
to a thing (noun). In Sentence (b), the opposite is true. Talk is
an action word (verb) referring to what I (the subject) is doing.
Practice refers to a thing (noun). Parts of Speech or Lexical
Categories
English words fall into two main categories: form class words,
which include the major word classes, and structure class words,
which include the minor word classes. Word Classes Form Classes
Structure Classes The major category
Content or form words Nouns Verbs Adjectives Adverbs Structure
Classes The minor category Structure Words Prepositions Pronouns
Determiners Conjunctions Qualifiers Subsets Open Word Classes The
major word or form classes are called open classes because new
words enter the language constantly. Examples include; emoticons,
spam, microwave, etc. Closed Word Classes The second category,
which consists of the minor or structure word class words, are
referred to as closed word classes. They consist of small numbers
of words that change very little over long periods of time and have
been in the English language for centuries. They are fixed and
invariant which means they do not have other forms. They occur only
in a narrow range of possible positions within a sentence and they
must always accompany content words. They must always precede a
noun.They cannot follow a noun. The job of these words is to
establish logical relationships between the different parts of
sentences. Despite the fixed number of structure words, they cause
the most learner difficulties. Structure words are among the most
common and frequently used English words. They include:
prepositions, determiners, coordinator, and pronouns. Section 2:
Morphology The smallest unit of meaning is called a morpheme. A
morpheme can be a single word or other independently meaningful
units Consider the word book. There is no smaller form of this
word; It is a single morpheme. In comparison look at the words;
bookworm, bookish, and books. Theses can be broken into book + worm
book + ish book + s Discovery Activity 6: Decoding Morphemes
Look at the following words. Break the words down into the smallest
possible meaningful units. blizzard frighten teacher often truthful
When you have finished, think about whether or not it was easy to
find the smallest possible meaningful units. What reasons can you
give for your answer? Bound and Free Morphemes
There are two kinds of morphemes, bound and free. Free morphemes
are meaningful units that can stand alone. Examples
include;blizzard, never, amaze, or grace Bound morphemes cannot
occur alone and function only as parts of words. Examples include;
Endings (suffixes) such as ful, -ment, or er, or markers
(inflections) such as s. Both prefixes and suffixes are bound
morphemes called affixes. Several morphemes , both bound and free,
can occur in the same word as in: undeniableun + deny + able
Derivational and Inflectional Morphemes
Bound morphemes can be divided into two groups: derivational
morphemes and inflectional morphemes. Derivational morphemes are
lexical morphemes. They somehow either change the class a word
belongs to or change the semantic meaning of a word. Derivational
morphemes include prefixes and suffixes. A derivational suffix
often, changes the part of speech of a word. Noun Adjective
VerbNoun child childish realize realization face faceless establish
establishment trend trendy conform conformity Inflectional
morphemes, are grammatical morphemes.
They do not change the class to which a word belongs nor its
semantic meaning. They provide grammatical information about a
word. For example an s added to a noun such as chair in English
changes that noun from a singular word to the plural word chairs
Sometimes a derivational suffix will only change the meaning of a
word, but not the class:
AdjectiveAdjective NounNoun economic economical fellow fellowship
politic political progress progression Derivational prefixes only
change the meaning of a word, never the class: AdjectiveAdjective
VerbVerb forgettable unforgettableappear disappear essential
nonessential finish refinish The most important point in teaching
derivational morphology is to help learners to recognize the more
common affixes and their functions. Learning the meanings of
derivational morphemes can be a powerful tool for developing ones
vocabulary. Inflectional morphemes, in contrast to derivational
morphemes, are a small closed set of eight grammatical morphemes.
These eight add little or no content, but serve a grammatical
function such as marking plural or tense. Inflectional morphemes
change the form of a word without changing either the word category
it belongs to or its meaning: cat cats walk walked The addition of
s to the noun cats indicates that more than one cat is being
referred to. The ed at the end of walk indicates a past action.
regular past participle
Morpheme Grammatical Function Attaches to Example -s plural noun
desks, chairs, boxes -s possessive the boys hat the cats tail third
person singular verb present tense she drives he talks it walks -ed
regular past tense verb he talked regular past participle she has
walked -ing present participle she is driving -er comparative
adjective/adverb taller, faster -est superlative tallest, fastest
Inflectional morphemes are always the last morpheme of a word
Inflectional morphemes are always the last morpheme of a word. They
are always suffixes. Only one inflectional morpheme can be added to
a word. The only exception to this is noun plural s plus
possessive. In written English, this is reflected by moving the
apostrophe to after the s: (9) The boys book = a book belonging to
one boy. (10) The boys book = a book belonging to more than one
boy. Inflectional morphemes are essential for the correct
production and understanding of grammatical or structural elements
of utterances. The crucial difference between following pair of
sentences, for instances, is reflected only by the additional of
one inflectional morpheme. I walk to school. vs I walked to school.
Do ELLs have trouble with these 8 inflectional endings?
Learner difficulties Although English has relatively few
inflectional morphemes, some of the most frequent learner errors
are in the correct use of these inflections. ELLs, for example,
will frequently omit the third person singular s or the omit the
past tense ed and produce sentences such as: *she like cats. *we
walk home yesterday. Redundancy in Language
The term redundancy refers to any feature that provides the same
grammatical information that another one already provides. In other
words, when more than one grammatical clue or marker is required to
reveal grammatical information, it is called redundancy. Redundancy
Examine the following two sentences.
1. Which of the two sentences is incorrect or ungrammatical in
Standard American English? 2. Underline those elements in the
sentence you choose that make it ungrammatical. (a) Yesterday, two
teachers expressed their feelings about Johns grade. (b) Yesterday,
two teacher express their feeling about Johns grade. The second of
the two sentences (marked with an *)
is an ungrammatical Standard American English sentence. Yesterday,
two teachers expressed their feelings about Johns grade.
*Yesterday, two teacher express their feeling about Johns grade.
(b) Yesterday, two teacher express their feeling about Johns
grade.
* the nouns teacher and feeling have not received the plural
inflection s * express- the lack of the past tense inflection ed
causes the sentence to be grammatically incorrect. It does not meet
the redundancy requirements of the English language. Why do I have
to understand inflectional endings and what do they have to do with
redundancy in terms of teaching ELLs? Learner difficulties For
ELLs, the inflectional endings require at least some explicit
language instruction. ELLs need explicit instruction regarding
these forms because they may not hear the inflectional endings. The
sound of them is reduced.