Tenth Session: 19.12.2006

Summary of the session: *-*

Homework: *-*

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• This lecture is about the second part of the filling of the structure/form from the model of the different types of lexical information (the model of the text theory). It is about extarnal structure of the words or syntax.

• OVERVIEW

  • Types of lexical information: syntax

    • sentence structure - “syntax”, “phrasal syntax”

    • syntactic categories – 1. POS 2. Subcategories 3. phrasal categories (will be mentioned briefly)

  • The structure of language – constitutive relations:

    • structural relations: syntagmatic and paradigmatic relations

    • semiotic relations: interpretation relations and realization relations

  • Text structure – “text syntax”

• SYNTAX (SENTENCE SYNTAX) – we have dialogue syntax, text s., sentence s., word s. (which is morphology)

  • Words: context, external structure

  • TASK: Identify the part of speech of each word in the text (nouns, articles, adjectives, etc.)

• Noun categories: determiners

  • Articles: 1. definite: the; 2. indefinite: a;

  • Possessives: my your, her, his, its, our,their;

  • Demonstratives: 1. proximal: this (close to speaker); 2. distal: that;

  • Quantifiers: 1. cardinal numbers: one, two,...; 2. existential: some, several, few, many,...; 3. dual: both, either; 4. universal: each, every, all,...;

• Noun categories: adjectives

  • Adjective types: 1. scalar: small...big, cold...hot, hairless...hairy; 2. polar (nothing in between): alive/dead, married/unmarried; 3. appraisive (express attitude but no properties): good, great, wonderful; 4. ordinal: first, second, third,...;

  • Spacial features of scalar adjectives: “adverbs” of degree: very, highly, extremely, incredibly;

• Noun categories: nouns

  • Proper nouns: names – personal, place, product, etc.

  • Common nouns: 1. countable nouns: knife, fork, spoon; 2. Mass nouns (uncountable nouns): bread (a slice of bread), butter (a piece of butter), jam (a spoonful of jam)

  • TASK: what happens when you "count" uncountable nouns? - you put additional word as in "a slice of bread"

• Noun categories: pronouns

  • Personal pronouns: I/me, you, she/her, he/his, we/us, they/them;

  • Possessive pronouns: mine, yours, his, hers,its, ours, theirs;

  • Demonstrative pronouns: 1. proximal: this; 2. distal: that, yonder (archaic);

  • Quantifier pronouns: 1. cardinal numerals: one, two,...; 2. existential: some, several, few,many...; 3. dual: both; 4. universal: each,every, all,...;

  • Relative pronouns: more like conjunctions;

• Verb categories: verb

  • Main verbs: 1. finite forms: person, number, tense (present, past); 2. non-finite forms: infinitive, participle (present, past);

  • Periphrastic verbs (auxiliary verb + non-finite main verb): 1. modal: can, may, will, shall, ought,...; 2. aspectual: be+present (continuous), have+past participle (perfect); 3. passive: be+past participle;

  • it might have been being repaired – the longest compound verb in English

  • it + modal+perfect+continuous+passive+main verb

• Verb categories: adverbs

  • Deictic: here, there; now, then

  • Time: soon

  • Place: 1. source 2. path 3. goal

  • Direction: 1. into 2. towards

  • Manner

  • Degree

• Glue categories: prepositions

  • Basically – male nominal expressions into adverbial expressions

  • Pretty much categories as adverbs

  • Except the all “purpose preposition” of

• Glue categories: conjunctions

  • Co-ordinating conjunctions: and, but

  • Subordinating conjunctions: 1. conjunction-like relative pronouns – they make sentences (clauses) into adjective-like noun modifiers; 2. basically – make sentences (clauses) into adverb-like verb modifiers

• Glue categories: interjections

  • Interjections link part of a dialogue together: “Hi!”, “er”, “huh?”

  • They may also be expressions of subjective reactions: “Ouch!”, “Wow!”

  • Other interjections: 1. alack – an expression of sorrow and mourning; 2. gosh - mild expression of surprise or enthusiasm as to be put in the place of “god”; 3. hoo – an interjection to grab the attention of others; 4. whisht – silence, be quiet!; 5. oy/oi – mild frustration or feelings of uncertainty and concern

• THE STRUCTURE OF LANGUAGE

  • The sign hierarchy: ranks

  • Signs are structured in terms of their position in a size hierarchy; the positions in the hierarchy are sometimes referred to as "ranks".

  • The main ranks (but there are subdivisions) are:

    • dialogue

    • monologue/text

    • sentence

    • word

    • morpheme

    • phoneme

  • Sings at each of these ranks have: 1. structure(internal and external) 2. semiotic relations (functions and realisations)

  • A table of all the ranks

• TEXT STRUCTURE

  • Different texts with different structures; texts as text parts

• STRUCTURE AND CONSTITUTIVE RELATIONS

  • Language structure is determined by following kinds of constitutive relations:

    • structural relations: 1. syntagmatic relations 2. paradigmatic relations

    • semiotic relations: 1. realization 2. interpretation

• SYNTAGMATIC RELATIONS – linguistic “glue”:

  • these are combinatory relations which create larger signs (and their realizations and interpretations) from smaller signs (and their realizations and interpretations)

  • Examples:

    • Phonology: consonants and vowels are glued together as core and periphery of syllables

    • Morphology: lexical morphemes and affixes are glued together into stems; stem+stem=compound stems; stems and inflections are glued together into words

    • Syntax: nouns and verbs are glued together as the subjects and verbs of sentences

  • syllable=onset+rhyme; rhyme=nucleus+coda

  • Syntagmatic relations are very often hierarchical

  • Morphological syntagmatic relations

  • Syntactic syntagmatic relations

  • Paradigmatic relations

  • Semiotic relations

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Homework:

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GO TO THE NEXT LECTURE: Lecture 9 *-*