week 2:
sentences and their parts
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Week 2: sentences and their parts
• Grammar: a set of rules for constructing and
analysing sentences
• The process of analysing sentences into its
parts or constituents is called as PARSING
remembering what you have learned
• Look at the following sentences. Identify which are Noun,
Verbs, Adjectives, and Adverbs from the italized words!
1. New cars are very expensive nowadays
2. I understand that even Dracula hates werewolves
3. I have won more rounds of golf than you have had hot
dinners
4. Mother Hubbard went to the cupboard, looking vainly for
food to give her dog
answer
Nouns
Cars, dracula,
werewolves,
rounds, golf,
dinners, food,
and dogs
Verbs
Understand,
hates, won,
had, went,
looking, give
Adjectives
Adverbs
New,
Very,
expensive, and nowadays,
hot
vainly
word classes/ parts of speech
• Noun (a naming word refering to a thing, person,
substance, etc.)
• Verb (a doing verb refering to an action)
• Adjective (a word describing or qualifying a
noun)
• Adverb (a word describing or qualifying other
types of words such as verbs, adjectives, and
adverbs)
Those classes are classified semantically (meaning)
drawbacks
• Words are often vague
• Words are sometimes wrong
Conclusion: we cannot rely on meaning in
defining word classes
A case: Jabberwocky by Lewis Carrol
T was brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe
All mimsy were the borogoves
Ans the mome raths outgrabe
Conclusion: we can identify them based on their
form and position not on the meaning. Grammar is
not a precise logical or mathematical system, but
has much in common with biological systems which
involve overlapping criteria and has fuzzy edges.
the hierarchy of units
Grammatical unit
Of English
Sentence
Clause
Phrase
Word
Symbol
Se
Cl
Ph
Wo
sentence
• The largest unit of language
• It will be delimited by an initial capital letter
and a final full stop (or question mark or
exclamation mark).
• Example:
My uncle Olaf was munching his peach with
relish.
clause
• The principal units of which sentences are
composed.
• It can be an indpendent clause or a dependent
clause
• To identify clause/s we use bracket [......]
• Example:
1. [My uncle Olaf was munching his peach with
relish].
2. [I will attend a new meeting] [when I am
invited].
phrase
• Units intermediate between clause and word
• Kinds of phrase: Noun Phrase (NP). Verb Phrase
(VP), Adjective Phrase (AjP), Adverb Phrase (AvP),
Prepositional Phrase (PP) and Genitive Phrase
(GP)
• Example:
1. [(My uncle Olaf) (was munching) (his peach)
(with relish)]. = 4 phrases
2. [(I) (will attend) (a new meeting)] [when (I) (am
invited)]. = 5 phrases
RANK of grammar unit
higher
A sentence (consist of one or more clauses)
A clause (consist of one or more phrases)
A phrase (consist of one or more words
A word
Lower