How do we form new words?
 Derivational process- adding morphemes to a word to change it
 Coinage- any way to create a word to fit some process (Kodak,
Vaseline, Kleenex, acrophopea)
 Eponyms- words coined from proper names (Earl
“Sandwich” was named after Earl Sandwich who put his
food between two slices of bread while he
gambled…”Jumbo” is named after an elephant who was
brought to the United States.)
 Back formation-words that enter a language because of
an incorrect morphological analysis. (“Peddler” is
known as a person who sells stuff in stores…the
morpheme was confused by some people and later on
the morpheme “peddl” was used as a person who
peddles on their bike)
 Compound words- two or more words joined together to
form a new word (doghouse, redcoat, smoke screen,
gold-tail, blackbird)
The right most word in a compound most of
the time is the one that dominates
(doghouse the right word “house” dominates,
therefore “doghouse” is a house for dogs (not
a dog for houses…))
If the word, however, contains a preposition
the left most word dominates. (master of
ceremonies, therefore means a master of
ceremonies (not a ceremony of masters…))


Blends- similar to compounds; however unlike
compounds, some of the words in the blend are
deleted. (smog=smoke + fog (the “f” and “k” were
deleted), brunch = breakfast + lunch)
Reduced words- speakers tend to abbreviate in various
ways to shorten a word
Clippings- abbreviation of a normal word
(gasoline gas, mathematics  math)
Acronyms- a word derived from initials of
several words (AIDS, Scuba)
Alphabetic abbreviations- Using letters
exclusively to say the word. The difference
between this and acronyms is here you actually
said the letters (like HIV, NFL, UCLA, MRI)
Inflectional morphemes- bound morphemes that mark number, tense, gender and
case that have strict grammatical functions….They never change the syntactic
category (like, likes, liking= they are all verbs…pretty, prettier, prettiest= they are
all adjectives)
Derivational morphemes- bound morphemes that change its syntactic category
(“Test” = noun, “Testify”= verb)
Suppletive- irregular form of words (like “foots”…)
Chapter 4
Syntax- our knowledge of how we combine words into phrases and phrases into
sentences
 Part of this is the knowledge of SVO
 Having knowledge of the grammatical relations/ grammatical
functions (people understand the subject is the receiver of the
action and the action is what is being done.)
 Which syntactic structure goes with which verb
 “ran up the bill” and “ran up the hill” are almost syntactically
identical, but when put in a sentence the [constituents] are
different.
 Constituents- natural groupings of a sentence
 Constituent structure- the hierarchically arranged syntactic
units such as a noun phrase and verb phrase that underlie
every sentence
 [Jack and Jill] [ran] [up the hill] and [Jack and Jill] [ran] [up]
[the bill]
To see if something is a constituent, do the constituency
test…
 Stand Alone Test: if a group of words can stand
alone then they can be a constituent
 Replacement by a pronoun tests: if the group of
words can be replace by a pronoun then they can
form a constituent
 Move as a unit test: if the group of words can be
moved then they form a constituent.
 These tests do NOT always work!!
 These tests show that syntax is hierarchical,
not from left to right!
[Jack and Jill] [ran] [up the hill] = [Up the hill] Jack and
Jill ran.
[Jack and Jill] [ran] [up] [the bill] = [Jack and Jill] [ran]
[the bill] [up]
These tests do not always work because you cannot say:
[Jack and Jill] [ran] [up] [the bill]
If something is dominated by the same node it is a
constituent
 Kayla bought a book [and a CD] yesterday
 Kayla bought a book yesterday [and a CD]
 Kayla bought a book [and] yesterday [a CD]
 In this sentence you broke up a constituent…a
phrase under the same node is a constituent
and can therefore be moved around in a
sentence together-as one unit. However, in
this sentence you split the constituent, which
you are not allowed to do. This is an example
of the hierarchical organization of syntaxit is not just linear!
Restrictive relative clause- I hate politicians who lie  I hate the politicians that
lie.
Unrestrictive relative clause- I hate politicians, who lie  I hate all politicians and
politicians lie
Grammaticality is independent of a truth value. It does not have to be coherent
(not an anomaly) in order to make the sentence grammatical.
 Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.
 Semantic anomaly- how can green be colorless?
 How can ideas (inanimate object) sleep?
 How can something sleep “furiously?”
 Regardless of all these problems with this sentence, this sentence is
still grammatically correct. Grammaticality is independent of
prescriptive grammar.
A dictionary tells us the function (Prep, Adv, Adj, N, V) of a word
 “Toilet” in the dictionary would be a noun
 “I buy toilet paper.” Now, toilet, in this sentence is an adjective-not
a noun. A dictionary may give us the most common syntactic category
to use each word, but it really depends HOW we use each word in the
sentence.
Syntactic category- a group of expressions that can substitute for one another
without a loss of grammaticality
 The boy went to the store, the girl went to the store, they went to
the store.
 Phrasal Category- NP, VP, PP, AdjP
 Lexical Category- N, V, P, Adj
 Functional Category- Aux, Det, C (conjunction)
Determiner (Det) - “counting words” such as a/the/this/that/each/two
etc…/every; also contains names and a noun without a determiner (like “boys”)
Auxiliary- helping verbs; always carries the tense
 I am teaching
 You are teaching
 He is teaching
 If there is no Auxiliary then the verb takes the tense
 He runs
 I run
 You run

Modals tell you if it is progressive (still going) or perfect (finished).
It also tells you about the sentence (whether it is a declarative,
imperative sentence etc…) Modals include:
may/might/can/could/must/shall/should/would/will.
There are 3 types of auxiliaries
 Expresses the progressive (in progress now) aspect (is/to be/are…)
 Expresses perfect aspect (action that has been completed)
 I have eaten
 I have ridden a bike
 I have done my homework
 Modal - expresses conditional aspect, mood, and intention
 I can eat
 I may eat
 I shall eat
Complementizer (VERY different than a compliment)-any words that starts off or
comes before an embedded clause- a clause with another clause
 I saw the move that you recommended
S V
C
O
Embedded clause- CP
C
S
Embedded
Sentence/clause
Transitive verb- a verb that requires an NP compliment (like “find”)
Intransitive verb- a verb that cannot take an NP compliment (like “slept”)
Phrase structure tree- an illustration of our syntactic knowledge; it represents the
 LINEAR order of words- You DO read it from left to right (**look at
the PS tree for the sentence “The child found the dog”)
 Syntactic categories
 Structure/function of these syntactic categories
RULES
S NP VP
S Adv S
NP Det Nl
NP Nl
NP NP’s Nl
NP NP PP
Nl N
Nl  Adj Nl
VP V
VP V NP
VP V CP
VP Aux VP
VP VP PP
VP Adv VP
VP VP Adv
PP P NP
CP C S
TP NP Tl
NP NP coordP
Tl T XP (When XP= AdjP, PP, NP)
CoordP Coord NP
This knowledge is unconscious
By using these rules we can produce an
infinite number of sentences
The child found the dog
S
NP
Det
The
VP
N
child
V
found
NP
Det
Nl
the
dog
**If you read these words form left to right it does produce the sentence “The
child found the dog,” proving that some parts of syntax IS linear
 The S node dominates everything below it
S
Node
 Immediate domination- directly below each node (The NP
immediately dominates the determinate and the N)
 Sisters- Any category immediately dominated by the same node (The
determinate and N are sisters…)
 Recursion rule- A repeating of one of the categories
 This proves that there are an infinite number of possibilities
to make sentences with these finite syntax rules
S
NP
VP
V
NP
NP
PP
P
NP
Every language has heads and complements; this is part of Universal grammar. A
native speaker had to have learned the parameters of their specific language when
born, for example English has head initial, but Japanese has head final.
Every phrase has a head and complement.
 Head- a word whose lexical category defines the type of phrase
 NP N…VP V…PP P… CPC…
A verb can occur in a NP, but this depends on the properties of that verb.
 The English language has six verbs






VL – linking verb Intransitive- must have some sort of NP
Be – be (copular) after it telling you who is receiving the
action
Vi – intransitive
Vt – transitive
Transitive- cannot have an NP after it
Vg – distransitive
Vc – direct object
Linking verbs- link subject to what it is, including the following words: is, or, are,
was, were, be, being, been, sound, look, smell, taste, feel, turn, became, appear,
grow, seem, stay, remain.
 I feel upset
 I smell
 I see
Be (copular)- is, am, are, was, were, be, being, been



I am happy
He is sensitive
We are friends
Special things about the verb “Be”:
 Most used verb in the English language
 Has 8 ways of conjugations and forms including participles, which is
the greatest number. Other verbs have 4 ways of conjugation
including participles (he plays, he will play, he played)
 Unique because it does not occur in other languages
 Verbs can take predicate nouns, predicate adjectives, but only a “be”
verb can take a predicate noun, predicate adjective, and a predicate
verb.
Transitive- must have some sort of NP after it telling you who is receiving the
action
 I gave apples to my mother.
 I eat apples.
Intransitive- cannot have an NP after it
 I jump.
 I sleep.
Distransitive



verb- requires a direct object and indirect object
I consider the democratic candidate to be smart.
I consider the democratic candidate to be friendly.
They elected Bush president.