Lecture 5
Verbs and adverbs
Operators, auxiliary verbs, main verbs
Operators are verbs which perform the following functions:
a) invert with the subject in yes-no questions:
Bill should come. Should Bill come?
Bill is coming. Is Bill coming?
They study hard. Do they study hard?
b) support negation:
Bill shouldn’t come.
Bill isn’t coming.
They don’t study hard.
c) carry emphatic polarity stress
Bill should come.
Bill is coming.
They do study hard.
Auxiliary verbs are helping verbs. The first or only auxiliary verb in a sentence functions as an
operator.
The car is being washed.
Is the car being washed?
Types of auxiliary verbs:
1. modal auxiliary verbs: can, could, may, might, shall, should, will, would, must, ought to
Modal auxiliaries do not take the third person singular marker, the –ing suffix, they don’t have
infinitives or past participle forms.
*He cans swim. - He can swim.
*I would like to can swim. – I would like to be able to swim.
*I will must work late. – I will have to work late.
*I am musting work late. – I am having to work late.
Modal verbs, with the exception of ought, are followed by bare infinitives.
The verb need can function as a modal auxiliary in negative sentences and questions:
Need we tell anyone? Do we need to tell anyone?
She needn’t go. She doesn’t need to go.
2. non-modal auxiliary verbs: do, be, have
‘Do’ is a semantically empty operator. ‘Be’ contributes to aspect and voice, and ‘have’ contributes
to aspect.
Do you know the answer?
She is swimming.
He was arrested.
She has left.
Main verbs are heads of verb phrases. With the exception of the verb be (and sometimes have)
main verbs do not function as operators.
Bill is happy. (main verb-the only verb in the sentence)
Bill is (aux verb) leaving.
Bill has (main verb) a house.
Bill has (aux verb) bought a house.
Bill does (main verb) his work well.
Does he do his work well?
Bill does (aux verb) not work well.
On the semantic level, the difference between main verbs and auxiliary verbs is that main verbs
have a thematic structure (except the verb be), and auxiliary verbs do not.
Main verbs designate actions and states. For an action to take place or for a state to exist some
roles must be performed. Those roles are performed by the participants entailed by the meaning of
a verb. The thematic structure of a verb specifies the number of roles which that verb assigns to the
participants in an action or state. It also includes the labels for the roles being assigned.
Types of main verbs
1. Intransitive verbs: do not have an object
The plane took off. She is sleeping. He has arrived.
2. Transitive verbs: have an object or objects:
She hurt him.
She gave him a book.
3. Linking verbs: require an adjective phrase or noun phrase which assigns a property to the
subject.
Bill is a doctor.
Bill seems / appears happy.
Adverbs
Adverb as a clause element
1. VP adverbs
They [lived happily ever after].
I [saw her there].
I [spoke to him about it recently].
2. Sentence adverbs
furthermore, moreover, however
frankly, honestly
Adverb as a premodifier
adverbs premodify adjectives, other adverbs, prepositions, pronominal elements:
really happy
extremely quickly
right through the wall
nearly everybody
There is a certain overlap between the adjective and adverb classes. Some adjectives are formally
identical to adverbs, eg:
a fast car (adjective)
He drives fast. (adverb)
In colloquial English the use of adjectival forms as adverbs is quite common:
Drive slow.
I bought it really cheap.
Morphologically we can distinguish three types of adverbs:
1. Simple adverbs: eg: fast, well, very, just, so, well
2. Compound adverbs: eg: somehow, somewhere, downstairs
3. Derivational adverbs: eg: rapidly, interestingly, backward(s)
Gradability also applies to adverbs.
With gradable adverbs the types of comparison are the same as in the case of adjectives (i.e. to a
higher, the same, or lower degree).
Comparison in relation to a higher degree is expressed by the morphemes -er and -est (adverbs
which have the same form as adjectives) or the forms more and most:
You have to work harder.
He works more carefully than I do.
Young people work (the) hardest.
His leg hurt the worst.
Comparison in relation to the same is expressed by as...as:
He doesn’t snore as loudly as you do.
Comparison in relation to a lower degree is expressed less/least:
Bill works less efficiently than John.
John behaves the least politely of the three boys.
Lecture 6
Boundaries between word classes
Gerund – ing form; it has one of the functions characteristic of nouns (head of subject or object); a
gerund does not denote a concrete object.
Some people say that gerunds are verbal nouns. We are going to say that sometimes gerunds are
nouns and sometimes they are verbs.
Examples of gerunds (Huddleston 1984)
She regretted [telling him the truth].
[Hunting wild animals] can be dangerous.
[The hunting of wild animals] should be banned.
[Mary’s singing of the song] pleased us.
[These killings] must stop.
[Fox-hunting] arouses great passion.
The –ing forms in the examples below are not gerunds. They are verbs - participles.
He was telling the truth.
They are hunting wild animals.
He died laughing.
Seeing him enter, he stood up.
-ing forms as verbs or adjectives
Adjectives:
He was a charming fellow.
It seemed very interesting.
Verbs with some adjectival qualities (Huddleston 1984):
[Anyone owning more than this] will have to pay tax.
[The bill being debated] was very controversial.
More examples (Quirk et al 1985: 1290-91):
Brown’s paintings of his daughter.
The painting of Brown is as skilful as that of Gainsborough.
Brown’s deft painting of his daughter is a delight to watch.
Brown’s deftly painting his daughter is a delight to watch.
I dislike Brown’s painting his daughter.
I dislike Brown painting his daughter.
Brown deftly painting his daughter is a delight to watch.
Painting his daughter, he noticed that his hand was shaking.
The man painting the girl is Brown.
The silently painting man is Brown.
Brown is painting his daughter.
Verbs vs adjectives: -en forms
He had broken the window.
The window was broken.
They were married.
He is a worried man.
He was very surprised at the result.
Lecture 7
Constituency
Noun phrases
Adjective phrases
Phrases
A string of words is a phrase if it behaves as a unit with respect to certain syntactic phenomena.
fronting / preposing
This student will [solve the problem].
This student is determined to solve the problem and [solve the problem] he will.
I don’t like [his younger brother].
[His younger brother] I don’t like.
sentence fragments
What will he do?
Solve the problem.
Whom did you see?
His younger brother.
replacement
John might solve the problem, and [so] might Bill.
John might solve the problem, and Bill might
[do so] too.
I don’t like his younger brother, he she adores [him].
coordination
This student might [solve the problem] and [win the prize].
[His younger brother] and [his elder sister] and coming tomorrow.
Noun phrases
Nouns are heads (central elements) of noun phrases. They determine the make-up of an NP. In a
noun phrase, there are three types of dependents (Huddleston & Pullum 2005):
determiners:
e.g. the boy, a girl, some money, two books
complements:
e.g. the fact that she left, the destruction of the city
modifiers / adjuncts:
e.g. a young girl, students who passed the exam
The head noun of a noun phrase can be followed by
a) relative clauses
b) appositive (noun complement) clauses
c) prepositional phrases
A relative clause is a clause that postmodifies the head noun. There are two major types of relative
clauses: restrictive and nonrestrictive.
Restrictive relative clauses play a key role in determining/restricting the reference of the head.
[The girl who is standing in the corner] is Jola.
In the case of nonrestrictive relative clauses, the head is identified independently (often a proper
noun) and the relative clause provides additional information about the head.
[Jola, who is standing is the corner], is very nice.
Both restrictive and nonrestrictive relative clauses can be divided into subject and object relatives.
Restrictive Subject Relative Clause:
The cat [which is lying on the mat] loves dogs.
The relative pronoun which is understood as the subject of the clause
The cat is lying on the mat.
Restrictive Object Relative Clause:
The book [which I put on the table] is mine.
The relative pronoun which is understood as the object of the verb
I put the book on the table.
Nonrestrictive Subject Relative Clause:
Bill, [who had been driving all day], suggested stopping at the next town.
Bill had been driving all day.
Nonrestrictive Object Relative Clause:
Bill, [whom everyone suspected], turned out to be innocent.
Everyone suspected Bill.
A relative pronoun can also be the object of a preposition:
The man [to whom I spoke] is a linguist.
Mr. Jones, [ for whom I was working], is very rich.
Apposition is a construction presenting units of identical reference:
My girl friend, Jola Rutowicz, is a very beautiful woman.
Appositive clauses are complements of abstract head nouns like assumption, belief, fact, idea,
claim, theory:
the idea [that the world is round]
the claim [that you are wrong]
the claim [that you made]
Prepositional phrases which follow nouns can be either complements or modifiers / adjuncts:
a) Complements are closer to their head nouns than adjuncts:
a student [of syntax]
a student [with long hair]
a student [ of syntax] [ with long hair]
*a student [with long hair] [of syntax]
b) There are co-occurrence restrictions on complements, but not on adjuncts:
a student of syntax
*a boy/girl/football player of syntax
a student/boy/girl/football player with long hair
c) Restrictions on coordination
a student [of syntax] and [of morphology]
a student [with long hair] and [with short arms]
*a student [of syntax] and [with long hair]
A student of syntax is someone who studies syntax.
The complexity of noun phrases
(Greenbaum & Quirk 1990)
[That girl] is Jola.
That girl is tall.
That girl was standing in the corner.
You waved to that girl when you entered.
That girl became angry because you waved to her.
[That tall girl standing in the corner who became angry because you waved to her when you
entered] is Jola.
Adjective Phrases
Adjectives are typically premodified by adverbs / intensifiers:
very proud, absolutely useless, extremely happy
An adjective can also be followed by a phrase or clause that completes its meaning :
This boy is [very fond of Alice].
The phrase of Alice is a complement because it is licensed / selected by the adjective fond: we
could replace fond by afraid, but not by keen, sorry, clever. The choice of the preposition is
determined by the adjective: fond of, afraid of, keen on, similar to.
The adjective and the following complement constitute an adjective phrase which does not occur in
the attributive position
This boy is [very fond of Alice].
*this [very fond of Alice] boy
Complements of adjectives are generally realized by prepositional phrases or clauses:
I am [unsure whether she can do it].
He was [keen to see the manuscript].
Adjectives are sometimes postmodified by adjuncts:
Rufus was [fond [of Alice] [in some ways]]].
Lecture 8
Verb Phrases
Adverb Phrases
Prepositional Phrases
Grammatical categories of the verb phrase can be established on the basis on paradigmatic
relations (Huddleston 1984). These categories are expressed by inflections and auxiliary verbs.
1. tense: inflectional category
Example: He (paint) the fence
He paint-s
the fence every year.
He paint-ed
the fence last year.
There are two tenses in English: present and past.
2. aspect: expressed by auxiliary verbs and inflectional suffixes
He (paint) the fence.
He is painting the fence now.
He has painted the fence.
progressive aspect: be + verb-ing
perfect aspect:
have + verb-ed/en
3. voice:
passive - expressed by an auxiliary verb and an inflectional suffix (be + verb-ed/en)
active – the passive auxiliary is absent
The fence is painted (by him) every year.
The passive affects the structure of the whole clause.
4. modality: modal verb present
He may paint the fence this year.
5. polarity: negative – the marker not present
positive – the marker not absent
He is not painting the fence.
Some examples (tense and aspect):
They
are painting the fence.
They
were painting the fence.
They may
be painting the fence.
They ought to
be painting the fence.
BE + VERB-ing (the progressive aspect)
He
has painted the fence.
He
had painted the fence.
He may
have painted the fence.
He ought to
have painted the fence.
HAVE + VERB-ed/en (the perfect aspect)
The order of auxiliary verbs is fixed:
modal
→
have (perfect)
→
be (progressive)
→
be (passive)
→
main verb
For example:
The fence
may
→
have
→
∅→
been
→
painted
Semantic characteristics of the categories
1. tense
•
location in time
I live in Poznań.
I lived in Poznań.
Two and two make four.
•
factuality
If he comes tomorrow, we will ask him for help.
If he came tomorrow, we would ask him for help.
I wish she were here.
She looks as if she knew him.
2. progressive aspect: action in progress
Bill is running.
He was playing football when this happened.
3. perfect aspect: anteriority & relevance
He has already left.
(Situation anterior and relevant to the present moment.)
When I arrived he had already left.
(Situation anterior and relevant to a point in the past.)
I will get in touch with you as soon as I have returned.
(Situation anterior and relevant to a point in the future.)
4. voice: redistribution of thematic roles
The police arrested him.
He was arrested by the police.
5. modality:
epistemic
He may be in the bathroom.
He must be in the bathroom.
deontic
You must do your homework.
You may leave now.
6. polarity: the scope of negation is the stretch of language over which the negative item has a
semantic influence:
I [didn’t listen] to some of the speakers.
(i.e. I listened to some.)
I [didn’t listen to any of the speakers.]
(i.e. I listened to none.)
No future tense (Huddleston 1984)
There is no future tense in English. The verbs will and shall are modal auxiliary verbs and not
inflectional future tense markers: they express modal meanings such as intention, prediction,
promise and share the morphosyntactic characteristics of verbs like can or may.
Last time no one was here.
Last time no one could / would help me.
This time no one is here.
This time no one can / will help me.
He says he knows her. He says he can / will come.
He said he knew her. He said he could / would come.
Adverb phrases
Premodification: adverbs, determiners, noun phrases
very slowly, sufficiently slowly
I didn’t do it [ that well].
We arrived [three hours late].
Some –ly adverbs license complements:
Can the mind exist independently of the body?
I would like to teach the boys separately from the girls
Prepositional phrases
Prepositions take the following kinds of complements:
1. noun phrases:
We ran [up the hill].
She left [in the morning].
2. interrogative and –ing clauses
I was surprised at what he said.
I was surprised at hearing her objection.
3. adverbial expressions:
from here, since then
4. prepositional phrases:
I stayed [until [after dinner]].
Prepositions may be premodified by a limited set of adverbs and NP measuring expressions:
It flew[ right under the bridge].
It went [straight through the door].
She was [completely out of her mind].
We left [ a few minutes before the end].