GRAMMATICAL UNITS

1. Describe the 5 ranks hierarchy for identifying the units being studied in English grammar.

The 5 ranks hierarchy to identify units in study of grammar is:

morpheme ↔ word ↔ phrase ↔ clause ↔ sentence

Eg: The girl whom you have seen is one of the best Vietnamese pianists.

+ ist, ese: morpheme

+ pianist, girl...: word

+ one of the best Vietnamese best pianists: phrase

+ whom you have seen: clause

2. What is morpheme? Stem? Root? Affix?

- Morpheme is the smallest meaningful unit of language. A morpheme cannot be divided without altering or destroying its meaning.

Eg: In morpheme "kind", if the "d" is removed, it changes to "kin" which has a different meaning.

- Stem is the part of the word to which an inflectional morpheme is or can be added.

Eg: Inflectional "s" can be added to the stem "work" or "book" to form plural in "the works of Shakespeare" or "many books".

The stem of a word may be:

+ A single stem: consisting of only one morpheme: work, book...

+ A root plus a derivational morpheme: work + er = worker

+ Two or more roots: house + hold = household

- Affix is a letter or a group of letters which is added to word and which changes the meaning of function of the word.

Affixes are bound forms that can be added:

+ To the beginning of the word (prefix): unhappy, dishonest

+ To the end of the word (suffix): happiness, development...

- Root is a morpheme which is the basic part of a word and which may occurs on its own or may be joined with other roots.

Eg: house, hold, workshop...

3. What is allomorph?

Allomorph is any variance of a morpheme which is different in pronunciation or spelling.

Eg: /z/, /s/, iz/ are allomorph of "s"

"es" is also allomorph of "s"

/id/, /t/, /d/ are allomorph of "ed"

4. What is the difference between free and bound morpheme?

- Free morphemes are those that can stand alone carrying full semantic weights.

- Bound morphemes are those that cannot stand alone in language. They are always added to one or more morpheme to form new words or to modify the meaning or grammatical function of the free morphemes.

Eg: teach + er = teacher; care + ful = careful

5. What is the difference between lexical and grammatical morpheme?

- Lexical morphemes express lexical meaning referring to things, actions, events, states, properties...

- Grammatical morphemes express common meaning referring to grammatical relationship within and between sentences.

Eg: works, worked, working; hot, hotter, hottest

6. What is the difference between inflectional and derivational morpheme?

- The derivational morpheme is a kind of bound morpheme which is added to the root to make a new word, a new meaning or a new part of speech. It can be a prefix of a suffix.

Eg: teacher, disagreement

- Inflectional morpheme is a kind of bound morpheme which is added to the root or the base to change the grammatical function of a word. They are limited in number and exist only in suffix form.

Eg: watches, bigger...

7. What is the difference between inflectional and derivational morphology?

- Inflectional morphology studies the way in which words vary or inflect in order to express grammatical contrast in sentences.

Eg: "ed" can be added to a verb to form past tense

- Derivational morphology studies principle governing the construction of new words without reference to specific grammatical role that a word might play in the sentence.

Eg: "ize" can be added to an adjective to form a verb.

8. What is the use of "ed" in English language?

- To form past tense and past participle of regular verbs

Eg: I will have graduated from Hanoi University by this June.

- To form compound adjective (adj + Ned)

Eg: short-sighted, kind-hearted

9. State the different kinds of phrase in the English language on the grounds of part of speech and syntactical function.

- On the ground of part of speech, phrase can be divided into:

+ Noun phrase: high-quality product

+ Verb phrase: have finished

+ Adjective phrase: very beautiful

+ Adverb phrase: out there, in here

+ Prepositional phrase: on the table

- On the ground of syntactical function, phrase can be divided into:

+ Attribute: That cute 5 year old girl is my niece.

+ Adverbial phrase: He came to that place yesterday for no reason.

+ Subject: Seeing your relative after a long absence is always great pleasure.

+ Object I don't like talking with those people.

+ Complement: His words sound very hollow and nonsensical.

10. What are the main ways to identify phrase structure?

There are 4 ways to identify the phrase structure:

- According to the substitution test, any word combination of the English sentence that can be replaced by a single word without changing the sentence's grammaticality is called a phrase.

That young student is very clever. Nam is very clever.

"Nam" in sentence (2) has the same grammaticality as "That young student" in sentence (1), so, we can conclude "That young student" is a phrase.

- According to the movement test, any word combination of the English sentence that can be moved to another position in the sentence without changing its meaning is called a phrase.

I met him for the first time on a wet cold winter morning.

On a wet cold winter morning, I met him for the first time.

The meaning of sentence (1) and sentence (2) are the same in spite of the fact that the position of "on a wet cold winter morning" has been changed, so, "on a wet cold winter morning" is a phrase.

- According to conjoining test, any word combination of the English sentence that can be conjoined with a similar one without changing the grammaticality of the sentence is called a phrase.

We can see many multi-story buildings in big cities.

We can see many multi-story buildings in big cities and small towns.

"In big cities" in sentence (1) can be conjoined with "in small towns" in sentence (2) without changing grammaticality of the sentence, so, "in big cities" is called a phrase.

- According to anaphora test, any preceding word combination (antecedent) that can be replaced by a pro-word is called a phrase.

That smartly-dressed lady lives near my house.

She is very nice to me.

"That smartly-dressed lady" said above can be replaced by the pro-word "she", so, we can determine that "that smartly-dressed lady" is a phrase.

11. What is the difference between endocentric and exocentric phrase?

- Endocentric phrase are those expanded from a central element or head, having the same grammatical function as the head. They have 3-part structure: pre-modifier - head - post-modifier.

Eg: All the illustrated magazines on the self

- In contrast, exocentric phrase are those which cannot be seen as an expansion of a central element and the functions are varied.

Eg: in the world, under the sea

12. What is an antecedent?

The antecedent is a preceding word or phrase that is referred back to by a single word (anaphora) in the next part of the sentence of the next sentence.

Eg: That pretty girl is very clever. She can speak English and French.

She: anaphora

That pretty little girl: antecedent

13. What is the difference between phrase and clause?

- Phrase is a combination of word which doesn't consist of its own subject and predicate and is used as a single word.

Eg: Eating at restaurant is not to my liking

- Clause is a part of the sentence. It has its own subject and predicate but its meaning is incomplete and cannot be used independently.

Eg: What he is talking about is not what I am interested in.

14. List the syntactical functions the clause can play in the sentence.

- Subject: Why he didn't tell me the truth is always a haunting question to me.

- Object: I don't know how much they invested in this project.

- Attribute: The lady who is wearing red dress is my friend.

- Adverbial/ adjunct: When I heard that bad news, my head seemed to standstill.

- Complement: Our concern is how we can get good mark at English grammar.

15. What is the difference between clause and sentence?

- Clause is a part of the sentence. It has its own subject and predicate but its meaning is incomplete and cannot be used independently.

- Sentence is a complete grammatical unit. It has its own subject and predicate and its meaning is complete and it is independent in use.

- The sentence and clause are similar in that both have a finite verb and one or more subjects.

- The difference between them is:

+ The sentence is the largest unit and can be very complex, consisting of more than 1 clause.

+ The clause can be considered as simple sentence embedded in a larger sentence, being the focus of the sentence (main clause) or modifying the meaning of the sentence (subordinate clause).

I don't know why she left without saying any thing.

Whenever I am at home with my parents, I feel very happy.

16. Classify sentences on the ground of their structure.

On the ground of their structure, English sentences can be divided into:

- Simple sentences: are those that have a subject and predicate.

A miss is as good as a mile.

- Compound sentences: are those that have two or more independent sentences connected by means of coordination.

Money is a good servant but it is a bad master.

- Complex sentences: are those consisting of main clause and one or more subordinate clauses.

I don't know why you made me cry.

17. Classify sentences on the ground of their meaning.

- Declarative sentence: to give information and state the fact.

I am learning English at Hanoi University.

- Interrogative sentence: to ask question.

Can you explain this word to me?

Why don't you use softer words to your child?

- Imperative sentence: to induce someone to fulfill a certain action.

Please turn off the light before you leave.

- Exclamatory sentence: to express emotion, attitude.

How beautiful the landscape here is!

18. Describe 2 main ways of making sentence more complex.

- Co-ordination: Two clauses of equal standing or equal importance are joined by a coordinating conjunction (also known as coordinator).

Eg: I was 30 minutes late but he still waited patiently.

- Subordination: One main clause and one or more dependent clauses are joined by subordinating conjunction (also known as subordinator).

Eg: When you lose money, you lose something but when you lose your family, you lose everything.

19. What is the difference between coordinator and subordinator?

- Coordinator connects words, group of words and independent clauses. They can be used to express the meaning of addition (and, both), the opposite meaning (but, still, yet), the meaning of choices (or, otherwise), result or consequences (so, thus, therefore).

To be or not to be is a big question.

- Subordinator connects subordinate clauses with the dependent clause. They can be used to introduce adverbial clauses of time, place, reason, concession...

Whenever you are not near me, my heart feels empty.

20. What is the difference between compound sentence and complex sentence?

- A compound sentence consists of 2 or more clauses coordinated with each other (by the coordinator).

Eg: We came at 7 o'clock and we had dinner together.

- A complex sentence consists of 2 or more clauses joined by subordinator. In most cases, one of the clauses is treated as the principle and the others as subordinates.

Eg: Where there is life, there is hope.