Morphosyntax

The Origins and Development of the English Language

2011-11-20T21:01:00.000-08:00

About the Author

John Algeo is Professor Emeritus of English at the University of Georgia. He is past president of the American Dialect Society, the Dictionary Society of North America, and the American Name Society. He was an associate editor of the OXFORD COMPANION TO THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE and editor of Volume 6 of the CAMBRIDGE HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE: ENGLISH IN NORTH AMERICA. He was a Fulbright Senior Research Scholar and a Guggenheim Fellow at University College London and is author of the 2006 Cambridge book BRITISH OR AMERICAN ENGLISH? A HANDBOOK OF WORD AND GRAMMAR PATTERNS. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Sentence Structure

2009-07-05T20:16:00.000-07:00

Routledge Language Workbooks provide absolute beginners with practical introductions to core areas of language study. Books in the series provide comprehensive coverage of the area as well as a basis for further investigation. Each Language Workbook guides the reader through the subject using 'hands-on' language analysis, equipping them with the basic analytical skills needed to handle a wide range of data. Written in a clear and simple style, with all technical concepts fully explained, Language Workbooks can be used for independent study or as part of a taught class.
Sentence Structure:
- introduces the evidence for sentence structure and reveals its purpose
- is based on a problem-solving approach to language
- teaches the reader how to identify word classes, such as noun, preposition and demonstrative
- uses simple tree structures to analyse sentences
- contains numerous exercises to encourage practical skills of sentence analysis
- includes a database and exercises that compare the structure of English with other languages
The second edition has been revised and updated throughout.

The Sentence in Written English: A Syntactic Study Based on an Analysis of Scientific Texts

2009-07-05T20:11:00.000-07:00

A substantially revised edition of Huddleston's contribution to Sentence and Clause in Scientific English, the final report of a research project into the linguistic properties of scientific English carried out at University College London in 1964-7. The book has two complementary aims: to analyse certain areas of the grammar of 'common-core' English - the grammar that is common to all varieties of the language - and to apply this analysis to a selective grammatical description of a corpus of some 135,000 words of written scientific English. The theoretical framework underlying the description is that of transformational grammar but the author also draws heavily on M. A. K. Halliday's work on English grammar. Full details of the corpus are given in the appendix. The texts are arranged in three levels, high, middle and low, according to the audience addressed by the author - scholarly, student and general/popular.

Endoclitics and the Origins of Udi Morphosyntax (Oxford Linguistics)

2009-06-05T04:42:00.000-07:00

This book provides a description and analysis of a phenomenon that appears to be unique among languages that have been brought to the attention of linguists, namely the possibility of small words occurring inside other words. Examination of this is important because it helps us to understand what a word is from a cross-linguistic point of view. The second part of the book shows how Udi came to be so different from other languages, and how in this sense it explains the phenomenon.

Grammaticalization: Studies in Latin and Roman Morphosyntax (Amsterdam Studies in the Theory and History of Linguistic Science, Series IV: Current Iss

2009-06-04T21:11:00.000-07:00

Grammaticalization: Studies in Latin and Roman Morphosyntax (Amsterdam Studies in the Theory and History of Linguistic Science, Series IV: Current Issues in Linguistic Theory)

Tense and Aspect: From Semantics to Morphosyntax (Oxford Studies in Comparative Syntax)

2009-06-04T21:07:00.000-07:00

The authors bridge the gap between the semantic and syntactic properties of verb tense and aspect, and suggest a unified account of tense and aspect using Chomsky's Principles and Parameters Framework. They compare tense and aspect systems in Romance languages with Germanic ones.

Arabic Second Language Acquisition of Morphosyntax

2009-06-04T20:54:00.000-07:00

While the demand for Arabic classes and preparation programs for Arabic language teachers has increased, there is a notable gap in the field of linguistic research on learning Arabic as a second language. Arabic Second Language Acquisition of Morphosyntax presents a data-driven and systematic analysis of Arabic language acquisition that responds to this growing need.

Based on large data samples collected from longitudinal and cross-sectional studies, this book explores a broad range of structures and acquisition issues. It also introduces new and comprehensive research, and it documents the successes and problems that native speakers of other languages, including English, Spanish, French, and Japanese, are likely to encounter in learning Arabic.

By integrating previously published findings with new research, the author has created a unified and streamlined resource for teachers, teachers-in-training, linguists, Arabic textbook authors, and second-language acquisition experts.

English Sentence Structure (Intensive Course in English Series)

2009-05-18T15:18:00.000-07:00

Description
Part of the classic Michigan Rainbow series.
English Sentence Structure presents and clarifies all facets of the sentence for beginning and intermediate students. Oral drills, examples, and written exercises form a pattern of regular review and self-evaluation. Each lesson is coordinated with English Pattern Practices.

English Structure Practices

2009-05-18T15:08:00.000-07:00

This workbook, which may be used independently or in conjunction with English Sentence Structure, contains more than 400 exercises that cover beginning- and intermediate-level grammar points such as tenses, articles, count and noncount nouns, modals, verbals, relative clauses, passive voice, adverbs, and conditional sentences.
This is the workbook to accompany English Sentence Structure.

Review By Molly Vargas "mollyjean1120" (Baja California Sur, Mexico)
I have given this book away to different school's where I have taught in Minnesota, and in Mexico (Chiapas, San Luis Potosi). Now I find myself teaching again, and I need it! I'm ordering another copy from Amazon.com!

This book gives ESL/EFL students the repetition they need, and it makes it so simple, that they don't mind the work! It is page after page of photocopiable worksheets that start from zero--the verb "to be" and goes on to advanced.

You can use it for extra practice specific area for a student who needs it, or for everyday class worksheets, quizzes, homework, or games (I put one item up at a time, and see who comes up with the correct answer first)...

After I know my students understand a concept I make sure they can put it into practice in many different ways. This book is the easiest way I've found to do that. English Structure Practices has all the bases covered...including exceptions to rules that I may not have remembered.

It's VERY THOROUGH! And that's how my students want to learn and I want to teach; thoroughly!

Discovering Grammar: An Introduction to English Sentence Structure

2009-05-18T15:03:00.000-07:00

Description
This introduction to basic sentence structure encourages readers to explore grammar through critical thinking and analysis of a variety of different texts including excerpts from poetry, novels, television, movies, and more. Part One provides an overview of different definitions of and approaches to grammar, outlining the approach to descriptive grammar taken in the text. Part Two introduces each syntactic category and highlights the basic division between lexical and grammatical categories. Part Three focuses on the structure of sentences. The book incorporates several types of exercises including "discovery problems," text analysis, and language diversity exercises.

English Word-Formation (Cambridge Textbooks in Linguistics)

2009-05-10T09:40:00.000-07:00

Interest in word-formation is probably as old as interest in language itself. As Dr Bauer points out in his Introduction, many of the questions that scholars are asking now were also being asked in the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. However, there is still little agreement on methodology in the study of word-formation or theoretical approaches to it; even the kind of data relevant to its study is open to debate. Dr Bauer here provides students and general linguists alike with a new perspective on what is a confused and often controversial field of study, providing a resolution to the terminological confusion which currently reigns in this area. In doing so, he clearly demonstrates the challenge and intrinsic fascination of the study of word-formation. Linguists have recently become increasingly aware of the relevance of word-formation to work in syntax and semantics, phonology and morphology, and Dr Bauer discusses - within a largely synchronic and transformational framework - the theoretical issues involved. He considers topics where word-formation has a contribution to make to other areas of linguistics and, without pretending to provide a fully-fledged theory of word-formation, develops those points which he sees as being central to its study. The book draws on a wide range of sources, and general points are illustrated from a variety of languages. As the title suggests, though, the exposition is principally illustrated with material drawn from English, including close analysis of a number of sets of neologisms. A survey of the types of word-formation found in English is also included. Some background in linguistics is assumed, but students of linguistics and English language with no previous knowledge of word-formation or of morphology at all will find English Word-Formation an accessible and stimulating textbook.

Book Description
Although the illustrative material is drawn principally from English, general points are illustrated with a variety of languages to provide a new perspective on a confused and often controversial field of study.

English Words: Structure, History, Usage

2009-05-10T09:34:00.000-07:00

Anyone who has an interest in the systematic study of words will find this book entertaining and serious at the same time. In an age of the World Wide Web and mobile technologies, this revised edition rightly addresses the impact on the lexicon from electronic-mediated communication. The student of language will find the challenging exercises, the hyperlinks and the various well-chosen examples particularly stimulating for understanding the nature of language.

Katamba brings words to life. So relaxed is his style that English Words often reads like a leisurely chat with an old friend. But don't be fooled...the data is used expertly to introduce a wide range of lexical issues and to provide deceptively sophisticated insights into morphology, semantics and phonology.

Katamba brings words to life. So relaxed is his style that English Words often reads like a leisurely chat with an old friend. But dont be fooled...the data is used expertly to introduce a wide range of lexical issues and to provide deceptively sophisticated insights into morphology, semantics and phonology.

Product Description
How do we find the right word for the job? Where does that word come from? Why do we spell it like that? And how do we know what it means?
Words are all around us - we use them every day to communicate our joys, fears, hopes, opinions, wishes and demands - but we don't often think about them too deeply. In this highly accessible introduction to English words, the reader will discover what the study of words can tell them about the extraordinary richness and complexity of our daily vocabulary and about the nature of language in general.
Assuming no prior knowledge of linguistics, the book covers a wide range of topics, including the structure of words, the meaning of words, how their spelling relates to pronunciation, how new words are manufactured or imported from other languages, and how the meaning of words changes with the passage of time. It also investigates how the mind deals with words by highlighting the amazing intellectual feat performed routinely when the right word is retrieved from the mental dictionary. This revised and expanded second edition brings the study of words right up to date with coverage of text messaging and email and includes new material on psycholinguistics and word meaning.
With lively examples from a range of sources - encompassing poetry, jokes, journalism, advertising and clichés - and including practical exercises and a fully comprehensive glossary, English Words is an entertaining introduction to the study of words and will be of interest to anyone who uses them.

Blends: Their Relation To English Word Formation

2009-05-10T09:21:00.000-07:00

Prefatory Note. The following pages grew, by gradual accretion, out of some chance notations of blends made from time to time by the author, or brought to her attention by others. The form into which the discussion shaped itself is due to the manner of its genesis, rather than to preliminary plan, or to any original intention on the part of the author to treat the subject. Of chief interest, probably, is the section dealing with the present-day vogue of blend formations. It seems time that specific attention be called to the contemporary popularity of blends, and to the freedom felt in their coinage, not only in the factitious creations of the lettered class, and in folk-forms, but in scientific nomenclature, in trade terms, and in arbi- trarily made baptismal names and place-names. Since treatment is limited to English blends, no effort was made, where bibliographical citations are given, to include references to blends in other languages. Contents. I. General Nature and Interest of Blend-Words 1 II. Relation to Standard or Literary Speech III. Some Delimitations . . 6 IV. Present-Day Vogue V. General Classes of Blends VI. Illustrative Lists of English Blends of Blend Formations 12 3 19 25 I. General Nature and Interest of Blend-Words. Blend-words, amalgams, or fusions, may be defined as two or more words, often of cognate sense, telescoped as it were into one as factitious conflations which retain, for a while at least, the suggestive power of their various elements. Probably they are best known to the general public, not through discussion by professional linguists, but through the portmanteau words, i. e., words into which two meanings are packed as in a portmanteau, of a passage in Lewis Carrolls Through the Looking Glass... --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

The Semantics of English Negative Prefixes

2009-05-10T09:17:00.000-07:00

The Semantics of English Negative Prefixes proposes a new system for describing the semantic properties of negative prefixes in English. Specifically, the system captures the semantic distinctions between pairs of negative words that share same bases but end in different prefixes like amoral vs. immoral, dissatisfied vs. unsatisfied, maltreat vs. mistreat, non-human vs. anti-human, etc. The book provides guidance on two matters. As a reference for derivation, it informs the readers about the mechanisms of forming negative words. To do so, it describes the prefixes in terms of the cognitive theories of category, domain and construal. As a reference for usage, it informs the readers about the meaning differences between prefixally-negated words. To do so, it bases the description on actual instances and supports the differences by means of collocations. The Semantics of English Negative Prefixes outlines a model that unifies the principles of two popular approaches to language description. Cognitive Semantics is the theory that takes account of mental operations. Usage-based Semantics is the practice that focuses on actual utterances. Accordingly, it is an essential source for any reader interested in English language. It achieves its aims by means of clear layout, actual data, ample exemplification, lucid explanation and discrete evidence.

The Learning Works: Prefixes and Suffixes, Grades 4-8: Teaching Vocabulary to Improve Reading Comprehension

2009-05-10T09:10:00.000-07:00

The national standards require that sutdents beginning at 4th grade use their knowledge of prefixes and suffixes to determine the meaning of words. Each of the 30 units in this book includes a word list, vocabulary sort words, review game cards, and a vocabulary quiz. Students will learn over 300 vocabulary words and become more comfortable "disecting" words and defining their parts.

I am using this for those students in my class who breeze through the Language Arts spelling words every week. I give a pretest on Monday. If a student misses fewer than five out of twenty of the spelling words, they study these vocabulary words instead. The book is organized wonderfully well, so that you can assign one prefix or suffix each week. The author gives you a list of ten words with the pre- or suffix (for visual learners), a page with the words and meanings mixed up so they have to cut it apart and match them up again (for your tactile learners) and then a multiple choice test where the students must determine which word fits into the sentence (very difficult - student needs to apply their knowledge and comprehension of the word to determine in which sentence the word would work.) I highly recommend this book for grades 4 through 6 - it is a challenge for my highest students! Mainstream students in higher grades (7 -8) would still find it challenging.

An Introduction to English Morphology

2009-03-09T02:54:00.000-07:00

What exactly are words? Are they the things that get listed in dictionaries, or are they the basic units of sentence structure? Andrew Carstairs-McCarthy explores the implications of these different approaches to words in English. He explains the various ways in which words are related to one another, and shows how the history of the English language has affected word structure. Topics include: words, sentences and dictionaries; a word and its parts (roots and affixes); a word and its forms (inflection); a word and its relatives (derivation); compound words; word structure; productivity; and the historical sources of English word formation.

McGraw-Hill's Essential ESL Grammar: A Handbook for Intermediate and Advanced ESL Students

2009-03-09T02:51:00.000-07:00

Get expert instruction on. English basics and a little extra help on the. more tricky grammar

McGraw-Hill�s Essential ESL Grammar does more than. cover the basics of English; it pays special attention to. those irksome subjects that trouble even native English. speakers. Mark Lester, bestselling author of the most. widely used college grammar text in the country, has. developed an innovative method to help you. conquer tricky subjects such as articles, tense, verb. complements, word order, and more.

Sensitivity to subject-verb agreement in spoken language in children with developmental dyslexia

2009-03-09T02:43:00.001-07:00

The principle aim of this paper was to investigate sensitivity to subject-verb agreement morphology in children with developmental dyslexia. An auditory grammaticality judgement task was used to compare morphosyntactic abilities of primary school dyslexic children relative to normally developing children matched on chronological age and children matched on reading level. The dyslexic children performed significantly worse than both control groups. The findings of this study contribute to other evidence that morphosyntactic skills may be compromised in developmental dyslexia. Specifically, subject-verb agreement morphology may be affected in dyslexic 8year-old children in such a way that it cannot be the consequence of a delay in reading ability.

Normal and pathological development of subject-verb agreement in speech production: a study on French children

2009-03-09T02:40:00.000-07:00

We report a study on the spoken production of subject-verb agreement in number by four age groups of normally developing children (between 5 and 8;5) and a group of 8 children with Specific Language Impairment (SLI; between 5;4 and 9;4), all French speaking. The production of verb agreement was experimentally elicited by asking children to complete sentence preambles containing a head noun and a potentially attracting 'local noun'. In contrast to previous studies that focused on attraction with local nouns within the subject constituent (postmodifiers), we also studied attraction with local nouns in structures that are not part of the subject constituent (interpolated adjuncts). In normally developing children, we report that (1) attraction effects appear from early on; (2) singular is produced as the default number until age 7 included; (3) more errors are produced with adjunct structures than with postmodifiers, but only from age 8;5 on. In contrast, even the older SLI children showed no attraction effect, a predominance of the singular as default, no effect of syntactic structure and, more generally, persistent high error rates. The turning point observed between 7 and 8;5 in normal children, characterized by a reduced error rate and a significant effect of syntactic structure, is interpreted as an index of the automatization of agreement. The syntactic structure effect is discussed in terms of the interplay of structural and working memory factors in the computation of long-distance relationships.

Grammarian 2.0

2009-03-09T02:38:00.000-07:00

Grammarian 2 is a tool that can help improve your writing skills. Fast, easy, and reliable, Grammarian helps you write professionally and accurately. Grammarian can interactively check your grammar while you type, and can also batch-check and perform statistical analyses in a single pass. You won't waste time running separate procedures to count words, sentences, and syllables per word, or to check punctuation, style, grammar, and mechanics. Grammarian allows you to adjust your writing level by grade, and offers more styles and rules for even greater flexibility.

Grammarian 2 features improved statistics, letting you monitor interest level and reading ease. It checks interactively or by batch in almost every application, including word processing, page layout, and e-mail. Grammarian also expands and converts contractions. Its intelligent Thematic Relations Technology allows the software to make in-context suggestions to improve your writing. Use Grammarian's customizable writing styles and over 150 writing rules to make your ideas clear and easy to understand. Grammarian also works in conjunction with Spell Catcher 8 to give you a complete writing solution.

Wheel of Subject-Verb Agreement (Grammar's Slammin') (Library Binding)

2009-03-09T02:37:00.000-07:00

The Smarts and the Upstarts are today's contestants on The Big Wheel of Grammar! The Smarts have chosen subject-verb agreement for today's category. Can they outsmart the Upstarts by placing the correct verb in their sentences? Find out and learn grammar in this thrilling story about subject-verb agreement!

The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition

2008-10-27T04:51:00.000-07:00

This newly updated edition of America's favorite dictionary features revised biographical and geographical entries as well as up-to-date charts and tables for topics such as world currencies and chemical elements. Among the 500 entries new to this update are Amber Alert, blogosphere, gravitino, halo effect, hawala, lycopene, malware, micropolis, proteome, Qi Gong, SARS, shout-out, speed dating, sudoku, Texas hold'em, text message, and wiki.

The renowned American Heritage® Usage Panel, a group of more than 200 distinguished writers, scholars, and scientists, offers advice on problems of grammar and style; engaging notes explain word histories and clarify differences among synonyms; thousands of quotations and example sentences show words in context; and elegant definitions are enhanced by 4,000 full-color photographs, drawings, and maps, making this one of the most readable dictionaries available anywhere.

This dictionary can also be purchased with a fully loadable Windows® / Mac® CD-ROM that contains the entire text of the updated Fourth Edition, 68,000 audio pronunciations, 1,000 full-color photographs and illustrations, and a college-level thesaurus with more than 260,000 synonyms. The CD-ROM has spell-check capability and
can be used in conjunction with any Microsoft® Office application to get definitions at the click of a mouse.

The Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology

2008-10-27T04:49:00.000-07:00

This comprehensive dictionary by one of our century's greatest language scholars provides a clear and brief account of the origins, history, and sense-development of more than 38,000 words.

Dr. C.T. Onions first joined the staff of the Oxford English Dictionary in 1895. He worked on the OED, the Shorter OED, and then published his Shakespeare Glossary in 1911. A wonderful and learned scholar, he died in 1966 as the first edition of The Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology was going to press. Assisted by G.W.S. Friedrichsen and R.W. Burchfield, Onions created a magnificent work of erudition, with 24,000 main entries. Including their derivatives, the dictionary delves into the origins of more than 38,000 words.

For each entry, the dictionary provides the correct pronunciation, followed by a short definition, and the century and source of the word's first recording. Then come the etymological notes. Thus one learns that "froth" (an aggregation of small bubbles on liquid) was first noted in the 14th century, in Sir Gawain and the Bible, that it comes from the Old Norse frooa, and was taken from there into German (fraup) and Old English (froth). Now in its fifth printing and a standard reference for scholars, Onions's opus is still the most comprehensive etymological dictionary of English ever to be published. --Stephanie Gold

The Merriam-Webster English Dictionary

2008-10-27T04:47:00.000-07:00

A completely revised and updated edition of this best-selling language reference is now available. Covers the core vocabulary of everyday life with over 75,000 clear, concise definitions. Includes pronunciations, word origins and synonym lists. Special sections and tables.

Since 1937. Merriam-Webster is America's foremost publisher of language-related reference works. The company publishes a diverse array of print and electronic products, including Merriam-Webster's Collegiate® Dictionary, Eleventh Edition – America's best-selling desk dictionary – and Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged. Merriam-Webster can be considered the direct lexicographical heir of Noah Webster. In 1843, the company bought the rights to the 1841 edition of Webster's magnum opus, An American Dictionary of the English Language, Corrected and Enlarged. At the same time, they secured the rights to create revised editions of the work. Since that time, Merriam-Webster editors have carried forward Noah Webster's work, creating some of the most widely used and respected dictionaries and reference books in the world.

The New Oxford American Dictionary

2008-10-27T04:44:00.000-07:00

*Starred Review* Recently there has been publicity about young lexicographers and their work with major American dictionaries. Erin McKean, 34, is the editor of the second edition of The New Oxford American Dictionary (NOAD) and continues the tradition of publishing a well-researched and current source of U.S. English. The first edition, with different editors, was published in 2001. What has changed in four years?

Words, of course, have been added and deleted. There are more than 2,000 new entries. Google and weblog are now in, information superhighway is out. The type appears larger, and a line or two has been added to the brief country histories to bring them up to date. Another addition is the useful feature "The Right Word," which discusses synonyms. An example is the entry for attack, which, in addition to a half-column definition, has another half-column discussing the differences in meanings for the synonyms assault, besiege, charge, molest, and storm, among others. The first edition was criticized for not having a pronunciation key on every page, something the new edition remedies. The lists of U.S. presidents and states, tables of weights and measures, and most other features of the ready-reference section remain, but the lists of members of selected halls of fames have been dropped in favor of a "Language Guide," which includes commonly misspelled words and redundant expressions.

Definitions continue to be organized around the "core" meanings--that is, "the one that represents the most literal use that the word has in ordinary modern American usage." Similar to other current dictionaries, biographical, proper, and place-names are included--al Qaeda; Botox; 9/11; Rice, Condoleezza; Splenda; and Sunni Triangle are new additions to NOAD. Black-and-white photographs and line drawings are still interspersed in the text, with the entry for novelist Nadine Gordimer now having a photo. Julia Child's and Ronald Reagan's deaths in 2004 are noted.

Language Typology and Syntactic Description: Volume 2, Complex Constructions

2008-10-27T04:37:00.000-07:00

This unique three-volume survey brings together a team of leading scholars to explore the syntactic and morphological structures of the world's languages. Clearly organized and broad-ranging, it covers topics such as parts-of-speech, passives, complementation, relative clauses, adverbial clauses, inflectional morphology, tense, aspect, mood, and diexis.

The contributors look at the major ways that these notions are realized, and provide informative sketches of them at work in a range of languages. Each volume is accessibly written and clearly explains each new concept introduced. Although the volumes can be read independently, together they provide an indispensable reference work for all linguists and fieldworkers interested in cross-linguistic generalizations. Most of the chapters in the second edition are substantially revised or completely new - some on topics not covered by the first edition. Volume II covers co-ordination, complementation, noun phrase structure, relative clauses, adverbial clauses, discourse structure, and sentences as combinations of clauses.

Syntactic Structures : by Noam Chomsky

2008-10-27T04:32:00.000-07:00

Chomsky's *Syntactic Structures* is legendary today for its being the founding document in the field of generative grammar; but this is to say that the many theses of this book are poorly understood from a distance. Originally the student of Bloomfieldian Zellig Harris, Chomsky released this work after many years in Cambridge, Mass.; and although the traditional concerns of structuralist linguistics are well-represented in Chomsky's work, here this is through an engagement with the work of Willard van Orman Quine which has to my mind never been fully extracted. Chomsky took Quinean scruples concerning the "theory of meaning" as a guide for syntactic theory, namely as the extent to which an adequate syntax for natural language must "sin" against the strictures of compositionality embodied in formal languages; and although his strategy here has had its fans, the "stepwise" construction of his argument and its import have to my knowledge never been fully addressed.

Beginning with an immensely convincing case against the Markovian logic implicit in cybernetic analyses of communication, Chomsky sketches the extent to which various "rigorizations" of the communicative upshot of utterances (visions of the "speaker-hearer circuit" literally displayed by Saussure) fail to capture the grammatical articulation of sentences, and this in a *theoretically constitutive* way. The fate of each such "fail-safe" demonstrates the extent to which the "story about the story", the speaker's implicit grammar, serves an empirically regulative function (i.e., is palpably part of the observable activity of "reasoned" discourse); and this is presented in a theoretical vocabulary so lean as to have invited further formalization beyond the "core" theory's subsequent refinements by Chomsky and students.

In other words, this is essential reading for anyone trafficking in linguistic "transitions" of any kind: simply reaffirming a hostility to "Enlightenment commonplaces" will not relieve the researcher of the theoretical burdens imposed by the well-nigh-unavoidable desiderata of theoretical adequacy both explicit and implicit here. This is not a "what-if" narrative, concerning an alternate history for linguistic theory: this is just-so stuff which should constrain your understanding of what is already the case, and in no very "normative" way (though individuals primarily concerned with Chomsky's politics can easily absolve themselves of responsibility for linguistic theory by ignoring it). A true classic.

Sensitivity to subject-verb agreement in spoken language in children with developmental dyslexia

2008-10-14T17:00:00.000-07:00

Wheel of Subject-verb Agreement (Grammar's Slammin') (Library Binding)

2008-10-14T16:52:00.000-07:00

The Morphosyntax of the Algonquian Conjunct Verb: A Minimalist Approach (Outstanding Dissertations in Linguistics)

2008-09-27T00:51:00.000-07:00

Description
This book investigates the syntactic distribution of the Algonquian Conjunct verb from the theoretical perspective of the Minimalist Program. Brittain provides a unified account of the occurrence of the Algonquian Conjunct verb in an otherwise unrelated set of syntactic environments.

A case study in syntactic markedness: The binding nature of prepositional phrases

2008-09-27T00:46:00.000-07:00

Phrase Structure Composition and Syntactic Dependencies (Current Studies in Linguistics)

2008-09-27T00:43:00.000-07:00

Description
In Phrase Structure Composition and Syntactic Dependencies, Robert Frank explores an approach to syntactic theory that weds the Tree Adjoining Grammar (TAG) formalism with the minimalist framework. TAG has been extensively studied both for its mathematical properties and for its usefulness in computational linguistics applications. Frank shows that incorporating TAG's formally restrictive operations for structure building considerably simplifies the model of grammatical competence, particularly in the components concerned with syntactic movement and locality. The empirical advantages of the resulting model, illustrated with extensive case studies of subject-raising constructions and wh-questions, point toward a conception of grammar that is sharply limited in its computational power.

Review
"This work is an extremely lucid discussion of the proper interplay of formal framework and substantive linguistic theory, and should be of interest to anyone concerned with that issue. It contains a highly sophisticated treatment of a large number of current topics in syntax, and the syntactic analysis is quite thorough and insightful. I definitely recommend this book to syntacticians of all stripes."
—Mark Baltin, Department of Linguistics, New York University

The Evolution of Grammar: Tense, Aspect, and Modality in the Languages of the World

2008-09-27T00:41:00.000-07:00

Description
Joan Bybee and her colleagues present a new theory of the evolution of grammar that links structure and meaning in a way that directly challenges most contemporary versions of generative grammar. This study focuses on the use and meaning of grammatical markers of tense, aspect, and modality and identifies a universal set of grammatical categories. The authors demonstrate that the semantic content of these categories evolves gradually and that this process of evolution is strikingly similar across unrelated languages.

Through a survey of seventy-six languages in twenty-five different phyla, the authors show that the same paths of change occur universally and that movement along these paths is in one direction only. This analysis reveals that lexical substance evolves into grammatical substance through various mechanisms of change, such as metaphorical extension and the conventionalization of implicature. Grammaticization is always accompanied by an increase in frequency of the grammatical marker, providing clear evidence that language use is a major factor in the evolution of synchronic language states.

The Evolution of Grammar has important implications for the development of language and for the study of cognitive processes in general.

Time and the Verb: A Guide to Tense and Aspect

2008-09-27T00:27:00.000-07:00

Description
This comprehensive examination of tense and grammatical aspect provides fascinating insight into how languages indicate distinctions of time. Providing an in-depth survey of the scholarship from the ancient Greeks through the 1980s, Time and the Verb explains and evaluates every major issue and theory, concentrating on familiar Classical and modern European languages. An invaluable reference tool as well as a major contribution to the history of linguistic sciences, this book will be the standard against which future work on tense and aspect is measured.

Review

"Binnick's is the only work with which I am familiar that provides the reader (whether student or advanced scholar) with so broad and deep a perspective. The range covered is impressive: from classical Greek and Latin grammar through to the latest proposals in formal semantics."--Bernard Comrie, author of The World's Major Languages
"Most welcome since it provides the reader with a comprehensive perspective, both diachronically and synchronically, into this very complicated area....It gives the reader a tremendous amount of impressive data that are fully analyzed, explained and evaluated....There is no question that Time and the Verb is one of the most important books to have appeared on tense and aspect. No future linguist will be able to ignore the book if he or she is interested in tense and aspect at all. In this sense, the contribution Binnick has made is enormous."--Canadian Journal of Linguistics
"An important contribution to linguistics....[Binnick's] scholarship is breathtakingly compendious...but never gratuitous.... accessible and useful to both scholars and laypersons....anyone interested in tense, aspect, or time studies generally MUST read and reread this book. It sums up, and now defines, the discipline. But Time and the Verb will also be of benefit beyond this discipline. Syntax, morphology, and semantics are all so well served...that no one working in those areas, indeed no linguist, and no one interested in either language or time, could fail to be enriched by it."--Word
"This is a work of great value."--Language

The English Noun Phrase: The Nature of Linguistic Categorization (Studies in English Language)

2008-09-27T00:25:00.000-07:00

Description
This study explores different types of noun phrase in English, discussing the interaction between their form, meaning and use. Drawing on authentic examples, it addresses the question of how different noun phrases are structured, and how we produce and understand them - shedding new light on the nature of linguistic classification.

English has an interesting variety of noun phrases, which differ greatly in structure. Examples are 'binominal' (two-noun) phrases ('a beast of a party'); possessive constructions ('the author's opinion'); and discontinuous noun phrases ('the review [came out yesterday] of his book'). How are these different noun phrases structured? How do we produce and understand them? These questions are central to this original study, which explores the interaction between the form of noun phrases, their meaning, and their use. It shows how, despite the need in linguistic analysis for strict categories, many linguistic constructions in fact defy straightforward classification - and concludes that in order to fully explain the internal structure of utterances, we must first consider the communicative, pragmatic and cognitive factors that come into play. Drawing on a range of authentic examples, this book sheds new light not only on the noun phrase itself but also the nature of linguistic classification.

Lexical Plurals: A Morphosemantic Approach (Oxford Studies in Theoretical Linguistics)

2008-09-22T19:06:00.000-07:00

Description
This book explores the wide variety of cases in which the plural of nouns is lexical. When a plural is lexicalized it becomes part of what it is to know a certain word: pence, for example, is lexical because it means a plurality of a certain kind - a multiple value, not a set of physical objects like pennies - and knowing this reading is knowing the word. Languages exhibit countless examples of similar word-dependent irregularities in the form and meaning of plural, but these have never been analyzed in depth from a unified perspective. Dr. Acquaviva aims to do just that, using analytic tools from formal semantics and theoretical morphology to shed light on the relation between grammar and the lexicon. After an introduction setting out his approach he divides the book into two parts.

The first gives a structured description of the ways plurality can be lexicalized with an emphasis on description and categorization. The second analyzes in depth different types of lexical plurals in Italian, Irish, Arabic and Breton. A final chapter spells out the theoretical consequences for the analysis of the lexicon. The book is unusual in combining a broad typological classification with a unified morphological and semantic analysis based on a formal framework.

About the Author

Paolo Acquaviva is Senior Lecturer in Italian at University College, Dublin. His University of Pisa PhD dissertation, The Logical Form of Negation, was published by Garland in 1997. His published work also includes articles in Studia Linguistica, Linguistic Analysis, Linguistics, and Folia Linguistica.

Plurals and Events (Current Studies in Linguistics)

2008-09-22T18:36:00.000-07:00

Description
How do we make sense of sentences with plural noun phrases in them? In Plurals and Events, Barry Schein proposes combining a second-order treatment of plurals with Donald Davidson's suggestion that there are positions for reference to events in ordinary predicates in order to account for several of the more puzzling features of plurals without invoking "plural objects," with its attendant metaphysics, and also provide an absolute truth-theoretic characterization of the semantics of sentences with plurals in them. Schein's highly original argument should have significant impact on how natural-language semantics is done, with repercussions for philosophy and logic.

The book opens with foundational arguments that the logical language should have four major features: reduction to singular predication via a Davidsonian logical form, amereology of events, a logical syntax that allows the constituents of a Davidsonian analysis to be predicated of distinct events and separated from one another by other logical elements, and descriptive anaphors that cross-refer to the events described by antecedent clauses. A semantics for plurality and quantification is developed in the remaining chapters, which address some of the empirical and formal questions raised by the variety of interpretations in which plurals and quantifiers participate.

About the Author
Barry Schein is Assistant Professor of Linguistics at the University of Southern California.

101Morphosyntactic structure: - English Verbs: The Art of Conjugation (101 Verbs)

2008-09-09T22:30:00.000-07:00

Description

Your visual tool for mastering English verbs

* Learn key verbs through vibrant illustrations
* Master the six most useful tenses of each verb
* Find the verb tense you need through easy-to-navigate charts
* Practice verb usage through example sentences
* Listen to correct pronunciation on the book's free companion site, learnverbs.com

Present perfect has never been so pretty!

Sentence Patterns of Indonesian

2008-08-30T17:32:00.000-07:00

A comprehensive presentation of the linguistic system of Indonesian, intended for use in first and second year courses.

An Indonesian Language Student's Opinion:
I have taken three different Indoensian language classes, and this book is unequivocally the best.

Indonesian Idioms and Expressions: Colloquial Indonesian at Work

2008-08-30T17:30:00.000-07:00

Indonesian Idioms and Expressions is a collection of expressions, proverbs, slang, quotations and acronyms, offering a commentary on their origins, as well as insights into Indonesian culture, customs, and history. An informal compendium, Indonesian Idioms and Expressions is designed to be both educational and easy to read.

The Syntax of French (Cambridge Syntax Guides)

2008-08-30T17:27:00.000-07:00

French is a syntactically interesting language, with aspects of its word order and clause structure triggering a variety of important developments in syntactic theory. This is a concise and accessible guide to the syntax of Modern French, providing a clear overview of those aspects of the language that are of particular interest to linguists.

A broad variety of topics are covered, including the development and spread of French; the evolution of its syntax; syntactic variation; lexical categories; noun, verb and adjective phrases; clause structure; movement; and agreement. Drawing on the work of a wide range of scholars, it highlights the important role of French in the development of syntactic theory and shows how French challenges some fundamental assumptions about syntactic structure. An engaging and in-depth guide to all that is interesting about French, The Syntax of French will be invaluable to students and scholars of syntactic theory and comparative linguistics.

Analyzing Syntax: A Lexical-Functional Approach

2008-08-30T17:22:00.000-07:00

Analyzing Syntax: A Lexical-Functional Approach (Cambridge Textbooks in Linguistics)

2008-08-23T06:17:00.000-07:00

Description
Analyzing Syntax: A Lexical-Functional Approach is a comprehensive and accessible textbook on syntactic analysis, designed for students of linguistics at advanced undergraduate or graduate level. Working within the 'Lexical Functional Grammar' (LFG) approach, it provides students with a framework for analyzing and describing grammatical structure, using extensive examples from both European and non-European languages. While its primary focus is on syntactic structure, it also deals with aspects of meaning, function and word-structure that are directly relevant to syntax. This textbook is ideal for one-semester courses in syntax and grammatical analysis.

Designed for students of linguistics at the advanced undergraduate or graduate level, this volume is a comprehensive and accessible textbook on syntactic analysis. Working within the "Lexical Functional Grammar" (LFG) approach, it provides students with a framework for analyzing and describing grammatical structure, using extensive examples from European as well as non-European languages. While its primary focus is on syntactic structure, it also covers aspects of meaning, function and word-structure directly relevant to syntax. It is ideal for one-semester courses in syntax and grammatical analysis.

Italian Verb Conjugation Card (Foreign Language Verb Conjugation Cards)

2008-08-21T17:24:00.000-07:00

Description
The most-often-used Italian regular and irregular verbs are presented with English translations in this quick-reference format. The six-panel card is laminated for long life and punched to fit either a two-ring or a three-ring notebook. The verb tenses are listed and explained in both active and passive voices, with information on how to use them in sentences, which makes this title a fine supplement for language students and travelers to Italy. Italian is the latest in Barron’s new series of Foreign Language Verb Conjugation Cards. Others are available in French, German, and Spanish. All are printed in full color on laminated card stock.

English Verb Conjugations: 123 Irregular Verbs Fully Conjugated

2008-08-21T17:22:00.000-07:00

Description
Newly revised for quicker, easier reference, this book has been designed to give both native-born and foreign students a solid sense of security in mastery of English. 123 irregular verbs are fully conjugated, pitfalls in sentence structure are analyzed, and rules for such trouble areas as spelling and punctuation are outlined.

A Grammar of the Arabic Language (3rd Edition)

2008-08-11T17:50:00.000-07:00

Description
Dr Wright's translation of Caspari's Arabic Grammar first appeared in 1859. Since that time it has been thoroughly revised and enlarged, and has become the standard authority. Volume I contains sections on orthography and pronunciation, on the verb, the noun and adjective, on numerals, prepositions, adverbs and conjunctions. Volume II deals with syntax and prosody.

Review : By J. E. S. Leake "sailor and scholar"

Wright has been the standard reference grammar of Classical Arabic for over a hundred years, and is still the most comprehensive generally available for the Classical language. Wright's knowledge of Arabic and his use of Arab grammarians was vast, and he's worth persevering with. The traditional Western terminology is a positive advantage to anyone who's used to it, and I must say I think Jacob Minsky's examples are among the most extreme in the book, tho' his point is well made. However, Wright introduces the Arabic terminology almost everywhere, which is a great boon - modern writers tend to ignore Arabic terminology, which is rather pig-headed as it leaves the student unable to discuss language with Arabic speakers, and at a disadvantage when trying to understand books in Arabic on language.

Fischer's "A Grammar of Classical Arabic" is much more accessible to those unused to traditional Western grammar, even if it is rather less complete in its coverage. In particular, it has nothing on Arabic verse, for which you still neeed to use Wright.

As to editions, the Cambridge edition is really a bit over-priced (it always was expensive, costing 18/- [= £0.90 or about $5.00 at the time] in the mid 1930s just for volume 1!). Librarie du Liban does a hardback for much less which is at least as well produced and a sight better bound. At least one Indian publisher does a two-volume hardback edition as well. As for the unclear typography, that's at least in part due to poor reproduction of earlier letter-press printing.

Stop Press: I see that Cambridge have just re-released the book in a new printing. The good news is that the margins are wider. The bad news is that it's more expensive and they've made the decision to perfect-bind the book.

Arabic-English Dictionary: The Hans Wehr Dictionary of Modern Written Arabic

2008-08-11T17:46:00.000-07:00

Reviews : by J. E. S. Leake "sailor and scholar

First, I must say this is the only Modern Written Arabic (MWA) - English dictionary that the student of Arabic has to have. Others, Al-Mawrid, for example, are useful as supplements, and contain new vocabulary, and there is a more recent German edition (5th edition) of Wehr published by Harrassowitz, but this book has a standard of scholarship unrivalled by any other MWA-English dictionary. Middle Eastern published MWA-English dictionaries like Mawrid, for example, don't give the grammatical information learners of Arabic need, such as broken plurals, verbal vowelling, verbal nouns (masdars), let alone how verbs are used with prepositions, all of which Wehr tells the user.

Words are in root order, so maktaba (desk) [mktbh] and kaatib (writer) [k'tb] both are found under the verb kataba (to write) [ktb]. This really is the most useful way of ordering Arabic dictionaries for someone who's mastered the basics of Arabic grammar, though an alphabetic order dictionary is a help when you're starting and occasionally even when you're expert.

This dictionary is NOT a dictionary of Classical Arabic (although Beeston in his anthology of Bassar bin Burd reckoned that Wehr covered the vast majority of the vocabulary of this poet of the 8th Century AD). For Classical Arabic, Lane (perhaps supplemented by Hava's much more affordable al-Fara'id) is essential. But Lane is useless for modern Arabic. And if you're reading mediaeval Arabic, you will find Wehr fills in some of the gaps in Lane.

This dictionary is NOT a dialect dictionary, though it contains many dialect words that have found their way into the written Arabic of Egypt, Iraq, etc. Arabs don't write colloquial Arabic (at least not in formal contexts) and dialect dictionaries are specialized (colloquial Arabic-English dictionaries are usually written in a phonetic transcription rather than in the Arabic script). If you need a dialect dictionary, get one. This isn't one.

Other reviewers have rightly commented on the size of this dictionary, but some have confused editions. The 3rd (SLS paperback) edition was 114 x 162 x 45mm (4.5" x 6.4" x 1.75") in size, weighed 0.65 kg and had tiny 5.5 pt print. The 4th (SLS paperback) edition is larger: 216 x 130 x 40mm (5.2" x 8.5" x 1.5"), weighs 0.8 kg and has 7.5 pt print. This makes the SLS 4th edition's print much more readable than the SLS 3rd edition's.

The 4th edition, which is sewn-bound, is also more robust than the 3rd edition, which was perfect-bound - I'm on my 3rd copy of the 3rd edition while my 4th edition soldiers on after 8 years. However, the book is not really pocket sized any more (I still keep using my last copy of the 3rd edition as a pocket copy).

The 4th edition isn't cheap (it costs much more in England than in the US, though). If you're in the Middle East, you can pick up Librarie du Liban hardback copies of the 3rd edition (it has larger print than either of the two paperbacks - about 8 pt, the size of the original Brill 3rd edition - and is very clear) for a little less. There's also a hardback reprint of the pocket-sized 3rd edition available in the UK, which has rather unclear script. It's a straight copy of the SLS 3rd edition, and is Indian. It's usable, but is the least satisfactory version yet. But I'd advise students to get the SLS 4th edition if they can afford it. If you've lots of money, perhaps get the Harrassowitz hardback - I've not done so. And if you've money and German, get the 5th Harrassowitz edition (Arabisches Wörterbuch für die Schriftsprache der Gegenwart).

[I have now bought the 4th Harassowitz English edition. The text is slightly crisper and half a point to a point larger, about 8 pt. The paper is less over-bleached, which makes it a bit easier on the eyes too.

Themes in Arabic and Hebrew Syntax (STUDIES IN NATURAL LANGUAGE AND LINGUISTIC THEORY Volume 53) (Studies in Natural Language and Linguistic Theory)

2008-08-11T17:43:00.000-07:00

Description
This collection spans diverse themes in the syntax of Arabic, Modern Arabic dialects and Hebrew. The original contributors are written by specialists with an eye to both broad theoretical and conceptual issues as well as empirical detail. The editors' introduction sets in Generative Grammar. Among the topics discussed in this collection are VSO and SVO, cliticization and agreement, questions and the syntax of wh-movement, cognate objects, adjectival Construct State , Though construction, Gapping, causatives, the syntax of negation and the semantics of the Nominal sentence. It is the only collection of its kind targeting theoretical linguists and specialists in Semitic language alike.

The Syntax of Spoken Arabic: A Comparative Study of Moroccan, Egyptian, Syrian, and Kuwaiti Dialects

2008-08-11T17:34:00.000-07:00

Reviews : By Josh

For me, a budding linguist, it is pure joy to read this type of linguistic work. Brustad covers so many aspcts of spoken arabic in such a professional, ordered and useful manner. Examples are cited from the four dialect regions studied (Moroccan, Egyptian, Syrian and Kuwaiti) to prove each point. They are written in the original arabic (or how they would be written), then transliterated into the romanized script, and then written with the english translation. Nearly every aspect of spoken arabic is discussed here; even the most basic of points (ie differences in singular and plural nouns) are discussed in detail. She uses information from general linguistics, typology, syntax, phonology and compares arabic with other languages for a great description of each dialect region. There are appendices in the back which have the full stories, anecdotes, jokes, etc. collected from her personal data which she uses throughout the book to prove her points. It is in written in the same manner that the examples are written in.

GREAT BOOK! If you are interested in (arabic) linguistics, get this book!

English Plural Morpheme

2008-08-07T02:04:00.000-07:00

In English, to form the plural noun from the singular one is by adding the plural marker to the noun. The common plural marker or the plural morpheme is the suffix –s, although in reality this morpheme can be realized by the phonetic representations [s], [z], or [iz]. These phonetic representations or allomorphs are conditioned by the phones of the base to which the plural morpheme is added.

Some countable nouns are not added with the suffix –s to make them plural but the number of these types are not as many as those added with the suffix –s. Therefore, this plural morpheme is usually called the morpheme –s because this suffix frequently occurs in the plural noun formation. The following are the examples of the words containing the plural morpheme or the morpheme {-s} which is pronounced /s/, /z/, or /iz/

Singular {-s} Plural Phobetic
Representation

baby -s babies [beibiz]
bag -s bags [bægz]
book -s books [buks]
box -s boxes [boksiz]
cat -s cats [kæts]
dog -s dogs [dogz]

As mentioned above, the plural morpheme or the morpheme {-s} is not always realized by the suffix –s. The following are the examples:

Singular {-s} Plural

man -s men
woman -s women
child -s children
ox -s oxen
tooth -s teeth
foot -s feet
sheep -s sheep
deer -s deer

These morphological forms will determine the arrangement of syntactic structure. In sentence level, the subject must agree with the verb. Look at the examples below:

(1) The book is on the table.
(2) The books are on the table.

(3) The student is in the class.
(4) The students are in the class.

(5) The man is in my room.
(6) The men are in my room.

(7) The student walks to school.
(8) The students walk to school.

(9) The woman goes to the market.
(10) The women go to the market.

The examples above show that in present tense, to be which is suitable with the plural morphemes added to the noun is are like in sentence (2), (4), and (6). In sentence (8) and (10), the plural morpheme {-s} need the verb form without inflectional morpheme. Inflectional morpheme {-s} to show present tense is needed in the sentence whose subject is singular or uncountable noun.
In Phrase level some determiners must agree with the plural morpheme. Look at the following examples.

(11) this student
that student
a student

(12) these students
those students
several students
many students
a lot of students
a few students

(13) *this students
*that students
*these student
*those student

In example (11) the determiners this and that need singular noun. The morpheme {-s} is needed in the noun if it comes after the determiners these, those, several, many, a lot of, ad a few like in example (12). The phrases in (13) are not grammatically correct.

Early Communication Skills for Children With Down Syndrome: A Guide for Parents and Professionals (Paperback)

2008-07-30T01:44:00.000-07:00

Written for both parents and professional caretakers, Early Communication Skills For Children With Down Syndrome by Libby Kumin (who has 23 years of experience in working with children with Down syndrome) is very highly recommended as an informational resource by parents, caretakers, teachers, and anyone else charged with the responsibility of dealing with Down Syndrome children. With a focus on speech and language development, through the stage of making 3-word phrases, Early Communication Skills For Children With Down syndrome offers in-depth insight, home communication activities, ways to help one's child learn basic rules of conduct, and much more. An excellent instructional resource, Early Communication Skills For Children With Down Syndrome is a welcome and necessary addition to institutional speech pathology and Special Education resource and reference collections.

The First Word: The Search for the Origins of Language (Paperback)

2008-07-30T01:42:00.000-07:00

More than anything else, I came away from The First Word thinking that linguists love to argue. In fact, every few pages I found myself arguing with author Christine Kenneally and I'm not even a linguist. I disagreed with much of the book and wanted more evidence for many of her arguments. But when I find myself thinking about a book this much and discussing it with people at length, I have to give it five stars.

The subject is the origin of human language. How did it start? Obviously there's no way of knowing, but that doesn't (nor should it) keep linguists from looking for the answer. Since no one can prove or disprove any of the theories about language origin, it's a free-for-all. Linguists seem to enjoy knocking their colleagues' theories even more than they enjoy defending their own theories.

Kenneally is mostly even-handed in her presentation of the many interesting theories currently in debate. However, she chides Martin Gardner for a 1980 article he wrote debunking experiments claiming to have taught chimps, apes, and dolphins human language. Gardner acknowledged the popularity of such experiments, especially when they featured an attractive blonde scientist teaching an ape (evoking Beauty and the Beast) to "talk." Kenneally suspects that no one writes of Chomsky or other male scientists by describing their hair or appearance. Yet Kenneally thinks nothing of mentioning Steven Pinker's "flop of curls" or that Stephen Jay Gould is "short and remarkably loud."

Many of the theories about language origin seem to rest on isolated cases. Linguists cite the case of Genie, a girl who was raised by people who didn't speak to her. She didn't learn to speak and when she was removed from the abusive environment as a teenager, she couldn't learn to speak. It is difficult to draw valid conclusions from a few psychologically scarred individuals.

Kenneally is a linguist and also a journalist, so she is able to condense and present these complex ideas to people who have no background in linguistics but who are interested in it anyway. Sometimes the going gets a little tough, but there are some amusing asides to ease the way, such as the story of what happened when two gorillas who had learned sign language got together and had a sign language shouting match.

It's obvious that there's a lot more that we don't know about language origin and less that we do know. Only twenty or thirty years ago anthropologists were listing the attributes that make us human. Opposable thumbs, using tools, making tools, language, self-awareness. Point by point, evidence has shown that we are not unique, at least not in the ways we had defined ourselves. The same thing has happened with our arguments for why we speak but other animals don't: the descended larynx, the bigger brain, more complex thoughts, a greater need to communicate. Maybe we should stop trying to teach dolphins and apes to use human language and try to communicate with dolphins and apes in their language. We might learn something.

In any case The First Word is a great introduction and a tidy summary of the debate on language origin as it stands today. But read it soon because the evidence and theories are bound to change quickly.

Syntactic Wordclass Tagging (Text, Speech and Language Technology) (Hardcover)

2008-07-30T01:41:00.000-07:00

Description
This book provides an in-depth discussion of the field of syntactic wordclass tagging, i.e. the annotation of the words in a text with tags indicating their syntactic properties. Represented are the viewpoints of the two main groups who take an interest in tagging: the users of tagged text and the developers of tagging software.
The book starts out by examining the field foremost from the user's point of view. After a brief historical overview, the nature and uses of tagging are discussed and current practice is described. Here the user will find what tagging is and the software developer what it is the user wants.
The book then switches to the other point of view and continues with a detailed explanation of the most common computational techniques for automatically tagging large amounts of text. Here the software developer finds information needed for the implementation of a tagger while the user gains insight into the possibilities and impossibilities of automatic tagging and how computer-provided tags should be interpreted.

Book Info
Provides an in-depth discussion of the field of syntactic wordclass tagging. Presents the viewpoint of two main groups who take an interest in tagging: the users of tagged text and the developers of tagging software.

XO: A Theory of the Morphology-Syntax Interface (Linguistics Inquiry Monographs) (Hardcover)

2008-07-30T01:40:00.000-07:00

Description
This important monograph offers a resolution to the debate in theoretical linguistics over the role of syntactic head movement in word formation. It does so by synthesizing the syntactic and lexicalist approaches on the basis of the empirical data that support each side. In trying to determine how a morphologically complex word is formed in Universal Grammar, generative linguists have argued either that a substantial amount of morphological phenomena result from head movement in overt syntax (the widely adopted syntactic approach) or that morphological/lexical means are both necessary and sufficient for a theory of word formation (the Lexicalist Hypothesis). Li examines both the linguistic facts that are brought to light for the first time and the existing data in the literature and shows that each side has an empirical foundation that cannot be negated by the other. Since neither approach is adequate to explain all the facts of word formation, he argues, the way to achieve a unified account lies in synthesizing the empirically advantageous portions of both approaches into one simple and coherent theory.

Li begins by demonstrating how a theory that combines the essence of the syntactic and lexicalist approaches can account more accurately for the various morphological constructions analyzed in the literature by means of syntactic verb incorporation. He then examines causativization on the adjectival root, noun incorporation in polysynthetic languages, and the possibility that the word formation part of the Lexicalist Hypothesis -- which is crucial to his theory -- can be derived as a theorem from a version of the X-bar theory. He concludes by discussing methodological issues in current linguistic research.

About the Author
Yafei Li is Professor and Chairman of the Department of Linguistics at the University of Wisconsin, Madison.

Morphosyntactic Change: Functional and Formal Perspectives (Oxford Surveys in Syntax and Morphology) (Paperback)

2008-07-30T01:38:00.000-07:00

Description
Olga Fischer presents a critical analysis of morphosyntactic change and the mechanisms that trigger it. She shows how changes in discourse, lexicon, semantics, pragmatics, and sound interact with changes in morphosyntax, and considers the interface between the internal and external factors of change. She reveals how rates and speed of change in morphosyntax can be used to explore the degree to which grammar is innate or learned. Her book will be of central interest and value to students of linguistic change, at graduate level and above.

About the Author

Olga Fischer is Professor of Germanic Linguistics at the University of Amsterdam, where her PhD thesis Syntactic Change and Causation: Developments in Infinitival Constructions in English was accepted in 1990. She is a contributor to the Cambridge History of the English Language (CUP 1992), co-author of The Syntax of Early English (CUP 2000), and co-editor of Form Miming Meaning and Pathways of Change (Benjamins 2000 and 2001).

The Syntax-Morphology Interface: A Study of Syncretism (Cambridge Studies in Linguistics) (Hardcover)

2008-07-30T01:37:00.000-07:00

Description
Syncretism--where a single form serves two or more morphosyntactic functions--is a persistent problem at the syntax-morphology interface. It results from a 'mismatch', whereby the syntax of a language makes a particular distinction, but the morphology does not. This pioneering book provides the first full-length study of inflectional syncretism, presenting a typology of its occurrence across a wide range of languages. It will be welcomed by linguists interested in the relation between words and the larger units of which they are a par

The Acquisition of Spanish Morphosyntax: The L1/L2 Connection (Studies in Theoretical Psycholinguistics) (Hardcover)

2008-07-30T01:35:00.000-07:00

Description
Recent developments in linguistic theory, as well as the growing body of evidence from languages other than English, provide new opportunities for deeper explorations into how language is represented in the mind of learners. This collection of new empirical studies on the acquisition of Spanish morphosyntax by leading researchers in the field of language acquisition, specifically contributes to the characterization of the L1 / L2 connection in acquisition. Using L1 and L2 Spanish data from children and adults, the authors seek to address the central questions that have occupied developmental psycholinguists in the final decades of the previous century and that will no doubt continue engaging them into the present one.

Book Info
Investigates both the mental representations that can account for optionality as a trait of emergent grammars, role of morphology as a trigger for the acquisition of syntax across a variety of aspects of the developing grammar.

- Endoclitics and the Origins of Udi Morphosyntax (Oxford Linguistics) (Hardcover)

2008-07-30T01:34:00.000-07:00

Description
This book provides a description and analysis of a phenomenon that appears to be unique among languages that have been brought to the attention of linguists, namely the possibility of small words occurring inside other words. Examination of this is important because it helps us to understand what a word is from a cross-linguistic point of view. The second part of the book shows how Udi came to be so different from other languages, and how in this sense it explains the phenomenon.

- Morphosyntax of Verb Movement: A Minimalist Approach to the Syntax of Dutch (Studies in Natural Language and Linguistic Theory) (Hardcover)

2008-07-30T01:33:00.000-07:00

Description
Morphosyntax of Verb Movement discusses the phenomenon of Dutch, present in many Germanic languages, that the finite verb is fronted in main clauses but not in embedded clauses. The theoretical framework adopted is the so-called Minimalist Program of Chomsky (1995), the latest developmental stage of generative grammar. Taking issue with previous analyses, the author argues that phrase structure in Dutch is uniformly head initial, and that the finite verb moves to different positions in subject initial main clauses and in inversion constructions.
The book contains lucid and detailed discussion of many theoretical issues in connection with the Minimalist Program, such as the relation between syntax and morphology, the nature of syntactic licensing, and the structure of the functional domain. At the same time, it offers a survey of the properties of Dutch syntax, a discussion of previous analyses of Dutch syntax and a wealth of material from dialects of Dutch and other Germanic languages.

- Nuuchahnulth (Nootka) Morphosyntax (Paperback)

2008-07-30T01:31:00.000-07:00

Description
This volume describes aspects of word- and sentence-formation in Nuuchahnulth (formerly known as Nootka), a language spoken on the west coast of Vancouver Island, British Columbia, Canada. Aspects included are polysynthetic word formation, word classes, and clause structure. The morphosyntactic regularities are examined in the context of general structural characteristics of the language in an attempt to contribute to the language an internally and typologically accurate understanding of Nuuchahnulth morphosyntactic structures.

- Roots and Patterns: Hebrew Morpho-syntax (Studies in Natural Language and Linguistic Theory) (Paperback)

2008-07-30T01:28:00.000-07:00

Description

This book is simultaneously a theoretical study in morphosyntax and an in-depth empirical study of Hebrew. Based on Hebrew data, the book defends the status of the root as a lexical and phonological unit and argues that roots, rather than verbs or nouns, are the primitives of word formation. A central claim made throughout the book is the role of locality in word formation, teasing apart word formation from roots and word formation from existing words syntactically, semantically and phonologically.

The book focuses on Hebrew, a language with rich verb morphology, where both roots and noun- and verb-creating morphology are morphologically transparent. The study of Hebrew verbs is based on a corpus of all Hebrew verb-creating roots, offering, for the first time, a survey of the full array of morpho-syntactic forms seen in the Hebrew verb.

While the focus of this study is on how roots function in word-formation, a central chapter studies the information encoded by the Hebrew root, arguing for a special kind of open-ended value, bounded within the classes of meaning analyzed by lexical semanticists.

The book is of wide interest to students of many branches of linguistics, including morphology, syntax and lexical semantics, as well as of to students Semitic languages.

Balkan Sprachbund Morpho-Syntactic Features (Studies in Natural Language and Linguistic Theory)

2008-07-21T03:24:00.000-07:00

Description

This book discusses the morpho-syntactic Balkan Sprachbund features in nine languages in which they are most numerous. It contains a wealth of Balkan linguistic material, collected from both the existing literature sources and from the authors own field work. Rather than making parallel lists of convergent phenomena, the author focuses on displaying similarities and differences in the representation of the most widely acknowledged Balkan Sprachbund morpho-syntactic features and their interaction with other features in the structure of the DP or the sentence of individual languages. The book stands at the intersection of traditional and formal linguistics. The use of a minimally technical terminology allows for a cross-framework accessibility of the data.

The book will be of interest to researchers and students working in the fields of comparative linguistics and Macedonian, Bulgarian, Serbo-Croatian, Romanian, Megle-no-Romanian, Aromanian, Albanian, Modern Greek and Balkan Romani languages.

Morphosyntactic Issues in Second Language Acquisition (Hardcover)

2008-07-21T03:22:00.000-07:00

Description
This volume presents a selection of second language acquisition studies at the level of morphosyntax. It looks at different aspects of morphosyntactic development of bilingual language learners/users such as language transfer, syntactic processing, morphology and the pragmatics of language among others. The studies report on projects carried out in different language contact contexts, ranging from: English, German, Polish, Greek and Turkish. The volume also includes those studies which show the interface between research findings and pedagogy of foreign language teaching.

Morphosyntactic Expression in Functional Grammar (Functional Grammar Series) (Functional Grammar Series)

2008-07-21T03:20:00.001-07:00

Description
Morphological and syntactic issues have received relatively little attention in Functional Grammar, due to the fact that this grammatical model, given its functional orientation, was primarily concerned with developing its pragmatic and semantic components. Now that these have been solidly developed, this book turns to the further development of the syntactic and morphological components of the model. Two recent developments receive pride of place: Bakker's Dynamic Expression Model and Hengeveld and Mackenzie's Functional Discourse Grammar. The first model aims at accounting for the complex interactions that one finds in many languages between the sets of expression rules that have to account for form on the one hand and those that establish order on the other. The second model takes a further step by considering morphosyntactic and phonological representations to be part of the underlying structure of the grammar rather than as the output of that grammar, contrary to the original assumptions in FG. The book accordingly contains synopses of these two proposals as well as applications of these to a variety of linguistic phenomena. Further articles provide detailed analyses of a range of semantic and pragmatic categories and their morphosyntactic expression in a wide variety of languages. The articles in this book contain data on some 60 different languages, including focused articles on phenomena in Arabic, Danish, English, Lengua de Señas Española, Mapudungun, Plains Cree, and Tanggu. In all, the contributions to this volume show that the issue of morphosyntactic expression in Functional Grammar is very much alive and moving into promising new directions, while at the same time contributing to a better understanding of a large number of morphosyntactic phenomena in a wide variety of languages.

Morphosyntactic Persistence in Spoken English: A Corpus Study at the Intersection of Variationist Sociolinguistics, Psycholinguistics, and ..........

2008-07-21T03:17:00.001-07:00

Description
Language users are creatures of habit with a tendency to re-use morphosyntactic material that they have produced or heard before. In other words, linguistic patterns and tokens, once used, persist in discourse. The present book is the first large-scale corpus analysis to explore the determinants of this persistence, drawing on regression analyses of a variety of functional, discourse-functional, cognitive, psycholinguistic, and external factors. The case studies investigated include the alternation between synthetic and analytic comparatives, between the s-genitive and the of-genitive, between gerundial and infinitival complementation, particle placement, and future marker choice in a number of corpora sampling different spoken registers and geographical varieties of English. Providing a probabilistic framework for examining the ways in which persistence - among several other internal and external factors - influences speakers' linguistic choices, the book departs from most writings in the field in that it seeks to bridge several research traditions. While it is concerned, in a classically variationist spirit, with internal and external determinants of grammatical variation in English, it also draws heavily on ideas and evidence developed by psycholinguists and discourse analysts. In seeking to construct a comprehensive model of how speakers make linguistic choices, the study ultimately contributes to a theory of how spoken language works. The book is of interest to graduate students and researchers in variationist sociolinguistics, probabilistic linguistics, psycholinguistics, and computational linguistics.

Variation and Morphosyntactic Change in Greek: From Clitics to Affixes (Palgrave Studies in Language History and Language Change) (Hardcover)

2008-07-21T03:15:00.000-07:00

Description
This book deals with some of the major theoretical and descriptive concerns of the historical linguist. The author presents a variationist analysis of weak object pronoun placement in Greek during a transitional period of the language when these elements exhibited both clitic-like and affix-like behavior. The statistical analysis of the data, providing the first accurate description of the pattern of variation, is used in showing that existing accounts fall short of a full explanation. An alternative approach forces re-evaluation of the role of generalizations in linguistic explanation.

The present study deals with morphosyntactic variation in the late Middle English Paston letters.

2008-07-21T03:13:00.000-07:00

Editorial Reviews
Product Description
Olga Fischer presents a critical analysis of morphosyntactic change and the mechanisms that trigger it. She shows how changes in discourse, lexicon, semantics, pragmatics, and sound interact with changes in morphosyntax, and considers the interface between the internal and external factors of change. She reveals how rates and speed of change in morphosyntax can be used to explore the degree to which grammar is innate or learned. Her book will be of central interest and value to students of linguistic change, at graduate level and above.

About the Author

Olga Fischer is Professor of Germanic Linguistics at the University of Amsterdam, where her PhD thesis Syntactic Change and Causation: Developments in Infinitival Constructions in English was accepted in 1990. She is a contributor to the Cambridge History of the English Language (CUP 1992), co-author of The Syntax of Early English (CUP 2000), and co-editor of Form Miming Meaning and Pathways of Change (Benjamins 2000 and 2001).

Social Networks And Historical Sociolinguistics: Studies In Morphosyntactic Variation In The Paston Letters (1421-1503) (Topics in English Linguistics

2008-07-21T03:01:00.000-07:00

This is the first page of introduction.
The present study deals with morphosyntactic variation in the late Middle English Paston letters. The three central linguistic variables are the third person plural pronouns, relativization patterns, and light verb constructions. This study is basically couched in the framework of historical socio-linguistics, and in particular social networl analysis. .......

Parameters of Morphosyntactic Change

2008-07-21T02:56:00.000-07:00

Description
The relationship between changes in (inflectional) morphology and the consequences of these changes in syntax has been a perennial issue in historical linguistics. The contributors to this volume address the issue of how to model the phenomena of syntactic and morphological change within recent frameworks, including the Minimalist Programme. Topics addressed include the way categories like aspect and mood interact over time with the valency of verbs; the nature of changes in verb placement; the changing division of labor between different types of argument marking--case, word order, clitics, agreement. The volume contains chapters by many of the leading scholars in the field. There is a substantial introduction which reviews the development of ideas in generative historical syntax over the last fifteen years, and assesses the distinctive properties of the generative position. The volume will appeal to those working in theoretical syntax, and also to specialists in the history of German, French and the Romance and Germanic languages more broadly.

Roots and Patterns: Hebrew Morpho-syntax (Kindle Edition)

2008-07-18T21:24:00.000-07:00

Details

* Format: Kindle Edition
* Print Length: 286 pages
* Publisher: Springer; 1 edition (May 8, 2007)
* Sold by: Amazon Digital Services

The morpho-syntax of negation and the positions of NegP in the Finno-Ugric languages [An article from: Lingua] [HTML] (Digital)

2008-07-18T21:13:00.000-07:00

Product Description
This digital document is a journal article from Lingua, published by Elsevier in . The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Media Library immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Description:
This paper presents evidence for variation in the relative position of NegP within the IP complex from a single language family. Whereas previous studies of the position of NegP have relied on such data as word or affix order, or negative scope, this paper uses evidence from the syntactic interaction of bound and free morphemes to determine the position of NegP relative to TP. The data from the Finno-Ugric languages suggests that there are two sub-groups within this family: Mordva, Mari, Komi, Udmurt, and Livonian, in which NegP is generated below TP, and Finnish, Karelian, Ingrian, Vepsian, Votian, Estonian, and Saami, in wich NegP is generated above TP. Since it is commonly assumed that variation in languages should be restricted to the Lexicon, it is posited here that the variation in the position of NegP reflects language specific lexical features of Neg^0.

Describing Morphosyntax: A Guide for Field Linguists

2008-07-18T21:09:00.000-07:00

Even though this book is intended for linguists doing fieldwork, it is an absolute must for those who create languages for fun. Why? Well, the purpose of the book is to teach a fieldworker how to write a descriptive grammar for the language s/he's working on. It points out everything that should be recorded, and gives examples of different phenomena from different languages. Well, guess what? A language creator is essentially a fieldworker working on an undiscovered language: his/her own. This book will guide a language creator in creating a grammar of his/her own language, and, when you get stuck, it's always helpful to see how natural languages do things. As a language creator, I highly recommend this book to anyone who creates languages.

- The Answer Key of Morphosyntax Test 1

2008-06-15T20:25:00.000-07:00

A. Fill in the blanks with the correct answer.

1. go, goes, going and went are the ……word forms………. of the same lexeme GO.

2. There are ……13…..(how many) different lexemes in the sentence she has one house in Jakarta, two houses in Semarang, three houses in Surabaya and four houses in Magelang

3. An abstract unit realized by morphs is a/an ……morpheme……………

4. The sentence I’ve been in this air-conditioned room for thre hours has …....9…...orthographic
words.

5. Morphemes which change either part of speech or meaning are ……derivational……………
morphemes.

6. The underlined words in the sentence She has become a doctor and I become a doctor
are the different grammatical… words altgough they have the same form.

7. The inflectional morpheme in the sentence His happiness makes the girl sad is found
in the word …makes……

8. The morpheme which serves a purely grammatical function is called ……inflectional………
morpheme.

Morphosyntax Test 1

2008-06-11T01:31:00.000-07:00

A. Fill in the blanks with the correct answer.
1. go, goes, going and went are the …….........………. of the same lexeme GO.

2. There are ……....…..(how many) different lexemes in the sentence she has one house in
Jakarta, two houses in Semarang, three houses in Surabaya and four houses in Magelang

3. An abstract unit realized by morphs is a/an …........…………

4. The sentence I’ve been in this air-conditioned room for thre hours has …........…...orthographic
words.

5. Morphemes which change either part of speech or meaning are …............…………
morphemes.

6. The underlined words in the sentence She has become a doctor and I become a doctor are
the different .................... words altgough they have the same form.

7. The inflectional morpheme in the sentence His happiness makes the girl sad is found in the
word......................

8. The morpheme which serves a purely grammatical function is called …...........……… morpheme.

Past Tense Morpheme

2008-03-28T05:42:00.001-07:00

In English, The most popular past tense morpheme is indicated by the suffix –ed added to regular verbs. That is why this past tense morpheme is often called morpheme –ed. In reality, this past tense morpheme has three phonetically conditioned variants or allomorphs [t], [d], and [id]. It means that the morpheme {-ed} can be pronounced [t], [d] or [id] depending on the final phone of the base attached by this morpheme. The following are the examples of the irregular verbs which contain the suffix –ed.

Verb     {-ed}   Inflection Result    Phone
Cook     -ed      cooked                     [ t ]
Stop      -ed      stopped                   [ t ]
Wash    -ed      washed                    [ d ]
Watch   -ed      watched                  [ d ]
Wait     -ed      waited                    [ id ]
Want    -ed      wanted                   [ id ]
Divide   -ed      divided                  [ id ]

The past tense morpheme ( morpheme –ed) also occurs irregularly. It means that this past tense morpheme (morpheme –ed) is not represented by the suffix –ed. This morpheme occurs with the particular verbs called irregular verbs. These variants of past tense morpheme are said to be lexically conditioned. The examples of irregular verbs which contain the past tense morpheme are as follows:

Verb      {-ed}       Inflection Result
am, is     -ed          was
are         -ed           were
break     -ed           broke
bring      -ed           brought
buy        -ed           bought
catch     -ed            caught
do         -ed           did
go         -ed            went
put       -ed            put
teach     -ed           taught

In English sentence the past tense morpheme is used to show the past event or condition. Therefore the adverbs of time showing past time such as yesterday, last week, two years ago, and in 1999 are related to the past tense morpheme. Look at the examples :

(17) My mother cooked yesterday.
(18) She came here two days ago.
(19) She worked in Jakarta last year.

Present Tense Morpheme

2008-03-28T05:37:00.000-07:00

Inflectional morpheme plays an important role in English present tense. In English, inflectional morpheme is needed as present tense marker with particular subject. The singular noun, the third singular personal pronoun and uncountable noun as subject need the verbs with present tense morpheme. The form of present tense morpheme in this case is the suffix –s. Look at the examples below:

(14) My mother sweeps the floor.
        My father works in a bank.
        My teacher comes on time.
        She/he speaks English fluently.

(15) My teachers never come late.
        My friends watch TV every night.
        The girls study in a university.

(16) *My mother sweep the floor.
        *My father work in a bank.
        *My teacher come on time.
        *She/he speak English fluently.

        *My teachers never comes late.
        *My friends watches TV every night.
        *The girls studies in a university.

All the verbs in sentences (14) namely sweeps, works, comes and speaks contain inflectional morpheme –s added in the final position (suffix) because the subjects are singular noun or the third person singular. Inflectional morpheme –s (the suffix –s) is not needed for the plural noun subjects. This is shown in examples (15). The sentences in example (16) are not grammatically correct because of the omission of inflectional morpheme –s and the misplacement of the inflectional morpheme –s.

English Morphosyntactic Structure of Plural Morpheme

2008-03-19T02:39:00.000-07:00

baby + -s --> babies [beibiz]
bag + -s--> bags [bægz]
book + -s--> books [buks]
box + -s--> boxes [boksiz]
cat + -s--> cats [kæts]
dog + -s--> dogs [dogz]

These plural morphological forms will determine the arrangement of syntactic structure. In sentence level, the subject must agree with the verb. Look at the examples below:

(1) The book is on the table.
(2) The books are on the table.

(3) The student is in the class.
(4) The students are in the class.

(5) The man is in my room.
(6) The men are in my room.

(7) The student walks to school.
(8) The students walk to school.

(9) The woman goes to the market.
(10) The women go to the market.

The examples above show that in present tense, to be which is suitable with the plural morphemes added to the noun is are like in sentence (2), (4), and (6). In sentence (8) and (10), the plural morpheme {-s} need the verb form without inflectional morpheme. Inflectional morpheme {-s} to show present tense is needed in the sentence whose subject is singular or uncountable noun.

In Phrase level some determiners must agree with the plural morpheme. Look at the following examples.

(11)
this student
that student
a student

(12)
these students
those students
several students
many students
a lot of students
a few students

(13)
*this students
*that students
*these student
*those student

In example (11) the determiners this and that need singular noun. The morpheme {-s} is adde in the noun after the determiners these, those, several, many, a lot of, and a few like in example (12). The phrases in (13) are not grammatically correct.

Noun Clause

2007-12-08T01:22:00.000-08:00

Noun Clause (NCL) is a dependent clause which functions as a noun. The position of a noun clause in a sentence is the same as that of noun or noun phrase. Noun clause can become the subject, object, or complement of a sentence.

(Noun Clause adalah jenis dependent clause yang berfungsi sebagai Noun (kata benda). Posisi noun clause dalam kalimat sama dengan fungsi noun atau noun phrase; yaitu bisa sebagai subject, object, atau complement suatu kalimat.

Look at the examples below:

1. What you do is true. (NCL as a subject)
2. That she can speak many languages is a fact. (NCL as a subject)
3. I know what you do every night.(NCL as an object)
4. She knows that you love her. (NCL as an object)
5. This is what you want. (NCL as a complement)

Adjective Clause

2007-09-29T01:40:00.000-07:00

Adjective Clause is a dependent clause which functions an adjective, which modifies noun. The subordinating conjunctions used in adjective clause are that, who, whom, which, where and when. Look at the examples below. The italic clauses are adjective clauses.

1. The man who is standing there is my father.
2. I know the man whom you love.
3. The book which is on the table is mine.
4. Yogyakarta is the city where I was born.
5. Sunday is the day when I met her.
6. She met the woman that you met.
7. The book that you are reading is good.
8. Th student that is from China can speak English fluently.

Simple Sentence

2007-09-03T23:17:00.001-07:00

Simple sentence is a sentence which has one independent clause ( one subject and one predicate or one construction of S V)). An Independent clause is a clause which can stand alone as a sentence. The examples of simple sentence is as follows:

1. I am a teacher.
2. The young beautiful girl studies in Ahmad Dahlan University in Yogyakarta.
3. My father bought a new car last month.
4. The teacher looks tired.
5. They are watching TV.

Phrase

2007-09-03T23:13:00.000-07:00

A phrase is a group of words without finite verb (verb as predicate of sentence). A phrase at least consists of two words. It has one word as a head (core) word. The kinds of phrases are noun phrase, adjective phrase. verb phrase, adverb phrase, gerund phrase, and past participle phrase

Noun Phrase

2007-09-03T01:49:00.000-07:00

Noun Phrase is a phrase which has a noun as a head (core) word with one or more modifiers. In English noun phrase, modifiers can come before or after the head word. Modifiers which come before the head word are called pre modifiers, while those which come after the head word are called post modifiers. The examples of noun phrases are as follows:

1. a book
2. a good book
3. a good book on the table
4. the woman
5. the young woman
6. the young beautiful woman
7. the young beautiful Javanese woman
8. the young beautiful Javanese woman living near my house

Compound Sentence

2007-09-03T01:32:00.000-07:00

Compound sentence is a se sentence which has two independent clauses related by a coordinating conjunction. The common coordinating conjunctions are and, or and but. Look at the examples below:

1. My father is in Japan now and he works in a bank there.
2. I was sick yesterday but I came to the meeting.
3. You must study hard or you will fail the examination.

Morphological Structure

2007-09-03T01:31:00.000-07:00

The domain of morphology is words. How words are formed is the concern of this field so morphological structure is the structure which consists of the elements to form words. The most common word formation in language including English is affixation. Affixation is the process of word formation by adding the affixes or bound morphemes in bases or roots (free morphemes). In other words morphological structure is the structure or forms of words primarily through the use of morpheme construct (Crystal, 1980: 232).
Morpheme is defined as the smallest meaningful unit of language (Lim Kiat Boey, 1975 : 37). Morphemes can be divided into two namely free morphemes and bound morphemes. Morphemes are the components which build words. The word singers, for example, consists of three meaningful units or morphemes, sing, –er, and –s. The morpheme sing which forms the word singers has the lexical meaning; the morpheme –er means the doer of singing; the morpheme –s has plural meaning. We can identify the meaning of the morpheme sing although it stands alone but we cannot identify the meaning of morphemes –er and –s in isolation. We can identify the meaning of the morpheme –er and –s after they combine to the morpheme sing. Sing which can meaningfully stand alone is called free morpheme while the morphemes such as –er and –s, which cannot meaningfully stand alone are called bound morphemes. Bound morphemes must be attached to free morphemes. Bound morphemes are also called affixes which can be classified into prefix, infix, and suffix. English only has two kinds of bound morphemes namely prefixes and suffixes. No infixes exist in English. Bound morphemes are classified into two types namely derivational and inflectional morphemes. Both inflectional and derivational morphemes play an important role in the larger structure namely syntactic structure.

Complex Sentence

2007-09-03T01:27:00.000-07:00

Complex Sentence is a sentence which consists of one independent clause and one or more dependent clause. The dependent clause is also called sub clause. The independent clause is connected by subordintaing conjubction or subordinator. The dependent clause can be noun clause, adjective clause or adverbial clause. The examples of complex sentences are as follows:

01. I know what you mean.
02. What you are reading is important.
03. The man who teaches English is from Australia.
04. Sally did not come to the meeting because he was sick.
05. They were watching TV when their father came in to their room.

Clause

2007-09-03T01:23:00.001-07:00

Clause is a group of words which has a subject and verb (predicate). A sentence may have one or more clause. Clause can be divided into two, independent clause and dependent clause. An independent clasuse is a clause which can stand alone as a sentence, while dependent clause is a clause which cannot stand alone as a sentence. it is always attached to independent clause.

Clause

2007-09-03T01:23:00.000-07:00

Clause is a group of words which has a subject and verb (predicate). A sentence may have one or more clause. Clause can be divided into two, independent clasue and dependent clause. An independent clasue is a clause which can stand alone as a sentence, while dependent clause is a clause which cannot stand alone as a sentence. it is always attached to independent clause.