Lesson 1 - Words

Morphemes

The building blocks of English words are morphemes, the smallest units of meaning in a language. It can be a single alphabetic letter or a combination of letters. Sometimes a morpheme can be a word itself, but commonly it is attached as part of a word. Some attached morphemes are explicitly for grammatical purposes, as presented in the table below.

An affix stands for a prefix or a suffix. These morphemes are to be attached, respectively, to the beginning and to the end of a word to form another word. The following table shows some words thus formed:

Nouns

Nouns describe persons, places, or things in general, and can be classified into: proper nouns, common nouns, collective nouns, and abstract nouns.

• Proper nouns - Names of persons, places, or things, indicated by capitalized first letters; for example, David (person), Shanghai (place), World Cup (event).
• Common nouns - a general person, place, or thing, which can be countable (for example, friend) or not (for example, water).
• Collective nouns - a collection of persons, places, or things, taken as a whole; for example, family, army.
• Abstract nouns - used to describe concepts; for example, health, peace.

Nouns change their appearance according to number category (singular vs. plural). "Singular" refers to a single instance of the noun, whereas "plural" refers to multiple instances of the same noun. Regular countable common nouns follow particular rules switching from singular to plural form:

Irregular countable common nouns follow their own rules, not listed above:

or do not change their form at all:

Nouns also change their form for the possessive case, i.e., indicating possession by the noun, as follows:

The comma-like sign placed at the upper right hand corner of a noun to denote possessive case is referred to as“apostrophe”. Because the possessive nouns can act as adjectives to modify nouns, they are also called possessive adjectives. Inanimate nouns also use the same morphemes to make possessive nouns, for example:

• tomorrow's weather
• a day's wage
• a week's delay

Pronouns

The prefix pro- in pronoun means “substituting for” or "on behalf of" in Latin. So, a pronoun is used as a substitute for a noun. Hence, any pronoun does not have any definitive meaning. It acquires its definitive meaning from its “antecedent”, which is the noun that has been mentioned before. Accordingly, a pronoun used must agree with its antecedent in person, number, and gender.

Pronouns can be classified into: personal pronouns, demonstrative pronouns, interrogative pronouns, relative pronouns, and indefinite pronouns.

Personal pronouns

Person is defined as follows:

• 1^st person denotes the speaker or writer or people he/she represents.
• 2^nd person denotes the person or persons being addressed.
• 3^rd person denotes the person(s) or thing(s) spoken or written about.

The 1^st person and 2^nd person pronouns do not differ in gender because their genders depend on their antecedents and are known to both the listener and the speaker. Only the 3^rd person singular pronouns need to be gender-specific. Some examples:

• "The child said that he was hungry." The 3^rd person masculine pronoun "he" in the subordinate noun clause is used to indicate "child", the antecedent, is a boy.
• "The girl said he was hungry." The 3^rd person masculine pronoun "he" in the subordinate noun clause indicates that some male person was hungry. In other words, the girl was not hungry.
• "Mary told John that the teacher wanted to talk to her/him/them." In this sentence, there are three pronouns, (a) her, (b) him, and (c) them. A different choice will imply a different meaning.

(a) If the female personal pronoun "her" is used, Mary is the person the teacher wanted to talk to.

(b) If the male personal pronoun "him" is used, John is the person the teacher wanted to talk to.

(c) If the plural personal pronoun "them" is used, then the teacher wanted to talk to both of them.

These examples show the importance of agreement in gender and number between personal pronouns and their antecedents.

Subjective case pronouns can only be used as the subject of a sentence, and objective case pronouns can only be used as the object of a verb or a preposition. For instance, in the following three sentences:

(1) "I saw John yesterday." The subjective case 1^st person pronoun “I” denotes the speaker, so no antecedent is needed.

(2) "He said hello to you." The subjective case pronoun “he” functions as the subject element of the sentence refers to John.

(3) "I have invited him to join us." The antecedent of the objective case pronoun “him” that functions as direct object element is John. The plural first-person pronoun “us” functions as the object in the infinitive phrase “to join us”. The antecedent of the plural objective case pronoun us is John and the speaker.

The possessive pronouns are used to express possession or ownership. Possessive pronouns have two types: (a) and (b).

Except the 3^rd person singular possessive nouns “his” and “its”, the two types of possessive pronouns are different.

Type (a) possessive pronouns are like adjectives, so they can be placed in front of nouns to modify them as adjectives. The difference is that, as pronouns, they need to have antecedents or a mutually understood entity.

Type (b) possessive pronouns are pronouns but not adjectives. Hence, they are only used in place of nouns that have already been mentioned. Some examples:

• "This is your book." Type (a) possessive pronoun “your” is placed in front of the noun “book” like an adjective, and it is understood to be the person being addressed.
• "Mine is on the desk." The Type (b) possessive pronoun, “mine” is used as a substitute for the noun phrase "my book", therefore, it does not need a noun before or after it. It functions as the subject element of the sentence.
• "The book on the desk is mine." This sentence has the same meaning as the sentence above. Again, “mine” is used as a substitute for the noun phrase “my book”, and as the subject complement of the sentence.

Demonstrative pronouns

There are four demonstrative pronouns: this, these, that, those. The first two denote persons or things near in distance and time, while the remaining two denote persons or things far in distance and time. These four demonstrative pronouns are also used as determiners used in noun phrases.

Interrogative pronouns

The interrogative pronouns who, whom, what, where, when and which are placed at the beginning of interrogative sentences, which are referred to as W-word questions. They are called W-words because they all contain the letter “w” in them. They represent the answer sought by the questions. They are referred to as pronouns because they stand for the nominal answers sought by W-word questions.

Relative pronouns

The relative pronouns who, whom, whose, which, when, where, why, how are used as subordinate conjunctions in relative clauses in complex sentences.

Indefinite pronouns

These pronouns, such as some, any, someone, anyone, one, all, none, another, several, many, much, and few, are used as pre-modifiers in noun phrases.

Adjectives

Adjectives are used to modify nouns. To modify a noun means to qualify or limit the meaning of the noun. They usually precede the nouns.

Many adjectives end in suffixes such as –al, -able, -ous, -er, and –est. Some examples: a practical method, a reasonable request, a delicious dinner, an older person, the oldest son. By adding the suffixes -ful and -less, adjectives and their antonyms may be formed from nouns denoting their obvious presence or absence, respectively.

It should be noted that, when the noun ends in y, it is changed to an adjective by changing y to i before adding a suffix. The adjective “pitiful” is such an example. These adjectives usually appear in front of the nouns they modify. In the case of indefinite pronouns, such as “someone, something, anyone, anything, and nothing”, the modifying adjectives are placed after them, e.g., someone new, something borrowed.

The reason why definite article “the” is used with the superlative degree is because the noun being modified is unique, i.e., the one and only one.

The adverbs more and most can also be used to show the comparative and superlative degrees:

Finally, some adjectives do not follow any of the rules above:

Verbs

There are two types of verbs: A. Main Verbs and B. Auxiliary Verbs.

Main verbs (also called lexical verbs)

Every English sentence must have a main verb. The main verb determines the basic structure pattern of sentences. There are three types of main verbs.

• Linking verbs - as the name suggests, a linking verb links the subject of a sentence to its complement that completes the meaning of a sentence. It is used to relate to the identity, nature, or state of being of person(s) or thing(s) concerned. Example: "John is very happy." In this sentence, “is” is the linking verb. It links the subject “John” to its complement "very happy." The sentence tells the reader the state of being of the person called "John".
• Transitive verbs - a transitive verb, such as do, have, find, keep, like, read, or make, must have an object in the sentence. Example: "He reads newspapers every day." The noun “newspapers” is the direct object of the transitive verb “read”. Note: if the object is omitted, the meaning of the sentence becomes either incomplete or different. For instance, the sentence “He reads every day” implies “he has a habit of reading”.
• Intransitive verbs - an intransitive verb, such as fall, go, come, happen, rise, or wait, cannot have any object in a sentence. Example: "The sun rises in the morning." The third-person singular present-tense verb “rise” in this sentence is an intransitive verb, so there is no object in the sentence.

Auxiliary verbs (also called helping verbs)

An auxiliary verb is used to help a main verb that follows to indicate tense, aspect and voice. There are two types of auxiliary verbs:

• Primary auxiliary verbs - the three primary auxiliary verbs are: be, have, and do. It should be noted that they can also function as main verbs. Their uses as main verbs and as auxiliary verbs are entirely different.
• Modal auxiliary verbs - the number of modal auxiliary verbs is limited. They include can, could, will, would, may, might, should and must. They are used to express intention, certainty or likelihood of action or situation.

Forms of verbs

English main verbs conjugate with respect to person, number, tense and aspect. In general, a main verb has five forms:

1. base form
2. s-form (simple present tense 3^rd person singular form)
3. past tense
4. present participle
5. past participle

It should be noted that, though the present participle and past participle are taken to be forms of main verb, ironically, they themselves cannot function or as a verb element in sentences.

The main verbs can be classified as: (a) regular verbs and (b) irregular verbs, based on how they change forms.

Regular verbs change from their base form to other forms by rules given below:

• Rules for changing from base form (1) to s-form (2) are shown in the following table.

• Rules for changing from base form (1) to past tense (3) and past participle (5) are shown in the following table. The past tense and past participle of regular verbs are identical.

• Rules for changing from base form (1) to present participle (4) are shown in the following table.

The following are examples of the five forms of some regular verbs:

Irregular verbs change from their base form (1) to s-form (2) and present participle (4) in the same way as regular verbs. So, the difference between them is only in the way they change from their base forms to their past tense (3) and past participles (5). Not only they do not seem to follow any rules but some verbs do not change forms at all.

Unlike main verbs and primary auxiliary verbs, modal auxiliary verbs do not vary with person or number and have only two forms: base form and past tense.

Adverbs

Adverbs are used to modify verbs, adjectives, or other adverbs. Most adverbs can be obtained from adjectives by attaching the suffix –ly. very is another common adverb that modifies adjectives and other adverbs. Some examples:

• "He finished his homework quickly." In this sentence, the adverb quickly modifies the past tense verb “finished”.
• "The reaction was very quick." In this sentence, the adverb “very” modifies the adjective “quick”.
• "All the patients recovered very quickly." In this sentence, the adverb “very” modifies another adverb “quickly” to form an adverb phrase used to modify the verb “recovered”.

Conjunctions

Conjunctions are words used to join words, phrases, clauses, or sentences. There are two types of conjunctions:

• Coordinative conjunctions - used to join syntactic structures of the same rank in a sentence, such as words, phrases, and clauses. There are seven well-known coordinate conjunctions, for, and, nor, but, or, yet, and so. The first letters of these seven coordinate conjunctions form the acronym FANBOYS.
• Subordinate conjunctions - join subordinate (dependent) clauses to main (independent) clauses to form complex sentences. A subordinate clause can be a noun clause, adjective clause, or adverb clause, according to the part of speech that the clause serves as.

Prepositions

A preposition is a word that is placed in front of a noun (object) to describe its relation to other words in a sentence. A preposition is used as part of a phrase such as "in the box" or "after the fact".

Interjections

Interjections are words which convey emotion without any meaning, such as oh, ah. They are used as standalone words rather than as a necessary part of any sentence.

Articles

The three articles, a, an and the, together with possessive pronouns, demonstrative pronouns, indefinite pronouns, and numbers, belong to the group of words known as determiners. Determiners, as we will see, are used to limit the scope of nouns. In the case of the articles, there is a very important and unique rule in the English language. It is:

In front of a singular common noun, whether there are other modifiers such as a possessive pronoun, demonstrative, indefinite pronoun, or numeral or not, there must be an article a, an, or the in front of it.

That is to say, a singular common noun has to be used together with an article unless there is a suitable determiner to take its place.

To illustrate how articles and determiners should be used, two singular common noun “teacher” and “job” are arbitrarily picked. First, let us consider the following are three incorrect sentences:

1. Teacher has a difficult job.

2. A teacher has difficult job.

3. Teacher has difficult job.

These sentences are incorrect because, as sated above, singular common nouns need to have an article preceding them according to the rule above.

Accordingly, the correct sentences are:

One-of-a-kind entities go with a definite article the, such as the sun, the Pacific Ocean, the middle class, the United States.

There are three articles in English: two indefinite articles (a, an) and one definite article (the). It is also known that the definite article “the” can be pronounced in two different ways, thǝ (schwa ǝ) and thē (long e). Therefore, we have, practically speaking, four articles, a, an, thǝ and thē. Thus, they form two pairs:

Pair (1): an indefinite article “a” and a definite article “thē”.

Pair (2): an indefinite article “an” and a definite article “thǝ”

The rule above does say that “in front of a singular common noun there must be an article”. However, the rule does not say the needed article has to be immediately preceding the noun. In front of a singular common noun, there are usually pre-modifiers (such as adjectives). Hence,

· If there are not any pre-modifiers in front of the noun, the choice of the needed article does

depend upon the definiteness or indefiniteness of the noun itself.

· If there are pre-modifiers in front of the noun, the choice of the needed article does not

depend upon the definiteness or indefiniteness of the noun, but depends upon the beginning

sound of the pre-modifier in front of the noun.

Please note that it is the “beginning sound” of the pre-modifier in front of the noun, but not the “spelling”.

The following rules explain how the choice is made:

Note：The long vowel sound u is taken care of by Pair (1) articles among the five long vowels. For the other four long vowel sounds, either “an” or “thē” of Pair (2), is used.

Note: The long vowel u sound is in the above examples for because it is not relevant to Pair (2) articles.

*The consonant h in honor is mute. Hence, honor begins with a short vowel u sound.

**The consonant h in hour is mute. Hence, hour begins with the diphthong ou.

Nouns that require a definite article

Certain nouns are only associated with a definite article. Some examples:

Nouns that do not need articles

Some nouns do not require any article. They are italicized below.

Some singular common nouns (underlined) that customarily do not need articles are listed below:

· Means of transportation:

We’ll go by car to the zoo.

They went by bus.

· Seasons:

In spring, we like to clean the house.

· Special places:

We’re in church. We’re in class.

He must be at school.

Their daughter is in college.

· Meals:

Breakfast was delicious.

He’s preparing dinner by himself.

· Illness:

The patient had cancer.

· Time:

It’s time.

It’s about time.

It’s midnight.

(c) 2019 by Augustine C. Chen