-English has severe rules for combining words into phrases

Ex:

*boys the lucky *lucky boys the

-> article + adjective + noun noun + article + adjective

–Grammar: the process of describing the structure of phrases + sentences

-The terms “article” + “adjective” + “noun” that we use to label the grammatical categories of the words

–The collection of concepts about the structure of language that is commonly taught in schools

–Agreement means that the person, number, gender, voice, tense, case, etc. of the related verbs, subjects, predicates, and antecedents must be the same

• The category of number: the noun is singular/ plural

• The category of person: the distinctions of first person (relate to the speaker “I”) + second person ( relate to the hearer “you”) + third person (relate to any others “he, she, it”)

• The form of verbs must be described in terms of another category called tense (such as “loves” in the present tense, and “loved” in the past tense)

• #The active voice: the form of the verb used to say what the subject does (she performs the action of the verb)

• #The passive voice: the form of the verb to say what happens to the subject (she doesn’t perform the action)

• Our final category is gender, which helps us describe the agreement between Cathy and her in our example sentence 

• The category of gender:

–“Natural gender”: a biological distinction between male + female

The distinction made in Eng between reference to female entities (she, her), male (he, his), things/creatures, when the sex is unknown/ irrelevant (it, its)

#arbitrarity assigned: được chỉ định tùy ý

–Grammatical gender: is a way to categorize nouns

• Natural gender: is based on sex (male + female)

• Grammatical gender: is based on the type of noun (masculine + feminine) + is not tied (bị ràng buộc) to sex

• Nouns: are classified according to their gender class + articles + adjectives have diferent forms to “agree with” the noun’ gender

Ex:

–Spanish: has 2 grammatical genders, masculine +feminine, as in the expression el sol (“the sun”) + la luna (“the moon”)

–German: uses 3 genders, masculine der Mond (“the moon”), feminine die Sonne (“the sun”) + neuter das Feuer (“the fire”)

-The prescriptive approach: an approach of grammar that has rules for the proper use of a language, based on Latin grammar

-Some old-style prescriptive rules for Eng:

You must bot split an infinitive

You must not end a sentence with a preposition

Captain Kirk’s Infinitive

“to boldly go” –> a split infinitive

• The infinitive in English has the form to + the base form of the verb, as in to go, and can be used with an adverb such as boldly 

• At the beginning of each of the older televised Star Trek episodes, one of the main characters, Captain Kirk, always used the expression To boldly go … This is an example of a split infinitive. 

• If it is a typical feature of the use of English that speakers and writers regularly produce forms such as to boldly go, to solemnly swear or to never ever get back together, then we may simply wish to note that there are structures in English that differ from those found in Latin, rather than think of the English forms as “bad” because they don’t follow a rule of Latin gramma 

-The descriptive approach: the categories of traditional grammar did seem to fir these languages, a differ method 

–Structural analysis: to investigate the distribution of grammatical forms in a language

The method involves the use of“test frames”

The __cat/child___ makes a lot of noise.

I heard a ____cat/child____ yesterday.

However, there are many forms that do not fit those test-frames. Ex: Cathy, SO, the dog, a car + many others (it, the big dog, an old car,..) –> these forms require different test-frames:

_______________ makes a lot of noise.

I heard _________________ yesterday.

=>

–Pronouns are words used in place of noun phrases

-In English grammar, the rule of thumb is that the subject comes before the verb which comes before the object. 

• The use of word order patterns such as SVO or VOS to talk about different “types” of languages is part of a more general area of study known as language typology.

• This is the study of similarities in the grammatical structures of languages that allow them to be classified as members of the same type or group 

-In the Eng, there are severe rules for combining words in a specific order to create phrases + sentences.

1. Parts of Speech:

The: article

woman: noun

kept: verb

a: article

large: adjective

snake: noun

in: preposition

a: article

cage: noun

but: conjunction

it: pronoun

escaped: verb

recently: adverb

2. There are two adverbs in the sentence: really and slowly.

Tense and Voice: 

3. The verb were married is in the past tense and passive voice.

4. Difference between Grammatical Gender and Natural Gender:

Grammatical gender categorizes nouns as masculine, feminine, or neuter, regardless of biological sex (e.g., das Mädchen is neuter in German).

Natural gender is based on biological distinctions, referring to male or female entities (e.g., he for males, she for females).

5. Prescriptive Rules and Corrections:

(a) Error: "to fully explain" (split infinitive).

Correction: "to explain fully all the data."

(b) Error: Ending a sentence with a preposition. 

Correction: "the person to whom I gave the book."

6. Noun Phrases: There are three noun phrases in the sentence: Robert, a small puppy, and the party.

7. Older Definition of English Pronouns: 

 The older Latin-influenced definition described pronouns as "words used in place of nouns," which is inadequate because pronouns can replace entire noun phrases, not just individual nouns.

8. Grammatical Function of Proper Noun: 

The proper noun Berlin functions as the object of the preposition during in the sentence.

9. Language Type of Malagasy: 

Malagasy is primarily a VSO (Verb-Subject-Object) language.

10. Translations: 

(a) The small boy hit the black dog.

(b) The dog saw the big man.