Andrew Carnie - Syntax

GPS4. PREPOSITIONS

[Application of Skills; Basic]

Using the passage above in question 1, identify all the prepositions.

GPS5. PART OF SPEECH 1 13

[Application of Skills; Basic]

Identify the main parts of speech (i.e., Nouns, Verbs, Adjectives/Adverbs, and Prepositions) in the following sentences. Treat hyphenated words as single words:

1 The old rusty pot-belly stove has been replaced.

2 The red-haired assistant put the vital documents through the new efficient shredder.

3 The large evil leathery alligator complained to her aging keeper about her extremely unattractive description.

4 I just ate the last piece of chocolate cake.

GPS6. NOOTKA

[Application of Skills; Intermediate]

Consider the following data from Nootka (data from Sapir and Swadesh 1939), a language spoken in British Columbia, Canada, and answer the questions that follow.

a) Mamu:k-ma qu:ʔas-ʔi.

working-PRES man-DEF

“The man is working.”

b) Qu:ʔas-ma mamu:k-ʔi.

man-PRES working-DEF

“The working one is a man.”

(The: mark indicates a long vowel. ʔ is a glottal stop. PRES in the second line means “present tense”, DEF means “definite determiner” (the).)

Questions about Nootka :

1 In sentence a, is Qu :ʔ as functioning as a verb or a noun?

2 In sentence a, is Mamu:k functioning as a verb or a noun?

3 In sentence b, is Qu :ʔ as a verb or a noun?

4 In sentence b, is Mamu:k a verb or a noun?

5 What criteria did you use to tell what is a noun in Nootka and what is a verb?

6 How does this data support the idea that there are no semantic criteria involved in determining the part of speech?

GPS7. GENDER NEUTRAL PRONOUNS

[Creative and Critical Thinking; Basic]

Most standard varieties of English don’t have a gender-neutral singular pronoun that can refer to humans (other than the very awkward “one”). There have been numerous attempts to introduce gender-neutral singular human pronouns into English. The following list is a subset of the ones found on John Chao’s gender-neutral pronoun FAQ: 14

ae, ar, co, e, em, ems, en, es, et, ey, fm, ha, hann, he’er, heesh, heir, hem, her’n, herim, herm, hes, hesh, heshe, hey, hez, hi, himer, hir, hirem, hires, hirm, his’er, his’n, hisher, hizer, ho, hom, hse, hymer, im, ip, ir, iro, jhe, le, lem, na, ne, ner, nim, on, per, po, rim, s/he, sap, se, sem, ser, sheehy, shem, shey, shim, sie, sim, ta, tem, term, tey, thim, thon, uh, ve, vim, vir, vis, xe, z, ze, zie, zim, zir .

None of these have caught on. Instead, the otherwise plural they/them/their/themselves is usually felt to be more natural by native speakers. Why have the above forms not caught on, but instead we have co-opted a plural pronoun for this usage?

GPS8. FUNCTIONAL CATEGORIES

[Application of Skills; Basic]

The following is an extract from the preface to Captain Grose’s Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue (1811) (from the open source Gutenberg project):

The propriety of introducing the university slang will be readily admitted; it is not less curious than that of the College in the Old Bailey, and is less generally understood. When the number and accuracy of our additions are compared with the price of the volume, we have no doubt that its editors will meet with the encouragement that is due to learning, modesty, and virtue.

For every word in this paragraph identify its part of speech, and mark whether each part of speech is a lexical or functional part of speech and whether the part of speech is open or closed.

GPS9. FUNCTIONAL CATEGORIES

[Creative and Critical Thinking; Intermediate]

Interjections are functional items, in that they express a grammatical notion (such as the speaker’s agreement or attitude with respect to the thing being said), but are they closed class? Is it possible to make up new interjections?

GPS10. PART OF SPEECH 2

[Application of Skills; Intermediate]

Consider the following selection from Jabberwocky , a poem by Lewis Carroll (From

Through the Looking-Glass and What Alice Found There , 1872):

’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;

All mimsy were the borogoves,

And the mome raths outgrabe.

“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!

The jaws that bite, the claws that catch! Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun

The frumious Bandersnatch!”

He took his vorpal sword in hand:

Long time the manxome foe he sought – So rested he by the Tumtum tree

And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood, The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,

Came whiffling through the tulgey wood, And burbled as it came.

For each underlined word, indicate its part of speech (word class), and for Ns, Vs, Adjs, and Advs, explain the distributional criteria by which you came up with that classification. If the item is a closed class part of speech, indicate that. Do not try to use a dictionary. Most of these words are nonsense words. You will need to figure out what part of speech they are according to what suffixes and prefixes they take, along with where they appear relative to other words.

GPS11. SUBCATEGORIES OF NOUNS

[Application of Knowledge; Basic]

For each of the nouns below put a + sign in the box under the features that they have. Note that some nouns might have a plus value for more than one feature. The first one is done for you. Do not mark the minus (–) values, or the values for which the word is not specified; mark onlythe plus values!

GPS12. SUBCATEGORIES OF VERBS

[Application of Knowledge; Intermediate]

For each of the verbs below, list whether it is intransitive, transitive or ditransitive and list which features it takes (see the list in (32) as an example). In some cases they may allow more than one feature (e.g., the verb eat is both [NP NP] and [NP]). Give an example for each feature:

spray, sleep, escape, throw, wipe, say, think, begrudge (or grudge), thank, pour, send, promise, kiss, arrive

CHALLENGE PROBLEM SETS

CPS1. -IAN AND -ISH

[Critical and Creative Thinking; Challenge]

In the text we claimed that the suffixes -ian and -ish mark adjectives. Consider the following sentences:

1 The Canadian government uses a parliamentary system of democracy.

2 The Canadian bought herself a barbeque.

3 The prudish linguist didn’t enjoy looking at the internet.

4 We keep those censored copies of the book hidden to protect the sensibilities of the prudish.