I. O. Macari, Morpho-syntax, Lecture 1 sem.

I, 2014

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1. Basic concepts

1.1. Language, linguistics and grammar
1.1.1. Language and linguistics
A theory book usually starts from the introduction of the subject English language, in this case
- and continues with the delimitation of the topic, that is, the area in linguistics covered by
morpho-syntax and the relationship between language linguistics grammar morpho-
syntax. For this, I will mainly draw upon the definitions provided by R. L. Trask, in Key
Concepts in Language and Linguistics, Sidney Greenbaum & Gerald Nelson, in An introduction
to English grammar and by Geoffrey Leech in A Glossary of English Grammar, but also upon
other authors such as R. A Close (1992), Brjars and Burridge (2010) and Daniel Kies (2012).
The relationship between linguistics and language can be assimilated to the relation between
any science and its object of study. Thus, the object of the linguistic science is language,
considered both individually as separate languages analyzed in turns and in general, in its
universal properties. Each approach and school of linguistics has developed research methods
and proposed assumptions intended to clarify the issues identified as central for the study of
natural language.
It is generally agreed that languages share a number of universal properties and every individual
language is a combination of these properties with a number of specific features it possesses. Some
linguistic schools study the universal properties of language, while others approach contrastively a
large range of languages, looking for similarities and differences between them. Nevertheless, these
are different means to the same end, since the ultimate goal of linguistics is the elucidation of the
human language faculty (called langage by Saussure). For this, linguists have usually found it
essential to distinguish between the abstract mental system of rules, principles and constraints which
are shared by speakers (called langue by Saussure and competence by Chomsky, though the terms
are not quite equivalent) and the real utterances produced by individual speakers on particular
occasions (Saussures parole, Chomskys performance) (Trask, 2005, p. 92).
The descriptive (as opposed to 'prescriptive') nature of linguistics means that linguists do not lay
down hard and fast rules about how to use a certain language, but rather concentrate on
describing the rules which (especially native) speakers seem to have internalized. (Companion to
English linguistics: Introduction to English Language and Linguistics Reader). Talking of rules
and rule violation we have got to touch upon the distinction between standard and non-
standard language, with many contemporary linguists promoting the idea that the job of the
linguist, like that of the biologist or the botanist, is not to tell us how nature should behave, or
what its creations should look like, but to describe those creations in all their messy glory and try
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to figure out what they can teach us about life, the world, and, especially in the case of
linguistics, the workings of the human mind. (www.goodreads.com)
This does not mean that people should completely give up usage standards; if so, one will no
longer prove his/her ability to recognize social contexts and to react to them properly.
Nevertheless, non-standard, or ungrammatical forms, when used in the appropriate
circumstances, are not necessarily the mark of poor education or of defective logic, but a sign of
socio-linguistic awareness.
Going further, Newson et al call what we have in our heads or, put differently, our linguistic
knowledge - a (finite) set of rules which tell us how to recognize the infinite number of
expressions that constitute the language that we speak (Newson 2006: 2). They propose to call
this set of rules a grammar, at the same time mentioning the line linguists draw between the
actual set of rules existing inside a speakers head from the linguists guess of what these rules
are. To these linguists, a grammar is a linguistic hypothesis [] and what is inside the speakers
head is language, i.e. the object of study for linguistics. (2006: 2) They also propose a
distinction between two notions of language []: the language which is internal to the mind,
call it I-language, which consists of a finite system and is what linguists try to model with
grammars; and the language which is external to the speaker, E-language, which is the infinite
set of expressions defined by the I-language that linguists take data from when formulating their
grammars (Newson 2006: 3).
1.1.2. Grammar
In David Crystals view, grammar is the structural foundation of our ability to express ourselves.
The more we are aware of how it works, the more we can monitor the meaning and effectiveness
of the way we and others use language. It can help foster precision, detect ambiguity, and exploit
the richness of expression available in English. (Crystal, In word and deed, 2004)
Irrespective of its number of subfields, most authors agree on the fact that grammar is primarily
concerned with the rules (not necessarily described or explicitly prescribed) that govern language
use. Close (1992: 1) went even further and, showing extraordinary insight, predicted the
necessity for the development of corpora to backup grammatical rules.
According to present-day thinking there are rules in English grammar that can be
accurately formulated from the observation and analysis of a large number of
examples of widely accepted educated usage. The rules so formulated can account
for the way in which competent users of the language produce original acceptable
utterances, sentences, speeches and written texts (1992: 1).
Actually, the term grammar itself is difficult to define and the subject matter difficult to
swallow, for that matter! because it is used sometimes to designate syntax, but also morpho-
syntax, or even the study of the whole system of language, quite like linguistics itself. However,
in an oversimplified approach, English grammar could be described as the whole set of rules
identified to form and understand language. It is chiefly a system of syntax that decides the
order and patterns in which words are arranged in sentences. The system works largely with the
help of what are called grammatical or structural words auxiliary verbs, determiners, pronouns,
prepositions and conjunctions. These words form a closed set, i.e. there is a fixed number of
them and new members are not admitted (Close 1992: 1)
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In this narrow sense grammar studies the rules governing the combination of smaller and larger units
of language which thus are able to carry more complex messages than the individual morpheme is.
Daniel Kies proposes an interesting model for the combinatory rules in language:
Grammar is about how units of language are sequenced, since quite obviously
language proceeds sequentially, linearly: in speech, one sound is uttered before
the next, one syllable before the next, one word before the next, and so on; in
writing, one word precedes the next, one phrase precedes the next, one clause
precedes the next, and so on. So at some point in the production (and the same is
true in the inverse for the perception) of language, humans must take all their
thoughts, requests, desires, and hopes that are relevant within a particular context
of situation and produce language that expresses those meanings and organizes
those ideas sequentially. The same is true in the inverse for the perception of
language (papyr.com).
The idea of grammar itself suggests the sequential arrangement of linguistic units, in which the
word is the fundamental building block of language, with special attention paid to the lexicon,
which contributes essentially to the understanding of the grammar of a language.
For Kies, understanding a paragraph, seen as an instance of language, is to take the steps any
linguist takes when studying the phenomena in language, including grammar:
observe the language data (by noticing the unusual words in their contexts),
collect pertinent facts (by noticing words placed near function words like the or of and by
noticing word endings like -s or -ing,),
make and test a hypothesis,
reach a conclusion.
In Kies opinion, understanding instances of language means understanding and using the
fundamental concepts of grammar: categories, constituency
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, and metafunctions. The concept of
category allows the linguist to perceive that certain features groups of words share place them in the
same word class so that they can consequently be labelled as nouns, verbs, adjectives etc.
Constituency allows the recognition of the fact that sequences of words may behave like function
units, so that subjects, verbals, objects, complements, adverbials and different types of phrases can be
delimited. Through metafunctions we recognize several additional facts about a paragraph
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.

1.2. Grammar and its subdivisions
Traditionally, the main subdivisions of the study of grammar are morphology and syntax, but,
due to the numerous borderline linguistic issues, it is difficult to always demarcate between
them. Such interactions between morphology and syntax show that there must be an interface
between the morphological and the syntactic levels. The term interface is used here to propose

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Constituency is discussed further in 2.2.1.
2
To understand more about grammar, we must now examine the grammatical constituents of language (categories),
how those constituents combine at different levels (constituency), and how those combinations of constituents can
create meaning (metafunction) (papyr.com/ hypertextbooks/grammar)
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the assumption that different kinds of information about linguistic units (in our case, words,
phrases, and clauses) can see each other.
Etymologically speaking, morphology studies the structure of words: morpho- (before vowels
morph-, word-forming element meaning "form, shape," from comb. form of Gk. morphe "form,
shape; beauty, outward appearance") and -logy (word-forming element meaning "a speaking,
discourse, treatise, doctrine, theory, science," from Gk. -logia (often via Fr. -logie or M.L. -
logia), from root of legein "to speak;" thus, "the character or deportment of one who speaks or
treats of (a certain subject);") (www.etymonline.com).
A simple definition is provided by Leech (2006), and it is useful especially when morphology
and syntax are approached in relation to one another. In his view, morphology is
the part of grammar (and lexicology) which analyses the structure of words.
Morphology is a relatively unimportant part of English grammar because English
words have relatively few inflections (that is changes in the form of a word
determined by its grammatical role). The suffixes of nouns (-s), verbs (-ed, -ing, -
s) and adjectives (-er, -est), leaving aside some marginal and irregular forms, make
up the total of English inflectional morphology. Inflectional morphology is
distinguished from derivational morphology, which deals with the formation of
words from other existing words, and belongs to lexicology rather than grammar.
However, derivational morphology is relevant to grammar because derivational
suffixes such as -ness (for nouns), -ful (for adjectives) and -ly (for adverbs) help us
to recognize the members of grammatical word classes. Morphology contrasts with
syntax (Leech 2006: 65-6).
From the etymology of the term syntax (from Gk. syntaxis "a putting together or in order, arrangement,
syntax," from stem of syntassein "put in order," from syn- "together" + tassein "arrange",
www.etymonline.com), one infers that this subfield is concerned with the grouping of words into larger
units of meaning such as phrases, clauses and sentences. Leech (2006) defines syntax as the part of
grammar which concerns the way words are combined into sentences and contrasts it with
morphology (the grammar of word structure). He notes that, because of the relative simplicity of
morphology, most of English grammar is concerned with syntax and that, for this reason, English
grammar and English syntax are often considered equivalent terms (2006: 110).
The following example convincingly illustrates the different approaches morphology and syntax
take on the same linguistic material: Mary wants to actress.
A sequence of correct words as the one above will actually become an ill-formed sentence,
unacceptable owing to an infringement on syntax (not on morphology). The sentence should
accordingly read: Mary wants to act.
In line with him, Kies proposes four sentences in order to illustrate the importance of words in
the description of grammar.
1. The water evaporated.
2. The dog evaporated.
3. The water evaporated quickly.
4. The water evaporated the dog.
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It becomes obvious that the word evaporate is restricted in its usage in quite specific ways, which make
sentences 2 and 4 correct in what regards clause pattern (SV) and (SVO), but incorrect according to the
rules of transitivity and co-occurrence with agent subjects for the verb to evaporate.
Hallidays four strata model illustrates what should be simultaneously considered in the analysis
of the production and perception of language, so that instances such as 2 and 4 above should be
avoided:
the context of the language situation,
meaning (semantics),
wording (grammar),
sound patterns (phonology and phonetics).
This is to say that grammar also studies the connection between content (meaning) and
expression (form), especially the meaning of syntactic constructions. Semantics ("science of
meaning in language," 1893, from Fr. smantique (1883); from Gk. semasia "signification,
meaning." www.etymonline.com) should then be admitted as another subclass of grammar, since
particular structures also posses meaning, without which their analysis would make no sense.
This part of grammar is known as semantics - the study of meaning without reference to
situation.
The choice of expression affected by attitudes is the concern of another branch of grammar,
namely pragmatics, which can be defined as the study of meaning with reference to situation.
Applied linguistics is an interdisciplinary language-related field of research that includes
language acquisition and teaching, literacy, discourse analysis, media studies, speech therapy,
workplace communication, translation studies, and a few others. Consequently, the academic
fields related to applied linguistics are linguistics, translatology, education, psychology,
sociology, political sciences, computer science, communication research, anthropology etc.
Registers are varieties of language associated with particular users, uses, and contexts. One of
the primary features of a register is the distinctive words and phrases used in it.
Idiolects are defined as varieties of language that are unique to individual persons and
manifested by the patterns of vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation that they use.
Bachman and Palmer (1996) connect these linguistic sub-domains to corresponding areas of
language knowledge and identify the following types:
A. Organizational knowledge (how utterances or sentences and texts are organized)
o Grammatical knowledge (how individual utterances or sentences are organized)
Knowledge of vocabulary
Knowledge of syntax
Knowledge of phonology/graphology
o Textual knowledge (how utterances or sentences are organized to form texts)
Knowledge of cohesion
Knowledge of rhetorical or conversational organization
B. Pragmatic knowledge (how utterances or sentences and texts are related to the communicative
goals of the language user and to the features of the language use setting)
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o Functional knowledge (how utterances or sentences and texts are related to the
communicative goals of language users)
Knowledge of ideational functions
Knowledge of manipulative functions
Knowledge of heuristic functions
Knowledge of imaginative functions
o Sociolinguistic knowledge (how utterances or sentences and texts are related to features of
the language use setting)
Knowledge of dialects/varieties
Knowledge of registers
Knowledge of natural or idiomatic expressions
Knowledge of cultural references and figures of speech
In conclusion, if the study of grammar traditionally includes morphology and syntax, more recent
approaches assimilate it to the study of linguistics or even of language and linguistics (Greenbaum
& Nelson 2002, Fasold 2008, Mair 2012), thus additionally including in it phonetics and
phonology, semantics, pragmatics and applied linguistics.

2. Grammatical rules and linguistic units

2.1. Linguistic communication
The simplified model of the linguistic communicative process includes a sender communicating
a message to the receiver by using a coding system that allows the sender to encode the
message as a linguistic code that is made up of words.
In the encoding process the sender has several alternative ways of encoding the message. These
ways may differ in attitudes (e.g. Are you ready? is more polite than Why can you never be
ready on time?) but also in the situations in which the act of communication takes place (e.g.
here or there will be used to refer to Iai, depending on whether the sender is in Iai or not).
The end product of the encoding process is a sound wave which is transmitted to the receiver,
but, since the study of the speech sounds is the concern of two other disciplines, phonetics and
phonology, I will not deal with it any further.
Whenever the receiver has access to the same coding system as the sender, either by knowing it or
by being physically able to hear sounds, (s)he decodes the incoming sound waves (i.e. the brain
reconstructs the words and sentences from the incoming frequency information in the sounds of
language produced by the sender). Additionally, the receiver interprets the received message, i.e.
tries to identify the sender's mental attitude, and this can explain the great number of
misunderstandings occurring between people speaking to one another.
The model of linguistic communication is actually more complex because normally the participants
take turns at being speaker (sender) and listener (receiver) in a conversation, because the utterances
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and their interpretations will be affected by the speakers' context knowledge and assumptions about
each other; because a receiver will typically act on the utterance (e.g. by hurrying up or by
apologizing for not being ready yet).
The linguistic sign is defined by Saussure as the pairing of the signifier and the significant, that is,
of an expression (form, code) and a content (meaning). To put it differently, if people share the
same linguistic code, when one utters or hears a word, all those hearing it will have the same
mental representation of what that word designates by the name associated with it. The pair
signifier significant, has two essential characteristics, which can be inferred from the quote
below:
There is no reason why the object that we call a cat should be called a cat, as witnessed by
the fact that other languages do not use this word to refer to the same object [...] Moreover,
there is nothing about the pronunciation [kt] that means that it must refer to this object:
one can imagine a language in which the word pronounced [kt] is used for almost
anything else. This kind of linguistic knowledge is not rule governed, but is just arbitrary
facts about particular languages. (Newson 2006: 4)
In other words, because the relationship between the signifier and the significant is arbitrary,
the linguistic sign is conventional in the sense that the speakers of a language must resort to the
same form to represent the same content because otherwise the receiver will be unable to decode
the content encoded by the sender and communication will become impossible.
A morpheme is a simple linguistic sign and, because it cannot be further subdivided, it is the
minimal linguistic unit able to carry meaning. There are two main classes of morphemes: free
morphemes - that can be used on their own, such as man, nice, go, and bound morphemes (also
called affixes) that need a base, i.e. a free morpheme, to attach to. We can further distinguish
between morphemes with grammatical meaning, i.e. inflectional/grammatical morphemes, and
lexical/derivational morphemes.
inflectional
morphemes
word-class derivational morphemes word-class
word-class
cats noun Londoner, childhood, artist, Japanese, handful,
kingdom, behaviourism, friendship
noun noun
Mary's
runs
walked
reading
verb coverage, arrival, defendant, dependence, user,
writing, employee, descendant
verb noun
higher
lowest
adjective cruelty, strength, freedom, socialist, mentality,
anxiety, childishness, meanness
adjective noun
The inflectional morphemes in the left column above are all suffixes and do not produce
significant semantic changes to the word they attach to, they only connect the word to a
particular grammatical context by generating agreement in number, case, person, tense etc.
Derivational morphemes change the word-class of the root, its meaning, or both. All the
derivational morphemes in the table above are suffixes and change the word-class of the root
they attach to and produce considerable semantic alteration. Derivational morphemes may also
be prefixes, and in that situation they usually do not change the word-class of the root. To
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illustrate this, consider the adjective 'unhappy', derived from -happy (root) + un- (prefix).
Both 'happy' and 'unhappy' are adjectives, but their meaning is antithetical.
2.2. Grammatical forms, functions and rules
2.2.1. Grammatical form vs. grammatical function. Constituents
The basic goal of grammar is to provide an understanding of the linguistic units. In order to attain
this, it is necessary to distinguish between grammatical form and grammatical function.
Form includes the designations of word classes (noun, verb, adjective, adverb, pronoun,
preposition, determinative and conjunction)
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and of the phrases (noun phrase, verb phrase,
adjective phrase, adverb phrase, prepositional phrase).
Notice that, unlike in Romanian, interjections in English grammar are considered parts of speech
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only by the traditional grammars. They are usually defined as short utterances expressing emotion,
which consist of a word, a phrase or a short clause capable of standing alone.
Any structure is recognized and classified on the basis of its form/`shape', that is, we can assign
words to a word class on the basis of their endings
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(such as -tion for nouns, -al for adjectives, -ly
for adverbs, plural s for nouns, -s, -ed, -ing for verbs, etc.).
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In the sentence My brothers and I played recreational tennis every weekend, it is on the basis of
their endings that we label brothers as a noun, and played as a verb.
Put differently, these structures do not need to be placed in a context (that is, a sentence) in order to
be assigned to a particular word class. In contrast, functions can only be identified inside structures
(such as sentences, clauses, or phrases), and are the result of the relationships between their
constituents.
In the table below, Kolln and Funk (2012, pp. , 106) show that all of the general functions listed on
the right - adverbial, adjectival, nominal, and sentence modifier - can be carried out by all of the
general forms listed on the left - words, phrases, and clauses.
FORM FUNCTION
Word
noun
verb
adjective
adverb
Phrase
noun phrase
verb phrase
gerund
infinitive
participle
Adverbial
modifier of verb
Adjectival
subject complement
object complement
modifier of noun
Nominal
subject
subject complement
direct object
indirect object

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Other grammars recognise different word classes from the ones listed here, due to the criteria they use when
defining the boundaries between the classes. For example, in some grammars, pronouns are treated as a subclass
of nouns; in others particles form a separate class.
4
Part of speech is the term used by traditional grammars for word class.
5
Other criteria, discussed further on, are be used by grammar to label word classes.
6
See 2.7.
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prepositional phrase
Clause
independent clause/sentence
dependent clause
nominal
adverbial (subordinate)
adjectival (relative)
object complement
object of preposition
appositive

Sentence Modifier
At this point, it would be useful to make an analogy between the grammatical function in English
and funcia sintactic in Romanian, which are very similar. Thus, the five types of clause elements
subject, verbal, object, complement and adverbial are defined as functions in the clause,
exactly as in the case of subiect, predicat, complement, atribut in propoziie. A subject, for example,
is a subject because it has a specific function in a clause, but it is realised by/consists of a range of
specialized forms/structures
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. However, an additional observation is necessary: in English grammar,
functions appear not only at the level of sentence or clause, but inside phrase as well.
The constituents of a sentence, a clause, or a phrase, are the parts into which it can be divided.
For example, the constituent of the sentence I play tennis every weekend is the clause I play
tennis every weekend; in turn, in the clause I play tennis every weekend several constituents can
be identified: I, play, tennis, every, weekend.
For a better understanding of the concept of constituency, it may be useful to resort to Wekker
and Haegemans observations below.
(S)entences have structure, and are not just strings of words which occur in a random
order. The words do not just follow each other like the beads on a string or the
carriages of train, all of which are of the same size and structure, connected with each
other in one straight line and in exactly the same way. The words of a sentence are
strictly organized internally: there is an underlying pattern. (A modern course in
English syntax , 1985, p. 21)
The structure of clauses can be revealed by applying certain constituency tests; the basic ones,
proposed at people.umass.edu/.../Constituency%20Tests.pdf are listed below.

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In Romanian we say subiectul este exprimat prin (+ parte de vorbire)
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2.2.2. Grammatical rules and linguistic units
In A Teachers' Grammar, R. A. Close briefly reviews the basic rules of English grammars.
It has often been said that English has no grammar, or that, if it has, there are no rules in it.
English has indeed very few of the kind of inflections, on the end of nouns and verbs, that
play such an important part in the grammar of many other languages. English adjectives have
no inflections at all, apart from the -er and -est of short words like longer and longest. We can
accurately predict the whole conjugation of every verb in modem English from a small set
of rules and a fixed list of irregularities. Nor has English grammar a place for gender
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in
nouns. (1992, p. 1)

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Gender is discussed further in 5.2.1.
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But what exactly makes us able to predict the fundamental rules governing language use? From a
generative perspective, Newson et al. (2006) explain that, even if the human brain cannot store all
the possible linguistic expressions, it treats language the same way it treats the combinations of
numbers. Thus, though the number of combinations is infinite, humans can write and read any of
them, not because all the numbers are stored in their heads (only the figures 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 9
are, not all their combinations), but owing to the set of rules that govern the way figures are
combined into numbers.
The authors speculate that, similarly, we possess a (finite) set of linguistic rules which enable us
to recognize the infinite number of expressions that constitute the language/languages that we
speak. For this it might be useful to resort once again to Close's distinction between the solid
core of linguistic facts (men, wrote, he wants to drive) and the area of choice, the more
nebulous area in which linguistic facts (I wrote, I have written) are often involved with subtle
distinctions of thought, personal attitudes and points of view, as well as with non-linguistic facts,
such as the particular circumstances in which certain words were uttered (Close, 1992, pg. 3-4).
Two areas grammar governs (the production of sentences and texts and the description of their
structures) lead us to distinguish between two different kinds of rules. On the one hand there are
the usage rules that must be learned deliberately, called prescriptive rules, defined as the rules
which define a standard form of the language, and which some authority must explicitly state for
the benefit of other speakers. (Kroeger, 2005, p. 5). On the other hand, there are the descriptive
rules which the native speaker is usually not aware of the kind of knowledge about the
language that children learn naturally and unconsciously from their parents and other members
of their speech community, whether they attend school or not. All languages, whether
standardized or not, have rules of this kind, and these rules constitute the grammar of the
language. (Kroeger, 2005, p. 5)
Furthermore, both from a non-native and a pedagogical perspective, it would be remarkably
helpful to use Close's distinction between objective grammar (in his terms, 'grammar as fact')
where there is one correct solution only and subjective grammar, ('grammar as choice') where
the language user may choose between possible solutions having slightly different meanings
(such as the choice between the two aspects of the same tense or between two prepositions with
similar meanings).
Stretches of language, either spoken or written, can be divided into meaningful linguistic units
characterized in terms of their
internal structure (a clause consists of phrases, a phrase consists of words, a word consists
of one or more morphemes)
function/syntactic role (a phrase may function as a subject, verb, object, complement or
adverbial)
meaning (adverbs, for example, carry information about the time, place, manner, etc. of the
action)
use (also called discourse function, related to their behaviour inside discourse frequency,
register, etc.)
In Downing and Lockes view,
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Any structure can be considered to be composed of elements which form a configuration of
functions, whether semantic functions such as Agent-Process-Affected or syntactic
functions such as the clause configuration Subject-Predicator
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-Direct Object or the
modifier-head-modifier structure of the nominal group. Each of these functions is in turn
realised
10
by a unit which is itself, at least potentially, a configuration of functions, and
these in turn are realised by others until the final stage is reached and abstract categories
such as subject, head, modifier, etc., are finally realised by the segments of the spoken or
written language. (2006, pp. , 19)
In English, five types of units are usually recognized and hierarchically arranged on a rank
scale, starting from the top:
(discourse)
sentence: |||I play tennis every weekend (if I have time
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).|||
clause ||I play tennis every weekend.||
phrase I| play| tennis| every weekend|
word I| play| tennis| every| weekend|
morpheme {I}{ play} {tennis} {every} {week}{end}.
Grammatical units can be combined to form longer written texts or spoken interaction, which is
known as discourse.
For simplicity, it would be useful to agree to use an adaptation of the symbols - proposed by
Downing and Locke (2006: 11) - that mark off the boundaries of each unit, such as those adopted in
the example. A triple vertical line [ ||| ] delineates a sentence consisting of a combinations of clauses.
A double vertical line [ || ] is used for clause boundary, a single vertical line [ | ] for phrase
boundary and simply a space for word boundary. Morphemes are placed between curly brackets.
Traditional Romanian grammars (including school textbooks) recognize only four levels:
(discursul)
fraza: ||| Joc tenis n fiecare weekend cnd am timp.|||
propoziia: ||Joc tenis n fiecare weekend.||
partea de vorbire: |joc| tenis| n| fiecare| weekend|
morfemul: joc| tenis| n| fiecare| weekend|
Actually, the phrase rank that is absent from the hierarchy above has an equivalent in Romanian
grammar, namely nivelul grupurilor, which will be briefly dealt with later, but its use is
restricted to recent grammars that have not made it into the mainstream linguistic trend.

9
Predicator is Downing and Lockes term for verbal.
10
The realisation of an element comprises all the forms it may consist of. For example, the noun phrase is a common
realisation of the subject and of the object. An alternative way to say the same thing is objects commonly consist of
noun phrases.
11
Unlike in Romanian, in English both I play tennis every weekend and I play tennis every weekend if I have time can be
recognized as sentences, as I will explain further on.
I. O. Macari, Morpho-syntax, Lecture 1 sem. I, 2014

14

The obvious differences in the two rank scales should make you careful with the transfer of both
grammatical knowledge and terminology from Romanian into English. Thus, a sentence is in
English the maximal grammatical unit. It corresponds to the Romanian fraz, but because a
sentence can be both simple (consisting of one clause) and complex/ compound (consisting of
more than one clause), it also corresponds to the Romanian propoziie. Consequently, I play
tennis every weekend is both a sentence and a clause, depending on the level of analysis, while
Joc tenis n fiecare weekend /cnd am timp is a fraz made up of two propoziii (Joc tenis n
fiecare weekend - main clause and cnd am timp - temporal clause) and Joc tenis n fiecare
weekend is a propoziie.
Just to better understand the similarities and differences between these grammatical units, let us
have a look at the definitions of sentence and clause (adapted from Geoffrey Leech's A Glossary
of English Grammar, 2006, Hasselgrd, Lysvg & Johanssons Glossary of grammatical terms
used in English Grammar: Theory and Use (2
nd
edition), Graham Locks Functional English
Grammar and R. W. Zandvoort's A Handbook of English Grammar, 1975) and fraz and
propoziie (adapted from Gheorghe Bulgr, Limba romn, fonetic, lexic, morfologie, sintax,
stilistic, 1995, Teodor Cotelnic et al., Gramatica uzual a limbii romne, 2000 and Ion Coteanu,
Gramatica de baz a limbii romne, 1982).
Sentence Fraza
The sentence is the largest unit of language that
grammar (traditionally) describes.
Sentences may be categorized as simple (containing
just one clause) and complex/compound (containing
more than one clause).
The simple sentence (for example, The teacher
corrected him amiably enough), can be divided into
subject (the teacher) and predicate (corrected him
amiably enough).
The complex sentence, (for example, Todays weather
will be fine, but tomorrow will be cloudy and wet) can
be divided into:
||| ||Todays weather will be fine,|| ||but tomorrow will be
cloudy and wet||.|||
In writing, sentences are marked by beginning with a
capital letter and ending with a full stop, question
mark or exclamation mark. In spoken language, the
definition of a sentence is more problematic.
Dou sau mai multe propoziii reunite prin
nelesul lor alctuiesc un ntreg sintactic care se
numete fraz.
Acest ntreg poate s fie construit
a) numai din propoziii principale (ex. ||| ||Apa
trece||, ||pietrele rmn|| |||.)
b) dintr-una sau mai multe propoziii principale
i dintr-una sau mai multe propoziii secundare.
(||| ||Unde e lac
1
||, ||se adun broate
2
||.|||) 1
propoziia secundar, 2 propoziia principal.
n mod obinuit, ntr-o fraz exist attea
propoziii cte predicate sunt.
n fraza de mai jos sunt trei predicate (bgam,
fceam, se strnsese), deci trei propoziii, ce
constituie un ansamblu unitar din punct de
vedere semantic, gramatical i intonaional.
||| ||i m bgam n ochii moneagului|| ||i
fceam un trboi||, ||de se strnsese lumea ca la
comedie mprejurul nostrum|| |||. (I. Creang)
Observaiile din ultimul paragraf din coloana din
stnga sunt adevrate i pentru frazele i
propoziiile romneti.
I. O. Macari, Morpho-syntax, Lecture 1 sem. I, 2014

15

Clause Propoziia
A clause is a group of phrases, usually centred around
a verb phrase functioning as verbal. The verbal is
defined at clause level as the central element,
consisting, unlike the Predicate, exclusively of verb
words.
A clause is defined formally by the elements it may
contain. A clause element is defined as a word,
phrase, or clause that has a syntactic function in a
clause (Hasselgrd, Lysvg, & Johansson, Glossary
of grammatical terms used in English Grammar:
Theory and Use (2nd edition)).
In the example we took above (The teacher corrected
him amiably enough), the elements of the clause
(rather than of the sentence.) are: the subject (The
teacher), verbal (corrected), object (him) and
adverbial (amiably enough).
The valency
12
of the verb (i.e. the head of the verb
phrase) decides how many clause elements need to be
present.
Clauses can be main clauses or subordinate clauses, and
they can be finite or non-finite. Usually, a finite clause
contains at least a subject in addition to the verbal. A
main clause can be a complete sentence, or clauses can
combine to form complex or compound sentences.
Most finite clauses contain a subject in addition to the
verbal, while most non-finite clauses do not have a
subject.
As the above example shows, a clause can be capable of
standing alone as a complete sentence. Such clauses,
called independent clauses, are distinct from
dependent clauses, which generally cannot stand alone
as a complete sentence and are marked by a signal or
marker (for example a conjunction such as if ) showing
their subordinate status, as in
||| ||He would gladly help you|| ||if you asked him
nicely||.|||
A main clause cannot normally be omitted from the
Propoziia este unitatea sintactic
fundamental, delimitat prin coninut i
structur. Ea conine o comunicare deplin
(chiar dac se reduce la un singur cuvnt);
contextul i d neles, i completeaz
semnificaia (Bulgr 1995: 115).
Propoziia simpl este grupul de cuvinte
format numai din subiect i predicat: Rsare
soarele.
Este propoziie dezvoltat orice grup de
cuvinte care conine cel puin un element n
plus fa de subiect i predicat: (Tu) te sperii.
n exemplul de mai sus, pe lng subiect (Tu) i
predicat (sperii), apare i complementul direct
te.
n interiorul frazei, dup gradul lor de
independen, propoziiile sunt de dou feluri:
principale (cnd nu depind de alt structur
sintactic) i secundare/ subordonate (cnd sunt
o parte neobligatorie a altei structuri din fraz):
||| ||S-a ntors||
1
, ||cnd ncepuse a cnta cocoii de
miezul nopii||
2
.||| (I. Dru)
Propoziiile principale servesc drept centru de
organizare a frazei. Prezena lor e obligatorie.
Propoziiile secundare sunt dependente i
ntregesc coninutul altor propoziii n fraz.
Prezena lor este, de obicei, facultativ.
Propoziia de care depinde o alt propoziie
(subordonat) poart numele de regent.
Regenta poate fi att principal n fraz, ct i
secundar, subordonat, la rndul ei, altei
regente.
Gramatica Academiei remarc paralelismul
dintre propoziiile subordonate i prile de
propoziie.

12
valency = a feature of lexical verbs. The valency of a verb determines how many clause elements there must be in
a sentence in addition to the verbal. (Hasselgrd, Lysvg, & Johansson, Glossary of grammatical terms used in
English Grammar: Theory and Use (2nd edition)) the discussion of the valency of the verb is continued in 3.9.
I. O. Macari, Morpho-syntax, Lecture 1 sem. I, 2014

16

sentence, while the presence of the
dependent/subordinate clauses is optional.
The first stage of analyzing a sentence like I play tennis every weekend, then, is to see if it consists
of a single main clause or of more than one clause. At syntactic level, the constituents are the
subject (I) and the predicate (play tennis every weekend). This is only partly true for the Romanian
version: in the analysis of the fraz, the analysis also starts with the identification of the (at least)
two clauses, conditioned by the existence of two predicate (joc and am), In this case, the main
clause (Joc tenis n fiecare weekend) is followed by the subordinate clause cnd am timp, but the
number of constituents is greater than two for each. Both the predicate and the subject are defined
differently in Romanian grammars, unless we adopt Coteanu's terms of grupul subiectului -
including all the elements that are grouped around the subject and are governed by it, and grupul
predicatului
13
- including all the elements that are grouped around the predicate and are governed
by it (Coteanu 1982: 282-5).
At this point it would be useful to contrast some basic definitions of the Subject and the predicate
in English (adapted from Geoffrey Leech and R. W. Zandvoort) and Romanian (adapted from
Teodor Cotelnic et al, Gramatica uzual a limbii romne, 2000 and Ion Coteanu, Gramatica de
baz a limbii romne, 1982).
Subject Subiect
The word (or words) indicating the person or thing
referred to is (are) called the subject of the sentence.
In the following examples (found at
thesunmagazine.org) the subject is in bold, the non-bold
word(s) forming the predicate.
One can write, think, and pray exclusively of others.
Dreams are all egocentric. (Evelyn Waugh)
All human beings are also dream beings. Dreaming
ties all mankind together. (Jack Kerouac)
People who insist on telling their dreams are among
the terrors of the breakfast table. (Max Beerbohm)
Subiectul este partea principal de
propoziie despre care se comunic ceva
prin intermediul predicatului.
Iat i cteva exemple:
Moldova a fost pe vremuri o savan
tropical. (www. ziaruldeiasi.ro)
Senatorul PDL Dumitru Oprea consider
c decredibilizarea nvmntului
romnesc prin fraudarea bacalaureatului
poate fi stopat. (www.ziaruldeiasi. ro)
Primele psri de pe Terra aveau patru
aripi. (www.ziaruldeiasi.ro)
Predicate Predicat
Traditional grammars view the predicate as the main
part of a sentence or clause whose role is to make a
statement (or a question) about the subject. It is the part
that modifies the subject and includes the verbs, objects
and phrases governed by the verbal.
More recent approaches come closer to the Romanian
Predicatul este partea principal a
propoziiei care denumete o aciune, o stare
sau o nsuire atribuit subiectului.
Predicatul, de fapt, arat ce face, ce, cine sau
cum este subiectul.
Copilul rde. (Ce face?)

13
The term grupul predicatului covers exactly the meaning of the concept of verb complementation in the English
grammar (see 3.9.1.).
I. O. Macari, Morpho-syntax, Lecture 1 sem. I, 2014

17

definition of the predicate, seen as the part of a sentence
that corresponds mainly to the main verb and any
auxiliaries that accompany it.
This course exclusively regards the predicate as a
functional category of the sentence, with the verbal as
its counterpart at clause level.
I dont use drugs; my dreams are frightening enough.
(M. C. Escher)
I dream my painting, and then I paint my dream.
(Vincent van Gogh) (Examples from thesunmagazine.org)
Copilul este vesel. (Cum este?)
Copilul este fratele meu. (Ce este? Cine
este?)
It is now obvious that, in English, the example I play tennis every weekend can be analyzed as a
sentence and then it has two constituents (subject and predicate), but also as a clause, made up
of four constituents (subject, verbal, object, adverbial).
By contrast, the Romanian version Joc tenis n fiecare zi can only be propoziie, with the
following components: subiect subneles/inclus n desinena verbal (eu), predicat (joc),
complement direct (tenis), complement circumstanial (n fiecare weekend).
From the discussion above, it can be inferred that one should be cautious with grammatical
knowledge transfer from one language into another even with seemingly similar terms. Thus, the
members of the pairs phrase fraz, complement complement can be rated as false friends,
while the correspondences subject - subiect, predicate - predicat, verbal verb are only partial
because inside a pair they share some features but not all of them.
2.3. Discourse
Sentences are normally part of a spoken or written discourse, so each sentence will normally be
tailored to fit in with other sentences. This means that even if a sentence is incomplete and makes
no sense in isolation, it can still fulfil its communicative purpose in its proper context. For
example, in a dialogue, it is normal to answer a question with a sentence fragment provided it
contains the information that the other speaker asked for, as in:
Q: Where are you from?
A: Iai.
Because speakers take turns in a dialogue, the answers to a question must be related to the
previous speaker's purpose, and not just to the form of the question.
Written discourse is commonly referred to as text, and Wekker and Haegemans observations
below may be useful for the understanding of its organization and structure:
[I]t would be nave to think of texts as being simply made up of lexical items strung
one after another. The items in a text are somehow organized: texts also have a certain
structure. Texts contain one or more paragraphs, often set off by indentation.
Paragraphs in turn consist of sentences, which are usually set off by a capital letter at
the beginning and a full stop, an explanation mark or a question mark at the end.
I. O. Macari, Morpho-syntax, Lecture 1 sem. I, 2014

18

Thus, texts are hierarchically organized into paragraphs, and paragraphs into
sentences. (A modern course in English syntax , 1985, p. 21)
The authors also notice a less common variety of text, the minimal texts containing only one
paragraph made up of one sentence, and illustrate it with notices such as Visitors must not feed
the animals and Shoplifters will be prosecuted. (Wekker & Haegeman, 1985, p. 21)
Grammatical rules concerning the units of grammar (from the morpheme upwards) do not
usually refer to discourse context, but discourse properties may influence the choice of
grammatical form. This is obvious when speakers choose, for example, between a formal and an
informal structure according to the speech situation discourse occurs in.
Similarly, context knowledge may influence the interpretation of utterances, making us capable
to decode, for example, jokes, allusions and irony.
2.4. Sentence
Though sentences are difficult to define because of their variety, in written text they can be easily
identified, since the beginning of the sentence is conventionally marked by a capital letter, and the
end of the sentence is marked by a full stop, exclamation mark, or question mark.
According to the possible combinations of main and subordinate clauses in a sentence, sentences
can be classified as:
1. sentence fragments (which do not contain a full main clause). Certain commercials use
this pattern as an effective economical way to convey a message. The following
advertisement text is exclusively made up of sentence fragments: Free. Free to surrender.
Free to belong. Wanted by Helena Rubinstein. (www.precious-womens-perfumes.com)
2. simple sentences consist of a single main clause. The following example (the sentence in
bold and italic) is part of a commercial for The One by Dolce & Gabbana: "You know when
it's the one..." She is the One. (www.precious-womens-perfumes.com)
3. compound sentences consist of two or more co-ordinated main clauses: See her
through... Feel her... A jewel that shines out of the dark... She's a lady, she's a queen.
(Bvlgari, Pour Femme by Bvlgari) (www.precious-womens-perfumes.com)
4. complex sentences contain at least one main clause and one subordinate clause. Only if
she wants it, she'll unveil herself slowly, petal by petal... Seductress from within.
(Hypnotic Poison by Dior) (www.precious-womens-perfumes.com)
According to their function there are four major types of sentences.
1. Declaratives/declarative sentences are mainly used to convey information.
The economic situation we and the rest of the world face remains very difficult.
(www.thesun.co.uk)
2. Interrogatives/interrogative sentences are mainly used to request information.
Does Joe Jonas have a new girlfriend? (www.thesun.co.uk)
Who do you want to win X Factor? (www.thesun.co.uk)
I. O. Macari, Morpho-syntax, Lecture 1 sem. I, 2014

19

Is environmental injustice more of a problem in rural or urban communities?
(thesunmagazine.org)
It is ironic, isn't it? (fgk.hanau.net)
These sentences illustrate four different kinds of questions.
a. The first is an example of a yes/no question, because it can be answered with just a yes or
no.
b. The second is called a wh-question because it begins with a wh- word (when, where, what, why,
which, who, whom, how), or another question word. How is a wh- word, though it does not begin
with wh-. Unlike yes/no questions, wh- questions cannot be answered with a yes or a no, they
call for an open-ended answer.
c. The third sentence is an example of an alternative interrogative, which provides a choice.
Alternative interrogatives are questions that can receive two or more alternative answers. As in
the case of wh- questions, a yes or a no answer will be nonsensical, unless you want to
make a joke like the one below.
Q: Are zebras black with white stripes or white with black stripes?
A: Yes.
d. The fourth sentence is called a tag question; it contains a statement followed by a tag, such as
will you?, isn't it?, haven't they? etc.
3. Imperatives/imperative sentences are mainly used to give commands.
Come here at once!
4. Exclamatives/exclamative sentences are mainly used to express strong feeling.
I cant do X Factor in US and UK! (www.thesun.co.uk)
According to the form of the verb or to the presence or absence of another negative word,
sentences can be either positive or negative.
positive The model shared her joy with fans after the restriction was lifted. (www.thesun.co.uk)
negative Taylor, 22, couldnt resist cuddling the tot and carrying her through the zoo.
(www.thesun.co.uk)
negative Katie Price is no longer barred from driving after appealing a court ruling that saw her
slapped with a one-year ban. (www.thesun.co.uk)
When the verb phrase contains an auxiliary verb, a positive sentence can be turned into a
negative one by inserting not after the auxiliary (with the contracted alternative -nt).
positive The teen lothario
14
had invited his new love to One Directions gig at Madison Square
Gardens tonight. (www.thesun.co.uk)
negative The teen lothario hadn't invited his new love to One Directions gig at Madison Square
Gardens tonight.
A positive sentence can be turned into a negative one by inserting some other negative word:

14
Lothario (also lothario) is a man who seduces women.[After Lothario, a character in The Fair Penitent, a play by
Nicholas Rowe.] (www.thefreedictionary.com)
I. O. Macari, Morpho-syntax, Lecture 1 sem. I, 2014

20

positive The teen lothario had never invited his new love to One Directions gig at Madison
Square Gardens tonight.
Multiple negation
Standard English generally allows only one negative in the same clause.
They didnt say anything. / They said nothing. / Nobody said anything
Non- standard English allows two or more negatives in the same clause
double negation They didnt say nothing .
corrected They didnt say anything. / They said nothing. / Nobody said anything
triple negation Nobody never believes nothing I say.
corrected Nobody ever believes anything I say.
double negation I didnt like it, neither .
corrected I didnt like it, either .
Negative adverbs include other negatives besides never: barely, hardly, scarcely:
double negation I cant hardly tell the difference.
corrected I can hardly tell the difference.
Standard English allows double negation when the two negatives combine to make a positive. When
not modifies an adjective or adverb with a negative prefix (unhappy, indecisively), it reduces the
negative force of the word, perhaps to express an understatement:
It was a not unhappy occasion. (a fairly happy occasion)
She spoke not indecisively. (fairly decisively)
Occasionally both the auxiliary and the main verb are negated:
We cant not agree to their demands. (Its not possible for us not to agree to their demands.) .
Other negative combinations also occasionally occur:
Nobody has no complaints. (There is nobody that has no complaints; Everybody has some
complaints.)
Sentences can be active or passive. In a pair formed by an active sentence and its passive counterpart,
the meaning is basically the same, but the structure is different. Other differences concern the form of
the verb:
active The board pulled Christopher Maloney out of last nights final after he had turned up drunk
and abusive at rehearsals.
passive Christopher Maloney was pulled out of last nights final after turning up drunk and abusive at
rehearsals. (www.thesun.co.uk)
In English, canonical passives (a form of the verb be or sometimes get + the past participle of a
transitive verb) are more common in formal scientific writing than in colloquial interactions.
This is only partly true about Romanian, but the discussion will be expanded at a further point in
the book.
I. O. Macari, Morpho-syntax, Lecture 1 sem. I, 2014

21

2.4.1. Subject, predicate, verb phrase
The simple sentence has two main constituents: the subject and the predicate. The predicate is,
according to Geoffrey Leech, the part of a clause or simple sentence which follows the subject and
which consists of the verb phrase together with elements relating to it. (2006: 89)
The eventual winner, James Arthur, could only manage mid-table or lower until week seven.
(www.thesun.co.uk)
As you can see in the example above, the extended predicate (the part in bold), consists of the
verb phrase, (could manage), which is the most important constituent of the predicate, and all the
other elements of the sentence apart from the subject.
The subject is the element of a clause or simple sentence which normally comes before the verb
phrase and commonly consists of a noun phrase (Leech, A Glossary of English Grammar, 2006,
p. 108). Thus, in the example above, the eventual winner, James Arthur is the subject, preceding
the verb phrase could manage.
The subject of a sentence or clause can also consist of a subordinate clause:
That she arrived on time surprised everybody.
Leech enumerates the basic characteristics of subjects:
they have concord with the finite verb;
they are placed after the operator in questions: Does the play end happily?;
they typically refer to the doer of an action, with the exception of passive clauses,
where the subject does not refer to the doer, a role usually taken by the agent (if
present) instead: The show was praised by the critics. (2006: 108)
The subject in a declarative sentence can be easily identified by turning the sentence into a yes
no question.
The birds are singing.
Are the birds singing?
This kind of transformation requires knowledge about the operator and its functions, and can be
difficult for the Romanian speaker of English due to the different interrogative patterns in
English - where the operator and subject change places - and in Romanian where interrogatives
have a simpler structure.
2.4.2. Operator
The structure of questions and negative statements employs mechanisms that differ from one
language to another. Such mechanisms include word order and/or intonation change and the insertion
of operators, and sometimes a combination of these. Put differently, each type of clause is formed
according to its specific structure.
In English, the operator is required in the canonical interrogative and negative structures.
Greenbaum and Nelson define it as the first or only auxiliary in the verb
15
of the sentence

15
Verb is Greenbaum and Nelsons term for verbal.
I. O. Macari, Morpho-syntax, Lecture 1 sem. I, 2014

22

(2002: 22) and illustrate it with two examples. In the former, the verbal is could have been
imagining and the operator is the first auxiliary, could.
1. You could have been imagining it.
In the latter, the verbal is can get. The operator is can, the only auxiliary.
2. Karen can get to the heart of a problem.
In Leechs opinion (1992: 80), the operator is a verb word which has a key role in forming
negative, interrogative, and other types of derived clauses or sentences in English. The class of
operator verbs included the modal auxiliaries []; the finite forms of the auxiliaries have and
do; and the finite forms of the verb be (both as an auxiliary and as a main verb). Notice that
operators are part of the verb phrase.
An operator is a verb used in
1. independent interrogative clauses, as in Where do you live?
Notice that this rule does not apply to wh-clauses with the Subject consisting of a wh-
word, such as Who comes with me?
Also note that, if there is more than one wh- clause element in a clause, only one is placed in
initial position, e.g. Who said what?
2. negative imperatives, as in Dont go there!, and emphatic imperatives, as in Do be quiet!
1. Notice that, although do is not normally used with be, this happens in negative
and emphatic imperatives.
3. after time adverbials (i.e. never (before), rarely, seldom; barely/hardly/scarcely...,
when/before; no sooner... than), as in Seldom do they spare a word to anyone.
4. after only after/later/once/then/when (or any other time expression), as in Only once have
I attempted to call on her and it was enough.;
o Notice that after only after/later/once/then/when, the inversion never occurs in the
subordinate clause (if any) introduced by the structure under discussion.
Subordinate clause Main clause
correct [Only when I looked at him closer] [did I recognize my uncle.]
incorrect [Only when did I look at him closer] [I recognized my uncle.]
o Notice that the subordinate clause can be contracted to only when. No change occurs
inside it
5. only + other prepositional phrases (only by.../in.../with.., etc.): Only with great efforts did they
manage to get over that ugly story.
6. preposition + no (at no time, in no way, on no account, under/in no circumstances):
Under no circumstances are passengers permitted to enter this area.
7. certain negative words or other elements that are placed initially, e.g. Never have I seen
such an obnoxious person. and Little did she know what was in store for her.
I. O. Macari, Morpho-syntax, Lecture 1 sem. I, 2014

23

8. after so+adj... that, such+be... that, neither ...nor, nor, as in Such is the fame of the novel
that the writer is invited to give lectures all over the country. and She never liked the
country house, and nor did her son.
The class of operators includes:
the modal auxiliaries will, can, may, shall, must, would, could, might, should;
the finite forms of the auxiliaries have and do;
the finite forms of the verb be (both as an auxiliary and as a main verb).
the negative contractions of these verbs: wont, cant, shant, mustnt, wouldnt, mightnt,
shouldnt, hasnt, havent, hadnt, doesnt, dont, didnt, isnt, arent, wasnt, werent.
The patterns of transforming a declarative positive clause into a (a) negative, (b) interrogative
and (c) elliptical clause by means of the operator are as follows:
a) declarative positive Negative
The child has eaten the whole cake. Instruction: Place not after the operator or replace the operator by
its negative contraction (n't).
The child has not/hasnt eaten the whole cake.
b) declarative positive interrogative positive
The child has eaten the whole cake. Instruction: Place the operator in front of the Subject (Subject -
operator inversion).
Has the child eaten the whole cake?
interrogative negative
Instruction: Place not after the operator or replace the operator by its negative
contraction (n't).
Hasnt the child eaten the whole cake?
c) declarative positive elliptical positive
(His sister hasnt eaten the
whole cake, but) the child has
eaten the whole cake.
Instruction: Delete the part that follows the operator.
The child has.
declarative negative elliptical negative
(His sister has eaten the whole
cake, but) the child hasnt
eaten the whole cake.
Instruction: Place not after the operator or replace the operator by
its negative contraction (n't).
The child has not/ hasnt.
Because they do not have an operator, the positive statements with a finite main verb other than be
must be replaced by equivalent declaratives in which the dummy operator do is introduced. The
auxiliary do is called a dummy operator because it carries out the role of an operator in the
absence of true operators such as will and can.
Declarative positives containing a dummy operator are pronounced with stress on the operator
and convey emphasis.
a) declarative
positive
declarative positive with
dummy operator
negative
He worked hard
last month.
He did work hard last
month.
Instruction: Place not after the dummy operator or
replace the dummy operator by its negative
I. O. Macari, Morpho-syntax, Lecture 1 sem. I, 2014

24

contraction (n't).
He did not/didnt work hard last month.
b) declarative
positive
declarative positive with
dummy operator
interrogative positive
He worked hard
last month.
He did work hard last
month.
Instruction: Place the dummy operator in front of the
Subject (Subject - operator inversion).
Did he work hard last month?
interrogative negative
Instruction: Place not after the operator or replace the
operator by its negative contraction (n't).
Didnt he work hard last month?
c) declarative
positive
declarative positive with
dummy operator
elliptical positive
He worked hard
last month.
He did work hard last
month.
He did.
Instruction: Delete the part that follows the dummy
operator.
declarative
negative
elliptical negative
He didnt work
hard last month.
He didnt.
Instruction: Place not after the operator or replace the
operator by its negative contraction (n't).
With verb phrases containing more than one auxiliary, the operator is always the first auxiliary.
In the declarative positive clause below, the verb phrase is could have been working and the
operator is could, the first auxiliary:
declarative
positive
He could have been working in his office all day.
declarative
negative
Instruction: Place not after the operator or replace the operator by its negative
contraction (n't).
He could not/ couldnt have been working in his office all day.
interrogative
positive
Instruction: Place the operator in front of the Subject (Subject - operator inversion).
Could he have been working in his office all day?
interrogative
negative
Instruction: Place the operator in front of the Subject (Subject - operator inversion).
Place not after the operator or replace the operator by its negative contraction (n't).
Couldnt he have been working in his office all day?
elliptical
positive
Delete the part that follows the operator.
He could.
elliptical
negative
Delete the part that follows the operator. Place not after the operator or replace the
operator by its negative contraction (n't).
He couldnt.
Provided that be is the only verb, it is used as an operator even when it is the main verb.
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25

declarative
positive
She is a wonderful person.
declarative
negative
Instruction: Place not after the operator or replace the operator by its negative
contraction (n't).
She is not/ isnt a wonderful person.
interrogative
positive
Instruction: Place the operator in front of the Subject (Subject - operator inversion).
Is she a wonderful person?
interrogative
negative
Instruction: Place the operator in front of the Subject (Subject - operator inversion).
Place not after the operator or replace the operator by its negative contraction (n't).
Isnt she a wonderful person?
elliptical
positive
Instruction: Delete the part that follows the operator.
She is.
elliptical
negative
Instruction: Delete the part that follows the operator. Place not after the operator or
replace the operator by its negative contraction (n't).
She isnt.
Similarly, if have is the only verb, it can optionally be used as an operator when it is a state verb
expressing a) possession, b) relationships and c) other states:
a) She has a pet.
b) I have many friends.
c) She often has premonitions.
The patterns are:
declarative
positive
I have many friends.
declarative
negative
Instruction: Place not after the operator or replace the operator by its negative
contraction (n't).
I have not/ havent many friends.
interrogative
positive
Instruction: Place the operator in front of the Subject (Subject - operator inversion).
Have I many friends?
interrogative
negative
Instruction: Place the operator in front of the Subject (Subject - operator inversion).
Place not after the operator or replace the operator by its negative contraction (n't).
Havent I many friends?
elliptical
positive
Instruction: Delete the part that follows the operator.
I have.
elliptical
negative
Instruction: Delete the part that follows the operator. Place not after the operator or
replace the operator by its negative contraction (n't).
I have not/ havent.
Nevertheless, even with such meanings, the speaker may choose to use have as any other verb,
and the three possible interrogative, negative and elliptical patterns are: (a) make the subject -
operator inversion; (b) substitute get as the main verb; (c) introduce the dummy operator as with
other verbs.
I. O. Macari, Morpho-syntax, Lecture 1 sem. I, 2014

26

declarative
positive
I have many friends.
declarative
negative
I have not/ havent many friends.
a) Instruction: Substitute get as the main verb.
I have not/ havent got many friends.
b) Instruction: introduce the dummy operator
I do not/ dont have many friends.
interrogative
positive
a) Instruction: Make the Subject - operator inversion.
Have I many friends?
b) Instruction: Substitute get as the main verb. Make the Subject - operator
inversion.
Have I got many friends?
c) Instruction: Introduce the dummy operator.
Do I have many friends?
interrogative
negative
a) Instruction: Make the Subject - operator inversion. Place not after the operator or
replace the operator by its negative contraction (n't).
Havent I many friends?
b) Instruction: Substitute get as the main verb. Make the Subject - operator
inversion. Place not after the operator or replace the operator by its negative
contraction (n't).
Havent I got many friends?
c) Instruction: Introduce the dummy operator. Place not after the operator or
replace the operator by its negative contraction (n't).
Dont I have many friends?
elliptical
positive
a) Instruction: Delete the part that follows the operator.
I have.
b) Instruction: Not possible.
I have got.
c) Instruction: Introduce the dummy operator. Delete the part that follows the
operator.
I do.
elliptical
negative
a) Instruction: Delete the part that follows the operator. Place not after the operator
or replace the operator by its negative contraction (n't).
I have not/ havent.
b) Instruction: Not possible.
I havent got.
c) Instruction: Introduce the dummy operator. Delete the part that follows the
operator. Place not after the operator or replace the operator by its negative
contraction (n't).
I dont.
Pattern a) is old-fashioned and restricted to formal British English; it is hardly possible in American
English. An example like Have you a prior arrangement? is possible only in formal British English,
in American English it would change to pattern c): Do you have a prior arrangement?.
I. O. Macari, Morpho-syntax, Lecture 1 sem. I, 2014

27

Have got - pattern b) - is less common in AE
16
, especially in questions and negatives. In AE, it is
perceived as somehow odd and inelegant in. Pattern c) is the rule in AE and becoming popular with the
British English youth.
According to Michael Swan, in AE, in informal speech, people may drop ve (but not s) before
got.
I (ve) got a problem.
Got and do forms may be mixed in AE, especially when got forms are followed by short
answers, reply questions and tags.
Ive got a new apartment. ~ You do? (Swan 2005: 208)
For obvious reasons, the dummy operator do is not used in interrogatives and negatives with got:
Have you got a moment? Do you have got a moment?
She hasnt got any money. She doesnt have got any money.
When have is used to talk about a) actions and experiences, b) causing or experiencing actions,
c) obligation, as well as its other meanings, it strictly behaves like any other verb, and needs the
dummy operator do to form the interrogative, negative and elliptical structures.
declarative
positive
I have many friends.
declarative
negative
Instruction: introduce the dummy operator
I do not/ dont have many friends.
interrogative
positive
c) Instruction: Introduce the dummy operator.
Do I have many friends?
interrogative
negative
c) Instruction: Introduce the dummy operator. Place not after the operator or
replace the operator by its negative contraction (n't).
Dont I have many friends?
elliptical
positive
c) Instruction: Introduce the dummy operator. Delete the part that follows the
operator.
I do.
elliptical
negative
c) Instruction: Introduce the dummy operator. Delete the part that follows the
operator. Place not after the operator or replace the operator by its negative
contraction (n't).
I dont.
Romanian learners often encounter difficulties when using the English operator because there is no
such mechanism in their native language. Thus, yes/no questions in Romanian simply use a different
intonation pattern to signal interrogatives, the only difference in written form being the use of the
question mark instead of the full stop. The canonical negative simply requires the placing of nu in front
of the predicative verb, and the elliptical form consists in the positive (da) or negative (nu) words only.
Compare the following table with the one above:
declarative positive (Eu) Am muli prieteni.

16
American English
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28

declarative negative (Eu) Nu am muli prieteni.
interrogative positive (Eu) Am muli prieteni?
interrogative negative (Eu) Nu am muli prieteni?
elliptical positive (Eu) Da.
elliptical negative (Eu) Nu.
o Notice: The subject consisting of the personal pronoun eu is placed between parentheses
because it is normally omitted.
In writing, the difference between the Romanian declarative clauses and the yes/no questions lies
exclusively in punctuation: the full stop is used for the declaratives, and the question mark for
the interrogatives.
In speaking, things are more complex in both languages. Even in English a positional language,
where the function played by words in the clause depends on the place where they occur -
speakers may choose to employs stress, pitch and intonation patterns instead of the canonical
forms with the operator, in order to render information about the grammatical structure or about
the discourse function in a particular instance. Nolan (www.ling. cam.ac.uk), offers a convincing
example to show that intonation functions as a punctuation system for spoken language by
marking the division between grammatical units:
While eating my dog my cat and I watched television.
His assumption is that with instances in which more than one parse
17
is possible, intonation
choices influence meaning.
In writing we would use a comma after dog for the more unsavoury interpretation, and after
eating (and probably another comma separating my dog and my cat) for the pleasanter
interpretation. An intonational equivalent of this comma in these two positions is [] a
falling pitch accent followed, crucially, by a high boundary tone, along with a slowing down
before the boundary. (www.ling.cam.ac.uk)
Nolan also argues that intonation can indicate discourse function; for instance most people are
aware that saying This is the Leeds train with one intonation constitutes a statement, but, with
another, a question.
This is also true about Romanian, where intonation alone distinguishes between (Eu) Am muli
prieteni uttered as a declarative or as a yes/no question. Since the Romanian speaker needs no other
linguistic means, the intonation model carries information about a specific speech function, with a
falling intonation pattern for the declaratives and a raising pattern for the yes/no interrogative
structure. Nevertheless, wh-questions in Romanian behave differently, and an inversion that I
would analogically call subject predicate inversion - occurs between the subject and the
predicative verb, as you can see in the examples below.

17
parse = (tr. vb.) 1. to analyze (a sentence) in terms of grammatical constituents, identifying the parts of speech,
syntactic relations, etc. 2. to describe (a word in a sentence) grammatically, identifying the part of speech,
inflectional form, syntactic function, etc. (www.thefreedictionary.com) 3. (also parsing) (noun) the
corresponding process.

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29

declarative positive (Eu) Merg la teatru.
declarative negative (Eu) Nu merg la teatru.
interrogative positive (yes/no) Mergi la teatru?
interrogative negative (yes/no) Nu mergi la teatru
interrogative positive (wh-) Unde mergi (tu)?
interrogative negative (wh-) Unde nu mergi (tu)?
These observations are especially useful for the present discussion, because they point to the
most common error in the interrogative and negative structures produced by the Romanian
speakers of English the lack the verbal operator (see the examples below).
declarative negative Nu merg la teatru. I not go to theatre.
interrogative positive (yes/no) Mergi la teatru? You go to theatre?
interrogative negative (yes/no) Nu mergi la teatru You not go to theatre?
interrogative positive (wh-) Unde mergi? Where you go?
interrogative negative (wh-) Unde nu mergi? Where you not go?
Notice that, unlike in English, in Romanian an auxiliary in a compound tense such as perfect
compus or viitor can never function as operator.
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In Romanian, it is ungrammatical to say Am eu spus ceva greit?