English Morphology Seminar no.

3 The Phrases; The Noun Phrase

Answer the questions:
1. Which are the most important types of determiners?
Give examples of each.
2. List the types of pronouns and give examples.
3. Which are the primary auxiliaries? Modal
auxiliaries?
4. What is the difference between the two categories in
terms of paradigm?
5. What is the relation / difference between SHALL
and SHOULD?
6. What is the role of the Wh-words?
7. Where are they used?
8. Which are the single-word classes?
9. What is necessary in order to identify the class a
word belongs to in English?
10. What is the linguistic term for a phrase that is part of
the structure of another phrase?
11. How many basic types of phrases are there in
English?
Consider the following NP structure:

12. What is the relation between the HEAD and the

other elements in the phrase?
13. What is a NOUN PHRASE?
14. What word classes can function as HEADS in a NP?
15. What syntactic role can a NP take? Give examples.
16. What is the difference between FINITE and NONFINITE verb phrases?
17. What can be said about a sentence like: What are
you two talking about?
18. What are the categories of the class VERBS? How
are they actualized?
19. What is an ADJECTIVE PHRASE? What is its role?
20. What is a PREPOSITIONAL PHRASE? What does
it consists of?
21. What are the roles of the PP?
22. When is a preposition stranded?
23. What are the major valency patterns of the verb in
English?
24. What are the clause elements?

NG
d

q
e
cl
h
d = determiners (articles, demonstratives, possessives, Wh- interrogatives, Wh- relatives, distributives, numerals)
e = epithet (adjectives, nouns, participles, AdjG, PrepG., phrases, clauses)
cl = classifier (clauses, adjectives, adverbials, participles, PrepG. etc.)
h = HEAD (nouns, pronouns, adjectives, verbal nouns)
q qualifier (NG, Adj.G, PrepG., Adv.G, clauses)
Identify the elements in the following NG:
that short summer course we attended; those beautiful Persian rugs we saw
Exercise 1. What is the function of the NP (in italics) in each sentence?
a. The best player available was a Spaniard.
f. He signed the contract last week.
b. The committee engaged the best player available.
g. They paid a high price for the best player available.
c. They offered the best player available a high salary.
h. Jack Wilkins, the best player available, earns a high
d. Tom Smith seemed to be the best player available.
salary.
e. Everybody considered him the best player
available.
Exercise 2. Discuss the singular / plural form of nouns in the following examples (ap. OEG):
a 1. Do you want cake? a. 2. Thats a wonderful walnut cake.
b. 1. They might be in financial difficulties. b. 2. Is that because you were having difficulty in remembering things?
c. 1. One loses interest in everything when one has young children...
c. 2. The two men have expressed and its possible I would be able to publish something out of that but you know that
all that takes a very long time.
d. I dont like sparkling wines all that much. e. We bought Italian cheeses, fresh pasta and olives.... f. One sugar only,
please. g. Ill have two coffees and two beers.
Exercise 3. Choose the appropriate form:
a. The scissors is/are lost forever, I guess. b. Acoustics is/are a branch of Physics. c. What is/are the most efficient
means of dealing with this matter? d. Advice is/are readily given on all technical aspects. e. The public has/have a
right to know how the money is/are spent.
Exercise 4. Insert the suitable article considering the type of noun in each case:
a. He gave us all .... advice on what to take with us. b. Im sorry. I cant come. I have ... homework to do. c. Shes
doing ... investigation of teenage slang in English for her university project. d. Paula getting divorced? Thats ....
interesting news! e. I have to buy ... film for the holiday. I think Ill buy five rolls. f. We saw beautiful ... silk and ...
cotton in Thailand.

Exercise 6. Correct the mistakes in the following sentences:

a. We had such a terrible weather that we left the camp-site and got an accommodation in town instead.
b. In the North of England, most houses are made of stones, but in the South, bricks are more common.
c. I love antique furnitures, but I would need an advice from a specialist before I bought any.
d. Her researches are definitely making great progresses these days. She has done a lot of original works recently.
Exercise 7. Associate the collective nouns with the suitable nouns:
a. a clump of, a range of, a gang of, a swarm of, a row of, a heap of, a herd of
b. houses, midges, fir-trees, elephants, bed-linen, mountains, schoolkids.
Exercise 8. Associate the group noun with the animal: flock, herd, shoal, swarm, pack, pride, flight, ostentation.
Exercise 9. Associate the unit nouns with the following uncountable nouns:
a. a stroke of; a fit of, a shower of, an article of, a lump of, a flash of, a blade of, an item of, a rumble of, a stick of, a
loaf of, a state of ;
b. lightning, disorder, coal, sugar, grass, chalk, news, rain, clothing, thunder, temper, luck.
Seminar 3: supplementary activity
1. Capitalize as appropriate:
king arthur; arthurian legend; thailand; thai restaurant; buddhism; a buddhist shrine; alfred the great; international union
for the conservation of nature and natural resources; a cardigan; a sweater; venetian blinds; gothic style; mackenzie; the
south; the western hemisphere; new england; flying south for the winter; living in the western part of the state; fifth
avenue; route 66; on dunbar street.
2. Choose the correct capitalization:
a. the Nile river / The Nile River
b. Bering strait / Bering Strait
c. Charles Adam, Jr. / Charles Adam, jr.
d. an American citizen / an American Citizen
e. east of the river / East of the River
f. the Iberian peninsula / the Iberian Peninsula
g. Billy The Kid / Billy the Kid
h. an Irish setter / an Irish Setter
i. Eastern seaports / eastern seaports
3. Use capitalization in the following texts:
a. In ancient egypt the people worshiped many gods equally until the sun god Ra became the principal deity.
b. dr. Bruce Jackson, jr., principal of the high school, formerly taught mathematics I classes and an introductory
class in computer science offered to freshmen and sophomores.
c. Suzanne oRourke, president of the jogging club, has an exercise route that takes her three times a week through
myers park, down Carriage street, and then back west to Dean avenue.
Round-up
According to recent research, Canadian scientists have shown that high levels of male hormone absorbed before birth
turn female spotted hyenas into large aggressive animals and make the male hyena a second-class citizen of his own
clan.
1. How many types and how many tokens in this text?
2. What type of morphemes are the underlined words: the male hyena, spotted hyenas, Canadian scientists
3. How are the following formed (word formation process): second-class, Canadian .
4. Give two more examples of words formed through these processes; indicate another/other word formation
process(es) and give two examples.
5. Indicate the structure of the noun phrase: large aggressive animals.
6. What class are the nouns with respect to: countability; gender: research, scientist, male hyena.
7. How is gender specific reference specified in male hyena? Enumerate three ways of forming gender specific
nouns and give an example of each.
8. Indicate the function of the following NP-s: high levels of male hormone absorbed before birth, large
aggressive animals. What other functions can the NP have?
9. Indicate the class of verb have belongs to in have shown. Give examples of other classes it can belong to (with
examples).
10. What word classes can the words male, before belong to? Give examples.

Exercise 17 (from Weisler and Milekic 2000)

The word unzippable has two meanings: (a) "unable to be zipped" and (b) "able to be unzipped". Draw two
different word-structure trees for unzippable corresponding to the two different interpretations.
Exercise 18 (from Weisler and Milekic 2000)
Does the derivational suffix er always mean "one who does X"?