The Grammatical Categories of Words and their Inflections

How do words fit in phrases? (Kuiper and Allan, Ch. 2.1)

Word and lexeme

Examine the following simple dictionary entry sept , n. Clan, esp. in Ireland. Word and lexeme A lexeme is a three part symbol:

form (or a number of forms)

syntactic category meaning Lexemes also have non linguistic properties, useage.

Inflection & stem

Inflected forms of TRY. try, tries, tried, trying, as in the following sentences: The horse must try, The horse tries, The horse tried, The horse is trying. Each is a grammatical word form. The grammatical endings which create these different grammatical word forms are termed inflections. Stem

is the form of the lexeme to which they are attached.

Morphological processes

The processes whereby words come to have internal structure such as a stem and inflection are morphological processes The categories for which words inflect are often called morphosyntactic categories. e.g. tense which accounts for the past tense inflection -ed in tri-ed is an example of a morphosyntactic category. Properties such a present tense or past tense are therefore morphosyntactic properties.

Inflection of nouns

Regular plural inflection

snapper
bee rosella rosellas box foot mouse mice louse child ox

snappers
bees boxes feet lice children oxen

Some nouns mark their plural in other ways

Other nouns never mark their plurals overtly sheep sheep deer deer

Still other nouns never occur without the plural marker, e.g. scissors and trousers.

Exercise

Divide the nouns below into the following groups: nouns that can take a(n), nouns that can take the, nouns that have a plural form, and nouns that refer to things that can be counted. alligator, wombat, Pittsburg, video, lawnmower, butter, Fred.

Your answer should look like this:

a(n)
alligator wombat Pittsburg

the x

plural x

count x

video
lawnmower butter Fred

x x

x x

x x

Exercise

Find the nouns in the following poem:

The sick rose Oh rose, thou art sick! The invisible worm, That flies in the night

In the howling storm,

Has found out thy bed Of crimson joy, And his dark, secret love

Does thy life destroy.

William Blake
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Inflection of adjectives

Adjectives may take two different endings, giving three forms, e.g. big tall bigger taller biggest tallest -er and -est endings, but use more and most evil

Not all adjectives take the most, e.g. evil more evil

incredible more incredible most incredible

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Exercise

Divide the adjectives below into three groups: those which take the er and -est endings, those which take more and most, and those which take neither of the above. high, wide, dead, red, medical, ugly, narrow, absolute, painful, final

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Answers

-er, -est more, most

high wide dead red medical ugly narrow absolute x x x x x x x x x x

neither
x x x x x

painful
final

x
x

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Exercise

Find the adjectives in the following poem:

The Lily The modest Rose puts forth a thorn, The humble Sheep a threatning horn; While the Lily white shall in love delight, Nor a thorn nor a threat stain her beauty bright.

William Blake

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Inflection of verbs

Verbs in English can belong to five different grammatical word forms:

V-s V-ed V-ing V-en call calls called calling called

Irregular forms:
eat eats ate eating put puts put putting eaten put brought

bring brings brought bringing

meet meets met meeting met

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Find the verbs in the following poem:

Nurses Song When the voices of children are heard on the green And whisprings are in the dale The days of my youth rise fresh in my mind, My face turns green and pale. Then come home my children, the sun is gone down, And the dews of night arise, Your spring & your day are wasted in play, And your winter and night in disguise.

William Blake

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Exercise

Identify the grammatical category of the underlined words in the following passage: Joanna's pink Ducati completed the journey from Malm to Ravenna in just under two days.

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