Humans have a complex system of using sounds to produce language. The study of linguistic sounds is called Phonetics. Phonology is the study of systems of sounds, often the sound system of a particular language.

Linguistic sounds are produced by pushing air from the lungs out through the mouth, sometimes by way of the nasal cavity. The movement of the air can then be manipulated by the anatomy of the mouth and throat to produce different sounds. In actual writing, the same sound may often be spelt different ways. For instance, George Bernard Shaw once pointed out that the word fish could as easily be spelt ghoti, since gh has the same sound in enough, o has the same sound in women, and ti has the same sound in nation. This makes sounds very hard to study without a more precise indication of what sounds we are referring to. The solution is to adopt a phonetic alphabet which always has the same spelling for the same sound. Linguists use phonetic alphabet called the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). In the IPA, the word fish would be spelt [ö § ]. Many IPA letters are the same as those of the English alphabet, so we place IPA spellings in square brackets to indicate that they are phonetic spellings. Note that many dictionaries give phonetic spellings as pronunciation guides, but not all dictionaries use the IPA. Likewise, the system of Phonics does not use the IPA. When looking at phonetic spellings, make sure you know what system you are using. Note also that linguists in the United States do not always follow the accepted international standard. For instance, most linguists in the United States would transcribe fish as [fö š]. The individual differences will be described under the section on Phonology below.

Consonants are produced by restricting and then releasing the flow of air in three ways: vibrating the vocal cords, changing the part of the anatomy which restricts the air flow, and changing the extent to which the air flow is restricted. Consonants with relatively little vibration of the vocal cords are called voiceless consonants. Consonants with relatively more vibration of the vocal cords are called voiced. Consonants fall into the following categories, depending on what part of the anatomy is used to restrict the air flow:

Labial Air flow is restricted with the lips.

Dental Air flow is restricted with the teeth.

Labiodental Air flow is restricted with the top teeth on the bottom lip (if both lips are used the sound is called bilabial).

Alveolar Air flow is restricted by placing the tongue on the hard plate (alveolum) behind the top front teeth.

Palatal Air flow is restricted by placing the tongue on the soft palate behind the alveolum.

Velar Air flow is restricted by placing the tongue far back in the mouth.

Glottal Air flow is restricted by tightening the folds in the vocal cords (glottis).

 

Consonants can also be categorised by the extent to which the air flow is restricted:

Stop Air flow is stopped and released quickly.

Fricative Air flow is released gradually.

Affricate Air flow is stopped and released gradually.

Nasal Air flow is channeled through the nasal cavity.

Liquid Air flow is channeled around the sides of the tongue.

Glide Air flow is only partially restricted (these sounds are often called semi-vowels).

 

Some languages have other categories, but only the ones above are the only ones that occur in English. Individual consonants can be made up of nearly any combination of the features above. For instance, [b] is a voiced labial stop and /s/ is a voiceless alveolar fricative.

Vowels are produced by directing the flow of air into different parts of the mouth. They can be adjusted by changing the position of the tongue, by rounding of the lips, and by the degree of opening of the mouth. All vowels are voiced.

The position of the tongue can be described in terms of how far forward the tongue is and how high it is. Vowels are categorised as follows, depending on the position of the tongue:

Front The tongue is in the front of the mouth.

Central The tongue is further back in the mouth.

Back The tongue is in the back of the mouth.

High The tongue is high in the mouth.

Mid The tongue is lower in the mouth

Low The tongue is low in the mouth.

 

All vowels can be described in terms of their location on both vertical and horizontal axes. A look at the Spanish vowel system demonstrates this. Examine the underlined vowels and the descriptions of them below:

Niño "boy" High Front Vowel Burro "donkey" High Back Vowel

Jose Mid Front Vowel Jose Mid Back Vowel

Mar "sea" Low Central Vowel

If you pronounce the High and Mid Back Vowels, you will find that you round your lips. These are called rounded vowels.

The English vowel system is more complicated than the Spanish one. In English we create extra vowels by opening the mouth more or less. When the mouth is relatively more open, the vowel is called lax. When the mouth is relatively more closed, the vowel is tense. Compare the following English words:

Machine Tense High Front Vowel Salute Tense High Back Vowel

Chin Lax High Front Vowel Pull Lax High Back Vowel

Ballet Tense Mid Front Vowel Foal Tense Mid Back Vowel

Get Lax Mid Front Vowel For Lax Mid Back Vowel

Consider the sound of the consonant in the English word the. This sound is a voiced dental fricative. In French, this sound does not exist, which is why English spoken with a French accent is famous for replacing it with a voiced alveolar fricative z, which is very similar. The reason for this is that the number of linguistic sounds which humans can produce is greater than the number which actually occurs in each language. When studying an individual language, like English, we can therefore focus in only the sound that occur in that language and the system by which they relate to each other. Studying a system of sounds is called phonology.

When looking at the phonological system of an individual language, we limit our study to those sounds which are perceived by speakers as distinct and capable of indicating some grammatical significance. Sounds which meet these criteria are called phonemes. For instance, the [l] and [r] are perceived as distinct and help us understand the difference between lice and rice. However, [l] and [r] are not distinct phonemes in many Asian languages, which is why speakers of those languages often have trouble distinguishing the two words when speaking English. Linguists use the IPA to represent phonemes but indicate that they are phonemes by placing them between slashes. Thus the word fish is rendered /ö § / (US /fö š/). This is called phonemic transcription, as opposed to the phonetic transcription described above. In general, it is only necessary to use phonemic transcription when studying the English language. Phonemic transcriptions represent the pronunciation of a word and the precise number of phonemes in the word. Thus the word fish has three phonemes, which can be seen clearly in the transcription /ö § / (US /fö š/). The following is a list of phonemes in US English:

Note that /l/ and /r/ have range of positions, they are placed in the alveolar and palatal columns only for convenience.

The following equivalencies between International and US usage should be observed:

International = US

/§ / = /š/

/½ / = /ž/

/d½ / = /ĵ/

/j/ = /y/

In general, the symbols are interchangeable, but I recommend not using /y/, since this symbol is also used for a vowel sound (the sound in French lune "moon" or German über "over"). This sound was historically quite common in English as well. Below is a list of IPA spellings of English words. You may not recognise some of the symbols for the vowels.

The High Back and Mid Back vowels are rounded.

Before looking at some sample words, it is necessary to state that this table is a simplified representation of actual speech. The positions of the low sounds are very unstable, and the /a/ sound may be central or back, depending upon the speaker (some linguists use /Œ / or /� / to represent the back version). In American pronunciation the vowel /¿ /, which tends to occur in words with o, au, ou, and aw spellings, has been almost completely been replaced by /a/. So you may find it hard to hear if you pronounce the word hot with the same vowel as in father. You may think of the vowel /¿ / as the vowel in hot, spoken with a British accent. Most American speakers still pronounce /¿ / before /r/, as in for.

The mid central vowel /\ / has a special name; it is called a schwa. This vowel, and the slightly lower /Ã /, will be discussed under Syllable Structure and Word Stress below.

The vowels shown above are all pronounced in one part of the mouth. These are called monophthongs. English also possesses vowels which are pronounced in two contrasting parts of the mouth, called diphthongs. Note the spelling "phth" in both words.

The diphthongs in English are as follows:

Here are some examples of how these sounds are pronounced:

high /hai/ boy /boi/ house /haus/

Note that many students incorrectly try to transcribe the sound in high with /ö /. The symbol /ö / indicates the monophthongal sound in bitter /ö \ /, and the symbol /ai/ indicates the diphthong in biter /\ /.

The pronunciation of diphthongs varies a good deal in English, which means that linguists often transcribe them in other ways. The following table contains some of the acceptable alternative transcriptions which you may encounter. You may choose any of these if you feel that they more closely reflect your pronunciation.

As you can see, some people interpret the second element of a diphthong as a glide consonant. However, I suggest that you avoid these transcriptions, since they make the syllabification rule given below more complicated. Note also that the historical English monophthongs /i/, /e/, /u/, and /o/ are largely pronounced as diphthongs today (something like /ij/, /ei/, /uw/, and /ou/ respectively). You can detect this if you listen to an English speaker pronounce the Spanish name Jose. Apart from the pronunciation of the s as /z/, the English speaker’s diphthongal pronunciation of o and e is responsible for the noticeable English accent. In Spanish, these vowels are true monophthongs. However, in an introductory course like this one, it is not necessary to use separate transcriptions for /i/ and /ij/, /e/ and /ej/, etc., since the sounds are so similar. You may represent these sounds as monophthongs.

A word like measure has two syllables. In order to identify which phonemes are in the first syllable and which are in the second, we need to look at the pattern of vowels and consonants. We can represent each consonantal phoneme with "C" and each vowel (vocalic) phoneme with "V". Hence measure /« ½ \ / would be "CVCVC". Notice that the pattern is based on the number of phonemes, not the number of letters in the English spelling.

In order to have a syllable, you must have a vocalic phoneme, which may or may not be accompanied by consonants on either side. So "CVCV" has two syllables because it has two vowels. In English, there are only two significant syllable patterns: "VCV" and "VCCV". In other words, English has syllables divided by one consonant or more than one consonant (it does not matter if the first vowel is preceded by a consonant or if the second vowel is followed by a consonant). As you can see, measure follows the "VCV" pattern. The syllable division for each type is as follows:

V | C V

V C | C V

 

Note that English words with double consonants (like bitter) can be tricky. The double consonant tells us something about the preceding vowel (compare biter), not that the word has two consonant phonemes. Words like bitter really follow the "VCV" pattern in English.

Nasal and liquid consonants can sometimes be vocalic; that is, they combine the functions of vowels and consonants. Linguists represent this function by placing a small circle underneath the IPA symbol. But do these consonants constitute separate syllables? This is a more complex issue than can be dealt with in an introductory course, and we will not go too far astray if we avoid the issue. If you perceive a consonant to be vocalic, it is best to simply insert a "dummy" vowel into your transcription. The best choice is to use the schwa (/\ /). Hence the word golden would be transcribed /\ /.

Words of more than one syllable have differing degrees of stress on each syllable. Stress is indicated by a combination of higher pitch and louder volume, but many students find it difficult to identify which syllable is stressed. To practice, try making a list of words with more than one syllable and guessing which syllable is stressed. Then go to a dictionary which gives a pronunciation guide and see which syllable is marked as stressed. Most dictionaries mark stress by placing a small tick before the beginning of the syllable.

In English, the vowels of unstressed syllables have often changed historically. The spelling often indicates the original sound, but over time, the number of vowels that occur in unstressed vowels has diminished. In general, unstressed vowels tended to become /\ /, especially in suffixes with grammatical significance (e.g. plural –es, present tense –es, past tense –ed, and past participle –en). In some varieties of English, including US English, this sound alternates with /ö /, depending upon the word: compare village /ö ö d½ / (or /ö ö ĵ/) with cower /\ /. There is no rule for which words contain which of these vowels, and, in general, I will accept either one. If in doubt, use the schwa (/\ /).

Sometimes the mid central vowel /à / appears in a stressed syllable, as in sun /sà /. The sound can be distinguished from schwa by pronouncing the word oven /à \ /. However, some textbooks simplify things by using the symbol /\ / for all mid central vowels (e.g. /\ \ /). You may choose to adopt this simplification if you find it helpful. In some cases, historically unstressed vowels have disappeared completely, although we may still spell them. The most famous example is the so-called "silent e" in words like name /nem/ and begged /begd/. Make sure that you do not transcribe these as two-syllable words.

A wide variety of sound changes take place when certain sounds come into contact with each other. The most important is called assimilation. This process is best illustrated by comparing the words incapable and impossible. Both words contain the prefix in-, which makes the adjective negative. However, the prefix is pronounced /ö / or /ö /, depending on whether or not the following consonant is labial. If it is, the alveolar /n/ becomes a labial /m/, assimilating the quality of the following labial consonant. A particularly important occurrence of assimilation is in words with the grammatical endings (plural or present tense –s and past tense or past participle –d). Consider the following words and their pronunciations:

cats /¾ / scolds //

dogs /¿ / worked /\ /

thinks /  / begged //

In each case, the grammatical ending varies between voiceless /s/ or /t/ and voiced /z/ or /d/, depending on whether or not the preceding consonant is voiced or voiceless. In a few cases, the consonant in the grammatical ending is assimilated to a preceding vowel (all vowels are voiced):

horses /¿ \ / scolded /\ /

Morphology is the study of the ways in which words are formed and the functions of the parts that make up the whole of the word. In the next part of the course, we will be looking at the morphology of English.

Like phonemes, morphemes are distinct grammatical units from which words are formed. But unlike phonemes, morphemes have unique meanings. For instance, the words seen /sin/ and lean /lin/ are distinguished by one phoneme, but the phonemes /s/ and /r/ have no inherent meanings themselves. On the other hand, when you put the phonemes /dg/ together, they form a unit that has a different meaning from the unit formed by /kæt/: dog vs. cat. A morpheme is not the same thing as a word, though. For instance, the string of phonemes /dgz/ (dogs) means something different from /dgd/ (dogged) or /dgi/ (doggy). Furthermore, the /z/, /\ d/, and /i/ seem to mean more or less the same thing in /legz/ (legs), /ræg\ d/ (ragged), and /kö ti/ (kitty). But /z/, /\ d/, and /i/ are not words. The logical conclusion is that each of these words has two morphemes with meanings like "plural", "having the quality of", and "affectionate diminutive". Likewise, it seems logical to conclude that the words dogs and legs, dogged and ragged, and doggy and kitty share common morphemes.

We can identify a morpheme by three criteria:

1. It is a word or part of a word that has meaning.
2. It cannot be divided into smaller meaningful parts without violation of its meaning or without meaningless remainders.
3. It recurs in differing word environments with a relatively stable meaning.

Take the word straight /stret/. It is obviously recognised as a word by English speakers. Although we can divide it up in all sorts of ways (trait /tret/, rate /ret/, ate /et/), they all mean something different and leave us with meaningless remainders like /s-/, /st-/, and /str-/. The unit /stret/ occurs with relatively stable meaning in words like straighten, a straight line, and straightedge. Thus it fits the criteria for a morpheme. Likewise, consider the words bright (light) and brighten (make light). We might conclude that the –en in brighten is a morpheme with a causative meaning, and we certainly find that elsewhere in words like deepen, soften, stiffen.

A note on how to represent morphemes: Morphemes are normally represented using their most common English spelling surrounded by curly brackets: for instance, the morpheme in the simple word dog is represented {dog}. This is called morphemic transcription. Note that it refers to the meaning, not the pronunciation. What happens when the same morpheme has multiple pronunciations, as with the plural –s, pronounced /s/ in words like cats and /z/ in words like dogs? You use the same transcriptions. So cats would be represented as {cat} + {-s pl} and {dogs} would be represented {dog}+ {-s pl}. The "-" and "pl" are not strictly necessary, but they may help clarify the meaning. For instance, consider the word "walks" in "He walks in the park". Here the /s/ does not mean "plural"; it means "present tense". In both cases, the morpheme can only be attached to another morpheme, which is what the "-" indicates. By placing these extra markers in your morphemic transcription, you make it more clear. Often this is necessary because some morphemes sound the same but mean something difference. The "plural" and "present tense" morphemes are one example. Another is the /\ r/ sound in wider and baker, which has two different meanings: "comparative" and "agent" (i.e. "one who does something"). The words would be transcribed {wide} + {-er comparative} and {bake} + {-er agent} In some cases the same morpheme may have two different spellings, as in baker and actor. The latter would be transcribed {act} + {-er agent}.When performing morphemic transcriptions, you should include as much information as you feel necessary in order to assure that your reader knows which morphemes you are talking about.

When a single morpheme takes more than one form, as the {-s pl} morpheme does, each form is called an allomorph. Here is another example: the indefinite article a also occurs as an in certain circumstances. There is only one morpheme {a} with two allomorphs /e/ (or /\ /) and /æn/. Most allomorphs are phonemic variants; that is, they are slightly different pronunciations of the same morpheme. In many cases, the choice of allomorph depends on where the morpheme occurs in the word. For instance, in the present tense verb talks the {-s present tense} allomorph is /s/, but in begs it is /z/. In many cases the choice of allomorph is determined by the presence of another morpheme. For instance, in the word pronounce the allomorph of {nounce} (which means something like "say") is /nauns/, but in pronunciation it is /n\ ns/ because of the morphemes at the end of the word. (Many of my students in fact mispronounce and misspell the word pronunciation as pronounciation. This is an unconscious simplifying of the morpheme into only one allomorph.) Another example is the change of stress in words like átom and atómic (the "´" indicates which syllable is stressed). Not only does the stressed syllable change when you add {-ic}, but some of the phonemes change. The morpheme {atom} in fact has two allomorphs: /´æt\ m/ and /\ t´m/.

The phenomenon of allomorphy (that is, the existence of multiple allomorphs for a single morpheme) occurs for a large number of reasons. Sometimes the reason is phonological assimilation (as in cats and dogs). Sometimes allomorphs were created by phonological processes that took place in the past. For instance, {wolf} has the allomorphs /w¬ lf/ and /w¬ lv/ (in the plural wolves). The reason is that sometime around five hundred years ago /f/ became /v/ before the {-s pl} morpheme: hence we have variants like wife/wives and leaf/leaves. The process is no longer active, which is why we say the Toronto Maple Leafs, not the Toronto Maple Leaves. About the same period in history, /e/ and /« / changed to /i/ in stressed syllables, although we still spell these vowels as if they were pronounced the old way (in words like see, flee, etc.). However, the change did not occur if the stressed syllable was followed by two more syllables, so we end up with morphemes like {supreme} with two allomorphs /suprim/ and /supr« m/ (supreme/supremacy). A similar process also explains the allomorphy in words like divine/divinity and pronounce/pronunciation. We could also call the vowel changes in the past tenses of some verbs allomorphs of the normal past tense inflection, as in the forms talk/talked and run/ran. So we would transcribe them something like {talk} + {-ed past tense} and {run} + {-ed past tense}.

Every word must have at least one morpheme, but it may have more than one. Morphemes that can stand alone and have meaning as a word are called free morphemes. Morphemes that cannot stand alone but must be attached to another morpheme to have meaning are called bound morphemes. Hence there is a major difference between morphemes like bright {bright}, a free morpheme, and {–en}, a bound morpheme. A base is the part of the word that carries its principal meaning. Often it can be a free morpheme, such as {bright}, but it can also be bound. Most bases that are bound morphemes come in words of foreign origin. For example, the {sent} in consent and dissent has nothing to do with "sending"; it comes from the Latin word sentire "to feel".

A word must contain one base and may contain one or more other bound morphemes called affixes. An affix is a generic term for a bound morpheme that is not a base. If it occurs before the base it is called a prefix. If it occurs after the base, it is called a suffix. There is also a type of affix called an infix, which actually goes in the middle of the base. These are very rare in English, but two important examples are the vowel changes in man/men an run/ran. Clearly these vowel changes represent plural and past tense morphemes. We’ll be looking at these in another context later on.

Some important observations:

1. Prefixes and suffixes can be piled on top of each other, as in insubordinate:

prefix prefix base suffix suffix

{in-} {sub-} {ord} {-in} {-ate}

2. Infixes can only occur within the base, which is not possible to represent easily in standard morphemic notation:

singular plural present tense past tense

man {man} men {man} + {-s pl} run {run} ran {run} + {-ed past tense}

 

 

Some affixes have the effect of creating new words, although the end result may or may not have a closely related meaning. For instance, the affix {-en} added to {gold} will produce golden, the adjective form of gold. The prefix {con} added to {sent} will produce consent, whereas the prefix {dis} added to {sent} will produce dissent, quite a different meaning! Affixes of these types are called derivational morphemes. Sometimes derivational morphemes change the part of speech, converting, say a verb to a noun or vice versa (like break/breakage), or a noun to an adjective (like day/daily). Sometimes they derive a new word of the same part of speech like camp/camper. They can even have feminine meaning, like fiancé/fiancée or baron/baroness. Sometimes they have diminutive meanings like dog/doggy, cat/kitten. English has a great variety of derivational suffixes, in part because it has borrowed many from other languages. Note: derivational morphemes are always prefixes or suffixes. Inflectional affixes (or just inflections) are morphemes which supplement the meaning of the base with information about the grammatical significance of the word in a particular sentence. Hence the introduction of the underlined inflections in the following sentences does not change the basic meanings of the words but does give us essential information such as "How many?", "When?", and "How much?".

1. The boy played with the dog/dogs.
2. The boy’s dog played with him.
3. The boy plays/played with the dog.
4. The boy is happy/happier/happiest when playing with the dog.

The inflectional system in English can be summarised as follows:

Inflection Name Examples

{-s pl} Noun plural dogs, bushes

{-s poss} Noun possessive boy’s, boys’, men’s*

{-s 3^rd sg pres} 3^rd person singular present runs, catches

{-ing vb} present participle discussing

{-ed past} past tense chewed

{-d past part} past participle chewed, eaten**

{-er comp} comparative bolder, sooner, nearer

{-est super} superlative boldest, soonest, nearest

 

* English spelling distinguishes the possessive from other {-s} morphemes using apostrophes, but this is not in the pronunciation.

** -en is a very common variation from {–d} in the past participle. We’ll talk about the reasons for this below.

Inflections often have allomorphs such as /s/ and /z/ for {-s pl}, or even the so-called zero-allomorph in words like "two sheep" and "two fish", where the plural morpheme is not pronounced, or in words like ran, where the {-ed past} morpheme is an infix. Some students find it confusing to represent these allomorphs with the more common English spellings –s and –ed. If you find this confusing, you may omit the spellings and just write {noun plural}, {past tense}, {comparative}, etc. All that is really important is that you be clear which morpheme you are indicating.

Historically, English had many more inflexions, and some of them still occur infrequently. Here are some examples;

1. Noun plurals: ox/oxen, child/children, man/men, sheep/sheep.
2. 3^rd person singular present: speaketh, pleaseth.
3. Past participle: driven, caught, slept.

At the end of the day, morphemes combine into the linguistic units we identify as words. Exactly how we identify them as words is something that really isn’t known. The nature of the problem is illustrated by variations in English spelling. For instance, Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary lists the words woodchuck and woodcock as one word, but on the same page lists wood duck and wood louse as two. Are there any formal criteria for differences in the printed form? In fact, many combinations of free morphemes are written as two words in English where they would be written as one word in German.

For our purposes it is not important to dwell on how we identify words, since most of the time we intuitively identify words. If you want a test which is generally successful, try pausing between potential words. If you can insert a pause without stranding a meaningless (and therefore probably bounded) morpheme before or after the potential word, it probably is a word. There is one way this test yields lousy results. English contains many verbs consisting of two parts: verbs like call up (telephone), keep on (continue), take off (depart). If you separate the two parts, the meaning changes. Although we spell these verbs as two words, they are really one word. The part we spell separately is called a particle. Generally these particles occurred at the beginning of the word (in forget and begin, for instance) in the early history of English; however, from the nineteenth century onwards words with the particle at the end of the word have developed in large numbers. We’ll be looking at these verbs in greater detail later.

A simple word consists of a single free morpheme: like slay, flea, long, or spirit. Complex words consist of either two bound morphemes (matricide, televise, exclude, cosmonaut), or a bound morpheme and a free morpheme (lioness, telephone, eraser, pyromania). Compound words consist of two free morphemes.

Compound words bear a strong resemblance to grammatical constructions consisting of more than one separate word. In fact, they often imply concepts that can be expressed by grammatical constructions:

1. subject + verb earthquake (when the earth quakes)

2. verb + object killjoy (someone who kills joy)

3. verb + adverbial downpour (when something pours down)

4. subject + adjective high chair (a chair that is high)

 

Innumerable jokes have been based on word plays which pun on the resemblance of compound words with grammatical constructions consisting of two separate words. Here’s one: "So the cannibal chief says to his victim, ‘What did you do for a living?’ The victim replies, ‘I was an associate editor.’ The chief answers, ‘Cheer up. After tonight you’ll be an editor-in-chief’" Normally compound words can be distinguished from grammatical constructions by different stress patterns. For instance, "It was a hard ball" is stressed differently from "They play hardball".

We now get to look at the interesting subject of how words are formed historically. Many of you notice that new words are created all the time, but fewer of you probably think about the fact that this has been going on for centuries. What is old now was once new. Some words, including many of our everyday words can actually be traced back some 5,000 years or more (though you have to reverse all the phonological changes that they’ve been subjected to). In addition, many words in English have been borrowed from other languages like French and Latin. Any good dictionary will give you the origin or etymology of a word, whether it goes back to Old English, the earliest form, or whether it has been borrowed from another language.

But English speakers do not rely on the current stock of vocabulary and borrowing from other languages. There are a number of other processes by which new words are created. We’ll quickly go through a numbers of them.

1. Borrowing: loanwords as just described.
2. Compounding: we’ve already discussed this.
3. Derivation: by adding derivational suffixes to word bases, new word can be created. Examples are: dis-advise, de-plane, tele-play, eco-system, counselor-ship, and Mc-Anything.
4. Invention: some words are totally made up by stringing together meaningless phonemes. Examples are Kodak, nylon, dingbat, goof, and blurb.
5. Echoism: words whose sound suggests their meaning. Examples such as hiss, peewee, clang, quack, whisper. This is often called onomatopoeia.
6. Clipping: words created by cutting off the beginning or the end of a word, or both, leaving a part to stand for the whole. Examples are: lab, dorm, prof, exam, plane, phone, flu, fridge, sitcom, math(s). Cf. Also US English pissed.
7. Acronymy: acronyms are words formed from the initials or beginning sounds of a succession of words Examples are: MP (Member of Parliament or military police), NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation), and radar (radio detecting and ranging).
8. Blending: words formed by fusing two words into one. Examples are: brunch, simulcast, motel, smog.

Here are two more. Back-formation is when a word consisting of two bound morphemes has one of the morphemes removed, turning the remaining bound morpheme into a free one. For instance, if you ask, "What does a feeper do?" the answer is, "He feeps." Historically, many words have been created like this. The words peddlar, beggar, swindler, and editor all pre-existed the verbs peddle, beg, swindle, and edit, which were created from them. Folk etymology is when a new word is created to explain an historical form of the word which the speaker doesn’t understand. Some examples will demonstrate what I mean. The word female comes from French femelle, Latin femella. It does not contain the morpheme {male}, but rather {fem} (woman) + {ella} (diminutive). However, from the fourteenth century on, English speakers began to associate the string of phonemes /mel/ in this word with the morpheme {male} and so altered the spelling.

Consider a sentence like the one below:

(The)__________seem(s) all right.

 

You can fill in the blank with words like John, diligence, or dog, so these words are nouns. You’ll notice that each of these nouns seems to occupy more or less the same function in the sentence: it’s "the thing that seems". Of course, you’re not going to get a sentence like Dog seems all right. You need The dog or The old dog, or the old dog on the doorstep, or even the old dog that I saw yesterday. What this shows is that groups of words can have the same function in a sentence as a single word. A word or a group of words that has a particular function in a sentence is called a phrase. Sentences are divided into multiple phrases, and the difficulty for most people is in identifying where each phrase begins and ends. The sentence The dog seems all right has three phrases: the dog, seems, and all right. You can also have phrases within phrases, as in The old dog that I saw yesterday seems all right, where the first phrase, the old dog that I saw yesterday can be further divided into I, saw, that, and yesterday.

In order to identify phrases successfully, you need to understand two principles: the headword and the subject-predicate division. Phrases are divided into headwords and modifiers. For instance, consider the phrases the dog, and the old dog. Each of these function like the single noun dog, so dog is the headword. The words the and old modify dog; therefore they are modifiers. A phrase consists of a headword and all of its modifiers. Thus, in the sentence The old dog seems all right, the first phrase is the old dog. (You may think that all right is a modifier of dog, but it is not for reasons we will come to when we discuss subjects and predicates.) Be careful. Sometimes modifiers can move around and be separated from their headwords, especially adverbs, as in the following sentences:

Suddenly, he left.

He suddenly left.

He left suddenly.

 

In the sentences above, suddenly is an adverb modifying left.

Before we discuss subjects and predicates, it is important to look at the different types of phrases that can occur in a sentence.

A noun phrase (NP) is a noun or any group of words that can substitute for a noun.

A verb phrase (VP) is a verb or any group of words that can substitute for a verb. A particularly important type of verb phrase is the main verb phrase (MVP), which is the main verb of the sentence plus accompanying auxiliary or helping verb(s).

An adjective phrase (AdjP) is an adjective or any group of words that can substitute for an adjective.

An adverb phrase (AdvP) is an adverb or any group of words that can substitute for an adverb.

 

There is also a type of phrase called a prepositional phrase (PP), which consists of a preposition followed by a noun phrase, as in to the dog. Prepositional phrases can function as adjective phrases or adverb phrases, as in the following sentences:

The cat in the hat (AdjP: in the hat modifies cat)

He looks up the road (AdvP: up the road modifies looks)

 

A subject is a noun phrase that performs the action of the verb or precedes the verb be:

John seems all right.

John is all right.

 

It is often thought of as the topic of the sentence and generally (but not always) comes at or near the beginning of the sentence before the predicate.

A predicate is a verb phrase followed by a complement, a noun phrase, adjective phrase, or adverb phrase that completes the meaning of the verb. The predicate generally (but not always) comes after the subject.

Together, a subject and predicate make up a clause. To have a complete sentence, you must have at least one full clause.

One problem people often have in identifying the subjects of sentences is that they forget that whole clauses can themselves function as modifiers of the headword of the subject phrase. Consider the sentence below:

The old dog that I saw yesterday seems all right.

 

The subject of the sentence is The old dog that I saw yesterday, but it contains within it a whole clause—that I saw yesterday—with its own subject: I. The clause The old dog seems all right is considered the independent clause because it can form a sentence on its own. The clause that I saw yesterday is considered a dependent clause because it cannot form a sentence on its own. Dependent clauses are generally introduced by certain types of words such as relative pronouns or relative adverbs (words like which, who, that, and where, which introduce dependent clauses called relative clauses) and subordinate conjunctions and conjunctive adverbs (words like after, although, if, however, afterwards, and indeed, which introduce dependent clauses called subordinate clauses).

The main verb phrase consists of a verb and any auxiliaries attached to it, at least one of which must be in the present or past tense. (The underlined phrase in Having lost his hat, he bought a new one is a verb phrase, but it is not the main verb phrase, which bought).

In order to understand the use of auxiliaries, it is necessary to review the five principle parts of the verb: infinitive, present tense, past tense, present participle, and past participle.

• The infinitive (sometimes called the base form) has no inflection. It is often preceded by the word to, as in to go.
• The present tense is formed using allomorphs of {-s present tense}.
• The past tense is formed using allomorphs of {-d past tense}.
• The present participle is formed using {-ing present participle}
• The past participle is formed using {-ed past participle}

Important observations: Certain forms look alike and are often confused. The present tense some singular and all plural verbs has a zero-allomorph of {-s present tense} and so looks the same as the infinitive (to go vs. I go). Many verbs also have past tense and past participle forms that look alike (I talked vs. I have talked). Also, it is important to remember that the past participle is talked, not have talked, which is two separate words. In the preceding verb phrase have is in the present tense, and talked is in the past participle form.

Auxiliaries, or auxiliary verbs, are often called helping verbs because they appear to "help" the main verb in some way. Specifically, they combine with the main verb to provide some rather sophisticated information.

As stated above, a predicate consists of a main verb phrase plus a complement. A complement is a noun phrase, adjective phrase, or adverb phrase that completes the meaning of the verb. Some predicates do not have a complement, as in I go. In these cases, the predicate consists only of a main verb phrase. Here are some examples of sentences with complements:

I am a student (noun phrase)

I see a student (noun phrase)

I am unhappy (adjective phrase)

I am at home (adverb phrase)

 

The predicates of sentences can be structured into five different ways. Depending on the type of predicate you have, the verb is labelled intransitive, linking, or transitive.

Intransitive verbs can stand alone as the whole predicate, although they may also have adverbial modifiers. Examples are the verbs in I slept, I slept well, and I slept like a baby. (NB that a prepositional phrase can function adverbially.)

You can perform the following tests to determine if a verb is intransitive:

1. Divide the predicate into phrases and see if it contains only a VP or a VP + an adverbial phrase.
2. If you are not sure if the phrase modifying the VP is adverbial, try replacing it with a prototypical adverb like there or then. If this works, the phrase is functioning adverbially.

You’ll notice if you diagram these sentences that intransitive verbs do not have complements. The adverbial phrase just modifies the verb. All the other types of verbs have complements.

A linking verb is a verb that is completed by a phrase which describes the subject of the sentence. This phrase is a complement. Linking verbs occur with two different types of complements: adverbial complements and subject complements. An adverbial complement is an adverbial phrase. A subject complement is an adjectival phrase or a noun phrase that describes the subject. The following examples illustrate this"

1. An adverbial complement: I am outside, I am in the garage.
2. An adjectival subject complement: I am happy, I feel sick, He seems all right.
3. A noun subject complement: I am a genius, She considers him a coward.

Examples are Jesse is outside. Her job interviews were yesterday. Cheryl’s notebook must have been on the desk. The reception will be at noon. You’ll notice that they look like intransitive verbs. But compare The train departs and noon with The reception is at noon. The verbs in the sentences are different because the verb be has a special status. It normally functions like an equals sign, between the subject and the complement (e.g. I am a genius). Intransitive verbs like depart do not function as an equals sign.

When the subject of a linking verb is described by the verbs complement, the complement is called a subject complement. Subject complements can be adjectival or nominal. We’ll deal with the adjectival subject complement first. Since many grammars use the term predicate adjective, that is worth knowing as a synonym. Examples are Sheila is beautiful. His parties were very lavish. Bill is becoming friendly. Your uncle has seemed happy in the past.

You can tell whether you have a linking verb followed by an adjectival complement by checking for the following:

1. The main verb is followed by an adjectival phrase describing the subject.
2. The main verb is be or can be replaced by be without major change to the meaning of the sentence.
3. The most common linking verbs are be, appear, become, seem, grow, prove, remain, turn, feel, look, smell, taste, and sound. But note that they do not always function as linking verbs, so don’t automatically assume that they are.

A nominal subject complement is also called a predicate nominative in some grammars. The term nominal means something that functions as a noun. The term nominative is useful for specifying the case of the complement, as we’ll see in a moment. Examples are Those men are brutes. The auction was a success. Our office is becoming a jungle. My three sisters remained friends afterwards.

A transitive verb is a verb that is completed by direct object. A direct object is defined as a noun phrase which completes a transitive verb. This circularity causes problems for some people. It is perhaps easier to think of what a direct object is and what it is not. A direct object is a noun phrase that does not function as a subject complement; that is, it does not describe the subject. Compare the following sentences:

The house looks a wreck. Linking, Nominal Subject Complement

She prefers popcorn. Transitive, Direct Object

 

Let’s sum up by seeing the patterns:

It’s important to realise that no other pattern is possible. You can’t have, say an intransitive verb with a direct object, or a transitive verb with a subject complement.

Consider the following sentences:

She prefers popcorn. Transitive, Direct Object

She gives him popcorn. Transitive, Direct Object

 

Both sentences have transitive verbs, but what is the direct object in the second sentence? Him is in fact the indirect object, which can be defined as the recipient of the direct object.

In the sentence She considers him a genius, notice that him is the direct object and a genius describes him? This is called an object complement.

What about these sentences?

The ball rolled slowly (Intransitive, Type I, Adverbial Modifier)

The child rolled the ball (transitive, Type V, Direct Object)

 

So is roll a transitive or an intransitive verb. This is a pointless debate. It changes depending on whether you have an adverbial modifier or a direct object.