Group I: Grammar and Style

Moulic, April Ezra

Paleb, Janette

Pecson, Areya June

Rayat, Justine Kyla

I. Objective

This unit aims to develop some useful building blocks for a study of grammar and style.

II. Content

Grammar

- Hugely complex set of interlocking categories, units, and structures: in effect the

RULES of that language

- These rules are nothing more than a random collection of ad hoc and prejudiced

structures about language use. This means that these set of rules were created

as such because they were necessary in our study of language.

- The grammatical rules of a language are responsible for making up its syntactic

construction. This is the reason why stylisticians find it an intimidating area of

analysis because it is not always easy to point out which aspects of a text’s many

interlocking patterns of grammar are stylistically important.

A Basic Model of Grammar

o Grammatical units are ordered hierarchically according to their size. The

hierarchy is known as the rank scale.

Rank Scale

- ordered hierarchy of grammatical units

- sorts units in a ‘consists of’ relationship, progressing from the largest down to the

smallest:

*sentence (clause complex)

*clause

*phrase (group)

*word

*morpheme

The morpheme is the smallest unit in grammar because it has no structure

of its own.

Clause

o Arguably, the most important unit on the scale is the clause complex. It is

especially important because we can find several important functions in

language.

- It provides tense. (verbal or non-verbal)

- It can be distinguished as something which possess positive or negative

polarity. (markers)

- It provides the core or ‘nub’ of a proposition in language.

- This is where information about grammatical mood is situated

Four Basic elements of Clause Structure

1. Subject (S)- typically filled with by a noun phrase

2. Predicator (P)- always filled by a verb phrase

3. Complement (C)- typically filled either by a noun phrase or adjective phrase

4. Adjunct (A)- typically filled either by an adverb phrase or by a prepositional

phrase

SPCA pattern examples:

Subject Predicator Complement Adjunct

(1) The woman feeds those pigeons regularly.

(2) Our bull terrier was chasing the postman yesterday.

(3) Ang aso ay nagkalat ng pagkain sa opisina.

(4) Si Donna ay naglaro ng trumpo kanina.

These examples highlight grammar’s capacity to embed units of different sizes

within one another. ( The elements of clause structure are filled up by units on

the lower scale)

The rule which stipulates that a verb phrase must fill up the predicator slot is a

hard and fast one, whereas the rules on filling up the other slots are less

absolute.

Test for Clause Constituents

1. Finding the Subject: it should answer the question ‘who’ or ‘what’ placed in

front of the verb

example: ‘Who’ feeds those pigeons regularly?

(the woman)

‘Ano’ ang nagkalat ng pagkain sa opisina?

(ang aso)

2. Finding the Complement: it should answer the question ‘who’ or ‘what’ placed

after the verb

example: Our bull terrier was chasing ‘who’.

(the postman)

Si Donna ay naglaro ng ‘ano’

(trumpo)

3. Finding the Adjunct: it should answer the questions such as ‘how’. ‘when’, ‘

where’, or ‘why’ placed after the verb.

example: Ang aso ay nagkalat ng pagkain ‘saan’.

(sa opisina)

Our bull terrier was chasing the postman ‘when’.

(yesterday)

4. Adding a tag question to the declarative form of the clause

-A sentence may have a negative or positive polarity which allows the speaker or

writer to alter the function of the declarative.

- A tag question is a useful tool for exploring grammatical structure because it

always repeats the Subject element in a more simplistic manner. (using pronouns)

-It also draws out an important aspect of the Predicator in the form of auxiliary

verb (does, was) which supplies information about tense and finiteness.

example: The girl dances gracefully, doesn’t she?

The magazine photo was taken yesterday, was it?

Other examples:

1. My sister and my aunt visit the dentist monthly, don’t they?

Coordination- grammatical technique where the two noun phrases ‘My sister’ and

‘my aunt’ which are different entities are brought together by the conjunction ‘and’

o Notice how these two entities are brought together through using the

pronoun they in the tag question.

2. The man, a UP graduate, had donated the books in the library, had he?

Apposition- the grammatical technique which makes the two phrases ‘The man’

and ‘a UP graduate’ in different ways to the same entity.

Variations in Basic Clause Structures

The Imperative and the Interrogative

- another way of clausal patterning

Imperative

-form typically used for request and commands

- the subject is implicit

-cannot be marked for tense

examples: Listen.

Turn off the lights, please

Mind your head

Always count your change

Pakilinis ang hagdanan

Panatilihing malinis ang bahay

Interrogative

-form typically used for asking questions

-contains the Subject element

-Many types of interrogative position part of the Predicator in front of the Subject.

example: Will the parents attend the meeting on time?

Does the woman wear elegant shoes every Friday?

Declarative clauses may themselves display significant variation around the

SPCA pattern.

o Ex. When a clause contains two complements by having a direct object

and an indirect object.

Elizabeth gave her lover a heartache.

Her wounds gave the young man a seriously worried face.

Adjunct elements are many and varied in terms of the forms they take and of the

information they bring to a clause. They basically describe the circumstances that

attach to the process and for that reason they can be often removed without

affecting the grammaticality of the clause as a whole.

Minor Clause

-conventionally used to described structures which lack a Predicator element

-frequently seen on spoken interactions

This is where the term context applies to. We know that structurally the answer of

speaker B is only a constituent which is an adjunct. However, in the context of a

conversation it already showed us the entire response of the speaker.

Example

(1) Speaker A: Where is the key?

Speaker B: inside the box

Finally, as a general rule of thumb, when analyzing elements which are present in a

text, there can only be one subject element and one predicator element of structure in

any given clause. There may be however be up to two complement elements and any

number of adjunct elements.