Úvod do štúdia AJ, 1.ročník, zimný semester 2012/2013

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ENGLISH AS A WORLD LANGUAGE

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official language in over 60 countries

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approximately 500 – 1000 million people

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every continent

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the three main oceans

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can be language used in multilingual society, semi-official replaces other languages...
in general has position of world language

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is mother tongue in more countries (Canada, USA, GB, Australia)

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spread of Eng. around the world

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3 circles:

o inner circle – comprises countries in which Eng. is mother tongue (Great

Britain, the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa). Language in
institution, traditional basies Eng. is spread from.

o outer circle – countries connected to the 1

st spread (India, Nigeria,

Singapore, Ghana,.. the countries of Commonwealth) not native language for
people living here but is dominant language spoken there. Chief institutions –
educational, government... use Eng. but it is not native.

o expanding circle – most people speak Eng. as a foreign language

(Brazilians, Egyptians, Asians, we...). Eng. is taught here as a foreign
language (probably not connected to colonization)

Spread/movement of English - started in 16th century roughly. England had great power
over colonies: America, Asia and Australia. Later in the 18th century was spread to Africa and
South Pacific. In the 20th century 2 important factors caused English to become No. 1
language: the USA was the biggest country with the best economy; the British colonies fell
down and the countries adopted the English language. (– consequences of WW II.;
migration; but ECONOMIC – after WW II. – collapse of British colonial power – many newly
created independent countries adopted Eng. as official language.)

2 factors helping English with spreading:

o EXPANSION OF BRITISH COLONIAL POWER – due to colonization, trade,

conquest

o APPEARANCE OF THE USA LEADING COUNTRY - economic power in the

world

PEOPLE LEARN ENGLISH BECAUSE OF:

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historical reasons – due to the legacy of the USA & British imperialism.
Governments, Parliaments, Gov. agencies, schools...

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internal political reasons – typical of India – Eng. serves as a symbol of national
unity as neutral means of communication. There are more than 3 hundred native
languages in India so that English spoken in institutions, official communication...

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external economic reasons – USA has leading power – if you want to be a
rovnocenny partner you have to speak Eng.

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practical reasons – used in international pleas, maritime, air traffic, emergency
services, tourism

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intellectual reasons – in the middle ages it was latin – lingua franca – now English
is. most academic, scientific, technical information is in English nowadays. If we
produce something new and want to be accepted by the world, we use Eng. Than
academic conferences are in Eng.

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entertainment reasons – pop music, pop culture, film, video games, computers,
windows, mobile communication, advertising; drug traffic, pornography

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MY reasons – to meet people, like the language, to read literature in originals, wider
book market, travelling...

Varieties of English: (there are many varieties of Eng.)
three types of linguistic variety:

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regional (geographical) – based on English spoken in different regions (American –
British – South Africa – Australia...) dialects in England, Scotland... different dialects
and accents in different regions

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functional – based on the principals that use different language to different situations
(with friends – with teachers – with grandparents...)

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social – connected with division of society into different social groups (age –
educated – uneducated – social status...)

Standard English – there was no “Stur” who codified it. SE is normed English spoken by
people so that they are understood although there are many accents. It is used in media,
books, taught to foreigners and at schools, widely understood, but not widely spoken –
official one, the grammar and spelling is the same, but the pronunciation differs.

STANDARD ENGLISH

THE PROPERTIES OF LANGUAGE

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animals use language to meet their partner, the language is very simple

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human language is the perfect one.

Language – a structured system of mutually related signs which are typical of an arbitrary
and conventional relationship to the entities in the extra-linguistic reality.

Extra-linguistic reality – svet okolo nás. everything around us

1. Sign – the natural language is represented by signs (jazyk má znakovú povahu).

Written or spoken word is a sign word with certain meaning.

2. There is an arbitrary relationship between a linguistic sign /form/ and its

meaning /content/ - Arbitrariness - there is no natural relationship between them.
That´s why different languages use different signs. There is a particular form to
denote the particular reality.

3. Conventional system –
4. Structured system – that is closely related – syllables – words – sentences – texts
5. Levels of language: (language – a group of units. structures are relations between

the units. the language as a structured system can be shown as a pyramid – different
levels:

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discourse

autonomous

syntactic

deals with the

lexical

semantic – meaning & how it´s

morphological

shown in different

phonic – sounds

stages

6. Language plane – plane of form/expression; plane of meaning/content – there is a

correlation between them at any language level. If you want to express certain
meaning, you have to give it correct form.

1. A correlation between the plane of form /expression) and the plane of meaning

(content)

2. discreteness
3. duality /double articulation/ - we´ve got limited number of phonemes but we can

combine them. 47 phonemes can be combined to 500-page book

4. productivity /creativity, open-endedness/ - people can use language to create new

words, sentences. This creativity is open-ended.This is only for human language.

7. Discreteness – sounds “b” & “p” are very similar. So if we use them in words like

“back” & “pack”, they are discreet/identical.

8. Duality – (double articulation) – language is organised on two layers: 1. limited sets

of units that don´t have meaning on their own, e.g. n, m, t, a, e; 2. limited sets of units
from which we can create indefinite number with the meaning, e.g. met, meat, ten.
Language is very economical, 44 phonemes are enough to write a book.

9. Productivity – (creativity, open - endendness – infinite) – able to create new words,

meanings anytime

10. Reciprosity – inter changeability – the producer of a linguistic signal /speaker/ can at

the same time be a receiver of a signal /listener/

11. Communicative displacement – e.g. – if a dog is barking, something is happening

right now – in a human language, we are able to talk about past, future, places we
have never been to, fairies, Santa Claus (unreal things) => complex language isn´t
limited

12. Cultural transmission – we inherit colour of the eyes, hair... from our parents, but

not the complex language (e.g. adoption of a Korean boy into the US family – he will
speak English – so you speak the language that other people around you speak. We
inherit just the preposition to speak the language. The language of animals is given
instinctly.

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MORPHOLOGICAL LEVEL OF THE HUMAN LANGUAGE

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talks about morphology

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the first time used in biology (19th century used in linguistics)

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morphe – form

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logos – study

o study of word forms
o study of internal structure of words
o study ofwhat the words are composed of

Morpheme – the smallest unit of grammar with which some meanings or grammatical
functions are associated, e.g.: the successful painter finally showed his unsigned
masterpieces

CATEGORIES OF MORPHEMES:

1. free vs. bound

a. free – can exist on their own as words
b. bound – have to be attached to other morphemes

i. derivational (affixes) – they influence the meaning of the morphemes

strongly (happy vs. unhappy). They may change the word class,
important in word formation (paint – painter). They can be prefixes (in
front of other morpheme) e.g. unhappy, asleep, reopen; or suffixes (at
the end of morpheme) e.g. childhood, homeless, friendship

ii. inflectional – don´t change the meaning & the word class. They

indicate certain grammatical function. There are 8:

1. Plural (cats);

nouns

2. Genitive case (Peter´s)
3. 3rd person singular present tense (sits)
4. present participle (singing)

verbs

5. past tense (played)
6. past participle (beaten)
7. comparative degree (older)

adjectives

8. superlative degree (oldest)

Paradigm – set of all the inflectional morphemes which a word may take (play – s, ing, ed,
er)

2. monofunctional vs. polyfunctional

a. monofunctional – has one function – “un”
b. polyfunctional – has several functions at the same time – “s” (3rd person,

present simple, plural)

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There is no purely analytical language and no purely synthetical language in the world.

ANALYTICAL LANGUAGES – also called isolating – English, Chines, Thai are typical
analytical languages. In an ideal analytical language words consist of only 1 morpheme and
they are not combined. (We have also words of more morphemes but in general...)

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the inflections are reduced to minimum (in Eng. only 8).

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the relations between words are expressed by prepositions and other auxiliary words.

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the word order in analytical languages is more or less fixed. You can´t simply change
the word order without changing the meaning.

We may combine morphemes into words.

SYNTHETICAL LANGUAGES – latin is typical; we combine morphemes into (large)
words.
They can be:

1. AGGLUTINATING - the languages use esp. monofunctional morphemes & their

position is fixed. Typical agglutinating languages: Hungarian, Finish, Turkish – if you
want to use eg plural or dative... you must use different morphemes.

2. INFLECTING – use polyfunctional morphemes. We can combine morphemes into

words without restrictions. Sometimes it´s difficult to divide words into morphemes.
But we have conjugation types and declension types. Word order is relatively free in
general. Typical languages are: Slovak, Baltic, Celtic languages. Paradigmes; you
can use declensions of certain type to all members of a given type.

Morphology also studies words.
A word is a minimal free unit consisting of 1 or several morphemes, which express a unified
semantic concept.
It is good to study words not isolated but in groups. So we created WORD CLASSES
(PARTS OF SPEECH) – groups of words with common features – nouns – and subclasses:
common and proper nouns; non-count and count nouns... the smaller the class, the more
common features.;

Traditional classification by romans:
WORD CLASSES:
nouns,
adjectives,
pronouns,
verbs,
adverbs,
prepositions,

conjunctions,
particles,
interjections,
numerals,
determiners.

Grammatical categories:
Nouns: number, case, gender, definiteness – určitosť – according to articles
Verbs: person, number, tense, aspect – aspekt – má vlastnosti slovenského vidu, ale nie je
to to isté, voice – rod (činný, trpný), mood – spôsob

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LEXICAL LEVEL

It studies words in general from a different point of view. It deals with lexical components of
the language, which are words, and their combination. All words in a language can be
termed – vocabulary/lexicon. It is not an alphabetical list of words. It is a very complex &
complicated system. In any language the number of words is very large. In English about
500.000 or more. But in communication we use much less, roughly 5.000 words in general.
Active vocabulary – words you make active use of in every day communication. There are
also words which you do not use in every day speech, but do understand them – passive
vocabulary. Every person uses a special part of vocabulary – idiolect. It is unique for every
person. The way how you combine words, phrases you use, word order... Education,
environment, age, gender, creativity, intellectual abilities, social status – all these things
influence the idiolect.

Vocabulary is the least stabile system because it is constantly changing (compared to
morphology or syntax...).
Vocabulary is studied by – lexicology and lexicography.

Lexicology – deals with structure of voc., the usage, origin and properties of words.

Lexicography – deals with the procedures and principals of writing/compiling dictionaries.

LEXICOLOGY

– studies the structure of the vocabulary, usage, origin and properties of

words, word formation, etymology, lexical semantics, study of idioms

changes in the vocabulary:

 disappearence of words:

o shortening

– the longer words are replaced by shorter (refrigerator – fridge)

because the word is not used any more or was replaced e.g. refrigerator =>
frige; perambulator => perm

o identically pronounced words

– used to avoid misunderstanding (write, right,

play wright, rhytm)

o disappearance of the object in extra-linguistic reality

– the words we don´t use

just dissapear

o borrowing from other languages

, e. g. tucker – nieman disappeared; “take” –

from Scandinavian

 new words appear in the language

o word-formation

– creating new words by already existing material

o borrowing

(“loan words”) – adopting words from other languages. We usually

modify spelling, pronunciation, change grammar (western, bojkot, víkend,
gentleman...) The source of loan words is dependent on 1. historical factors –
vine, collonisation; 2. the necessity to name new things. Translation loans
(calques) – literal translations (superman – from a German word)

o coinage

– creating completely new words – we do not use material already

existing compared to “word-formation”, e.g. inventions (telephone)

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Word-formation

 principal processes:

o derivation

- using morphemes, suffixes, prefixes to derive new words –

wooden, useful, reader, disobedient, unable, rebuild

o compounding

- two rules/bases are joint together – bookcase, worldwide,

blackboard, well-known, housekeep

o conversion

- we use a word in a new word class in the same form without

adding any derivatory elements - prefixes or suffixes

 N – V: a nurse – to nurse
 Adj – V: dry – to dry
 Adj – N: criminal – a criminal
 N – Adj: a secret – secret (love, door)

 minor processes

o blending

– it´s the fusion of 2 words, when we join first part of one word and

second part of the other (smog – smoke + fog; brunch – sbreakfast + lunch;
motel – motocar + hotel; chunnel – channel + tunnel; manorexia – man +
anorexia)

o back-formation

(N – V) – verb is back-formation of noun (babysitter – babysit;

beggar – beg; television – to televise; but word player – to play was
derivation). It is subtracting of a supposed ethics on the basis of analogy

o shortening

– a reduction of the length of words:

 clippings – by taking one or several syllables off

 advertisement – ad
 influenza – flu
 telephone – phone

 acronyms - from initial letters of a set of words

 CD, VIP, FBI – some are read alphabetically
 AIDS, NATO, UNO – are read as words

Borrowing
We usually adapt the words to the situation in new languages. We usually modify spelling,
phonetic structure.
(western, bestseller, star – v slovenčine udomácnené v pôvodnej forme; bojkot, dabing,
doping, dispečing, džem, džez, džin, džús, autokemping, klub, slogan, smoking, stres, víkend
– boli upravené; dizajn/design, džentlmen/gentleman, koktail/kokteil, manager/manažér...)

 the sources of loanwords is dependent on:

o historical factors – colonization
o the necessity to name new things

 translation loans (calques) – literal translations “der Uebermensch – Superman”

Etymology – studies the origin of words.
In the past there were 3 languages from which majority of words were borrowed:

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Latin – wine, cup, street, pound, cross;

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French – crown, people, state, peace, justice, beef;

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Scandinavian – leg, skin, knife, happy, they, wrong

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English was influenced also by – Italian – piano, opera, umbrella; Spanish – cigarette, potato,
guitar; Dutch – yacht, iceberg; Arabic – alcohol, admiral, coffee; Chinese – tea; German –
hamburger; Czech – pistol

LEXICOGRAPHY - the theory and practice (or processes and principles) of compiling
dictionaries

Dictionary – a reference book, which lists and explains the words of one language or gives
translations into another language and provides us with some additional information. It
contains information about pronunciation, forms of the word, word class, grammar, varieties
in English – American, British, example sentences, derivations, style (formal/informal),
collocations, phrases (change your mind), phrasal verbs, synonyms, opposites, idioms,
origin...

Types of dictionaries:

A. encyclopaedic – provide special information, linguistic & encyclopaedic – people,

history...

B. linguistic – explanatory (word is explained in the same language) and translational

(explain the word by giving equivalence in particular language.

A. general – entire vocabulary, general
B. specialized – particular part of vocabulary

a. aimed at a part or aspect of the vocabulary:

idioms, phrasal verbs, collocation

dictionary, etymology, neologisms, pronouncing, modern slang, synonyms

b. aimed at special groups of users:

i. Children´s Dictionary

ii. Advanced Learner´s Dictionary

c. aimed at particular spheres or activities:

i. law

ii. physics

iii. philosophy

A. size:

a. small dictionaries

(<30 000)

b. medium dictionaries

(<90 000)

c. large dictionaries

(>90 000)

Best known English dictionaries:
Oldest – written in 1755 by Samuel Johnson – A Dictionary of the English Language
Famous – written by James Murray in 1933 – The Oxford Dictionary –

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in 1989 new edition;

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contains 500 000 words;

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23 volumes;

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22 000 pages;

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costs 600 £, 1 250 €;

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the largest dictionary

US – 1828, written by Noah Webster – An American Dictionary of the English Language

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codifies the US English

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simplifies the English spelling

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combines linguistic encyclopaedic information

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sold the copyright – Marrian-Webster Dictionary

LEXICAL LEVEL

LEXICAL SEMANTICS

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studies the meaning of words and their relevance/equivalence (?)

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we study what the word means conventionally rather than what people mean by them
in different occasions

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conventional meaning of words – people agreed

1. conceptual (denotational) meaning – is present in any word. It is the basic meaning

of the words – basic dictionary meaning; in fact it is the definition of the words. It
makes the communication possible as everyone knows/understands the meaning. It
includes the essential components of meaning (needle – instrument for sewing, long,
sharp, of steel... ).(It is direct meaning.)

2. associative (connotational) meaning – is not present in all words. It expresses

certain attitude or emotion which is connected to the words. In this way we
differentiate words which are stylistic colouring (ask, questions)and emotional
colouring (thin = slim in positive way; skinny in negative way)

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ask /neutral/ = question /more formal/ = interrogate /most formal/ - have the same
meaning but the stylistic colouring is different

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skinny - negative, but the same denotational meaning: slender/slim/lean – positive

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moist – nice /cake/ but damp/wet have negative meaning

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the denotational meaning is the same but connotational meaning is different

Semantic features – components of meaning

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man – human, adult, male

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father – human, adult, male

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boy – human, non-adult, male

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mother – human, adult, female

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girl – human, non-adult, female

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some features in common

Componential analysis – we state some components of meaning and compare if they are
present in the words

CLASSIFICATION OF WORDS

1. according to the number of meanings :

a. monosemantic words – have only one meaning , they are quite rare,

scientic, technical expressions

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b. polysemantic words - English is very rich for them. They are frequent and

express several meanings at the same time. Context helps us to identify the
meaning. (head – as such, brain, hair, head of faculty or ..., queen, at the
head of a table, head of cabbage, head on beer)

2. according to the similarities and differences in meaning:

a. synonyms - are very similar, almost identical but changeable in meanings,

e.g. ask = question. They often differ in stylistics. But e.g. noun = substantive
are always the same.

b. antonyms – have opposite meaning, e.g. black & white
c. homonyms – words with completely different meaning, but their spelling

and/or sound form are identic

 homonyms proper (bank, bank)
 homophones (steel, steal)
 homographs (a wind, to wind) – spelling identical but different

pronunciation

3. according to meaning included
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the meaning of one word is included in the meaning of another one.

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the meaning of more general term is included in the meaning of a more specific one.

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hyponym vs. hypernym – hypernym - is general, hyponym – is specific

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e.g.: flower – plant – living creature

4. according to conceptual underlying (sú obsiahnuté v) the meaning
-

all the words belong to semantic field. They have components of meaning in
common.

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e.g. pineapple, orange, apple, strawberry, banana all these words have the same
semantic field – semantically related words, so they have a component of meaning in
common

WORD COMBINATIONS

fixed

-

free

idioms

<–

collocations –>

free combinations

He is making a mountain out of a molehill.
He is making a cake.

Idiom

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it is a fixed combination of words

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it is a single semantic unit – the meaning of an idiom is not a sum of individual words,
but you must take it as a whole

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the meaning is non-literal (figurative) and idioms are usually stable. No substitutions
are possible (cannot say “make a peak out of a molehill” – this has NO meaning).

-

the information is not additive.

Phraseology - studies idioms & other phraseological units
Phraseological units:

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idiomatic construction of two words (white nights)

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phrasal verbs

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similes

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idioms proper with a verb

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idioms proper without a verb

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idioms with a sentence structure (sayings, proverbs)

Free combinations of words

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set of words used in order, e.g. cut bread with a knife – any words combined

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you must know all used words – sum of all the meanings of individual words. They
are not stable. (to cut cheese with a knife)

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the information is additive –we increase the level, number of information provided by
adding words cut vs. cut bread vs. cut bread with a knife (while idioms have the
meaning only after the whole idiom is used, but single words do not provide the
information in idioms)

Collocations

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they are not fixed but neither free

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combinations of words that naturally occur together

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e.g. strong coffee, heavy rain, heavy smoker (strong smoker = physically strong).
never strong rain

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business trip /not journey/

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start a family /not establish/

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collocational dictionary

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THE SYNTACTICAL LEVEL OF THE HUMAN LANGUAGE

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each text or speech consists of units of various range or relations and types

-

relations across the sentences in a text are much looser than the relations within the
sentences

Sentence – the largest unit of grammatical description

-

it consists of one or several clauses, which consist of clause element(s), which are of
phrase(s), which are of phrase element(s), which consist of word(s) and these consist
of morpheme(s).

morpheme => word => phrasal element => phrase => clause element => clause(s) =>

sentence

words and morphemes are morphological elements
sentence, clause, clause element, phrase, phrase elements are syntactical elements
clause elements – vetné členy – sú v slovenčine vyjadrované slovom. v syntaxi treba aj
“phrase”, ale nie je to tá fráza ako “ustálené slovné spojenie”

SYNTAX
syn = together – agreement
taxis = an ordering – also the relations within the sentence

Syntax deals with the internal structure of sentences, syntactical units, individual sentence
patterns (vetné vzory), with the relations between individual syntactical elements and the
word order.
So it deals with how words are combined into sentences. It helps us to create correct
sentence, meaning of the sentences. It studies surface structure and deep structure.

Surface structure - can be different but the meaning can be almost the same
Deep structure – sentences can have more meanings (The woman hit a man with an
umbrella.)

SYNTACTICAL ELEMENTS

1. SENTENCE
-

it is something, which starts with a capital letter and ends with a stop mark, question
mark or whatever and carries/expresses a certain idea.

a. discourse function

-

declarative (statements)

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interrogative (questions) – can be yes-no questions or wh-questions

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exclamatory (exclamations)

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imperative (commands)

b. structural complexity

-

simple – consists of one single independent clause

-

multiple – consists of at least two clauses

o compound

o complex

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Compound sentence (priraďovacie súvetie) – more clauses: He plays the guitar, and she
plays the piano. – two equal sentences (in function)each of them can exist on its own. “and”,
“but”, “or” are often used as coordinator/coordinating conjunction
Complex sentence (podraďovacie súvetie): When he arrived, she had already left. – in a
complex sentence there must be one main clause /hlavná veta/ and it is modified by one or
several subordinate clauses /vedľajšie vety/. Subordinate clause has to be attached to the
main clause. It does not have meaning without the main clause, is dependent on it. Can´t
exist on its own. Subordinate clause usually starts with a conjunction – called subordinator
/subordinating conjunction.

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súvetie = 1 sentence but at least 2 clauses

2. CLAUSE ELEMENTS – each clause consists of clause elements (there are 5 in

English)

-

subject

-

predicator (verb)

o relation between subject and verb – concord (zhoda). These are obligatory

and each sentence has them. There is a relation called agreement between
them.

-

object - predmet

-

complement - doplnok

-

adverbial – príslovkové určenie

o these are optional

3. DIRECT OBJECT
-

has two meanings 1. She shook her head. – in general the direct object refers to the
person or thing that is effected by the option of the word. 2. He has written a letter. –
to express the result of the option of the word.

-

if there is only one object in a sentence, it is always the direct object. it does not have
a preposition

-

it comes immediately after verb

4. INDIRECT OBJECT
-

He showed me a card. She bought Jane a present. They´ll bring their teacher some
flowers. – the person that receives the thing, or benefits from sth.

-

can exist only if there is also the direct object.

-

it comes immediately after verb or after direct object by use of a preposition (She
showed a card TO me.)

5. Subject complement (Cs) – Peter is an architect. (menný prísudok v slovenčine, ale v
angličtine je “podmetový doplnok” !nie doplnok slovenský)

-

subject completed by Cs (?)

-

intensive relationship between the subject and the complement

-

they have the same reference (vzťahujú sa na to isté)

-

the complement says something about the states of the subject or the change of the
states of the subject (John seems/feels/looks happy. The leaves are turning yellow.)

-

other exIt smells/tastes delicious. He has become President. She is getting tired.

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6. Object complement (Co) – completes the meaning of direct object

-

The appointed / elected Jim chairman. = Jim is a chairman.

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I find it difficult.

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He drives me crazy.

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We consider her a good musician.

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My friends call me Tommy.

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Co sa dá často prekladať inštrumentálom do slovenčiny

7. Adverbial (A) – príslovkové určenie

-

are usually expressed, are usually optional in sentences. provide extra information,
usually nothing happens when they are omitted. they are the most moveable
elements.

-

She has gone to the bank. (space)

-

The meeting is on the last day of the month. (time)

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I examined the statement carefully. (manner)

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I like them very much. (degree)

-

My brother is ill with flue.

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Luckily

, they were not hurt. (comments on the content)

-

Perhaps

, he is out. (degree of certainty, truth-value)

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We arrived late. As a result, we missed the plane. (linking items)

-

Mary must send her parents an anniversary card. (prísudok: must send; podmet:
Mary – pred slovesom). But: Mary usually sends her parents an anniversary card.
(usually – nie je podmet, aj keď je pred slovesom, ale je príslovkové určenie)

CLAUSE TYPES:

-

SV type: The teacher arrived. – the sentence has just the subject and the verb. we
can add “volitelné príslovkové určenie”

-

– SV type consists of the subject and the intransitive verb

-

SVO type: She has found a book. – if the verb needs an object – monotransitive
verb. the object is obligatory.

-

SVOO type: She showed me a card. – two objects – the verb is called ditransitive
verb – such a verb must be followed by two objects.

-

SVC type: She seemed tired. – seem is typical verb followed by complement. –
copular verb (sponové sloveso)

-

SVOC type: They called him a fool. – priamy predmet a doplnok – complex transitive
verb

-

SVA type: My office is in the new building. – obligatorily used adverbial – copular verb

-

SVOA type: She put the book on the table. – uses direct object and the adverbial is
obligatorily used. – complex transitive verb

-

in all types we can add any type of adverbial.

-

He got a surprise. (SVO)

-

He got angry (SVC)

-

He got through the window. (SVA)

-

He got her a splendid present. (SVOO)

15

-

He got his shoes wet. (SVOC)

-

He got himself into trouble. (SVOA)

PHRASES

-

clause elements are expressed/realized by phrases

-

vetné členy v AJ nie sú vyjadrené slovami ale frázami (väčšinou pozostávajú z
viacerých slov)

-

v AJ nie je prívlastok.

-

a phrase is a word or a group of words out of which one is dominant. according to the
dominant word we differentiate types of phrases:

o noun phrase
o adjective phrase
o adverb phrase
o verb phrase
o prepositional phrase

Noun phrase – my interesting new book on astrology by Robert Grout => book is dominant
word called head
my book / a book / that book / - book => determiner

my new book
my interesting new book
=> modifier(s) or pre-modifier(s)

my book on astrology
my book on astrology by Robert Grout
=> qualifier(s) or post-modifier(s)

my interesting new book on astrology by Robert Grout – determiner + modifiers +
head + post-modifiers

extremely happy – modifier + head
happy enough – head + qualifier

Verb phrase – can have different parts “will have been being done” – the longest possible
verb
done – lexical (full) verb
will – modal auxiliary
have – perfective auxiliary
been – progressive auxiliary
being – passive auxiliary

VERB PHRASE:
(he) writes
(he) is writing
(has) written
(has) been writing

16

(he) can write
(it)is written
(it) is being written
it may have been written

The operator is used to form questions and negatives – it is the first auxiliary in the verb phrase
Dummy operator – do, does, did – no auxiliary in the phrase and we want to create a question or
negative.

Prepositional phrase – there is no head in them, they include preposition and something that follows
= prepositional complement
(with my best friend: with = preposition + my best friend = prepositional complement)

A stout middle-aged man with enormous owl-eyed spectacles and long brown hair was sitting really
drunk on the edge of a great table.
He gave Sam a beautiful gold watch with an inscription on it.

WORD ORDER
S V O M P T
The strikers were demonstrating noisily outside the main office yesterday.
(subject + verb + object + manner + place + time)

Some variations of “SVOMPT”:

 Is she at home?
 Have you done your homework?
 “I´ve eaten the cake,” cried Frank.
 Last night, we went to the cinema.
 We sometimes go to school by bus.
 Never have I been so happy.
 etc.

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THE DISCOURSE LEVEL

-

connected (interactive) speech or text

-

when we communicate and exchange information with another person, we use channels:
1. speaking – phonological system (phonemes)
2. writing – graphological system (graphemes)

-

discourse modes are then:
1. spoken discourse (speech) – oral language
2. written discourse (text) – written langauge

-

these two notes are different – typical features of them we have in materials

-

spoken discourse is considered to be primary and writing system is secondary to speech in
three respects:
1. the writing system is derived of the spoken system - we can´t indicate all nuances in the

written discourse (no stress, no intonation, no mood of speaker...)

2. when we considerate the evolution of man, speech was first, thousands years later we

started expressing ideas, because people needed to provide written text (written
expression followed speech)

3. if you are born, you first start speaking and only later learn how to write

On the net – how do we organize a discourse? what is coherence and cohesion? how do we connect
and relate statements to make a discourse coherent? how do we make a discourse cohesive?

Conversational principles – formulated by Paul Grice, 1975 and they are called Maxims of the
cooperative principle. These are conversational principles making speech smooth, functioning...

1. Maxim of Relation – your contribution to conversation should be relevant to the topic of

conversation

2. Maxim of Quality – in your conversation you should be sincere and truthful, so that you

should provide only information which is true, not false, for which you do not lack evidence

3. Maxim of Quantity – you should provide only as much information as necessary – not more,

not less

4. Maxim of Manner – you should be brief, clear and orderly

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THE SEMANTIC LEVEL

-

it is autonomous on one hand, but it also follows all previous levels

-

comes from Greek “semantikos” –

-

deals with meaning, system of science, the basic system is signs

-

the study of the aspects of meaning expressed in systems of signs

-

on phonological level helps to show/studies how phonemes can distinguish the meaning of
words

-

we must always know the context to understand

-

on the level of syntax it deals with clauses and sentences – you must follow kinda
grammatical principles to express the message:
The car fast love I, my friend no. – I love the fast car but my friend does not.

-

but sometimes we make a grammatically correct sentence, which can be meaningless
Colourless green ideas sleep furiously. we should be able to connect the words
semantically