Tema 12 Elemen Elementos tos esenci esenciale aless de de morf morfosi osint ntaxi axiss de de la la leng lengua ua ingles inglesa. a. Estr Estruct uctura urass comunicativas elementales. Uso progresivo de las categorías gramaticales en las producciones orales y escritas para mejorar la comunicación. 1. INT!"U#TI!N INT!"U#TI!N.. Classical language learning was based on strenuous (heavy) study of vocabulary and grammar, learning the various rules governing the correct correct use of language as a system. Of course, memorizing long lists of words and morpho-syntactical features did not enable the learner to actually “!"# a langua language ge for practi practical cal commun communica ication tion.. $ramma $rammarr compet competenc encee %! one of Canale Canale and !wain& !wain&ss communicat communicative ive sub competences, competences, but other s'ills are needed. needed. oth receptive receptive and productive productive s'ills and the development of other communicative sub-competences !* be ac+uired to be able to use the language in “real world# or “daily life# situations. Our syllabus is based on the communicative approach to language learning and it is centred on the study of language as communication, * we mustn&t forget that communicative language learning !O entails learning vocabulary and the rules that govern the system morphology and synta/. *he "!!"0*% difference lies in the fact this is done %1%C%*2 %1%C%*2, following the contents described in loc' loc' 3 of 456763 45676389: 89::; :; under under the headin heading g “oined to a word. ound morphemes can be inflectional and derivational. e/press grammatical grammatical rather than le/ical contrast. contrast. "nglish "nglish inflectiona inflectionall Inflection Inflectional al morp-emes morp-emes e/press morphology affects nouns, ad>ectives, verbs and pronouns s regards nouns, the –(e)s morpheme morpheme serves to distinguish distinguish singular / plural , although there are nouns, the irregular nouns such as mice, mice, or teeth. teeth. !ome adjectives have adjectives have inflectional morphemes er / est which est which are used to e/press comparative and superlative degree, as in the brighter 8 brightest. 4egular ver0s have three morphemes -s, and –ing as in decides, decideD, decidING. The morpheme –s used in -s, -ed and –ing verbs signals the third person singular of the present tense. *he –ed *he –ed morpheme signals past tense and past participle and has three variants in the spo'en language. ?e can hear these variants in the words seemed 8d8 , stopped 8t8, and decided decided 8id8. *hese variant forms of a morpheme are 'nown 'nown as allomorphs. allomorphs. Compared Compared with !panish, there there are far fewer verb inflection inflectionss or verb morphemes morphemes in "nglish. ddition of inflectional morphemes may cause changes in the spelling of a word @or e/ample, the change of “y# into “i# in the words happy lady / happier ladies. ladies . ut there is usually no change change of meaning, meaning, as is the case with derivational derivational morphology morphology.. regards regards pronouns, pronouns, we can distinguish sub>ect forms (we, she, he, they) and ob>ect form (us, her, him, them).
"erivational morp-emes are used in the construction of new words. *here are three chief processes in "nglish by which new words are created ffi/ation, conversion and compounding. #ompounding allows us to form words by >oining two or more e/isting words. ".g. ice cream, blac'board, mother-in-law, >ac'-in-the-bo/. Compounds can be written separately (ice cream), >oined together (blac'board), or with hyphens (mother-in-law). Compounding is a characteristic process of word formation in $ermanic languages, and it accounts for very long words that we find in languages such as $erman. Compounding is e/tensively used in "nglish. #onversion implies changing the grammatical category of a word without any changes in the form of the word. @or e/ample, words li'e ater, rain, head, love, al!, or! , etc, can be used either as nouns or as verbs. %ffixation includes prefi/ation or addition of prefi/es, and suffi/ation or addition of suffi/es. %n prefixation there is usually no change of word-class. @or e/ample happy and unhappy are both ad>ectivesA plant and replant are both verbs. *he meaning changes, but the word remains in the same grammatical category. $uffixes, on the other hand, typically change the grammatical category of the root word. !ome e/amples happy (ad>) happily (adv) happiness (noun) 88 fortune (noun) fortunate (ad>) fortunately (adv). 1re-fi/es and suffi/es are both bound morphemes, since they cannot be used on their own. part from these three ma>or processes, there are other ways of forming new words eduplication with repetition of the base word, e.g. !noc!-!noc!. #lipping informal shortenings e.g. flu for influenza, ad for advertisemen). lendings two words merge into one, e.g. smog " smo!e # fog. $runch %brea!fast # lunch& %cronyms are formed from initial letters of words. ".g., !, @O. (arts of t-e speecOnce the morpheme has been considered, we will focus on the word. ?ords are usually the easiest units to identify in the written language, as they commonly have spaces on either side. %t is more difficult to decide what words are in the stream of speech as pauses do not occur between each word in natural speech. !ince the early days of grammatical study, words have been grouped into word classes, traditionally labelled the parts of speech. 3uir4516789 distinguished the following a) Closed classes prepositions (of, at, in, without, in spite of)A pronouns (she, they, anybody, one, which)A determiners (the, a , that)A conjunctions (and, that, when, although)A modal ver0s( can, must, will could)A and primary ver0s( be, have, do). b) Open classes nouns (Bohn, room, answer, play)A adjectives( happy, new)A full ver0s ( grow, play)A and adver0s( completely, really) ii) $yntax !ynta/ is concerned with the way words combine to form sentences so we are now concerned with the sentence level of grammar. *he two basic parts of a sentence are the su0ject and the predicate Subject 'ary
Predicate sings
*he predicate can be very short “ary sings# , or it can be long “ary sings me a song every morning#. ?e can distinguish five elements in the sentence from a syntactical point of view. *hey are !ub>ect - erb - Complement - Ob>ect = dverbial
*he su0ject is always present in "nglish e/cept with an imperative verb. %n the present tense, third person singular the sub>ect shows number agreement with its verb. @or e/ample (he li!es ice cream. !ometimes the impersonal sub>ect “it# is used as in “it is 9 o&cloc'# or “it is raining# *he ver0 can be transitive or intransitive. *ransitive verbs can have two types of o0jects, direct and indirect. "nglish has strict rules regarding the order in which the two ob>ects are placed. ".g. )e gave the girl the apple, but not D )e gave the apple the girl . ?e say Give me it , but not D Give it me, although it is possible to say Give it T* me. *he complement may be sub>ect complement !he loo'ed happyA or ob>ect complement % find him funny *he adver0ial can be an adverb, e.g. Ee left today, or a prepositional phrase Ee left in the morning , 0ot all sentences contain the five sentence elements mentioned. ut a sentence contains at least two constituents a sub>ect and a verb. efore we tal' about CO1"F !"0*"0C"!, it can be distinguished between :p-rase; :clause; and :sentence; because these terms are often confused. p-rase does not have a verb, e.g., Eappy Fmas, although a verb may be implicit in the phrase (% wish you) happy Fmas. clause (proposiciGn in !panish) has a sub>ect and a predicate, but it may or may 0O* have complete meaning in itself. !ubordinate clauses need their main clause for full comprehensible meaning. @or e/ample, we cannot understand the subordinate clause of reason “ because she needs money# unless we are also given the main clause. @or e/ample, (he or!s because she needs money. $entences can be simple or comple/. (he or!s is an e/ample of a simple sentence and (he or!s because she needs money is a comple/ sentence, consisting of main clause H subordinate clause. *he subordinate clause can in turn be the main clause of a third subordinate clause. *here are many different types of su0ordination 0ominal or nounect or ob>ect of the verb in the main clause. ".g., % 'now - hat you+re thin!ing. Or hat you say – is important to me. elative clauses can be defining (especificativas) or non-difining (e/plicativas) ".g., *he boy , ho as honest , gave the money bac' is non-defining and implies that we are tal'ing about only one boy. *he boy who was hones returned the money, on the other hand, implies that there were other boys who were not honest and who did not return the money. 4elative clause are introduced by the relative pronoun ho, hich, that, hom and hose. %dver0ial clauses can e/press different types of relationship *ime The roof lea!s hen it rains 4eason I stayed home because it as raining 1urpose (he ore a mas! so that nobody ould recognise her Condition I+ll buy you an ice cream if you behave ell. =. E&E'ENT%* #!''UNI#%TI>E $TU#TUE$ fter having e/amined the essential elements of morphosynta/, we will consider the elementary communicative structures. *he main purpose when learning a second language is to develop the communicative competence, which was firsly established by Choms'y and later revised and e/tended by Canale and !waim in 6IJ: $rammar or inguistic subcompetence, 5iscourse subcompetence, !ociolinguistic subcompetence, !trategic subcompetence, !ociocultural subcompetence. Choms'y&s competence was referred to linguistic subcompetence which is the competence necessary to correctly use grammatical rules. %t is not possible to communicate if it is not 'nown how to form and understand sentences as they are the most elementary communicative structures. a) ccording to the form, sentences may 0e classified into four major syntactic types statements, commands, +uestions, and e/clamations.
statements are also called declarative sentences or declaratives. *hey usually convey information. ".g. 'ary and 'i!e are getting married net November commands are imperative sentences or imperatives. *he sub>ect of a command is usually left out, but it is understood as the second person pronoun KyouK. (hut the gate. $e uiet0 are e/amples of commands. gentler or more polite form of the command begins with KletLsK 1et2s have a party. Commands are also common in instructions. ?uestions or interrogative sentences or interrogatives are subdivided into two types 6. *es / no ?uestions . *hese sentences e/pect KyesK or KnoK for an answer. Is your brother still at school3 ould you li!e some tea3
Does it ever sno in 4hristchurch3
Tag questions may be seen as another type of yes/no uestions . ".g. 2ou li'e it, don&t youM Or 2ou don&t&t li'e it, do youM
9. @-... ?uestions . *hese sentences begin with a ?h word what, which, when, who, why, where, how. *hey cannot be answered with yes or no. hy is your shirt dirty3
hat do you thin! about casinos3
exclamations are also referred to as exclamative sentences or exclamatives *heu are normally are used to e/press strong feelings. *hey can begin with KwhatK or KhowK hat a silly boy 0
)o silly you are 0
b)!emantic classification of sentences ssociated with the previous sentence types
!tatements *hey are primarily used to convey information. Nuestions *hey are primirly used to see' information on a specific point. 5irectives *hey are primarily used to instruct somebody to do something. "/clamations *hey are primarily used to e/press the e/tent to which the spea'er is impressed by something. 5irect association between syntactic and semantic class is the norm, but the two classes do not always match. @or e/ample the sentence %sn&t it nice %s formally an interrogative statement but its function is an e/clamation.
A. (!,E$$I>E U$E !+ ,%''%TI#%& #%TE,!IE$ IN !%& %N" @ITTEN (!"U#TI!N$ @irst of all we should clearly state that our aim as teachers of a @, "nglish in our case, is not to teach "nglish grammar or structures, but to teach students to communicate in "nglish. %n order to communicate efficiently it is necessary to use structures and use them correctly, but structures are not the goal or the aim, they are only the "0! (el medio) for effective communication. *herefore, it is necessary not only the command of grammar or linguistic subcompetence but the five subcompetences mentioned in the former epigraph of this essay. *here are different ways to introduce structures in "nglish class *he most basic way is probably through t-e use of !UTINE$. %n this way students learn elementary structures used to greet others and in+uiring (as'ing) about others& health, as'ing about and describing the weather, etc. *he fact that routines are repeated facilitates learning. nother basic way to introduce structures with through classroom language, such as Can I borro5%something5& 3hat+s the ord for 5%something5&.. in 6nglish3 )o do you say 5 %something5&.. in 6nglish3 ?ith this last +uestion, for instance -- )o do you say 5
%something5&.. in 6nglishM students practice the structure for wh-+uestions without even being aware that they are practising a structure. %n general, we may say that communicative structures should be learnt and practiced in a contextualiBed way, so that using them becomes meaningful $rammar rules can be ac?uired (fi>aos +ue a+ui es “ac+uired# y no “learnt#) in two ways (6) *hrough induction or selforar la comunicaciGn ) progressive use of grammar categories in students+ oral and ritten production. %n this regard, we, as teachers, should follow Stephen Krashen’s natural order -yp-ot-esis, which says that the s'ills in a @ should be learnt in the same way as the s'ills in the first language. *hat is first listening and spea4ing, and then reading and Criting. !o, once the students are familiar with a structure they have heard, practiced and internalized, and finally produced in !1"<%0$, they can then produce it in ?4%*%0$. On the other hand, what students have learnt O42 can be reinforced by ?4%*%0$ it. @inally, when teaching structures or presenting structures, we should not forget that Ce s-ould go from simple ones to more complex ones in small steps.
*o sum up, although grammar is a means for communication and not an end in itself, grammatical competence or accurate use of morp-ological and syntactic categories, is one of t-e five communicative su0
Infexional morphemes: these are used to indicate aspects o the grammacal uncon o a word, e.g. to know i a word is plural or singualar, i it is past tense or not, and i it is a comparave or possessive orm.
8888DDDD !i +uerRis ampliar el epPgrafe 3
