BING 4316

English Morpho-Syntax
4th Class : September 11, 2016

Siti Marina (Irin)

ukhtuka@gmail.com

Universitas Terbuka
Korea Selatan

MODULE 4

CONSTITUENT ORDER,
GRAMMATICAL VERB
PHRASE OPERATION,
AND VERB GROUPS
Keywords:
Constituent Order
Verb
Verb Phrase

GOAL
1. Identify constituent order
2. Determine and differentiate grammatical verb

phrase operation
3. Explain and mention the other verb groups

Constituent Order
UNIT 1

Definitions
A clause is a group of words containing a subject and
verb. An independent clause is a simple sentence. It can
stand on its own.
Example:
She is hungry.
A dependent clause cannot stand on its own. It needs an
independent clause to complete a sentence. Dependent
clauses often begin with such words as although, since,
if, when, and because.
Example:
Although she is hungry
Dependent
Independent
Although she is hungry, she will give him some of
her food.
A sentence is a set or group of words which makes
complete sense.
Example:
The girl likes banana.
A phrase is a group of words without a subject-verb

Basic Constituent
Order
Exhibited in pragmatically neutral clauses by eliminating:
Dependent clause
Paragraph-initial clause
Clauses that introduce participants
Questions
Negative clauses
Clearly contrastive clauses (e.g. clefts, answer to questions,
etc.)
The remaining clauses are pragmatically neutral, called phrases,
identified by transitive verbs (Vt) with two full noun phrases (NPs)
which has consistency of order of the NPs with respect to the verb.
Verb phrases (VPs): verb-initial, verb-medial, and verb-final

Constituent orders
Costituent Types

Examples

Dianty hit the ball

Direct object

Bart went to the bathroom

Prepositional phrase

The executioner knew that she had lost Object complement

her job
The woman wanted to vomit

Object complement

They told the cat to wait

Object complement

The coach was ugly

Predicate adjective

The man was a wretched ping-pong

player

Predicate nominal

Sentences
First stage of sentence analysis is to divide a
sentence into two main parts : subject (S) and
predicate (P)
Subject

Predicate

Dogs

bark.

The sun

gives light.

The child

is dead.

The boys

made Rama
captain.

My father

gave me a watch.

The flames

spread
everywhere.

The time to do the

exams

has passed.

What is subject?
What is predicate?

Different forms of
predicate
When the verb is intransitive, the predicate may consist of
the verb alone
When the verb is a transitive verb the predicate may consist
of the verb and its complement
When a verb is an intransitive verb of incomplete predication,
the predicate may consist of the verb and its complement
When the verb is a transitive verb having two objects, the
predicate may consist of the verb and its two objects
indirect and direct
When the verb is a transitive verb of incomplete predication,
the predicate may consist of the verb, its object and a
complement

Head of the phrase

The little child, tired of play,/is sleeping.
head of NP : child
head of VP : sleeping
Subject as NP: the head is qualified by an
adjective or adjective equivalent called
Enlargement or Attribute.
Examples:
Divide S and P, and head of NP Attribute.
1. Barking dogs seldom bite.
2. A desire to excel is commendable.
3. The boy, anxious to learn, worked hard.

Verb phrase
1. Transitive verb: requires an object (O) to

complete its sense.

Ex.: Jenny hit him.
He shot a big panther.
2. Vt + two Os (direct object (dO) and indirect

object (iO)
ditransitive verb
Ex.: I promised him a present.
3. Vt + objective complement (oC)

Ex.: The boys made Rama captain.

(made here is Vt of incomplete predication)

Intransitive verb
Need not an object;

Ex.: Andy snores.

The baby cried.
May have constituents added, but optional, not a
must.
P snoresA very loudly.
Ex.: S Andy
Adverbial (A) is adverb phrase (AdvP)

TheSbabyPcried inA the night.

Adverbial (A) is prepositional phrase (PP)

Vi requires word(s) to make the predicate

complete and serves to describe the subject

subjective complement (sC)

Attributive clauses
Predicative adjective = the predicate is
completed by an adjective
Ex.: My son becomes taller.

Predicative noun = the predicate is

completed by a noun
Ex.: Elephant is a big animal.

Grammatical Verb Phrase

Operation
UNIT 2

Pre-position and postposition modifiers

Transitive verbs has two kinds of objects:
direct object and indirect object Complex
Transitive
Direct object with post modifier:

The voters elected Yudo president.

dO

oC

Kim thought Mary a fool.

S
P
dO oC
Object complement as a prepositional phrase
Carol put the car in the garage
S
P
dO
oC
Gani stood the lamp on the table

Rules to remember
Prepositional phrase : PP P(+NP) ; functioned as A, iO or sC
Adjective phrase : AP (AdvP+) A ; functioned as sC or oC
Complex-transitive verb
VP = complex transitive verb + dO + oC
dO = NP
oC = NP or PP or AP

Ditransitive verb
VP = ditransitive verb + iO + dO
iO = NP
dO = NP
or
VP = ditransitive verb + dO + iO
dO = NP
iO = PP

The Other Verb Groups

UNIT 3

Auxiliaries
Can be semantically empty do in He does go to school.
Or express information such as tense, aspect or mode (e.g. can and

have)
Complement-taking verbs (e.g. say, finish, start, permit, make,

force, and want)

VP verb group (Vgp) + dO
Vgp auxiliaries (Aux) + lexical verb (V)
dO NP

Contain inflectional information:

Tense (present and past)
Modal auxiliaries (will, would, can, could, must, etc. and
marginally: need, dare, used to)
Primary auxiliaries (have, be, do)

Primary Auxiliaries
Perfect aspect (PERF) auxiliary verb have (present and
past)

modal + infinitive have (V)

have + past participle form

2. Progressive aspect (PROG) auxiliary verb be (present
and past)

Modal + progressive + V

Present tense + perfect + progressive + V

Modal + perfect + progressive + V

3. Passive voice

Modal + passive+ V

Present tense + perfect + passive+ V

Present tense+ progressive + passive + V

4. Do
1.

Negative statement
Questioning statement
Emphasis

Thank you

See you next

class!

Please prepare for Module 5 and

Task-2