chapter 1: adverbs

An ADVERB is a form-class word that usually modifies verbs,  adjectives, adverbs, phrases, clauses, or a whole sentence. A primary test for adverbs/adverbials is that it frequently can be moved  around in its sentence, or deleted, and the sentence will still make sense. A prototypical adverb will have five characteristics:

1. Adverb-making morpheme
2. Comparative or Superlative (using an inflectional morpheme)   [-er] or   [-est]
3. Comparative or Superlative (using MORE or MOST)
4. Move in its sentence (or deleted)
5. Can fit the adverb frame sentence: The man told his story <BLANK>.

 These five characteristics serve as the primary tests for identifying adverbs. In general, a prototypical adverb will have 4-5 of these characteristics. The more adverb characteristics a word has, the more prototypical it is. The fewer adverb characteristics a word has, the more it becomes a peripheral case. They  share many inflectional and derivational morphemes with adjectives. No  single formal or functional characteristic can identify every adverb. 

You can only be sure a word is an adverb if it fits the  frame sentence. The frame sentence can be any complete sentence with a  final slot available for an optional adverb. For example, the frame  sentence could be:

• The woman walked her dog _____.
• The man told his story _____.
• The child cried _____.
• The dog ate his bone _____.

 Prototypical adverbs like slow, slowly, fast, gladly, mechanically, and basically fit these sentences and have other characteristics of prototypical adverbs: Has an adverb-making morpheme:

• slowlygladlymechanically
• basically

 Takes a comparative or superlative morpheme:

• faster, fastest
• slower, slowest

 Can be made comparative or superlative by using more or most:

• more gladly, more mechanically
• most gladly, most mechanically

 Can be qualified:

• rather slowlyvery fastquite gladly
• most basically

 Can be moved within a sentence:

• He ate gladly.He gladly ate.
• Gladly he ate.

 Members of all four form classes can be divided into  further subclasses based on certain semantic features. These features  often have grammatical consequences. Adverb subclasses include adverbs  that describe the following categories:

• Manner
• Time            
• Place            
• Degree            
• Frequency and Number            
• Duration            

 When analyzing for adverbs, we classify the FORM of the analyzed word as adverb. You can use the following flowchart as a guide for your analysis: 

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Chapter 1: adjectives

An ADJECTIVE is a form-class word that typically modifies a noun (or nominal). A prototypical adjective will have five characteristics:

1. Adjective-making (derivational) morpheme
2. Comparative or Superlative (using an inflectional morpheme)   [-er] or   [-est]
3. Comparative or Superlative (using MORE or MOST)
4. Can be qualified
5. Can fit both slots of the adjective frame sentence: The <BLANK> man seems very <BLANK>.

 These five characteristics serve as the primary tests for identifying adjectives. In general, a prototypical adjective will have 4-5 of these characteristics. The more adjective characteristics a word has, the more prototypical it is. The fewer adjective characteristics a word has, the more it becomes a peripheral case.  Words like lovable or funny have four or five characteristics:

1. Adjective-making (derivational) morpheme: lovable; funny
2. Comparative or Superlative (using an inflectional morpheme): funnier, funniest
3. Comparative or Superlative (using MORE or MOST): more lovable, most lovable
4. Can be qualified: rather lovable; very funny
5. Can fit both slots of the adjective frame sentence: The <BLANK> man seems very <BLANK>.

 Peripheral cases have fewer adjective characteristics. Or a word might be considered peripheral if it does not fit both slots in the adjective frame sentence. When adjectives fit best only in the first slot, they are attributive:

• The entire pizza seems very entire.

When adjectives fit best only in the second slot, they are predicative:

• The afraid man seems very afraid.

 Members of all four form classes can be divided into further  subclasses based on certain semantic features. These features often have  grammatical consequences. The following are some of the subclasses of  adjectives: Attributive and predicative adjectives: Adjectives that only fit one of the two slots in the frame sentence are either attributive or predicative. attributive adjectives occur before a noun, usually attributing a quality to that noun

• The entire pizza disappeared.

 predicative adjectives occur in the predicate of a sentence and without a following noun

• • Our teacher was aghast.

 Predicative adjectives requiring complements: Some predicative adjectives accept or even require complements.

• • My brother is fond. The sentence seems to be missing something.
  • My brother is fond of frozen yogurt. The complement of <something> is a necessary addition to fond.

 Gradable and nongradable adjectives: Gradable adjectives can be distinguished by qualifiers indicating intensity:

• • somewhat late
  • a bit late
  • very late
  • extremely late

 Nongradable adjectives don’t normally occur with such qualifiers. The following qualified adjectives seem nonsensical:

• • rather vertical
  • somewhat perfect
  • very double
  • extremely triangular

 When analyzing for adjectives, we classify the FORM of the analyzed word as adjective. You can use the following flowchart to guide your analysis: 

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Chapter 1: verbs

A VERB is a form-class word that typically designates actions, sensations, and states.  A prototypical verb will have eight characteristics:

1. Has a verb-making (derivational) morpheme
2. Can occur with a present-tense morpheme  [-s]
3. Can occur with a past-tense morpheme  [-ed]
4. Can occur with a present-participle morpheme  [-ing]
5. Can occur with a past-participle morpheme  [-en] or  [-ed]
6. Can be made into a command
7. Can be made negative
8. Fits the frame sentence: They must <BLANK> (it).

These eight characteristics serve as the primary tests for identifying verbs. In general, a prototypical verb will have 6-8 of these characteristics. The more verb characteristics a word has, the more prototypical it is. The fewer verb characteristics a word has, the more it becomes a peripheral case.  A word like criticize has all eight characteristics:

1. Has a verb-making (derivational) morpheme: criticize
2. Can occur with a present-tense morpheme: criticizes
3. Can occur with a past-tense morpheme: criticized
4. Can occur with a present-participle morpheme: criticizing
5. Can occur with a past-participle morpheme: had criticized
6. Can be made into a command: Criticize this work!
7. Can be made negative: They did not criticize this work.
8. Fits the frame sentence: They must criticize (it).

Verbs are extremely versatile, and we will define verbs in many different ways throughout the textbook. In future chapters, we will describe verbs in terms of:

• The Main Verb Phrase (MVP) Formula, including verb particles
• Main Verb Forms
• Non-Finite Verb Phrases
• Main Verb Types

When analyzing for verbs, we identify the FORM of the analyzed word as verb. You can use the following flowchart to guide your analysis: 

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Chapter 1: Nouns

A NOUN is a form-class word that typically names something: entities, concrete things, or abstract things. 

A prototypical noun will have five characteristics:

1. Has a noun-making (derivational) morpheme
2. Can occur with the plural inflectional morpheme [-s]
3. Can occur with the possessive inflectional morpheme [-‘s]
4. Can directly follow an article (or other determiner)
5. Fits the frame sentence: (The) <BLANK> seems all right.

These five characteristics serve as the primary tests for identifying nouns. In general, a prototypical noun will have 4-5 of these characteristics. The more noun characteristics a word has, the more prototypical it is. The fewer noun characteristics a word has, the more it becomes a peripheral case.  A word like government has all five characteristics:

1. Has a noun-making (derivational) morpheme: government
2. Can occur with the plural inflectional morpheme: governments
3. Can occur with the possessive inflectional morpheme: government’s
4. Can directly follow an article (or other determiner): the government
5. Fits the frame sentence: The government seems all right.

Peripheral cases include:

• nouns derived from adjectives (happiness, diligence)
• nouns derived from verbs (reaction, runner)
• adjectives that are also nouns (red, cold)
• verbs that are also nouns (run, hit)

For example, a noun like happiness only fulfills two of the five noun characteristics:

1. Has a noun-making (derivational) morpheme: happiness
2. Does not usually occur with the plural inflectional morpheme: *happinesses
3. Does not usually occur with the possessive inflectional morpheme: *happiness’s
4. Does not directly follow an article (or other determiner) when it stands alone without modifiers: *a/the happiness
5. Fits the frame sentence: Happiness seems all right.

The morpheme –ness makes nouns from adjectives, as in friendliness and creaminess.With modifiers, the article becomes more common: the happiness of the peopleHappiness is not a good example of a prototypical noun because it only has two noun characteristics. This does not mean that if can’t be identified as a noun, or that it can’t function nominally, but it does make it a peripheral case. Members of all four form classes can be divided into further subclasses based on certain semantic features. These features often have   grammatical consequences. Subclasses of nouns are often presented in pairs and include:

• Proper Nouns and Common Nouns
• Count Nouns and Noncount (Mass) Nouns
• Human Nouns and Nonhuman Nouns
• Animate Nouns and Inanimate Nouns
• Male Nouns and Female Nouns

We do not find them necessary for identifying nouns in context, so we will not go into detail on these subclasses in this chapter. When analyzing for nouns, we identify the FORM of the analyzed word as noun. You can use the following flowchart to guide your analysis: 

 

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Chapter 1: form-class words

Form-class words are open-ended, not limited in the number of their members, as new words are being invented all the time. New  inventions, observations, sciences, sports, ideas, etc. require us to  constantly create new form-class words. In this respect, as a category, form-class words usually have lexical meaning, or a dictionary definition. Most all form-class words can take inflection in order to create a variant form of the word and signal grammatical  information without changing its meaning. For example, the word smell can become smelly, smelliest, or smelled.  Likewise, many form-class words can take derivations that will allow them to change forms, such as ideal to idealize or to idealistic or to  ideally. Finally, as we will discuss, many form-class words can be  identified as more than one form: smell can be identified as a noun (and take the noun inflections), or it can be identified as a verb (and take the verb inflections). As always, when identifying the form-class of a word, be sure to always analyze in context. There are four sets of FORM-CLASS words described in this section:

We will do our best to use the color code displayed here throughout the textbook to represent both the form or function of a word, phrase, or clause. Red = Noun/Nominal; Green = Verb; Blue = Adjective/Adjectival; Orange = Adverb/Adverbial

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