Morfosintaxis II

DEFINICIONES

- Active voice: grammatical structure in which the subject of the sentence performs the action
of the verb. The structure is usually NP1+V+NP2.
Carlos Sainz won the Australian Grand Prix.
- Adjunct: it is a part of a sentence that is considered to be optional or not relevant in order to
complete the meaning of the utterance since the verb does not require it.
I’ll finish the book tomorrow.
- Adjunctive adjective: it is that adjective that requires an adjunct of place or time so as to
complete the information for the utterance. Moreover, it is that element of a sentence that can
be deleted and the meaning does not suffer any change.
The race is due in 5 minutes.
- Adjunctive transitive verb: it is that verb that requires a direct object and an adjunct of place
or time so as to complete the information for the utterance.
She put the book on the table.
- Adjunctive verb: it is a verb that requires an adjunct of place or time so as to complete the
information for the utterance.
She lives in Monaco.
- Adverbial: word or group of words that modify a verb, an adjective, an adverb or a whole
clause.
There is a pit walk after every race.
- Affected: animate or inanimate participant of an action caused by either an agent, a force,
or an instrument. Sometimes it is merely involved in what is expressed in the predicative unit.
The earthquake destroyed the circuit / When did Homo Sapiens appear? / The soup is hot.
- Agent: it is the animate participant that wilfully and responsibly initiates the action,
syntactically is usually developed as Subject.
My mum went to the cinema.
- Ambient IT: it is the participant which namely refers to environmental conditions or ambience.
It is cold / It is raining cats and dogs.
- Anticipatory IT: It introduces the subject or object of a sentence, especially when the
subject/object of the sentence is a clause. Commonly, such clauses are to + infinitive and
that clauses.
It is interesting that birds are dinosaurs – Those birds are dinosaurs is interesting.
- Argument: Expression that helps complete the meaning of a predicate, referring in this
context to a lexical verb and its auxiliaries. Most predicates take one, two or three arguments.
George began to read the book – (George) is an argument of the lexical verb + to-inf.
- Catenative verb/construction: it is when the lexical verb is followed by a non-finite
complement (could be a -ing verb or a to-inf). The catenative structure will be [NP+V+to-
inf] when simple, and [NP1+V+NP2+to-inf] when complex. I wanted to go – simple
He wanted Oscar to go – complex.
- Clefting: it is a construction in which some element in a sentence is moved from its normal
position into a separate clause to give it greater emphasis. It is red cars that I like – usually
found in ‘that’ clauses.
- Cognate Object: it is a noun functioning as the object of a verb to which it is etymologically
or semantically related, as in think a thought, or sing a song. I will sing a song.
- Communicative dynamism (or CD): it refers to the variation in communicative value ass
between different parts of an utterance. This explains the sentence as a process of gradually
 unfolding meaning. [When is Yuki coming?] – He is coming today (highest communicative
dynamism).
- Complement: word, phrase or clause that is necessary in order to complete the meaning of
a given expression. They are often also arguments (expressions that help complete the
meaning of a predicate). Zack is the CEO of McLaren Racing – predicative nominal as
subject complement (SVCs).
- Complex catenative construction: a catenative construction is complex when we find a
noun phrase between the governing verb and the non-finite clause [NP1+V+NP2+to-inf].
He wanted John to go.
- Complex sentence: It is a sentence in which one of its elements is realized by a clause. It
is nobody’s doubt that Max Verstappen is the World Champion.
- Complex transitive verb: it is a kind of verb that in order to complete its meaning, requires
an object and a complement for that object. We consider Max brilliant (SVOdCo).
- Compound sentence: it is a sentence which is compound by different and independent
clauses that are joined together by a coordinator such as and, but, or... I drink ColaCao, but
he drinks coffee.
- Conjunct: It is a kind of adverbial that is allocated, normally, at the beginning of the
sentence so as to complete the information given or to link it to other sentences. He
claimed to be proficient at padel. However, he played like a novice.
- Copulative adjective: Grammatically non-autonomous adjective that needs a completing
structure that refers back to the subject as well. Bin Laden was tantamount to international
terrorism, people said. → (tantamount to) copulative verb (international terrorism) is the
complement that refers back to (Bin Laden)
- Copulative verb: Verb form that joins a subject to an adjective or another noun (to be, feel,
seem…). You look tired. (SVC).
- Co-reference relationship: It occurs when two or more expressions refer to the same
person or thing, hence they have the same referent. George said Alex would arrive soon, and
he did. → (Alex) and (he) refer to the same person.
- Corrective focus: It is the variation of foci in a sentence. Normally we will encounter the foci
of a sentence at the end of it, nonetheless, sometimes we can find the foci within words inside
that sentence. “I said DEfensive, not OFFensive.”
- Current Attribute: It is that semantic role or predication that ascribes a quality, property or
state of another participant of the sentence. Bella is beautiful. → Permanent attribute
Bella became rich. → Resulting attribute
- Dative shift: Some ditransitive verbs are considered dative (to give someone something).
Some can have two structures which they can change. The dative shift occurs when the
objects change their position. John gave a book to Mary. / John gave Mary a book. → (a
book) direct object / Mary (indirect object)
- Deletion: It indicates the preexistence of something that is hidden in some way and is
produced for contextual reasons. Do you understand (x)? → (x) = what I’m saying.
- Diathesis: Greek term for ‘voice’. It depends on putting the subject as an Agent (active voice)
or as a Patient (passive voice). The passive voice is known as a diathetic alternance. Fran
played that game. / That game was played by Fran.
- Disjunct: They are adverbs disjoint from the sentence structure and express the speaker’s
opinion about the clause or sentence. They are optional. Sadly, the iconic actress from Peaky
Blinders passed away.
- Ditransitive adjective: Grammatically non-autonomous adjective that requires two
completing structures. Max was grateful to Daniel for the support in Singapore. → (grateful
to) someone – NP1 / (for) something – NP2.
- Ditransitive verb: Transitive verb that requires two objects, usually a direct object and an
indirect object. Peter bought Mary a book. (SVOiOd).
- Effected: It is a semantic role or that physical participant that comes into existence as the
result of the action or process denoted by the action of the verb. “James Joyce wrote
Dubliners.”
- Embedded clause: Clause that appears within a main clause to give extra information. Also
known as subordinate clause. Max, despite the wind and rain, won the Brazilian Grand Prix.
- End-focus principle: Tendency to place new information (highest communicative
dynamism) at the end of the clause, in the rhematic position. The unmarked focus is the place
where the focus of information is normally placed as its canonical position (the very end).
When is John coming? – He is coming today. → highest CD at the end = unmarked focus.
- End-weight principle: It is the structural and communicative tendency to place the complex
(or too much loaded) structures at the end of the sentence. They are made by IKEA.
- Ergative of construction: Adjectives (usually evaluative) can admit this construction when
they can refer both to the agentive subject and to the action carried out by the agentive
subject. E.g. She is foolish to do it. → referring only to the Agent.
It is foolish for her to do it. → referring only to the action.
It is foolish of her to do it. → referring to both Agent and action (to do it is foolish of her).
- Experiencer: It is that participant that feels sensory, psychological or emotional experience
or stimulus. “I love you”.
- Expletive: It is a meaningless word or phrase that is used to fill a syntactic slot without adding
any extra meaning to the sentence. They are commonly used to add emphasis or to create a
sentence balance, but they do not contribute to the overall meaning of the sentence. Do you
love me? – The auxiliar (do) only indicates time and person.
- Fake reflexive Object: Reflexive object that is introduced to create a resulting structure. The
fake object plays the role of a direct object in intransitive resultative constructions. He shouted
himself hoarse – Intransitive (unergative) verb (cannot be passivizable).
- Finite verb/Finite clause: It must contain a finite verb (verbs which have the past or the
present form). Finite clauses can be main or subordinate. I spoke to her last night.
- Force: That participant that acts unwilfully and/or out of control and causes a process or
change of state. I’ve cut my finger.
- Fronting: Thematization process by which an element within the sentence is moved to the
front of a sentence. The object is moved to emphasize the message (it is very common in
children’s language). Potatoes, I don’t like.
- Given information: It is that information that we already know because of the context. It is
normally place in the thematic position, that is, at the beginning of the sentence. “Where are
we going today? We are going to the cinema.”
- Homonymy: These are verbs that phonetically are the same, but they acquire different
meanings. Although, we can get their real meaning by passivizing them. “The board read his
doctoral dissertation.”
- Instigator: This role refers to that participant that acts on an Agent and their action. Have
you walked the dog through the park? → The superagent (you) creates another agent (the
dog) to carry out the same action (walk).
- Instrument: That participant which is consciously used/handled by an Agent. a. A stone
broke the windowpane. b. He broke the windowpane with a stone. (He) Agent that forced the
action / (with) signal that normally introduces the instrument.
- Intransitive adjective: Grammatically autonomous adjective that only needs the subject and
no other completing structure. I’m run down tonight.
- Intransitive verb: Verb that does not require an object or any completing structure and can
stand on its own. Pierre cried. (SV)
- Lexical entry: List of information relating to a word, its inflected forms, its syntactic
properties, its meaning, and any other idiosyncratic properties. Also known as ‘dictionary
entry’.
- Light verb: Verb that has little semantic content of its own and forms a predicate with some
additional expression, which is usually a noun. She gave me a kiss. → She kissed me (Do,
give, have, make, get, take… [something]).
- Locative: This role refers to the location (hence ‘Locative’) of a participant in space. a. The
corpse lay on the grass. b. The car holds five persons.
- Located: This label refers to the participant whose location in time or space is predicated by
the semantic predicate: a. The corpse lay on the grass. b. The car holds five persons.
- Marked focus: Those elements with the highest communicative dynamism that have been
moved from their canonical position are called ‘marked foci’, since the focus of information is
not placed at the very end of the sentence (the rhematic position) due to emphatic reasons.
I am painting MY room blue.
- Matrix clause: Structure of the type main (also known as superordinate clause). He is
certain to do it.
- Middle construction: clause where the patient of a verb is structurally realized as the subject
of a predicate in an active voice. Mary photographs well. → the subject (Mary) is affected by
the action of photographing.
- Middle verb: transitive verb that inherently cannot be passivizable. Mary resembles her
father → *Her father is resembled by Mary.
- Monotransitive verb: Transitive verb that only requires one object to receive the action.
Lando got the trophy. (SVO)
- New information: The information cannot be retrieved from the context and makes use of
focal elements. What are we doing today? – We are going to the movies. → New info /
Informative focus.
- Nominal transposition: It is a thematization process in which the informative focus is moved
towards the beginning of the sentence.
a. The bees are swarming in the garden. b. The garden is swarming with bees. Both have
the same prepositional content, but in each one, there is a focus in a different entity within
the sentence. In (a) the partial reading shows how not all the garden is filled with bees,
meanwhile in (b) the holistic reading shows a native speaker’s point of view that could
think that the whole garden is filled with bees.
- Non-contrastive adverb: It is an adverb which provides additional information without
contrasting meaning. She carefully examined the document.
- Non-finite verb/Non-finite clause: We use a non-finite clause when the subject is the same
one in the main clause and the subordinate clause. A non-finite verb is a to + infinitive
structure or an -ing verb. She gave up her job to travel the world. Eating too much made
me sick.
- Object: It is the animate or inanimate participant that the action is done to or the one who
receives the action. It can be direct (noun or pronoun that receives the action of a verb in a
 sentence) or indirect (word or phrase that receives the direct object). Ben gave the
Champion’s trophy to Andrea. → (the Champion’s trophy) OD + (to Andrea) O I.
- Object-control verb: That kind of lexical verb whose object determines the subject of the
non-finite subordinate clause, subcategorized by that superordinate verb. I told Steve x PRO
x to see a doctor. → tell [someone] [something] Steve x promises PRO x to be a good student.
→ promise ([someone]) [something]
- Object to Subject raising (or O to S raising): The object of the subordinate clause is raised
to the subject position of the superordinate clause. Maryx is easy tx to teach. → To teach
Mary is easy (object).
- Object to Object raising (or O to O raising): It is the process of thematization in which we
change the object of a sentence and place it newly in another object position from another
clause. And we will find a trace because of this movement. “You will have an article to read.”
- Passive voice: The voice is the grammar category in which there are different ways that we
can see the predicate expressed by the verb. The passive voice changes the information
focus making the Agent (subject) a B-subject (referent) ACT. NP1 + V + NP2 → Carlos won
that race. PAS. NP2 + be + VPP + [by + NP1] → That race was won by Carlos.
- Performative verb: That type of verb that carries out an action. Once that is uttered, the
action is carried out. The team warned him about the yellow flag on sector 2.
- Preposition stranding: In peculiar passive constructions, we may find the preposition left
alone when the object is moved. You were looking at someone. – Who were you looking at?
John dealt with that problem. / That problem was dealt with by John. → DEAL WITH is a
monotransitive prepositional verb. The prepositional phrase is moved along the object to the
thematic position (fronting).
- PROx: It is an empty pronominal noun phrase that is indicative of the understood subject
which keeps co reference with its antecedent. Stevex tries PROx to see Mac. → Steve tries
[Steve sees Mac]. In this case, Steve is the one who carries the action in both verbal phrases.
- Proposition: It is the communicative proposal that a sentence as a vehicle of information
has. It is made by two constituents: the predicate and the arguments. Thus, the proposition
conveys information and has semantic content. “She runs.”
- Propositional content: It is conveyed by two constituents: predicate and arguments. Being
the arguments, a VP, VP+O, VP+O+C…
- Raised object: Object moved from the subordinate clause up to the superordinate clause,
leaving a trace (abstract mark of the object moved) that indicates its original position. I
consider FernandoX tX to be a good driver.
- Raising: This type of rule re-orders the linear constituency of the elements in a structure of
the type Main + Subordinate clause. It moves up an element that originates in a subordinate
construction to a syntactic position in the superordinate construction within which it is
embedded. Depending on the source and target positions of the elements involved, Raising
may be of different types: Subject-to-Object, Object-to-Object, Object-to Subject or Subject-
to-Subject. Christian expects ChecoX tX to leave. → Subject-to-Object raising
- Rheme: Part of the sentence that contains the new information usually placed at the end. He
is coming tomorrow. → (He is coming) given info – theme / (Tomorrow) new info – rheme.
- Semantic predicate: Meaning or conceptual core of a clause that represents the primary
action, event, state, or relation described by the sentence. John ate an apple. → The
semantic predicate is the action of (eating) which links the arguments: John (the one
performing the action, or the agent) / an apple (the thing being eaten, or the patient).
- Semantic role: Depending on the semantic predicate, the entities within the sentence
behave differently. They are the corresponding labels to the arguments that maintain a
different relationship within the semantic predicate (verb). I love you → (I) Exp / (you) Stm.
- Sentence: Largest unit of grammatical structure that expresses a complete thought. It
typically consists of a subject (what the sentence is about) and a predicate (what is said about
the subject). Dakar is the toughest endurance motorsport. (SVCS)
- Simple sentence: Sentence that consists of a single independent clause, meaning it has
one subject predicate combination. The cat sleeps.
- Simple catenative construction: Catenative construction where we can only find a noun
phrase followed by the verb and the non-finite clause. NP + V + to – inf → I wanted to go.
- Small clause: It consists of a subject and its predicate but lacks an over expression of tense.
Lance considers Esteban intelligent.
- Stimulus: It is the participant involved that encourages an emotional, sensory, or
psychological experience, namely, in a human being. I found the house empty.
- Subject: Core element of a sentence or clause that typically indicates the person, thing, or
entity performing or being described by the action or state expressed in the predicate. The
subject is often considered the "doer" of the action or the "topic" of the sentence. Fernando
Alonso is a two-times world champion in Formula 1.
- Subject-control verb: That kind of lexical verb whose subject determines the subject of the
non-finite subordinate clause, subcategorized by that superordinate verb. Johnx began PROx
to read the book. → (John began) Agentive subject / (to read the book) understood subject
Stevex wanted PROx to see Mac. → the subject of (want) controls the subject of (to see).
- Subject-to-Object raising (or S-to-O raising): It is the process of thematization in which we
change the subject of a sentence and place it newly in the object position so as to gain focus
on it. And we will find a trace because of this movement. “It is impossible for him to do it.”
- Subject-to-Subject raising (or S-to-S raising): It is the process of thematization in which
we change the subject of a sentence and place it newly other subject position so as to gain
focus on it. And we will find a trace because of this movement. “He is certain to do it.”
- Subcategorization feature: It denotes the necessity for lexical items (usually verbs) to
require the presence and types of the syntactic arguments with which they co-occur. For the
word “walk” it will require a NP that realizes the action.
- Resulting Attribute: is an attribute that is produced as the result of a semantic rule in an
attribute grammar. It represents a value computed from other attributes (for example, from
child nodes in a syntax tree). The cat sleeps.
- Thematic structure: Given or known information within a sentence, usually placed at the
beginning. He is coming tomorrow. ← (When is he coming?)
- Thematization: Movement of an element within the sentence in the rhematic position
towards the beginning. There are different types: fronting, raising, passivization, clefting (+
pseudo-clefting) and transposition. Potatoes, I don’t like. (Fronting)
- Theme: It is the part of the sentence where the given/known information is normally placed,
at the beginning. He is coming tomorrow. ← (When is he coming?)
- Topic: This participant appears with semantic predicates pertaining to metalanguage and
communication f ields: Congress will battle with the White House over next coming year
budget.
- Transitive adjective: Grammatically non-autonomous adjective that requires one or more
completing structures. There are different types such as monotransitive, ditransitive,
adjunctive and copulative. John is due me $50. → Ditransitive
- Trace x: When the elements move within a sentence in Raising, they leave behind a trace,
which is an abstract marker that indicates their original position. I consider Fernandox tx to
be a good driver. → S-to-O raising (Fernando: argument of to be a good driver)
- Unaccusative verb: It is an intransitive verb whose grammatical subject is not a semantic
agent. In other words, the subject does not actively initiate, or is not actively responsible for,
the action expressed by the verb. “The dos fell.”
- Unergative verb: These verbs are those that have a subject perceived as actively initiating
or actively responsible for the action expressed by the verb and they are intransitive. “She
runs.”
- Verbless clause: Group of words that do not contain a verb. The sentence fragment has a
meaning since it provides specific information. Good morning. Happy birthday.