TENSE MOOD ASPECT

TENSE MOOD ASPECT1 ST LECTURELanguage has been studied along the countries from a large number of points of view, most frequently by philosophers, by traditional grammarians and by literary critics. All of them based their approaches on grammar.

THE ENGLISH VERB

With the passing of time the term grammar has acquired a multitude of meaning and some of them were different from what we know today.the set of formal patterns in which the words of the language are arranged in order to convey larger meanings and the branch of linguistic science which is concerned with the description, analysis and formalization of formal language patterns.Nelson Francisthe beginning of the analysis of thinking processStuart MillThe internalized linguistic competence of the ordinary speaker, his capacity to use the language correctly and creatively by recourse to linguistic operationsThe study that permits us to understand the operation of the mechanism that enables the native speaker of a language to produce a theoretically infinite number of utterances. The correctness and appropriateness of the use of language which is now generally called usage.

Noam Chomsky assigned three different meanings to the term grammarChomsky introduced the term lexical category in 1965 to replace the old-fashioned part of speech.Chomsky again

The lexical classes or categories and part of speech are intended to designate elements of the same grammatical set (noun, verb, adjective, preposition, etc.)

traditional (descriptive; meant to observe and enumerate aspects of language); structuralist (descriptive; an attempt to reflect the systematic character of language);generative (language is a body of rules by means of which all the sentences can be obtained).

Language as an object of study has been approached from different perspectives:a phonological level strings of phonemesa morphological level morphemes and wordsa syntactic level phrases and sentencesa semantic level semantic concepts: events, objects, states, processes

The structure of language can be analyzed in terms of levels of representation. For any utterance there are:

To some grammarians designates a class of group of items which fulfill the same or similar functions in a particular language, such as case, tense, person, aspect, mood, determination, etc.

Grammatical categories

TenseAspectMoodVoice

Grammatical Categories of the English Verb

Morphology is a term based on the Greek words morphe (=form/structure) and logie (=account/study). In fact, the term can apply to any domain of human activity that studies the structure or form of something. In linguistics, morphology is the sub-discipline that accounts for the internal structure of wordsThere are two types of complexity of word-structure: one is due to the presence of inflections and another due to the presences of derivational elements.Derivation refers to word formation processes such as affixation, compounding and conversion. Derivational processes typically induce a change in the lexical category of the item they operate on and even introduce new meaningsWords are made up of morphemes either free or boundThe free morpheme is the core part which usually sit anywhere within a word.On its own, it can function as an independent word, that is, a word that can stand on its own because it carries meaningThe following words are free morphemes: school, church, boy, girl, teach, courage, examine. Another name for the free morpheme is the base or stem or root or full morphemeA bound morpheme is that morpheme that cannot stand or occur as an independent word. It has to be attached to a free morpheme or word to have a clear meaningExamples of bound morphemes are ment, -en, -ing, -ed, -ness, -ful, mis-, -anti, -less, etc in the following free morphemes or words. government, encouragement, dancing, accepted, happiness, hopeless etcAnother name for the bound morpheme is empty morphemes. They can also be called grammatical indicators because they have the tendency to affect grammarA major division in morpheme is free and bound.A free morpheme has been referred to as an independent word.The bound morpheme is of two types: inflectional and derivationalAn inflectional morpheme, which is a type of a bound morpheme, is defined by linguists as a mere grammatical indicator or marker.An inflectional morpheme cannot generate or create new words nor can it affect the grammatical class of a word

It indicates tenseTense relates to a verb. It then means that to indicate tense, it affects verb. A verb is affected in the following ways.

An inflectional morpheme plays three grammatical roles in Englishcome come + s, come + ing, walk walk + s, walking, walk + ed write walk + s, write + ing, (writing), write + en (written) s is the third person singular marker, ed is the past tense marker while ing is the continuous tense marker.

It indicates number plurality. Plurality deals with nouns. Nouns are affected by number. Nouns are subdivided into singular and plural. Plural nouns are indicated withsboy + s boys school + s schools table + s tables

It indicates comparison. Adjectives are used to compare. Thus, this third part affects adjectives. Adjectives have comparative (for two people) and superlative (more than two people) forms.

fat + er fatter + est to fattest fast + er, est faster, fastest The er and est morphemes are used to indicate comparative superlative forms of the adjectives fat and fast above.

A derivational morpheme which is also called a derived morpheme is a type of bound morpheme which generates or creates new words by either changing the class of word or forming new words.

Derivational Bound Morphemes

This change in word class, caused by the addition of a derivational bound morpheme, is not restricted to a particular class of words. It affects all classes of words. This transformation does not, however, affect the lexical meaning of the base forms of the free morpheme. That is, the lexical meanings of the core or base or free morpheme remain unchanged.

Derivational suffix verb Noun -age break breakage - al revive revival - ation explore exploration - ment govern government - ee pay payee - ant inform informant

Nouns from verbs word class

Suffix Noun Adjective - ful care careful - less fruit fruitless - n Nigeria Nigerian - able love lovable - ly friend friendly - ous desire desirous -y library librarian

Adjectives from nouns

- ity rapid rapidity - ness kind kindness - ce fragrant fragrance - ity humble humility

Nouns from Adjectives

- able wash washable - ive digest digestive - tory satisfy satisfactory

Verbs from Adjective Suffix Adjective Verb

LETS TAKE A LOOK AT THE HANDOUT!