Salman bin Abdulaziz
University
College of Science and
Humanity Studies, Al-Kharj
Department of English
Level8 (2nd Semester)
Course Symbol & Code: ENG4860
Course Title :Syntax&
Morphology
Course Objectives:
• The course will introduce the students to the
fundamental syntactic and morphological
concepts such as the syntactic categories,
syntactic functions and tree diagram…etc.
• The course also discusses some wordformation processes (coinage, borrowing and
blending…etc.
• It will also go through various types of
morphemes to tackle some problems
concerning the morphological
description.
Students who successfully
complete this course will
• Identify the basic notion in syntax such as
(syntactic constituents, syntactic
functions, syntactic categories and so
forth)
• Analyze simple, complex and compound
sentences into their constituents showing
the syntactic functions and categories.
• Draw tree diagrams for simple, complex
an d compound English sentences on the
basis of phrase structure rules.
• Write transformation rules for the
derivation of surface structures from deep
structures.
• Resolve ambiguity in some ambiguous
structures.
Topics to be covered
Language and levels of Language
Analysis
Morphology
Types of Morphemes
Morphological description
Morphs & allomorphs
Words & word-formation Processes
Syntax
Parts of speech
Phrases and Sentences
Grammar
Types of grammar
Structural analysis
Generative grammar
• Deep & surface Structures
• Symbols used in syntactic description
• Transformational grammar
Textbooks
• Aarts, Flor and Jan Aarts. English Syntactic
Structures.1982.Pergamon Press, New York.
• Thomas, Lind. Beginning Syntax. 1993. Sasil
Blackwell Inc. Cambridge, Massachusetts.
General References
• The study of Language 4th ed. George Yule
Important Sites
• http://webster.commnet.edu/grammar/p
owerpoint.htm
• www.Wikipedia.com
• www.wiseGeek.com
• www.about.com
• http://faculty.sau.edu.sa/b.mohammed
• @ Kurdofania
• Edmodo group:gd3f3u
Assessments
• First Quiz
• Second Quiz
• Mid-term
• Work sheet
• PowerPoint presentation
or term paper
• Final Exam
5
5
20
10
10
50
Course Requirements
 Attending lectures
Work sheet
PowerPoint presentation or term parper
Two quizzes
Med-term Exam
Final Exam
What is Language?
• Language is a human, oral, aural, writing
system of communicating ideas and feeling.
• It is human because only human beings can
use Language while animals cannot.
• Language is oral because it is basically a
spoken form. Children start to speak and then
learn to write.
• Language is aural because it is heard and
received by the human hearing system.
• It is a system. Language consists of fixed
set of rules that must be followed to
achieve communication.
• There are rules at all levels of language
analysis.
• There for Language can be:
• What a person says (e.g expressions)
• The way of speaking or writing (e.g.
Shakespeare’s language)
• A particular variety or level of speech or
writing (e.g. language for special
purpose, colloquial language)
• A tool for human communication. (social
function)
• A set of rules. (rule-governed)
Levels of Language Analysis
Syllables
Consonants
Intonation
The
phonologica
l level
Stress
Vowels
Monosyllabic
words
Polysyllabic
words
Syllables
Tri-syllabic
words
Disyllabic
words
•
•
•
•
Mono-Syl: man, cat, eat
Disyl: English, behave, player
Trisyl: important, discover
Polysyl: unbelievable, nationalization
Consonants
• Sounds which pronounced with various
obstructions of air-stream such as the
sounds │ p │ & │ b│
Vowels
• Sounds which pronounced without any various
obstructions of air-stream such as the sounds
│ i: │ as in feel and │ I │ as in fill.
Stress
• The degree of force with which a syllable
is pronounced. There are many degrees of
stress.
• First syllable: English, village, leader
• Second syllable: believe, obey, degree
Intonation
• The music orchestration of sentence
pronunciation as in the following
sentences:
Falling intonation: She is a teacher.
Raising intonation: What is your job?