Week 1: word classes
Zijn de volgende zinnen juist? →
1. He has discovered this vaccine last year.
Deze zin is correct want ‘has’ hoeft niet in verleden tijd te worden gezet vanwege ‘last year’dat
verwijst naar de past.
2. The majority of the artists in the group is Danish.
Deze zin is niet correct want ‘the artists’ is meervoud dus de ‘is’ moet ‘are’ worden.
3. He studies sexual transmitted diseases among teenagers.
Deze zin is onjuist want er is een word class problem ‘sexual’ is onjuist het moet ‘sexually’ zijn.
4. He is not capable to do it.
Onjuist want ‘of’ moet er bij: not capable of to do it
5. Only in the latter case I can provide an example.
Onjuist want het is ‘can I provide’
Er zijn Grammatical words en Lexical words:
Grammatical Lexical
Function words, closed set (limited); content words, open set;
Articles (lidwoord), conjunctions (voegwoord), verbs (ww), nouns (zelfstandig nmw),
prepositions (voorzetsels), pronouns (voornmw) adverbs (bijwoord), adjectives (bijv nmw),
interjection (tussenwerpsel zoals: foei, hoor)
Zin 1:
Money finished returning home Sunday.
deze zin bestaat alleen uit lexical words
Zin 2:
Since my money is finished, I am returning home on Sunday.
deze zin heeft de uit zin 1 oorspronkelijke lexical words, maar nu ook grammatical words
Zin 3:
Each of the children had enjoyed their teacher’s stories about herself.
in deze zin zijn er lexical en grammatical words, grammatical: had (want functional), herself (pro-
noun), their (possessive determiner, pronoun: een bezitterlijk voornmw)
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, The difference between lexical and grammatical is that a sentence would not be grammatically
correct without the use of function words (grammatical words). But without the grammatical
words the message of the sentence is clear.
Verbs
Verbs zijn actions, en geven een state of affairs aan. Er zijn 4 state of affairs:
Action → We dance until daybreak.
Process → The three fell on our house.
Position → I kept my hands in my pockets.
State → Norway is to the west of Sweden.
Verb → verb phrase → clause → sentence
Verb = het ww
Verb phrase = een groepje ww die bij elkaar horen
Clause = een verb phrase (a full clause always has a lexical verb)
Sentence = de hele zin
So a full clause always has a lexical verb, are these full clauses? →
1. Can I? 2. Sure you can! 3. Will you come? 4. Sure I will!
To find out if a verb is lexical you should negate it: ‘can’ → ‘cannot’ and ‘come’→ ‘cannot come’
and ‘will’ → ‘will not’
Auxiliary verbs can be negated by ‘not’ without using the helping word ‘do’. To negate lexical
verbs it is necessary to use ‘do’.
So the previous clauses are auxiliary verbs because we could negate them without the use of do,
only with the use of not. Therefore the clauses are not full clauses, because they are not lexical.
FULL CLAUSE → LEXICAL VERB → NEGATE THE VERB → IF IT NEEDS ‘DO’ THEN IT IS LEXICAL → IF
IT DOES NOT NEED ‘DO’ ONLY ‘NOT’ THEN IT IS AUXILIARY!
1. She believes in farriers. → lexical or auxiliary?
clause = believes
negation test = She does not believe → by adding ‘does’ (the helping word) it makes the
clause lexical.
2. I did my homework. → lexical or auxiliary?
clause = did
negation test = I did not do → and again the ‘do’ is added so this clause is also lexical.
Most of the time we Negate the verb but Auxiliary verbs can also be Initial, Code, Emphasis. So,
auxiliary verbs have NICE properties.
N Auxiliariesare Negated by not without the use of do
(i.e. I shouldn’t observe him.). → ezelsbruggetje N-egated N-OT
I In questions, auxiliariesgo to Initial position without using do
(i.e. Should I observe him?) .
C In follow-up clauses auxiliaries Code the entire verb phrase
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, (i.e. He may have been being observed, and so may you.).
E Emphasis can be given to clauses by accenting the auxiliary without using do
(i.e. You cannot observe him! Oh but I CAN).
Grammatical contrasts
There are four grammatical contrasts marked on the verb phrase:
1. Tense
time → past or present tense → walks vs. walked
factuality → not real or imaginary situation (always use past tense) → “if I was/were/had
been rich”
2. Aspect
duration → simple or progressive aspect → rains (simple) vs. raining (progressive)
3. Voice
active or passive voice → he bought tickets vs. tickets were bought by him
4. Mood
indicative → he left
imperative →Leave!
subjunctive mood → I insisted that he leave.
The noun phrase
Een noun is een zelfstandig naamwoord. Nouns invoke the participants in states of affairs.
Types of nouns →
concrete vs. abstract → car, boy, truth, democracy, arrogance
common vs. proper → woman, country, Anna, Great-Britain
count vs. uncount →
1. de count nouns kun je wel meervoud maken maar van uncount nouns kun je geen meervouw
maken. Count dus wel meervoud mogelijk → house, pen, plan
uncount dus geen meervoud mogelijk → wine, advice, bread, research
2. Bij de uncount nouns wordt geen indefinite article (a of an) voor gezet zowel in de enkelvoud als in
meervoud → dus geen “a useful information” maar gewoon “useful information”
3. Some nouns are always singular (enkelvoud) → advice, energy. Others are always plural
(meervoud) → surroundings, jeans
A noun phrase = a single noun together with associated words
Associated words = articles, determiners (“this”, “their”), modifiers (adjectives and adverbs →
premodifier = before the noun, postmodifiers = after the noun)
Noun phrase (het cursieve deel) → “He is a very bright student” a= article, very = adverb, bright =
adjective, student = noun
Dit zijn allemaal noun phrases, de cursieve woorden zijn modifiers →
- an ancient castle
- the man in the moon
- a tough problem to solve
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