The English Noun a comparative Study (original) (raw)

A Syntactic Analysis of English Plural: Implications for the Second Language User of English

2017

Pluralization in the English language presents a myriad of problems to the chagrin of the second language user because the formation of plural is fluid and emanates from the etymology of the noun that is affected (word). Plural formation in English has no definite format but for the use of the bound morpheme/s/ which is attached to the common noun that gains in the use of the plural marker. English has enriched its vocabulary by very many languages adopting not only the words but also their plural forms, hence the L2 user of English is often at a loss of which plural markers to use. This paper seeks to address the myriad of problems encountered by the second language user of English in trying to grapple with the various forms of the plural markers. The sentences used must adhere to the forms of plural germane to common nouns in English. The paper recommends that second language users of English should spend sometime learning the structure of the language. This is key to understandin...

Grammar and Grammars 1 Grammar and Grammars

The definition of the concept of grammar has been a matter of dispute in language research for a long time, and has involved different aspects and meanings, depending on the different language theories which have informed various formulations. This paper examines these various grammar definitions and their theoretical foundations, and investigates the five principal grammar theories or perspectives, in the English language, that is, their main claims and their deficiencies. Among the five theories investigated in this paper are the traditional grammar, the structural perspective, the generative-transformational grammar, the cognitive perspective, and the functional grammar.

Chapter 1 The Study of Grammar

Working with English Grammar, 2018

words' like the, he and of-linguists call these words function words-which link parts of a sentence together and which permit the expression of comprehensible utterances. For each of these groups of people, grammar raises different, but equally important, issues and concerns. Some of these uses of grammar will be addressed further throughout the book. KEY POINTS: What is grammar? • Most linguists define grammar as the study of morphology and syntax. An influential linguist called Noam Chomsky adopts a different definition of grammar. Chomsky's generative grammar contains phonology and semantics in addition to syntax.

The Common Semantic Feature of ‘Irregular’ Noun Plural Forms in English

1970

There is only a limited number of Noun Plurals like foot-feet, goose-geese and Past Tense verb forms such as sing-sang, win-won that are produced by Internal Vowel Alternation (IVA) and today these forms are considered to be irregular in Modern English, i.e., they do not follow the rules of Past Tense /+(e)d/ and Noun Plural /+(e)s/ formation. However, historically, these IVA forms were both more numerous and even productive in Old English and those that have remained in the language largely retain the same IVA patterns in Modern English. The recent study of these IVA phonological processes in the nominal and verbal forms revealed, first, two opposed iconic and polar systems consisting of fronting (umlaut) for Plural formation for nouns versus backing (vowel gradation) for Past Tense formation in verbs (Even-Simkin 2012). Second, there are underlying systematic semantic features for these IVA forms, as well. This paper presents a semantic analysis of the IVA Noun Plurals, i.e. a common distinctive semantic feature. Unlike bi-and polysyllabic mass nouns, these IVA forms appear exclusively in monosyllabic words, thus making them ultimately efficient based on short term memory cognitive psychological studies by Ebbinghaus (1885), as well as, other more recent studies by e.g. Atkinson and Shiffrin (1968), Crano (1977), Frensch (1994), Healy et al. (2000). This morpho-phonotactic differentiation in structure and distribution of the IVA vs. mass nouns, as well as the semantic and iconic feature of these IVA forms, demonstrates the subtle systematic character of these 'irregular' IVA plural constructions.