BING4316/MODUL 1
1.19
No.
Italized words in the
sentences
Lexemes
Morpho-syntetic
process
7. Men who work hard enjoy life
fully.
HARD
To form adverb
8. He spoke in a loud voice.
SPEAK
To form past tense
9. Do not
speak so loud
SPEAK
No process
10. He is as deaf as a post
DEAF
No process
11. He has got the same result as
before.
GET
To form past
participle
12. As he was ambitious, I slew
him.
BE
To form 3rd singular
and past tense
13. Men fear death as children to
go in the dark.
14. There is no such flatterer as a
man’s self.
FLATTER
To form noun
15. He did his best.
DO
To form past tense
16. I like this
best.
GOOD
To form superlative
of adverb
17. What was that noise?
THAT
To form adjective
18. He died that he might save his
country.
MAY
To form past tense
19. What is the man that does not
love his country?
HE
To form possessive
pronoun
20. Give
him what you can.
HE
To form objective
pronoun
21. What nonsense is
this!
THIS
No process
22. What does it profit?
DO
To form 3rd person
singular
Activity 3
Function Word
Content Word
The
of
Phantom
Opera
BING4316/MODUL 1
1.21
Activity 5
Function Word
Content Word
I
by itself,
for
with
my
I
no
on
but
by
In
it
only
will
be
and
this
will
still
be
and
this
and the
of the
who
on
those
to fire
at the
decided
to
let
this
comment
stand
record
was
certainly
one
to
comment
marriage,
Mrs. Evans
followed up
observing,
ten years
think of
five
hundred
weeks
probably
dead
cathedral
still
here
plaza
ghosts
Spanish
soldiers
stood
ramparts
to fire
Indians
1.22
English Morpho - Syntax
The units opened with a discussion of the nature of the word. We
distinguished between lexemes, word-forms and grammatical words.
Lexemes are abstract dictionary words like the verb SING. A lexeme is
realized by one or more word-forms. Word-forms are concrete words that
occur in speech and writing e.g. sing, sings, sang and sung. We also saw
that the word can be viewed as a lexeme associated with a set of morpho-
syntactic properties, e.g. sing {verb, present, 3rd person, singular}. In this
case we are looking at a grammatical word.
We shall use the term grammatical word to refer to ‘words’ can also be
seen as a representation of a lexeme which is associated with certain
morpho-syntactic properties (i.e. partly morphological and partly syntactic
properties) such as noun, adjective, verb, tense, gender, number, etc. We
see above that the word “wanted” comes from the word “want” or lexeme
“WANT”. Pay attention to the sentence below
“Ellis wanted to study for her exams last night”.
The nature of grammatical word is important in the discussion of the
relationship between words and sentences and the boundary between
morphology and syntax. These grammatical words are also known as
Content Words. The other classes of words that do not have clear lexical
meaning or obvious concepts associated with them, including conjunctions
such as and, or and but; prepositions such as in and of; the articles the,
a/an, and pronouns such as it and he are called function words. These kinds
of words are called function words because they have a grammatical
function. So a useful way of looking at the words of languages like English
is to divide them into function words (like the) and content words (like
apple). It means that besides
content words we also have
function words.
Nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs are the content words or open class
words. These words denote concepts such as objects, actions, attributes, and
ideas that we can think about. Content words are classified into Nouns,
Verbs,
Adjectives and
Adverbs. There are tens of thousands of them in a
language and so they make up most of the words in a dictionary. Proper
nouns (names of people and places) are not usually a problem for
understanding, but are also Content Words.
S U M M A R Y
BING4316/MODUL 1
1.23
Problem 1
Below are 20 words which are a representation of a lexeme. Those words are
associated with certain morpho-syntactic properties such as noun, adjective,
verb, tense, gender, number, etc. Fill in the column below to show the lexeme
and grammatical words to refer to the italic words in the sentences provided. No
1 and 2 are given as an example.
No.
Italized words in the
sentences
Lexemes
Morpho-syntetic
process
1. A nod from a lord is breakfast
for a fool.
NOD
To form noun
2. A good paymaster never
wants workmen.
WANTS
3rd person
singular, present
tense
3. Home they brought her
warrior dead.
4. Sickness made the child
irritable.
5. Gentle Evangeline was the
pride of the village.
6. It is easy to find fault.
7. It is a miserable thing to live
in suspense.
8. Wounds made by words are
hard to heal.
9. Down went the Royal George.
10. Into the valley of death rode
the six hundred.
11. Time makes the worst
enemies friends.
12. Great is your reward in
Heaven.
F O R M A T I V E T E S T 2
1.24
English Morpho - Syntax
Problem 2
Read the text below, break down into words then decide which ones are content
words and which are function ones.
Wood-burning stoves are helping many
Americans beat the huge inflation of oil prices.
Wood is still readily available in some parts of
the United States. Many states set off their
state forests where residents can cut designated
trees at no charge. The technology of wood
stoves has improved so that they are very safe.
Compare your answers to those in the answer keys. Then, count the right
answers. In order to get the score, do your calculation using the formulation
below. The score will reflect your comprehending the material explained in this
unit.
Grading: 90 - 100% = excellent
80 - 89% = good
70 - 79% = fair
< 70% = weak
Comprehension rates =
the total number of right answer
100%
the totalnumber of problem
×