LIN102 Tutorial Handout #1
Summer 2021 – Tuesday July 06
Important: Make sure to attend the tutorial for which you have signed up on ACORN!!
Part A: The “Grammar” I (P)
We investigate the grammar of human language, but the definition of ‘grammar’ is not as
straightforward as one might think. Consider your judgment for each of the English sentences
specified in the table below:
(1) a. I didn’t do anything.
b. Because nobody broke it…
c. I don’t want to share any of my books (Miller 2012; Thornston et al. 2016)
(2) a. I didn’t do nothing
b. Because nobody didn’t break it…
c. I don’t want to share none of my books (Ibid.)
(3) a. Whom did you meet yesterday?
b. Who did you meet yesterday?
(4) a. Several of the employees and myself wrote to the chairman…
b. Several of the employees and I wrote to the chairman… (Parker et al. 1990)
(5) a. To whom were you talking yesterday?
b. To who were you talking yesterday?
c. Who were you talking to yesterday?
(6) a. He urged me to casually walk up and say hello.
b. He urged me to walk up casually and say hello.
I find it grammatical I find it grammatical I find it ungrammatical
and I regularly use it but I don’t really use it and I never use it
Example X
(2) AAAAAAAA AAAAAAAA
(3a)
(4a)
(5a)
(5b)
(6a)
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Part B: The “Grammar” II (P)
Read the following exerpt about “grammar” from linguists:
“[…] the term grammar is used in a special way within linguistics. To a linguist, a grammar
is not a book, nor is it concerned with just the form of words and sentences. Rather,
it is the intricate network of knowledge that underlies our ability to use language.” (O’Grady
& Archibald p.6)
One of the fundamental properties of grammar we linguists believe in is known as parity, which
states that all grammars are equal. In other words, we do not believe that a certain grammar
is inherently better than any other.
Question: ================================================
Based on the preceding paragrahs, what would you predict as reaction to the dataset (2) in Part
A from each of the two groups of people: (a) grammarians who are concerend with the correct
grammar and (b) linguists who care about what speakers know about language?
=======================================================
(a) Reaction from grammarians:
(b) Reaction from linguists:
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Part C: Parts of Speech Categories (P)
In this class, we will be focusing on syntax – the study of sentence structure. In order analyze
any sentence structure, we need to understand what role each word in a sentence plays. One
of the classification we can use is parts of speech categories, which include categories such as
nouns, verbs, adjectives and so on.
You might already be familiar with some of them:
� Nouns (N): a word used to name a person, animal, place, thing or abstract idea
– e.g., computers, water, Kaz, a cat, linguistics, Toronto, love, truth
� Verbs (V): a word that expresses an action, event or state of being
– e.g., Kaz teaches, students submit the assignment, they ate a lot
� Adjectives (A): a word that modifies a noun by describing, identifying or quantifying
words
– e.g., red, blue, tall, smart, confused, many
� Adverbs (Adv): a word that modifies a verb, adjective or another adverb; it indicates
manner, time, place, cause or degree
– e.g., quietly, exactly, always, never, very
� Prepositions (P): a word that indicates the temporal, spatial or logical relationship
between its object to the rest of the sentence
– e.g., in, with, of, to, from
(Description are based on the article fouund on the UOttawa Writing Centre website: https:
//arts.uottawa.ca/writingcentre/en/hypergrammar/the-parts-of-speech)
Question: ================================================
Try identifying the part of speech category for each of the underlined words in the English
sentences below:
(i) I am taking(1) linguistics this summer for fun(2).
(ii) Kaz drinks coffee every day; he is really(3) addicted(4) to(5) it.
=======================================================
(1) (2) (3) (4) (5)
3
https://arts.uottawa.ca/writingcentre/en/hypergrammar/the-parts-of-speech
https://arts.uottawa.ca/writingcentre/en/hypergrammar/the-parts-of-speech