LIN102 Tutorial Handout #2
Summer 2021 – Thursday, July 08
Important: Assignment #1 will be due next Wednesday July 14
Part A: Parts of Speech (R)
Consider the following dataset which includes artificial words, screeb and floosk. Identify the
part of speech category for each of these words AND briefly justify your analysis by referring to
the set of criteria we discussed in class. Note that an asterisk (*) symbol means the sentence is
ungrammatical.
Tip: You are not expected/required to know what each of these artificial words means
(1) Dataset I:
a. The topic of this research is screeb.
b. Screeb has a lot of interesting characteristics.
c. Here is your screeb.
d. *The article on this topic is very screeb.
e. The bright red screeb
f. *The researchers will screeb on Saturday.
The word screeb is a(n)
Justification:
(2) Dataset II:
a. *This book is floosk.
b. This class has a lot of floosk enthusiastic students.
c. *They could floosk the other day.
d. A floosk controversial article
e. *The real floosk disappeared.
f. We make typographical errors floosk freqently.
1
The word floosk is a(n)
Justification:
Part B: Other Categories (R/P)
A sentence consists of elements that cannot really be labelled as any of the categories we have
discussed in class so far: N, V, A, Adv, and P.
� Determiners (Det): a word that determines its associated noun’s reference
(3) a. He is teaching an introductory course this semester.
b. The assignment is due next Wednesday.
c. Students had to buy a textbook for their class.
d. The truth is unknown.
� Demonstrative pronouns: a word that is used to point something out
(4) a. I bought this book when I was five.
b. That guy told me that the next bus will arrive in 15 minutes.
c. These snacks are for my roommate’s birthday party.
d. Can I take a look at one of those board gamnes in the shelf?
Question: In this course, we will be treating demonstrative pronouns as the same clas-
sification as determiners. What is the commonality between these two sets of words?
� Conjunction (Conj): a word that is used to connect sentences or words
(5) a. My friend has already written an assignment and submitted it.
b. The flight attendant asked whether the passanger wanted a beef or fish.
c. apples and oranges
� Complementizers (C): a word that is used to introduce another clause
(6) a. The instructor hopes [that his students will find the course educational]
b. [That the woman can use her husband’s car] was the promise he gave to her.
c. I wonder [if it will be sunny tomorrow.]
d. They asked me [whether I had worked in Victoria before]
2
Tip: Don’t worry if you don’t get these additional categories! We will come back to them
over and over throughout the semester. i
Let’s try identifying the parts of speech for all the words below! (except you don’t know how
to classify the word will below so skip it for now)
The instuctor believes that the deligent students will enjoy and pass this course.
Part C: Inflectional Morphology (P)
While words in a sentence may convey meanings (such as objects, actions, state of being etc.),
others convey something more grammatical in nature. Let’s explore some of them here!
� Tense: “grammaticalized expression of location in time” (Comrie 1995)
– You might know this concept as past tense, present tense, future tense in the European
languages
(7) a. ga-čiux ‘He did it some time ago’
b. ni-čiux ‘He did it long ago’
c. na-čiuxw-a ‘He did it recently’
d. i-čiux ‘He just did it’ (Chinook from Tallerman 2011)
Question: Chinook has a four-way distinction for tense. What about English?
� Aspect: indication of whether an action is ongoing (progressive) or completed (perfect)
(8) a. Mae
is
Steffan
Steffan
yn
progressive
canu.
sing.infin
‘Steffan is singing.’
b. Mae
is
Steffan
Steffan
wedi
perfect
canu.
sing.infin
‘Steffan has sung.’ (Welsh; ibid.)
(9) a. ba-léé-bomba ‘They are working.’ (progressive)
b. ba-là-bomba ‘They repeatedly work’ (habitual) (ChiBemba; ibid.)
3
Question: How does English distinguish progressive and perfect aspects?
� Number: Many languages have morphology on nouns and noun phrases indicating whether
they are singular or plural. Some languages also mark dual number, or even trial.
(10) a. Umı́j
wash
si
refl
obé
both
roki-i!
hand-dual
‘Wash both hands!’ (Slovenian)
(11) a. Duma
house
hima
that
aridu
1.trial
na’a
own
‘We (three) own that house.’ (Larike; Cable n.a.)
� Case: A form of inflection marking the grammatical function of nouns (e.g., subject, object)
in a clause (Tallerman 2011).
Tip: Languages like English normally indicate which noun is the subject/object of a clause
with word order:
a. The dog bites the man.
b. The man bites the dog.
Languages may mark these roles with case marking, nominative case (NOM) for the subject
and accusative case (ACC) for the object, as shown in the Latin examples below. Note
that the word order does not change the meaning, unlike the pair of sentences above in English.
There are many more cases! Look up Finnish case system (https://web.stanford.edu/
~kiparsky/Papers/finn.pdf).
(12) a. Nauta
sailor.nom
puellam
girl.acc
amat.
loves
‘The sailor loves the girl.’
b. Puellam
girl.acc
nauta
sailor.nom
amat.
loves
‘The sailor loves the girl.’ (Latin; Tallerman 2011)
4
https://web.stanford.edu/~kiparsky/Papers/finn.pdf
https://web.stanford.edu/~kiparsky/Papers/finn.pdf