Assignment 5
Syntax
Q1: What are major parts of speech?
Answer: Major parts of speech are nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, pronouns,
prepositions, conjunctions, determiners, and interjections.
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1. Which of the following words contains a derivational suffix used to form a noun?
A. Runs
B. Happiness
C. Faster
D. Quickly
2. Which of the following is an inflectional suffix for nouns?
A. -ness
B. -hood
C. -es
D. -ity
3. Which of the following endings is a derivational suffix that forms verbs?
A. -ed
B. -ize
C. -s
4. Which of the following sentences contains a verb with an inflectional suffix marking past
tense?
A. She is walking.
B. They danced beautifully.
C. He runs every morning.
D. The boy eats lunch.
5. Which of the following can immediately precede a verb in English?
A. A preposition
B. A conjunction
C. A modal or auxiliary
D. An adjective
6. Which of the following words contains a derivational suffix used to form an adjective?
A. Readable
B. Reader
C. Reading
D. Read
7. Which of the following endings marks the comparative form of an adjective?
A. -ing
B. -er
C. -ed
D. -en
8. Which of the following sentences correctly shows an adjective in syntactic distribution?
A. The very tall building collapsed.
B. They are running fast.
C. He sings beautifully.
D. We quickly left.
9. Which of the following sentences correctly uses an adverb?
A. The quickly fox jumped over the fence.
B. She spoke quickly during the meeting.
C. He is quickly.
D. The quick dog barked loudly.
Q3: Decide whether the following statements are true or false:
1. The suffix -ment in the word basement is an example of an inflectional suffix. F
2. Nouns in English can appear after determiners like the, these, and those. T
3. The word no can negate nouns, as in “No apples were eaten.T
4. Nouns in English frequently inflect for tense and aspect.F
5. The suffix -ate in dissipate is a derivational suffix used to form verbs.T
6. Verbs can be negated with no in English.F
7. The suffix -ing can occur on both verbs (running) and nouns (running is fun), making it
homophonous across categories.T
8. The suffix -ish in childish is an inflectional suffix used to form adjectives. F
9. Adjectives can be negated using no. F
10. The suffix -ly always marks adverbs, never adjectives. F
11. Adjectives can appear after forms of be (is, are, was, were, etc.). T
12. Adverbs can appear between a determiner and a noun, as in the quickly fox. F
Q4: Give one more example of each pair:
1. Gerund: Swimming is fun. vs present participle: She is swimming.
2. Plural: cats vs 3rd person singular: runs
3. Possessive: Sarah's book vs contracted 'is': Sarah's coming
4. Nominal: singer vs comparative: bigger
5. Plural: children vs verbal -en: eaten
Note that the following endings have homophonous usage with other parts of speech: -ing, -
s, ‘s, -er, -en, but also sometimes are found on nouns.
1. -ing: Gerund vs. present participle
2. -s: plural suffix vs. 3rd person singular -s
3. ’s: Possessive vs. contracted ‘is’ (e.g., John’s going)
4. -er: nominal (e.g., teacher) vs. comparative adjective (e.g., taller)
5. -en: plural (e.g., ox-en) vs. verbal -en (e.g., harden)
Note that the following endings have homophonous usage with other parts of speech: -ing, -
s, -en, -ed.
Q5: Explain the difference between open and closed parts of speech.
Open parts of speech accept new words over time. Examples are nouns, verbs, adjectives,
and adverbs. Closed parts of speech rarely gain new words. Examples are prepositions,
conjunctions, pronouns, and determiners.
Q6: Explain the difference between lexical and functional categories.
Lexical categories carry main meaning. Examples are nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs.
Functional categories serve a grammar role and connect words and phrases. Examples are
determiners, auxiliary verbs, complementizers, prepositions, and conjunctions.
Q7: List the functional categories in English.
Functional categories include determiners, auxiliary verbs, complementizers, prepositions,
pronouns, and conjunctions.
Q8: List the subtypes of determiners in English with an example of each.
Subtypes of determiners with examples: Articles: the, a. Demonstratives: this, those.
Quantifiers: many, some. Possessives: my, their. Numbers: two, five.
Q9: English has 4 complementizers. Give an example sentence of each.
that: I know that she left.
if: I wonder if he will come.
whether: I asked whether they agreed.
for: It is important for you to listen.
Q10: Discuss tense categories in English
English has two main tense forms in verbs: present and past. Future time is usually shown
with modal words like will or with going to. Tense interacts with aspect. Simple aspect
shows a basic event. Progressive aspect shows ongoing action. Perfect aspect shows
completed action. English also combines aspects such as present perfect and past
progressive to show detailed timing and completeness of events.