8.5.2002: Corpus work - Parts of speech and grammatical relations

Preliminary definitions: Parts of speech are sets of similar words. Sometimes the term ``category'' and ``word class'' are used. Similarity relations are sometimes called a paradigmatic relations.

Grammatical relations link words together to compose phrases, clauses and sentences. Compositional relations are sometimes called syntagmatic relations.

Questions for discussion based on the text ``The tiger and the mouse'', which serves as our initial corpus:

1. What are the traditional parts of speech?
2. Define each of these (provisionally - detailed discussion follows in the coming weeks).
3. On the basis of the groups of words which you have found in the corpus, and using a printed version of the concordance, identify different grammatical functions (sometimes called relations) and try to name them.
4. Invent sentences to illustrate the following terms:
   1. Subject
   2. Object
   3. Indirect Object
   4. Prepositional Object
   5. Sentential Complement
5. Find definitions of the terms ``paradigmatic relation'' and ``syntagmatic relation'' in textbooks and on the web, comment on what they appear to mean, andcompare these definitions with the ones given above.
6. How are syntagmatic relations and paradigmatic relations connected with the terms ``part of speech'' and ``grammatical function''?
7. Which subordinate clauses can you find in the text "The Tiger and the mouse", and what is their grammatical function (e.g. relative, adverbial, ...)?

Note: illustrate your results with as many examples as possible.