Tema 12.

- Elementos esenciales de morfosintaxis de la lengua inglesa.

- Estructuras comunicativas elementales.
- Uso progresivo de las categorías gramaticales en las producciones orales y escritas para
mejorar la comunicación.

In order to master a language, we need to understand its native speakers and also to make
ourselves understood. This involves being able to encode and decode both oral and written
messages. To do so, it is necessary to understand the communicative process, which, according
to Chomsky, includes four linguistic levels: phonological, semantic, morphological and
syntactic. In this topic I am going to focus on the morphological and syntactic levels, which are
part of grammar.
Since the 1970’s, the belief that language is a means of communication has inspired a new
approach in English teaching: the Communicative Approach. Due to its influence, nowadays
language is taught and learnt in a very practical way in the classroom. Therefore, grammar will
be taught from a communicative point of view in the sense that learners will be encouraged to
communicate their ideas, feelings and attitudes rather than learning by heart a set of
structures.

Based on this view, the present essay aims to study the concept of morphosyntax. For this
purpose, I will divide this topic into three main sections.
In the first part, I will study the essential elements of morphosyntax, which are the
morpheme, the word and the sentence. In the second part, I will analyse the elementary
communicative structures. Finally, in the third part, I will concentrate on the progressive use
of grammar categories to improve both the oral and written communicative competence
and I will suggest some activities to teach grammar.

We deal with an essential topic since, as The Organic Law on Education 2/2006 passed on
the 3rd of May establishes, the main goal of FLT in Primary Education is the acquisition of
communicative competence, and this involves communicating appropriately. Therefore,
students need to learn structures, but also how and when they are used. In addition to that, the
Foreign Language Curriculum for Primary Education emphasizes the importance of this
topic by including in its objectives, 3rd block of contents and assessment criteria the
identification and use of the linguistic structures of the FL.

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 FIRST
To develop the first part of this topic, I will deal with the concept of morphosyntax. To do so,
I will start by briefly trying to define this term. We understand morphosyntax as the system of
the internal structure of words (which is concerned with morphology) and the way in which
words are put together to form phrases and sentences (which is concerned with syntax).
Since morphology and syntax are part of grammar, knowledge of the most elementary
communicative structures, studied by morphosyntax, is the gateway to grammar competence
and, consequently, to communicative competence. In addition, according to Stephen
Krashen’s Natural Approach, language must be taught from the simplest to the most complex.
Hence, within these elementary structures, teachers must start with the morphological level,
since the morpheme is the minimum unit of the language that has its own meaning. After that,
they must continue with word classes and finally syntax.

After this brief introduction, I will go on to consider the essential elements of

morphosyntax, which are the morpheme, the word and the sentence. In what follows, I will
explain these concepts in detail.

Firstly, the morpheme is the smallest unit of grammatical description in the sense that it
cannot be segmented any further at this level. This means that a morpheme cannot be divided
without altering or destroying its meaning. Morphemes can be classified into free and bound:

On the one hand, free morphemes can occur as separate words, for instance the morphemes
“friend” and “iron”. They can be classified into two types: lexical morphemes, which are
words that carry the content of the message, mainly nouns, adjectives and verbs; and
functional morphemes, which are the functional words in the language such as prepositions
and articles.

On the other hand, bound morphemes need to be attached to a word, for instance the
morphemes un and able in the word “unavailable”. They can also be classified into two types:
The first type is inflectional morphemes which are concerned with the ways in which words
vary in order to express grammatical contrasts such as gender, number or tense. This occurs
when a free morpheme is modified by inflectional affixes, such as prefixes or suffixes, which
give this word the form required by grammatical rules. For example, we add the suffix –s to the
word book to form the plural books.

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 The second type is derivational morphemes which are concerned with the word formation
processes and are used to make new words in the language, usually of a different grammatical
category. There are three main processes in English by which new words are created:
The first one is affixation, which is divided into prefixation and suffixation. Prefixation
consists of adding a prefix to the base, for instance “disobey” whereas suffixation consists of
adding a suffix to the base, for instance “driver”.
The second one is conversion or zero affixation, which is when a word shifts from a word
class to another leaving the base form unchanged, for instance “walk” as a noun and “to walk”
as a verb.
The third one is composition, which is when two bases or independent words come together,
such as “blackboard” or “bedroom”.
Apart from these major processes, there are also some less usual ways of making new words
like reduplication “goody-goody”, clipping “flu” from “influenza”, blending “brunch”, Back
formation “to brainwash” and acronyms “USA” “VIP”

Secondly, the word is, in Leonard Bloomfield´s words, the minimal free form. It is usually
the easiest unit to identify in the written language as it commonly has spaces on either side.
However, in speech it is more difficult to “hear” the spaces between words. According to
Quirk, they can be classified into word classes: On the one hand, open classes allow the
addition of new members and they are formed by nouns, adjectives, full verbs and adverbs. On
the other hand, closed classes do not allow the addition of new members and they are
composed of relatively few members such as prepositions, conjuctions or articles.

Lastly, the sentence is the most elementary communicative structure and it consists of one
independent clause or two or more related clauses that can be either coordinated or
subordinated.
Traditionally, every complete sentence has a Subject and a Predicate. The subject refers to the
person or thing that performs the action of a verb. It determines the concord of the predicate,
and most of the times it is a proper name, a noun or a pronoun.
The rest of the sentence is the predicate. It is the sentence element which gives information
about the subject. It contains the verb, which can be transitive, intransitive or copulative.
Transitive verbs require a direct object for instance “He bought a new house” and sometimes,
certain transitive verbs allow a second noun phrase to be placed between the predicate and the
direct object which is the indirect object, for instance “He bought their family a new house”.

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 On the other part, intransitive verbs don’t require further sentence material, but they might be
modified by adverbs which express a circumstance although they are not essential to
understand the meaning of the sentence.
In addition, copulative verbs are followed by an adjective or noun that refers back to the
subject as in the sentence “Mary was ill”. The main copulative verbs are to be, seem, look and
become.

SECOND
After having examined the essential elements of morphosyntax, I will consider the
elementary communicative structures.

One of the elements of communicative competence is the grammatical competence. In this

sense, we cannot communicate properly if we do not know how to form and understand
sentences, as they are the most elementary communicative structures. We also need to know the
meaning of sentences in particular contexts. Bearing all these in mind, a proper study of
elementary communicative structures must include three aspects: formal, semantic and
pragmatic classification.

Regarding formal classification of sentences, this is based on grammar rules. It can be

divided into four syntactic types:
Firstly, there are declaratives in which the subject is always present and generally precedes
the verb “she bough the car”.
Secondly, there are interrogatives in which the operator is placed immediately in front of the
subject in Yes-No questions “Did you read the book?” or the Wh-element is in the initial
position “Who did you see yesterday?”
Thirdly, there are imperatives which normally have no overt grammatical subject and whose
verb has the base form “Speak to the boss today”
Finally, there are exclamatives which normally have an initial phrase introduced by what or
how without inversion of the subject or operator “What a beautiful house!”

Regarding semantic classification of sentences, this is associated with the discourse

function at the most general level. It can be divided into four semantic types:
Firstly, there are statements which are used to convey information.
Secondly, there are questions which are used to seek information on a specific point.
Thirdly, there are directives which are used to instruct somebody to do something.

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 Finally, there are exclamations which are used to express the extent to which the speaker is
impressed by something.

Direct association between syntactic and semantic class is the norm, but the two classes do
not always match, as we can see in the sentence “She told you I was lying?” which is a
declarative question.

Regarding pragmatic classification of sentences, this indicates how the semantic types of
sentences are used in actual utterances, because a particular utterance may have different
functions in different contexts. In this sense, a statement can be used to make an assertion, a
prediction or an apology, for instance the statement “I will see you tomorrow” may be a
promise, a threat or a warning.

THIRD
Once I have studied the elementary communicative structures, I will go on to analyse the
progressive use of grammar categories to improve oral and written communicative
competence when teaching and learning grammar. For this purpose, I will point out the
main goal of grammar instruction, the main principles and the stages of grammar teaching.

The formal teaching of grammar is not an objective in Primary Education; the LOE 2/2006
passed on the 3rd of May states that the main aim of FLT is that students acquire basic C.C.
which means learning how to use the language.
However, teachers must train students in understanding basic grammar since without the
acquisition of basic sentence patterns and attention to the form of language, problems with
accuracy will appear, and children will be unable to participate in communicative activities. In
this sense, the goal of grammar instruction is to enable students to carry out their
communicative purposes.
This goal has two main implications:
On the one hand, students do not need to master every aspect of each grammar point, only
those which are relevant to the immediate communicative task.
On the other hand, teachers should not be over worried by error´s correction. They can use
error correction to support language acquisition and avoid using it in ways that undermine
students´ desire to communicate in the language.

Now before considering the main stages of grammar teaching, I will address some of the
principles that must be taken into account when teaching grammar to Primary students.

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 Among these principles it is important that the new language is presented in a context that is
familiar to the learner as well as using visual support to convey meaning. Also, the teacher
must plan two types of activities: activities to practise the language (controlled activities) and
activities to use the language more freely (communicative activities). In addition, students must
be encouraged to develop their own strategies for grammar learning, since learning to learn is
among the 8 Basic Competences established by The Royal Decree 1513/2006 passed on the 7th
of December and it is concerned with developing strategies to learn in an autonomous way.
Finally, the spoken form must be taught first. The written form must be introduced when the
students can pronounce it well.

At this point, I will examine the different stages that we must follow when teaching grammar;
that is the organisation of grammar teaching in presentation, controlled practice and production
stages.

Firstly, there is the presentation stage which is aimed to introduce the form, meaning and
use of a new language item. They must understand what it means and when to use it, but they
don’t manipulate language.
Some presentation techniques are listening to a dialogue where the structure is presented,
using pictures and realia or miming.

Secondly, there is the controlled practice stage which is aimed to get the learners to
internalize the new grammar items completely and to prepare them to use these items for
communicative purposes.
The activities at this stage are controlled by the teacher. Since the students are practising the
structures for the first time, the focus will be on accuracy and due to this, the teacher can
correct errors. Activities that can be used are, among others:
 Drills oriented to the repetition, substitution and transformation of sample sentences.
Drills are a useful way of giving all children some speaking practice when the class is
too large for individual speaking.
 Gap filling exercises
 Spotting the mistakes
 Putting jumbled sentences in the right order
 Classifying words under grammar categories (nouns, adverbs, verbs…)
 Singing: Songs provide an amusing way to learn some language structures.

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  Dictations. According to Paul Davis and Mario Rinvolucri, dictation is of great
pedagogical value as it is useful to work on different aspects of the language such as
grammar or vocabulary, and sometimes it leads to oral communicative activities.

Lastly, there is the production stage which is aimed to the production of language in a freer and more
creative way after students have practised the linguistic forms. At the production stage, we will make note
of the mistakes and use them as the basis of feedback.
Since the focus will be now on fluency, we should not correct students very often so as not to discourage
them and make them lose self-confidence. Also, we should encourage self-correction and student-student
correction. Next I will point out some oral and written communicative activities to work with grammar at
this stage.
On the one hand, some oral communicative activities are:
 Information-gap activities: One student knows something that another student does
not. This one has to discover the missing information by means of negotiation and
interaction techniques.
 Role-play: Students pretend they are someone else in an imaginary situation.
 Problem-solving activities: Students work together in order to find a solution to a
problem or task.

On the other hand, according to Jeremy Harmer, some written communicative activities
are:
 Writing instructions, short messages, short letters, diaries...
 Story constructions: we give individual students partial information which they must
put together with other students to write a coherent narration.
 Fluency writing: they have to write a story about a series of pictures in a established
period of time.
 Project works: It involves some research and some group discussion about the topic
until eventually, the students write the final product. Therefore, it is very useful for
integrating skills.

To finish off this section, it is worth mentioning that some authors such as David
Batstone refer to the Presentation, Practice and Production stages as Noticing, Structuring
and Proceduralising.

Conclusion

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 To conclude, I would like to remark that, as I have proven in this topic, knowledge of
grammar is essential for the mastery of the language, since we cannot use words properly
unless we know the elementary communicative structures. Although they do not need to
master every aspect of each grammar point, the truth is that if our students master some
basic sentence patterns they will be able to communicate more efficiently. Therefore, our
aim in teaching grammar should be to enable students to carry out their communicative
purposes.

In this topic, I have first studied the essential elements of morphosyntax, then I have
analysed the elementary communicative structures. Finally, I have concentrated on the
progressive use of grammar categories to improve both the oral and written
communicative competence and I have suggested some activities to teach grammar.

In order to develop this topic, the following bibliography has been used:

KRASHEN, S.
CHOMSKY, N.
PAUL DAVID AND MARIO RINVOLUCRI. Dictation: new methods, new possibilities.
Cambridge University Press, 1993
HYMES, D. On Communicative Competence. Penguin, London 1972.
BREWSTER, J. et al. (2003): The Primary English Teacher’s Guide. Penguin English.
HARMER, J. (2003): The Practice of English Language Teaching. Longman.
LARSEN-FREEMAN, D. (2003): Techniques and Principles in Language Teaching.
Oxford University Press.
VARELA, R. et al. (2003): All About Teaching English. Centro de Estudios Ramón Areces