Word-groups lecture 12 Word-groups vs phraseological units

Notional member-words are habitually represented in conventional symbols whereas prepositions and other form-words are given in their usual graphic form. This is accounted for by the fact that individual form-words may modify or change the meaning of the word with which it is combined, as in, e.g.:

• Notional member-words are habitually represented in conventional symbols whereas prepositions and other form-words are given in their usual graphic form. This is accounted for by the fact that individual form-words may modify or change the meaning of the word with which it is combined, as in, e.g.:
• anxious+for+ N (anxious for news),
• anxious+about+N (anxious about his health).
• the difference in the meaning of the head-word is conditioned by a difference in the pattern of the word-group in which this word is used

Syntactic patterns are classified into:

• Syntactic patterns are classified into:
• 1. predicative word-groups have a syntactic structure similar to that of a sentence, they comprise the subject and the predicate, e.g. he went, John works.
• 2. non-predicative word-groups do not comprise the subject and the predicate and may be subdivided into
• a) subordinative (e.g. red flower, a man of wisdom);
• b) coordinative (e.g. women and children, do or die).

Classification of word-groups

• ENDOCENTRIC WORD-GROUPS
• have one central member functionally equivalent to the whole word-group.
• In the word-group blue dress, friendly to people, the head-words are the noun dress and the adjective friendly correspondingly.
• According to their central members
• word-groups may be classified into:
• a) nominal groups or phrases (blue dress),
• b) adjectival groups (friendly to people),
• c) verbal groups (to sing well), etc.