A Basic Course in Anthropological Linguistics (Studies in Linguistic ...

88 A BASIC COURSE IN ANTHROPOLOGICAL LINGUISTICS
We identify the word rasinkers as a noun because it has a plural ending,
/-s/ and because it is preceded by the definite article. In the same way, we
perceive rampix and minter as nouns because both are preceded by the article
the. The two are probably singular because they do not appear to have a plural
ending. The wordpluming is probably an adjective because it appears between
an article and a noun. The form kirked is probably a verb because Led/ is a
characteristic past tense ending of verbs. The word also has a position in the
sentence typical of where a verb should be. It is a transitive verb because it
has an object, rampix. The cluster at the minter can be identified as a phrase
that modifies kirked. Pintically is probably an adverb because it ends in /-ly/,
modifying kirked.
It is such morphological and syntactic cues that force us to interpret the
string as a legitimate, although meaningless, sentence. By replacing the nonsense
words with legitimate ones we can, in fact, construct “real” sentences:
The pluming rasinkers kirked the rampix at the minter pintically
1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1
The . . ./-ing/ . . ./-s/ . ./& the (noun) at the (noun) . ./-ly/
1 1 1 1 L L L 1 1 1
The loving sisters raised the banner at the game proudly
The rowing members started the rumor at the club unintentionally
GRAMMAR
Although the above sentence has no discernible meaning, we still perceive it to
be a sentence because it has the formal structure of one. The term grammar is
used to designate this kind of formal knowledge, which consists, clearly, of
knowing: (1) how words cluster in phrases and sentences; (2) how they are
inflected; and (3) which words (known as function words) can be used to
relate the other words in a sentence to each other.
Word order ranks as the most important feature of English grammar.
Changing the order of the words in a sentence can change the meaning of the
sentence. For example, if the words in the sentence Alex teased Sarah are
reversed to Sarah teased Alex, the meanings are also reversed. The reason
why this occurs is because the words in the sentence are governed by an
actor-action-goal hierarchical relationship. This expresses the idea that somebody
or something does something to someone or something else. The actor
functions as the subject of a sentence, the action as its verb, and the goal as its