Morpho-Syntactic Marking of Inflectional Categories in English

Abstract

The goal of this chapter is to introduce the connection between morphology and syntax, using inflectional morphemes and functional words that mark specific inflectional categories on the verb. The chapter identifies and discusses four major inflectional categories marked on the verbs, namely, tense, aspect, mood, and voice from a descriptive linguistics approach. This approach provides a much more systematic and simple presentation of how English marks these less-commonly understood and potentially confusing concepts. The chapter first reviews the basic terminology and concepts relevant to the topic and presents a concise survey of both the traditional and the more recent theoretical analyses of English tense, aspect, mood, and voice. Further, it explains and exemplifies the recent analysis of tense, aspect, mood, and voice markers as a demonstration of how they can be taught accurately and in a pedagogically simpler way.