General characteristics of the structure in Modern English
![INTRODUCTION
Learning foreign languages in Uzbekistan has become very important since
the first days of the Independence of our country which pays much attention to the
rising of education level of people, their intellectual growth. Before this deree The
President о f Uzbekist а n Mirziyoyev Sh.M signed the Decree №2909 “On
measures for further development of the Higher education system” on April 21,
2017. This decree plays as the basic foundation to the last one.
The Decree № 5117 of the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan
Sh.M.Mirziyoyev “On measures to raise to a qualitatively new level the activities
aimed at popularizing the study of foreign languages in the Republic of
Uzbekistan” dated on May 19, 2021 represents to develop foreign language
teaching, the issue of improving the quality of education in this area, attracting
qualified teachers to the field and increasing the interest of the population in
learning foreign languages is considered as a priority area of educational policy”.
The Decree considers “the creation of the necessary conditions for popularizing the
study of foreign languages among the population and mastering them perfectly, the
coordination of the implementation of internationally recognized programs and
textbooks on teaching foreign languages at all stages of education, as well as the
development of modern teaching skills among teachers” [1, 4].
The study of the general characteristics of the structure in Modern English is a
fundamental aspect of linguistics that aims to understand how the English language
is structured and organized. It encompasses the examination of phonological,
morphological, and syntactic features, providing insights into the rules and patterns
that govern the formation and arrangement of sounds, words, and sentences in
English.
Understanding the general characteristics of the structure in Modern English
is essential for effective communication and language comprehension. It allows us
to decode and produce language accurately, recognize grammatical patterns, and
interpret meaning in diverse contexts. By exploring the phonological,
morphological, and syntactic aspects of the language, linguists, educators, and
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![CHAPTER I. PHONOLOGICAL STRUCTURE IN MODERN ENGLISH
1.1. Phonemes and Allophones
Whereas phonetics is the study of sounds and is concerned with the
production, audition and perception of of speech sounds (called phones),
phonology describes the way sounds function within a given language and operates
at the level of sound systems and abstract sound units. Knowing the sounds of a
language is only a small part of phonology.
This importance is shown by the fact that you can change one word into
another by simply changing one sound. Consider the differences between the
words time and dime. The words are identical except for the first sound. [t] and [d]
can therefore distinguish words, and are called contrasting sounds. They are
distinctive sounds in English, and all distinctive sounds are classified as phonemes.
Phonology deals with sound structure in individual languages: the way
distinctions in sound are used to differentiate linguistic items, and the ways in
which the sound structure of the ‘same’ element varies as a function of the other
sounds in its context. Phonology and phonetics both involve sound in natural
language, but differ in that phonetics deals with sounds from a language-
independent point of view, while phonology studies the ways in which they are
distributed and deployed within particular languages. Phonology originated with
the insight that much observable phonetic detail is irrelevant or predictable within
the system of a given language [2, 145] .
This led to the positing of phonemes as minimal contrastive sound units in
language, each composed (according to many writers) of a collection of distinctive
features of contrast. Later work showed that a focus on surface contrast ultimately
was misguided, and generative phonology replaced this with a conception of
phonology as an aspect of speakers' knowledge of linguistic structure. Important
research problems have involved the relation between phonological and phonetic
form; the mutual interaction of phonological regularities; the relation of
phonological structure to other components of grammar; and the appropriateness of
rules vs. constraints as formulations of phonological regularities. Phonology is
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![typically defined as “the study of speech sounds of a language or languages, and
the laws governing them,”1 particularly the laws governing the composition and
combination of speech sounds in language.
This definition reflects a segmental bias in the historical development of the
field and we can offer a more general definition: the study of the knowledge and
representations of the sound system of human languages. From a neurobiological
or cognitive neuroscience perspective, one can consider phonology as the study of
the mental model for human speech. In this brief review, we restrict ourselves to
spoken language, although analogous concerns hold for signed language.
Moreover, we limit the discussion to what we consider the most important
aspects of phonology.
These include:
(i) the mappings between three systems of representation: action, perception,
and long-term memory;
(ii) the fundamental components of speech sounds (i.e., distinctive features);
(iii) the laws of combinations of speech sounds, both adjacent and long-
distance;
(iv) the chunking of speech sounds into larger units, especially syllables.
To begin, consider the word-form “glark.” Given this string of letters, native
speakers of English will have an idea of how to pronounce it and what it would
sound like if another person said it. They would have little idea, if any, of what it
means. The meaning of a word is arbitrary given its form, and it could mean
something else entirely. Consequently, we can have very specific knowledge about
a word’s form from a single presentation and can recognize and repeat such word-
forms without much effort, all without knowing its meaning [3, 211] .
Phonology studies the regularities of form (i.e., “rules without meaning”) and
the laws of combination for speech sounds and their sub-parts. Any account needs
to address the fact that speech is produced by one anatomical system (the mouth)
and perceived with another (the auditory system). Our ability to repeat new word-
forms, such as “glark,” is evidence that people effortlessly map between these two
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![Phonetic Alphabet) represents a phoneme. /k/ and /g/ are two phonemes that
change the meaning of words like [curl] and [girl], right?
Now, English phonemes fall into two broad categories:
Consonants and vowels. The bad news is that each consonant and vowel has
its own IPA symbol. For example, there is phoneme [k?] in kill and [k] in skill.
The latter is unaspirated, while the former is (aspirated). You go ahead and
pronounce the phoneme /k/ in [skill] in the same way you would pronounce it in
[Kill]. It sounds a bit strange doesn’t it? The other bad news is that we do not
always pronounce those phonemes exactly in the same way. It depends on the
surrounding phonemes, meaning, rhythm and speed etc. You must know how the
phonemes blend and assimilate to speak English fluently and naturally. You need
to understand what happens to phonemes during natural speech. If you do that, you
will no longer need subtitles when you watch American or British movies
(assuming you have a reasonably good vocabulary). There is no way for anyone to
cover every nuance in speech. I am very confident though the list and categories I
have included are quite comprehensive. Based on my experience, there are 5
important categories or keys, as I call them, that you need to be aware of when
learning English [4, 411] .
The 5 categories are as follows:
1-Consonants
2-Vowels
3-The schwa sound 4-The [t] pronunciation
5-Connected speech
So basically, you're not just about to learn what phonemes are, you're about to
learn how they deal and co-exist with each other. Despite there being just 26 letters
in the English language there are approximately 44 unique sounds, also known as
phonemes. The 44 sounds help distinguish one word or meaning from another.
Various letters and letter combinations known as graphemes are used to represent
the sounds. The 44 English sounds fall into two categories: consonants and vowels.
Below is a list of the 44 phonemes along with their International Phonetic
Alphabet symbols and some examples of their use. Note that there is no such thing
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![The English language is heavily stressed with each word divided into
syllables. Here are some examples of English words with different numbers of
syllables [5, 187] . These sets of words are followed by a series of examples using
the correct stress placement:
Words with one syllable
The, cold, quite, bed, add, start, hope, clean, trade, green, chair, cat, sign, pea,
wish, drive, plant, square, give, wait, law, off, hear, trough, eat, rough, trout, shine,
watch, for , out, catch, flight, rain, speech, crab, lion, knot, fixed, slope, reach,
trade, light, moon, wash, trend, balm, walk, sew, joke, tribe, brooch
Words with two syllables
Party, special, today, quiet, orange, partner, table, demand, power,
retrieve, doctor , engine, diet, transcribe, contain, cabbage , mountain, humour,
defend, spatial, special, greedy, exchange, manage, carpet, although, trophy, insist,
tremble, balloon, healthy, shower, verbal, business, mortgage, fashion, hover,
butcher, magic, broken
Words with three syllables
Fantastic, energy, expensive, wonderful, laughable, badminton, idiot, celery,
beautiful, aggression, computer, journalist, horrify , gravity, temptation, dieting,
trampoline, industry, financial , distinguished, however, tremendous, justify,
inflation, creation, injustice, energise, glittering, tangible, mentalise, laughable,
dialect, crustacean, origin
Words with four syllables
Understanding, indecisive, conversation , realistic, moisturising, American ,
psychology, gregarious, independence, affordable, memorandum, controversial,
superior, gymnasium, entrepreneur, traditional, transformation, remembering ,
establishment, vegetation, affectionate, acupuncture, invertebrate
Words with five syllables
Organisation, uncontrollable, inspirational, misunderstanding , conversational,
opinionated, biological, subordination, determination, sensationalist, refrigerator,
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![haberdashery, hospitality, conservatory, procrastination, disobedience, electrifying,
consideration, apologetic, particularly, compartmentalise, hypochondria
Words with six syllables
Responsibility, idiosyncratic, discriminatory, invisibility, capitalisation,
extraterrestrial, reliability, autobiography, unimaginable, characteristically,
superiority, antibacterial, disciplinarian, environmentalist, materialism,
biodiversity, criminalisation, imaginatively, disobediently
Words with seven syllables
Industrialisation, multiculturalism, interdisciplinary, radioactivity,
unidentifiable, environmentalism, individuality, vegetarianism ,
unsatisfactorily, electrocardiogram
English Stress Patterns
When thinking about syllables and stress in English, usually we find that one
syllable of a word is stressed more than the others. There are always one or more
stressed syllables within a word and this special stress placement helps words and
sentences develop their own rhythm .
Syllables and stress patterns in English help to create
the sounds , pronunciations and rhythms that we hear all around us.
Word Stress in English
We come to recognise these English syllables and stress patterns in
conversations in real life interactions and on the radio and television . Using the
correct stressed syllables within a word is an important part of speech and
understanding.
Pronouncing words with the right word stress will make your language sound
more natural to native speakers [6, 134] . Here are some words from the previous
lists with the stressed syllable in bold:
Two syllable words stress patterns:
Qui et, par ty, spe cial, to day , or ange, part ner, ta ble, de mand , po wer,
re trieve , en gine, di et, gree dy, ex change , man age, car pet, al though, re lax, com fort
Three syllable words stress patterns:
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![Fantastic, energy, expensive,
aggresion, wonderful, laughable, badminton, celery, temptation,
rampoline, industry, dintinguished, financial, however, tremendous, library
Four syllable words stress patterns:
Understanding, indecisive, conversation, realistic, moisturising, American,
psychology, independence, entrepreneur, transformation, fascinating, comfortable
Five syllable words stress patterns:
Uncon troll able, inspir at ional, misunder stand ing, conver sat ional, o pin ionated,
bio log ical, alpha bet ical, subordi nat ion, re fri gerator, hab erdashery, hospi tal ity
Six syllable words stress patterns:
Responsi bil ity, idiosyn crat ic, invisi bil ity, capitali sat ion, dis crim inatory or
discrimi nat ory, antibac ter ial, superi or ity, autobi og raphy, ma ter ialism, biodi ver sity,
criminalis at ion, i mag inatively,
Seven syllable words stress patterns:
Industriali sat ion, multi cul turalism, interdisci plin ary, radioact iv ity,
uni den tifiable, environ men talism, individu al ity, vege tar ianism, unsatis fac torily,
electro card iogram
Syllables and Stress Patterns in English Speech
Using clear syllables and stress patterns is an important part of speech [7, 57] .
The correct word stress in English is crucial for understanding a word quickly and
accurately.
Even if you cannot hear a word well and are not familiar with the context, you
can often still work out what the word is, simply from listening to which syllable is
stressed.
In the same way, if a learner pronounces a word differently from the accepted
norm, it can be hard for a native speaker to understand the word. The word or
sentence might be grammatically correct, but if they have used the wrong (or an
unexpected) stress pattern or the wrong stressed syllables, it could make it
unintelligible to a native.
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![ English words ending in ‘ous’ with 4 syllables usually have their
stress on the second syllable (e.g. gre gar ious, a non ymous, su per fluous,
an dro gynous, car niv orous, tem pes tuous, lux ur ious, hil ar ious, con tin uous,
cons pic uous). There are some exceptions using different stressed syllables,
such as sacri leg ious, which stresses the 3rd syllable [8, 311] .
Words ending in ‘ous’ with 3 or more syllables do not always follow a set
stress pattern. Here are some common English words with 3 syllables ending in
‘ous’ and their stress placement:
Words ending in ‘ous’ with stress on first syllable
fab ulous, friv olous, glam orous, cal culus, du bious, en vious, scan dalous, ser iou
s, ten uous, chiv alrous, dan gerous, fur ious
Words ending in ‘ous’ with stress on second syllable
e nor mous, au da cious, fa ce tious, di sas trous, fic ti cious, hor ren dous, con ta gious,
am bit ious, cou ra geous
Stress can changing the meaning of a word
Remember, where we place the stress in English can change the meaning of
a word . This can lead to some funny misunderstandings – and some frustrating
conversations!
Words that have the same spelling but a different pronunciation and meaning
are called heteronyms . Here are a few examples of words where the stressed
syllable changes the meaning of the word:
Object
The word ‘object’ is an example of an English word that can change meaning
depending on which syllable is stressed. When the word is pronounced ‘ ob ject’
(with a stress on the first syllable) the word is a noun meaning an ‘item’, ‘purpose’
or ‘person/thing that is the focus’ of a sentence.
For example:
o She handed the lady a rectangular ob ject made of metal
o He was the ob ject of the dog’s affection
o The ring was an ob ject of high value
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![ Compound adjectives and verbs have the stress on the second part:
e.g. whole hearted , green- fingered , old- fashioned , to under stand , to in form , to
short- change , to over take
English sentence stress
Once you understand word stress in English, you need to think about sentence
stress . This means deciding which words to stress as part of the sentence as a
whole. Stressed syllables can create a distinctive, rhythmic pattern within a
sentence. This is how English stress patterns are related to the rhythm of
English and help create the ‘music’ of a language [9, 111] .
English speakers tend to put stress on the most important words in a sentence
in order to draw the listener’s attention to them. The most important words are the
words that are necessary for the meaning of the sentence. Sentence stress is just as
important as word stress for clarity. For example:
‘The cat sat on the mat while eating its favourite food’
The most important words here are: ‘cat’, ‘mat’, ‘eating’ and ‘food’. Even if
you only hear those words, you would still be able to understand what is happening
in the sentence simply from hearing which words are stressed.
Clearly, it is the nouns and verbs that are the most important parts of the
sentence , as these are the ‘content words’ that help with meaning. Content words
are usually stressed.
The adjectives , adverbs and conjunctions all add flavour to the sentence, but
they are not absolutely necessary to understand the meaning. These ‘helper’ words
are usually unstressed [10, 99] .
In our example sentence: ‘The cat sat on the mat while eating its
favourite food’ , we have already used the word ‘cat’ so we do not need to
emphasise the word ‘its’ (or ‘he/she’ if you want to give the cat a gender), because
we already know who is eating the food (i.e. the cat).
English word stress within a sentence
Stress patterns affect words and sentences in English.
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![Morphemes are the smallest units of meaning in a language and are the
building blocks of words. A single word can be composed of one or more
morphemes. Morphemes can be divided into two categories: free morphemes and
bound morphemes. Free morphemes are morphemes that can stand alone as words,
such as “dog”, “run”, or “tree”. Bound morphemes, on the other hand, cannot stand
alone as words, but must be combined with other morphemes to form words, such
as “un-” in “unhappy”, “-s” in “dogs”, or “-ness” in “happiness”.
Prefixes are bound morphemes that are added to the beginning of a word,
while suffixes are bound morphemes that are added to the end of a word.
Morphemes carry meaning, and the meaning of a word is determined by the
combination of its morphemes. For example, the prefix “un-” in “unhappy” negates
the meaning of the word “happy”, while the suffix “-ness” in “happiness” changes
the word from an adjective to a noun.
The combination of morphemes into larger structures creates complex words.
For example, the English word “reapproval” consists of three morphemes: “re-“,
“approve”, and “-al”. First, the prefix “re-“, which means “back” or “again”,
combines with the verb “approve”, yielding “reapprove”, which means “to approve
again”. Then, the nominalizing suffix “-al” combines with the verb “reapprove”,
turning it into the noun “reapproval”, which means “the act of approving again”.
This exemplifies how different combinations of morphemes can produce new
words [12, 94] .
Morphological processes
Morphological processes refer to the ways in which words are created,
changed, or combined in a language. Prefixation involves adding a prefix to the
beginning of a word in order to create a new word or change the meaning of an
existing word. For example, the prefix “un-” can be added to the word “happy” to
form the word “unhappy”, which conveys a negative meaning. Suffixation
involves adding a suffix to the end of a word in order to create a new word or
change the meaning of an existing word.
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![This is to say, only specific exceptional words take those plural endings (e.g.
“children”, “oxen”). Unlike with “-es” and “-s”, the choice of “-ren” or “-en” is not
related to phonology, but determined by the particular word [13, 211] .
Morphological typology
Morphological typology is the study of the way different languages form
words. There are several different morphological types that have been identified in
the study of language, including isolating, fusional, and agglutinative languages.
Isolating languages are languages that express grammatical relationships
through separate words, rather than through inflections. In an isolating language,
words are not inflected for tense, number, gender, or other grammatical categories.
For example, in Chinese and English, each word typically represents a single
morpheme, and grammatical relationships are expressed through word order.
Fusional languages are languages that express multiple grammatical
categories through a single inflection. For example, in Polish, “kot” means “cat”
and “kotom” means “to (the) cats”. Thus, the suffix “-om” indicates both that the
noun is plural and that it is a recipient of an action. In a fusional language, a single
form may contain information about multiple grammatical categories.
Agglutinative languages are languages in which each morpheme represents a
single grammatical category, and these morphemes are combined to form long
words. For example, in Hungarian, the word for “person” is “ember,” plurality is
expressed with the suffix “-ek”, and recipients are marked with “-nek”. The work
“embereknek” contains all these parts and means “to (the) people”.
Sentence structure: Phrases, clauses, arguments, and modifiers
Sentence structure refers to the arrangement of words and phrases that form a
complete sentence in a language. Phrases are the building blocks of sentences. A
phrase is a group of words that work together to convey a single idea, but do not
form a complete sentence on their own.
There are several types of phrases, including noun phrases (e.g. “the
morning”), prepositional phrases (e.g. “in the morning”), and verb phrases (e.g.
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![“ate breakfast in the morning”). Noun phrases, for example, are made up of a noun
and any of the adjectives and determiners associated with it.
Clauses are a step up in complexity from phrases. A clause is a group of
words that contains a subject and a predicate. There are two types of clauses:
independent clauses and dependent clauses. Independent clauses, such as “I ran”,
can stand alone as a complete sentence, while dependent clauses, such as “if I ran”,
cannot.
Arguments and modifiers are important concepts in the analysis of phrasal
structure. Arguments are phrases required by other words to form a grammatical
sentence. For example, “the” never appears by itself; it needs to combine with a
noun to form a noun phrase, e.g. “the morning”.
Thus, “morning” is an argument of “the”. A modifier is a word or phrase that
adds information to another word or phrase in a sentence, clarifying or refining its
meaning. Modifiers can be adjectives (e.g. “tall”), adverbs (e.g. “quickly”),
prepositional phrases (e.g. “in the garden”), and relative clauses (e.g. “which I
bought yesterday”).
Word order typology
Word order typology is the study of the ways in which different languages
arrange the elements of a sentence, such as subjects, verbs, and objects. Some
languages have a fixed word order, such as English or Chinese, where the subject-
verb-object (SVO) order is the norm.
2.2. Syntactic Structure
Other languages, such as Japanese, Polish, or Latin, have a more flexible
word order, with the subject, verb, and object able to appear in different positions
within the sentence [14, 145] .
There are interesting asymmetries between different languages when it comes
to word order. Around 40% of the world’s language use subject-verb-object (or
SVO) as their basic word order. English belongs in this group, as this is the word
order in basic sentences such as “dogs chase cats”.
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![Another 40% of the world’s languages use the subject-object-verb (or SOV)
order, i.e. “dogs cats chase.” Other words orders (VSO, VOS, OVS, and OSV) are
much less frequent. These asymmetries reveal a cross-linguistic preference for
subject-initial sentences and for the verb and the object to be close together.
Some languages, such as Hungarian and Russian, have rich case systems,
with nouns and pronouns taking different forms depending on their grammatical
function within the sentence. In these languages, word order is often more flexible,
as the case markers provide cues as to the grammatical function of each word.
Word order typology also reveals patterns in language change over time; for
example, many Indo-European languages have shifted from an SOV word order to
an SVO one due to contact with other languages [15, 311] .
Key theories and models of syntax
Several theories and models of syntax have been developed over the years.
One of the earliest and most influential was Transformational Grammar, developed
by Noam Chomsky in the 1950s and 1960s.
According to this theory, syntax operates by means of transformations that
take an underlying deep structure and produce a surface structure. The deep
structure corresponds to the semantic content of a sentence, while the surface
structure corresponds to its syntactic form.
In other words, Chomsky argued that the syntax we use is rooted deeply in the
meaning of what we are trying to say. Syntax, argues Chomsky, is a universal
phenomenon, and all languages share common elements of syntax. This means that
syntax and grammar are a part of our biology. This is as opposed to the idea that
syntax, and language generally, is purely rooted in culture and convention.
In recent years, there has been a move towards more usage-based models of
syntax, such as Construction Grammar and Cognitive Grammar. These theories
view syntax as a set of learned patterns that are used to construct sentences.
The Minimalist Program
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![Constructions can be seen as the basic units of language, and all aspects of
language, including syntax, semantics, and pragmatics as interconnected.
Cognitive Grammar is another theoretical alternative to the Chomskyan view
of syntax. This theory views language as a cognitive process that reflects the
underlying structure of thought.
According to Cognitive Grammar, linguistic units such as words and phrases
are not isolated entities, but are integrated into complex structures that reflect the
way the speaker thinks about a particular situation [16, 64] .
Conclusion on chapter II
In conclusion, the exploration of the morphological and syntactic structure in
Modern English has provided us with a comprehensive understanding of how
words and sentences are formed and organized in the language. By examining the
morphological structure, we have gained insights into the formation and
composition of words through processes such as affixation, compounding, and
conversion.
The analysis of morphemes, including derivational and inflectional
morphemes, has highlighted the role they play in creating meaning and conveying
grammatical information. The study of morphological patterns and irregularities
has demonstrated the complexity and richness of English word formation, allowing
for a deeper appreciation of its lexicon.
Furthermore, the investigation of the syntactic structure has revealed the rules
and principles that govern the arrangement of words and phrases to form
grammatically correct sentences. By understanding the role of constituents such as
subjects, predicates, objects, and modifiers, we have gained insights into sentence
structure and the hierarchical organization of syntactic elements.
The study of syntactic operations, such as phrase structure rules and
transformations, has provided a framework for analyzing sentence formation and
syntactic relationships. Additionally, the examination of grammatical categories
and markers, including tense, aspect, mood, number, gender, and case, has
demonstrated their influence on sentence structure and meaning.
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General characteristics of the structure in Modern English