Grammar


Grammar is a language level in the same was as lexis, phonology, semantics etc...


Grammar is the underlying structure of language


Linguistic rank scale

- morpheme

- word

- clause

- phrase/group

- sentence

- text

Morphology

- Morphology is the study of morphemes which are the smallest unit of grammatical meaning

 

- It is the study of the way words are formed, a morpheme is not the same as a syllable


- The word 'Apples' has two units of grammatical meaning- 'apple' & 's'


- The word apple has one unit of grammatical meaning


- 'Apple' is a free morpheme because it has grammatical meaning by itself


- 'S' is a bound morpheme because it needs to be attached to a free morpheme to have meaning


- If an affix is inflectional it means that it does not change the word class of the root word


- If it is derivational then it does change the word class of the root word


- An infix is 'abso-bloody-lutely


Modal auxiliary verbs


Auxiliary verbs are verbs that are usually used to show tense
Modal auxiliary verbs are verbs that are used to describe obligation, probability  

Commenting on this online teen speak article
http://parentinfo.org/article/online-teen-speak-updated


I think that this article is relatively inaccurate, this is down to the diverse, region-based nature of language and specifically slang. To elaborate, different slang phrases/words will be used in different contexts and at different times between different groups of young people, in addition, some slang words have different meanings to some people, for example, the word 'peak' to some people will mean really good and to others will be referring to something bad. With this in mind it's impossible for the government to pinpoint definitions of slang words because of its ever-changing nature. Therefore, it could be argued that this article is rather misleading and in some circumstances can actually further confuse the parent/career who is trying to understand the language that their teen is using.


However, it could be suggested that the above argument is unfair as it only refers to a few terms and in actual fact, most of the terms shown are accurately displayed and could help a parent to understand what their child is saying which could aid their online safety.