THE EFFICACY OF READING INTERVENTIONS ON THE READING SKILLS OF

GRADE 7 STUDENTS: BASIS FOR THE DEVELOPMENT

OF INSTRUCTIONAL MATERIALS

An Annotation

of the Study conducted by

Amyll Josielou B. Olano

Presented to

The Faculty of the Graduate School of

Caraga State University

Bayugan City External Campus

In Partial Fulfillment

of the Requirements for the Degree

Master of Arts in Education – English Language Teaching

ZENMAR L. GENDIVE

DECEMBER 2019
LINGUISTIC ANALYSIS OF THE SURFACE STRUCTURE OF THE TEXTUALITY OF

THE VERSE ‘GOD IS LOVE’

A Mini-Research

Presented to

The Faculty of the Graduate School of

Caraga State University

Bayugan City External Campus

In Partial Fulfillment

of the Requirements for the Degree

Master of Arts in Education – English Language Teaching

ZENMAR L. GENDIVE

DECEMBER 2019
Introduction
Bible has been used as reference for mankind for guidance and for spiritual
upliftment. It contains verses which are enriched with words of wisdom and guidance
which believers cling into amidst critical situations. Accordingly, these verses are
purposely written in its simplest forms so that men among ages and roots can immediately
comprehend its contents.
Linguistically, the sentence God is Love is a simple sentence deduced from a Bible
verse, which is 1 John 4:8, consisting of 3 words. This is an interesting subject of study
as it is anchored on any individual’s faith while the sentence itself serves as a compacted
one yet filled with variety of meaning and function.
Aside from its significance in the human faith, the simplicity of the language used
in the sentence and its semantic variability stirred the researcher to consider this as the
focus of the study. Considering its function, one can jump into a generalization that the
aforementioned sentence merely functions as a simple sentence. However, given the
language variation, this can have another function which the researcher wishes to find
out.

Theoretical Setting of the Study

This study theorizes that the textuality of God is love reveals the standard surface
structures of linearity of the English language.
This argument is supported by two linguistic theories of linear grammar by Corder,
Parker and Riley (179; 115-116), and phrase-structure grammar by Chomsky (25).
Corder (179) in his theory of linear grammar explains that linear grammar treats
the sentences of language as a “string” of grammatical categories like beads in a
necklace, or alternatively as a series of slots to be filled by words of the category
appropriate to each slot. The linguistic description is also called “slot-and-filler grammar”
because it treats the structure of the sentence as a linear pattern, such that the choice of
each successive category is dependent upon the category immediately preceding it.
Basically, the Philippine English follows the prescribed General American English.
In most cases, the predicate assumes various sentences constructions. This predicate
may be a noun, adjective, adverb, prepositional phrase, transitive verb, intransitive verb
with various complements. Thus, its NP and VP constructions follow a linear pattern. For
instance, in the following sentence: The boy plays in the garden, the noun phrase “the
boy” precedes the verb phrase, “play in the garden”. In most case, this is the standard
sentence pattern, although, the prepositional phrase in the garden, may be found at the
beginning of the sentence for stylistic purposes.
Parker and Riley (115-116) explains the process of phonologic segmentation
linearity, as follows: When one listens to someone talk, he/she hears speech but he/she
perceive segments, psychological units which correspond to “speech sounds” produced
by the vocal tract in continuous succession. However, oral interpretation of these waves
is discrete segments of phonemes.
Parker and Riley (91-93) highlight another linearity in the word structure
(morphology) of a language which focuses on word formation of structure of words, just
as syntax is concerned with the structure of the sentence, explaining that words are made
up of meaningful units (morphemes), which can be lexical (meaningful themselves) or
grammatical (relate to one lexical morpheme with another). Free morphemes (roots) can
stand alone as words while bound morphemes (affixes) can only be meaningful when
attached to free morphemes (94).
Syntax is concerned with strings or chains of word forms. Francis in Gonzales et
al. (184) describes English syntax as a many-layered organization of relatively few type
of basic units. Every structure is divided into its immediate constituents, almost always
two, each of which may be in turn divided and subdivided until the ultimate constituents
(in grammar words) are reached. In phrase-structure analysis, after identifying its
sentence constituents, elements in a sentence, which function as meaningful units, are
grouped together where each act of segmentation divides up a single construction into
constituent components: (1) noun phrase and (2) verb phrase.

Problem Statement
This study analyzes linguistically the surface structures of the textuality of the verse
God is Love.
Specifically, it focuses on these aspects:

1. The phonemic analysis of the:

 1.1 segmentals; and
1.2 suprasegmentals;
2. the morphemic analysis of the:
2.1 content words and
2.2 function words; and
3. the syntactic analysis in terms of:
3.1 immediate constituents; and
3.2 phrase structures.

Significance of the Study

The results of the investigation can become a useful teaching-learning materials

to attain mastery in the use of English language both in form and structure among English
language users particularly in the academe.

Hence, this study is both relevant and significant to analyze the immediate
constituent structuration of textuality of the adjective phrase, God is love in terms of its
phonology, morphology, syntax and the phrase-structure rules of the syntax.
Methodology

This study utilizes the qualitative research using the linguistic analysis of surface-
structure segmentations of the textuality of the sentence, God is Love. This method aims
to provide an explicit description of the surface linguistic structure, word order and pattern
of textuality of the aforementioned phrase.

Sources of Verbal Data

The main source of the data is the Book of John of Christian Bible, specifically in
the first book of John, chapter 4, verse 8. The whole verse consists of this sentence “He
who does not love does not know God, for God is love”, in which some of these words
were omitted by the researcher, purposively selecting only the clause or sentence
mentioned above.

Data-generating Process

Seven steps constitute the processing of data-generation: (1) Preliminary Process:

Idealization of the Raw Data; (2) Phase One: Phonemic Analysis of Segmentals; (3)
Phase Two: Phonemic Analysis of Suprasegmentals; (4) Phase Three: Morphemic
Analysis of Content Words; (5) Phase Four: Morphemic Analysis of Function Words; (6)
Phase Five: Syntactic Analysis of Immediate Constituents; and (7) Phase Six: Syntactic
Analysis of Phrase Structures.

Results and Discussion

The idealized textuality accurately contains one sentence, which semantically
functions as adjective clause, God is love, with an explanation that follows:
The clause contains the complete subject (GOD…) followed by an auxiliary (IS)
and ends with a noun (LOVE) but functions as a complement to the subject.

Phonemic Analysis of Segmentals

In analyzing the segmental phonemes that constitute one phrase, the International
Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) is used in the transcription of phonemes.
The phrase God is love contains three words, which is transcribed as follows:
 GOD /gɒd/ is a monosyllabic word made up of a velar, voiced stop /g/, tensed
vowel /ɒ/ and ends with an alveolar stop /d/.
IS /Iz/ is a monosyllabic term that starts with a lax vowel /I/ and ends with a voiced,
alveolar fricative /z/.
LOVE /lᴧv/ is another monosyllabic term that begins with an alveolar, voiced lateral
liquid /l/, followed by a tensed vowel /ᴧ/ and ends with a labiodental, voiced fricative /v/.

Phonemic Analysis of Suprasegmentals

In analyzing the suprasegmental phonemes that constitute one phrase, the
prosodic markers of stress, pitch, juncture and intonation of General American English (a
stress-tional language) are used.
In General American English, the thought unit (phrase or clause) is the marker of
meaning, which is marked by a juncture, whose immediate constituents are marked by
stresses, pitch levels, and Intonations (when combined).
Junctures, the meaningful stop or pause in a speech, can be failing (#) at the end
of statements, imperatives exclamations, interrogatives, rising (//) after yes-no questions,
after words in a series, after the first of two choices, nouns of address; sustained (/) after
phrases and clauses.
2

SENTENCE: 1 GOD IS LOVE. #

For emphasis, the subject GOD is stressed with the pitch level 1-2 with the whole
sentence itself which follows the rising-falling intonation and ends with a juncture (#) at
the end of the statement.

Morphemic Analysis of Content Words: Noun

The analysis of noun as content word that is used in the textuality in the sentence
is revealed in the table below:
 MORPHEMIC STRUCTURE OF NOUN
Content Word: Grammatical Free Bound Morpheme
Noun Form Morpheme
(Root)
Prefix Suffix
GOD SIMPLE GOD
LOVE SIMPLE LOVE

The morphemic structure of nouns used has two words which are ‘GOD’ and
‘LOVE’. Other linguistic categories, such as adjective or adverb are not existent within the
context. For the meantime, both identified nouns possess simple grammatical form with
their free morphemes equivalent to ‘God’ and ‘Love’.

Morphemic Analysis of Function Words

The structural analysis of the function words used in the sentence “God is love”
textuality is reflected in the table, as follows:
MORPHEMIC STRUCTURE OF FUNCTION WORD
FUNCTION WORD LINGUISTIC GRAMMATICAL FORM
CATEGORY/IES
IS AUXILIARY SIMPLE

There is only one morphemic structure word in the sentence, which is ‘IS’. The
term is considered to have a linguistic category of an Auxiliary and is inherently simple in
its grammatical form.

Syntactic Analysis of Immediate Constituents

The immediate constituents of the sentence under inquiry are analyzed according
to the lexical categories of content words and of function words.
The content words’ lexical categories in the sentence used include noun only
whereas the function word includes an auxiliary which functions as linking verb in the
sentence.
 GOD IS LOVE

N AUX N
Rewrite Rules:
N + AUX + N DS
Where:
N Noun
AUX Auxiliary DS Declarative Sentence

The word-for-word linear linguistic constituent analysis reveals that GOD IS LOVE
is a DECLARATIVE SENTENCE as used in the textuality.

Syntactic Analysis of Phrase Structure

According to Corder (186), the phrase structure of language groups together the
immediate constituents of a sentence which functions as meaningful units of: a noun
phrase (the subject) and a verb phrase (the predicate). Thus, a sentence is a sequence
of a noun phrase (NP) and a verb phrase (VP).

DS

NP AP

NP

N AUX N

GOD IS LOVE
Where:
N Noun
 AUX Auxiliary
AP Adjective Phrase
NP Noun Phrase
DS Declarative Sentence

The sentence GOD IS LOVE is declarative sentence. It contains a subject, which

is GOD, with an auxiliary acting as a linking verb, and another noun LOVE which
complements the subject. When IS and love is combined, it denotes an adjective phrase
which eventually makes up the statement as a declarative sentence.

Summary of Findings
The following are the findings of the study:

1. The phrase contains the complete subject (GOD…) followed by an auxiliary (IS)
and ends with a noun (LOVE) but functions as a complement to the subject.
2. Most of the consonants in phonemic structure of the sentence GOD IS LOVE are
voiced /g/, /d/, /z/, /l/, /v/ and belong to alveolar /d/, /z/, /l/. There are also
consonants which are velar /g/, stops /g/, /d/, fricatives /z/, /v/. Meanwhile, the
vowels used are usually tensed /ɒ/, / ᴧ/ and one lax vowel /I/.
3. The sentence has a rising-falling intonation, with pitch level 1-2 for the first word,
God, and stress on the content words ‘God’ and ‘love’ with a juncture at the end of
the statement represented by #.
4. There are only two content words that are used in the sentence: God and Love
and have their simplest grammatical form. On the other hand, there is only one
function word used in the same sentence, IS, and same with the content words
used, possesses its simplest grammatical form.
5. The word-for-word linear linguistic constituent analysis reveals that GOD IS LOVE
is an ADJECTIVAL CLAUSE as used in the textuality.
6. The sentence GOD IS LOVE is an adjectival clause. It contains a subject, which is
GOD, with an auxiliary acting as a linking verb, and another noun LOVE which
complements the subject, making it function as an adjective phrase, which
eventually forms into an adjective clause.
Conclusion
Based on the findings, it has been proved that the textuality of the sentence, GOD
IS LOVE follows the standard surface structures of linearity of the English language.