ACADEMY OF FINANCE

Dao Thi Oanh, MA

Nguyen Thi Thanh Thanh, MA

LECTURES ON
ENGLISH GRAMMAR

FINANCIAL PUBLISHER
 PREFACE

“Lectures on English Grammar” builds a system of lectures on Grammar for

Bachelor training program of English for Finance and Accounting, Faculty of Foreign
Languages - Academy of Finance. This grammar book is designed in such a way that it
provides learners with a basic understanding of English words and their combinations;
syntactic categories such as: simple phrases, complex phrases; simple sentences, complex
sentences, compound sentences and some corresponding grammar research methods to
help students have a certain knowledge in the study and practice of languages. Students
will be teached to analyze and evaluate some problems related to grammar.
In terms of content, “Lectures on English Grammar” includes 12 lessons:
1.Introduction; 2. Elements of grammar; 3. Nouns, pronouns, and the basic noun phrase;
4. The complex noun phrase; 5. Verbs and the verb phrase; 6. The verbs and its
complimentation; 7.Adjectives and adverbs; 8.Prepositions and prepositional phrases; 9.
The simple sentence; 10. Adjuncts, disjuncts, conjuncts 11. Coordination and apposition;
12. The complex sentence
“Lectures on English Grammar” is compiled by the Division of Language and
Translation Theories, including MA. Dao Thi Oanh - Editor and MA. Nguyen Thi Thanh
Thanh - Co-editor. Other teachers from the Division have participated in the preparation
of this book: MA. Pham Thi Lan Phuong, Dr. Nguyen Thi Thuy Trang, MA. Cao Phuong
Thao, MA. Pham Phuong Oanh, MA. Nguyen Lan Anh, MA. Doan Thi Thuy, BA. Bui
Thi Tuyet Mai.
The authors hope this book is useful for Vietnamese learners of English. Although
there have been many efforts, but due to limitations, it is certain that the book can hardly
avoid errors. We would like to welcome any further comments and suggestions from
teachers, colleagues, and readers that can go towards improving this book.

The authors

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 TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

LECTURE 1: INTRODUCTION 5
1. A history of grammatical study 5
2. A Global sense versus a Narrow sense for “Grammar” 6
3. Prescriptive grammar versus Descriptive Grammar 7
4. Grammatical units 9

LECTURE 2: ELEMENTS OF GRAMMAR 12

1. Introduction 12
2. Parts of a sentence 12
3. Sentence structure 18
4. Parts of speech 20

LECTURE 3: NOUNS, PRONOUNS, AND THE BASIC NOUN 26

PHRASE
1. Noun definition and noun classification 26
2. The basic noun phrase 27
3. Determiners 30
4. Reference and the article 33
5. Number 34
6. Gender 35
7. Genitive case 36
8. Pronouns 38

LECTURE 4: THE COMPLEX NOUN PHRASE 41

1. Components 41
2. Restrictive and non-restrictive modifications 42
3. Temporary and permanent modifications 44
4. Pre-modification 44
5. Post-modification 46
6. Conclusion 49

LECTURE 5: VERBS AND THE VERB PHRASE 50

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1. Types of verb 50
2. Verbal forms and the verb phrase 51
3. The morphology of lexical verbs 51
4. The auxiliaries do, have, be 54
5. The modal auxiliaries 55
6. Marginal modal auxiliaries 57
7. Finite and non-finite verb phrases 56
8. Tense, aspect, and mood 56
9. The uses of the modal auxiliaries 64
10. The uses of the modal auxiliaries 67
11. The modals and aspect 68

LECTURE 6: THE VERBS AND ITS COMPLEMENTATION 69

1. Multi-word verbs 69
2. Its complementation 71

LECTURE 7: ADJECTIVES AND ADVERBS 76

1. Syntactic functions of adjectives 76
2. Semantic sub-classification of adjectives 77
3. Semantic sets and adjectival order 79
4. Characteristics of the adverb 79
5. Correspondence between adjective and adverb 81
6. Comparison 82

LECTURE 8: PREPOSITIONS AND PREPOSITIONAL PHRASES 85

1. Simple and Complex preposition 85
2. Syntactic functions of prepositional phrases 88
3. Internal structure of prepositional phrases 90
4. Realization of the complement element 90

LECTURE 9: THE SIMPLE SENTENCE 93

1. Definition 93
2. Clause types 93
3. Clause elements syntactically defined 95
4. Clause elements semantically considered 97

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5. Concord 98
6. Negation 102
7. Statements, questions, commands, exclamations 106

LECTURE 10: ADJUNCTS, DISJUNCTS, CONJUNCTS 115

1. Adjuncts 115
2. Disjuncts 118
3. Conjunct 120

LECTURE 11: COORDINATION AND APPOSITION 122

1. Ellipsis in coordinated clause 122
2. Clausal coordination 123
3. Phrasal coordination 125
4. Apposition 125
5. Non-restrictive and restrictive apposition 126

LECTURE 12: THE COMPLEX SENTENCE 129

1. Finite and non-finite clauses 129
2. Verbless clauses 129
3. Subordinators 130
4. Nominal clauses 130
5. Adverbial clauses 132
6. The verb phrase in dependent clauses 135
7. Direct and indirect speech 137

APPENDIX 1 140
APPENDIX 2 152
REFERENCES 157

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 LECTURE 1
INTRODUCTION

1. A history of grammatical study

The term “grammar” originates from the Greek language (the word grammar - Greek:
grammatike - in fact originally meant “the art of writing”) began with the ancient Greeks,
who engaged in philosophical speculation about languages and described language
structure. This grammatical tradition was passed on to the Romans, who translated the
Greek names for the parts of speech (which is actually a misleading translation of the
Greek, meaning “parts of the language”) and grammatical endings into Latin; many of
these terms (nominative, accusative, dative) are still found in modern grammars. But the
Greeks and Romans were unable to determine how languages are related. This problem
spurred the development of comparative grammar, which became the dominant approach
to linguistic science in the 19th century.
Early grammatical study appears to have gone hand in hand with efforts to understand
archaic writings. Thus, grammar was originally tied to societies with long-standing
written traditions. The earliest extant grammar is that of the Sanskrit language of India,
compiled by the Indian grammarian Panini (flourished about 400 BC). This sophisticated
analysis showed how words are formed and what parts of words carry meaning.
The Greek grammarian Dionysius Thrax wrote the “Art of Grammar”, upon which many
letter Greek, Latin, and other European grammars were based. With the spread of
Christianity and the translation of the Scriptures (the Bibles) into the languages of the
new Christians, written literatures began to develop among previously nonliterate
peoples. By the Middle Ages, European scholars generally knew, in addition to their own
languages and Latin, the languages of their nearest neighbors. This access to several
languages set scholars to thinking about how languages might be compared.
In the 19th century, scholars developed systematic analysis of parts of speech, mostly built
on the earlier analyses of Sanskrit. The early Sanskrit grammar of Panini was a valuable
guide in the compilation of grammars of the languages of Europe, Egypt, and Asia. This
writing of grammars of related languages, using Panini’s work as a guide, s known as
Indo-European grammar, a method of comparing and relating the forms of speech in
numerous languages.
The Renaissance approach to grammar, which based the description of all languages on
the model of Greek and Latin, died slowly, however. Not until the early 20 th century did
grammarians begin to describe languages on their own terms. Noteworthy in this regard
are the Handbook of American Indian Languages (1911), the work of the German-
American anthropologist Franz Boas and his colleagues; and the studies by the Danish
linguist Otto Jespersen, A Modern English grammar (pub. In four parts, 1909-1931), and
the Philosophy of Grammar (1924). Boas’s work formed the basis of various types of
American descriptive grammar study. Jespersen’s work was the precursor of such current
approaches to linguistic theory as transformational generative grammar.

5
Boas saw grammar as a description of how human speech in a language is organized. A
descriptive grammar should describe the relationships of speech elements in words and
sentences. Given impetus by the fresh perspective of Boas, the approach to grammar
known as descriptive linguistic became dominant in the U. S during the first half of the
20th century.
Jespersen, like Boas, thought grammar should be studied by examining living speech
rather than by analyzing written documents, but he wanted to ascertain what principles
are common to the grammars of all languages, both at the present time (the so-called
synchronic approach) and throughout history.
By the mid-20th century, Chomsky, who had studied structural linguistics, was seeking a
way to analyze the syntax of English in a structural grammar. This effort led him to see
grammar as a theory of language structure rather than a description of actual sentences.
His idea of grammar is that it is a device for producing the structure, not of language (that
is, not of a particular language), but of competence - the ability to produce and
understand sentences in any and all languages. His universalist theories are related to the
ideas of those 18th -and early 19th - century grammarians who urged that grammar be
considered a part of logic - the key to analyzing thought. Universal grammarians such as
the British philosopher John Stuart Mill, writing as late as 1867, believed rules of
grammar to be language forms that correspond to universal thought forms.

2. A Global sense versus a Narrow sense for “Grammar”

2.1. Global sense for grammar:
“Grammar equals competence, all the knowledge that a native speaker has about his/ her
language”. In this sense, grammar means things concerning different subject such as
morphology, syntax, phonetics, phonology, semantics, discourse analysis, pragmatics,
etcIn other words, “grammar” in this wide sense include everything a native speaker
knows about his or her language which enables him or her to speak and understand it.

2.2. Narrow sense for grammar:

Grammar in this course refers only to the information of the word and sentence
structures. It includes the study of words, phrases and sentences. (But in narrow sense,
grammar covers only two objects: morphology and syntax.)
In a narrow sense, the term “grammar” is often used to refer to a particular body of
information about a language: that having to do only with the structure of words and
sentences. The narrow sense of the term is the more traditional: here, grammar is
presented as just one branch of language structure, distinct from phonology and
semantics:

6
 LANGUAGE

Grammar
Phonology Semantics
Morphology
Phonetics Lexicology
Syntax

To sum up, the term “grammar” is used in a number of different senses - the grammar of
a language may be understood to be a full description of the form and meaning of the
sentences of the language or else it may cover only certain, variously delimited, parts of
such a description. Here in this book we shall use it basically in one of these narrower
senses, embracing morphology and syntax. Morphology is concerned with the form of
words, while syntax is concerned with the way words combine to form sentences.

3. Prescriptive grammar versus Descriptive Grammar

3.1. Prescriptive grammar
Most familiarly, “grammar” means the rules governing how a language is supposed to be
used. In this sense, “grammar” is prescriptive. Mostly, prescriptive grammatical rules are
phrased as prohibition. Some prohibitions have to do with sentence structure such as:
Do not split an infinitive, as in “to reluctantly leave”
Some have to do with uses of particular types of words:
Do not use a pronoun with a singular antecedent, as in “If anyone comes in late,
they should go quietly to the rear”.
Do not use double modals, as in “I might could help you”.
Some have to do with how you are supposed to use individual words:
Do not use impact as a verb, as in“This program is intended to impact the trade
imbalance”.
Inprescriptive grammar, authorities about the language - dictionary publishers, editors,
critics, writers, and English teachers - lay down the law about the language is supposed to
be used. Prescriptive rules are normative; they aim to regulate people’s behavior, much
like other normative rules in society, both official and unofficial: the whole vast body of
legislated law, unwritten but well-understood rules of etiquette (e.g., send a thank-you
note after receiving a gift), customs of dating and courtship (he should ask her out, not
vice versa), and so on. There is usually a moral content to normative prescription (it is not
only illegal, but immoral, most people feel, to rob a bank), and prescriptivists about
language are no exception, often taking the position that they are defending virtue,
values, and honor against ignorant or lazy corruption.

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Interestingly, there has long been prescriptive concern about language change, under the
assumption that change often means change for the worse. In the late 1700s, there were
public complaints about the use of existence for life, novel for new, capture for take, and
inimical for hostile, and a century later, The Spectator, a British journal of culture,
criticized the use of demise for death and phenomenal for extraordinary.
In fact, there is no evidence that linguistic change can be identified with linguistic
decline. To the contrary, like other systems in a culture (e.g., marriage, law, religion,
dress, economy), a language, through being used, adapts to meet the changing needs of its
speakers, as well as changing simply to embody style, fashion, and fad. There is no
evidence that the English of today is any less logical, any less efficient, any less able to
encode thoughts or feelings than the English of 100 or 500 years ago. Moreover,
language change has always been with us; consequently, it is reasonable to conclude that
such change is nature.

3.2. Descriptive Grammar

In the modern science of linguistics, grammar is “descriptive” rather than prescriptive.
The aim of Descriptive grammar is to describe the grammatical system of a language,
that is, what speakers of the language unconsciously know, which enables the to speak
and understand the language. Descriptive grammar thus embodies constitutive rules, in
contrast with the normative rules enshrined in prescriptive prohibitions. Constitutive rules
state how some system is structured or defined. For instance, rules of association football
or soccer like “ only the goalkeeper is allowed to play with his hands”, “a goal cannot be
scored directly from an indirect free kick”, and “receiving a forward pass from a
teammate without at least two opponents nearer the opponents” goal line means an
offside violation do not regulate how people should behave; rather, they define the game.
Similarly, descriptive “rules” about a language may be thought of as defining the
language. For example, English has a rule “An article precedes its noun”: the book fell,
not: * book the fell. (An asterisk in this book means that an expression is ungrammatical.)
This is not a normative command to English speakers to avoid constructing sentences of
the form * book the fell, but a generalization about the structure of English noun phrases,
part of a “definition” of English just as the football rule “only the goalkeeper is allowed
to play with his hands” is part of the definition of the game of association football.
Among the following sentences, it is a part of the grammatical knowledge of all speakers
of English that while sentences a, b and c are grammatical, d, e and f are not.
a. The Celtics are likely to win.
b. This is the pen that I had lost.
c. America is between the Atlantic and the Pacific.
d. * The Celtics are probable to win.
e. * This is the pen that I didn’t know where I had put.
f. * The Atlantic is what America is between the Pacific and.
The word sequences of d, e, and f are outside what is allowed by the constitutive rules for
English. The question for the descriptive linguist is what the content is of the constitutive
rules which rule in the word sequences of a, b, and c while excluding the word sequences
of d, e, and f.

8
You may wonder why the sequences of d, e, and f are of concern at all. In no way do they
represent problems in English usage; no speaker of a “substandard” dialect uses them;
and no foreigner learning English would erroneously produce them. Much more relevant,
you might imagine, would be presumably ungrammatical sequences like these:
Ann and Sally don’t know nothing.
She ain’t here.
She be there.
I go to the movies a lot anymore.
However, the first three of these are fully grammatical in certain dialects of English, and
the fourth exemplifies a point of grammar that is accepted by many English speakers,
even if not by a group identifiable as speaking a dialect. That is why no asterisk precedes
them. Sentences d, e, and f are important because they ways they are ungrammatical shed
light on the rules governing grammatically, that is, on the constitutive rules defining
English sentences.
In descriptive grammar, the interest is not in what should be, but in what is: the language
that people use all the time, the whole range of different varieties they use in their normal
everyday lives, including the varieties they use in their most casual or intimate moments,
as well as the varieties they use in their formal, careful speech and writing. In the practice
of descriptive grammar, no judgment is made about what is right or wrong; speakers of
the language are held to be the highest authorities. Literally, “what they say goes”.
“Correct grammar”, that is, grammatically, is exemplified in ANY sentences and
discourses felt by a native speaker to be the normal way to talk.

4. Grammatical units
The first step usually taken in the study of grammar is to identify units in the stream of
speech (or writing, or singing) - The following five-rank hierarchy is a widely used
model in the study of grammar:
SENTENCES SENTENCES
are analyzed into are used to build
CLAUSES CLAUSES
are analyzed into are used to build
PHRASES PHRASES
are analyzed into are used to build
WORDS WORDS
are analyzed into are used to build
MORPHEMES MORPHEMES

Morphemes are the “lower” limit of grammatical enquiry, for they have no grammatical
structure. Similarly, sentences form the “upper” limit of grammatical study, because they
do not usually from a part of any larger grammatical unit.
This lecture will deal with the definitions of these five grammatical units and discussion
round them.

4.1. Morphemes and words

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In traditional grammar, words are the basic units of analysis. Grammarians classify words
according to their parts of speech and identify and list the forms that words can show up
in. As you can easily see, many words in the English language have no internal
grammatical structure. These words (e.g., yes, boat, car, head, etc.) can be analyzed into
constituent sounds or syllables but none of these has a meaning in isolation.
By contrast, many words can be divided into parts, each of which has some kind of
independent meaning. The smallest meaningful elements/ units into which words can be
analyzed are known as morphemes; and the way morphemes operate in language
provides the subject matter of morphology.
Although speakers of English probably know more about words than any other parts of
their language, words are extremely difficult entities to define in either universal or
language-specific terms. Like most linguistic entities, they are Janus-like. They look in
two directions - upward toward phrases and sentences and downward toward their
constituent morphemes. Therefore, a better way to understand words is to study how they
are divided into smaller elements, or, in other words, how they are formed. Word-
building (or word-formation) will be discussed later in this section.

Free and bound morphemes

As mentioned above, words can be analyzed into morphemes, the smallest grammatical
meaningful units (the smallest, meaningful unit of grammar). For example, the word
“books” has two morphemes: “morpheme “book_” and morpheme “_s”.
You may observe that some morphemes can stand alone as independent words since they
carry full semantic weight. These are called free morphemes:
E.g., care in careful, happy in unhappiness, order in disorder, etc.
However, many morphemes cannot stand alone in the language. They are bound
morphemes which only add the meaning or grammatical function of a free morpheme,
and cannot stand alone; e.g., -ful in careful, un- & -ness in unhappiness, dis- in disorder,
etc.

Roots, Stems, Bases and Affixes

Besides being free or bound, morphemes can also be classified as root, stem, or affix.
A root morpheme (or root) is the basis form to which other morphemes can be attached.
In English, most roots are free morphemes, but not all. For instance, the words
chronology, chronic, and chronograph all contain the root chron-(meaning, basically,
“time”), which is not free, but bound, because it never occurs alone as a word. Similarly,
renovate and novice contain a bound root nov- (meaning, basically, “new”)
Stems are also forms to which other morphemes can be attached. Stems differ from roots
in that they may be made up of more than one morpheme. All roots are stems, but many
stems are not roots (but contain them). Stems are sometimes created by the juxtaposition
of two roots in a compound. Both baby and sit are roots (and stems), but babysit is a stem
(but not a root) because -er can be attached to it. Stems can also be formed by adding
meaningless elements to certain roots. The -n- in binary and trinity is one such stem-
forming element, attached to the roots bi- (“two”) and tri- (“three”). Another is the -o- in
chronograph and chronology. These stem-forming elements are not morphemes because
10
by morphemes we mean “smallest unit with a meaning”. Stem-formers have no meaning
or grammatical function. They are present only for phonological reasons.
Bases
(1) The basic or uninflected form of a verb, also called “base form”. Go, like, sing are all
base forms, in contrast to: went, likes, sung, which are not.
(2) An element in word formation: the terminology of word formation is confused. Many
words consist of an irreducible “core” word (a free morpheme) to which one or more
affixes (bound morphemes) are attached, e.g: sing + s sings, great + er  greater, great
+ly greatly. Such basic core words as elements in larger words may be called base
morphemes, but are more often called root (or stems).
Affixes is a general term for prefixes and suffixes, which are both bound morphemes.
Prefixes are morphemes added before a word to form a new word. Suffixes are
morphemes added after a word in the formation of a new word.

4.2. Phrases
Traditionally, phrases are an extension of the single word parts of speech named
accordingly: noun phrase, adjectival phrase, verb phrase, adverbial phrase. The traditional
definition of a phrase calls it “a group of words that does not contain a verb and its
subject and is used as a single part of speech”.

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 LECTURE 2
ELEMENTS OF GRAMMAR

1. Introduction
The purpose of this chapter is to explore certain outstanding features of English structure
in such a way as to provide, as it were, a small-scale map of areas that will be viewed in
much greater detail in later chapters. As with any small-scale map, a great many features
will be ignored and complicated contours will be smoothed out. The reader’s attention
will not be distracted even by forward references to the parts of the book in which the
focus will allow such complication to become visible. But to compensate for the
disadvantages in this degree of oversimplification, we have hoped to achieve the
advantages of the geographical analogue as well. In other words, we have tried to provide
enough broad information to enable the reader to understand - and place in a wider
context - the more detailed discussion that subsequent chapter involve.

2. Parts of a sentence
2.1. What is a sentence?
A sentence is the largest grammatical unit which expresses a complete thought or idea
and has a definite grammatical form (one finite verb, one subject) and a certain
intonation. It could be said in another way that the sentence is a unit of speech which
expresses a more or less complete thought and has a definite grammatical form and a
certain intonation. Every sentence shows the relation of the statement to reality from the
point of view of the speaker.
When we speak, our sentence may be extremely involved or even unfinished, yet we can
still convey our meaning through gestures, intonation, facial expression, etc. When we
write, our sentence has to be carefully structured and punctuated, it must begin with a
capital letter and end with a full stop (. - a statement), a question mark (? - an
interrogative sentence), or an exclamation mark (! - an exclamatory sentence). One -
word or abbreviated utterances can also be complete units of meaning, particularly in
speech or written dialogue. For example:
The shops close at 8:30 p.m.
Do you understand the lesson?
What a beautiful weather it is!
All right!
What!
Want any help?
Noise. People. Light. The city was awake.
A summer night, just dark and very hot.

2.2. Subject and predicate

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In order to state general rules about the construction of sentences, it is constantly
necessary to refer to smaller units than the sentence itself. Our first task must therefore
be to explain what these smaller units are that we need to distinguish, confining our
attention for the present to a few sentences which, though showing considerable variety,
are all of fairly elementary structure.
Traditionally, there is a primary distinction between SUBJECT and PREDICATE:
John carefully searched the room [1]
The girl is now a student at a large university [2]
His brother grew happier gradually [3]
It rained steadily all day [4]
He had given the girl an apple [5]
They make him the chairman every year [6]
The subject of the sentence has a close general relation to 'what is being discussed', the
'theme' of the sentence, with the normal implication that something new (the predicate) is
being said about a 'subject' that has already been introduced in an earlier sentence. This
is of course a general characteristic and not a defining feature: it is patently absurd in
relation to sentence [4], for example. Another point is that the subject determines
concord. That is, with those parts of the verb that permit a distinction between singular
and plural, the form selected depends on whether the subject is singular as in [2], the girl
is, or plural as in [6], they make.
Furthermore, the subject is the part of the sentence that changes its position as we go
from statement to question:
Had he given the girl an apple? [5q]

2.3. Operator, auxiliary, and predication

In contrast with the subject, there are few generalizations that we can usefully make about
the predicate since - as our examples have illustrated - it tends to be a more complex and
heterogeneous unit. We need to subdivide it into its elements or constituents. One division
has already been suggested; this distinguishes AUXILIARY as OPERATOR (as in [5q]) from
what we may call the PREDICATION. The distinctions may be illustrated as follows:
sentence

subject predicate

auxiliary predication
as
operator

He had given the girl an apple. [5]

Had he given the girl an apple? [5q]

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This particular division of the sentence helps us tounderstand, for example, how
interrogative and negative sentences are formed. Now certain adjuncts are positioned, and
how certain types of emphasis areachieved.

2.4. Range of operators

The verb expression may have several auxiliaries; e.g:
He should have been questioned by the police.
In such cases, it is the first auxiliary that acts as operator:
Should he have been questioned by the police?
No, he shouldn't have been questioned by the police.
Yes, he should.
Where the verb expression has no auxiliary in the positive declarative sentence, do is
introduced when an operator is required:
It rained steadily all day.
Did it rain steadily all day?
No, it didn't.
The verb be can act as operator whether it is an auxiliary, as in:
John is searching the room ~ Is John searching the room?
or not, as in:
The girl is now a student ~ Is the girl now a student?
The same is true to some extent (especially in BrE) for have:
He has a degree ~ Has he got a degree?

2.5. Sentence elements

A sentence may alternatively be seen as comprising five units called ELEMENTS of
sentence (or, as we shall see below, clause) structure: SUBJECT, VERB, COMPLEMENT,
OBJECT, ADVERBIAL, here abbreviated as S, V, C, O, A:
John (S) carefully (A) searched (V) the room (O) [1]
The girl (S) is (V) now (A) a student (C) at a large university (A) [2]
His brother (S) grew (V) happier (C) gradually (A) [3]
It (S) rained (V) steadily (A) all day (A) [4]
He (S) had given (V) the girl (O) an apple (O) [5]
They (S) make (V) him (O) the chairman (C) every year (A) [6]

S, O, and A can themselves readily have the internal constituents of sentences:

She (S) saw (V) that [it (S) rained (V) all day (A)] (O) [7]
His brother (S) grew (V) happier (C) when [his friend (S) arrived (V)] (A) [8]
That [she (S) answered (V) the question (O) correctly (A)] (S) pleased (V) him
(O) enormously (A) [9]
The italicizing is intended to emphasize the similarity between subordinate (or
dependent) clauses and independent sentences. At the same time this and the bracketing
can interestingly suggest that when in (8) and that in [7] and [9] operate as A, O, and S
respectively (though this is only partly true) while more importantly being themselves
'expanded' by the dependent clauses.
14
2.6. Objects
The relation between the room in illustration [1] and the other elementsin that sentence is
very different from the relation between the girl in [5] and its fellow elements, though
both are labelled ‘object’. Even more obviously, perhaps, the two elements labelled
'object’ in [5] playsharply distinct roles in this sentence. We need in fact to distinguish
two types of object in the sentences so far illustrated:
direct object (Od)
object indirect object (Oi)
The direct object is illustrated in:
John carefully searched the room (Od). [1]
He had given the girl an apple (Od). [5]
The object is the person or thing toward which the subject directs the process spoken of
in the verb. An object is normally a noun, pronoun, or noun phrase; it usually goes
after the verb in the active. It can become the subject of a verb in the passive.
Mary threw the ball.
Mary likes to eat ice cream.
Mary bought some ice cream.
Mary bought whatever we wanted.
Michael Swan and Catherine Walter wrote the Cambridge English Course.
 the Cambridge English Course was written by M. Swan and C. Walter.

Objects can be divided into two types: direct objects and indirect objects.

2.6.1. Direct object

A direct object refers to the person or thing affected by the action of the verb. It comes
immediately after a transitive verb:
He kicked the dog (Od).
The dog bites him (Od).
A direct object is a noun or pronoun thatreceives the action of a verb or shows the result
of the action. It answers the question "What?" or "Whom?" after an action verb.

2.6.2. Indirect object

An indirect object usually refers to the person who “benefits” from the action expressed
in the verb.
Mary threw me (Oi) the ball. (= Mary threw the ball to me.)
My man brought me (Oi) some flower. (= My man brought some flower for me.)
An indirect object precedes the direct andtells to whom or for whom the action of the
verb is done and who is receiving the direct object.
The direct object is by far the more frequent kind of object, and (with certain outstanding
exceptions) there must be a direct object to have an indirect object (it must always be
present if there is anindirect object in the sentence)
He had given the girl (Oi) an apple. [5]

15
Note: the indirect object almost always precedes the direct object: it is characteristically
(though by no means always) a noun referring to a person, and the semantic relationship
is often such that it is appropriate to use the term 'recipient'. Loosely, one might say in
most cases that something (the direct object) tends to be done for (or received by) the
indirect object.

2.7. Complements
There are two types of complement: subject complement Cs) and object complement
(Co).

Subject
complement complement (Cs)
object complement (Co)

A Subject complement is the adjective, noun, pronoun that follows a linking verb and
gives/provides further information about the subject or the object. In other words, subject
complement completes the meaning of the subject. For example:
The girl is now a student (Cs) at a large university. [2]
His brother grew happier (Cs) gradually. [3]
Here the complements have a straightforward relation to the subjects of their respective
sentences such that the subject of [2] is understood as being a 'girl student’ and the
subject of [3] is understood as a 'happier brother'.

An object complement is a noun, pronoun, or adjective which follows a direct object and
renames it or tells what the direct object has become. It is most often used with verbs of
creating or nominating such as make, name, elect, paint, call…
The 'object complement' can be explained as having a similar relation to a direct object
(which it follows) as the subject complement has to a subject:
They make him (Od)the chairman (Co) every year. [6]
That is to say, the direct object and object complement in this example, 'him the
chairman’, correspond to the subject and subject complement in
He is the chairman (Cs).
Note:
Another term for the subject complement (Cs) that follows a link-verb such as “to be” is
predicative. E.g: He is a doctor. She got tired.

2.8. Categories of verb

There are different types of verb corresponding closely to the different types of object
and complement. Sentences such as [2] and [3], which have subject complements, have
INTENSIVE verbs and all other sentences have EXTENSIVE verbs. The latter are
INTRANSITIVE if as in:
It rained steadily all day. [4]
they do not permit any of the four object and complement types so far distinguished.
Extensive verbs are otherwise TRANSITIVE. All transitive verbs take a direct object;
some, like give in [5], permit an indirect object, and these will be distinguished as

16
DITRANSITIVE. A few verbs, like make in [6], take an object complement and these are
among the verbs referred to as COMPLEX TRANSITIVE. The rest are MONO-TRANSITIVE.

But distinctions between verbs need to be drawn not only in relation to object- and
complement-types but also in relation to whether they themselves admit the aspectual
contrast of 'progressive’ and 'non-progressive’. Thus, it is possible to say:
John carefully searched the room. [1]
or John was carefully searching the room.
It rained steadily all day. [4]
or It was raining steadily all day.
But it is not possible to use the progressive in:
The girl is now a student at a large university. [2]
Not: The girl is now being a student...
John knew the answer. [10]
Not: John was knowing the answer.
When verbs (either habitually or in certain uses) will not admit the progressive, as in [2]
and [10], they are called STATIVE. When they will admit it, as in [1] and [4], they are
called DYNAMIC. It is normal for verbs to be dynamic and even the minority that are
almost always stative can usually be given a dynamic use on occasion.; eg: He is being a
nuisance again.

2.9. Categories of adverbial

Next, we may take a preliminary look at adverbials, concerning ourselves only with such
distinctions as are necessary to explain some of the chief restrictions in constructing the
simplest sentences. We may begin by looking again at a sentence with two adverbials:
The girl is now a student at a large university.
This might have had fewer elements:
The girl is a student at a large university.
The girl is a student.
The girl is now a student.
The girl is at a large university.
but the sentence could not have been formed initially as in: The girl is now
On this evidence we may say that the adverbials now and at a large university belong to
different classes and it seems natural to label them 'time' and 'place ’ respectively.
Consider now the fact that the adverbial carefully in illustration [1] could be replaced by
many others, making acceptable sentences in each case:

John searched the room carefully

slowly
noisily
sternly
without delay

17
But if these same adverbials were inserted in sentences which had stative verbs, the
sentences would become unacceptable:
* carefully
The girl is now a student *slowly
John knew the answer *noisily
*sternly
*without delay

It is clear that we again have a subclass of adverbials. Because the verbs with which they
can occur allow the progressive, the aspect of on-going activity, it is appropriate to refer
to these adverbials as 'process’.

3. Sentence structure
3.1. Types of sentence structure
Bringing together the distinctions so far made, we can present some basic sentence-
structure rules diagrammatically. Each line constitutes a pattern which is illustrated by
means of a correspondingly numbered example having just those obligatory and optional
(parenthesized) elements that are specified in the formula. The order in which the ele-
ments appear is common but by no means fixed. It is a principle of sentence organization
that what is contextually familiar or ‘given' comes relatively early, while the part which
needs to be stressed or which seems to convey the greatest information is given the
special prominence of 'end-focus'.
A place [1]
Intensive
A (place)
V stative Cs [2]
A (time)
Extensive
& transitive: Od [3]
S

Intensive: Cs [4]
Mono: Od [5]
V dynamic
A (process)
Extensive Di: (Oi) Od [6]

Complex: Od Co [7]

She is in London (now). [1]

She is a student (in London) (now). [2]
John heard the explosion (from his office) (when he waslocking the door). [3]
Universities (gradually) became famous (in Europe) (duringthe Middle Ages). [4]
They ate the meat (hungrily) (in their hut) (that night). [5]
He offered (her) some chocolates (politely) (outside the hall)(before the concert).
[6]
They elected him chairman (without argument) (inWashington) (this morning) [7]
18
 The train had arrived (quietly) (at the station) (before we noticed it). [8]
3.2. Element realization types
Sentence elements can be realized by linguistic structures of very different form. The
verb element is always a verb phrase. This may, as in all the examples used so far, be
'finite' (showing tense, mood, aspect, and voice) or 'non-finite' (not showing tense or
mood but still capable of indicating aspect and voice). Consider the three types of non-
finite verb phrase functioning as the V element in the italicized non-finite clauses:
Mary wanted [to be (V) a student (Cs) at that university (A)] (Od).
[Carefully (A) searching (V) the room (Od)] (A), John found a ring.
[Made (V) the chairman (Co) every year (A)] (A), he was very busy.
Whether finite or non-finite, the verb phrase can consist of one word, as in most
illustrative sentences so far, or of more than one word, in which case the phrase consists
of a 'head verb' preceded by one or more 'auxiliary verbs' as with the verb phrases in the
following (the first three finite, the fourth non-finite):
He had given the girl an apple.
He may be growing happier.
He had been challenged rudely, and having been challenged he was angry.
The subject of a sentence may be a 'clause’ as in:
That she answered the question correctly pleased him.
but it is usually a 'noun phrase', at its simplest a pronoun such as They or a proper noun
such as John. But a noun phrase may be an indeterminately long and complex structure
having a noun as head, preceded by other words such as an article, an adjective, or
another noun, and followed by a prepositional phrase or by a relative clause; it is by no
means uncommon to find all such items present in a noun phrase:
The new gas stove in the kitchen which I bought last month has a very efficient
oven.
Subject complements, direct objects, and object complements may be realized by the
same range of structures as subjects: He was the chairman; She saw the chairman; They
made him the chairman. But subject and object complements have the additional
possibility of being realized by adjective phrases (having an adjective as head), as in:
She made him happy.
very much happier.

Indirect object, on the other hand, have fewer possibilities than subjects, and their
realizations are chiefly noun phrases, as in
He had given the girl an apple.
Unlike direct objects and subjects, they cannot be realized by that- clauses.
Finally, adverbials can be realized (a) by adverb phrases, having an adverb as head; (b)
by noun phrases; (c) by prepositional phrases - that is, structures consisting of a noun
phrase dominated by a preposition; and (d) by clauses, finite or non-finite:
(a) John very carefully searched the room.
(b) They make him the chairman every year.
(c) She studied at a large university.
19
(d) He grew happier when his friend arrived.
(e) Seeing the large crowd, John stopped his car.

4. Parts of speech
4.1. Parts of speech in English
The structures realizing sentence elements are composed of units which can be referred to
as parts of speech. These can be exemplified for English as follows:
a) noun - John, room, answer, play
adjective - happy, steady, new, large, round
adverb - steadily, completely, really, very, then
verb - search, grow, play, be, have, do
b) article - the, a(n)
demonstrative - that, this
pronoun - he, they, anybody, one, which
preposition - of, at, in, without, in spite of
quantifiers- some, any, a lot of
conjunction - and, that, when, although
interjection - oh, ah, ugh, phew
We should notice that the examples are listed as words in their 'dictionary form' and not
as they often appear in sentences when they function as constituents of phrases: thus the
singular room and not the plural rooms, the simple happy and not the comparative
happier, the infinitive (or uninflected) grow and not the past grew, the subject form he
and not the object form him.

4.2. Closed-systemitems
The parts of speech in 4.1 are listed in two groups, (a) and (b), and this introduces a
distinction of very great significance. Set (b) comprises what are called 'closed-system'
items. That is, the sets of items are closed in the sense that they cannot normally be
extended by the creation of additional members: a moment's reflection is enough for us to
realize how rarely in a language we invent or adopt a new or additional pronoun. It
requires no great effort to list all the members in a closed system, and to be reasonably
sure that one has in fact made an exhaustive inventory (especially, of course, where the
membership is so extremely small as in the case of the article).

The items are said to constitute a system in being (i) reciprocally exclusive: the decision
to use one item in a given structure excludes the possibility of using any other (thus one
can have the book or a book but not *a the book); and (ii) reciprocally defining: it is less
easy to state the meaning of any individual item than to define it in relation to the rest of
the system. This may be clearer with a non-linguistic analogy. If we are told that a
student came third inan examination, the 'meaning' that we attach to 'third' will depend on
knowing how many candidates took the examination: 'third' in a set of four has a very
different meaning from 'third' in a set of thirty.
20
4.3. Open-class items
By contrast, set (a) comprises 'open classes'. Items belong to a class in that they have the
same grammatical properties and structural possibilities as other members of the class
(that is, as other nouns or verbs or adjectives or adverbs respectively), but the class is
'open' in the sense that it is indefinitely extendable. New items are constantly being
created and no one could make an inventory of all the nouns in English (for example) and
be confident that it was complete. This inevitably affects the way in which we attempt to
define any item in an open class: while it would obviously be valuable to relate the
meaning of room to other nouns with which it has semantic affinity (chamber, hall,
house,...) one could not define it as 'not house, not box, not plate, not indignation...', as
one might define a closed-system item like this as 'not that.

Of course, in any one phrase or sentence the decision to select a particular word at one
place in the structure obviously imposes great constraints on what can be selected at
another. But it is essential to see that in an arrangement like the following there is in
principle a sharp difference between the number of possibilities in columns i, iii, and iv
('closed') and the number in ii and v (‘open’):

i ii iii iv v
(John) may sit by this fountain
will state at that tree
must read from window
hurry along blackboard
on girl
path

The distinction between 'open' and 'closed' parts of speech must be treated cautiously,
however. On the one hand, we must not exaggerate the ease with which we create new
words: we certainly do not make up new nouns as a necessary part of speaking in the way
that making up new sentences is necessary. On the other hand, we must not exaggerate
the extent to which parts of speech in set (b) of 4.1 are 'closed': new prepositions (usually
of the form "prep + noun + prep' like by way or) are by no means impossible. Although
they have deceptively specific labels, the parts of speech tend in fact to be rather
heterogeneous. The adverb and the verb are perhaps especially mixed classes, each
having small and fairly well - defined groups of closed-system items alongside the
indefinitely large open-class items. So far as the verb is concerned, the closed-system
subgroup is known by the well-established term 'auxiliary'. With the adverb, one may
draw the distinction broadly between those in -ly that correspond to adjectives (complete-
ly) and those that do not (now, there, forward, very, for example).

4.4. Stative and dynamic

The open classes have some notable general characteristics. We have just seen that
adverbs of the productive class are in a one-to-one relation with adjectives. There are
regular word- formation processes giving a comparable one-for-one relation between
nouns and adjective, and between nouns and verbs. For the rest, it is useful to see nouns,
21
adjectives, and verbs inconnection with the opposition of stative and dynamic. Broadly
speaking, nouns and adjectives can be characterized naturally as 'stative ’; thus, nouns
refer to entities that are regarded as stable, whether these are concrete (physical) like
house, table, paper, or abstract (of the mind) like hope, botany, length. On the other
hand, verbs and adverbs can be equally naturally characterized as 'dynamic': most
obviously, verbs, which are fitted ( by their capacity to show tense and aspect, for
example) to indicate action, activity, and temporary or changing conditions. These
relations between the open classes can be summarized thus:
STATIVE noun adjective

DYNAMIC verb adverb

But we saw in 2.7 that there were some verbs such as know which could not normally be
used with the progressive (* he is knowing): that is, which could not be seen as referring
to something that was in progress. Verbs so used we called 'stative', and they should be
seen as exceptions within the class of verbs. There are exceptions in the other direction
among the nouns, not all of which need be stative. For example, a child may be well-
behaved one minute and a nuisance the next. The situation is similar when we turn to the
remaining open word-class, adjectives. Although they are predominantly stative {tall, red,
old), some adjectives can resemble verbs in referring on occasion to transitory conditions
of behaviour or activity such as naughty or insolent And since be must be used to make
predications having any noun or adjective as complement, we must qualify the statement
made in 2.7 that this is a stative verb: it can also be used dynamically, in the progressive,
when the complement is dynamic:

He is being a nuisance
again.
naughty

Indeed, it is essential to realize that these primary distinctions are in the nature of
general characteristics rather than immutable truths. No small part of language's value
lies in its flexibility. Thus, we can take a normally dynamic item (say the verb in ‘He
wrote the book') and 'nominalize' it (The writing of the book'), pretending - as it were -
to see the action as a static 'thing'. So also the verb tax beside the noun taxation. Again,
the name 'participle' reflects the fact that such a form participates in the features both of
the verb (The girl is sitting there') and of the adjective ("The sitting girl').

4.5. Pro-forms
The names of the parts of speech are traditional, however, and neither in themselves nor
in relation to each other do these names give a safe guide to their meaning, which instead
is best understood in terms of their grammatical properties. 'Adverb' is a classic instance.
We have seen some justification in the previous section for 'participle ’, and of course the
'pronoun' is an even clearer exception in correctly suggesting that it can serve as a
replacement for a noun:
22
 John searched the big room and the small one. [1]
More usually, however, pronouns replace noun phrases rather than nouns:
The man invited the little Swedish girl because he liked her. [2]
There are pro-forms also for place, time, and other adverbials under certain
circumstances:
Mary is in Londonand John is there too. [3]
Mary arrived on Tuesday and John arrived then too. [4]
John searched the big room very carefully andthe small oneless so. [5]
But so has a more important pro-function, namely, to replace - along with the 'pro-verb'
do - a predication (cf 2.3):
She hoped that he would search the room carefully before her arrival but he didn't
do so. [6]

Here do so replaces all the italicized portion, the head verb search and the rest of the
predication, as is shown below:
Sentence

subject predicate

auxiliary as
operator predication

he would search the room carefully.

he didn’t do so.

Frequently, however, the pro-predication is achieved by the operator alone:

A: He didn'tgive her an apple. B: Yes, he did. [7]
They suspected that he had given her an apple and he had. [8]
Finally, it may be briefly observed that the use of the pro-forms greatly facilitates
sentence connection as in [7], the conjoining of sentences to form 'compound sentences'
as in [3] or [8], and the subordination of one sentence within another to form 'complex
sentences' as in [2].

4.6. Questions and negation

4.6.1. Wh-questions
The pro-forms we have been considering may be regarded as having the general meaning
'We know what this item refers to, so I need not state it in full'. In 4.1 attention was
drawn to correspondences of the then-when type, and we may now consider the wh-
23
words of English as a special set of pro-forms diametrically opposed to the others in
having the general meaning 'It has not been known what this item refers to and so it
needs to be stated in full'. This informal statement will account for the use of wh-forms in
questions:
Mary is in Lodon.
Mary is there.
Where is Mary?
By such means, we can ask for the identification of the subject, object, complement or an
adverbial of a sentence:
They (i) make him (ii) the chairman (iii) every year. (iv)
Who makes him the chairman every year? [i]
Whom do they make the chairman every year? [ii]
What do they make him every year? [iii]
When do they make him the chairman? [iv]
It will be noticed that in each case the wh-form is placed in first position and that unless
this is questioning the subject, as in [i], when the verb follows in its normal second
position (2.5), the wh-form is followed by the operator (2.3) which in turn is followed by
the subject and predication.
The wh-forms include not only which, when, why, where, etc but also, less obviously, a
few items pronounced with initial /h/, some having wh- in spelling (who, whose, whom),
and one not (how).

4.6.2. Yes-no questions

Besides wh-questions, which elicit information on particular parts of a sentence, there are
questions which seek a yes or no response in relation to the validity of (normally) an
entire predication:
Is the girl now a student? Did John search the room? Had he given the girl an apple?
Such questions normally open with an operator which is then followed by the subject
andthe predication (2.3).

4.6.3. Negation and non-assertion

While a yes-no question normally challenges the validity of a predication as a whole,
negation rejects it. And like yes-no questions, negative sentences involve the operator,
requiring the insertion of not (or the affixal contraction -n't) between the operator and the
predication:
The girl isn't a student.
John did not search the room.
He hadn't given the girl an apple.
We need to see a further similarity between questions and negations. Let us call a
sentence such as:
He offered her some chocolates. [1]
an assertion. Now, a sentence can be non-assertive in one of two ways: by being negative
or by being a question. We do not therefore have two independent systems:
positive: negative
24
declarative: interrogative
but rather an interrelated system in which assertion involves both 'positive' and
'declarative' while non-assertion has a subsystem either 'negative’ or 'interrogative'. The
relationship may be diagrammed thus:

assertion - positive and delarative

sentence
interrogative positive
. non-assertion negative
negative

While it is right to show 'interrogative' as lying between the upper extreme 'positive and
declarative' and the lower extreme 'negative', it is important to recognize that
'interrogative' has a closer relationship to 'negative' in springing like it from the 'non-
assertion' node. Evidence for this is not difficult to find. As compared with the some of
the positive declarative [1], we find any in corresponding question and negation:
Did he offer her any chocolates? [1 q]
He didn’t offer her any chocolates. [1 n]

25
 LECTURE 3
NOUNS, PRONOUNS, AND THE BASIC NOUN PHRASE

1. Noun definition and noun classification

1.1. Noun definition
In linguistics, a noun is a member of a large, open lexical category whose members can
occur as the main word in the subject of a clause, the object of a verb, or the object of a
preposition.
A noun has been defined as a word used as the name of something. It may be the name of
a person, a place, a thing, or of some abstract quality, such as, justice or truth.
Lexical categories are defined in terms of how their members combine with other kinds
of expressions. The syntactic rules for nouns differ from language to language. In
English, nouns may be defined as those words which can occur with articles and
attributive adjectives and can function as the head of a noun phrase.
In traditional English grammar, the noun is one of the eight parts of speech. Maybe it's
obvious that a proper noun like "John" should be different from other nouns, but why
shouldn't "bottle" work with a zero determiner as "cake" does? All common nouns are not
alike in English. Some nouns are countable (like "bottle") some are non-countable (like
"furniture") and some are both (like "cake"). There is a lot to be understood about how
English speakers think about the world from considering how we categorize nouns.

1.2. Proper nouns and common nouns

Proper nouns (also called proper names) are nouns representing unique entities (such as
London, Universe or John), as distinguished from common nouns which describe a class
of entities (such as city, well or person).
In English and most other languages that use the Latin Alphabet, proper nouns are
usually capitalized. Languages differ in whether most elements of multiword proper
nouns are capitalized (e.g., American English House of Representatives) or only the
initial element (e.g., Slovenian Državnizbor 'National Assembly'). In German, nouns of
all types are capitalized. The convention of capitalizing all nouns was previously used in
English, but ended circa 1800. In America, the shift in capitalization is recorded in
several noteworthy documents.
Sometimes the same word can function as both a common noun and a proper noun, where
one such entity is special. For example the common noun god denotes all deities, while
the proper noun God references God specifically.
The common meaning of the word or words constituting a proper noun may be unrelated
to the object to which the proper noun refers. For example, someone might be named
"Tiger Smith" despite being neither a tiger nor a smith. For this reason, proper nouns are
usually not translated between languages, although they may be transliterated. For
example, the German surname Knödel becomes Knodel or Knoedel in English (not the
literal Dumpling). However, the transcription of place names and the names of monarchs,
poses, and non-contemporary authors is common and sometimes universal. For instance,
26
the Portuguese word Lisboa becomes Lisbon in English; the English London becomes
Londres in French; and the Greek Aristotelēs becomes Aristotle in English.

1.3. Countable and uncountable nouns

Count nouns are common nouns that can take a plural, can combine with numerals or
quantifiers (e.g. "one", "two", "several", "every", "most"), and can take an indefinite
article ("a" or "an"). Examples of count nouns are "chair", "nose", and "occasion".
Mass nouns (or non-count nouns) differ from count nouns in precisely that respect: they
can't take plural or combine with number words or quantifiers. Examples from English
include "laughter", "cutlery", "helium", and "furniture". For example, it is not possible to
refer to "a furniture" or "three furnitures". This is true even though the pieces of furniture
comprising "furniture" could be counted. Thus the distinction between mass and count
nouns shouldn't be made in terms of what sorts of things the nouns refer to, but rather in
terms of how the nouns present these entities.

1.4. Collective nouns

Collective nouns are nouns that refer to groups consisting of more than one individual or
entity, even when they are inflected for the singular. Examples include "committee",
"herd", and "school" (of herring). These nouns have slightly different grammatical
properties than other nouns. For example, the noun phrase that they head can serve as the
subject of a collective predicate, even when they are inflected for the singular. A
collective predicate is a predicate that normally can't take a singular subject. An example
of the latter is "talked to each other".
Good: The boys talked to each other.
Bad: *The boy talked to each other.
Good: The committee talked to each other.

1.5. Concrete nouns and abstract nouns

Concrete nouns refer to physical bodies which you use at least one of your senses to
observe. For instance, "chair", "apple", or "Janet". Abstract nouns on the other hand refer
to abstract objects, that are ideas or concepts, such as "justice" or "hate". While this
distinction is sometimes useful, the boundary between the two of them is not always
clear; consider, for example, the noun "art". In English, many abstract nouns are formed
by adding noun-forming suffixes ("-ness", "-ity", "-tion") to adjectives or verbs.
Examples are "happiness", "circulation" and "serenity".

2. The basic noun phrase

Note the statement in your book: the noun phrase is not merely the subject of the basic
sentence. The noun phrase can be rather complicated, and include embedded
predications, etc. The importance of understanding how noun phrases work is basic for
understanding how they can be elaborated in complex structures.
Structurally speaking, in the first place, basic noun phrases consist of pronouns, numerals
or nouns with articles (indefinite, definite or zero) or nouns with other closed-system
items that occur before the noun head including pre-determiners (pre-det), determiners
(det.) and post-determiners (post-det.). The underlined parts of the following sentences
are good examples of basic noun phrases:
27
 stayed durin
I home all the last few days
at g
zero article
Pronoun     pre-det + det + post-det + noun
+ noun
Some people dislike ‘13’.
det. + noun   numeral

2.1. Elements of basic noun phrase

Diagram

Basic Noun Phrase

Closed-system Pre-modifier(s) Head Noun(s)

Pre-determiners Determiners Post-determiners

 Determiners
6 subclasses (In the basic NPs, these words are central elements of pre-modifiers)
Article: indefinite a(n)/ definite the, e.g.: a man, the boys
Possessive: my, your, his, her, their, e.g.: my brother, their discussion.
Demonstrative: this, that, these, those, e.g.: this book, these boys.
Interrogative: whose, which, what. E.g.: which colour, whose books
Indefinite: some, any, every, each, e.g.: some water, any car (s), every student
Quantifier: much, e.g.: much water.

 Pre-determiners
Words preceding Determiners:
Inclusives: all, half, e.g.: all the books
Multipliers: double, twice, three times, e.g.: double your salary.
Fractions: one-third, two-fifths, e.g.: one-third (of) this book/the student

 Post- determiners
Words coming after Determiners:
28
 Numerals:
Cardinal: one, two, three,
E.g.: one book, two books
Ordinal: first, second, third.
E.g.: first, second book
General ordinal: next, last, previous…
E.g: his last order, our next question…
some quantifiers: many, several…
E.g: my several achievements, his many friends…
More examples: this book, your head, a boy, much water, all these examples, all these
fifty students, half that water, the first two books...

2.2. Syntactic functions of a basic noun phrase

2.2.1. Common syntactic functions: S,O,C
Subject (S) E.g.: My brother is a teacher.
S Cs
Direct Object (Od) E.g.: They like football.
S Od
Indirect Object (Oi) E.g.: We gave our friend a book.
S Oi Od
Subject complement (Cs) E.g.: My brother is a teacher.
S Cs
Object complement (Co) E.g.: They elected him their chairman.
S Od Co

2.2.2. Minor functions:

Prepositional complement (Cprep.) E.g.: On the way we look at it.
Cprep Cprep
in the garden, on time, behind the chair
Cprep Cprep Cprep

Note: Prepositional complement is also called object of preposition/ complement of

preposition
Appositive (App.) E.g.: My friend, a teacher, will come soon.
App.
His boss, Mr. Andy, is very nice.
App.
Adverbial (A) E.g.: Last week , we telephoned him.
A (time)
We met him yesterday.
A (time)
Adjectival Complement (Cadj) E.g.: The game isn't worth the candle.
Cadj

29
 She is worth that prize.
Cadj

3. Determiners
Nouns are often preceded by the words the, a, or an. These words are called
DETERMINERS.They indicate the kind of reference which the noun has. The determiner
the is known as the DEFINITE ARTICLE. It is used before both singular and plural
nouns:
Singular Plural
the taxi the taxis
the paper the papers
the apple the apples
 
The determiner a (or an, when the following noun begins with a vowel) is the
INDEFINITE ARTICLE. It is used when the noun is singular: 
a taxi 
a paper 
an apple
The articles the and a/an are the most common determiners, but there are many others: 
any taxi 
that question 
those apples 
this paper 
some apple 
whatever taxi 
whichever taxi
Many determiners express quantity: 
all examples 
both parents 
many people 
each person 
every night 
several computers 
few excuses 
enough water 
no escape
Perhaps the most common way to express quantity is to use a numeral. We look at
numerals as determiners in the next section. 

3.1. Numerals and Determiners

Numerals are determiners when they appear before a noun. In this position, cardinal
numerals express quantity: 

30
one book 
two books 
twenty books
In the same position, ordinal numerals express sequence: 
first impressions 
second chance 
third prize
The subclass of ordinals includes a set of words which are not directly related to numbers
(as first is related to one, second is related to two, etc). These are called general ordinals,
and they include last, latter, next, previous, and subsequent. These words also function as
determiners: 
next week 
last orders 
previous engagement 
subsequent developments
When they do not come before a noun, as we've already seen, numerals are a subclass of
nouns. And like nouns, they can take determiners: 
the two of us 
the first of many
They can even have numerals as determiners before them: 
five twos are ten
In this example, twos is a plural noun and it has the determiner five before it.

3.2. Pronouns and Determiners

There is considerable overlap between the determiner class and the subclass of pronouns.
Many words can be both: 
 
Pronoun Determiner
This is a very boring book. This book is very boring.
That's an excellent film. That film is excellent.
As this table shows, determiners always come before a noun, but pronouns are more
independent than this. They function in much the same way as nouns, and they can be
replaced by nouns in the sentences above: 

This is a very boring

~ Ivanhoe is a very boring book.
book.
That's an excellent film. ~ Witness is an excellent film.
On the other hand, when these words are determiners, they cannot be replaced by
nouns: 
This book is very boring. ~ *Ivanhoe book is very boring.
That film is excellent. ~ *Witness film is excellent.
31
  
The personal pronouns (I, you, he, etc) cannot be determiners. This is also true of the
possessive pronouns (mine, yours, his/hers, ours, and theirs). However, these pronouns
do have corresponding forms which are determiners: 

Possessive Pronoun Determiner

The white car is mine. My car is white.
Yours is the blue coat. Your coat is blue.
The car in the garage is his/hers. His/her car is in the garage.
David's house is big, but ours is bigger. Our house is bigger than David's.
Theirs is the house on the left. Their house is on the left.
  
The definite and the indefinite articles can never be pronouns. They are always
determiners.

3.3. The Ordering of Determiners

Determiners occur before nouns, and they indicate the kind of reference which the nouns
have. Depending on their relative position before a noun, we distinguish three classes of
determiners. 
 
  Pre-determiner Central Determiner Post-determiner Noun
I met All My many friends
  
A sentence like this is somewhat unusual, because it is rare for all three determiner slots
to be filled in the same sentence. Generally, only one or two slots are filled. 

3.4. Pre-determiners
Pre-determiners specify quantity in the noun which follows them, and they are of three
major types: 
1. "Multiplying" expressions, including expressions ending in times: 
twice my salary 
double my salary 
ten times my salary
2. Fractions 
half my salary 
one-third my salary
3. The words all and both: 
all my salary 
both my salaries
Predeterminers do not normally co-occur: 
*all half my salary
32
  
3.5. Central Determiners
The definite article the and the indefinite article a/an are the most common central
determiners: 
all the book 
half a chapter
As many of our previous examples show, the word my can also occupy the central
determiner slot. This is equally true of the other possessives: 
all your money 
all his/her money 
all our money 
all their money
The demonstratives, too, are central determiners: 
all these problems 
twice that size 
four times this amount
  
3.6. Post-determiners
Cardinal and ordinal numerals occupy the postdeterminer slot: 
the two children 
his fourth birthday
This applies also to general ordinals: 
my next project 
our last meeting 
your previous remark 
her subsequent letter
Other quantifying expressions are also postdeterminers: 
my many friends 
our several achievements 
the few friends that I have
Unlike predeterminers, postdeterminers can co-occur: 
my next two projects 
several other people

4. Reference and the article

 SPECIFIC/GENERIC REFERENCE [make sure you understand the distinction
indicated by the English articles a and the in terms of generic and specific reference in
both countable and non-countable nouns.]
 GENERIC REFERENCE
- Nationality words and adjectives as head [The important thing to note here is probably
that we only use the article "the" with the plural of a nationality (e.g. "the Italians") when
we want to specify the generic reference; many semantically generic references are made
in American English with the simple plural: "Italians love pasta." It is particularly
interesting to note which nationalities allow the generic to be specified by terms such as
"Englishmen" or "Welsh."
33
- Non-count and plural count nouns
 SPECIFIC REFERENCE
- Indefinite and definite [prior mention or the presupposition of a prior mention is an
important concept here. Be sure you understand it.]
- Common nouns with zero article [This is an area where British and American usage
differ. While we may go "to church" (where there is a zero article), we do not, in the
States, go *"to hospital," or *"to university," but rather we specify articles in those cases.
Study the lists for other variations.]
- Article usage with common nouns in intensive relation
 UNIQUE REFERENCE
- Proper nouns
Personal nouns
Calendar items
Geographical names
- Name + common noun
- Proper nouns with definite article

5. Number
Numerals include all numbers, whether as words or as digits. They may be divided into
two major types.
CARDINAL numerals include words like:  nought, zero, one, two, 3, fifty-six, 100, a
thousand
ORDINAL numerals include: first, 2nd, third, fourth, 500th 
We classify numerals as a subclass of nouns because in certain circumstances they can
take plurals: 
five twos are ten 
he's in his eighties
They may also take the: 
the fourth of July  
a product of the 1960s
And some plural numerals can take an adjective before them, just like other nouns: 
the house was built in the late 1960s .
he's in his early twenties.
the temperature is in the high nineties.
In each of our examples, the numerals occur independently, that is, without a noun
following them. In these positions, we can classify them as a type of noun because they
behave in much the same way as nouns do. Notice, for example, that we can replace the
numerals in our examples with common nouns: 
 
He is in his eighties. ~ He is in his bedroom.
the fourth of July ~ the beginning of July
a product of the 1960s ~ a product of the revolution

34
 
Numerals do not always occur independently. They often occur before a noun, as in:  
one day 
three pages 
the fourth day of July
In this position, we classify them as determiners, which we will examine in the next
section. 
Finally, see if you can answer this question:  Is the subclass of numerals open or closed?

 INVARIABLE NOUNS
- Invariable nouns ending in -s
- Plural invariable nouns [pluralia tantum = "nouns that only occur in the plural"]
 VARIABLE NOUNS
- Regular plurals [note the spelling rules.]
- Compounds [usually, we make plural whatever is the "noun head," but modern
American usage tends now to favor adding the plural suffix on the last element: "mother-
in-laws," or "time-outs" etc. The more formal the register, the less likely you are to
encounter this usage, however.]
- Irregular plurals [Excellent summation for spelling purposes.]

6. Gender
The gender of nouns plays an important role in the grammar of some languages. In
French, for instance, a masculine noun can only take the masculine form of an adjective.
If the noun is feminine, then it will take a different form of the same adjective - its
feminine form.  
In English, however, nouns are not in themselves masculine or feminine. They do not
have grammatical gender, though they may refer to male or female people or animals:  
 
The waiter is very prompt. ~ The waitress is very prompt.
The lion roars at night. ~ The lioness roars at night.
  
These distinctions in spelling reflect differences in sex, but they have no grammatical
implications. For instance, we use the same form of an adjective whether we are referring
to a waiter or to a waitress:  
an efficient waiter ~ an efficient waitress
  
Similarly, the natural distinctions reflected in such pairs as brother/sister, nephew/niece,
and king/queen have no consequence for grammar. While they refer to specific sexes,
these words are not masculine or feminine in themselves.  
However, gender is significant in the choice of a personal pronoun to replace a noun:  
 
John is late. ~ He is late.
35
 Mary is late. ~ She is late.
  
Here the choice of pronoun is determined by the sex of the person being referred to.
However, this distinction is lost in the plural:  
 
John and Mary are late. ~ They are late.
John and David are late. ~ They are late.
Mary and Jane are late.  ~ They are late.
 
Gender differences are also manifested in possessive pronouns (his/hers) and in reflexive
pronouns (himself/herself).  
When the notion of sex does not apply -- when we refer to inanimate objects, for instance
-- we use the pronoun it:  
The letter arrived late.  ~ It arrived late.

We'll discuss this set in class as good examples of how the noun phrase helps organize
group ideology.
Personal masculine/feminine nouns
 Personal dual gender
 Common gender
 Collective nouns
 Higher animals
 Higher organisms
 Lower animals and inanimate nouns

7. Genitive case
Common/genitive case [The genitive case is the only case still marked in English with an
inflection, which we usually spell -'s ]
The forms of the genitive inflections [It will help if you teach that first you make the
noun plural, and then you make it genitive, and then you simplify the ending: (1) boxes,
men, spies; (2) boxes's, men's, spies's; (3) boxes', men's, spies'. The simplification of the
ending has to do with making s's into simply s'. The reason is probably conventional, but
I've heard it claimed that we do this because s's cannot be pronounced.]
 There are two kinds of genitives [-s and of ]

7.1. The choice of genitives

Choice of -s genitive [note that it's usually animate nouns which demand the -s genitive].
The following four animate noun classes normally take the -s genitive:
- personal names: George Washington’s statue.
- personal nouns: the boy’s new shirt, my sister-in-law pencil
- collective nouns: the government’s strategy, the nation’s social security
36
 - higher animals: the horse’s tail, the lion hunger
It is also used with certain kinds of inanimate nouns:
- Geographical and institutional names: Europe’s future
The school’s history
London’s water supply
- Temporal nouns: a moment’s thought
a week’s holiday
today’s business
- Nouns of special interest to human activity: the game’s history
the science’s influence
the mind’s general development

Choice of the of- genitive [mostly inanimate]

The of- genitive is chiefly used with nouns that belong to the bottom part of the gender
scale, that is, especially with inanimate nouns: the title of the book, the interior of the
room. In these two examples, an -s genitive would be fully acceptable, but in many
instances, this is not: the hub of the wheel, the windows of the house. Related no doubt to
the point made about information focus, however, the corresponding personal pronouns
would normally have the inflected genitive: its hub, their windows.

7.2. The group genitive

The group genitive is what appears to be responsible for tendency toward moving the
plural to the end of the phrase in compound nouns like "mother-in-law." In some
postmodified noun phrases, it is possible to use an -s genitive by affixing the inflection to
the final part of the postmodification rather than to the head noun itself. Thus:
The teacher’s room
The teacher of music’s room
Someone else’s house, their heir apparent’s name
An hour and a half’s discussion, a week or so’s sunshine

7.3. The genitive with ellipsis:

The noun modified by the -s genitive may be omitted if the context makes its identify
clear:
My car is faster than John’s. (ie: than John’s car)
His memory is like an elephant’s.
John’s is a nice car, too.
With the of-genetive in comparable environments, a pronoun is normally necessary:
The population of New York is greater than that of Chicago.
Ellipsis is especially noteworthy in expressions relating to premises or establishments:
I shall be at Bill’s. (= where Bill lives).
I shall be at the dentist’s.( =the dentist’s professional establishment)

7.4. Double genitive [note that this only applies to definite/personal nouns.]

37
An of-genitive can be combined with an -s genitive in a construction called the “double
genitive”. The noun with the -s genitive inflection must be both definite and personal:
An opera of Verdi’s but not: * a sonata of a violinist’s
An opera of friend’s but not: * a funnel of the ship’s
There are conditions which also affect the noun preceding the of- phrase. This cannot be
a proper noun, thus why we have:
a daughter of Mr. Brown’s or a daughter of Mrs. Brown’s
But we cannot have:
*Mary of Mrs Brown * Mary of Mrs. Brown
Further, this noun must have indefinite reference: that is, it must be seen as one of an
unspecified number of items to the postmodifier”
A friend of the doctor’s has arrived.
A daughter of Mrs Brown’s has arrived.
Any daughter of Mrs Brown’s has arrived.
But not: * The daughter of Mrs Brown’s has arrived.

Note: When “A daughter of Mrs. Brown’s” is established in the linguistic context, we

could refer to “the/that daughter of Mrs Brown’s (that I mentioned)”

8. Pronouns
Pronouns are a major subclass of nouns. We call them a subclass of nouns because they
can sometimes replace a noun in a sentence:   
 
Noun Pronoun
John got a new job. ~ He got a new job.
Children should watch less television. ~ They should watch less television. 
   
In these examples the pronouns have the same reference as the nouns which they replace.
In each case, they refer to people, and so we call them PERSONAL PRONOUNS.
However, we also include in this group the pronoun it, although this pronoun does not
usually refer to a person. There are three personal pronouns, and each has a singular and a
plural form:   
Person Singular Plural
1st I we
2nd You you
3rd he/she/it they
   
These pronouns also have another set of forms, which we show here:   
 

38
 Person Singular Plural
1st Me us
2nd You you
3rd him/her/it them
   
The first set of forms (I, you, he...) exemplifies the SUBJECTIVE CASE, and the second
set (me, you, him...) exemplifies the OBJECTIVE CASE. The distinction between the
two cases relates to how they can be used in sentences. For instance, in our first example
above, we say that he can replace John   
 
John got a new job. ~ He got a new job.
   
But he cannot replace John in I gave John a new job. Here, we have to use the objective
form him: I gave him a new job.   
Notes for the uses of pronouns:
1. Pronouns do not admit determiners (you can't say "the he")
2. Pronouns often have an objective case (him or her, for instance)
3. Pronouns often have person distinction (we, you, they, for instance)
4. Pronouns often have overt gender contrast (he versus she)
5. Singular and plural forms of pronouns are often not morphologically related (I versus
we, for example)

Types of Pronoun 

There are many other types, which aresummarizedas follows:   

 
Pronoun Type Members of the Subclass Example
Personal Subjective case I, you, we, they, he, she, it I saw John yesterday.
Him, her, his, my, our,
Objective case She should wait for him.
your, its
mine, yours, his, hers,
Possessive The white car is mine.
ours, theirs
myself, yourself, himself,
herself, itself, oneself, He injured himself
Reflexive
ourselves, yourselves, playing football.
themselves
Reciprocal each other, one another They really hate each

39
 other.
Relative that, which, who, whose, The book that you gave
whom, where, when me was really boring.
Demonstrative this, that, these, those This is a new car.
who, what, why, where,
Interrogative What did he say to you?
when, whatever
Indefinite anything, anybody,
anyone, something, There's something in my
somebody, someone, no shoe.
one,nothing, nobody, none
   
Case and number distinctions do not apply to all pronoun types. In fact, they apply only
to personal pronouns, possessive pronouns, and reflexive pronouns. It is only in these
types, too, that gender differences are shown (personal he/she, possessive his/hers,
reflexive himself/herself). All other types are unvarying in their form.   
Many of the pronouns listed above also belong to another word class - the class of
determiners. They are pronouns when they occur independently, that is, without a noun
following them, as in This is a new car. But when a noun follows them - This car is new -
they are determiners. We will look at determiners in the next section.   
A major difference between pronouns and nouns generally is that pronouns do not take
the or a/an before them. Further, pronouns do not take adjectives before them, except in
very restricted constructions involving some indefinite pronouns (a little something, a
certain someone).   
While the class of nouns as a whole is an open class, the subclass of pronouns is closed.

40
 LECTURE 4
THE COMPLEX NOUN PHRASE

1. Components
Complex noun phrases contain three components: pre-modification, head noun and post-
modification. We are to deal with these components in turn.

1.1.1. Head Noun

Like in the basic noun phrase, the head noun, first of all, is the central element and core
component of the complex noun phrase. It may be count or mass noun which dictates
concord and (for the most part) other kinds of congruence with the rest of the sentence
outside the noun phrase. This is exemplified in:
The only girl in this class is hardworking.
All of the beautiful girls in my class are kind.
Also, when the genitive is as pre-modification, the head nouns can be omitted:
We met at the dentist’s last week.

1.1.2. The premodification (Pre-modifier)

The premodifcation comprises all the items placed before the head-notably adjectives and
nouns. Thus:
The pretty girl
Some pretty college girls

1.1.3. The postmodification (Post-modifier)

The postmodification comprises all the items placed after the head, notably prepositional
phrases, non-finite clauses, and relative clauses:
The girl in the corner
The girl standing in the corner
The girl who stood in the corner

1.1.4. Structure of complex noun phrases

Complex NPs

Pre-modifiers Head N Post-modifiers

Open-Class
Closed-system

Adj Verb Noun

41
Pre-modifier + Head noun

Adj E.g: A good boy

+ Head N
Verb The approaching train
This broken vase

Noun My brother's letter

This lecture hall

Premodifiers Head N

Adj Verb Denominal

Gen Age Color Shape V-ing/V-ed Adj N

This pretty old black triangular crumbling social tower

The extravagant church life

Head noun + Post modifier

Adv./Prep.P: E.g: The man there

The book on the left
Non-finite clause The first man to leave
Head N + Finite clause The boy who went with you there
Adj The boys easiest to teach
Nothing new

Pre-modifier + Head noun + Post modifier

the beautiful girl speaking English fluently

the old man who opened the door
the only car serviced in the garage

2. Restrictive and non-restrictive modifications

Some relative clauses are used to add extra information about a noun, but this
information is not necessary to explain which person or thing we mean:

42
 Valerie Polkoff, who has died aged 90, escaped from Russia with her family in
1917.
We received an offer of £80, 000 for the house, which we accepted.
These are sometimes called non-defining relative clauses. We don't use them often in
everyday speech, but they occur frequently in written English. Notice that we put a
comma between the noun and a non-defining relative clause, and another comma at the
end of this clause if it is not also the end of a sentence.
When we use a non-defining relative clause to add information about a person or people:
we use who as the subject of the clause
One of the people arrested was Mary Arundel, who is a member of the local
council.
We use who or whom as the object of the clause, although whom is more formal and
rarely used in spoken English:
Professor Johnson, who(m) I have long admired, is to visit the university next
week.
When we use a non-defining relative clause to add information about a thing or group of
things, we use which as the subject or object of the clause:
These drugs, which are used to treat stomach ulcers, have been withdrawn from
sale.
That Masters course, which I took in 1990, is no longer taught at the college.
That is sometimes used instead of which, but some people think this is incorrect, so it is
probably safer not to use it. We also use which to refer to the whole situation talked about
in the sentence outside the relative clause:
The book won't be published until next year, which is disappointing.
I have to go to hospital on Monday, which means I won't be able to see you.
We can also use whose in a non-defining relative clause:
Neil Adams, whose parents are both teachers, won first prize in the competition.
Notice that we don't use zero relative pronoun in a non-defining relative clause.
When we want to add information about the whole or a part of a particular number of
things or people we can use a non-defining relative clause with of which or of whom
after words such as all, both, each, many, most, neither, none, part, some, a number
(one, two, etc.; the first, the second, etc.; half, a third, etc.) and superlatives (the best, the
biggest, etc.):
The speed of growth of a plant is influenced by a number of factors, most of
which we have no control over.
The bank was held up by a group of men, three of whom were said to be armed.
The President has made many visits to Japan, the most recent of which began
today.
We can use the following phrases at the beginning of a non-defining relative clause: at
which point/time, by which point/time, during which time, and in which case:
It might snow this weekend, in which case we won't go to Wales.
The bandages will be taken off a few days after the operation, at which point we
will be able to judge how effective the treatment has been.
The next Olympics are in three years, by which time Stevens will be 34.

Restrictive Non-restrictive
43
 + Essential information + Additional information
+ Head N: Specific reference + head N: Unique reference
+ Wider choice of relative pronouns + Narrower choice of relative
who (m) pronouns
which who (m)
that which

3. Temporary and permanent modifications

Modification in noun phrase structure may also be seen as temporary and permanent,
such that items placed in pre-modification position are given the linguistic status of
permanent or at any rate characteristic features.
Permanence & temporariness

Pre-modifiers Post-modifiers
- Temporary: - Temporary only:
E.g: the approaching train Eg: the approaching train at platform 5
- Permanent:
E.g: this surprising news

4. Pre-modification
The second component of a complex noun phrase is pre-modification, also called pre-
modifiers, including modifiers that stand before the head noun. Pre-modifiers can be
closed-system and/or open-class items. Closed-system pre-modifiers are discussed in the
structure of the basic noun phrases above. These items are optional in the complex noun
phrases. Meanwhile, open-class pre-modifiers come after the closed-system ones and
precede the head noun as in:

All these young beautiful girls

Determiner adjective as pre-modifier Head

Pre-modifying adjectives can be those denoting general description (‘beautiful’,

intelligent’, ‘good’, etc.); age (‘young’, ‘old’, etc.); size (‘big’, ‘small’, etc.); shape
(‘square’, ‘round’, etc.); colour (‘red’, ‘blue’, etc.); material (‘silk’, ‘metal’, etc.);
resemblance to a material (‘silken’ in silken hair, ‘cat-like’, etc.); and provenance or style
(‘British’, ‘Parisian’, etc.). These adjectives can be both attribute and complement.
In addition, pre-modifying adjectives can be intensifying ones which have a heightening
effect on the noun they modify or the reverse, a lowering effect, e.g.: ‘real’ (a real hero),
‘definite’ (a definite loss), ‘complete’ (a complete fool) and ‘close’ (a close friend).
These adjectives are generally attributive only.
Restrictive adjectives, another class of pre-modifying adjectives, restrict the reference of
the noun exclusively, particularly or chiefly, e.g.: ‘certain’ (a certain person), ‘exact’ (the
exact answer), ‘only’ (the only occasion) and ‘very’ (the very man). Like intensifying
adjectives, the restrictive ones are attributive only.
44
However, there are a number of adjectives which cannot pre-modify the head, but can be
predicative such as: ‘faint’, ‘ill’, ‘well’, ‘able’, ‘afraid’, etc. Not only are the head nouns
pre-modified but pre-modifying adjectives can also be, especially when they are the first
items after the determiner. In this case, it can be pre-modified in the same way as it can
be in the predicative position. This is illustrated by:
His really quite unbelievably happy family
  head noun

With indefinite determiners, some intensifiers such as ‘so’ are differently used. ‘So’ is
replaced by ‘such’, which precedes the determiner or else ‘so’ plus adjective would be
placed before the determiner, e.g.:
Such a beautiful girl
So beautiful a girl
Finally, there are various classes of pre-modification, both closed-system and open-class.
Therefore, when the complex noun phrases consist of different classes of pre-modifiers,
they may be placed in a relevant order. The acceptable order of pre-modifiers in a
complex noun phrase is as follows:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13
    3' 3"                    

all the last ten good young tall         maths   students

  the               London     social life

all their     nice new   black   Spanish leather     shoes
interloc
  some       old     Chinese       designs
-king
interloc
  the   two                 rings
-king
best-
half the other ten famous               novels
sold

1. pre-determiner, 2. determiner, 3. post-determiner, 3'. Ordinal, 3". Cardinal/quantifier

4.general, 5. age, 6. size/shape, 7. color, 8. participle, 9. provenance, 10. material
11.purpose, 12. denominal, 13. head noun

4.1. Major classes of pre-modifiers:

- Adjective: e.g: I visited his delightful cottage,
the pleasant social life, a political problem…
- V-ing participle:
e.g.: the approaching train (= the train which is approaching.)
e.g.: an interesting book (= a book that interests readers.)
I visited his crumbling house. (His house is crumbling.)
- V_ed participle/ Past participle:
e.g: the broken vase(= the vase that was broken)
45
 e.g: a retired teacher( = a teacher who has retired)
a hidden beauty, the badly injured dog
- -s genitive:
e.g: women’s clothing, an old man’s bycicle,
these qualified doctors’ salaries,
an hour and a half’s discussion, 2 years’ time
- Noun: The cupboard door
The production cost, the city council, a love story,
A series of N: the black-market meat price reduction
- Adverbial: e.g.: The then minister, a far-away cottage,
The never land, the now show
- Prepositional Phrase: e.g.: On -the - job classes, on-time projects
- Clause e.g.:Pop-down-for-the-weekend cottage
his I-don't-care attitude
Everyone hates I’m-the-best attitude

4.2. Multiple pre-modification

a. One head N with multiple pre-modifiers
Ex.: This beautiful new white Japanese car
pre-modifiers head noun
b. Multiple head with one modifier
E.g.: Old men and women
pre-modifiers head noun
c. With modified modifiers
E.g.: The extremely beautiful pictures
head noun

5. Post-modification
The third important component of a complex noun phrase is post-modification, called
post-modifiers, comprising all the items placed after the head. These post-modifiers are
mainly realized by prepositional phrases, finite clauses (or relative clauses), nonfinite
clauses, adjective phrases, noun phrases or adverbial phrases:

  determiner head post-modifiers

(1) a book with yellow covers (prepositional phrase)
(2) the man who told you the secret (finite clause)
(3) the girl speaking English fluently (non-finite clause)
(4) a shelf full of books (adjective phrase)
(5) the opera "Carmen" (noun phrase)
(6) The road back (adverbial phrase)

46
In the example (1) ‘with yellow covers’ is a prepositional phrase post-modifying the head
‘book’. Apart from ‘with’, there is a wide range of prepositions that can be used, e.g.:
the road to London, the house beyond the church, a child of  five, etc., including the
complex prepositions, e.g. a house on the top of the hill, action in case of emergency, etc.
and those having participle forms as in problems concerning the environment.
The commonest preposition in the noun phrase post-modification ‘of’ has a close
correspondence to ‘have’ sentences:
The ship has a funnel. = the funnel of the ship
The table has four legs. = the four legs of the table
However, some are relatable to ‘be’ sentences:
London is a city. = the city of London
The news was the team’s victory. = the news of the team’s victory
Also, the ‘of’ phrase can be used to express the subject or object relation:
The bus arrived. = the arrival of the bus
Someone imprisoned the murderer. = the imprisonment of the murderer
In the example (2), the post-modifier is a relative or finite clause which can be restrictive
or non-restrictive. There are a number of relative clauses beginning with relative
pronouns: ‘who’, ‘whom’, ‘whose’, ‘that’ (personal); ‘which’, ‘that’, ‘what’ (non-
personal); ‘when’, a preposition plus ‘which’ (time); ‘where’, a preposition plus ‘which’
(place); and ‘why’, ‘for which’ (reason). While restrictive relative clauses help to define
the head noun, the non-restrictive ones give additional information to it, as exemplified
in:

The woman who is standing outside is my neighbour.

  restrictive/ finite  
That is my neighbour, who is standing outside.
  non-restrictive/ non-finite

Example (3) illustrates the post-modifier as a non-finite clause, present participle clause.
The non-finite can be past participle clauses.

The only car serviced in the garage is mine.

  non-fininte, past participle clause  

In addition, post-modifiers can be to-infinitive clauses:

The next flight to arrive was from London.

The place to stay for summer holidays should be pleasant.

47
As is seen in the example (4), adjective phrases can be post-modifiers of the head noun in
the complex noun phrases. The adjective phrases can usually be regarded as a reduced
relative clause. Complex indefinite pronouns ending in -body, -one, -thing, and -where
can be modified only post-positively, e.g.:
Anyone (who is) intelligent can do it.
The men (who were) present were his supporters.
In the example (5), the phrase explicitly encodes the information that “Carmen is an
opera”. For this reason, ‘Carmen’ is traditionally said to be in apposition to ‘the opera’.
Another minor type of post-modification illustrated in the example (6) is adverbial
modification. Similarly, in the following examples, the adverbial phrases post-modify the
head noun: the way ahead, the direction back, the hall downstairs, etc.
Unlike pre-modifiers, their no grammatical limit to the number of post-modifiers
occurring in a noun phrase, considerations of style and comprehensibility will normally
keep them to one or two. Where we have more than one, the relative order tends to
depend on the related properties of length and class, with shorter modifiers preceding
longer ones, prepositional phrases preceding clauses:
A man from Britain who I was talking about last night
  prepositional phrase relative clause

Major classes of post-modification

- Of- genetive: the four legs of the table
- Noun phrase: the film “Titanic”
- Adjective pharse : Something strange happened last night.
These are best books available in our shop.
She is a woman happy in marriage.
I want to meet the person responsible.
- Prepositional Phrase
Place: The man in the car/at the desk/ upstairs/down there
Time: The meeting on Tuesday
Manner: A problem of great significance
A man of four children
- non-finite clause
To V appositive, e.g: their hope to become teachers
Descriptive, e.g: the last bus to arrive
V-ing participle, e.g: the man standing there is my doctor.
V-ed participle, e.g: The vase broken is very expensive.
The words underlined are key words.
- Finite clause: The girl who is talking to my boss
12th Sep, 1990 is the date when he was born.
That’s the reason why he spoke ill of me.
- Adverbial: the room upstairs is always noisy.
the way ahead

48
6. Conclusion
In conclusion, noun phrases, either basic or complex are potentially very complicated.
Most simply, basic noun phrases consist of just one overt element, pronouns of different
types or numerals. Basic noun phrases, more complicatedly, comprise pre-determiners,
determiners, post-determiners and the head nouns, the order of which is fixed. Complex
noun phrases, as their names imply, are the most difficult of all. They consist of pre-
modification, head noun and post-modification. Pre-modification includes closed-system
and open-class items which are in the given order. Post-modification can be finite or non-
finite clauses and adjective, noun, prepositional and adverbial phrases. Though noun
phrases are complicatedly constructed, hopefully, by now enough has been presented to
help learners of English find it easy in learning noun phrases in English, both basic and
complex.

49
 LECTURE 5
VERBS AND THE VERB PHRASE

1. Types of verb
Verbs are words that designate actions (kiss, run), processes (grow, change), experiences
(know), or states of being (be, have).
1.1. In the relations between subject and predicate there are two types of verb: stative
(be, see) and dynamic (eat, offer).
1.2. In semantical relations English verbs are divided into lexical verbs and auxiliary
verbs. Auxiliary verbs are subdivided into primary and modal auxiliaries.
+ Lexical verbs include stative and dynamic verbs: walk, run, play, beautify etc.
She looks beautiful to day.
They run a mile everyday.
+ Auxiliaries may belong to two smaller groups:
Primary axiliaries: do, be, have
and modal: can, may, shall, will, could, might, should, would, must, ought to, used
to, need, dare.
Primary auxiliaries are used to form negative and interrogative sentences, different
aspects and tenses, the passive voice, and emphasis.
Do you speak English?
They have been learning English for a year.
The car was resold to me.
Modal auxiliaries are used to form the modality of the action. Auxiliaries have no lexical
meanings, and they must, therefore, be used with a lexical verb.
She can’t do the job well enough.
They must be students from Egypt.
1.3. In the relations to modification and complementation, lexical verbs have 5 types:
+ Stative and dynamic verbs (SVC/ SVA)
He is my teacher.
They run very fast.
+ Intransitive verbs (SV)
The enemy gave in.
She has come.
+ Mono-transitive verbs (SVO)
She turned down the request.
He gave up smoking.
+ Di-transitive verbs (SVOO)
They gave him a book.
She informed him of the results.
+ Complex transitive verbs (SVOA/ SVOC)
I put the plate on the table.
50
 We have proved him wrong.
1.4. In the relations to morphology, there are three types of lexical verbs:
+ Mono-form:
work, give, take, go, come ...
+ derivative form: the verbs with prefixes and suffixes:
return, redo, overdo, mistake, reunite, quicken, fasten, socialize, multiply ...
+ phrasal form:
verb phrase: give up, turn down, look dowm upon ...
verb phrase with preposition: depend on, look for, look after ..
compound verb: brainwash, whitewash, self-teach ...

2. Verbal forms and the verb phrase

Many English verbs have five forms: the BASE, the -s FORM, the PAST, the -ING
PARTICIPLE, and the -ED PARTICIPLE.
Examples of these forms and an indication of their functions are given in the table below.

FORM SYMBOL EXAMPLE FUNCTIONS

l) base V call (a) all the present tense except 3rd
drink person singular: I/you/we/they call every
put day
(b) imperative: Call at once!
(c) subjunctive: He demanded that she
call and see him
(d) the bare infinitive:He may call.; and
the to-infinitive: He wants her tocall.
2) -s form V-s calls 3rd person singular present tense:
(3rd person drinks He/she/it callsevery day
singular puts
present)
3) past V-ed1 called past tense: He called yesterday.
drank, put
4) -ing V-ing calling (a) progressive aspect
participle drinking (be + V-ing): He’s calling in a moment.
(present putting (b) in -ing participle clauses: Calling
participle) early, I found her at home.

5) -ed V-ed2 called (a) perfective aspect (have+V-ed2): He

participle drunk has drunk the water.
(past put (b) passive voice (be +V-ed2) He is
participle) called Jack.
(c) in -ed participle clauses: Called early,
he had a quick breakfast

51
3. The morphology of lexical verbs

3.1. Regular lexical verbs

Regular lexical verbs have the following forms:
V BASE call like try
V-ing- ING PARTICIPLE calling liking trying
V-s -s FORM calls likes tries
V-ed PAST/ -ED PARTICIPLE called liked tried
These are regular in that we can predict the other forms it we know the base of such a
verb. This is a very powerful rule, since the base is the form listed in dictionaries and the
vast majority of English verbs belong to this regular class. Furthermore, all new verbs
that are coined or borrowed form otherlanguages adopt this pattern.

 The-ing and-s forms

The -ingformis a straightforward addition to the base:
push ~ pushing sleep ~ sleeping
The -s form is also predictable from the base. It has three spoken realizations:
/iz/ pass ~ passes, /z/ cal l~ calls and /s/ cut ~ cuts , and two spellings, -s and -es.

 The past and the-ed participle

The past (V-ed1) and the -ed participle (V-ed2) of regular verbs (spelled -ed unless the
base ends in -e) have three spoken realizations:
/id/ after bases ending in /d/ and /t/,
eg: pad ~ padded pat ~ patted
/d/ after bases ending in voiced sounds other than /d/,
eg: mow ~ mowed budge ~ budged
/t/ after bases ending in voiceless sounds other than /t/,
eg: pass ~ passed pack ~ packed

 Further inflectional spelling rules

- Doubling of consonant
Final base consonants (except x) are doubled before inflections beginning with a vowel
letter when the preceding vowel is stressed and spelled with a single letter:
bar barring barred
permit permitting permitted
There is no doubling when the vowel is unstressed or written with two letters:
enter entering entered
dread dreading dreaded

EXCEPTIONS:
(a) Bases ending in certain consonants are doubled also after single
unstressed vowels: -g→ -gg-, -c → -ck-:
humbug humbugging humbugged
traffic trafficking trafficked
(b) BrE, as distinct from AmE, breaks the rule with respect to certain other
consonants also: -/ → -11-, -m → -mm-, -p → -pp-;
52
 travel travelling travelled (BrE)
travel travelling travelled (AmE)
program(me) programming programmed (BrE)
program programing programed (AmE)
worship worshipping worshipped (BrE)
worship worshiping worshiped (AmE)

Most verbs ending is -p, however, have the regular spellings in both BrE and AmE, eg:
develop, envelop, gallop, gossip.
 Treatment of -y
(a) In bases ending in a consonant +y, the following changes occur before
inflections that do not begin with i:
carry ~ carries carry ~ carried but carry ~ carrying
The past of the following two verbs has a change y → i also after a vowel:
lay ~ laid pay ~ paid
Say ~ said has the same change of spelling but, in addition, a change of vowel;
(b) In bases ending in -ie, the ie is replaced by y before the -ing inflection:
die ~ dying lie ~ lying

 Deletion of-e
Final -e is regularly dropped before the -ing and -ed inflections:
shave shaving shaved
Verbs with bases in -ee, -ye, -oe, and often -geare exceptions to this rule in that they do
not drop the -e before -ing, but they do drop it before -ed, as do also forms in -ie(tie ~
tied):
-ee: agree agreeing agreed
-ye: dye dyeing dyed
-oe: hoe hoeing hoed
-ge: singe singeing singed

3.2. Irregular lexical verbs

Irregular lexical verbs differ from regular verbs in the following ways:
(a) Irregular verbs either do not have a /d/ or /t/ inflection (drink ~ drank ~ drunk) or
break the rule for a voiced inflection (eg. burn ~ burnt /t/), beside the regular burned /d/).
(b) Irregular verbs typically, but not necessarily, have variation in their base vowel:
find ~ found ~ found write ~ wrote ~ written
(c) Irregular verbs have a varying number of distinct forms. Since the -s and -ingforms
are predictable for regular and irregular verbs alike, the only forms that need be listed for
irregular verbs are the base (V), the past (V-ed1), and the past participle (V-ed2). Most
irregular verbs have, like regular verbs, only one common form for the past and the -ed
participle, but there is considerable variation in this respect, as the table shows:
BASE V-ed1 V-ed2
All alike cut cut cut
V-ed1= V-ed2 meet met met
53
V= V-ed2 come came come
All different speak spoke spoken

4. The auxiliaries do, have, be

- Do
The auxiliary do has the following forms:

NON-NEGATIVE UNCONTRACTED CONTRACTED

NEGATIVE NEGATIVE
present do do not don’t
does does not doesn’t
past did did not didn’t

Do as lexical verb ('perform', etc) and as pro-verb has the full range of forms, including
the present participle doing andthe past participle done.
What have you been doing today?
A: You said you would finish it. B: I have done so.

- Have
Have has the following forms:
NON- UNCONTRACTED CONTRACTED
NEGATIVE NEGATIVE NEGATIVE

base have, 've have not, 've not haven't

-s form has, 's has not, 's not hasn't
past had, ‘d had not, ‘d not hadn’t
-ing form having not having
-ed participle had ( only as lexical verb)

- Be
The lexical and auxiliary verb be is unique among English verbs in having eight different
forms:

NON- UNCONTRACTED CONTRACTED

NEGATIVE NEGATIVE NEGATIVE
base be
present 1st person singular am, ‘m am not,'m not aren't, ain’t

3rd person singular is, s is not, ’s not isn't

2nd person, are, re are not, 're not aren't
1st and 3rd person plural

past 1st and 3rd person singular Was was not wasn't

54
 2nd person, Were were not weren't
1st and 3rd person plural
- ing form Being not being

-ed participle Been

5. The modal auxiliaries

The modal auxiliaries are the following:

NON-NEGATIVE UNCONTRACTED CONTRACTED

NEGATIVE NEGATIVE
can cannot, can not can't
could could not couldn't
may may not mayn't
might might not mightn't
shall shall not shan't
should should not shouldn't
will, 'll will not, 'll not won’t
would, 'd would not, 'd not wouldn't
must must not mustn't
ought to ought not to oughtn't to
used to used not to usedn't to
didn't use to
need need not needn't
dare dare not daren't

6. Marginal modal auxiliaries

Used always takes the to-infinitive and occurs only in the past tense. It may take the do-
construction, in which case the spellings didn't used to and didn't use to both occur. The
interrogative construction used he to is especially BrE; did he used to is preferred in both
AmE and BrE.
Dare and need can be constructed either as modal auxiliaries (with bare infinitive and
with no inflected -s form) or as lexical verbs (with to-infinitive and with inflected -s
form). The modal verb construction is restricted to non-assertive contexts, iemainly
negative and interrogative sentences, whereas the lexical verb conduction can always be
used and is in fact the more common. Dare and need as auxiliaries are probably rarer in
AmE than in BrE.

MODAL AUXILIARY LEXICAL VERB

CONSTRUCTION CONSTRUCTION
positive He need go now. He needs to go now.
negative He needn't go now. He doesn't need to go now.
interrogative Need he go now? Does he need to go now?

55
negative-
interrogative Needn't he go now? Doesn't he need to go now?
Note
[a] Non-assertive forms are not confined to overtly negative and/or interrogative
sentences but can also be present in adverbials, eg: He need do it only under
these circumstances, He need do it but once, in determiners, eg: He need have no
fear, No solider dare disobey, in pronouns, eg: No one dare predict...; or even
implicitly, eg: All you need do is,... (‘You need do no more than...’ ).
[b] Blends of the two constructions are widely acceptable in the case of dare: We
do not dare speak.

7. Finite and non-finiteverb phrases

The verb forms operate in finite and non-finite verb phrases, which are distinguished as
follows:
(1) Finiteverb phrases have tense distinction:
He studies English
studied
(2) Finite verb phrases occur as the verb element of a clause. There is person
and number concord between the subject and the finite verb. Concord is particularly overt
with be:
I + am You/we/they + are He/she/it + is
With most lexical verbs, concord is restricted to a contrast between 3rd and non-3rd
person singular present:
He reads the paper every morning.
They read
With the modal auxiliaries there is, however, no concord:
I/you/he/we/they can play the cello.
(3) Finite verb phrases have mood. In contrast to the 'unmarked' INDICATIVE mood, we
distinguish the 'marked' moods IMPERATIVE, and SUBJUNCTIVE
(4) The non-finite forms of the verb are the infinitive ((to) call), the -ing participle
(calling), and the -ed participle (called). Non-finite verb phrases consist of one or more
such items. Compare:

FINITE VERB PHRASES NON-FINITE VERB PHRASES

He smokes heavily. To smoke like that must be
dangerous.
He is working. I found him working.
He had been offended before. Having been offended before, he
was sensitive.

8. Tense and aspect and mood

We here consider the present and past tenses in relation to the progressive and perfective
aspects. The range can be seen in the sentence frame with the verb base write.
SIMPLE COMPLEX
Progressive
present write am writing present
56
 was writing past
Perfective
have written (present) perfect
past wrote had written past (or plu-) perfect
perfect progressive
have been writing (present) perfect
had been writing past (or plu-) perfect

 Present
We need to distinguish three basic types of present:
(a) Timeless, expressed with the simple present form:
I (always) write with a special pen. (when I sign my name)
As well as expressing habitual action as here, the timeless present is used for universal
statements such as:
The sun sets in the west.
Spiders have eight legs.
(b) Limited, expressed with the present progressive:
I am writing (on this occasion) with a special pen (since I have mislaid my
ordinary one)
Normally he lives in London but at present he is living in Boston.
In indicating that the action is viewed as in process and of limited duration, the
progressive can express incompleteness even with a verb like stop whose action cannot in
reality have duration; thus the bus is stopping means that it is slowing down but has not
yet stopped. The progressive (usually with an adverb of high frequency) can also be used
of habitual action, conveying an emotional colouring such as irritation:
He's always writing with a special pen-just because he likes to bedifferent.
(c) Instantaneous, expressed with either the simple (especially in a series) or the
progressive form:
Watch carefully now: first, I write with my ordinary pen; now, I write with a special pen.
As you see, I am dropping the stone into the water.
The simple present is, however, usual in radio commentary on sport ("Moore passes to
Charlton'), and in certain performative declarations (I name this ship Snaefell) it is
obligatory.
 Past
An action in the past may be seen
(1) as having taken place at a particular point of time; or
(2) over a period; if the latter, the period may be seen as
(a) extending up to the present, or
(b) relating only to the past; if the latter, it may be viewed as
(i) having been completed, or as
(ii) not having been completed
Typical examples will be seen to involve the perfective and progressive aspects as well as
the simple past:
(1) I wrote my letter of 16 June 1972 with a special pen.
(2a) I have written with a special pen since 1972.
(2bi) I wrote with a special pen from 1969 to 1972.
57
 (2bii) I was writtingpoetry with a special pen.
Habitual activity can also be expressed with the simple past ('He always wrote with a
special pen'), but since - unlike the simple present - this is not implied, without a suitable
adverb, used to or (less commonly) would may be needed to bring out this sense:
He used to write with a special pen
would

 The past and the perfective

In relation to (2a), it is not the time specified in the sentence but the period relevant to the
time specified that must extend to the present. Contrast
John lived in Paris for ten years.
(which entails that the period of residence has come to an end and which admits the
possibility that John is dead) with
John has lived in Paris for ten years.
which entails that John is still alive but permits the residence in Paris to extend either to
the present (the usual interpretation) or to some unspecified date in the past. Compare
also:
For generations, Nepal has produced brilliant mountaineers.

For generations, Sparta produced fearless warriors.

was producing

The first claims that Nepal is still in a position to produce more mountaineers, even if a
long time may have elapsed since the last was produced. The second sentence, on the
other hand, is uncommitted as to whether any further warriors can be produced by Sparta.
The choice of perfective aspect is associated with time-orientation and consequently also
with various time-indicators {lately, since, so far, etc). It is therefore helpful to consider
these two together. Here are some examples:

ADVERBIALS WITH SIMPLE PAST ADVERBIALS WITH PRESENT

(refer to a period now past) PERFECT
refer to a period beginning in the past and
stretching up to the present)
I worked yesterday (evening) I have worked since last January
throughout January up to now
on Tuesday lately
already

ADVERBIALS WITH EITHER SIMPLE PAST OR PRESENT PERFECT

I worked to day
have worked this month
for an hour

 Indefinite and definite

58
Through its ability to involve a span of time from earliest memory to the present, the
perfective has an indefiniteness which makes it an appropriate verbal expression for
introducing a topic of discourse. As the topic is narrowed down, the emerging
definiteness is marked by the simple past as well as in the noun phrases. For example:
He says that he has seen a meteor at some time. (between earliest memory and the
present)
as compared with:
He says that he saw the meteor last night that everyone is so excited about.
Compare also:
Did you know that John has painted aportrait of Mary?
Did you know that John painted this portrait of Mary?

 Past perfect
What was said of the perfect applies to the past perfect, with the complication that the
point of current relevance to which the past perfect extends is a point in the past:
Thus:
(I say now [present] that) When I met him [relevant point in the past] John had lived in
Paris for ten years.
In some contexts, the simple past and the past perfect are interchange-able; eg.
I ate my lunch after my wife came home from her shopping.
had come
Here the conjunction after is sufficient specification to indicate that the arrival form
the shopping expedition had taken place before the eating, so that the extra time
indication by means of the past perfect becomes redundant.

 The past and the progressive

As with the present, the progressive when used with the past specifies the limited
duration of an action:
I was writing with a special pen for a period last night but my hand grew tired.
In consequence, it is a convenient device to indicate a time span within which another
event (indicated by the simple past) can be seen as taking place:
While I was writing, the phone rang
The ability to express incomplete action with the progressive is illustrated by the
contrasting pair:
He read a book that evening (implies that he finished it)
He wasreading a book that evening (implies that he did not finish it)
and more strikingly by:
The girl was drowning in the lake (will permit ‘but someone dived in and rescued
her')
The girl drowned in the lake.
Habitual activity may be expressed by the progressive provided it is clear that the habit is
temporary:
At that time, we were bathing every day
and not merely sporadic:
59
 We were sometimes walking to the office
But general habits may be pejoratively referred to (present):
My brother was always losing his keys

 The perfect progressive

Limited duration (or incompleteness) and current relevance can be jointly expressed with
the perfect progressive. Compare:
He has eaten my chocolates (they are all gone)
He was eating my chocolates (but I stopped him)
He has been eating my chocolates (but there are some left)
Frequently the perfect progressive implies an especially recent activity, the
effects of which are obvious, and the adverb just commonly accompanies this
usage:
It has rained a great deal since you were here.
Oh look ! It has just been raining.

 Verbal meaning and the progressive

As pointed out, the progressive occurs only with dynamic verbs (or more accurately, with
verbs in dynamic use). These verbs [A] fall into five classes while the stative verbs [B],
which disallow the progressive, can be seen as belonging to one of two classes.
[A] DYNAMIC
1. Activity verbs: abandon, ask, beg, call, drink, eat, help, learn, listen, look at,
play, rain, read, say, slice, throw, whisper, work, write, etc.
2. Process verbs: change, deteriorate, grow, mature, slow down, widen, etc.
Both activity and process verbs are frequently used in progressive aspect to
indicate incomplete events in progress.
3. Verbs of bodily sensation (feel, hurt, itch, etc) can have either simple
or progressive aspect with little difference in meaning.
Transitional event verbs {arrive, die, fall, land, leave, lose, etc) occur in the
progressive but with a change of meaning compared with simple aspect. The
progressive implies inception, ie only the approach to the transition.
Momentary verbs {hit, jump, kick, knock, nod, tap, etc) have little duration,
and thus the progressive aspect powerfully suggests repetition.

[B] STATTVE
1. Verbs of inert perception and cognition: abhor, adore, astonish, believe,
desire, detest, dislike, doubt, feel, forgive, guess, hate, hear, imagine, etc. Some of these
verbs may take other than a recipient subject, in which case they belong with the
A1 class. Compare:
I think you are right [B1].
I am thinking of you all the time [A1].
2. Relational verbs: apply to (everyone,), be, belong to, concern, consist of,
contain, cost, depend on, deserve, equal,etc.

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  The future
There is no obvious future tense in English corresponding to the time/tense relation for
present and past. Instead there are several possibilities for denoting future time. Futurity,
modality, and aspect are closely related, and future time is rendered by means of modal
auxiliaries or semi-auxiliaries, or by simple present forms or progressive forms.

- Will and shall

will or 'll+ infinitive in all persons
shall + infinitive (in 1st person only; chiefly BrE)
I will/shall arrive tomorrow
He'll be here in half an hour
Shall and, particularly, will are the closest approximation to a colourless, neutral future.
Will for future can be used in all persons throughout the English-speaking world, whereas
shall {for 1st person) is largely restricted in this usage to southern BrE.
The auxiliary construction is also used to refer to a statement seen in the past from a point
of orientation in the future:
They will have finished theirbook by next year

- Begoing to + infinitive
This construction denotes 'future fulfilment of the present'. Looked at more carefully, be
going to has two more specific meanings', of which one, 'future of present intention', is
used chiefly with personal subjects:
When are you going to get married!
The other meaning is 'future of present cause', which is found with both personal and
non-personal subjects:
She's going to have a baby
It's going to rain
Both of these suggest that the event is already 'on the way'. Be going to is not generally
used in the main clause of conditional sentences, will/l ‘ll or shall being preferred
instead:
If you leave now, you'll never regret it

- Present progressive
The present progressive refers to a future happening anticipated in the present. Its basic
meaning is 'fixed arrangement, plan, or programme':
He's moving to London.
Since the progressive is used to denote present as well as future, a time adverbials is often
used to clarify in which meaning the verb is being used:
They are washing the dishes now.
later.
The present progressive is especially frequent with dynamic transitional verbs like arrive,
come, go, land, start, step, etc, which refer to a transition between two states or positions:
The plane is taking off at 5.20.
The President is coming to the UN this week.
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- Simple present
The simple present is regularly used in subordinate clauses that are conditional
(introduced by if, unless, etc) or temporal (introduced by as soon as, before, when, etc):
What will you say if I marry my boss?
The guests will be drunk before they leave.
The use of the simple present in main clauses may be said to represent a marked future
aspect of unusual certainty, in that it attributes to the future something of the positiveness
one normally associates with present and past events. It is used for statements about the
calendar:
Yesterday was Monday, today is Tuesday, and tomorrow is Wednesday.
and to describe immutable events or 'fixtures':
When is high tide?
What time is the football match?
Both the simple present and the progressive are often used with dynamic transitional
verbs: arrive, come, leave, etc, both having the meaning of 'plan' or 'programme':
The train leaves tonight from Chicago.
is leaving

- Will/shall + progressive
The auxiliary verb construction can be used together with the progressive infinitive to
denote a 'future-as-a-matter-of-course': will/shall + be + V-ing. The use of this
combination avoids the interpretation (to which will, shall, and be going to are liable) of
volition, insistence, etc:
He ‘ll do his best (future or volitional interpretation possible)
He'll be doing his best (future interpretation only)
This complex construction can be used to convey greater tact and consideration than the
simple auxiliary construction does:

When will you put on another performance?

be putting on

When will you come?

be coming?

- Be to + infinitive
This expresses (a) arrangement, (b) command, or (c) contingent future
(a) We are to be married soon
There's to be an investigation
(b) You are to be back by 10 o'clock
(c) If he is to succeed, he must work harder

- Be about to + infinitive
This construction expresses near future, ie imminent fulfilment:
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 The taxi is here and we are about to leave.
Be... to may enclose other items such as shortly or soon to provide a means of future
expression: with other items again (bound, liable, certain, (un)Iikely), future expression
is overlaid with modal meaning:
He is certain to address the meeting (= It is certain that he will address...)

- Future time in the past

Some of the future constructions just discussed can be used in the past tense to express
time which is in the future when seen from a viewpoint in the past.
1. AUXILIARY VERB CONSTRUCTION with would (rare; literary narrative
style)
The time was not far off when he would regret thisdecision
2. be going to+ INFINITIVE (often with the sense of 'unfulfilled intention')
You were going to give me your address
3. PAST PROGRESSIVE
I was meeting him in Bordeaux the next day.
4. be to + INFINITIVE (formal = 'was destined’, 'was arranged’)
He was later to regret his decision .
The meeting was to be held the following week .
5 be about to ('on the point of);
He was about to hit me.

 Mood
Traditional grammar recognized four basic different types of sentences, identified by
their structure: Statements, Commands, Questions, and Exclaimations:
We all went to see the rector. (Statement)
Go and see the rector. (Command)
Did you go to see the rector? (Question)
See the rector! (Exclamation)
It is important to remember that these sentence types are named according to their
structure, and not according to their purpose in a particular context.
These four types represent the traditional four Moods of English, to give them their
technical grammatical name. Statements are sentences in the Indicative Mood;
Commands are sentences in The Imperative Mood; Exclamations are sentences in the
Exclamatory Mood. There is also a special form of sentence structure used to express
unreal, hypothetical, or desired situation; in older English, such sentences constituted an
important class and were regarded as a fifth mood - the Subjunctive mood (in modern
English, however, it has become so restricted in usage that it is scarcely justifiable to
regard it any longer as a distinctive sentence type).
On the other hand, Mood can be defined as the grammatical expression of the speaker’s
purported attitude toward what he or she is saying. If you say, the pen is in the drawer,
the attitude that you are presenting to your addressee toward what you are saying is that it
is true; you are making an assertion. The grammatical mood of your sentence indicative.

63
Formally, indicative mood is expressed by the presence of tense and person endings on
verbs.
9. The uses of the modal auxiliaries
9.1. CAN/COULD

- can
(1) Ability He can speak English but he can't write it very well.
be able to, ('He is able to speak/capable of speaking...')
be capable of,
know how to

(2) Permission Can

. = be allowed to,
be permitted to
(Can is less formal
than may in this sense)
(3) Theoretical possibility
(Contrast may =
factual possibility)
May I smoke in here?
('Am I allowed to smoke in here?')
Anybody can make mistakes
The road can be blocked (‘It is possible to
block the road’)

- could
(1) Past ability
(2) Present or future permission
(3) Present possibility (theoretical
or factual)
(4) Contingent possibility or
ability in unreal conditions
I never could play the banjo
Could I smoke here?
We could go to the concert
The road could be blocked
If we had more money, we could buy a car

9.2. MAY/MIGHT
- may
(1) Permission = be allowed to
(In this sense may is more formal than
can. Instead of may notes rare mayn't,
the stronger mustn’t is often used in the
negative to express prohibition)
(2) Possibility (usually factual)
- might
(1) Permission (rare)
You may borrow my car if you like
mustn’t borrow
You are not allowed to my
may not car
The road may be blocked ('It is possible that
the road is blocked';: less probably: It is
possible to block the road1)
Might I smoke inhere?

9.3 SHALL/ SHOULD

- shall (volitional use)
(1) Willingness on the part of He shall get his money
the speaker in 2nd and You shall do exactly as you wish
3rd person. Restricted use
64
(2) Intention on the part of I shan't be long
the speaker, only in 1st person We shall let you know our decision
We shall overcome
(3) a . Insistence. Restricted use You shall do as I say
He shall be punished
b. Legal and quasi-legal The vendor shall maintain the
injunction equipment in good repair
Of these three meanings it is only the one of intention that is widely used today.
Shall is, on the whole and especially outside BrE, an infrequent auxiliary with
restricted use compared with should, will, and would; will is generally preferred,
except in 1st person questions:
Shall/ Will I come at once?
In the first person plural, eg:
What shall/ will we drink?
shall asksfor instructions, and will is non-volitional future (especially in AmE). Will I/ we
has become increasingly common not only in contexts of non-volitional futurity (Will I
see you later?), but also in sentences expressing helplessness, perplexity, etc:
How will I get there?
What will I do?
Which will I take?
This usage is predominantly AmE (though should is commonly preferred) but examples
may be found in BrE too. A similar meaning is also conveyed by be going to.
What are we going to do?

- should
(1) Obligation and logical
necessity (= ought to)
(2) "Putative' use after certain
expressions, eg: it is a pity
that... , I am surprised that...
(3) Contingent use (1st person
only and especially BrE) in the
main clause (= would)
You should do as he says.
They should be home by now.
It is old that you should say this to me.
I am sorry that this should have happened.
We should love to go abroad (if we had
would
the chance).

4) In rather formal real conditions If you should change your mind, please let
us know.

9.4 WILL/ WOULD

- will
1) Willingness. Used in polite He'll help you if you ask him.
requests Will you have another cup of coffee?
Will you (please, kindly, etc) open the window?

2) Intention. Usually contracted I'll write as soon as I can.

'll, mainly 1st person We won't stay longer than two hours.
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 3) Insistence. Stressed, hence no He will do it, whatever you say.
‘ll contraction (‘He insists on doing it..')
(He shall do it, whatever you say. = ‘I insist on
his doing it...')
He will keep interrupting me.
(4) Prediction (a) Specific prediction:

the similar meanings of other will

expressions for logical necessity The games must be finished by now.
and habitual present. The should
contracted form '11 is common (b) Timeless prediction:
Oil will float on water.
floats
(c) Habitual prediction:
He'll (always) talk for hours if you give him the
chance.
- would Would you excuse me?
(1) Willingness It's your own fault, you would take the
(2) Insistence baby with you.
(3) Characteristic activity in the past Every morning he would go for a long
(often aspectual in effect) walk. (ie 'it was customary')
John would make a mess of it. (informal =
'it was typical')
(4) Contingent use in the main clause of He would smoke too much if I didn't stop
a conditional sentence him.

(5) Probability That would be his mother.

9.5 MUST

(1) Obligation or compulsion in the You must be back by 10 o'clock.

present tense (= be obliged to, have Yesterday you had to be back by 10 o'clock.
(got) to); except in reported speech, Yesterday you said you had to be
only had to (not must) is used in the must
past. There are two negatives: (1) = 'not back by 10 o'clock.
be obliged to'.- needn't, don't have to; You needn’t
(2) = ‘be obliged not to': mustn't. don’t have to be back by 10
o’clock.
are not obliged to ….

(2) {Logical) necessity There must be a mistake.

Must is not used in sentences with but: There cannot be a mistake.
negative or interrogative meanings, can
being used instead.
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 Must can occur in superficially Mustn't there be another reason for his
interrogative but answer-assuming behavior?
sentences

9.6 OUGHT TO
Obligation; logical necessity You ought to start at once.
or expectation . They ought to be here by now.

10. The uses of the modal auxiliaries

Only some of the modals have corresponding present and past forms:
PRESENT PAST PRESENT PAST
can could must (had to)
may could (might) - used to
shall should ought to -
will/’ll would/'d need -
dare dared
He can speak English now. He couldn't come yesterday.
He'll do anything for money. He wouldn't come when I asked him yesterday.
The usual past tense of may denoting permission is could:
Today, we can stay the whole afternoon.
may
Yesterday, we could only stay for a few minutes.
The following modals are not used in the past tense except in reported speech: must,
ought to, and need . Had to serves as the past of both must and have to.

He must leave now.

has to

He * must leave in a hurry yesterday.

had to
*must
*ought to
Yesterday the children *needn't go out and play.
daren't
dared not
did not dare
must
ought to
He said the children needn't go out and play.
daren't
dared not
didn't dare
11. The modals and aspect
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The perfective and progressive aspects are normally excluded when the modal expresses
'ability' or 'permission', and also when shall or will express 'volition'. These aspects are
freely used, however, with other modal meanings;

‘possibility' He may have missed the train.

He may have been visiting his mother.
He can't be swimming all day.
He can't have been working.

'necessity' He must have left his umbrella on the bus.

I must be dreaming.
You must have been sitting in the sun.

'prediction' The guests will have arrived by now.

John will still be reading his paper.

68
 LECTURE 6
THE VERBS AND ITS COMPLEMENTATION

1. Multi-word verbs
There are two main types of multi-word verbs: Phrasal and prepositional verbs.

1.1. Phrasal verbs

A phrasal verb consists of a verb and a particle, which is an adverb. Ex:
The chef threw down the knife
The assistant chef took off.
The restaurant owner backed up the assistant chef.

 Intransitive phrasal verbs

Intransitive phrasal verbs consist of a verb and an adverb particle and normally, the
particle can not be separated from its verb:
The children were sitting down.
The plane has now taken off.
He’s playing around. .
Other examples of intransitive phrasal verbs: break down, give in (surrender), catch on
(understand), blown up ,turn up (appear)………….

 Transitive phrasal verbs

Transitive phrasal verbs are the phrasal verbs which can take objects.
Drink up your milk quickly.
(~ Drink it up quickly).
Can you make out his joke?
(~ can you make it out?)
Like intransitive phrasal verbs, transitive phrasal verbs can be either idiomatic or non-
idiomatic. If the transitive phrasal verb is fully idiomatic, the particle can not normally be
separated from the verb by anything except the object.
With most transitive phrasal verbs, the particle can either precede or follow the direct
object. In case the object is long or the object is intended to receive end-focus, the
particles tend to precede the object.
They turned on the light.
(~ They turned the light on).
Can you make the girl out?
(~ can you make out the girl?)
However, a personal pronoun object always comes before the particles.

They turned it on.

69
 (Not they turned on it).

1.2. Prepositional verbs

A prepositional verb consists of a verb plus a particle, which is a preposition. Ex:
The chef relied on the assistant chef.
Visitors didn’t walk over the lawn.
There are two types of prepositional verbs.

- Type 1:
A type 1 prepositional verb consists of a verb followed by a preposition which is
semantically and or syntactically associated.
He takes after his father.
She’ll look into this problem again.
Look at that impressionism picture.

- Type 2:
A type 2 prepositionalverbis ditransitive verb. It is followed by two noun phrases,
normally separated by the preposition.
He deprived the peasants of the land.
This clothing will protect you from the severe weather.

 Tests for determining phrasal verbs and prepositional verbs:

- Movement: The prepositional verb accepts a relative pronoun after the preposition, thus
we can have:
The minister on whom John relied.
The girl at whom he looked.
- Insertion of adjuncts: The prepositional verb allows an adverb to be placed between the
verb and preposition.
John reliedsteadfastly on the minister.
He lookednervously at the girl.
- Reverse order of the adverb and the NP in the phrasal verb: The adverb in phrasal verb
can be placed before or after the direct object except when it is a pronoun while the
preposition in a prepositional verb always precedes the direct object.
John backed the Minister up.
Not: John relied the Minister on.
- Paraphrasing: Phrasal verbs can often (but not always) be replaced by a single word
verb.
John hinted at the solution. ~ John suggested the solution.

1.3. Phrasal-prepositional verbs

There are phrasal-prepositional verbs which consist of a verb and two particles, an adverb
followed by a preposition.
70
 He can’t put up with bad temper.
He should cut down on smoking.
In relative clauses and questions, the particles are positioned after the verb:
The party we were looking forward to so eagerly.
Who(m) does he put up with willingly?
Or (less commonly) the final particle can be brought into initial position:
The party to which we were looking forward so eagerly.
With whom does he put up willingly?
As with phrasal-prepositional verbs, we cannot insert an adverb immediately before the
object:
He puts up with willingly that secretary of his. (incorrect)
though it is possible to do so between the particles:
He puts up willingly with that secretary of his.
We look forward eagerly to your next party.
Other examples of phrasal-prepositional verbs: Stay away from (avoid), stand up for
(support), break in on (interrupt), look down on (despise), look in on (visit), look up to
(respect), and walk out on (abandon)………..

2. Its complementation
2.1. Intensive complementation
An intensive verb takes a Subject Complement (Cs) or an Adverbial, and therefore can be
used in two sentence structures:
(1) S - V - Cs
Intensive verbs that can be used in this pattern include: be, appear, feel, look, smell,
sound, taste, remain, keep, become, get, go, grow, turn, make.
• Cs = Noun phrases:a teacher of Russia, a good wife……
He has become a father.
S V Cs
• Cs = Adjective phrases:
John is fond of them.
S V Cs
He is angry that they are late.
S V Cs
Complementation of adjective phrase as subject complement. (Cadj)
The adjective as Cs may be complemented by:
- A prepositional phrase:
She is very good at telling lies.
Cadj
We were afraid of the dog.
- A to -infinitive clause:
I am glad to meet you again.
He was reluctant to agree with me.
- An ing-participle clause:

71
 She was busy doing her homework.
This film is worth seeing twice.
- A that clause:
+ With factual adjectives: certain, clear, great, likely, nice, obvious, possible,
strange, true, confident, aware, afraid…
I am afraid that you can’t come in.
I am confident that we will win.
+ With volitional adjectives: essential, imperative, necessary, vital, urgent…
It’s essential that you be on time
It’s important that he be present at the meeting.
- A wh-clause or whether/ If clause: after some negative factual adjectives
I am not sure where he went.
She was not aware who she was.
• Cs = Nominal clause
The problem is that we have run out of money.
The question is whether he will come back in time for the game.
(2)S - V - A
These booksarefor you.
S V A
Ihave beenthere.
S V A
• A = an adverb
John is here.
She is upstairs.
• A = prepositional phrases
These books are for you.
They keep off the grass.
• A = Adverbial clause
The books were exactly where I had left them the day before.

2.2. Intransitive complementation

An intransitive verb can be used by itself, without any Object, Complement or Adverbial.
It is used in the sentence structure:
S-V
Your friendshave arrived.
S V
Shehas left.
S V
2.3. Transitive complementatio
2.3.1. Mono-transitive complementation
A mono-transitive verb takes a Direct Object (Od), and can be used in the sentence
structure:

72
 S - V - Od
The Catatethe mouse.
S V Od
Shewrotea letter.
S V Od
Direct object can be:
• Od = Noun phrase
He is a top marketing man.
He lacks confidence.
• Od = A finite that clause
Everyone expectedthat Mary would marry John.
They agree that she is pretty.
• Od = A finite wh-clause
I believewhat you told me.
I don’t knowhow he could get home.
He forgotwhy they complained.
• Od = A non-finite clause
He likes to talk.
He likes talking.

Note: Non-finite clause as direct object

Among non-finite clauses as direct object, we distinguish between those with a subject
and those without a subject, and within each type between infinitive and participle
clauses:

to - infinitive He likes to talk.

without
subject - ing participle He likes talking.
non-finite to- infinitive He wants her to come.
clause ininitive bare infinitive He saw her come.
object with -ing participle He saw her coming.
subject participle -ed participle He found the seals taken.

2.3.2. Complex transitive complementation

When a clause as object in a monontransitive sentence (a) is a non-finite or verbless and
(b) has its subject expressed, this subject behaves as though it alone were the direct object
of the superordinate verb; it can therefore be the subject in a passive transformation.
Compare (1a) and (2a) with (1b) and (2b):

(1a) Everyone expected that May would let him go.

 That May would let him go was expected by everyone.
Not: May was expected (by everyone) would let him go.

73
(1b) Everyone expected May to let him go.
 May was expected (by everyone)to let him go .
Not: May to let him go was expected (by everyone).

(2a) John thought that Mary was exeptionally clever.

(2b) John thought Mary exeptionally clever.
 Mary was thought exeptionally clever.

It is this divisibility of an essentially clausal object that is the outstanding characteristic

of complex transitive complementation.

A complex transitive verb takes a Direct Object (Od) and either an Object Complement
(Co) or an Adverbial, and therefore can be used in the following sentence structures:
S - V - Od - Co
She made me angry.
They elected him President of the Club.
They painted the house white.
S - V - Od - A
In this structure, the Od is usually a NP. The A can be:
• A= Adverb phrase
She led usupstairs.
I put my baghere.
• A = Prepositional phrase
Shekeepsher savingsunder her pillow.
Sheputthe bookson the table.
• A = finite clause
You can put itwherever you like.

2.3.3. Ditransitive complementation

A ditransitive verb takes two objects: a Direct Object (Od) and an Indirect Object (Oi),
and can be used in the sentence structure:
S - V - Oi - Od
He / gave / the girl / a doll.
S V Oi Od
She / made / me / a cup of coffee.
S V Oi Od
Indirect objects can be omitted without affecting the meaning or function of the rest of
the sentence:
He gave the girl a doll ~ He gave a doll.
S V Oi Od S V Od
He bought the girl a while hat ~ He bought a white hat
S V Oi Od S V Od

74
Indirect objects can usually be replaced by a corresponding prepositional phrase (Prep.
P), which normally follows the direct object:
He gave a doll to the girl.
S V Od P.P
He bought a white hat for the girl.
S V Od P.P
Some common verbs which allow the indirect object to be replaced by a prepositional
phrase: Ask (a question) of John, bring to, do (a favour) for, find for, give to, leave for/to,
lend to, offer to, owe to, pay for, read to, show to, teach to, tell to, throw to……….

75
 LECTURE 7
ADJECTIVES AND ADVERBS

1. Syntactic functions of adjectives

1.1. Attributive and predicative
The major syntactic functions of adjectives are attributive and predicative.
• Adjectives are attributive when they premodify nouns: appear between the
determiner and the head of the noun phrase:
the beautiful picture
its main functions
• Predicative adjectives can be:
(a) subject complement:
Your book is interesting.
- Adjectives can be complement to a subject which is a finite clause:
Whether he will resign is uncertain.
Or a non-finite clause:
Driving a car isn’t easy.
(b) object complement:
She made me angry.
- Adjectives can be object complement to clauses:
I consider what he did foolish.
- The adjective funtioning as object complement often expresses the result of the
process denoted by the verb:
He pulled his belt tight. (As a result, his belt was then tight)
She pushed the window open.(As a result, the window was then open)

1.2. Postpositive
Adjectives can sometimes be postpositive (they can sometimes follow the item they
modify):
The people present are laudable.
- Indefinite pronouns ending in -body, -one, -thing, -where can be modified only
postpositively:
I want to try on something larger.
- Some examples of postpositive adjectives: the president elect, the City of London
proper, the people involved, the house ablaze, the stars visible…………..

Note:
- Some postposed adjectives, especially those ending in -able or -ible, retain the basic
meaning they have in attributive position but some have a different sense.

1.3. Head of a noun phrase

76
 - Adjectives can often function as heads of noun phrases. Adjectives functioning as
noun phrase heads generally require a definite determiner:
The extremely old need a great deal of attention.
The rich will help only the humble poor.
(They can be without a determiner if they are conjoined: He is acceptable to both old
and young.)
- Some adjectives denoting nationalities can be noun-phrase heads:
The Irish (who live) in America retain sentimental links with Ireland.
The industrious Dutch are admired by their neighbours.
- Some adjectives can function as noun-phrase heads when they have abstract
reference:
The latest (the latest news / thing) is that he is going to run for election.
The very best (the very best part / thing) is yet to come.

1.4. Verbless adjective clause

An adjective (alone or head of an adjective phrase) can funtion as a verbless clause. It is
usually precedes or follows the subject of the superordinate clause:
Nervous, the man opened the letter.
The man opened the letter, nervous.
- The implied subject is usually the subject of the sentence:
The man restrained the woman, who was aggressive.
Not: The man restrained the woman, aggressive.
- The implied subject of the adjective clause can be the whole of the superordinate
clause:
Strange, it was she who initiated divorce proceedings.
(It is semantically equivalent to: That it was she who initiated divorce proceedings is
strange)

1.5. Contingent adjective clause

- A contingent adjective clause expresses the circumstance or condition under which
what is said in the superordinate clause applies. A subordinator is often present but can be
omitted:
Enthusiastic, they make good students ~ When enthusiastic, they make
good students.
When ripe, these apples are sweet.
- The implied subject of the contingent adjective clause is normally the subject of the
superordinate clause, but it can also be the object:
We can drink it hot.
You must eat it when fresh.
- The implied subject can be the whole of the superordinate clause:
If (it is) possible, the dog should be washed every day.

2. Semantic sub-classification of adjectives

2.1. Attribute only
77
In general, adjective that are restricted to attributive position or that occur predominantly
in attributive position do not characterize the referent of the noun directly. For example:
An old friend ( one who has been a friend for a long period of time)
An old friend does not imply that the person is old so we can not relate my old friend to
my friend is old. Old refers to the friendship and does not characterize the person. In that
use, old is attributive only.

2.2. Intensifying adjectives

They do not carry much meaning of their own, they intensify the meaning of the noun.
Two semantic subclasses of intensifying adjectives can be distinguished for our present
purpose: emphasizers and amplifiers.
Emphasizers are attributive only:
a certain (sure) winner
a real (undoubted) hero
Amplifiers are central adjectives when they are inherent:
A complete victory ~ The victory was complete
Those are real flowers ~ Those flowers are real
Their extreme condemnation ~ Their condemnation was extreme
But when they are non-inherent, they are attributive only:
a complete fool
a perfect idiot
Other examples of amplifiers that are attributive only:
a close friend utter folly a strong opponent
his entire salary the very end a great supporter

2.3. Limiter adjectives

They limit the hearer’s/ reader’s attention to the noun phrase that follows and exclude
other possibilities:
the main reason the precise reason
the onlyaccasion the same student
Some of these have homonyms. For example, certain in a certain person is a limiter (a
particular person), while in a certain winner it is an intensifier (a sure winner).

2.4. Related to adverbials

Other adjectives that are attributive only can be related to adverbials. These non-inherent
adjectives include:
my former friend ~ formerly my friend
an occasional visitor ~ occasionally a visitor
Some require implications additional to the adverbial:
the late president ~ till lately the president
If the adjectives premodify agentive nouns, the latter suggest as well a relationship to the
verb base:
a hard worker ~ a worker who works hard
Some refer to the process part of the noun’s meaning:
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 an excellent pianist ~ a pianist who plays the piano excellently
The implied process can be associated with an inanimate object:
a fast car ~ a car that one drives fast
2.5. Downtoner adjectives
They downplay the meaning of the noun (also known as hedged):
Sort of / kind of / rather an idiot

2.6. Denominal adjectives

Some adjectives derived from nouns are attributive only:
criminal law ~ law concerning crime
an atomic scientist ~a scientist specializing in atomic science
a medical school ~ a school for students of medicine

2.7. Predicative only

Adjectives that are restricted to predicative position are most like verbs and adverbs.
They tend to a condition rather than to characterize. Perhaps the most common are those
referring to health or lack of health: faint, ill, well, unwell. However, some people use ill
and unwell as attributives too.
A large group comprises adjectives that can or must take complementation : afraid (that,
of, about); conscious (that, of); fond (of); loath (to)

3. Semantic sets and adjectival order

Semantic sets have been proposed to account for the usual order of adjectives and for
their co-occurrence:
(a) intensifying adjevtives: a real hero, a perfect idiot…………
(b) postdeterminers and limiter adjectives: the fourth student, the only
occasion………
(c) general adjectives susceptible to subjective measure: careful, naughty,
lovely……..
(d) general adjectives susceptible to objective measure, including those denoting
size or shape: wealthy,
large, square………..
(e) adjectives denoting age: young, old, new…………
(f) adjectives denoting colour: red, black………….
(g) denominal adjectives denoting material: a woollenscrarf, a metallic substance,
and denoting resemblance to a material: metallic voice, silken hair……….
(h) denominal adjectives denoting provenance or style: a Bristish ship, a Parisian
dress………..

4. Characteristics of the adverb

There are two types of syntactic fuction that characterize adverbs (but an adverb needs
have only one of these):
• adverbial
• modifier of adjective and adverb
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4.1. Adverb as adverbial
Three classes of adverbials are: adjuncts, disjuncts and conjuncts
- Adjuncts are integrated within the structure of the clause and modify a verb in a verb
phrase:
They are waiting outside.
He spoke to me about it briefly.
- Disjuncts and conjuncts, on the other hand, are not integrated within the clause.
- Semantically, disjuncts express an evaluation of what is being said either with respect to
the form of the communication or to its content:
Frankly, I am tired.
Fortunately, no one complained.
- Semantically, conjuncts have a connective function. They indicate the connection
between what is being said and what was said before:
We have complained several times about the noise, and yet he does nothing about
it.
If they open all the windows, then I’m leaving.
4.2. Adverb as modifiers
- modifying the head of an adjective phrase:
He’s a somewhatshy young man.
That was a veryfunny film.
- modifying the head of an adverb phrase:
They are smoking veryheavily.
I’d recommend that you proceed verycautiously.
- modifying prepositional phrase:
The nail went rightthrough the wall.
His parents are deadagainst the trip.
- modifying determiner, predeterminer, postdeterminer:
She gave me almostthe largest piece of cake.
Nearlyeverybody came to our party.
Overtwo hundred deaths were reported.
- modifying noun phrase:
She told sucha funny story.
It is rathera big table
- modifying an entire clause:
Actually, many of the lifeboats had been removed.
4.3. Adverb as complement of preposition
Some place and time adverbs function as complement of a preposition.
- The place adverbs, here and there take the most prepositions: along, around, down,
from, in, near, on, out (of), over, round, through, under, up.
-Time adverbs most commonly functioning as complement of prepositions are shown in
the diagram:

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 PREPOSITIONS ADVERBS

lately
Since recently

then
today
till
yesterday
until

now
tomorrow
after tonight
before
by
from after
afterwards
later

for always
ever
once

5. Correspondence between adjective and adverb

Adverbs are regularly (not invariably), derived from adjectives by suffixation. In
addition, a correspondence often exists between constructions containing adjectives and
those containing the corresponding adverbs. The simplest illustration is with adverbs
equivalent to prepositional phrases containing a noun phrase with the corresponding
adjective:
He liked Mary considerably.
~ He liked Mary to a considerable extent.
He spoke to John sharply
~ He spoke to John in a sharp manner.
Politically, it is a bad decision.
~ From the political point of view, it is a bad decision.
Sometimes, either the adjective or the adverb forms may appear, with little or no
semantic difference. But normally, the adjective and its corresponding adverb apppear in
different environments:
Her incredible beauty: her beauty is incredible ~ she is incredibly beautiful.
There are many cases where a construction with the adverb form seems basic to an
understanding of the corresponding construction with the adjective form.
• There are regular correspondences between sentences with an adverb and noun phrases
with an adjective:
He loved her deeply ~ his deep love for her
81
 He write legibly ~ his legible writing
• The adjective-noun sequence may imply a process or a time relationship, with a
correspoding noun phrase containing an adverb. For example, in the second of the
following two interpretations of a beautiful dancer, the adjective refers to the process part
of agentive noun:
(a) a dancer who is beautiful
(b) a person who dances beautifully
• Most intensifying adjectives can be seen as related to adverbs:
a real idiot ~ he is really an idiot
• Many limiter adjectives can be seen as related to adverbs:
the main reason ~ it was mainly the reason

6. Comparison
6.1. There are three degrees of comparison:
ABSOLUTE: young / easily
COMPARATIVE: younger / more easily
SUPERLATIVE: youngest / most easily
The comparative is used for a comparison between two , and the superlative where more
than two are involved. The superlative is sometimes used for a comparison between two:
He is the youngest of the two brothers.
Comparison is expressed by:
• the inflected forms in -er and -est
• their periphrastic equivalents in more and most
• the forms for equational, lesser and least degrees of comparison, notably as, less,
least.

6.2. Inflection of adjectives for comparison

• The inflectinal suffixes are -er for the comparative and -est for the superlative: young -
younger - youngest
• A small group of highly frequent adjectives have their corresponding comparatives and
superlatives formed from different stems:
good-better-best
bad-worse-worst
far-further/farther-furthest/farthest
• Old is regularly inflected as older, oldest, but in a specialized use, restricted to human
beings in family relationships, the irregular forms: elder, eldest are normally substituted,
but only attributively or as noun phrase head:
My elder / eldest brother is an artist.
Not: my brother is elder than I am.
• The regular inflections sometimes involve changes in spelling :
- Final base consonants are doubled when the preceding vowel is stressed and spelled
with a single letter:
big-bigger-biggest
- In bases ending in a consonant +y, final y is changed to i:
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 early-earlier-earliest
-Final -e is dropped before the inflections:
brave-braver-bravest
• Monosyllabic adjectives can normally form their comparison by inflection. Though like
most monosyllabic adjectives disyllabic adjectives have alternative of the periphrastic
forms:

My jokes are funnier/ funniest

more funny/ most funny
• Common disyllabic adjectives that can take inflected forms are those ending in an
unstressed vowel:
(a) -y: funny, noisy, wealthy, friendly
(b) -ow: hollow, narrow, shallow
(c) -le: gentle, feeble, noble
(d) -er, -ure: clever, mature, obscure
• Common adjectives outside these four categories that can take inflectional forms
include: common, handsome, polite, quiet, wicked.

6.3. Inflection of adverbs for comparison

• For small number of adverbs, the inflected forms used for comparison are the same as
those for adjectives.
• There is a small group with comparatives and superlatives formed from different stems:
well-better-best badly-worse-worst
little-less-least much-more-most
far-further/farther-furthest/farthest

6.4. Modification of comparatives and superlatives

The comparatives of both adjectives and adverbs can themselves be pre-modified by
amplifying intensifiers- certain noun phrases and adverbs:

(that)
(so) (very) Much better
(all) the sooner
far more careful
a good bit/ a lot less carefully
a good deal/ a great deal
lost
Similarly, many downtoners may premodify the comparatives:

ratherbetter
somewhatsooner
a littlemorecareful
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a (little) bitlesscarefully
The inflectional superlative may be premodified by very: the very best. If
verypremodifies the superlative, a determiner is obligatory, for example: She put on her
very best dress. Comparatives and superlatives can also be postmodified by intensifying
phrases, the most common of which is by far, eg: He is funnier / funniest by far.

84
 LECTURE 8
PREPOSITIONS AND PREPOSITIONAL PHRASES

1. Simple and complex prepositions

A notable feature of the English language is the extremely wide lexico-grammatical use it
makes of prepositions. And where there is a preposition there is a PP, since prepositions
cannot normally stand alone, although they can be separated from their complement by
‘stranding’.
1.1 Prepositions
 List of Common Prepositions
The following table lists the most commonly used prepositions in English.

about above across after against along among around

at before behind below beneath beside between beyond
but by despite down during except for from
in inside into like near off of on
onto out outside over past since through throughout
till to toward under underneath until up upon
with within without          

Prepositions may be ‘simple’ (consisting of a single word) or ‘complex’ (consisting of

two words or three).

* One-word prepositions
The short, simple forms are by far the commonest, such as:
about, across, after, around, as, at, by, down, for, from, in, like, near, of, off, on, round,
to, towards, with, without
Other one-word prepositions include:
above, against, beneath, besides, below; during, inside, throughout; considering,
regarding; given, granted; opposite; despite; than

* Two-word prepositions
These consist of a preposition (e.g. except), an adjective (e.g. contrary), an adverb (e.g.
instead) or a conjunction (e.g. because), followed by one of the prepositions for, from, of,
to, with:
+ for: as for, except for, but for

85
+ from: apart from, away from, as from+ of: ahead of, because of, inclusive of, instead
of, regardless of, out of + to: according to, as to, close to, contrary to, due to, next to, on
to, near to; on to, owing to, thanks to, up to
+ with: together with, along with
In most two-word prepositions, the meaning is expressed by the first word, the second
serving to link it to the complement:
according to my information; because of what I said
The forms into and onto can be considered as merged forms, consisting of an adverb (in,
on) merged with a preposition to. Some other one-word prepositions were once two
words: upon, without, throughout among others.

* Three-word prepositions
These usually have the form prep + noun + prep (e.g. in conflict with), with the noun
sometimes being determined by the (e.g. in the hands of). The first preposition is virtually
limited to in, on, by, at, for, with, and the second to of, with, for and to. Two other
combinations in common use have an adverb between two occurrences of as: as far as,
as well as.
as far as, as well as, by means of, by way of, in aid of, in charge of, in view of, in return
for, in exchange for, in spite of, in contact with, on top of, on the part of, at the hands of,
with regard to, with reference to

* Four-word prepositions
All these have the form prep + a/ the + noun + of (e.g. as a result of, at the expense of,
on the part of, with the exception of ).
Sometimes the noun of a complex preposition may be modified by an adjective, as in
with the surprising exception of Tom; in close contact with you.

* The grammatical roles of prepositions

The grammatical role of prepositions is to express a variety of syntactic and semantic
relationships between nominal entities and
• other nominals (the bridge over the river),
• verbs (he ran into the room),
• clauses (support for raising the subscription),
• adjectives (angry at his refusal),
• adverbs (up to the top).

* Formal Functions of Prepositions

Prepositions perform three formal functions in sentences. They can act as an adjective
modifying a noun, as an adverb modifying a verb, or as a nominal when used in
conjunction with the verb form to be.
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* Prepositions Functioning as Adjectives
In the following sentences, prepositional phrases perform the function of modifying the
nouns boat, pen, and car:
Look at the boat with the blue sail.
Please hand me the pen next to the telephone.
Park the car beside the fence.

* Prepositions Functioning as Adverbs

In these examples, notice how the prepositional phrases perform adverbial functions by
modifying the verbs after, stalled, and won:
The coyote runs after the rabbit.
The car stalled despite the tune-up.
The team won without the starting quarterback.

* Prepositions Functioning as Nominals

In English, sometimes words function as nouns but aren't themselves nouns. These words
are called nominals. Prepositions sometimes perform this important function in sentences
when they are used in conjunction with the verb to be. For example:
The park is next to the hospital.
The student is between an A and a B.
The fight scene is before the second act.
 PREPOSITIONAL MEANINGS -- PLACE
 PREPOSITIONAL MEANINGS -- TIME
 PREPOSITIONAL PHRASE CHIEFLY AS ADJUNCT
 PREPOSITIONAL PHRASE CHIEFLY AS POSTMODIFIER
 PREPOSITIONAL PHRASE CHIEFLY AS DISJUNCT OR CONJUNCT
 PREPOSITIONAL PHRASE CHIEFLY AS COMPLEMENTATION OF VERB OR
ADJ
 MODIFICATION OF PREPOSITIONAL PHRASES

1.2 Prepositional Phrases

Prepositional phrases modify nouns and verbs while indicating various relationships
between subjects and verbs. They are used to color and inform sentences in powerful
ways.
The prepositional phrase normally functions as:
• an element of clause structure, for example as Adjunct (e.g. I decided to become a
writer precisely for that reason); or
87
• as a unit embedded in classes of groups, for example as post-modifier of a noun (e.g.
the girl at the cash desk) or as complement of an adjective (e.g. delighted at your
success).
PPs are frequently embedded in other structures, including other PPs:
On top of [the cupboard [[in your office]]
In [an envelope [under the letters [in the drawer]]]
Obsessed [with being kind [to animals]]
The sequence prep + NG + prep + NG may sometimes be structurally ambiguous. For
instance, ‘near the bar on the corner’ can represent the following two structures which
express different meanings:
- a simple preposition + complement, which contains another PP as post-modifier:
near [the bar on the corner] (on the corner is in the NG headed by ‘bar’)
- two independent PPs, functioning as two adjuncts, which might be reversed in order:
near [the bar] + [on the corner]
on [the corner] + near [the bar]
The preposition is often stranded to the end of a clause and is separated from the nominal.
Stranding is typical of spoken English, while the non-stranded counterparts are very
formal:
What’s this about? (‘What’ functions as complement of about: about what?)
Which book are you referring to? (To which book are you referring?)
The meanings of prepositions are either lexical and ‘free’, or grammaticisedand
‘bound’. Grammaticised uses of prepositions are those which are controlled by a verb,
adjective or noun, as happens in obsessed with, talk to us, kind to animals, cases of
cruelty. Lexical prepositional meanings are those freely chosen according to the speaker’s
communicative intention (in this country, all over our carpet and sofa).

1.3 What are the Parts of a Prepositional Phrase?

In simplest terms, prepositional phrases consist of a preposition and an object of a
preposition. Prepositions are indeclinable words that introduce the object of a
prepositional phrase. Indeclinable words are words that have only one possible form. For
example, below is a preposition, but belows or belowing are not possible forms of below.
The noun phrase or pronoun that follows the preposition is called the object of the
preposition. For example, behind the couch is a prepositional phrase where behind is the
preposition and the noun phrase the couch acts as the object of the preposition.
Sometimes adjectives are used to further modify the object of the preposition, as in
behind the big old smelly green couch.
Nouns, adjectives and adverbs each function as head of their respective groups. In AdjGs,
AdvGs and NGs, the ‘head’ is the main element, to which the other elements, when
present, are subordinate. For this reason, the head element - a noun, an adjective or an
adverb - can be used alone, without other elements, potentially in representation of the
whole group. Structures of this kind centre on the head.
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 In a prepositional phrase (PP), the relation between the preposition and the nominal unit
that follows it (e.g. under the bed, from home) does not centre on a head. A preposition
cannot normally occur without a nominal unit, and a nominal unit is not part of a PP if
there is no preposition. Both are equally necessary to form the phrase; both have equal
grammatical status. For this reason we refer to the unit consisting of a preposition, its
complement and an optional modifier as a ‘prepositional phrase’ (PP).
The internal structure of PPs consists of a preposition and its complement, both of which
are obligatory, and an optional modifier. Not all PPs contain a modifier but all of them
contain a preposition and a complement. The modifier typically intensifies the
preposition by adding something semantically specific to the sense of the preposition,
such as exactness and immediacy in the case of right, together with completion (right
into the policeman’s arms) or exclusiveness (only by concentrating hard).

2. Syntactic functions of prepositional phrases

PPs can realise up to fourteen syntactic functions as constituents of groups, of clauses or
outside clauses. They share the functions with other classes of unit and are therefore
mentioned again in the sections below.

* PPs embedded as elements of groups

- (Post-)modifier in NG A bridge over the river, apricots on the tree.
- Complement in NG He is a teacher of French literature.
- (Pre-)modifier in NG Off-the-record comments should not be printed in a newspaper.
- Complement in AdjG My son is brilliant at mathematics.
- Complement in AdvG They don’t live far from here.
- Complement in PP I’m free all day except on Mondays.

An important feature of PPs is their ability to be embedded recursively in other PPs or in

groups. In other words, one unit is embedded in another, which is embedded in another,
and so on as in:
A car accident [on the motorway [to Yorkshire].

* PPs as elements of clauses

Prepositional phrases can realise every element of clause structure except the predicator.
However, their use in the central functions of subject and object is marginal, and is
normally restricted to expressions of place or time.
- Subject After dark is the only good time for fireworks.
- Direct Object I don’t consider next to a railway line a good place to live.
Some verbs are closely related to a specific preposition and take a prepositional object
- Prepositional Object Someone has been tampering with the scanner.

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Prepositional phrases are used freely as Complements of the subject or the object to
express temporary states, where they are often interchangeable with adjectives. Even
more commonly, they occur after verbs of position or movement to specify place or
direction (Locative/ Goal Complement):
- Subject Complement Monica must be out of her mind to reject such an interesting
offer. (Monica must be mad.)
- Object Complement His illness left him without a job. (His illness left him jobless.)
- Locative/Goal Complement The train to London is now standing at the platform and
the high-speed train from York is drawing into the station.
Prepositional phrases are also commonly used to realise the three main types of adjunct:
circumstantial, stance and connective.

*As circumstantial adjuncts

In this function they typically occur in either final or initial position:
- final position All this happened long before the war.
- initial position Behind us, we saw that the queue on the motorway stretched for miles.

*As stance adjuncts

Like some other classes of units - mainly adverbs, AdvGs and clauses - certain PPs can
function syntactically as Stance Adjuncts, that is to say outside clause structures, to
express a comment on-or an attitude to-the form or content of a whole clause. They then
have the status of supplementives:
In all honesty, I don’t believe a word he said.
By all means, do whatever you think best.
Although we regard Stance Adjuncts here as syntactically outside clause structure, from a
semantic and psychological point of view they are part of the thematic organisation of the
discourse surrounding the clause. In other words, the clause itself is not the domain of
Theme, but rather the clause plus any supplementive attached to it.
*As connective adjuncts
Prepositional phrases can also be used as connective Adjuncts to link clauses, or groups
and words within clauses:
A. I’m leaving now. B. In that case, I’ll go too.
Of these syntactic functions, by far the commonest are adjuncts of various kinds and
Locative/Goal Complements in clauses, together with modifiers in group structures.

3. Internal structure of prepositional phrases

90
Nouns, adjectives and adverbs each function as head of their respective groups. In AdjGs,
AdvGs and NGs, the ‘head’ is the main element, to which the other elements, when
present, are subordinate. For this reason, the head element - a noun, an adjective or an
adverb - can be used alone, without other elements, potentially in representation of the
whole group. Structures of this kind centre on the head.
In a prepositional phrase (PP), the relation between the preposition and the nominal unit
that follows it (e.g. under the bed, from home) does not centre on a head. A preposition
cannot normally occur without a nominal unit, and a nominal unit is not part of a PP if
there is no preposition. Both are equally necessary to form the phrase; both have equal
grammatical status. For this reason we refer to the unit consisting of a preposition, its
complement and an optional modifier as a ‘prepositional phrase’ (PP).
The internal structure of PPs consists of a preposition and its complement, both of which
are obligatory, and an optional modifier.
Not all PPs contain a modifier but all of them contain a preposition and a complement.
The modifier typically intensifies the preposition by adding something semantically
specific to the sense of the preposition, such as exactness and immediacy in the case of
right, together with completion (right into the policeman’s arms) rexclusiveness (only by
concentrating hard).

4. Realization of the complement element

The complement element of a PP is most typically realised by a nominal group, but it
may also be realised by the classes of groups and clauses shown below. Simple nouns and
pronouns, adjectives and adverbs are treated as ‘groups’ represented by the head:
 NGs: at home after which on account of his age
 AdjGs: in private at last for good
 AdvGs: for ever since when until quite recently
 PPs: except in here from out of the forest
 fin. wh-cl: Have you decided about when you’re leaving?
 wh+ to-inf. cl: Have you any problems apart from where to stay?
 -ingcl: The miners charge the employers with ignoring theirclaims.
The following restrictions exist on the realisation of complements:

Adjectival and adverbial groups

Nouns, pronouns and NGs are by far the most common realisation of the prepositional
complement. By contrast, the use of AdjGs and AdvGs as complements is infrequent and
limited to certain set expressions such as at last, for good, for ever, as in:
At last I’m free!
the family left Irelandfor good and made its future in England.
I could stay here for ever, it’s so beautiful.
Wh-clauses
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English prepositions are not followed by that-clauses. The only type of finite clause
admissible is the wh-clause, and the only non-finite type the -ingclause. To-infinitive
clauses are not admissible either, except when introduced by a wh-item. Combinations 1a
and 2a (below), therefore, are not acceptable. An -ingclause can often provide an
acceptable alternative, as in 1b and 2b:
1a *I was pleased about (that) Pat won the prize.
1b I was pleased about Pat winning the prize.
2a *We were annoyed at not to get any news from you.
2b We were annoyed at not getting any news from you.
One must be careful to distinguish to-infinitive clauses from the preposition to, which can
take an -ingclause, as in the first example below. Most other prepositions likewise take
the -ingform, as this is the most nominal among clauses:
He devoted his career to helping needy and deprived children.

92
 LECTURE 9
THE SIMPLE SENTENCE

1. Definition
A simple sentence is a single clause with a subject and a verb.
(1) Mary sneezed. • Somebody coughed. • The train didn't come. • People were waiting.

Simple sentences can also have an object (2) and/or an adverbial, such as an adverb (3) or
a prepositional phrase (4).
(2) Mr Owen made lunch. • I brought some cakes. • We drank tea. • Everyone enjoyed it.
(3) Suddenly the weather changed. • We quickly closed the windows. • It often rains
there.
(4) Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway in 1582. He moved to London in 1588.

Simple sentences with linking verbs, such as be or look, have complements that describe
the subject.
(5) Cathy is a nurse. • She wasn't ready. • Her hair looked wet. • The room felt like an
oven.

2. Clause types
Concentrating on those elements that are normally obligatory; we can usefully distinguish
seven clause types which we may designate in italics with the abbreviations:
(1) SVA S Vintens Aplace
Mary is in the house.
(2) SVC S Vintens Cs
Mary is kind.
a nurse
(3) SVO S Vmonotrans Od
Sombody caught the ball.
(4) SVOA S Vcomplex trans Od Aplace
I put the plate on the table.
(5) SVOC S Vcomplex trans Od Co
We have proved him wrong.
a fool.
(6) SVOO S Vditrans Oi Od
She gives me expensive presents.
(7) SV S Vintrans
The child laughed.

2.1 Optional adverbials

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The patterns of 2 can be expanded by the addition of various optional adverbials.. For
example (optional adverbials are bracketed):
SV: (A) S V (A)
(Sometimes) she sings (beautifully)
SVA: (A) S V (A) A
(In American) most students are (now) on vacation
SVOO: S (A) V O O
She (kindly) sent us some photographs

2.2 Transformational relations

One way of distinguishing the various clause types is by means of 'transformational'
relations, or relations of grammatical paraphrase.
Clauses containing a noun phrase as object are distinguished by their ability to be
converted into passive clauses, the object noun phrase assuming the function of subject
(Vpass = passive verb phrase), the subject appearing (if at all) in an optional by-phrase,
symbolized here as [A]:
Many critics disliked the play (S V O d) ↔The play was disliked (by many critics) (S V pass
[A])
Where the passive draws more attention to the result than to the action or agency, the
'resulting' copula get frequently replaces be, though chiefly in rather informal usage:
The window was broken by my younger son.
I know how the window got broken.
A more gradually achieved result can be sometimes expressed by become:
With the passage of time, the furniture became covered in dust.
The following examples illustrate the passive with other clause types:
Queen Victoria considered him a genius (S VOdCo)
↔ He was considered a genius by Queen Victoria (S Vpass Cs [A])
An intruder must have placed the ladder there (S V OdAloc
↔ The ladder must have been placed there by an intruder (S VpassAloc [A] )
My father gave me this watch (S V Oi Od)
↔ I was given this watch by my father (S VpassOd[A] )
This watch was given me by my father (S Vpass Oi [A] )
As Type SVOO clauses have two objects, they often have two passive forms, as shown
above - one in which the direct object becomes subject, and another (more common) in
which the indirect object becomes subject.
There is sometimes equivalence between Types SV, SVC, and SVA as is shown by
occasional equivalences of the following kind:
SV↔SVCs
The baby is sleeping ↔ The baby is asleep
Two loaves will suffice ↔ Two loaves will be sufficient
SV↔SVA
He hurried ↔ He went fast
SVCs↔SVA
He is jobless ↔ He is without a job
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On the whole, English prefers to avoid the plain SV pattern where alternatives are
available.

2.3 Intensive relationship

An SVOC clause is often equivalent to a clause with an infinitive or that-clause:
I imagined her beautiful ↔ I imagined her to be beautiful
I imagined that she was beautiful

This equivalence shows that the O and the C of an SVOC clause are in the same relation
to one another as the S and C of an SVC clause. The relation is expressed, wherever it is
expressed at all, by an intensive verb. The intensive relationship is important in other
aspects of grammar apart from clause patterns. It underlies, for example, relations of
apposition.
Further, we may extend the concept of intensive relationship to the relation of subject to
adverbial and object to adverbial in SVA and SVOA patterns respectively. (For SVOA
patterns).
SVOO clauses can be transformed into SVOA clauses by the substitution of a
prepositional phrase for the indirect object, with a change of order :
She sent Jim a card ↔ She sent a card to Jim
She left Jim a card ↔ She left a card for Jim
To and for, in their recipient senses, are the prepositions chiefly involved, but others, such
as with and of, are occasionally found:
I’ll play you a game of chess ↔ I’ll play a game of chess with/against you
She asked Jim a favour↔ She asked a favour of Jim

2.4 Multiple class membership of verbs

It must be borne in mind that one verb can belong, in various senses, to a number of
different classes, and hence enter into a number of different clause types. The verb get is
a particularly versatile one, being excluded only from Type SV(and not even from this
universally):
SVC:He's getting angry
SVA:He got through the window
SVO:He'll get a surprise
SVOC:He got his shoes and socks wet
SVOA:He got himself into trouble
SVOO:He got her a splendid present
Through the multiple class membership of verbs, ambiguities can arise: I found her an
entertaining partner, like She called him a steward, could be interpreted either as
SVOCor as SVOO.
3. Clause elements syntactically defined
3.1. A SUBJECT
(a) is normally a noun phrase or a clause with nominal function:
His shoes were made in Italy.
What he wants does not matter to me.
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(b) occurs before the verb phrase in declarative clauses, and immediately after
the operator in questions:
The book comes in all sizes.
Will there be some more chances?
(c) has number and person concord, where applicable, with the verb phrase:
He goes to school in the morning.

3.2. An OBJECT (direct or indirect)

(a) like a subject, is a noun phrase or clause with nominal function:
They take their daughter to France every year.
He does whatever he wants.
(b) normally follows the subject and the verb phrase:
Somebody caught the ball.
(c) by the passive transformation, assumes the status of subject
The book was already bought by the King.

3.3 An INDIRECT OBJECT

An indirect object, where both objects are present, precedes the DIRECT OBJECT
(except in rare instances like BrEGive it me), and is semantically equivalent to a
prepositional phrase :
He had given the girl (Oi) an apple (Od).

3.4 A COMPLEMENT (subject or object)

(a) is a noun phrase, an adjective phrase, or a clause with nominal function,
having a co-referential relation with the subject (or object);
The room is for sale.
They are looking for what is likely to happen.
(b) follows the subject, or verb phrase :
The book on marketing was written by John.

3.5 An ADVERBIAL
(a) is an adverb phrase, adverbial clause, noun phrase, or prepositional phrase;
He often goes out in the evening.
(b) is generally mobile, ieis capable of occurring in more than one position in
the clause;
Quite often he flies to Thailand
He flies to Thailandquite often.
He quite often flies to Thailand.
(c) is generally optional, iemay be added to or removed from a sentence without
affecting its acceptability.
He completed his job ahead of time.
He completed his job.

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4. Clause elements semantically considered
4.1. Agentive
The most typical semantic role of a subject is AGENTIVE: that is, the animate being
instigating or causing the happening denoted by the verb:
John opened the letter.
They elected him president.

4.2. Instrumental subject

Apart from its agentive function, the subject frequently has an instrumental role; that is, it
expresses the unwitting (generally inanimate) material cause of an event:
The avalanche destroyed several houses.
This key opened every door.

4.3. Affecte
With intransitive verbs, the subject also frequently has the AFFECTED role that is
elsewhere typical of the object:
Jack fell down.
The door opened.

4.4. Recipient subject

The subject may also have a recipient role with verbs such as have, own, possess, benefit
(from), as is indicated by the following relation:
The students benefit greatly from his teaching.
They have a new house.

4.5. Locative, temporal and eventive subjects

The subject may have the function of designating place or time:
This path is swarming with ants (= Ants are swarming all over this path)
The bus holds forty people (= Forty people can sit in the bus)
The winter of 1970 was exceptionally mild (= It was exceptionally mild in the winter of
1970)

4.6. Empty it subject

Finally, a subject may lack semantic content altogether, and consist only of the
meaningless 'prop' word it, used especially with climatic predications:
It's raining/snowing, etc It's getting dark It's noisy in here

4.7. Subject complement

The role of the subject complement is that of attribute of the subject, whether a current or
existing attribute (with stative verbs) or one resulting from the event described by the
verb (with dynamic verbs).
CURRENT ATTRIBUTE: He's my brother, He seems unhappy.
RESULTING ATTRIBUTE: He became restless; He turned traitor

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4.8. Object complement
The role of the object complement is that of attribute of the object, again either a current
or resulting attribute:
CURRENT ATTRIBUTE: I ate the meat cold; I prefer coffee black
RESULTING ATTRIBUTE: They elected him President. He painted the wall blue.

- Direct object
The most typical function of the direct object is that of the AFFECTED participant; iea
participant (animate or inanimate) which does not cause the happening denoted by the
verb, but is directly involved in some other way:
The man opened the door and came in.
Many MPs criticized the Prime Minister.

- Effected object
An effected object is one that refers to something which exist only by virtue of the
activity indicated by the verb:
Baird invented television I’m writing a letter

- Locative object
Semantic type of direct object is the locative object. An example of the 'locative object'
is:
The horse jumped the fence ('... jumped over the fence')
There are similar uses of such verbs as turn, leave, reach, surround, penetrate, mount,
cross, climb.

- Affected indirect object

There is only one exception to the rule that the indirect object has the role of 'recipient':
this is when give (or sometimes related verbs like pay, owe) has an 'effected' object as
direct object and an 'affected' object as indirect object:
I paid her a visit (‘I visited her')
I gave the door a couple of kicks (‘I kicked the door a couple of times')
The most typical function of the indirect object is that of RECIPIENT: iean animate
participant being passively implicated by the happening or state:
I've found you a place
We bought him a nice car last summer

5. Concord
5.1. Subject-verb concord
The most important type of concord in English is concord of number between subject and
verb:
(1) The window is open
(sing + sing)
(2) The windows are open
(plur + plur)
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A clause in the position of subject counts as singular for purposes of concord: How they
got there doesn't concern me; To treat them as hostages is criminal. The same is true of
prepositional phrases, etc, acting as subject: After the exams is the time to relax, ect.
Nominal relative clauses on the other hand, since they are equivalent to noun phrases,
may have plural as well as singular concord: What were once human dwellings are now
nothing but piles of rubble.

5.2. Notional concord, and proximity

"Notional concord' is agreement of verb with subject according to the idea of number
rather than the actual presence of the grammatical market for that idea. Thus the
government is treated as plural in The government have broken all their promises (BrE),
as is shown not only by the plural verb have, but also by the pronoun their.
The principle of 'proximity' denotes agreement of the verb with whatever noun or
pronoun closely precedes it, sometimes in preference to agreement with the headword of
the subject:
No one except his own supporters agree with him
One in ten take drugs

5.3. Collective nouns

In BrE, collective nouns, notionally plural but grammatically singular, obey notional
concord in examples such as the following where AmE usually has the singular:
The public are tired of demonstrations. [1]
The audience were enjoying every minute of it. [2]
Although singular and plural verbs are more or less interchangeable in these contexts, the
choice is based, if on anything, on whether the group is being considered as a single
undivided body, or as a collection of individuals. Thus plural is more likely than singular
in [2], because consideration is being given to the individual reactions of members of the
audience. Contrastingly, singular has to be used in sentences like The audience was
enormous.

5.4. Coordinated subject

When a subject consists of two or more noun phrases coordinated by and, a distinction
has to be made between appositional and non-appositional coordination. Under NON-
APPOSITIONAL COORDINATION we include cases that can be treated as an implied
reduction of two clauses. These have a verb in the plural:
Tom and Mary are now ready (↔ Tom is now ready and Marry is now ready)
What I say and what I think are my own affair (↔What I say is... and what I think
is...).
A singular verb is used with conjoinings which represent a single entity:
The hammer and sickle was flying from a tall flag pole
Conjoinings expressing a mutual relationship, even though they can only indirectly be
treated as reductions of clauses in this way, also take a plural verb:
Your problem and mine are similar (↔ Your problem is similar to mine and mine
is similar to yours)

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With the less common APPOSITIONAL COORDINATION, however, no such reduction
is possible at all, for the coordinated structures refer to the same thing. Hence a singular
verb is used:
This temple of ugliness and memorial to Victorian bad taste was erected at the
Queen's express wish.
The two opening noun phrases here both refer to the same thing. The following example,
however, is ambiguous and could have either a singular or plural verb according as the
brother and editor are one person or two:
His younger brother and the subsequent editor of his collected papers was/were
with him at his death-bed
Some latitude is allowed in the interpretation of abstract nouns since it is not always easy
to decide if they represent one quality or two:
Your fairness and impartiality has/have been much appreciated.
A single noun head with coordinate modifiers may imply two separate sentences, with the
result that a plural verb may follow a singular non-count noun subject quite legitimately:
Good and bad taste are inculcated by example (↔ Good taste is... and bad taste is...)
A similar collapsing of coordinate subjects into a single structure is observed when the
subject is a clause:
What I say and think are no business of yours. (↔ What I say is... and what I think is...)
where the alternative with is would mean that which I say and think is no business of
yours.

Concord involving (either...) or is illustrated as follows:

Either the Mayor or his deputy is bound to come [1]
Either the strikers or the bosses have misunderstood [2]
Either your brakes or your eyesight is at fault [3]
Either your eyesight or your brakes are at fault [4]
No problem arises with [1] and [2], but with [3] there is divided usage, neithersingular
nor plural seeming right. So too: 'He asked whether one lecture or two?
was/?were to be given’. With [4], the principle of proximity intervenes and the plural
phrase determines the number of the verb.

5.5. Indefinite expressions of amount

Another area of ambivalence is that of indefinite and negative expressions of amount. For
example, in:
I've ordered the shrubs, but none (of them) have/has yet arrived
grammatical concord would suggest that none is singular, but notional concord (we might
paraphrase as 'they have not arrived') invites a plural verb. Has is therefore more
conventionally 'correct', but have is more idiomatic in speech. These comments may be
extended to neither and either as indefinite pronouns:
I sent cards to Mavis and Margery but neither (of them) has/have replied; in fact, I
doubt if either (of them) is/are coming.
If a prepositional phrase with a plural complement follows the indefinite construction, a
plural verb is favoured not only because of notional concord but because of the proximity
rule:
none of them are... either of the girls are...
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The same proximity principle may lead to plural concord even with the indefinites each,
every, everybody, anybody, and nobody, which are otherwise undoubtedly singular:
Nobody, not even the teachers, were listening.
Every member of that vast crowd of 50.000 people were pleased to see him.
Although these sentences might well be uttered in casual speech, or inadvertently written
down, most people would probably regard them as ungrammatical, because they flatly
contradict grammatical concord.
Other, more acceptable, instances of 'attraction' arise with singular nouns of kind and
quantity:
A large number of people have applied for the job.
Those kind/sort/type of parties are very enjoyable. (informal)
The latter illustrates an idiomatic anomaly: there is lack of number concord between the
noun and the determiner those, as well as with the verb. The awkwardness can be avoided
by rephrasing as Parties of that kind...

5.6. Concord of person

As well as concord of number, there is concord of person between subject and verb:
I am your friend. (1st PERSON SINGULAR CONCORD)
He is ready (3rd PERSON SINGULAR CONCORD)
He knows you
Following the principle of proximity, the last noun phrase of a coordinate subject (where
the coordinator is or, either... or, or neither., nor) determines the person of the verb:
Neither you, nor I, nor anyone else knows the answer.
Either my wife or I am going.
Because many people find such sentences unacceptable, they often prefer to use a modal
auxiliary, which is invariable for person, eg: Either my wife or I will be going.

5.7. Other types of concord

SUBJECT - COMPLEMENT CONCORD
Subject-complement concord of number (but not of person) exists between S and C in
clauses of type SVC; thus:
The child was an angel.
The children were angels.
This type of concord arises naturally from the denotative equivalence in the intensive
relationship. There are, however, exceptions:
What we need most is books.
They turned traitor. {but They became traitors.)
Good manners are a rarity these days.
There is an equivalent type of concord between object and object complement in SVOC
clauses; eg: He thinks these girls the best actors.

SUBJECT-OBJECT CONCORD
Subject-object concord of number, person, and gender is necessary, as well as subject-
complement concord, where the second element is a reflexive pronoun:
He injured himself in the leg.
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 You should give yourself another chance.
The same concord relation holds when the reflexive pronoun occurs in other functions
(eg as prepositional complement), or when the reflexive genitive his own, etc is used;
She 's making a sweater for herself.
They 're ruining their own chances.
In BrE, collective noun subjects permit plural concord: The navy congratulated
themselves on the victory.

PRONOUN CONCORD
Personal pronouns in the 3rd person agree with their antecedents both in number and
(with the singular pronouns he, she, and it) in gender:
John hurt his foot. John and Beatrice hurt their feet.
Beatrice hurt her foot. The climbers hurt their feet.
By contrast, John hurt her foot would mean that John hurt someone else's foot (the
someone else having been previously mentioned).
English has no sex-neutral 3rd person singular pronoun, and so the plural pronoun they is
often used informally, in defiance of number concord, as a substitute for the indefinite
pronouns everyone, everybody, someone, somebody, anyone, anybody, no one, nobody.
Everyone thinks they have the answer. [1]
Has anybody brought their camera? [2]
No one could have blamed themselves for that. [3]

6. Negation
6.1. Assertive forms
The negation of a simple sentence is accomplished by inserting not, n’t between the
operation and predication:
The attempt has succeeded. ~ The attempt has not succeeded.
We may win the match. ~ We may not win the match.
He is coming. ~ He isn't coming.
We have been defeated. ~ We have not been defeated.
In these instances, there is an item in the positive sentences that can serve as operator.
When this is not so, the auxiliary do is introduced and this, like modal auxiliaries, is
followed by the bare infinitive:
She sees me every week. ~ She doesn't see me every week.
They understood the problem. ~ They did not understand the problem.
Sentences with lexical be behave exactly as when beis auxiliary: She is a teacher ~ She
isn't a teacher. Lexical have usually has do as operator (though in BrE it often need not,
and informally got is often added):
He has enough money. He doesn' t have enough money. (espAmE)
He hasn' t (got) enough money. (espBrE)

6.2. Non-assertive forms

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There are numerous items that do not naturally occur outside negative, interrogative, and
conditional clauses; for example:
We haven't seen any soldiers.
These items (which may be determiners, pronouns, or adverbs) are the non-assertive
forms, and the following examples will illustrate their range:
We've had some (lunch) ~ He haven't had any (lunch)
I was speaking to someone ~ I wasn't speaking to anyone
I saw him somewhere ~ I didn't see him anywhere
She was somehow surprised ~ She wasn't in any way surprised
They sometimes visit us ~ They rarely/never/don't ever visit us
He helped to some extent ~ He didn't help at all
They've arrived already ~They haven't arrived yet
John is coming too ~ John isn't coming either
They ate too many (cakes) ~They didn't eat very many (cakes)
He's still there ~ He isn't there now/any longer
I tike ha a great deal ~ I don't like her much '
He's been a long way ~ He hasn't been far
She was away a long time ~ She wasn't away long
He saw one or other of them ~ He didn't see either (one, AmE) of them
In several of the negative sentences, the negative particle and the non-assertive form can
combine to produce a negative form (ever ~ never) or can be replaced by a negative form
(He hadn't anything - He had nothing).

6.3. Negative Intensification

There are various ways of giving emotive intensification to a negative. For example, by
any means and (informally) a bit an common alternatives to at all as non-assertive
expressions of extent Negative determiners and pronouns are given emphasis by at all,
whatever: I found nothing at all the matter with him: You have no excuse whatever.
Never is repeated for emphasis, or else combined with an intensifying phrase such as in
(all) his/her etc life: I'll never, never go there again; I've never in all my life seen such a
crowd. The combinations not one and not a (single) are emphatic alternatives to no as
determiner with a count noun.

6.4. Alternative negative elements

Instead of the verb, another element may be negated:
An honest man would not lie. I didn't see any birds.
No honest man would lie. I saw no birds.
The scope of negation is however frequently different, so that
Many people did not come.
does not mean the same as
Not many people came .('Few people came.')
When negative adjuncts are made initial there is inversion of subject and operator:
I will never make that mistake again.
Never again will I make that mistake. (formal)
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6.5. Morethan one non-assertive form
If a clause contains a negative element, it is usually negative from that point onward. This
means that the non-assertive forms must normally be used in place of every assertive
form that would have occurred in the corresponding positive clause:
I've never travelled anywhere by air yet.
I haven't ever been on any of the big liners, either.
No one has ever said anything to either of us.
Not many of the refugees have anywhere to live yet.
The non-assertive forms even occur in positive subordinate clauses following a negative
in the main clause:
Nobody has promised that any of you will be released yet.
That wouldn't deter anyone who had any courage.
Assertive forms, however, are equally likely in such cases; and more generally, assertive
forms do occur following a negative, so long as they fall outside the scope of negation.

6.6. Seldom, rarely, etc

There are several words which are negative in meaning, but not in appearance. They
include:
seldom and rarely
scarcely, hardly, barely
little and few (in contrast to the positive a little and a few)
only
They have the following similarities to the ordinary negative items:
(1) They are followed by non-assertive rather than assertive forms:
I seldom get any sleep.
I've spoken to hardly anyone who disagrees with me.
Few changes in government have ever taken so many people by surprise.
Only two of us had any experience at sailing.
(2) When in prc-subject position, some of them can cause subject-operator inversion:
Rarely does crime pay so well as Mr Jones seems to think.
Scarcely ever has the British nation suffered so much obloquy.
Little need I dwell upon the joy of that reunion.
The inversion, as before, is literary or rhetorical in tone.
(3) They are followed by positive rather than negative tag-questions:
She scarcely seems to care, does she?
In addition, there are verbs, adjectives, or prepositions with negative meaning that take
non-assertive forms:
He denies I ever told him. Without any delay.
1 forgot to ask for any change. Against any changes.
Unaware of any hostility.

6.7. Scope of negation

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A negative form may be said to govern (or determine the occurrence of) a non-assertive
form only if the latter is within the SCOPE of the negation, iewithin the stretch of
language over which the negative meaning operates. The scope of the negation normally
extends from the negative word itself to the end of the clause, or to the beginning of a
final adjunct The subject, and any adjuncts occurring before the predication, normally lie
outside it. (The operator is sometimes within, and sometimes outside, the scope). There is
thus a contrast between:
I definitely didn't speak to him. ('It's definite that I did not')
I didn't definitely speak to him. (It's not definite that I did')
When an adverbial is final, however, it may or may not lie outside the scope:
I wasn't Listening all the TIME. (/ie I listened one of the time)
I wasn't listening ALL the time. {ie I listened some of the time)
If an assertive form is used, it must lie outside the scope:
I didn't listen to some of the speakers. (ieI listened to some)
I didn't listen to any of the speakers. (ieI listened to none)
As we have seen, the scope can sometimes extend into a subordinate clause:
I didn't know that anyone was coming.

6.8. Focus of negation

We need to identify not only the scope, but the FOCUS of negation. A special or
contrastive nuclear stress falling on a particular part of the clause indicates that the
contrast of meaning implicit in the negation is located at that spot, and also that by
implication the rest of the clause can be understood in a positive sense:
HARRY didn't attack the Labour Government
(ie "Someone attacked..., but it wasn't Harry')
Harry didn't ATTACKthe LabourGovernment
{ie 'He did something to the Labour Government but he didn'tattack it')
Harry didn't attack the Labour Government
{ie 'He attacked some Government, but it wasn't the Labour one')

6.9. Negation of modal auxiliaries

The negation of modal auxiliaries requires some attention, in that here the scope of the
negation may or may not include the meaning of the auxiliary itself. We therefore
distinguish between AUXILIARY NEGATION and MAIN VERB NEGATION:
AUXILIARY NEGATION
may not (= 'permission')
You may not go swimming. ('You are not allowed to go swimming')
cannot, can't (in all senses)
You can't be serious. (‘It is not possible that you are serious’)
You can't go swimming. ('You are not allowed to go swimming')
She can't ride a bicycle. ('She is not able to ride a bicycle')
need not, needn't
You needn't pay that fine. ('You are not obliged to paay that fine')
It needn't always be my fault. ('It is not necessary that...')
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MAIN VERB NEGATION:
may not (='possibility')
They may not bother to come if it's wet ('It is possible that they willnot bother to
come...')
will not, won't (all senses)
Don't worry, I won't interfere (‘I’m willing not to interfere')
He won't do what he's told ('He insists on not doing...')
They won't have arrived yet ('I predict that they've not arrived yet')
shall not, shan't (all senses)
Don't worry, you shan't lose your reward (Tm willing to see thatyou don't lose
your reward')
I shan't know you when you return (1 predict that I shall notknow...?)
must not, mustn't (= 'obligation')
You mustn't keep us all waiting ("You'll oblige me by not keepingus all waiting')
ought not, oughtn't (both senses)
You oughtn't to keep us waiting ('obligation')
He oughtn't to be long ('necessity')
Certain auxiliaries (can and need) follow the pattern of auxiliary negation, while
others (will, shall, must) follow that of main verb negation. May belongs to the former
group in its 'permission' sense, but to the latter group in the sense of 'possibility'.
Mustn't is not used at all (and must not only rarely) in the 'necessity' sense; instead, we
can use can't in the sense of 'impossibility'. Thus the negation of You must be telling
lies is You can't be telling lies. A common auxiliary negation of must is needn't, which
has the two meanings of non-obligation and non-necessity:
A: Must we pack now? B: No, we needn't till tomorrow.
Because of the diametric opposition of meaning between 'permission' and 'obligation', an
odd-seeming equivalence exists between may not ('non-permission') and mustn't
('obligation-not-to'):
You may not go swimming today.
You mustn't go swimming today.
On the whole, the past tense negative auxiliaries (mightn't, couldn't, wouldn't,
shouldn't) follow the same negative pattern as their present tense equivalents.

7. Statements, questions, commands, exclamations, formulae, aphoristic sentences

and block language
Simple sentences may be divided into four major syntactic classes, whose use correlates
with different communicative functions:

7.1. Statements
Statementsare sentences in which the subject: is always present and generally precedes
the verb:
John will speak to the boss today.
On exceptional statements not containing a subject:
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 Beg your pardon
Good to see you

7.2. Questions
Questions are sentences marked by one or more of these three criteria:
(a) the placing of the operator immediately in front of the subject:
Will John speak to the boss today?
(b) the initial positioning of an interrogative or wh-element:
Who will you speak to?
(c) rising intonation:
You will speak to the bóss?
Questions can be divided into three major classes according to the type of answer they
expect:
(1) those that expect only affirmation or rejection (as in Have you finished the
book?) are YES-NO questions;
(2) those that expect a reply supplying an item of information (as in What is your
name? How old are you?) are WH- questions:
(3) those that expect as the reply one of two or more options presented in the
question are ALTERNATIVE questions; for example:
Would you like to go far a walk or stay at home?

- Yes-noquestions
Yes-no questions are usually formed by placing the operator before the subject and giving
the sentence a rising intonation:
The boat has left - Has the boat 1éft?
If there is no item in the verb phrase that can function as operator, do is introduced as
with negation:
He likes Mary ~ Does he like Mary?
Again as with negation, lexical be acts as operator; in BrE this is often true for have also
and informally got is added:
John was late ~ Was John late?
He has a car ~ Does he have a car ? (espAmE)
Has he (got) a car ? (espBrE)

- Tag questions
The tag questions consists of operator plus pronoun, with or without a negative particle;
the choice and tense of the operator are determined by the verb phrase in the
superordinate clause:
The boat hasn't left, has it?.
Joan recognized you, didn't she?
As these examples illustrate, if the superordinate clause is positive, the tag is negative,
and vice versa. The nuclear tone of the tag occurs on the operator and is either a rise or a
fall. Four main types of tag question emerge from the observance of these rules:
RISING TONE FALLING TONE
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 [I] [III]
POSITIVE + NEGATIVE He likes his JÒB, He likes his JÒB,
DÓESn’t he? DÒESN’t he?
[II] [IV]
NEGATIVE + POSITIVE He doesn't like his JÒB, He doesn't like his JÒB,
DÓES he? DÒES he?

- Declarative questions
The declarative questions is an exceptional type of yes-no question identical in form to a
statement, except for the final rising question intonation:
You've got the EXPLÓsive?
They've spoken to the amBÁSsador?
You realize what the RÍSKS are?
Boris will be THÉRE, I suppose?
He didn't finish the RÁCE?
Notice the occurrence of I suppose, impossible in normal questions. Declarative
questions show their assertive character in the inadmissibility of non-assertive forms:
. nothing
The guests have had something to eat?
*The guests have had anything to eat?
They are similar in force to type [I] or type [II] tag questions, except for a rather casual
tone, which suggests that the speaker takes the answer yes or no as a foregone conclusion.

- Yes-no questions with modal auxiliaries

The formation of yes-no questions with modal auxiliaries is subject to certain limitations
and shifts of meaning. The modals of 'permission' (may, espBrE, and can) and of
'obligation' (must, espBrE, and have to) involvethe speaker's authority in statements and
the listener's authority in questions:
A: May
Can I leave now ? (' Will you permit me...' )
B: Yes, you may. ( ‘I will permit you...' )
can
A : Must I leave now ? (' Are you telling me...’ )
Do I have to
must
B: Yes, you have to . (‘I am telling you...' )
A similar switch from listener to speaker takes place with shall ('volition') which
(especially in BrE) implicates the speaker's will in statements, but the listener's will in
questions:
You shall suffer for this! ('I intend to make you suffer...!')
Shall I switch off the television? (Do you want me to...?')
The direct-question use of shall, however, is virtually restricted to first person subjects.
With we, it has both exclusive and inclusive senses:
Shall we carry your suitcases? (Would you like us to...?')
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 Shall we have dinner? (Would you like us [including you] to...?')
May ('possibility') is not employed at all in questions; can (or more commonly, in AmE,
could) takes its place:
A: Can they have missed the bus? B: Yes, they may have.
Could might have.

Need (in BrE) is a non-assertive auxiliary in clauses where the corresponding positive
form is must. Hence in questions:

A: Need it happen? (AmE/BrE: Does it need to happen?)

have to

B: Yes, it must.
has to.
If, on the other hand, must have occurred in A’s question, it would have had ‘positive
orientation’: ‘It is a fact that it must happen?’ Compare Need it ever happen? With Must
it always happen?, where assertive form has to be retained.

- Wh- questions
Wh- questions are formed with the aid of one of the following interrogative words (or Q-
words): who/whom/whose, what, which when, where, how, why
As a rule
(1) the Q-element (ie clause element containing the Q-words) generally comes first in
the sentence;
(2) the Q-word itself takes first position in the Q-element
The only exception to the second principle is when the Q-word occurs in a prepositional
complement. Here English provides a choice between two constructions, one formal and
the other less so. In formal style, the preposition precedes the complement, whereas in
colloquial style, the complement comes first and the preposition retains the position it has
in a declarative sentence:
On what did you base your prediction? (formal)
What did you base your prediction on?
We may perhaps express this difference more neatly by saying that colloquial English
insist that the Q-word comes first, while formal English insists the Q-element as a whole
comes first.

- Alternative questions
There are two types of alternative question, the first resembling a yes-no question, and the
second a wh-question:
Would you like CHÓcolate, VANíLla, or STRÀwberry (ice-cream)? [1]
Which ice-cream would you LÌKE? CHÒcolate, VANÍLla, or STRÀwberry? [2]
The first type differs from a yes-no question only in intonation; instead of the final rising
tone, it contains a separate nucleus for each alternative: a rise occurs on each item in the
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list, except the last, on which there is a fall, indicating that the list is complete. The
difference of intonation between alternative and yes-no questions is important, in that
ignoring it can lead to misunderstanding - as the contrast between these replies indicates:
alternative: A: Shall we go by BÚS or TRAÌN? B: By BÙS.
yes-no: A: Shall we go by bus or TRAÍN? B: NO, let's takethe CAR.
The second type of alternative question is really a compound of two separate questions; a
wh-question followed by an elliptical alternative question of the first type. Thus [2] might
be taken as a reduced version of:
Which ice-cream would you LÌKE? Would you like CHÓcolate, VANÍLla, or
STRÀwberry?
Any positive yes-no question can be converted into an alternative question by adding or
not or a matching negative clause:
yes-no: Are you CÓMing?
alternative: Are you CÓming or NÒT?
Are you CÓming or ÀREn' t you (coming) ?
The alternative variant, by spelling out the negative aspect of the question, is rather
petulant in tone, but is otherwise indistinguishable in meaning from the yes-no question.

The structure of alternative yes-no questions follows the pattern of clausal coordination;
that is, two or more separate questions are collapsed together, wherever convenient, by
ellipsis (shown here by parentheses):
Did ÍTaly win the World Cup or (did) Brazìl (win the World Cup)?
Often the elliptical part of an alternative question is placed within the first question:
Did ÍTaly or BraZìL win the World Cup?
ÁRE you or ÀREn’t you coming?
Where there is no repeated structure, no ellipsis is possible, and so the second question
appears in its full form:
Is it RÁIning or has it STÒPped?

- Minor types of questions

EXCLAMATORY QUESTION
The exclamatory question is a question in form, but is functionally like an exclamation.
The most characteristic type is a negative yes-no question with a falling instead of rising
tone:
Hasn't she CRÒWN!
Wasn't it a marvellousCÒNcert!
These invite the listener's agreement to something on which the speaker has strongly
positive feelings.
A positive yes-no question, also with a falling tone, is another (but very informal) way of
expressing a strong positive conviction:
‘am 'I HÙNGry ! 'Did 'he look ANNÒYED! 'Has 'she GRÒWN!
Both operator and subject usually receive emphatic stress.

RHETORICAL QUESTION
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The rhetorical question is one which functions as a forceful statement.More precisely, a
positive rhetorical question is like a strong negative assertion, while a negative questions
is like a strong positive one.
POSITIVE
Is that a reason for desPÁlR? ('Surely that is not a reason...')
Can anyone doubt the wisdom of this action? ('Surely no one candoubt...')
NEGATIVE
Is no one going to deFÈND me? ('Surely someone is going to defend me')
Unlike exclamatory questions, these rhetorical questions usually have the normal rising
intonation of a yes-no question.
There is also a rhetorical wh-question, which is equivalent to a statement in which the Q-
element is replaced by a negative element:
Who KNÓWN? (‘Nobody know')
What DÍFference does it make? ('It makes no difference')
Again, the intonation is that of an ordinary wh-question, except that a rise-fall tone is
likely.

7.3. Commands
- Commands without asubject
We begin with the most common category or command, that which differs from a
statement in that
(1) it has no subject
(2) it has an imperative finite verb (the base form of the verb, without endings for
number or tense).
Otherwise the clause patterns of commands show the same range and ordering of
elements as statements; for example.
SV: Jump(v)
SVC:Be reasonable (V C)
SVOA:Put it on the table (V OdAplace)
The imperative verb, however, is severely restricted as to tense, aspect, voice, and
modality. There is no tense distinction or perfect aspect, and only very rarely does the
progressive form occur:
Be preparing the dinner when he comes in
A passive is equally rare, except when the auxiliary is some verb other than be, as in Get
washed These rertrictions are connected with the understandable incongruity of
combining an imperative with a stative non-agentive verb: * Sound louder! Modal
auxiliaries do not occur at all in imperative sentences.
Commands are apt to sound abrupt unless toned down by markers of politeness such as
please: Please eat up your dinner, Shut the door, please. Even this only achieves a
minimum degree of ceremony; a more tactful form of request can only be arrived at if
one changes the command into a question or a statement: Will you shut the door, please?
I wonder if you would kindly shut the door; I wonder whether you would mind shutting
the door, etc.

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- Commands with a subject
It is implied in the meaning of a command that the omitted subject of the imperative verb
is the 2nd person pronoun you. This is confirmed by the occurrence of you as subject of a
following tag question (Be quiet, will you), and by the occurrence of yourself and of no
other reflexive pronoun as object: Behave yourself, not *Behave himself.
There is, however, a type of command in which the subject you is retained, differing from
the subject of a finite verb in always carrying stress:
You be quiet!
You mind your own business, and leave this to me!

- Commands with let

First person imperatives can be formed by proposing the verb let, followed by a subject in
(where relevant) the objective case:
Let us all work hard. (more usually: Let's...)
Let me have a look.
The same applies to 3rd penson subjects:
Let each man decide for himself.
If anyone shrinks from this action, let him speak now.

- Negative commands
To negate 2nd and 3rd person imperatives, one simply adds and initial
Don't, replacing assertive by non-assertive forms where necessary:
Open some windows. ~ Don't open any windows.
You open the door. ~ Don't you open the door.
Someone open the door. ~ Don't anyone open the door.
1st person imperatives, on the other hand, have two possibilities:
Let's open the door. ~ Let’s not open the door.
Don't let' s open the door (informal and espBrE)
and the second of these is available for 3rd person imperatives:
Don't let anyone fool himself that he can get away with it.

-Persuasive imperatives
A persuasive or insistent imperative is created by the addition of do (with a nuclear tone)
before the main verb:
Do have some more sherry. Do let's go to the theatre.

7.4. Exclamations
Exclamations resemble wh-questions in involving the initial placement of an exclamatory
wh-element (the X-element). The syntactic order is therefore upset to the extent that the
X-element (which may be object, complement, or adverbial, as well as subject) may be
taken from its usual (statement) position and put into a position of initial prominence. On
the other hand, in contrast to wh-questions, there is generally no subject-operator
inversion:
X-element as subject: What an enormous crowd came! (S V)
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X-element as object: What a time we've had today! (Od S V A)
X-element as complement: How delightful her manners are! (Cs S V)
X-element as adverbial: How I used to hate geography! (A S V O d)
What a long time it lasted ! (A S V)
The X-element, like the Q-element of the wh-question, can also act as prepositional
complement, the preposition normally being postposed:
What a mess we're in!

7.5. Formulae
There are some sentences which, though appearing to belong to one of the major classes,
in fact enter into few of the relations of substitutability that are common to members of
those classes. For instance, the greeting formula (appropriate to a first meeting) How do
you do? cannot be subordinated as an indirect question (*They asked him how he did) or
answered in a corresponding statement form (* I do very well). Two slightly less
restricted kinds of wh-question are the question without an auxiliary why (+ not) +
predication:
Why get so upset? Why not enjoy yourself?
and the how/what about type of question:
What about the house? How about joining us?
These are not formulaic in the previous sense, but are irregular in that they lack some of
the elements normally found in a wh-question.
There are also patterns which are defective in terms of regular clause oi sentence
structure, such as the verbless imperatives:
Off with the lid! Out with it! Down with the bosses!
To this we may add a number of exclamatory types:
If only l'd listened to my parents! (with modal past)
To think Iwas once a millionaire!
Oh for a drink! Oh to be free! (archaic except when jocular)
You and your statistics! John and his Ideas !
Now for some fun!
Apart from such case, there are sentences which contain fossilized elements no longer
productively used in present-day English: for example, the subjunctive combined with
inversion in
Far be it from me to (spoil the fun)
Suffice it to say (we lost)
Long live (anarchy)! (archaic except when jocular)
and without inversion in God save the Queen! (God) Bless you!
A slightly less archaic formula for expressing a wish is may + subject + predication: May
the best man win! May you be happy!

7.6. Aphoristic sentences

Among other minor sentence types is the aphoristic sentence structure found in many
proverbs:
The more, the merrier. [1]
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 Least said, soonest mended. [2]
Handsome is as handsome does. [3]
Easy come, easy go. [4]
These all have one structural feature in common: the balancing of twoequivalent
constructions against each other. While they must all be considered grammatically
anomalous, example [1] has a fairly productive pattern which will be dealt with under
proportional clauses.

7.7. Block language

In addition to the formulae of colloquial conversation, there is a whole realm of usage
where, because of its rudimentary communicative role, language is structured in terms of
single words and phrases, rather than in terms of the more highly organized units of
clause and sentence.
Language so used may be termed 'block language'. It appears in such functions as labels,
titles, headings, notices, and advertisements. Simple block-language messages most often
consist of a noun or noun phrase or nominal clause in isolation: no verb is needed,
because all else necessary to the understanding of the message is furnished by context.
Examples are: ,

DANGER: FALLING ROCKS ENGLISH DEPARTMENT

PURE LEMON JUICE ENTRANCE
FRESH TODAY HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
A GRAMMAR OF CONTEMPORARY ENGLISH
WHERE TO GO IN LONDON
HOW TO WIN FRIENDS AND INFLUENCE PEOPLE
THE FIRST LUXURY BOUND COLLECTOR'S EDITION OF AGATHA
CHRISTIE'S WORK TO BE AVAILABLE IN THIS COUNTRY

In newspaper headlines, abbreviated clause structures have been developed:

(1) FILM-STAR MARRIES EX-PRIEST (S V Od)
(2) ELECTION A LANDSLIDE FOR SOCIALISTS (S Cs)
(3) NIXON TO MEET ASIAN PREMIERS (S V Od)
(4) SHARE PRICES NOW HIGHER THAN EVER (S A Ca)
(5) JACKLIN BEATEN BY BONALLACK (S V A)
(6) CHANCES OF MIDDLE-EAST PEACE IMPROVING (S V)
These differ from orthodox clause structures in having different tense conventions, and in
omitting closed-system words of low information value, such as the articles and the finite
forms of the verb be.

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 LECTURE 10
ADJUNCTS, DISJUNCTS, CONJUNCTS

1. ADJUNCTS
Adjuncts (A) are optional elements of a situation expressed by a clause. Semantically,
adjuncts represent circumstances, specifications and comments of many different types
which are attendant on the verb or the whole clause. A further characteristic of adjuncts is
the tendency of different types of meanings to be expressed by different adjuncts in a
single clause, not as coordinated realisations of a single adjunctive element, but as
separate, multiple adjuncts:
Surprisingly (stance), she almost (degree) forgot to set the alarm clock last night
(time).
Adjuncts are grouped into three main classes according to their function in the clause:
circumstantial adjuncts, stance adjuncts and connective adjunct.
- Circumstantial Adjuncts provide information concerning time, place, manner, means
etc.
- Stance adjuncts provide an attitudinal comment by the speaker on the content of the
clause or sentence. There are three classes of stance adjuncts: epistemic, evidential and
evaluative.
- Connective adjuncts are not elements of structures, but connectors of structures. They
signal how the speaker intends the semantic connections to be made between one part of
the discourse and another. In discourse studies, many connective adjuncts are analysed as
discourse markers.
A fourth group consists of operator-related adjuncts. Certain single adverbs and
adverbial groups which can function as adjuncts of usuality(usually), frequency
(sometimes, never), degree (just), modality (probably) and aspectuality(still, yet,
already), among others, relate closely to the verb. These tend to be placed near the finite
operator (We have just finished; she is probably waiting).

1.1. Circumstantial Adjuncts

Circumstantial adjuncts provide experiential details about the action or state described by
the verb, and answer such questions as where? when? how? why? and occasionally
what? as in What do you want it for? What did he die of? Of all the types of adjunct, the
circumstantials are the ones most similar to clause constituents: like subject and object
they may be made the focus of a cleft. So in the example Tom bought a new car last
month, we may highlight each element except the verb, including the adjunct of time.
Other types of circumstantial adjunct don’t pass this test, however:
It was last month that Tom bought a new car. (adjunct)
It was a new car that Tom bought last month. (object)

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 It was Tom who bought a new car last month. (subject)
*It was probably/*usually/*surprisingly/*still that Tom bought a new car last
month.

- Realisations of the Circumstantial Adjunct:

Circumstantial adjuncts are realised by a wide variety of units:
She called me yesterday. Adverb
She called me too late. AdvG
She called me from the office. PP
She called me this morning. NG
She called me while I was out. Finite clause
She called to tell me the news. Non-fin. to-inf.cl
She called me, using her mobile. Non-fin.-ingcl.
She called me, scared out of her wits. Non-fin.-encl.
Afraid to leave the house, she called me.

- Verbless clause
While non-finite -ing, -enand verbless clauses undoubtedly give background information,
syntactically it is more problematic to analyse them as adjuncts. They are more loosely
integrated into the clause and can’t be made the focus of a cleft (*It was scared out of her
wits that she called me) as can other circumstantials, including to-infinitive clauses (It
was to tell me the news that she called me).
Units that are set off from the main clause by a comma or a pause are called
supplementives(see also Chapter 10 for various types of supplementive). The -ingand -
entypes, as well as verbless clauses such as afraid to leave the house fall into this
category. Semantically, they may be understood as reduced clauses of means or reason
with an adjunctive function. Here, Afraid to leave the house not only lacks a main verb
and a subject but is related to the predicate. (She was afraid to leave the house.) Such
‘detached predicatives’ are used in written genres, where they economically add
information, typically in initial position.

- Circumstantials functioning as central clause elements

Certain verbs predict a circumstantial element, without which the clause is incomplete
syntactically and semantically. They then have the status of a Complement, and are
summarised again here:
• Location in place or time, after a verb of position such as be, stay, live, lie, etc., as in:
We live in troubled times, The farm is situated in a valley.
• Extent in time or place with verbs such as take, as in The journey takes several days,
or last, as in The performance lasts (for) three hours, in which the preposition is optional.
In discourse, the time duration may be omitted if it is understood, as in Their love didn’t
last, meaning ‘didn’t last a long time’.
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• Direction and Goal after verbs of movement such as go, come or of movement manner
such as fly, as in We flew south (Direction), We flew to New York(Goal).
• Source in She tiptoed out of the bedroom, We flew from London.
• Manner with behave, as in, She is behaving rather strangely. Also with one sense of
the transitive verb treat, as in: They treated the prisoners badly.

1.2. Stance Adjuncts

These express the speaker’s evaluation or comment on the content of the message, or the
viewpoint adopted. Syntactically, they often remain somewhat separate from the clause,
since their message refers to the whole of the clause or sentence. For this reason, they are
usually found before the clause or after it, as in the first two examples below. But they
can also be placed parenthetically or between commas, within a clause or sentence, as in
the last two:
Naturally, he spoke to me when he saw me.
He spoke to me when he saw me, naturally.
He naturally spoke to me when he saw me.
He spoke to me, naturally, when he saw me.
Textually, stance adjuncts are of three main kinds: epistemic, evidential and evaluative.
a. Epistemic stance adjuncts - Do you believe me? Of course I do
These express the speaker’s opinion regarding the validity of the content, commenting on
the certainty, doubt, possibility and obviousness of the proposition:
Undoubtedly, he is the finest pianist alive today.
Obviously, he’ll rely on you even more now.
b. Evidential adjuncts - Apparently, the picture is a fake
These signal the source of knowledge or information. Sources range from the speaker’s
own experience or belief (In my view/In my experience) to the beliefs or accounts of
others(According to . . . In the words of . . . and finally hearsay - supposedly, apparently):
According to the weather forecast, there’s a hurricane on the way.
c. Evaluative adjuncts - Amazingly, he won a gold medal
These are attitudinal, reflecting the subjective or objective attitude of the speaker towards
the content and sometimes also towards the addressee:
Surely you can make up your own mind!
Broadly speaking, the Health Service is satisfactory. (objective)
Unfortunately, our team didn’t win. (subjective)
d. Style and domain adjuncts
Two further types of stance adjunct are Style and Domain adjuncts. Style adjuncts are the
speaker’s comment on the way s/he is speaking (honestly, frankly, confidentially).
Domain adjuncts signal from what viewpoint the message is orientated (technologically,
legally, saleswise, etc.):
Quite frankly, it seems to me a lot of bullshit.

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Medically, the project has little to recommend it.

1.3. Connective Adjuncts

These tell us how the speaker or writer understands the semantic connection between two
utterances, or parts of an utterance, while indicating the semantic relationship holding
between them: The hotel was rather noisy. On the other hand, it wasn’t expensive
(contrast). They are not therefore elements of structure, but connectors of structure:
Between groups: Lord Shaftesbury was a persuasive speaker and furthermore a great
pioneer of social reform.
Between clauses: The students are on strike; nevertheless, the examinations will not be
cancelled.
Between sentences: He has been undergoing treatment for asthma since he was a boy.
Consequently, he never went in for sports.
Between paragraphs:In addition to all this . . .First of all . . .In conclusion . . .
That is to say, such connectors occur at some boundary established at a significant point
in the organisation of the text. They have a textual function.
Semantically, many different types of connection can be expressed. Here, we shall briefly
exemplify four main types: additive: besides, in the same way, what’s more, moreover,
plus (AmE), as well, also contrast: instead, on the contrary, on the other hand,
nevertheless, rather, yet causal: for, because, so, therefore, then, in that case,
consequently, thus temporal: first, then, next, after that, finally, at once.
- Realizations of the Stance Adjunct:
Stance adjuncts can be realised by adverbs, prepositional phrases, finite and non-finite
clauses:
+ Adverbs: surely, obviously, frankly, honestly, confidentially, hopefully, probably
+ PPs: in fact, in reality, at a rough guess, by any chance, of course
+ Non-fin cl: to be honest, to tell the truth, strictly speaking
+ Fin. cl: if I may be frank with you . . .; don’t take this personally, but . . .

2. DISJUNCTS
In Linguistic, a disjunct is a type of adverbial adjunct that expresses information that is
not considered essential to the sentence it appears in, but which is considered to be the
speaker's or writer's attitude towards, or descriptive statement of, the propositional
content of the sentence. For instance:
Honestly, I didn't do it.
Fortunately for you, I have it right here.
In my opinion, the green one is better.
Sometimes, the same word or phrase can be interpreted either as a disjunct or as a simple
adjunct:
They honestly worked in an underground diamond mine run by Barbara.

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More generally, the term disjunct can be used to refer to any sentence element that is not
fully integrated into the clausal structure of the sentence. Such elements usually appear
peripherally (at the beginning or end of the sentence) and are set off from the rest of the
sentence by a comma (in writing) and a pause (in speech).
A specific type of disjunct is the sentence adverb (or sentence adverbial), which modifies
a sentence, or a clause within a sentence, to convey the mood, attitude or sentiments of
the speaker, rather than an adverb modifying a verb , an adjective or another adverb
within a sentence.
An example of a sentence adverb modifying a sentence is: Unfortunately, when I got to
the supermarket it had run out of the vegetable I like. An example of a sentence adverb
modifying a clause within a sentence is: I liked the red car in the forecourt, but
unfortunately, when I got to the dealer it was already sold.
"Unfortunately" thus communicates the regret or disappointment the speaker experiences
and so manifests as a sentence adverb the sentiments of the speaker.
"Unfortunately," however, is only one of many sentence adverbs that can modify a
speaker's attitude. Others include "mercifully," "gratefully," "oddly," "admittedly," etc.
Just as conjuncts are formulaic ways of associating ideas, so we have formulaic ways of
disassociating ideas: There are style disjuncts and attitudinal disjuncts:

- Style Disjuncts
Examples
To be frank, I don't approve of her.
Strictly speaking, you shouldn't be here
If I may say so, that's an ugly tee-shirt.
If you try to imagine whatever may have come before these statement, you can see that
the disjunct is a formula we all understand for separating what the speaker is saying from
what has come before.
For example, if you've all been saying something like "I don't approve of her," another
party will not merely repeat that information by introducing it with the disjunct, "To be
frank." That (and the other examples here) are markers of stylistic changes, which usually
accompany a change in attitude. Style disjuncts make this change by having the speaker
comment on the act of speaking: he's frank, or he's speaking strictly, or he's observing
that he needs permission to speak.
- Attitudinal Disjuncts
These formulae comment on the content of the of clause to which they are attached
almost always in declarative (as opposed to negative or interrogative) sentences:
Fortunately, John returned the book yesterday.
Hopefully, you will learn to admire the beauty of a grammar.

3. CONJUNCTS
In linguistics, the term conjunct has two distinct uses:
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A conjunct is an adjunct that adds information to the sentence that not considered part
of the propositional content (or at least not essential) but which connects the sentence
with previous parts of the discourse. Rare though this may be, conjuncts may also
connect to the following parts of the discourse.
It was raining. Therefore, we didn’t go swimming.
It was sunny. However, we stayed inside.
You are such a dork. Still, I love you from the bottom of my heart.
A coordination structure connects two words, phrases or clauses together, usually with
the help of a coordinating conjunction:
[Gretchen and her daughter] bought [motor oil, spark plugs, and dynamite].
Take two of these and call me in the morning.

- Forms of conjunct
In English conjuncts typically have the following forms:
+ Single word (often an adverb):
Consequently, I went home.
+ Phrase:
As a result, I went home.
+ Clause:
Taking that reason into account, I went home.
- The semantic functions of conjuncts
English conjuncts often have the following functions
+ Listing (indicating that what follows is a list of propositions)
To begin with, I have to tell you that I'm most displeased with your performance in the
show. I also think you did a bad job painting the house. You're a lousy cook. You smell.
Your hat is ... etc.
+ Enumerative (indicating items on a list of propositions)
First, we have to buy bread. Second, we need to take the car to the garage.Third, we
have to call your dentist and make an appointment.
+ Additive (indicating that the content of the sentence is in addition to the preceding one)
He has no money. In addition, he has no means of getting any.
+ Summative (summing up, or concluding, on the preceding sentence(s))
A is B. A is C. To sum up, A is several things.
+ Appositive (rephrasing the preceding sentence)
The French love music. In other words, music is appreciated in France. +
Resultative/inferential (indicating that the content of the sentence is a result of the events
expressed in the preceding sentence)
Miss Gold lost her job. She, therefore, had no money.
+ Antithetic (indicating that the content of the sentence is in contrast to the content of the
preceding sentence)
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 It is said that water flows up hill. On the contrary, it flows downhill
+ Concessive (indicating that the content of the sentence "exists" despite the content in
the preceding sentence)
It is very cold. I went for my morning walk, however.
+ Temporal (indicating temporal relation between the contend of the sentence and the
preceding sentence)
I had lunch. Meanwhile, my wife had her hair cut.

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 LECTURE 11
COORDINATION AND APPOSITION

1. Ellipsis in coordinated clause

1.1. Ellipsis of subject ( and auxiliaries)
- Identical subjects of coordinated clauses are ellipted:
Peter ate a cheese sandwich and (Peter) drank a glass of beer.
If the subjects and the auxiliaries are identical, we can ellipt both:
Mary has washed the dishes, (Mary has) dried them, and (Mary has) put them in
the cupboard.

1.2. Ellipsis of auxiliary only

- If the subjects of coordinated clauses are different, we can only ellipt an identical
auxiliary:
John should clean the shed and Peter (should) mow the lawn.
- If there is more than one auxiliary, it is normal for all to be ellipted:
Johnmust have been playing football and Mary (must have been) doing her
homework.

1.3. Ellipsis of predicate or predication

- The first part of the predicate or of the predication may be ellipted, and the subject may
be ellipted as well.
(a) verb phrase only or (less commonly) lexical verb only:
I work in a factory, and my brother (works) on a farm.
She will work today, and (she) may (work) tomorrow.
- If the clause contains an object with an object complement, the subject must be ellipted
as well:
His suggestions made John happy, but (his suggestions made) Mary angry.
(b) Verb phrase plus subjectcomplement:
It’s cold in December in England, but (it’s cold) in July in New Zealand.
(c) Verb phrase/lexical verb plus direct object:
Peter is playing football for his school and Paul (is playing football) for his club.

1.4. Ellipsis of whole of predication

- It is usual to have the predication realized in the first clause and ellipted in subsequent
clauses:
George will take the course and Bob might (take the course) too.
However, it is also possible to have the predication ellipted in the first clause, in which
case it is realized in some subsequent clause:
George will (take the course), and Bob might, take the course.
- We have complex ellipsis when the predication is ellipted in the first clause and the
subject is ellipted in a subsequent clause:
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 John could have been (watching television), but (John) wasn’t, watching
television.

1.5. Ellipsis of direct object or subject complement

- If the direct object alone is ellipted, the realized items must be in the last clause:
John likes (Mary), and Peter hates, Mary.
- Similarly, if the subject complement alone is ellipted, and the verb in the last clause is
other than be, the realized items must be in the last clause:
George has been (the chairman), and (George) obviously could again become, the
chairman.
- When the verb in the last clause is be, the realized items can be either in the first clause
or in the last clause:
Bob seemed angry, and George certainly was (angry).
~ Bob seemed (angry), and George certainly was angry.

1.6. Ellipsis of head of noun phrase and of prepositional complement

- The head of a noun phrase can be ellipted:
She wore the red dress, but the blue (dress) suits her better.
He prefers Dutch cheese to Danish (cheese).
- The complement of a prepositional phrase can be ellipted, with the realized complement
in the second clause:
Bob is bored with (music), but Peter enjoys, music.

2. Clausal coordination
For the use of conjunctions in phrasal coordination, there are three coordinators: and, or,
but.

2.1. Semantic implications of coordination by ‘and’

And denotes a relationship between the contents of clauses. We can usually make the
relationship explicit by adding an adverbial. We illustrate this with parenthesized items in
most of the following examples
(a) The event in the second clause is a consequence or result of the event in the first:
He heard an explosion and he (therefore) phoned the police.
(b) The event in the second clause is chronologically sequent to the event in the first:
She washed the dishes and (then) she dried them.
(c) The second clause introduces a contrast. And could be replaced by but when this
implication is present:
John is hard-working and (in contrast) David is lazy.
(d) The second clause is a comment on the first:
They disliked John- and that’s not surprising.
(e) The second clause introduces an element of surprise in view of the content of the
first:
He tried hard and(yet) he failed
In this case, and could be replaced by but.
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 (f) The first clause is a condition of the second:
Give me some money and (then) I’ll help you escape.
It means: Give me some money. If you do, (then) I’ll help you escape.
(g) The second clause makes a point similar to the first:
A trade agreement should be no problem, and (similarly) a cultural exchange
could be arranged.
(h) The second clause is a ‘pure’ addition to the first:
He has long hair and (also) he wears jeans.

2.2. Semantic implications of coordination by ‘or’

(a) Usually or is EXCLUSIVE, expressing the idea that only one of the possibilities can
be realized:
You can sleep on the couch, or you can go to a hotel, or you can go back to London
tonight.
- When the content of the sentence allows the realization of more than one alternative,
we can exclude the combination by adding either:
You can either boil an egg, or you can make some cheese sandwiches.
- Even so, a third clause can be added which explicitly allows both alternatives:
You can either boil an egg, or you can make some cheese sandwiches, or you can do
both.
(b) Sometimes or is understood as INCLUSIVE, allowing the realization of a
combination of the alternatives, and we can explicitly include the third possibility by a
third clause:
You can boil an egg, or you can make some cheese sandwiches, or you can do both.
(c) The alternative expressed by or may be restatement or a correction of what is said
in the first conjoin:
They are enjoying themselves, or at least they appear to be enjoying themselves.
(d) Or may imply a negative condition:
Give me some money or I’ll shoot ~ Give me some money. If youdon’t, I’ll shoot.

2.3. Semantic implications of coordination by ‘but’

But denotes a contrast.
(a) The contrast may be because what is said in the second conjoin is unexpected in
view of what is said in the first conjoin:
John is poor, but he is happy.
He didn’t want their help, but he had to accept it.
(b) The contrast may be a restatement in affirmative terms of what has been said or
implied negatively in the first conjoin:
John didn’t waste his time in the week before the exam, but studied hard every evening.

3. Phrasal coordination
And and or are the main coordinators for phrasal coordination. But is used only to link
adjective phrases and adverb phrases:
A very long but unusually interesting journey.
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 He wrote to them politely but firmly.
Note:
- We do not posit ellipsis of the rest of the clause when other phrases are directly
conjoined by and and or:
Peter and John played football.
Is not regarded as elliptical for: Peter played football and John played football. Although,
of course, the two sentences can be synonymous. Instead we regard Peter and John as a
coordinated plural phrase functioning as subject of the sentence. This type of
coordination is phrasal coordination.

4. Apposition
Apposition resembles coordination in linking units having grammatical affinity. In
addition, for units to be appositives, they must normally be identical in reference or else
the reference of one must be included in the reference of the other:
A neighbour, Fred Brick, is on the telephone.
A neighbour is identified as Fred Brick. The relationship underlying apposition is
therefore an intensive relationship:
Fred Brick is a neighbour.
In many cases the co-reference and grammatical similarity will permit the omission of
either appositive unit with a resultant acceptable and synonymous sentence:
A neighbour is on the telephone.
Fred Brick is on the telephone.
This is true even where the appositives are discontinuous:
An unusual present awaited him, a book on ethics.
~ An unusual present awaited him.
~ A book on ethics awaited him.
In some of the attribution examples, where an additional clause element is present in one
of the units, it is not possible to meet the condition:
Adam Smith, at that time a student, wrote several novels.
Nor is it possible in other examples where the apposition is only partial:
The reason he gave, that he didn’t notice the other car, was unconvincing.
In the example above, the reason he gave was unconvicing is not synonymous with that
he didn’t notice the other car was unconvincing.
The two appositives need not have the same grammatical form to meet the condition.
Thus, in the following sentence one of the appositives is a noun phrase, the other a non-
finite clause:
Playing football on Sunday, his favourite exercise, kept him fit.

Indicators of apposition
A number of expressions explicitly indicate apposition. They can be inserted between
appositives, for example namely in
The passenger plane of the 1980s, namelythe supersonic jet, will transform
relations between peoples of the world.

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The indicators express certain semantic relationships between the appositives and
therefore can not be used for all cases of apposition.
Some of these indicators either precede or (less commonly) follow the second appositive:
in other words, in particular, mainly, particularly, especially.
But others can only precede the second appositive: namely, and, or rather, or better, as
follows, including, such as, of, and the abbreviated forms: ie, viz, and eg:
Many professions, such asthe legal profession, have established their own codes
of professional conduct.
Included can only follow the second appositive:
Many people, my sisterincluded, won’t forgive him for that.

5. Non-restrictive and restrictive apposition

5.1. Non-restrictive apposition
a. Equivalence
• Appellation (namely; who / which +BE)
- There is unique reference between the two appositives. Both appositive noun phrases
are commonly definite and the second is typically a proper noun:
The company commander, (that is to say) Captain Madison, assembled his men
and announced their mission.
- The second appositive can be replaced by a corresponding relative clause:
The company commander, who was Captain Madison, assembled his men and
announced their mission.
- The second appositive is often a finite clause:
He told them the good news: (namely) taxes are to be reduced.
With appellation, the second appositive is more specific than the first.

• Designation
- There is also unique reference, but the second appositive is less specific than the first.
Both appositives are commonly definite noun phrases:
Captain Madison, (that is to say) the company commander, assembled his men
and announced their mission.
Replcement of the second appositive by a corresponding relative clause is again possible.
• Identification
- There is no unique equivalence. The second appositive is more specific, identifying
what is given in the first, which is typically an indefinite noun phrase:
A company commander, (namely) Captain Madison, assembled his men and
announced their mission.
Replacement of the second appositive by a corresponding relative clause is not possible.
A similar relationship obtains if the first apprositive is, or contains, a pro-noun refering to
the second appositive:
We - (that is to say) John and I - intend to resign.

• Reformulation
Reformulation is a rewording in the second appositive of the content of the first .
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- If the reformulation is based on linguistic knowledge, the second appositive is a
synonymous expression:
He drew a triacontahedral, or thirty-sided, figure.
- If the reformulation is based on knowledge about the external world, the second
appositive is a co-referential expression:
The United States of America, or America for short

b. Attribution
Attribution involves predication rather than equivalence. We can replace the second
appositive by a corresponding relative clause. The second appositive is commonly an
indefinite noun phrase:
The house, an imposing building, dominated the street.
But it can be definite:
Many soldiers, the cream of the battalion, died in the attack.
Certain kinds of construction are found only in attributive apposition:
(1) An article is absent from the second appositive:
Robinson, leader of the Democratic group on the committee, refused to answer
questions.
(2) An adverbial that is a clause constituent is added to the second appositive:
Your brother, obviously an expert on English grammar, is highly praise in the
book I am reading.
(3) The second appositive has an internal structure of subject and either complement
or adjunct. The participle being can be inserted between the two constituents of the
appositive:
At the entrance there are two pillars, one (being) on each side.

c. Inclusion
- Inclusion applies to cases of apposition where the reference of the first appositive is
not identical with that of the second, but instead includes it.
- There are two types of inclusion: exemplification and particularization.
- In exemplification, the second appositive exemplifies the more general term in the
first appositive. The explicit indicators are those in the group headed by for example and
sometimes no indicator is present:
Famous men (De Gaulle, Churchill, Roosevelt) have visited this university.
- Unlike exemplification, particularization requires an explicit indicator:
The children liked the animals, particularly the monkeys.

5.2. Restrictive apposition

- Strict restrictive apposition of noun phrases can take three forms of which the first is
the most common:
(1) The first appositive is the more general expression and is preceded by a definite
determiner:
that famous critic John Paul the number three
the novel Great Expectations my good friend David
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An important use of the first form of restrictive apposition is found with citations and
names of books, films, etc:
The term ‘heavy water’ the novel Crime and Punishment
(2) The second appositive is preceded by a determiner, always the, and is more
general than the first, as in John Paul the critic.
(3) Type 3 is like (1) but with omission of the determiner (espAmE):
Critic John Paul Democratic leader Robinson
- Restrictive apposition is common with such general noun phrases as the fact, the
idea, the view:
I don’t agree with the view that there is no advantage in being patient.
The fact that he wouldn’t betray his friends is very much to his credit.
- With participle clauses, and sometimes with wh-clauses, of is used as an indicator:
The thought of playing against them arouses all my aggressive instincts
His account of what he had done that year did not satisfy his colleague.

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 LECTURE 12
THE COMPLEX SENTENCE

1. Finite and non-finite clauses

1.1. Finite clause:
Finite clause is a clause whose verbal element is a finite verb, which shows the tense and
the mood of the verb
Peter has visited London.
My mother made a cake yesterday.

1.2. Non-finite clause:

Non-Finite clause is a clause whose verbal element is a non-finite verb, which does not
show the tense and the mood of the verb. There are four types of non-finite clause:
• Infinitive with to
- Without subject: The best thing would be to tell everybody.
- With subject: The best thing would be (for you) to tell everybody.
It would be better (for you) to tell everybody.
• Infinitive without to
- With subject: Rather than John do it, I’d prefer to give the job to Mary.
I help (her) do her homework.
• -ing participle
- Without suject: Leaving the room, he went straight to the kitchen.
All I did was telling him the truth.
- With subject: Her aunt having left the room, I declared my passionate love for Celia.
• -ed participle
- Without subject: Covered with confusion, I left the room.
- With subject: We left the room and went home, the job finished.
When the subject of adverbial participial clauses is expressed, it is often introduced by
with:
With the tree growing tall, we get more shade.

2. Verbless clauses:
- A clause whose verbal element is absent:
When in Rome, do as Rome does.
Whether right or wrong, he always comes off worst in an argument.
- Verbless clauses can also, on occasion, be treated as reductions of non-finite clauses:
Too nervous to reply, he stared at the floor.
~ Being too nervous to reply, he stared at the floor.
- As with participle clauses, the subject is often introduced by with:
With the tree now tall, we get more shade.

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3. Subordinators
- According to the function of a clause in a sentence, we have:
• Subordinate (dependent clause)
She said that you hit her first
• Superordinate (main / independent clause)
Standing here all day, I see many atrange faces.
• Coordinate clause(or)
Keep silent or I’ll punish you.
- Simple subordinators:
after, (al)though, as, because, before, if, once, since, that, until, when, where,
while………
- Compound subordinators:
+ ending with that: in that, so that, such that, except that, in order that (or to +
infinitive clause)
+ Ending with obtional that: now (that), provided (that), supposing (that),
considering (that), seeing (that)……….
+ ending with as: as far as, as long as, as soon as, so long as, so as ( + to +
infinitive clause )
+ ending with than: sooner than ( + infinitive clause ), rather than ( + non-finite
or verbless clause )
+ other: as if, as though, in case
- Correlative subordinators:
if…then, (al)though…yet / nevertheless, as…so, more/-er/less…than, as…as, so…as, so…
(that), such…as, such…(that), no sooner…than, whether…or, the…the.

4. Nominal clause
4.1. That-clauses
- Subject: That John actually took the money is unbelievable.
When the that-clause is subject, that can not be omitted and is usually expanded to the
fact that, except in very formal English:
(The fact) that she is still alive consoles me.
- Direct object: Everyone tends to think that he is not sufficiently appreciated.
- Subject complement: The assumption is that things will improve.
When the that-clause is object or complement, the conjunction that is frequently omitted
in informal use:
I told him he was wrong.
- Appositive: My opinion, that no action need be taken yet, is shared by most of us here.
- Adjective complement: I’m sure that things will improve.

4.2. Wh-interrogative clauses

The dependent wh-interrogative clause occurs in the whole range of functions available
to the that-clause, and in addition can act as prepositional complement:
- Subject: What caused the fire remains a mystery.
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- Direct object: Do you remember when Columbus discovered America?
- Subject complement: The problem is not who will go, but who will stay.
- Appositive: My original question, why he did it at all, has not been answered.
- Adjective complement: I wasn’t certain whose house I was in
- Prepositional complement: No one was consulted on who should have the prize.

4.3. Yes-no interrogative clauses

- The dependent yes-no interrogative clause is formed with if or whether:
Do you know if / whether the banks are open?
- The dependent alternative question has if / whether…or:
I don’t know whether it will rain or be sunny.
I don’t care if your car breaks down or not.
- Only whether can be directly followed by or not:
I don’t care whether or not your car breaks down.
We can’t say: I don’t care if or not your car breaks down.
- A clause beginning with whether can not be made negative, except as the second part of
an alternative question:
I don’t care whether it rains or not.
I don’t care if it doesn’t rain
I don’t care whether it doesn’t rain. (wrong)
- On the other hand, if can not introduce a subject clause:
Whether it rains or not doesn’t concern me.
If it rains or not doesn’t concern me. (wrong)

4.4. Nominal relative clauses

The nominal relative clause, also introduced by a wh-element, can be:
- Subject: What he is looking for is a wife.
- Direct object: I want to see whoever deals with complaints.
- Indirect object: He gave whoever came to the door a winning smile.
- Subject complement: Home is where your friends and family are.
- Object complement: You can call me whatever names you like
- Appositive: Let us know your college address(that is, where you live in term time)
- Prepositional complement: Vote for whichever candidate you like.

4.5. To-infinitive nominal clauses

The to-infinitive nominal clause can occur as:
- Subject: For a bridge to collapse like that is unbelievable
- Direct object: He likesto make his parents happy.
- Subject complement: My wish is to be a pilot.
- Appositive: His ambition, to be a straight actor, was never fulfilled.
- Adjective complement: I’m glad to help you.
It’s important to give your opinion.
- Object complement: I want you to finish this report.
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4.6. Nominal -ing clauses
The nominal -ing clause, a participle clause, occurs in the following positions:
- Subject: Telling lies is wrong.
- Direct object: I always enjoys listening to chamber music.
- Subject complement: His favourite pastime is playing practical jokes.
- Appositive: His greatest pleasure, climbing mountains, had to be abandoned.
- Prepositional complement: I’m tired of being treated like a child.
- Adjectival complement: The children were busy building sandcastles.
- Object complement: I see her walking.

4.7. Bare infinitive and verbless clauses

The to of the infinitive is optionally omitted in a clause which supplies a predication
corresponding to a use of the pro-verb do:
All I did was (to) turn off the gas
When the infinitive clause is initial, to has to be omitted: Turn off the tap was all I did.

5. Adverbial clauses
5.1. Clauses of time
- Finite adverbial clauses of time are introduced by such subordinators as: after,
before, since, until, when, as soon as, once………
When you lived in London, did you ever meet Peter?
Buy your tickets as soon as you reach the station.
- The -ing clause may be introduced by after, before, since, until, when(ever), and
while:
He wrote his greatest novel while working on a freighter.
In addition, -ing clauses without a subject are also used to express time relationship:
Nearing the entrance, I shook hands with my acquaintances.
~ When / as I neared the entrance, I shook hands with my acquaintances.
- The -ed clause by once, until, when(ever), and while:
Once published, the book cause a remarkable stir.
- The verbless clauses by as soon as, once, when(ever), and while:
When in difficulty, consult the manual.

5.2. Clauses of place

Adverbial clauses of place are introduced by where or wherever:
You go whenever you want.
Where the fire had been, we saw nothing but blackened ruins.
Non-finite and verbless clauses occur with both the subordinators:
Where(ver) known, such facts have been reported.
Where(ver) possible, all moving parts should be tested.

5.3. Clauses of condition and concession

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a. Conditional clauses: state the dependence of one circumstance or set of circumstances
on another. Finite adverbial clauses of condition are introduced chiefly by the
subordinators if (positive condition) and unless (negative condition):
If you are travelling north, you must change at Leeds.
~ If travelling north, you must change at Leeds.
Unless you pay by credit card, please pay in cash.
~ Unless paying by credit card, please pay in cash.

b. Concessive clauses: imply a contrast between two circumstances. Possible

conjunctions are: although, even though, though, while, whereas, and even if:
While he admitted that he had received the stolen jewellery, he denied having
taken part in the robbery.
~ While admitting that he had received the stolen jewellery, he denied having
taken part in the robbery.
Both conditional and concessive clauses tend to assume initial position in the
superordinate clause.

c. Alternative conditional-concessive clauses

The correlative sequence whether…or… is a mean of coordinating two subordinate
clauses, combining conditional meaning with disjunctive meaning:
Whether (living) in London or not, John enjoyed himself.
Whether or not he finds a job in New york, he’s moving there.
Whether they beat us or we beat them, we’ll celebrate tonight.

d. Universal conditional-concessive
The universal conditional-concessive clause, introduced by one of the wh-compounds
(whatever, whoever,ect), indicates a free choice from among any number of conditions:
She looks pretty whatever she wears.
(It means: even though she were to wear overalls or a space suit, she looks pretty)
There is a subtle semantic difference between such conditional clauses and apparently
identical time and place clauses:
Wherever you live, you can keep a horse.
(The locative meaning would be: You can keep a horse at any place where you may live;
the conditional-concessive meaning is: It doesn’t matter where you live, you can keep a
horse- not necessarily in the same place).
The longer constructions ‘it doesn’t matter wh -’ and the more informal ‘no matter wh-’
may be added to the list of universal conditional-concessive clause introducers:
No matter (It doesn’t matter) how hard I try, I can never catch up with him.

5.4. Clauses of reason or cause

Clauses of reason or cause are most commonly introduced by the conjunctions because,
as, or since:
I lent him the money because he needed it.
As / since Jane was the eldest, she looked after the others.
Non-finite and verbless clauses can be used for cause, but without conjunction:
Being anxious to please him, I bought him a nice present.
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5.5. Clauses of circumstance
Clauses of circumstance express a fulfilled condition or a relation between a premise (in
the subordinate clause) and the conclusion drawn from it (in the main clause). They are
most commonly introduced by the conjunctions because, since or as:
Since everyone appears to be present, the meeting can now begin.
but in addition there is a special circumstantial compound cojunction, seeing (that):
Seeing that the weather has improves, we shall enjoy our game.
Non-finite clauses and verbless clauses are often used, but without subordinator:
The weather having improved, we enjoyed the rest of the game.

5.6. Clauses of purpose

Clauses of purpose are adjuncts, usually infinitival, introduced by in order (for N) to, so
as to:
I left early to catch the train.
They left the door open in order for me to hear the baby.
Finite clauses of purpose may be introduced by so that or (more formally) by in order
that or (so) that:
John visited Londonin order that (so that) he could see his chairman.

5.7. Clauses of result

Result clauses (disjuncts, placed finally in superordinate clauses) are factual rather than
‘putative’, so they may contain an ordinary verb form without a modal auxiliary. They
are introduced by so that (informally so):
We planted many shrubs, so (that) the garden soon looked beautiful.

5.8. Clauses of manner and comparison

- Clauses of manner are introduced by (exactly) as, (just) as:
Answer the question (exactly) as you think suitable.
(Just) as a moth is attracted by a light, (so) he was fascinated by her.
- Clauses of comparison are introduced by as if, as though:
He looks as if he is going to be ill.
He treated me as if he had never met me.

5.9. Clauses of proportion and preference

- Proportional clauses express a ‘proportionality’ or equivalence of tendency or
degree between two circumstances, and either introduced by as…(so) or the … the plus
comparatives:
As you sow, so you will reap.
The more he thought about it, the less he liked it.
The harder he worked, the happier he felt.
- Clauses of preference are introduced by rather than, sooner than, normally with a
bare infinitive structure:
Sooner than go there by air, I’d take the slowest train
Rather than sit quietly at home, he preferred to visit his friends.

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6. The verb phrase in dependent clauses
6.1. The present tense with subordinators

To express future meaning, the present tense is used in preference to the auxiliary will /
shall in certain types of adverbial clauses:
When
Before he arrives, the band will play the National Anthem.
If
The subordinators chiefly involved belong to the temporal and conditional categories:
Temporal: after, as, before, once, till, untill, when(ever), as soon as
Other: unless, provided (that), given (that), assuming (that), presuming (that), even if, in
case, as (maner), whatever, etc
He will come in case we need him.
Nominal that- and wh- clauses tend to contain present tense verbs when the main clause
refers to the future, e.g: I shall ask him what he wantstommorrow, but when the main
clause refers to the present, the future will is likely to be used in the subordinate clause,
e.g: The question is what he will want tomorrow.
However, there are exceptional verbs like hope, suppose ( in the imperative), and assume,
after which the simple present can often be used as readily as will:
I hope that the parcel comes in time.
Let’s assume our opponents win the election.

6.2. The modal past

The past tense is used in unreal conditional sentences:
If we had enough money, I wouldn’t have to work so hard.
The corresponding superordinate verb phrase is would / should + infinitive, except when
the past of another modal auxiliary is used:
If we had enough money, we could buy a tape-recorder.
Other constructions in which the modal past is used are illustrated below:
It’s time you were in bed.
He behaves as though he was / were a millionaire.
It’s not as though we were poor.
Just suppose / imagine someone was / werefloowing us.
I’d rather we had dinner now.
If only I had listened to my parents!
Unreal meaning in past time is indicated by had plus the -ed participle:
We could have got married today, if you’d really wanted to.
If he had listened to me, he wouldn’t have made the mistake.

6.3. Perfect aspect with since

When since is used in a temporal sense, the perfect is used in the superordinate clause,
also sometimes in the subordinate clause, in referring to a stretch of time up to the
present:
Since we have owned a car, we have gone camping every year.
She has been drinking Martinis ever since the party started.
The same applies to since as preposition and as prepositional adverb:
Scholars have been writing English grammars since the sixteenth century.
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After and when, in referring to a sequence of past events, can be followed either by a past
perfect or by a simple past tense verb :

Afterhad returned
hefrom work, his wife served dinner
Whenreturned

All four of these are acceptable, and mean roughly the same. The only difference is that
when with the simple past tense (probably the most popular choice) suggests that the one
event followed immediately on the other. Looking at the two following examples:

He went away when I her visited

had visited
The variant with the past tense would normally mean ‘as soon as I visited her’ or ‘at the
time that I was visiting her’, that with the past perfect ‘after I had visited her’.

6.4. Present subjunctive in conditional clauses

The present subjunctive is used very occasionally and in rather formal use, as as we have
seen, in real conditional clauses and concessive clauses:
Whatever be the reasons for it, we cannot tolerate this disloyalty.
Clauses of concession and purpose may also very occasionally contain a verb in the
subjunctive mood to express ‘putative’ meaning:

Though he is the President himself, he shall hear us

be
The subjunctive is also possible in that- clauses expressing wish, hope, or intention
(though should would be more usual):
Congress has voted / decided / insisted that the present law be maintained.
(The present subjunctive is more common in AmE than in BrE, where it is rare outside
legal style.)
The past subjunctive were is used in formal clauses of hypothetical meaning, such as
thase introduced by if, as if, as though, though, and the imperative verbs suppose and
imagine:
Suppose he were here………
If the truth were known…….

6.5. Putative should

The modal auxiliary shouldis used quite extensively in that- clauses to express not a
subordinate statement of fact, but a ‘putative’ idea. It can usually be replaced by the
indicative without much difference of meaning.
I am surprised that he should feel lonely(= he feels)
Other superordinate constructions which introduce a that- clause with should can be
illustrated as follows:

It’s a pity
I’m surprised
136
It’s disgracefulthat he should reign.
It’s unthinkable
It worries me
7. Direct and indirect speech
The difference between direct speech and indirect (or reported) speech is shown in:
He said: ‘I am very angry’. (direct speech)
He said that he was very angry. (indirect speech)
Indirect speech subordinates the words of the speaker in a that- clause within the
reporting sentence. In the case of direct speech, his words are ‘incorporated’(in writing
by quotation marks) within the reporting sentence and retain the status of an independent
clause. Structurally, the reporting clause, in direct speech, may be classed as a comment
clause. It may occur before, within, or after the speech itself. Except when it occurs in
initial position, there is likely to be an inversion of the subject and a reporting verb in the
simple present or past tense:

said John.
‘I am your friend,’ John said.
he said.

Several changes are made in converting direct to indirect speech are:

7.1. Pronoun
First and second person pronouns are changed to third person:
He said, ‘I’m going home’
→ He said he was going home.
‘You are beautiful,’ he whispered
→ He whispered that she was beautiful.

7.2. Here / now

Frequently, there is a change from here to there, and from now to then:
‘I live here,’ he explained → He explained that he lived there.
‘I shall do it now,’ he said → He said that he would do it then.

7.3. Expressions of time and place

Adverbs and adverbial phrases of time change as follows:
Direct Indirect
today that day
yesterday the day before
the day before yesterday two days before
tomorrow the next day/ the following day
the day after tomorrow in two days’time
this week that week
next week / year etc the following week / year etc
137
 last week / year etc the previous week / year etc
a year ago a year before / the previous year

7.4. Tense
- The most important alteration takes place in the verb phrase: When the reporting verb is
in the past tense, verbs in the reported speech are changed as follows:

DIRECTINDIRECT
1. present past
2. past
3. present perfect past perfect
4. past perfect
Examples of each part of the rule are:
(1) ‘I am tired,’ she complained
→ She complained that she was tired.
(2) ‘The exhibition finished last week,’ explained Ann
→ Ann explained that the exhibition had finished the preceding week.
(3) ‘I’ve won the match already’ exclaimed our friend
→ Our friend exclaimed that he had won the match already.
(4) ‘The whole house had been ruined,’ said the landlord
→ The landlord said that the whole house had been ruined.
(5) Conditional sentence (type 1) : He said, ‘if I catch the plane I’ll
be home by five’
→ He said that if he caught the plane he would be home by five.
NOTE : Conditional sentence (type 2, 3) : No tense changes:
‘If I had a permit I could get a job’, he said
→ He said that if he had a permit he could get a job.
‘If she had loved Tom’, he said, ‘she wouldn’t have left him’
→ He said that if she had loved Tom she wouldn’t have left him.
- If, on the other hand, the reporting verb is in the present, there is no tense change:
She keeps saying, ‘I am a failure’
→ She keeps saying that she is a failure.

7.5. Indirect questions, exclamations, and commands:

+ Indirect question (yes-no question):
‘Are you ready yet?’ asked Joan
→ Joan asked (me) whether I was ready yet
+ Indirect question (wh-question):
‘When will the plane leave?’ I wondered
→ I wondered when the plane would leave
+ Indirect exclamation :
‘What a hero you are!’ Mary told him
→ Mary told him what a hero he was
138
 + Indirect command:
‘Keep silent!’ she said to the child
→ She told the child to keep silent.

7.6. The modal auxiliaries:

If modal auxiliary in direct speech has no past tense equivalent (this includes auxiliaries
which are already past, such as could, might, must, ought to, need, and had better), the
same form remains in indirect speech:
‘I would like some tea,’ he said → He said (that) he would like some tea.

139
 Appendix 1
WORD STRUCTURE AND FORMATION

A. Word structure

+ Word = An independent language unit which has both sound and spelling forms and is
capable to form asentence by itself.
+ Words are made up of morphemes.
+ Morpheme:
- occurs in speech as part of words.
- may constitute a word by itself.
- is the smallest indivisible meaningful language unit
+ Types of morphemes:

Morpheme

Root M Affixal M (bound)

Free M bound M grammatical/ functional M derivational

M`

+ Structural types of word

Word

Simple Derived Compound

(R) (R+A) (R+R)
read reader well-read
B. Word formation
1. Affixation
Affixation = process of forming new words by adding affixes to root morphemes
+ Affixation:
(i) prefixation = process of adding prefixes to the root.
(ii) suffixation = process of adding prefixes to the root.
(iii) infixation process of adding infixes to the root.
140
+ Types of affixes classified in accordance with degrees of productivity:
- productive (help to build new words) affixes
- non-produtive(do not help to build new words) affixes

1. Prefixation
a. Prefixes and their meanings.

Prefixes Meaning Examples

un-, dis-, Negative unhappy, unlucky, uneven, dishonest, disunion, disaffection, non-
non-, stop,
il-, im-, in-, non party, nonsense, illiterate, illegal, illogical, impossible,
ir- improper; inactive,
un-, dis-, de-,reversal inaccurate,
unlock, undo,incapable;
unpack; irregular,
disagree, irrational,
disappear,irresponsible
disconnect, decentralize,
re-, anti-, repetition demobilize, decontaminate; rewrite, review, retell, antiwar,
counter-, opposite antiaircraft, antithesis, counter-attack,
counter-weight, counter-revolution
anti-. ante-, relations antechamber, anticipate, ex-president, ex-champion, ex- manager,
ex-, hip:
time foresee, forecast, forefront, pre-historic, pre-war, precondition,
fore-, pre-, postwar,
post-graduate, post-position; upstairs, upgrade, uplift,
post-, up-, subdivision,
submarine, subtitle; transplant, transatlantic, transcontinental,
sub-, trans-, place
inter-, international, interface, interrelation, extraordinary, extranuclear,
extra-, manner withstand, withdraw, co-exist, cooperative, co-chairman,
endanger,
with-, со-, enable, enclose, embed, empower, emplacement;
en-, em-, superman, supernatural, supersonic, overflow, overcoat,
super-, oversleep,
outweigh, outcast, out-distance, undergrowth, underestimate,
over-, degree undersized,
ultraviolet, ultramodern, ultraradical, polysyllabic, polysemantic,
out-, bicycle,
bilateral, disyllablic, duodecimal, duologue, monologue,
under-,
ultra-, monosyllabic,
monolingual;
poly-,
bi-, dis-, awake, afresh, anew, aloud, alike, alone, afar;
duo-
, mono-,
a-, quantity
mis-, misunderstand, mislead, misbehave.
state
evaluatio
n
b. Productive and non-productive prefixes
141
+ Non-productive:
(i) a-: arise, anonymous, awake, afar,...
(ii) amphi-(on, both): amphitheater, amphibious,...
(iii) ab- (from, away): abnormal, abstain,...
(iv) ad- (to, toward): admit, admonish,...
(v) ante /anti: antechamber, antibiotic,...
(vi) con- / со- (with, together): confrontation, cooperate,...
(vii) de- (down, away): decrease, depart,...
(viii) dis-, di: disyllabic, diphthong,...
(ix) duo-: duodecimal,...
(x) en- / em- (in, make): enact, encircle, embark, embargo,...
(xi) fore-: forearm, foretell,...
(xi) forth-: forthcoming, forthnight,...
:ii) in-: innate, insight,...
iii) on-: onset, onslaught,... (xiv) per-: perfect, persuade,... (xv) poly-: polysyllabic,
polyglot,... (xvi) re-: retract, return,... (xvii) with-: withstand, withdraw,...

с. Living (still in use) vs dead (out of use) prefixes:

Dead prefixes:
(i) a-: aware, aware, awaken, ashamed,...
(ii) circum- (around): circumstance, circumference,...
(iii) op- (against): opposite, oppress,...

2. Suffixation
a. Classification of suffixes:
+ Suffixes classified according to the parts of speech:
Noun - forming suffixes
(i) -age (state, place, progress, collectiveness): village, blockage; (ii)-al, -ial (act): refusal,
burial.
(iii) -ance, -ence (act, state, quality, condition): assistance, appearance, existence,
(iv) -an ,-ian (agent, follower, resident): republician, guardian, Cambodian;
(v) -ant, -ent (agent): assistant, student;
(vi) -ancy, ency(state): vacancy, emergency;
(vii) - ard (depreciatory): drunkard, coward;
(viii) -ate (agent, function): advocate, magistrate;
(ix) -asm, -ast (state, condition, agent): enthusiasm, enthusiast;
(x) -cy (state, condition, office): bankruptcy, agency;
(xi) -dom (state, condition, collectiveness): freedom, kingdom,
(xii) -er, -or (agent, instrument, resident): teacher, cooker, villager, visitor;
(xiii) -ее, -еу,-у (receive/ object/ result of action): employee, attorney, inquiry;
(xiv) -eer (person, profession): pioneer, engineer;
(xv) -ess (feminine): actress, tigress;
(xvi) -eur (person): amateur;
142
(xvii) - hood (state, condition): childhood, neighbourhood;
(xviii) -ice (act, quality, condition): service, justice;
(xix) -ics (art, study, science): phonetic, linguistics;
(xx) -ie,-y (diminutive): birdie,, grany;
(xxi) -ier (agent):cashier;
(xxii) -ing (art, fact, activity): learning, feeling;
(xxiii) -ion,-tion (condition, state, result, act): tension, organization, discussion;
(xxiii)-ism.-ist (doctrine, theory, system, result, follower, specialist): socialism;
(xxiv) -ity (state): clarity, similarity;
(xxv) -let (small, young): booklet, piglet;
(xxvi) -ling (diminutive): seedling, duckling;
(xxvii) -ment (act, state, progress, result, manner): statement, agreement,
(xxviii) -mony(state, condition, result): goodness, darkness, seriousness;
(xxix) -ology (student, system): biology, psychology;
(xxx) -or,-our (condition, quality): error, favour;
(xxxi) -ry (state, condition, collectiveness): machinery, poetry;
(xxxii) -ship (state, condition, quality, office, profession): friendship, citizenship;
(xxxiii) -ster (agent, depreciatory): youngster, gangster;
(xxxiv) -th (state, quality): strength, length;
(xxxv) -tude (state, quality): latitude, attitude;
(xxxvi) -ty (quality, state, condition): liberty, poverty;
(xxxvii) -ure (act, process, state, result, rank): pleasure, pressure;

Adjective - forming suffixes:

(i) able / -ible (capable of, characterised by, quality): fashionable, possible;
(ii) -al,-ar,- ic,-ile (capable of, of the nature of, belonging to): global, classical
circular, popular, necessary, secondary, domestic, historic, mobile, infantile, ‘
(iii) -an, -ean (originated from, belonging to): Roman, European
(iv) -ent, -ant (quality): independent, different, important, distant;
(v) -ese (resident): Vietnamese, Chinese,
(vi) -fold (having a specified number of): twofold, tenfold;
(vii) -ish (having a small degree of like): reddish, foolish;
(viii) -ive (related to, causing): active, effective;
(ix) -less (without, lacking, unable): useless, harmless;
(x) -ful (full of, characterised by): hopefull, careful;
(xi) -like (resembling): businesslike, comradelike;
(xii) -ly(quality, character): friendly, womanly, lovely, lively, silly, sickly, motherly,
cowardly, costly
(xiii) -ous (causing, characterised by): glorious, dangerous;
(xiv) -some (causing, tending to): troublsome, lonesome;
(xv) -ward (in the direction of): sideward, northward;
(xvi) -(characterised by): mighty, needy, hearty, lofty;

143
Numeral - forming suffies-teen (fifteen), -th (fourth), -ty(sixty)
Verb - forming suffixes (i) -ate (facilitate), (ii) -fy (horrify), (iii) -en (brighten), (iv) -
ize (specialize)
vacinate simplify darken legalize
liberate classify shorten fertilize

Adverb - forming suffixes (i) -ly (coldly), (ii) -ward(s) (upward(s), (iii) -wise (likewise),
(iv)-long (sidelong) (v) -way(s) (crossway)
clockwise headlong
+ Suffixes classified according to lexico • grammatical meaning
(i) abstract nouns: -age,-ance/-ence,-ancy/-ency, -ation, -doom, -cy,-hood,-ing, -ion, -tion,
-ism, -ice, -ment, - ness, -ship, -th, -ty
(ii) personal nouns: -ant, -an, -ian, -ее, -ent, -er, -ier.-ist, -ey,-eer
(iii) femininenouns: actress, heroine, suffragette, teststrix
(iv) derogatory suffixes: drunkard, underling, gangster, simpleton
(v) diminutive suffixes: auntie, hanky, chicken, booklet
+ Suffixes classified according to degress of productivity: productive vs non-
productive suffixes; living vs dead.
Non - produtive: -ade, -age,-ance, -ant, -ar, -ard, -ate, -cy, -dom, -en, -eer, -ese, -ence, -
ean, -fy, -hood, -ier, -ics, -ine, -ic, -ian, -ice, -ive, -long, -ly, -ment, -or, -ster, -th, -tude, -
ward(s), -wise, -y

Living vs. dead suffixes:

• Dead suffixes: -t (flight, height), -d (deed), -lock (wedlock)
• Polysemantic suffixes (a great number)
•er: (i) doer of the action: speaker, player, teacher;
(ii) person living in the certain place: villager, Lodoner;
(iii) device, toolor instrument: eraser, cooker, boiler, starter, screwdriver
-y: (i) characterised by: windy, rainy
(ii) full of, composed of: watery, muddy, sandy, starry
(iii) intimate: daddy, mummy, dolly
(iv) resembling: bushy, inky, rosy
-ment: (i) state, quality, condition: amazement
(ii) action: arrangement
(iii) process, manner: government, development
(iv) continuance:

II. Compounding (Word composition)

1. Definition:
+ Compounding = process of placing two or more stems together to form a new word.
+ A compound word (compound) consists of at least two root morphemes.
+ Compounds may be formed by components that are originally either simple words,
derived words oreven compound words, one of which has inflections.
e.g. Nouns: blackboards, store- keepers, mothers -in -law, passers-by;
144
Verbs: handwash, handwashes, handwashing, hadwashed;
Adjectives: heart-breaking, heart- broken, midle-age, first-rate;
Adverbs: meantime, midway, wherever;
Pronouns: somebody, anything, whoever;

2. Criteria for distinguishing between compounds and free word combinations

a. Phonological criterion
+ Most of compounds have a stress on the first component:
e.g. 'classroom, 'greenhouse, 'boy-friend, to 'whitewash, to 'bottlefeed, 'snub-nosed,
'forget-me-not, 'mother- in -law, 'passer-by, 'dancing - girl
c.f. Free word groups: a 'green ' house, a 'dancing' girl
e.g. (i) A: Look at the beautiful ‘dancing girl.
b: She 's a well - known 'dancing girl.
(ii) If you don't drive the' blue bottle away, I will throw the blue' bottle on yourface.
+ Some compound have double stress (even stress):
eg. 'good-egg", 'bread-and-'butter, 'grey-'green, 'easy-'going, 'happy- go-'lucky,
'new-'born, 'self-'control, 'All-'Fools -'Day, 'passenger 'train, 'merry-go-'round.
+ stress helps to differentiate the meaning: eg. 'over- work (viec lam them) 'over -'work
(lam viec qua suc) 'bookcase (tu, giasach) 'book'case (biabocsach). man'kind (loainguoi)
man'kind (namgioi, dan ong).
b. Criterion of structural integrity
Compounds are indivisible and it is impossible to insert any other words. Inflections are
added to the whole compounds.
e.g. black- markets, blackbirds, blackmail, blacklist, blacklegs, red-tape, fair- haired
c.Criterion of semantic integrity
The meaning of a compound is often idiomatic, i.e the meaning of the whole compound
is not a mere sum of the meanings of its components like in free word groups.
eg. dirty work (dishonorable proceedings)
fuss-pot (person easily excited and nervous about trifles)
slow-coach (person who thinks and acts slowly)
chatterbox (person who talks a graet deal without saying anything important)
blue-stocking woman (woman who affects literary tastes and learning)
lip- service (superficial service from the lips only)
lip-reading (interpretation of the motion of the lip)
lipstick (a stick of cosmetics for redding the lips)
d. Graphic (spelling) criterion
A compound can be spelt in three ways : hyphenated spelling, solid spelling or with a
break (spcae) between components, e.g. air-line, air line, airline
match - box, match box, matchbox.
Few compounds have connective elelments (infixes): e.g. statesman, handicraft, savings-
bank, goods- train, Anglo-Saxon.

3. Classification
145
a. Structural classification
+ Compounds classified in accordance with the structure of the immediate
constituents:
(i) simple stems: handbag, filmstar
(ii) derived stems: skyscraper, long-legged, ill-manered, teenager
(iii) abbriviated stems: math- teacher, H-bomb, X-ray
(iv) one or more compound stem(s) + stem: aircraftcarrier, waste paper basket
(v) verb + adv: break- down, cut- back
+ Compounds classified in accordance with the parts of speech to which they
belong:
(i) compound nouns: girlfriend, greengrocer, splashdown
(ii) compound adjectives: red- hot, peace- loving, man- made, middle- age
(iii) compound verbs: to whitewash, to carpet-bomb, to streamline
(iv) compound adverbs: wholeheartedly, shamefacedly, selfconfidently
(v) compound prepositions: onto, into, hereafter
+ According to the types of composition
(i) compounds formed by juxtaposition: backache, heart- broken, railroad
(ii) compounds formed by morphological means (with an affix): spokesman, Afro- Asian,
speedometer.
(iii) compounds formed by syntactical means:
(word group → compound): up- to date, forget- me -not, cash - and - carry
(iv) compounds formed by morphological and syntactical means:
kind-hearted: with a kind heart
blue-eyed: with blue eyes
teenager: a person in his teens
+ According to the relations between components
(i) Coordinative components (both are independent): socio- economical, brainmaster,
mother- earth , parent- teacher
(ii) Subordinate components (one component dominates over the other): wrist- watch,
gate-keeper, spaceship
b.Semantic classification
(i) Non-idiomatic (morphologically motivated): The meaning of the whole can deduced
form the meanings of the copmponents: doorhandle, headache, rose-bush, life-boat,
bedroom, sunlight
(ii) Idiomatic (non-motivated): no semantic relation between constituents: nightmare,
lotus-easter, lip-service, eyewash, horse-sense, monkey-business.
c. Phonetic classification:
Three sub-groups of reduplicative compounds:
(i) reduplicative compounds proper: hush- hush, pooh- pooh, murmur, quack-quack, puff-
puff, fifty-fity.
(ii) ablaut combinations: the second basic morpheme is repeated with a different vowel:
sing-song , chitchat, ding-dong, ping-pong, zig-zag, tip-top,...
(iii) rhyme combinations: two pseudo-morphemes are joined to rhyme : walkie- talkie,
willy, nilly, hotchpotch, hurry-scurry, lovey-dovey,...

III. Shortening
146
1. Abbreviation (acronyms): words build from the initials of several words:
a. Monograms:
UK: The United Kingdom of Great Britain and NorthenIreland GB: Great Britain
USA: The United States of America UNO: United Nations Organization
UNESCO: United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization
UNICEF:United Nations Children's Emergency Fund UNFPA: United Nations Fund for
Population Activities ASCAP: Economic and Social Comission for Asia and the Pacific
WHO / OMS: World health Organization / Organization Modiale de la Sante 1 OPEC:
Organization of Petroleum Exporting countries NATO: North Atlantic Treaty
Organization TV: Television VIP: Very Important Person
MP: Member of Parliament, Military Police, Mounted Police GNP: Gross National
Product GDP: Gross Domestic Product SOS: Save Our Souls POW: prisoner of war
MIA: missing in action
GPO: General Post Office
Gis, Gl's: government issues, US soldiers
BBC: British Broadcasting Corporation
VOA: Voice of America
RAF: Royal Air Force
USAF: United States Air Force
SALT: Strategic Arms Limitation Talks
F: Fahrenheit
C: Celsius, centigrade
41 ВС: the year 41 before Christ
AD185: (L. Anno Domini) in the year 185 of the Christian era
H: hydrogen
0: oxygen
Cl: chlorine
Na: (L. natrium) sodium
etc.: etcetera; and so on
i.e.: (L. id est) that is (to say)
eg.: (L. exempli gratia) for example
ibid.: (L.ibidem) in the same book, chapter, page, ets. quoted before
op.cit. (L. opere citato) in the work cited
et al. (L. et alii) and others
viz. (L. videlicet) that is, namely
Nos.: numbers
do: care of
v/vs: versus
am: (L. ante meridiem) before noon
pm: (L. post meridiem) after noon
h: hour

147
min: minute
sec: second
ml: millilitre
kg: kilogramme
cc: cubic centimetre; chapters,
pp: pages, past participle
II: lines
ff: following (pages, lines, etc)
nn: notes
cf: compare
R.S.V.P./ r.s.v.p: (Fr. Reppondez s'il vous plait) pleasereply
CIF: cash, insurance and freight
COD/ c.o.d: cash on delivery
f.o.b: free on board
Co.: company
Corp.: corporation
Inc.: included, including, incorporated
Ltd.: Limited
Fax: (fasimile)
BA: Bachelor of Arts
Bsc.: Bachelor of science
MA: Master of Arts
Msc.: Master of Science
Litt.B: Bachelor of Letters, Bachelor of Literature
MBA's.: Master of Business Administration
Ph.D.: Doctor of Philosophy
MFA: Master of fine Arts
FDR: Frankline Delano Roosevelt (1882-1945) 32nd US president
JFK: John Fitzgerald Kennedy (1917 -1963) 35th US president
I.O.U: I owe you
Jeep: general purpose car
Radar: radio detection and ranging
Laser: light amplification by stimulated emission of radiation
Sonar: sound navigation and ranging
Scuba: self-contained under-water breathing apparatus
b. Homonymy- based acronyms: I.O.U

2. Clipping
(i) Initial: car (motro car), plane (airplane), phone (telephone,) bus (omnibus),drome
(airdrome.)

148
(ii) Final: exam (examination), lab (laboratory), prof (Professor), doc (document), ad
(advertisement),
pop(popular), prefab (prefabricated building materials),
fig (figures, figurative), fan (fanatic).veg (vegeterian), gym (gymnastic),
bull (bulletin), str (stress), sec (second), h (hour), min (minute),
Co (company), Corp (Corporation), Inc (Incorporated), include (included, inclusive),
repoff (representative
office), Lat (Latin), Gr (Greek), BrE (British English), AmE (Americain English ), Jan
(January), Feb
(February), Nov (November); Hon (Honorable), Rev (Reverend),...
(iii) Initio-final: fridge (refrigenator), flu(influenza), tec (detective).
(iv) Medial: maths (mathematics), specs (spectacles), V-day (Victory - Day), H-bomb
(hydrogen bomb),fancy (fantacy), Mr (Mister), Mrs., Mmes. Ms.(Messrs, Messieurs), Dr
(Doctor), St (Saint), Rd (Road),ma'am (madam), sec'y (secretary), ass'n (association),
dep't (department), agcy (agency). Ltd (Limited),...
(v) Elliptic-conversational: sit-down (demonstration), pop (popular music), perm
(permanent wave),
prelim (premilinary examination), coed (coeducational school or college), pram
(perambulator), demob(demobilization).
3. Blending (parts of two words merge into one word):
brunch (breakfast + lunch), smog (smoke + fog), telecast (telebroadcast), medicare
(medical + care), telex (telegram + express), motel (motorists' + hotel), transreceiver
(transmitter + receiver), fruice(fruit + juice),...

iV. Conversion
1. Conversion = Process of coining a new word in a different part of speech without
adding any element (zero derivation).
2. Tyes of conversion:
(i) Substantivization of adjectives: (adj → n) and (v → n). Eg.:
- a native, a female, a relative, a daily, elastic, a private, an intellectual, a criminal, a
conservative, a radical, a red, a grown - up.
- the blind, the rich, the happy, the good.
- a go, a find, black - out, take- over, a stand, a must, a walk, a move,
(ii) Adjectivization of nouns (n → adj). Eg:
a silver cup, a gold ring, an iron knife, (iii)
Verbalization of nouns or adjectives (n / adj → v)
v). Eg:to hand, water, land, poket, arm, elbow, silence, skin, bottle, railroad, honeymoon,
rubber-stamp, machine-gun, head, eye, finger, fish, shoulder, beter, black, up, down,
lower, narrow, clear, clean, cool, quiet.
(iv) Adverbalization of adjectives (adj → adv). Eg.
fast Jong, high, pretty, hard, wrong, dead, (v) Partial conversion. Eg.:
- to have a look / talk / smoke / swim / wash /chat / drink/ sleep / dance / rest

149
 - to get a ring / kick / blow / cry/ laugh / whistle / jerk / jump / start / answer
- to take a ride / walk / the lead
- to make a (n) move / dive / request / suggestion / attempt / agreement/
(vi) Occasional (individual) coinage (conversion).
Eg. 'Hello, dear!1 He hello-deared everybody.
I'm tired of his 'hello -dear'.
V. Sound and stress interchange
I.Sound interchange
food - feed, speak - speech, life - live, advice - advise, bath - bathe, belief - believe, proof
- prove, loss-lose, long - length, wide - width, deep - depth, strong - strength, full - fill,
sing - song, high- height.
2. Stress interchange
nounsverbs------adjectives verbs

'accent (n) ac'cent(v) 'frequent (adj) fre'quent(v)

'conduct con'duct 'absent ab'sent
'decrease de'crease 'perfect per'fect
'object ob'ject 'concre con'crete
Note: Many disyllablic verbs and nouns have the same stress:
- on the first syllable: Exile, figure, preface, quarrel, focus, process, program,
triumph, rivet, etc...
- on the second syllable: accord, account, advance, amount, approach, attack,
attempt, concern, defeat,
distress, escape, exclaim, research, etc...

VI. sound imitation (onomatopoeia / echoism)

- sound and movement of water: babble, blob, bubble, flush, gurgle, gush, splash,
etc..
- sound and movement of things: bang, boom, bump, clash, crash, clink, hum, rattle,
rustle, smack, thud, tinkle.whack, which, whip, etc...
- sound expressing human feelings: babble, chatter, сое, jabble, giggle, grumble, grunt,
hum, murmur, mutter, smack, whine, whisper, titter, etc...
- Sound produced by animals, bird, insects:
bee-buzz, hum tiger-roar wild goose-honk
frog - croak dog - bark, woof cock - crow
crow - croak cat - mew, purr hen - cackle
snake - hiss mouse - squeak cow / ox- moo
bird - twitter, chirp pig - squeak, grunt buffalo - snort
wolf - howl duck - quack horse - neigh
lion-roar goose- honk mosquitoes - buzz
monkey-jabber
150
VII. Back formation / back derivation
1. Back formation = Building of a new word by subtracting a real or supposed affix
from the existing word:
2. Examples:

beggar to beg house - breaking to house - break

baby - sister to baby- sit house - keeping to house - keep

editor to edit tape - recorder to tape - record
escalator to escalate trouble - shoooter to trouble- shoot
brainwashing to brainwash window - shopping to window- shop
air- conditioner to air- condition

151
 Appendix 2
PHRASEOLOGY

I. Introduction

1. Definition
Phraseology is the study of set expressions called phraseological units. These set
expressions are completely or partially idiomatic and reproduced in speech as ready-
made units.
2. Structural features
Set expressions are characterized by the stability of its lexical components and
grammatical structure, eg. red flower/ pen/ car/ flag/ tape (sing / pi): free word group red
-tape (bureaucratic methods): set expression.
3. Semantic and stylistic features
+ The meaning of a set expression is not a mere sum of the meanings of it components.
+ Set expressions are either completely or partially idiomatic.
Eg. to pull smb's leg (= to tease) → completely idiomatic
to be in high feather (= to be in good spirits) → ibid-to break the ice (= to overcome
formality in conversation; to get people on friendly terms) -» partially idiomatic,
transferred meaning to show one's teeth (= to take up a threatening attitude) → ibid-
+ Set expressions exist in language and are reproduced in speech as ready- made units
whereas free word groups or combinations are created in speech every time we need
them. Eg. to show the white feather (= to show fear) → set expression
to show one's anger / great courage/...→ free word group
+ Set expressions may contain different figures of speech such as metaphor, metonymy,
etc...
eg snake in the grass
to be a dog in the manger
to have a card up one's sleeve
to be all ears
+ Set expressions are based on:
(i) alliteration and contrast:
eg now or never; through thich and thin
to kill or to cure; give and take
(ii) synonymy:
to pull one's leg; to make a fool of somebody
to hit the right nail on the head;
(iii) rhyme
by hook or by crook; fair and square
(iv) polysemy:
152
 at large: at liberty, free: The escaped prisoner is still at large.
at full length, with details: He talked I wroted at large.
in general: Did people at large approve of the government policy?
at random, without definite aim: They scattered accusations at large.

II. Classification

1. Classification based on the degrees of motivation (degrees of idiomaticity).

a. Phraseological fusions: completely idiomatic set expressions; the meaning of the
whole has no connection with the meanings of its components. Eg. to be in high feather,
to beat about the bush , white elephant,...
b. Phraseological unities: partially idiomatic set expressions; the meaning of the whole
can be perceived as the figurative (metaphoric) meaning of the components.
Eg. to fish in trouble water
to show one's teeth
to wash dirty linen in public
a slip of the pen / the tongue
to be jack of all trades and master of none.
Phraseological fusions and unities are called phraseological units proper. In many cases it
is difficult to tell whether a given set expression belongs to fusions or unities, whether it
is completely or partially idiomatic (non-motivated), because motivation often depends
on the speaker's (and interpreter's) background knowledge.
c. Phraseological combinations: non-idiomatic word combninations, which contain one
component used in direct meaning while the other is used metaphorically and restricted in
its valency (ability to be combined with other words). They may be called traditional
phrases.
eg. to do one's duty, to make a mistake, to meet a requirement, a burning question, acute
pain, blank look/face/expression.

2. Classification based on the function in speech.

Set expressions can be classified as part of speech equivalents:
2.1. Noun equivalents:
a. Phraseological fusions:
eg. rank and file, high te, slow coach, pretty kettle of fish, brain trust, pain in the neck
(si).
b. Phraseological unities:
Eg. a man in the street, brown bread, a slip of the tongue, Jacks of all trades.
2.2. Verbequivalents:
a. Phraseological fusions:
Eg. to show the white feather, to blow one's own trumpet, to sit above the salt
b.Phraseological unities:
Eg. to clutch / catch at a traw, to dance on a tight rope, to hold the trump card, to break
the ice, to play the first / second fiddle.

153
2.3. Adjective equivalents:
a Phraseological fusions:
Eg. above - broad, spick and span, mad as a hatter, dead as a door nail,...
b. Phraseological unities:
eg.hight and mighty, brittle as glass, cold as charity, sharp as a needle
2.4. Adverb equivalents:
a. Phraseological fusions:
Eg. at sixes and sevens, (right) on the nail, with might and main, in the trice.
b.Phraseological unities:
Eg. at hand, in full swing, through thick and thin, in the twinkling of an eye, far and
away, (be driven) from pillar to post, (be) over head and ears.
2.5. Connector equivalents:
a. Prepositions: by means of, in order to, in front of, in view of, with the view to, by
virtue of.
b.Conjunctions: as well as, as soon as.
2.6. Interjection equivalents:
Eg. Oh dear! Dear me! My goodness!, Goodness gracious!....
2.7. Modal expression equivalents:
E. After all, as it were, in fact, so to say, to be sure. They are of parenthetical character.
Some phraseological units have homonyms among free word combinations. Eg. red tape,
red-tape, to hold a trump card,...

III. Verbal collocations

0. General features:
+ Verbal collocations are combinations constructed on the patterns:
(i) verbs + particle; (ii) verb + preposition; (iii) verb + particle + preposition.
+ Verbal collocations are treated as set expressions, i.e. the meanings of such
conmbinationscan not be
easily deduced from the individual meaning of the constituent verb and particle /
preposition.
+ They have idiomatic character (non-motivated) and differ from free combinations
(motivated).
Eg.
- phrasal verb (verb + adverbial particle): to turn up
- prepositional verb (verb + prepositon particle): to take after
- phrasal - prepositional verb (verb + particle + preposition): to put up with
1. Phrasal verbs:
a. Transitive phrasal verbs: the position of the adverbial particle is determined by the
nature of the
object referent.
- Verb + object+ adverbparticle/ verb + adverbparticle + object. Eg.
They manage to put the fire out (extinguish) They manage to put out the fire.
- Verb + pronoun + adverb particle. Eg.
You can't count me out (exclude). The customer turned it down (rejected).
154
- Verb + adverb particle+ object (a NP). Eg.
They turned down the proposal (rejected).
b. Intransitive phrasal verbs: the particle comes immediately after the verb. Eg.
He broke off as I came into the room (stopped talking).
2. Prepositional verbs:
The prepositional particle comes immediately after the verb. Eg. John obviously takes
after his father (resembles).
3. Phrasal - prepositional verbs:
Some of the verb + preposition combinations function transitively in one sense and
intranstively in another.

Transitive Intransitive
Take off shoes (remove). The plane will take off in ten minutes
(leave the
ground).
We must break down these figures My car was broken down last night (went
accurately
(make an analysis of). out of
order).
Please, pass out these papers (distribute). He passed out from the heat (fainted).

+ Examples for verbal collocations vs free verb combinations distinction:

1a. He looked / up the chimney.
1b. He looked up / the meaning of the word (search for).
1a. He came/ across the road.
2b. He came across/ an interesting book (find / meet by chance).
+ Compound words formed from phrasal verbs:
break down (v) break - down (n)
break up (v) break - up (n)
break out (v) break - out (n)
call up (v) call - up (n)
clear out (v) clear - out (n)
drawback (v) draw - back (n)
drop out (v) drop - out (n)
hold up (v) hold - up (n)
knock out (v) knock - out (n)
take over (v) take - over (n)
try out (v) try - out (n)
turn out (v) turn - out (n)
bring up (v) bring - up (n)

IV. Proverbs and quotations

Proverbs are historically created folk quotations or sayings, which express popular
wisdom, a truth or a
155
moral lesson in a figurative, imaginary way.
+ They have the form of a complete sentence with the following features:
- their lexical components are stable, constant; - their meaning is mostly figurative;
- They are used as ready - made units.
+ Many proverbs are peculiar only to the English language, reflecting national features,
history and tranditions of the English people:
Eg. He dances well to whom fortune pipes.
You can't eat your cake and have it.
The pot call the kettle black.
To carry coal to Newcastle.
The proof of the pudding is in the eating.
+ Some English proverbs are of international characters: they exist in many languages.
Eg. Two heads are better than one.
Don't cast pearls before swine.
The devil is not so black as he is painted. Habit is second nature.
+ Sometimes they are translation loans from other languages, mainly from French.
Eg. Appetite comes with eating (L'appetitvient an mangeant).
Besides, many set expressions are created from proverbs and sayings.
Eg. It is the early bird that catches the worm → the early bird
New broom sweeps clean → a new broom
The last straw breaks the camel's back → the last straw
2. Quotations:
Quotations are expressions coming from literature, which is part and parcel of the
language.
- Literary quotations (created by famous writers):
Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.
Brevity is the soul of wit (Shakeapeare).
Fools rush in where angels fear to tread (Pope).
- Biblical quotations (taken from the Bible):
It was the lat straw that breaks the camel's back.
3. Cliches
Cliches are quotations that are so often used and have become stale. They have lost their
originalexpressiveness.
Eg. the acid test; the irony of fate; to stand shoulder to shoulder; swan song; tender
mercies, etc,...

156
 Appendix 3
STYLISTIC ASPECTS OF THE ENGLISH
VOCABULARY

I. Introduction: three main layers of English vocabulary

literary neutral colloquial

bookish, written, stable universal, most stable spoken, unstable,

+ common literary words local dialectal

+ special literary vocab + common colloquial words
-term + Special colloquial vocab
- poetic words - slang
- archaic words - jargon
- foreign words - vulgar words
- nonce-words - professional words
- dialectal words
- nonce-words

II. Standard English vocabulary

1. Neutral words:
- neutral;
- make up the basic stock of words;
- form the basic of any utterance;
- can be used in any style of speech, and in all spheres of human activities;
- are of neutral stylistic value and no emotive value;
- constitute the main sources of polysemy and synonymy;
- most of them are monosyllabic and hence productive
Eg. girl, cold, green, we, she, to go, to eat, to drink, quickly, nicely, on, at, etc,...

3. Common literary vocabulary and common colloquial vocabulary

Eg. Synonyms (different in style and slightly different meaning).

157
Literature neutral colloquial
infant child kid
parents father dady
mother mummy
associate fellow chap
retired go away get out
proceed continue goon
youth / maiden boy/girl teenager
commence begin / start go ahead

Features:
(i) literary colloquial
chiefly used in writing emotionally coloured; used in everyday and in very careful
speech
by family members, close relatives and
bosom friends.
(ii) There is an overlap between these layers. The line of demarcation between common
colloquial and neutral layers on the one hand, and between common literary and neutral
layers on the other, is blurred, eg. parents, teenager, retire, go on,...

III. Special literary vocabulary

1. Terms / Terminology:
+ Terms are mostly and predominantly used in special works dealing with the notions of
some branches ofscience.
+ A term: (i) is monosemantic
(ii) has only direct meaning naming an object or a notion. If it has a
transferred meaning, it becomes an ordinary word.
Eg. The atomic age
The table was held in a friendly atmosphere,
(iii) has only denotational meaning, no connotational meaning, hence it is
not emotionally coloured.
+ Terms can be subdivided into:
(i) scientific terms: cold -reveting, afforestation, vaccination, radio- location, etc.
(ii) production terms: to drill, to plane, to harrow, pig- iron, plastic, etc.

2. Poetic and highly literary words.

They are:
- mostly archaic; very rarely used; highly literary words.
- used to create the special elevated and solemn atmosphere of poetry.
- used to convey the intensity of the (poet's) feeling.
- sometimes used to express satire

158
eg n. array (clothes) billow (sea wave) brow (forehead)
gore (blood) main (sea) woe (sorrow)
v. behold (see) deem (think) slay (kill)
adj fair (beautiful) hapless (unhappy) lone (lonely)
adv. nigh (almost) oft (often) whilom (formerly)
pron. ye (you) aught (anything) naught (nothing)
conj. albeit (although)ere (before) morn (morning)

3. Archaic words (archaisms)

They are words that are obsolete and are no longer in use but are found in poetry, official
documents andin older literary works. They have features as poetic words.
Archaic words are subdivided into three groups:
a. Obsolesent words (they are generally passing out of general use)
Eg. thou, ye (you), thy, thine (your), albeit (although), whither (where), aforesaid
(mentioned before), hereby (by means or by reason of this), thereafter (afterwards),
therewithal (in addition, besides), forbear (ancestor), etc
b.Obsolete words (they have already gone completely out of use but are still recognized
by the English speaking community)
eg. methinks (it seems to me), nay (no), aooth (truth), aught (anything), ere (before),
hapless(unhappy), whilom (formerly), woe (sorrow), save (except), betwixt (between),
damsel (young unmarriedwoman).
с Archaic words proper (they were in use in old English and are no longer recognizable
in ModernEnglish).
eg. troth (faith), a bosel (a worthless, lazy fellow)
From Shakeapeare's sonnet:
In me thou see'st the twilight of such day
as after sunset fadeth in the west.
In Byron's poem:
Come hither, hither, my little page!
Why dost thou weep and wail?
Or dost thou dread the billows' rage,
Or tremble at the gale?

4. Borrowed words (foreign words)

a. Features:
+ Native words: words of Anglo- Saxon; origin belong to the original English stock
known in Old English (30% of the vocabulary).
+ Borrowed words: words taken over from other languages and completely or partially
non- assimilated in the English vocabulary (about 70%).
Source and origin of borrowed words:
Origin source
eg.Grpapyros- Latpapyrus- Frpapier- paper
159
b.Assimilation of borrowed words
+ Non-assimilated words (barbarisms): words from other languages used by the English
people for stylisticpurposes and do not belong to the English vocabulary.
eg. Lat: ad libitum (at pleasure); Fr: affiche (placard), billet - doux (lover letter);
chic (fashionable, elegant), nuance (shade of meaning, tone of colour), protege
(protected); Ital: ciao (goodbye),
Barbarisms have no English synonyms.
+ Partially assimilated words: words assimilated into the English vocabulary, either
phonetically, orgraphically, or grammatically (paradigms) or semantically.
a. Semantically non- assimilated:
sari, khaki, shah, rajah, kimono, rickshaw, pagoda, kangaroo, chair- chairman - to chair,
table - to table - time table - table cloth.
b.Phonetically non - assimilated:
police, machine, prestige, bourgeois, regime, foyer, boulevard, sabotage, memoir,
cartoon, camoufrage,
opera, sonata, soprano, potatotobacco, confetri, macaroni.
с Not completely assimilated graphically: ballet, buffet, corps, cafe, cliche, bouquet,
communique,brioche.
d. Grammatically non assimilated:
bacillus - bacilli, crisis - crises, formula- formulae, index - indices, phenomenon -
phenomena, stratum -strata.
+ Completely assimilated words: words borrowed long ago
Lat. wall, street, wine, act, bill
Fr: table, chair, face, figure, age, finish, matter, case, air, army, animal, article, image,
colour, faith, miracle, saint, prince, duke
Scan, husband, wing, root, die, take, gate, fellow, happy, ill, wrong, odd, window, sky,
leg, raise, call, want.
e. Other groups:
+ International words: words of the same origin, same or similar sound, and meaning and
are used in several languages; they are social, political, technical and scientific words.
Eg. abstract, concrete, real, matter, logic, character, cognition, file, club , revolution,
regime, democracy, liberation, meeting, footbal, jazz, nylon, phenomena, atomic,
binonics, cybernetics, astronomy, industry, control, know-how, etc.
+ Etymological doublets: two or more words of the same language which were derived
by different roots from the same basic word. They differ to a certain degree in form,
meaning and current usage.
Eg. drag - draw, shirt- skirt, chieftain- captain, nay - no, catch - capture, canal- channel,
poor- pauper, abbreviate - abridge, scatter- shatter, goal -jail, etc
+ Lexical hebrids: word made up of elements derived from two or more different
languages:
- derived words: borrowed roots + native affixes: unpleasantly, unemployed,
companionship, artless,...
- derived words: native roots + foreign affixes: breakable, shortage, hindrance,
endearment, trustee, shepherdess,...
160
- compounds: foreign roots + native roots: gentlman, well - armed, underestimate, peace -
making,...

5. Literary coinages (including nonce - words)

Neologisms (coined/ borrowed words)
+ Lexical neologisms: completely new words.
Eg. chemurgy, cinemascope, jet - set, shake-up (purge), payola (corruption), pep (vigour)
+ Semantic neologisms: old words with new meanings.
Eg. a hawk, to bug, watch dog, sell out,...
+ Source of creation:
branches of sciences and industries
political life and affairs + Means and patterns of creation:
- synonyms: to escalate - to increase, cut back - reduction, go ahead - permission, to sky
rocket - to rise
- affixation: supermarket, superstar, trainee, escape, stardom, gangsterdom, racketeer,
profiteer.
- Compounding: brain trust (group of experts) paper back (book cover) teach-in (series of
seminars a student conference).
- conversion: to orbit the moon, to airlift, to railroad, to smash - hit, drop- out, take -
over, lay off, follow - up, give- in,
- blending, shortening: adman, co-ed, disco, motel, telecast, breath-alyser,
stagflation, multiversity.
+ Non - words: words coined to suit a particular occasion
eg. 'sevenish' (around seven o'clock); 'morish' (a little more); (A. Christie) "The
surgeon rubbed his hand and ha - ha'd1 (M. Dickens).
- All they want to be acquaintances, mere How - d1 you doers'(J. Priestley)
- You are the bestest good one - She said - the most bestest good one in the world'd
(H.H. Bayes)
'Let me say in the beginning that even if I want to avoid Texas I could not, for I am wived
in Texas, and mother - in - lawed and uncled and aunted, and cousined within an inch of
my life. (J. Steinbeck)

IV. Special colloquial vocabulary

1. Slang words: non-literary words characterized by great expressiveness
synonymous to literary words.
Eg. brass-hat, (office of high rank), egghead (intellectual), cop, to pep up
(to make vigiourous or lively), to nab (to catch in wrong doing), dough
(money), bird (girl), buck (US dollar), to sneak (to steal),...
2. Jargons: special slang words and expressions used within some social or
professional groups. There are school, military, political, etc, jargons.
eg. belly-robber (mil.sl. cook), fat (pol.sl. money), to croak (to die), kick - back (profit),
to take for a ride (to kill, for criminals), prelim (preliminary exam school),..
3.Vulgar words: dirty, coarse, rude words used by few people, but not in public.
Eg. damned: It's damned hot today. Damn it! Damn it if I know

161
 bloody: The shirt is bloody cheap. It's bloody nonsence!
hell: Go to hell! Who the hell is he! Oh, hell! I've broken it!
devil: Go to the devil! What the devil is it ?
Shut up, son of a bitch, puss (girl)
4.Professional words: words used in a definite trade or profession.
Eg. tin - fish (submarine), block buster( a bomb designed to destroy block of big
building), a midder case (a midwifery case), outer (a knock out blow), right-hander,
upper cut, ring , to clinch (boxing), to be on the beam (to be right), to be off the beam (to
be wrong, be at a loss),...
5.Dialectal words:
Eg. lass (girl, sweetheart), fain (glad), bairn (child), weird (fate), to bide (to wait), to dree
(to suffer), afore(before),...
6. Colloquial coinages (nonce • words): are spontaneous and not easy to recall. They are
based onsome semantic changes and have new shades of meaning.
Eg. "You are the limit, Honty'(unbearable) [J. Galsworthy].
'a costume peculiar to that country1 (uncommon)
' This was an opening and I followed it (way)

162
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 LECTURES ON ENGLISH GRAMMAR
(TÀI LIỆU DÀNH CHO CÁC LỚP TIẾNG ANH
CHUYÊN NGÀNH TÀI CHÍNH KẾ TOÁN)
---------------------------------------

Chịu trách nhiệm xuất bản:

GIÁM ĐỐC - TỔNG BIÊN TẬP
Phan Ngọc Chính

Chịu trách nhiệm biên soạn:

Ths. Đào Thị Oanh
Ths. Nguyễn Thị Thanh Thanh

Biên tập:

Trình bày bìa:

Ban quản lý Khoa học, Hưng Hà

Biên tập kỹ thuật:

Hưng Hà

Đơn vị liên kết:

Học viện Tài chính, số 58 Phố Lê Văn Hiến, Phường Đức Thắng,
Bắc Từ Liêm, Hà Nội

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
In 00 cuốn, khổ 20.5 x 29cm tại Công ty TNHH Sản xuất Thương mại Hưng Hà.
Địa chỉ: Số 20, Hoàng Quốc Việt, Cầu Giấy, Hà Nội.
Số xác nhận ĐKXB: -2020/CXBIPH//TC.
Số QĐXB: /QĐ-NXBTC ngày tháng năm 202.
Mã ISBN: 978-604-79-.
In xong và nộp lưu chiểu năm 202.

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