Unit I: LI NG U I ST I C

COM P ET E NC E
va
Irish Keith A. Villanue
THE TERM LINGUISTIC COMPETENCE REFERS
TO THE UNCONSCIOUS KNOWLEDGE
OF GRAMMAR THAT ALLOWS A SPEAKER TO
USE AND UNDERSTAND A LANGUAGE. ALSO
KNOWN AS GRAMMATICAL COMPETENCE OR I-
LANGUAGE.
John said that Jane helped himself
Linguistic competence constitutes knowledge of language,
but that knowledge is tacit, implicit. This means that people
do not have conscious access to the principles and rules that
govern the combination of sounds, words, and sentences;
however, they do recognize when those rules and principles
have been violated. For example, when a person judges that
John said that Jane helped himself
the sentence   is
ungrammatical, it is because the person has tacit knowledge
of the grammatical principle that reflexive pronouns must
refer to an np in the same clause." (Eva M. Fernandez and
helen smith cairns, fundamentals of psycholinguistics.
Wiley-blackwell, 2011)
LINGUISTIC COMPETENCE
VS.
COMMUNICATIVE
COMPETENCE
Topic 1: Principles of Unity and
Coherence in Sentence Writing
In writing coherent sentences, word order is very important.
 
1. Place modifiers of sentences, phrases, and clauses as close to the changed word as
possible.
 
a. Adjective Modifier
 
EXAMPLE:
 
The beautiful red girl had lost her jumper.
(Was the girl red and beautiful, or was her jumper red and beautiful?)
 
In this way, the sentence should be corrected:
The girl's beautiful red jumper was lost.
b. Adverb modifier
 
EXAMPLE:
The undefeated debater has almost won ten times.
(if he is undefeated why did he not win all the time?)

The sentence should be corrected thus:

The undefeated debater has won almost ten times.
c. Phrase modifier
 
EXAMPLE:
Placed on a large dish, Athan stood up to carve the chicken.
(was Athan placed on a large dish?)

The phrase, on a large dish, modifies chicken, so the sentence should

be corrected thus:
Athan carved the chicken and placed on a large dish.
d. Clause modifier
 
Nathalia wore a large ring on her third finger which her mother
bought in Canada.
(did Nathalia’s mother buy Nathalia’s finger in Canada?)
The clause which her mother bought in Canada modifies ring so the
sentence should be corrected thus:
On her third finger, Nathalia wore a ring which her mother bought
in Canada.
A dangling modifier positions closed to a word that it does not
change and gives the impression the word is refers to. A dangling
modifier, logically speaking, does not alter any word in the sentence.
That's the reason it dangles.
Example:
I saw pretty hut walking down the street.
(did the pretty hut walk down the street? The sentence seems to
say so.)
To correct this sentence, give the dangling modifier, walking down
the street, a definite word to modify thus:
Walking down the street, I saw a pretty hut.
f. Parallel construction should be given to ideas which are parallel in
meaning. The same pattern should be followed by ideas which have equal
meaning.
Example:
Everyone thought that the man was dishonest and a liar.

The words dishonest and liar are parallel ideas; they are joined by the
coordinate conjunction and. Yet dishonest is an adjective and liar is a noun.
The two words dishonest and liar also have the same function. They are
complements of the verb was. Therefore, they should be alike in a part of
speech; they should have the same form. The sentence should be corrected
thus: 
Everyone thought that the man was a liar and traitor.
Not only should parallelism be observed between sentences, but also between
phrases and clauses. Parallelism helps to make it successful and
straightforward for a sentence.
Parallelism in a series of words of the same class
 
He was smart, wise, and sweet. (all adjectives)
Parallelism in a series of phrases
 
We want a government of the people, by the people, and for the people.
Parallelism in a series of clauses
 
He knew where he had to go, why he had to go, and what he had to do.
QUIZ
TIME
TOPIC 2: METHODS OF PARAGRAPH
DEVELOPMENT