Patrick Mc Cabe, Emerald Germs of Ireland

1. What type of text is it?

It is a literary text, narrative – it describes events with past tenses-. Although it is a narration
there are traits of description, such as –ing forms and adjectives.

2. What can you say about the narrator?

He/she is an external omniscient narrator. He knows everything about Pat, but he/she talks in the
third person.

3. Explain the meaning of the following words or expressions as they appear in the text

- plaintive: monotonous
- whistling: high pitch sound
- sauntering: Walking casually, idly
- tantalizing: hopeful/exciting
- bounding: running downstairs
- frenzy: excitement, being frantic
- broken knees: on his knees

4. Comment on the following words from their most outstanding aspect (morphology,
semantics…….)

- flap: it is an onomatopoeic sound. It is a noun. It can also be a verb.

- fall upon: it is an intransitive prepositional verb.
- hallway: it is a compound noun (noun noun). The stress is on the first element.
- open up: phrasal verb, transitive.
- near frenzy: compound noun (adverb + noun), and example of lexical creativity or
neologism.
- fliers: de-verbal noun, other example of lexical creativity, it is a modern word used in a
colloquial way.
- HP: acronym functioning as an adjective.
- Hoover: it was the trademark of a vacuum cleaner. The process by which this word has
become a generic word is coinage or conversion.
- scrunch-up: onomatopoeic verb, phrasal transitive.
- unwanted: word formed by derivation. The base form is a verb (want) with a negative prefix
(un) and a participial ending (ed) that has turned into adjective ending.