GRAMMAR

airspace
over
Russia
the

Turkish
violated
weekend

Russia violated Turkish airspace over

the weekend.
Over the weekend, Russia violated
Turkish airspace.

GRAMMAR
airspace
over
Russia
the

Turkish
violated
weekend

*Russia Turkish airspace violated the

weekend over.
*Over weekend, the violated Turkish
airspace Russia.

VARIETIES OF ENGLISH
National varieties: British English,
American English, Australian English,
etc.
Examples of differences between national
varieties?
Dialects: varieties within national varieties,
e.g. geographical/regional varieties such
as New York English, Southern English
(English of the South of the USA), etc.

STANDARD ENGLISH
Standard English: a very special dialect, e.g.
Standard British English, Standard
American English, etc.
- Where/by whom is it used?
- It is homogeneous in terms of grammar
and lexis but not necessarily in terms of
pronunciation.
- It is prestigious, but it is not intrinsically
better than other dialects.
- Non-standard dialects/varieties tend to be
used by people from a particular region.

The DESCRIPTIVE and PRESCRIPTIVE approaches

to language/grammar
The DESCRIPTIVE approach
It describes a language including different
varieties
E.g. STANDARD ENGLISH, used by educated
speakers, and NON-STANDARD ENGLISH, used by
less educated speakers
It uses the terms grammatical and
ungrammatical
The PRESCRIPTIVE approach
It offers advice concerning how people should
use language
The advice is usually based on STANDARD
ENGLISH, a very prestigious variety

VERB COMPLEMENTATION
1.John kicked the ball very quickly.
2.The girl is now a student at a large
university.
3.His brother grew happier gradually.
4.It rained steadily all day.
5.He had given the girl an apple.
6.They consider him a liar.
7.They put the book on the table.