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CONTENTS

Page

1. LINGUISTICS, GRAMMAR and SYNTAX .....................................................


1.1. LINGUISTICS ...................................................................................
1.2. GRAMMAR .....................................................................................
1.3. SYNTAX ..........................................................................................
2. TYPES OF ENGLISH GRAMMAR ................................................................
2.1. MENTAL GRAMMAR .......................................................................
2.2. PRESCRIPTIVE GRAMMAR ...............................................................
2.3. DESCRIPTIVE (STRUCTURAL) GRAMMAR ..........................................
2.4. T-G GRAMMAR ...............................................................................
2.5. FUNCTIONAL GRAMMAR.................................................................
3. STRUCTURE ............................................................................................
3.1. THE ANALYSIS OF SENTENCE STRUCTURE .........................................
3.1.1. The Parsing analysis.........................................................................
3.1.2. Quirk’s Technique & Base and Modifiers ........................................
3.1.3. Immediate Constituent analysis ......................................................
3.1.4. Phrase structure rules .....................................................................
3.1.5. TG analysis .......................................................................................
3.2. COMPLEMENT OPTIONS ..................................................................
3.3. TRANSFORMATIONS .......................................................................
3.4. UNIVERSAL GRAMMAR AND PARAMETRIC VARIATION .....................
3.5. SOME EXTENSIONS .........................................................................
4. OTHER TYPES OF SYNTACTIC ANALYSIS ....................................................
5. SIGNALS OF SYNTACTIC ANALYSIS ...........................................................
6. HOW TO BUILD TREE STRUCTURES ..........................................................

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PART I: AN INTRODUCTION TO SYNTAX
1. LINGUISTICS, GRAMMAR AND SYNTAX
1.1. LINGUISTICS

Linguistics is the scientific study of language as a system of human


communication. Although studies of language phenomena have been carried out for
centuries, it is only fairly recently that linguistics has been accepted as an independent
discipline. Linguistics now covers a wide field with different approaches and different
areas of investigation. For example:

 Sound systems called Phonetics and Phonology.


 Sentence structures called Syntax.
 Meaning systems called Semantics, Pragmatics, Functions of language.
 Vocabulary building or word-formation called Lexicology.
 Word structures called Morphology.
 Social aspects of language called Socio-linguistics.

1.2. GRAMMAR

A description of the structure of a language and the way in which linguistic units
such as words and phrases are combined to produce clauses/sentences in the language.
It usually takes into account the meanings and the functions these sentences have in the
overall system of the language. It may or may not include the description of the sounds
of a language (in traditional grammar).

A set of rules and a lexicon which describes the knowledge (competence) which a
speaker has of her or his language (in generative transformational grammar).
1.3. SYNTAX

Syntax is the study of how words combine to form phrases, clauses, sentences
and the rules which govern the formation of phrases, clauses and sentences.

In Generative Transformational Grammar, the syntactic component (also base


component) is one of the three main parts of the grammar. This component contains
the rules for forming syntactic structures and rules for changing these structures.

2. TYPES OF ENGLISH GRAMMAR

The term of grammar is used is used in a number of different senses. Here are
some kinds of grammars mentioned:

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2.1. MENTAL GRAMMAR

Mental grammar is the grammar which is used to refer to the rules and principles
native speakers use in producing and understanding their language. These rules and
principles are almost all acquired in childhood and are in the heads of native speakers.
No one knows the precise forms a mental grammar takes because it cannot be directly
observed. What can be observed is the output of a mental grammar – the utterances
that speakers use and recognize as sentences of their language.
2.2. PRESCRIPTIVE GRAMMAR

Prescriptive grammar is the way to describe traditional grammar through a set of


rules for what is considered the best or most correct usage. Prescriptive grammars are
not often based on descriptions of actual usage but rather on the grammarian’s views of
what is the best. Many traditional grammars are of this kind.

Prescriptive grammars are attempts by grammarians to prescribe certain ways of


speaking and writing. Prescriptive grammars have their uses, especially in education,
where they are often referred to as school grammars. School grammars, if based on
accurate observation of contemporary educated usage, can be helpful in guiding writers
toward clearer expression. Textbooks for non-native speakers and grammars for
computer processing a particular human language require a prescriptive approach. They
are really telling us what the learners or computers ought to say if they are to use
English as a well-educated native speaker would.

2.3. DESCRIPTIVE (STRUCTURAL) GRAMMAR

A grammar which describes how a language is actually spoken and/or written


through samples of the language studied, and does not state how it ought to be spoken
or written.

Descriptive grammars are attempts by grammarians to reject ill-formed strings of


words provide well-formed strings of words, visible analogs to the invisible mental
grammars of native speakers.
2.4. TRANSFORMATIONAL GENERATIVE GRAMMAR (T-G RAMMAR)

T-G grammar tries to show, with a system of rules, the knowledge which a native
speaker uses in forming grammatical setences. A person’s internalized grammar of a
language is called competence. This means a person’s ability to create and understand
sentences, including sentences they have never heard before and also a person’s
knowledge of what are or what are not sentences of a particular language.

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For example, a speaker of English would recognize ‘I want to go home’ as an
English sentence but would not accept a sentence such as ‘I want going home’ although
all the words in it are English words.

Competence often refers to the ideal speaker/hearer, that is an idealized but


not a real person who would have a completed knowledge of the whole language. A
distinction is made between competence and performance, which is the actual use of
the language by individuals in real situation in speech and writing.

According to Chomsky’s book ASPECTS OF THE THEORY OF SYNTAX in 1965, there


are four main parts in T-G grammar:

i. The Base Component, which produces or generates basic syntactic


structures called deep structures.
ii. The Transformational Component, which changes or transforms these
basic structures into sentences called surface structures.
iii. The Phonological Component, which gives sentences a phonetic
representation so that they can be pronounced.
iv. The Semantic Component, which deals with the meanings of sentences.

The relationship of the four components to one another can be seen in the
simplified diagram below:

SEMANTIC BASE
COMPONENT COMPONENT

SEMANTIC TRANSFORMATIONAL
INTERPRETATION COMPONENT

PHONOLOGICAL
COMPONENT

Figure 1

Accordding to T-G grammar, the linguist studies sentence structures and different
components such as Base Component, Transformational Component, Phonological
Component and Semantic Component.

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Note:

In T-G grammar each sentence is considered to have two levels of structure:

Surface structure is generally the syntactic structure of the sentence which a


person speaks, hears, reads or writes, e.g. the passive sentence.

Deep structure (also underlying structure) is much more abstract and is


considered to be in the speaker’s, writer’s, hearer’s or reader’s mind.

To describe Generative grammar people use Structural Analysis, Immediate


Constituent Analysis or Phrase Structure Rules.
2.5. FUNCTIONAL GRAMMAR

This grammar studies different functions of language in communication and how


to implement the functions effectively in the social environment. Language is often
described as having three main functions: Descriptive, Expressive and Social.

The Descriptive function of language is to convey factual information. This is the


type of information which can be stated or denied and in some cases even tested, for
example: It must be well below ten degrees outside.

The Expressive function of language is to supply information about the speaker,


his or her feelings, preference, prejudices, and past experiences. For example, the
utterance ‘I’m not inviting the Sandersons again’ may, with appropriate intonation,
show that the speaker did not like the Sandersons and that this is the reason for not
inviting him again.

The Social function of language serves to establish and maintain social relation
between people. For example, the utterance ‘Will that be all, sir?’ used by a waiter in a
restaurant signals a particular social relationship between the waiter and the guest. The
waiter puts the guest in a higher role relationship.

3. STRUCTURE
3.1. THE ANALYSIS OF SENTENCE STRUCTURE

There are so many types of analysis: the Parsing analysis, the Graphic analysis,
the Slot and Filter, the Base and Modifier, the Quirk’s technique, the IC analysis, PS
rules, the TG analysis,... Here are some methods of analysis:

3.1.1. The parsing analysis

Parsing is the detailed description of the grammatical features of a word in a


sentence.

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1. To parse a verbal, we must tell: from what verb it is derived, its form, its
voice, its use.

Ex:

We must aim to increase exports: ‘to increase’ from the verb ‘increase’, simple
infinitive, active, adverbial to modify ‘aim’.

Her house needs to be redecorated: ‘to be decorated’ from the verb ‘redecorate’,
simple infinitive, passive, object of ‘need’.

I saw her singing at her work: ‘singing’ from the verb ‘sing’, present participle,
active, used as the complement of ‘her’.

Tom is fond of dancing: ‘dancing’ from the vern ‘dance’, gerund, active, the
complement of preposition ‘of’.

2. To parse a verb, we must show: what kind of verb it is, its voice, its mood,
its tense, its number and person, its agreement.
Ex:

He has proved his case to my satisfaction: ‘has proved’ transitive verb, active,
indicative mood, present perfect tense, singular number, third person, in agreement
with the subject ‘He’.

There was a table and two chairs in the study room: ‘was’ intransitive verb,
active, indicative, simple past tense, singular number, third person, in agreement with
the subject ‘table’.

If I were you, I wouldn’t go there: ‘were’ intransitive verb, active, subjunctive


mood, past tense, singular number, first person, in agreement with the subject ‘table’.

3. To parse a noun, we must show: what kind of noun it is, its number and
person, its function.
Ex:

The woman is nursing the baby at her breast: ‘woman’ common noun, singular
number, subject of ‘is nursing’.

4. To parse a pronoun, we must show: what kind of pronoun it is, its number
and person, its function.

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Ex:

You may do what you like: ‘you’ personal pronoun, plural number, second
person, subject of ‘may do’; ‘what’ double relative pronoun, singular number, object of
‘like’
5. To parse an adjective, we must show: what kind of adjective it is, its use.

Ex:

The lazy boy is lying in a comfortable sofa: ‘lazy’ adjective of quality, used
attributively to qualify ‘boy’; ‘comfortable’ adjective of quality, used attributively to
qualify ‘sofa’.
6. To parse an adverb, we must tell: what kind of adverb it is, its use.
Ex:

Why do you speak indistinctly? ‘Why’ interrogative adverb of reason, modifying


‘do speak’; ‘indistinctly’ adverb of manner, modifying ‘do speak’.

7. To parse a function word (preposition, conjunction, interjection), we must


show: its part of speech, its relation to other words in the sentence.

3.1.2. Quirk’s technique & Base and Modifiers


Quirk’s technique Base & Modifiers
(Finite)

(1) SV teacher has come


The teacher has just come. The just

(2) SVC She looks cheerful.


She looks cheerful today. today

(3) SVA room measures.


The room measures ten meters across. The ten meters across

(4) SVO company paid sum.


The company paid a colossal coffee. The colossal

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(5) SVOO I make coffee

I will make everyone some fresh coffe. will, (for) everyone fresh

some
(6) SVOC She imagined him taller
She imagined him much taller than that. much, than that.
(7) SVOA Bill has shirt.

Bill has a blue shirt on. on blue


a

(Nonfinite)
To

err
(1) To err is human. is human

(2) Seeing is believing. ing ing

See- is believe-

(3) Helping him is my task. ing

Help-
him is task
my
(Compound sentences)

(4) He looks tired but she looks cheerful. He looks tired


but

she looks cheerful

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(5) I told him this but he didn’t believe me. I told this

(to) him.

but he did believe me


not
(Complex sentences)
(6) When he came they were dancing. They were dancing

he came

(7) When in Rome do as Roman do. do

you are Rome do


Rome

3.1.3. Immediate constituent analysis


An approach with the same descriptive aims is called IMMEDIATE CONSTITUENT
ANALYSIS. This approach is designed to show the arrangement of linguistic units
(constituents) in a phrase, clause, sentence and their relationship to one another.

If there is no sentence modifier, the IC’s of a sentence consist of the subject as


one and the predicate as the other.
12. The boys / remained the best of friends.

If there is a sentence modifier, the IC’s of the whole sentence are the sentence
modifier as one and the sentence pattern as the other.

13. Usually / the boys in the family milked the goats in the morning.

This anslysis of the constituent structure of a sentence can be represented in


various ways: domino box, immediate constituent cut, labeled brackets, arrows, tree
diagram. A popular way is to use tree diagram.

For example, the constituent structure of the sentence: Her father bought a car
can be shown as:

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1. Domino Box

Her father bought a car

Figure 2
2. Immediate Constituent Cut

Her father bought a car

Figure 3

3. Labeled Brackets

[[[Her] [father]] [[bought] [[a] [car]]]]


4. Arrows

S → NP VP
VP → V NP

NP → Det N
5. Tree Diagram

NP VP

NP

Det N V Det N

Her father bought a car


Figure 4

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3.1.4. Phrase structure rules

Phrase structure grammar analyses the structure of different sentence types in a


language. It consists of phrase structure rules which shows how sentence can be broken
up into its various parts (constituents) and each part can be expanded.

For example, the rule: S → NP VP means that a sentence (S) can be analysed
(rewritten) as consisting of a noun phrase (NP) and a verb phrase (VP).

The rule: VP → V NP means that a verb phrase can be rewritten as simply a verb
or as a verb (V) and a noun phrase (NP).

The lexicon gives information about the class that a word belongs to, N for nouns,
V for Verbs, and information about the grammatical structure with which the word may
occur. For example, the English verb ‘sleep’ cannot have an object after it. The simplified
table below shows the rules and lexicon which are necessary to form the basic sentence
structure ‘The baby slept’.

Phrase Structure Rules Lexicon


S → NP VP baby: N
NP → Det N sleep: V – object
VP → VS PAST the: Det
verb stem: VS

Table 1

The structure of the sentence can be illustrated by a diagram called tree-diagram


which shows the way are applied and how the words from lexicon are fitted in for a
particular sentence.

This simplified diagram shows the basic DEEP STRUCTURE for the sentence ‘The
baby slept’.

NP VP

Det N VS

The baby sleep PAST

Figure 5
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Sentences are not formed by stringing words together like beads on a necklace.
Rather; sentences have hierarchical structures consisting of groups of words that may
themselves consist of smaller groups, and so on. This section will focus on the internal
structure of syntactic units built around Ns, Vs, As and Ps, with an emphasis on the
organizational properties that they have in common. Such units are called PHRASES.

Heads – Phrases are built around a ‘skeleton’ consisting of two levels, as depicted
below. (The symbol P in the upper level stands for ‘phrase’)

NP VP AP PP -Phrase level

N V A P -Word level

Figure 6: The organization of phrase structure

Each level of phrase structure can be thought of as a sort of ‘hook’ (like a hook on
a pole) to which elements of different types can be attached.

The lowest level is reserved for the word around which the phrase is built – an N
in the case of NPs, a V in the case of VPs, and so on. This element is called the head of
the phrase. As the following examples show, it is possible to have a phrase in which only
the head position is filled. (The material in parentheses provides a context in which
these one-word phrases might occur.)

NP VP

N V

(he likes) books (all animals) eat

AP PP

A P

(she is) certain (he went) in

Figure 7: Phrases in which only the head position is filled

Although phrases can consist of just one word, they often contain other elements
as well. For example:

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a. [NP the books]
b. [VP will eat]
c. [AP quite certain]
d. [PP almost in]

In addition to the head (the underlined element), each of these phrases includes
a second word that has a special semantic and syntactic role.

Specifiers – These words (determiners such as ‘the’, auxiliaries such as ‘will’, and
degree words such as ‘quite’ or ‘almost’) are said to function as specifiers. Semantically,
specifiers help to make more precise the meaning of the head. Hence, the Det ‘the’ in
(a) indicates that the speaker has in mind specific books, the Aux ‘will’ in (b) indicates a
future event, and the Deg words ‘quite’ and ‘almost’ in (c), (d) indicate the degree to
which a particular property or relation is manifested.

Syntactically, specifiers typically mark a phrase boundary. In English, specifiers


occur at the left boundary (the beginning) of their respective phrases. They are attached
to the top level of phrase structure, to the left of the head. Together, these two
elements form the phrase structures depicted in the following tree diagrams.

NP VP AP PP

Det N Aux V Deg A Deg P

the book will eat quite certain almost in

Figure 8: Phrases consisting of a specifier and a head

As we will see in section UNIVERSAL GRAMMAR AND PARAMETRIC VARIATION,


other languages (Thai, for example) place specifiers at the right boundary (the end) of
phrases.

The syntactic category of the specifier differs depending on the category of the
head. As the examples in Figure 8 show, determiners serve as the specifiers of Ns,
auxiliaries as the specifiers of Vs, and degree words as the specifiers of As and (some)
Ps.

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Table 2: Some specifiers

Category Function Examples


Det specifier of N the, a, this, those,...
Aux specifier of V will, can, heve, be,...
Deg specifier of A or P very, quite, more, almost,...

Put another way, a positional property of nouns is that they can appear with a
determiner specifier, a positional property of verbs is that they can appear with an
auxiliary specifier, and so forth. This is an example of how the word combinarorial
properties can help one to identify its category.

a. verb with a determiner

* the destroy

b. noun with an auxiliary

* will destruction

Complements – consider now some examples of slightly more complex phrases:

a. [NP the books about the war]


b. [VP may eat the hamburger]
c. [AP quite certain about the answer]
d. [PP almost in the house]

In addition to a specifier and a head, the phrases above also contain a


complement. These elements, which are themselves phrases, provide information about
entities and locations whose existence is simplified by the meaning of the head. For
example, the meaning of ‘eat’ implies an object that is eaten, the meaning of ‘in’ implies
a location, and so on.

(The customer) may eat [the hamburger].

Complement naming the things eaten

almost in [the house]

Complement naming a location

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Complements are attached to the right of the head in English (but to the left in
many other languages). Figure 9 illustrates the structure of a VP and a PP consisting of a
specifier, a head, and a complement.

VP PP

NP NP

Aux V Det N Deg P Det N

may eat a hamburger almost in the house

a. b.

Figure 9: Phrases with an NP complement

As noted above, complements are themselves phrases. Thus, the complement of


the V ‘eat’ is an NP that itself consists of a determiner ‘the’ and a head ‘hamburger’. This
phrase then combines with the verb and its auxiliary specifier to form a still larger
structural unit.

Still more complex phrases are illustrated in Figure 10. Here, the NP and AP each
consists of a specifier, a head, and a PP complement. This PP in turn consists of a P head
and an NP complement composed of a determiner and an N head. (The triangle over the
NPs in these examples indicates that in order to save space we do not depict their
internal structure.)

NP AP

PP PP

Det N P NP Deg A P NP

the books about the war quite certain about the answer

a. b.

Figure 10: Phrases with a PP complement

The rules – How does the grammar ensure that specifiers, heads, and
complements occupy the appropriate positions in phrase structure? The arrangement of

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the elements that make up a phrase is regulated by a special type of grammatical
mechanism called a PHRASE STRUCTURE RULE. The following phrase structure rules
stipulate the position of specifiers, heads, and complements in the various types of
phrases that we have been considering. (The arrow can be read as ‘consists of’ or
‘branches into’. The three dots in each rule indicate that other complement options are
available; these will be discussed in section – Complement Option.)

a. NP → (Det) N (PP)...
b. VP → (Aux) V (NP)...
c. AP → (Deg) A (PP)...
d. PP → (Deg) P (NP)...

The first of these rules states that an NP can consist of a determiner, an N head,
and a PP complement (as in Figure 10a); the second rule captures the fact that a VP can
be composed of an auxiliary, a V, and an NP complement (as in Figure 9a); and so on.

As the parentheses in our rules indicate, both specifiers and complements are
optional. Thus, in accordance what we have already seen, a phrase may consit of a
specifier, a head, and a complement; a head and a complement; a specifier and a head;
or just a head (see Figure 11).

Generalizing the rules by now, you will have noticed that there are very obvious
structural similarities among NPs, VPs, Aps, and PPs. In all four phrase types, the
specifier is attached at the top level to the left of the head while the complement is
attached to the right. These similarities can be summarized with the help of the
template in Figure 12, in which X stands for N, V, A, or P.

VP PP

Aux V NP P NP

will eat the hamburger on the floor

a. Phrase consisting of a specifier, b. Phrase consisting of a head,


a head and a complement and a complement.

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NP VP

Det N V

The man (The boys) arrived

b. Phrase consisting of a d. Phrase consisting of just a head


specifier and a head

Figure 11: Some phrase types (only the head is present in all patterns)

XP

Specifier X Complement
Head

Figure 12: The phrase structure template

Instead of having four separate phrase structure rules to capturethe placement


of specifiers, heads, and complements, we now can formulate the single general rule in:

14. The XP rule: XP → (Specifier) X (Complement)

Because the symbol X stands for N, V, A, or P, this rule is an abbreviation for the
four separate phrase structure rules given above, and this rule is more abstract than the
four more specific rules that were initially proposed since it makes use of the special
symbol X. However, it is also more economic and is able to express the structural
properties shared by the four different phrase types. For these reasons, rules
formulated in terms of the X notation are widely used in contemporary syntactic
analysis.

Sentences – Traditionally, the largest unit of syntactic analysis is the sentence (S).
it is formed by combining an NP and a VP in accordance with the XP rule (The NP that
combines with the VP in this way is called the subject.)

15. The S rule: S → NP VP

A complete sentence structure is illustrated in Figure 13.

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S

NP VP

NP

Det N Aux V Det N

A scientist may discover the answer

Figure 13: Syntactic representation of a complete sentence

Each phrase in Figure 13 complies with the previous given rules. Thus, the S
consists of a subject NP and a VP (consistent with the S rule). In accordance with the XP
rule, the NP consists of a specifier (the Det a) and an N head. For its part, the VP consists
of a specifier (the Aux may), a verb head (discover), and a complement NP (often called
a direct object). The internal structure of this NP is likewise consistent with the XP rule
since it is composed of a determiner specifier (the) and an N head (answer).

Tree diagrams such as Figure 13 capture a fundamental insight about the


architecture of sentence structure. That insight is that sentences do not simply consist
of strings of words. Rather, within any sentence, words are grouped together to form
phrases, which then combine with each other to form still larger phrases, and so on. As
we will see shortly, even very complex sentence structures can be built by following the
simple rules outlined here.

Table 3: Summary of phrase structure rules

The S rule S → NP VP
The XP rule XP → (Specifier) X (Complement)

Thus far in this part, we have been concentrating on phrases that consist of
specifiers, heads, and complements. However, human language contains other types of
syntactic patterns as well. For example, some phrases – called coordinate structures –
are formed by joining two or more elements of the same type with the help of a
conjunction such as ‘and’ or ‘or’.

Coordinate structures:

a. [NP a pencil] and [NP a notebook]

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b. [N hamburgers] or [N hotdogs]

Still another type of pattern includes a modifier, an optional element that


describes a property of the head. The most common types of modifiers in English are
adjectives (which modify N heads) and adverbs (which modify verb neads).

a. Adjective modifying an N head:

A good book

b. Adverb modifying a V head:

He slept soundly.

We can form sentences containing coordinate structures and modifiers by


making relatively small and simple adjustments to our system of phrase structure rules.
These adjustments are discussed in section – SOME EXTENSIONS. They can be read now
or later at the discretion of the course instructor. This book postpone discussion of
these matters in favor of some topics in syntactic analysis that go beyond the simple
elaboration of phrase structure rules.

Tests for Phrase Structure (Advanced) – According to the syntactic analysis being
presented here, the words that make up a sentence form intermediate structural units
called phrases. How do linguists using this approach to syntax determine which words
should be grouped together into phrases? The existence of the syntactic units, or
constituents, that make up tree structures can be independently verified with the help
of special tests. Although we cannot consider all of these tests here, it is possible to give
some examples.

1. The Substitution test – Evidence that NPs are syntactic units comes from the
fact that they can often be replaced by a single word such as the pronoun ‘the’ or ‘it’.
This is illustrated in the following, where ‘they’ replaces the NP ‘the citizens’.

[NP The citizens] rebelled after they discovered the truth.

(they = the citizens)

The substitution test also confirms that a PP such as ‘at the corner’ is a unit since
it can be replaced by a single word in sentences such as:

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They stopped [PP at the corner] and we stopped there too. (there = at the
corner)

2. The Movement test – A second indication that ‘at the corner’ forms a
constituent is that it can be moved as a single unit to a different position within the
sentence.

They stopped [PP at the corner+ → *PP at the corner], they stopped.

‘at the corner’ in the sentence can be moved from a position after the verb to the
beginning of the sentence.

3. The Coordination test – Finally, we can conclude that a group of words for a
constituent if it can be joined to another group of words by a conjunction such as ‘and’
or ‘or’. (This is labelled the Coordination test since patterns built around a conjunction
are called coordinate structures; see section – SOME EXTECSIONS). Thus we know that
the VP ‘will sweep the floor’ in: Harry [VP will sweep the floor] and [VP will make the
beds+ is a constituent because it can be joined to ‘will make the bed’ by the conjunction
‘and’.

X’ Categories (Advanced) – Thus far, we have been assuming that the


architecture of phrase structure complies with the blueprint in Figure 11. However, this
is somewhat of a amplification since there is reason to believe that complement and
heads may actually be attached to a level of phrase structure midway between the word
level and the phrase level, as depicted in Figure 14. The intermediate level of structure is
represented by the symbol X’ (pronounced ‘X-bar’).

XP

X’

Specifier X Complement
Head
Figure 14: The phrase structure template (revised)

According to this viewpoint, then, all phrases have been the tri-level structures
shown below, in which the head and its complement form an X’-level constituent and
the specifier is attached at the higher XP level. (These examples illustrate the internal
structure of a ‘W and an NP only, but Aps and PPs have a parallel structure.)

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VP NP

V’ N’

Aux V NP Det N PP

will study the problem this book about the war


a. b.

Figure 15: a VP and an NP with an intermediate X’level

The existence of X’ categories can be verified with the help of the same sort of
syntactic tests discussed in the previous section. Consider, for example, the V in the
phrase ‘will study the problem’ in figure 15a. As the following sentence shows, this unit
can be replaced by ‘do so’ and should therefore be a constituent according to the
substitution test.

The students will [V study the problem] and their parents may do so too.

(do so = study the problem)

Now consider the N’: ‘book about the war’ in Figure 15b. As the next sentence
shows, this unit can be replaced by the element ‘one’.

This [N book about the war] is simpler than that one.

(one = book about the war)

Tha fact that ‘one’ on replace ‘book about the war’ in this manner confirms that it
is a syntactic unit, consistent with the structure in Figure 15b.

In order to accommodate these new three-level structures, it is necessary to


replace our original XP rule by the two phrase structure rules in:

16. The XP rule:

XP → (Specifier) X’

The X’ rule:

X’ → X (Complement)

21
The first of these rules stipulates that XP categories such as NP and VP consist of
an optional specifier (a determiner, an auxiliary, and so forth) and an X’. The second rule
then states that an X’ (it can be an N’, a V’ or whatever) consists of a head – X, and any
complements. Taken together, these two rules form the three-level structures
illustrated in Figure 15, as desired.

Because three level structures take up a considerable amount of space and can
be tedious to draw, it is common practice to eliminate the intermediate level of phrase
structure rules it is absolutely essential to the point being discussed. Since none of the
phenomena that we will be discussing requires an intermediate level of phrase
structure, we will not make further use of it here. In order to do more advanced
syntactic analysis, though, you will need to be familiar with the X’ level.

3.1.5. TG Analysis

In transformational generative grammar, the verb phrase is the part of a


sentence which contains the main verb and also any object(s), complement(s), and
adverbial(s).

The type of tree diagram representation contain the grammatical information


found in the other analyses, but also shows more explicitly the fact that there are
different levels in the analysis.

A TG consists of a set of PS rules plus a set of transformation rules and assigns to


each sentence a series of PMs varying in the level of abstraction involved. For example:
17. (a) The storm frightened the child.

(b) The child was frightened by the storm. Past


Table 4: Six phrase structure rules

1 S → NP VP S: sentence
2 VP → {V NP} NP: noun phrase
{P Aux V PP} VP: verb phrase
3 V → VS {Past} PP: prepositional phrase
{en} PAux: passive auxiliary
4 P Aux → be Past VS: verb stem
5 PP → by NP VS past: verb stem & simple past tense
6 NP → Det N VS en: verb stem & past participle
NS: noun stem

22
Tree diagram

NP VP

V NP
Figure 16a
Det N VS Det N

The storm frighten PAST the child

NP VP

Paux V PP

NP Figure 16b
Det N Aux VS P Det N

The child be PAST frighten en by the storm

3.2. COMPLEMENT OPTIONS

The simple rules outlined in 3.1.4. can form a very wide variety phrases and
sentences. Much of this variety stems from the fact that human language allows many
different complement options. For example, in addition to the structures considered in
3.1.4., in which each head took at most one complement, there are also structures in
which a head takes two (or more) complements. The verb ‘put’ is a case in point. As the
following examples show, it requires both an NP complement and a PP complement.

18. a) ‘put’ with an NP complement and a PP complement.

The librarian put [NP the book] [PP in the shelf].


b) ‘put’ without an NP complement.

The librarian put [PP on the shelf].


c) ‘put’ without a PP complement.

The librarian put [NP the book].

23
The VP ‘put the book on the shelf’ has the structure depicted in Figure 16, in
which the VP consists of the head ‘put’ and its two complements – the NP ‘the book’ and
the PP ‘on the shelf’.
VP

V NP PP

put the book on the shelf

Figure 16: A verb with two complements

We can therefore revise our earlier XP rule as follows, using an asterisk to


indicate that one or more complements can occur:

19. The XP rule (revised):

XP → (Specifier) X (Complement)

This rule also expresses the simple but important fact that complements
(however many there are) occur to the right of the head in English.

Complements options for verbs – Information about the complements permitted


by a particular word is included in its entry in a speaker’s lexicon, or mental dictionary.
Thus, the lexicon for English includes an entry for ‘slam’ that indicates its syntactic
category (V), its phonological representeation, its meaning, and the fact that it takes an
NP complement as in:
20. She slammed the door.
slam: category: V
phonological representation: /slæm/

meaning: close loudly

complement: NP

Table 5 illustrates some of the more common complement options for verbs in
English. The subscripted prepositions indicate the subtype of PP complement, where
this is relevant. Loc (location) stands for any preposition expressing a location (such as
‘near’, ‘on’, ‘under’).

24
Table 5: Some examples of verb complements

Complement Sample heads Examples


options
Ø vanish, arrive, die The child arrived.
NP devour, cut, prove The professor proved [NP the theory].
AP fee, become The man became [AP very angry].
PP to dash, talk, refer The dog dashed [PP to the door].
NP NP spare, hand, give We handed [NP the man] [NP a map].
NP PP to hand, give, send He gave [NP a diploma] [PP to the student].
NP PP for buy, cook, reserve We bought [NP a hat] [PP for Andy].
NP PP on put, place, stand He put [NP the muffler] [PP on the car].
PP to PP about talk, speak I talked [PP to a doctor] [PP about Sue].
NP PP for PP with opem, fix We opened [NP the door] [PP for Andy] [PP
with a crowbar].

According to this table, the verbs in the first line (‘vanish’, ‘arrive’, and ‘die’) can
occur without any complement, those in the second line occur with an NP complement,
and so on.

A word can belong to more than one subcategory. The verb ‘eat’, for example,
can occur either with or without an NP complement and therefore belongs to both of
the first two subcategories in our table.
21. After getting home, they ate (the sandwiches).

However, not all verbs exhibit this flexibility. Although ‘devour’ is similar in
meaning to ‘eat’, it requires an explicitly stated complement NP and therefore belongs
only to the second subcategory in our table:
22. a) ‘devour’ without a complement

After getting home, the boy devoured.


b) ‘devour’ with a complement

After getting home, the boy devoured the sandwiches.

The classification of words in terms of their complement options is called


subcategorization. Subcategorization interacts with the phrase structure rules to ensure
that lexical items appear in the appropriate types of tree structures. Thus, because
‘devour’ belongs to the subcategory of verbs that require an NP complement, it is
permitted in the tree structure depicted in Figure 17a (where there is an NP
complement) but not in the tree structure in Figure 17b.

25
S

NP VP S

NP NP VP

Det N V Det N Det N V

The boy devoured the sandwiches The boy devoured

a. b.

Figure 17: Subcategorization determiners the type of syntactic structure in which


‘devour’ can occur.

Thanks to subcategorization, then, heads occur only in tree structures where they
have compatible complement phrases.

Complement options for other categories – Various complement options are


also available for Ns, As and Ps. The following tables provide examples of various
possibilities.

Table 6: Some examples of noun complements

Complement option Sample heads Example


Ø car, boy, electricity the car
PP of memory, failure, death the memory [PP of a friend]
PP of PP of gift, decription, donation the gift [PP of a prize] [PP to
the winner]
PP without PP about argument, discussion, an argument [PP with Stella]
conversation [PP about politics]

Table 7: Some examples of adjective complements

Complement option Sample heads Example


Ø tall, green, smart very tall
PP about curious, glad, angry curious [PP about China]
PP to apparent, obvious obvious [PP to the student]
PP of fond, full, tired fond [PP of chocolate]

26
Table 8: Some examples of preposition complements

Complement option Sample heads Example


Ø near, away, down (He got) down.
NP in, on, by, near in [NP the house]
PP down, up, out down [PP into the cellar]

Here again subcategorization ensures that particular heads can appear in tree
structures only if there is an appropriate type of complement. Thus, the adjective
‘curious’ can occur with an ‘about PP’, but the adjective ‘fond’ cannot.

AP AP

PP PP

NP NP

A P Det N A P Det N

curious about the experiment fond about the experiment

Figure 18: Subcategorization permits ‘curious’, but not ‘fond’, to take an ‘about
PP’ as complement.

Complement clauses – In addition to the complement options considered to this


point, all human languages allow sentence-like constructions to function as
complements. A simple example of this from English is given:

23. [The psychic knows [that/ whether/ if the contestant will win]].

The smaller bracketed phrase in the sentence above is called a complement


clause or an embedded clause while the larger phrase in which it occurs is called a
matrix clause.
Words such as ‘that’, ‘if’ and ‘whether’ are known as complementizers (Cs). They
take an S complement, forming the CP (complementizer phrase) structure depicted in
Figure 19.

27
CP

NP VP

C Det N Aux V

that the contestant will win


whether
if
Figure 19: Syntactic structure for a CP

Although Cs are non-lexical categories, they fit into structures parallel to those
found with lexical categories. Thus, the head (C) and its complement (S) together make
up an XP category (CP). In section TRANSFORMATIONS, we will see that there is even a
type of element that can occur in the specifier position under CP.

When a CP occurs in a sentence such as [The psychic knows [that/ whether/ if the
contestant will win++, in which it serves as complement of the verb ‘know’, the entire
sentence has the structure in Figure 20.

NP VP

CP

NP VP

Det N V C Det N Aux V

The psychic knows that the contestant will win

Figure 20: Syntactic structure for a sentence with an embedded CP

Of course, not all verb can take a CP complement. The following table provides
examples of some of the verbs that are commonly found with a complement of this
type.

28
Table 9: Some verbs permitting CP complements

Complements Sample heads Example


CP believe, know, think, They believe [CP that Eric left].
remember
NPCP persuade, tell, convince, They told [NP Mary] [CP that Eric
promise had left].
PP to CP concede, admit They admitted [PP to Mary] [CP
that Eric had left].

There is no limit on the number of embedded clauses that can occur in a


sentence. As Figure 21 shows, we can easily put together a long string of complement
clauses.

NP VP

CP

NP VP

Det N V C Det N V CP

A man thought that a woman said that Sue reported that...

Figure 21: Syntactic structure for a sentence with more than one embedded CP

This structure is made possible by the fact that each CP complementt can contain
a verb that itself permits a complement CP. Hence the topmost clause contains the verb
‘think’, whose complement clause contains the verb ‘say’, whose clausal complement
contains ‘report’, and so on.

Other categories with CP complements A – CP may serve as a complement to an


A, an N, or a P in addition to a V.

Complement of N Complement of A

NP AP

N CP A CP

proof that Eric will leave certain that Eric will leave 29
Complement of P

PP

P CP

(talk) about whether Eric will leave

Figure 22: N, A, and P with CP complement

Table 10 gives examples of some other adjectives, nouns, and prepositions that
can take CP complements.

Table 10: Some As, Ns, and Ps permitting CP complements

Items Example with CP complement


Adjectives: afraid, certain, They are afraid [CP that Eric left].
aware, confident
Nouns: claim, belief, fact, They lack proof [CP that Eric left].
knowledge, proof, conclusion
Prepositions: over, about They argued over [CP whether Eric had left].

Although structures of this sort are common in English and other languages, we
will restrict our attention in the remainder of this part to embedded clauses that are
complements of Vs.

3.3. TRANSFORMATIONS
Although phrase structure rules interact with the set of complement options
permitted by individual heads to form a very wide range of patterns, there are syntactic
phenomena that they cannot describe in an entirely satisfactory way. This section
considers two such phenomena and discusses the changes that must be made in order
to accommodate them.

Inversion in Yes-No questions – To begin, let us consider the English yes-no


questions examplified in:

24. a) Will the boy leave?


b) Can the cat climb this tree?

30
The structures are called yes-no questions because the expected response is
usual ‘yes’ or ‘no’.

These sentences have an auxiliary verb to the left of the subject rather than the
specifier position of the VP, our phrase structure rules place the auxiliary in the
appropriate position, (not in the example above) as in:

25. a) The boy [will leave].


b) The cat [can climb this tree].

How does the word order found in the former sentences come about?

The question structures that we are considering are built in two steps. The first
step, the usual phrase structure rules are used to form a structure in which the Aux
occupies its normal position within the VP. This allows us to express the fact that even in
question structures it functions as a specifier making more precise the meaning of the
verb.
S

NP VP

Det N Aux V
The boy will leave

Figure 23: Aux occurring as a specifier of V

The second step in the formation of question structures require a transformation,


a special type of rule that can move an element from one position to another. In case
we are considering, a transformation known as inversion moves the Aux from its
position within the VP to a position to the left of the subject. For now, we can formulate
this transformation as follows.
26. Inversion:

Move Aux to the left of the subject NP.

Inversion applies to the structure depicted in figure 23, yielding the sentence:

Will the boy leave?

with the auxiliary verb to the left of the subject NP – the position appropriate for
a question structure. (The arrow shows the movement brought about by inversion. For

31
now, we will not try to draw a tree diagram for structures that have undergone a
treansformation.)

The transformational analysis has at least two advantages. First, we do not have
to say that there are two types of auxiliary verbs in English: those that occur at the
beginning of the sentence and those that occur next to the verb as its specifier. Rather,
we can say that an auxiliaries function as specifiers of the verb, consistent with the
simple analysis in section 1.3.1. Those sentences that have an auxiliary verb to the left of
the subject simply undergo an ‘extra’ process – the Inversion transformation that moves
the auxiliary from its position within the VP in order to signal a question.

Second, the transformational analysis automatically expresses the fact – known


to all speakers of English – that the sentence ‘Will the boy leave?’ is the question
structure corresponding to ‘The boy will leave’. According to the analysis presented
here, both sentences have axactly the same structure after the application of the phrase
structure rules. They differ only in that Inversion has applied to move the auxiliary verb
in the question structure.

Deep structure and Surface structure – The preceding examples show that at
least some sentences must be analyzed with the help of two distinct rule systems –
phrase structure rules, which determine the internal structure of phrasal categories, and
transformations, which can modify these tree structures by moving an element from
one position to another. If we think about this in terms of the architecture of sentence
structure, the transformational analysis is claiming that there are two levels of syntactic
structure. The first, called deep structure, is formed by the phrase structure rules in
accordance with the head’s subcategorization properties. As we will see in the chapter
on semantics, deep structure plays a special role in the interpretation of sentences.

The second level of syntactic structure corresponds to the final syntactic form of
the sentence. Called surface structure, it results from applying whatever
transformations are appropriate for the sentence in question.

The deep structure for both the sentence ‘The boy will leave’ and the
corresponding question structure ‘Will the boy leave?’ is given in Figure 24.
S
Figure 24: The deep structure for the
NP VP
question ‘Will the boy leave?’ and the
statement ‘The boy will leave.’
Det N Aux V
The boy will leave

32
The surface structure for the question pattern is then formed by applying the
inversion transformation, yielding:

Will the boy – leave?

In contrast, the statement pattern ‘The boy will leave’ has a surface structure
(final syntactic form) that looks just like its deep structure since no transformations
apply.

The following diagram depicts the organization of the syntactic component of the
grammar as it has just been outlined.
Phrase structure rules

DEEP STRUCTURE (Subcategoriztion restricts


choice of complement)
Transformations

SURFACE STRUCTURE

Figure25: The syntactic component of the grammar

As this diagram shows, the grammar makes use of different syntactic


mechanisms. Some of these mechanisms are responsible for the architecture of phrases
(phrase structure rules), others for the determination of a head’s possible complements
(subcategorization), and still others for the movement of categories within syntactic
structure (transformations).

Wh movement – Consider now the set of question constructions following. These


sentences are called Wh-questions because of the presence of a question word
beginning with Wh.
27. a) Which car should the man fix?

b) What can the child sit on?

Do the deep structure associated with a and b resemble the surface form of
these sentences or are they quite different? Within the system of syntactic analysis we
are using, the sentences have the deep structures illustrated in Figure 26. (We treat the
‘Wh’ words ‘Who’ and ‘What’ as simple nouns and ‘Which’ as a determiner.)

33
S

S NP VP

NP VP PP

NP NP

Det N Aux V Det N Det N Aux V P N

The man should fit which car The child can sit on what

a. b.
Figure 26: Deep structures for two Wh-questions

According to these deep structures, ‘which car’ occurs as a complement of the


verb ‘fix’ in Figure 26a while ‘what’ appears as a complement of the preposition ‘on’ in
Figure 26b. This expresses an important fact about the meanigns of these sentences
since ‘which car’ asks about the thing that was fixed in the first case while ‘what’ asks
about the location where the child can sit in the second case.

A second argument in favor of this analysis involves subcategorization. Consider


in this regard the following sentences:
28. a) The man should fix.

b) The child can sit on.

Notice that these sentences are somehow incomplete without an NP


complement. However, there is no such problem with the Wh-questions in: a) Which car
should the man fix?/ b) What can the child sit on?, which suggests that the Wh-phrases
must be fulfilling the complement function in these sentences. The deep structures in
Figure 26 express this fact by treating the Wh-phrases as complements of the verb in
the first pattern and complement of the preposition in the second.

In order to convert these deep structures into the corresponding surface


structures, we need a transformation that will move the Wh-phrase from its position in
deep structure to a position at the beginning of the sentence. The transformation in
question, called Wh-movement, can be formulated as follows.
29. Wh-movement:
Move the Wh-phrase to the beginning of the sentence.

34
By applying Wh-movement and inversion to the deep structure in Figure 26a, we
can form the desired question structure.

30. Which car should the man - fix - ?


Inversion
Wh-movement

Application of the same two transformations to the deep structure in Figure 26b
yields the Wh-question in:

31. What can the child - sit on - ?

Wh-movement of PPs sometimes, more than one Wh-question can be formed


from the same deep structure. Consider in this regard the deep structure in Figure 26b
above, repeated here.

NP VP

PP

NP

Det N Aux V P N

The child can sit on what

Figure 27: A deep structure in which the Wh-word is a complement of a P

We have already seen that we can form the sentence ‘What can the child sit on?’
by fronting the Wh-word ‘what’ and applying inversion. However, this is not the only
sentence that can be formed from this deep structure. By treating the PP on ‘what’ as a
Wh-phrase and moving it to the front of the sentence, it is possible to form the slightly
different sentence in:
32. On what can the child - sit - ?

35
We see, then, that by allowing Wh-movement to apply to either an NP or a PP
that contains a Wh-word, it is possible to form two distinct grammatical sentences from
the same deep structure.

A more detailed look at Transformations (advanced) – Up until now, our


discussion of transformations has left unsettled an interesting technical issue –
Reconsider in this regard the simple yes-no question examplified in:

33. Will the boy – leave?

In this position does the auxiliary verb ‘land’ when it is moved by Inversion to the
left of the subject? If we assume that sentences such as ‘Will the boy leave?’ are simple
Ss, no position is available for the fronted auxiliary to the left of the subject since the S
rule (S → NP VP) says that an S should consist just of an NP and a VP.

Another look at Inversion: This problem can be solved if we assume that all Ss
occur within larger CPs, as depicted in Figure 28.

CP

C S

NP VP

Det N Aux V

The boy will leave

Figure 28: S with a CP shell

By adopting this structure, we take the position that all Ss occur within a CP,
whether they are embedded or not. It may help to think of the CP category as a ‘shell’
that forms an outer layer of structure around an S. When embedded within a larger
sentence, the CP can contain an overt complementizer such as ‘that’ or ‘whether’.
Elsewhere, the C position in the CP shell is present but is simply left empty.
It is into this empty position that the auxiliary verb is moved in yes-no questions.
Thus, the Inversion transformation can be reformulated as follows:
34. Inversion
Move Aux to C

36
According to this proposal, then, the sentence ‘Will the boy leave?’ is formed by
applying the inversion transformation to the Deep structure in Figure 28 above to give
the Surface structure in Figure 29.

CP

C S

NP VP

Aux Det N Aux V

Will the boy E leave

Figure 29: Movement of Aux to the C position


A transformation can do no more than change an element’s position. It does not
change the categories of any words and it cannot eliminate any part of the structural
configuration created by the phrase structure rules. Thus, ‘will’ remains an Aux even
though it is moved into the C position, and the specifier position that it formerly
occupied remains in the tree structure. Marked by the symbol E (for ‘empty’), it records
the fact that the moved element comes from the specifier position within the VP.

Why do we attach a moved Aux to the C position rather than some other part of
sentence structure? The answer lies in the embedded CPs in sentences such as the
following:

35. a) The coach wonders [CP if the girl would stay].

b) A fan asked [CP whether the team will win].

The underlined elements in these CPs are complementizers and therefore occur
in the C position. Assuming that there can be only one element in each position in a tree
structure, there should be no room for the moved Aux under the C label in the
embedded CPs in ‘Inversion – Move Aux to C’. We therefore predict that Inversion
should not be able to apply in these cases. The ungrammaticality of the sentences
following shows that this is not correct.
36. Inversion in embedded CPs that include complementizers:

a) * The coach wonders [CP if – should the girl – stay].

b) * A fan asked [CP whether – will the team – win].

37
Interestingly, the acceptability of Inversion in embedded CPs improves quite
dramatically when there is no complementizer (and the C position is therefore open to
receive the moved Aux).

37. Inversion in embedded CPs that do not have complementizers:

a) The coach wondered [CP would the team – win].

b) A fan asked [CP will the team – win].

Although some speakers prefer not to apply inversion in embedded clauses at all
(especially in formal speech), most speakers of English find the sentences above to be
much more natural than those in ‘Inversion in embedded CPs that include
complementizers’. This is just what we would expect if inversion must move the Aux to
an empty C position, as required by our analysis.

To summarize before continuing, we have introduced two changes into the


system of syntactic analysis used until now. First, we assume that all Ss occur inside CPs.
Second, we assume that the inversion transformation moves the auxiliary from its
position within VP to an empty C position to the left of the subject NP. This not only
gives the correct word order for question structures, it helps explain why inversion
sounds so unnatural when the C position is already filled by another element, as in
‘Inversion in embedded CPs that include complementizers’.

Another look at Wh-movement – Now reconsider the Wh-question pattern in:

38. Which car should the man - fix - ?

We have already seen that the transformation of Wh-movement moves the Wh-
phrase to the beginning of the sentence, to the left even of the fronted Aux, but we
have not attempted to determine its precise place in the tree structure.

Given that the moved Aux is located in the C position (see above), it seems
reasonable to conclude that the fronted Wh-phrase is in the specifier position of CP (this
being the only position to the left of the C). Certainly, we know that this position is
available to receive the moved Wh-phrase because there is no class of words that serves
as specifier of C, this position will always be empty in deep structure prior to the
application of Wh-movement.
We therefore reformulate the Wh-movement transformation as follows.

39. Wh-movement (revised)


38
Move a Wh-phrase to the specifier position under CP.

The sentence ‘Which car should the man fix?’ can now be analyzed in step the
first of which involves formation of the deep structure depicted in Figure 29. Consistent
with our earlier assumption, the S here occurs within a CP shell.
CP

C S

NP VP

NP

Det N Aux V Det N

The man should fix the car

Figure 29: Deep structure for ‘Which car should the mman fix?’

Wh-movement and inversion then apply to this deep structur, yielding the
surface structure in Figure 30. Note that the Aux has moved to the C position and the
Wh-phrase to the specifier position within CP.

CP

C S

NP NP VP

Det N Aux Det N Aux V NP

Which car should the man E fix E

Figure 30: Movement of Aux to C and of the Wh-phrase to the specifier of CP

Like other transformations, Wh-movement cannot eliminate any part of the


structural configuration formed by the phrase structure rules. The position occupied by
the Wh-phrase in deep structure is threfore not lost. Rather, it remains as a trace (an
empty category), indicating that the moved element corresponds to the complement of
the verb ‘fix’.

39
Constraints on Transformations (advanced) – Interestingly, there are certain
contexts in which transformations are unable to operate. As a [reliminary illustration of
this, consider the following two pairs of sentences:

40. a) Carl should see [a picture of dracula].


b) Who should Carl see [a picture of - ]?

41. a) [A picture of Dracula] could frighten John.


b) * Who could [a picture of - ] frighten John?

In the first example, the Wh-word is extracted from a complement phrase and
the result is acceptable. In 41, in contrast, the Wh-word is extracted from the subject
NP. The ungrammatically of the resulting sentence suggests that it is not possible to
move an element out of a subject phrase. We can express this fact by formulating the
following constraint on transformations.

42. The subject constraint:

No element may be removed from a subject phrase.

A constituent (such as the subject) that does not permit extraction of a


component part is called an island.

Subject NPs are not the only type of island found in English. As the following
examples show, it is also possible to remove a Wh-word from a coordinate structure.
(The coordinate structure is placed in brackets; as outlined in detail in section 1.3.5.
‘SOME EXTENTIONS (advanced)’, a coordinate structure is a phrase in which a word
such as ‘and’ or ‘or’ joins together categories of the same type.)
43. a) The author might write [a story or a poem].

b) * What might the author write [a story or - ]?

44. a) Sue will talk [to Tom and to Mary].


b) * Who will Sue talk [to Tom and to - ]?

40
We can account for these facts by formulating the following constraint:

45. The Coordinate structure constraint:

No element may be removed from a coordinate structure.

There are many different types of islands in language, and a good deal of current
research focuses on how they should be described, what properties they have in
common, and how they differ from language to language. However, most of this work is
too complex to discuss in an introductory book.

3.4. SOME EXTENSIONS (advanced)

Now that we have considered the basic rule systems used by the syntactic
component of the grammar in human language, it is possible to broaden out treatment
of English syntax by briefly examining a number of additional strutural patterns. We
focus in this section on three such patterns coordinate structures, modifier
constructions, and relative clauses.

Coordination – A common syntactic pattern in English and other languages is


formed by grouping together two or more categories of the same type with the help of
a conjunction such as ‘and’ or ‘or’. This phenomenon is known as coordination.

66. Coordination of NPs


[NP the man] and [NP a child]
67. Coordination of VPs
[VP go to the library] and [VP read a book]

68. Coordination of PPs

[PP down the stairs] and [PP out the door]

69. Coordination of Aps

[AP quite beautiful] and [AP very expensive]

70. Coordination of Ss
[S The man entered the building] and [S the woman waited in the car].

Coordination exhibits four important properties. First, there is no limit on the


number of coordinated categories that can appear prior to the conjunction. Thus, the
grammar can form structures such as 71, in which the subject NP contains four smaller
NPs prior to the underlined conjunction and one after it.
41
71. [NP A man, a boy, a cat, a dog, and a hyamster] got into the car.

Second, a category at any level (a head or an entire XP) can be coordinated. The
preceding examples illustrate coordination of XPs; following are examples involving
word-level categories.
72. a) Coordination of N

The [N book] and [N magazine]

b) Coordination of P
[P up] and [P down] the stairs

c) Coordination of V

[V repair] and [V paint] the deck

Third, coordinated categories must be of the same type. Thus, the coordinated
categories are of both NPs in 66, VPs in 67, and so on. As 73 shows, coordination of
different category types generally gives a quite unnatural result.
73. a) Coordination of an NP and a PP

* He read [PP in the library] and [NP the book]


b) Coordination of an NP and an AP

* He left [NP the house] and [AP very angry]

Finally, the category type of the coordinate phrase is identical to the category
type of the elements being conjoined. Hence, if VPs are coordinated, the coordinate
structure is a VP; if NPs are coordinated, the coordinate structure is an NP; and so on.

VP NP

VP VP NP NP

Aux V Con Aux V Det N Con Det N

may stay or may leave the man and a child


Figure 33: Coordinate structures

How does the grammar form coordinate structures? one possibility is that there
is a separate rule for each coordinate structure. For categories of the N-type, for
example, the following two rules could be formulated. (The * symbol indicates that one
42
or more categories can occur to the left of the conjunction as in example 71; Con =
conjunction).

74. a) NP → NP* Con NP

b) N → N* Con N

A set of parallel roles for verbal categories could also be formulated.

75. a) VP → VP Con VP
b) V → V* Con V

Similar rules can be devised for other categories (S, AP, PP, and so on) as well, but
you can probably see that the result will be a rather long list of new rules.

Fortunately, we can avoid these complications by using the ‘X notation’


employed throughout this chapter to formulate a single general statement that can take
the place of the more specific rules examplified above. (As before, X stands for N, V, A or
P).

76. The Coordination rule

Xn → Xn * Con Xn

The symbol Xn in this rule stands for a category at any structural level, indicating
that either an X or an XP can be coordinated. As before, the asterisk (*) indicates that
one or more categories can occur to the left of the conjunction. Thus, we can not only
form structures such as ‘a man and a boy’ in which just two elements are coordinated,
but also structures such as ‘a man, a boy, a cat, a dog and a hamster’, in which a much
larger number of items undergoes coordination. By adding just one more rule to the
grammar, then, we can form a very broad range of coordination structures.

Modifiers – Thus far, our treatment of phrase structure has ignored modifiers, a
class of elements that encode optionally expressible properties of heads. Although all
lexical categories can have modifiers, we will focus here on the types of categories that
can modify Ns and Vs.

Adjective phrases (APs) make up the single most commonly used class of
modifiers in English. As the following examples show, APs serve as modifiers of Ns. (This
is not the only function of Aps; they can also function as complements of verbs such as
‘become’ and ‘seem’, as in ‘He became/ seemed [very angry+’; see Table 5).

77. Aps serving as modifiers of N


A very tall man walked into the room.
43
She made exceptional progress.

The most common modifiers of Vs are adverb phrases (AdvPs) and PPs that
describe manner or time.

78. AdvPs serving as modifiers of V

Decribing manner: Ellen proceeded carefully.

Ellen carefully proceeded.


Describing time: We arrived early.

79. PPs serving as modifiers of V

Describing manner: Ellen proceeded with care.

Decribing time: He stayed for three days.

As these examples show, English modifiers vary in terms of their position with
respect to the head. Thus, Aps precede the N while PPs follow the verb. Many AdvPs can
occur either before or after the verb that they modify, as the first examples in 78
illustrate.

Table 11: Modifier position in English

Modifier Position
AP Precedes the head
PP Follows the head
AdvP Precedes or follows the head

A rule for Modifiers – How do modifiers fit into phrase structure? For the
purpose of this introduction to syntax, we will attach modifiers at the XP level of phrase
structure, as depicted below.
NP VP

AP AdvP

Det A N Aux V Adv

an international crisis should leave calmly


a. b.

Figure 34: Phrase consisting modifiers

44
In order to account for the placement of modifiers, we must expand our original
XP rule so that it allows the various options shown in 80.

80. The Expanded XP rule

XP → (spec) (Mod) X (Complement*) (Mod)

This rule allows a modifier to occur before the head (as in Figure 34a) and/or
after it (see Figure 34b). Where there is a complement, a modifier that occurs after the
head will normally occur to the right of the complement as well. This is illustrated in
Figure 35.

VP

NP AdvP

V Det N Deg Adv

accept the news very calmly

Figure 35: A phrase in which both the complement and the modifier occur after
the head (the modifier occurs after the complement)

In this example, the XP rule gives a phrase consisting of a head (the verb
‘accept’), a complement (the NP ‘the news’), and a modifier (the AdvP ‘very calmly) – in
that order.

Relative clauses (advanced) – Consider now the structure examplified in 81.


81. a) Sue knows the man [who Bob criticized _ ].

b) Harry visited the village [which Sue walked to _ ].

The bracketed phrases in 81 are relative clauses, CP-sized modifiers that provide
information about the N head to their left. In sentence 81a, for example, the relative
clause helps identify the man by indicating that he is the person criticized by Bob.

Like other modifiers, relative clauses occur within the same phrase as the head
that they modify. Thus, the bracketed relative clause in 81a should br part of the NP
headed by the N ‘man’. This can be verified with the help of the substitution test
illustrated in 82, which shows that the sequence ‘the man who Bob criticized’ is a
syntactic unit since it can be replaced by the pronoun ‘him’.

45
82. Sue knows the man [who Bob criticized _ ] and I know him too.

[him = the man who Bob criticized)

Wh-movement again – Relative clause structures resemble embedded Wh-


question in two respects. First, they begin with a Wh-word such as ‘who’ or ‘which’.
Second, there is an empty position within the sentence from which the Wh-phrase has
apparently been moved. In sentences 81a and 81b, for instance, the NP position
following the transitive verb ‘criticize’ and the preposition ‘to’ are unfilled in surface
structure.

The first step in the formation of the relative clause in 81a involves the deep
structure in Figure 36. Here, the Wh-word ‘who’ occurs as complement of the verb
‘criticize’ since it corresponds to the person who is criticized. (The relative clause itself is
in the usual position for a post-head modifier; see the preceding section).

The next step involves the application of the Wh-movement rule (as outlined in
section – TRANSFORMATIONS) to give the structure in Figure 37. (Recall that Wh-
phrases move to the specifier position under CP.) Notice that no new transformations
are required to form relative clause structures such as these. Rather, relative clauses can
be formed with the help of the same Wh-movement transformation that is
independently required for Wh-questions.

CP
Figure 36: Deep structure of a relative
C S clause structure
NP VP

NP

CP

C S

NP VP

NP

N V Det N N V N

She knows the man Bob criticized who

46
CP

C S

NP VP

NP

CP

C S

NP NP VP

N V Det N N N V NP

She knows the man who Bob criticized E

Figure 37: Surface structure of a relative clause: the Wh-phrase has moved to the
specifier position within CP

Now consider a relative clause structure in which the Wh-word originals in the
subject position.
83. Sue knows the man [who criticized Bob].

Here ‘who’ corresponds to the person who does the criticizing, not the person
who gets criticized, as in the previous example. The deep structure for this sentence
therefore corresponds to Figure 38, in which the Wh-word appears in the subject
position.

47
CP

C S

NP VP

NP

CP

C S

NP VP

N V Det N N V N

She knows the man who criticized Bob


Figure 38: Deep structure of a relative clause structure with a Wh-phrase in
subject position.

Like other Wh-words, the ‘who’ here subsequently moves to the specifier
position within CP even though the actual order of the words in the sentence does not
change as a result of this movement.

4. SIGNALS OF SYNTACTIC STRUCTURE


In English, there are five signals in syntactic structure:

Word order – The order in which words n=may occur in a phrase, clause or
sentence. For example, the past participle in English occurs after the auxiliary.
95. He has given me the book.

The position of a word in a sentence often signals its function. Thus in the
sentence:

96. Dogs eat meat.

The position of ‘dog’ shows that it is the SUBJECT, and the position of ‘meat’
shows that it is the OBJECT. In some languages, including English, a change from the
usual word order may often be used to emphasize or contrast.

97. That cheese I really don’t like.

48
Prosodic patterns – Sounds characteristics which affect whole sequences of
syllables. They may involve, for instance, the relative loudness or duration of syllables,
changes in the pitch of a speaker’s voice and the choice of pitch level.

Function words – Function words are words which have little meaning on their
own, but which show grammatical relationships in and between sentences (grammatical
meaning). Conjunctions, prepositions, determiners are function words.

Function words are also called form words, empty words, functors, grammatical
words, structure words.

Inflections – The other device which changes the forms of words in the utterance
is called inflections. Thus, inflection is the process of adding an affix to a word or
changing it in some other way according to the rules of the grammar of a language. For
example, in English, verbs are inflected for 3rd person singular: I work, He works and for
past tense: I worked. Most nouns may be inflected for plural: horse – horses, flower –
flowers, man – men,...

Derivation – In MORPHOLOGY and WORD FORMATION of new words by adding


affixes to other words or morphemes. For example, the noun ‘insanity’ is derived from
the adjective ‘sane’ by the addition of the negative prefix ‘in’ and the noun-forming
suffix ‘ITY’.

5. HOW TO BUILD TREE STRUCTURES

Although it is relatively easy to check a tree structure to see if it complies with


the relevant phrase structure rules, it is somewhat harder to build a tree structure from
scratch when trying to analyze a new phrase or sentence. In such cases, you will
probably find it easier to proceed in steps, working from the bottom up and from right
to left. As an illustration, let us first consider the phrase ‘near the door’

The first step involves assigning each word to the appropriate category, as
depicted in Figure 39.
P Det N

near the door

Figure 39: The first step – determining the word-level categories

Then, working from right to left, the XP levels are added above each N, V, A or P.
Thus, we first add an NP label above the N door. There is clearly no complement here,
but there is a specifier (the determiner the), which can be attached at the NP level in
accordance with the XP rule.

49
NP

P Det. N

near the door


Figure 40: Building the NP

Next, we carry out the same procedure for the P near, adding the required PP
level.
PP

NP

P Det. N

near the door

Figure 41: Adding the PP level above the P head

The NP to the right of the P clearly functions as its complement (since it names
the location entailed by the meaning of near). This element is therefore attached at the
PP level in accordance with the XP rule, giving the complete structure depicted in Figure
42.
PP

NP
P Det. N

near the door


Figure 42: The complete PP

Consider now how we proceed in the case of a complete sentence such as ‘The
apple might hit the man’. Assignment of each word to the appropriate category gives
the structure depicted in Figure 43.
Det N Aux V Det N

The apple might hit the man

Figure 43: The categories for each word in the sentence

Working from right to left, it is easy to see that the noun ‘man’ heads an NP that
contains a specifier but no complement.

50
NP

Det N Aux V Det N

The apple might hit the man


Figure 44: The structure of the rightmost NP
Next, we focus on the V ‘hit’, adding the require VP level.
VP

NP
Det N Aux V Det N

The apple might hit the man


Figure 45: Adding the VP level above the V head

As specifier, the auxiliary ‘might’ clearly atttaches to the VP. But what of the NP
‘the man’? It occurs to the right of the V and names an entity entailed by the meaning of
‘hit’ (the person who is hit). As such, it is the complement of the V and must also be
attached to the VP in accordance with the XP rule.
VP

NP
Det N Aux V Det N

The apple might hit the man

Figure 46: The structure of the VP

Finally, we can form the phrase built around the N ‘apple’ and combine this NP
with the already formed VP in accordance with the S rule (S → NP VP). This yields the
complete sentence illustrated in Figure 46.

NP VP

NP Figure 46: The complete sentence


Det N Aux V Det N
The apple might hit the man

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Transformations – As explained in section 1.3.3, the syntactic analysis of some
sentences involves transformations in addition to the usual phrase structures rules.
Recognizing that one of the transformations used in this chapter has applied is relatively
simple: if a sentence contains an auxiliary verb to the left of the subject, then Inversion
has applied; if it begins with a wh-word, then Wh-movement has applied. In the
sentence ‘What has the customer purchased?’ then, both of the transformations have
applied.

In order to determine the deep structure, we must ‘return’ the auxiliary verb to
its position within the specifier of VP and we must determine the position from which
the Wh-word has been removed. Since the Wh-word in the sentence ‘What has the
customer purchased?’ asks about the complement of the verb (the thing that is
purchased), we place ‘what’ in the verbal complement position in deep structure. This
gives the deep structure depicted in Figure 47 consistent with the phrase structure rules
we have been discussing.

NP VP
NP

Det N Aux V N

The customer has purchased what

Figure 48: Deep structure for What has the customer purchased

If you are using the more detailed system outlined in section 1.3.3, the deep
structure will be slightly more complex. As depicted below, it must also include a CP
category, so that there will be empty positions to which the auxiliary and the Wh-word
can be moved.

CP

C S

NP VP
NP
Det N Aux V N
The customer has purchased what

Figure 48: Deep structure with the CP shell

52
The auxiliary ‘has’ then moves to the C position (inversion) and ‘what’ to the
specifier position under CP (Wh-movement), yielding the complete surface structure
depicted in Figure 49.

CP
C S

NP NP VP

N Aux Det N Aux V NP


What has the customer E purchased E

Figure 49: The Surface structure: the Wh-phrase has moved to the specifier
position within CP and the Aux has moved to the C position

53
CONTENTS
Page

1. WORD-LEVEL CATEGORIES ......................................................................


1.1. LEXICAL CATEGORIES ..................................................................................
NOUNS ...................................................................................................................

Morphological classification ...............................................................

i. SIMPLE NOUNS ................................................................................


ii. COMPOUND NOUN .........................................................................
iii. DERIVED NOUN ...............................................................................

Semantic classification .......................................................................

i. COMMON AND PROPER NOUNS .....................................................


ii. COUNT AND NON-COUNT NOUNS ..................................................

VERBS .....................................................................................................................
Morphological classification ...............................................................

i. SIMPLE VERBS..................................................................................
ii. COMPOUND VERBS .........................................................................
iii. DERIVED VERBS ...............................................................................
iv. PHRASAL VERBS ...............................................................................
v. PREPOSITIONAL VERBS....................................................................
vi. PHRASAL PREPOSITIONAL VERBS ....................................................

Semantic classification .......................................................................

i. LEXICAL VERBS vs. AUXILIARY VERBS ..............................................


ii. REGULAR vs.IRREGULAR VERBS ......................................................
iii. TRANSITIVE vs. INTRANSITIVE VERBS ..............................................
iv. STATIVE vs. DYNAMIC VERBS ..........................................................
v. INTENSIVE vs. EXTENSIVE VERBS .....................................................
GRAMMATICAL CATEGORIES OF VERBS.....................................................

i. VERB TENSES ...................................................................................

54
ii. VERB ASPECTS .................................................................................
iii. MOODS ............................................................................................
iv. VOICES .............................................................................................

ADJECTIVES ............................................................................................................
Syntactic functions of Adjectives ...................................................

i. ATTRIBUTIVE....................................................................................
ii. PREDICATIVE....................................................................................
iii. POSTPOSITIVE..................................................................................
iv. VERBLESS ADJECTIVE CLAUSE .........................................................
v. AN EXCLAMATION ...........................................................................
vi. THE HEAD OF A NOUN PHRASE .......................................................

Semantic classification ..................................................................

i. STATIVE vs. DYNAMIC......................................................................


ii. GRADABLE vs. NON-GRADABLE ......................................................
iii. INHERENT vs. NON-INHERENT ........................................................
PREPOSITIONS .......................................................................................................

i. SIMPLE PREPOSITION ......................................................................


ii. COMPLEX PREPOSITION ..................................................................

ADVERBS ................................................................................................................

Forms of Adverbs .........................................................................


Morphological classification ..........................................................

i. SIMPLE ADVERBS .............................................................................


ii. COMPOUND ADVERBS ....................................................................
iii. DERIVED ADVERBS...........................................................................
iv. FIXED PHRASES ................................................................................
1.2. NON-LEXICAL CATEGORIES.........................................................................
DETERMINERS........................................................................................................
AUXILIARIES ...........................................................................................................

CONJUNCTIONS .....................................................................................................

DEGREES ................................................................................................................

55
2. SOME PROPERTIES OF SENTENCE STRUCTURE..........................................
2.1. LINEARITY ...................................................................................................
2.2. HIERARCHY .................................................................................................
2.3. CATEGORIALITY ..........................................................................................
SUMMARY .............................................................................................................

56
PART II: CATEGORIES AND PROPERTIES OF SENTENCE
STRUCTURE
1. WORD-LEVEL CATEGORIES

A fundamental fact about words in all human languages is that they can be
grouped together into a relatively small number of classes, called syntactic categories
(also called part of speech). This classification reflects a variety of factors, including the
type of meaning that words express, the type of affixes that they take, and the type of
structures in which they can occur.

Syntactic categories are generally divided into two broad groups: lexical
categories and non-lexical categories.

Some examples of the word-level categories that are most central to the study of
syntax.

LEXICAL CATEGORIES EXAMPLES


Noun (N) Harry, boy, wheat, policy
Verb (V) arrive, discuss, melt, hear, remain
Adjective (A) good, tall, silent, old
Preposition (P) to, in, on, near, at, by
Adverb (Adv) silently, slowly, quietly, now
NON-LEXICAL CATEGORIES EXAMPLES
Determiner (Det) all, both, half, one-third, first, second,
several, plenty, the, a, this, my
Auxiliary (Aux) will, can, may, must, be, have
Conjunction (Conj) and, nor, but, yet, or, so, for
Degree word (Deg) too, so, very, almost, more, quiet

1.1. LEXICAL CATEGORIES

The four most studied syntactic categories are noun (N), verb (V), adjective (A)
and preposition (P). These elements, which are often called lexical categories, play a
very important role in sentence formation. A fifth and less studied category consists of
adverbs (Adv), most of which derived from adjective. Their number increases all the
time.

57
NOUNS

A noun is a word which can occur as the subject or object of a verb or


preposition, can be modified by an adjective, other noun, present participle or past
participle and can be used with determiner.

A noun typically refer to people, animals, places, events, things, phenomena or


abstractions, for example: engineer, man, father, building, room; table, flowers; storm,
rain; Sea Games, Olympic; happiness, misfortune.
Morphologically, nouns can be divided into three kinds:

1. SIMPLE NOUNS: consists of one root morpheme: ring, house, ice, word,...

2. COMPOUND NOUNS: are a combination of two or more words and they


are written as:
A single noun: headache, classroom,...

A hyphenated word: self-government, school-gate, line-up,...

Two words: meeting hall, walking street, police station,...


3. DERIVED NOUNS: consists of one root and suffix:

The endings -ER, -MENT and -ATION can be added to many verbs to form nouns;
and -ITY and -NESS can be added to many adjectives to form nouns like this.

drive Driver
fasten fastener
-ER
open opener
teach teacher
amaze amazement
develop development
-MENT
pay payment
retire retirement
admire admiration
associate association
-ATION
examine examination
organize organization
cruel cruelty
odd -ITY oddity
pure -TY purity
stupid stupidity

58
dark darkness
deaf deafness
-NESS
happy happiness
kind kindness

Ex: John drives a bus. He is a bus driver.

A can opener is a tool for opening cans.


Children develops very quickly. Their development is very quickly.

The doctor examines me carefully. He gave me a careful examination.

Don’t be cruel. I hate cruelty.

It was very dark. The darkness made it impossible.

Semantically, nouns can be grouped into six main classes in the following
diagram:
NOUNS

PROPER COMMON

COUNT NON-COUNT

CONCRETE ABSTRACT CONCRETE ABSTRACT


i. COMMON vs. PROPER NOUNS:

Proper nouns are names of:

 Specific people: Sam, John,...


 Places: Canada, Toronto,...
 Holidays, months and days of a week: Christmas, January, Sunday,...
 Objects and commercial products: Voyager, Chevrolet, Kleenex,...
 Events: World Cup, Sea Games,...
 Religions, flowers of particular regions and some religious concepts:
Buddhism, God, the Devil, Heaven,...
 Person or bodies with a unique public function: the Commonwealth, the
Queen, Parliament, the president,...
 Public buildings, institutions, laws, etc.: the Library of Congress, the British
library, the University of Essex,...
...

They differ from common nouns in three main ways:

59
1. Proper nouns can stand alone (Fred is here/I like London/Today is
Tuesday), whereas only certain common nouns can stand alone (Chess is
fun).
2. Proper nouns do not usually allow a plural (*Londons/*Freds), whereas
common nouns do (books/legs).
3. Proper nouns are not usually used with determiners, whereas common
nouns are (the music, some trees, a pen).

ii. COUNT vs. NON-COUNT NOUNS:

Count nouns refer to individual, countable entities, such as books, eggs, horses...
Non-count nouns refer to an undifferentiated mass or notion such as butter, music,
advice... Non-count nouns are also known as mass nouns.

Some common non-count nouns:

 Whole groups made up of similar items: baggage, clothing, equipment,


food, fruit, furniture, garbage, hardware, jewelry, junk, luggage,
machinery, mail, makeup, money/cash/change, postage, scenery, traffic,...
 Fluids: water, coffee, tea, milk, oil, soup, gasoline, blood,...
 Solids: ice, bread, butter, cheese, meat, gold, iron, silver, glass, paper,
wood, cotton, wool,...
 Gases: steam, air, oxygen, nitrogen, smoke, smog, pollution,...
 Particles: rice, chalk, corn, dirt, flour, grass, hair, pepper, salt, sand, sugar,
wheat,...
 Abstractions:
- beauty, confidence, courage, education, enjoyment, fun, happiness,
health, honesty, hospitality, importance, intelligence, justice,
knowledge, laughter, luck, music, patience, pride, progress, recreation,
significance, sleep, truth, violence, wealth,...
- advice, information, news, evidence, proof,...
- time, space, energy,...
- homework, work,...
- grammar, slang, vocabulary,...
 Languages: Arabic, Chinese, English, Spanish,...
 Fields of study: chemistry, engineering, history, literature, mathematics,
psychology,...
 Recreation: baseball, soccer, tennis, chess, bridge, poker,...
 General activities: driving, studying, swimming, travelling, walking,
running,...

60
 Natural phenomena: weather, dew, fog, hail, heat, humidity, lightning,
rain, sleet, snow, thunder, wind, darkness, light, sunshine, electricity, fire,
gravity,...

Many non-count nouns have an equivalent countable expression using ‘piece’,


‘bit’, ‘round’, ‘blade’, ‘loaf’ (partitive nouns) followed by ‘of’: information – a bit of
information, luck – a bit of luck, applause – a round of applause, grass – a blade of grass,
bread – a loaf of bread.

VERBS

In English, the verb is a word which occurs as part of the predicate of a sentence,
carries markers of grammatical categories such as TENSE (past, present), ASPECT
(concerns the manner in which the verbal action is experienced or regraded –
progressive, perfect), PERSON, NUMBER, MOOD (indicative, imperative, subjunctive),
VOICE (active, passive) and refers to an action or state.

Morphologically, verbs can be classified into six types:

1. SIMPLE VERBS: hear, love, watch,...

2. COMPOUND VERBS: ad-lit, baby-sit, back-pedal, back-slide, sight-see, bad-


mouth, house-hunt, job-hunt, sleep-walk, lip-read, bottle feed, breast feed,
brain wash, by pass, chain smoke, crisis cross, cross check, cross examine,
cross question, cross-fertilize, cross-question, cross reference, court martial,
daydream, deep fry, dive bomb, double book, bouble check, double cross,
double glaze,...

3. DERIVED VERBS:
Formation of derived verbs:

Prefix + Verb: belie (be- + lie), coexist (co- + exist), de-emphasize (de- +
emphasize),...

Prefix + Adjective: enrich (en- + rich), enable (en- + able), enlarge (en- +
large),...

Prefix + Noun: embody (em- + body), outclass (out- + class),...

Adjective + Suffix: blacken (black + -en), lighten (light + -en),...

Noun + Suffix: beautify (beauty + -ify), appologize (appology + -ize),...

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Latin prefix + Latin root: abduct (ab- + -duct), concede (con- + -cede), occur
(oc- + -cur), recede (re- + -cede),...

4. PHRASAL VERBS
(Verb + Adverbial Particle)

Group A: VERBS WITHOUT AN OBJECT: break down (= stop working), clear up


(become brighter – for weather), close down (= go out of business), doze off (=
fall asleep), drop out (= stop taking part in sth), move in (= start living in a new
house), show off (= show how clever you are), turn up (= arrive/appear), grow
up (= become adult),...

My car has broken down.

Lydia turned up at the last moment.

The children are growing up fast.

Many imperatives have the pattern of group A: look out, go on, wake up, get
up, come in, sit down, stand up, shut up, go away, conme on, watch out,...

Look out! There’s a car coming. (a warning)


Go on! We’re all listening. (continue what you are saying)

Group B: VERBS WITH AN OBJECT: bring up, cross out, find out, fix up, give
away, give back, give up, fill in, fill out, leave out, make up, find out, look
up/down, put off, put out, show round, see off, take over, turn down, turn on,
turn off, keep up,...
She’s bringing up the three children. (rearing)

Try to find out whether he’s coming. (discover)

I’ll fix up the meeting tomorrow. (arrange)


Don’t give away all my secrets. (reveal)

You should give up smoking cigarettes. (stop)


Can you fill in/out this form, please. (complete)

Note:
 If the object is a NP, you can move the adverb after it:

She brought up the three children.

62
(She brought the three children up.)

 If the object is a personal pronoun, it must come before the adverb:

She brought them up.

Have you looked up these words in the dictionary? ~ Yes, I looked them up
last night.

Have they put off the meeting? (posponed) ~ Yes, they’ve put it off until
next month.
Has the army taken over the airport? ~ No, they haven’t taken it over yet.

 What verbs/adverbs can be used in phrasal verbs?

The verb is a common English verb: ask, come, get, keep, make, set, be, fall, give,
let, put, take, break, find, go, look, run, turn,...

The adverb is usually an adverb of place: about, around, by, in out, under, across,
away, down, off, over, up, along, back, forward, on, through,...

5. PREPOSITIONAL VERBS:
(Verb + Preposition)

Prepositional verbs do not follow the same grammatical rules as Phrasal verbs:
prepositional verbs need a following NP and they can’t stand alone. You can’t move the
object: NP including single N or pronoun before the preposition:

The dog went for the postman. (not *The dog went for)

I looked at the meeting. (not *I looked it at)

The verb and preposition express a single idea:

She takes after her grandmother. (resembles)


We’ve asked for help. (requested)

I have to look after the house. (take care of)

I’m looking for my keys. Have you seen them? (seeking)

The verb and preposition are often together:

What are you listening to? ~ I’m listening to the news.

I don’t know who this book belongs to.

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We have scarcely have enough to live on.

Have the new chairs been paid for?

It is sometimes awkward or impossible to seperate the preposition from the verb:


* To what are you listening to?
* I don’t know to whom this book belongs to.

Some Prepositional verbs: add to, agree with, aim at, allow for, apply for,
approve of, ask for, attend to, believe in, belong to, call for/on, care for, consent to,
complain about, deal with, decide on, hope for, wish for, pray for, insist on, listen to, live
on, look at, look for, look after, object to, pay for, refer to, rely on, run for, stand for, take
after/to,...
Note:
He ran down his own wife. (= criticized her)

→ He ran her down. (correct)


He ran down the hill.

→* He ran it down (incorrect)

6. PHRASAL PREPOSITIONAL VERBS:


(Verb + Adverb + Preposition)

They are idioms, quite common in formal, spoken English.

They are partly Phrasal verbs and partly Prepositional verbs.


They can be often replaced by a single-word verb in more formal English. In this
point, they are like Phrasal verb.
I’ve got a bad cold. You’d better keep away from me. (avoid)

We’ve got to face up to our problems. (confront)


Children ought to look up to their teachers. (respect)

We’re looking forward to meeting you again.

Some phrasal prepositional verbs: catch up with (overtake), cut down on (reduce),
stand up for (defend), keep up with (complete with one’s neighbours socially, esp. By

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buying the same new expensive things that they buy), run away with (take/carry off
secretly or illegally), get away with (do sth wrong without being caught or punished).

Semantically, verbs can be classified: lexical and auxiliary verbs, regular and
irregular verbs, transitive and intransitive verbs, stative and dynamic verbs, intensive
and extensive verbs.

i. LEXICAL VERBS vs. AUXILIARY VERBS


LEXICAL VERBS

Words such as admit, build, choose, write... are lexical verbs. The primary verbs
have, be and do behave both like lexical verbs and auxiliaries. Lexical verbs have the
following characteristics:

Morphologically, lexical verbs vary for TENSE, ASPECT and VOICE.

He writes pages after page about tiny details.


They wrote about Venus being a jungle paradise.

He had written to an old journalist friend.

I wonder if you are writing any more songs?

The articles are written with penetrating vehemence.

Syntactically, lexical verbs occur as the head or main verb of verb phrases: has
written, will be writing. Verbs phrases serve as the centre of clauses.

Semantically, lexical verbs denote actions, processes or states and serve to


establish the relationship between the participants in an action, process or state.

AUXILIARY VERBS

Primary auxiliaries and modal auxiliaries are used to build up complex verb
phrases and cannot occur alone unless a lexical verb is recoverable from the context.
The reject do-insertion when used with not or in questions.

There are three Primary auxiliaries: be, have and do. They have inflections like
lexical verbs, but are regularly unstressed and often appear in writing as contracted
forms such as: ‘s, ‘re, ‘ve.
Main verb use: They are happy./ She has a dog./ They do sums.
Auxiliary verb use: They’re going./ She’s seen it./ Do they go?

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Modal auxiliaries express a range of judgements about the likelihood of events.
These functions only as auxiliary verbs. There are nine central modal auxiliary verbs:
can, could, may, might, must, shall, should, will, would.

They differ from other verbs, both lexical verbs and primary verbs, like the
primary auxiliaries, such as ‘d for would. The modal auxiliaries express a wide range of
meaning, having to do with concepts such as ABILITY, POSSIBILITY, PERMISSION,
PREDICTION, ADVISABILITY, NECESSITY and OBLIGATION.
ABILITY

She can speak in both English and Russian.


POSSIBILITY

What you said might be true.

The road can be blocked.


PERMISSION

Can I smoke in here?

Could I smoke in here?

PREDICTION

The game will/must/should be finished right now.

Oil will floaat on water.

ADVISABILITY
You should start at once.

NECESSITY

Yesterday the children needn’t go out.

OBLIGATION

You must be back by 10 o’clock.

The verbs dare (to), need (to), ought to and used to are on the borderline
between auxiliaries and lexical verbs, and can be regarded as MARGINAL AUXILIARIES.

In addition, there are multi-word verbs which are related in meaning to the
modal auxiliaries, such as have to, (had) better, would rather, (have) got to, be about, to

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be able to, be supposed to, be going to. These expressions, together with the MARGINAL
AUXILIARIES, can be referred to as SEMI-MODALS/AUXILIARIES.

ii. REGULAR vs. IRREGULAR VERBS

The form of a regular verb can be predicted by rules. An irregular verb is one
where some of the forms are unpredicted. There are thousands of regular verbs, but
less than 300 irregular ones.
REGULAR VERBS

Regular verbs are verbs formed by adding -ed in their past form and past-
participle form. Regular full verbs appears in 4 forms, each of which perform a different
role in the clause:

i. The base form – a form with no endings, as listed in a dictionary


(sometimes called bare infinitive form): go, run, look, discover,...
ii. The –S form – formed by adding an –S ending to the base (sometimes with
a spelling change). The pronunciation of the –S varies, depending on the preceding
sound.
/-s/ /-z/ /-ɪz/

looks, cuts runs, tries passes, pushes

iii. The –ING participle form – formed by adding –ING to the base (often with
a spelling change): visiting, begging, panicking, trafficking, creating,...
iv. The –ED form (the past form and the -ED participle form) – formed by
adding –ED to the base form. In speech, the pronunciation of the –ED varies depending
on the preceding sounds.
/-t/ /-d/ /-ɪd/

passed, stopped died, burned rented, funded


IRREGULAR VERBS

There are about 300 irregular verbs.

An irregular verb is one where some of the forms are unpredictable. Irregular
verbs make their –S form and –ING participle form in the same way as regular verbs. But
they have either an unpredictable past tense or unpredictable –ED participle form, or
both. Many irregular verbs appears in five forms:

a. The base form.


b. The –S form.
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c. The –ING participle form.
d. The past form.
e. The past participle form.

Irregular verbs vary from 3 to 8 different forms:


eat – ate – eaten

am – is – are – was – were – be – being – been

There are seven classes of irregular verbs

About 20 verbs whose only irregular feature is have/ had/ had;


1 the ending used for both their past and –ed send, burn, build, make
participle forms.
About 10 verbs whose past tense is irregular, but mow/ mown ~ mowed;
2 whose –ed participle form has –n ending, and a swell/ swollen ~ swelled
variant form in –ed.
About 40 verbs which have the same ending for keep/ kept/ kept
past and –ed participle forms, but this is sleep, teach, sell, find
3
irregular. They also change the vowel of the base
form.
About 76 verbs with an –n ending for the –ed blow/ blew/ blown
4 participle form, and an irregular past form. The take, see, undo
vowel of the base also changes.
About 40 verbs which have the same form cut/ cut/ cut
5 throughout. let, shut, broadcast,
outbid
About 70 verbs which have no ending, but use spin/ spun
the same form for both past tense and –ed mislead/ misled
6
participle. The vowel changes from that used in sit/ sat
the base. stand/ stood
About 25 verbs, forming the most irregular type. swim/ swam/ swum
There is no ending; the past and –ed form differ; begin/ began/ begun
7
and the vowels change with each form. come/ came/ come
go/ went/ gone

iii. TRANSITIVE vs. INTRANSITIVE VERBS

TRANSITIVE VERBS

There are three kinds of transitive verbs: mono-transitive verbs, ditransitive verbs
and complex transitive verbs.

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Mono-transitive verbs require only one object in sentence pattern SVO with nine
verb patterns (see verbs patterns 8 – 16) or require only one object and one adjunct in
sentence pattern SVOA with two verb patterns (see verb patterns 17 – 18).

In sentence pattern SVO the object can be a NP, that-clause, wh-interrogative


clause (finite and non-finite), to infinitive clause, gerund clause, NP/Pro + to infinitive
clause, Pro/NP/Genitive + ing cluase, Pro/NP + present participle clause or Pro/NP +
bare infinitive clause.
The object can be:

1) Noun phrase
Veronica is reading a fairy story.

Peter doesn’t owe anything.

2) That clause
The employers announced that the dispute had been settled.

Doctors had noted that the disease was spreading.

3) Wh-interrogative clause (finite and non-finite)

The students haven’t learn which tutors they can rely on/which tutor to
rely on.
Bill discovered who he had to give the money to/who to give the money to.

4) To-infinitive clause

Tom likes to do household chores.

Peter expects to be promoted.


5) Gerund clause

John prefers walking to the office.


The children will still need looking after.

6) NP/Pro + to infinitive clause

Tony prefers his wife/her to do the housework.

7) Pro/NP/Genitive + ing clause

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Jill hates her husband/John/him coming home late.

8) Pro/NP + present participle clause

The porter heard someone/his neighbour slamming the door.


9) Pro/NP + bare infinitive clause
We watch him/the man destroy the furniture.
In sentence pattern SVOA, the adjunct can be:

1) Prepositional phrase
The teacher referred the class to a passage in the textbook.

The waiter served Sara with a double helping.


2) Adverbial particle

Bill has a blue shirt on.


The nurse shook the medicine up.

Ditransitive verbs require two objects in sentence pattern SVOO with eight verb
patterns (see patterns 19 – 26).

Complex transitive verbs require one object and one complement in sentence
pattern SVOC with six verb patterns (see verb patterns 27 – 32).
INTRANSITIVE VERBS

They include linking verbs (see verb patterns 1 – 7).

Intransitive verbs are in sentence patterns SV or SVA with five verb patterns (see
verb patterns 1 – 5), and linking verbs are in sentence pattern SVC with two verb
patterns (see verb patterns 6 – 7).
iv. STATIVE vs. DYNAMIC VERBS

STATIVE VERBS

A stative verb is a verb which usually refers to a state (i.e. be an unchanging


condition), for example: like, love, hate, have, hear, see, notice, smell, taste, own,
observe, notice, want, need, prefer, know, realize, suppose, mean, understand, believe,
remember, belong, contain, consist, cost, differ, depend, seem,... as in:

I’m hungry. I want something to eat.

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Listen! Can you hear something?

Stative verbs are not usually used in the progressive aspect.

DYNAMIC VERBS

A verb which can be used in the progressive aspect is known as dynamic verb, for
example: boil, read, wear, speak, eat, rain, run, grow, get,... as in:

Let’s go out. It isn’t raining now.


The water is boiling. Can you turn it off?

v. INTENSIVE vs. EXXTENSIVE VERBS

There are different types of verb corresponding closely to the different types of
object, complement and adjunct.
Sentences have intensive verbs in the structural patterns:

S V sta. int. A place


S V sta. int. Cs
S V dyn. int. Cs
Ex: The girl is now a student at large university.
His brother grew happier gradually.

Is she in London now?

And all other sentences have extensive verbs in the structural patterns:

S V dyn. ext. intran. (A process/A place/ A time)


S V sta. ext. monotrans. O
S V dyn. ext. monotrans. O
S V dyn. ext. monotrans. O (A process/A place/A time)
S V dyn. ext. ditrans. Oi Od
S V dyn. ext. complex trans. Od Co
Ex: It rained steadily all day.

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Do you understand the question?

Susan chooses her clothes sensibly.

They ate the meat (hungrily) (in the nut) (that night).
He had given the girl an apple.
John carefully searched the room.
They make him the chairman every year.

GRAMMATICAL CATEGORIES OF VERBS


VERB TENSES

One of the most important functions of the verb is to indicate the time at which
an action takes place. The term tense is traditionally used to refer to the way the verb
changes its endings to express this meaning.

Languages have different numbers of tenses: past, present and future time in
various way. English has two tense forms: PRESENT and PAST.

The present tense uses the base form of the verb, which changes only in the 3 rd
person singular, where there is an –s ending: I/ You/ We/ They go; He/ She/ It goes.

The past tense is formed by adding –ed to the base, in regular verb. There are
several past tense forms: I walked; I ran; I came; I went; I was,...

There is no future tense ending in English. English expresses future time by a


variety of means:

1) WILL/SHALL/‘LL : followed by the infinitive (I’ll see you then) or the


progressive (I’ll be seeing you). This is by far the most common use.
2) BE GOING TO: followed by the infinitive (I’m going to ask him). This
common informal use suggests the event will take place soon.
3) The present progressive for an arranged plan (The match is starting at 2
p.m.). The happening is usually imminent.
4) The simple present often implying definiteness (I leave soon; Go before I
do).
5) The use of BE TO (= future plan); BE ABOUT TO (= near future) and other
semi-auxiliaries: She’s to sit here; She’s about to go.
6) Other modals also have future meaning: I may/might travel by air.

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The usage changes the meaning of the word ‘tense’ so that it no longer refers
only to the use of verb endings.

There is no perfect tense ending in English, but there is PERFECTIVE ASPECT that
is constructed by using the auxiliary verb HAVE. It occurs in two forms: THE PRESENT
PERFECT and THE PAST PERFECT.

The usage changes the meaning of the word ‘tense’ so that the perfect tense no
longer refers only to the use of verb endings: He has/ had built a dog house.

In American English, there is a tendency to use the past tense instead of the
present perfective:
American British

Did you eat? Have you eaten yet?

Did you ever see ‘Lear’? Have you ever seen ‘Lear’?
You told me already. You have told me alreardy.

Did you come home yet? Have you come home yet?

Different kinds of adverbial are associated with the past tense and the present
perfective:

I saw John yesterday/ a week ago/ on Tuesday.


I’ve not seen John since Monday/ so far/ up to now.

VERB ASPECTS

Aspects refer to how the time of action of the verb is regarded, such as whether
it is complete, in progress or showing duration. There are two types of aspectual
contrast: THE PERFECTIVE and THE PROGRESSIVE.
Progressive aspect occurs in two forms:

1) The present perfective is primary used for an addition continuing up to the


present. This meaning ‘current relevance’ contrasts with the past tense meaning:
I’ve lived in Findland for a year. (I still do)

I lived in Findland for a year. (I no longer do)

2) The past perfective also expresses ‘anterior time’, but referring to the past
tense:

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I was sorry that I had missed seeing John.

(cf. I’m sorry that I have missed seeing John)

Specific events, states and habitual actions can all be expressed using the
perfective aspect:

They have/ had had their house built. (event)

The house has/ had been empty for years. (state)


He’s/ ‘d done it often. (habitual).

Progressive aspect: BE can be used along with the –ing form of the main verb to
express an event at a given time. This is the progressive aspect. It is used with both
tenses (present and past) and with both perfective aspects (present perfective and past
perfective). As a result, we have: THE PRESENT PROGRESSIVE, THE PAST PROGRESSIVE,
THE PRESENT PERFECT PROGRESSIVE and THE PAST PERFECT PROGRESSIVE.

With the progressive, the usual implication is that the activity is taking place over
a limited period and is not necessarily complete:

I was reading a book yesterday.

Specific events, states and habitual actions can all be expressed using the
progressive:

Event: He blows his whistle. (a brief blast)

He’s blowing his whistle. (continuous or repeated)

State: We live in France. (permanently)

We’re living in France. (at present)

Habitual: He writes his own programs. (regularly)


He’s writing his own programs. (as a temporary measure)

MOODS

Finite verbs can be grouped into three broad types, based on the kind of general
meaning they convey. These types, known as moods, show whether a clause is
expressing a factual, non-factual or directive meaning.

These moods have often been distinguished: INDICATIVE MOOD, IMPERATIVE


MOOD and SUBJUNCTIVE MOOD.

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The Indicative mood is used for stating or questioning matters of a factual kind.
Most verbs (verb phrases) are in the indicative mood:

She sat down. It’s sunny. Is John coming?

The Imperative mood is used to express directive utterances:

Be quiet. Put it on the table. Sit in the corner.

The Subjunctive mood is used to express wishes, uncertainty, desires,... and


other non-factual situations:
I insisted that John pay on time.

(The Subjunctive mood expresses a hope that John will pay on time.)

I insisted that John pays on time.


(The Indicative mood states that John pays on time.)

The subjunctive is used very little in modern English.

Three categories of subjunctive may be distinguished:

1) THE MANDATIVE SUBJUNCTIVE


It is necessary that every member inform himself of these rules.

It is necessary that every member should inform himself of these rules.


It is necessary for every member to inform himself of these rules.

2) THE FORMULAIC SUBJUNCTIVE


Come what may, we will go ahead.

God save the Queen!


God bless you!
Heaven forbid that.
3) THE WERE-SUBJUNCTIVE

If only I had been here yesterday, the accident would never have
happened!

He spoke to me as if I were deaf.

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I wishes I were a bird.

VOICES

The action expressed by the clause can be viewed in either of two ways: THE
ACTIVE and PASSIVE VOICE.

How to form passives from actives:

ACTIVE
Subject Verb phrase Object

The dog chased the cat

PASSIVE The cat was chased by the dog

Subject Verb phrase Agent


Note:
The GET-passive: The BE-passive often simply describes a state, while the GET-
passive describes the process of getting into the state, with a resultant meaning similar
to BECOME. The passive auxiliary is usually a form of BE, but GET can be used to focus
attention on the (usually unpleasant) event affecting the subject:

I was kicked at the match.


I got kicked at the match.

The GET-passive is extremely rare, except for an occasional example in colloquial


fiction or event in conversation:

She got married when she was eighteen.


And then we started to get involved in local society.

It’s about these people who got left behind in Vietnam.

My head got stuck up there. Conv.


I’ve just getting dressed.
They’ve got divorced.

She got bitten by a dog.

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The GET-passive does not usually have an agent. We are more likely to hear: ‘I
was hurt on the car/ by the car.’ but ‘I got hurt on the car’ rather than ‘I got hurt by the
car.’

Which verbs take passives?

A transitive verb can appear either as active or passive, but there are some
exceptions:

 Some verbs: resemble, have, lack,... occur only in the active:

I have a car. (not * A car is had by me.)


Mary resembles Ellen. (not * Ellen is resembled by Mary.)

 A few verb phrases: be born, be said,...occur only in the passive.


 If the subject and object have the same meaning, the passive is blocked.

Mary saw herself in the mirror. (not * Herself was seen in the mirror
by Mary.)

ADJECTIVES

Words which expresses some feature or quality of a noun or pronoun are


traditionally known as asjectives. To decide if a word is an adjective, several criteria are
available.

Syntactic functions of adjectives

Most adjectives can be both attributive and predicative, but some are either
attributive only or predicative only.

1) ATTRIBUTIVE

Attributive adjectives modify nominal expressions, preceding the head noun or


pronoun. In most cases, they modify common nouns (The beautiful painting/ His main
argument).

Yes, it’s bad attitude.


It’s rustic, knotty pine with a huge fireplace.

Attributive adjectives can also modify proper place nouns:


Old-fashion Episcopalian New York, pharaonic Egypt.

Less commonly, attributive adjectives modify the name of a person:

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little Laura Davies, the wretched Paul, the late John C. Drennan

The adjectives poor, lucky and silly are somewhat more common modifying
personal pronouns than other adjectives:

Ah! Poor you Helen!

Not like poor me.

Lucky you!
Oh of course – silly me.

‘Silly old him,’ Lally laughed.

Attributive only

‘An old friend’ (one who has been a friend for a long period of time) does not
necessarily imply that ‘the person is old’, so that we cannot 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.

Some more examples: an utter fool, utter folly, a close friend, a strong opponent,
his entire salary, the very end, a great supporter, you poor man, my dear lady, that
wretched woman, an outright lie, his chief excuse, a certain winter, pure fabrication, a
real hero, the main reason, the only occasion, the same student, a fast car, a fast road,
criminal law, an atomic scientist, a medical school,...
Other group of peripheral adjectives can be related to adverbials:

Adjectives Adverbials
My former friend. He was formerly my friend.

An occasional visitor. She was occasionally a visitor.


The late president. He was still lately president. (now dead)

A hard worker. A worker who works hard.


A big eater. Someone who eats a lot.

2) PREDICATIVE

Predicative adjectives have two syntactic roles: SUBJECTIVE COMPLEMENT (Cs)


and OBJECTIVE COMPLEMENT (Co).

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 SUBJECTIVE COMPLEMENT
She seems quite nice really.

I’m afraid that’s impossible.

 OBJECTIVE COMPLEMENT

I pushed the door open.

I had it right the first time, didn’t I?

He didn’t find her amusing, and she found him quite disastrously dull.
She had considered it infinitely vulgar and debased.

She has since declared herself bankrupt.

Pragmatism makes it somewhat harder to predict what courts will do.

Many of the most frequent predicative adjectives typically occur witha phrasal
complement or clausal complement.
Powerful earphones are also available [to him]. (PP as Ca)

‘You look good enough *to eat+,’ he said. (to-infinitive clause as Ca)

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 bus isn’t easy.

Similarly, adjectives can be object complement to clauses:


I consider what he did foolish is foolish.

playing so hard
Predicative only

Adjectives that are restricted or virtually restricted to predicative position are


most likely verbs and adverbs. They tend to refer 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 attributive too.

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A larger group comprises adjecitves that can or must take complement: afraid
(that, of, about), conscious (that, of), fond (of), loath (to),...

3. POST-POSITIVE

Adjectives can sometimes be postpositive. i.e. they can sometimes follow the
item they modify. A postposed adjective can usually be regarded as a reduced relative
clause:

 Indefinite pronouns ending in –body, -one, -thing, -where can be modified


only postpositively:

I think they are doing everything possible to protect the workers.

I want to try on something larger.


It’s a shame if you haven’t got anyone musical here.

Something cold and refreshing actually.

 A number of fix expressions contain postpositive adjectives: heir apparent,


attorney general, body politic, court martial, notary public, postmaster
general, B sharp, time immemorial, proof positive, me included, Asia
minor,...

Postposition is obligatory for a few adjectives, which have a different sense when
they occur attributively or predicatively. The most common are probably elect and
proper.
The president elect. The city of London proper.

Certain adjectives, such as involved, available, ablaze, concerned, absent, present


are postposed after a noun head.

She was unacquainted with any of the people involved.

Four-course meals that last four hours are marathons for everyone
concerned.
The people involved were not found.

The house ablaze is next door to mine.

He said the only details available, apart from a death certificate, had come
from Mr. Garrod’s family.

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Finally, when the modifying adjective phrase is heavy (usually containing an
adjectival complement), the adjective phrase will often follow its head noun:

It’s lounge not much bigger than the one we’ve got now.

He drew from the high soprano instrument sounds totally different from
what we think of as saxophone tone.

In some of these cases, the head noun is both premodified and postmodified:

McDeere is a great student, dedicated, hardworking and ambitious,’ says


Cruise of his character.
The physiological factors involved in transplanting are somewhat obscure.
4. VERBLESS ADJECTIVE CLAUSE

An adjective (alone or as head of an adjective phrase) can function as a verbless


adjective clause. The cluase is mobile, though it usually precedes or follows the subject
of the superordinate clause:

Nervous, the man opened the letter.

The man, nervous, opened the letter.

The man opened the letter, nervous.

Others:

I saw his face, dirty and scratched.

Soldiers timid or cowardly don’t fight well.


A man usually honest will sometimes cheat.

Come tomorrow, if possible.

Slender and demure, she wore a simple ao dai.

Green, bronze and golden it flowed through weeds and rushes.

Too tired to move, she stayed there.

Delicate and light bodied, it is often confised with American blended


whisky and thus called rye.

Victor chuckled, highly amused.

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Postposition is normally possible:

The boy easiest to teach were in my class.

They have a house mucch larger than yours.


Students brave enough to ettempt the course deserve to pass.
5. AN EXCLAMATION
Great! I need some of those.

Good! I like that.

Others: Excellent! Bloody brilliant! Rough! Uncanny! Sorry! Alright! Oh horrible!


Hilarious! Oh right! Oh dear! Amazing! Right! Lucky! Wonderful! Super! Super-duper!
Ridiculous! Irrelevant! Stupendous! Good gracious! Glorious! Marvelous!
6. THE HEAD OF A NOUN PHRASE

Some adjectives can serve as the head of a noun phrase: the innocent, the blind,
the deaf, the sick, the old, the young, the dead, the mentally ill, the handicapped, the
injured, the unemployed, the beautiful (singular), the good (singular),...

Ex: Working with the young is stimulating and full of surprises.


Who looks after the old and the sick?

Don’t think that you are wanting the impossible?


He is still exploring the limits of the possible.

Why he was at Pangolin with the lazy and the lame, the fat, the indifferent,
the leaning and the halt.

I think the contrast between the very rich and the very poor in the country
is disgusting.

But in politics the unlikely can happen.


The highly educated...

The miserably exploited...

There are afew suffixes which typically signal that a word is an adjective:

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SUFFIXES VERB/NOUN EXAMPLES
-able V Washable
-al N musical
-ed N ragged
-esque N romannesque
-ful N hopeful
-ic N heroic
-ish N foolish
-ive V effective
-less N restless
-like N childlike
-ly N friendly
-ous N desirous
-some N bothersome
-worth N praiseworthy
-y N sandy

Semantically, adjectives are STATIVE and DYNAMIC, GRADABLE and NON-


GRADBLE, INHERENT and NON_INHERENT.

1. STATIVE vs. DYNAMIC

Stative adjectives cannot be used with the progressive aspect or with imperative:
He is tall. (not * He’s being tall or * Be tall!)

In contrast, we can use dynamic adjectives with the progressive aspect and with
imperative: He’s being careful and Be careful!

Stative adjectives include old, young, new, small, short, beautiful, fine, lovely,
vivid, dirty, clean, fresh, useful, plain,...

Dynamic adjectives include awkward, brave, calm, careless, cruel, extravagant,


foolish, funny, good, greedy, impudent, irritable, jealous, naughty, noisy, rude, timid,...
2. GRADABLE vs. NON-GRADABLE

Most adjectives are gradable, that is to say, can be modified by adverbs which
convey the degree of intensity of the adjective. Gradability includes comparison:

tall taller tallest


beautiful more beautiful most beautiful

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Some adjectives are non-gradable, principally ‘technical adjectives’ like atomic,
hydrochloric,... and adjectives denoting provenance like a British ship, a Parisian dress,...

3. INHERENT vs. NON-INHERENT

Adjectives that characterize the referent of the noun directly are termed
inherent, those that do not are termed non-inherent. Some non-inherent adjectives
occur both attributively and predicatively, for example: ‘a new student’ and ‘a new
friend’ are non-inherent, though the former can be ‘That student is new’ but not ‘My
friend is new’. Most adjectives are inherent, and it is especially uncommon for dynamic
adjectives to be other than inherent; an exception is ‘wooden’ in ‘The actor is being
wooden’, which is both dynamic and non-inherent.

Semantic sets have been proposed to account for the usual order of adjectives
and for their co-occurrence:

i. Intensifying adjectives: a real hero, a perfect idiot,...


ii. Post-determiners and limiter adjectives: the fourth student, the only
occasion,...
iii. General adjectives susceptible to subject measure, including those
denoting size and shape: wealthy, large, square,...
iv. Adjectives denoting age: young, old, new,...
v. Adjectives denoting colour: red, black,...
vi. Denominal adjectives denoting material: wooden scarf, a metallic voice,
silk hair, cat-like, stealth,...
vii. Denominal adjectives denoting provenance or style: a Parisan dress,...
PREPOSITIONS

The preposition is a word which typically goes before a noun or a noun phrase,
expresses a relationship of meaning between two parts of a sentence, most often
showing how two parts are related on space or time.
There are two kinds of prepositions: simple and complex prepositions.

Simple prepositions consist of only one word: about, across, after, before, behind,
by, down, during, for, from, in, inside, into, of, off, on, onto, out, over, round, since, than,
through, to, towards, under, up, with,...
Complex prepositions consist of more than one word:

 Two words: ahead of, apart from, because of, close to, due to, except for,
instead of, near to, such as, as for, but for, aside from, out of, regardless

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of, according to, as to, owing to, thanks to, previous to, along with,
together with,...
 Three words: as far as, by means of, in accordance with, in addition to, in
front of, in spite of, in terms of, on behalf of, with reference to, in exchange
for, in return for, as distinct from, by way of, for lack of, in case of, on
account of, on top of, in contrast to, in relation to, in contact with,...

Semantically, prepositions signal an extremely wide range of meanings: SPACE,


TIME, CAUSE, ACCOMPANIMENT, ADDITION, EXCEPTION, COMPARISON, DEGREE,
INSTRUMENT, MEANS, IN THE CAPACITY OF, MATERIAL, SOURCE, SEPARATION,
POSSESSION OR ORIGIN, PARTITION, APPOSITION, CHARACTERIZED BY, ARITHMETICAL
FUNCTION, REFERENCE, EXAMPLE, DIRECTION, CONCESSION, CONDITION, POSITION,
PURPOSE.

Many word forms are prepositions and adverbs as well. A list of common
preposition adverbs: about, above, across, after, along, around, before, between,
behind, beyond, by, down, in, inside, near, on, opposite, outside, over, past, under, up,
within, without,...

Prepositions are usually in front of a noun phrase, whereas prepositional adverbs


usually stand alone (i.e. adverb particles):
He stayed in the house. (Preposition)
He stayed in. (Prepositional adverb)

The guest were standing aroud the room.

The guest were standing around.

ADVERBS

The adverb is a word that describes or adds to the meaning of a verb, an


adjective, another adverb (adverbs as modifiers), or a sentence (adverbs as adverbials).
Forms of adverbs:

 Most adverbs are formed by adding –ly to an adjective: slow-ly, thorough-


ly, jolli-ly,...
 A number of adverbs have the same form as adjectives: hard, straight, far,
near, late, fast, east, west, north, south, left, right, just, opposite, pretty, direct, little,
blackboard, forward, well,...

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 Many of the most common adverbs are not related to adjectives at all.
They include prepositional adverbs such as in, about, so, too, there, here, as, quite, very,
now.

Many adverbs have comparative and superlative form:

early earlier earliest

well better best


easily more easily most easily
Morphologically, there are four major formal categories of adverbs:

1. SIMPLE ADVERBS – single words: well, too, rather, quite, soon, here; fast,
long (can be adjective); down, round (can be used as preposition); today, tomorrow (can
be used as noun); already, indeed (originated as compound).

2. COMPOUND ADVERBS: formed by combining two or more elements into a


single word: anyway, nowhere, heretofore,...

3. DERIVED ADVERBS (suffixation: -ly, -wise, -ward, -ly formed by zero


derivation from adjectives): fortunate – fortunately, official – officially; piece –
piecewise; home – homewards, sea – seawards; on – onwards,...

4. FIXED PHRASES – used as adverbs: of course, at last, kind of.

Semantically, adverbs can be classified into many kinds: MANNER, PLACE, TIME,
DEGREE, FREQUENCY, LIKING, COMMENT and ATTITUDE, ADDING and LIMITING,
VIEWPOINT, LENGTH OF TIME,...
1.2. NON-LEXICAL CATEGORIES

Languages may also contain non-lexical or functional categories, including


Determiner (Det): Auxiliary verb (Aux), Conjunction (Conj) and Degree word (Deg).
Such elements generally have meanings that are harder to define and paraphrase than
those of lexical categories. For example, the meaning of the noun hill is easier to
describe than the meaning of a determiner such as the or an auxiliary such as would.

DETERMINERS: are used to narrow down the reference of a noun. The most
important are: the definite article, the indefinite article, demonstrative adjectives,
possessive adjectives, quantifiers: the/ a/ an; this/ that; these/ those; my, no, what, any/
some, enough, each, every; either/ neither,...

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AUXILIARIES: be, have, do, can/ could, may/ might, will/ would, shall/ should,
must,...

CONJUNCTIONS: subordinating conjunctions and coordinating conjunctions.

 Subordinating conjunctions or Subordinators: simple and compound


subordinating conjunctions. Simple subordinating conjunctions: after, (al)though, as,
because, if, how(ever), like (farmiliar), once, since, that, till, unless, when(ever), where/
wherever,... Compound subordinating conjunctions (also connectives): but (that), now
(that), providing (that), provided (that), supposing (that), considering (that), given (that),
granting (that), granted (that), admitting (that), presuming (that), seeing (that),
immediately (that), beyond (that), except (that), expecting (that), only (that), save (that),
saving (that), so (that), conceded (that).
 Coordinating conjunctions (also called Conjunctive adverbs) (i.e. simple
and compound conjunctive adverbs) and coordinators. Simple conjunctive adverbs:
then, thus, still, next, through, only, so, hence, because,... Compound conjunctive
adverbs: accordingly, subsequently, actually, consequently, similarly, incidentally,
therefore, thereupon, whereas, wherever, nevertheless, otherwise, furthermore, anyway,
instead, besides,... Coordinators: and, nor, but, yet, or, so, for,...

DEGREE: too, so, almost, more, quite,...

A potential source of confusion in the area of word classification stem from the
fact that some forms are ambiguous in terms of their category.

How can we determine a word’s category?


comb (n): The woman found a comb.

(v): The boy should comb his hair.


near (prep): The child stood near the fence.

(v): The runners neared the finish line.


(adj): The end is nearer than you might think.

Meaning – One criterion involves meaning. Nouns, for instance, typically name
entities such as individuals (Hurry, Sue) and objects (book, desk). Verbs, on the other
hand, characteristically designate actions (run, jump), sensations (feel, hurt) and states
(be, remain). In the example above, the noun comb refers to an object whereas the verb
comb denotes action.

The meanings associated with nouns and verbs can be elaborated in various
ways. The typical function of an adjective, for instance, is to designate a property or
87
attribute that is applicable to the types of entities denoted by nouns. Thus, when we say
That tall building, we are attributing the property ‘tall’ to the building designated by the
noun.

In a parallel way, adverbs typically denote properties and attributes that can be
applied to the actions designated by verbs. In the following sentences, for example, the
adverb ‘quickly’ indicates the manner of Janet’s leaving and the adverb ‘early’ specifies
its time:
Janet left quickly Janet left early.

Unfortunately, a word’s meaning does not always provide a clear indication of its
category membership. For example, there are ‘abstract’ nouns such as difficulty, truth
and likelihood, which do not name entities in the strict sense. Moreover, even though
words that name actions lend to be verbs, some action-naming words can also be used
as nouns (push and shove are nouns in give sb a push/shove). Matters are further
complicated by the fact that in some cases, words with very similar meanings belong to
different categories. For instance, the words like and fond are very similar in meaning
(as in Mice like/ are fond of cheese), yet ‘like’ is a verb and ‘fond’ an adjective.

Inflection – Most linguists believe that meaning is only one of several criteria that
enter into determining a word’s category. A second criterion, compatibility with various
types of inflectional affixes marized in:

Category Inflectional affix Examples


plural –‘s books, chairs, doctors
N
possessive –‘s John’s, the man’s
past tense –ed hunted, watched, judged
V
progressive –ing hunting, watching, judging
comparative –er taller, faster, smarter
A
superlative –est tallest, fastest, smartest

Although helpful, inflection does not always provide the information needed to
determine a word’s category. In English, for example, not all adjectives can take the
comparative and superlative affixes (* intelligenter, * intelligentest) and some nouns do
not normally take the plural suffix (* moistures, * braveries). A third – and more reliable
– criterion for determining a word’s category involves the type of elements with which it
can combine to form larger utterances.

2. SOME PROPERTIES OF SENTENCE STRUCTURE

The relation Subject-Verb or Verb-Object is very basic property of language. It is


the linear structure which derives from the fact that the parts of an utterance

88
necessarily produced in a time sequence. To understand the internal organization of
sentences and the distribution the units forming them, we must consider three major
properties of sentence structure: LINEAR, HIERARCHY and CATEGORIALITY.

2.1. LINEARITY

Words are written (or spoken) and heard (or read) in a time sequence from early
to later. A sequence of words of a sentence must be in a string to ensure the meaning.
Ex: The cat/ scratched/ the dog.

S V O

‘the’ precedes ‘cat’ and ‘cat’ precedes ‘scratched’ and so on. These words are not
randomly arranged but are combined in a specific way to form meaning. The meaning
cannot reach if the word order fails. This order, moreover, shows the relation of
function, i.e. this is order: Subject + Verb + Object (SVO for short). The order changes,
the meaning changes. For example: The dog scratched the cat or changing the order of
words in a sentence results in an ungrammatical string. For example: Cat the dog the
scratched.

Some languages may have SVO order whereas some others may have the SOV
(Turkish), VSO (Welsh), VOS (Philippine),... The order of constituents of a sentence can
be used as the syntactic criterion to classify the language.

2.2. HIERARCHY

The words of a sentence are also arranged hierarchically, i.e. they are grouped
together with a function in a sentence. For example: the and cat function as a group in
some sense, the and dog also function as a group. Scratched and the dog also function
as a group. A string of words that constitutes such a unit is called a constituent. Thus,
the + cat is a constituen; the + dog is a constituent. Scratched + the + dog in turn is
constituent. The entire string the + cat + scratched + the + dog can be considered a
constituent, since it constitutes a special kind of unit, a sentence. This string can be
broken down into two smaller constituents: the + cat and scratched + the + dog and the
latter has the subconstituents: scratched and the + dog. Finally, each individual word is a
constituent...

In this tree structure, the + cat, scratched and the + dog are shown to be unit,
since the members of each part are attached to intersecting branches. By the same
toke, the entire sentence is a higher-level unit composed of the subparts the + cat, and
scratched + the + dog. Scratched + the, on the other hand, does not form a unit: the
branch leading from scratched and the one leading from the do not intersect.

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S

NP VP S

NP

Det N V Det N Det N V Det N

The cat scratched the dog The cat scratched the dog
CORRECT INCORRECT

Similarly, the + cat + scratched is shown not be a constituent, since the branch
leading from the + cat fails to intersect with the branch leading from scratched, whereas
scratched + the + dog is shown to be a constituent. There are three levels of
constituents in this sentence, sentence level, phrase level, word level. At the bottom of
the tree are individual words. In addition to revealing the linear order of the words and
other structural parts of the sentence, a constituent structure tree has hierarchical
structure.

2.3. CATEGORIALITY

The constituent structure tree fails to express crucial generalizations about


sameness and difference, i.e. certain constituents are of the same kind, and they are
different from others.

A Descriptive Grammar must differentiate between items that are the same and
those that are different. Words, and the larger constituents belong to a set of distinct
categories, each with its special characteristics. This is the third general property of
sentence structure, categoriality.

Structuralist linguistics used to classify words into word classes. It is convenient


to talk about classes of words that have some characteristics or other in common.
Structuralist linguistics also classifies larger units such as noun phrase (NP), verb phrase
(VP), adjective phrase (AP), preposition phrase (PP).

Morphology, the study of word-structure, provides useful criteria for determining


the category to which a word belongs. These supplement the distribution criteria for a
particular category. One constituent structure tree, the words must be labeled
appropriately. The words must be at the bottom part of the trees.

Det N V Det N

The cat scratched the dog

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The ambiguity of certain sentences can be explained with reference to their tree
structure. For example, the sentence ‘Steve or Sam and Bob will come’ can be
interpreted in either of two ways:

(A) Steve or Sam and Bob will come


S

(B) Steve or Sam and Bob will come


It can mean that Bob will come and either Steve or Sam will come too; or it can
mean that either Steve will come or Sam and Bob will come.

This difference in interpretation corresponds directly to a difference in tree


structure. The first interpretation corresponds to the first structure of diagram A, while
the second interpretation corresponds to the second structure of diagram B. The
arrangement of words in this sentence thus represents either of two surface structures.
These surface structures differ in tree structure. In the first structure of diagram A, Steve
or Sam is a subconstituent of Steve or Sam and Bob. In the second structure, it is Sam
and Bob that is a subconstituent. The constrasting structures are illustrated as follows:
(Steve or Sam) Steve or (Sam and Bob) will come. These contrasting structures manifest
different conceptual structures.

Another example of this type of structural ambiguity is little girl’s bike. As (little
girl’s) bike, it is the bike of a little girl. As little (girl’s bike), it is a girl’s bike that is little.
Or consider The policeman killed the woman with a gun, which is also structurally
ambiguous. The policeman killed (the woman with a gun) means that the woman was
armed, while The policeman killed (the woman) with a gun has another interpretation.
SUMMARY

Sentences can be viewed as linear sequences of words. There are groupings


within these sequences that result in hierarchical structures on which sister and
daughter relations can be defined. A particular sequence may be structurally
ambiguous, giving rise to more than one interpretation, each corresponding to a

91
different constituent structure tree. In addition to these properties of linear and
hierarchy, sentences have the property of categoriality. The words of sentences fall into
lexical categories, with each category (and subcatigory) having its special properties and
distribution. Moreover, there are higher-level phrasal categories that function as
sentence constituents and which include one or more lexical forms. Phrasal categories
are organized around a lexical head. The lexical category to which the head belongs
determines the phrasal category.

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CONTENTS
Page

PART III: PHRASES

1. DEFINITION ............................................................................................
2. TYPES ....................................................................................................
2.1. NOUN PHRASES.................................................................................
2.1.1. Definition.....................................................................................
2.1.2. Classification ................................................................................
The Basic Noun Phrase ............................................................................

The Complex Noun Phrase ......................................................................

2.1.3. The Constituents of the Noun phrase ............................................


2.1.3.1. The Determiner..........................................................................
2.1.3.1.1. Pre-determiners ................................................................

Quantity words .............................................................................


Pronouns ..............................................................................

Multipliers ............................................................................

Fractions ...............................................................................

A set of quantifiers ...............................................................

Exclamation words .......................................................................

2.1.3.1.2. Central determiners ..........................................................

Articles ..........................................................................................
Demonstrative adjectives .............................................................

Possessive adjectives ....................................................................


Genitive phrases ...........................................................................

Wh-det ..........................................................................................

Quantifiers ....................................................................................

2.1.3.1.3. Post-determiners ...............................................................

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Cardinal numerals .........................................................................

Ordinal numerals ..........................................................................

General numerals .........................................................................


A very limited set of quantifiers ...................................................
2.1.3.2. Pre-modifier(s) ...........................................................................
Adjective phrases ...............................................................................

Noun phrases .....................................................................................


Numeral phrases ................................................................................

Prepositional phrases .........................................................................


Verb forms (-ing form/ -ed form as adjective phrases) .....................

Adverbial phrases ...............................................................................


Clauses................................................................................................

2.1.3.3. The Head ....................................................................................


2.1.3.4. The Post-modification (Post-modifiers) ....................................
Prepositional phrases .........................................................................

Noun phrases .....................................................................................

Numeral phrases ................................................................................

Adverbial phrases ...............................................................................


Appositive NPs ...................................................................................

Comparative constructions ................................................................


Clauses................................................................................................

Finite clauses ........................................................................


Non-finite clauses .................................................................

Variety of post-modification in NPs ...................................................

2.1.4. The syntactic roles of Noun phrases ..............................................

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Subject .....................................................................................................

Direct object ............................................................................................

Indirect object ..........................................................................................


Prepositional object .................................................................................
Complement of preposition ....................................................................
Subject complement ................................................................................

Object complement .................................................................................


Adverbial ..................................................................................................

Pre-modifier of noun ...............................................................................


Apposition ................................................................................................

Pre-modifier in adjective or adverb phrase ............................................

2.2. VERB PHRASES ..................................................................................


2.2.1. Definition.....................................................................................
2.2.2. The Verb Head .............................................................................
The simple verb head ..............................................................................

The complex verb head ...........................................................................


2.2.3. Types of Modifiers in English verb phrases .....................................

One-word adverbials ...............................................................................


Word-group adverbials ............................................................................

2.2.4. The syntactic role of Verb phrases .................................................


2.3. PREPOSITIONAL PHRASES ..................................................................
2.3.1. Definition.....................................................................................
2.3.2. Types of prepositional phrases ......................................................

Preposition + NP/ Pr ................................................................................

Preposition + -ing clauses ........................................................................


Preposition + wh-clause ..........................................................................
Preposition + adverb................................................................................

95
2.3.3. Position of Prepositional phrases in the sentence ..........................

Front position ..........................................................................................

Middle position ........................................................................................


End position .............................................................................................

2.3.4. Characteristics of preposition........................................................


2.3.5. The syntactic roles of prepositional phrases ...................................
Adverbials on the Clause level .................................................................

Pre-modifier in Noun phrases .................................................................

Post-modifier in Noun phrases ................................................................

Complement of adjectives .......................................................................

Post-modifier of adverbs .........................................................................

Sentence modifiers ..................................................................................

2.4. ADJECTIVE PHRASES ..........................................................................


2.4.1. Definition.....................................................................................
2.4.2. The Constituents of the Adjective phrase.......................................

Pre-modifier(s) .........................................................................................
The head ..................................................................................................

Post-modifier(s) (also called Complement(s)) .........................................

2.4.3. The syntactic roles of Adjective phrases.........................................

Pre-modifier in NP ...................................................................................
Post-modifier in NP ..................................................................................

Subject complement ................................................................................

Object complement .................................................................................


Clause linker.............................................................................................

Detached predicatives .............................................................................

Exclamations ............................................................................................

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Noun phrases or Noun phrase heads ......................................................

2.5. ADVERB PHRASES ..............................................................................


2.5.1. Definition.....................................................................................
2.5.2. The syntactic roles of Adverb phrases ............................................
Pre-modifier in Adjective phrase or in Adverb phrase ............................

Adverbials on the Clause level .................................................................

Pre-modifier or Post-modifier in NP ........................................................


Pre-modifier in Prepositional phrase ......................................................

Complement of Preposition ....................................................................

2.6. S-GENITIVE PHRASES .........................................................................


2.7. NUMERAL PHRASES ...........................................................................
2.7.1. Complex cardinal numbers............................................................
2.7.2. Types of numeral expressions .......................................................
2.7.3. Approximate numbers ..................................................................

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PART III: PHRASES

1. DEFINITION

A phrase is a unit of grammar.


We build clauses and sentences out of phrases.
A phrase may consist of one word or more than one word.

2. TYPES

There are five major types of phrases:

1. A noun phrase.
2. A verb phrase.
3. A prepositional phrase.
4. An adjective phrase.
5. An adverb phrase.

and two minor types of phrases:

6. A S’ genetive phrase.
7. A numeral phrase.

It is useful to call the main word THE HEAD, and the words which can be added to
it MODIFIERS (PRE-MODIFIERS and POST-MODIFIERS).

2.1. NOUN PHRASES


2.1.1. Definition

A noun phrase is a word or group of words functioning in a sentence like a noun.


It usually consists of a noun, a pronoun or a verbal noun, alone or expanded. The noun is
called the head of the noun pharse, for example: a tall man, man called ‘the head’; or in
something special, something called ‘the head’. There are three types of noun phrases:
FULL NOUN PHRASES, also called referring expressions, such as an energetic teacher;
PRONOMINALS: she, he, her, hers, his,...; ANAPHORS: reflexives: herself, themselves,...
and reciprocal pronouns like one another, each other.
When there is nothing else in the NP, nouns and pronouns are also complete NPs.

2.1.2. Classification

Structurally, NPs can be classified into two kinds: the basic NP and the complex
NP.

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Ex: the girl... (basic NP)

The pretty girl... (complex NP)

The pretty girl in the corner... (complex NP)

The basic Noun phrase has the head only or the head with the determiner. It can
be presented in the table below:

DETERMINERS HEAD
Pre-determiners Central-determiners Post-determiners
(1) (2)
All The four races
All those Other guys
Both those problems
twice/ double the Size
her First marriage
half the size
The many/ few occasions
The last two years
the/ those other two fellows

The complex Noun phrases are those with their heavy modification (pre-
modification and post-modification). They can be presented in:

PRE-MODIFICATION POST-MODIFICATION
HEAD
Determiner(s) Pre-modifier(s) Post-modifier(s)
Pre- Central- Post-
det Det Det
My Tall tree
A very small nice chick
The Currant buns in the shop
All The New books that I shall need
A big green bus parked outside
An approved course
training
A Directional response to injury, trauma tropism
The book in the desk in the office of
the...

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Here are phrase constituent structure trees of complex noun phrases:

NP NP

AP AP AP
Det A N Det Deg A A N

My tall tree A very small nice chick


NP

PP NP

NP AP AP Ed Cl

Det N P Det N Det A A N Part Adv

The way to the office A big green bus parked outside

In detail, the following is the table of the terms used in the constituents of English
NOUN PHRASE STRUCTURE:

Post-
Pre-modification
modification
Head
Determiners Pre- Post-modifiers
Pre-det Central-det Post-det modifiers
1. Quantity 1. Articles 1. Cardinal 1. Adjective 1. Nouns 1. Prepositional
words 2. Demonstrative numerals Phrases 2. Adjective phrases
- Pronouns adjectives 2. Ordinal 2. Noun phrases form & Verb- 2. Noun phrases
- Multipliers 3. Possessive numerals 3. Numeral form used as 3. Adverb phrases
- Fractions adjectives 3. General phrases nouns 4. Adjective
- A set of 4. Gentitive numerals 4. Prepositional 3. Pronouns phrases
quantifiers phrases 4. A very phrases - Personal 5. Appositive NPs
2. Exclamation 5. Wh-det limited set 5. Verb forms (- - possessive 6. Comparative
words 6. A set of of ing form, -ed - indefinite constructions
quantifiers quantifiers form) used as - demonstrative 7. Clauses
adjectives (finite/infinite)
6. Adverbial 8. Variety of post-
phrases modification in
7. Clauses NPs

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2.1.1. The constituents of the Noun phrase

No matter how complex a NP is, it can be analysed into one or more of these four
constituents: determiner(s), pre-modifier(s), head and post-modifier(s).

2.1.1.1. The determiner: This appears before the noun. It decides what kind
of noun is in the phrase. There are three kinds of determiners by structure: pre-
determiners, central determiners and post-determiners.
2.1.1.1.1. Pre-determiners: Words which can be used before the central
determiners are konown as pre-determiners. Nearly all of these pre-determiners
express notions of quantity – quantity words, such as pronouns, multipliers, fractions, a
set of quantifiers, and the others are exclamation words.

1. Quantity words

Pronouns: all (of)/ all (the), both (of)/ both (the), half (of)/ half (the/a/my), none
(of), each (of), some (of), most (of), one (of), many (of), much (of).

half your new cement blocks

all the long copper wires

both my studious roomates

All/ both/ half... can be followed by of in which case they are also analysed as
pronouns: All the cats (All of the cats).
All/ both/ half alone (without a following N) can be used as pronouns:

Give me half. Both arrived.


All/ both...as pronouns can be used after the head N or even later in the clause,
after the first auxiliary.

The restrictive words (restricters) include such adverbs: just, only, even, merely,
particularly, especially,...and can modify the noun head alone:

just girls, even water, especially candy

And the restricters can precede the pre-modifier, restricting its meaning to some
extent:

almost all the successful students

particularly both the applicants

101
just half the quantity

Multipliers: once, twice, three times,...

twice a week/ twice the cost


three times a month
double your money
Fractions: a quarter (of), one-third (of), two-thirds (of),...

one-third the time/ a quarter the amount


Note:

It is not usually possible to use two pre-determiners in the same NP:


* both all the people (wrong) * such twice occasions (wrong)

But: all such issues (right)

A set of quantifiers (consisting of a noun plus of): a lot of, lots of, a bit of, a/the
majority of, a number/numbers of, a great deal of, a plenty of, a mass/ mass of, a
quantity/ quantities of, a couple of, a dozen of, dozens of, thousands of,...
2. Exclamation words

- Such (+ a/an): Such a fuss!


- What (+ a/an): What a boy!
2.1.1.1.2. Central-determiners

Types of central determiner:

occurs with occurs with occurs with


singular count- plural count- non-count
nount? noun? noun?
Type 1 Yes Yes Yes
the the cup the cups the fun
my,... my cup my cups my fun
no no cup no cups no fun
what,... what cup what cups what fun
Type 2 No Yes Yes
no determiner cups fun

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some/any some cups some fun
enough enough cups enough fun
Type 3 Yes No Yes
this/that that cup that fun
Type 4 No Yes No
these/ those these cup
Type 4 Yes No No
a(n) a cup
each, every each cup
(n)either either cup

Central determiners are articles, demonstrative adjectives, possessive


adjectives, wh-determiner and a set of quantifiers:

1. Articles: a, an, the

a beautiful country garden

the long iron bar

2. Demonstrative adjectives: this, that, these, those:

this large college dormitory


those tall sophomore players

3. Possessive adjectives: my, your, her, his,...

both her lovely engagement rings

his large hardwood desk


4. Genitive phrases

mary’s car

the boy’s rabbit


my brother’s success

both Harry’s acquaintances

Possessive common nouns appear between the determiner and the head noun:
the summer’s red roses

the summer’s garden roses


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5. Wh-Dets: what, which, whose

What time is it?

Which colour would you like?


Whose umbrella is this?

6. Quantifiers: all (books), no, each, every, most, (n)either, enough, several,
some, any, many, much/ more/ most, few, little,...
his every wish

many fine university seniors

each happy farm duck

enough college friends

much more white sand

2.1.1.1.3. Post-determiners
Post determiners in noun phrases can be:
1. Cardinal numerals: one, two, three, four,...
the last three pickles

these two aimless fellows

2. Ordinal numerals: first, second, third,...

their second house


her first marriage

3. General numerals: last (year), next (week), other, another, same, former,
latter.
the last three pickles
the same idea

the next Thursday

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4. A very limited set of quantifiers: (a) few, (a) little, (the) whole, (the) other,
(the) first, (the) last, (the) many, (the) few, (the) other two, (the) four
(race), (the) single

his many friends


several thousand people (quantifier in central det. + cardinal num.)

the first few houses (ordinal number + quantifier)

the second five days (ordinal number + cardinal number)


my three fat cats (cardinal numerals)

the many people (a very limited set of quantifiers)

2.1.1.2. Pre-modifier(s)
Pre-modifiers in noun phrases can be:

1. Adjective phrases

those same hungry ants

an extremely difficult test


a very small nice chick

this delightful old gentleman


his so beautiful cottage/ his such beautiful cottage

his really quite unbelievable delightful cottage

Order of pre-modifiers : When a number of adjectives do occur, there appears to


be principles of ordering at work: quality/epithet – size – shape – age – colour – origin –
material/ substance – present part/ gerund – Head.
charming small round old brown French baken writing desk

a nice big cardboard/ the same big red garden chairs


2. Noun phrases
the chemistry lesson
the long iron bar

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this large university dorm

the child safety harness

the child poverty action group


3. Numeral phrases
twelve-year-old boy
three-week journey

a five-minute test
4. Prepositional phrases

an out-of-the way cottage


behind-the scenes negotiations

between PLO and Israel officials


5. Verb forms (-ing form/ -ed form as adjective phrases)

the beginning students

the approaching train

a very reassuring expression

a very entertaining person

the vanished treasure/ the retired worker


some complicated machinery/ the wanted man
the newly-arrived immigrant/ our recently-departed friend
a very shocked expression/ a very surprised expression

6. Adverbial pharses
Some uninflected adverbs do appear in the post-determiner:

the above statement/ the above photo


an inside job/ an overhead projector

his off day/ a far-away village

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the away games/ the then president

(in) after years/ almost nothing

nearly everything
7. Clauses
pay-as-you-earn tax
do-it-yourself store

his pop-down-for-the-weekend cottage


2.1.1.3. The Head

This is the obligatory item, around which any other constituent cluster. The head
controls the concord with other parts of the sentence.

The car is outside. The cars are outside.

The most usual kind of a noun phrase is a common noun:


Chess is fun.
Chickens, ducks and turkeys lay eggs.
That room is for guests.

The head can be a pronoun of some kind.

 A personal pronoun

He is at work.

 A possessive pronoun
Your hat is red and mine is white.

 An indefinite pronoun

There is something burning.

 A demonstrative pronoun
I like this. These are brand-new washing machines.

Some adjectives forms and verb-forms are used as nouns:

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The Chinese are more numerous than the Welsh.

Breaking your promise would be wrong.

2.1.1.4. The Post-modification (Post-modifiers)

Any words appearing after the head noun within the noun phrase are said to
post-modify the noun. Post-modifiers can be:

1. Prepositional phrases
the car in the garage/ two years before the war

a tree by the stream

a man from the electricity board/ the boy by the tree

the longest touch-down in the history of the school

2. Noun phrases

my appointment the following day


your way home/ the road that way/ the house this side
3. Numeral phrases
room 14 number 9

4. Adverb phrases

a year ago/ the meeting yesterday/ ten o’clock

the day before/ the year ahead


the statement above/ the sentence below

the journey back/ the way out


my trip abroad/ someone else

5. Adjective phrases
Post-modifying adjectives are usually found with indefinite pronouns as head:

anything useful/ somebody brave

Post-modifying adjectives are usually found in a few set phrase:

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time immemorial/ proof positive

heir apparent/ me included

blood roval/ B sharp

Adjective phrases normally occur after the noun head when they are not alone
but are modified:

The mailman, exuberantly happy, (whistled merrily.)


(He had never seen) a woman more lovely.

Adjective phrases normally occur after the noun head when there are more than
one adjective employed:

The mailman, tired and wet, (trudged along in the rain.)


A woman, old and gaunt, (stood at the door.)

6. Appositive NPs

hydrogen chloride, HCL

the various life-history events (i.e. ovipositor, hatching and maturation)


he himself/ you yourself – reflexive pronoun in apposition

the dissident playwright, Vocal Hovel


another technique (the wheeler linkage)

kinetics technology international (KTI)


IAS (institute of advanced studies)

7. Comparative constructions

After five years of decline, wedding in France showed a 2.2 % upturn last
year, with 6,000 more couples exchanging rings in 1988 than in the previous
year, the national statistics office said. He also claims the carrier costs less and
take up less space than most paper carriers.

Moreover, the Japanese government, now the world’s largest aid donor, is
pumping far more assistance into the region than the U.S. is.

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8. Clauses
 Finite clauses
a man who was running away...

the car which was parked in the street...


the film that I saw...

 Non-finite clauses
a tile falling from a roof/ the girl resembling Joan...

the woman writing on board when you come in...


the only car repaired by that mechanic next week...

the car parked in the street...

the film to see/ the next train to arrive/ the good play to stay in...

this scholar to be seen daily in the British museum...


Any attempt to leave early (is against regulations)

He lost the ability to use his hands...

9. Variety of post-modification in NPs

The belief that no one is infallible is well-founded.

There remains a possibility that gregarious Desert Locusts might become


less viable.

This conforms conveniently with Mallows (1990) suggestion that human


motivation is related to a hierarchy of human needs.

Appositive That-clause: (n) claim, report, suggestion, proposal, remark,


assumption, hypothesis, idea, observation, belief, doubt, hope, opinion,...

2.1.2. The Syntactic Roles of Noun Phrases

Noun phrases may have a wide range of syntactic roles. (1) to (11) are the typical
nominal roles.

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1. Subject

Two women had come in and she asked them to wait, giving them
magazines to look at.

2. Direct object

The pilot saw a field ahead.

3. Indirect object
At primary school he had been allowed to make her birthday card.

4. Prepositional object

I don’t know whether my brain can cope with all this.

5. Complement of preposition

He worked in a shop – probably at that time.

6. Subject complement
Well, his son Charlie was a great mate of our Rob’s.
7. Object complement
No, I know but they’ll probably christen her Victoria.

8. Adverbial

K walked all day and slep the night in a eucalyptus grove with the wind.

9. Pre-modifier of noun

The economic growth figures have already been marginally trimmed in the
last month.
10. Apposition

He and the club’s solicitor and director, Maurice Watkins, sat either side
of...
11. Pre-modifier in adjective or adverb phrase

He spent the next few days among the sequoias on Mount Tamalpais,
running a dozen miles every morning among trees two hundred and fifty
feet tall and twenty-two-centuries old.

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The story broke all night, but two weeks earlier than planned.

In addition, noun phrases can be used as peripheral elements in the clause:


detached predicative, parenthetical, preface, tag and vocative. Finally, they may occur
independently of any clause structure.

2.2. VERB PHRASES


2.2.1. Definition
A verb phrase consists of a verb head and all the modifiers that cluster around it:

He has been in New York city for two weeks.


lexical verb
aux.verb

verb head VERB PHRASE

2.2.2. The verb head

The verb head contains one lexical verb or a primary verb known as the main
verb or accompanied by one or more auxiliary verbs.

The auxiliaries specify the way in which the action, state or process denoted by
the main verb is to be interpreted. In addition, the first auxiliary has the special role of
operator. The main verb is underlined in the following examples:
was walking/ had been making/ can see/ should have said

These verb phrases are all finite VP, i.e. specified for number, person, tense and
mood: the s-form, the past form, and some uses of the base form.

He works./ They work. (number and person)

Non-finite forms do not express contrasts of tense, number, person or mood.


These forms often stay the same in a clause, regardless of any grammatical variation
which may be taking place alongside it.

There are three non-finite forms of the verb: THE –ING PARTICIPLE, THE –ED
FORM and THE BASE FORM.

They might see./ I’ll see./ He wants to see.

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Verb head structure:

VERB HEAD
AUXILIARY/ AUXILIARIES MAIN VERB
opened
The door was opened
has been opened
must have been opened
should have been opened

There are two types of verb head:


1) The simple verb head

The simple VP contains only one head verb (i.e. a lexical verb or a primary
verb) without auxiliary:
She does morning exercise regularly.

Guy came yesterday.

2) The complex verb head

The complex verb head contains only one head verb with any auxiliaries:
Guy is coming today.

Guy may have been being interrogated.

And the lexical verb is always the last item in the verb head. Auxiliary verbs
combine with other verbs in the four patterns ( modal, perfective, progressive
and passive) in the complex verb head.

Note:
The auxiliary verbs combine with other verbs in four patterns in finite VP:

A Modal pattern The shop(s) will/ may/ could


Modal + Verb open.
B Perfect pattern The shop has opened.
Have + past participle The shops have opened.
C Progressive pattern The shop was opening.
Be + V-ing The shops were opening.
D Passive pattern The shop was opened.
Be + past participle The shops were opened.

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A verb head may have up to four auxiliaries following in a strict order in the
complex verb head in finite VP:

He would visit... Modal


He would have visited... Modal perfect
He would have been visiting... Modal perfect progressive
He would have been being visited... Modal perfect progressive passive

The complete set of complex verb phrase for one main verb play in finite VP:

The verb head with its complement(s)

The child plays the piano. Simple


The child should play the piano. Modal
The child has played the piano. Perfect
The child is playing the piano. Progressive
The piano is played by the child. Passive
The child should have played the piano. Modal perfect
The child should be playing the piano. Modal progressive
The piano should be played. Modal passive
The child has been playing the piano. Perfect progressive
The piano has been played. Perfect passive
The piano is being played. Progressive passive

VP VP

NP NP

V Det N Aux Aux V Det N

plays the piano should have played the piano

VP

NP PP

NP

Aux V Det N P Det N

will move the desk into the all


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VP VP
Aux V NP Aux V NP NP
will marry Sam can call her Mary

2.2.3. Types of modifiers in English verb phrase

All adverbial except those which function as sentence modifiers are part of a verb
phrase, these dverbials are also called complements of verbs.

One-word adverbials are usually various adjuncts expressing time, place,


manner, frequency,...

He rarely drives cerelessly.

He was walking ahead to the bridge.


Read the story aloud.

They only work on Saturdays.


It may still snow.

I can’t find it anywhere.

Word-group adverbials – We can find various kinds of word groups operating to


modify the verb head of a verb phrase. They are the following:
i. Prepositional phrase adverbials

(We) live in the city.

ii. Noun phrase adverbials

(They) left home this morning.


iii. Subordinate clause adverbials
(John) said no words because he was angry.
iv. -to infinitive clause adverbials

(He) eats to satisfy his appetite.

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v. –ing clause adverbials

(He) hurt his arm playing tennis.

vi. –ed clause adverbials


(The little boy) eats seated in his trolley.

More than one modifiers (also complements) can easily be found in English verb
phrase:
Her little boy begged unsuccessfully for a cookie.

She rocked back and forth on her feet impatiently.

I quickly surveyed my selections to see what could be generating such


hostility.
2.2.4. The syntactic role of verb phrase

The only syntactic role of finite verb phrases is to serve as a central clause
element. Non-finite verb phrases have the same role in non-finite clauses marked by
brackets in the following examples:

I hate [travelling by myself].


Already they have stopped [voting on racial lines].

Many verb forms may have role characteristic of nouns and adjectives. Such uses
are limited to participle forms (ending in –ed or –ing), originally so called because they
participate in more than one word class. In these cases, verb forms tend to acquire the
characteristics of nouns and adjectives. Compare: building and house (nouns), exciting
and dramatic (adjectives), tired and weary (adjectives).

 Discontinuous verb phrases: Unlike the other phrase types, verb phrases
are often discontinuous. This frequently occurs in clauses with subject-operator
inversion, i.e. subject-operator inversion chiefly occur in independent interrogative
clauses, where it is completely regular:
Who’s calling?

Is it Thursday today?
Do you want one or two?
And not-negation:

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You can do this but you can’t do that.

I didn’t study the label.

In addition, adverbials are frequently placed between the elements of the verb
phrases:

You know the English will always have gardens wherever they find
themselves.

 Auxiliary-only verb phrases


Under certain circumstances, the verb phrase consists only of an auxiliary:
She realized that she would never leave. She couldn’t.

2.3. PREPOSITIONAL PHRASES


2.3.1. Definition

Prepositional phrases consist of a preposition and a complement, most typically


in the form of a noun phrase. The typical prepositional phrase may indeed be viewed as
a noun phrase extended by a link showing its relationship to surrounding structures. The
complement is underlined in the following examples:

to show to him on the night for the first day.

Like adverbs, PP express many different meanings, such as: place, time, reason,
purpose,...
We must discuss the matter in private. (PP)

We must discuss the matter privately. (adverb)

And like adverbs, PP are often optional parts of a sentence, we can omit them if
we like.

Here is the structure of prepositional phrases:

PREPOSITIONAL PHRASE
PREPOSITION NOUN PHRASE
on the telephone
I called her
at six o’clock
from a town in northern France
for dinner

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PP

NP
PP PP
NP NP
P Det N P Det N P A N
on the telephone from a town in Northern France

2.3.2. Types of prepositional phrases

Preposition + NP/Pr (Most common)


He answered the question with care/ with great care.

Here’s the letter from my son Philip.

Come with me please

Do it for me.
Preposition + -ing clause

He is interested in swimming.

This is an oven for baking break.


Preposition + wh-clause
I was surprised at what they said.

Preposition + adverb
From here, the road is very rough.

One can see the airport from upstairs.


Note:

Do not confuse prepositions with adverbs. Prepositions, which introduce


prepositional phrases, are always followed by a nominal.

Compare: She got on the train. (preposition)

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She got on. (adverb)

They went inside the restaurant. (preposition)

They went inside. (adverb)

2.3.3. Position of Prepositional phrases in the sentence

 Front position
On Friday, the Prime Minister will make a press statement.

 Middle position
This year’s figure, to everyone’s surprise, show a loss of $500 million.

 End position
The castle is closed for urgent repairs.

2.3.4. Characteristics of Prepositions

1. Prepositional phrases are often embedded within larger phrases, as in the


last two examples:

[the direct result [of [ the continuing loss [ of [ yet another typical feature [
of [the English countryside. ]]]]]]]

2. Prepositions also take nominal clauses as complements, but normally only


wh-clauses and –ing clauses.

Components drawings carry instructions [ on where they are used and from
what they are made].

3. The prepositions but, except and save may, however, be followed by


infinitive clauses.

Governments, whatever their own inclinations, will have no choice [ but to


fashion childcare policies.]
4. Additionally, the complement may be an adverb or another prepositional
phrase.
Allow yourself time for home thoughts [ from abroad]. (adverb)

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5. Prepositional phrases as complements of prepositions are chiefly found in
expressions of direction.
6. Prepositional phrases are further used in connection with prepositional
verbs and other types of complex verbs: look at, talk about, listen to, build into, buid on,
draw into, keep to, leave off, let into,...
7. Extended prepositional pharses: Prepositional phrases can be preceded by
adverbial particles and other modifying elements. The modifier may be a specification of
the relationship expressed by the preposition or an expression of degree.
back to the fifties / exactly at noon / considerably to the right

8. Modification of this type may lead to the development of complex


prepositions: such as, as for, but for, except for, save for, apart from, aside from, as
from, away from, as far as, as distinct from, in exchange for,...
9. Stranded prepositions: A preposition is said to be ‘stranded’ if it is not
followed by its complement or, where the preposition is bound to a preceding verb, by
the prepositional object.

As soon as Unoka understood [what] his friend was driving at, he burst out
laughing.
[What more] could a child ask for?

10. Stranded prepositions in independent Wh-questions.

i. Preposition + wh-word, full VS clause:


In [which sport, apart from rowing,] could you do that?

ii. Preposition + wh-word, full SV clause:

You can’t drink it with [what]?

iii. Preposition + wh-word, fragment:

Was she really going to clear everything out of here? [For] what?
[For] whom?

iv. Stranded preposition, full clause:

[What are group] are you applying to work with?


v. Stranded preposition, fragment:

I wish daddy was back./ [What] for?

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2.3.5. The syntactic roles of Prepositional phrases

Prepositional phrases vary with respect to how closely they are connected with
surrounding structures. They can function as: adverbials on the Clause level, pre-
modifiers in NPs, post-modifiers in NPs, complements of adjectives, pre-modifiers of
adverbs or sentence modifiers:

1. Adverbials on the Clause level

A preposition phrase can be used as an adverbial to modify a verb. When this


prepositional phrase tells WHEN, WHERE, HOW, HOW MUCH, HOW FAR, WHY, etc. the
action of the verb takes place.
He worked in a shop – probably at that time. (Where did he work?...)

The train arrived at two o’clock. (When did the train arrive?)

The reproduction takes place by building. (How does the...?)


He missed the target by a foot. (How far did he miss the target?)

She spoke in hastle. (= She spoke hastily)

Tom drives with care. (= Tom drives carefully.)

Most adverbials are optional, but a small number of verbs require an adverbial to
complete their meaning – clause type: SVA, SVOA. These verbs are: put, live, goes, last,
lie, keep,...

The children kept out of trouble. (SVA)

I’ll take you to wherever you want. (SVOA)

2. Pre-modifier in Noun phrases

It probably fell out of the sky after an in-flight explosion.


3. Post-modifier in Noun phrases

The team from Dallas won.

I lost the tickets to the show.

He needs a knife for hunting.

He was a poet, a teacher of philosophy, and a man with a terrible recent


history.

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It may be difficult to decide whether a prepositional phrase following a noun is a
post-modifier of the noun or an adverbial in the clause:

Ten tourists were injured yesterday when they jumped off a chair lift to
escape a brush fire on Mount Solaro in the Mediterranean island of Capri.

In this case, the prepositional phrase on Mount Solaro... could be analysed as


either an adverbial (specifying the location of the accident) or a post-modifier of the
head fire. The following two examples illustrate how the same prepositional phrase can
have different roles:

The seal had been fired at by a man with a rifle.


AM, 37, is alleged to have shot Robert with a rifle.

The with-phrase in the first example is a post-modifier of a noun, in the second an


adverbial.

4. Complement of adjectives
The plant is equally susceptible to drought during this period.

These shoes are too small for comfort.

He’s anxious about her safety.

5. Post-modifier of adverbs

Later in the afternoon, the sun was not so bright, and the sky was not so
blue.

Never in a million years will he admit defeat.

6. Sentence modifiers

In my opinion, the psychology professor is so kind.


In fact, some women don’t earn equal pay for equal work.

At times, I overslept.

The prepositional phrase has a specific meaning named space (= location and
direction), time (= point of time and extent of time), topic, purpose, similarity,
instrument, accompaniment.

Space: in the yard / under the ground (location)

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towards the town / from HCM to Hanoi (direction)

Time: before the meeting / at eleven o’clock (point of time)

for several days / since January (extent of time)


Topic: chilling story about ghosts
Purpose: a key for opening of the safe
Similarity: a boy like his father

Instrument: He cut the wood with an axe.


Accompaniment: He went out with a bowler hat.

Some prepositional phrases are used without a specific meaning when it is


attached to a particular verb:

They blamed the mess on Jim.

We have a lot of sympathy for you.

2.4. ADJECTIVE PHRASES


2.4.1. Definition
Adjective phrases contain an adjective as the head, optionally accompanied
modifiers in the form of single words, phrases and clauses. The adjective head is
underlined in the following examples:
so lucky / desperately poor

very enthusiastic about his latest idea


more blatant than anything they had done in the past

The accompanying elements in an adjective phrase characteristically indicate the


degree of the quality denoted by the adjective (e.g. ‘How lucky/ poor?’) or describe the
respect in which the quality is to be interpreted (e.g. ‘guilty / slow in what respect?’). In
the latter case, the accompanying elements serve to complete the meaning of the
adjective and are generally called complements. Complements generally take the form
of prepositional phrases or clauses. Here is the adjective phrase phrase structure.

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ADJECTIVE PHRASE
PRE-MODIFIER(S) ADJECTIVE POST-MODIFIER(S)
sad
It is full of holes
Almost impossible
Too easy
Much colder than last winter

AP

PP

AP NP

Deg A Deg A P Det Det N

rather cold very enthusiastic about his latest idea

2.4.2. The constituents of the Adjective phrase

1. Pre-modifier(s)

The pre-modifier in an adjective phrase may only be an adverb. Usually the


adverb is one of a restricted set of:

Quantifiers: very demanding, quite acceptable, somewhat noisy, rather slow,...

Intensifying adverbs: (-ly adverbs expressing some degree): extremely


interesting, terribly sorry, awfully slow, fairly good, highly recommended, highly
intelligent, moderately easy, unbelievably tall,...

Non-intensifying adverbs: beautifully cool, annoying simple, distinguish rich,


incredibly slow, horribly burnt,...

2. The Head

The head in adjective phrases is an adjective. Central adjectives are defined by


their morphological, syntactic and semantic characteristics.

Morphologically, many central adjectives can be inflected to show degree of


comparison, as in big, bigger, biggest,...

Syntactically, central adjectives can serve both attributive and predicative


syntactic roles.

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Attributive adjectives modify nominal expressions, preceding the head noun or
pronoun. In most cases, they modify common nouns, as in the following examples:

It’s rustic, knotty pine with a huge fireplace.

Ah! Poor you Helen!

Here are the most common attributive adjectives according to the following
items:

DESCRIPTORS – SIZE/AMOUNT: big, little, long, small, great, high, low, large,...
DESCRIPTORS – TIME: new, old, young,...

DESCRIPTORS – COLOR: black, white, red, dark,...

DESCRIPTORS – EVALUATIVE: good, best, right, nice, important,...


CLASSIFIERS – RELATIONAL: same, whole, different, full,...

CLASSIFIERS – TOPICAL: political, public,...

SEMANTIC DOMAIN: social, human, international, economic,...

Most common attributive adjectives (see p.511 – 513 in Longman Gram. of


spoken and written English)

Predicative adjectives complement a copular verb, characterizing the nominal


expression in subject position. For example, the predicative adjective nice is an
evaluation characterizing the subject pronoun she in the following example:

She seems quite nice really.


Other examples of subject predicatives are given below:

That’s right.

It would be easier, quicker, and cheaper.

I’m afraid that’s impossible.

In contrast, object predicatives follow a direct object, making a predication about


that noun phrase. In the examples below, the object predicative is italicized and the
direct object preceding it is marked by [ ]:

I said you’ve got all your *priorities+ wrong.

I had [it] right the first time, didn’t I?

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She had considered [it] infinitely vulgar and debased.

She has since [herself] bankrupt.

Many of the most frequent predicative adjectives typically occur with a phrasal
complement or clausal complement of their own, such as prepositional phrase, to-
infinitive clause or that-clause.

Well you’re good at remembering numbers.

That’s nice of you.


“You look good enough to eat,” he said.

I am sure the warm affinities between Scots and Jews arise out of
appreciation of herrings.

Most common predicative adjectives (see p.516 – 518 in Longman Gram. of


spoken and written English)

3. Post-modifier(s)
(also called complement(s))

The post modifier can be: prepositional phrase, an infinite clause or that-clause.

 A prepositional phrase

She was very anxious about Jim’s health.

Adjective phrase pattern: ADJECTIVE + PREPOSITIONAL PHRASE: afraid of,


delighted with, hopeless at, annoyed about, free from, due to,...

 An infinitive clause
You are rather wise to sell that old car.

They were anxious to please everyone.

Adjective phrase pattern: ADJECTIVE + TO INFINITIVE: able to, content to, free to,
sure to, afraid to, delighted to, glad to, surprised to,...

 That-clause

He was very anxious that no one should accuse him of laziness.

It’s certain that the parcel arrived safely.

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Adjective phrase pattern: ADJECTIVE + THAT-CLAUSE: clear that, essential that,
important that, likely that, obvious that,...

2.4.3. The syntactic roles of Adjective phrases

Adjective phrases may have the following syntactic roles:

1. Pre-modifier in NP

Not like poor me.


Yes, it’s a bad attitude.

One of the most important ways of achieving this is by the regular and
thorough implementation...

He writes catchy tunes with lavish pop hooks and huge slices of melody.
That touch brave little old fellow Wells had had prophetic visions after all.

2. Post-modifier in NP

Post-posed adjective phrases are especially prevalent with indefinite pronoun


heads, such as no one, anything, something and someone.
It’s a shame if you haven’t got anyone musical here.

Something cold and refreshing actually.

Four-course meals that last four hours are marathons for everyone
concerned.

I think they are doing everything possible to protect the workers.

Certain adjective phrases, such as involved, available and concerned, tend to be


post-posed after a noun head.

She was unacquainted with any of the people involved.

He said the only details available, apart from a death certificate, had come
from Mr. Garrod’s family.

The proposal seemed to be appropriate for the school concerned.

In addition, a number of fixed expressions contain post-posed adjectives.

Attorney general / heir apparent / notary public / Asia Minor

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When the modifying adjective phrase is heavy, the adjective phrase often follow
its head noun.

It’s a lounge not much bigger than the one we’ve got now.

He drew from the high soprano instrument sounds totally different from
what we think of as saxophone tone.

In some of these cases, the head noun is both pre-modified and post-modified by
adjective phrases.

“McDeere is a great student, dedicated, hardworking and ambitious,” says


Cruise of his character.
The physiological factors involved in transplanting are somewhat obscure.
3. Subject complement
He’s totally crazy.

Everything became bitingly clear to me.

The fans became restless and the soccer grapevine was alive with names of
likely successors to Mr. Stringer.

4. Object complement

He considered [it] more dangerous than any horse he had ever ridden.

He did not find [her] amusing, and she found [him] quite disastrously dull.

Pragmatism makes [it] somewhat harder [to predict what courts will do].
5. Clause linker

Adjective phrases sometimes serve to link clauses or sentences to one another,


as illustrated below:

Worse he had nothing to say.

Even more important, the prospect of a single currency would eliminate an


enormous source of uncertainty for business.

Still more important, children who grew up in elite homes enjoyed


advantages that helped them maintain elite status.

6. Detached predicatives

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(syntactically free modifiers of a noun phrase)

The detached predicative adjective phrases with any complements typically occur
in sentence-initial position.

Slender and demure, [she] wore a simple ao dai.

Green, bronze and golden, [it] flowed through weeds and rushes.

Too tired to move, [she] stayed there.


Delicate and light bodied, [it] is often confused with American blended
whisky and thus called rye.

Detached predicatives can also occur in sentence-final position.

[Victor] chuckled, highly amused.

The detached predicative adjective phrases can be structurally called verbless


clause functioning as adjunct.
7. Exclamations

Adjective phrases often serve as exclamations, especially in conversation,


fictional dialogue and also in headliness and captions in news writing.
In conversation:

Great! I need some of those.


Good! I like that.

Excellent! / Bloody brilliant! / Rough!


Uncanny! / Sorry! / Alright! / Oh horrible!

Hilarious! / Oh right! / Oh dear! / Amazing!


Right! / Lucky! / Wonderful! / Super! / Super – duper!

In fiction:
Ridiculous! / Irrelevant! / Stupendous! / Good gracious!
Miraculous! / Glorious! / Marvelous!
In headliness and captions in news writing:

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Blinding! / Hair-raising! / Alive!

8. Noun phrases or Noun phrase Heads

Some adjective phrases can serve as noun phrases or the head of a noun phrase.
But in politics the unlikely can happen.

These people may be the real working poor, the elderly, the very young,
the unemployed or the transient.
2.5. ADVERB PHRASES
2.5.1. Definition

Adverb phrases contain an adverb as head, optionally accompanied by modifiers


in the form of single words, phrases and clauses.

fast / horribly

fortunately enough
somewhat fleetingly

Adverb phrases are similar in structure to adjective phrases. Modifiers of adverbs


are chiefly expressions of:
Qualifiers: very quickly, quite wonderful, somewhat fleetingly, rather safely,...

Intensifying adverbs: fairly soon, extremely faithfully, exceptionally well, terribly


slowly,...

Non-intensifying adverbs: amazingly well, understandably badly,...


Adverb phrases could be distinguished from adverbials, which are clause
elements that can be realized in a variety of ways (e.g. by noun phrase including single
nouns, adverb phrases including single adverbs, prepositional phrases, clauses)
The following is the adverb phrase structure:

ADVERB PHRASE
PRE-MODIFIER(S) ADVERB POST-MODIFIER(S)
regularly
He comes here quite often
much later
less willingly than he used to
as quickly as possible

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AdvP

CP
AdvP S
Deg Adv Deg Adv C NP VP
quite often less willingly than he used to

2.5.2. The syntactic roles of Adverb phrases


Adverb phrases may have the following syntactic roles:
1. Pre-modifier in Adjective phrase or in Adverb phrase

It was too much hotter than last night. (in AP)

Whoever took it acted totally inhumanely. (in AdvP)


2. Adverbials on the Clause level

Adverb phrases function in a clause in three different ways: adjunct, conjunct and
disjunct.

Adjunct function:

The adjunct serves to provide circumstantial information about the action,


process or event, time, place, manner,...: very soon, tomorrow, afterwards, often,
accidentally, right here, over there, outside, inside, extremely carefully, rather noisily,
loudly, quickly,...

Please sign right here.

They will come very soon.

She smiled sweetly.

Why is the ceiling-fan working rather noisily?

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Conjunct function:

The conjunct serves to link one clause or one sentence to another. The linkers are
conjunctive adverbs: accordingly, subsequently, actually, consequently, similarly,
incidentally, therefore, thereupon, whereas, wherever, nevertheless, otherwise,
furthermore, anyway, instead, besides, however, moreover, secondly, altogether, more
precisely, incidentally, alternatively, meanwhile,...

I always eat breakfast. Otherwise, I get hungry during class.


Al didn’t study. Therefore, he failed the test.

The city provides many cultural opportunitites. It has an excellent art


museum. Besides, it has a fine symphony orchestra.

Last night’s storm damaged the power lines. Consequently, the town was
without electricity for several hours.

Disjunct function:

Disjuncts are adverbials which play a superior role to the other elements in the
clause. They act as if they were outside the clause, giving the speaker chance to
comment on what is taking place inside it. There are two types: style disjunct and
content disjunct.

Style disjunct convey the speaker’s comment about the style or form of what is
being said. They express the condition under which the listener should interpret the
accompanying sentence: candidly, confidently, absolutely, briefly, literally, bluntly,
honestly, frankly, personally, generally, doubtlessly,...

Frankly, John should never have done it.


Quite honestly, I don’t see the solution to the problem.

Content disjunct make an observation about the truth of the clause or a value
judgement about its content: fortunately, reluctantly, admittedly, indeed, most likely,
curiously, annoyingly, thankfully, kindly, morally, regrettably, sadly, happily, of course,...
Hopefully, sales will improve.
Reluctantly, we walk home.

Morally, he should resign.

Note:

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The borderline between modifiers and adverbials is not always clear:

This is a really surprising development.

Really this is a surprising development.


This development is really surprising.
3. Pre-modifier or Post-modifier in Noun phrase

The investigation found no evidence that the then Democratic candidate


had been involved in illegal activities.

The long journey home was a nightmare.

4. Pre-modifier in Prepositional phrase

I stopped just outside the circle of light.

Every night he drove to work in his ’35 Ford, punched the clock exactly on
time, and sat down at the roll-top desk.

5. Complement of preposition

She had only just got back from abroad.


There had been no complaints until recently.

2.6. S-GENITIVE PHRASES

Genitive phrases are structured like noun phrases, except for the addition of a
genetic suffix:

the Queen’s press secretary

the President’s dramatic decision


in a month or two’s time

The suffix makes a relation between two noun phrases in much the same way as
a preposition. Compare:
the car’s performance
the performance of the car

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S-genitive and of-phrases

At today’s meeting of the 1922 Committee Mr. Onslow will declare a


leadership election open.

The government’s denial of the need for the draft directive is a clear breach
of the welfare principle enshrined in the UN convention.

2.7. NUMERAL PHRASES

Combination of numerals generally conform to the structure of noun phrases, but


they also have special characteristics which make it natural to treat them seperately. For
example, they may be spoken and written quite in quite different ways:
225 two hundred and twenty five
2+2 two plus two
22.08 twenty-two point zero eight

0.5 nought point five


1966 nineteen sixty-six (the year)

10 a.m. ten o’clock (in the morning)


2.15 p.m. two fifteen / a quarter past two (in the afternoon)

100 ten degrees – ten above zero


.6 % point six percent

$28 twenty eight dollars


2.7.1. Complex Cardinal numbers

These numbers are built up by juxtaposition of simple numerals, except that and
is udually inserted between hundred/ thousand/ million and numbers below 100. The
following are examples of complex numbers from conversation:
A hundred and seventy-two <172>. That’s quite high isn’t it?

That would be three thousand six hundred <3600>.

Cost two thousand, nine hundred and ninety-five <2975> pounds.

Before hundred, thousand and million, the determiner a is usually used instead of
one.

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2.7.2. Types of Numeral expressions

There are several special types of numeral:

Clock time
It’s a quarter past six (or fifteen minutes past six) <6.15>
Dates
On the fourth of July two thousand and nineteen <4 July, 2019>

Currency
It costs forty four pound ninety nine <£44.99>

Three fifty <£3.50>, isn’t it?


Temperature

It’s ten degrees – ten above zero <10o>.


It’s twenty-five degrees celcius <25oC>.

Decimals, Percentages, Fractions

Point five <.5> of a quart is a pint.

It’s nought point five <0,5>

Four point three 0 <4.30>.

Mathematical expressions
Two point nine eight times four to the power of two:
(2.98 x 42) or (2.98 x 4)2
2.7.3. Approximate numbers

There are various ways of qualifying exact numbers

 Derivational suffix –ish

About elevenish.

He says he’s around about the fortyish – age.

 Combinations with Odd

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300 odd (slightly over 300)

a hundred and fifty odd meals a day

 Approximating adverbs: about, around, some, approximately, roughly and


circa.
Every time I got to them they had about twenty odd teachers there.
I spent about two hours in the bar.

 Coordination tags

We’ve paid four thousand seven hundred and something.

I think they paid him out – thirty thousand or something like that (thirty
thousand or so)

 Coordination of phrases

Phrases can be linked by means of coordinating conjunctions: and, or.

NP: my brother and his friends, friends or family or neighbour,...


VP: fight and argue, make and break,...

AP: black and white, pale yellow or very pale greenish-yellow,...

AdvP: deliberately and defiantly, now or never,...

Parts of phrases can also be coordinated. Both heads and modifiers can be
coordinated in noun phrases, verb phrases, adjective phrases and adverb phrases:

red and blue dress / red dresses and skirts

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CONTENTS

Page

Part IV: CLAUSES

1. DEFINITION ............................................................................................
2. CLASSIFICATION .....................................................................................
2.1. BY STRUCTURES ................................................................................
2.1.1. Finite clauses ..........................................................................
2.1.2. Non-finite clauses ....................................................................
2.1.2.1. To-infinitive clauses ...........................................................
2.1.2.2. Bare infinitive clauses ........................................................
2.1.2.3. Verb-ing clauses.................................................................
2.1.2.4. Ed-participle clauses ..........................................................
2.1.3. Verbless clauses ......................................................................
2.1.3.1. Verbless main clauses........................................................
2.1.3.2. Verbless subordinate clauses ............................................
2.1.3.3. Verbless nominal clauses ..................................................
2.2. BY RELATIONSHIP ..............................................................................
2.2.1. Independent clauses ................................................................
2.2.2. Dependent clauses ..................................................................
2.2.2.1. Subordinate clauses ..........................................................
2.2.2.2. Embedded clauses .............................................................
2.2.2.3. Relative clauses .................................................................
2.3. BY FUNCTIONS ..................................................................................
2.3.1. Adjectival clauses ....................................................................
2.3.2. Nominal clauses ......................................................................
2.3.2.1. Nominal That-clauses ........................................................
2.3.2.2. Nominal zero That-clauses ................................................
2.3.2.3. Nominal Yes/No Interrogative clauses ..............................
2.3.2.4. Nominal Wh-Interrogative clauses....................................
2.3.2.5. Nominal Relative clauses ...................................................
2.3.2.6. Nominal –ing clauses .........................................................
(also called gerund clauses)
2.3.2.7. Nominal to-infinitive clauses .............................................
2.3.2.8. Nominal Bare infinitive clauses .........................................
2.3.2.9. Nominal Verbless clauses ..................................................
2.3.3. Adverbial clauses ....................................................................
2.3.3.1. Adverbial clauses as Adjuncts ...........................................
2.3.3.2. Adverbial clauses as Conjuncts .........................................

137
2.3.3.3. Adverbial clauses as Disjuncts ...........................................
2.3.3.4. Comment clauses ..............................................................

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PART IV: CLAUSES
1. DEFINITION

A clause is a group of words which forms a grammatical unit and which contains a
subject (i.e. can be understood) or no subject and a verb (i.e. a finite or non-finite V). A
clause forms a sentence (i.e. a simple sentence), part of a sentence and often functions
as a noun (nominal clause), an adverb (adverbial clause), or part of a phrase and often
functions as an djective (relative clause).
Ex:

I don’t feel sorry for George. All his problems are entirely his own fault.
(simple sentence)

I haven’t seen Harry for ages. I wonder what happed to him. (part of the
sentence – finite clause – nominal clause)

By the time he comes, we will already have left. (part of the sentence –
finite clause – adverbial clause)

The boy playing the piano is Ben. (part of noun phrase ‘the boy’ – non-
finite clause – relative clause)

He was very relieved to find out that he had passed the exam. (part of
adjective phrase ‘very relieved’ – non-finite clause)
2. CLASSIFICATION

Clauses can be classified by structures, relationship or syntactic functions.


2.1. BY STRUCTURES
CLAUSES

Finite clauses Non-finite clauses Verbless clauses

to-inf bare inf -ing -ed main sub nominal


clauses clauses clauses clauses clauses clausess clauses

Gerund Present part.


clauses clauses

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2.1.1. Finite clauses

A finite clause is a clause which has a subject and a finite verb:

When we live in the country, we had few visitors.


The student who sits next to me is from China.
I couldn’t hear what he said.
2.1.2. Non-finite clauses

A non-finite clause is a clause without a finite verb. In a non-finite clause, the first
verb form is either an infinitive form with TO (TO-INFINITIVE) or without TO (BARE
INFINITIVE) or an –ing form (V-ING) or a past participle form (V-ED).

2.1.2.1. To-infinitive clauses


To ride with a drunk driver is dangerous.

She managed to finish her work early.

I demand to know who is responsible.

The reporter pressed her to answer his questions.

 Usually have no subjects.

Our plan is to catch the early train.


The best thing is to leave your family at home.

 If there is a subject, it is usually introduced by FOR.

The best thing is for you to leave your family at home.

Here are some accounts for you to check.

 To-infinitive clauses can replace finite clauses.

We hadn’t anything to sit on. (= We hadn’t anything that we could sit on.)

I have books to read. (= I have books that I must read.)

 Some common adjectives followed by to-infinitive clauses.


We were sorry to hear the bad news.

I was surprised to see Tim at the party.


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2.1.2.2. Bare infinitive clauses
(Much less common than to-infinitive clauses)
 After the verbs: let, help; causative verbs: make, have; the verbs of
perception: see, notice, watch, look at, observe, hear, listen to, feel, smell or after idioms
such as had better, would rather.

I let my friend borrow my bicycle.

He had his brother carry the case.


This medicine helps keep you healthy.

I would rather stay at home than go out with you.

 After verb to be: What they have done is (to) mend the water pipe.

2.1.2.3. Verb-ing clauses


(from) Gerund

Telling lies is wrong.

Her hobby, collecting stamps, absorbed him.

He admitted stealing the money.

(from) Present Participle


The train arriving at platform is the 14.30 for Glasgow Centre.

The child was busy building his sandcastles.


Having spent nearly all your money, we couldn’t afford to stay in a hotel.

While hiking through the woods yesterday, we saw a bear.

Some special expressions followed by the –ing form of the verb:


We have fun playing volleyball. have fun
We have a good time have a good time
have trouble
I have trouble have difficulty + -ing
I had difficulty finding his house. have a hard time
I had a hard time have a difficult time
I had a difficult time
Sam spent most of his time studying. spend + expression of time or money + -ing
I waste a lot of time watching TV. waste + expression of time or money + -ing

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She sat at her desk writing a letter. sit
I stood there wondering what to do next. stand + expression of place + -ing
He is lying in bed reading a novel. lie
When I walked into my office, I found find + (pro)noun + -ing
George using my telephone. catch + (pro)noun + -ing
When I walked into my office, I caught a
thief looking through my desk drawers. * Both find and catch in the examples mean
discover. Catch expresses anger or
displeasure.

2.1.2.4. –Ed participle clauses

Convinced that she could never learn to play the piano, Ann stopped taking
the lessons.
Accused of dishonesty by the media, the Minister decided to resign.
The man injured in the accident was taken to the hospital.

Some of te people invited to the party can’t come.

2.1.3. Verbless clauses


(is a clause with no verb)

Why do we call it a clause?

- Because it has the meaning of a clause, and


- Because it can have elements like subject, complement, object and
adverbial, like other clauses.

There are three kinds of verbless clauses:

2.1.3.1. Verbless main clauses: in suggestion, questions, commands, a


reply, an apology, an offer, an exclamation:
Suggestion: How about a walk?

What about a cup of coffe?


Questions: Why all the noises?

Commands: Off with your coat!

Everybody out!

A reply: A good thing, too.

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An apology: Sorry about the mistake.

An offer: Another piece of toast? ~ Yes, please.

An exclamation: What lovely weather!

2.1.3.2. Verbless subordinate clauses


(mainly used in informal writing)

Whenever possible, the public should be informed about dangerous


conditions on the road.
If in doubt, contact your local safety officer.

Although not a classic, this 90-minute video is worth watching.

Tired and hungry after a long journey, the climbers decided to take a rest.

Totally surprised by his proposal of marriage, Carol could not find the
words to reply.
2.1.3.3. Verbless nominal clauses

Fast cars in cities is really wise. (= Having fast cars in cities is really wise.)

Wall-to-wall carpets in every room is very expensive. (= Having Wall-to-wall


carpets in every room is very expensive.)

2.2. BY RELATIONSHIP (between clauses)


(Independent clauses & Dependent clauses)
CLAUSES

Independent clauses Dependent clauses

Subordinate Embedded Relative


clauses clauses clauses
2.2.1. Independent clauses

An independent clause is a clause that does not depend on another clause and
may be linked to another independent clause to form a compound sentence or to
another dependent clause to form a complex sentence:

143
A sentence must have at least a main clause. A sentence that has only one main
clause is called a simple sentence. It can be one of these types: statements, questions,
imperatives and exclamations.

Statements: are sentences in which the subject is present and generally comes
before the verb:

I like ice-cream.
Michael didn’t like sweet things.

Questions: are sentences which are marked in one or more of these ways:
- The operator is placed immediately before the subject:
Will you speak to the boss today?

- The sentence begins with an interrogative words:

Who will you speak to?


- The sentence has rising intonation in spoken English:

You’ll speak to the boss today?


In written English, questions end with a question mark.

Imperatives: We use the basic form of the verb to form imperatives. Imperatives
can be impolite. We use imperatives for giving ORDERS, COMMANDS, and also for
making OFFERS, SUGGESTIONS, INVITATIONS, A REQUEST, or giving INSTRUCTIONS/
DIRECTIONS,...:

Have a cigarette.

Come in and sit down.


Take two tablets with a glass of water.

Enjoy youself!
Relax!

Have fun.

Turn on the television.

Exclamations: are sentences which usually begin with ‘what’ or ‘how’, sometimes
with ‘such’ or ‘so’ without an inversion of subject and operator and normally end with

144
an exclamation mark. We use exclamations to express our feelings or emotions about
something:

What a noise! What a shame!

What a surprise! How unfortunate!

How silly! How strange!

Such tasty soup! So quickly!


Some exclamations are special ‘emotion words’, sometimes called ‘interjections’:

Ah, there he is! (satisfaction/ recognition)

Hey! Just look at that! (calling for attention)

Oh, I wasn’t expecting you! (disappointment)

Ooh, how lovely! (pleasure)

Ow/ ouch, that really hurts! (pain)


Ugh, this tastes awful! (disgust)
These words are in order of greater and greater feeling:
Great! (something good)

Wonderful!

Fantastic!

Oh dear! (something bad)


Damn!

Oh hell!
Bloody hell!

Blast!
Oh God!

Oh! (a surprise)

My goodness!

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My God!

Good heavens!

Good God!
2.2.2. Dependent clauses

A dependent clause is a clause that is used with another clause to form a


complete grammatical construction. It depends on the other clause and is subordinate
to it:
She told me that she was going abroad.

Pam can’t decide whether to go or (to) stay at home.

The girl who is talking to Tom is Australian.


Upon reaching the age of 21, I received my inheritance.

Dependent clauses can be classified into three kinds: SUBORDINATE CLAUSES,


EMBEDDED CLAUSES and RELATIVE CLAUSES.

2.2.2.1. Subordinate clauses

A subordinate clause is one which is part of another clause, i.e. is dependent on a


main clause. It cannot stand by itself as a main clause.

Subordinate clauses, clauses with subordinators are classified by the role they
have in the main clause, named ADVERBIAL CLAUSES, COMMENT CLAUSES. Also,
subordinate clauses are classified by the kind of verb phrase they contain, named:
FINITE CLAUSE, NON-FINITE CLAUSE and VERBLESS CLAUSE.

I am going home after I see the movie.

He looked very fit although he hadn’t eaten for days.


(= Although he hadn’t eaten for days he looked very fit.)

Exhausted by the long hours of work, she decided to have some days off.

I’m a pacificist, as you know.

We are all, broadly speaking, middle class.

2.2.2.2. Embedded clauses

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An embedded clause is a dependent clause functioning as the argument of a
predicate.

It can occur as a S or O... of the clauses; that is, like NP, it can be argument of a
predicate, it is an argument clause. This kind of clause has been embedded inside a
larger clause. That’s why it is called an embedded clause. Those clauses containing
embedded clauses are called container clauses or matrix clauses:

The news that he has got married surprised his friends.


(‘The news surprised his friends’ – Container/matrix clause;

‘that he has got married’ – Embedded clause.)


For Sharon’s car to break down would be unfortunate.
That Sharon’s car broke down would be unfortunate.

 ‘For’ and ‘that’: complementizers (COMP)

Differ from embedded clauses in that they are not argument of a predicate,
subordinate clauses are thus not used as Subjects or Objects:

* Because Sharon’s car had broken down surprised us. (wrong)

 Difference between Subordinate clauses and Embedded clauses:

Subordinate clauses:

SUBORDINATOR CLAUSE PERFECTIVE


After Lee met them time
Before Trollope died time
Since I last met them time
Until we met again time
When we are in love time
While they are eating time
Where Melville wrote it time
Because he was angry reason
Since you didn’t pay me reason
As if Carl was sick manner
As though Jill hadn’t seen him manner
So that We miss them purpose
In order that Joe would confess purpose
So as to avoid the police purpose

147
In order to avoid the police purpose
As many as Jane had comparison
Taller than Jane was comparison
(Al)though they refused contrast
Even though they were rich contrast
Despite (my) hating eggs contrast
So/ (that) it was a success result
So/ such...that we had another cup result
If Sam had read it condition
... ... ...

Ex: After she graduates, she will get a job.

Before leaving for work, I ate breakfast.


When it began to rain, he stood under the tree.

While sitting in class, Ann fell asleep.

By the time he comes, we will already have left.

I haven’t seen him since he left this morning.

Since coming to this country, Mary has made a lot of friends.


They went swimming because it was hot.

We stayed there until we finished our work.

As soon as/ Once it stops raining, we will leave.

I will never speak to him again as long as I live.

I say hello whenever I see her.


The first time he went to New York, he went to an opera.

The next time he goes to New York, he is going to see a ballet.


He came here in order to study English.

I turned off the TV so (that) / in order that my roommates could study in


peace and quiet.

Since he is not interested in classical music, he decided not to go to the


concert.

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Now that the semester is finished, I’m going to rest a few days and then
take a trip.

Hiking through the woods yesterday, we saw a bear.

Lacking the necessary qualifications, he was not considered for the job.

...

Embedded clauses:

1 Nominal That clauses


2 Nominal Zero that clauses
3 Nominal Yes/No Interrogative clauses
4 Nominal Wh-Interrogative clauses
5 Nominal Relative clauses
6 Nominal –ing clauses
7 Nominal to-inf. clauses
8 Nominal bare inf. clauses
9 Nominal Verbless clauses

Ex:
1. Nominal That clauses

I think that he is a good teacher.

We know that the world is round.

That the world is round is a fact.

I’m sorry that I was late.

It is obvious that she doesn’t understand spoken English.

The fact that Ann was late didn’t surprise me.

2. Nominal Zero that clauses


I think he is a good actor.

We know the world is round.


In speaking ‘that’ is frequently omitted.

149
3. Nominal Yes/No Interrogative clauses
(Nominal clauses begin with ‘whether’ or ‘if’)

I don’t know whether she will come.

I don’t know if she will come.

I wonder whether she needs help.

I wonder whether she will come or not.


I wonder whether or not she will come.

I wonder if she will come or not.

Whether she will come or not is unimportant to me.

4. Nominal Wh-Interrogative clauses

I don’t know where she lives.

Please tell me what happens.


Let’s ask him which one he wants.
I don’t remember how many letters there are in the English alphabet.
He needs to find out how old a person has to be to get a driver’s license.

Why he left the country is a secret.

When he comes back is none of your business.

I am not certain what to do.


She is not worried about where to live.

5. Nominal Relative clauses


(usually using ‘EVER-Wh words’)
Whoever wants to come is welcome.
He makes friends easily with whomever he meets.

He always says whatever comes into his mind.


We can watch whichever program you prefer.

You may leave whenever you wish.

150
She can go wherever she wants to go.

The students may dress however they please.

6. Nominal –ing clauses


Getting enough sleep has also been linked to longevity.
Sarah’s laughing at my accent is getting on my nerves.
Mr. Lee complained about our coming to class late.

Mr. Lee complained about us coming to class late.


It’s difficult making new friends.

The new order will mean working overtime.


It’s not worth waiting for him.

Those men are very interested in watching football matches.


I’m surprised at John’s making that mistake.

I’m angry at him for not having told me the truth.

7. Nominal to-inf. clauses

To see his children again will make him happy.

For her to clean the house every day is absolutely necessary.

She deserves to win the prize.


I expect to enter graduate school in the fall.
She finally consented to marry him.
She challenged me to race her to the corner.

It’s dangerous to ride with a drunk driver.


Sue is lucky to be alive after the accident.

The house needs to be painted.


John needs to be told the truth.

I got my friend to translate a letter for me.

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The child would be happier if he had someone to play with.

8. Nominal bare inf. clauses

My father let me drive his car.


My brother helped me wash my motorbike.
I made my younger brother carry my suitcase.
Jane had the waiter bring her some tea.

9. Nominal Verbless clauses

A friend in need is a friend indeed. (= To be a friend in need is to be a friend


indeed.)

2.2.2.3. Relative clauses

A relative clause adds extra information about a noun phrase in a complex


sentence. Structurally relative clauses are classified into two types: defining relative
clauses and non-defining relative clauses.

Ex:
He thanked the woman who helped him.

Ask Jack. He is the only one who knows the answer.


The book which is on the table is mine.

The movie we saw last night was not very good.

The music we listened to at the wedding party was beautiful.

I apologized to the woman whose coffee I spilled.


That is the restaurant where I will meet you.

7:05 is the time when my plane arrives.

Do you know the woman coming toward us?


I wished I had a box to keep my files in.

The police found out the suitcases stolen yesterday in that shop.

A plane carrying 28 passengers crashed into the sea yesterday.

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There are fireworks displays held on November 5th each year.

The coffee, which had been boiling for long time, lasted rancid.

The weather was very good, which we hadn’t expected.


Notes:
The relative clause goes immediately after the noun it relates to.
The relative pronouns are ‘who/ whom’, ‘whose’, ‘which’, ‘that’.

The relative adverbs are ‘when’, ‘where’, ‘why’.


The relative pronouns can be omitted unless it is the object of the relative clause.

2.3. BY FUNCTIONS

There are four broad categories of Dependent clauses: Adjectival clauses (Adj),
Nominal clauses (N), Adverbial clauses (Adv) and Comment clauses (Adv).

2.3.1. Adjectival clauses


(functioning as post-modifier (also called Cn: complement of noun) in noun
phrases, as sentence modifier or apposition)
Post-modifier (= Cn)

The tree whose branches are dead will be fallen tomorrow.


The man talking to John is from Korea.

Anyone wanting to come with us is welcome.

The last person to leave the room must turn off the lights.

Neil Amstrong was the first man to walk on the moon.


He was the second man killed by that criminal.

The fifth man interviewed in such a way was entirely unsuitable.

Sentence modifier
The elevator is out of order, which is too bad.

My roommate never picks up after herself, which irritates me.

He shut the car door on his necktie, which was stupid of him.

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Apposition

Shakespeare, who wrote ‘Romeo and Juliet’, died in 1616.

2.3.2. Nominal clauses


Nominal clauses can function as S, O, C, App.

2.3.2.1. Nominal That-clauses


(functioning as S, S after it, Od, Cs, Ca, App)
That she is still alive is a consolation. (S)

It’s splendid that you passed your exam. (S after it)

I am delighted that you passed your exam. (Ca)

Love means that you never have to say you’re sorry. (Cs)

The assumption is that things will improve.

I told him that he was wrong. (Od)


Your assumption, that things will improve. (App)
2.3.2.2. Nominal zero That-clauses
I think I am in love with you. (Od)

I kept the conversation short because I knew he was unhappy.

Love means you never have to say you’re sorry. (Cs)

2.3.2.3. Nominal Yes/ No Interrogative clauses


(functioning as S, S after ‘It’, Od, Cs, Ca, Cp, App. The dependent yes/
no interrogative clause is formed with ‘whether’ but not normally ‘if’)
Whether he signed the contract doesn’t matter. (S)

It was not known whether there was gold left in the mine. (S after it)

I don’t care if/ whether your car breaks down or not. (Od)
The question is whether he has signed the contract. (Cs)

I’ll be happy whether I get the job or not. (Ca)

It depends on whether the letter arrives in time. (Cp)

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We are concerned about whether or not he is telling the the truth. (Cp)

The debate about whether it is better to fix exchange rates or let currencies
float is one of the longest running in economics. (Cp)

Your proposal begs the question whether a change is needed at all. (App)

The question whether it was he or his enemy was hotly discussed.

2.3.2.4. Nominal Wh-Interrogative clauses


(functioning as S, Od, App, Cs, Ca, Cp)

The dependent Wh-interrogative clause occur in the whole range of function


available to “that-clause”, in addition can act as a prepositional complement:
How the book will sell depends on its author. (S)

I can’t imagine what made him do it. (Od)

My original question, why he did it all, has not been answered. (App)
The problem is not who will go, but who will stay. (Cs)

I wasn’t certain whose house I was in. (Ca)


I’m not certain what to do.

No one was consulted on who should have the prize. (Cp)


I am not certain of what she wants.

2.3.2.5. Nominal Relative clauses


(functioning as S, Od, Oi, Cs, Co, Cp)

The nominal relative clausesis much closer to NP status than other nominal
clauses. It can normally be paraphrased by a NP containing a post-modifying relative.

What he is looking for is a wife. (S)

Whoever caused the accident was careless.

I want to see whoever dealt with complaints. (Od)

He has determined where the new school will be built.


He gave whoever came to the door a winning smile. (Oi)
Give whoever answer the phone Dad’s message.

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Home is where your friends and your family are. (Cs)

Quality is what counts most.

You can call me what(ever) names you like. (Co)


We’ll eat at which(ever) restaurant has a free table. (Cp)
They’ll be very thankful for what(ever) you can give them.
Note:

What is the difference between Nominal Wh-interrogative clauses and Nominal


relative clauses?

A Nominal Wh-interrogative clauses expresses the doubt or the lack of


knowledge. The typical function of an interrogative clause is to make a question, and it
expresses the nature of missing piece of information. And, if we pay a little attention,
we can find that Wh-interrogative clauses often follow expressions:

Verbs: to ask (about), to care (about), to decide (on/about), to depend (on), to


inquire (about), to report (on/about), to think (of/about), to wonder (about), to research
(into),...

Adjectives: aware (of), certain (of/about), conscious (of), curious (about), sure
(of/about), worried about, confused about, interested in,...

Nouns: an inquiry, difficulty over, an effect on, an expert on, an influence on, a
report on/about, a research into: There was a discussion about when we should leave.

How, when, what, who, which, why,... in Wh-interrogative clausess are called
Interrogative pronouns.

In Nominal relative clauses, what(ever)= the thing that/which, who(ever)= anyone


who/that or the person who/that, which(ever)= anything which/that, how(ever) much=
the price which/that, wher(ever)= the place where, when(ever)= the time when,...

What(ever), who(ever), which(ever), how(ever) much, wher(ever), when(ever),...


are called relative pronouns.

2.3.2.6. Nominal –ing clauses (also called Gerund clauses)


(functioning as S, S after ‘It’, S in existential sentences, Od, Cs, Co, Ca,
Cp, App)

There are two kinds of nominal –ing clauses: gerund and present participle
clauses (not commonly used).

156
Telling lies is wrong. (S)

Swimming too soon after a heavy meal is dangerous.

It’s difficult making new friends. (S after It)


There is no denying that she is very intelligent. (S in existential sentence)
There is no stopping him.
No one enjoys deceiving his own family. (Od)

His favourite pastime is playing practical jokes. (Cs)


We left the children playing in the garden. (Co)

She’s not worth getting angry with. (Ca)


The book is worth reading.

I’m tired of being treated as a child. (Cp)


He coaxed her into letting him take her to the cinema.

His hobby, collecting stamps, absorbed him. (App)

Her intention, studying medicine in France, pleases her parents.

2.3.2.7. Nominal to-infinitive clauses


(functioning as S, S after ‘It’, Od, Cs, Co, Ca, post-modifier in NP (Cn),
App, adjunct)

For her to clean the house every day is absolutely necessary. (S)
It will make him happy to see his children again. (S after It)

It was a great pleasure to see you.


The court forbade the father to see his children. (Od)

The goal is to prepare children for school and help them do better in the
classroom. (Cs)
The axtra money helped John to be independent. (Co)

I am afraid to ask her how long she had been there. (Ca)

Road and the Falls Road in the past two years. (Cn)

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Our decision to oppose the scheme was the right one. (App)

His order, to capture the bridge, was carried out. (App).

A little group of people had gathered by Mrs. Millings to watch the police
activities on the foreshore. (Adjunct)

To succeed again they will have to improve their fitness and concentration.
(Adjunct)

Note:

The adjectives that may be followed by the to-inf. In anticipatory ‘It’


constructions are listed below:

 Adjectives followed by ‘for-phrase’ only:

(dis)advantageous, advisable, beneficial, delightful, difficult, hard, easy,


essential, fatal, good (= beneficial), hopeless, (un)important, (un)necessary,
(un)pleasant, (im)possible, preferable, (ir)relevant, useful, useless,
(un)satisfactory, worthwhile,...

 Adjectives followed by ‘for-phrase’ or ‘of-phrase’:

(dis)courteous, foolish, impertinent, (un)natural, noble, (im)polite,


(im)proper, rash, right, rude, strange, stupid, wicked, (un)wise, wrong,...

 Adjectives followed by ‘of-phrase’ only:

generous, good (= kind), intelligent, kind, nice (informal), (dis)loyal,


magnanimous, magnificent, (un)worthy,...

 A number of –ing adjectives expressing emotional states can also be


followed by to-infinitive in anticipatory ‘It’ constructions. ‘for-phrase’ or
‘to-phrase’ is possible in this case: alarming, amazing, amusing, annoying,
astonishing, astounding, disappointing, disgusting, distressing, disturbing,
embarrassing,...

It is alarming (for/to me) to see how thin he has become.

 V code Tt in (SVOd): to start, to want, to expect, to remember, to like, to


love, to hate, to fail, to need,...
 V code Dn-t in (SVOiOd): to forbade, to advise, to tell, to encourage,...
 V code Dpr-t in (SVOiOd): to gesture to NP, to shout to, to signal to, to
motion to,...

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 V code Cn-t in (SVOdCo): to press, to force, to help, to declare,...

2.3.2.8. Nominal Bare infinitive clauses


(functioning as S, Cs, Co)

These clauses seem more popular, especially they occur frequently with the
verbs: be, make, let, have, help:

Turn off the gas was all I did. (S)


All I did was (to) turn off the gas. (Cs)

We had Jane run through the procedure again. (Co)


He made them give him the money back.
Stephen helped us organize the party.
2.3.2.9. Nominal Verbless clauses

These clauses are mirror kinds of nominal clauses; in other words, they are
seldom used in writing:

A friend in need is a friend indeed.

Wall-to-wall carpets in every room is very expensive.

Wall-to-wall carpets in every room is the housewife’s dream.

Fast cars in cities is really nice.

2.3.3. Adverbial clauses


2.3.3.1. Adverbial clauses as Adjuncts: can be adverbial clauses of time,
place, condition, concession, reason and cause, circumstance, purpose, result,
manner, comparison, proportion and preference.
Buy your tickets as soon as you reach the station. (time)

Nearing the entrance, I shook hands with my acquaintances.


When in difficulty, consult the manual.

They went wherever they could find a good job. (place)


Where/ wherever known, such facts have been reported. (circums.)

Where/ wherever possible, all moving parts should be tested.

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Seeing that the weather has improved, we shall enjoy the game.

If you treat her kindly, (then) she’ll do everything for you. (condition)

Providing that/ provided that no objection is raised, we shall hold the


meeting here.

Although he hadn’t eaten for days, he looked very fit. (concession)

Being a man of ingenuity, he soon repaired the machine. (reason)


Soon to become a father, John went to Mexico.

I left early to catch the train. (purpose)

They left the door open in order for me to hear the baby.

John visited London so that he could see his relatives.

John visited London in order that he could see his relatives.

We planted many shrubs, so that the garden soon looked beautiful. (Rst.)
Please do it exactly as I instructed. (manner/ comparison)
John writes more clearly than his brother does.
Tom drives as carefully as his father does.

He looks as if he was going to be ill.

The more he though about it, the less he liked it. (proport. & pref.)

The harder he worked, the happier he felt.


Rather than go there by air, I’d take the slowest train.

Sooner than go there by air, I’d take the slowest train.


Rather than sitting quietly at home, he preferred to visit his friends.

Rather than buying a new cars, he bought a colour TV.

2.3.3.2. Adverbial clauses as Conjuncts: are not part of the basic structure
of a sentence. They show what is said in the sentence containing the conjunct
connects with what is said in another sentence or sentences.

160
They are getting married, and what’s more they are setting up in business
together.

What’s very strange, they list all their honest.

What’s more, most cities just drop it in straight off the beach: rate indeed
are the places like Cannes and Tel Aviv which pipe it even half a mile off
shore.

2.3.3.3. Adverbial clauses as Disjuncts: often express the speaker’s attitude


to the main clause, and they may occur initially, finally and medially and have a
separate tone unit:
At that time, I believe, labour was cheap.

I am a pacifist, as you know.

I’m not sure, to be honest.


I doubt, speaking as a layman, whether TV is the right medium.

2.3.3.4. Comment clauses


(also functioning as conjuncts and disjuncts)

Comment clauses give speakers an opportunity to express their attitude about


what they are saying or the way they are saying it (as do adverbial adjuncts). They are
particularly common in informal conversation, where they are often spoken in a
parenthetic tone of voice, with increase speed and decrease loudness:
Everything else, I imagine, will arrive on Monday.

That seems very sensible, I must say.

As you know, I’ve always wanted to visit Greece.

Jill’s husband is a lawyer, I believe.

Mind you, he was probably still as sound as a bell.

It’s a nice approach, I think.


It’s general I suppose I mean if it would be better to switch it on.

I’m not sure, to be honest.

I doubt, speaking as layman, whether TV is the right medium.

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Comment clauses express a wide range of meanings, such as the following:

Tentativeness: I think, I assume, I suppose, I’m told, they say, it’s rumoured, it
seems,...

Certainty: I know, I’m sure, it transpires, I must say, I’ve no doubt, it’s true,...

Specific emotional attitude: I’m glad to say, I’m afraid, I hope, Heaven knows,...

Asking for attention: You know, you see, mind you, you must admit, as you my
have heard,...
By structures, the comment clause can be a finite clause or a non-finite clause:

 Adverbial clauses as adjuncts:


- FINITE CLAUSES: as you know, as it happens, as I said,...
- TO-INFINITIVE CLAUSES: to be sure, to be honest, to be fair, to put it
bluntly,...
- -ING CLAUSES: generally speaking, roughly speaking, speaking as a
layman, put plainly,...
- -ED CLAUSES: stated in words of one syllable...
 Adverbial clauses as conjuncts:

what’s more, what annoys me, what’s very strange,...


to begin with, to conclude, to sum up,...

CONTENTS
Page

162
Part V: SENTENCES

1. DEFINITION ............................................................................................
2. CLASSIFICATION .....................................................................................
2.1. BY PURPOSE ......................................................................................
2.1.1. Declarative sentences (Statements) ...............................................
2.1.2. Interrogative sentences (Questions) ..............................................
2.1.3. Exclamatory sentences (Exclamation) ............................................
2.1.4. Imperative sentences ......................................................................
2.2. BY STRUCTURE ..................................................................................
2.2.1. Simple sentences .............................................................................
2.2.2. Compound sentences ......................................................................
2.2.3. Complex sentences .........................................................................
2.2.4. Compound – Complex sentences ....................................................
3. SENTENCE ELEMENTS .............................................................................
3.1. THE SUBJECT .....................................................................................
3.2. THE OBJECT .......................................................................................
3.2.1. Direct object (Od) ............................................................................
3.2.2. Indirect object (Oi) ..........................................................................
3.3. THE COMPLEMENT ............................................................................
3.3.1. A Subject complement (Cs) .............................................................
3.3.2. An Object complement (Co) ............................................................
3.4. THE ADVERBIAL .................................................................................

Circumstance Adverbials ......................................................................

Stance Adverbials ................................................................................

Linking Adverbials ................................................................................

Syntactic roles of Adverbials ..................................................................................

3.4.1. Adjuncts ...........................................................................................


3.4.2. Conjuncts .........................................................................................
3.4.3. Disjuncts ..........................................................................................
4. THE SEMANTIC ROLES OF SENTENCE ELEMENTS .......................................
4.1. SEMANTIC ROLES OF THE SUBJECT .....................................................
4.1.1. Agentive subject ..............................................................................
4.1.2. Instrumental subject .......................................................................
4.1.3. Affected subject ..............................................................................
4.1.4. Recipient subject .............................................................................
4.1.5. Locative subject ...............................................................................
4.1.6. Temporal subject .............................................................................
163
4.1.7. Eventive subject ..............................................................................
4.1.8. Existential subject............................................................................
4.1.9. Empty It subject ...............................................................................
4.2. SEMANTIC ROLES OF THE OBJECT .......................................................
4.2.1. The Semantic roles of the Direct object ..........................................
4.2.1.1. Affected direct object ...........................................................
4.2.1.2. Effected direct object ...........................................................
4.2.1.3. Locative direct object ...........................................................
4.2.1.4. Agentive direct object ..........................................................
4.2.1.5. Existential direct object ........................................................
4.2.2. The Semantic roles of the indirect object .......................................
4.2.2.1. Recipient indirect object .......................................................
4.2.2.2. Affected indirect object ........................................................
4.3. SEMANTIC ROLES OF THE COMPLEMENT ............................................
4.3.1. Semantic roles of the subjective complement ...............................
4.3.1.1. Current attributive of the Subjective complement ...............
4.3.1.2. Resulting attributive subjective complement.......................
4.3.2. Semantic roles of the Objective complement ................................
4.3.2.1. Current attributive Objective complement .........................
4.3.2.2. Resulting attributive Objective complement .......................
4.4. SEMANTIC ROLES OF THE ADVERB ......................................................
4.4.1. Locative adverb ...............................................................................
4.4.2. Temporal adverb .............................................................................
4.4.3. Manner adverb ................................................................................
4.4.4. Recipient adverb .............................................................................
4.4.5. Instrumental & Means adverb ........................................................
4.4.6. Agentive adverb ..............................................................................
4.4.7. Reasonable adverb ..........................................................................
4.4.8. Adverb of purpose ...........................................................................
4.4.9. Adverb of source .............................................................................
5. SENTENCE PATTERN ...............................................................................
5.1. BASIC SIMPLE SENTENCE PATTERNS ...................................................
5.2. VERB CODES AND VERB PATTERNS .....................................................

164
PART V: SENTENCES

1. DEFINITION

What is a sentence? To which there are many answers. Grammarians or linguists


have given out their own definitions of the sentence, there have been more than 200
definitions of sentence; therefore, it is rather difficult to find out the complete right
definition of the sentence, which satisfies all grammarians as well as all linguists. Here
are various definitions of sentence:

- A sentence is a complete thought.


- A sentence consists of a sunject and a predicate.
- A sentence normally contains one independent clause with finite verb.
- A sentence is a complete expression of single thought.

There are many sentences which seem to express a single thought, but which are
not complete:
Beautiful days! Nice one, Cyril! Taxi!

There are many sentences which are complete but express more than one
thought:

For his birthday, Freddy wants a bike, a robot, a car, and a visit to the
cinema.

Basing on so many different definitions of the sentence from the different


scholar’s point of view the sentence can be defined as follows:

A sentence is a grammatical unit. It is composed of one or more clauses and


expresses a single thought or more than one thought.

2. CLASSIFICATION

Sentences are generally classified in two ways: one by purpose and one by
structure.

2.1. BY PURPOSE
2.1.1. Declarative sentences (Statements)

Jean Yates (1996) defined a declarative sentence is a sentence that gives


information or ideas. It ends with a period.

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The child ate his dinner.

The child didn’t eat his dinner.

In a declarative sentence, the subject and predicate have normal word order.
2.1.2. Interrogative sentences (Questions)

In an interrogative sentence, the subjecct and auxiliary verbs are often reversed.
The sentence ends with a question mark (or interrogation point) in writing. In the
spoken language most Yes/No question end with a rise in pitch; most interrogative-word
questions end with a fall in pitch.
Did the child eat his dinner?
Have you spoken to the owners?

In spoken English, particularly in informal conversation, the structures are often


different. For instance, questions may be asked with the same word-order as
statements (but with a different intonation).

You’ve spoken to the owners?

The price includes postage?

And ‘ellipsis’ is common: the speaker may leave out an auxiliary verb (and
sometimes a pronoun as well) at the beginning of a question.
(Are) You coming tonight?

(Have you) Seen John anywhere?

2.1.3. Exclamatory sentences (Exclamation)

Jean Yates’ definition of the exclamation (1996:27) is that ‘an exclamatory


sentence expresses surprise or another emotion. It ends with an exclamatory point and
often begin with How or What’.

1. What/ such (+ a/ an) + (adjective) + noun:


What a rude man! What a fuss she made!

What an idiot! What lovely flowers!


What a shame! What fun!

What a surprise! Such tasty soup!

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2. How/ so + adjective/ adverb:

How wonderful! So quick! How strange!

How silly! So quickly!


How unfortunate! How quickly!
3. Several structures with How used to introduce exclamations are possible:
How + adjective Strawberries! How lovely!

How + adjective + subject + verb How cold it is!


How + adverb + subject + verb How beautifully you sing!

How + subject + verb How you’ve grown!


4. Exclamations can be in the form of negative interrogative structures:

Hasn’t she grown! (= She hasn’t grown a lot!)


Wasn’t it a great match!

5. Non-negative interrogative structures can also be used as exclamations.


This is common in American English:
Am I hungry?

Did he look annoyed?

6. If only can be used to begin exclamations:

If only I knew what you wanted!


If only she didn’t snore!

If only you would listen to reason!


If only next week would come!

2.1.4. Imperative sentences

In an imperative sentence, only the predicate is expressed. The simple form of


the verb is used, regardless of person or tense. In expressions like Have drink, Come
here, Sleep well, the verb forms (have, come, sleep) can be called ‘imperatives’. The
imperative has exactly the same form as the infinitive without to; it is used for giving

167
orders, making suggestions and encouraging people to do things. Note the following
points:

1. The imperative does not usually have a subject, but it can be used one (a
noun or pronoun) if it is necessary to make it clear who is being spoken to:
Mary come here; the rest of you stay – where you are.

Somebody answer the phone!

Nobody move.
Relax, everybody.

2. You before an imperative can suggest anger.

You get out!


You take your hands off me!

3. An imperative can be made more emphatic by putting do before it. This


often happens in polite requests, complaints and apologies.

Do sit down.
Do forgive me – I didn’t mean to interrupt.

Do try to make less noise, children.


4. Negative imperatives are constructed with do not (or don’t)

Don’t worry.

Do not lean out of the window.

5. Always and never come before imperatives.


Always remember to smile.

Never speak to me like that again.

6. Although do is not normally used with be to make questions and


negatives, do is used to make negative and emphatic imperatives of be:
Don’t be such a nuisance!
Don’t be so stupid!

168
Don’t be late

Do be quite, for the God sake.

7. Some languages have a first-person-plural imperative form (used to


suggest that the group one is with should do something). English does not
have this, but there is a structure with Let’s (or Let us) + infinitive which has a
similar meaning.
Let’s go home.

Let’s have a party.


Let’s not get angry.
Don’t let’s get angry.

8. Passive imperatives are often constructed with get:

Get vaccinated as soon as you can.


Get out!

Get lost! (Go away! – very informal)


Get your hair cut.

9. After imperatives, the question tags are ‘will you?’, ‘won’t you?’, ‘would
you?’, ‘can you?’, ‘can’t you?’ and ‘couldn’t you?’:
Give me a hand, will you?

Sit down, won’t you?


Get me some cigarettes, can you?

Be quiet, can’t you?

10. There is a special way of using the imperative (followed by and...) in which
it is similar to an If-clause.

Walk down our street any day and you’ll see kids playing football.

Do that again and you’ll be in trouble.


Take my advice and your troubles will be over.

169
2.2. BY STRUCTURE

By structure, sentences are divided into four different sentence types: simple
sentences, complex sentences, compound sentences and compound-complex sentences.
This classification is based on the number and kind of clauses within a sentence.
2.2.1. Simple sentences

A simple sentence is one independent clause. Like an adult person, it can ‘live’
alone:

One of our craft is missing.


I like milk.

Simple sentences can be grouped into two main types, on the basis of whether
they are formed in a regular or irregular way. Regular sentences are often referred to as
major, irregular sentences as minor.
Major sentences are in the vast majority:

I gave the keys to Luke.

My wife has dropped a book on her foot.

NP VP

PP

NP NP

N V Det N P N

I gave the key to Luke

170
S

NP VP

PP

NP NP

Det N Aux V Det N P Det N

My wife has dropped a book on her foot

Minor sentences use abnormal patterns which cannot be clearly analysed into a
sequence of clause elements, as major setence can. There are only a few minor
sentence types, but instances of each type are frequently used in everyday conversation
and when convesations are represented in fiction. Here are some minor sentence types:

 Formulate for stereotyped social situations:

Hello How do you do? Thanks Cheers!

 Emotional noises (know as interjections)

Eh? Hey! Tut-tut! Ugh! Ow! Shhh!

 Proverbs or pithy sayings (aphorisms)

Easy come, easy go. Like father, like son.

 Abbreviated forms, such as are used in postcards, instructions, or


commentaries:

Wish you were here. Mix well. One lap more.

 Words or phrases used as exclamations, questions, or commands:


Nice day! Oh for a gin! Taxi! All aboad!
2.2.2. Compound sentences

A compound sentence contains two or more independent clauses joined


together. Each clause is of equal importance and could stand alone. There are three
types to join independent clauses to form a compound sentence:

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1. With a SEMICOLON alone:

He came, he saw, he conquered.

Part of the search party went to the right, the rest went to the left.
2. With a COORDINATOR (and, so, but, yet, for, or, nor):
He is a small boy but he is very strong.

The girl did all the shopping and cooking, for her mother was in
hospital.

3. With a CONJUNCTIVE ADVERB (i.e. half conjunctions: therefore, then,


hence, accordingly, consequently, besides, moreover, likewise, however,
nevertheless, still):

The bank refused to help the company; consequently, it went


bankrupt.

It’s too late to go for a walk now; besides, it’s rainy.

CP
C S

CP CP CP
C S C S C S

NP VP NP VP NP VP
E E He came E he saw E he conquered

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CP

C S

CP CP
C S S
NP VP NP VP
NP AP

N V Det A N C N V Deg A
E E He is a small boy but he is very strong

CP

C S
CP CP

C S S

NP VP NP VP

NP PP

N NP

Det N V Det Det N C N C Det N V P N


E E The girl did all the shopping and cooking for her mother was in hospital
2.2.3. Complex sentences

A complex sentence contains one independent clause and one or more


dependent clauses. It is like a mother with one or more children depending on her. In a
complex sentence one idea is generally more important than the other one. The more
important idea is placed in the independent clause, and the less important idea is placed
in the dependent clause.
When it rained, we went inside. (subordinate clause)
I like John because he likes me. (subordinate clause)

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Men who are not married are called bachelors. (relative clause)

That they are very rich means nothing to me. (embedded clause)

CP
C S
NP VP

CP
S

NP VP
N V Adv C N V

E We went inside when it rained

CP

C S

NP VP

NP CP

S
NP VP
NP
N V N C N V N

E I like John because he likes me

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S

NP VP

CP NP
N C S Aux V N
Men who are not married are called bachelors

S
CP VP

NP PP
NP

C S V N P N
That they are very rich means nothing to me

2.2.4. Compound – Complex sentences

A compound-complex sentence contains two or more independent clauses and


one or more dependent clauses. it is like a family of two or more adults with one or
more children:

- After graduating from high school, I wanted to travel, but I had to work in
my family’s business.
- The word root multi, which means many, comes from Latin, and the word
root poly, which also means many, comes from Greek.
- Although women could own property, they could not vote, nor could they
be elected to public offices.
- The idea that he was going away, that he would never see him again,
made us very sad and we forgot all his punishment and blows with the
ruler.
3. SENTENCE ELEMENTS

Every language has sentences that include elements to form the construction of
sentence. It means that it is necessary to refer to smaller units than the sentence itself,
so we must distinguish what smaller units are. All sentences are made up out of
elements, each expressing a particular kind of meaning. There are just five types of

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sentence elements : S (Subject), O (Object), C (Complement), A (Adverbial), V/VP (Verb
phrase).

Traditionally, there is a primary distinction between subject and predicate. The


sentence consists of two main parts: the subject and the predicate. For example:
John/ carefully searched the room.

3.1. THE SUBJECT

The subject can be a noun phrase (including single noun and pronoun) or a
clause:
I like snails. That intrigues me.
That plants need water in order to grow is true.

What he said was interesting.

For a bridge to collapse like that is unbelievable.


Going to school every day is important.

 Usually with introductory It:

It’s necessary that everyone should know the truth.


It is my belief that the war between those countries will end soon.

3.2. THE OBJECT

Object elements usually follow the subject and verb in a clause (Rediscover E.
Gram). Objects identify who or what has been directly affected by the action of the verb
either directly or indirectly. Two types of object can be distinguished: direct and indirect
object. The object can be a noun phrase (including single noun and pronoun) or a
clause.
3.2.1. Direct object (Od)

The direct object typically refers to some person or thing directly affected by the
action expressed by the verb:

The little boy smashed a window.

You find the wall heightens suddenly.

No one enjoys deceiving his own family.

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I want to see whoever to be happy.

Note:

Cognate object (direct object):


He is smiling a handsome smile.
As with subjects a set of connected noun phrases is analysed as a single element:
He saw a cat, a dog and a cow. (a set of connected noun phrase)

3.2.2. Indirect object (Oi)

The indirect object typically refers to an animate being that is the recipient of the
action. In these cases, a direct object is usually present in the clause as well:

She gave the dog a stroke.

Police warned drivers that it was very icy.

He gave whoever comes a winning smile.


Note:

An indirect object can be changed into a corresponding prepositional phrase. In


such cases, Oi is usually placed after Od:

I gave Sam a pen. (= I gave a pen to Sam.)


The object can be usually changed into the subject of a passive sentence:

Some friends of ours found my cat in the woods. (= My cat was found in
the woods.)

3.3. THE COMPLEMENT

Complements give further information about another clause element. The


complement can be adjective phrases including single adjectives; noun phrases
including single nouns, pronouns; numeral phrases or a clause.

There are two kinds of complement: subject complements and objective


complements.

3.3.1. A subject Complement (Cs) usually follows the subject and verb.

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The verb is most often a form of be (is, was,...) but it may also be one of several
other verbs that are able to link the complement meaning with the subject meaning.
These are called copular (or linking verbs):

The bull became angry. (AP)


Arthur is very happy. (AP)

She’ll be glad that you are coming. (AP)

Where’s that? (NP – pronoun)


He is a doctor. (NP)

It’s twelve o’clock. (Numeral phrases)

That’s what I replied. (Clause)


The truth is that I like him. (Clause)

His ambition is to be a football star. (Clause)

Some copular verbs with complements: appear (happy), feel (annoyed), grow
(tired), remain (silent), seem (a fool), turn (cold), sound (ill, just the man...),...
Jeffrey sounds just the man we’re looking for.

That turns sound marvelous. (It is marvelous)


Note:

The meanings of the four following constructions are different:

Bob is splendid to wait. (Ca) (= Bob waits splendidly.)

He is hard to convince. (= To convince him is hard./ It’s hard to convince


him.)

He is furious to hear about that. (= To hear about that makes him furious./
It makes him furious to hear about that.)

You were sensible to stay indoors. (= It was sensible of you to stay


indoors.)

In very formal contexts, the subjective form is preferred especially in American


English: That is he, I am she; and in informal contexts prefer the objective form: That’s
him, I’m her.

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3.3.2. An Object complement (Co)

The objective complement follows the direct object, and its meaning relates to
that element. The basic identity between them is shown in parenthesis:

She made me angry.

I imagined him much taller than that.

They elected him President.


The thief forced Jane to hand over the money.

This remark set everyone thinking.

We had Jane run through the procedure again.

3.4. THE ADVERBIAL

Adverbials usually add information about the situation, such as the time of an
action, or its frequency. An adverbial functions like an adverb which describes or adds to
the meaning of a verb, an adjective, another adverb, or a sentence, and which answers
such question as How? Where? Or When?

The adverbial in a sentence can be an adverb phrase, a noun phrase, a


prepositional phrase, or a clause.

We can see that in English, many adverbs have an –ly ending, for example:
careful-ly, slow-ly, local-ly,... The adverbial is an extremely complex area of English
grammar.

Adverbials have the following formal characteristics:

 They can generally be added more or less independent of the type of verb.
 Most adverbials are optional in the clause structure, but a small number of
verbs require an adverbial to complete their meaning (see the clause types
SVA and SVOA). These verbs include the following:

By prepositional phrases:

We strolled in the garden I put the book on the table. (PP)


We live in the city.

The path goes round the field.

I arrived on the bus/ on Thursday/ in the rain.

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They are characteristically realized by noun phrases including single nouns:

That girls phoned me today/ this morning. (NP)

By adverb phrases including single adverbs:


They ran quickly. They ran very quickly. (AdvP)
Or by adverbial clause:
Well, then, I have come here to heal myself, if you like to put it that way.

Soon to become a father, John went to Mexico.


I doubt, speaking as a layman, whether television is right medium.

...To conclude, the industry has spent huge sums of money modernizing its
equipment.

 They are more mobile than the other clause elements, often occupying a
variety of positions in the clause.
 Their positions are determined to a larger extent by textual and pragmatic
factors than the positions of other clause elements, which are more
determined by syntax. Adverbials can be used in several possible positions
within the clause (though most commonly at the end).

(Twice) he (twice) asked me (twice).

 Adverbials express a wide range of meanings, such as time, manner,


place,...

Jim stayed/ quietly/ in bed/ all day.

 Adverbials perform several roles in sentence construction. Some add


information about what is being expressed.
Frankly, I think he’s wrong.

 Unlike the other clause elements, more than one adverbial may co-occur
in the same clause.
 Adverbials are more heterogeneous than the other clause elements. They
are realized by a wide range of forms and express a wide range of
meanings:
 Space adverbials, including the notions of position, direction (to and
from), and distance. They usually answer the question ‘Where?’.

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 Time adverbials, including the notions of position, duration, frequency,
and the relationship between one time and another. They usually
answer the question ‘When?’.
 Process adverbials, expressing the notions of manner, means,
instrument, and agent. They usually answer the question ‘How?’.
 Respect adverbials, expressing the notion of being concerned with the
adverbials answer the question ‘with respect to what?’.
 Contingency adverbials including such notions a cause, reason,
purpose, result, condition, and concession. Many of these adverbials
relate to the question ‘Why?’ or ‘With what result?’.

Modality adverbials, including such notions as emphasis,


approximation and restriction.

 Degree adverbials, including such notions as implication, diminution.

There are three major types of adverbials: CIRCUMSTANCE ADVERBIALS, STANCE


ADVERBIALS and LINKING ADVERBIALS.

Circumstance Adverbials add information about the action or state that is


described in the clause, giving details about factors such as time, manner and place.

They’re going to be there Mom.

Stance Adverbials convey the speaker/ writer’s assessment of the proposition in


the clause. They include comments about:

His book undoubtedly fills a need.

 The speaker/ writer’s attitude towards the proposition, e.g.


unfortunately, surprisingly,...

Then, amazingly, he would turn over the microphone to his


daughter Maureen and give her equal time on behalf of the
amendment.

 The style in which the proposition is being conveyed, e.g. honestly,


frankly,...

And he sounded a bit low, quite frankly, to me yesterday on the


phone.

Linking Adverbials serve to connect stretches of a text – phrases, sentences,


paragraphs or longer.

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The weight of bureaucracy still hang a trifle heavy. Nevertheless, the
review represents substantial progress.

Syntactic roles of Adverbials:

Adverbials may be classified as ADJUNCTS, CONJUNCTS, or DISJUCTS.

3.4.1. Adjuncts

Adjuncts are adverbials which are part of the basic structure of the clause or
sentence in which it occurs, and modifies the verb. There are adjuncts of time, place,
concession, reason, purpose, process,...
Place: distance, direction or position:
I had to go a long way to put the camp behind me.

Time: time related meanings, duration, freuency, or temporal relationship,...

I know but you don’t have to do it every single day, do you?


Process: manner, comparison, means, accompaniment,...

She replied to questions with great courtesy.

Extent/ degree: amounts in exact terms or more general, amplifiers or


intensifiers or diminishers:

She’ getting on a bit now. (intensifiers)


In places the grass was gone altogether. (amplifier)

You know, I think you van fix it by pulling the prongs out a little bit.
(diminishers)

Addition/ restriction: additive adverbials, restrictive adverbials:

Someday you’ll be old, too, Carol. (additive)

A heart born especially for me, Jackie used to tease. (restrictive)

Recipient: typically expressed by for-phrases/ to-phrases:

Did you hear what happened to me?


Okay and then I’ll just write the check for you.
3.4.2. Conjuncts

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Conjuncts are not part of the basic structure of a clause or sentence. They show
how what is said in another sentence or sentences.

The following are subclasses of conjuncts:

Enumerative: first, second, third, firstly, secondly, thirdly, one, two, three, a, b, c,
for one thing, for another, for a start, to begin with, to start with, in the first place, in the
second place, next, then, finally, last, lastly,...
Summative: then, all in all, in all, in conclusion, to conclude, to sum up,...

Reinforcing: also, furthermore, moreover, in addition, above all, what is more,...


Equative: equally, likewise, similarly, in the same way,...
Transitional: by the way

Apposition: namely, in other words, for example, for instance, that is, that is to
say,...

Result: consequently, hence (formal), so (informal), therefore, thus (formal), as a


result,...

Inferential: else, otherwise, in other words, in that case,...

Reformulatory: better, rather,...

Replacative: alternatively, rather, on the other hand,...

Concessive: anyhow, anyway, besides, else, however, nevertheless, still, though,


yet, in any case, at any rate, in spite of that, after all, all the same,...

Temporal transition: meantime, meanwhile, in the meantime,...

3.4.3. Disjuncts
Disjuncts are adverbials which show the speakers’ attitude to or the speakers’
evaluation of what is said in the rest of the sentence.

The following are subclasses of disjuncts:

Style disjuncts: frankly, seriously, personally, strictly, bluntly, briefly, candidly,


confidently, generally, honestly,...
Attitudinal disjuncts:

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Group A: speakers’ comment on the extent to which he believes that what he is
saying is true: subjective view on the truth: admittedly, certainly, definitely, indeed,
surely, undoubtedly, unquestionably, undeniably,...; some degree of doubt: quite, likely,
maybe, perhaps, possibly, reportedly, supposedly,...; objective evidence: clearly,
evidently, obviously, planly, apparently,...; reality or lack of reality: actually, really,
apparently, ideally, nominally, superficially, technically, theoretically, officially, basically,
essentially, fundamentally,...

Group B: comment other than on the truth-value: annoying, curiously,


fortunately, funnily, happily, hopefully, luckily, naturally, strangely, surprisingly,
understandably, wrongly, foolishly, wisely,...
Many comment clauses directly express the speaker’s or writer’s attitude to the
message and can therefore be grouped among stance adverbials.

Note:

 Ambiguity with other adverbial classes:

Really you’ve noticed the difference.


Really, we have more than enough of everything.

I was a dirty little bitch, really.


I had no choice really.

 Compare:
(a) You know, there’s no money to be made out of recycling.

The function of ‘You know’ to underline the truth of the statement: ‘There’s no
money...’ (comment clause)

(b) You know that there’s no money to be made out of recycling.

This example is ambiguous; it either means ‘You are aware that...’ or it is identical
in meaning to the (a). The first interpretation corresponds to a structure with an
embedded nominal clause (that-clause).

4. THE SEMANTIC ROLES OF SENTENCE ELEMENTS


(in the simple sentence)
4.1. SEMANTIC ROLES OF THE SUBJECT

The subject can have semantic roles: AGENTIVE, INSTRUMENTAL, RECIPIENT,


LOCATIVE, EXISTENTIAL, EMPTY IT, EVENTIVE and TEMPORAL.

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4.1.1. Agentive subject

John opened his eyes.

It is clear that John is the person doing the action of opening, so John is called
AGENTIVE which is the animate being instigating of causing the happening denoted by
the verb.

John rolled the ball.

John did something to the ball (caused the ball to roll).


Following are some sentences with AGENTIVE subjects:

A burglar ransacked my house.

Floyd smashed the glass with the hammer.

From the above examples, we can come to a conclusion that the agent of a
sentence must be an animate being deliberately carrying out the action described.
4.1.2. Instrumental subject

The subject has an INSTRUMENTAL ROLE, that is it expresses the unwitting


(generally inanimate material cause of an event), for example:
The avalanche destroyed several houses.

The cold killed the trees.


The hammer hit the nail.

4.1.3. Affected subject

With intransitive verbs, subject also frequently has the AFFECTED ROLE. We will
consider the affected role of subject in two following sentences:

Jack fell down.

The pencil was lying on the table.

The road became narrower.

4.1.4. Recipient subject

The RECIPIENT ROLE is with the verbs such as have, own, possess, benefit
(from),...

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Mr. Smith has bought his son a radio. (So ‘the son’ has/ owns the radio.)

The perceptual verbs see and hear also require a recipient subject:

We can see many beautiful buildings in big cities.


But look at and listen to require an agentive subject:
The students are listening to their teacher.

The other perceptual verbs: taste, smell, feel have both an AGENTIVE meaning
and a RECIPIENT meaning:

Foolishly, he tasted the soup. (agentive subject)

Foolishly, he tasted the pepper in the soup. (recipient subject)

4.1.5. Locative subject

LOCATIVE FUNCTION of subject designates the place of state or action:

London is foggy.
My tent sleeps four people.
4.1.6. Temporal subject
The subject has the TEMPORAL FUNCTION of designating the time:

Yesterday was a holiday.

Tomorrow is Sunday.

4.1.7. Eventive subject


The concert is on Thursday.

His marriage is tomorrow.


4.1.8. Existential subject

The real subject stands after the verb BE and has an EXISTENTIAL ROLE expressing
the existence or location of person, animals, things or ideas:

There are four bedrooms in this house.


There are two blankets for each bed.

4.1.9. Empty It subject

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A subject may lack semantic content altogether, and consists only of the
meaningless ‘prop’ word It:

It is raining/ snowing/ drizzling...

It’s getting dark./ It’s cold in here.

4.2. SEMANTIC ROLES OF THE OBJECT


4.2.1. The Semantic roles of the Direct object

The direct object consists of five semantic roles: AFFECTED, EFFECTED, LOCATIVE,
EXISTENTIAL and AGENTIVE:
4.2.1.1. Affected direct object

The most typical function of the direct object is that of affected participant. The
participant (animate ot inanimate) which does not cause the happening denoted by the
verb, but is directly involved in some other way, so we call it an affected object; for
instance:
I’ve broken a plate.

We laid him on the sofa.

Somebody took my coat by mistake.

Verbs: have, take require agentive subjects and affected direct object.
4.2.1.2. Effected direct object

An EFFECTED OBJECT is one that refers to something which exists or is produced


through the action indicated by the verb:

Baird invented television.

John has painted a new picture.


I’m writing a letter.

The direct object is also called a COGNATE EFFECTED OBJECT when it repeats
pertially or wholly the meaning of the verb, for instance:

He sang a song.
Tom smiles a handsome smile.

Mary lives an easy life.

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4.2.1.3. Locative direct object

The role location is played by any expression referring to the place where the
action described by a sentence takes place. For example:

We walked the streets. (We walked along/ through the streets.)

He swam the river. (He swam across the river.)

He passed the notice. (He passed by the notice.)


The horse jumped the fence. (The horse jumped over the fence.)

Following are some verbs having similar uses to verbs above:

flee (from) the country turn (round) the corner

climb (up) a mountain pierce (through) the defenses

4.2.1.4. Agentive direct object

The AGENTIVE DIRECT OBJECT itself performs the action of verb instead of the
subject, for example:

Fred galloped the horse.


It is obvious that Fred initiates the action, but it is the horse which actually
gallops; therefore, the direct object ‘the horse’ is called an agentive object.
4.2.1.5. Existential direct object

With the existential sentence:

There are four bedrooms in this house.

The subject has a semantic role as existential, but in the sentence:


This house has four bedrooms.

‘four bedrooms’ becomes a direct object which has existential role.

4.2.2. The Semantic roles of the indirect object


According to our investigation, the indirect object can be recipient or affected.

4.2.2.1. Recipient indirect object

I’ve found you a place.

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Ruth knitted Bryan a sweater.

The father bought his son a radio.

4.2.2.2. 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, own) has an ‘effected’
object as direct object and an ‘affected’ object as indirect object:

I gave the door three kicks. (I kicked the door three times.)
I paid her a visit. (I visited her.)

I own you a treat. (I ought to treat you.)

These sentences, as the paraphrase make clear, are equivalent to sentences with
a direct object as ‘affected’ object.

4.3. SEMANTIC ROLES OF THE COMPLEMENT

As we know, the complement includes the subject complement and the objective
complement. Their function is the attributive of subject or object.

4.3.1. Semantic roles of the Subjective complement

The Subjective complement has two semantic roles: a CURRENT ATTRIBUTIVE (if
the verbs are stative ones) and a RESULTING ATTRIBUTIVE (if the verbs are dynamic
ones).

4.3.1.1. Current current attributive of the Subjective complement

Following are examples of current attributive:

He is my brother. He seems unhappy. We lay quite.


4.3.1.2. Resulting attributive subjective complement

He felt ill. The clothes washed clean.

4.3.2. Semantic roles of the Objective complement

Similar to the semantic roles of the Subjective complement, the role of the
Objective complement is that of attributive of the object.

4.3.2.1. Current attributive Objective complement

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The Object complement can be current attributive:

I ate the meat cold. I prefer coffee black.

I imagined him dead.


4.3.2.2. Resulting attributive Objective complement
Also the objective complement can be resulting attributive:
They elected him President. They left the house empty.

He knocked me senseless. He drove me mad.


4.4. SEMANTIC ROLES OF THE ADVERB

Adcerbs can be divided into at least ten semantic roles such as: LOCATIVE,
TEMPORAL, MANNER, RECIPIENT, INSTRUMENTALS, AGENTIVE, REASONABLE, and
ADVERB OF SOURCE and OF PURPOSE.

4.4.1. Locative adverb

Adverbs which express locative meaning are locative ones. These are examples of
the use of locative adverbs:
He is still at school.

The birthday party is in the next room.


I’ll put the kettle on the stove.

4.4.2. Temporal adverb

Adverbs that express the time are temporal ones. Following are examples of the
use of the temporal adverb:

We camped there for the summer.


I’ll phone you between lunch and three o’clock.

Up to last week, I hadn’t received a reply.


4.4.3. Manner adverb
She spoke to him coldly.
He prayed fervently.

190
He repaired the house like an expert.

4.4.4. Recipient adverb

When for is followed by noun phrases denoting persons or animals, the meaning
of that prepositional phrase functioning as an adverb is rather one of ‘intended
recipient’; for example:

He laid a trap for his enemies.

He made a beautiful doll for his daughter.


He made his daughter a beautiful doll.

4.4.5. Instrumental & Means adverb

I usually go to work by bus/ train/ car/ boat.


The thief must have left the house by the back door.

Phrases of means answer the question ‘How...?’

Adverbs with ‘with’, on the other hand, express instrumental meaning:

He caught the ball with his left hand.


Someone had broken the window with a stone.

For adverbs with ‘without’, there is equivalent negative meaning:


I drew it without a ruler.

Instrumental adverbs, like those of means, answer the question ‘How...?’


How did you do it? ~ With an axe.

Adverbs with ‘by’ may also express the instrument:


The ball was caught by his left hand.
The window has been broken by a stone.

4.4.6. Agentive adverb

We were observed by a passing stranger. ( A passing stranger observed


us.)

191
The crops have been ruined by frost. (Frost has ruined the crops.)

The agentive by-phrase also occurs as a post-modifier to signify authorship:

a picture by Degas a novel by Tolstoy,...


4.4.7. Reasonable adverb

Reasonable adverbs are adverbs expressing either the material cause or the
psychological cause (motive) for a happening:
Because of the drought, the price of bread was high that year.

The survivors were weak from exposure and lack of food.

He said it for fun.

Reasonable adverbs answer the question ‘Why...?’. However, let us consider the
following sentence:

He died of hunger.

4.4.8. Adverb of purpose

Purpose adverbs are adverbs expressing a notion of ‘purpose’:


He’ll do anything for money.

Everyone ran for safety.


He died for his country.

4.4.9. Adverb of source


Bell lent the book to me.

I borrowed the book from Bell.


5. SENTENCE PATTERNS

In fact, most sentences can be analyzed into one of only seven basic sentence
patterns. Each pattern consists of one, two, three, four or five elements. It is noted that
S stands for subject, V for verb, O for object, Oi for indirect object, Od for direct object,
C for complement, A for adverbial, N for noun.

According to Quirk et al sentences (simple sentences) are treated as clauses


(independent clauses) being divided into seven basic types.

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5.1. BASIC SIMPLE SENTENCE PATTERNS

1. SVA: S V intensive intransitive A place

Mary is in the house.


The children are here

2. SVC: S V intensive intransitive C

Helen is kind/ a nurse.


3. SV: S V intransitive

The child laughed.

4. SVO: S V monotransitive O
Somebody caught the ball.

5. SVOO: S V ditransitive O O

Sue gave my sons some stamps.

6. SVOC: S V complex transitive O C


We have proved him wrong/ a fool.

7. SVOA: S V complex transitive O A place


The milkman laid the jug of milk at the door.

The patterns SV, SVA, SVOO can be expanded by the addition of various optional
adverbs:

SV: (A) S V (A)


Sometimes he sings beautifully.

S V (A) (A)

The moon rose aerly last night.


SVA: S V A (A)

The ladder leans against the wall there.

(A) S V (A) A

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In American most students are now on vacation.

SVOO: S (A) V O O

She kindly sent us some photographs.

There is a special form of sentences: THERE + BE + NOUN PHRASE used to express


the existence of things or facts:

There is a funny smell here. (simple sentence)


There has never been anybody like you. (simple sentence)

The transformation of THERE + BE + NOUN PHRASE may occur with all the
sentence patterns (i.e. simple sentences or complex sentences).

SVA: Was anyone around?


→ Was there anyone around?

SVC: Something must be wrong.

→ There must be something wrong.

SV: No one was standing.


→ There was no one standing.

SVO: Plenty of people are getting promotion.


→ There are plenty of people getting promotion.

SVOO: Something is causing him distress.


→ There is something causing him distress.

SVOC: Two bulldozershave been knocking the place flat.


→ There have been two bulldozers knocking the place flat.
SVOA: A girl is putting a kettle on.
→ There is a girl putting the kettle on.

5.2. VERB CODES AND VERB PATTERNS

Foreign learners of English often have great difficulty in deciding which sentence
patterns a verb can be used in. They may know that

194
‘I like to help him’ and ‘I like helping him’

are both correct but be unaware that with the verb ‘dislike’ only the second verb
pattern is possible:

‘I dislike helping him’ not ‘I dislike to help him.’

Verb codes: like [Tn, Tt, Tg, Tsg]

dislike [Tn, Tg, Tsg]


The verb ‘dislike’ doesn’t have verb code *Tt+: transitive verb + direct object: to-
infinitive.

A verb can have more than one meaning with different verb patterns, for
example: appear [La, Ln, it] gives the impression of being or doing something/ seem:

That street appeared deserted.

Don’t make him appear a fool.


She appears to have many friends.

Or various meaning with the same verb patterns:


appear [i]: several meanings with the same pattern.

 Come into view


A ship appeared (on the horizon).

 Present oneself publicly or formally


The tenorsoloist is unable to appear (tonight).

 (of a book or an article) be published or printed

His new book will be appearing in the spring.

There are several basic sentence patterns but there are thirty two verb patterns
with matching codes. The codes are designed to suggest to the learners the parts of
speech, for example Tn-Pr: ‘COMPLEX TRANSITIVE VERB + NOUN PHRASE +
PREPOSITIONAL PHRASE’ indicates the structural elements (i.e. V, O, C, A) which the
patterns contain. Therefore, the structural level (i.e. verb codes and verb patterns) is
very important for teachers and more advanced learners because it enables to
distinguish between sentences which are superficially the same. For example:

195
She/ liked/ him to play the piano. (Tnt – SVO)

She/ inspired/ him/ to play the piano. (Cn-t – SVOC)

She/ told/ him/ to play the piano. (Dn-t – SVOi Od)

We learn how to use a language not by the abstractions of grammar but mainly
by practice in the patterns which are the living substances of the language. The most
important of these are the verb patterns. They are important because they determine
which words or phrases are used after the verbs. If the learners spend a few hours
studying these verb patterns, they will be able to avoid many common mistakes.

The following are VERB PATTERNS.


1. [l]

Subject Intransitive verb Adjunct


Adv of time, manner,...

The moon rose early.


The clothes-line sagged.
Veronica is reading.
The door opened.
John and Jane are arguing again.
Oil and water don’t mix.
She lives happily/ honestly/ well.

In this pattern, the verb is not followed by an object, adjunct: optional adverbs of
time, manner, result.

Some verbs can be used in this pattern and the [Tn] pattern without a change of
subject or verb meaning.

Veronica is reading. [l] Veronica is reading a fairy story. [Tn]

Some verbs can be used in this pattern (with and linking two nouns as the
subject) and in a corresponding pattern [lpr] (with with following the verb).

Oil and water don’t mix. [l] Oil doesn’t mix with water. [lpr]

Here is a list of verbs which are normally used in this verb pattern: ache, arrive,
cease, collapse, cough, arise, cry, decay, depart, die, disappear, drop, crackle, exist, fall,
occur, rise, work, sleep, speak, vanish, wave,...

2. [lp]

196
Subject Intransitive verb Adjunct
Adverbial particle

A tiger has got out.


A visitor came in.
The noise faded away.
The house has warmed up.
The train whistled past.
We ‘ll have to loss up.
The ship Ran around.

After some verbs, the particle cannot be removed without changing the meaning
of the verb or producing nonsense:
* The tiger has got. (incorrect)

After other verbs, the particle can be deleted freely:


The noise faded. [l]

Idiomatic combinations such as dry up (= become unable to speak), blaze away (=


fire continuosly), which also fit in this pattern.

A list of intransitive verbs with particles used in this pattern: back away, balance
out, bear up, boil over, camp out, change down, cloud over, club together, come apart,
come around, die out, fall back, fall behind, forge ahead, gat about, grow up, hold on,
make off, mell away, seize up, simmer down,...
3. [lpr]

Subject Intransitive verb Adjunct


Prepositional phrase

Helen is coming to dinner.


The minister referred to the importance of exports.
The mother can’t cope with the extra visitors.
People are complaining about the traffic.
You can’t rely on Martin.
Oil doesn’t mix with water.

refer to sb/ sth [lpr]


cope (with sb/ sth) [l, lpr]: Mother can’t cope.

rely on/ upon sb/ sth (to do sth): You can’t rely on Martin to help.

197
Some verbs used in this pattern can be made passive: The importance of exports
was referred to (by the minister).

After some verbs, the prepositional phrase cannot be removed: tend, call, care,
insist, contend, crowd, contribute, snoop,...

After some other verbs the PP can be removed freely: grow, land, flow, go, grub,
guess, guest, break, mourn, aim, sigh, move, settle, signal, interfere, interlink, interlock,
intermarry, interlace,...
4. [ln/ pr]

Subject Intransitive verb Adjunct


Noun phrase/ Prepositional phrase

The book cost (me) ten dollars.


The room measures 10 metres across.
The meeting lasted (for) three hours.
The sea front extends (for) three miles.
Her son slept (for) 8 hours.

A list of some verbs: cost, last, extend, measure, sleep, walk, stay, jump, travel,
rise, throw, thunder, tramp, sell, take, run, contain,...
5. [lt]

Subject Intransitive verb Adjunct


Noun phrase/ Prepositional phrase

Jane hesitated to phone the office.


We all longed to get away fora family holiday.
I wouldn’t care to have a fight with him.
They wouldn’t condescend to speak to ordinary mortals.
He grew increasingly to rely on her.
We must aim to increase exports.

Verbs used in this pattern: scheme, tand, wonder, yearn, ache, study, seem, grow,
turn, seek, make, get, appear, remain, operate, come, proceed, conspire, rush, start,
stay, go, labour, contract, dare, agree, long, live, care, condescend, hesitate, wait,
wake,...

6. [La]

Subject Intransitive verb Adjunct


To-infinitive clause

198
The lesson was interesting.
The damage appears (to be) serious.
The soup tasted delicious.
The beach looked deserted.
The game became more interesting.
The actors got ready.
The milk went sour.
The cinemas remained open all week.
To go further was impossible.
To give time to the project became more difficult.

The verbs: appear, seem, prove may be followed by be.


To go further was impossible. = It was impossible to go further.

To give time to the project became more difficult. = It became more


difficult to give time to the project.

That he will agree is certain. = It is certain that he will agree.

That immediate action should be taken is essential. = It is essential that


immediate action should...

Verbs used: turn, smell, taste, keep, become, come, grow, go, appear, seem,
prove, get, die, fall, sound, make, feel, look, lie, remain, run, wear, wax, marry, stay,...

7. [Ln]

Subject Intransitive verb Subject complement


Noun phrase

David is my younger brother.


That appears (to be) the best answer.
Jeffry sounds just the man we’re looking for.
Frank became a teacher.
This proved (to be) a good investment.
The boys remained the best of friends.
To stay out of sight seemed (to be) the wisest thing to do.
A hundred pence make one pound.

Verbs used: seem, become, feel, constitute, represent, composite, form, prove,
make, sound, be, appear, turn, remain, look, die, go, live, act,...

8. [Tn]

199
Subject Mono-transitive verb Direct object
Noun phrase/ pronoun

George was watching television.


Veronica is reading (a fairy story).
The company paid a colossal sum.
Peter doesn’t love anything.
A small boy opened the door.
The little girl cut herself.

A list of verbs which take a reflexive pronoun as their object when you refer to a
person: apply, compose, distance, enjoy, excel, exert, express, strain,...

A list of verbs which take reflexive pronouns as emphasis: acclimatize, adapt,


behave, dress, hide, move, shave, undress, wash,...

9. [Tf]

Subject Mono-transitive Direct object


That-clause
verb
The employers announced that the dispute had been settled.
The department proposed that new salary scales should be introduced.
Doctors had noted that the disease was spreading.
Officials believe that a settlement is possible.
We consider that Frank had been badly treated.
The weathermen forecast that more snow is on the way.

Officials believe that a settlement is possible. = It is believed (by officials)


that a settlement is possible.

A list of verbs used: admit, advise, affirm, agree, assert, certify, command,
contend, consider, confirm, doubt, deny, denote, desire, discover, know, establish,
exclaim, explain, hear, indicate, infer, insist, imagine, intend, intimate, learn, notice,
object, observe,...

10. [Tw]

Subject Mono-transitive verb Direct object


Finite-clause/ non-finite clause

The class doesn't know what time it has to be in school/ what time to
be in school.
The students haven’t learnt which tutors they can rely on/ which tutors to
rely on.
Bill discovered who he had to give the money to/ who to give
200
the money to.
We hadn’t decided what we ought to do next/ what to do next.

Some verbs used in this pattern can be made passive – the construction with IT:
It hadn’t been decided (by us) what we ought to do next/ what to do next.

A list of verbs used: accept, acknowledge, announce, arrange, ask, believe, check,
contribute, convey, describe, determine, discuss, estimate, express, feel, forecast,
foretell, grasp, guess, ear, inquire, investigate, look, learn, mention, mistake, observe,...

11. [Tt]

Subject Mono-transitive Direct object


To-infinitive clause

Tom loves to do household chores.


Bill liked to arrive early for meetings.
Mary hates to drive in the rush-hour.
The laboratories failed to produce useful results.
Jane wants to finish the job by tomorrow.
Peter expects to be promoted soon.
I remembered to post your letters.
The children will still need to be looked after.

I remembered to post your letters. [Tt] = I didn’t forget to post them.


I remembered posting your letters. [Tg] = I recalled having posted them.

Verbs used in this pattern cannot be made passive.

Verbs used in this pattern: affect, arrange, attempt, bear, bother, conclude,
contribute, dare, decline, demand, deserve, dread, endure, except, fail, fear, guarantee,
hate, hope, intend, know, learn, love, manage, mean, offer, omit, remember,...
12. [Tg]

Subject Mono-transitive verb Direct object


ing-clause

Peter enjoys playing football.


John prefers walking to the office.
Jill hates working in the garden.
Fred started arguing.
This airline will finish operating next year.
The laboratories ceased producing useful results.

201
I remembered posting your letters.
The children will still need looking after.

After need, require and want, the ing-form of the verb can be replaced by the
passive to-inf.
This shirt needs washing. = This shirt needs to be washed.

The children will still need looking after. = The children will still need to be
looked after.

Verbs used: admit, adore, anticipate, avoid, bear, begin, chance, deny, detest,
dislike, enjoy, escape, fancy, forbade, forgive, hate, imagine, involve, mean, mind,
miss,...

13. [Tnt]

Subject Mono-transitive verb Direct object


Noun phrase/ pronoun + to-infinitive

Tony prefers his wife/ her to do the housework.


The boss liked the staff/ them to arrive early to work.
Julia hates her husband/ him to lose his temper.
The teacher wants her class/ them to finish the job by Wednesday.
I expect the parcel/ it to arrive tomorrow.

Some verbs in this pattern can be made passive.

I expect the parcel to arrive tomorrow. = The parcel is expected to arrive


tomorrow.

Verbs used: adapt, believe, brief, decay, deny, estimate, expect, guess, hate,
imagine, intend, prefer, show, suspect, want,...

14. [Tsg]

Subject Mono-transitive verb Direct object


Personal Pr/ NP/ Genitive + ing-clause

I don’t like him/ John interrupting all the time.


Jill hates her husband/ him coming home late.
We anticipated her/ Mary (‘s) taking over the business.
Our parents dislike us/ our working late at night.
The employers resented the staff(‘s)/ their being consulted.

The verbs in this pattern cannot normally be made passive.

202
Verbs used: anticipate, contemplate, detest, dislike, dispute, endure, escape,
excuse, can’t face, fancy, forgive, hate, hinder, imagine, involve, like, love, mention, mind
(= object to), miss, pardon, prevent, resent, resist, understand, can’t bear, can’t help,
can’t stand,...
15. [Tn-part]

Subject Mono-transitive verb Direct object


Personal Pr/ NP + present participle clause

We watched the men destroying the furniture.


The porter heard someone slamming the door.
The children saw the cat stealing the meal.
The rescures felt John losing his grip of the rope.
He noticed a child entering the courtyard.

The rescuers felt John losing his grip of the rope. [Tn-part]
The rescuers felt John lose his grip of the rope. [Tni]

Some verbs in this pattern can be made passive.

The children saw the cat stealing the meat.


The cat was seen stealing the meat (by the children).

Verbs used: most verbs in this pattern are ‘perception’: see, hear, feel, watch,
notice, overhear, observe,... which are also used in [Tni].

16. [Tni]

Subject Mono-transitive verb Direct object


Bare infinitive clause

We watched the men destroy the furniture.


The porter heard someone slam the door.
The children saw the cat steal the meat.
The rescurers felt John lose his grip of the rope.
He noticed a child enter the courtyard.

All the verbs used in this pattern are verbs of perception. They are: watch, hear,
see, feel, notice, everhear, observe,... All are also used in the [Tng] pattern. Except for
watch and notice, verbs in this pattern can be made passive and bare infinitive becomes
to-infinitive.
The porter heard someone slam the door.

203
Someone was heard to slam the door (by the porter).

17. [Tn-pr]

Subject Mono-transitive Direct object Adjunct


Prepositional phrase
verb
The teacher referred the class to a passage in the textbook.
The waiter served Sara with a double helping.
The council have cleared the pavements of rubbish.
The lecturer confused your name with rubbish.
The visiting speaker thanked the chairman for his kind remarks.

After some verbs, the preposition phrase cannot be removed without producing
nonsense:

‘refer’ [Tn-pr]

The teacher referred the class to a passage in the textbook.

* The teacher referred the class. (incorrect)


But ‘thank’ [Tn, Tn-pr]

The visiting speaker thanked the chairman for his kind remarks. [Tn-pr]

The visiting speaker thanked the chairman.


Most verbs in this pattern can be made passive.

The Council have cleared the pavements of rubbish.

The pavements have been cleared of rubbish (by the Council).

Verbs used: acquaint, add, admire, affix, allow, alternate, associate, base, beg,
bet, blind, blame, book, crash, clear, compress, concern, conclude, confess, confirm,
confuse, convey, decorate, deduce, defer, defend, delete, derive, develop, direct, instruct,
interchange, intersect, imprison, impress, gesture, graduate, group, grow, find, file, fire,
fix, flood, focus, force, match, mean, measure, misdirect, keep, learn, lay, put,
introduce,...

18. [Tn-p]

Subject Mono-transitive verb Direct object Adjunct


Adverbial particle

Bill has a blue shirt on.


The frost has killed the buds off.
204
The nurse shook the medicine up.
Sally is tidying her room up.

After some verbs, the practice cannot be removed without changing the meaning
of the verb or producing nonsense.
Bill has a blue shirt on.

Bill has a blue shirt. (different meaning)


After other verbs, the particle can be deleted freely:
‘tidy' [Tn, Tn-p]
Sally is tidying her room up.

Sally is tidying her room. (the same meaning)


Idiomatic combinations (phrasal verbs) also fit this pattern.

When the direct object is a pronoun, it precedes the particle, but when it is a
short noun phrase or a noun, it can usually either precede or follow the particle:

The frost has killed the buds off.

The frost has killed off the buds.

Verbs used: hire, kick, collect, connect, cover, crash, curl, cut, dance, deal,
dissolve, double, drag, eat, empty, fan, entice, enter, move, measure, mix, muffle, nick,
link, limber, lift, fly, flip, finish, flatten, fuse, fan, firm, key, lap, knot, knit, hoard, deal,
crash, kill,...

19. [Dn-n]

Subject Ditransitive verb Indirect object Direct object


Noun phrase (NP)

The queen awarded the pilot a galantry medal.


The weather poured Sarah a glass of water.
Henry taught the children French.
Christmas will lend us har flat.
The department has offered Mary a job.
I will make everyone some fresh coffee.
Father bought Emma a white cat.

The pilot was awarded a gallantry medal (by the queen).

205
A gallantry medal was awarded the pilot (by the queen). (the Oi becomes
the S in passive is rare.)

‘teach’ [Dn-n, Dn-pr]:

Henry taught the children French.

Henry taught French to the children.

‘make’ [Dn-n, Dn-pr]:


I will make everyone some fresh coffee.

I will make some fresh coffee for everyone.

Verbs used in this pattern: afford, allow, ask, award, bake, begrudge, bet, bring,
built, call, cash, charge, confide, cook, design, do, earn, envy, extend, fax, fill, forward,
forgive, gain, give, grant, grill, hand, intend, leave, lend, loan, mean, mail, mix, offer,
order, overcharge,...

20. [Dn-pr]

Subject Ditransitive verb Direct object Indirect object


To/for + NP/ Pro.

The queen awarded the medal to a helicopter pilot.


The weather poured a glass of water for Sarah.
Henry taught French to the children.
Christmas will lend the flat to us.
The department has offered the job to Mary.
I will make fresh coffee for everyone.
Father bought the white cat for Emma.

In this pattern, the indirect object is placed at the end. It consists of ‘to’ or ‘for’
and a noun phrase.

When introduced by ‘to’, the indirect object refers to a person receiving


something; when introduced by ‘for’, it refers to a person intended to benefit.

Verbs used: accord, afford, ask, bake, bring, build, call, confess, cut, deal,
describe, detail, do, explain, express, extend, fax, fetch, gain, hand, guarantee, indicate,
intimate, leave, lend, lean, ail, mention, mix, notify, obtain, offer, order, pour, teach,
own,...

21. [Dn-f]

206
Subject Ditransitive Indirect object Direct object
That clause
verb
Colleagues told Paul that the job wouldn’t be easy.
The manager informed the audience that the show had been cancelled.
Police warned drivers that the road was icy.
We persuaded the survivors that they weren’t in any danger.

This pattern has an indirect object without ‘to’ and a direct object consisting of a
That-clause (Cf Tf). The indirect object refers to the person addressed by the subject.

Some verbs in this pattern can be made passive, with the indirect object of the
active pattern becoming the subject of the passive one:
Colleagues told Paul that the job wouldn’t be easy.

Paul was told (by colleagues) that the job wouldn’t be easy.

Exceptions are shown in dictionary entries thus: [Dn-f no passive]

Verbs used: advise, announce, assure, bet, convey, convince, declare, forewarn,
grant, inform, notify, persuade, tell, warn,...

22. [Dpr-f]

Subject Ditransitive verb Indirect object Direct object


That clause

The employers announced to journalists that the dispute had been


settled.
The consultant recommended to the employers that new salary scales should
be introduced.
The garage explained to customers that the spare parts had not
been delivered.
He complained to me/ the waiter that his meal was cold.

This pattern has an indirect object with ‘to’ an indirect object consisting of That-
clause. The indirect object refers to the person addressed by the subject.
Some verbs in this pattern can be made passive. The construction with ‘It’:

It was explained to customers (by the garage) that the spare parts had not
been delivered.
Exceptions are shown in dictionary entries, thus: [Dpr-f no passive]

207
Verbs used: affirm, complain, confess, confide, disclose, explain, gesture, hint,
indicate, intimate, mention, recommend,...

23. [Dn-w]

Subject Ditransitive Indirect Direct object


(wh)-finite/ to-inf. clause
verb object
A friend guard showed the prisoner how he could escape/ how to escape.
Experience hasn’t taught Martha whom she can trust/ whom to trust.
The organizers didn’t tell the children whether they should bring a picnic
lunch/ whether to bring a picnic lunch.
The porter reminded guests where they should leave their luggage/
where to leave their luggage.

In this pattern, the direct object is a finite or non-finite clause beginning with
‘wh-element’, which can be a pronoun (who(m), whose, which, what), a determiner +
noun (which road, what time,...), an adverb (when, how, where, why), or the
construction of if/ whether.
Some verbs used in this pattern can be made passive.
Verbs used: advise, ask, instruct, show, teach, remind,...
24. [Dpr-w]

Subject Ditransitive verb Indirect object Direct object


to + NP/ Pronoun wh-finite/ wh-to-infinitive. clause

We explained to the staff how they should handle complaints/


how to handle comlaints.
You should indicate to the team where they are to assemble/ where to
assemble.

Some verbs in this pattern can be made passive – the construction with ‘it’.

It was explained to the staff how they should handle complaints/ how to
handle complaints.
Verbs used: explain, indicate, intimate, mention,...
25. [Dn-t]

Subject Ditransitive verb Indirect object Direct object


to-infinitve clause

We Told Peter to see a dictor.

208
His teacher advised him to take up the piano.
The court forbade the father to see his chidren.
John and Mary encouraged Simon to stay.

Some verbs in this pattern can be made passive.


Simon was encouraged to stay by John and Mary.

Verbs used: advise, ask, authorize, danger, bid, bother, caution, challenge,
command, conjure, dare, defy, detail, direct, encourage, implore, instruct, invite, order,
permit, recommend, request, sign, teach, warm, summon,...

26. [Dpr-t]

Subject Ditransitive verb Indirect object Direct object


to + NP/ Pronoun to-infinitive clause

She gestured to the children to stand up.


Fred signalled to the waiter to bring another chair.
Stephen shouted to the chairman to let someone else speak.
A policeman motioned to us to move to the side of the road.

The verbs used in this pattern cannot usually be made passive.


Verbs used: appeal, reckon, gesture, sign, shout, motion,...

27. [Cn-a]

Subject Complex-transitive Direct object Object complement


Adjective phrase
verb
I imagined him much taller than that.
Jane prefers her coffee black.
Peter has a tooth loose.
The experts confessed themselves baffled.
The fridge keeps the beer cool.
The teacher made the lesson interesting.
The mayor. declared the meeting open.

The object complement describes a feature or quality of the direct object.

Many verbs can be made passive:


The lesson was made interestingly by the teacher.

209
Verbs used: acknowledge, adjudge, call, certify, consider, count, declare,
denounce, distemper, dye, file, find, force, guarantee, make, elect, hold, leave, imagine,
have, own,...

28. [Cn-n]

Subject Complex-transitive Direct object Object complement


Noun phrase
verb
We made Frank chairman.
The club elected mr. Jones membership secretary.
We declare Holroyd the winner.
The court considered Smith a trusworthy witness.
The rebels are holding her prisoner.

Many verbs used in this pattern can be made passive.


Smith was considered a trustworthy winess (by the court).

Verbs used: acclaim, advance, appoint, call, consider, create, declare, define,
elect, grade, hold, make, name, nickname, own,...

29. [Cn-n/a]

Subject Complex-transitive Direct object Object complement


as + NP/ adjective phrase
verb
Fellow-sportsmen regard him as a world-class player.
Doctors recognized Johnson as a leading authority.
The police didn’t accept the story as genuine.
The club won’t appoint a teenage as the committee.

In this pattern, the object complement tell us how the direct object is regarded,
judged,...or what he, she or it is chosen to act or serve as.

regard [Cn-n/a] ~ sb/sth as sb/sth


A passive construction is possible for all verbs in this pattern except ‘have’.

The story wasn’t accepted as genuine (by the police).

Verbs used: accept, acclaim, address, appoint, assign, certify, confirm, construct,
describe, empty, enlist, groom, induct, intend, interpret, mean, mention, name,
nominate, identify, recognize, regard,...

30. [Cn-t]

210
Subject Complex-transitive Direct object Object complement
to-inf. clause
verb
The reporter pressed her to answer his question.
The thief forced Jane to hand over the money.
The extra money helped John to be independent.
An official declared the place to be free of infection.

The verbs used in this pattern can be made passive.


The place was declared to be free of infection (by an official).

Verbs used: appoint, charge, condition, elect, educate, empty, enable, force,
invite, persuade, possess, preset, press, prove, push, take, train, trouble, urge, wish,...

31. [Cn-g]

Subject Complex-transitive Direct object Object complement


ing-clause
verb
This remark set everyone thinking.
The look on Bill’s face had me trembling with fear.
The policeman got the traffic moving.
The smoke started her coughing.
We left the children playing in the garden.
The driver kept his engine running.

The object complement tells us what the object is made to do or to kept doing.
Only the verbs shown in the table are used in this pattern.

Except for have and start, the verbs can be made passive.
The policeman got the traffic moving.

The traffic was got moving (by the policeman).

32. [Cn-i]

Subject Complex-transitive Direct object Object complement


Bare infinitive-clause
verb
His tutor made him work.
We had Jane run through the procedure again.
Mother won’t let the children play in the road.
Stephen helped us organize the party.
211
In this pattern, the object complement is the bare infinitive. It tells us what the
object is made or allowed to do.

Only the verbs shown in the table are used in this pattern.

The verbs ‘make’ and ‘help’ can be made passive, but when they are, they are
followed by a to-infinitive as in pattern [Cn-t].

He was made to work.

We were helped to organize the party by Stephen.


The other verbs shown here cannot be made passive.

CONTENTS

Page

PART V: AMBIGUITY
1. STRUCTURAL AMBIGUITY .......................................................................
2. LEXICAL AMBIGUITY ...............................................................................
3. METAPHORICAL AMBIGUITY ...................................................................

212
Some concrete cases of STRUCTURAL AMBIGUITY in English ..............................

1.1. NOUN PHRASES.................................................................................


1. Nouns as Premodifiers + Head noun .......................................................
2. Adjective + Noun as Premodifiers + Head noun......................................
3. Adjective form as Premodifier + Head noun ...........................................
4. More + Adjective + Head noun ................................................................
5. S’ Genitive and of Genitive ......................................................................
6. Coordination in Noun phrases .................................................................
7. A Noun phrase as Apposition or other construction...............................
1.2. PREPOSTIONAL PHRASES ...................................................................
1. Prepositional phrases as Postmodifiers ..................................................
2. Prepositional phrases as Adjuncts ...........................................................
3. Prepositional phrases as Postmodifiers in Noun phrase or Adjuncts .....
1.3. NON-FINITE CLAUSES .........................................................................
1. Present participle clause (-ing clause) .....................................................
2. Gerund clause (-ing clause) .....................................................................
1.4. ADVERBS AND ADVERBIAL CLAUSES ...................................................
1. Adverbs of addition .................................................................................
2. Adverbs of restriction ..............................................................................
3. Adverbs of frequency ..............................................................................
4. Adverbs following –ing clause .................................................................
5. Adverbs before to Infinitive clause..........................................................
6. Adverbs in two-verb phrase sentences ...................................................
7. Adverbs in the final position of a Verb phrase and an –ing clause .........
1.5. ADJECTIVE PHRASES AND ADJECTIVE CLAUSES ....................................
1. Coordination in Adjective phrases ..........................................................
2. Adjectives or Participles ..........................................................................
3. Adjectives + too + to infinitive .................................................................
4. Of Genetive phrase + Adjective clauses ..................................................
5. Other types ..............................................................................................

PART VI: AMBIGUITY


A word or sentence that can be interpreted in more than one way is called
ambiguity.

Ex: The lamb is too hot to eat.

Which can mean either:

1. The lamb is so hot that it cannot eat anything.

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2. The cooked lamb is too hot for someone to eat it.

Ambiguity can be classified into three types: STRUCTURAL AMBIGUITY, LEXICAL


AMBIGUITY and METAPHORICAL AMBIGUITY.

1. STRUCTURAL AMBIGUITY

A sentence which is ambiguous because its words relate to each other in


different ways and has two structures underlying the same string of words, even though
none of the individual words are ambiguous is STRUCTURALLY AMBIGUOUS.

Ex: You can have peas and beans or carrots with the set meal.
Which can mean either:

1. ...[peas] and [beans or carrots]


2. ...[peas and beans] or [carrots]

2. LEXICAL AMBIGUITY
Any ambiguity resulting from the ambiguity of word is the LEXICAL AMBIGUITY.

A word or phrase is lexically ambiguous when that word or that phrase has two
or more synonyms that are not themselves synonyms of each other.

Ex: I observed Gamy in the classroom.

Which can mean either:

1. I observed Gamy who was in the classroom.


2. I stood in the classroom in order to observe Gamy.

3. METAPHORICAL AMBIGUITY

Sometimes the breaking of semantic rules can be used to convey a particular


idea. ‘Wall have ears’ is certainly anomalous, but it can be interpreted as ‘You can be
heard even when you think nobody is listening to you’. In some sense this sentence is
meaningless, but the literal meaning is so unlikely that listeners stretch their
imagination to another interpretation. Such non-literal interpretations of sentences are
called METAPHORE. This kind causes ambiguity in language: ‘My new car is a lemon’ is
anomalous. ‘The new car’ may be ‘a miniature toy carved out of a piece of citrus fruit’.
Some concrete cases of STRUCTURAL AMBIGUITY in English:

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Structural ambiguity in written English may rise in NOUN PHRASES,
PREPOSITIONAL PHRASES, NON-FINITE CLAUSES, ADVERBS and ADVERBIAL CLAUSES,
ADJECTIVE PHRASES or ADJECTIVE CLAUSES.

1.1. NOUN PHRASES

1. Nouns as Premodifiers + Head noun

Jones won the student portrait painter award.

Learners wonder which of the following meanings is the idea the writer wants to
express:
(1a) Jones won the award for painting portraits of students.

(1b) Jones, a student, won the award for painting portraits.

When there are more than one noun used as pre-modifiers of the head noun,
there may rise ambiduity.
2. Adjective + Noun as Premodifiers + Head noun

(2) pretty good entertainment expenses:

can be understood in two ways:

(2a) pretty good expenses for entertainment


(2b) expenses for pretty good entertainment

(3) new, reasonably priced leather jackets:

(3a) new jackets made of leather and on sale at reasonable prices

(new, leather, reasonably priced modify jackets)


new, reasonably priced leather jackets

(3b) jackets made of the new and reasonably priced leather

(new, reasonably priced modify leather)

new, reasonably priced leather jackets

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(4) a short haired fox terrier:

(4a) a terrier which purses or catches short haired foxes


(4b) a terrier which has short hair and catches foxes.

The more noun phrases standing after an adjective in a noun phrase, the more
ambiguous and more complicated the noun phrase is.
(5) a new Moscow bus student travel officer

3. Adjective form as Premodifier + Head noun

(6) an English teacher:

(6a) a teacher who teaches English (also a teacher of English)

(6b) a teacher who is English

(7) Vietnamese learners:


(7a) learners who study Vietnamese
(7b) leaners who are Vietnamese
4. More + Adjective + Head noun

(8) some more convincing evidences:

(8a) some more convincing evidences

(some, more convincing modify evidences:


some evidences which are more convincing)

(8b) some more convincing evidences

(some, more, and convincing modify evidences:

some more evidences which are convincing)

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5. S’ Genitive and of Genitive

(9) a beautiful girl’s dress: (girl is beautiful or dress is beautiful?)

(9a) girl’s dress which is beautiful


(9b) dress of the girl who is beautiful
(10) beautiful singer’s voice:
(10a) singer’s voice which is beautiful

(10b) voice of the singer who is is beautiful


(11) the shooting of the hunter:

(11a) someone shot the hunter


(11b) the hunter shot someone

(12) the love of God:


(12a) God loves mankind

(12b) mankind loves God

6. Coordination in Noun phrases

(13) men and women who worked hard:

(13a) men who worked hard and women who worked hard

(13b) women who worked hard and men


(14) simple books and magazines for children (4 ways)
(15) the bills for gas and electricity (4 ways)
(16) old men and women (2 ways)

7. A Noun phrase as Apposition or other construction


(17) They sent Joan a waitress from the hotel:

(17a) They sent a waitress named Joan from the hotel.


(17b) They sent a waitress to Joan from the hotel.

(18) They called Susan a homehelper:

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(18a) They called a homehelper for Susan.

(18b) They called Susan, who is a homehelper.

(19) They considered Miss Hartley a very good teacher:


(19a) They considered Miss Hartley to be a very good teacher.
(19b) They considered Miss Hartley, a very good teacher.

1.2. PREPOSTIONAL PHRASES


1. Prepositional phrases as Postmodifiers

(20) The workers and managers in the factory just do not get on.(2)

(21) his request to his superior for money at the end of the month (2)

(22) I like the picture of him in the push chair (2):

(22a) I like the picture of him who sits in the push chair.

(22b) I like the picture which lies in the push chair.


2. Prepositional phrases as Adjuncts
(23) He said at noon he will be there.

The prepositional phrase ‘at noon’ functioning as an adjunct modify the action
expressed by the verb phrase ‘said’ or ‘will be’.
(23a) At noon he said he will be there.

(23b) He said he will be there at noon.

(24) England almost certainly failed to qualify for the World Cup Final in
Spain next summer, for the third successive time, following their defeat last
night:

(24a) England almost certainly failed for the third successive time to qualify
for the World Cup Final in Spain next summer, following their defeat last
night.

(24b) England has qualified twice and they will not qualify for the third
time for the World Cup Final in Spain next summer, following the defeat
last night.

3. Prepositional phrases as Postmodifiers in Noun phrase or Adjuncts

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(25) He hit the boy with a stick:

(25a) He hit the boy who had a stick.

(26b) He used a stick to hit the boy.


(26) I saw the girl with a telescope. (2 ways)
(27) I saw the girl on the hill with the telescope. (2 ways)
(28) Put the box on the table by the window in the kitchen. (3 ways)

(29) He was told to drink a cup of coffee in the room. (2 ways)


(30) They fought with a team of inspired players. (2 ways)

1.3. NON-FINITE CLAUSES


1. Present participle clause (-ing clause)

A present participle clause can be used as a relative clause or an adverbial clause.


In written form, the reduction make learners confused.

(31) He ran over the dog crossing the road:

(31a) He ran over the dog which was crossing the the road.
(31b) He ran over the dog when he was crossing the road.

(32) Eating his dinner, he rushed out of the house:


(32a) While he was eating his dinner, he rushed out of the house.

(He might left the house with his plate in his hand.)
(He had had his dinner, then he rushed out of the house.)

(32b) After he had had his dinner, he rushed out of the house.
(33) Having eaten so much, he became sleepy:
(33a) Because he had eaten too much, he became sleepy.
(33b) After he had eaten too much, he became sleepy.

A present participle clause which may function as an adverbial clause may have
different meanings such as: time, cause, manner, result,...

2. Gerund clause (-ing clause)

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(34) Smoking grass can be nauseating:

(34a) Putting grass in a pipe and smoking it can make you nauseating.

(34b) Fumes from smoldering grass can make you nauseating.


(35) Flying planes can be dangerous.
(35a) To fly planes can be dangerous.
(35b) Planes which are flying can be dangerous.

1.4. ADVERBS AND ADVERBIAL CLAUSES


1. Adverbs of addition: too/ also/ as well,...

(36) Tom asked Juliet for $5 as well/ too:

(36a) Tom asked Juliet (after having asked someone) $5.

(36b) Tom asked Juliet $5 after having asked something else.

(37) Charles went fishing, too.


(37a) Charles went fishing as well as other sports.
(37b) Charles went fishing as well as someone.
2. Adverbs of restriction: only, just, merely,...

(38) Charles only listened to pop music:

(38a) Charles, not David or someone else, listened to pop music.

(38b) Charles didn’t listen to any other sorts of music but pop music.
(38c) Charles didn’t watch pop music, just listened to this type of music.

3. Adverbs of frequency: often, usually,...


(39) I often find spelling mistakes in students’ essays:

(39a) I find many spelling mistakes in students’ essays.


(39b) I, not my colleagues, often find spelling mistakes in students’ essays.

(40) Sailors usually drink rum:

(40a) Many sailors drink rum.

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(40b) Sailors drink rum on many occasions.

4. Adverbs following –ing clause

(41) His leaving the country immediately made the police suspicious of him:

(41a) That he immediately left the country made the police suspicious of
him.

(41b) That he left the country made the police suspicious of him
immediately.
5. Adverbs before To Infinitive clause

(42) He chose deliberately to ignore my wishes:

(42a) He deliberately chose to ignore my wishes.


(42b) He chose to deliberately ignore my wishes.

(43) They desire wholeheartedly to be my friends:

(43a) They wholeheartedly desire to be my friends.

(43b) They desire to wholeheartedly be my friends.


(44) He failed entirely to comprehend it. (2 ways)

6. Adverbs in two-verb phrase sentences


(45) a man who lies frequently will cheat also:

(45a) a man who frequently lies will cheat also


(45b) a man who lies will frequently cheat also.

7. Adverbs in the final position of a Verb phrase and an –ing clause


(47) She mentioned finding the money yesterday:
(47a) She mentioned that yesterday she found the money.
(47b) Yesterday she mentioned that she found the money.

1.5. ADJECTIVE PHRASES AND ADJECTIVE CLAUSES


1. Coordination in Adjective phrases

(48) Red, white, and blue flags were flying from every balcony:

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(48a) Red flags, white flags, and blue flags were flying from every balcony.

(48b) Tricolour (red, white and blue) flags were flying from every balcony.

2. Adjectives or Participles
(49) They were relieved:
(49a) They were (very) relieved to find her at home.
(49b) They were relieved (by the next group of sentries.)

(50) Elspeth is trying:


(50a) Elspeth is trying to do something. (verbal force of participles)

(50b) Elspeth is a trying (= annoying) person. (adjective)


3. Adjectives + too + to infinitive

(51) He is too ill to move:


(51a) He is too ill (for him) to move.

(51b) He is too ill (for someone) to move.

(52) They were too far to see:

(52a) They were too far to see something.

(52b) They were too far away for someone to see them.

4. Of Genetive phrase + Adjective clauses

(53) The dean wrote to the parents of the students who had helped with
the annual carnival.

The adjective clause ‘who had helped with the annual carnival’ modifies either
‘the parents’ or ‘the students’
(54) The life of an actress that the public sees does look glamorous:
(54a) The actress ‘s life which the public sees does lokk glamorous.

(54b) The actress whom the public sees has the life which does look
glamorous.

5. Other types

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(55) There is a nice restaurant located in front of the commercial district
which is crowded every night:

(55a)...the nice restaurant is crowded every night.

(55b)...the commercial district is crowded every night.

(56) He saw the rake lying against the trunk stuffed with leaves from his
last raking:

(56a)...the rake was stuffed with leaves...


(56b)...the trunk was stuffed with leaves...

(57) There is a spotted dog in the group barking at speeding cars:

(57a) ...a spotted dog barked at speeding cars...


(57b)...the group barked at speeding cars...

[For some ambiguous structures, see:


Deep and Surface Structure, and the Language Drill (TESOL
quarterly, Vol 2 No 2 June 1968)]

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