DOMAIN 1: LINGUISTICS and STRUCTURE OF ENGLISH

I. Views about Language

A. Structuralists believe that language can be described in terms of observable and verifiable data

as it is being used. They also describe language in terms of its structure. To them, language is a

system of speech sounds, arbitrarily assigned to the objects, states, and concepts to which they refer,

and used for human communication.

Language is a means for communication- Language is an important means of communicating

between humans of their ideas, beliefs, or feelings. Language gives shape to people’ thoughts, as

well as guides and controls their activity.

Language is primarily vocal- Speech is language; the written record is secondary. Writing is only a

graphic representation of the sounds of the language. While most languages have writing systems, a

number of languages continue to exist, even today, in the spoken form only. Therefore, it is assumed

that speech is a priority in language teaching.

Language is a system- Sounds are arranged in a certain systematic order to form meaningful units

of words. For example, no word in English starts with bz-, lr, zl combination, but there are those that

begin with spr- and str- (as in ‘spring’ and ‘string’) Similarly, words are arranged in a particularly

accepted manner (syntactic arrangement). For example, the group of words, “Mario read a new book”

is acceptable, but the group of words “read Mario new book a” is not acceptable as it violates the

established convention in English grammar, the Subject-Verb-Object or SV- O word order.

Language is a system of structurally related elements or ‘building blocks’ for the encoding of meaning,

the elements being phonemes (sounds), morphemes (words), and tagmemes (phrases and

sentences/clauses).

Language is arbitrary- There is no inherent relation between the words of a language and their

meaning or ideas conveyed by them. There is no reason why an animal that flies is called “ibon” in

Filipino, “pajaro” in Spanish, and “bird” in English. That language is arbitrary means that the

relationship between the words and the “things” they denote is merely conventional—i.e. the native

speakers “want” it to be that way.

B. Transformationalists believe that language is s system of knowledge made manifest in

linguistic forms but innate and, in its most abstracted form, universal.

LET COMPETENCIES
1. demonstrate familiarity with the theories of language and language learning and their influence on

language teaching

2. revisit the knowledge of linguistic theories and concepts and apply it to the teaching of

communication skills

3. show understanding of how language rules are used in real conversations

4. demonstrate understanding of grammatical concepts by being able to describe and analyze the

form, meaning, and use of various language structure.

CONTENTS

I. Views about Language

II. Acquisition of a Second Language

III. Influences of Theories on Language Teaching

IV. Linguistic Concepts

V. Basic English Structures and Rules

Language is a mental phenomenon. It is not mechanical.

Language is innate. The presence of the Language Acquisition Device (LAD) in the human brain

predisposes all normal children to acquire their first language in an amazingly short time, around five

years since birth.

Language is universal. All normal children acquire a mother tongue. Also, all languages must

share key features of human languages such as: all languages have

sounds; all languages have rules that form sounds into words; and all languages have

transformational rules that enable speakers to ask questions, negate, issue orders, defocus the doer

of the action, etc.

C. Functionalists believe that language is a dynamic system through which members of community

exchange information. It is a vehicle for expressing “functional meaning” such as expressing one’s

emotions, persuading people, asking and giving information, making people do things for others, etc.

This view emphasizes the meaning and functions rather than the grammatical characteristics of

language, and leads to a language teaching content consisting of categories of meaning/notions and

functions rather than of elements of structure and grammar.

D. Interactionists believe that language is a vehicle for establishing interpersonal relations and for

performing social transactions between individuals. It is a tool for creating and maintaining social

relations through conversations. Language teaching may be specified and organized by patterns of

exchange and interaction.

II. Acquisition of a Second Language

A. Behaviorist learning theory. Derived from a general theory of learning, the behaviourist view

states that the language behavior of the individual is conditioned by sequences of differential rewards

in his/her environment. It regards language as a behavior like other forms of human behaviour

learned by a process of habit formation. The three crucial elements of learning in behaviourism are: a

stimulus, which serves to elicit behaviour; a response triggered by the stimulus, and reinforcement,

which serves to mark the response as being appropriate (or inappropriate) and encourages repetition

(suppression) of the response.

B. Cognitive learning theory. Chomsky argues that language is not acquired by children by sheer

imitation and through a form of conditioning on reinforcement and reward. He believes that all human

beings have an inborn biological internal mechanism that makes language learning possible.

Cognitivists/innatists maintain that the language acquisition device (LAD) is what the child brings to

the task of language acquisition, giving him/her an active role in language learning.

C. Krashen’s Monitor Model. Probably the most cited theory of second language acquisition;

considered the most comprehensive, if not the most ambitious, consisting of five central hypotheses:

1. The acquisition/learning hypothesis claims that there are two ways of developing competence in

L2:

a. Acquisition – the subconscious process that results from informal, natural communication

between people where language is a means, not a focus nor an end in itself.

b. Learning – the conscious of knowing about language and being able to talk about it, it occurs in a

more formal situation where the properties of language are taught. (Grammar and Vocabulary)

2. The natural order hypothesis suggests that grammatical structures are acquired in a predictable

order for both children and adults, that is, certain language being learned.

3. The monitor hypothesis claims that conscious learning of grammatical rules has an extremely

limited function in language performance: as a monitor or editor that checks output. The monitor is an
editing device that may normally operate before language performance. Such editing may occur

before the natural output or after the output via a correcting device.

4. The input hypothesis. Krashen proposes that when learners are exposed to grammatical features

a little beyond their current level (i + 1), those features are acquired. Acquisition results from

comprehensible input, which is made understandable with the help provided by the context.

5. The affective filter hypothesis. Filter consists of attitude to language, motivation, self-confidence

and anxiety. Thus learners with favourable attitude and self-confidence may have a ‘low filter’ which

promotes language learning. Learners with low affective filter sek and receive more input, interact

with confidence, and are more receptive to the input they are exposed to. On the other hand, anxious

learners have a high affective filter which prevents acquisition from taking place.

III. Influences of Theories on Language Teaching

A. Behaviorism led to the development of the Audio-Lingual Method (ALM), oralapproach/situational

language teaching, operant conditioning approach, bottom-up text processing, controlled-to-free

writing, etc. These methods underscore the necessity for “overlearning”, a principle that leads to

endless and mindless mimicry and memorization (mim-mem). They are also characterized by

mechanical habit-formation teaching, done through unremitting practice—i.e. sentence patterns are

repeated and drilled until they become habitual and automatic to minimize occurrences of mistakes.

B. Cognitivism gave birth to the cognitive approach to learning that puts language analysis before

language use and instruction by the teacher. It is compatible with the view that learning is a thinking

process, a belief that underpins cognitive-based and schemaenhancing strategies such as Directed

Reading Thinking Activity, Story Grammar, Thinking-Aloud, etc.

C. The Functional view led to the creation of communication-based methods such as

Communicative Language Teaching/ Communicative Approach, Notional-Functional Approach, and

Natural Approach. These methods are learner-centered in order to provide ample time for interaction,

information sharing, and negotiation of meaning.

Group 1: Present Progressive –ing (She is running.)

Plural –s (tables)

Copula ‘to be’ (The girl is in school.)

Group 2: Auxiliary ‘to be’ (The girl is playing.)

Articles the and an (That’s a table.)

Group 3: Irregular past forms (She went home.)

Group 4: Regular past –ed (She played yesterday)

3rd person singular –s (She plays everyday.)

Possessive –‘s (The boy’s bag is new.)

D. The view that is both cognitive and affective eventually developed to a holistic approach to

language learning or whole-person learning, which has spawned humanistic techniques in language

learning and Community Language Learning. In these methods, the whole person including emotions

and feelings as well as language knowledge and behavior skills become central to teaching.

IV. Linguistic Concepts

Scope of Linguistic Studies:

1. Phonology. It studies the combination of sounds into organized units of speech, the combination

of syllables and larger units. It describes the sound system of a particular language and distribution of

sounds which occur in that language. Classification is made on the basis of the concept of the

phoneme. It is the study of the sound system of language: the rules that govern pronunciation. It is

the component of a grammar made up of the elements and principles that determine sound patterns

in language.

2. Phonetics. It studies language at the level of sounds: how sounds are articulated by the human

speech mechanism and received by the auditory mechanism, how sounds can be distinguished and

characterized by the manner in which they are produced.

3. Morphology. It studies the patterns of formation of words by the combination of sounds into

minimal distinctive units of meaning called morphemes. It deals with the rules of combining

morphemes to form words, e.g. suffixes or prefixes are attached to single morphemes to form words.

Morphology is the study of word formation; it deals with the internal structure of words. It also studies

the changes that take place in the structure of words, e.g. the morpheme ‘go’ changes to ‘went’ or

‘gone’ to signify changes in tense and aspect.

4. Syntax. It deals with how words combine to form phrases, phrases combine to form clauses, and

clauses join to make sentences. Syntax is the study of the way phrases, clauses and sentences are

constructed. It is the system of rules and categories that underlies sentence formation. It also involves
the description of rules of positioning elements in the sentence, such as noun phrases, verb phrases,

adverbial phrases, etc.

5. Semantics. It deals with the level of meaning in language. It attempts to analyze the structure of

meaning in a language, e.g. how words similar or different are related; it attempts to show these inter-

relationships through forming categories. Semantics accounts for both word and sentence meaning.

6. Pragmatics. It deals with the contextual aspects of meaning in particular situations. It is the study

of how language is used in real communication. As distinct from the study of sentences, pragmatics

considers utterances – those sentences which are actually uttered by speakers of a language.

7. Discourse. It is the study of chunks of language which are bigger than a single sentence.

At this level, inter-sentential links that form a connected or cohesive text are analyzed.

Phonology

1. Phoneme- a distinctive, contrasted sound unit, e.g. /m/, /n/, /æ/; it is the smallest unit of a sound

that causes a difference in meaning

2. Allophones- variants or other ways of producing a phoneme. They are phonetically similar. For

example, the systematic variations of /t/ are:

a. Aspirated /t/ as in top

b. Released /t/ as in stop

c. Unreleased /t/ as in pot

3. Consonants- produced with some restriction or closure in the vocal tract as the air from the lungs

is pushed through the glottis out of the mouth. The airflow is either blocked momentarily or restricted

so much that noise is produced as air flows past the constriction.

Consonants are described in terms of physical dimensions such as: place of articulation, manner of

articulation, and voicing

Place of Articulation

a. Bilabial (bi ‘two’ + labial ‘lips’)- Primary constriction is at the lips (/p/, /b/, /m/, /w/)

b. Labiodental (labio ‘lip’ + dental ‘teeth’)- Primary constriction is between lower lip and the upper

teeth (/f/, /v/)

c. Interdental (inter ‘between’ + dental ‘teeth’)- Primary constriction is between the tongue and the

upper teeth (/_/, / ð/)

d. Alveolar (from alveolar ridge)- Primary constriction is between the tongue and the alveolar ridge (/t/,

/d/, /s/, /z/, /n/, /l/)

e. Palatal (from palate)- Primary constriction is between the tongue and the palate (/š /, / ž /, /c/, /

_/, /r/, /y/)

f. Velar (from velum)- Primary constriction is between the tongue and the velum (/k/, /g/, / _/)

g. Glottal (from glottis, which refers to the space between vocal cords)- Primary constriction is at the

glottis (/h/)

Manner of Articulation

a. Stops- Two articulators (lips, tongue, teeth, etc.) are brought together such that the airflow through

the vocal tract is completely blocked

b. Fricatives- Two articulators are brought near each other such that the flow of air is impeded but not

completely blocked. The airflow through the narrow opening creates friction, hence the term ‘fricative’

(/f/, /v/, /_/, / ð/, /s/, /z/, /š /, / ž /. /h/)

c. Affricates- Articulations that begin like stops (with a complete closure in the vocal tract) and end like

fricatives (with a narrow opening in the vocal tract) (/c/, / _/)

d. Nasals- airflow through the mouth is completely blocked but the velum is lowered, forcing the air

through the nose (/m/, /n/, / _/)

e. Liquids and Glides- these terms describe articulations that are mid-way between true consonants

(i.e. stops, fricatives, affricates, and nasals) and vowels, although they are both generally classified

as consonants. Liquid is a cover terms for all llike and r-like articulations

Voicing

Any articulation may have the vocal cords vibrating or not; if it vibrates, then it is considered “voiced”;

if it does not, then it is “voiceless”.

Consonants may be analyzed in terms of its distinctive features, such as the examples below:

/p/ = +bilabial / _/ = +velar + stop +nasal - voice + voice

4. Vowels- produced with little obstruction in the vocal tract and are generally voiced. They are

described in terms of: tongue height, frontness, lip rounding, and tenseness.
5. Suprasegmentals- prosodic properties that form part of the make-up of sounds no matter what

their place or manner of articulation is. These properties are pitch, intonation, stress, and juncture.

a. Pitch- the auditory property of sound that enables us to place it on a scale that ranges from low to

high

b. Intonation- the rise and fall of pitch which may contrast meanings of sentences. The pitch

movement in spoken utterances is not only related to differences in the word meaning, but serves to

convey information of a broadly meaningful nature such as completeness or incompleteness of an

utterance. Intonation refers to the pitch contours as they occur in phrases and sentences. The

statement “Anna is a linguist” ends with a fall in pitch; while “Anna is a linguist?” has a rising pitch

c. Stress- refers to the relative prominence of syllables; the syllable that receives the most prominent

stress is referred to as primary stress. To produce a stressed syllable, one may change the pitch

(usually by raising it), make the syllable louder, or make it stronger. e.g. 2 1 2 1 1 2 Fundamental

introductory secondary

d. Juncture- refers to the pauses or breaks between syllables. The lack of any real break between

syllables of words is referred to as close juncture; plus juncture, or open juncture is used to describe

a break or pause between syllables in the same word or adjacent word—e.g. nitrate vs. night rate;

why try vs. white rye; black bird vs. blackbird

Morphology

1. Morpheme- a short segment of language that meets three criteria:

a. It is a word or part of a word that has meaning

b. It cannot be divided into smaller meaningful parts without violation of its meaning or without

meaningless remainders

c. It recurs in different words with a relatively stable meaning The words “unhappily” has 3

morphemes: {un-}, {happy}, and {ly} while the words “spaghetti” is a single morpheme.

2. Allomorphs- morphs that belong to the same morpheme /s/, /z/, and /_z/ in /kæts/ ‘cats’, /bægz/

‘bags’, and /b_s_z/ ‘buses are allomorphs of the plural morphemes {(e) s}. Allomorphs are variants of

a morpheme that may be phonologically or morphologically conditioned—e.g. {-en} as in oxen and

children are allopmorphs of {plural} morpheme.

3. Free morphemes- those that can stand on their own as independent words—e.g. {happy} in

unhappily and {like} in dislike; they can also occur in isolation.

4. Bound morphemes- those that cannot stand on their own as independent words; they need to be

attached to a free morpheme or a free form—e.g. {un-}, {-ly}, and {dis-} they are commonly called

affixes

5. Inflectional morphemes- those that do not change the form class of the words or morphemes to

which they are attached; they are always attached to complete words; they cap the word; they are a

closed-ended set of morphemes. English has only 8 inflectional morphemes:

-s 3rd person sing. Pres. She cook-s at home.

-ed past tense She cook-ed at home.

-ing progressive She is cook-ing at home.

-en past participle She has eat-en at home.

-s plural She wrote letter-s

-‘s possessive Ann-‘s book is new.

-er comparative This route is short-er than that.

-est superlative This is the short-est route.

6. Derivational morphemes- those that are added to root morphemes or stems to derive new words;

they usually change the form class of the words to which they are attached; they are open-ended, i.e.

they are potentially infinite. e.g.

formal + {-ize} = formalize

care + {-ful} = careful

fortunate + {-un} = unfortunate

7. Word-Formation Processes

a. Acronyms: These words are formed by taking the initial sounds or letters of the words of a phrase

and uniting them into a combination that is itself pronounceable as a separate word. Thus NATO is an

acronym for North Atlantic Treaty Organization, laser for light amplification through the stimulated

emission of radiation, and radar for radio detection and ranging.

b. Abbreviation- a word formed from the names of the first letters of the prominent syllables (TV<

television) or of words in a phrase (NBI< National Bureau of Investigation)

c. Backformation: Backformation makes use of a process called analogy to derive new words, but in

a rather backwards manner, that is from an older word that is mistakenly assumed to be a derivative

of it. One very regular source of backformed verbs in English is based on the pattern: worker—work.

The assumption seems to have been that if there is a noun ending in –er (or something close in
sound), then we can create a verb for what noun –er does. Hence, an editor must edit, a sculptor

must sculpt, and burglars, peddlers, and swindlers must burgle, peddle, and swindle.

d. Blending: A blend is a combination of the parts of two words, usually the beginning of one word

and the end of another: smog from smoke and fog, brunch from breakfast and lunch, and chortle from

chuckle and snort. (Lewis Carroll invented this blend, and his poem “Jabberwocky” contains several

other examples of interesting blends. Carroll called them “portmanteau words.”)

e. Borrowing: Foreign words are always being “borrowed” into other languages, especially to

accompany new ideas, inventions, products, and so on. When speakers imitate a word from a foreign

language and at least partly adapt it in sound or grammar to their native speech patters, the process

is called “borrowing,” and the word thus borrowed is a “loanword.” A few examples: alcohol (Arabic),

boss (Dutch), croissant (French), lilac (Persian), piano (Italian), pretzel (German), robot (Czech),

tycoon (Japanese), yoghurt (Turkish), zebra (Bantu). A special type of borrowing is described as

“loan-translation” or “calque.” In this process, there is a direct translation of the elements of a word

into the borrowing language. For example: English hot dogs becomes Spanish perros calientes,

English skyscraper becomes French le gratte-ciel.

f. Clipping: Frequently we shorten words without paying attention to the derivational morphology of

the word (or related words). We see here again the element of reduction, already seen in blending.

Exam has been clipped from examination, dorm from dormitory, and both taxi and cab from taxi cab

(itself a clipping from taximeter cabriolet). Because clipping often ignores lexical and morphemic

boundaries and cuts instead in the middle of a morpheme, we end up creating new morphemes and

enriching the stock of potential building material for making other words.

g. Coinage or Root Creation: Words may also be created without using any of the methods

described above and without employing any other word or word parts already in existence; that is,

they may be created out of thin air. Such brand names as Xerox, Kodak, and Exxon were made up

without reference to any other word, as were the common words pooch and snob. Also called “root

creation.”

h. Compounding: Two or more existing words are put together to form a new word: blackboard,

expressway, and air conditioner. “Amalgamated compounds” are those words in which the

compounded elements are so closely welded together that their origins as compounds is obscured.

For example, daisy from Old English dgeseage, “day’s eye,” lord from OE hlaf (‘loaf’) plus weard

(‘guardian’), and sheriff from OE scir (‘shire’) plus refa (‘reeve’).

i. Derivation- involves the addition of a derivational affix, changing the syntactic

category of the item to which it is attached (orient (V) _ orientation (N); beauty

(N) _ beautiful (Adj) )

8. Morphophonemic Processes

a. Assimilation- a process that results form a sound becoming more like another nearby sound in

terms of one or more of or more of its phonetic characteristics(e.g. possible-impossible; potent-

impotent; tolerable-intolerable)

b. Dissimilation- a process that results in two sounds becoming less alike in articulatory or acoustic

terms; a process in which units which occur in some contexts are ‘lost’ in others (e.g. ‘libary’ instead

of ‘library’ ‘govenor’ for ‘governor’

c. Deletion- a process that removes a segment from certain phonetic contexts; occurs in everyday

rapid speech (e.g. [blain mæn] ‘blind man’

d. Epenthesis- a process that inserts a syllable or nonsyllabic segment within an existing string of

segment (e.g. [maindid] ‘minded’)

e. Metathesis- a process that reorders or reverses a sequence of segments; it occurs when two

segments in a series switch places (e.g. ask _ aks; ruler _ lurer)

Syntactic Structures

1. Structure of Predication- has two components: a subject and a predicate (e.g. the sun rises;

warriors fought bravely; snow has ceased falling)

2. Structure of Complementation- has two components: a verbal element and a complement (e.g.

weigh the options; serve the masses, be courageous)

3. Structure of Modificaton- has two components: a head word and a modifier—whose meaning

serves to broaden, qualify, select, change, or describe in some wahy affect the meaning of the head

word (e.g. honest officials, canned goods, notoriously famous)

4. Structure of Coordination- has two components: equivalent grammatical units and joined often but

not always by a coordinating conjunction (e.g. pins and needles; peace not war; neither happy nor

sad)

Semantics
1. Lexical Ambiguity- a characteristic of a word that has more than one sense (e.g. the English word

‘fly” may mean ‘an insect’ or ‘zipper’)

2. Syntactic Ambiguity- a characteristic of a phrase that has more than one meaning (e.g. ‘French

literature teacher’ can mean ‘a teacher of French literature’ or ‘a literature teacher who is French’)

3. Synonymy- words having the same sense; they have the same values for all of their semantic

features (e.g. big and large; conceal and hide; stubborn and obstinate)

4. Hyponymy- a characteristic of a word that contains the meaning of another word; the contained

word is also know as the superordinate (e.g. sampaguita contains the meaning of flower; therefore,

sampaguita is a hyponym of the superordinate flower)

5. Antonymy- the characteristic of two words which are different both in form and meaning (good and

bad; single and married) Some antonyms are gradable (hot and cold—not everything that can be hot

or cold is, in fact, either cold or hot; a liquid, for example, may be warm or cool)

6. Homonymy- a sense relation in words with the same phonetic form but different in meaning (bat ‘a

nocturnal animal’ or ‘equipment used in baseball’)

7. Anaphora- a linguistic expression that refers to another linguistic expression (e.g. The tsunami

killed thousands of people. It was devastating.) It is used anaphorically to refer to ‘the tsunami’.

V. Basic English Structures and Rules

A. Nouns- name a person, place, thing, event, or idea. In the English language, nouns commonly

function as the subject of the sentence. Nouns seem to be the simplest among the other parts of

speech, yet it sometimes confuses a reader. Let us have a quick review of the noun classes that you

have learned in your elementary and high school.

1. Common and Proper - Nouns that name a particular person, place, thing, event, or idea are what

we refer to as Proper nouns. All the other nouns that present a general idea are Common nouns.

Proper nouns always start with a capital letter.

2. Concrete & Abstract- Concrete nouns are those which name something (or someone) that can be

perceived by our senses: sight, smell, taste, hearing, or sight. Abstract nouns are the opposite of

concrete nouns. They are the ideas that we understand even if we haven’t perceived them yet

3. Count & Non-count- Count nouns are nouns that can have a singular or plural form. Moreover, you

can also use an indefinite article (a, an) with them. On the other hand, Non-count nouns are those
nouns that you cannot count. They are never plural nor singular and you cannot use the indefinite

article with them.

4. Collective Nouns- Collective noun is a noun naming a group of things, animals, or persons. The

members of a group are countable, yet you usually regard the group as one. Hence, “a collective

noun takes a singular verb when the group acts as a unit (see example 1); [while] it takes a plural

verb when the members of the group act individually (see example 2)” (Hogue, 2000).

Example 1:

The ship crew stays in one dormitory.

Example 2:

The ship crew take separate vacations

Functions of nouns:

Subject of Verbs Several items have ambiguous stems.

Direct Objects of Verbs They administered the test.

Indirect objects of verbs The lecturer provided the participants handouts.

Subject noun predicates We are LET reviewers.

Object noun predicates The reviewees chose him their representative.

Objects of prepositions in the DLSU review class

Appositives The LET, a professional examination, is conducted every year.

Vocatives Anne, how did you find the exam?

B. Pronouns- Pronouns replace a noun or a noun phrase. Pronouns are very crucial in expressing

one’s ideas, because wrong use of pronouns may lead to confusion. Pronouns are very essential to

make your sentences brief and less repetitive. Let us review the different types of pronouns together

with their functions. This would help us in distinguishing and choosing the appropriate pronoun for a

certain context.

1. Personal - I, me, you, he, him, she, her, it, we, us, they, them

2. Possessive- my, mine, your, yours, her, hers, his, its, our,

3. Demonstrative- Demonstrative pronouns point to and identify a noun. There are only four

demonstrative pronouns namely: this, that, these, and those.

4. Interrogative- Interrogative pronouns are used to ask questions, such as: who, whom, whose,

which, and what.

5. Relative- Relative pronouns are used to link one phrase or clause to another. The relative

pronouns are: who, whom, that, and which.

6. Indefinite- pronouns that refer to identifiable but not specified person or thing. (all, another, any,

anyone, anybody, anything, both, each, either, everybody, everyone, everything, few, many, neither,

nobody, none, no one, nothing, one, several, some, somebody, someone, something)

7. Reflexive- used as object of the verb form or preposition to refer to the subject of the sentence

(myself, yourself, himself, herself, itself, ourselves, yourselves, themselves)

8. Intensive- occurs directly after the word it modifies (myself, yourself, himself, herself, itself,

ourselves, yourselves, themselves)

C. Verbs

denote action (e.g. read, jump, play); show state of being (stative verbs) (e.g. beverbs, remain,

appear, become, etc.)

has 4 inflections: {-s} 3rd person singular present tense; {-ed} simple past tense; {-en} past

participle; {-ing} present participle

intransitive verbs do not take an object (direct) (e.g. Flowers bloom.)

transitive verbs require an object (direct) (e.g. Flowers need water and sunlight.)

linking/copula verbs- what follows the verb relates back to the subject (e.g. Roses are sweet.)

Tense- “the grammatical marking on verbs that usually indicates time reference”

(Jacobs, 1995)

Aspect- verb forms used to signify certain ways in which an event is viewed or experienced.

Aspect can view an event as completed whole (simple), whether or not it has occurred earlier

(perfect), or is still in progress (progressive)

Subject-Verb Agreement

1. Non-count noun subjects take a singular verb.

Examples:

The food is good.

Unity builds a nation.

2. In most cases, collective noun subjects take singular verbs, but if the group is viewed as individual

members, use a plural verb (see Unit 1, 1.1.4).

Examples:
The class is going on a field trip.

The class have been arguing about where to go.

3. Subject nouns that are derived from adjectives and describe people take plural verbs.

Examples:

The rich are in favor of a tax cut.

The poor are opposing the proposal to revise the constitution.

4. Some proper noun subjects that end in –s such as names of courses, diseases, places, as well as

book and film titles and the word news, take singular verbs.

Examples:

Wales is a beautiful region.

Measles often has side effects.

Mathematics is an interesting subject.

The news was very good.

Note:

There are some nouns that have the same singular and plural form, in this case, the subject may take

either a singular or a plural verb, depending on the intention or the meaning that you wish to express.

Examples:

Several species have died over the past centuries.

Every species has its own means for survival.

5. Plural subject nouns of distance, time, and money that signal one unit take a singular verb.

Example:

Nine hundred nautical miles is too far to travel in a day.

6. Basic arithmetical operations (add, subtract, multiply, divide) take singular verbs.

Example:

Four times five equals twenty.

7. For items that have two parts, when you use the word “pair”, the verb is singular but without the

word “pair”, the verb is plural.

Examples:

My pair of scissors is lost.

My scissors are lost.

8. Clausal subjects are singular even if the nouns referred to are plural.
Example:

What we need is more reference books.

9. Gerund and Infinitive subjects take a singular verb.

Examples:

Reading books is my hobby.

To err is human.

10. With fractions, percentages, and the quantifiers all (of), a lot of, verb agreement depends on the

noun coming after these phrases.

_ A singular noun, noun clause, or non-count noun takes a singular verb.

Example:

A lot of the information is about maritime disasters and safety procedures.

_ A plural noun takes a plural verb.

Example:

A lot of seafarers need to have a retraining of SOLAS.

_ A collective noun can take either a singular or plural verb depending on meaning.

Example:

All my batchmates (stay/stays) at the dorm.

11. The indefinite pronouns in Table 18 are always singular:

Table 18: Indefinite Pronouns

-one words -body words -thing words Others

Anyone

Everyone

Someone

No one

One

Anybody

Everybody

Somebody

Nobody

Anything

Everything
Something

Nothing

Each

Every

Examples:

Every cadet has a responsibility to study their lessons well.

Nothing satisfies her.

Note:

Indefinite pronouns such as: all, any, a lot of, none, most, and some can be singular or plural. They

are singular when they refer to a singular or non-count noun or pronoun. They are plural when they

refer to a plural noun or pronoun.]

Examples:

Some of the books are imported.

Some of the snow has melted.

12. With a number of as subject, use a plural verb.

Example:

A number of cadets are taking the exam.

13. With the number of as subject, use a singular verb.

Example:

The number of cadets taking the exam is 75.

14. With none as subject, use a singular verb.

Example:

None of the supplies is here.

15. With either or neither as subject, use a singular verb.

Example:

(Either/Neither) was acceptable to me.

16. With correlative subjects either…or or neither…nor, the verb agrees with the closest subject.

Examples:

Either Bob or my cousins are going to do it.

Neither my cousins nor Bob is going to do it.

17. With there subjects, the verb is singular or plural depending on whether the noun phrase following

the verb is singular or plural.

Examples:

There is one book on the table.

There are (three books) on the table.

(a book and a pen)

18. When the subjects joined by and refer to a single unit or is considered as one, it takes a singular

verb.

Example:

Bread and butter is a common breakfast for Americans.

19. Follow the general rule in pairing subjects and verbs regardless of prepositional phrases or

clauses that are sometimes placed in between the subject and verb.

Example:

The color of his eyes is blue. (The subject is color and not eyes.)

20. The verb after the relative pronouns who, which, and that agrees with its antecedent.

Examples:

Children may not see a film that has an X-rating.

Children may not see films that have an X-rating.

Part I: Sample Test Items

1. Teachers who believe that language is a system of structures consisting sounds, words, and

sentences will predictably follow a teaching syllabus that revolves around ________.

A. Communicative tasks

B. Functions of language

C. The ‘building blocks’ of language

D. Elements and functions of language

2. When teaching the difference between auxiliary verb and linking verb, it can be pointed out that

_________.

A. An auxiliary verb can stand alone

B. A linking verb cannot stand alone

C. A linking verb goes with a main verb

D. An auxiliary verb goes with a main verb

The answer is C because the structuralists’ view of language justifies a teaching syllabus that

revolves around the ‘building blocks’ of language. A. and B. are incorrect because the language

theory that underpins a teaching syllabus that focuses on communicative tasks and functional tasks is

the functional view; D. is incorrect because elements and functions mean a combination of

structuralist and functionalist view.

The answer is D because an auxiliary goes with a main verb to indicate tense and number (She is

studying linguistics. Here is carries tense (present) and number (singular). A. is incorrect because an

AV can’t stand alone; B. is incorrect because a linking verb, in fact, can stand alone (i.e. without

another verb) in a sentence; C. is incorrect because an LV doesn’t need an MV.

Part II: Analyzing Test Items

1. Filipino learners of English who experience difficulty in producing the initial sound of the word

thunder are likely to replace it with

A. /d/ C. / _/ B. /t/ D. /s/

2. In the sentence, “The club meeting will be in an hour” the underlined phrase functions as

A. subject complement C. predicate noun

B. prepositional phrase D. adverbial

3. Which of the following sentences does not have a linking verb?

A. The tall building appears haunted.

B. The principal is busy observing classes.

C. The class is working on their science project.

D. The ugly bud becomes a beautiful flower after two days.

4. When second language learners of English pronounce ask as aks, they exhibit a speech behaviour

that exemplifies a morphophonemic change known as

A. assimilation C. dissimilation

B. epenthesis D. metathesis

5. The minimal pair that can be used for teaching the contrast between /e/ and /_/ is

A. hat-hate C. bet-bit

B. set-sat D. met-mate

6. In the sentence, “My aunt tenderly mothers his youngest son” the word mothers is
A. a noun C. an adjective

B. a verb D. a possessive

7. The amount which she paid for is a student loan. The underlined word group is

A. an independent clause C. a dependent clause

B. a fragment D. a subject complement

8. The transcription / _aI / represents the word

A. die C. tie

B. thou D. thigh

9. When pronouncing the word cemetery, the primary stress falls o the ____ syllable

A, fourth C. second

B. third D. first

10.You can sleep on the beach or in the woods. The sentence has conjoined ________.

A. clauses C. Verb Phrases

B. predicates D. Prepositional Phrases

11. The statement that exemplifies hyponymy is

A. I’ll meet you here next Monday.

B. There are over a hundred stores at SM.

C. A mall is a building that houses stores for various forms of entertainment, shopping needs, banking

and personal services.

D. The raffle winner did not win in the raffle draw.

12. The word formation process involved in creating the following words from beauty is

A. derivation C. coinage

B. back formation D. compounding

13. When a learner is able to produce his own utterances, not simply mimicked from a model, we say

that that learner’s ability upholds the ______ view of language learning

A. cognitivist C. behaviorist

B. functionalist D. interactionist

14. To present the notion of gradable antonyms, teachers may use a cline showing the ______ A,

binary opposition between ‘deep’ and ‘shallow’

B. range of meaning between ‘hot’ and ‘cold’

C. extreme difference between ‘young’ and ‘old’

D. sense relation between ‘rich’ and ‘poor’

15. As predicted by Krashen, the structure that is likely to be acquired late by a second language

learner is shown in the underlined item in ______

A. the girl is chasing the ducks.

B. He saw many animals on the farm.

C. The son enjoys riding on the carabao.

D. The family went home happy.

Part III: Enhancing Test Taking Skills

1. When teaching the pluralization of regular nouns, the teacher may include a pronunciation lesson

on nouns ending in

A. /s/, /z/, /_z/ C. /d/, /t/, _d/

B. / š/, / ž/, / c/ D. /t/, /d/, /d_d/

2. When reading aloud the word Filipinization, one hears the primary stress fakk on the ____ syllable.

A. fourth C. fifth

B. sixth D. first

3. In the sentence, “The supplier calls up on Tuesdays and Fridays” the verb is a ______verb.

A. transitive C. linking

B. intransitive D. auxiliary

4. Which aspect carries the meaning of “prior”?

A. simple C. perfect

B. progressive D. perfect progressive

5. The imperative “Have an enjoyable vacation” is used as ___________.

A. a suggestion C. an advice

B. a wish D. an invitation

6. The following words: edit from editor, swindle from swindler, peddle from peddler, liaise from liaison

are formed through _______________

A. derivation C. back formation

B. clipping D. abbreviation

7. The word that is formed from a proper noun is ____________

A. motel C. AIDS
B. edit D. hamburger

8. The transcription that represents the word peace is ____________

A. [pis] C. [pez]

B. [piz] D [pIs]

9. The semantic feature that differentiates the following set of words: nephew, son brother vs. priest,

man, boy is _________

A. [ + human ] C. [ + male ]

B. [ + kin ] D. [ + common ]

10. A piece of evidence that could be used to argue tat {hood} in the word childhood is a derivational

morpheme is ___________

A. hooding C. motherhood

B. niecehood D. hooded

11. When teaching the difference between vowels and consonants it is important to point out that the

former is characterized by _________________.

A. absence of vibrations

B. free airflow through the vocal tract

C. presence of friction in the vocal tract

D. little obstruction in the vocal tract

12. The different ways letter t is pronounced in top, stop, and pot demonstrate that the /t/ phoneme

has _______.

A. phones C. phonemes

B. allophones D. phonemics

13. The theory of language learning that emphasizes the child’s creativity in constructing his/her

knowledge of the language is _________

A. cognitivist C. behaviorist

B. functionalist D. interactionist

14. The view of language on which Audiolingualism is based is _______

A. structrural grammar C. functional grammar

B. pedagogical grammar D. transformational grammar

15. In teaching pronunciation, the difference between ice cream and I scream is a function of_____.

A. pitch C. stress
B. intonation D. juncture