ENGLISH GRAMMAR 1–UNIT 1

Language: meaning, concept, definition. Nature of language.

What is language?
Language is a human system of communication which uses structured vocal sounds and can be embodied in other
media such as writing, print and physical signs. Most linguists currently regard the faculty of language as a
defining characteristic of human beings.

Language is a system—The complexity of the various facets of it are organically interrelated, such as, sounds,
words and structures in integrated with one another and constitute the complex and organic whole which is called
language.

Communication by means of language may be referred to as linguistic communication, other ways– laughing,
smiling, shrieking, and so on – are types of non-linguistic communication.
Most or all non-human species can exchange information, but none of them are known to have a system of
communication with a complexity that in any way is comparable to language. Primarily, they communicate with
non-linguistic means resembling our smiling, laughing, yelling, clenching of fists, and raising of eyebrows.
Chimpanzees, gorillas, and orangutangs can exchange different kinds of information by emitting different kinds
of shrieks, composing their faces in numerous ways, and moving their hands or arms in different gestures, but
they do not have words and sentences. Birds sing different songs, whose main functions are to defend their
territory or to attract a mate.
Language – as defined above – is an exclusively human property.

1. "Language is a primarily human and non- instinctive method of communicating ideas,

emotions and desires by means of a system of voluntarily produced symbols" (Sapir / səˈpɪə/).
2. "Language, in its widest sense, means the sum total of such signs of our thoughts and
feelings as are capable of external perception and as could be produced and repeated
at will" (A. H. Gardiner).

Nature and properties of Language

A language consists of words, idioms and syntax. It is through language that we think, feel,
judge and express. Hence language is one of the most important and characteristic form of
human behavior. We use words and idioms as tool to perform and share experience among
people.

Language has the following properties:

1. Vocal-auditory channel -- This means that the standard human language occurs as a vocal (making
sounds with the mouth) type of communication which is perceived by hearing it.
2. Convertibility to other media - There are obvious exceptions: writing and sign language are examples
of communication in the manual-visual channel. However, the vast majority of human languages occur in
the vocal-auditory channel as their basic mode of expression. Writing is a secondary, and somewhat
marginal form of language, while sign languages are in limited use, mostly among deaf people who are
limited in their ability to use the auditory part of the vocal-auditory channel.
3. Use of arbitrary symbols – There is no link in most words between the form used and the meaning
expressed.
This means that there is no necessary connection between the form of the signal and the thing being
referred to. For example, something as large as a whale can be referred to by a very short word.
4. Duality or double articulation – language is made up of two layers, a layer of sounds in which the units –
phonemes – do not normally have meaning, but combine into another layer which does.

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Human language is organized at two levels simultaneously. For example, at speech production we have a
physical level at which we can produce individual sounds like n, b and i. In a particular combination such
as ‘bin’ we have another level producing a meaning that is different from the meaning of the combination
in ‘nib’. • In animals there is only one level that is sound.
This means that the discrete parts of a language can be recombined in a systematic way to create new
forms.
5. Interdependence – language can be regarded as an integrated structure in which the role of every item is
define by that of all other items in the same system.
6. Open endedness – refers to the limitless ability to use language (i.e., any natural language) to say new
things. The number of utterances which can be produced is indefinitely large.
7. Displacement - it is the capability of language to communicate about things that are not immediately
present; i.e., things that are either not here or are not here now. Language can refer to the past and future
times, we can also refer to the things and events that are not present, intangible, non-existent or not visible.
Ex: dragon, miracle, heaven.
8. Continual change –
9. Cultural transmission: a. Language can be culturally transmitted. b. It cannot be transmitted through
heredity. c. Animals transmit their cries through heredity. d. What language the baby is going to speak is
determined by the culture the baby is born into.
10. Continual change: language is always changing and there is no evidence that overall progress or decay
results from such change.

Components of a linguistic description

In order to study a language, linguists distinguish different types of organization or levels, some of which are:
(look for a very short description of these levels, what do they study?)

PHONOLOGY: ………………………………………………………………………….
PHONETICS: ……………………………………………………………………………
LEXICOLOGY: …………………………………………………………………………
SEMANTICS : …………………………………………………………………………..
GRAMMAR: …………………………………………………………………………….
MORPHOLOGY: ………………………………………………………………………….
SYNTAX: ………………………………………………………………………………..

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

LET’S DO THESE EXERCISES

a. Components of a linguistic description: read the signs and jokes and say which science would be
concerned with each.

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WHAT IS GRAMMAR?
‘What is grammar?’ is the kind of question that seems easy to answer until somebody asks it. Reference books
are not very helpful – dictionaries usually say something like ‘the rules for combining words into sentences’. This
is seriously incomplete: grammar does many things besides sentence-building. The definition also says nothing
about the reasons why we need such rules – their functions; as if one defined a bus as a ‘large vehicle
constructed on one or two levels’, without mentioning its use for public transport.

To understand what grammar is, what it does and why it is necessary, it helps to imagine language without it.
Let’s suppose that we are a tribe of intelligent pre-human primates who have decided to devise a rich
communication system. We start by inventing distinctive vocal signs – ‘words’ – for the various classes of things
in our world (‘tree’, ‘rain’, ‘mother’, ‘axe’, ‘baby’, ‘bear’ and so on); for their shared characteristics (‘big’, ‘good
to eat’, ‘red’, ‘cold’); and for processes and situations (‘eat’, ‘fall’, ‘run’ ‘die’, ‘coming’, ‘gone’, ‘tomorrow’). That’s
all: no grammar.

What can we do with our new tool? First of all, we can indicate the existence of something, or our need for
something, by using the appropriate class word (‘Bear!’, ‘Axe!’, ‘Eat!’). Secondly, by uttering two or more words
together we can point to individual members of classes: to ask for a particular axe, we can produce the
equivalent of, for instance, axe big. And thirdly, we can put words together to indicate events or states of affairs:
‘Fall baby’; ‘Rain cold’; ‘Axe big break’; ‘Eat baby acorn’.

We have invented language!

Up to a point. We soon find, however, that our communication system has three serious limitations:

1. It can’t handle complex situations. Putting together our words for ‘big’, ‘bear’ and ‘cave’, for example, will
not make it clear whether there is a big bear in the cave or a bear in the big cave.

2. We can identify and talk about separate things in the world, but we can’t clarify their causal, spatial and other
relationships. For instance, if A is doing something to B, we cannot show, just by saying the words, which of the
two is the agent that performs the action and which is the patient. ‘Sister bear kill’ doesn’t show who killed and
who got killed.

3. We can’t get beyond requests and affirmative statements. ‘Bear cave’ can convey the fact that there is a bear
in the cave, but we have no way of asking whether there is a bear in the cave, or suggesting that there may be,
or saying that there is not a bear in the cave.

We have discovered the need for grammar.

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One solution is to signal the necessary extra meanings by word order. We could decide to juxtapose words for
connected ideas, putting the word for a quality, for example, immediately before or immediately after the word
for the thing that has the quality: ‘bear big’; ‘cave small’. We could also consistently put the expression for an
agent earlier or later than other expressions, so that ‘sister kill bear’ and ‘bear kill sister’ would have distinct
meanings. And we could use a different order for statements and questions: ‘sister kill big bear’ versus ‘kill sister
big bear?’.

Another strategy would be to alter words to signal their functions. Latin did this: ursus and soror meant ‘bear’
and ‘sister’ as agents; as patients they became ursum and sororem. This trick – inflection – could also show what
goes with what: related words could all be changed or extended identically. Changes in pitch, too, too, could
indicate the functions of words or utterances – as when English speakers use intonation to distinguish questions
and statements.

Yet another possibility would be to invent words whose purpose is to show the function of other words.
English may does this: it indicates that a sentence refers not to a definite fact, but to a possibility. Japanese puts
small words – particles – after nouns to mean such things as ‘topic‘, agent’, ‘patient’, and ‘possessor’.

These strategies are all variants on three basic options: ordering, inflection, and the use of function words. Once
we have selected from these three options the devices we want to use for our language, we have devised a
grammar. We now have a human language.

So, to answer the question we started with: grammar is essentially a limited set of devices for expressing a few
kinds of necessary meaning that cannot be conveyed by referential vocabulary alone.

If grammar is so simple in principle, then, why is it so complicated in practice? There are several reasons.

 Once the basic structures of language exist, they can easily be combined into higher-level structures of
increasing complexity. (Compare the 0 and 1 of computer programming.)
 When a tool is devised for one purpose, it often turns out to be useful for many others. (Computers have long
since outgrown their original function as calculating machines.) Time relations, number or social status don’t
have to be expressed in the grammar; but many languages find it convenient to grammaticalise these and
numerous other meanings.
 Tidy systems can become increasingly distorted by language change, and new structures can come into a
language without driving out old ones that have similar functions, so that all languages have a fair amount of
muddle in their grammars.
 Linguistic complexity does not hamper children’s learning, and may have value as contributing to social
identity: if only the children of your tribe can learn your language perfectly, you know who the outsiders are.

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 Working out what grammar is, and why languages need it (as we have done), may be a very useful preliminary
to the study of particular foreign languages, helping learners to understand why languages do such apparently
strange things.
 The topic also has general educational value. The structure of language, the greatest product of human
intelligence, surely deserves a place in the curriculum alongside, say, botany or history.
 Since languages are intrinsically complex and rather messy, what we call ‘grammar’ includes elements of very
different kinds which may be learnable in very different ways, depending on the nature of the point in
question, the equivalent (or lack of it) in the learner’s mother tongue, and the context of learning. So language
teachers (and students of linguistics) need to be very wary of generalisations about grammar, its acquisition,
and teaching methodology.
How do we learn grammar?
 By hearing and duplicating patterns of speech.
 We acquire more grammar as we learn our native tongue. This process happens naturally. Children learn
to speak without teachers, and sometimes without parents. When kids are sufficiently exposed to a
spoken language, they will learn that language themselves -- along with its grammar.
 How do they do this?
 By recognizing patterns.
 The human brain is a pattern-recognition machine. It seeks out patterns in everything, and finds pleasure
in them. It hears patterns in sound and makes music. It finds patterns in movement and creates dance.
It observes patterns in the heavens and invents astrology.
 Grammar is the study and use of language patterns.
 Children acquire spoken grammar by recognizing and duplicating patterns of speech. They don't know
how to describe or analyze what they are doing. They just do it.
But what is grammar for?
We need it because we need
1) a way of saying what word goes with what in order to represent the world via the words we use.
? big bear cave
The big bear is in the cave.
There’s a big bear in the cave.
The bear is in the big cave.
 2) We need grammar because we need a way of expressing agency and other relationships.

Ana kissed Tom ≠ Tom kissed Ana.

3) We need grammar because we need a way of indicating the communicative status of our utterances –statements,
questions, whatever.

It’s raining.

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Is it raining?
It may rain. Take an umbrella.
But what is grammar then?

It is a set of linguistic devices for expressing certain kinds of meaning that cannot be conveyed by referential
vocabulary alone.

And why do teachers of English need to know grammar?

Because you will be asked questions about it, by your students and even by your colleagues, and having an
accurate understanding of how the English language works will make you feel more confident as a teacher.

GRAMMATICAL UNITS
Grammatical units are meaningful elements which combine with each other in a structural pattern. Essentially,
grammar is the system which organizes and controls these form-meaning relationships.
According to Halliday (1961), a British linguist, in English grammar there are five grammatical
units:

1. the sentence
2. the clause
3. the phrase
4. the word and
5. the morpheme

The sentence is the largest or "highest" unit. Its beginning is marked by the use of capital
letters and its end by a full stop. The morpheme is the smallest or "lowest" unit. Halliday
arranges all five units on a scale of rank, saying that units of higher rank are composed of or made up of units of
lower rank. The relation between the five units is, therefore, one of
composition or constituency.

In the simplest cases, a unit consists of one or more elements on the level below:
A clause consists of one or more phrases.
A phrase consists of one or more words.
A word consists of one or more morphemes.

Morphemes are parts of words, i.e. stems, prefixes, and suffixes. For example, un + friend + ly contains three
morphemes: a prefix un-, a stem friend and a suffix -1y. The part of grammar dealing with morphemes is
morphology.
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The combination of morphemes in words is rule-based, that is, morphemes are not susceptible to combine with
every other morpheme in the language. For example, the plural morpheme only combines with nouns in
English, as in vegetables .

The part of grammar dealing with the other types of grammatical units shown above (i.e. words, phrases,
clauses, and sentences) is known as syntax.
Grammatical units can be combined to form longer written texts or spoken interaction, which is known as
discourse. At the other extreme, language can be analyzed in terms of its phonemes (the individual sounds
which make up the language) and graphemes (the written symbols we use to communicate in language). These
are the smallest units of speech and writing.

In general, grammatical units are described in terms of four factors: their structure, their syntactic role, their
meaning, and the way they are used in discourse.

A Structure
Units can be described in terms of their internal structure: e.g words in terms of
bases and affixes, phrases in terms of heads and modifiers, and clauses in terms of clause elements.

B Role
Units can be described in terms of their syntactic role. For example, a phrase can have the syntactic role of
object in a clause:
In November, Susie won those tickets.
In this example, there are also other roles: Susie is the subject, In November is an adverbial.

C MEANING
Units can be described in terms of meaning. For example, adverbs (a class of words) can Express information
about time, place, and manner.

D USE (OR DISCOURSE FUNCTION)

Units can be further described in terms of how they behave in discourse. This can include their use in different
registers, their frequency in those registers, and the factors which influence their use in speech or in written
texts. For example, pronouns like it and they are often used to refer back to things mentioned earlier in the same
discourse:
Isn't Cindy coming? Did she call you?
Such pronouns are more common in speech than in written texts.

MORPHEME: units of sound that have meaning (cats – 2 morphemes cat + s)

WORD: cat (one word)
PHRASES: Phrases consist of one word or more that belong together and fulfil one specific syntactic function.

My sister is admired by many European young people now. (four phrases)

My sister is admired by many European young people now

Noun Verb phrase Prepositional phrase Adverb phrase
phrase

Phrases are group of words, they do not have subject and predicate (an amazing view – an
excellent cook)

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CLAUSES: group of words which does have its own subject and predicate

We cancelled our vacation. (one clause)

The clause is the grammatical unit immediately more complex than the phrase in the rank scale.
As a grammatical unit, the clause is structured around a central obligatory element known as the
Predicator , formally realised by a verb phrase and semantically identifying the action or state taking
place in the clause as a whole.

SENTENCES: a sentence has at least one independent clause (Tom appeared unexpectedly)

A sentence can have one or more clauses.

 Because dad caught chicken pox, we cancelled our vacation. (two clauses)

Dependent clause Independent clause

Because dad caught chicken pox, we cancelled our vacation.

 The game was over, but the crowd refused to leave. (two clauses)
Independent clause Independent clause
The game was over, but the crowd refused to
leave.

IN SHORT
Sentences
consist of one or more
Clauses
consist of one or more
Phrases
consist of one or more
Words
consist of one or more
Morphemes
consist of one or more
phonemes .

Analysis

1. Once a king and a Persian slave were sailing in the same boat.

(a) Clause: The sentence is a main clause. (1 clause)

//Once a king and a Persian slave were sailing in the same boat.//

(b) Phrases: (five phrases)

/Once/ a king/ and a Persian slave/ were sailing/ in the same boat/.

(c) Words: (thirteen words)

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once a king and a Persian slave were sailing in the same boat.

(d) Morphemes: (fifteen morphemes)

Once + a + king + and + a + Persia+n + slave + were + sail+ing + in + the + same + boat.

Exercise: finish the following sentence analysis

2. The slave had never been at sea, and never experienced any calamity.

(a) Clauses (2 clauses)

//The slave had never been at sea,// and never experienced any calamity.//

(b) Phrases
(c) Words
(d) Morphemes

3. All remained quiet except the slave who in fear of being drowned began to cry and
tremble, and created in convenience for others.

(a) Clauses (3 clauses)

//All remained quiet except the slave// who in fear of being drowned began to cry and tremble,// and
created in convenience for others.//

(b) Phrases
(c) Words
(d) Morphemes

4. The others tried to pacify him by kindness and affection but he didn’t hear anybody.

(a) Clauses
(b) Phrases
(c) Words
(d) Morphemes

5. When the uneasiness lasted longer the king also became displeased.

(a) Clauses
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(b) Phrases
(c) Words
(d) Morphemes

MORE EXERCISES
A. Read the following sentences and say how many clauses they contain. Follow the procedure
below.

• First, underline the main verb in each clause of the sentence.

• Then, circle any conjunctions and/or punctuation which suggest clause boundaries.
• Finally, use the symbol || to mark the clause boundaries (include the conjunction in the second or third clause).

1. Children are not born with standards for evaluating behaviour, social skills or moral values.

2. As I have suggested, the non-addicted parent is involved in a co-dependent relationship with the addicted
child.

3. Over this period, the population in Waverley decreased by 2.8%, while the population in the whole of the
Sydney metropolitan area increased by 5%.

4. If we conceptualise caring as a finite set of caring behaviours, then caring can be examined in the traditional
scientific way, even though this approach may not be acceptable in some circles.

5. This space constraint has led to a number of problems and these do not seem capable of being resolved
although everyone is willing to be involved.

B. THINGS TO THINK ABOUT

• Do all commas indicate a clause boundary?

• Do all conjunctions indicate a clause boundary?

C. Identify the morphemes in the following words:

left-headedness
am
clarification
sequentially
undergone
misspelt
murders
spoke
multicellularity

D. Identify all the phrases in the text below. Be ready to justify your decision:

To put it mildly, if it sometimes seems to be saying, on Salim’s behalf, that race or kinship wins, it is also the case that it is full of
losers, that it has a lively feeling for the Africans of market and bush, and for their African troubles, and for the situation of Salim as

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someone evolved from a tribal narrowness to an experience of love liberating and dramatic, which does justice to Metty’s last state,
left behind in the dangerous town at the bend in the river.

What are words?

Words are generally considered to be the basic elements of language. They clearly show up in writing, and they
are the items defined in dictionaries. Yet the definition of 'word' is not simple.
Words are relatively fixed in their internal form, but they are independent in their role in larger units. For
example, insertions can usually be made between words but not within words:
There were two pedal-bins against the wall.
There were two (large new) pedal-bins (standing) against the (side) wall.

Notice how it is possible to insert words between other words to form a longer sentence without losing clarity of
meaning. On the other hand, we could not easily interrupt a word, by inserting another word or morpheme
inside it, as in *pedal-(new)-bins.

Different senses of the word 'word'

The notion of 'word' is complex, and so it is useful to identify a number of slightly different senses of 'word':

Orthographic words: These are the words that we are familiar with in written language, where they are
separated by spaces. For example, They wrote us a letter contains five distinct orthographic words.

Grammatical words: A word falls into one grammatical word class (or 'part of speech') or another. Thus the
orthographic word leaves can be either of two grammatical words: a verb (the present tense -s form of leave) or
a noun (the plural of leaf). This is the basic sense of 'word' for grammatical purposes.

Lexemes: This is a set of grammatical words which share the same basic meaning, similar forms, and the same
word class. For example, leave, leaves, left, and leaving are all members of the verb lexeme leave. This is the
meaning of 'word' that is employed in dictionaries.
Lexeme refers to a single word and all of its forms. For example the word "go" in English has the forms "go"
"goes" "went" and "going". All of these words are from the same lexeme "go."

Exercise:
A. Which one of the words belong to the same lexeme? What word class does each lexeme belong to? Identify
the base form of each lexeme and write it in capitals at the beginning of each group. Ex, BREAK, breaks,
broke, breaking – verb
Which word forms are ambiguous because they belong to two different lexemes? (eg: leaves – plural noun of
leaf; verb)

Care duck teach swam children cuts geese

Breaking swimming listening breaks lively taught acts
cut act goose teaching cared slim listen
teaches listened cutting broke child teach life
lives break swim slimmer cares ducked
swum caring

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Three major families of words
Words can be grouped into three families, according to their main function and their grammatical behavior: lexical
words, function words, and inserts.

A. Lexical words
 Lexical words are the main carriers of information in a text or speech act.
 They can be subdivided into the following word classes (or parts of speech):
nouns, lexical verbs, adjectives, and adverbs.
 Of all the word families, lexical words are the most numerous, and their number is growing all the time.
In other words, they are members of open classes.
 They often have a complex internal structure and can be composed of several parts: e.g. unfriendliness =
un +friend + li + ness.
 Lexical words can be heads of phrases: e.g. the noun completion is the head (or main word) of the noun
phrase [the completion of the task].
 They are generally the words that are stressed most in speech.
 They are generally the words that remain if a sentence is compressed in a newspaper headline: e.g. Elderly
care crisis warning.

There are four main classes of lexical words: nouns, lexical verbs, adjectives, and adverbs.
To decide what class a word belongs to, it is useful to apply tests of three kinds:
1. Morphological: what forms does a word have (e.g. in terms of stems and affixes)?
2. Syntactic: what syntactic roles does a word play in phrases or other higher units?
3. Semantic: what type(s) of meaning does a word convey?

Nouns
Words such as book, girl, gold, information are common nouns. Words such as Sarah, Oslo,
Microsoft (names) are proper nouns. Nouns have the following characteristics:
A- Morphological:
 Nouns have inflectional suffixes for plural numbers, and for genitive case: one book----- two books;
Sarah’s book. Many nouns, however, are uncountable, and cannot have a plural form (e.g. gold,
information).
 Nouns quite often contain more than one morpheme (e.g. compound nouns (clothes+line) – nouns with
derivational suffixes (e.g. sing+ er, friend+ship, bright+ness)
B- Syntactic:
Nouns can occur as the head of a noun phrase (a new book about the cold war) (the ugliest person you’ve ever
seen). As these examples show, common nouns such as book and person can be modified by many kinds of words
both before and after them. Proper nouns like Sarah, on the other hand, rarely have any modifiers.
C- Semantic:
Nouns commonly refer to concrete, physical entities ( people, objects, substances) : e.g. book, friend, iron. They
can also denote abstract entities, such as qualities and states: e.g. freedom, wish, friendship.

Lexical Verbs
 Words such as admit, build, choose, write are lexical verbs. They are distinct from auxiliary verbs like
can and will, which we treat as function words.
 The primary verbs be, have and do (the most common verbs in English) occur as both lexical verbs and
auxiliaries. Lexical verbs are identified as follows:
A- Morphological:

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Lexical verbs have different forms signaling tense ( present & past), aspect ( perfect & progressive), and voice
( active & passive). Verb lexemes quite often have a complex form with more than one morpheme. The following
are examples of multi-word verbs and derived
verbs: bring up, rely on, look forward to, itemize, soften.
B- Syntactic :
Lexical verbs most frequently occur on their own, as a single-word verb phrase acting as the
central part of the clause ( He writes page after page about tiny details). They also occur in the final or main verb
position of verb phrase ( has written a letter) ( will be writing tomorrow).
C- Semantic :
Lexical verbs denote actions, processes, and states of affairs that happen or exist in time. They also define the
role of human and non-human participants in such actions, processes, or states ( You ate Chinese food). In this
example, ate expresses the action performed by you on the Chinese food.

Adjectives
Words such as dark, heavy, eager, and guilty are adjectives. Adjectives are identified as
follows:
A- Morphological:
 Many adjectives can take inflectional suffixes –er ( comparative), and –est (superlative): dark ---- darker
---- darkest.
 Adjectives can be complex in morphology ( derived adjectives e.g. acceptable, forgetful, influential)
( compound adjectives e.g. color-blind, home-made, ice-cold).
B- Syntactic:
Adjectives can occur as the head of an adjective phrase: ( very dark) (eager to help) (guilty of a serious crime).
Adjectives and adjective phrases are most commonly used as modifiers preceding the head of a noun phrase or
predicative following the verb in clauses ( modifiers e.g. Tomorrow could be a sunny day) (predicative e.g. it is
nice and warm in here. It’s sunny).
C- Semantic:
Adjectives describe the qualities of people, things, and abstractions: a heavy box, he is guilty, the situation is
serious. Many adjectives are gradable. That is, they can be compared and modified for the degree or level of the
quality: heavier, very heavy, extremely serious.

Adverbs
Words such as now, there, usually, and finally are adverbs. Adverbs are identified as follows:
A- Morphological:
 Many adverbs are formed from adjectives by adding the suffix –ly: clearly, eagerly.
 Others have no such ending: however, just. A few adverbs allow comparative and superlative forms like
those for adjectives: soon --- sooner --- soonest; fast --- faster --- fastest.
B- Syntactic:
 Adverbs occur as head of adverb phrases: (very noisily) ( more slowly than I had expected).
 Adverbs, with or without their own modifiers, are often used as modifiers of an adjective or another
adverb: (really old) (very soon). Otherwise, they can act as adverbials in the clause (I’ll see you soon
again).
C- Semantic:
 As modifiers, adverbs most often express the degree of a following adjective or adverb:
o (totally wrong) (right now).
o As elements of clauses (adverbials), adverbs and adverb phrases have a wide range of meanings:
- They can modify an action, process, or state, by expressing such notions as time, place, and
manner. (So I learner German quite quickly) ( She was here earlier today).

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 ENGLISH GRAMMAR 1–UNIT 1
- They can convey the speaker’s or writer’s attitude towards the information in the rest of the
clause. (Surely that child is not mine!).
- They can express a connection with what was said earlier. ( It must be beautiful, though).

Comparing lexical word classes in use

- Nouns and verbs are clearly the most common types of words overall.
- Conversation has a high density of verbs, unlike informative writing such as news and
academic prose, which has a high density of nouns.
- Adjectives are linked to nouns, because they most frequently modify nouns. So informative
writing, which has the highest density of nouns, also has the highest density of adjectives.
- Adverbs, on the other hand, are linked to verbs. They typically describe circumstances
relating to actions, processes, and states that are denoted by verbs. So conversation and
fiction writing, which have the highest density of verbs, also have the highest density of
adverbs.

B. Function words

Function words can be categorized in terms of word classes such

 determiners indefinite article, definite article, demonstrative determiners (this, that, these, those),
quantifiers (specify how many or how much of a noun)
 pronouns, personal (subjective and objective), demonstratives, reflexive (they refer back to the previous
noun phrase, eg, myself, yourself, etc.), reciprocal (they refer to a previous noun phrase but indicate a
mutual relationship), possessive, indefinite (someone, everything, nobody)
 relatives (that, who, which), wh words ( wh- questions)
 auxiliaries verbs- primary auxiliaries: be – have – do, modal auxiliaries: will- can- shall- may – must-
would- could- should might.
 Prepositions, adverbial particles, group of words closely linked to verbs
 Coordinators - coordinating conjunctions: and – but- or- nor. Correlative coordinators: both / and – either
/or – not only / but also – neither/ nor.
 subordinators: introduce clauses known as dependent clauses: (if, because, since, while, however)
 special classes of words such as the negator not, existencial there, infinitive marker not.

They usually indicate meaning relationships and help us to interpret units containing lexical words, by showing
how the units are related to each other.
Function words belong to closed classes, which have a very limited and fixed membership. For example,
English has only four coordinators: and, or, but, and (rarely) nor.
Individual function words tend to occur frequently, and in almost any type of text.

C. Inserts
Inserts are found mainly in spoken language.
Inserts do not form an integral part of a syntactic structure, but tend to be inserted freely in a text.
They are often marked off by a break in intonation in speech, or by a punctuation mark in writing: e.g. Well, we
made it.
They generally carry emotional and discoursal meanings, such as oh, ah, wow, used to express a speaker's
emotional response to a situation, or yeah, no, okay used to signal a response to what has just been said.
Inserts are generally simple in form, though they often have an atypical pronunciation (e.g. hm, uh-huh, ugh,
yeah).

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 ENGLISH GRAMMAR 1–UNIT 1
Examples are: Hm hm, very good.
Yeah, I will. Bye.
Cheers man.

 Exercise: In the passages below, identify each lexical word as a noun, lexical verb, adjective, or adverb.

Noun Adjective Verb Adverb

1. A: Um can
you get me a
screw driver?
B: Where?
A: Uh, well just
bring my tool
box.
B: Oh okay.
Wow. Be careful.
We're gonna have
to take off the light fixture-just -take a -screw -driver nd take those off. Do circuits run
back there?
A: Yep.
B: Okay. Move this. You want me to take off this? Ouch!
A: That should-you okay?
B: Yeah. I guess I should put on shoes.

2. We take it as a challenge to integrate in a natural way the newest discoveries of plate

tectonics, marine geology, geochemistry, geophysics, and lunar and Martian geology into
the traditional discussions of such topics as geomorphology, sedimentation, petrology,
volcanism, and structural geology. We have not introduced the very new at the expense
of eliminating the essential material, both traditional and modern, that a good course in
geology should cover.

 In the passages above, identify each insert and function word.

FUNCTION WORD CLASSSES INSERTS

 Many orthographic words in English can function in different word classes, depending on the context.
Identify the lexical word class of the underlined words below.

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 ENGLISH GRAMMAR 1–UNIT 1
l a I was flat on my back. ( back - noun
1b I already told him to back off. (back – verb)

2a It's pretty hard to do that.

2b I felt like I was pretty.

3a Actually, it's fun to horse around with danger.

3b He is quite handy on a horse.

4a His ability to abstract and formulate higher-level logical categories of thought will
also be compromised.
4b The abstract usually includes the major objectives of the proposal.
4c At the end of the journey is an abstract sculpture of the universe.

5a I go fast because I want to get back quick.

5b By early September it seemed that the fast might go on indefinitely.
5c I'm normally a fast learner.

Borderline cases in classifying words

The categories people operate with in the real world are not clear-cut. The category of 'furniture', for example,
includes clear cases, like tables and chairs, but also less clear or borderline cases, such as television sets,
cookers, and electric heaters.
The same is true of word classes in grammar. For example, nouns can be more or less 'nouny'. A typical noun
(e.g. boy, car) has singular, plural, and genitive forms (e.g. boy, boys, boy's). It can be preceded by a or the, and
it refers to a class of people, things, or other entities. Yet in the class of nouns we find many words which have
only some of these 'nouny' features: e.g. research, which has no plural or genitive, cannot be preceded by a, and
refers to something abstract and intangible
As some words may be more 'borderline' than others within a word class, it is not surprising that the boundaries
between two word classes may also be unclear.
As an example of borderline cases in lexical word classes, take the classification of words ending with -ing.
Almost all of these words have a verb base, so it is easy to assume that all words ending in -ing are verbs.
However, this conclusion is not correct. In fact, these words can belong to any of three different classes:
 verb (sometimes called the ing-participle),
 noun, or
 adjective (sometimes called participial adjective).

Normally the following tests can be applied to determine the word class:
Verbs ending in -ing can act as the main verb of a verb phrase, and may be followed by a noun or an adjective
(underlined here): e.g. is eating lunch.
Nouns ending in -ing can sometimes have a plural form (e.g. paintings), and can usually be a head noun after a,
the, or some other determiner: e.g. [the banning of some chemicals], [her dancing].
Adjectives ending in -ing can appear before a noun, and can also occur after verbs such as be and become: e.g.
the travelling public; it was (very) confusing.
They can be preceded by degree adverbs such as very, so, and too: very forgiving, so interesting, too boring.

EXERCISE

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 ENGLISH GRAMMAR 1–UNIT 1
Mark each of the underlined -ing words as a noun, a lexical verb, or an adjective.
Briefly state how you made your decision.

l a The price was coming down all the time. Coming is a lexical verb, it is the main verb of the clause.

lb The coming weekend is relatively quiet.

2a the running of the business.

2b the sound of running feet behind me.

3a 'I'm not a drinking man'.

3b a small drinking cup.

4a another offering of sausage and mash

4b They began by offering him bad bargain prices

5a Of course, it all seemed very exciting.

5b get it home without exciting any remarks.

Closed classes and open classes

A closed class contains a limited number of members, and new members cannot be easily added. For example, it
is not easy to create a new coordinator or a new pronoun: those word classes have a fairly fixed set of members.
The membership of open classes is indefinitely large, and can be readily extended by users of the language.

The class of nouns, for instance, is potentially infinite, since it is continually being expanded as new scientific
discoveries are made, new products are developed, and new ideas are explored. In the late twentieth century, for
example, developments in computer technology have given rise to many new nouns:
Internet, website, URL, CD-ROM, email, newsgroup, bitmap, modem, multimedia

We can easily form new nouns with the suffix -ee, adjectives with -ish, verbs with -ize, and adverbs with -wise:
gossipee, franchisee, internee, retiree
birdish, broadish, coquettish, heathenish
bureaucratize, mythologize, periodize, solubilize
crabwise, fanwise, frogwise, starwise

New verbs have also been introduced:

download, upload, reboot, right-click, double-click
The adjective and adverb classes can also be expanded by the addition of new words, though less prolifically.

On the other hand, we never invent new prepositions, determiners, or conjunctions. These classes include words
like of, the, and but. They are called CLOSED word classes because they are made up of finite sets of words
which are never expanded (though their members may change their spelling, for example, over long periods of
time). The subclass of pronouns, within the open noun class, is also closed.
Words in an open class are known as open-class items. Words in a closed class are known as closed-class items.

In practice, the difference between open classes and closed classes is not always clear-cut. For example, new
prepositions develop out of other word classes (e.g. regarding), and sequences of orthographic words can
gradually become fixed as a single preposition (e.g. on account of). As a result, 'closed classes' are not completely
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closed, but they are extended only slowly, perhaps over centuries. In contrast, new nouns, verbs, adjectives, and
adverbs-the open classes-are always being created.

The structure of WORDS: morphology

Lexical words can consist of a single morpheme (a stem, such as go, book, cat), or they can have a more
complex structure created by a process of inflection, derivation or compounding.

What are morphemes?

A morpheme is a short segment of language that meets three basic criteria:
1. It is a word or part of a word that has meaning.
2. It cannot be divided into smaller meaningful segments without changing its meaning or
leaving a meaningless reminder.
3. It has relatively the same stable meaning in different verbal environments.

Free and Bound Morphemes

There are two types of morphemes-free morphemes and bound morphemes. "Free morphemes" can stand alone
with a specific meaning, for example, eat, date, weak. "Bound morphemes" cannot stand alone with meaning,
for example -ly, re-, de-, -ous.

A Base is a word form that other morphemes can attach to. Bases include both roots and stems.
A Root is the core of a word. A root is the irreducible core of a word, with absolutely nothing else attached to it.
It is the part that is always present, possibly with some modification, in the various manifestations of a lexeme.
For example, walk is a root and it appears in the set of word-forms that instantiate the lexeme WALK such as
walk, walks, walking and walked.
A Stem is a root with some modifications to it. They are usually derivational in nature.

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AFFIXES

An affix is a morpheme which only occurs when attached to some other morpheme or morphemes such as a
root, stem or base. By definition, affixes are bound morphemesn no word may contain only an affix standing on
its own (-s; de-)
Affixes can be devided into three categories

PREFIXES Any inflection which is attached to the beginning of a base, a root or a stem is a prefix.
re-make un-kind in-decent
re-read un-tidy in-accurate

SUFFIXES An inflection which is placed at the end of a root, stem or bas is a suffix.
kind-ly wait-er book-s walk-ed
quick-ly play-er mat-s jump-ed

INFIX An infix is an affix inserted in the root itself. Infixing is somewhat rare in English, but it still happens in
contemporary English in informal language

Impossible --- im-fuckin-possible

Kangaroo --- kanga-bloody-roo
absolutely --- abso-blooming-lutely
boomerang ---- boome-bloody-rang
desperate --- desper-blooming-ate

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INFLECTION
Lexical words can take inflectional suffixes to signal meanings and roles which are important to their word
class, such as 'plural' in the case of nouns, and 'past tense' in the case of verbs. The following word classes are
marked by inflection:

Inflectional affixes produce a new word from of an existing lexeme, i.e. they do not create a new entry in one's
mental lexicon.
For example, the noun "boys" can be produced by adding the plural -s, a inflectional suffix, to the base "boy".
The plural -s indicates that more than one boy is concerned, but it does neither change the grammatical
category of the word nor does it produce a new lexeme.

DERIVATION
Derivation, like inflection, usually involves adding an affix, i.e. a morpheme attached to the beginning of a
word (a prefix) or to the end of a word (a suffix).
However, this process is different from inflection because inflection does not change the identity of a word (i.e.
it remains the same lexeme), while derivation creates new nouns, adjectives, verbs, and adverbs.
Derivation changes the meaning or word class of a word, and often both, and in effect creates a new base form
for the word:

prefixes: ex + president, un + kind, re + read, a +broad

suffixes: boy + hood, central + ize, green + ish, exact + ly

Words can be built up using a number of different prefixes and suffixes, and can thus contain several
morphemes:
industri + al, industri + a1 + ize, industri + a1 + iz + ation, post + industri + a1

Notice that inflections, such as -ed and -s, follow derivational suffixes, such as
-iz(e): central + iz + ed, build + er + s.

Derivational affixes are capable of creating a new lexeme from a base. Therefore, they can provide a more
complex change.
 On the one hand, a derivational morpheme can change the grammatical category of the word. A
derivational suffix like "-ly" can transform an adjective into an adverb, the suffix "-ment" is often used
to produce a noun.
 On the other hand, we can change the meaning of a word without changing its category. If we add
the derivational prefix "un-" to the adjective "happy", we receive the adjective "unhappy". The word
remains an adjective while the meaning changes completely.

Compounding
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 ENGLISH GRAMMAR 1–UNIT 1
Inflection and derivation result in complex words, with a stem plus one or more affixes. Another form of
derivation is compounding, which also leads to more complex words. Words that are compounds contain more
than one stem.
Examples are:
noun +noun: chair + man, girl +fr-iend
verb + noun: cook + book, guess + work
adjective + noun: blue + bird, flat +fish
noun + adjective: head + long, water f tight
How are we to know whether two words are genuinely a compound and not simply a sequence of two words?
Three tests help to show this:
 The word will be spelt as a single word, without spaces between the two forms:
goldfish, not gold fish.
 It will be pronounced with the main stress on the first element: a 'goldfish, not
a gold ‘fish.
 It will have a meaning which cannot be determined from the individual parts:
goldfish (= an ornamental fish of the carp family) not gold fish (= a fish which
is made of gold).

If a word passes all three tests, there is no doubt that it is a compound. But in other cases, we may be uncertain
about whether an expression is one word or two words. As an in-between category, consider words which are
joined by hyphens: e.g. gold-tipped, care-free. This shows that the combination overall is felt to be a single
word, and yet the two parts are felt to be somewhat separate. There are also words like ice cream, which are
usually spelled as two separate orthographic words, but where the pronunciation and meaning tests suggest a
single word. Like many categories in grammar, compounds are not a hard-andfast
category.

A- For the following words, identify all roots

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 ENGLISH GRAMMAR 1–UNIT 1

1-dragged 6-unassuming
2-deactivated 7-redness
3-impossible 8-racketeers
4-thumbtack 9-cloudiness
5-hopefully 10-exceptionally

B- List the morphemes in each word below, and state whether each morpheme is free (F) or bound (B).

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 ENGLISH GRAMMAR 1–UNIT 1

1. creating- creat (F) ing (B) 6. unhealthy

2. seaward 7. waiter
3. wastage 8. reconsider
4. poetic 9. keys
5. modernize 10. incompletion

C- For each word below, indicate whether the word is morphologically simple (S), includes an inflectional
affix (I), or includes a derivational affix (D).

1. rider (D) 6. reader

2. colder 7. redder
3. silver 8. radish
4. lens 9. redness
5. legs 10. rotation

D- Identify the component morpheme(s) of each word. How many morphemes does each word contain? If
there are affixes, what are the meanings or functions of the affixes? For words with affixes, give examples
of two other words that have the same affix.

a) stupidity f) paper k) misbehaved

b) unreliable g) sleeping l) management
c) classroom h) disinfectant m) painters
d) ugly i) magazine n) deformed
e) unfairly j) sandwich o) husbands
E- List two other words which contain each morpheme represented below:

-er as in player
-ness as in kindness
-ette as in kitchenette
ex as in ex-wife
pre as in pre – war
mis as in misunderstand
re- as in rewrite

F- Identify the inflectional and derivational affixes, roots, bases and stems

SUFFIX/PRE INFLECT DERIVA

ROOT STEM
FIX IONAL TIONAL
FAITHS faith faith s - suffix X
FAITHFULLY faith faithful Ly - suffix X
FAITHFULNESS
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UNFAITHFUL
BOOKSHOPS
FROGMARCHED
UNEMPLOYMENT
UNEMPLOYMENT
REVIEWED
REVIEWED
FORTUNATE
FORTUNATELY
PACKAGE
REPACKAGE
FORCEFUL
FORCEFULLY

G- Study the following data and answer the questions below:

He was sheepish.
I ducked. Three ducklings.
Two ducks. You’re ducking the issues.
He is humourless.

a. Identify the suffixes in the underlined words. What word class do the words to which the suffixes are
added belong to?
b. For each suffix determine whether it is inflectional or derivational. Justify.

Multi-word units, collocations, and lexical bundles

Apart from compounds, there are sequences of words that behave as a combination:
 A multi-word unit is a sequence of orthographic words which functions like a single grammatical unit:
e.g. the preposition on top of or the adverb of course.

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 An idiom, like many compounds, is a multi-word unit with a meaning that cannot be predicted from the
meanings of its constituent words. A typical example is a verb expression like fall in love or make up
(one's) mind.
However, the boundary between idioms and freely chosen combinations is not always clear.
 A collocation is the relationship between two or more independent words which commonly appear
together (or co-occur). The adjectives broad and wide, for example, are similar in meaning, but occur in
very different collocations: e.g. broad accent, broad agreement, broad daylight, broad grin, broad
shoulders, etc.; wide appeal, wide area, wide experience, wide interests, wide margin, etc.
 A lexical bundle is a sequence of words which co-occur very frequently, especially when the sequence
consists of more than two words. e.g. Would you mind... recurs in conversation.

PHRASES
Words can be organized into higher units known as phrases or groups.
Each lexical word-level category has a corresponding phrasal category, which contains the word-level category
itself and any material which -in a manner to be made more precise shortly- adds additional information to it or
is dependent on it.

A phrase may consist of a single word or a group of words. Phrases can be identified by substitution-that is, by
replacing one expression with another, to see how it fits into the structure. In particular, a multi-word phrase can
often be replaced by a single-word phrase without changing the basic meaning:

We can also identify phrases by movement tests. A phrase can be moved as a unit to a different position.
Compare 1 above with la, which has a similar meaning:

1a [A more representative government] [is demanded] [by [the opposition]].

When we place one set of brackets inside another, as at the end of la, this means that one phrase is embedded
(i.e. included) inside another. The possibility of embedding sometimes means that a given structure can be
understood in two or more different ways.
Consider the following example:

2 They passed the table with the two men.

Notice there are two possible meanings of this clause, corresponding to different ways of grouping the words
(i.e. different phrase structures):

2a [They] [passed] [the table [with [the two men]]].

2b [They] [passed] [the table] [with [the two men]].

The meaning of 2a is roughly: 'They passed the table where the two men were sitting'. But in 2b the meaning is
'With (i.e. accompanied by) the two men, they passed the table'.

Syntactic elements of groups or phrases

Nominal groups, adjectival groups and adverbial groups are composed of three primary elements or functions: a
head (h) preceded by a pre-modifier (m) and followed by a post-modifier or ‘qualifier’ (q).

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Noun phrases - Nominal groups

A phrase with a noun as its head is a noun phrase. Often a noun phrase is just a noun or a pronoun:
People like to have money.
I am tired.
People and I are heads of the noun phrases.

determiner modifier HEAD qualifier

girls
the girls
the little girls
the little girls in red
London
some interesting places to visit
a place where to stay

Adjective groups or phrases

Adjectival groups have an adjective as head and optional modifiers or qualifiers may precede or follow the
head.

modifier HEAD qualifier

old
very old
very old to drive
more interesting than any other
good at sports

Adverb groups or phrases

Adverb groups have an adverb as head and optional modifiers or qualifiers may precede or follow the head.

modifier HEAD qualifier

soon
pretty soon
sooner than expected
much more quickly
so quickly you don’t even see it

Prepositional phrases
Prepositional phrases consist of a preposition followed by a prepositional complement or completive - which
most often is a noun group.

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HEAD completive

in the morning
on him
after spending so much time there
from above
in a street with no name

Verbal groups
In Verbal Groups, the lexical verb is regarded as the main element (v), which either functions alone, whether
in finite or non-finite form, as in the example

Walking along the street, I met a friend of mine,

or is preceded by auxiliaries (x), as in

will go or has been reading.

The first auxiliary (or the auxiliary, if there is only one) is called the ‘finite operator’ (o). It is the element that
contributes information about tense, modality, number and person, and so helps to make the VG finite and fully
‘operative’. It is also the element that operates in the syntactic structure to make the clause interrogative and/ or
negative, and to make ellipted responses:

Have you been driving for many years? – Yes, I have.

Do you enjoy driving? – Yes, I do.

Verbal group structures are illustrated as follows

v: plays
ov: has | played
oxv: will | be | playing
oxxv: must | have | been | played

Classes of clauses
At the rank of clause the first distinction to be made is that between independent and dependent clauses. An
independent clause (indep.cl) is complete in itself, that is, it does not form part of a larger structure, whereas a
dependent clause (dep.cl) is typically related to an independent clause. This is illustrated in the following
sentence:

They locked up the house (indep.cl), before they went on holiday (dep.cl).

Dependent clauses may be finite or non-finite, this depends on the form of the verb chosen.

Look at each of these examples. Do they have present tense or past tense? Can we change the tense?
 She feels sick.
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 ENGLISH GRAMMAR 1–UNIT 1
 I was watching TV.
In the first example, we have the present tense verb form feels. We could change to past tense: She felt sick.
In the second example, the verb phrase was watching contains the past tense form was. We could change to the
present tense: I am watching TV.
These are called finite clauses because they contain finite verbs: verbs in the present tense or past tense form. If
the verb expresses tense person or number, it is a finite verb and the clause is a finite clause.
Our examples of finite clauses so far are main clauses: She feels sick and I was watching TV stand alone as
complete sentences. Subordinate clauses, which form part of a larger sentence, can also be finite:
 I know that she feels sick.
 While I was watching TV, the phone rang.

Compare the examples above with those below which are non finite clauses (highlighted). Can you see a
difference in the verb phrases?
 She doesn’t want to feel sick.
 Watching TV, I dozed off.
The highlighted clauses do not contain any tensed verb forms. Non finite clauses are usually subordinate clauses,
as in these examples: to feel sick and watching TV could not stand alone as sentences.
Non finite clauses tend to express less information than matching finite clauses. Take this example:
 I am happy to see you.
We have here the nonfinite clause to see you. Think about this clause on its own. Does it tell us when the seeing
happened? Or who is doing the seeing?
 No, it doesn’t tell us whether the seeing is present or past (unlike the finite clauses I see you, I saw you).
We can only work out the time from the main clause verb (am).
 No, it doesn’t say who is doing the seeing: there is no Subject expressed in this clause. We have to work
out from the main clause that it is ‘I’ (the speaker) doing the seeing. (If we had He is happy to see you, it
would be ‘he’ doing the seeing.)

There are three main types of non finite clauses, corresponding to the three types of nonfinite verb. Let’s look at
an example of each type.

a. I’d always wanted to go to Australia.

This is a to-infinitive clause, with to followed by the infinitive verb form go.

b. Arriving just before lunch, I looked for Harry Frampton in the dining room.
This is an -ing participle clause (also called present participle clause), with the -ing participle verb
form arriving.

c. They’ve never improved on the distance covered on that first expedition

This is an -ed participle clause (also called past participle clause), with the -ed participle verb form covered.

A feature of spoken English is the use of ellipted responses such as

Yes, it is, No, we don’t, I can’t, has he?
based on the Subject-operator (declarative) and operator-Subject (interrogative) patterns. These are independent
abbreviated clauses. They are used in response to questions, statements, exclamations and directives. They show
more interest and involvement than a mere Yes or No, and even more than mere silence!

A minor clause is an irregular type of clause. It lacks the mood element( subject and finite verb) and is therefore
moodless. It is frequently found in colloquial speech.
Examples: Just a minute.
Yes.
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 ENGLISH GRAMMAR 1–UNIT 1
Coffee?
Take traveller’s cheques abroad, whenever possible.

EXERCISES
a. What is the prepositional phrase in the sentence below?

They were disappointed when they found many campers at the Lost Lake.
1. they were disappointed
2. at the Lost lake
3. when they found many

b. What is the prepositional phrase in the sentence below?

Rob often goes hiking in the Rocky Mountains.

1. in the Rocky Mountains
2. Rocky Mountains
3. Rob often goes

c. Circle noun phrases.

1. soft pillow
2. cold wind
3. boy runs
4. loud thunder
5. kangaroo hops
6. large bear
7. car goes
8. quiet class

Identify the phrase type: Adjective Phrase

Adverb Phrase
Noun Phrase
Prepositonal Phrase
Verb Phrase

1. Houses are [unbelievably expensive] just now.

2. We [met Paul] last week
3. [A car that won't go] is not particularly useful
4. I enjoy eating [in Indian restaurants]
5. Don't you have to leave [early]?
6. Tell [him] not to worry

e. Each of the following sentences contains an italicized phrase. In the blank, identify each type of phrase.
_____1. At college, my brother tried to learn the art of bull-fighting.
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_____2. Practicing his cape swing was one of the requirements for the class.
_____3. This requirement, a long-standing tradition at the school, was easy for most students.
_____4. To my brother, however, it was a difficult challenge.
_____5. Cheered on by his friends, he would swing his cape back and forth.
_____6. Despite his best efforts, he just couldn’t swing the cape correctly.
_____7. Nevertheless, he would try again and again, getting better each time.
_____8. The instructor, a rather sympathetic person, tried to give my brother advice.
_____9. He told my brother that cape movement was important in the bull-fighting ring.
_____10. My brother finally admitted that bull fighting seemed to be a challenge for him.

f. Analyze the internal structure of each of the phrases (previous exercise)

g. Identify the underlined phrase

1. Steven’s book, which made Oprah’s Book Club this month, is not in any stores.
2. While preparing for the speech, Joe couldn’t help but worry about his entrance.
3. Ahmad wants to visit Quebec, but he will need to wait for his next vacation.
4. Hoping for a miracle, the doctors continued the surgery.
5. Our boss supports donating time to charity.
6. Melanie hoped to find a cure for the disease, but she tried to be realistic.
7. After the banquet, the cooks will take a well-deserved break.
8. Joey is hoping for a change to play pool with his uncle.
10. Sam Smith, who recently spoke to the youth group, excels at motivating young people.
12. The shoes he saw in the catalogue are available down the street.
13. The reporter crouched behind that tree got the best picture of the arrest.
14. Keith tried supporting both teams, but his heart was with Oregon.
15. Katrina, who resented being left at home, drew on the walls with her crayons.

h. Analyze the internal structure of each of the phrases (previous exercise)

i. Recognizing phrase types

In the following examples, phrases have been placed in brackets .Identify each phrase as a noun phrase (NP),
verb phrase (VP), adjective phrase (AdjP), adverb phrase (AdvP), bra prepositional phrase (PP).
For each phrase, underline the main word, or head.
1[They] [could have signed] [ that check].
2 [He] [is] [a sweet boy]. [He] [came] [to my wedding] and [he] [looked] [so handsome].
3 [You] [must have] [some fun] [with that].
4 [I] [also] [told] [him][the story of my life].
5 [The rebels] [had held] [Makati] [since Saturday].

j. Read the following text and do the exercises that follow

Dirty Britain
Before the grass has (1)thickened on the roadside verges and (2)leaves have started growing on the trees
is a perfect time to look around and see just how (3)dirty Britain has become. The pavements are stained
with chewing gum that has been spat out and the gutters are full of discarded fast food cartons. Years

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ago I remember travelling abroad and being saddened by the plastic bags, discarded bottles and soiled
nappies at the edge of every road. Nowadays, Britain seems to look at least as bad. What has
gone wrong?

The problem is that the rubbish created by our increasingly mobile lives lasts a lot longer than before.
If it is not cleared up and properly thrown away, it stays in the (4)undergrowth for years; a semi-
permanent reminder of what a tatty little country we have now.

(5)Firstly, it is estimated that 10 billion plastic bags have been given to (6)shoppers…

What is clearly necessary right now is some sort of combined initiative, both individual and collective,
before it is too late. The alternative is to continue sliding downhill until we have a country that looks
like Dirty Britain

a. Identify the affixes in the words in bold type. State what type of affix it is in each case. State also what word
class the words to which the affixes are added belong to, and what word class results. For each (if there are two
affixes in a word, state both separately) affix determine whether it is inflectional or derivational and briefly
justify your decision.

WORD AFFIX TYPE OF AFFIX INPUT OUTPUT REMARK

1

2
3
4
5

………………./7

b. Extract four examples of lexical words and four of function words. Then state what word class they belong to –
state a DIFFERENT word class for EACH example:

LEXICAL WORDS WORD CLASS FUNCTION WORDS WORD CLASS

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 ENGLISH GRAMMAR 1–UNIT 1
c. CATEGORIZE THE FOLLOWING PHRASES, IDENTIFY AND CLASSIFY THEIR INTERNAL ELEMENTS.

a. too late b. at the edge of every road c. has become d. as bad e. a perfect time to look
around

CATEGORY DETERMINERS MODIFIERS HEAD QUALIFIERS

a.
b.
c.
d.
e.

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