DESCRIPTIVE GRAMMAR_1

Introduction (descriptive vs. prescriptive grammar, competence vs. performance, sentence

structure, parts of speech)

l What is grammar? - the study of rules governing the use of language

l What is linguistics? - the scientific study of language:
- theoretical
- applied (puts it in practice)

l Branches of linguistics
Phonetics (properties of speech sounds)
Phonology (organisation of speech sounds)
Morphology (internal structure of words)
Syntax (arrangement of words into sentences and phrases)
Semantics (meaning of words)
Pragmatics (meaning in context)

l Rules of grammar

Prescriptive – _____________________________________________________

Descriptive – _____________________________________________________

l Competence vs performance

competence – ____________________________________________________
performance – ___________________________________________________

(a) I’ve d-d-d-d-d-d-done it.

(b) It’s a real mystery -> It’s a meal mystery.
(c) They are talking Turkish -> They are Turking talkish

Performance is not always a perfect reflection of competence

l Grammatical or pragmatic competence?

Listen, John’s hedgehog is singing.
Hurt hand Walt has his.

Task 1. Identify ill-formedness:

1. She gave me her ktars.

2. What doing is he?
4. Jane is a living dead man.
5. My computer is vomiting again.

Task 2. Find a mistake

1. He has been here for ten years ago.

2. My parents have arrived last weekend.
3. He wouldn’t tell to us the answer.
4. Your teeth should be being brushed twice a year.

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5. Two months after they had had their house been painted they decided to move.
6. Despite of the fact that he couldn’t drive, he bought a car.
7. Talking in the library it is not allowed.
8. Should he meets us, we will give him a lift.
9. Tom apologised me for his behaviour.
10. She let us to go shopping.
11. They made her to work hard.
12. Unless she doesn’t help us, we won’t pass the exam.

l STRUCTURE OF THE SENTENCE

Syntax – from Greek ‘a setting out together’ or ‘arrangement’; The study of structure and ordering
of components within a sentence;

THE SENTENCE - a definition

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l THE SENTENCE - Hierarchy

Mary couldn’t open the windows

Mary / couldn’t open/ the windows – PHRASES

Mary/couldn’t + open/the + windows – WORDS

could + n’t / window + s – MORPHEMES

Sentence constituents (the key clause elements)

Subject + Verb The dog + is running.

S + V + Complement The car + is + ready.
S + V + Object The man + saw + a cow
S+V+O+O I + gave + John + a book.
S+V+O+C He + called + John + a fool.
S + V + Adverbial The picture + lay + on the ground.
S+V+A+A Mary + went + home + yesterday.

Subject
• a noun phrase or pronoun that normally comes before the verb in an affirmative clause. It often says
(in an active clause) who or what does the action that the verb refers to.
Helen gave me a wonderful smile. Helen is the subject of it.

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Verb (Predicator)
• Predicator is the function filled by the verb. The verb is the head of the verb phrase, and Predicator
is the special term used for the Head of the verb phrase forming the Predicate of a clause.
Her son plays the piano.
Complement
• a part of sentence that gives more information about the subject (e.g. after be, seem, etc.)
His father is a chemist. vs. I know a chemist.
Object
• a noun phrase or pronoun that normally comes after the verb in an active clause.
I bought a car.
She left that expensive book.
è The direct object most often refers to a person or thing (or people or things) affected by the action of
the verb. In the sentence
Take the dog for a walk, the dog is the direct object.

è The indirect object usually refers to a person (or people) who receive(s) the direct object.
They sent us a letter.
She gave Tom a new tie.

Object complement
• a part of sentence that gives more information about the object, e.g.
They elected him President.
Adverbial
• a part of the sentence that gives information about the place/time or manner
The picture lay on the ground.
Mary went home yesterday.
Tom solved it quickly

Have a look at the following examples and let us examine the structure of the sentence:

1. Tom is a teacher.

2. A tall man that is sitting next to Mary is the best teacher in this school.

3. The police advised commuters to avoid using Russel Square Station and they advised motorists to
expect delays and to make only essential journeys.

Task 3a. Sentence constituents (Subject, Verb, Object (direct/indirect), Complement (of Subject/of
Object), Adverbial. Name the underlined items.

1. The soup tasted delicious.

2. The baby woke me up.
3. They ordered something to eat.
4. It seemed reasonable.
5. He should have given you some advice.
6. We could find a wife for him.
7. The receptionist handed me my key.
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 8. I found the film rather boring.
9. I ordered myself a cup of tea.
10. James placed his coat over a chair.
11. Susan is very tired.
12. They elected her vice-Dean.

Task 3b. Identify Subject, Verb, Object (direct or indirect), Complements, Adverbials.

1. The headmaster put George into the second class.

2. The parson’s cat is an abominable animal.
3. The police laid the bodies by the side of the road.
4. Mike’s father greeted his girlfriend warmly.
5. An uncle of mine left me a thousand pounds.
6. I’m going to play you a new record.
7. A queue of long-haired, strangely dressed youths formed outside the theatre.
8. He found himself out of breath.
9. The prisoner was found guilty.
10. That fellow over there is Dr Fraker.
11. That makes me so mad.
12. The Swiss cheese has gone bad.
13. The doctor has sometimes given me some useful advice.
14. This style of conversation is quite different from that of rhetoric.

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 l Parts of speech

Task 3. Identify parts of speech.

___________ : book, table, imagination, house

___________ : do, make, sleep, rain, swim
___________ : beautiful, nice, colourful, bad
___________ : nicely, badly, quickly
___________: he, she, it, I, you, we, they, my, your, her, his, its, our, their
___________: at, in, on, of, under, behind, over, above…..
___________: that, or, and, then…..
___________: a, an, the, this, that, many

Task 4. Which part of speech are the words below:

sickness -_________ late -__________ this - __________

snowy - _______ Mary - __________

he - __________ their - _________

smile - ________ and - __________

Task 5. Classify the underlined words as parts of speech.

1. Is it right to say that right wrongs no man.

2. One cannot right all the wrongs in the world.
3. Cure that cold with a drink of hot lemon before you go to bed.
4. Drink this quick! Don’t let it get cold.
5. I must warn you that the results may be very serious.
6. Growth in weight results in the development of muscles and fat.

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NOUNS

Types of nouns
• table, apple, dog, key _________________
• London, Jane, Thor ___________________
• love, thought, joy, key ________________
• family, clergy, class, government _____________
• pen, book, girl vs. milk, rice, money _________________ vs. ______________
• cat, woman, visitor vs. room, book, idea ________________ vs. _____________

Task 6. Identify types of nouns

1. Jane loves the idea of going to that little restaurant, Paradise, to have a cup of coffee.
2. This thing is too small to stick between your toes.
3. I’ve just got it confirmed, but these things take time.
4. The staff were not in agreement with the new rules.
5. The staff consists of 20 people.

VERBS

Main verbs and auxiliary verbs

(1) I went into the empty house.

(2) I gave him a message.
(3) Jack the Ripper could be staying here.

Lexical verbs (‘full verbs’; only as main verbs): run, eat, drink
Primary verbs (function as both auxiliary and main verbs): be, have, do
Modal verbs (only as auxiliary verbs): can, could, should, will, would, etc.)

Primary verbs

BE
Main verb: Radio waves are useful.
Auxiliary verb:
- Progressive aspect: He is singing.
- Passive voice: The dinner was served.

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HAVE
Main verb:
(1) She has two cars.
(2) She had a husband and child.
(3) They had three burgers in that restaurant.
(4) I think you should have it cut.

Auxiliary:
She has taken my book.

DO
Main verb:
Will you do me a favour?
We’d better do some work.
I didn’t do it.
DO – as auxiliary verb
Interrogative: Do you like me?
Negative: I don’t like you.
Emphatic: I did help him.
Pro-form (pro-verb): He doesn’t even know you. – He does!
Question tag: You like her, don’t you?

Task 1. Indicate, by the symbol a, b, c, etc., whether DO in the following sentences is used
as:
(a) a lexical verb (d) an emphatic affirmative
(b) an interrogative operator (e) an emphatic imperative
(c) a negative operator (f) a pro-form

1. Do do me a favour.
2. How do you do?
3. I do know you did your best.
4. I don’t smoke and nor does Henry.
5. Don’t do that, please!
6. Did you tell me you’d be away? - Of course I did.
7. You forgot to post that letter, didn’t you? - But I did post it.
8. I didn’t do any damage.
9. Do that again. I didn’t see it properly.
10.Do stop! You know it annoys me, don’t you?

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Finite vs. non-finite verbs

• finite (express tense, concord)

• Jack swims a lot.
• Boys gathered in the gym.
• non-finite (the infinitive, -ing participle or –ed participle).
• I saw him swimming in the lake.
• Robbed of his life, he did not give up hope.

Task 2. Identify each verb phrase in the sentences below. Indicate whether each verb is
finite (tense, mood, concord) or non-finite (the infinitive, -ing participle or –ed participle).

1. Die, doctor? That is the last thing I intend to do.

2. Die, traitor! Every man found guilty of treachery pays the penalty.

3. We found him lying by the roadside and were almost sure at first that he was dead.

Categories of verbs

Stative verbs (those expressing state of affairs):

senses (hear, see, smell, feel, taste)
thinking (think, agree, consider, regard, believe, expect, doubt)
emotion (love, hate, like, mind, etc.)
other (appear, seem, be, belong, have, keep, owe, possess)

Dynamic verbs (those that express activities and changes of state; allowing such forms as
possessive), e.g.:

Mary is swimming in the lake.

James moved house.
Robert has disappeared.

Intransitive (Verb doesn’t have any complement), e.g.: John has returned. V+ Ø
Monotransitive (Verb is followed by one Object), e.g. They saw a very good film. V + O
Ditransitive (Verb is followed by 2 Objects), e.g.: Don’t buy him another sweater. V+ O + O
Complex transitive (Verb is followed by: Object and Object Complement), e.g.: V + O + Oc
I regard him as a very good friend.

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Task 3. Categories of verbs: stative, dynamic, intransitive, monotransitive, ditransitive,
complex transitive.

1. Do you understand the question?

2. English and German are separate languages.
3. He appeared rather worried.
4. The mist is disappearing slowly.
5. I see what you mean.
6. You aren’t looking in the right direction.
7. He offered her his hand hesitatingly.
8. Tom is becoming rather a bore.
9. Susan chooses her clothes sensibly.
10. Her mother made her that dress well.
11. We selected him President unanimously.
12. His election made him very conceited.

A few more examples 😊

1. Aunt told us an interesting story.

2. Laura hired a bike.
3. Harry gifted a book to his sister.
4. She has accomplished her dreams.
5. He finally finished his thesis.
6. During the night leprechauns painted the barn green.
7. I sing rather poorly.
8. I sang „Sweet Home Alabama” rather poorly.
9. Vinita offered a pastry to the little boy.
10. The poet read out his latest poems to his fans.
11. Geeta promised her cousins ice creams.
12. That mean comment made her sad.

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13. I consider you my best friend
14. Tom considered the matter a waste of time.
15. Ron Burgundy has been gossiping since early this morning.
16. Jack White founded The White Stripes.
17. I lived in Las Vegas for a very brief period.
18. I make an excellent shrimp stir-fry.
19. Michael Simon gave an outrageous speech yesterday.
20. Stephen Curry slipped on his way to the basket.
21. The judge declared the man guilty on two counts.
22. Jack found his brother's behavior deplorable.

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Adjective and Adverb

T1. Adjective or Adverb? Which of the elements in bold is an adjective and/or adverb?

1. The sun burnt the grass quickly.

2. It burnt the glass quickly.
3. He drove his employees hard.
4. He drove some of them mad.
5. I find this very unlikely.
6. We found the people friendly.
7. This made everyone late.
8. I have made his acquaintance lately.
9. The doctor soon made the patient well.
10. We can make breakfast early.
11. What made my bed so hard?
12. We shall leave the house early.
13. We shall leave the room empty.
14. I can paint your hall pink.
15. I can paint this wall fast.
16. Pull the rope hard.
17. Pull the rope tight.
18. The heat turned the milk sour.

Adjectives
• tell us what sth. is like;
• they are used to describe nouns:
• attributive adjective (before a noun): A nice girl.
• predicative adjective (after a linking verb, e.g. be, seem, become, feel): The girl is nice.

Attributive adjectives
• Follow certain order if more than one adj. is used:

opinion + size + age +shape + colour + origin + material + purpose

A lovely small old square brown Chinese wooden writing table

T2. Order of adjectives. Put the words in the right order.

1. wine/it’s/ancient/jar/a/Greek/priceless/ceramic

2. new/a/centre/our/has/fantastic/school/state-of-the-art/computer

3. superb/textured/the/she/ten/sales/found/metres/dark/blue/of /velvet/in

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Attributive adjectives derived from nouns

GOLD vs. GOLDEN

gold medal vs. golden hair

made of vs. metaphorically; sth. like

T3. Underline the correct adjective.

1. A gold/golden eagle glided gracefully across the sky.

2. She ruined her silk/silky suit by washing it.
3. We had to climb over a low stone/stony wall.
4. He approached the task with steel/steely determination.
5. The soap will leave your skin feeling silk/silky and soft.
6. Leathery/Leather coats never seem to go out of fashion.
7. This plant has soft feather/feathery leaves.
8. We spotted the metal/metallic blue car speeding into the tunnel ahead.
9. The manager’s stone/stony expression showed that something was wrong.
10. She was given an expensive gold/golden watch for her twenty-first birthday.

THE + adjective

• the blind, the rich, the homeless, the hungry, the old, etc.
• some adjectives can be used with the as nouns to talk about a group of people in general

T4. Fill in THE where necessary

1. He takes ___ disabled children in his area riding on Friday afternoons.

2. When the government decided to raise taxes ___ rich people were unhappy and ____ poor were
devastated.
3. ___ elderly as well as ____ homeless people can very often suffer from loneliness.
4. We were relieved to hear that all ____ injured were recovered from the wreckage.
5. ___ survivors carried ____ injured people to the ambulances.
6. ____ deaf communicate by using sign language.

T5. Replace the phrase underlined by THE + adj, where it is possible

1. Robin Hood robbed rich people in order to pay those who were poor.
2. The injured people were conveyed in ambulances to the General Hospital.
3. The injured man lay unattended for several hours.
4. If those who are blind lead those who are blind , both will fall into the ditch.
5. He sat there as silent as if he were a dumb man.
6. Does anyone know the dead man’s name?
7. Always speak well of those who have died.

8. Fear of what is unknown often makes people conservative.

9. Nothing is so certain to happen as something that we do not expect.

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10. These seats are reserved for men who have been disabled.

ADVERBS

• Describe verbs, adjectives, other adverbs

• He swims fast.
• She is a really nice girl.
• He swims very fast.

• Placed in front, mid or end position in a sentence

• All afternoon they played quietly in the sitting room.

• Adverbs:
• of place: there (where?)
• of time: tomorrow (when?)
• of manner: carefully (how?)
• of frequency: rarely (how often?)

Adverbs with two forms and different meaning

LATE vs. LATELY

He came late. vs. He visited us lately.

not early vs. recently

T6. Underline the correct item.

1. I managed to get to New York easy/easily by flying there directly/direct.

2. She has been deeply/deep upset by his behaviour late/lately.
3. Lately/Late the cost of living has been increasing; things generally are not nearly/near as
cheap as they used to be.
4. It is wide/widely believed that she was wrong/wrongly accused.
5. Laura is a very shy person who rare/rarely goes out and she does not mix free/freely with the other
students.
6. She is highly/high regarded in the school as people can get on with her easily/easy.
7. I was not full/fully satisfied with the doctor as he had wrong/wrongly diagnosed my previous
illness.
8. “Do you intend to leave shortly/short?” – I think so, I’ve nearly/near finished.
9. He’ll surely/sure get a good grade; he’s been studying very hardly/hard for the past year.

10. I was prettily/pretty embarrassed when I realised that I had hardly/hard enough money to pay the
bill
11. He came last/lastly in the race and was pretty/prettily disappointed with his performance.
12. The train goes direct/directly to Edinburgh without stopping so it will probably be full/fully.
13. She free/freely admitted that she had not been working very hard/hardly recently.
14. The hotel’s wide/widely range of sports facilities left the guests pretty/prettily satisfied.
15. Sure/Surely we must be near/nearly there by now.

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PREPOSITIONS (P)
• to, of, from, for, off, on, at, through, over, under, above, inside, near, with, before, beyond, after, in,
since, during, until, between, by, within, without, across, along, down, near, around
• meaning and function:
• express relations of possession, place, time, etc.; they therefore function in a sentence like
adverbs.
• introduce prepositional phrases and are followed by a noun phrase, e.g. in the room, with my
mother

DETERMINERS (Det)
• Introduce and modify noun phrases, e.g the angry bull, every foreign student
• articles (the, a)
• demonstratives (that, this ,these, those)
• quantifiers (all, both, many much, more, less, any, every, each, some, few, little, several)
• negative (no, neither)
• relative , interrogative (which, whose)
• possessives (my, your, his, her ,its, our, their, John’s)

CONJUNCTIONS (Conj)
• and, or, but, because, however, if, so that, as though etc.
• Some conjunctions occur in pairs and link two parts of an utterance or sentence: if...then,
although...yet, both...and, either...or etc.)

PARTICLES (Part.)
• functional words which must be combined with other words to create meaning (We do not like to get
up early.)
• Types of particles
• infinitive (to)
• negative (not)
• in phrasal verbs (up, off, down) (e.g. bring about, make up)

NUMERALS (Num.)
• words that refer to numbers (I’m thirty eight.)
• Types of numerals
• ordinal (first, second, third …)
• cardinal (one, two, three, ….)
INTERJECTIONS (Int.)
• ‘primitive’ expressions of feeling or attitude;
• they are, for example: oh, ouch, wow, ugh + swear words

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Task 1.What parts of speech are the underlined words? What helped you identify the class they belong to?

1. After the accident he had to walk slowly.

WORD CLASS:
WHY?:

2. I got this really lovely necklace from my nephew.

WORD CLASS:
WHY?:

3. This question is difficult.

WORD CLASS:
WHY?:

4. What is this?
WORD CLASS:
WHY?:

5. You lack energy because you don’t sleep enough.

WORD CLASS:
WHY?:

6. He is wise enough to keep away from trouble.

WORD CLASS:
WHY?:

7. In the bottle there was enough poison to kill an elephant.

WORD CLASS:
WHY?:

8. My favourite daily newspaper is ‘El Mundo’.

WORD CLASS:
WHY?:

9. I check the dollar exchange rates daily.

WORD CLASS:
WHY?:

10. If you eat too fast you may get indigestion.

WORD CLASS:
WHY?:

11. He loves fast cars.

WORD CLASS:
WHY?:

12. He is really determined.

WORD CLASS:
WHY?:

13. He determined the cause of the disease.

WORD CLASS:
WHY?:

14. I was here before.

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WORD CLASS:
WHY?:

15. I was here before the war.

WORD CLASS:
WHY?:

16. He went up the ladder.

WORD CLASS:
WHY?:

17. He gave up smoking.

WORD CLASS:
WHY?:

18. She is sleeping.

WORD CLASS:
WHY?:

19. All sleeping children look cute.

WORD CLASS:
WHY?:

20. Her singing made everybody cry.

WORD CLASS:
WHY?:

21. I have never been there.

WORD CLASS:
WHY?:

22. I have much work to do today.

WORD CLASS:
WHY?:

23. The boy is very talkative.

WORD CLASS:
WHY?:

24. The talkative boy is liked by most teachers.

WORD CLASS:
WHY?:

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Task 2. Identifying word classes
1.

She had an argument with her best friend.

2.

You look pleased with yourself.

3.

I have never seen anything here

4.

‘You must follow a healthy diet,’ the doctor said to me.

5.

This room does not have enough light.

6.

Who has never been here before?

7.

Nearly every student who attended all lectures and classes passed the exam.

8.

I have hardly any time at the moment.

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9.

The house was very small but there was much furniture.

10.

Neither his nice smile nor much money will convince me to move.

11.

When did you give up your studies?

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John asked his mum if she loved him?

13.

What will you do when you see a very scary monster?

14.

How are you today?

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I have never met a more handsome and intelligent man in my life.

16.

Ann is a nurse who looks after the sick.

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17.

Who wore an especially elegant black evening dress tonight?

18.

Did you come by car to work this morning?

19.

What would you like for your birthday?

20.

Both my sons are exceptionally charming and bright.

21.

All the rooms in the old house were tastefully decorated.

22.

Yesterday he tried really hard to succeed.

23.

The baby slept quietly in his cot all night.

24.

We have not seen her since her wedding.

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25.

Which flat would you buy if you had some money?

26.

I am quite certain about his success

27.

I thought he had a pretty nasty accident last month.

28.

This antique table dates back to the nineteenth century.

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Small children are dependent on their parents.

30.

Neither of them can understand why he can not find a decent job.

31.

Do you know where he lives?

32.

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My mum got this rather ugly necklace from her boss.

33.

How long can you live without food?

34.

Susan said that those paintings had always been there.

35.

Her older sister often takes a nap after her classes at university.

36.

She has just had another row with her hysterical sister.

37.

Many young people will hopefully find a good job in the near future.

38.

Everybody should sleep more and eat less.

39.

A group of very tired travellers was walking slowly up the stone path.

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40.

The curious aunt asked if he had made the tasty soup himself at home.

41.

A woman who was typing got up and came towards me.

42.

I have a little work to do before I leave.

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