TASK 124 ANALYSING Grammatical patterns

Summarise the underlined grammar patterns using either a table or grammatical

terminology.
a Michael used to work in Moscow.
b I ll have finished by midnight.
c How many records have you got?
d Did you fly over the Alps?
e l m playing tennis with Paul this evening.

TASK 125 Writing a substitution table
The following substitution table is for Wh- questions (Who, Where, When, Why, How,What) in
the past simple tense.
Where you go
What he eat
How did she see ?
When Caroline do
Why the teachers run

TASK 126 Recognising grammatical items 1
Find at least one example of each of the following in the text below : a past participle, a base
form, an auxiliary verb, an imperative and multiword verb.
Broadband Internet has become much cheaper over the last few years. Take our special offer
up in the next seven days , and well throw in a free three-month subscription to the best
virus-protection service.
COMMENTARY
Past participle : become
Base form : throw
Auxiliary verb : has,will
Imperative: take
Multiword verb : take up, throw in
Verbs are usually listed in coursebooks and grammar books in three columns which show:
1) The base form, 2) The past form, 3) The past participle.
. The base form is used to make the present simple (e.g.they walk or she runs).
. Putting the word to in front of the base form makes an infinitive (e.g. to run).
Infinitives without to are called bare infinitives.
. A present participle is made by adding-ing to the base form(sometimes requiring
spelling changes). It is used in progressive tenses (e.g. were arriving or he was
singing).
. The past form is used in the past simple tense(e.g. I coughed). There are regular past
forms (ending in ed) and irregular ones (with various forms).
. The past participle is used in perfect tenses (e. g. hes gone or they had begun).
The most commonly studied tenses and verb forms are :
. present simple
. present progressive (also called present continuos)
.past perfect
. will
. going to
. used to

Many tenses require use of auxiliary verbs. These are short verbs such as do,
be and have which are used together with other main verbs. For example, Were
making bread includes the auxiliary verb are (contracted to re) and the main verb
making.
Modal auxiliaries are the auxiliary verbs may, might, must shall, should,will,
would,can,could (plus some other semi-modals such as ought to and have to)
That show the speaker or writers attitude or interpretation of the topic being
discussed.
When teaching verbs, you need to make sure that you cover not only positive
statement forms, but also negatives and questions . Students also need to know
How to form imperatives (telling someone to do something ), passives (focusing on the
thin done rather than the doer) and conditionals (If , etc.).
Many English verbs are not simply single words but multiword, comprising a main verb
and one or more particles. For example, the sentence Her flight took off at 3.40
includes the multiword verb took off. Students and coursebooks often classify these
as phrasal verbs or prepositional verbs.

TASK 127 : Recognising grammatical items 2
In the text below, find at least one uncountable noun , a pronoun, a compound noun
and a noun phrase.

Hey! When you said it was just a little studio flat, I never expected this! Theres so
much light, and that panoramic view over the river is just amazing!

COMMENTARY

Uncountable noun : light
Pronoun: you, it , I, this
Compound noun: studio flat, panoramic view.
Noun phrase : just a little studio flat, so much light, panoramic view over the river.

An important grammatical distinction with English nouns is whether they are
Countable (i.e. we can count them : one pencil, two pencils, etc.) or uncountable
(i.e. we cant count them: one weather, two weathers). Some nouns (e. g. paper)can
be countable with one meaning and uncountable with another.
Compound nouns are made of two or more words, e.g. noun + noun or adjective
+noun, but act as if they were a single, one-word noun. Examples are streetlight, first-
aid kit, video recorder.

Noun phrases are combinations of words that act as if they are nouns(i.e. we could
substitute a noun for them). For example , in the sentence I saw a really strange animal
with vertical black and white stripes all down its side, all the words after the first two
make up a noun phrase which could be substituted( with some loss of information) by
the words a zebra.

Pronouns can be used instead of nouns or noun phrases, usually in cases where we
already know what is being referred to, e.g. in the sentence John saw it, the word it is
a pronoun.

TASK 128: Recognising grammatical items 3
How many prepositions can you find in this sentence?

Put the ladder next to the cupboard, the toolbox
Under the stairs and the hamster in her cage!

COMMENTARY

NEXT TO, UNDER, IN
Prepositions are generally short words (Or phrases) that tell us about.
. where something is (prepositions of place), e.g. on the table, at the bus stop, against
the wall;
. the movement of something (preposition of movement), e.g. towards Madrid, over
the bridge;
. when something happens (prepositions of time), e.g. at half past eight, on Christmas
Day, in the afternoon;
. relationships between things, such as cause and effect, e.g. because of.
Many words require the use of a specific preposition. For example, in the sentence
Mike listened to the news, the verb listen requires the preposition to. You listen to
the news not at or over it.
Preposition also occur as particles in multiword verbs (see above).

TASK 129 : Recognising grammatical items 4

Find a comparative, an ungradable adjective, an indefinite article, an adverb of
frequency and a relative pronoun in the following text

He gets to the caf at about ten and always takes the corner seat upstairs . Its
smokier and rather cold but from his point of view, its a brilliant choice the only seat
that has a view over the whole street.


COMMENTARY

Comparative : smokier
Ungradable adjective : brilliant
Indefinitive article : a
Adverb of frequency : always
Relative pronoun : that

TASK 130 : Analysing meaning
Segment the meaning of the following words into their component parts using
language that is less complex than the words themselves : a calf , a watch, a clock, a
poster.

COMMENTARY
A calf Its an animal. Its a cow. Its young.
A watch it tells you the time. You wear it on your arm.
A clock it tells you the time. You see it on a wall, or a table, or a cupboard.
A poster it has a big picture or an advertisement.
Its made of paper.
You can put it on a wall in your house.
You can see very big ones on buildings or beside the road.
Many advertise cars, beer cigarettes, airlines, fizzy drinks, etc.

TASK 131 : Finding missing words
In the following short text, fill each gap with any appropriate word.

There was too much traffic all the way from the airport to town and, when we
eventually arrived
At the hotel, it was too late. Luckily, we had phoned up that morning and reserved a
room, so the receptionist was waiting for us.

COMMENTARY
Unless you decided to be poetic or dramatic or to create any other specific effect, you
will probably have found that each gap suggested a small set of likely alternatives to
you, perhaps: heavy, quite/rather/very /really ; reserved/booked; expecting. These
are not right answers, they are simply some of the most common or natural words for
these contexts. You probably chose some of them because they seemed to go
together naturally (e.g. rather than crowded traffic).
Others you may have chosen because of the meaning of the text (e.g. too late might
have seemed grammatically possible, but in the context of the second sentence, it
made no sense).

TASK 132 : Finding collocations
Find one or more collocations for each of the following :
Safety, blonde, feel, bad.

TASK 133: Relationship between words
What is the relationship between the words within each group below?
1 hot, cold
2 on, off
3 stroll, amble
4 drink, lemonade
5 flower, pot, spade, seeds, weedkiller
6 nation, national, international, internationalist.
7 Fair, fair, fair
8 Fair, fare
COMMENTARY
1 Hot and cold are opposite or antonyms. Because we can vary their meaning
With words such as very or quite (e.g. very hot, quite hot), they are known as
gradable antonyms. Hot and cold could be represented diagrammatically as
two points on a straight line representing a scale of temperatures. We could
add other words at various points along the same scale, e.g. freezing, warm,
boiling, etc.
2 Another type of opposite . In this case, we cannot grade the degree of
oppositeness: a thing is normally either on or off. Lexical items such as these
are known as ungradable antonyms.
3 These two words have a similar meaning, we could say they are synonyms. In
fact, hardly any words have an exact synonym, the fact that two words exist
usually means that there is some distinction between them.
4 One word includes the other , Lemonade is a type of drink. We can imagine
this as a family-tree diagram, with drink as the parent (superordinate) and
lemonade, whisky, water, milk, etc. being the children (hyponyms).
5 This group of words are all to do with the subject of gardening or farming.
6 If we take nation as the root word, it is possible to form the other words by
adding prefixes (e.g.inter-) or suffixes (e.g. al or ist). These often change the
grammar ( noun, verb, adjective, etc.) of the word (usually through adding a
suffix) and/ or the meaning ( by adding a prefix). Many of the effects are
generalisable , for example, adding a/ can make a noun into an adjective (e.g.
nation, national, music, musical, etc.). (The study of such pieces and how they
combine together is morphology.)
Relationships such as the ones in 1-6 are useful both in assisting an initial
understanding of the meaning of news items and as a key to recording and
remembering them. A group of related words is likely to be more memorable than a
list of unrelated items. Diagrams, such as scales or trees, can provide a useful visual
hook for memory. It may also be useful to analyse relationships such as 7 an 8 in order
to help clarify confusions and problems :
7 Words can have more than one meaning, sometimes quite unconnected.
Context and collocations are essential clues to deciding which meaning is
intended ( fair hair, a fair trial, the county fair).
8 Different words, with different spellings, can be pronounced the same.


TASK 134: Analysing grammatical meaning
Here is sentence 2 : I had the car repaired.
First of all, lets distinguish the grammar from the specific vocabulary used. At the moment, we
are not primarily wanting to help students understand the meaning of car or repaired . Lets
assume they know those for the moment. Rather, we want to help leaners understand the
grammatical concept , in this case the idea of have something done. We need a way of
analysing concept that will be applicable even if the vocabulary items change.




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