THE ASSIGNMENT OF

MODERN ENGLISH GRAMMAR

Name : MIHATI LATIVA

NIM : 2013 601 2050

SUMMARY OF CHAPTER 1 – 5

1
INTRODUCTION

There are some requirements that should be owned by English teachers as a

second or foreign language. First, teacher should have a good grasp of language
teaching methodology. Second, teacher should familiar with available materials in order
to select the most appropriate textbook for a class. Third, teacher should provide a good
linguistic model. Fourth, as a teacher of English as a second or foreign language, we
have to know our subject matter.
English grammar is a necessary qualification for optimal effectiveness as an
ESL/EFL instructor. Grammar affects your students’ performance in all four skills:
listening, speaking, reading, and writing. When a student makes an error, you should be
able to detect it, diagnose it, and follow up with an effective correction strategy if you
feel it is necessary.
Based on our experience, the most useful sentence-level model for the ESL/EFL
teacher is the transformational one, since it views human language as dynamic rather
than static and is process-oriented rather than form-oriented. For example, in a static
model of grammar such as the structural one, questions are analyzed and presented
independent of statements:

Statements
Subject Predicate

Hal is a teacher.
is kind.
teaches Spanish
likes Tacos

Let us briefly consider the transformational model and the type of analysis it
provides. The four processes that transformational theory attributes to all human
language are, movement of permutation, substitution of replacement, deletion and
addition. As well as the movement of the present tense/third person singular inflection
from the main verb to front of the sentence, the auxiliary verb DO has been added via a
transformation of addition to form a grammatically acceptable question. The
transformational model of grammar-which tries to incorporate both the rigor of
structural grammar and the insight of traditional grammar-has several components that
we will briefly introduce here.
 2
Word Order and Phrase Structure Rules – Part I

GRAMMATICAL DESCRIPTION

Word Order in English and other languages

English has lost most of its original Germanic system of inflections. This was a system
of suffixes on nouns and adjectives that reflected the gender, number, and case of every
noun in a sentence and suffixes on verbs that reflected the person and number of the
subject noun. English teacher should be cognizant of is that there may exist basic
sentence level organizational differences between your students’ native language(s) and
English and English.

Phase structure rules

Let us turn now to our first phrase structure rule:

1. S (SM)n NUC

The arrow means that the notion of S sentence is expanded (or rewritten) to include an
optional sentence modifier SM – the parentheses indicate the optionality of this
constituent-and an obligatory sentence nucleus NUC. For now we will limit the term
sentence modifier to words like perhaps, maybe, yes and no. These are sentential
adverbs, i.e., adverbs that modify an entire sentence. Later, other types of sentence
modifiers such as the question marker Q and the negation morpheme not will also
introduced. This is why the rule has the superscript n, which allow us to generate any
number of sentence modifiers.

2. NUC NP AUX VP (Advl)n

This rule indicates that the nucleus gets expanded to include a noun phrase NP, an
auxiliary element AUX, a verb phrase VP, and an unlimited number of optional
adverbials such as ones of time, position, manner, reason, and frequency.

The noun phrase

The next phrase structure rule expands the noun phrase NP to include an obligatory
head noun N, an optional determiner (det), and an optional plural inflection (pl);
alternatively, NP may be expanded as a pronoun pro.

(det) N (pl)
3. NP pro

The braces to the right of the arrow indicate that either “(det) N (pl)” “or “pro” must be
chosen, but not both.
The internal structure of adverbials

We will now move temporarily forward in the rules to see what can happen to each
optional adverbial of time, position, manner, etc., that was generate in rule 2. Rule 9
provide us with three syntactic possibilities for each sentence-final adverbial generated
by rule 2:

Advl. Cl.
9 Advl PP
Advl. P.
Remember that the braces indicate that for each adverbial generated, one, but only one,
of the three choices must be selected—i.e.., an adverbial clause Advl. Cl., a
prepositional phrase PP or an adverbial phrase Advl. P. An adverbial clause gets
expanded to include an adverbial subordinator followed by a new sentence.

10 Advl. Cl. Adv Sub S

This rule reintroduces S – an element already present in rule 1. To expand the new S,
we would go back to rule 1 and begin the process all over again.

If a prepositional phrase had been selected instead an adverbial clause, the following
rule would apply:

11 PP P NP

The prepositional phrase is expanded into a preposition P and a noun phrase NP.

12 Advl. P. (intens)n Adv

This means that an adverbial phrase contains an obligatory adverb Adv optionally
preceded by an intensifiers intents. An intensifier is an item which specifies the degree
to which an adverb will apply.
 3
Phrase Structure Rules – Part II

GRAMMATICAL DESCRIPTION

Review

In the preceding chapter the following phrase structure rules were presented and
discussed:
1. S (SM)n NUC

2 NUC NP AUX VP (Advl)n

(det) N (pl)
3 NP pro

Advl. Cl.
9 Advl PP
Advl. P.

10 Advl. Cl. Advl Sub S

11 PP P NP

12 Advl. P. (intense)n Adv

The structure of the English verb system

The verb system of English can be discussed in terms of its forms – the inflections
and structures it makes use of-or it can be discussed in terms of how it expresses “real
time” distinctions such as the past, the present, and the future. The system is selective
because tense, in the structural sense, refers only to the inflections one can use with
finite verbs to express past, present, or future time.
From a structural point of view, English has no grammatical future tense, since
future time is expressed using auxiliary verbs or adverbs of time in combination with
the present tense instead of a grammatical future tense. The verb BE is more highly
inflected than other verbs in English and can express the present through three forms:
am, is, are, and the past through two forms: was, were.
English has two structural aspectual markers the progressive aspect and perfective
aspect that can be described in grammatical terms. The progressive aspect is marked by
the presence of the auxiliary BE plus the present participle (-ING) suffixed to the verb.

Phrase structure rules for the auxiliary

The English verb has many potential auxiliary elements that must be accounted
for in the phrase structure rules. Thus, as we previously mentioned, nonimperative
English sentences obligatory take grammatical tense or a modal. If some auxiliary verb
other than a modal is present, it carries the tense. If no tense-bearing auxiliary verb
present, the main verb will carry the tense. Four different optional auxiliary verbs may
be present, a periphrastic modal, the perfective aspect, and the progressive aspect.
Sometimes more than tense or a modal auxiliary occurs in the AUX of a single
sentence.
Here the auxiliary is AUX. It is made up of tense (T) or a modal (M) followed by
the other optional auxiliary elements. ESL/EFL students will need ample practice using
the various past participles in order for them to master the many forms. In most cases
various changes must be made on the output of the phrase structure rules in order to
produce grammatical English surface structures.
In order to have a basic structure like the one in the preceding tree diagram
become a surface structure, we have to apply a special transformational rule called affix
attachment. When this rule is applied, every dependent auxiliary inflection attaches to
the immediately following lexical element to produce an inflected lexical item.

Phrase structure rules for the verb phrase

A phrase structure rule that would allow us to account for all such structural
possibilities follows:

NP
BE AP
8 VP PP

V (NP) (PP)

(AP refers to an adjective phrase)

13 AP (intens)n Adj (PP)

 4
The Copula and Subject – Verb Agreement

GRAMMATICAL DESCRIPTION

Introduction
ESL/EFL learners are exposed to the forms of the copula and the third person
singular inflection almost immediately in their earliest English classes or in any English
speaking environment they happen to experience. In this chapter, we will take a close
look at these problem areas.

The copula BE
The functions of BE

NP
VP BE AP
PP
V (NP) (PP)

This function of BE is distinct from the use of BE in the progressive aspect, where
BE combines with-ING to make the meaning of the verb more concrete and limited.
This BE always occurs in conjunction with a main verb, and it is thus referred to as an
auxiliary verb.

Why the copula is different from other verbs

The rule for expanding the verb phrase makes a clear distinction between copula
BE and all other verbs in English. First, the copula has more distinct forms with respect
to person, number, and tense than any other verb in English. Second, the copula is freely
allowed by adjectives, whereas other verbs are followed by noun phrase or prepositional
phrases, but not by adjective phrase.
Third, the syntactic behavior of the copula, which acts like an auxiliary verb with
regard to question formation, negation, and other constructions, is different from that of
other verbs like walk, which require the addition of a DO auxiliary. Finally, the copula
does not occur in all languages but all languages have verbs. This lack of universality of
the copula is understandable if we consider that semantically it is not necessary form; it
is a syntactic marker in English, a linking element that carries tense and subject – verb
agreement. In fact, children learning English as their mother tongue often omit the
copula in their early speech as do many second language learners of all ages when they
are learning English. Second language learners have been observed to omit the copula
regardless of whether or not their native language has an equivalent form.
Subject – verb agreement
Third person singular present
For verbs other than BE, subject-verb number agreement poses a problem only in
the present tense, where third person singular forms are explicitly inflected while other
forms are not.

Some typical grammatical errors

Occasionally, however some learners will over generalize the inflection and apply
uninflectable forms such as modal auxiliaries or use it in agreement with subjects of
inappropriate person and/or number. Yet another reason why learners overuse this form
is that they interpret the-s ending as plural marker on the verb to be used in agreement
with plural subjects. Finally, it has also been observed that Spanish speakers tend to
initially overuse this inflection with the second person singular pronoun because a
similar form is used in their language for this person.

Problems in subject-verb agreement

Since subject-verb agreement is a problem for learners at all levels and even
puzzles native speakers at times, many reference grammar or style handbooks include a
discussion of this topic. One of the most comprehensive treatments is in Crews (1980).
However, Crews tends to be more prescriptive than descriptive in his account, he tells
the readers what to do rather than telling the reader what educated native speakers do.

The general rule

In the most straightforward cases the subject-verb agreement rule tells us to use
the third person singular inflection if the subject is a singular proper name, a singular
common noun, a mass noun, or a third person singular pronoun.

Rules for words and phrase ending in –s that are singular rather than plural
1. Some common and proper nouns ending in –s- including –ics nouns –are
singular and take singular inflections.
2. Plural tittles of books, plays, operas, films, etc, take the singular.
3. Nouns occurring in sets of two take the singular when the noun pair is present,
but the plural when pair is absent-regardless of whether one pair or more is
being referred to.
4. A number of takes the plural, but the number of takes the singular.
5. Fractions and percentages take the singular when they modify a mass noun and
the plural when they modify a plural noun; either the singular or the plural may
be used when they modify a collective noun.
6. Conflicting rules for none and problems with all, each, and every.
7. Confusion with majority and minority.

Rules for subjects of measurement and number

1. Plural unit words of distance, money, time, etc, take the singular.
2. Arithmetical operations take singular
The proximity principle

Personal pronouns pose special problems when used with the correlatives, where
the rule of proximity would have us produce either you or I am, neither you nor he is,
etc. The immediately preceding example is especially interesting because are is a gap-
filling substitute for am in some other constructions. One other case where the
proximity principle does in fact apply and where traditional grammar would not
prescribe its use is in sentence beginning with their followed by conjoined noun
phrases.

The principle of nonintervention

Many reference grammars make a point of emphasizing that a singular subject
noun or pronoun should take a singular verb inflection. Subject-verb agreement is
particularly problematic in certain types of relative clauses.

The clausal subject rule

Traditional grammar tell us that when a clause functions as a subject-verb
agreement is singular-regardless of any plural noun phrases that occur as part of the
subject clause or the verb phrase.
 5
The Lexicon

GRAMMATICAL DESCRIPTION

Introduction
All lexical items belong to a part of speech. That is to say, they are nouns,
auxiliary verbs, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, determiners, intensifiers, or prepositions. The
other part of speech, constitute closed lexical categories, since they contain far fewer
items than the open ones and they do not readily add new items or discard old ones.

Types of lexical information

First of all, every lexical item in the language must be entered in the lexicon and
represented on a number of levels. Semantic information would include the concept
human and also information indicating that the word be neutral regarding the male or
female distinction. Semantic information is used when we accept lexical item in certain
constructions.

Compounding
Compounding is a word-formation process that occurs in some languages but not
in others.

Morphological affixation
There are two kinds of morphological affixes in English. An inflection carries
grammatical meaning and changes the form of a word without changing its basic part of
speech.

Incorporation
The third important lexical process is incorporation. This occurs when some
element in the sentence becomes a part of another element.

Determiner – noun restrictions

Within noun phrases, determiner – noun restrictions are important since a view
determiners co-occur only with uncountable nouns, other determiner co-occur only with
singular countable nouns, and still others co-occur only with plural countable noun.

Verb-noun restriction
The phrase structure rules for our grammar do not distinguish between verbs that
take objects and verbs that do not take objects. There are of course, verbs that occurs
both transitively and intransitively with little or no change of meaning. Such verbs are,
nonetheless, consistently transitive and would be marked as such in the lexicon with
the added specification that a recoverable object often does not appear in the surface
structure or a sentence containing such a verb.
Adjective-PP restrictions
Adjective that follow the verb BE like verbs, are either transitive or intransitive;
however, when an adjective take an object. Frequently, a verb or transitive adjective
must be followed by a particular preposition or a given noun phrase must be preceded
by a particular preposition.

Lexical collocation
Other information that should ideally be provided in a lexicon designed to serve
ESL/EFL learner are collocations, syntactic relationship. In other words, if a particular
noun, this fact should be noted because it would be difficult for a learner to use. Such
collocation relationships also occur in patterns other than subject-verb one and are often
subtle and not at all obvious to the learner. Certainly it would be useful for ESL/EFL
learners to have access to the significant collocates of all the lexical items they are
expected to acquire and use. Much additional research, however, will have to be carried
out before such information will be readily available.

Semantic restriction
Common nouns are concrete and abstract, and concrete nouns are-in addition-
living or nonliving, animate or inanimate, and human or nonhuman. Verbs, likewise, are
often very specific concerning the kinds of subject or subject nouns they can co-occur
with. Several other useful generalizations about these verbs were made by Fillmore, but
these examples demonstrate that to understand a lexical item entails knowing precisely
how it differs from other similar item.