EN 2205:
Language Structure, Usage and Linguistics IV
Prepositions and prepositional phrases
· Prepositions: A
preposition expresses a relation between two entities.
- Various types of relational meanings: e.g. place-
at, in, on, to, away, from etc.
- Other meanings: time, cause, instrument, reference
· Activity: Find
examples for each type of prepositional relationships.
· Structure of the
prepositional phrase
Preposition
+ a noun phrase - in the garden
wh- clause -
about what you said
-ing clause - by
signing a peace treaty
· Functions:
- a) adverbial, b) post modifier of the noun phrase,
c) verb complement d) adjective complement.
- give examples to illustrate each function
· Types of
activities: underline the prepositional phrases in the text / sentences and
label the function of each.
Phrasal verbs
· Formation:
- Verb adverbial particle combination e.g. sitting
down, taken off
- Some phrasal verbs retain the individual meanings
of the verb and the adverb particle, e.g. sit down. In other phrasal verbs
meaning of the combination cannot be built up from the meanings of the
individual verb and adverb, e.g. give in (surrender), turn up (arrive, appear)
· Transitive phrasal
verbs: can take an object, e.g. They turned on the light.
- With most of them, the adverb can either come
before or follow a noun object,
e.g. they turned the light on.
- Intransitive phrasal verbs: a verb plus a particle
- Drink up quickly.
If-clauses
· Type 1: if - past
tense-will
If you post the letter,
it’ll get there by Thursday.
· Type 2: if- past
perfect-would
If I had a
million pounds I would probably go round the world.
· Type 3: if-past
perfect- would have
If we had taken
your advice, we would have saved a lot of time.
· Types of
activities: Complete the conversation / dialogue.
Relative clauses
· The term relative
clause is used for various types of sub clause which are linked to the main clause.
· Function: post
modifier in a noun phrase where the relative pronoun points back to the head of
the noun phrase.
· The relative
pronouns in English: who, whom, whose, which that, and zero (i.e. pronoun
omitted),
e.g. The records which he owns are mostly
classical.
The records he owns are mostly classical.
· Restrictive
relative clauses and non-restrictive relative clauses
· Types of
activities: Expand the sentences using appropriate relative clauses.
Comment clauses
· Function and
position: Comment clauses do not add to the actual information in
A sentence, and are loosely related to the rest of
the main clause and function as sentence adverbials. In written English they
are marked off from the other clause by commas and in speech by having a
separate tone unit. They can occur in front, mid-and end-positions in a clause.
· Comment clauses
are of varied types.
At that
time, I believe, he worked as a mechanic.
He’s a workaholic, you see.
Other examples of comment clauses (mainly in
informal speech) are:
You know, I know,
I think, I’m afraid, I see, as you see, to be frank, etc.
· Types of
activities
- Listen to the conversation. List the comment
clauses you hear.
- Listen to conversations of different people. Write
down the comment clauses you notice
Language and social interaction
· Speech acts,
openings and closings, turn taking, repairs
· Implications for
language learning
Language learner’s errors
· Interlingual and
intralingual errors
· The way the errors
help to understand how learners process the second language-the interlanguage
theory
· How the study of
learner errors help to understand the strategies the learner uses to assimilate
the rules of L2
