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A very simple approach to words is to see them as labelling things in the world. This works well for some words. Concrete nouns like cat, sheep, or frog are used to refer to certain animals that can readily be described or pointed to.
However, there are many nouns for which this approach will not work. We cannot point to abstractions like feelings, employment, or pleasure, even though we understand the meaning of these concepts. Other word classes also present problems with this simple approach: we cannot point to referents for words like when or until.
It is useful to make a distinction between this kind of "naming" meaning, which is called denotation, and another kind of meaning, which is called connotation. Connotation refers to the associations that words can have in our minds.
The denotation of the noun pig is a non-ruminant omnivorous ungulate.
For some people, the word pig might have connotations of dirty and smelly; others will think of inquisitive or cheeky.
Often we have a choice of words that can express our point of view. One person's din might be another person's music. Some might see terrorists where others see freedom fighters. One person's stunning architectural statement might be another's hideous blot on the landscape.
The American linguist S. J. Hayakawa invented the terms purr words and snarl words to describe words with different associations in people's minds.
Some words bring very different connotations to mind among different groups of people.
Those whose profession it is to persuade us, such as advertisers, politicians, preachers, and orators, need to be sensitive to the connotations of the words they use. One way of testing the connotative meaning of words is to ask speakers to rank them on a scale of different qualities.
It might seem a little strange, but people seem to be quite good at saying whether words like natural or fresh or smelly or fragrant are smooth or rough, light or dark, valuable or worthless.
The connotations of words are culturally determined.
In English, the word "red" can have negative connotations of "blood" or "communism". In Russian, krasnyj, the word for "red", has very good connotations. The Russian word for "beautiful" is prekrasnyj, which contains within it the word for "red".
Summary of Terms
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Exploring Language is reproduced by permission of the publishers Learning Media Limited on behalf of Ministry of Education, P O Box 3293, Wellington, New Zealand, © Crown, 1996.
The adverb belongs to a word class that can modify verbs, adjectives, and other adverbs - in fact, anything except nouns.
This is something of a ragbag category because it contains words that behave quite differently from one another yet are still classified as adverbs.
There are adverbs that tell us how something is done. These are called adverbs of manner.
You can add "-ly" to the end of many adjectives and turn them into adverbs.
This is a closed word class.
A pronoun is a kind of noun.
Traditionally, a pronoun was said to be a word that stood for a noun, from the Latin pro, meaning "for" or "in place of". (Strictly speaking, a pronoun stands for a noun phrase - more about them later.)
Peter thought about Peter's mother a great deal. Peter remembered the first time Peter's mother took Peter to town, how Peter's mother took Peter's hand and helped Peter across the road. Whenever Peter and Peter's mother went to town, Peter's mother always bought Peter a Boston bun because Peter's mother knew how much Peter liked Boston buns.
Peter thought about his mother a great deal. He remembered the first time she took him to town, how she took his hand and helped him across the road. Whenever they went to town, she always bought him a Boston bun because she knew how much he liked them.
The examples in the second passage above are called personal pronouns.
The term first person refers to the speaker (or speakers).
The term second person is the person (or persons) being addressed.
The term third person is what is being spoken about (whether singular or plural, person or thing).
Pronouns belong to a closed word class.
There are very few of them (about sixty) compared with thousands of nouns.
Nouns are in the same form whether they are the subject or the object of a sentence.
Personal pronouns have different forms for subject and object.
In the third person singular, the personal pronoun must indicate gender.
In English, if you use nouns, you do not need to specify the gender of the person being spoken about. Once you use a pronoun, you must specify the gender of the person referred to.
In the past, the masculine pronoun was considered adequate for all situations where the gender of the person was not specified:
Every time a New Zealander pays his taxes, he helps his country.
Today, this usage is considered to be "sexist language". It can be avoided by using both pronouns:
Every time a New Zealander pays his or her taxes, he or she helps his or her country.
This construction can sound rather cumbersome. The problem can be avoided altogether by using the plural because this does not require any indication of gender:
Every time New Zealanders pay their taxes, they help their country.
Another option, used for centuries and now becoming acceptable again, is to use the plural they, their as the standard gender-neutral pronoun.
Someone has left his or her car lights on.
Someone has left their car lights on.
If any student wants to go to the football match, they should leave their name at the office.
This use of the plural pronoun has a very long history.
Every person [...] now recovered their liberty.
Goldsmith: History of England, 1771
"If everybody minded their own business," the Duchess said, "the world would go round a good deal faster than it does."
Lewis Carroll: Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, 1865
Another suggested solution has been the creation of a new gender-neutral pronoun, such as tey, co, E, ne, thon, mon, heesh, ho, hesh, et, hir, na, per, po, or hann.
None of these has ever had widespread support. Because the pronoun is a member of a closed word class, it will not admit newcomers easily.
In English, we have the single word "you" for both singular and plural.
However, many languages have different words. In French, for example:
Tu is familiar and used to address close friends and family, whereas vous is used not only as the plural but also as the singular in the more formal and polite usage.
At the time of Shakespeare, English also had two different second-person pronouns.
As with French vous, "you" was also the formal and more distant form for the singular. "Thou" was more intimate or was used by superior people when addressing those they considered inferior, such as servants. Understanding this distinction helps us to interpret the social relations and dimensions of power expressed in older texts that are otherwise obscure to us today.
Thou dost belie him, Percy, thou dost belie him; He never did encounter with Glendower: I tell thee, He durst as well have met the devil alone As Owen Glendower for an enemy. Art thou not asham'd? But sirrah, henceforth Let me not hear you speak of Mortimer: Send me your prisoners with the speediest means [...]
Thou dost belie him, Percy, thou dost belie him;
He never did encounter with Glendower:
I tell thee,
He durst as well have met the devil alone
As Owen Glendower for an enemy.
Art thou not asham'd? But sirrah, henceforth
Let me not hear you speak of Mortimer:
Send me your prisoners with the speediest means [...]
(William Shakespeare: Henry IV, Part 1, Act 1, scene iii)
The King here is addressing Percy (also known as Hotspur) at first as an equal and friend by using the pronoun "thou". He then changes his tone, addresses him as "sirrah", which is more contemptuous than "Sir", and changes the pronoun to the "you" form when ordering him to send his prisoners; he is now speaking as a superior addressing a subordinate.
In Ireland and in parts of England, it is common to hear "you" as the singular and "yous" as the plural. The plural "yous" is also commonly heard in New Zealand in vernacular English. It is used in the everyday speech of many New Zealand speakers. Some New Zealand speakers use "you" for the singular and "you guys" or something similar for the plural. It has been suggested that the plural "yous" will eventually become part of standard English, though no doubt this will be resisted.
The uncertainty about how to spell "yous" (or "you's" or "youse") comes from the fact that this is primarily a spoken form, not a written form, so has not developed a conventional spelling.
Six-year-old Conor was listening intently to an explanation of a song in te reo Mâori that differentiated between one, two, three, or more persons - tênâ koe, tênâ korua, tênâ koutou. When he was singing, he said "yous" for the translation of "tênâ korua" and "tênâ koutou" - "greetings to yous", eyeballing the teacher to make sure she understood. At the conclusion he said, "You'll have to fix your chart 'cause in English one person is 'you', but two or more has an 's' and you say 'yous'".
Teacher in Mangere, Auckland
We have concentrated on the personal pronoun here. There are other categories of pronoun, which we give here for the sake of completeness.
Notice that there is some overlap between pronouns and determiners.
The reason is that some closed-class words can occur either before nouns (as determiners) or on their own (as pronouns).
In everyday language, we describe things by comparing them with other things.
She was as brave as a lion.
He was as silly as a headless chook.
His face felt like sandpaper.
She addressed the children like a sergeant-major.
These comparisons are straightforward and are sometimes called open comparisons. The words "as" or "like" tell us comparisons are being made. The technical name for these comparisons is similes.
Her gaze was like ice.
This is a simile.
We can make comparisons without "as" or "like".
Her gaze was icy.
This is a hidden comparison, and the technical name for it is a metaphor.
We distinguish between literal meanings and metaphorical meanings.
The footpath was icy. (literal meaning)
Her gaze was icy. (metaphorical meaning)
He couldn't digest anything the nurse gave him to eat. (literal meaning)
He couldn't digest anything the nurse told him. (metaphorical meaning)
We use metaphors all the time in everyday language. Often we are probably not conscious that they are metaphors.
The whole enterprise had a fishy smell.
Your letter was buried under my papers.
That salesman was a shark.
Many experiences, feelings, and ideas are difficult to express in words. Therefore we try to describe them by using comparisons, such as similes and metaphors.
They are frequently found in poetry:
My love is like a red, red rose That's newly sprung in June: My love is like the melodie That's sweetly played in tune.
My love is like a red, red rose
That's newly sprung in June:
My love is like the melodie
That's sweetly played in tune.
Robert Burns
They are also used in academic writing.
Those people were at the bottom of the social heap.
Plants are complex chemical factories.
Light is trapped by a special pigment in the leaves.
The xylem seems to be the main piping system for water in the plant.
To understand the full meaning of some academic writing, it is necessary to "unpack" the metaphors.
An aspect of metaphor is personification (Latin persona: "character", "person").
In personification, the non-human is identified with the human or given human characteristics.
Cricket has been good to me.
The New Zealand dollar had a quiet month.
Life dealt him a heavy blow.
Personification is very common in poetry.
Slowly, silently, now the moon Walks the night in her silver shoon.
Slowly, silently, now the moon
Walks the night in her silver shoon.
Walter de la Mare: "Silver"
Death be not proud, though some have called thee Mighty and dreadful, for, thou art not so, For, those whom thou think'st, thou dost overthrow, Die not, poor death [...]
Death be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for, thou art not so,
For, those whom thou think'st, thou dost overthrow,
Die not, poor death [...]
John Donne: Holy Sonnets, X
It also appears in children's books.
"There are the trees," said the Beaver. "They're always listening. Most of them are on our side, but there are trees that would betray us to her; you know who I mean."
C. S. Lewis: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
An extended comparison is called an analogy.
These are frequently used in academic writing to assist understanding. For example, the relationships between different European languages are very often described in terms of a family tree, with many languages descending from the ancestral language, Indo-European. In this analogy, languages are born and die like people; they have offspring (usually daughters) and close and distant relations.
The analogy is useful, but we have to remember that it is only ever an analogy. In this case, for example, languages are not like people, and the situation is infinitely more complex than this description suggests.
Prepositions are grammatical words that show relationships between two things. These relationships often relate to time or space.
The most important clue for recognising prepositions is that they usually have direct objects. This makes them rather like transitive verbs.
The combination of a preposition and its object is called a prepositional phrase.
Some prepositional phrases:
Some common prepositions:
about, above, across, after, against, along, amidst, among, around, as, at, before, behind, below, beneath, beside, between, beyond, by, despite, down, during, except, for, from, in, inside, into, like, near, of, off, on, onto, opposite, out, outside, over, past, round, since, through, till, to, throughout, towards, under, underneath, unlike, until, up, upon, via, with, within, without
Prepositions also sometimes work in pairs:
Many familiar groups of words function like prepositions. We call these complex prepositions:
according to, ahead of, apart from, as to, because of, by means of, by way of, close to, in return for, in aid of, in case of, in charge of, in favour of, in front of, in need of, in place of, in respect of, in spite of, in view of, instead of, irrespective of, in addition to, in accordance with, in common with, in contact with, in line with, next to, on account of, on behalf of, on grounds of, owing to, prior to.
Some prepositional expressions in American English are not the same as in New Zealand English.
So far we have looked at five function categories: Subject Verb Object Complement Adverbial.
There are seven basic sentence structures using these categories. In summary, they are as follows:
These function categories can take different forms.
The subject function can be conveyed by a variety of forms:
Determiner + noun: The frog
Pronoun: It
Determiner + noun + prepositional phrase: The frog on the log
All of these are included under one umbrella called the noun phrase. A noun phrase nearly always contains either a noun or a pronoun. Most noun phrases can be seen as expansions of a central essential element, which is called the head of the noun phrase (unless the head is a pronoun, which usually stands alone).
The noun phrase has three parts.
Pronouns do not usually have postmodifiers apart from a few exceptions, such as: she who must be obeyed; he who dares all.
Complex premodification can often be found in advertisements: A new delicious healthy chocolate-coated muesli snack.
A verb phrase is a main verb plus any auxiliaries.
So far, we have seen that the verb function can be represented by different forms.
The verb carries information about the time of the event, which is called the tense.
Tense is marked only on the first verb in the verb phrase.
If we change this sentence to the past tense, "has" changes to "had", but the other verbs (the non-finite verbs) do not change.
If we leave out the auxiliary HAVE in this sentence, the auxiliary BE moves up to first position and is in the present or past tense.
If we remove the auxiliary BE, the main verb is the first verb in the verb phrase and has the tense marking.
There is also a tense called the timeless present or habitual present.
Compare:
She reads the Woman's Weekly (regularly). This sentence is in the habitual present tense.
She is reading the Woman's Weekly (right now). This sentence is in the present tense, progressive aspect, to be explained below.
The habitual present is common when the language is conveying information, such as in reports, descriptions, and expositions. It is a verb form often encountered in school reading and writing.
In everyday speech, the habitual or timeless present is often used to refer to an action planned for the future.
In spoken narrative, it can also refer to past events, increasing the immediacy of the telling.
And there they are, standing at the airport, and their luggage is in Sydney, and they haven't a clean shirt between them.
People learning English as a new language can find these usages very confusing.
As well as the time element, the verb can also convey more information about the action of the verb. Is it continuous, complete or incomplete, in progress, habitual?
This information is termed aspect.
In traditional grammar, the terms imperfect and perfect were used.
Imperfect referred to an action that is or was still in progress or incomplete.
Perfect referred to an action that is or was complete or "perfected".
The terms progressive and perfective are probably the most useful for teachers.
The progressive aspect refers to the verb BE with the present participle (the -ing form).
The progressive aspect describes an event in progress. You can see this by comparing progressive and non-progressive verb phrases.
In sentence (a), the verb "walk" is in the progressive. The sentence means that the event of Alan's walking downstairs was already in progress when the alarm sounded.
In sentence (b), the verb "walk" is not in the progressive. It tells you that Alan walked downstairs after the alarm sounded.
When verbs are describing a state rather than an event, they cannot be used with the progressive aspect.
In the following examples, the first shows an event, but the second has a stative meaning.
You can say:
You can't say:
It is a common feature of Indian English to use these stative verbs with the progressive aspect.
The progressive aspect is not the same thing as a tense.
The basic meaning of tense is past time, present time, or future time, but the progressive can combine with all of these.
The perfective aspect refers to an action that is or was completed.
The perfective aspect applies to the verb HAVE (have/has/had) used with the past participle. (See page 34.)
These sentences use an active verb:
These sentences use a passive verb:
Passive verbs "demote" the subject.
a) Vince painted the bedroom.b) The bedroom was painted by Vince.
We can say that Vince is the agent in sentences (a) and (b) - in other words, in both sentences, he is the one who did the painting. However, in (b), Vince is no longer the subject. In fact, the agent can be left out altogether in passive sentences and they will still make sense:
c) The bedroom was painted.
In a passive sentence, the subject has the action done to it.
A bubble potometer must be set up very carefully. A bubble is introduced into the end of the tube. The rate of transpiration is shown by the speed of movement of the bubble. The bubble should not be allowed to reach the end of the stem.
Haydon, G. et al: Investigating Plants
So far we have discussed the auxiliary verbs HAVE and BE.
HAVE and BE are the primary auxiliaries.
There is another set of auxiliaries known as modal auxiliaries or modal verbs: do, will, would, shall, should, can, could, may, might, must, ought.
The following are also classified as modal verbs:
Modal verbs indicate such things as intention, possibility, ability, obligation.
The modal auxiliaries will and shall are also used to indicate future time, forming what is sometimes called the future tense.
Modal verbs are unusual because there is no -s ending on the third person singular.
Modal verbs have no non-finite forms. This also makes them different from other verbs and from HAVE and BE (the primary auxiliaries).
You can use HAVE, having, had, to have.
You cannot use MUST, * musting, * musted, * to must.
There can only ever be one modal in a verb phrase, and it always appears in front of any other auxiliaries.
The verb that follows the modal is always in the base form
. (See page 34.)
Some common modal verbs convey degrees of probability.
Probability can also be expressed through adverbs.
The vernacular usage: I could of, they would of, we must of, and so on occurs after the modal auxiliary. We don't find "have" shortened to "of" in sentences like:
Exploring Language content page
So far, we have referred to sentences without providing any definition of a sentence. The question "What is a sentence?" is more difficult than it might appear. An American linguist, C. C. Fries, counted more than two hundred definitions of the sentence. In defining a sentence, too, it is important to remember that written prose and informal spoken language are different. The sentence is the basic building block of written language. In the past, sentences were often defined according to their meaning. For example, they were said to contain "a complete thought". This raises all sorts of questions about the difference between a complete thought and an incomplete one.
A common definition today is: "A sentence is marked by a capital letter at the beginning and a full-stop at the end."
This works for many English sentences, but there are many languages, such as those in Asia, that do not use this punctuation. Also, it is possible to have written sentences without capital letters and punctuation marks.
In traditional school grammar, a sentence was said to contain a subject and a predicate: a major classroom occupation was analysing sentences into subjects and predicates. (The predicate is all the rest of the sentence after the subject.)
This is how the American linguist Leonard Bloomfield, writing in 1926, defined a sentence:
Each sentence is an independent linguistic form, not included by virtue of any grammatical construction in any larger linguistic form.
In other words, a sentence is capable of standing alone.
It is even more difficult to define sentences in speech.
I drove it into town - and um - yeah 'cos I knew that area quite well 'cos that was the same area as I stayed in - two years ago at Point Chevalier - and then that night we - Mike made a - curry vegetable pie - we had that - and um - that was it - um - then that was the evening yeah we had a couple of nice bottles of red wine - we drank really nice red wine all weekend there - and what else did we do - Saturday we got up - and he put the fire on 'cos it was cold and stormy - quite stormy up there ...
For this reason, the term utterance rather than sentence is often used for spoken material.
There is a small group of sentences that are called minor sentences. These tend to have a set form that is not often changed. They cannot be analysed in the same way as regular or major sentences. This book is concerned mainly with major sentences. Minor sentences, however, occur often in everyday conversation.
David Crystal, in Rediscover Grammarwith David Crystal, has suggested the following classifications of minor sentence types.
Some of the examples above contain finite verbs: Mix well; wish you were here. These have been included as minor sentences because elements of the basic clause structure have been omitted:
Mix it well. (major sentence)
Mix well. (minor sentence)
I wish you were here. (major sentence)
Wish you were here. (minor sentence)
Minor sentences also occur as answers to questions or depend for their meaning on a previous sentence.
PC Timms: Where are you going?
Aiden: To Greymouth.
PC Timms: When are you leaving?
Aiden: Early tomorrow morning.
PC Timms: Who's going with you?
Aiden: My brother Tim and his girlfriend Nancy.
Aiden's answers to PC Timms's questions are still sentences, but they are minor sentences. These can also be called elliptical sentences because part of their structure has been omitted (Latin ellipsis: "falling short").
A: Where are you going?
B: [I'm going] to Greymouth.
A: When are you leaving?
B: [I'm leaving] early tomorrow morning.
Minor sentences are not the same as incomplete sentences.
"I hope that you ... " Sidney choked and stopped.
"I can tell you who the murderer is! Look at the ..."
A shot rang out, and she slumped to the floor.
There are four basic sentence types: statements, commands, questions, and exclamations.
These are also referred to as declarative sentences or declaratives (Latin declarare: "to make clear").
Written prose is made up mainly of statements. This is the sentence type mainly used in this book and described by the forms SVO, SVC, SVA and so on, as discussed earlier in this section.
The function of statements is to convey information.
My dog + has buried + his bones + in the lawn. SVOA
These are also referred to as imperative sentences or imperatives (Latin imperativus: "proceeding from a command").
The subject of a command is usually left out, but it is understood as the second person pronoun "you".
Shut the gate. VO
Be quiet! VC
Get off the grass. VA
A gentler or more polite form of the command begins with "let's":
Let's have a party.
Commands are common in instructions:
Rub the fat into the flour. Add a small pinch of salt. Mix in the water, and work to a smooth dough. Alternatively, put all the ingredients in a blender. Whizz them until the pastry has formed into a ball. Chill for at least 2 hours before rolling out.
These are also referred to as interrogative sentences or interrogatives (Latin interrogativus: "of a question").
There are four main types of question:
These sentences expect "yes" or "no" for an answer.
Is your brother still at school?
Has anyone brought some cushions?
Does it ever snow in Christchurch?
Do you like living in Waipu?
Did someone lose this towel?
Would you like some tea?
These sentences begin with a Wh word: what, which, when, who, why, where, how. They cannot be answered with yes or no.
Why is your shirt dirty?
What do you think about casinos?
How did Dunedin get its name?
Interviewers who use yes/no questions can have difficulty eliciting much response when the person questioned just answers "yes" or "no".
A: Are you unhappy about the verdict?
B: No.
A: Did the fact that she was a woman have anything to do with it?
B: Yes.
A questioner who wants a fuller answer must use Wh questions:
A: What did you think about the verdict?
B: Well, I thought ...
A: Why do you think they said those things?
B: Because ...
These are very similar to yes/no questions, but they offer a choice of answer.
Did it happen on Monday or Tuesday?
Should I ring up, or should I write?
Tag questions are statements with a question tag at the end.
Tag questions, a peculiarity of English, are usually spoken rather than written.
It's a lovely day, isn't it?
He can swim well, can't he?
You wouldn't want to spoil it, would you?
It wasn't much of a film, was it?
The intonation pattern used indicates whether these are in fact genuine questions (requiring a "yes" or "no" answer) or are really statements (requiring only agreement).
She passed all her exams, didn't she? (With a rising tone on the tag, this can be answered "yes" or "no".)
It was a terrible thing to do, wasn't it. (With a falling tone on the tag, this can only be answered "yes".)
The form of tag questions is quite regular.
If the statement is positive, the tag will be negative:
He's an inspiring teacher, isn't he?
If the statement is negative, the tag will be positive:
He isn't an inspiring teacher, is he?
The effect of a tag question can also be a softening of a statement.
It was a good film.
It was a good film, wasn't it?
This way of softening a statement is called hedging. It is a bit like "hedging your bets". Other ways of hedging can be to add words like "rather" or "sort of".
Tag questions are socially important in English. It has been suggested that women use them more than men and that this use reflects underlying insecurity and a need for confirmation.
Professor Janet Holmes, of Victoria University, has shown that tag questions have an important function in conversation and that they have more functions than just asking for information. They can be used to bring someone into the conversation and to establish conversational rapport. She suggests that it is for this function that women use tag questions more than men.
Some non-standard varieties use "isn't it" for all tag questions. This is a feature of some Welsh dialects.
You'll be leaving us, isn't it?
Foreign learners of English often use this invariable isn't it. This is because many foreign languages have an unchanging tag expression for all tag questions. Compare these French sentences with their English translations:
Vous nous quitterez, n'est-ce pas? You'll be leaving us, won't you?
Elle les a quitté, n'est-ce pas? She's left them, hasn't she?
Ils me quittent, n'est-ce pas? They're leaving me, aren't they?
Je le quittais, n'est-ce pas? I was leaving him, wasn't I?
It can be tricky for foreign learners of English to respond to tag questions. This is a problem, for example, for native speakers of Polynesian languages. A negative statement followed by a positive tag is not necessarily a straightforward yes/no question. It can be a question that requires the listener to agree.
It never snows in Auckland, does it? (Surely not!)
No (you're right). (indicating agreement)
Yes (it does snow sometimes). (indicating disagreement)
Speakers of some languages tend to use "no" and "yes" the opposite way round.
Yes (you're right).
No (it does snow sometimes).
Similar misunderstandings can arise with replies to negative questions:
Didn't you like the film? (I don't think you did.)
No, I didn't. (confirming the questioner's belief)
Yes, I did. (contradicting the questioner's belief)
Again, speakers of some languages will say "yes", meaning, "Yes, it's true that I did not like the film," where a native English speaker would say "no".
Didn't you like the film?
English speaker: No (I didn't).
Polynesian speaker: Yes (I didn't like it).
Metge and Kinloch: Talking Past Each Other
These are also referred to as exclamative sentences or exclamatives (Latin exclamare: "to call or cry out").
These are used to express strong feelings.
They can begin with "what" or "how":
What a naughty dog he is!
What an amazing game that was!
How well everyone played!
Sentence Types and their Functions
In this book, we use the terms statement, command, question, and exclamation for the main sentence types rather than the terms declarative, imperative, interrogative, and exclamative, which are given as alternatives. We chose to use these terms because they are more familiar and are probably the most suitable at primary school level.
However, strictly speaking, terms like statement, command, question, and exclamation are the "end results", or functions, of using a certain kind of sentence. In other words, the sentence "Are you coming to town?" has the function of asking a question. But there are sentences with the structure of a statement that actually ask a question:
"I want someone to tell me what happened." The form is a statement, but the end result, or function, is a question.
Linguists use the terms declarative, imperative, interrogative, and exclamative for the syntactic forms, and they use statement, command, question, and exclamation for the functions - the end results. Thus, declarative sentences usually have the function of making statements, interrogative sentences usually ask questions, and so on.
Sometimes a sentence of a given kind has a different function from the usual one.
Declarative sentences:
The race will start at three o'clock. (statement)
All competitors must be in position by 2.55. (command or instruction)
I want to know the answer! (question)
Interrogative sentences:
What time will Sharon get here? (question)
Could you open the window? (command or request)
Wasn't the band great! (statement)
Isn't he handsome! (exclamation)
So the same function can be fulfilled by sentences of more than one type. For example, the following sentences could all be used to make the same request:
You're making far too much noise. (declarative)
Could you keep the noise down? (interrogative)
What a terrible din! (exclamative)
Be quiet. (imperative)
Pour me a cup of tea, please. (imperative)
I'd love another cup of tea. (declarative)
Is there any more tea in that pot? (interrogative)
How I'd love another cup of tea! (exclamative)
It is part of a native speaker's knowledge of the language and language use to understand the purpose of these different sentences. "Is there any more tea in that pot?" has the form of a yes/no question, but the answer "Yes" would be considered inappropriate.
So far, we have described only simple sentences.
Frank burned the toast.
The sun melted the snow.
Many sentences are more complex than these.
Frank burned the toast while he was on the phone.
The sun melted the snow, and in an hour it had vanished.
These sentences are like two sentences joined together.
The technical term for each of the two parts of these sentences is clause.
Sentence:
The terms sentence and clause can be a little confusing because a simple sentence is the same thing as a clause.
This is both a simple sentence and a clause.
When we describe the structure of a simple sentence (such as SVO), we are also describing the structure of a clause.
A clause must have a verb. A clause can also have a subject, object, complement, and adverbial element.
We keep the term sentence for the unit that is standing alone.
The term clause is used when there are two or more clauses inside a complex sentence.
It would be rather boring if we only ever used simple sentences, as in this example:
Karen left the house. She saw the bus coming. She ran after it. She missed it. She was late for school again.
One way of making the text more interesting and cohesive is by joining some of these simple sentences together. As Karen left the house, she saw the bus coming. Although she ran after it, she missed it, and so she was late for school again.
The conjunction is a small but important closed word class. It is sometimes called a "joining word" (from the Latin conjunctio : "the act of joining").
The most common conjunction is and.
These conjunctions - and, or, and but - are technically known as co-ordinating conjunctions.
Sentences made up of clauses joined with and, or, and but are called compound sentences.
In a compound sentence, we can say that the two clauses have equal weight within the sentence.
Each clause can stand alone and be a separate sentence. Both clauses are called main clauses.
A compound sentence consists of two (or more) main clauses joined by a co-ordinating conjunction.
As children get older, they use fewer compound sentences and more complex sentences. They also use different types of complexity within their sentences.
This section describes more complicated ways in which clauses can appear inside sentences.
In a compound sentence, two (or more) main clauses are joined within one sentence.
A different way of joining clauses is by subordination.
In this sentence, there is one main clause:
and one subordinate clause:
The subordinate clause is dependent on the main clause; it cannot stand alone.
Although is a subordinating conjunction: it is attached to the subordinate clause.
Here are some common subordinating conjunctions that introduce subordinate clauses:
Some of these words also appear in the list of prepositions: before, after, as, until, since.
How can you tell whether they are conjunctions or prepositions?
These words are subordinating conjunctions when they introduce a clause:
They are prepositions when they introduce a phrase:
It is sometimes helpful to see that conjunctions fall into groups according to meaning and can signal different relationships between parts of a sentence.
Conjunctions can show four main types of relationship. Some conjunctions fit more than one category.
Recognising the patterns of conjunction can help to clarify the way ideas are linked in whole texts and within and between sentences.
In complex sentences, any one of the elements — subject, object, complement, or adverbial — can be a subordinate clause.
Subordinate clause as subject:
Subordinate clause as object:
Subordinate clause as complement:
Subordinate clause as adverbial:
In the examples above, the elements subject, object, complement, and adverbial are themselves whole clauses.
A subordinate clause that can function as subject, object, or complement is referred to as a nominal clause.
A nominal clause can be finite or non-finite.
Finite nominal clauses can be introduced by a range of Wh words.
Present participle — verb forms ending in -ing:
I was parking the car.
Past participle — verb forms ending in -ed or -en:
I have parked the car.
I have eaten the last biscuit.
Infinitive — the base form of the verb. This form does not have a special ending.
With to: I want to write a book.
Without to: I can read it myself.
These non-finite verb forms can introduce non-finite nominal clauses:
As with finite nominal clauses, these subject uses of non-finite nominal clauses are also very uncommon in children's speech and early writing. They are much more common in the object position.
Like adverbs, adverbial clauses also tell how, why, when, where. As with nominal clauses, adverbial clauses can be finite or non-finite.
Time: When you've finished the dishes, you can watch television.
Place: Put the letter where Mike will see it.
Manner: We cook our vegetables as Chinese people do.
Reason: They put their umbrellas up because it was starting to rain.
Concession: Although the weather was terrible, we still set out.
Condition: You can have some ice cream if you eat your vegetables.
Purpose: She went on tip toes so that she wouldn't wake the baby.
Time: After kissing them goodnight, she turned out the light.
Place: Situated high on the hill, the house had a wonderful view of the harbour.
Reason: Being a pacifist, he spent some time in prison during the war.
Manner: Everyone had to get across without touching the two poles.
Relative clauses
It is common to find a subordinate clause embedded inside the subject or the object.
The clause "who stole my car" is a subordinate clause modifying the noun phrase "the despicable person".
The structure of the noun phrase is:
The technical term for this type of subordinate clause is a relative clause.
Relative clauses are introduced by relative pronouns.
Subject Object Possessive
The relative clauses in the following sentences are in bold:
The video that we saw last night was a waste of money.
The man whose car was stolen was my next door neighbour.
The person who stole his car was an escaped prisoner.
Some subordinate clauses contain non-finite verbs.
Present participle: Finding some of my friends, I sat down by them.
Past participle: Abandoned in the forest, Alice began to cry.
Infinitive: To call the waiter, he had to stand on a chair.
In non-finite subordinate clauses, the subject understood in the subordinate clause must be the same as the subject in the main clause.
[Alice was] abandoned in the forest. Alice began to cry.
Failure to check that the subject is identified correctly can result in bizarre sentences, such as:
Fried in garlic and olive oil, our guests enjoyed the mushrooms.
This suggests that the guests were fried in garlic and olive oil.
This particular misdemeanour is known as a misrelated participle. In casual speech, such errors can often pass unnoticed because the meaning is carried by intonation.
Taken as a whole, I quite liked the book.
Misrelated participles are quite easy to fix. If the clause modifies the object, it should be moved to follow the object.
Our guests enjoyed the mushrooms fried in garlic and olive oil.
I quite liked the book, taken as a whole.
The following extract from some writing by a year 7 pupil shows that the writer is obviously comfortable using non-finite clauses beginning with the present participle.
In direct speech, the original speaker's exact words are given and are indicated by quotation marks.
"I don't know what to do," said Dean.
In some grammar books, said Dean is referred to as a reporting clause. "I don't know what to do," is referred to as the reported clause.
In indirect speech, the exact meaning of the speaker's words is given, but the exact words are not directly quoted.
Dean said that he didn't know what to do.
To convert direct speech into indirect speech:
(The that can often be left out: Dean said he didn't know what to do.)
Direct question:
"Did Marama's horse win a prize?" Owen asked.
Indirect questions:
Owen asked whether (or if) Marama's horse had won a prize.
"Why won't you marry me?" asked Donald.
Indirect question:
Donald asked her why she wouldn't marry him.
In telling a story or recounting events, a speaker using direct speech has all the resources of intonation to produce a lively account. Because indirect speech is always speech reported by someone else, the account is more reserved and restrained.
"What shall we do?" asked Bev.
"Don't worry, Bev," said Duncan, "I've got a plan."
Bev asked Duncan what they should do. He told her not to worry and that he had a plan.
The ability to change direct speech into indirect speech is a useful skill for those engaged in taking the minutes of a meeting or reporting on events.
Direct speech:
"First of all, I would like to thank everybody who helped with the fair. The results were very good, and we will now be able to buy two more computers."
Indirect speech:
The principal said that he would like to thank everybody who had helped with the fair. He announced that the results were very good and that the school would now be able to buy two more computers.
The word is the basic building block of language: traditional grammars of English used to take words as the smallest unit of their analysis. Modern linguistics recognises that words can be divided up into smaller units called morphemes.
The words that can stand alone without any attachments (for example, break) are called free morphemes.
The attachments that cannot stand alone (for example, un-) are called bound morphemes.
There are two kinds of bound morpheme.
Albert worked at home and illustrated books.
In the sentence above, the words worked, illustrated, and books all show the process of inflection. The attachments -ed and -s are called inflections or inflectional morphemes. They add extra information to the word without fundamentally changing it.
In the case of -ed on worked and illustrated, the inflection tells us that the action is in the past tense. In the case of -s on books, it tells us about number - that there is more than one book.
Margaret was unhappy about Sooty's disappearance.
In the sentence above, the words unhappy and disappearance illustrate the process of derivation. The attachments un-, dis- and -ance are all derivational morphemes.
Derivational morphemes can change the meaning of a word. happy -> unhappy appear -> disappear Derivational morphemes can change word classes. disappear (verb) -> disappearance (noun)
It is usually quite easy to tell the difference between inflection and derivation. A rough rule of thumb is that an inflection always comes at the end of a word.
It seems that derivational morphemes are more firmly attached to their stems than inflectional ones. We can see how inflectional morphemes can cause problems when people make slips of the tongue.
We can also see it in problem cases with compound words.
Morphemes are not the same as syllables, although morpheme boundaries and syllable boundaries often coincide, as in slow+ly.
A morpheme is the smallest element of meaning in a word. Elephant is one morpheme, elephants is two; neighbour is one morpheme, neighbourhood is two.
Morphemes
Exploring Language is reproduced by permission of the publishers Learning Media Limited on behalf of Ministry of Education, PO Box 3293, Wellington, New Zealand, © Crown, 1996.
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