Grammar 2: Parts of Speech

Learning about the parts of speech is the first step in grammar study just as learning the letters of the alphabet is the first step to being able to read and write. From learning the parts of speech we begin to understand the form, function and use of words, and how words are joined together to make meaningful communication. To understand what a part of speech is, you must understand the idea of putting similar things together into groups or categories. Let's look at some examples of categories.

The 8 parts of speech that are used to describe English words are:

1. Nouns
2. Verbs
3. Adjectives
4. Adverbs
5. Pronouns
6. Prepositions
7. Conjunctions
8. Articles

Nouns

A noun is often defined as a word which names a person, place or thing. Here are some examples of nouns: boy, river, friend, Mexico, triangle, day, school, truth, university, idea, John F. Kennedy, movie, aunt, vacation, eye, dream, flag, teacher, class, grammar. John F. Kennedy is a noun because it is the name of a person; Mexico is a noun because it is the name of a place; and river is a noun because it is the name of a thing.

Some grammar books divide nouns into 2 groups - proper nouns and common nouns. Proper nouns are nouns which begin with a capital letter because it is the name of a specific or particular person place or thing. Some examples of proper nouns are: Mexico, John F. Kennedy, Atlantic Ocean, February, Monday, New York City, Susan, Maple Street, Burger King. If you see a word beginning with a capital letter in the middle of a sentence, it is probably a proper noun. Most nouns are common nouns and do not begin with a capital letter.

Many nouns have a special plural form if there is more than one. For example, we say one book but two books. Plurals are usually formed by adding an -s (books) or -es (boxes) but some plurals are formed in different ways (child - children, person - people, mouse - mice, sheep - sheep).

In the possessive case, a noun changes its form to show that it owns or is closely related to something else. Usually, nouns become possessive by adding a combination of an apostrophe and the -'s.

You can form the possessive case of a singular noun that does not end in "s" by adding an apostrophe and "s," as in the following sentence:

• The red suitcase is Sara's.

You can form the possessive case of a singular noun that ends in "s" by adding an apostrophe alone or by adding an apostrophe and "s," as in the following examples:

• The bus's seats are very uncomfortable.
• The bus' seats are very uncomfortable. 

You can form the possessive case of a plural noun that does not end in "s" by adding an apostrophe and a "s," as in the following example:

• The men's hockey team will be playing as soon as the women's team is finish

You can form the possessive case of a plural noun that does end in "s" by adding an apostrophe:

• My uncle spent many hours trying to locate the squirrels' nest.
• The archivist quickly finished repairing the diaries' bindings.

Verbs

A verb is often defined as a word which shows action or state of being. The verb is the heart of a sentence - every sentence must have a verb. Recognizing the verb is often the most important step in understanding the meaning of a sentence. In the sentence The dog bit the man, bit is the verb and the word which shows the action of the sentence. In the sentence The man is sitting on a chair, even though the action doesn't show much activity, sitting is the verb of the sentence. In the sentence She is a smart girl, there is no action but a state of being expressed by the verb is. The word be is different from other verbs in many ways but can still be thought of as a verb.

Unlike most of the other parts of speech, verbs change their form. Sometimes endings are added (learn - learned) and sometimes the word itself becomes different (teach-taught). The different forms of verbs show different meanings related to such things as tense (past, present, future), person (first person, second person, third person), number (singular, plural) and voice (active, passive). Verbs are also often accompanied by verb-like words called modals (may, could, should, etc.) and auxiliaries(do, have, will, etc.) to give them different meanings.

One of the most important things about verbs is their relationship to time. Verbs tell if something has already happened, if it will happen later, or if it is happening now. For things happening now, we use the present tense of a verb; for something that has already happened, we use the past tense; and for something that will happen later, we use the future tense. Some examples of verbs in each tense are in the chart below:

Verbs like those in the chart above that form the past tense by adding -d or -ed are called regular verbs. Some of the most common verbs are not regular and the different forms of the verb must be learned. Some examples of such irregular verbs are in the chart below:

The charts above show the simple tenses of the verbs. There are also progressive or continuous forms which show that the action takes place over a period of time, and perfect forms which show completion of the action. These forms will be discussed more in other lessons, but a few examples are given in the chart below:

Simple present tense verbs have a special form for the third person singular. Singular means "one" and plural means "more than one." Person is used here to show who or what does the action and can have the following forms:

• 1st person or the self (I, we)
• 2nd person or the person spoken to (you)
• 3rd person or a person not present (he, she, it, they)

The third person singular forms are represented by the pronouns he, she, it. The chart below shows how the third person singular verb form changes:

A verb must "agree" with its subject. Subject-verb agreement generally means that the third person singular verb form must be used with a third person subject in the simple present tense. The word be - the most irregular and also most common verb in English - has different forms for each person and even for the simple past tense. The forms of the word be are given in the chart below:

Usually a subject comes before a verb and an object may come after it. The subject is what does the action of the verb and the object is what receives the action. In the sentence Bob ate a humburger, Bob is the subject or the one who did the eating and the hamburger is the object or what got eaten. A verb which has an object is called a transitive verb and some examples are throw, buy, hit, love. A verb which has no object is called an intransitive verb and some examples are go, come, walk, listen.

As you can see in the charts above, verbs are often made up of more than one word. The future forms, for example, use the word will and the perfect forms use the word have. These words are called helping or auxiliary verbs. The word be can serve as an auxiliary and will and shall are also auxiliary forms. The chart below shows two other verbs which can also be used as auxiliaries:

There is a type of auxiliary verb called a modal which changes the meaning of a verb in different ways. Words like can, should, would, may, might, and must are modals and are covered in other lessons.

Adjectives

An adjective is often defined as a word which describes or gives more information about a noun or pronoun. Adjectives describe nouns in terms of such qualities as size, color, number, and kind. In the sentence The lazy dog sat on the rug, the word lazy is an adjective which gives more information about the noun dog. We can add more adjectives to describe the dog as well as in the sentence The lazy, old, brown dog sat on the rug. We can also add adjectives to describe the rug as in the sentence The lazy, old, brown dog sat on the beautiful, expensive, new rug. The adjectives do not change the basic meaning or structure of the sentence, but they do give a lot more information about the dog and the rug. As you can see in the example above, when more than one adjective is used, a comma (,) is used between the adjectives.

Usually an adjective comes before the noun that it describes, as in tall man. It can also come after a form of the word be as in The man is tall. More than one adjective can be used in this position in the sentence The man is tall, dark and handsome.

Most adjectives do not change form whether the noun it describes is singular or plural. For example we say big tree and big trees, old house and old houses, good time and good times. There are, however, some adjectives that do have different singular and plural forms. The common words this and that have the plural forms these and those. These words are called demonstrative adjectives because demonstrate or point out what is being referred to.

Another common type of adjective is the possessive adjective which shows possession or ownership. The words my dog or my dogs indicate that the dog or dogsbelong to me. I would use the plural form our if the dog or dogsbelonged to me and other people. The chart below shows the forms of possessive adjectives.

*Person is used here as a grammar word and has these meanings:

• 1st person or the self (I, me, we),
• 2nd person or the person spoken to (you)
• 3rd person or the person spoken about (he, she, him, her, they, them).

Adverbs

An adverb is usually defined as a word that gives more information about a verb, an adjective or another adverb. Adverbs describe verbs, adjectives and adverbs in terms of such qualities as time, frequency and manner. In the sentence Sue runs fast, fast describes how or the manner in which Sue runs. In the sentence Sue runs very fast, very describes the adverb fast and gives information about how fast Sue runs.

Most, but not all adverbs end in -ly as in But not all words that end in -ly are adverbs (ugly is an adjective, supply and reply can both be nouns or verbs). Many times an adjective can be made into an adverb by adding -ly as in nicely, quickly, completely, sincerely.

Adverbs of time tell when something happens and adverbs of frequency tell how often something happens. Below are some common adverbs of time and frequency which you should learn:

                     Adverbs of Time                   Adverbs of Frequency

Pronouns

A pronoun is often defined as a word which can be used instead of a noun. For example, instead of saying John is a student, the pronoun he can be used in place of the noun John and the sentence becomes He is a student. We use pronouns very often, especially so that we do not have to keep on repeating a noun. This chapter is about the kind of pronoun called a personal pronoun because it often refers to a person. Like nouns, personal pronouns sometimes have singular and plural forms (I-we, he-they).

Unlike nouns, personal pronouns sometimes have different forms for masculine/male, feminine/female and neuter (he-she-it). Also unlike nouns, personal pronouns have different forms depending on if they act as subjects or objects (he-him, she-her). A subject is a word which does an action and usually comes before the verb, and an object is a word that receives an action and usually comes after the verb. For example, in the sentence Yesterday Susan called her mother, Susan is the subject and mother is the object. The pronoun she can be used instead of Susan and the pronoun her can be used instead of mother. The form of a personal pronoun also changes according to what person is referred to. Person is used here as a grammar word and means:

• 1st person or the self (I, me, we),
• 2nd person or the person spoken to (you),
• 3rd person or the person spoken about (he, she, him, her, they, them).

There is also a possessive form of the pronoun. Just as we can make a noun possessive as in the sentence That is my father's book to mean That is the book of my father, we can make the pronoun possessive and say That book is his. There are possessive adjective forms (such as my, your, his, her etc.) Possessive pronouns can stand by themselves without nouns, but possessive adjectives, like other adjectives, are used together with nouns.

There is also an intensive form of the pronoun which intensifies or emphasizes the noun that it comes after as in the sentence I myself saw him. The reflexive form of the pronoun looks exactly like the intensive form but is used when the subject and object of a verb refers to the same person as in the sentence I saw myself in the mirror.

All of this may sound confusing, but if you study the chart below, it will be clearer:

There are also interrogative pronouns (who, which, what) used for asking questions and relative pronouns (who, which, what, that) used in complex sentences which will be discussed in another place. Some grammar books also talk about demonstrative pronouns (this, that, these, those) and indefinite pronouns (some, all, both, each, etc.) which are very similar to adjectives and do not need to be discussed here.

Prepositions

A preposition is a word which shows relationships among other words in the sentence. The relationships include direction, place, time, cause, manner and amount. In the sentence She went to the store, to is a preposition which shows direction. In the sentence He came by bus, by is a preposition which shows manner. In the sentence They will be here at three o'clock, at is a preposition which shows time and in the sentence It is under the table, under is a preposition which shows place.

A preposition always goes with a noun or pronoun which is called the object of the preposition. The preposition is almost always before the noun or pronoun and that is why it is called a preposition. The preposition and the object of the preposition together are called a prepositional phrase. The following chart shows the prepositions, objects of the preposition, and prepositional phrases of the sentences above.

Prepositional phrases are like idioms and are best learned through listening to and reading as much as possible. Below are some common prepositions of time and place and examples of their use.

Prepositions of time:

• at two o'clock
• on Wednesday
• in an hour, in January; in 1992
• for a day

Prepositions of place:

• at my house
• in New York, in my hand
• on the table
• near the library
• across the street
• under the bed
• between the books

Conjunctions

A conjunction is a word that connects other words or groups of words. In the sentence Bob and Dan are friends the conjunction and connects two nouns and in the sentence He will drive or fly, the conjunction or connects two verbs. In the sentence It is early but we can go, the conjunction but connects two groups of words.

Coordinating conjunctions are conjunctions which connect two equal parts of a sentence. The most common ones are and, or, but, and so which are used in the following ways:

• and is used to join or add words together in the sentence:

They ate and drank.

• or is used to show choice or possibilities as in the sentence:

 He will be here on Monday or Tuesday.

• but is used to show opposite or conflicting ideas as in the sentence:

               She is small but strong.

• so is used to show result as in the sentence:

                I was tired so I went to sleep.

Subordinating conjunctions connect two parts of a sentence that are not equal and will be discussed more in another class. For now, you should know some of the more common subordinating conjunctions such as:

after      before    unless

although     if        until

as        since         when

because      than     while

Correlative conjunctions are pairs of conjunctions that work together. In the sentence Both Jan and Meg are good swimmers, both . . .and are correlative conjunctions. The most common correlative conjunctions are:

• both . . .and
• either . . . or
• neither . . . nor
• not only . . . but also

Articles

An article is a word which is always used with and gives some information about a noun. There are only two articles a and the, but they are used very often and are important for using English accurately.

The word a (which becomes an when the next word begins with a vowel - a, e, i, o, u) is called the indefinite article because the noun it goes with is indefinite or general. The meaning of the article a is similar to the number one, but one is stronger and gives more emphasis. It is possible to say I have a book or I have one book, but the second sentence emphasizes that I do not have two or three or some other number of books.

The word the is known as the definite article and indicates a specific thing. The difference between the sentences I sat on a chair and I sat on the chair is that the second sentence refers to a particular, specific chair, not just any chair.

Many nouns, especially singular forms of countable nouns which you will learn about later, must have an article. In English, it is not possible to say I sat on chair without an article, but a demonstrative or possessive adjective can be used instead of an article as in the sentences I sat on that chair and I sat on his chair.

Whenever you see an article, you will find a noun with it. The noun may be the next word as in the man or there may be adjectives and perhaps adverbs between the article and the noun as in the very angry, young man.

Identification of Parts of Speech

Now that you have learned all the parts of speech, you can identify the words in a sentence. This section will give you some clues that will make identification easier.

First of all, a word can be more than one part of speech and you have to look at how the word works in a particular sentence to know what part of speech it is. The chart below shows examples of words that have more than one part of speech.

The verb is the heart of a sentence, so it is a good idea to identify the verb first when looking at a sentence. Verbs can be recognized through:

• 
  
  past tense ending (looked)
• 
  
  3rd person singular ending (says)
• 
  
  auxiliary verb (will see)
• 
  
  modal verb (can hear)

There are also verb endings or suffixes that can help you recognize verbs.

SOURCE:

Grammar:©2002 INTERLINK LanguageCenters - Created by Mark Feder

http://eslus.com/LESSONS/GRAMMAR/POS/pos1.ht
What is a Noun?, Written by HeatherMacFadyen:
http://www.writingcentre.uottawa.ca/hypergrammar/nouns.html

Lecture 2- Phrasal Categories

Phrasal Categories: (syntactic labels): NP, VP, PP, Adj, Adv, Det, Linear order and internal hierarchical structure. Just as morphemes have morpheme categories, and words have word categories, phrases have phrasal categories.

• Phrasal categories, just like word categories, are ultimately much more useful than just individual phrases, for the study of sentence structure. A phrasal category is directly determined by the category of the word which the phrase is about. Such a word is called the head of the phrase.
How to determine a phrasal category:
The concept of a “head”
• The head of a phrase is the main word of that phrase. It is essentially what the entire phrase is about.
• The category of a phrase is directly determined from the category of its head.
To see how this works, consider the following example sentence, with the phrases marked out in brackets:

(1) [The tiny woman] [went [to [the store ] ] ]

Sentence (S) = The tiny woman went to the store

Phrase 1 = the tiny woman

Phrase 2 = went to the store

Phrase 3 = to the store

Phrase 4 = the store

What is the head of Phrase 1?
In other words, what is Phrase 1 mainly about? What does it refer to in the real world?
It is essentially talking about a woman. The other words the and tiny give us more information about the woman but this is extra information. The main word in the phrase is woman.
So, the head of Phrase 1 is woman.
Determining the phrase category
What is the category of woman? It is a noun.
• The category of the phrase is determined by the word category of its head.
• The word category of the head is: Noun.
• Therefore, the phrasal category of Phrase 1 is: Noun Phrase (NP, for short).
Similarly, in Phrase 2, the head is: went because this is the main information.
That the woman went to the store (and not somewhere else) is extra information. So, the head of Phrase 2 is: went. The word- category of went is verb. So, Phrase 2 is a Verb Phrase (VP).

In Phrase 3, the head is: to. Even if it doesn’t seem so obvious, the phrase is actually talking about the woman going to a place, so the head of this phrase is to. The category of to is preposition. So,Phrase 3 is a Prepositional Phrase (PP).

Lecture 1- Preliminaries

Syntax is the branch of linguistics which deals with the study of sentence structure.

Syntactic categories

A syntactic category is either a phrasal category, such as noun phrase or verb phrase, which can be decomposed into smaller syntactic categories, or a lexical category, such as noun or verb, which cannot be further decomposed.

The three criteria used in defining syntactic categories are:

1. The type of meaning it expresses.

2. The type of affixes it takes.

3. The structure in which it occurs.

In terms of phrase structure rules, phrasal categories can occur to the left side of the arrow while lexical categories cannot.

The lexical categories are traditionally called the parts of speech. They include nouns, verbs, adjectives, and so on.

words are the units that make up a sentence.

• This is indeed true and a study of words and, especially, of the categories of words (like NOUN, VERB, ADJECTIVE) is crucial to understanding sentence structure.

Word categories
Word categories are crucial to the study of sentence structure. In fact, they are more important than words.
• When we say word category, we mean categories like NOUN, VERB, ADJECTIVE but also less well-known categories, which we’ll learn about, like determiner and auxiliary.
• In last week’s class, we also referred to a word category as part-of-speech. These two things mean exactly the same thing.
Why are word categories more important than words
Words vs. word categories
Before we go on to study word categories, it is important to ask this question:
Why are word categories more important than words for sentence structure?
Here’s why word-categories are more important than words:
Reason 1: Different words, same word categories.
• What makes one sentence different from another sentence?

(i) Each sentence has different words

(ii) Each sentence has a different order of words.

• So a sentence analysis which only looks at the words (and the order in which these particular words occur) in a sentence - will only be relevant to that particular sentence, not to any other.

• Such an analysis will not be very interesting because it cannot be used to generalize about other sentences or to understand how other sentences are structured in a language.

• However, word categories (like NOUN, VERB, ADJECTIVE, etc) are shared by all sentences.

• So an analysis that is made in terms of word categories and their relative order in a sentence is a better analysis than one that is based on individual words.

Example:
(2) This child cries.
(3) The bird sings.
• Both sentences have completely different words.
• And yet, in terms of word-categories, the two sentences have the same structure, which can be represented as :ARTICLE - NOUN - VERB

• If we just studied individual words, we would have no clue that these sentences actually have the same structure. Each sentence would then get a different “structure” because they have different words - and we would miss the similarity in the structure of the two sentences entirely.

Reason 2: A sentence can contain an infinite number of words.
Consider the following sentence:

(4) I saw the child on the swing under the apple tree in the garden by the white fence that was along the road with the cars . . .

• It’s simply not practical, or possible, to study the individual words in the above sentence because there could be an infinite number of words in it!

• It’s much easier to study word categories because we can then generalize across several types of words.

• For e.g., we could say that the above sentence just has a standard NOUN-VERB-NOUN structure that is then followed by a repeating pattern of PREPOSITIONS followed by ARTICLES and NOUNS.

The myth about word categories

Word categories

Now that we have seen that word categories are so important, let’s look at them!

You might have already learned to identify categories like NOUN, VERB, ADJECTIVE, PREPOSITION, ADVERB and so on, as follows:

• A NOUN is a person, place, or thing.
• An ADJECTIVE describes qualities typical of a NOUN.
• A VERB denotes an action, event, state, or emotion.
• An ADVERB describes qualities of a VERB, ADJECTIVE, or other ADVERB.
• A PREPOSITION describes a spatial or temporal relation, direction toward or away from something, and alternatives (except, despite).
These descriptions of the meanings of word categories are definitely helpful to some degree.
Because of descriptions like these, you can easily identify the categories or parts of speech of sentences like this:
(5) John drives very fast on highways. (NOUN = John, highways; VERB = drives; ADVERB = very; ADJECTIVE = fast; PREPOSITION = on)
But what about sentences like this?
(6) I wondered whether he felt too angry.
(7) His destruction of the school was terrible
(8) In order for such a plan to work, we need lots of money!
(9) It is raining.

• Of course, we can identify some words like assumptions, and light bulb as NOUNS and we can also identify some other words like felt, work and raining.

• But what about words like order in example (8)? We know that it must be a NOUN, but we couldn’t really know that from the definition for NOUN above: it’s not a person or a place, but it doesn’t really seem to be a thing either‘.

• And what about destruction in (7)? ‘DESTRUCTION' is a type of action and, according to our definition, it should be a VERB. But we very well know that it’s not a VERB; that it is, in fact, a NOUN!

• Finally, words like whether in (6), a in (8), and it in (9) don’t seem to have any clear meaning at all.

Nonsense words

Examples like the above suggest that a mere semantic description of the word categories is not enough.

But conclusive evidence that they are not all that helpful at all comes from examples like the famous Jabberwocky poem by Lewis Carroll.

Jabberwocky, by Lewis Carrol
‘Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious bandersnatch!
The above poem contains some actual English words, but it also contains several words above that are not English but nonsense-words.
• And still, we can identify what word categories these nonsense words belong to!

The fact that you can identify the word categories of nonsense words or words that have no semantic meaning whatsoever shows that there is more to a word category than just semantic meaning.So we need a better way to describe word categories - one that doesn’t just use semantic descriptions of NOUNS, VERBS, . . . .

A better definition for word categories
Two things probably helped you to figure out the category of the nonsense words:

• The affixes on the word. e.g. the morpheme -ous in frumious.

• The position of the word in the sentence gives a further clue. e.g. that Jabberwocky occurs immediately after the.

• Evidence like word-affixes constitute morphological properties of word categories; the affixes themselves are called morphemes.

• Evidence like word position constitute syntactic properties of word categories.

• Together, the morphological and syntactic properties of a word provide far more effective evidence for determining word categories than semantic properties.

We can now provide better definitions for word categories like NOUN, VERB, ADJECTIVE, ADVERB and PREPOSITION (for English) in terms of their syntactic and morphological properties.

Sources:

• The Free Dictionary,Go to the Linck:    http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Syntactic+categories
• Lecture 2: Morphemes and words, G2 Basic Sentence Structure,Sandhya Sundaresan,October 29, 2008, Go to the Link: http://ifla.unistuttgart.de/institut/mitarbeiter/sandhya/WS0809_BSS/2hdt_sslect.pdf

Grmmar 2: SUMMARY OF VERB TENSE

SUMMARY OF VERB TENSE

PRESENT TENSE

A. Simple Present

Simple Present tense expresses an unchanging, repeated, or reoccurring action or situation that exists only now. It can also represent a widespread truth.

Examples:

• 
  
  The mountains are tall and white.    Unchanging action
• 
  
  Every year, the school council elects new members.         Recurring action
• 
  
  Pb is the chemical symbol for lead.   Widespread truth

Formation: base form of the verb

    Examples:
(1) The school is close to your home.

(2) We study English every day.

Uses

a. general statements of fact

b. habitual activity

Special uses

a. time clause:

    Examples:
(1) When Bob comes, we will eat.

(2) As soon as it arrives, we will leave for the airport.

b. future meaning; if it is a planned event or a definite action.

    Examples:
(1) Classes end June 15.

(2) His plane arrives at 6 p.m. next Monday.

(3) The museum opens at 10:00 a.m. tomorrow.

B. Present Progressive

Formation: be verb + ing form of the main verb

Examples:
(1) John is sleeping.
(2) She is writing another book this year.
(3) I am teaching English.

Uses

a. an activity in progress at the moment of speaking

b. an activity generally in progress this week, month, or year

Special use

a. future meaning for a planned event or a definite action

Examples:
 (1) She is seeing the doctor on Tuesday.
 (2) He is leaving at noon tomorrow.

C. Present Perfect

Formation: have/has + past participle of the main verb

Examples:
 (1) We have driven this car to 100 cities in America.

 (2) I have lived in Seattle for one year.
 (3) I have seen many movies.

Uses

a. An action which took place at an indefinite time in the past. The emphasis is on the completion of the action rather than the time of the action.

b. An action that was repeated before now. The exact time of each repetition is not important.

c. An activity that began in the past and continues to the present.

D. Present Perfect Progressive

Formation: present perfect + ing form of the main verb

Examples:
 (1) Jennifer has been living in Yakima since 1980.

 (2) Miguel and Alexandra have been working at Cosco for two years.
 (3) I have been thinking about looking for a new job.
 (4) He has been sitting at his computer for three hours, so he is tired.

Uses

a. Shows the duration of an action that began in the past and continues to the present.

b. Shows a general activity in progress recently without a specific mention of time.

PAST

A. Simple Past

Formation: for regular verbs = base form of the verb + ed ending.

Examples:
(1) I walked to the park yesterday.
(2) I went to the grocery store.

Use: an activity that began and ended in the past.

B. Past Progressive

Formation: was/were + ing form of the main verb

Examples:
(1) I was walking in the park when I saw a hawk.
(2) At 3:00 last Saturday Mai and Tuan were gardening.

Uses

a. One act was in progress when another act occurred.

b. An action that was in progress at a certain time and that probably continued.

C. Past Perfect

Formation: had + past participle of the main verb

Examples:
(1) Bob had already taught his class before he took his son to the game.
(2) Until yesterday, I had never heard that word.

Use: An activity that was completed before another activity or another time in the past.

D. Past Perfect Progressive

Formation: have/had + been + ing form of the main verb

Examples:
(1) I had been studying for two hours before I took a walk.
(2) Maria finally arrived. Jose had been waiting for her since 4:00.

(3) Her hair was wet because she had been running in the rain.

Uses

a. Shows duration of an activity that was in progress before another event in the past.

b. An activity in progress that is recent to another time or activity in the past.

FUTURE

A. Simple Future

Formation: will or is going to + simple base form of the main verb

Examples:

(1) He will go to college next fall.

(2) The phone is ringing. I will get it.

(3) Jill is going to visit Paris on her vacation.
Uses

a. To predict the future.

b. To plan for the future.

c. To express willingness to do something

Special use in time clauses: Use the simple present in a time clause.

Examples:

(1) After I get home, I will cook dinner.

(2) The baby will go to sleep after she eats.

B. Future Progressive

Formation: will + be + ing form of the main verb

Examples:

(1) I will be studying when you arrive.

(2) Tomorrow you will be sitting in your ESL class.

(3) Mieko is going to be eating lunch at noon.

(4) Don't worry. Jamey will be home soon.

Use: An activity that will be in progress at a time in the future.

C. Future Perfect

Formation: will + perfect tense + past participle

Examples:

(1) On Friday we will have studied verb tenses for three weeks.

(2) I will have reviewed my notes before I go to the lecture tonight.

Use: An activity that will be completed before another time or event in the future.

D. Future Perfect Progressive

Formation: will + perfect tense + ing form of main verb

Examples:

(1) If I arrive in Oregon at 6:00, and my friend gets there at 9:00, I will have been waiting for her   for three    hours when she arrives.

(2) Next September I will have been attending Shoreline CC for two years.

Use: The duration of an activity that will be in progress before another time or event in the future.

Sources:

1. LEO: Literacy Education Online ,

    http://leo.stcloudstate.edu/grammar/tenses.html

2. VERB TENSE SUMMARY,

    Academic Skills Center 1501 Shoreline Community College

Syntax - LANE 334:Course Description

LANE 334: Syntax

Second Semester 2010

Instructor: Dr. Shadia Yousef Banjar
Office: teachers’ Building, Office no. 4, EX. 4373
Telephone: 2576570
E-mail: dr.shadiabanjar@gmail.com
Webpage: http://sbanjar.kau.edu.sa/
Office Hours: According to schedule; and by appointment.
Prerequisites: LANE 321: Introduction to Linguistics

Course Description

This course is a basic introduction to syntactic analysis and argumentation. The emphasis is on description, with some analysis and argumentation. The goal is to become familiar with core facts of English syntax, as well as with terms and concepts central to different syntactic theories. It covers word classes in terms of form and function, grammatical categories, syntactic categories, simple and complex sentences, head words and their dependents (complements and adjuncts), constituent structure (trees, constituency tests), relationships within sentences such as word order, syntactic processes that change grammatical relations such as passives, and syntactic processes that don't change grammatical relations such as relative clauses. Problems and discussion will focus on English.

Required Textbook

1. Lind Thomas. Beginning Syntax.

2. Mark Lester. Introductory Transformational Grammar of English

Components of the Course

The course consists of lectures as well as PowerPoint presentations with some practice exercises. Students are expected to read the relevant material before class. Four assignments will be given throughout the semester.

Contents
Chapter 1: Tools of analysis-------p. 1-22
Chapter 2: More on Categories -------p. 23-36
Chapter 3: The Verb Phrase-------p. 37-60
Chapter 4: The Verb Group -------p. 61-79
Chapter 5: The Noun Phrase-------p. 80-100
Chapter 6: Subordination and Coordination -------p. 101-124
Rules: Summary of All Rules -------p. 124-128
Tips for Success
- Attend the class regularly
- Do all assignments and exercises
- Ask questions in class or during office hours
- Keep up with the new material
- Get into groups to discuss the readings and work on assignments.
Grading

Grading of assignments will be done on a check plus (100%). No late assignments will be accepted. Each student will be responsible for presenting the answer to part of an assignment once during the semester. The correct answers for the assignments will be conveyed through these presentations. Percentage scores on exams will be based on objective criteria guided by qualitative judgment, according to the following scale. Final letter course grades will be computed from total percentage scores on the basis of the same scale. Some of the exam questions will be essay questions; evaluation of these will depend on clear, concise, logical argumentation in proper academic English.

Exams must be written on time. In accordance with departmental policy, no make-up midterms will be given. If a student misses a midterm due to illness, and provides a doctor’s explanatory note, the final grade will be computed proportionately, based on the work that the student does complete.

Recommended Reading

• Syntax: A Generative Introduction, by Andrew Carnie. (2002). Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.

• Transformational Grammar: A First Course, by Andrew Radford. (1988). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

• Transformational Grammar, by Jamal Ouhalla. London: Edward Arnold.(1994). ISBN=0340556307.

• Syntactic Argumentation and the Structure of English,' by Scott Soames and David Perlmutter. (1979). Berkeley: University of California Press. 1979.