a brief overview of english grammar
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A summary of the unit English Grammar: with examples from ‘The Book Thief’ The following is a week-‐by-‐week summary of the topics that will be covered in this unit. Some of the most commonly used terminology is introduced and explained here. As the unit progresses, these topics will be covered in much more detail, and consequently, much more depth of understanding of these topics will be expected from you than is presented here! Language is hierarchical: small ‘bits’ join together with other small bits to form ‘bigger bits’. These ‘bigger bits’ then join together with other ‘bigger bits’ to form larger ‘chunks’ and so on (Note that words like ‘bits’ and ‘chunks’ are not technical terms!). This is the approach we will take in this unit. Therefore, in order to understand the content and terminology found in week 9, for example, you will need to understand the content and terminology of all the preceding weeks. Examples for each of the topics are taken from the following quote: Hans took out two paint tins and invited him to sit down. Before he accepted the invitation, the young man extended his hand and introduced himself. ‘My name is Kugler. Walter. I come from Stuttgart’. (The Book Thief, p. 199) Week Topic
1. English Grammar is about the way we put words together to make sentences and the labels we use to talk about it. ‘Nouns’, ‘verbs’, and ‘phrases’ are examples of such labels.
2. We say words belong to the same word class when they share similar properties. These properties are:
a. The kind of meaning expressed (e.g. nouns refer to ‘things’, like tins).
b. What a word looks like (e.g. s can be added to tin to show that there is more than one). We refer to this as the form of the word.
c. The role the word plays in a sentence (e.g. Hans is a noun. Nouns can come first in the sentence and tell us who or what the sentence is about.). This is called function.
Nouns are words like Hans, tins, man, Stuttgart. 3. Pronouns are words that can be used instead of a noun, like I, himself, my. 4. Adjectives are words that describe nouns. They come before the noun, as
in young man or after a linking verb (see below) like is as in the man is young.
5. We put words together into groups. We call these groups of words phrases. Words belong in one group when together they express one meaning. Two kinds of phrases are noun phrases and prepositional phrases. Noun phrases always have a noun in them (like tins) and you can add other words like two and paint in front of them. Prepositional phrases are groups of words that include small words like in, at, on. Many prepositional phrases tell us about a time or a place. So ‘from Stuttgart’ is a prepositional phrase and refers to a place.
6. Verbs are words related to ‘doing’ and ‘being’. Words related to ‘doing’, like extended are called action verbs; words related to ‘being’, like is in ‘My name is Kugler’ are called linking verbs because they join two parts of the sentence together.
7. Some action verbs like to have a noun following them. We call these action verbs transitive. These verbs tell us that someone is doing something to someone or something. For example, ‘The young man extended his hand’. Other verbs don’t need anything to follow them because, while an activity is taking place, it does not affect someone else. These verbs are called intransitive. Sit or sit down is an action but it does not affect anyone else. Transitivity is about the differences between these two types of sentences and the verbs in them.
9. Verbs are important in English because we use them as the place to show when something happened. We use the term tense to describe the way English expresses differences in time by the form of the verb. We often add additional letters (e.g. a suffix) to a verb to show what the tense is. So, to talk about past time we either add -‐ed (invite vs invited) or change the vowels in the word (take vs. took). We call the form with -‐ed or the changed vowel, ‘past tense’.
10. We can join groups of words, called phrases, together in a sentence by using words like and and but; we can also use these words two join two clauses together. These words are called conjunctions. Before is another kind of conjunction in the sentence ‘Before he accepted the invitation, the young man extended his hand and introduced himself.’ shows the connection between the two events in terms of time.
11. There are different ways in which words are put together to form sentences. The sentences from The Book Thief show the same basic pattern. English uses other patterns, such as the kinds used to ask questions. Different patterns are discussed under sentence types.
12. The parts of sentences can sometimes be put together in different ways, to achieve a different sense. For example, another way of saying ‘Hans took out two paint tins’ could be Two paint tins were taken out by Hans. The first sentence type is called active, and the second type passive. Sentences can also be either positive or negative. To form ‘negative’ sentences we use the word not.
We use all of these labels so that we have a way of agreeing on what we are talking about when we describe the words and patterns in English. The most important thing to understand is not that there are labels for all these things but that English, like all other languages, puts words together in predictable ways that we can explain and that it’s amazing to think we all learn to do this naturally from the time we are very young (even if we never learn what the labels are). For discussion:
1. What is your definition of ‘noun’ or ‘verb’ or ‘adjective’ (based on your existing knowledge)?
2. Can you identify a pattern used in the sentences from The Book Thief passage?
3. Identify two things that you would like to have explained in more detail, or with more examples, from the summary above.