ESTCIO DE S UNIVERSITY ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURES SUBJECT: ENGLISH LANGUAGE IV

SENTENCE CONCEPT, COORDINATION AND INTERROGATIVE FORMS STUDENT: RICARDO FERNANDES MARQUES REGISTRATION NUMBER: 20100208908-5

Task presented to Mrs. Cludia AV2

NITERI 2011

1 In your own words define simple, compound and complex sentences. The presence of examples to illustrate your conclusions is mandatory. A simple sentence is a sentence composed of one main clause. A compound sentence is composed by two or more main clauses, coordinated ones. However a complex sentence is composed by a main clause and subordinate clauses. Below is a research made on the subject: A sentence with one main clause is called a simple sentence: It rained last night. A sentence with two or more main clauses is called a compound sentence: I tried to read the book and do the exercises. A sentence with a main clause and one or more subordinate clauses is called a complex sentence. In the example below, || indicates clause boundaries. Subordinate clauses are in green; the main clause is in bold: [automatic customer-answering-service at a company] Welcome to [name of company]. || If you have a touch-tone telephone, || please listen carefully to all the following options || before you make your choice. 2 Explain the concept of coordination. Comment its syntactic and semantic aspects. Coordinating conjunctions (and, but, or) and sentence boundaries In writing, the coordinating conjunctions and, but and or are traditionally viewed as being inappropriate as the first item in a sentence. However, they frequently occur as sentence beginners in both speech and writing, though less so

in very formal and academic writing styles. In this way they provide important cohesive links between sentences, and should not be thought of as bad style: A universal cry of horror and fury arose: Vengeance! The bodies of the victims were loaded on a cart lit with torches. The cortege moved back amidst curses at a funeral pace. And in a few hours Paris was covered with barricades. Glass could be impregnated with inorganic pesticides, then ploughed into the land. Or pellets impregnated with trace elements could improve the diets of cattle; in impoverished pastures similar pellets would protect cattle from parasites. 3 What is the influence of intonation in relation to question tag? Tag questions are basically a way of showing surprise or confirm an assumption. You didnt study for the test, did you? Nobody will come to the party, will they? We tend to make an affirmative or negative statement and use an opposite question tag to confirm what we think. We can also make statements to show surprise, or indicate what we want to hear. Youll help me, wont you? In a tag question like the one above, we show desire. We expect a positive answer, although we may receive a negative one. 4 Give 5 examples of different ways of building up questions and comment their peculiarities. Question types Five broad structural and functional aspects of questions can be used to characterize the central and more marginal question types. These are: 1 Yes and No questions These questions only require a yes or no question, they do not need any extra information. Do you need some help? Did you see her last night?

2 WH questions These questions offer a variety of possibilities as answers. Where did you go last night? What did you do after dinner last night? Who brought her home? 3 Alternative questions Alternative questions give the answerer a choice between two or more items contained in the question which are linked by or. Alternative questions may be yesno interrogatives or wh-interrogatives: [waiter to customer, as the customer is about to be shown to a table] A: Would you like smoking or non-smoking? B: Smoking please. A: How do you want to go to London, by coach or rail or are you driving? B: Erm, oh, rail would be better. An alternative question may offer the recipient the choice of one or all of the alternatives: A: Do you want tea or coffee? B: Id prefer a cup of coffee thank you. A: Sugar or milk? B: Sugar and milk. (choose one of tea or coffee/choose sugar, or milk, or both) Alternative questions are often asked in reduced form in informal speech, with just the alternatives being present: [A is a swimming instructor, B is a pupil] A: Right then, all go and swim whichever stroke you want to swim for two lengths. When the first two get back to the side the next two are gonna

do a nice jump in and race. Swim back to the side. Then the next two are gonna jump in. B: Length or width? A: Width. (gonna = informal going to) [waiter to customer in a restaurant] A: Any tea or coffee? B: Can I have some tea please. An alternative question does not normally produce yes or no as a reply, but no can occur to emphatically negate one of the alternatives: A: Are you actually somebody whos working at the university or are you a student? B: Oh no. Im working there. (Im emphatically not a student) [talking about a tourist trip to the Grand Canyon in the USA, starting from Las Vegas] A: Do they pick you up from Las Vegas or do you drive there? B: Oh no. You leave from Las Vegas. A: In a helicopter? B: Yeah. 4 Declarative questions Not all yes-no questions have interrogative form, and a declarative clause may function in context as a question: A: Youre Philip? B: Yes, thats me. If a listener repeats a speakers utterance as a request for confirmation, it may have rising intonation and be heard as a question:

The repeated utterance may also have a falling intonation and be heard as expressing a doubt, which the speaker may also interpret as questioning: 5 Tag questions A tag after a declarative clause can form a question. Tag questions are highly interactive in that they may constrain the range of possible or desired responses from the addressee. Some patterns are more constraining than others. Types 1 and 2 contain an affirmative statement by the speaker in the main clause, and an expectation of a yes-answer as confirmation in the tag. Theyve been affected by it, havent they? Hes gone back, has he? Type 3 contains a negative statement by the speaker in the main clause, and an expectation of a no-answer as confirmation in the tag. She never talked to anybody, did she? Type 4 contains an affirmative statement by the speaker in the main clause, and a more neutral possibility (i.e. of a yes- or a no-answer) in the tag. Anticipated agreement with yes, but open to challenge with no. Youve worked hard, havent you? Type 5 contains a negative statement by the speaker in the main clause, and a more neutral possibility (i.e. of a yes- or a no-answer) in the tag. Anticipated agreement with no, but open to challenge with yes. He didnt get up, did he?

Bibliographical References Cambridge Grammar of English - CD Rom