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Lecture Notes - Introduction To English Grammar
Lecture Notes - Introduction To English Grammar
INTRODUCTION TO
ENGLISH GRAMMAR
INTRODUCTION TO ENGLISH GRAMMAR
• Though there is an underlying system of grammar, users of English employ the system in
highly different ways to meet their communication needs in different situations.
• Language has many varieties:
• Registers: varieties of language associated with certain characteristics of a communicative
setting.
• Dialects: varieties in accordance with the identity of a speaker or a writer- their, gender,
socioeconomic class, geographic area, etc.
• Variance in dialects is arbitrary while variance in registers is functional, i.e., grammar variance
according to communicative purpose).
• Standard English (codified in dictionaries)
• Non-standard or Vernacular (usually used in conversation)
STANDARD ENGLISH
❑ Corpus linguistics
➢ the study of authentic language stored in electronic form,
accessed using corpus software.
✓E.g., BNC
https://www.english-corpora.org/bnc/
WORDS
❑ Function words:
➢ Prepositions, coordinators, auxiliary verbs, and pronouns.
➢ They do not have clear lexical meanings; they indicate meaning
relationships and grammatical relations.
➢ Sometimes called closed class words whose membership is highly
limited and fixed, i.e., no conjunctions or pronouns have recently been
added to the language.
E.g. only four coordinators in English: and, or, but, and (rarely)
nor.
WORDS (CONT.)
❑ Inserts
➢ Generally used in spoken language.
➢ Inserted freely in a sentence or text.
➢ Often characterized by a break in intonation in speech, or separated by a
punctuation mark in writing.
E.g., Well, thank goodness that’s over!
➢ Mainly simple in form and carry emotional and discoursal senses like
wow and Okay.