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Instant download ebook of Word Order In English Sentences A Complete Grammar Guide For Word Types Structure Elb English Learning Guides 2Nd Edition Phil Williams online full chapter pdf docx
Instant download ebook of Word Order In English Sentences A Complete Grammar Guide For Word Types Structure Elb English Learning Guides 2Nd Edition Phil Williams online full chapter pdf docx
Instant download ebook of Word Order In English Sentences A Complete Grammar Guide For Word Types Structure Elb English Learning Guides 2Nd Edition Phil Williams online full chapter pdf docx
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Word Order
in
English Sentences
Phil Williams
2nd Edition
Copyright © 2016 Phil Williams
All rights reserved.
Designed by P. Williams
PREFACE
This guide is for English learners of all levels who want a full
introduction to word order and sentence structure in English.
Starting at a basic level, it gradually introduces more complex
sentence structures and components, and provides plenty of practice
through rearranging words to make sentences. An understanding of
English may be necessary before beginning.
The basic rules presented here are important as a basis for more
complex grammar later. A strong and flexible use of English is made
possible through a solid understanding of the more simple initial
rules; in English the rules are often bent and broken, but to do this
effectively you must first know the rules.
You can use this book by reading through different sentence
structure and word order rules one at a time, in sequential order, or
by using the contents as a reference to find information on specific
items.
This grammar book is written in English. Translations will be
available in the future.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This book would not have been possible without my many students
who have helped me understand the importance of specific grammar
points and the difficulties learners have with them. In particular I
must thank my wife Marta for her support and reading through this
with me, and my readers who gave early feedback, particularly Kate
Phillips, Marie-Claire Gauthier, Elmer Jadraque, Dmitri Nikolaev and
Pedro Rojo.
Much of what I know about the English language I have learnt from
reading and writing practice, and through answering the questions
of my students. Two grammar books that have also greatly benefited
me are Murphy’s English Grammar In Use and Swan’s Practical
English Usage . Both of these books cover a vast range of grammar
points, and are worth reading (and owning).
INTRODUCTION
In the English language, word order and sentence structure are
important. Changing the order of words, or the structure of a
sentence, can affect meaning. However, the English language is also
flexible, and in many cases the order can be changed.
This guide is designed to introduce the basics of word order and
sentence structure, and to provide general points on how word order
and sentence structure can change. It does this by first introducing
simplified components of English sentences, such as Subject-Verb-
Object rules, and develops these ideas with more detailed analysis of
the components, considering nouns, verb phrases, questions,
prepositional phrases, adjectives, adverbs and more.
After covering these general rules, consideration is given to more
advanced use of English, including rewriting English sentences with
different structures, analysing the effects that this can cause. As
such, the guide starts simply, and has simple exercises, and builds to
more specific and challenging points.
This guide is designed as an introduction, so is not a comprehensive
analysis of word order and sentence structure. It should be noted
that there are countless examples of unique word order patterns in
English. The guide also only provides a simple introduction to verb
structures, which are very varied in practice.
The tired old man swept the floor. (The whole noun
phrase forms the subject . )
They ate too much chocolate cake . (The whole
noun phrase forms the object . )
1. house / we / moved
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10. aren’t going to work / until they are paid more / the angry
workmen
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10. the carton of milk / leave / by the sink / when you finish
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1.5a Answers to Exercise 2
Demonstrated in the detailed sentence structure table, the answers
are:
Note that Sentence 4 starts with the word Never , not a subject or
verb. Sometimes modifiers of a verb can begin a sentence, when
there is no subject. This follows rules explained in the section on
Adverbs .
In Sentence 7 , the prepositional phrase contains the indirect
object (the inspector ). When the indirect object and the verb are
connected by a preposition such as to , for and with , the indirect
object usually comes after the direct object, as an object of a
prepositional phrase instead of an indirect object of the verb.
QUESTIONS
2.1 Question Structure
To form questions in the English language, we place the first verb
before the subject . The rest of the sentence usually follows
standard word order.
To form questions we usually add an auxiliary verb before the
subject. This varies depending on tenses and the information asked
for.
Who is invited?
2.2 Exercise 3: Questions
Put the scrambled sentences in the correct order.
_________________________________________________
2. he / what / did / do / ?
_________________________________________________
3. time / it / to go home / is / ?
_________________________________________________
_________________________________________________
_________________________________________________
_________________________________________________
_________________________________________________
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2.2a Answers to Exercise 3
Demonstrated in the question structure table, the answers are:
Not should directly follow the verb; no other words should come
between a negative verb form.
We weren’t afraid.
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Speech of Henry W. Davis, of Maryland,
“The great lesson is taught by this election that both the parties
which rested their hopes on sectional hostility, stand at this day
condemned by the great majority of the country, as common
disturbers of the public peace of the country.
“The Republican party was a hasty levy, en masse, of the Northern
people to repel or revenge an intrusion by Northern votes alone.
With its occasion it must pass away. The gentlemen of the
Republican side of the House can now do nothing. They can pass no
law excluding slavery from Kansas in the next Congress—for they are
in a minority. Within two years Kansas must be a state of the Union.
She will be admitted with or without slavery, as her people prefer.
Beyond Kansas there is no question that is practically open. I speak
to practical men. Slavery does not exist in any other territory,—it is
excluded by law from several, and not likely to exist anywhere; and
the Republican party has nothing to do and can do nothing. It has no
future. Why cumbers it the ground?
“Between these two stand the firm ranks of the American party,
thinned by desertions, but still unshaken. To them the eye of the
country turns in hope. The gentleman from Georgia saluted the
Northern Democrats with the title of heroes—who swam vigorously
down the current. The men of the American party faced, in each
section, the sectional madness. They would cry neither free nor slave
Kansas; but proposed a safe administration of the laws, before which
every right would find protection. Their voice was drowned amid the
din of factions. The men of the North would have no moderation, and
they have paid the penalty. The American party elected a majority of
this House: had they of the North held fast to the great American
principle of silence on the negro question, and, firmly refusing to join
either agitation, stood by the American candidate, they would not
now be writhing, crushed beneath an utter overthrow. If they would
now destroy the Democrats, they can do it only by returning to the
American party. By it alone can a party be created strong at the
South as well as at the North. To it alone belongs a principle accepted
wherever the American name is heard—the same at the North as at
the South, on the Atlantic or the Pacific shore. It alone is free from
sectional affiliations at either end of the Union which would cripple it
at the other. Its principle is silence, peace, and compromise. It abides
by the existing law. It allows no agitation. It maintains the present
condition of affairs. It asks no change in any territory, and it will
countenance no agitation for the aggrandizement of either section.
Though thousands fell off in the day of trial—allured by ambition, or
terrified by fear—at the North and at the South, carried away by the
torrent of fanaticism in one part of the Union, or driven by the fierce
onset of the Democrats in another, who shook Southern institutions
by the violence of their attack, and half waked the sleeping negro by
painting the Republican as his liberator, still a million of men, on the
great day, in the face of both factions, heroically refused to bow the
knee to either Baal. They knew the necessities of the times, and they
set the example of sacrifice, that others might profit by it. They now
stand the hope of the nation, around whose firm ranks the shattered
elements of the great majority may rally and vindicate the right of
the majority to rule, and of the native of the land to make the law of
the land.
The recent election has developed, in an aggravated form, every
evil against which the American party protested. Again in the war of
domestic parties, Republican and Democrat have rivalled each other
in bidding for the foreign vote to turn the balance of a domestic
election. Foreign allies have decided the government of the country—
men naturalized in thousands on the eve of the election—eagerly
struggled for by competing parties, mad with sectional fury, and
grasping any instrument which would prostrate their opponents.
Again, in the fierce struggle for supremacy, men have forgotten the
ban which the Republic puts on the intrusion of religious influence
on the political arena. These influences have brought vast multitudes
of foreign born citizens to the polls, ignorant of American interests,
without American feelings, influenced by foreign sympathies, to vote
on American affairs; and those votes have, in point of fact,
accomplished the present result.
The high mission of the American is to restore the influence of the
interests of the people in the conduct of affairs; to exclude appeals to
foreign birth or religious feeling as elements of power in politics; to
silence the voice of sectional strife—not by joining either section, but
by recalling the people from a profitless and maddening controversy
which aids no interest, and shakes the foundation not only of the
common industry of the people, but of the Republic itself; to lay a
storm amid whose fury no voice can be heard in behalf of the
industrial interests of the country, no eye can watch and guard the
foreign policy of the government, till our ears may be opened by the
crash of foreign war waged for purposes of political and party
ambition, in the name, but not by the authority nor for the interests,
of the American people.
Return, then, Americans of the North, from the paths of error to
which in an evil hour fierce passions and indignation have seduced
you, to the sound position of the American party—silence on the
slavery agitation. Leave the territories as they are—to the operation
of natural causes. Prevent aggression by excluding from power the
aggressors, and there will be no more wrong to redress. Awake the
national spirit to the danger and degradation of having the balance of
power held by foreigners. Recall the warnings of Washington against
foreign influence—here in our midst—wielding part of our
sovereignty; and with these sound words of wisdom let us recall the
people from paths of strife and error to guard their peace and power;
and when once the mind of the people is turned from the slavery
agitation, that party which waked the agitation will cease to have
power to disturb the peace of the land.
This is the great mission of the American party. The first condition
of success is to prevent the administration from having a majority in
the next Congress; for, with that, the agitation will be resumed for
very different objects. The Ostend manifesto is full of warning; and
they who struggle over Kansas may awake and find themselves in the
midst of an agitation compared to which that of Kansas was a
summer’s sea; whose instruments will be, not words, but the sword.
Joshua R. Giddings Against the Fugitive Slave
Law.