INTRODUCTION

- Grammar deals with words, phrases, clauses & sentences.

+ Words: nouns, articles, pronouns, adjectives, adverbs,
verbs, prepositions & conjunctions;
+ Phrases: noun phrases, verb phrases, adjective phrases, &
prepositional phrases;
+ Clauses: main clauses and subordinate clauses;
+ Sentences: simple sentences, compound sentences and
complex sentences;
+ Sentence analysis.
 THEORETICAL GRAMMAR OF ENGLISH

1. Quirk R. and Greenbaum S. 1987. A University Grammar of English. London:

Longman.

2. Quirk, R., Greenbaum, S., Leech, G., Close R.A. 1973. A University Grammar
of English Workbook. Longman.
 REFERENCES

1. Quirk, R., Greenbaum, S., Leech, G., and Svartk, J. 1972. A grammar of Contemporary English. London:
Longman.

2. Biber, D. et al. 1999. Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English. London: Longman Group Ltd.

3. Freeborn, D. 1995. A Coursebook in English Grammar: Standard English and the Dialects. Macmillan.

4. Huddleston, R. 1984. Introduction to the Grammar of English. Cambridge University Press.

5. Huddleston, R., and Pullum, G.K. et al. 2002. The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language.
Cambridge University Press.

6. Quirk, R., Greenbaum, S., Leech, G., and Svartk, J. 1985. A Comprehensive Grammar of the English
Language. Longman.

7. Tran Huu Manh. 2008. Fundamentals of English Traditional Syntax. Hanoi: Hanoi National University.
 THEORETICAL GRAMMAR OF ENGLISH
• Session 1: Chapter 1 (Varieties of English ) + Chapter 2 (Elements of Grammar)
• Session 2: Chapter 3 (Verbs & the Verb Phrase) + Chapter 12 (The Verbs and its
Complementation)
• Session 3: Chapter 4 (The basic noun phrase) + Chapter 13 ( The complex noun phrase)
• Session 4: Chapter 5 ( Adjectives & Adverbs) + Chapter 8 (Adjuncts, disjuncts and conjuncts)
• Session 5: Chapter 6 (Prepositions and Prepositional phrases)
• Session 6: Chapter 7 ( The simple sentence)
• Session 7: Chapter 9 (Coordination and apposition)
• Session 8: Chapter 10 ( Sentence connection)
• Session 9: Chapter 11 (The complex sentence)
• Session 10: Chapter 14 (Focus, Theme, and Emphasis)
ASSESSMENT

Attitude + participation + attendance: 15%

Group presentation: 25%
Final written exam: 60%
VARIETIES OF
ENGLISH
 CHAPTER 1: VARIETIES OF ENGLISH

• 6 variety classes:
1 region
2 education and social standing
3 subject matter
4 medium
5 attitude
6 interference
 REGIONAL VARIATION

• Varieties according to region: ‘dialects’

• Regional variation:
- realized predominantly in phonologyrecognize a
different dialect from a speaker’s pronunciation before noticing that his
vocabulary (or lexicon) is also distinctive.
- Grammatical variation - less extensive and less obtrusive.
• How many dialects of English are there?
 Indefinitely many
 FILL IN EACH GAP WITH A
WORD/ PHRASE PROVIDED
• (grammar, lexicon, phonology, vocabulary)
• The difference between one regional variety and another is
most noticeable in (1) __________and least of all in (2)
_______.

• 1 phonology
• 2 grammar
 EDUCATION AND SOCIAL STANDING

• Educated speech vs. Uneducated speech

• Standard English vs substandard English
• Standard English is educated speech that has been
adopted by a number of academic and official bodies.
• The same features of educated/ uneducated English
may be found in more than one of its dialectal forms.
 STANDARD ENGLISH

• Uniformity is greatest in spelling. Printing houses in all English-

speaking countries retain a tiny area of individual decision, there
is basically a single system, with two minor subsystems – British
subsystem (colour, centre, theatre) or American subsystem
(color, center, theatre)

• In grammar and vocabulary, uniformity seems actually to be

increasing under the impact of closer world communication and
the spread of identical culture, both material and non-material.
 FILL IN EACH GAP WITH A
WORD/ PHRASE PROVIDED
(a, and, no, but, divergence, uniformity, grammar, spelling,
pronunciation, standardization, vocabulary, idiom)
There is (1) …………single standard form of English, (2)
……… we find very considerable (3) ……….. in matters
of (4)………...and even a remarkable lack of (5)……. in
(6)…………. and (7)……………
1. no 2. but 3. uniformity 4. spelling
5. divergence 6. grammar 7. vocabulary
 NATIONAL STANDARDS OF ENGLISH

• British and American English

• Grammatical differences are few. AmE has two past participles for
get and BrE only one, for example, and that in BrE the indefinite
pro­noun one is repeated in co-reference where AmE uses he as in
E.g. One cannot succeed at this unless one / he tries hard
• Lexical examples are far more numerous: for example, railway
(BrE), railroad (AmE); tap (BrE), faucet (AmE); autumn (BrE), fall
(AmE).
 FILL IN EACH GAP WITH A
WORD/ PHRASE PROVIDED

(If I had known, Had I known, We have gotten, autumn,

formal, informal, British, American)
(1)_________is typical of (2)_________English, while
(3)___________is characteristic of
(4)____________English.
1 we have gotten 2 American
3 autum 4 British
• Scotland, Ireland, Canada
- Scots, with ancient national and educational
institutions: nearest to the self-confident
independence of BrE and AmE, though differences
in grammar and vocabulary are rather few.
- Irish English: as a national standard, independent
of BrE by educa­tional and broadcasting services.
- Canadian English: similar position to AmE.
• South Africa, Australia, New Zealand
• South Africa, Australia and New Zealand are remote from the direct day-to-day impact of
either BrE or AmE.
• the South African English in educated use: identical with BrE in spelling and grammar,
considerably different in vocabulary
• New Zealand English: more like BrE than any other non-European variety, feels the
powerful influence of Australia and of the United States.
• Australian English; dominant form of English in the Antipodes,
exerting an influence in the northern hemisphere, particularly in
Britain, though much of what is distinctive in Australian English is
confined to familiar use.
Australian British English American English
Mordernize Mordernize Mordernise
Colour colour color
Flavour flavour flavor
Program programme program
License license licience
 MATCH AUSTRALIAN WORDS ON THE RIGHT
WITH THEIR DEFINITIONS ON THE LEFT

1. amber A True, or genuine.

2. Aussie B try/ attempt
3. fair dinkum C Beer or lager.
4. Gander D Goodbye.
5. G’Day E To have a look at something.
6. Give It A Burl F Talk, or chat
7. Hooroo G It will be okay
8. Oldies H An Australian person.
9. She’s apples I Parents
10.Yabber K. a general greeting.

• ANSWERS: 1C 2H 3A 4E 5K 6B 7D 8I 9G 10F
 VARIETIES ACCORDING TO SUBJECT MATTER
• Varieties according to the subject matter: registers
• A speaker has a repertoire of varieties and habitually
switches to the appropriate one as occasion arises. (using a
particular set of lexical items for handling the subject in
question: law, football, medical)
 VARIETIES ACCORDING TO MEDIUM
• Varieties according to medium: conditioned by speaking
and writing
• A written medium must be explicit (careful and precise
completion of a sentence
-->the writer can fully and successfully convey what he
wants to express within the orthographic system
A spoken medium can be supported by stress, rhythm,
intonation, tempo, etc. (prosodic features) the speaker can
use just one odd word, or a gesture and look whether the
hearer has understood.
 FILL IN EACH GAP WITH A
WORD/ PHRASE PROVIDED
• (more, less, register, medium, style, possesses, lacks, employs, and,
but)
• Written English is a (1)________effective (2) ________of com-
munication than spoken, in that it (3) ____________certain prosodic
features; (4)_________for that reason it has to be (5)
________precise.
1 less 2 medium 3 lacks 4 and/but 5 more
 VARIETIES ACCORDING TO ATTITUDE
• Varieties according to attitude: stylistic aspects
Choose linguistic form that proceeds from our attitude to the
hearer to reader, to the subject matter or to the purpose of
communication
 confine ourselves to this three-term distinction:
INFORMAL NEUTRAL FORMAL
GUY MAN GENTLEMAN
CROOKS CRIMMINALS OFFENDERS
BROKE/ SKINT POOR POVERTY-STRICKEN/
UNDERPREVILEGED
 FILL IN EACH GAP WITH A
WORD/ PHRASE PROVIDED

() social relationship, approach, attitude, what, why,

whether
Whether a speaker decides to use formal or informal
English depends partly on his (1) _________to his
audience, partly on (2) _________he is communicating.
1 attitude/ approach
2 what
 VARIETIES ACCORDING TO
INTERFERENCE
• The trace left by soneone’s native language upon the foreign language he has acquired.

E.g. A Phillipnino says, “I have done it last week”.

A modern-day Singaporean could say 'I go bus-stop wait for you,' to mean that he will wait for
you at the bus stop.
- There are interference varieties that are so widespread and long-lasting that they may be thought stable
and adequate enough to be regarded as varieties of English.
E.g. INDIAN ENGLISH BRITISH ENGLISH AMERICAN ENGLISH
picture film movie
footpath pavement sidewalk
finger chips chips french fries
biodata CV resume’
 FILL IN EACH GAP WITH A
WORD/ PHRASE PROVIDED
(a corrupt form, interference, a new dialect, a new grammar, another
variety , schools, colleges)
• When foreign linguistic patterns leave a lasting influence on a
language in a certain area, and (1)______________becomes
permanent, then (2)_____________of that language results.

• 1 interference
• 2 a new dialect/ another variety
RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN
VARIETY CLASSES
• Varieties in each stratum are equally related to all others.
 FILL IN EACH GAP WITH A WORD/
PHRASE PROVIDED

(regional, standard, educated, style, register, medium, formal,

neutral, informal )
• One would expect an American biologist, wishing to publish an
article on his special subject, to use a ___________variety of
English and a scientific ___________, to adopt the written
___________ and a ______________attitude to his readers.
• 1 standard
• 2 register
• 3 medium
• 4 formal
ELEMENTS OF GRAMMAR
 PARTS OF A SENTENCE
• Subject and predicate
1 John carefully searched the room
2 The girl is now a student at a large university
3 His brother grew happier gradually
4 It rained steadily all day
5 He had given the girl an apple
6 They make him the chairman every year
Generalisations about the subject
-The subject of the sentence has a close gen­eral relation to ‘what is being discussed’, the
‘theme’ of the sentence.
-The subject determines concord. (a singular noun + a singular verb; a plural noun + a plural
verb)
-The subject is the part of the sentence that changes its position as we go from statement to
question.
• Operator, auxiliary, and predication
The predicate can be subdivided into auxiliary as operator and predication.

 Understand how interrogative and negative sentences are formed,

how certain adjuncts are placed
how certain types of emphasis are achieved
• Range of operators
E.g. He should have been questioned by the police
• It is the first auxiliary that acts as operator:
Should he have been questioned by the police?
Yes, he should / No, he shouldn’t.
Identify the operator in each sentence below:
1. We have a computer here.
2. Thinking about this led us to an interesting conclusion.
3. A special period will be set aside for this operation.
4. The speaker is seriously comparing dreams with what happens in a computer.
5. Computers are fairly commonplace today.
6. The process of changing a computer programme can be compared with human
dreams.
• Sentence elements

5 ELEMENTS of sentence structure: SUBJECT, VERB, COMPLEMENT, OBJECT,

ADVERBIAL, here abbre­viated as S, V, C, O, A:

1 John carefully searched the room.

S A V O
2 The girl is now a student at a large university.
S V A C A
3 His brother grew happier gradually .
4 It rained steadily all day.
5 He had given the girl an apple.
6 They make him the chairman every year
• Divide each of the sentences below into its constituent parts, and label each' part S, V, C, O
or A, as in models a and b:
• Indeed S, O, and A can themselves readily have the internal
constituents of sentences:
• She saw that [it (S)rained (V) all day (A)]
S V O
• His brother grew happier when [his friend (S) arrived (V)]

• That [she (S) answered (V) the question (O) correctly (A)]
pleased him enormously.
 COMPLEMENTS AND OBJECTS

• Object [direct object (Od)] -the more frequent kind of object

[indirect object (Oi)]

- When there is only one object in the sentence  Od

- When there are 2 objects  Od + Oi
E.g. He had given the girl an apple.
- The indirect object almost always precedes the direct
object; it is a noun referring to a person, (‘recipient’).
- Something (the direct object) tends to be done for (or
re­ceived by) the indirect object.
• complement [subject complement (Cs)]
[object complement (Co)]

1. The girl is now a student at a large university.

C
2 His brother grew happier gradually .
3 They make him the chairman every year
4 We have painted our room blue.
 complements having a straightforward relation to the subjects of their
respective sentences: Cs
 complements have a straightforward relation to the objects of their
respective sentences: Co
• Indicate, by Od, Oi, Cs or Co whether the parts underlined in the sentences below are the
direct object (Od), the indirect object (Di), the subject complement (Cs) or the object
complement (Co):
 CATEGORIES OF VERBS
• There are different types of verb corresponding closely to the different types of object and complement.

VERBS
INTENSIVE EXTENSIVE
(SVC/SVA) INTRANSITIVE TRANSITIVE
(SV)
MONO- DI-
COMPLEX-
(SVO) (SVOO)
(SVOC/SVOA)

- Verbs can be DYNAMIC OR STATIVE depending on whether they

themselves admit the aspectual contrast of ‘progressive’ and
‘non-progressive’
 CATEGORIES OF ADVERBIAL

• John carefully searched the room

• The girl is now a student at a large university
TYPES OF SENTENCE STRUCTURE
 ELEMENT REALIZATION TYPES

1. The verb
The verb element = a verb phrase.
+ ‘finite’ verb phrase (showing tense, mood, aspect, and voice)
E.g. He had given the girl an apple
He may be growing happier
+ ‘non-finite’ verb phrase (not showing tense or mood but still capable
of indicating aspect and voice).
E.g. Mary wanted [to be (V) a student (Cs) at that university (A)]
(Od)
[Carefully (A) searching (V) the room (Oj)] (A), John found a
ring
[Made (V) the chairman (Cq) every year (A)] (A), he was very
 ELEMENT REALIZATION TYPES

2. The subject
- The subject of a sentence is usually a ‘noun phrase’, at its
simplest a pronoun such as They or a proper noun such as John.
But a noun phrase may be a complex structure having a noun as
head
E.g. The pretty girl standing in the corner who became very angry
because you waved to her when you entered is Mary Smith.
- The subject of a sentence may be a ‘clause’
E.g. That we need more equipment is obvious.
-
 ELEMENT REALIZATION TYPES

3. Objects and complements

- Subject complements, direct objects, and object complements may be
realized by the same range of structures as subjects:
E.g. He was the chair­man.
She saw the chairman.
They made him the chairman.
- Subject and object complements can be adjective phrases (having an
adjective as head), as in
E.g. She made him very much happier
- Indirect objects are chiefly noun phrases. They cannot be realized by that-
clauses.
E.g. He had given the girl an apple.
 ELEMENT REALIZATION TYPES

4. Adverbials
Adverbials can be realized
(a) by adverb phrases, having an adverb as head;
(b) by noun phrases;
(c) by prepositional phrases — that is, structures consisting of a noun phrase
dominated by a prepo­sition; and
(d) by clauses, finite or non-finite:
• (a) John very carefully searched the room
• (b) They make him the chairman every year
• (c) She studied at a large university
(d) He grew happier when his friend arrived
• Seeing the large crowd, John stopped his car.
 PARTS OF SPEECH

(a) Open-class items (They are indefinitely extendable. New items are constantly being created and no
one could make an inventory of all the nouns in English
noun —John, room, answer, play
• adjective — happy, steady, new, large, round

• adverb — steadily, completely, really, very, then

• verb — search, grow, play, be, have, do

(b) Closed-system items (they cannot normally be extended by the creation of additional members)
• article — the, a(n)

• demonstrative — that, this

• pronoun — he, they, anybody, one, which

• preposition — of, at, in, without, in spite of

• conjunction —and, that, when, although

• interjection — oh, ah, ugh, phew

Some words appear as more than one part of speech.

 STATIVE AND DYNAMIC

• nouns and adjectives can be characterized naturally as ‘stative’;

thus, nouns refer to entities that are regarded as stable, whether
these are concrete (physical) like house, table, paper, or abstract
(of the mind) like hope, botany, length.
• verbs and adverbs can be equally naturally character­ized as
‘dynamic’: most obviously, verbs, which are fitted (by their
capacity to show tense and aspect, for example) to indicate action,
activity, and temporary or changing conditions.
• Some verbs are stative (know/ prefer/ remember/ recognize/ mind/
matter, etc.)
•
 PRO-FORMS

• pronouns replace noun phrases /nouns.

E.g. The man invited the little Swedish girl because he liked her
• There are pro-forms also for place, time, and other adverbials under certain circumstances:

E.g. Mary is in London and John is there too.

Mary arrived on Tuesday and John arrived then too.

John searched the big room very carefully and the small one less so.
• so has a more important pro-function, namely, to replace —along with the ‘pro-verb’ do —
a predication:

E.g. She hoped that he would search the room carefully before her arrival but he didn’t
do so.
• the pro-predication is achieved by the operator alone:

E.g. A: He didn’t give her an apple. B: Yes, he did.

They suspected that he had given her an apple and he had
• Replace each underlined part by a pro-form (which may consist of more than one word)
which can be used when the Information contained in the sentence is repeated: EXERCISE
14
 QUESTION AND NEGATION

• ‘Wh’-questions
We can ask for the identification of the subject, object, complement or an
adverbial of a sentence:
E.g. They (i) make him (ii) the chairman (iii) every year (iv)
Who makes him the chairman every year?
Whom do they make the chairman every year?
What do they make him every year?
When do they make him the chairman?
Yes/No questions
E.g. Is the girl now a student?
Did John search the room?
Had he given the girl an apple?
• an operator which is then followed by the subject and the predication.
 NEGATION AND NON-ASSERTION

• negative sentences involve the operator, requiring the insertion of not (or the affixal
contraction -«7) between the operator and the predication:
The girl isn’t a student
John did not search the room
He hadn’t given the girl an apple
THANK YOU FOR
YOUR ATTENTION!