Exam Preparations English Ler-1153 for university students

EXAM PREPARATIONS ENGLISH LER-1153

9. mai 2025
Michelle Aas Osdal

INNHOLD

• Grammar
  • Identifying and explaining errors
  • Word classes
  • Clause analysis
  • Phrases
  • Subject-verbal concord
  • Short text questions
  • Phonetics

Introducing Grammar

From chapter 1 - Introducing grammar
In language pedagogy, the functional approach to grammar is closely related to the aim
of communicative language competence. Communicative language competence can be
divided into three components:

1. Linguistic competences (such as grammar and phonetics)
2. Sociolinguistic competences (the social dimension of language use, such as
   politeness conversations)
3. Pragmatic competences (for example, structuring texts appropriately according
   to their function).

*Overall aim is called communicative language competence or language awareness.

Grammatical units

A hierarchy of language units:
TEXT
Higher
SENTENCE
CLAUSE
PHRASE
WORD
Lower

Sentences

A sentence (helsetning) starts with a capital letter and ends with a final punctuation
mark. A sentence can be short or long. It can consist of one clause (setning) only or a
combination of clauses.
"no smoking" is not a sentence. A sentence need not contain more than one clause.

Clauses

Sentences are made up of one or more clauses. A clause that can function alone as a
complete sentence is called MAIN CLAUSE. A clause that cannot be a sentence in its
own is called DEPENDENT CLAUSE (also referred to as a subordinate clause).
A clause consists of one or more phrases and ALWAYS contains a verb (p. 14). It can also
contain dependent clauses.

Phrases

Clauses are made up of phrases. A phrase consists of one or more word that form a unit.
Note that a phrase may contain other phrases and / or clauses.
Phrases need not contain more than one word.

Words

A word is the smallest unit of language that can be used independently in writing and
speech.

EXERCISE

1. It/there is a lot of work left to do. (error)
2. They were travelling by/with train.
3. Harry goes/is going to Spain every winter.
4. She hanged/hung her new dress in her wardrobe.
5. I haven't got any/no/some new ideas.
6. Go to bed at once, do/will you!
7. Money are/is the root of all evil.
8. The dog had lost its/it's collar.

Exercise Solutions

1. There is a lot of work left to do.
   "There is" is correct when introducing the existence of something.
   *** Use "There is" when you're talking about the existence or presence of something:
   "There is a lot of work left to do."
   This means: A lot of work exists that still needs to be done.
   You're introducing the existence of something.
2. They were travelling by train.
   "By train" is the standard prepositional phrase used for modes of transport.
3. Harry goes to Spain every winter.
   The present simply "goes" is used for regular actions or habits.
4. She hung her new dress in her wardrobe.
   "Hung" is the correct past tense of "hang" when referring to objects (not people).
5. I haven't got any new ideas.
   "Any" is used in negative sentences.
6. Go to bed at once, will you!
   "Will you?" is the correct tag question to use in commands.
7. Money is the root of all evil.
   "Money" is an uncountable noun and takes a singular verb.
8. The dog had lost its collar.
   "Its" is the possessive form of "it" (no apostrophe).

Chapter 2 Words and phrases

Lexical words and function words

At the word level we distinguish between lexical words and function words. Lexical
words are also called content words, which indicates that such words are the most
central words for the meaning of sentences.

• Already, bought, old, house, York

Function words have more of a supporting role.

• But they, have, an, in

Note* that lexical words are OPEN CLASS, which means that new words are coined all
the time. Words that become commonly used are also added to dictionaries.

Word Categories

Lexical words
Function words

• Nouns
• Pronoun
• Verbs
  - Determiner
• Adjectives
  - adverbs
  Co-ordinating conjunction
• Auxiliary
• Infinitive marker
• Existential there

Lexical words explained

NOUNS

Nouns are "naming words" for things, people, ideas, institutions and places. There are
two major types of nouns:

1. COMMON NOUNS (things ideas etc.)
2. PROPER NOUNS (names of people, places institutions, etc.).

Most common nouns can occur with "a" or "the" Infront of them.
A singular noun has no particular ending, but most plural nouns end in -(e)s (car - cars).
The first letter in proper nouns is capitalized (Tim, London).

VERBS

• Verbs are typically "doing words" that describe actions or activities (to work). But verbs
  can also describe, for example relations (to own), states (to be) and feeling (to love). The
  class lexical verbs does not include auxiliaries. The base form (infinitive form) of the verb
  can have the infinitive marker "to" in front of it "to sing".

ADJECTIVES

• Adjectives are "descriptive words" that refer to qualities and characteristics of
  people of things (a blue house).
• Adjectives can be compared (gradbøyd) with -er and -est (bright-brighter-
  brightest) or more and most (beautiful - more beautiful - most beautiful).
• Typical endings are: - y, -ic, -ish, and -ous.

ADVERBS

• Adverbs can (a) occur with and describe verbs (sing beautifully),
  modify adjectives (extremely expensive)
  or modify other adverbs (very elegantly).
• They are also used (b) to refer to, for example, time (early)
  and place (here),
  (c) as "linking words" (however)
  or (d) to indicate the speaker's viewpoint or evaluation of a situation (fortunately).
• Some adverbs can be compared with -er and -est (early-earlier-earliest) or more
  and most (angrily - more angrily - most angrily.
• Many adverbs are formed by adding the ending -ly to adjectives.

Word class examples

Word class
Examples
Noun
Grandmother, house, iron, happiness, grammar, Tim, York, ..
Verb (lexical)
Be, have, go, walk, laugh, resemble,
Adjective
Old, happy, interesting, wonderful, industrious, sheepish, psychic,
Adverb
(a) Happily, nicely, well, very, ...
(b) Already, yesterday, here, ...
(c) Nevertheless, moreover, accordingly, ...
(d) Fortunately, surely, maby ...

Function words explained

The classes of function words contain a limited number of items. The extreme cases are
the infinitive marker and the existential there, which form classes of their own.

Word class
Examples
Characteristics
Pronoun
He, she, yourself, they,
anybody, that and who
Used instead of nouns
Determiner
A, the, my, our, all, some,
one, two and this.
Typically identifies the noun with
respect to definiteness, number,
ownership and distance.
Preposition
At, in, of, on, outside and
with
Expresses relationships in time or
space as well as some more abstract
relationships.
Co-ordinating
conjunction
And, but, or and nor
Links together words, phrases or
clauses.
Sub-ordinating
conjunctions
When, because, since and
that.
Used to link a dependent clause to
another clause.
Auxiliary
Have, be, may, can and
would
Occurs in front of lexical verbs and
expresses tense, aspect, voice or
modality.
Infinitive
marker
It may be a bad idea TO
stay up late TO study the
night before a test.
Occurs with the base form (infinitive
form) of a verb (to read, to sleep, ... ).
Existential
there
THERE are crocodiles in
the river.
Signals that something exists and is
typically used to introduce new
information.
*Be aware - and remember - that many words can belong to more than one word class.
Examples of this are GUESS and HOUSE (noun or verb), PRETTY (adjective or adverb),
THAT (pronoun or conjunction) and TO (infinitive marker or preposition).

Key word: context

What is a phrase?

A phrase is often described as words that belong together and form a syntactic unit. The
clue is to find out which words belong together in a meaningful unit.
One method is SUBSTITUTION, which means that we try to replace a string of words with
one single word:

Unit 1
Unit 2
Unit 3
The little girl
was kissing
the poor boy living next
door.
SHE
kissed
him.
This sentence consists of three phrases. - each of these three phrases functions as a
syntactic unit as well as unit of meaning.

Phrase types

• Noun phrases
• Verb phrases
• Adjective phrases
• Adverb phrases
• Prepositional phrases

Within these phrases, the noun (or pronoun), lexical verb, adjective or adverb functions
as HEAD, which is the most important word in the phrase.
The other words in a phrase typically specify, modify or describe the head by expanding
and elaborating its meaning.
There are also prepositional phrases, which consist of a preposition plus a following
element that is called a complement (typically a noun phrase).

Noun phrase

In a noun phrase, a noun or a pronoun functions as the head of the phrase. In addition,
noun phrases may contain determiners and modifiers that give further information
about the noun.

• Book
• An interesting book
• A book by J.K Rowling
• You

Verb phrase

A verb phrase consists of a (lexical) verb which functions as the head of the phrase. The
lexical verb may be preceded by one or more auxiliaries. The lexical verb can also be
referred to as the main verb because it carries the main meaning of the verb phrase.

• Eat
• Has eaten
• Will have eaten
• Has been eating

Adjective phrase

In an adjective phrase an adjective functions as the head. It may be accompanies by one
or more modifiers.

• Happy
• Extremely happy
• Happy about her latest novel
• More interesting than anyone else
• So interesting that I couldn't put It down
• As interesting as possible

Adverb phrase

In an adverb phrase an adverb functions as the head. Like adjective phrases, ab adverb
phrase can contain modifiers.

• Carefully
• Very carefully
• Carefully enough
• As carefully as he could
• So carefully that nobody noticed.

Prepositional phrase

A prepositional phrase consists of a preposition plus a complement. The complement is
usually a noun phrase, but there are exceptions.
In prepositional phrases, both elements are equally important, and both are obligatory.
The structure of prepositional phrases:
Preposition
Complement
In
The evening (noun phrase)
At
Work (noun phrase)
For
Yourself (noun phrase)
by
Solving the problem (clause)
*** PREPOSITION + COMPLEMENT (TYPICALLY A NOUN PHRASE)*