A relative clause is a specific kind of subordinate clause that modifies a noun or noun phrase. However, there are two types of relative clauses: restrictive and non-restrictive relative clauses.
A relative clause is used as an adjective. It is a clause that describes the noun and uses a relative pronoun or relative verb. Like a subordinate clause, it cannot stand alone.
Subordinate clauses are also often known as dependent or embedded clauses. Many traditional grammars discuss subordinate clauses as dependent clauses, but we choose not to in this book, because it leads to confusion
A subordinate clause is added onto the main clause to form a complex sentence. Subordinate clauses add more information to the main clause and do not make sense on their own.
For example:
My sister, who is older than me, is a doctor.
While adjectives almost always have some relationship to a noun, whether in the NP or the VP, adverbs modify many other parts of speech; classically, adverb phrases (AdvP) are understood as ‘modifying’ verbs in verb phrases, where they appear as adjuncts, but they can also modify adjective phrases, prepositional phrases, other adverb phrases, and both main and subordinate clauses as well.
Adverb phrases consist of adverbs together with elements which complement or modify them in different ways. Although adverb phrases are complex, in practice most of them have a fairly simple structure. A typical adverb phrase consists of a head in the form of an adverb sometimes accompanied by modifiers. For example: Aluminum burns comparatively slowly.
Here, the adverb head slowly is modified by the adverb (phrase) ‘comparatively’.
Prepositional phrases are often optional modifiers in the sentence rather than the central elements. Nonetheless, prepositional phrases appear over and over, and so it’s worth examining how these phrases work in some detail.
Prepositional phrases add description or answer questions like where or when. Although prepositional phrases add valuable information to sentences, they may keep you from seeing the basic parts of a sentence, like the subject and verb.
For this reason, we say that nouns are not inherently mass or count, but are rather used in mass or count functions.
Knowing the difference between count and non-count nouns is important for a number of reasons since you know when to use the plural –s ending correctly; you know whether to use a definite article (the) or indefinite article (a or an) with the noun; and you know which words to use to express quantity of the noun.
The distinction between proper and common nouns is probably familiar to you from your earlier education. Fred and Netherlands are instances of proper nouns. A proper noun is a type of noun that refers to a specific person, place, or thing (Evelyn, Cairo, Saturday, etc.) Common nouns refer to classes of things (cat, trash, stone, etc.) rather than particular ones. All nouns that are not proper are common.
I remember learning that common nouns refer to general things (“a city” or “a mountain”) and proper nouns refer to specific, named things ( “France” or “Mt. Everest”). Proper nouns are always capitalized whereas common nouns are only capitalized in very specific situations.
When we discussed intransitive verbs, we introduced the concept of an adjunct. Since these optional elements of the verb phrase play no role in deciding which verb pattern is used in a particular sentence, you don’t need to worry about them while you’re figuring out what pattern is used.
An adjunct is used in a sentence when you want to convey some extra information about the action taking place in the sentence. It can be used to provide information about when, where, why, how and how often an action is happening.
Verbs that have direct objects are known as transitive verbs. Note that the direct object is a grammatical function rather than a form. That function is usually filled by a noun phrase.
Knowing about transitivity can help you to write more clearly. A transitive verb should be close to the direct object for a sentence to make sense. A verb is transitive when the action of the verb passes from the subject to the direct object.
The constituent that we will see most is the phrase. A phrase consists of a single main word, called the head of the phrase, and other words that modify or give grammatical information about the head.
Grammatical phrases add meaning to sentences by giving detail about one or more of the parts of speech in use. A grammatical phrase can clarify any part of speech- all a phrase does is provide some detail; it doesn't have the structure to be a clause of its own
One important point to note about subjects is that they frequently consist of more than one word.
A sentence can have several subjects as long as each subject is sharing an action or state or each subject is in a separate clause.
These examples illustrate that tense does not always equate simply with time. When we use the term tense, we are referring to a grammatical form. Time, however, is a semantic concept that can be expressed in ways other than a grammatical marking of the verb.
Tense refers to the time of a verb's action or its state of being, such as present (something happening now), past (something happened earlier), or future (something going to happen). Also known as the verb's "time frame."
Before we go into the structure of the verb phrase, or the clause, for that matter, we can start by establishing how important the verb is to the sentence (or main clause). Whether or not it contributes much meaning to the sentence, the main verb is really the key component, the foundation on which the entire sentence rests. Because the appearance of the main verb alongside auxiliary verbs is the basis of the verb phrase (which functions as the predicate) and the predicate is the basis of the clause, it’s important for us to be able to identify main and auxiliary verbs early on in our analysis of English sentences.
Verbs are the heart of every language being that they describe the subject's action, state or occurrence within a sentence. A verb can also express actions or a state of being.
It is true that “parts of speech” is misleading if we take the expression literally, as components of language. Clearly, there are many more parts to language than word categories. On the other hand, “part of speech”, as a term of art, differs little in its basic meaning from category. It’s really the implication of the term–its association with old grammar books–that causes some to avoid it. I, however, find it hard to see enough difference between the two terms to justify abandoning so familiar a term as “part of speech.”
The term "parts of speech" is narrower than "categories" Every part of speech is a syntactic category, but many syntactic categories are not parts of speech. This holds particularly of the distinction between word and phrase.Words are parts of speech, however, phrases are not.
Interjections are words like oh, hey, ouch, or aha. They stand apart from other parts of speech in that they do not combine with other words in larger syntactic structures. Their primary function is to express feeling rather than to make a proposition about something. Some words—particularly curses like damn—are primarily verbs but can function as interjections: (32) Damn, I’m late for work again.
Interjections usually provide context as to how someone is feeling. Being that they are grammatically independent from the words around them its much easier to communicate through speech or text.
Syntax and phonology are both structural components of language, but it is common to think of them as parallel levels of structure that do not often interact. What they both address at their core is the structure of the language, but we could consider morphology (described in the next section) to mediate between the two.
Phonology focuses on the sounds in languages. In contrast, syntax has to do with the way languages organize words into phrases and sentences.
Another reason writing is different from speech because writing is not something everyone can do. Literacy, or the ability to read and write, is not universal, though it is more common today than in previous eras. In some communities today, there are individuals who do not have the skill of writing amongst their neighbors who can.
This proves to be true as there are several people in my family who can speak English, but cannot read or write. The majority of my family that have migrated to the U.S.from Guyana have made the attempts to learn how to read and write. Can't say the same for those who still reside in Guyana.
On the other hand, this book is tuned to the needs of my primary intended audience: undergraduate students interested in journalism, classroom teaching, English, and a variety of other disciplines
Having read this preface, especially the highlighted excerpt, this book will serve as a great tool to expand my understanding of English grammar and the ways in which I should analyze other’s ideas on grammar. I will be better equipped as someone who is a journalism major.
Adults, by contrast, lack this ability. Although a lucky few can absorb new languages easily, most people require laborious study to learn a new language after childhood. Many immigrants, for example, live in their new country for years and never completely master the local language, even after making sustained efforts to study it. Pronunciation in particular can be a continuing source of difficulty, even when the speaker is otherwise fluent. Celebrity actor and former California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger retains a distinctive Austrian accent to this day, and he immigrated to the United States at the age of 21, over half a century ago.
I definitely see how difficult it is to learn a new language as adults. As opposed to learning other languages, I feel that many immigrants struggle with learning English the most. Like Schwarzenegger, I’ve seen several prominent individuals that came to America at a very young, tender age but still speak with an accent.