Syntax: Chapter V: Adjective Phrase, Adverb Phrase and Prepositional Phrase

[Haizz, this week is extremely busy and It takes me a while to get enough energy to finish this chapter and write this entry. My experience when finishing the exercise of this entry is that you should spend time reviewing all the three chapter III, IV and V before you go further]
This chapter deals with three kinds of phrases : Adjective Phrases, Adverb Phrases and Prepositional Phrases. Let us see what they are.

About Adjective Phrases, like Noun Phrases and Verb Phrases, Adjective Phrases get their names from their heads that are adjectives. An adjective is the minimal form of an adjective phrase and can be both pre-modified and post-modified.
In pre-modification, an adjective may only be pre-modified by an adverb. Usually, the adverb belongs to the limited set of 'intensifying' adverbs like : very, quite, somewhat, rather, extremely, fairly, highly. Other kinds are also allowed.
Post modification is sometimes called the 'complement' of the adjective. There are three kinds of complement occuring in adjective phrases:
- Prepositional Phrase
- An infinitive clause: this is the kind of clause introduced by an infinitive form of verb.
- A that clause : this kind of clause is introduced by the conjunction 'that'.
Adjectives vary in the kinds of complement that are possible after them. Many adjectives do not allow any kind of complement such as : big, blue, astute, sudden, tall. Some adjectives allow only one or two kinds of complement. For most adjectives, post-modification is optional; however, for a few, it is obligatory.
Adjective phrases have two functions: attributive function and predicative function
The attributive function is when adjectives or adjective phrases are found in the pre-modification of a noun phrase. Thus, it can be inferred that a pre-modifying adjective should be regarded as an adjective phrase. When an adjective (phrase) is functioning attributively, it
may not be followed by a complement.
The predicative function is when adjectives occurs after a linking verb (copula) eg. be, seem, sound, feel. Adjective phrase functioning predicatively does not obligatorily contain a complement.
The vast majority of adjectives may function attributively or predicatively. Of course, there are exceptions.

Next, we'll discuss Adverb Phrases.
Adverb Phrases have heads that are adverbs and the head is the minimal form of an adverb phrase. It is usual that an adverb can be pre-modified but no case of post-modification has been found. The pre-modifier can only be another adverb, usually belonging to the set of 'intensifying' adverbs. Other kinds may also function as pre-modifiers. This kind of pre-modifier appears to be either directly or indirectly an expression of personal evaluation.
Adverb phrases have three functions: Adjunct, Conjunct, and Disjunct.
Adjunct function is the main function of adverb phrases, providing circumstantial information about the action, process or event talked about in the clause in which they occur. Circumstantial information includes information about the place, time, manner, etc of the action, process, or event.
Conjunct function is performed by a limited set of adverbs or adverb phrases and the adverbs involved are not modified. Adverb phrases with this function serve to link one clause or sentence to another. They typically come first in a sentence, or at least early on, and in writing, are bounded by commas (besides, therefore, however, yet, moreover, thereupon, indeed).
The set of adverbs or adverb phrases take Disjunct function is also limited in number. Those with this function tends to occur initially in a sentence, as those with conjunct function do. This function refers to the expression of the speaker's opinion or attitude to what he is saying. Disjunct adverb phrases are not really constituents of the clause that they introduce. Adverb phrases functioning as disjuncts may be pre-modified. (frankly, seriously, honestly, candidly, bluntly, generally, personally)

Finally, Prepositional Phrases.
Unlike any of those kinds of phrase discussed, prepositional phrases do not have a head and thus do not have a minimal form consisting of just one word. A prepositional phrase is composed of a preposition and a noun phrase. Both of them are obligatory and neither may substitute for the whole phrase.
Prepositional phrases have a relational role. The most frequently expressed are space and time.
Space may be subdivided into location (in the kitchen) and direction (towards the beach).
Time may be subdivided into point of time (before the exam) and extent of time (for five days).
Other relations are : topic (about the pollution), purpose (the tool for opening the case), similarity (like his friend), instrument (with a pen), accompaniment (with a brown jacket).

Sometimes prepositions are used without specific meaning of this kind, when they are attached to particular verbs, adjectives or nouns. Here the prepositions have a purely syntactic relational function in relating a verb, adjective or noun to a following object or complement. It's almost meaningless, since it cannot be replaced by any other preposition. In fact, the preposition here is considered to be part of the verb and we (and linguists ^^) speak of 'prepositional verb'.
In conclusion, there are two kinds of prepositional phrase. The first kind represents circumstantial information about an action, process or event, indicating time, place, manner, reason, etc. and has a similar semantic and syntactic function to adverbs and adverb phrases (filling adjunct position in clause structure). The second one follows particular verbs and adjectives and occasionally nouns, as objects or complements. In this case, the noun is the kind that requires a specific preposition (eg. anxiety about, desire for, etc) ; rather than the more general post-modification of nouns by a prepositional phrase, eg. the man behind the wall. Nouns requiring specific prepositions and complements are usually derived from verbs.

Phew, this chapter is the last of the series about phrase. Next time, we'll talk about a broader aspect : CLAUSE.

- NHƯ ANH -

Syntax : Chapter IV: Verb phrase

[hehe, this entry should have been written yesterday. Just because the guys from the next room kept asking me to play Empire with them ^^ (how lazy I am ^^), I had to postpone this entry. Anyway, they're going abroad next month, these may be the last times I play with them. One will go to Singapore to take a course in pursuit of a DOCTOR degree (admirable, he's only 25); and one will go to Japan to be the director of a bank (incredible)]

Last time, I had discussed a kind of phrases , Noun Phrase, and yesterday, I finished one of the most interesting kinds of phrases, Verb Phrase. Why is it so interesting to learn about verb phrase? What do you think a beginner may encounter when he starts to learn English ? In my point of view, that is tense. And this lesson has a section for tense, along with other important parts of a verb phrase. Let us see what they are...

In the verb phrase, all the elements are verbs. Two main kinds of verbs contributting to the formation of a verb phrase are Lexical Verb and Auxiliary Verb. A verb phrase contains a lexical verb, which is always the last element in a verb phrase, and may have up to four auxiliary verbs, besides the negative word 'not'.

Talking about Lexical verb, we may be accustommed to the word 'lexical' (^^ it appears many times in the course book of Morphology, remember ?) so we already know what it means, right ? A lexical verb carries the primary reference of the verb phrase, relating to an action, progress or event in reality. It may be composed of more than one word; especially 'phrasal' and 'prepositional' verbs.

Now what is the difference between phrasal verbs and prepositional verb ? Are they composed of a verb and a preposition ? As I researched, I found this:

+ Prepositional verb : the prepostion is the only one possible in the context and it always comes immediately after the verb.

Ex: You have to look after yourself !

+ Phrasal verb: the adverb particle may come either before or after an object which is a noun but if the object is a pronoun, it is obligatorily followed by the particle.

Ex: You may look up the word ( or look the word up ) in a dictionary

Look it up in a dictionary !

One more thing, multi-word verbs also include so-called phrasal-prepositional verbs, which include both an adverb particle and a preposition: Keep up with, put up with, etc.

Auxiliary verb has 2 divisions : Primary auxiliaries like 'be, have, do' and Modal auxiliaries like 'can, may, will, must, etc.' . This kind of verbs serve to realize the grammatical categories associated with the verb phrase, especially tense, aspect and mood.

+ Modal auxiliary may present only one time in a verb phrase. It always comes first and is followed by the infinitive form of the verb (Infinitive verbs). The negative word 'not' would right away follow modal auxiliary if it is present.

+ About Primary auxiliary (haizz, this part is longer), be is followed by the present participle to indicate progressive aspect and is followed by the past participle to indicate passive voice; have is followed by the past participle to indicate perfect or perfective aspect.

When combination of auxiliary verbs occurs, the verb right away following a particular auxiliary will take the verb form required by that auxiliary, whether that verb is a lexical verb or an auxiliary verb. The order among auxiliary verbs is:

modal - have (perfective) - be (progressive) - be (passive)

The forms they require are as following:

modal + infinitive

have + past participle

be + present participle

be + past participle

Ex: he will not have been being interviewed

(modal + negative + have (perfective) + be (progressive) + be (passive))

The first auxiliary in a verb phrase is called 'an operator'. It has some special functions:

- The operator is marked for tense, that is, the distinction between 'past' and 'present'. However, if a verb phrase contains no auxiliary, the lexical itself is marked for tense.

- The operator and the subject of a clause exchange their positions in most questions. In this case, 'who' is an exception.

- The negative word 'not' is placed immediately after the operator and before any other auxiliaries. The contracted (shortened) form of it may be joined to the operator (can't, mightn't, won't, isn't ).

- In a tag question, the operator is repeated. (Note: tag questions are tagged on to a statement clause and request confirmation or disconfirmation of that statement)

- The operator is usually able to take contrastive stress. For example, she IS talking; he HAS finished...

In the case where a clause is a question, or is negated, or has a tag questiom, or in which the verb phrase carries contrastive stress but has no auxiliary like modal, be, have, then the auxiliary verb do must be used. This is the sole use, as an auxiliary, of do. We can infer from this point that primary auxiliaries be, have, do may also be used as lexical verbs.

Above is the structure of a verb phrase, now we'll discuss more in some aspects.

All the verb phrases we've discussed so far are finte verb phrase, that is , they contain a finite form of the verb, showing tense distinction between 'past' and 'present', and being associated with a particular subject. This function is performed by the operator or by the lexical verb if there is no auxiliary.

Non-finite particle and Infinitive verb phrase may also contain auxiliary verbs, but they must also be in a non-finite form (infinitive or participle). Modal verbs, however, do not because they have no non-finite form. The type of the non-finite verb phrase is indicated by the form of the first member. Thus, we could see that a present participle non-finite verb phrase may contain a 'have' auxiliary, as in Having visited France before ; or a 'be - passive' auxiliary, as in Being looked down by all the generals . The infinitive verb may also contain a 'be-passive' or a 'be-progressive'; or a 'have' auxiliary. 'have' and 'be-passive' can together be present in an infinitive verb phrase. For example, he regrets to have been tricked by that woman.

One more thing, if a non-finite verb phrase is negated, the negative word 'not' comes first; as in he regrets not to have ...

Next is an interesting point: Tense. Talking about the grammatical category of tense is talking about real-world time. In English, there is a clear distinction between 'past' and 'present' tense. In fact, it is the past tense that is marked and the present tense is only marked in the third person singular. We'll take a look at each tense:

+ Past tense: The past tense forms of the verb phrase nearly always refer to actions and events in past time.

+ Present tense: Simple present tense may be used for:

- Eternal truths

- Habitual actions

- Present actions in a commentary ( a spoken description of an event that is given while it is happening )

- Future actions

In the case of habitual and future actions, the reference to 'habit' and 'future' is by means of the adverbial expressions (every morning, tomorrow...) but the form of the verb phrase used is present tense. It is arguable that in a few uncommon cases, a present tense verb may refer to an action or event in past time : I hear that you've had an accident. The present progressive form of the verb is usually used to refer to actions going on at the present moment in time.

+ Future: Clearly the future tense is not marked in the verb. In English, it is considered that the future tense is formed by means of the auxiliary 'will/shall' followed by the infinitive of the lexical verb. However, this most frequently used way of referring to future is not the only one. In fact, there are several other ways and this causes the opinion that there is no 'future tense' in English. There are merely a number of ways referring to future time:

- shall/will + infinitive

- present progressive

- be going to + infinitive

- simple present

- be to + infinitive

That's for the Tense.

OK, now is the Aspect. the grammatical category of aspect relates to the way in which the action or event referred to by the lexical verb is regarded, particularly in respect of its extension in time. In English, there are 2 pairs of distinctions to be drawn : progressive / non-progressive and perfective / non-perfective

+ The main meaning of Progressive is to view the action or event as continuing over time or being in progress rather than just taking place. However, some verbs are inherently durative in this sense, like 'sleep', but even then, the progressive can be used and emphasizes the progression or duration of the event.

The past progressive often refers to an action or event that is in progress when something else happens.

The Present progressive is usually used to refer to events taking place at the present moment in time, perhaps because such events are viewed as spanning the present and including immediate past and immediate future. Another meaning of the present progressive is to refer to a 'temporary' action or event in contrast to a 'habitual' one represented by the simple present.

+ Perfective: compared to the Simple past, which refers to an action or event taking place at some point in past time, usually explicitly referred to by a time adverbial or at least implied in the context, the Present Perfect refers to an action or event which began in the past and which either lasted up to the present (moment of speaking) or has relevance for the present. One further meaning of the present perfect is to refer to 'indefinite' past time, when a point in time is not or cannot be specified.

The Past Perfect transfers the meaning of the present perfect into the past, where it refers to an action or event beginning at a point in the past and continuing to another more recent point or event in the past which has to be specified.

Ah, now we'll move to a 'new but not new' field, the Mood. In fact, the mood affects all fields of English, as fas as I'm concerned. But in this chapter, we'll talk about it uses affecting verb phrases.

The grammatical category of mood relates to the attitude of the speaker or of the subject to the action referred to by the verb phrase together which the clause of which it is a part. Meanings associated with mood are realized in the verb phrase by the modal verbs in 2 aspects. On the one hand, modal verbs realize meanings such as 'ability', 'permission', 'volition', 'obligation' and 'prohibition'. On the other hand, modal verbs rea;ize meanings such as 'certainty', 'possibility', 'probability' and their opposites.

The other uses of the term 'mood' relates to clauses or sentences, more than to verb phrases, and refers to the distinction between declarative, interrogative and imperative clauses. These relates in a broad sense to the attitude of the speaker, those perhaps more in regard to his intercutor (the addressee) than to the action or event itself. This can be illustrated by the fact that the terms 'declarative', 'interrogative' and 'imperative' are not synonymous with the term 'statement', 'question' and 'command' separately. For example, it is possible to give a command using any of the moods discussed : Open the window ! (imperative); Would you mind opening the window? (Interrogative); I wonder if you would open the window (declarative).

The choice of mood reflects the relationship (or attitude) of the speaker to the addressee, and they could be regarded as constituting a scale of politeness or directness for commands.

Finally, we'll take a look at Voice : the term Voice relates to the distinction in English between active and passive, a distinction referring not just to the verb phrase but to the whole clause involving a rearrangement of the elements in the clause besides a special form of the verb phrase. In active voice, the subject is called 'actor' or 'agent' and in passive voice, the subject is call 'patient' or 'goal' or 'affected participant'. Further detail about Voice will be discussed in later chapters.

Phew, I'm glad I've finished one of the longest chapter in the book ^^. The more I do research in this subject, the more I love it. See you next chapter ^^.

- NHƯ ANH -

Read Smart 3: Chapter XI: The secret lives of animals

Today is nearly the end of the fourth week in my schedule and as planned, I've just finished another chapter of the book ReadSmart 3: Chapter XI (ha, I've almost finished the book, only one chapter left).

ReadSmart is a book that may be completely different from those Select Readings which we used last 2 semesters. This book is concerned more with the strategies rather than vocabulary and I have to say this, I don't think much of those styles of learning reading by learning strategies. My strategies are those which have been trained since I began learning English. Now when I learn Reading, I expect to improve my vocabulary (ha, because my partner's vocabulary is gigantic). However, as this is the 'course book', I will follow it.

Each chapter in the ReadSmart book contains at least 3 articles although they're not very long. After each article, you'll have to do some activities to test your strategies and your understanding the text. The chapter I've finished talks about the argument of whether animals should be given rights as human do.

For those who advocate animals' rights, they do several experiments with many spieces and show the evidences that animals have emotion like human do. For example, elephant may show their grief by lingering over the bones of long-dead relatives; or ravens can untangle a knotted string to release a tasty prey... They claim that scientists do not accept animals' rights because they fear being 'anthropomorphic', a scientific sin of attributing human emotions to nonhuman life forms.

And as usual, there are still persons who don't agree with this case. I don't like their arguments, frankly, because they seems to have been too emotional when they gave out those conclusions. They point out that those who support animals' rights are based on their compassion and thus, the case is just minimal. In addition, they suggest that before thinking of giving animals rights, some rights should be restricted to human.

That's all for the chapter. Because I'm major in improving my vocabulary, there's not much to say about the authors' writing styles and their methods of persuading (Haizz, I'm glad I didn't have to do this, but I fear I might have to do all one day T__T).

- NHƯ ANH -

Syntax : Chapter III: Noun Phrase

As phrases are often described according to the classes of the words that function in them and also the order in which their components are arranged, Noun phrase get its name from the head word which is a noun.

In English, a noun phrase is composed of 3 main parts: Pre-modification; Central and Post-modification. The Central part, which is also called "the head", is obligatory. The other 2 parts are optional.

About the head, the most common kind of head of a Noun Phrase is a Noun (Obviously ^^). The second one is pronoun, mostly a personal pronoun. Other kinds are : Indefinite Pronoun, Possessive Pronoun and Demonstrative Pronoun. When the head is a Pronoun, it is rarely (or never) preceded by any kind of modification. Post-modification, mostly Relative Clause, can follow it, in this case.

Take a look at the Pre-modification:

Here is the "structure" of a Pre-modification :

Identifier + numeral/quantifier + Adjective + Noun modifier

+ Identifier: This section includes : Articles, Demonstratives and Possessives. They're mutually exclusive in English, which means only one can be present at a time in a context.

+ Numeral/Quantifier: We can insert more than one component, though there are also some limitation. There are several favourite sequences:

Ordinal numeral + Indefinite quantifier

Ordinal numeral + Cardinal numeral

Indefinite quantifier + Cardinal numeral

+ Pre-determiner: this kind of modification is not included in the structure. It appears before the pre-modification. They have a quantifier reference and the most common are 'all', 'both', and 'half' together with fraction numeral.

+ Adjective: Several adjectives, or none at all, may occur in a Noun phrase but when it happens, there appears to be some principle of ordering:

epithet ( most important characteristics) - size - shape - age - colour - origin - substance - present participle - denominal (derived from noun)

+ Noun modifier: Often, there is only one noun modifier present in a Noun phrase. Noun modifier + head noun construction is often the first stage in the formation of compound noun.

+ Noun phrase in the genitive case: this kind is marked by an ('s) added to its final words and often indicate possession. This explains why they are more commonly found with animate nouns as head than inanimate nouns. Also, the NP genitive case may be considered to be substituting for a possessive indentifer in the noun phrase in which it occurs as a pre-deteminer. Thus, NP genitive may in turn be the subject to analysis like any other noun phrase.

Finally, Post-modification:

The post-modification position in a Noun phrase is filled by clauses or phrases rather than by specific wordclasses or subclasses. There are 4 kinds: Relative clause, Non-finite clause, Prepositional phrase and Adjective/Adverb.

+ Adjective and Adverb:

Adjectives usually follow indefinite pronouns as head and do not normally come after a noun. However, there are a few cases (probably ones copied from French),eg. blood royal, heir apparent.

Adverbs are more frequently found and they could be regarded as the reduction of a prepositional phrase. It seems that those can function alternatively as a preposition.

+ Relative clause: A relative clause is a full clause consisting of a relative pronoun as a head which refers back to the head noun of the noun phrase in which it occurs as a post-modifier.

Who and Whom stands for heads that refers to persons while Which is used for non-human things.

Genitive relative pronoun Whose functions like an NP genitive within one of the noun phrases of the relative clause.

Whose => of whom (for human and non-human head nouns)

However, some native speakers may prefer 'of which' for non-human head nouns.

...

OK, I've just explained what we all learnt from secondary and high school ^^. Now what do you think if I say comparison relates to relative clause ? ^^ Let's examine an example:

She buys more clothes in a month than I buy in a year.

In this example, the 'relative clause' is 'than I buy in a year' and the equivalent of relative pronouns is 'that', which refers back to 'more'.

One more thing, a superlative adjective as pre-modifier may be followed by a relative clause introduced by 'that'.

+ Non-finite clause: this kind is a kind of clause without subjects, introduced by a non-finite form of the verb. Commonly, we'll meet 3 kinds: Infinitive clause; Present Participle Clause and Past Participle Clause.

They are often regarded as reductions of relative clauses.

- Present Participle clause relates to an active (often progressive form but not always)

- Past Participle clause is always linked to a passive and thus restricted to transitive verbs.

For Present and Past Participle clauses as post-modifiers in noun phrases the implied subject is the head of the noun phrase. However, for infinitive clauses, this is not always true.

It is also possible to insert a specific subject by means of a 'for phrase'.

+ Prepositional phrase: the full range of preposition is used to introduce post-modifying prepositional phrases. Like non-finite clauses, prepositional phrases may have a relationship with fuller relative clauses, very often with the verb 'be'.

* As I finished this part, I discovered that the difference between these kinds was that they varied in their explicity. From relative clause to non-finite clause and finally prepositional phrase, the explicity increases.

Phew, this chapter is so long, huh ? But it's really interesting when you do research and understand those you were once introduced to without awareness of their 'origins'. isn't it ? My first entry may stop here, hehe

- NHƯ ANH -

Journal - The beginning entry ...

It's a long time since I last wrote an entry in this site. The task was completed. We all know the results now. But in this summer, work is still in queue for me ^^. It seems that I will have to try harder to achieve my goal: TO BE NUMBER ONE . Hey, It's not wrong to dream big, is it ? I'm ambitious because it's the only way I can take to get the goal. Knowing the results of the last semester, I realize there're many things I have to improve, including writing.

I have learnt to write in English since I was at Secondary School, but those I learnt was just a part of the whole Writing Subject and they were all basis. The first time I "touched" the book "Academic Writing", I saw the gigantic size of Writing. My writing skill which I've been improving since the Secondary age is only enough for me to survive through the first two semesters of a freshman. From now on, as a second year one, I'll have to change the way I practice writing. From the experience of those in the previous year, in the next semester, we'll have to be accustommed to a new style of writing: the Journal. ^^ Now I understand why mr Speaking asked us to write journals when we were only freshmen. I'm grateful for his care for us. But I think if he had given us more instructions in writing journals, we could have done better last semester.

What is a journal ?

As I surfed the Internet and found this definition in Wikipedia.org: " In academic use, a journal refers to a serious, scholarly publication, mostly peer-viewed". Ha, those kinds of definitions seems to be too "Academic". I think I still remember what Mr Speaking once said about Journal: " After classes at school, you may surf the Internet to find more information about what you've learnt at school. The Journal is that knowledge that you have reproduced after surfing and written down".

Many of my friends have started this. I read their entries and found an interesting apsiration. So I decided to start writing Journals ^^

- NHƯ ANH -