ENGLISH GRAMMAR

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Nguyen Van Do

 LANGUAGE

Phonology Grammar Morphology

Phonology (from the Greek: φωνή, phōnē,

"voice, sound" and λόγος, lógos, "word,
speech, subject of discussion") is the
systematic use of sound to encode meaning
in any spoken human language, or the field
of linguistics studying this use.
• Morphology is the identification, analysis and
description of structure of words (words as units
in the lexicon are the subject matter of lexicology
). While words are generally accepted as being
(with clitics) the smallest units of syntax, it is
clear that in most (if not all) languages, words can
be related to other words by rules. For example,
English speakers recognize that the words dog,
dogs, and dog catcher are closely related. English
speakers recognize these relations from their tacit
knowledge of the rules of word formation in
English. They infer intuitively that dog is to dogs
as cat is to cats; similarly, dog is to dog catcher
as dish is to dishwasher.
• The rules understood by the speaker reflect
specific patterns (or regularities = tính quy tắc)
in the way words are formed from smaller units
and how those smaller units interact in speech. In
this way, morphology is the branch of
linguistics that studies patterns of word
formation within and across languages,
and attempts to formulate rules that model
the knowledge of the speakers of those
languages.
 WHAT IS GRAMMAR?
- The science which treats of the principles of

language; the study of forms of speech, and

their relations to one another; the art
concerned with the right use and application of
the rules of a language, in speaking or writing.
- The art of speaking or writing with correctness

or according to established usage; speech

considered with regard to the rules of a
grammar.
- A treatise (luận thuyết) on the principles of

language; a book containing the principles and

rules for correctness in speaking or writing.
ENGLISH GRAMMAR
I. PART OF SPEECH
Nouns, Verbs, Adjectives, Adverbs, pronouns,
Demonstratives, Conjunctions, Prepositions,
Articles, Interjections
II. GRAMATICAL UNITS
Sentences, Clauses, Phrases, Words,
Morphemes (morph, allomorph, text, inter-text)
III. GRAMMATICAL CATEGORIES
Tenses, Aspects, Voices, Numbers,
Genders, Cases, Persons, Moods
 ELEMENTS OF GRAMMAR
 Parts of a sentence
- Subject and Predicate:
John carefully searched the room [1]
The girl is now a student at a large university [2]
His brother grew happier gradually [3] (p. 10)
* The subject has a close general relation to ‘what
is being discussed’ , the ‘theme’ of the sentence;
with the normal implication that something new
(the predicate) is being said about a ‘subject’.
- The subject determines concord (p. 11); It
changes its position as we go from
statement to question (ex. P. 11)

 Operator, auxiliary, and predication

- Auxiliary as Operator (as in the following
sentence) from what we may call the
predication

 Range of operators
(operator = hoạt tố; predication = vị tố/vị tố
hóa)
 sentence
Subject predicate
auxiliary predication
as
operator

He had given the girl an apple

Had he given the girl an apple?

- Range of operators
- Several auxiliaries (should, do/did, be, have)
(p.12)
 SENTENCE ELEMENTS (p12)
► SUBJECT, VERB, COMPLEMENT, OBJECT,
ADVERBIAL (S, V, C, O, A)
John (S) carefully (A) searched (V) the room (O) [1]
The girl (S) is (V) now (A) a student (C) at a large
university (A) [2]
His brother (S) grew (V) happier (C) gradually (A) [3]
It (S) rained (V) steadily (A) all day (A) [4]
He (S) had given (V) the girl (O) an apple (O ) [5]
They (S) made (V) him (O) the chairman (C) every year
(A) [6]
 * We shall see in Element realization types
that considerable variety is possible in
realizing each element of structure.
S, O, and A can themselves readily have the
internal constituents of Sentences:

She (S) saw (V) that [it (S) rained (V) all day (A)] (O)
[7]
His brother (S) grew (V) happier (C) when [his friend
(S) arrived (V)] (A) [8]
That [she (S) answered (v) the question (O) correctly
(A)] (S) pleased (V) him (O) enormously (A) [9]
 COMPLEMENTS AND OBJECTS
direct object (Od)
OBJECT indirect (Oi)
COMPLEMENT subject complement (Cs)
object complement (Co)
John carefully search the room (Od) [1]
He had given the girl (Oi) an apple (Od) [5]
The girl is now a student (Cs) at a large university [2]
His brother grew happier (Cs) gradually [3]
They made him the chairman (Co) every year [6]
He is a chairman (Cs)
 CATEGORIES OF VERB (p14)
INTENSIVE, EXTENSIVE AND INTRANSITIVE verbs
Sentence [2] and [3] have Intensive verbs and all
other sentences have Extensive verbs. The latter are
INTRANSITIVE if as in: It rained steadily all day, they
do not permit any of the four object and complement
types so far distinguished. Extensive verbs are
otherwise TRANSITIVE.
(Intensive verbs = động từ kết chủ/tập trung; extensive
verbs = động từ kết động/phân tán)
All transitive verbs take a direct object; some, like give
in [5], permit an indirect object, and these will be
distinguished as DITRANSITIVE (ngoại động từ song
tân). A few verbs, like make in [6], take an object
complement (COMPLEX TRANSITIVE) (ngoại động từ
phức tân). The rest are MONOTRANSITIVE (ngoại động
từ đơn tân).
*The aspectual contrast of the ‘progressive’ and ‘non-
progressive’:
John carefully searched the room [1]
or John was carefully searching the room
But, it is impossible for [2] to be like the [1]
* The girl is now a student at a large university [2]
 INTENSIVE VERB
If the word or phrase following a verb is a noun, a
preposition or an adjective and it tells us something
about the subject of the sentence, then that sentence's
verb is called "intensive":

(a) Max became a doctor. (noun)

=> "a doctor" tells us who Max is.

(b) The cat is in the kitchen. (preposition)

=> "in the kitchen" tells us where the cat is located.

(c) Sam seems happy. (adjective)

=> "happy" describes Sam's state of being.
Note, "intensive" means, to cover a fixed area
(similar to agricultural term "intensive farming" i.e., to
work the same, fix plot of land), whereas "extensive"
means, to cover a wider area.

Intensive verbs are concentrated to one, fixed

structure. Words or phrases following an intensive
verb function as subject complements; i.e., they
complement the subject (they tell us about the
subject), they work with the subject, not the verb.

Extensive verbs are not concentrated to a fixed

structure. Words or phrases following an extensive
verb function as the verb's object; they work with the
verb, not the subject.
- All transitive verbs take a direct
object; some like give in [5], permits
an indirect object, and these will be
distinguished as DITRANSITIVE.

- A few verbs, like make in [6], take an object

complement and are referred to as
COMPLEXT TRANSITIVE. The rest are
MONOTRANSITIVE. (p 14)
(transitive v. = đt cập vật; intransitive v. = đt
bất cập vật; ditransitive v.= đt ngoại động
song chuyển; complex tran.v. đt ~ phức
chuyển; monotransitive v. đt ~ đơn chuyển)
 Transitive and Intransitive Verbs
 Depending on the type of object they take,
verbs may be transitive, intransitive, or
linking.
 The meaning of a transitive verb is
incomplete without a direct object, as in the
following examples:
 INCOMPLETE
– The shelf holds
 COMPLETE
– The shelf holds three books and a vase of
flowers.
 INCOMPLETE
– The committee named
 COMPLETE
– The committee named a new chairperson.
 INCOMPLETE
– The child broke
 COMPLETE
– The child broke the plate.
 An intransitive verb, on the other hand,
cannot take a direct object:
– This plant has thrived on the south window sill.
 The compound verb "has thrived" is
intransitive and takes no direct object in this
sentence. The prepositional phrase "on the
south windowsill" acts as an adverb
describing where the plant thrives.
 – The sound of the choir carried through the
cathedral.
 The verb "carried" is used intransitively in
this sentence and takes no direct object. The
prepositional phrase "through the cathedral"
acts as an adverb describing where the
sound carried.
– The train from Montreal arrived four hours late.
 The intransitive verb "arrived" takes no
direct object, and the noun phrase "four
hours late" acts as an adverb describing
when the train arrived.
In grammar, a ditransitive verb is a verb
which takes a subject and two objects.
According to certain linguistics
considerations, these objects may be called
direct and indirect, or primary and
secondary. This is in contrast to
monotransitive verbs, which take only one,
direct, object.
 Some verbs are followed by two phrases, but they
have a different order and function from VD (verb
requires direct object) verbs:
 (16) My grandpa calls [teenagers] [blithering idiots
= chí ngu].
 In (16), we have two NPs after the verb, but
notice that the relationship between the two is not
what we saw with ditransitive verbs. The first NP,
teenagers is not receiving idiots. It's not an
indirect object at all. In fact, it's the direct object
of calls (the thing that's being named). The
second NP isn't receiving anything either. It's
renaming the direct object. If that sounds similar
to what an NP after a linking verb does that's no
accident.
 This too is a complement, but since it refers to the
object, we will, sensibly enough, call it an object
complement. An object complement renames or
defines a quality of the direct object. Like subject
complements, object complements can also be
adjective phrases:
 (17) Some linguists consider [Noam Chomsky]
[mistaken].
 Just as linking verbs are a type of intransitive verb
with complex predication, these verbs are a form
of complex predication for transitive verbs. We will
label such verbs VC (verb requires complement).
 A monotransitive verb is a verb that takes
two arguments: a subject and a single
direct object. For example, the verbs buy, bite,
break, and eat are monotransitive in English.
 Verbs are categorized in terms of transitivity (i.
e. how many and which types of syntactic
arguments (tham tố) they may cooccur with),
the basic distinction being between
transitive verbs (taking two or more
arguments) and intransitive verbs (taking one
argument). The transitive category is further
divided into subclasses.
 The following examples show
monotransitive verbs in sentences (the
direct object is in boldface):
 Yesterday, I bought a cat.
 The cat bit me!
 He broke the toothpick.
 The chef ate his own watermelon soup.
 Traditionally, transitivity patterns are assigned to
the verb as lexical information, but recent research
in construction grammar has argued that this is
actually a wrong conception, since the same verb
very often appears in different contexts of
transitivity. Consider:
 The man bought his wife a ring. (ditransitive)
 Stop me before I buy again. (intransitive;
antipassive construction)
 The cat bit him in the arm. (complex transitive)
 Can you bite me a piece of banana? (ditransitive)
 The vase broke. (intransitive; middle voice
construction)
 The vase broke. (intransitive; middle voice
construction)
 Can you break me some toothpicks for my model
castle? (ditransitive)
 She broke the toothpick into tiny pieces. (complex
transitive)
 Not now, I'm eating. (intransitive; antipassive
construction)
 Thus, in grammatical construction theory,
monotransititivy is assigned to , which are schematic
types of grammatical construction, rather than to the
verb.
 Transitivity is roughly synonymous with
subcategorization.
 Retrieved from
"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monotransitive_verb"
 STATIVE AND DYNAMIC VERBS (p15)
Verbs in English can be classified into two
categories: stative verbs and dynamic verbs.
Dynamic verbs (sometimes referred to as "action
verbs") usually describe actions we can take, or
things that happen; stative verbs usually refer to a
state or condition which is not changing or likely to
change. The difference is important, because
stative verbs cannot normally be used in the
continuous (BE + ING) forms.
(Stative verbs = động từ tĩnh trạng; Dynamic verbs =
động từ hành động)
 There are many types of dynamic verbs,
but most of them describe activities or
events which can begin and finish. Here are
some examples:
 Play (activity)
 She plays tennis every Friday.
She's playing tennis right now.
 Melt (process)

The snow melts every spring.

The snow is melting right now.
 Hit
(momentary action)
When one boxer hits another, brain
damage can result. (This suggests only
ONE punch.)
When one boxer is hitting another,
brain damage can result. (This
suggests MANY repeated punches.)
 Stative verbs usually refer to a state or
condition which is quite static or unchanging.
They can be divided into verbs of perception
or cognition (which refer to things in the
mind), or verbs of relation (which describe
the relationships between things). Here are
some examples:
 Hate (perception)

I hate chocolate.
 Believe (perception)

She believes in UFOs.

 Contain (relation)
The box contains 24 cans of soda.
 Own (relation)

Yong owns three motorbikes.

 In English language there are verbs that are
not normally used in the Continuous Tense,
because they describe rather state than an
action. They are called state verb (stative
verbs, non-progressive verbs).

The verbs that can be used in the Continuous

Tense are called action verbs (dynamic
verbs).

Some verbs can be both state and action

verbs depending on their meaning.
Here are some verbs that are not
normally used in the Continuous Tense.

  
like, dislike; love, hate 
prefer, remember, forget,
believe, mean, seem, understand
want,  need, know, belong, own
 Hereare some a few verbs that can be
both state and action verbs
depending on their meaning.

I think you made a mistake.

think = believe

I am thinking about my mum now.

think = mental process
 I have two cars.
have = possess, own

I am having my lunch now.

have = eat

 I am seeing my friend tomorrow evening.

see = meeting with

I see what you mean.

See = understand
 Categories of Adverbial (p15)
The girl is now a student at a large university

The girl is a student at a large university
The girl is a student
The girl is now a student
The girl is at a large university
but we cannot say *The girl is now
We may say that now and at a large
university are adverbials but belong to
different classes (time & place) (p. 15)
 carefully in the following case can be
replaced by many others:
carefully
slowly
John searched the room noisily
sternly
without delay

But if these same adverbials were inserted in

stative verb sentences, these sentences would
become unacceptable (p. 15). Ex.
* The girl is now a student carefully
TYPES OF SENTENCE STRUCTURE (p.16)

- She is in London (now) [1]

- She is a student (in London) (now) [2]
- John heard the explosion (from his office)
(when he was locking the door) [3]
- Universities (gradually) became
famous (in Europe)
(during the Middle Ages) [4]
- They ate the meat (hungrily) (in their hut)
(that night) [5]
- He offered (her) some chocolates
(politely) (outside the hall) [6]
- They elected him chairman
(without argument) (in
Washington) (this morning) [7]
- The train had arrived (quietly)
(at the station) (before
We noticed it) [8]
 A place [[1]
Cs [2]
intens
Vstat ext & tras: Od [3]

S intens: Cs [4] (A (A
momo: Od [5] place)
time)
trans di: (O1) Od [6] (A
Vdyn complex: O d Co [7] proc)
ext intransitive [8]
 ELEMENT REALIZATION TYPES
(p. 16)

 Sentence elements can be realized by linguistic

structures of very different form.
 The verb element is always a verb phrase.
 The verb element may be ‘finite’ (showing tense,
mood, aspect, and voice) or ‘non-finite’ (not
showing tense or mood but still capable of indicating
aspect and voice).
 Consider the three types of non-finite verb phrase
functioning as the V element in the italicized non-
finite clauses:
Mary wanted [to be (v) a student (Cs) at that
university (A)] (Od).
[Carefully (A) searching (V) the room (Od)] (A),
John found a ring
[Made (v) the chairman (Co) every year (A)]
(A), he was very busy

non-finite clauses:
 The verb phrase (VP) in English has a
noticeably different structure, since the
information it carries about mood, tense,
modality, aspect, and voice is quite different
from the information carried by a noun
phrase. The verb phrase has two functional
parts, the auxiliary, a grammatical morpheme
carrying information about mood, tense,
modality, and voice; and the main verb, a
lexical morpheme carrying its lexical
information and, usually, an inflection.
The mood system in English is divided into four
subcategories.
 Set phrases
 The subjunctive is used in a number of fixed
phrases, relics from an older form of the language
where it was much more common. Some could be
misconstrued as the imperative mood. Common
examples are:
 if need be (nếu cần)
 as it were (nếu có thể nói như vậy / cứ y như là vậy)
 if I were you; were I you (giá như tôi là bạn)
 be that as it may (cứ cho nó là như vậy)
 (God) bless you! (Chúa phù hộ ngài)
 come Monday (Tuesday, etc.) (khi thứ Hai đến)
 come what may (cho dù xảy ra điều gì)
 far be it from (or for) me (còn lâu mới liên quan đến tôi)
 until death do us part (cho đên khi cái chết chia lìa chúng ta)
 God save our gracious Queen, God bless America, God keep our land
glorious and free, God rest ye merry gentlemen, etc.
 Heaven forfend/forbidden (lạy trời đừng có chuyện đó)
 so be it (đành vậy thôi)
 suffice it to say (đủ để nói rằng)
 woe betide (chớ có làm mà chết)
 peace be with you (sự thanh thản sẽ đến với bạn)
 long live the king (Hoàng đế vạn tuế)
 albeit (a synthesis of all be it, i.e. although it be) (mặc
dù, dẫu)
 truth be told (thật tình mà nói)
 rue the day (sẽ có lúc phải hối tiếc)
  truth be told
 rue the day
 would that it were (giá mà mọi việc khác đi)
 rest in peace (an nghỉ ở chốn vĩnh hằng/ an giấc ngàn thu)
 let (may) it be known (hãy để mọi người cùng biết)
 ...need only... (duy nhất cần)
 May the best man win (người giỏi nhất sẽ thắng)

 "May the best man win" is an example of the

subjunctive. If may were used as a modal such as in
"the best man may win", this would not be the
subjunctive. Other Indo-European languages use the
subjunctive in this same form such as in Spanish
"que les vaya bien" (lit. may you go well) and "que
sea de alta prioridad" (lit. may it be of high priority).
The subjunctive is used in this formula in Spanish
just as it is in English.
Like all phrases, the constituents of the
English noun phrase can be analyzed into
both functional constituents and formal
constituents. From a functional point of view,
the noun phrase has four major components,
occurring in a fixed order:
 the determinative, that constituent which
determines the reference of the noun phrase
in its linguistic or situational context;
 premodification, which comprises all the
modifying or describing constituents before
the head, other than the determiners;
 the head, around which the other constituents
cluster; and
 postmodification, those which comprise all
the modifying constituents placed after the
head.
Ex. Several new mystery books which we
recently enjoyed.
Several (determiner/hạn định tố/); new
mystery (premodifier/tiền điều biến tố);
book (head/chủ tố); which we recently
enjoyed (postmodifier/hậu điều biến tố)
*modifier = điều biến tố; giới định tố
 Modifier may refer to:
 Grammatical modifier, an adjective or
adverb that changes the meaning of a
noun, pronoun, or verb ; limits the
meaning
 PARTS OF SPEECH (p18)
 The structures realizing sentence elements
are composed of units which can be referred
to as parts of speech (p18).
(a)
 noun – John, room, play
 adjective – happy, steady, new
 adverb – steadily, completely, readily
 verb – search, grow, play

(b)
 article – the, an
 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
Closed-system items
Set (b) comprises what are called ‘closed-system’
items (các đơn thể ‘đóng’); set (a) comprises
‘open-classes’ (‘đơn thể/lớp từ mở’)
Static and dynamic
Broadly speaking, nouns and adjectives can be
characterized naturally as ‘stative’; house,
table, paper, or abstract like hope, length
 On the other hand, 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. These relations
between the open classes can be summerized thus:
STATIVE noun adjective

DYNAMIC verb adverb

* But some verbs such as know can be regarded as
stative; some nouns like a nuisance (kẻ hay gây
phiền toái) is not stative at all; naughty or insolent (xấc
láo, láo xược) are not stative but rather dynamic.
 And since be (when used to make predication having
any noun or adjective as complement) can be used
dynamically, in the progressive, when the
complement is dynamic:
a nuisance
He is being again
naughty

It is essential to realized that these primary distinctions

are in the nature of general characteristics rather than
immutable (không thể biến đổi được) truths (p. 21).
 PRO-FORMS (hình-đại từ/đại tố/đại ngữ)
John searched the big room and the small one [1]
The man invited the little Swedish girl because
he like her [2]

Mary is in London and John is there too [3]

Mary arrived on Tuesday and John arrived
then too [4]
John searched the big room very carefully
and the small one less so [5]
She hoped that he would searched the room
carefully before her arrival but he didn’t do so [6]
(P. 22)
 Sentence

subject predicate

auxiliary predication (vị tố)

as
operator

…he would search the room carefully…

…he didn’t do so
A He didn’t give her an apple. B: Yes, he did [7]
They suggested that he had given her an
apple and he had (done). [8]
 QUESTION AND NEGATION
 Wh-questions (where, who, whom, what,
when)
 Yes-no questions (Is, Did, Had) (p. 23&24)

Negation and non-assertion

assertion – positive and declarative
Sentence positive
interrogative negative
non-assertion
negative
VERBS AND THE VERBS PHRASE (p25)
Types of verbs
LEXICAL walk, write, play, beautify, etc.

Primary do, have, be

AUXILIARY Modal can, may, shall, will
could, might, should, would.
must, ought to, used to, need, dare
* Had better & tend to (‘semi-auxiliaries’)

Verbal forms and verb phrase

Many English verbs have five forms:
the BASE, the -S FORM, the PAST, the –ING
PARTICIPLE, and the -ED PARTICIPLE
 (1) Base: call, drink, put (a) all the present
tense except 3rd person singular:
I/YOU/WE/THEY call every day
(b) imperative: Call at once!
(c) subjunctive: He demanded that she call
and see him
(d) the bare infinitive” He may call; and the
to-infinitive: He wants her to call

 (2) –s form: calls, drinks, puts (3rd person

singular presents) (p. 27)
 THE MORPHOLOGY OF LEXICAL VERBS
► Regular lexical verbs
Regular lexical verbs have the following forms:
V BASE call like try
V-ing ING-PARTICIPLE calling liking trying
V-s -S FORM calls likes tries
V-ed PAST/ PARTICIPLE called liked tried
► The –ing and –s forms (p. 28)
► The –ing form is a straightforward addition (as in
push ~ pushing; sleep ~ sleeping)
► Syllabic /l/ ceases to be syllabic before the
inflection (as in wriggle, wriggling = vặn vẹo)
The –s form is also predictable from the
base. It has three realizations: /iz/, /z/, and
/s/ and two spelling, -s and -es
 Pronounced /iz/ after bases ending in
voiced or voiceless sibilants (âm xuýt: s, z,
,  , , ): pass~passes, buzz~buzzes,
catch~catches, budge~budges,
push~phushes, camouflage~camouflages
 Pronounced /z/ and spell –s after bases
ending in other voiced sounds: call~calls,
rob~robs, flow~flows
 Pronounced /s/ and spell –s after bases
ending in other voiceless sounds:
cut~cuts, lock~locks, sap~saps (nhựa
cây) (p. 29)
 The past and the –ed participle
The past (V-ed1) and the –ed participle (V-ed2) of
regular verbs (spell-ed unless the base ends in
–e) have three realizations:
/id/ after bases ends in /d/ and /t/. Eg.
pad~padded pat~patted
/d/ after bases ends in voiced sounds other
than /d/. Eg. mow~mowed
budge~budged
/t/ after bases ends in voiceless sounds other
than /t/. Eg. pass~passed pack~packed (p.
29)
Further inflectional spelling rules
Final base consonant (except X) are doubled
before inflections beginning with a vowel
letter when the preceding vowel is stressed
and spelled with a singular letter:
bar barring bar
permit permitting permitted
There is no doubling when the vowel is
unstressed or written with two letters:
enter entering entered
dread dreading dreaded
 EXCEPTIONS:
(1) Base ending in certain consonants
are doubled also after single
unstressed vowels: -g  –gg-,
-c  ck-:
humbug humbugging humbugged
traffic trafficking trafficked
(b) BrE, as distinct from AmE, breaks the
rule with respect to certain other
consonants also: -l  -ll, -m  -mm, -p 
-pp-:
signal signalling signalled (BrE)
signal signaling signaled (AmE)
travel travelling travelled (BrE)
travel traveling traveled (AmE)
program(me) programming programmed (BrE)
program programing programed (AmE)
(p. 29&30)
Treatment of –y
(a) In base ending in a consonant +y, the following
changes occur before inflections that do not begin with
i: carrry ~carried but carry ~carrying
The past of the following two verbs has a change y  i
also after a vowel: lay ~laid pay ~paid
(b) In bases i –ie, the ie is replayed by y before the –
ing inflection: die ~dying lie ~lying
Deletion of –e
Final –e is regularly dropped before the –ing and –ed
inflection: -ee: agree agreeing agreed
-ye: dye dyeing dyed
-oe: hoe hoeing hoed
-ge: singe singeing singed (thui)
Irregular lexical verbs
(P. 30-35)
The auxiliaries do, have, be
1. Do
2. Have: in stative sense ( I haven’t/don’t have (AmE)
any books).
In dynamic senses (receive, take, experience, etc),
lexical have in both AmE and BrE normally has the
do-construction:
- Does he have coffee with his breakfast?
- Did you have any difficulty in getting here?
The do-construction is required in such expression as:
- Did you have a good time?
There is also the informal have got, where have
is constructed as an auxiliary, which is frequently
preferred (especially in BrE) as an alternative to
have. It is common in negative and interrogative
sentences:
I haven’t got any books; I have no books
3. Be
[a] Aren’t I is widely used in BrE; Ain’t is
substandard in BrE and is so considered by
many in AmE (p. 36)
[b] The lexical verb be may have the do-
construction in persuasive imperative
sentences and regularly has it with negative
imperative: Do be quiet! Don’t be silly!
The modal auxiliaries (p. 37)
[a] Mayn’t is restricted to BrE, where it is rare.
[b] Shan’t is rare in AmE.
[c] Ought regularly has the to-infinitive, but AmE
often has the bare infinitive in negative
sentences and in questions (although should
is commoner in both cases);
- You oughtn’t smoke so much;
- Ought you smoke so much?
Marginal modal auxiliaries
Used always takes the to-infinitive and occurs
only in the past tense. It may take the do-
construction, in which case the spelling didn’t
used to and didn’t use to both occur.
 The interrogative construction used he to is
especially BrE; did he used to is preferred in both
AmE and BrE.
Dare and need can be constructed either as
modal auxiliaries (with bare infinitive and with no
inflected –s form) or as lexical verbs (with to-
infinitive and with inflected –s form).
Dare and need as auxiliaries are probably rarer in
AmE than in BrE.
 MODAL AUXILIARY LEXICAL VERB
CONSTRUCTION CONSTRUCTION

positive He needs to go now

negative He needn’t go now He doesn’t need to go now
Interrog. Need he go now? Does he need to go now?
neg-inter. Needn’t he go now? Doesn’t he need to go now?

[a] Non-assertive forms are not confined to overtly

negative and/or interrogative sentences but can also be
present in adverbials eg. He need do it only under
these circumstances. He need not do it but once. In
determiners, eg. He need have no fear. No soldier dare
dsobey; in pronouns eg. No one dare predict.
[b] Blends of the two constructions are widely acceptable in the
case of dare: We do not dare speak (p. 38)
 FINITE AND NON-FINITE VERB PHRASE
(1). Finite verb phrases have tense distinction:
- He studies/studied English
- (2) Finite verb phrases occur as the verb
element of a clause. There is person and number
concord between the subject and the finite verb (p. 38)
(3) Finite verb phrase have mood (indicative,
interrogative, imperative; exclamatory, conditional and
subjunctive)
(4) The non-finite forms of the verb are the infinitive (( to)
call), the –ing participle (calling), and the –ed
participle. Non-finite verb phrases consist of one or
more such items.
FINITE VERB PHRASE NON- FINITE VERB PHRASE
He smokes heavily To smoke like that must be
dangerous
He is working I found him working
He had been Having been offended
offended before before, he was sensitive

The modal, perfective, progressive auxiliaries

follow a strict order in the complex verb phrase
(p. 39)
Contrasts expressed in the verb phrase
(p. 39 & 40)
(a) Voice, involving the active-passive relation, as in
- A doctor will examine the applicants.
~ The applicants will be examined by a doctor.
(b) Questions requiring subject movement involve the use of
an auxiliary as operator:
- John will sing ~ Will John sing?
- John sang ~ Did John sing?
(c) Negation makes analogous us of operators, as in
- John will sing ~ John won’t sing
- John sang ~ John didn’t sing
(d) Emphasis, which is frequently carried by the operator as
in
- John WILL sing!
- John DID sing!
(e) imperatives, as in Go home, John; You go home, John
 peri-
DO
phrastic
HAVE
primary
BE
auxiliary auxiliary verbs aspectual
passive
can could
may might
Shall should
Will/’ll would/’d
modal used to
verbs auxiliary must
ought to
need
dare
HAVE TO, BE ABOUT TO…
semi-auxiliary verbs
WALK, PLAY,
PROCRASTINATE
lexical verbs
TENSE, ASPECT AND MOOD
 Time is a universal concept with three divisions:

PAST TIME PRESENT TIME FUTURE TIME

The units of time are extra-linguistic: They exist

independently of the grammar of any particular
language. In our use of language, however, we make
linguistic reference to these extra-linguistic realities
by means of the language-specific category of tense.
(P. 40).
 By tense we understand the
correspondence between the form of the
verb and our concept of time.
 Aspect concerns the manner in which

the verbal action is experienced or

regarded (for example completed or
in progress).
 Mood relates verb action to such

conditions as certainty, obligation,

necessity, possibility (p40).
 In fact, however, to a great extent
three categories impinge on each
other; in particular, the expression
of time present and past cannot be
considered separately from aspect,
and the expression of future is
closely bound up with mood (p.40)
 TENSE

English has two tenses:

PRESENT TENSE and PAST TENSE
 We consider present and past tenses in
relation to the progressive and perfect aspects.
‘I …………..with a special pen’, fill the blank with a
phrase having the verb base write.
 SIMPLE COMPLEX
progressive
present write am writing present
was writing past
perfective
past wrote have written (present
perfect)
had written (pa. (or plu- )
progressive
have been writing (pr. Perf.)
had been writing (pas. Perf)
(p. 41)
Present
(a) Timeless: I (always) write with a special pen
(p. 41)
(b) Limited: I am writing (on this occasion) with a
special pen; Normally he lives in London but at
present he is living in Boston.
(c) Instantaneous, expressed with either the
simple (especially in a series) or the
progressive form:
Watch careful now: first I write with my ordinary
pen; now, I write with a special pen.
As you see, I am dropping the stone into the
water.
Note
The verbs keep (on), go on have a similar
function to the normal progressive auxiliary may
be:
John keeps
asking silly questions
goes on
Past
(1) As having taken place at a particular point of time;
(2) or over a period; if the latter, the period may be seen
as (a) extending up to the present, or (b) relating only to
the past; if the latter, it may be viewed as (i) having been
completed or as (ii) not having been completed
Past Present Future
(1)

(2a)

(2bi)

(2bii)
(1) I wrote my letter of 16 June 1972 with a
special pen
(2a) I have written with a special pen since 1972
(2bi) I wrote with a special pen from 1969 to
1972
(2bii) I was writing poetry with a special pen.
Habitual activity can also be expressed with
simple past; used to or (less commonly would)
may be used:
- He used to/would write with a special pen
*** ‘historic present’ (p. 43)
The past and the perfective
- John lived in Paris for ten years
- John has lived in Paris for ten years (p. 43)
The choice of perfective perspective is associated with
time–orientation and consequently also with various
time-indicators (lately, since, so far, etc) (p. 43)
yesterday (evening) since last Ja.
I worked throughout January up to now
I have worked
on Tuesday lately
already
today
worked
I this month
have worked for an hour
***Note
There is some tendency (especially in AmE) to use the
past informally in phrase of the perfect, as in ‘I saw it
already’ (= ‘I have already seen it’) (p 44).
Past perfect
Past Present Future
relevant point

(I say now [present] that) when I met him [relevant

point in the past] John had lived in Paris for ten years.
In some contexts, the simple past and the past perfect
are interchangeable; eg.
- I ate my lunch after my wife came/had come home
from her shopping.
Note: There is no interchangeability when the past
perfect is the past of the perfect (p.45).
VERBAL MEANING AND THE PROGRESSIVE
[A] DYNAMIC (p.46)
(1) Activity vbs: abandon, ask, beg, call, drink, eat…
(2) Process vbs: change, deteriorate, grow, mature…
(3) Verbs of bodily sensation: ache, feel, hurt, itch…
(4) Transitional event verbs: arrive, die, fall, land, lose…
(5) Momentary verbs: hit, jump, kick, knock, nod, tap…
[B] STATIVE
(1) Verbs of inert (trì trệ) perception and cognition:
abhor, adore,
astonish, desire, detest, dislike, feel, forgive, guess…
(2) Relational verbs: apply to (everyone), be, belong to,
concern, consist of, cost, depend on, deserve (p.47)
 THE FUTURE (p.47)
 There is no obvious future tense in English
corresponding to the time/tense relation for
present and past (p. 47).
Instead there are several possibilities for denoting
future time.
Futurity, modality, and aspect are closely related,
and future time is rendered by means of modal
auxiliaries or semi-auxiliaries, or by simple
present forms or progressive forms.
Will and Shall
 Be going to + infinitive
This construction denote ‘future fulfillment of the
present’.
It has two more specific meaning (a) ‘future of present
intention’: - When are you going to get married?, and (b)
‘future of present cause’: - She is going to have a baby;
It’s going to rain.
 Present progressive
The pres. progressive refers to future happening
anticipated in the present. Its basic meaning is ‘fixed
arrangement, plan, or programme’: He’s moving to
London.
We can say: - They are washing the dishes now/later.
The present progressive is especially frequent
with dynamic transitional verbs like arrive, come,
go, land, start, stop, etc: - The plane is taking off
at 5.20. The President is coming to the UN this
week.
Simple present (p. 49)
The simple present is regularly used
in subordinate clauses that are conditional
(introduced by if, unless, etc) or temporal (as
soon as, before, when, etc): - What will you say
if I marry my boss? – The guests will be drunk
before they leave (p. 49)
Be to + infinitive
(a) arrangement: - We are to be married soon
(b) command: - You are to be back by 10 o’clock
(c) contingent future: - If he is to succeed, he
must work harder.
Be about to + infinitive
This construction expresses near future, ie
immutable fulfillment:
- The taxi is here and we are about to leave.
Future time in the past
(1) Auxiliary verb construction with would.
- The time was not far off when he would regret
this decision.
(2) be going to + infinitive (often the sense of
‘unfulfilled intention’: - You were going to give me your
address.
(3) Past progressive: - I was meeting him in Bordeaux
the next day.
(4) be to + infinitive (formal = ‘was destined’, ‘was
arranged’): - He was later to regret his decision.
(5) be about to (‘on the point of’): - He was about to hit
me.
(p. 50)
 THE SUBJUNCTIVE
 (a) the MANDATIVE SUBJUNCTIVE in that-clauses
Has only one form, the base (V). This subjunctive can be
used with any verb in subordinate that-clauses when the
main clause contains an expression of recommendation,
resolution, demand, and so on (We demand, require,
move, insist, suggest, ask, etc that…).
+ The use of this subjunctive (formal style) (AmE);
* Less formal contexts: to + infinitive or should +
infinitive.
- It is/was necessary that every member inform himself
of these rules
(should inform; to inform)
(b) The formulaic subjunctive
- Come what may
- God save the Queen!
- Be that as it may (
(c) The subjunctive were
*- If she were/was to do something like that,…
- He spoke to me as if I were/was deaf.
- I wish I were/was dead. But
only were is used in ‘As it were” (= so to speak)
* Was less formal than were (p. 51).
Modal Past
*It is the past tense that conveys the impossibility
- It’s time you were in bed
- He behaves as though he was/were a millionaire
- It’s not as though we were poor
- Just suppose/imagine someone was/were following us
- I’d rather we had dinner now
- If only I had listened to my parents!
*Unreal meaning in the past time is in past time is
indicated by had plus the –ed participle:
- If he had listened to me, he wouldn’t have made the
Mistakes. (p.338)
THE USES OF MODAL AUXILIARIES
CAN/COULD
MAY/MIGHT
SHALL/SHOULD
WILL/WOULD
MUST
OUGHT TO
THE TENSE OF MODAL
THE MODALS AND ASPECT
(P 52-58)
 NOUNS, PRONOUNS, AND THE
BASIC NOUN PHRASE
 The basic noun phrase (p. 59)
(a) The girl
(b) The pretty girl
(c) The pretty girl is in the corner is Mary Smith
(d) The pretty girl who became angry
(e) She
The NP typically functions as subject, object,
complement of sentences, and as complement in
prepositional phrases.
 Noun classes
 Noun classes (p. 59)
 Proper nouns
 Common nouns
 Count-noun
 Non-count nouns

COUNT NON-COUNT
I’ve had many difficulties He’s not has much difficulty
He’s had many This job requires experience
odd experiences
Buy an evening newspaper Wrap the parcel in brown paper
She was a beauty in She had beauty in her youth
her youth
The talks will take place I dislike talk
in Paris
There were bright lights Light travels faster than sound
and sounds
The lambs were eating quietly There is lamb on the menu
(p. 61)
Determiners (six classes) (tất định tố/tất định từ)
COUNT NON-COUNT

SINGULAR bottle
PLURAL furniture
bottles
[A] √ √ the
possessive (my, our, etc.)
√
whose, which(ever), what(ever)
some (stressed)
See 4.92 f
any (stressed)
no
[B] zero article (as in ‘They need furniture’)
√ some (unstressed)
√ any (unstressed)
enough
COUNT NON-COUNT

SINGULAR bottle
furniture
PLURAL bottles

[C] √ this
√ that

[D] these
√ those
COUNT NON-COUNT

SINGULAR bottle
furniture
PLURAL bottles

[E] √ a(n)
every
each
either
neither

[F] much
√
Note: Either book ~ Either of the books
His every word (= ‘each of his word’) (p. 62)
Predeterminers (p. 63)
All, both, half

SINGULAR COUNT NOUNS

a pen
half
this, that book NON COUNT/MASS NOUNS

all the, my,… book half the, my,…

this, that
ink
PLULAR COUNT NOUNS
all
half the, my,…  article

these, those
pens
all
both  article
 All, both, and half have of-constructions, which
are optional with nouns and obligatory with personal
pronouns:
- all (of) the meat all of it
- both (of) the students both of them
- half (of) the time half of it
 With a qualifier following, the of-construction is
preferred (especially in AmE):
- all of the many boys
 One-third, two-fifths, etc
The fractions one-third, two-fifths, three-quarters
etc used with non-count and with singular and
plural count nouns can also be followed by determiners,
and have the alternative of-construction (p. 65).
Quantifiers (Lượng từ)
 many, (a)few, several
 much (a)little

a few biscuits (= several)

He took few biscuits (= not many)
a little butter (= some)
little butter (= not much)
*(a) little ≠ the homonymous adjective: A little bird…
*(b) Many and few can be used predicatively in formal
style: His faults were many.
*Many an ambitious students (= many ambitious
students
* Enough can be used with both count and non-count
nouns (p. 66).
 Phrasal quantifiers (Lượng từ kết ngữ)
- plenty of, a lot of, lots of ( (non-count and plural count)
* lots (chiefly informally)
*a great/good deal of money
a large/small quantity/amount of money
*a great/large/good number of students (p. 67)
*two pieces/a bit/an item of news/information/furniture
*a slice of cake; a roast of meat; a few loaves of bread; a
howl of soup; a bottle of wine
*a pine of beer; a spoonful of medicine; a pound of
butter
 Reference and the Articles (p. 67)
+ Specific/generic reference
- A lion and two tiger are sleeping in the cage (specific)
- Tigers are dangerous animal (generic)
*Tigers live in the jungle & The tiger lives in the jungle.
 The English drink beer in pubs &
 The Englishmen (who live here) drink beer every day
(p.68).
+ Non-count and plural count nouns
 He likes wine, wood, music, lakes, games
 He likes the wine(s), the music, the lakes of France
 Venetian glass
the glass of Venice
Mrs Nelson adores the glass of Venice
(p.71) glass from Venice
 Number
 Singular (one)

 Plural (more than one)

 Count nouns are variable (singular or plural) or have

invariable plural (cattle) (p. 81).

 Irregular plurals: analysis → analyses; axis →

axes; crisis → crises; ***brother → brothers →

Brethen, ***This sheep looks small & All those sheep
are mine; ***a few fish & the fishes of Mediterranean
(p. 86).
 Collective nouns
+ The committee has/have met it has/they have
rejected the proposal
 PRONOUNS (p.100)
(1) They do not admit determiners
(2) They often have an objective case
(3) They often have person distinction
(4) They often have overt gender contrast
(5) Singular and plural forms are often not
morphologically related
(p. 100)
We can broadly distinguished between
items with specific reference and those
with more indefinite reference
personal
central reflective
reciprocal
possessive
specific relative
interrogative
demonstrative
universal
assertive
indefinite partitive non-assertive
negative
general
quantifying enumerative
Personal: I, we, you, he, she, it, they
Reflective: myself, ourselves, yourself, himself,
herself, itself, themselves
Reciprocal: each other (with two antecedents),
one another (more than two are
involved)
Possessive: my, our, your, his, her, its, their
(determiner function)
mine, ours, yours, his, hers, its, theirs
Relative: who, whom, which, whose, that, zero is
used identically to that
Interrogative: whose, which, who, what
Demonstrative: this, that, these, those
Universal: each, everybody, everyone,
everywhere, all, every week
Assertive: - partitive pronoun:
something/some, anything/any,
nothing/no
- non-assertive: anyone, anybody,
anything, either, any
- negative: no one, nobody nothing,
nowhere, none, neither
General: many, much, few, a few, little, a
little
Enumerative: many, much, few, little,
several, enough
 CASE
 Common case (somebody)
 Generative (somebody’s)
 Subjective: I, we, he, she, they, who
 Objective: me, us, him, her, them who(m)
 Genitive: my, our, his, her, their, whose

* No inflected or –s genitive with demonstratives

or with the indefinites except in -one, -body
(p. 101)
 PERSON
 1st person
 2nd person
 3rd person

Note: The use of one (a) Numerical one (p. 111)

(b) Replacive one (p. 112), (c) Indefinite one (p.
112)
 ADJECTIVES AND ADVERS
Syntactic functions of adjectives
 Attributive: the beautiful painting
 Predicative adjective: (a) subject complement:
-Your daughter is pretty
(b) object complement:- He made his wife happy (p.
115).
 They can be complement to a subject which is
a finite clause:- Whether he will resign is uncertain
or a non-finite clause:- Driving a bus isn’t easy. Similarly,
adjective can be complement to clauses:
 what he did
I consider foolish
playing so hard
 The functioning as an object complement often
expressed the result of the process by the verb:
He pulled his belt tight
He pulled the window open
 Postpositive (indefinite pronouns –body, -one,
-thing, -where can be modified only postpositively
- I want something (that is) larger
Postposition is obligatory (p. 116)
- The president elect - the City of London proper
 The house (which is) ablaze is next door to mine
 If an adjective is alone or pre-modified merely by an
intensifier, postposition normally is not allowed:
- The rather timid soldiers approach their officer
- *The soldiers (rather) timid
 However, if the noun phrase is generic or
indefinite, coordinated adjectives or adjectives with a
clause element added can be post-posed
- Soldiers timid or cowardly don’t fight well
- A man usually honest will sometimes cheat (p. 116)
 More commonly, we find
- Timid or cowardly soldiers don’t fight well
- Soldiers who are timid or cowardly
 Head of noun phrase (p. 117)
 Adjectives can often function as heads of noun
phrases (most commonly, such adjective have personal
reference:
- The extremely old need a great deal of attention
- We will nurse your sick and feed your hungry (p. 118
& 119)
 Verbless adjective clause
- An adjective (alone or as head of an adjective
phrase) can function as a verbless clause:
- (By then) nervous, the man opened the letter
- The man, (by then) nervous, opened the letter
- The man opened the letter, (by then) nervous
 CONTINGENT ADJECTIVE CLAUSE
- Enthusiastic, they make good students (= When
enthusiastic,…) (p. 120)
 Exclamatory adjective sentence
- How good of you!
 Syntactic subclassification of adjectives
(1) both attributive and predicative, eg.: a hungry
man ~ the man is hungry
(2) attributive only: an utter fool
(3) predicative only: the woman is loath to admit it
 ***Attributive only: old friend (p. 121)
 INTENSIFYING ADJECTIVES
(emphasizers and amplifiers) (p. 121 & 122)
 Emphasizers are attributive only: a certain winner
 Amplifier: a complete victory

LIMITER ADJECTIVES
 Limiter adjectives particularize the reference of a

noun: the main reason the only occasion

RELATED TO ADVERBIALS
 my former friend ~ formally my friend
 an occasional visitor ~ occasionally (p. 123)

DENOMINAL ADJECTIVE (tính từ danh xưng)

 Criminal law ~ law concerning law

Predicative only: He is ill (p. 124)

 Semantic sub-classification of adjectives
[A] Static/dynamic: Adjectives are characterized as
stative, but many can be seen as dynamic. In particular,
most adjectives that are susceptible to subjective
measurement are capable of being dynamic (p/ 124):
awkward, brave, calm, careless, cruel… timid
[B] Gradable/ non-gradable: tall taller, tallest
[C] Inherent/non-inherent (p. 125).

 Semantic sets and adjectival order

(intensify, post-determiner and limiter, size or shape,
age, colour, material, provenance or style)
(a) intensifying adjective: a real hero
(b) pos-determiner, and limiter adjective: the fourth
student, the only occasion
(c) general adjectives susceptible to subjective
measure: careful, lovely
(d) general adjectives susceptible to objective measure,
including those denoting size or shape: wealthy,
large, square
(e) age: young, new, old
(f) colour: red, black
(g) material: woollen, silken
(h) provenance or style: a British ship, a Parisian dress
(p. 125)
 Opinion : an interesting book
 Dimension: a big apple
 Age: a new car
 Shape: a square box
 Color: a pink hat
 Origin: an American car
 Material: a wooden box
Characteristics of adverb
 The most common characteristics of adverb is

morphological (-ly) (two types of syntactic function, but

an adverb need have only one of these:
(1) adverbial
(2) modifier of adjective and adverb.
 Adverb as adverbial
 Three classes of adverbials are establish: adjuncts,

disjuncts, conjuncts
 ADJUNCTS (gia ngữ/phụ ngữ, trạng ngữ của vị từ)
 An adjunct is part of a Sentence and modifies the
Verb to show time, manner, place, frequency and
degree. Eg: It is nearly done. ('Nearly' describes
 In linguistics, a disjunct is a type of adverbial
adjunct that expresses information that is not
considered essential to the sentence it appears
in, but which is considered to be the speaker's
or writer's attitude towards, or descriptive
statement of, the propositional content of the
sentence. For instance:
 Honestly, I didn't do it.
 Fortunately for you, I have it right here.
 In my opinion, the green one is better.
 In linguistics, the term conjunct has three
distinct uses:
 A conjunct is an adjunct that adds information
to the sentence that not considered part of the
propositional content (or at least not essential)
but which connects the sentence with previous
parts of the discourse. Rare though this may
be, conjuncts may also connect to the following
parts of the discourse.
 It was raining. Therefore, we didn’t go swimming.
  It was raining. Therefore, we didn’t go swimming.
 It was sunny. However, we stayed inside.
 You are such a dork. Still, I love you from the
bottom of my heart.
 A coordination structure connects two words,
phrases or clauses together, usually with the
help of a coordinating conjunction:
 [Gretchen and her daughter] bought [motor oil,
spark plugs, and dynamite].
 Take two of these and call me in the morning.
 THE SIMPLE SENTENCE (p. 166)
 Clause patterns
 Simple and complex sentences
Elements such as V(erb) and O(bject) were
constituents of sentences and also of
clauses within sentences (p. 166).
 Clause type
 Seven clause types (p. 166).
 From now on we shall speak of clauses
and clause structure whenever a
statement is true both for sentences and
for the clauses of which it is composed.
 In the present chapter, however, we shall
be dealing with only simple sentences:
that is sentences consisting of only one
clause (p. 166).
S Aprocess Vtrans Od Atime

(conj) S Vintrans

I quickly shut the door before the animal could escape

Subordinate clause

Superordinate clause
(Siêu cú)
(1) SVA S Vintens Aplace
Mary is in the house
(2) SVC S Vintens Cs
Mary is kind/ a nurse
(3) SVO S Vmonotran Od
Somebody caught the ball
(4) SVA S Vcomplex trans Od Aplace
I put the place on the table
(5) SVOC S Vcomplex trans Od Co
We have proved him wrong/a fool
(6) SVOO S Vditrans Oi Od
She gives me expensive present
(7) SV The child laughed (p. 167)
Complementation
 The element Od, C, and A in the above
patterns are obligatory elements of clause
structure in the sense that they are
required for the complementation of the
Verb (p. 167).
Clause elements syntactically defined
 A subject (p. 170)
(a) a noun phrase or a clause:
That she is still alive is a consolation (sự
an ủi)
(b) occurs: before the verb phrase in
declarative clauses, and immediately after
the operator in question (p. 170 (p. 11) (p. 197)
- Had he given the girl an apple?
(c) Has number and person concord (p. 170)
- The window (s) is (are) open.
 An object (direct or indirect)
(a) is a noun phrase or clause
(b) normally follows the subject
(c) by the passive transformation (p. 170)
 An INDIRECT OBJECT
*normally precedes the direct object, but ***
Give it me (BrE)
 A complement (subject or object) (p.
170)
 An Adverbial (p. 171)
 Clause elements semantically
considered (p. 171)
Agentive, affected, recipient, attribute (p.
171)
- John opened the letter
- Many MPs criticized the Prime Minister
- I’ve found you a place.
 The role of the subject complement is
that of attribute of the subject … (p. 171)
CURRENT ATTRIBUTE: He’s my brother. He seems unhappy
RESULTING ATTRIBUTE: He became restless (p. 171)
 The role of the object complement is
that of attribute of the object… (p. 171)
CURRENT ATTRIBUTE: I ate the meat cold.
 RESULTING ATTRIBUTE: They elected him President (p.
171)
 Agentive and instrumental subject (p.
172)
- The avalanche (tuyết lở) destroyed several houses
 Recipient subject (p. 172)
… a recipient role with verbs such as have, own,
possess, benefit (from)
- Mr. Smith has bought/given/sold his son a radio
 So now his son has/owns/possesses a radio
… perceptual verb see and hear (p. 172)
 Concord
 Subject-verb concord (p. 176)
+ Subject – verb concord
- A clause in a position of subject counts as
singular: How they got there doesn’t concern me.
- * Nominal relative clause may have plural or
singular concord: what were once human dwellings are
now nothing but piles of rubble.
*** Informal speech: There’s hundreds of people on
the waiting list.
***Plural words and phrases count as singular if they
are used as names, titles, quotations: - Crime and
Punishment is perhaps the best…; but The Brother
Karamazov is undoubtedly his best novel (176)
- ‘The Cedars’ has a huge garden.
- The Canterbury Tales exist/exists in many
Manuscripts.
Notional concord, and proximity (p. 176)
- The government have broken all their promises (BrE)
***The principle of proximity denotes agreement of the
verb with whatever noun or pronoun closely precedes it,
sometimes in preference to agreement with the head
Word of the subject:
- No one except his own supporter agree with him.
- One in ten take drug (p. 177).
Collective nouns
*In BrE, collective nouns, notionally plural but
Grammatically singular
- The public are tired of demonstrations
- The audience were enjoying every minute of it (p. 177)
*** The audience was enormously
Coordinated subject (p. 177)
When a subject consists of two or more noun phrases
coordinated by and, a distinction has to be made
between appositional and non-appositional
coordination.
-Tom and Mary are now ready ( Tom is now ready
and Mary is now ready)
- What I say and what I think are my own affair (
what I say is and what I think is).
**A single verb is used with conjoinings which
represents a single entity
- The hammer and sickle was flying from a tall flag
pole.
**Conjoinings expressing a mutual relationship, even
though they can only indirectly be treated as reductions
of clauses in this way, also take plural verb:
- Your problem and mine are similar ( Your problem is
similar to mine and mine is similar to yours) (177).
***But: The coordinated structures refer to the same
Thing:
- This temple of ugliness and memorial to Victorian bad
taste was erected at the Queen’s express wish.
***The following example, however, is ambiguous and
could have either a singular or plural verb according as
the brother and editor are one person or two:
- His young brother and the subsequent editor of his
collected papers was/were with him as his death-bed.
***Abstract nouns can be interpreted with some
latitude:
-Your fairness and impartiality has/have been much
appreciated (p. 178).
+ A single noun head with coordinate modifiers may
imply two separated sentence → a plural verb may
follow a singular non-count noun subject:
- Good and bad taste are inculcated by example
(Good taste is… and bad taste is…) (p. 178).
+ Concord involving (either… or)
- Either the Mayor or his deputy is bound to come. [1]
- Either the strikers or the bosses have to come. [2]
- ?Either your brakes or your eyesight is at fault [3]
- Either your eyesight or your brakes are at fault [4]
*** [3] neither singular nor plural seem to be right!
***Neither he or his wife have arrived is more natural
in spoken idiom than the form preferred by some:
- Neither he or his wife has arrived (p. 179)
+ More than:
- More than a thousand inhabitants have signed the
petition.
- More than one person has protested against
the proposal (notionally plural, a singular verb is
preferred because (one) person operates as head
of a singular noun phrase.

Indefinite expressions of amount

+ Indefinite and negative expressions of
amount
- I’ve ordered tile shrubs, but none (of them) have/has
arrived yet.
Has is more conventionally ‘correct’, but have is more
idiomatic in speech (p. 179).
 Concord
 Subject-verb concord (p. 176)
- Subject – verb concord
 The Complex sentences (p.309)
 Coordination and subordination
 Finite, non finite, and verbless clauses
- John has visited New York
 Non-finite clause:
- Having seen the pictures…
 Vebless clause:
- Although always helpful…
 The complex sentence (p. 316)
 That-clauses
 To-infinitive nominal clauses (p. 320)
 Nominal –ing clause
 Bare infinitive verbless clauses (p.322)