Download Grammar leaflets/FINAL Grammar 5 Clauses RTF 06-07-03

Grammar leaflets/FINAL Grammar 5
Clauses RTF 06-07-03.rtf
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Grammar leaflets/FINAL Grammar 5 Clauses RTF 06-07-03.rtf
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Grammar 5 'More about the Clause
The Study Advice Service's Grammar 1 Unit was about Word Classes, or Parts of Speech. This
was supplemented in Grammar 3 - More about Word Classes and Grammar 4 - the Verb.
Grammar 2 was about Units of Grammar - phrases, Clauses and Sentences etc. If you have read
these leaflets - or you know something about the subject already - you may want the more
advanced information in the present leaflet.
Studying grammar has only a limited role in directly improving your own production of 'good
English', but it may help you to make the best of courses in other languages - and sometimes to
understand your tutors' criticisms of your use of English.
As always, the best way to learn something is to practise it - "learning by doing". The subject,
however, is so big and complicated that there is not enough room in this leaflet to include useful
examples. You are advised to follow a practical textbook or a course if you want to have a full
understanding of Clauses. (Some useful books are listed at the end of the leaflet. There is a good
introduction in F. R. Palmer, Grammar, Harmondsworth, Penguin 2nd edn, 1984. A good
learning textbook, designed for teaching undergraduate and A level students, is Dennis Freeborn,
A Course Book in English Grammar Basingstoke, Macmillan, 1987 (278 pp.). A good way of
learning would be to work through the exercises in this. A simpler but valuable book is David
Crystal, Rediscover Grammar Harlow, Longman, 1988 (223 pp.). A similar title, Discover
Grammar, by David Crystal and Geoff Barton, Essex, Longman, 1996, (159 pp.), has been
published. Also useful are Sidney Greenbaum and Randolph Quirk, A Student's Grammar of the
English Language, Harlow, Longman, 1990 (490 pp.), with an accompanying workbook Sylvia
Chalker, A Student's English Grammar Workbook Harlow, Longman, 1992; Randolph Quirk and
Sidney Greenbaum, A University Grammar of English, London, Longman, 1973 (484 pp.);
Greenbaum, Sidney An Introduction to English Grammar Harlow, Longman, 1991 (336 pp.);
and Geoffrey Leech and Jan Svartvik A Communicative Grammar of English Harlow, Longman,
1975 (324 pp.)
The most authoritative reference book is Randolph Quirk et al, A Comprehensive Grammar of
the English Language (1,779 pp.) London, Longman 1985. Other reference books include Sidney
Greenbaum The Oxford English Grammar London, Oxford University Press, 1996 and Edmund
Weiner ed. The Oxford Reference Grammar Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2000.)
Basic ideas. (Revision of Grammar 1-4)
Words can be classified in several ways. Verbs, nouns, adjectives and adverbs can be regarded as
semantic (or form) words; articles, pronouns, prepositions and conjunctions are function words.
(See Study Advice GuidesGrammar 1; Grammar 3and Grammar 4.)
In another way of looking at grammar, our utterances can be divided into different sizes of unit.
A sentence contains at least one clause; a clause contains at least one phrase - which contains at
least one word. A word has at least one syllable, and a syllable has at least one letter. (See
Guide Grammar 2).
A clause can be defined as a group of words containing a verb. Other elements of a clause which may or may not be present - are the Subject, Complement (which may be a copular
Complement, a direct Object or an indirect Object, etc) and one or more Adverbial(s).
'''Grammar 5 - New ideas
When you think about the ideas in the previous leaflets, you may realise that any of the
semantic words can be replaced by a clause or a phrase.
Indeed, grammar has words to name this phenomenon. In grammar, an adjectival is a word used
to name a unit - of any size (word, phrase or Clause) - that does the work of an adjective.
Similarly, an adverbial is any unit that fulfils the function of an adverb, and a nominal is a unit
that acts as a noun. (In addition to these noun uses, adverbials and the others may be used as
adjectives. We can have an adverbial Clause, for example, as well as an adverbial; and we can
have an adjectival phrase and a nominal Clause.)
(As a verb is the essential ingredient of a clause, there can be no such thing as a 'verbial'.
However, verbs in English very commonly contain more than one word, so the verb phrase is
very common. This is the phenomenon where a single meaning is conveyed with more than one
word, e.g. "He may have been being cheated". See Grammar 4 - The Verb.)
It can be useful, in analysing grammar, to distinguish between verb (with a small 'v'), which is a
word class, and Verb (with a capital), which is a function performed in a sentence. A Verb can
be a single verb, or a multi-word verb phrase.
The Verb is the essential part of a Clause (except for a small group of units known as 'verbless
Clauses', whose analysis belongs to a more advanced study of grammar than this).
The three other function elements of a clause are:
the Subject (the 'performer' of the action of the Verb), which is the most commonly found
element after the verb;
the Complement, which may be either a copular or adjectival Complement (these are the only
functions traditionally called Complements); or an Object, either Direct or Indirect. There may
be more than one Object, or Complement, in a Clause; and
the Adverbial. This is the vaguest function to define. Adverbials may modify (that is, tell us
more about the action of) a Verb. Most commonly, they tell us how, where, when or why
something was done - e.g. she did it quickly (adverb, answering the question 'how?'), or
yesterday ('when?'); at home (adverbial phrase, answering 'where'); because it seemed like a
good idea (adverbial Clause, 'why?').
Adverbials may also act as Sentence Adverbials and tell us more about the whole sentence. For
example, in "Meanwhile, the position was getting worse", the adverb 'meanwhile' refers to all
that follows, not just to the Verb 'was getting'. In "In the High Court of Justice, it was ruled that
the Minister's action had been illegal", the adverbial phrase of place tells us where the whole
sentence took place. In this, and the similar adverbial Clause of time "When the US President
said this, the Governments of Europe took notice", you will see that there is no clear division
between a sentence adverbial and an ordinary adverb - to say where a verb happens is usually to
talk of where the whole Clause happens. This is connected with the fact that the verb is the
essential element of the Clause.
The Simple Sentence
In a Sentence or a Clause the simplest forms are something like "Jane is clever" and "He threw
the ball". We can analyse them like this:
Text Jane is clever
'''Function ''Subject Verb Complement
''Form ''nominal copular verb adjectival
''Word class ''noun verb adjective
Text: He threw the ball
'''Function Subject Verb Object (Cod)
'''''Form ''nominal ''verb nominal
Word Class(es) ''pronoun ''verb noun phrase (= article + noun) We can make each individual
functional unit bigger. We can change the nominal which acts as the Subject: the single word He
can be replaced by 'The cricketer', 'The tall cricketer' or 'The tall, handsome dark-haired young
cricketer in the brilliant white flannels' and so on. But however long it is - however many kinds of
word it contains - it is still a single unit, a nominal (a noun phrase, containing at least one word):
the Subject of the sentence. The second example ('he threw the ball') shows the essential structure
of the basic Clause - [Subject + Verb + Object]. An adverbial can be added to it in almost any
position: 'Quickly, he threw the ball'; 'Then he threw the ball'; 'He threw away the ball'; 'He threw
the ball hard'. You can even add an adverb in all of these positions: 'Then he quickly threw the
ball away hard' - though this may show the artificial nature of some grammatical examples!
Sentences such as the two above which have only one Clause (i.e. only one verb) are called
Simple Sentences. That is because they are easy to analyse; because they only have the one
structure of [S +V (+ C + A)], with variations. If we write more than one Main Clause linked with
co-ordinating conjunctions like 'and' or 'but', we make a Compound Sentence. (This form of
sentence is common in young children telling stories: "We did go to the shops and Mummy
bought some sweets and we came home but she didn't give me any." Check that you can explain
why this is a Compound Sentence It contains a series of Main verbs linked by co-ordinating
conjunctions: [We (did go) verb to the shops] Main Clause (and)ccj [Mummy (bought) verb some sweets]
Main Clause (and) ccj [we (came) verb home]Main Clause (and) ccj [she (didn't give) verb me any] Main Clause.
(This illustrates - among other things - how even beginners in speaking a language know a great
deal of grammar. It takes some time for students of the subject to be able to describe all this though all native speakers understand it pretty well.).) Where it becomes more interesting is when
we replace any of the elements of the simple Sentence with a second Clause inside the Main
Clause. Such a second Clause (a Subordinate Clause) has the same structure as the Main
Clauses (Simple Sentences) shown above, normally with the addition of a conjunction.
Subordinate Clauses fall into the pattern of nominals, adjectivals and adverbials - Noun Clauses,
Adjectival (or Relative) Clauses and Adverbial Clauses. (A Simple Sentence is a Main Clause,
with only one Verb. A sentence with a Main Clause and at least one Subordinate Clause is called
a Complex Sentence. There are also compound-complex sentences, with at least two Main
Clauses and at least one Subordinate Clause.) Noun Clauses The easiest examples to look at
first are sentences based on verbs of utterance - 'to say', 'to think' etc. In these, in their
simplest form, the Object, or COd (Complement Object direct), which like all Objects is a
nominal, often takes the form of a Clause introduced by that - a Noun Clause. (This is an
Object, because it is the answer to the question 'What did he say?') A short example is "He
said that I was stupid". (Sometimes, particularly in speech, the ''that'' is omitted: "He said I was
stupid." Using the word 'that' is to be recommended in academic English, for clarity. It sounds
better, too.)
'''He said that I was stupid
'''Function ''Subject Verb Object (COd)
'''Form ''nominal transitive verb nominal (N Cl)
'''Word class ''pronoun verb [cj + n + v + adj] The Object (Noun Clause) of the above
sentence can be further analysed:
'''that I was stupid
'''Function ''conjunction Subject ''Verb Complement
'''''Form ''conjunction nominal ''copular verb adjectival
'''''Word class ''conjunction pronoun ''verb adjective This chaining of clauses can be
continued indefinitely. Consider "You said that I thought that he had claimed that I was
stupid".
You said that I thought that he had claimed that I was stupid
Subject Verb Object in which the Object can be further analysed as
that I thought that he had claimed that I was stupid
Conjunction ''Subject Verb ''Object and again the Object of that can be further analysed:
that he had claimed that I was stupid
Conjunction Subject Verb Object and yet again:
that I was stupid
Conjunction Subject Verb Complement These diagrams can be amalgamated and shown as:
You said that I thought that he had claimed that I was stupid
Subj Vb Obj =
''Cj S Vb Obj =
''Cj S Vb Obj =
''Cj S Vb Comp or as: [You said [that I thought [that he had claimed [that I was
stupid]]]] where square brackets mark each Clause - the outside pair, of course, marking
the Sentence. (There is no record 'longest sentence in English', because a sentence can
always be lengthened by inserting another [Subject + verb of utterance + 'that'] at the
beginning. We can take any sentence and lengthen it by putting "He said that" before it. A
structure like this, which can be repeated inside itself without limit, is known as
''recursive''. We can also say that such Noun Clauses are ''nested'' inside each other.)
Noun Clauses can act as nominals (replace single-word nouns) in other functions. As well
as being the Object of a verb of utterance, Noun Clauses can be the Subjects, most often of
the verb 'to be'. In the sentence "That he has made a mistake is undeniable", the Subject of
the verb 'is' is the Noun Clause 'That he has made a mistake', which has the structure
[conjunction + S + V + O]. Adjectival (or Relative) Clauses The next easiest Clause to
consider, after the Noun Clause used as the Object of a verb of utterance, is the
Adjectival Clause. This is a Clause which does the work of an Adjective. (See if you
can find the Adjectival Clauses in this paragraph. 'which does the work of an
Adjective' ) Adjectival Clauses usually have a Relative Pronoun (wh-word) as their
connecting word. In "Here is the man who found your wallet", the Adjective Clause "who
found your wallet" is analysed as
who found your wallet
Subject Verb Object This is clearly not an adequate sentence on its own (although if there
is a question mark after it, it becomes a complete sentence. In that case, the wh-word
'who' is an interrogative', not a relative', pronoun). A mistake that writers sometimes
make is to use a full stop where a relative pronoun has connected two Clauses, which
should therefore be a single sentence. This usually happens in more complicated examples
than this one. Adjectival Clauses usually start with a wh- word, like 'which' or 'who'. Like
one-word adjectives, they give more information about a noun. Unlike them, they usually
come after the noun they describe: they postmodify it. For example, in "The Company,
which had been losing its grip on the market, now increased its share of sales" the
Adjectival Clause 'which had been losing its grip on the market' follows the noun
'Company' which it describes. (Check that you can identify the Main Clause in this
example 'The Company now increased its share of sales'..) In contrast, 'the green car' has
an adjective, 'green', before the noun it qualifies ('car'). A common problem with the use of
relative pronouns is confusion between 'who' and 'whom'. This can be because the relative
pronoun has two functions, one inside the Adjectival Clause and the other outside it. (The
Word Class is called the relative' pronoun because it relates, or shows the relationship
between, the two units.) ''Consider the two sentences, "This is the man who saw her" and
"This is the man whom she saw". Both have an Adjective Clause post-modifying the noun
'man'. In the first, the relative pronoun 'who' is the Subject of the Adjectival Clause. It is
the male person has done the seeing. In the second sentence, the relative pronoun 'whom'
is the Object of the Adjectival Clause. It is the female who has done the seeing. In both
sentences, of course, the relative pronouns link 'the man' to the different descriptions.
''The difference in grammar, and the accompanying change in word order, can be shown
as:
who saw her
Subject Verb Object
whom she saw
Object Subject Verb I have used a form of grid to show the analysis of the examples so
far. Other forms of diagram are also used, notably the tree diagram. My own preference,
for ease of writing - and for saving paper - is by the use of brackets. In my bracketing
system, square brackets indicate clauses and round brackets indicate phrases. If details
are required, I use subscripts to identify elements - word classes, etc - in the sentence
which I am analysing; and superscripts to identify functions. Take, for example, the
sentence "You can go out if you have done your homework". [[(You)Spn ((can)aux (go
out)phr vb)Vvb phr ]Main Cl [(if)cj (you)Spn ((have)aux (done)vb)Vvb phr ((your)poss pn
(homework)n)OdNphr]Advb Cl]Sent. In the grid form I used earlier, the same sentence can be
represented in the two following ways. (In old-fashioned English grammar teaching, the
analysis of form was called 'parsing'; the analysis of function was called 'sentence
analysis.)
Function analysis
Main Clause Subordinate Clause
S V Cj S V Od
[][]
You can go out if you have done your homework
Pn verb phrase cj Pn verb phrase noun phrase
aux vb phrasal verb aux vb Verb poss pn noun
vb advb
Form analysis
'You can go out if you have done your homework
Pn Aux Vb advb Cj Pn Aux Vb Poss pn n
Phrasal verb
( Verb phr ) ( Vb phr ) ( Noun phrase ) The decision of how to show the analysis that
you have made (which diagram to use) is a matter of judgement. Use the one that
appears to you to demonstrate most clearly what you want to show. And - also for
your reader's convenience - remember not to include more information than is
necessary. Adverbial Clauses Attentive readers will have noticed that the Subordinate
Clause in the above example is neither a nominal nor an adjectival. It is an Adverbial
Clause. Probably the commonest type of Subordinate Clause, the Adverbial Clause is
as hard to define as the adverb itself. (See Grammar - 1: Word Classes.) One reason
for that difficulty is the number of functions which are carried out by Adverbials. In
my youth, for example, students of Latin were always taught that there were eight
kinds of Adverbial Clause (for which typical conjunctions are shown in brackets):
Clauses of Place (where), Time (when), Cause (because''', '''since), Condition (if),
Consequence (so that), Concession (though, although), Manner (as), and Purpose (in
order to). In this brief introduction, I will only point out that Adverbial Clauses
follow the same pattern as other Clauses in English. They have a Subject, a verb, and where appropriate - a Complement. They are usually introduced by a conjunction
which links their meaning to that of the Main Clause. A final note on Complements
As Grammar 2 - Units said, the complement is something which completes the
sense of a verb. Several different types exist. Transitive verbs, by definition, take a
Direct Object (COd, or 'Complement Object Direct'). This is a nominal which
indicates the thing or person directly acted upon by the verb - 'She loves her baby', 'he
loves her', 'dogs chase cats' and 'rain benefits crops'. Some verbs can have an Indirect
Object (COi) in addition. (These can be called ditransitive verbs.) The Indirect Object
is the thing or person onto or for whom the action of the verb is performed - indirectly.
In "The King gave some land to the hero", 'some land' is the COd, and 'to the hero' is a
COi. Intransitive verbs are those which do not take an Object, such as 'to die'. (Notice
the difference between the intransitive 'to die' and the transitive 'to kill'.) Many verbs
in English can be used both transitively and intransitively, with greater or lesser
changes in meaning. "She drives" (intransitive) and "She drives a Ford" (transitive; 'a
Ford' is the Direct object, or COd) are closer in meaning than "John cooked the
potatoes" (transitive; COd 'potatoes') and "The potatoes cooked slowly" (intransitive).
Copular verbs ('to be', etc.) take not an Object but a Complement. Complements can
be of many types. We can use nominals, as in "He is a teacher" (where the
complement is a Noun Phrase); adjectivals, "Their house is white" (where the
complement is a single word); and adverbials, "It is where you left it" (where the
complement is an adverbial Clause). Many variations of the complement are
possible.</u> </u>
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