STRUCTURE OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE (FINALS)

SENTENCE Syntax – study of patterns or formation of senten ces and phrases from words. Sentence  - a word or group of words tha...

1. SENTENCE

1. Syntax – study of patterns or formation of sentences and phrases from words.

2. Sentence - a word or group of words that expresses complete meaning.

3. Fragments - a word or group of words without complete meaning.

4. Two Main Structures of Sentence:

1. Subject – the topic of the sentence or the one being talked about in the sentence.
2. Predicate – supplies information to the subject or describes or tells something about it.

5. Position of Sentence:

1. Normal – the subject comes before the predicate (e.g., The night is lonely.)
2. Inverted – the predicate comes before the subject (e.g., Lonely is the night.) 

6. Functions of Sentences:

1. To State Idea (Declarative)
2. To Express Strong emotion (Exclamatory)
3. To Give Command or Request (Imperative)
4. To Ask Questions (Interrogative)
5. To Persuade (Rhetorics)
6. To Argue

7. Sentence Patterns

1. S-IV (Subject – Intransitive Verb) 
2. S-IV-ADV (Subject – Intransitive Verb – Adverb) 
3. S-LV-C (Subject – Linking Verb – Complement)

1. S-LV-PN (Subject – Linking Verb – Predicate Nominative )
2. S-LV-PA (Subject – Linking Verb – Predicate Adjective)

4. S-TV-DO (Subject – Transitive Verb – Direct Object )
5. S-TV-DO –OC (Subject – Transitive Verb – Direct Object – Object Complement)
6. S-TV-IO-DO (Subject – Transitive Verb – Indirect Object – Direct Object)

8. Active and Passive Sentences

1. Active – the subject is the doer of the action

2. Passive – the subject is the receiver of the action and usually uses the preposition “by”.

9. Sentence Types as to Structure:

1. Simple – consists of only one independent clause but either or both the subject and predicate can be compound.

1. Example: My son toasts and butters his bagel.

2. Compound – consists of two or more independent clause that can be joined by coordinating conjunction (and, or, but, for, nor, yet, so) or a semicolon.

1. Example: Men are mammals and women are femammals.

3. Complex – contains only one independent clause and at least one dependent clause.

1. Example: Parallel lines never meet until you bend one of them.

4. Compound-complex – contains two or more independent clause and at least one dependent clause.

1. Example: I planned to drive but I couldn’t until the mechanic repaired my car.

10. Minor Sentence – one does not necessarily have a main verb in it but can be understood as a complete unit of meaning. (Ex. What time are you leaving? Three.)

11. One Word Sentence or Sentence Word – a single word that forms a full sentence (Ex. Come! John!).

12. Sentence Word Syntax – consists of overt, the visible part of the sentence, and covert, the removed part. (Ex. [that is] Excellent!)

2. SYNTACTIC STRUCTURE

1. STRUCTURE OF PREDICATION

1. Components: Subject and Verb
2. Subject – usually a noun but may also be a pronoun or other words that functions as a noun

1. Simple Subject – single subject without a modifier.
2. Complete Subject – simple subject with modifier/s.
3. Compound Subject – two or more subjects joined by “and.”

3. Predicate – usually a verb, a verb alone, a verb phrase, or a verb with its complement.

1. Simple Predicate – one word or the verb alone.
2. Complete Predicate – the verb and its complement.
3. Compound Predicate – two or more verbs joined by “and” or “or.”

4. Concord – the agreement between noun and verb.

2. STRUCTURE OF MODIFICATION

1. Component: Head and Modifier
2. Head – the word being modified.
3. Modifier – broadens, specifies, or affects the meaning of a word. It may be a word, a phrase, or a clause.

1. Structure: Function word + Limiting Adjective + Descriptive Adjective
2. Function words may be the articles (a, an, the), quantifiers (a lot of, many, much, a few, every, each, all, most, both, half, some, any, no, etc.), and pronouns (this, that, these, those, my, your, his, her, their, our).
3. Limiting Adjectives are the Ordinal (first, second, etc.) and Cardinal numbers (one, two, etc.)
4. Descriptive Adjectives follow this order: size, color, shape, and material.

3. STRUCTURE OF COMPLEMENTATION

1. Component: Verb and Complement
2. Complement may be a noun, adjective, function word, adverb, infinitive, participle, prepositional phrase, and clause.
3. Structures for Complementation:

1. S – LV – C  (e.g., Today is her birthday.)
2. S – TV – DO (e.g., He knows the answer.)
3. S – TV – IO – DO (e.g., The committee awarded him first prize.)
4. S – TV – DO – OC (e.g., Everybody considers him very lucky.)
5. S – TV – DO – OP (e.g., The committee awarded the first prize to him.)
6. S – IV (e.g., we arrived at the classroom door with only seven seconds to spare.)

4. STRUCTURE OF SUBORDINATION

1. Subordination – joining two sentences of related ideas by merging into a main clause and subordinate clause.
2. Components: Subordinator, Dependent Clause, and Independent Clause
3. Subordinators:  as, as if, as though, like, than, just as. after, as, before, by the time, ever since, every time, once, until, when, whenever, whether, while because, if , in case, in order for, since. although, even if, even though, except that/if not only, though, unless…

1. School is taking longer because I have to work.
2. Although the quiz is difficult, the class answered it with their best.

5. STRUCTURE OF COORDINATION (with a comma before the coordinator)

1. Coordination – allows the writer to give an equal weight to ideas.
2. Components: Coordinator,  and Independent Unit (Phrases and Clauses)
3. The connectors may be:

1. Coordinators: for, and, nor, but, or, yet, and so…
2. Phrasal Connectors: rather than, as well as, together with, as long as…
3. Correlatives: not only…but also, both…and, either…or, neither…nor…

4. Examples:

1. Mary enjoys math, for it is challenging.
2. Judy doesn't work, nor does she want a job.

3. SEMANTICS

1. Semantics – deals with the meaning of words.

2. Semantic relationships are the associations that there exist between the meanings of words (semantic relationships at word level), between the meanings of phrases, or between the meanings of sentences (semantic relationships at phrase or sentence level).

3. Kinds of Semantic Relationships:

1. Polysemy is the semantic relationship that exists between a word and its multiple conceptually and historically related meanings.

1. foot = part of body;  lower part of something 
2. plain = clear; unadorned; obvious. 
3. nice = pleasant; kind; friendly; etc.

2. Synonymy is the semantic relationship that exists between two (or more) words that have the same (or nearly the same) meaning and belong to the same part of speech, but are spelled differently. The (pairs of) words that have this kind of semantic relationship are called synonyms, or are said to be synonymous.

1. big = large 
2. hide = conceal 
3. small = little
4. couch = sofa 
5. to begin = to start
6. kind = courteous 

3. 
   

4. Antonymy is the semantic relationship that exists between two or more words that have opposite meanings.

1. male/female
2. married/unmarried
3. over/under
4. hot/cold 
5. big/small
6. buy/sell

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6. Homonymy is the relationship that exits between two (or more) words which belong to the same grammatical category, have the same spelling, may or may not have the same pronunciation, but have different meanings and origins (i.e., they are etymologically and semantically unrelated).

1. to bear (= to give birth to) and to bear (= to tolerate);
2. bank (= the ground near a river) and bank (= financial institution)
3. lead [lid] (=an example behavior for others to copy) and lead [led] (= heavy metal)

7. Hyponymy is the semantic relationship that exists between two (or more) words in such a way that the meaning of one word includes (or contains) the meaning of other words(s). We say that the term whose meaning is included in the meaning of the other term(s) is the general term; linguists usually refer to it as a superordinate or hypernym. The term whose meaning includes the meaning of the other term is the specific term; linguists usually refer to it as a hyponym.

1. Vehicle = bus, car, van
2. Animals = cats, birds, fish

8. Retronym is a type of neologism that provides a new name for something to differentiate the original from a more recent form or version

1. Analog watch – digital watch
2. Acoustic guitar – electric guitar

9. Heteronyms are words that have the same spelling (they are homographs) but different pronunciation (they are heterophones) and also different meanings.

1. "bow" (a ribbon) and "bow" (of a ship)

4. Classification of Words:

1. Abstract Words – refers to idea that exists in the mind only.

1. Ex. Love, freedom, success, pain…

2. Concrete Words – employ the five senses.

1. Ex. Yellow, table, egg…

3. General Words – general class or events.

1. Ex. furniture, flower, animal

4. Specific Words – particular class or reference.

1. Ex. Insect  spider; Furniture  table

5. Formal Words – used in formal writing.

1. Ex. Erudite  wise; concur  agree

6. Archaic Words – old words like religious words.

1. Ex. Thou, thee, thy, thine

7. Synonymous Words – words having the same meaning

1. Ex. Happy – joyful; huge – big; true – real

8. Colloquial Words (Colloquialism) – a word or phrase permissible and often indispensible to an easy informal style of speaking and writing.

1. Word Contraction – shortening of word or words with an apostrophe (‘cause, didn’t, we’re, I’m.)

2. Slang – label for highly colloquial words, a language comprising recently coined and frequently short-lived terms which are unacceptable in formal English (e.g., hass – house, doug – dog, heppy - happy, bum – vagabond, tummy – stomach, biatch – bitch, ornery – ordinary) . 

3. Informal Words – wise, agree, help, prone, break, clear, beggar, end, surrender, secret, mad, mean

9. Localism – a word, phrase or pronunciation that is peculiar to a particular locality.

1. Ex. Rustler – cattle thief; Doggle/doggy – motherless calf; Flat – apartment

10. Homonymous Words – words having the same sound but different meaning.

1. Ex. Fare – fair; Rise – rice

11. Omnibus Words (General Words) – words whose meaning are general or inclusive.

1. Ex. Thing, cute, fine, nice

12. Jargon (Technical Words) – words of a specific language of a particular occupation or group.

1. Medical Jargon – fx – bone fracture; IM – intramuscular; NPO – not to take anything by mouth
2. Police Jargon – Code eight – help immediately; code eleven – an individual is at the scene of the crime

13. Hackneyed (Trite Words) – words that are no longer fresh, worn out, overused, and old fashion.

1. Ex. Drastic step; go down in history; brilliant performance; slowly but surely

14. Obsolete Words – words that are no longer in use (e.g., snoutfair; twitterlight).

15. Revived Words – words that were no longer in use in the past but have been used in present (e.g., Franchise).

4. PRAGMATICS

1. Pragmatics – deals with the study of meaning based on social context.

1. Factors to Consider on Pragmatics:

1. 
   
2. The Context
3. Status of the People Involved
4. Linguistic Knowledge
5. Inferred Intention of the Speaker

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3. Kinds of Meanings:

1. Denotative Meaning – meaning that can be looked up in the dictionary; the literal meaning of the word.

2. Connotative Meaning –implied meaning of a word/s.

3. Iconic Meaning – the resemblance of meaning and the object (e.g., Onomatopoeia)

4. Euphemism – from the Greek word “euphemia” which means the use of words of good omen; thus, these are expressions used to soften or lighten the meaning.

1. Kinds of Euphemism:

1. Abstraction (e.g., “passed away” – died)
2. Indirection (e.g., “powder my nose” – go to bathroom; “sleep with” – sexual intercourse)
3. Litotes – reverse understatement (e.g., “not so big” – small; “not exactly as supermodel” – ugly)
4. Mispronunciation (e.g., oh my gosh, biatch, Ghiz – Jesus)
5. Modification – conversion of offensive words from noun to adjective (e.g., slut - slutty) 
6. Personification or name calling (e.g., “bat and balls” – male genitals; “gloves” – female genitals)
7. Slang – vocabulary to an exclusive certain group of people (e.g., “weeds” – marijuana).

2. Uses of Euphemism:

1. Metaphor (e.g., “choke the chicken” – masturbation)
2. Periphrases (e.g., “powder one’s nose” – go to bathroom)
3. Taboo deformation – altering pronunciation of unacceptable words (e.g., “frick” – fuck)
4. Double Speak – hiding unpleasant ideas (e.g., “ministry of peace” – war; “ministry of love” – torture)

3. Common Euphemisms:

1. 
   
2. Lady of the evening - prostitute
3. Comfort woman – prostitute
4. Call of nature – urinate or defecate
5. Broken home – divided family
6. Adult entertainment – porn
7. Character line – wrinkles
8. Batting for the other side – homosexual
9. Between jobs – unemployed
10. Correctional facility – jail
11. Freedom fighters – rebels
12. Disinformation – lie
13. With a child – pregnant
14. Sanitary engineer – garbage collector

4. 
   

5. Dysphemism – to worsen the statement or expression

5. TAG QUESTIONS

1. Tag Questions/Mini Tag/Tag Phrase/Question Tag – a grammatical structure in which the declarative or imperative statement is changed into a question by adding the interrogative question known as “tag”.

2. Rules Governing Tag Questions:

1. An affirmative statement requires a negative tag.

1. You are from Zaire, aren’t you?
2. You were from Zaire, weren’t you?

2. A negative statement requires a positive tag.

1. You are not a policeman, are you?
2. You were not a policeman, were you?

3. If the statement has “be” as an ordinary verb, we use a form of “be” in the tag. 

1. Jenny is beautiful, isn’t she?
2. They are silent today, aren’t they?

4. If the statement has a modal, it is repeated in the tag.

1. You should be dancing, shouldn’t you?
2. You wouldn’t mind, would you?

5. With the present indefinite, we use do/does for the affirmative and don’t/doesn’t for the negative.

1. You don’t use the sugar in tea, do you?
2. Alan works at the bank, doesn’t he?

6. With the past indefinite, we use did for the affirmative and didn’t for the negative.

1. He didn’t read the book, did he?
2. He climbed the tree, didn’t he?

7. We use an affirmative tag question after a sentence containing such negative words as hardly, unlikely, scarcely, seldom, few, no, neither, nothing, etc.

1. Julia hardly drinks a coffee, does she?

8. When the subject is nobody, somebody, anybody, everybody, no one, neither, someone, or everyone, we use the pronoun they in the tag.

1. Nobody asked for me, did they?
2. Everybody loves her, don’t they?

9. If the subject in the sentence is nothing, everything, something or anything, the pronoun in the tag is it.

1. Everything is ready, isn’t it?
2. Nothing bad happened, did it?

10. When the subject is that /this, the pronoun in the tag is it. The pronoun is they for their plural forms these/those.

1. This is your earring, isn’t it?
2. These are your earrings, aren’t they?

11. When we use there and be combination in a sentence, the pronoun in the tag is also there.

1. There isn’t a hotel near the museum, is there?
2. There were many people at home, weren’t there?

12. After I am, the tag is aren’t I. However, after I am not/ I’m not, the tag is am I.

1. I am your friend, aren’t I?
2. I am not her classmate, am I?

13. With used to, we use didn’t in the tag.

1. We used to work here, didn’t we?

14. With Let us/Let’s, we use shall we as the tag.

1. Let us motivate them, shall we?

15. After positive imperatives, we use will you or won’t you. Yet for the negative imperatives, we only use will you.

1. Open the door, will you/won’t you?
2. Do not open the door, will you?

16. Some introductory phrase such as I am afraid, I think, I believe, I am sure, I suspect, I suppose, It appears that, It seems that, It looks as if, As far as I remember, etc. doesn’t affect the tag except for the transfer of negation.

1. It appears that she is enjoying herself, isn’t she?
2. I don’t think anyone will volunteer, will he/they?

17. We can use the affirmative tag questions after affirmative sentence to express such as surprise or interest.

1. You’re moving to Brazil, are you?

6. FIGURES OF SPEECH

1. Simile – indirect comparison using “like,” “as,” or “seem.”

1. You eat like a pig!

2. Metaphor – direct comparison of two unlike things or ideas.

1. Money is time.

3. Hyperbole – from “over-casting”; an exaggeration of ideas for the sake of emphasis.

1. She nearly drowned in her tears.
2. I am so hungry; I could eat a horse!

4. Apostrophe – from “turning away”; addressing an imaginary character (ie, non-existent person or an abstract idea) as if it were present and capable of understanding feelings.

1. Mountains and hills, come and fall on me.
2. Ninoy, are the Filipinos worth dying for?

5. Irony – words are used in such a way that their intended meaning is different from the actual meaning of the words.

1. Verbal Irony – contrast between what is said and what is meant.

1. It was very kind of you to remind me of my humiliation.

2. Situational Irony – the contrast between the actual result of a situation and what was expected to happen.

1. The student who did not study passed the test.

3. Dramatic Irony – a situation in which the audience knows something that the character does not know.

1. In a scary movie, the character walks into the house and the audience knows the killer is in the house.

6. Antithesis – juxtaposition of opposing or contradicting ideas (statements) in the sentence. 

1. Love is an ideal thing, marriage a real thing.

7. Oxymoron – conjoining contradictory terms or words.

1. Deafening silence; bitter sweet; open secret; original copy; old news 

8. Alliteration – series of words that begin with the same consonant.

1. Fred fried frogs.

9. Assonance – repetition of vowel sounds.

1. I feel depressed and restless. 

10. Climax – structure of ideas from an important to most important idea.

1. I came, I saw, I conquer.

11. Anticlimax - structure of ideas from an important to least important idea.

1. We married, we got engaged, we met.

12. Metonymy – substituting the name of an attribute of something for the name of the thing itself.

1. The pen is mightier than the sword.
2.  “Laurel” for glory; “guts” for courage; “sweat” for hardwork.

13. Onomatopoeia - the formation or use of words that imitate the sound associated with something.

1. The thunder came roaring.
2. The lighting flowed flashing.

14. Synecdoche - a figure of speech in which a part of something is used to represent the whole.

1. “ABC’s” for alphabet; “a pair of eyes” for a person; “wheels” for car.

15. Periphrasis – the use of excessive and longer words to convey a meaning which could have been conveyed with a shorter expression or in a few words.

1. The land of the rising sun – Japan

16. Personification - the attribution of human qualities to inanimate or abstract beings

1. The trees are dancing.
2. I see the moon smiling at me.

17. Rhetorical Question - a question asked for effect that neither expects nor requires an answer

1. A person enters a dark room and asks out loud, has someone turned off the lights?