Diploma in TESOL

by
Distance Learning
UNIT 2: SEMANTICS/LANGUAGE AWARENESS

Module 3 (3 of 4)

 Negatives: types of negation

 Questions: question types
 Modality
 Word Classes and Phrases
 Adjectives and Adverbs
 Determiners

Unit 2 1 Module 3
NEGATIVES

Types of Negation (adapted from Leech and Svartvik)

1. Not-negation

To make a statement negative, put “not” (or “n’t”) after the operator.

Examples
He is coming. He isn’t coming. He’s not coming.
We may win the match. We may not win the match.
We have been defeated. We haven’t been defeated.

In these examples, the auxiliary (be, may, have) serves as the operator.
When there is no such operator present, the auxiliary do has to be
introduced.

Examples:
She enjoys reading. She doesn’t enjoy reading.
They understood the problem. They did not understand the problem.

NB The verbs be and have can act as both main verbs and auxiliaries. In
either use they can serve as operators.
Examples:
She is coming tomorrow She is not coming tomorrow (is as auxiliary)
I am cold I am not cold (is as main verb)
She has been jogging She has not been jogging (has as auxiliary)
He has many ideas. He hasn’t many ideas (has as main verb#)

# British English prefers “hasn’t got”. American English prefers “doesn’t have”

NB
The negative (not) may be contracted.

OR

The verb forms may be contracted.

Examples:
Contracted verb Contracted negative
He’s not coming He isn’t coming
We’re not ready We aren’t ready

Unit 2 2 Module 3
NB
The general rule for negation has two anomalies:
There is no form *willn’t. Won’t is used
There is no form *amn’t.

2. Negative pronouns

Examples:
No one, nobody, nothing.

3. Negative determiners

Examples:
There’s no salt left. (‘No’ can be used with singular and plural nouns)

4. Adverbs

Examples:
Nowhere (adverb of place)
Never (time or frequency)
Rarely, seldom.

QUESTIONS

Question Types

Self-check 1

1. Yes-no questions
2. Wh- questions
3. Subject questions
4. Object questions
5. Intonation only questions
6. Tag questions
7. Indirect questions

For each question type, think of two examples.

What rules apply to the formulation of each?

Unit 2 3 Module 3
Self-check 2

Why do students have problems producing appropriate question tags, and

often avoid them, even at an advanced level?

Self-check 3

Analyse your students’ errors in the formation of negatives and questions

according to the rules of formulation given above.

Self-check 4

The typical interaction pattern in class shows the teacher asking most of the
questions. What activities can you think of to change this pattern?

Self-check 5

What question types do you teach a low level class so that they can function
in English in the classroom? eg “Can you repeat please?”

MODALITY

Self-check 6

What’s the difference between a lexical verb and a modal verb?

Self-check 7

What do these sentences express? Match them eg 5) c

1) It will rain soon.

2) You needn’t wait.
3) You may leave now if you want to.
4) You must be quiet.
5) I can type 26 words a minute.
6) You should do as you’re told.

Unit 2 4 Module 3
 a) prediction
b) permission
c) ability
d) absence of obligation
e) inescapable obligation
f) escapable obligation

Self-check 8

How many modal verbs are there?

Matching tasks such as the one in TASK 2 are often seen in course books.
They help students work out the meaning of the different modals. But
apparently straightforward tasks like this simplify what is a very complex area.
In the examples in TASK 2, for example, need appears to behave in the
same way as the other modals but under closer scrutiny it is clear that it
doesn’t.
According to Lewis (1986), the modal auxiliaries all share a number of
characteristics:

They occupy the first place in a complex verb phrase.

They do not co-occur (eg *I must can ask him.)
They are used in operators in the formation of, questions, negatives etc.
They share important semantic similarities (the speaker can introduce
elements of possibility, certainty, etc)

Which items in the following list don’t fit these criteria? In what ways don’t
they fit them?

Can, need to, could, shall, should, may, might, will, would, must, have to

Self-check 9

can / could; may / might

“Uses of could are invariably possibilities of a more remote kind than the
uses of can. The “remoteness” may be remoteness in time, social
relationships, or likelihood:
I could ride a bike when I was a kid but I haven’t done it for years. (Time)
Could you pass the salt please? (Relationship)
He could be a foreigner, but I don’t think so (Likelihood)”

Unit 2 5 Module 3
Now do the following exercises.

Could Lewis’s idea of “remoteness” be usefully applied here?

(from “Proficiency Masterclass.”)

Unit 2 6 Module 3
Self-check 10

must / mustn’t

Do the following exercises.

(from “Proficiency Masterclass.”)

Unit 2 7 Module 3
Self-check 11

Lewis claims that the modal auxiliary must may be paraphrased:

Must = I assert that it is necessary that….
Mustn’t = I assert that it is necessary not to…..

According to Lewis the necessity can be, for example, legal, moral, practical
or logical. Can you find examples for each kind of necessity in Exercise A in
Self-check 10?

Self-check 12

Ways of expressing modality without using modal verbs.

What verb phrases other than those with must are used to express obligation
in Exercise A?

Traditional grammars have always pointed to the modal verbs as carrying

“modality” in English, but more recently, studies of large corpora of texts have
shown that modality can also be realised by many lexical items.
McCarthy (1990) writes: “meanings of probability, and possibility can be
expressed by those two nouns themselves, as well as in other lexical items
such as “likely”, “likelihood”, “definite(ly)”, “chance”, potential(ly), “bound to”.

WORD CLASSES AND PHRASES

Word Classes

Since the early days of linguistic study, words have been grouped into word
classes, traditionally labelled as the parts of speech.

Self-check 13

Match these word classes with the definitions below

Noun, pronoun, verb, adjective, adverb, preposition, determiner, conjunction.

a) A word which may replace a noun or a noun phrase.

b) A word which:
- can occur as the as the subject or object of a verb or the object
(complement) of a preposition.

Unit 2 8 Module 3
- can be modified by an adjective.
- can be used with determiners. It typically refers to people, animals, places,
things or abstractions.

c) A word that describes the thing, quality, state or action which a noun refers
to.

d) A word used with nouns, pronouns and gerunds to link them grammatically
to other words

e) A word which
- occurs as part of the predicate of a sentence.
- carries markers of grammatical categories such as tense, aspect,
person, number and mood
- refers to an action or state

f) A word which joins words, phrases, or clauses together, such as but, and,
when.

g) A word which is used with a noun, and which limits the meaning of the
noun in some way.

h) A word that describes or adds to the meaning of a verb, an adjective,

another adverb, or a sentence, and which answers such questions as
how?, where?, or when?.

(Definitions from Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics)

Self-check 14

Look in an English-language newspaper. Select some sentences and identify

the word class of the words, checking your decisions with the definitions
above.

Phrases

Current grammatical theories identify five types of phrase in English.

Unit 2 9 Module 3
1. Noun phrase (NP)
A noun phrase is one or more words which we use in a sentence as subject,
direct object, indirect object, complement or as a prepositional complement.
Jim gave his instructions to the team.

NP as subject.
(Proper names and pronouns usually stand alone as noun phrases).
The new coach surprised the team.

NP as subject.
The coach gave the new team shirt to the goalkeeper.

NP as direct object. (Generally the direct object names the person or thing
affected by the action of the verb).
The coach gave the new team shirt to the goalkeeper.

NP as indirect object. (Generally the indirect object names the receiver of the
action).
The coach left without another word.

NP as prepositional complement.
We call the above items noun phrase because they are doing the work of a
noun, and the most important part, the head, is usually a noun. The heads of
the noun phrases above are: Jim, coach, shirt, goalkeeper, word.
The simplest noun phrase with a common noun has a determiner and a noun
head: a ball, the pitch.

2. Verb Phrase (VP)

The part of the sentence which contains the main verb and also any objects,
complements and adverbials.

3. Adjective Phrase (AdjP)

A phrase that functions as an adjective.

4. Adverb Phrase (AdvP)

A phrase which functions as an adverb.

5. Prepositional Phrase (PP)

A phrase which consists of a preposition and its complement.

Unit 2 10 Module 3
Self-check 15

1. Underline the NP in: The players who weren’t here yesterday must report
to the coach

2. Underline the VP in: The goalkeeper kicked the ball out of play.

3. Underline the AdjP in: The player in the corner is from Brazil.

4. Underline the AdvP in: After the match they held a press conference.

5. Underline the PP in: The coach spent the match in the stand.

ADJECTIVES AND ADVERBS

Self-check 16

Look up the definitions of ‘adjectives’ and ‘adverbs’ in your grammar books.

Choose the definitions that you find the clearest and write them down.

Self-check 17

“Adjectives and adverbs have common features and are closely related both
in form and meaning. There are some adjective/adverb lookalikes which are
identical in form. There are also certain adjectives which look like adverbs.”
(Broughton 1990)

Can you give some examples of these?

Self-check 18

What would you say to a student who wrote the following:

1. She sang excellent.

2. She was dancing lively.
3. Open the window widely please.
4. It was a tremendous boring class.
5. He kicked the ball highly over the goal.
6. The train was going very slow (-ly?)

Unit 2 11 Module 3
Self-check 19

Comparison of adjectives and adverbs.

Read these rules from Cambridge English Course 2:

- short (one-syllable) adjectives form comparatives and superlatives with –er

and –est.
- long adjectives (with three or more syllables) form comparatives and
superlatives with more and most.
- two-syllable words ending in –y have –ier, -iest.
- most other two-syllable words have more, most.

Which two-syllable words don’t have more, most?

What do you think of the guideline given in the Penguin English Grammar
PEG: “If you are not sure when to use –er/-est or more/most, use -er/-est
with one-syllable adjectives and more/most with two or more syllables.”

Do these rules apply to adverbs as well?

Self-check 20

Adjectives and participles.

Some grammar books separate –ing and –ed forms into verbs and adjectives.
Thornbury, 1997, however believes “rather than divide –ing and –ed words
into discrete categories, it is probably better to think of them as occupying
points on a spectrum, from those that are entirely verb-like in their function, to
those that are entirely adjective-like.” He divides these forms into 5
categories. Can you think of examples for each category?

1) Participles (either present or past) which function as components of a

verb phrase.
2) Participles acting as qualitative adjectives: ie they describe the quality
of something and they can be qualified with very.
3) Participles acting as classifying adjectives: ie they classify things and
they cannot normally be qualified with very.
4) Adjectives formed by adding –ing or –ed to noun phrases ie noun + -
ing or -ed adjectives.

5) Compound adjectives formed by adding a verb participle to a noun,

adjective or adverb.

Unit 2 12 Module 3
DETERMINERS

Determiners

A word which is used with a noun, and which limits the meaning of the noun
in some way. For example, in English the following words can be used as
determiners:

a. articles, eg a pencil, the garden

b. demonstratives, eg this box, that car
c. possessives, eg her house, my bicycle
d. quantifiers, eg some milk, many people
e. numerals, eg the first day, three chairs

Articles

The main use of the definite article in English is to show that the noun refers
to a specific example of something eg:

a) by referring to something which is known to both the speaker and the

hearer (exophoric reference):
She is in the garden.
He is at the post office.

by referring backwards to something already mentioned.(anaphoric

reference)
There is a man waiting outside. Who, the man in the brown coat?

b) by referring forward to something (cataphoric reference)

The chair in the living room is broken.

c) by referring to something as a group or class (generic reference)

The lion is a dangerous animal

The main use of the indefinite article in English is to show that the noun refers
to something general or to something which has not been identified by the
speaker:

a) by referring to one example of a group or class:

Pass me a pencil, please.

b) by referring to something as an example of a group or class:

A dog is a friendly animal.

(adapted from Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics)

Unit 2 13 Module 3
Self-check 21

Revise the uses of the articles in your grammar books, and then do the
following exercise taken from advanced level course book.

Supply a/an, the or zero (-) in this paragraph, then refer to the text (in the key)
Give a reason or reasons for each choice.

__(1)______ Harvard Business School is ____(2)____ ark of the tabernacle

in ___(3)______ management education. _____(4) ___ many schools more
or less ape the HBS, especially its “case study” method of
____(5)_____instruction – though mulling over ____(6)____ out-of-date
business anecdotes is about as helpful in _____(7)_____ actual management
as waging war by tramping over _____(8)_____old battlefields.
_____(9)_____ specific management element in these mind-bending studies
is hard to isolate. Although _____(10)_____ managers should be numerate
(and many are not), they don’t require ______(11)____ skills in
____(12)____ higher algebra; and ____(13)_____many great businesses
have been created by ______(14)_____men who all but count on
their_______(15)_______ fingers.
_____(16)_______ story tells of ________(17)_____two schoolboy friends,
one brilliant at _____(18)______ maths, one innumerate to the point of idiocy,
who meet much later when ______(19)______ first is _____(20)_____
professor and______(21)____ second is ______(22) multi-millionaire. Unable
to control his _____(23)_____curiosity, ____(24) professor asks
______(25)______ figure-blind dunderhead how he managed to amass his
fortune. “It’s simple”, replies _______(26)_____ Midas. “I buy
(27)_______things at $1 and sell them for $2, and from that 1% difference I
make ___(28)______ living.
(Longman Advanced Grammar p 68)

Self-check 22

Do your students regularly make mistakes with articles? Is this due to

interference from L1? Is it useful for the teacher to know the rules for the use
of articles in L1?

Unit 2 14 Module 3
Quantifiers

some and any

The traditional rule states that some (and somebody, somewhere etc) is used
in affirmative sentences:

She’s got some interesting ideas.

There’s some cheese in the fridge.
There’s somebody outside.

Also in questions when we expect people to reply “yes” (ie affirmatively)

Could I have some coffee?

Would you like some ice cream?

We use any (anyone, anything etc) in negative sentences and in most

questions.

He hasn’t got any money.

Do you know any good jokes?
Is anybody listening?

(adapted from Swan and Walter. How English Works - 1997)

Lewis (1986), however, claims that these rules are unhelpful simplifications,
and gives examples of common utterances which break the traditional rules:

I like some pop music.

I don’t like any pop music.
I like any pop music.
I don’t like any pop music.

He stresses the importance of the speaker and what the speaker means.
The speaker’s decision whether to use any or some depends not on form
(question or negative), but on semantics.

Unit 2 15 Module 3
Unit 2 16 Module 3
Self-check 25

Read pages 33, 34, and 35 from Lewis (reproduced below). What do you
think are his rules of use for “some and any”?

Unit 2 17 Module 3
Unit 2 18 Module 3
 (from Lewis - 1986)

Unit 2 19 Module 3
Self-check 26

Read Lewis, pages 35, 36, and 37, “Some classroom implications”. To what
extent do you think Lewis’s ideas for teaching “some and any” are more
helpful for students than the traditional rules?

Unit 2 20 Module 3
 (from Lewis - 1986)

Unit 2 21 Module 3
UNIT 2: SEMANTICS/LANGUAGE AWARENESS

Module 3 (3 of 4)

KEY TO SELF-CHECKS

Self-check 1

1. Yes/no questions

eg Did you have a good time?

The questioner is asking a closed question.

Change the order of the operator (first auxiliary verb, or the verb to be) and
the subject. If there is no operator, use the appropriate form of do (known as
the dummy operator).

Rising intonation

2. Wh- question

eg How did you get here?

The questioner is asking an open question.

Put a wh- question word at beginning. Wh- questions start with one of the
following wh- words: who whom whose what which when where why and NB
how.

Change the order of the subject and the operator (first auxiliary verb, or the
verb to be)..
If there is no operator use the appropriate form of do and follow same pattern.
Falling intonation.

3. Subject questions

eg Who went home early?

The questioner is asking for information about the subject of the verb.

If the question word is the subject of the verb, the word order is the same as
that of a statement.
Rising intonation.

Unit 2 Module 3
4. Object questions

eg What did he say?

The questioner is asking for information about the object of the verb.

If the question word is the object, we put the operator in front of the subject
(the normal question form).
Rising intonation

5. Intonation only questions

eg They didn’t win?

The form is the same as that of a statement (positive or negative).
This type of question is often used to express surprise.

6. Tag questions

eg They didn’t win, did they?

Most tag questions consist of a simple statement followed by a tag.
Positive statements have negative tags; negative statements have positive
tags. The first auxiliary is used in the tag.

It’s raining, isn’t it?

If there is no auxiliary use do:

He goes every day, doesn’t he?

Intonation
The operator in the tag carries the nuclear tone and may carry rising or falling
intonation.

They’ll have to go soon, won’t they? (rising)

Sounds more like a question, and needs an answer.

They’ll have to go soon won’t they (falling).

Sounds more like a statement and doesn’t necessarily need an answer.

7. Indirect questions

eg He asked him whether he wanted to stay.

The rules for indirect / reported speech including backshift apply:

“When are you starting work?” he asked. He asked when I was starting work.

Unit 2 Module 3
Self-check 2

Clearly they are difficult to form; both the syntax and the intonation present
problems. Several languages have invariant question tags (eg French: “n’est
pas?”; Spanish: “verdad?”). Several Commonwealth varieties of English, such
as South African, use “isn’t it?” as a universal tag. In informal British English
the use of “OK?” and “right?” seems to be increasing.

Self-check 4

Possible task types:

 Teacher puts answers to personal questions about herself on the board

eg “In Liverpool” The class asks questions eg “Where were you born?”;
“Where do your parents live?” until they get the right one.

 Students make up questions on a given text and pass them to another

group to answer.

See Morgan and Rinvolucri , The Q Book (lots of ideas)

Suggested Reading

Thornbury ch 14
Lewis ch 7

Self-check 6

There are differences both in meaning and form.

Meaning:
A lexical verb, for example go in She’s going expresses a fact.

Whereas She might go – is not factual. The use of the modal might
expresses a subjective opinion or judgement which the speaker is making at
the time of speaking.
“Modality allows the speaker to introduce a personal interpretation of the non-
factual and non-temporal elements of the event” Lewis 1986.

Unit 2 Module 3
Form:
Modal verbs are auxiliary verbs, not full verbs. They don’t behave like full,
lexical verbs; for example they don’t have the third person -s form, and they
can be used as operators (eg in the formation of questions - Can she go?).

Self-check 7

1) a; 2) d; 3) b; 4) e; 5) c; 6) f.

Self-check 8

There are 9 modal verbs.

have to and need to co-occur with other modals: She must have had to
leave early. She must have needed to leave early.

Neither is commonly used as operator; Had she to take the test again? Is
acceptable, but most native speakers use Did she have to ……?

have to doesn’t express the speaker’s (subjective) view of necessity, but

objective necessity.

There are two forms in contemporary British English: need to, which behaves
as a full verb: Does she need to reply?
And need (without to) Need I ask? which Lewis suggests teachers treat as a
lexical item (Lewis p 128).

Unit 2 Module 3
Self-check 9

(from “Proficiency Masterclass.” Teacher’s book)

Unit 2 26 Module 3
Self-check 10

from “Proficiency Masterclass.” Teacher’s book)

Self-check 11

Legal – 2, 6 (school “laws”?)

Moral -
Practical – 3, 4
Logical – 1, 8

Self-check 12

should; be supposed to

Suggested Reading

Lewis chapters 13 and 14

Thornbury chapter 19

Unit 2 27 Module 3
Self-check 13

a) pronoun b) noun c) adjective d) preposition

e) verb f) conjunction g) determiner h) adverb

Self-check 15

1. Underline the NP in: The players who weren’t here yesterday must report
to the coach.
2. Underline the VP in: The goalkeeper kicked the ball out of play.
3. Underline the AdjP in: The player in the corner is from Brazil.
4. Underline the AdvP in: After the match they held a press conference.
5. Underline the PP in: The coach spent the match in the stand.

Suggested Reading

Thornbury ch 11

Self-check 16

In general, it is true to say that adjectives are used with (modify) nouns and
pronouns: adverbs, are used with (modify) verbs and other word classes.

Self-check 17

Lookalikes: Most mean something to do with time: early, hourly, nightly etc.
So early (adj) risers get up early (adv)

Adjectives with –ly which are not used as adverbs and have no corresponding
adverb include: friendly, lively, lonely, lovely, ugly.

Unit 2 28 Module 3
Self-check 18

1. To say how something happened or was done, we use an adverb not an

adjective (excellent). To make an adverb from an adjective we often add
the suffix –ly
She sang excellently

2. Although lively ends in suffix –ly, it’s an adjective, not an adverb. When
adjectives end in –ly we don’t add another –ly to make it an adverb.
Instead we can use a prepositional phrase with fashion, manner, or way.
She was dancing in a lively manner

3. Wide is one of the adverbs which has two forms, one ending in –ly and
one not. Without –ly, wide often collocates with “open” and means
“completely”. With –ly, widely often collocates with “known” and
“available” and means “in many places”.

4. We use an adverb, not an adjective to modify adjectives.

5. High is one of the adverbs which has two forms, one ending in –ly and one
not. High is the correct one in this context. Highly is used in phrases such
as:
His work was thought highly of.

6. The student didn’t know which was the correct form. This is not surprising
as both are correct. The –ly form tends to be used in more formal style.
Other common adverbs like this are: quick, loud, cheap, clean, clear.

Self-check 19

Two-syllable adjectives ending in unstressed -y, -ly, -ow, -le and –er do not
take -er / -est

Yes, the comparison of adverbs is similar to that of adjectives. Regular

adverb comparison consists of adding -er / -est to adverbs of one syllable,
and using more / most with others.

Unit 2 29 Module 3
Self-check 20

1) Participles (either present or past) which function as components of a verb

phrase.
You’re confusing me.
The dog abandoned by its owners.

2) Participles acting as qualitative adjectives i.e. they describe the quality of

something and they can be qualified with very
A disappointing film.
A confused tourist.

3) Participles acting as classifying adjectives, i.e. they classify things and

they cannot normally be qualified with very.
A dying swan.
A forgotten dream.

4) Adjectives formed by adding -ing or -ed to noun phrases ie noun + -ing or

-ed adjectives.
A shocking accident.
A two-masted yacht.

5) Compound adjectives formed by adding a verb participle to a noun,

adjective or adverb.
A home-made cake.
A brown-eyed girl.

Suggested Reading

Thornbury ch 24

Unit 2 30 Module 3
Self-check 21

Unit 2 31 Module 3
 (from Longman Advanced Grammar)

Unit 2 32 Module 3
Self-check 22

Some is used if the idea is restricted or limited in some way.

Any is used if the idea is unrestricted or unlimited.
Any applies to all or none; some applies to part

Suggested Reading

Swan,M and Smith,B. Learner English CUP 1987

Thornbury ch 23

Unit 2 33 Module 3