INTRODUCING

ENGLISH
GRAMMAR
THIRD EDITION
KEY TO EXERCISES

Magne Dypedahl and

Hilde Hasselgård
1 
INTRODUCING
GRAMMAR

1 Test yourself by choosing the correct alternative in the following sentences.

a. It/There is a lot of work left to do.

b. They were travelling by/with train.
c. Harry goes / is going to Spain every winter.
d. She hanged/hung her new dress in her wardrobe.
e. I haven’t got any/no/some new ideas.
f. Go to bed at once, do/will you!
g. Money are/is the root of all evil.
h. The dog had lost its/it’s collar.

2 Corpus exercise based on the British National Corpus.

a. Cats occurs 1550 times, dogs 4347 times. (Cat occurs 3847 times, dog 7846.)
b. The most common phrase is bacon and eggs (62 occurrences).
c. It’s stupid cow.
d. An arm and a leg typically occurs after the verbs cost and pay. There can also be a
pronoun, such as cost him an arm and a leg. In such contexts, an arm and a leg means
“a lot of money”.
e. Pretty girl is slightly more common than beautiful girl.

INTRODUCING ENGLISH GRAMMAR, THIRD EDITION

KEY TO EXERCISES 1  Introducing Grammar
 f. The most common in front of boy is pretty (18), followed by beautiful (11), handsome
(9) and cute (0). Note the much lower frequency of these words with boy than with
girl.
g. The word that tends to occur before your blessings is count.

INTRODUCING ENGLISH GRAMMAR, THIRD EDITION

KEY TO EXERCISES 1  Introducing Grammar
2 
WORDS AND
PHRASES

1 Function words: should, in, the, her, through

Lexical words: car, hoping, fun, show, maybe, office, sleep, weekend

2 Word classes of the italicized words and possible clues to arrive at the right alternative.

a. 1 We need to book our tickets. (Book is a verb – it occurs after to.)

2 I bought him a book about butterflies. (Book is a noun – it occurs after the
article a.)
b. 1 They saluted the American flag. (American is an adjective – it describes flag, which
is a noun.)
2 They saluted the Americans. (Americans is a noun – it occurs after the and is not
followed by (another) noun.)
c. 1 She didn’t know the correct answer. (Correct is an adjective – it says something
about what kind of answer.)
2 She had to correct her mistake. (Correct is a verb – it occurs after to and is fol-
lowed by a determiner.)
d. 1 I will always love you. (Will is an auxiliary – it occurs just after the subject and
means roughly “want to”.)
2 Were you there for the reading of his will? (Will is a noun – it occurs just after a
determiner and is not followed by a main verb.)

INTRODUCING ENGLISH GRAMMAR, THIRD EDITION

KEY TO EXERCISES 2  Words and Phrases
 e. 1 It was getting dark. (Dark is an adjective – it describes a colour.)
2 He was afraid of the dark. (Dark is a noun – it occurs just after the definite article
the and is not followed by (another) noun.)

3 Words that occur twice have not been repeated.

a. The lexical verbs in the text: begin, get, sit, have, do, peep, read, have, be, think
b. The nouns in the text: Alice, sister, bank, book, pictures, conversations, use
c. The prepositional phrases in the text: of sitting, by her sister, on the bank, of having
nothing to do, into the book her sister was reading, in it, without pictures or conver-
sation

4 The answers are based on the Corpus of Contemporary American English as of spring
2018.

a. There are slightly more occurrences of been as an auxiliary among the first 20 hits.
b. In and out.
c. The most common phrases are at the end of, at the university of, at the top of, at the
time of, at the beginning of. End, university, top, time and beginning are all nouns.
d. At the end of the day/year/first/month/season. It is a prepositional phrase. Day is most
common.
e. Many examples of the end of the day have a meaning equivalent to når alt kommer
til alt, which is obviously not a literal meaning.

INTRODUCING ENGLISH GRAMMAR, THIRD EDITION

KEY TO EXERCISES 2  Words and Phrases
3 
NOUNS

1 Choose the correct alternative in the following sentences. In case both alternatives
are acceptable, explain any difference in meaning.

a. My teacher gave me a lot of good advice/advices for my exam.

b. The house is at the outskirt/outskirts of the village.
c. For the South Pole Expedition they will have to bring heavy equipment/equipments.
d. I was worried about my physic/physics test.
e. She couldn’t sleep, so she tried to count sheep/sheeps.
f. We really like chicken/chickens.
Both alternatives are acceptable, but the first alternative refers to eating chicken
(uncountable) and the second to the animals (countable).
g. I have two bottles openers / bottle openers; would you like one of them?

2 Correct what is wrong (or awkward) in the following sentences and explain your cor-
rections.

a. Sarah is always getting into troubles trouble with her parents.

The noun “trouble” is uncountable in this context, where it has a rather general mean-
ing. “Trouble” can also be countable (when it means “problem”), as for example “she
felt all her troubles were over”.
b. Paul had forgotten to set his alarmclock alarm clock and overslept.
This compound noun is written in two words.

INTRODUCING ENGLISH GRAMMAR, THIRD EDITION

KEY TO EXERCISES 3 Nouns
 c. I would like a binocular binoculars for Christmas.
This is a plural-only noun.
d. My new jeans fits fit perfectly.
Jeans is a plural-only noun (like trousers).
e. There were two white mouses mice running around in a cage.
This is an example of an irregular plural: mouse-mice.
f. We made a U-turn at the crossroad crossroads.
The noun crossroads has the same form in singular and plural.
g. Three polices police officers were hurt in the attack.
Police is a plural-only noun and does not combine with plural -s. In combination with
numbers, it is more common to say, e.g., police officers, policemen or police women.

3 Explain the difference in form and meaning between the members of each pair.

a. 1 They bought a lot of paper.

2 They bought a lot of papers.
The difference in form between the members of this sentence pair is the singular and
plural forms of the noun paper. In sentence (a1) the noun is uncountable and refers
to the substance of paper in general. In sentence (a2) the noun is countable, and the
meaning is most likely that they bought a number of newspapers.

b. 1 The Government has discussed the matter.

2 The Government have discussed the matter.
The difference in form lies in the verb phrases. The auxiliary have has singular form in
sentence (b1) and plural form in sentence (b2). The noun government is a collective
noun, which means that it refers to a group of people. Still, the singular form of the
verb is used in (b1) because the focus is on the group of people as a unit, whereas the
plural form is used in (b2) because the focus is on the individual members of the group.

c. 1 The front page showed a picture of the Queen of Denmark.

2 The front page showed a picture of the Queen in Denmark.
On the surface, the difference between sentences (c1) and (c2) is the use of the
preposition of in the first sentence and the preposition in in the second. In (c1) the
prepositional phrase of Denmark functions as postmodifier in the noun phrase (the
Queen of Denmark) as a kind of genitive construction (the Queen that belongs to
Denmark). In (c2) the prepositional phrase in Denmark is similarly a postmodifier
of the Queen, but here it has no genitive meaning and simply means “who is/was in

INTRODUCING ENGLISH GRAMMAR, THIRD EDITION

KEY TO EXERCISES 3 Nouns
 Denmark”. Sentence (c1) refers to a picture taken of the Danish Queen anywhere in
the world, whereas sentence (c2) refers to a picture of the Queen of any monarchy
in the world taken in Denmark.

d. 1 The media are incapable of not exaggerating.

2 The medium is incapable of not exaggerating.
The difference in form between sentences (d1) and (d2) is the nouns media and
medium and the singular/plural form of the lexical verb be. In (d1) media refers to
communications, in which case the noun has the same form in the singular and plural.
Here the plural form is used. In (d2) the singular form medium is used, which can
refer a person who claims to be speaking to people who are dead. The plural form
of this noun is mediums.

4 Read the following text and answer the questions below:

I wish I could head back to UK

By Sarah Passey, Orange, Australia

I can fully understand why Brits are leaving Australia and wish I could be one of them. My
family emigrated in 2005 with three young children. Although my husband’s job in the
Australian healthcare service allows him a much better quality of life than the NHS, for
the rest of us life has been very hard. The children struggled to fit into the school system
here, the cost of living is more than it used to be and life away from the major cities is so
soulless. You would be amazed how much you can end up missing UK things like regional
accents, a sense of history and belonging. On a recent trip back, my eight-year-old rolled
about laughing in the lush greenness of a local lawn and announced that she loved English
grass. (bbc.co.uk)

a. Identify two proper nouns in this text.

Alternatives: Australia, the NHS, UK
b. What is the plural form of eight-year-old?
eight-year-olds
c. Are the following nouns countable or uncountable (as used in the present text)?
family (line 2) countable, children (line 2) countable, job (line 3) countable, life (line
4) uncountable, history (line 7) uncountable, belonging (line 7) uncountable, lawn
(line 8) countable, grass (line 9) uncountable.

INTRODUCING ENGLISH GRAMMAR, THIRD EDITION

KEY TO EXERCISES 3 Nouns
 d. Find three compound nouns of the following three types: (i) spelt as one word:
healthcare; (ii) spelt with hyphenation between the words: eight-year-old; (iii) spelt
as two words: school system, healthcare system.
e. Find the following types of noun phrases in the text: (i) head with premodifier realized
by an adjective: young children, English grass; (ii) head with premodifier realized by a
noun: healthcare service, school system; (iii) head with a postmodifier realized by a
prepositional phrase: quality of life, sense of history, cost of living; (iv) head with both
a premodifier and a postmodifier: a much better quality of life, my husband’s job in
the Australian healthcare service, UK things like regional accents, a recent trip back,
the lush greenness of a local lawn.

5 Findings from the British National Corpus at http://corpus.byu.edu/.

a. The 20 most frequent nouns in the corpus:

TIME, PEOPLE, WAY, YEARS, YEAR, WORK, GOVERNMENT, DAY, MAN, WORLD,
LIFE, MR, NUMBER, PART, HOUSE, CHILDREN, SYSTEM, PLACE, CASE, END

b. Use the “Top 20” list from question (5a) and give the following information on each
noun: is it proper or common? Countable or uncountable? Singular or plural? Collec-
tive?

TIME: common, uncountable, singular

PEOPLE: common, plural-only (can also be countable, singular when it refers to a
particular group of people)
WAY: common, countable, singular
YEARS: common, countable, plural
YEAR: common, countable, singular
WORK: common, uncountable
GOVERNMENT: common, countable, singular, collective
DAY: common, countable, singular
MAN: common, countable, singular OR common, uncountable when it refers to
“modern man” or the like
WORLD: proper, uncountable OR common, countable when it refers to different
worlds couples live in or the Arab world as compared to the Western world
LIFE: common, uncountable OR common, countable, singular when it refers to the
lives we live or the like

INTRODUCING ENGLISH GRAMMAR, THIRD EDITION

KEY TO EXERCISES 3 Nouns
 MR: common, countable, singular (although plural form is generally out of the question
when Mr is used as a title)
NUMBER: common, countable, singular
PART: common, countable, singular
HOUSE: common, countable, singular
CHILDREN: common, countable, plural
SYSTEM: common, countable, singular
PLACE: common, countable, singular
CASE: common, countable, singular
END: common, uncountable (the opposite of the beginning) OR common, countable,
singular

c. Above the list of frequent nouns (on the corpus website) click on “COCA” after
“COMPARE”. This will give you a similar list of the most frequent nouns in the Ameri-
can corpus. Which words occur among the top 20 in COCA that do not occur in the
BNC top 20 list? Do any of them reflect American culture?

SCHOOL, PRESIDENT, THINGS, STATE, WOMEN, PERCENT, STUDENTS, FAMILY

Frequent references to the president of the US and states reflect the political system
of the country. Frequent references to words such as school and students indicate
that education is a very important value in American culture. In the same manner
family may reflect the importance of family values. Note, however, that some of the
differences may be due to other things as well, for example the kinds of texts that
have gone into the two corpora or spelling conventions: percent is more frequent
in the American corpus because it is most commonly spelt as two words (per cent)
in British English. Similarly, students may be more frequent than in British English
because it has a wider meaning in American English (American students = British
pupils and students).

INTRODUCING ENGLISH GRAMMAR, THIRD EDITION

KEY TO EXERCISES 3 Nouns
4 
DETERMINERS
AND PRONOUNS

1 Fill in the blanks with the indefinite article, the definite article, or Ø (zero article).
Discuss any difference in meaning in case you find that two solutions are equally
acceptable. Note that the choice of article should make sense in the context.

When Ø temperatures dropped to one degree Fahrenheit and my pipes froze this week, I
was reminded of how lucky we are, under Ø most circumstances, to be able to turn a valve
(In this case the definite article could be used. The meaning would then be less general
and more specific. It could for instance refer to the main water valve.) and watch copious
amounts of Ø clean water flow into our sinks, showers, toilets, and washing machines.
In the U.S., we use an average of 100 gallons each day for Ø washing, cooking, cleaning,
drinking, and lawn watering. This doesn’t account for the water that’s required to grow
our food, manufacture our computers, or refine the fuels we rely on to drive our cars
and keep our homes, and water, warm. In other parts of the world, nearly 900 million
people do not have Ø access to the daily minimum water requirement of 5–13 clean and
safe gallons, according to the United Nations. (From National Geographic)

2 Choose the correct alternative in the sentences below. If both alternatives are accept-
able, explain any difference in meaning.

a. Of course, there will be some/any talk.

b. Almost nothing gets built these days without some/any federal support.

INTRODUCING ENGLISH GRAMMAR, THIRD EDITION

KEY TO EXERCISES 4  Determiners and Pronouns
 The use of “some” indicates some support in addition to other sources, whereas
“any” means any support at all.
c. There are no vegetables somewhere/anywhere.
d. Hardly somebody/anybody wants to read only the classics.
e. Will there be somebody/anybody there with us?
The use of somebody might indicate that the speaker expects there to be somebody.
The use of anybody makes it a very neutral question.
f. Peter got him/himself a new laptop.
The first alternative means that somebody else is the receiver of the laptop, while the
second means that Peter is the receiver.
g. I have never met these/those people.
The use of “those” creates much more distance and sounds negative.
h. He kept his hands in his/(the) pockets.
The first alternative is more natural, as the possessive determiner is generally used
with reference to body parts and clothes. However, the definite article is possible,
not least to create an impersonal effect, or in the unlikely event that the pockets are
not on the clothes he is wearing.
i. They do not love each other / themselves.
The first alternative, with a reciprocal pronoun, means that individuals do not love
each other (mutually) – we may imagine each of them saying “I don’t love you”. The
other alternative, with a reflexive pronoun, would mean that some individuals do not
love themselves – we may imagine each of them saying “I don’t love myself”.
j. We are looking for some childrens’/children’s books. (The apostrophe is placed before
the s, which marks only the genitive, not the plural, in this word.)

3 Explain the difference in form and meaning between the members of each pair.

a. 1 We went to church.
2 We went to the church.
In sentence (a1) the zero article (no article) is used, whereas in sentence (a2) the
definite article is used as a determiner in the noun phrase that functions as adverbial.
In sentence (a1) the focus is on the church as an institution. They went to take part
in church activities. The definite article in (a2) is used to focus on the building. They
went to the church building.

INTRODUCING ENGLISH GRAMMAR, THIRD EDITION

KEY TO EXERCISES 4  Determiners and Pronouns
 b. 1 This house is almost 500 years old.
2 That house is almost 500 years old.
The difference in this sentence pair lies in the elements that function as determiners
in the noun phrases that function as subjects, namely the demonstrative determiners
“this” and “that”. As opposed to “this”, the use of “that” creates distance and could
for instance refer to a house somebody is pointing to from a distance.

c. 1 Did the police ask them any questions?

2 Did the police ask them some questions?
The difference between these sentences is that “any” is used as a quantifying deter-
miner in sentence (c1) and some is used as a quantifying determiner in sentence (c2).
The question in sentence (c1) is a neutral question because any is the neutral choice
in an interrogative sentence. The use of some in sentence (c2) indicates that the
speaker is more inclined to expect a positive answer.

d. 1 We are all members of society.

2 We are all members of the society.
In sentence (d1) the zero article is used in the postmodifier in the noun phrase that
functions as subject predicative. “Society” is here an uncountable and abstract noun
that refers to society in general. In sentence (d2) the definite article is used as a
determiner, which makes “society” countable. It then refers to a specific society, for
instance the society for Estonian plastic surgeons.

e. 1 Sarah broke her leg.

2 Sarah broke the leg.
In sentence (e1) the possessive determiner “her” functions as determiner in the noun
phrase that functions as direct object in the clause. In sentence (e2) the definite article
fills the same slot. The use of the possessive determiner is the neutral and natural
choice to indicate that it was her own leg she broke. The use of the definite article can
also refer to her leg, but the use of the definite article creates distance and becomes
more clinical. The use of the article can also be used to indicate that it was the leg of
the coffee table she broke, or another person’s leg.

f. 1 Paul’s brother is younger than John.

2 Paul’s brother is younger than John’s.
The difference between these sentences is that the s-genitive is used twice in sen-
tence (f2) and only once in sentence (f1). In sentence (f2) the possessive determiner

INTRODUCING ENGLISH GRAMMAR, THIRD EDITION

KEY TO EXERCISES 4  Determiners and Pronouns
 “John’s” is used even if the head noun (“brother”) is omitted. The use of the second
s-genitive in sentence (f2) changes the meaning of the sentence. The first sentence is
a comparison of Paul’s brother and John, while the second sentence is a comparison
between Paul’s brother and John’s brother.

4 Read the following text and answer the questions below:

There was a table set out under a tree in front of the house, and the March Hare and the
Hatter were having tea at it: a Dormouse was sitting between them, fast asleep, and the
other two were using it as a cushion, resting their elbows on it, and talking over its head.
‘Very uncomfortable for the Dormouse,’ thought Alice; ‘only, as it’s asleep, I suppose it
doesn’t mind.’
The table was a large one, but the three were all crowded together at one corner of
it: ‘No room! No room!’ they cried out when they saw Alice coming. ‘There’s plenty of
room!’ said Alice indignantly, and she sat down in a large arm-chair at one end of the table.
‘Have some wine,’ the March Hare said in an encouraging tone.
Alice looked all round the table, but there was nothing on it but tea. ‘I don’t see any
wine,’ she remarked.
‘There isn’t any,’ said the March Hare.
‘Then it wasn’t very civil of you to offer it,’ said Alice angrily.
‘It wasn’t very civil of you to sit down without being invited,’ said the March Hare.

(From Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll)

a. Identify all the determiners in the text and group them according to their category
(see Table 4.1).

There was a (article) table set out under a (article) tree in front of the (article) house,
and the (article) March Hare and the (article) Hatter were having tea at it: a (article)
Dormouse was sitting between them, fast asleep, and the (article) other two* were using
it as a (article) cushion, resting their (possessive determiner) elbows on it, and talking
over its (possessive determiner) head. ‘Very uncomfortable for the (article) Dormouse,’
thought Alice; ‘only, as it’s asleep, I suppose it doesn’t mind.’
The table was a (article) large one, but the (article) three* were all crowded together
at one (quantifying determiner) corner of it: ‘No (quantifying determiner) room! No
(quantifying determiner) room!’ they cried out when they saw Alice coming. ‘There’s

INTRODUCING ENGLISH GRAMMAR, THIRD EDITION

KEY TO EXERCISES 4  Determiners and Pronouns
 plenty of room!’ said Alice indignantly, and she sat down in a (article) large arm-chair at
one (quantifying determiner) end of the (article) table.
‘Have some (quantifying determiner) wine,’ the March Hare said in an (article) encour-
aging tone.
Alice looked all* round the (article) table, but there was nothing on it but tea. ‘I don’t
see any (quantifying determiner) wine,’ she remarked.
‘There isn’t any,’ said the (article) March Hare.
‘Then it wasn’t very civil of you to offer it,’ said Alice angrily.
‘It wasn’t very civil of you to sit down without being invited,’ said the (article) March
Hare.

Notes on the words marked with asterisk (*):

P Two and three: these are numerals, and could function as quantifying determiners.
But here they function as head of the noun phrase, that is, there is no following noun.
P All: since round is not a noun, all is not a determiner. (Instead we might analyse all as
an intensifying adverb in this case.)

b. Identify all the pronouns in the text and group them according to their category (see
Table 4.2).

There was a table set out under a tree in front of the house, and the March Hare and the
Hatter were having tea at it (personal): a Dormouse was sitting between them (personal),
fast asleep, and the other two (indefinite) were using it (personal) as a cushion, resting
their elbows on it (personal), and talking over its head. ‘Very uncomfortable for the Dor-
mouse,’ thought Alice; ‘only, as it (personal)’s asleep, I suppose it (personal) doesn’t mind.’
The table was a large one (indefinite), but the three (indefinite) were all (indefinite)
crowded together at one corner of it (personal): ‘No room! No room!’ they (personal)
cried out when they (personal) saw Alice coming. ‘There’s plenty of room!’ said Alice
indignantly, and she (personal) sat down in a large arm-chair at one end of the table.
‘Have some wine,’ the March Hare said in an encouraging tone.
Alice looked all round the table, but there was nothing (indefinite) on it (personal)
but tea. ‘I don’t see any wine,’ she (personal) remarked.
‘There isn’t any (indefinite),’ said the March Hare.
‘Then it (personal) wasn’t very civil of you (personal) to offer it (personal),’ said Alice
angrily.
‘It (personal) wasn’t very civil of you (personal) to sit down without being invited,’
said the March Hare.

INTRODUCING ENGLISH GRAMMAR, THIRD EDITION

KEY TO EXERCISES 4  Determiners and Pronouns
 c. Why is the pronoun it used to refer to the Dormouse, rather than he?
The effect is that the Dormouse is made less human.
d. Explain the choice of pronoun/determiner every time some or any occurs in the text.
The determiner “some” is used in the sentence “have some wine” because it is an
offer, and the speaker indicates that there is wine to be had. The indefinite pronoun
“any” is used on the clause “There isn’t any, …” because “any” is the neutral choice
in negative sentences.
e. Translate the clause and talking over its head (line 3) into Norwegian and comment
on the grammatical changes you need to make.
It can be translated into “og snakket over hodet på den” or “mens de snakket over
hodet på den”. In English a possessive determiner is used in the noun phrase “its
head”, whereas in Norwegian the same type of possession is expressed through a
prepositional phrase with an indefinite pronoun as complement: “på den”.

5 Findings from the Corpus of Contemporary American English at http://corpus.byu.

edu/:

a. In COCA “to the hospital” is far more frequent. In the BNC “to hospital” is more
frequent.
b. Double negation occurs in the COCA corpus, but it is very infrequent in academic
texts. It is more frequent in newspapers and magazines and most frequent in fiction
and in spoken language.
c. Most examples of “you got any” occur in interrogative sentences (Have you got any …).
Often have is omitted, so we get what looks like declarative sentences that function
as questions, for example You got any tips? Indirect questions also occur, e.g. So I
wondered if you got any viewpoints on that this morning.
d. Search for “you got some”. Is it more or less frequent than “you got any”? Does it
occur in interrogative or declarative sentences, or both? Positive or negative? If “you
got some” occurs in a question (in the top 15–20 hits), why do you think the speaker/
writer chose some instead of any?
You got some is slightly less frequent than you got any (292 vs 340 hits, June 2018).
It occurs mostly in positive declarative sentences, but interrogative sentences occur.
“Some” is then selected because a positive answer is anticipated or expected. You
got some is also found in that-clauses, for example I read that that you got some
culinary training.

INTRODUCING ENGLISH GRAMMAR, THIRD EDITION

KEY TO EXERCISES 4  Determiners and Pronouns
 e. Search for “the leg”. Note how many times it occurs. Look at the first ten examples
that appear when you click on “the leg”. What is the effect of using the definite article
instead of a possessive determiner?
It occurs 2122 times (as per June 2018 – the number may increase as the corpus is
added to). The use of the definite article creates some distance between the person
and the leg, which makes it more neutral and impersonal, as in a compound fracture
of the leg… The definite article is the normal choice if there is also a reflexive pronoun
in the sentence, as in shooting themselves in the leg.
f. Possessive determiner + leg occurs 6036 times, which is nearly three times as often
as the leg. The findings confirm the observations in section 4.5.

INTRODUCING ENGLISH GRAMMAR, THIRD EDITION

KEY TO EXERCISES 4  Determiners and Pronouns
5 
ADJECTIVES
AND ADVERBS

1 Choose the correct alternative in the sentences below. If you find both alternatives
acceptable, explain any difference in meaning.

a. All the venues are easy/easily accessible.

b. There’s a possible/possibly financial problem.
c. We admired the wonderful/wonderfully panorama.
d. Our neighbours are (simple)/simply people who live near us.
Although less likely in this case, the adjective “simple” could be used as a premodifier
to describe the noun (that is, the neighbours are not sophisticated people). Since
the sentence seems to be a more general description of neighbours, however, the
adverb “simply” is the more likely choice. The adverb serves as a comment on the
part of the speaker.
e. They seemed happy/happily about George’s victory.
f. Similar/Similarly teams of medical advisers were called upon.
g. Something in here smells horrible/horribly.
Normally an adjective will follow a linking verb to describe a quality of the subject ref-
erent. However, the adverb “horribly” can be used to refer to the intensity of the smell.
h. This cream will give you a beautiful/beautifully smooth complexion.
i. Particular/Particularly groups such as recent immigrants felt their needs were being
overlooked.

INTRODUCING ENGLISH GRAMMAR, THIRD EDITION

KEY TO EXERCISES 5  Adjectives and Adverbs
 The adjective “particular” premodifies or describes the noun “groups”, whereas the
use of the adverb “particularly” functions as a comment on the part of the speaker.

2 Explain the difference in form and meaning between the members of each pair.

a. 1 She is a natural blonde.

2 She is naturally a blonde.
The difference between these sentences is that the adjective “natural” is used in sen-
tence (a1) and the adverb “naturally” in sentence (a2). The adjective in sentence (a1)
functions as premodifier in the noun phrase. The adjective classifies or describes what
kind of blonde she is, namely one who does not need to dye her hair to be blonde.
In sentence (a2) the adverb “naturally” means that it is obvious to the speaker that
she is a blonde.

b. 1 I prefer blue.
2 I prefer the blue one.
In sentence (b1), “blue” is used as a nominalized adjective and refers to the colour in
general, and it behaves as an uncountable noun. In sentence (b2) the adjective “blue”
is used to identify a concrete object and functions as a premodifier in the noun phrase
“the blue one”, premodifying the pronoun “one”. The meaning of (b1) is roughly “My
favourite colour is blue”, while (b2) means “I choose the blue thing over those that
have other colours”.

c. 1 The English can be fairly strange and peculiar.

2 The Englishman can be fairly strange and peculiar.
The difference lies in the noun phrases that function as subjects. In sentence (c1) the
nominalized adjective “English” functions as head. In sentence (c2) the countable noun
“Englishman” functions as head. The difference in meaning is that the nominalized
adjective refers to a group of people (English people in general), whereas the countable
noun “Englishman” in the singular refers to one specific person.

d. 1 They all work hard at it.

2 They hardly work at all.
In this sentence pair there is a difference in word order in addition to lexical differences.
In sentence (d1) the pronoun “all” functions as part of the subject. The prepositional
phrase “at it” describes what they work with. In sentence (d2) the adverb “hardly”
denotes how much (or how little) they work. The prepositional phrase “at all” is

INTRODUCING ENGLISH GRAMMAR, THIRD EDITION

KEY TO EXERCISES 5  Adjectives and Adverbs
 used to draw attention to another element in the clause, namely “hardly”. Sentence
(d1) means that everybody works intensively with some project. The pronoun “all”
is used to emphasize that everybody is involved. Sentence (d2) means that they do
very little work indeed.

e. 1 The Americans will see this as a hopeful and optimistic sign.

2 The Americans will hopefully see this as an optimistic sign.
In sentence (e1) we find the adjective “hopeful”, whereas in sentence (e2) we find the
adverb “hopefully”. Sentence (e1) also includes the coordinating conjunction “and”.
In (e2) the indefinite article is “an” rather than “a” because the following word begins
with a vowel sound. In (e1) the adjective “hopeful” (along with “optimistic”) premod-
ifies the noun “sign”. In (e2) the adverb “hopefully” is used as an evaluation of the
situation on the part of the speaker. Sentence (e1) states that the Americans will see
this as a positive sign. In sentence (e2) we get the speaker’s comment (“hopefully”)
on his or her wish that the Americans will see this as a positive sign.

3 Read the following text and answer the questions below:

For Christmas shoppers watching their pennies closely, the offer of a half-price frozen
turkey sounds too good to miss. Unfortunately, Tesco’s heavily promoted deal is not all
that it seems. Rival supermarkets are selling their own frozen turkeys for around the same
price – without the supposed 50 per cent discount. A Tesco half-price, extra-large frozen
turkey is reduced to £25 from £50, while the equivalent bird sold by Asda is available at
the full price of £24.
In theory, stores are supposed to advertise a product at the higher price for at least
28 days before using it as a benchmark for any price cut promotions. Tesco insists that
it complied with this rule because they sold the turkeys at their full original price during
the summer months of August and September – when very few shoppers would want a
frozen turkey. The Tesco offer reinforces the view that supermarkets try to pull the wool
over customers’ eyes with bogus deals. Some 42 per cent of shoppers do not believe that
all offers are genuine, according to an Ipsos MORI survey.

(From the Daily Mail, slightly adapted)

a. The adjectives in the text that function as premodifiers of nouns have been marked
in blue.

INTRODUCING ENGLISH GRAMMAR, THIRD EDITION

KEY TO EXERCISES 5  Adjectives and Adverbs
 For Christmas shoppers watching their pennies closely, the offer of a half-price frozen
turkey sounds too good to miss. Unfortunately, Tesco’s heavily promoted deal is not all
that it seems. Rival supermarkets are selling their own frozen turkeys for around the
same price – without the supposed 50 per cent discount. A Tesco half-price, extra-
large frozen turkey is reduced to £25 from £50, while the equivalent bird sold by Asda
is available at the full price of £24.
In theory, stores are supposed to advertise a product at the higher price for at least
28 days before using it as a benchmark for any price cut promotions. Tesco insists that it
complied with this rule because they sold the turkeys at their full original price during
the summer months of August and September – when very few shoppers would want a
frozen turkey. The Tesco offer reinforces the view that supermarkets try to pull the wool
over customers’ eyes with bogus deals. Some 42 per cent of shoppers do not believe that
all offers are genuine, according to an Ipsos MORI survey.

b. Find an adjective in the text that is not followed by a noun, but describes the subject.
In the last line of the text the adjective “genuine” describes the subject “offers”. In
line 6 “available” functions as head of the adjective phrase (“available at the full price
of £24”) that describes the subject (“the equivalent bird sold by Asda”).
c. Analyse the structure of the adjective phrase too good to miss (line 2).
It is a split modifier with “good” as head, “too” as first part and “to miss” as second part.
d. Why is the form heavily preferable to heavy in the second sentence?
The adjective “heavy” would describe or premodify “deal”. In this case the purpose
is to modify the adjective “promoted”. The adverb “heavily” says something about
how the deal is promoted.

4 Use the Corpus of Contemporary American English at http://corpus.byu.edu/ to find

answers to the following questions. (See instructions for how to use the corpus at the
end of Chapter 1.)

a. Search for the rich and go through the first 20 hits on the list. Decide in each case
whether rich is a nominalized adjective or a premodifier.
In a search (June 2018), the rich occurred as a nominalized adjective (functioning as
head of a noun phrase) in 17 of the first 20 cases, but this may vary. An example is
… while cutting taxes for the rich. The adjective is a premodifier of another noun in
the remaining 3 cases, e.g. The rich wood frame was scarred…

INTRODUCING ENGLISH GRAMMAR, THIRD EDITION

KEY TO EXERCISES 5  Adjectives and Adverbs
 b. The more common comparative form in each of the following pairs has been set in
blue and bold: Crazier – more crazy; cleverer – more clever; slower – more slow;
slowlier – more slowly; earlier – more early.

c. Search for the word likely and study the first fifteen occurrences of it. Does it function
as an adjective or an adverb? How can you tell in each case?
In the sample studied here, seven cases were adjectives in the constructions “be likely
to do something” or “it is likely that”, e.g. agencies are most likely to modify rules; it is
far more likely culpable behavior will be uncovered. Thus, as an adjective, likely func-
tions as a subject predicative in these sentences; it gives a description of the subject.
(In addition it can be a premodifier as a noun, but this function was not found in our
sample.) Likely is an adverb (and an adverbial) in the remaining nine cases, where it
is placed between an auxiliary and a main verb, as in it would likely be unacceptable,
between the main verb and a following obligatory clause element, as in there are likely
far stronger proxies, or before an adjective that it modifies, as in Posner’s theory would
only apply to the, likely rare, individual. As an adverb, likely either modifies an adjective
(or another adverb) or gives the speaker’s evaluation of the content of a sentence, in
which case it can often be paraphrased as “I think”.

d. Here are the three most frequent adverbs modifying the adjectives nice, smart, beau-
tiful, unkind, stupid and ugly in the COCA corpus (as of June 2018).

very/really/so nice
very/so/too smart
most/so/very beautiful
so/very/too unkind
so/how/too stupid
very/so/as ugly

e. Here are the three most frequent adjectives premodifying the nouns man, woman,
boy, girl, child in the COCA corpus.

young/old/unidentified man
unidentified/young/old woman
little/young/good boy
little/young/good girl
only/young/small child

INTRODUCING ENGLISH GRAMMAR, THIRD EDITION

KEY TO EXERCISES 5  Adjectives and Adverbs
6 
CLAUSES AND
SENTENCES

1 Main clauses are marked with an M and dependent clauses with a D.

a. everyone went together – M

b. I didn’t know – M
c. if you are rich – D
d. in order to celebrate – D
e. you can do what you like – M
f. that more people can move into the area – D
g. they sell fruit and vegetables – M
h. which they have grown themselves – D

The most obvious combinations are a+d, b+f, c+e, g+h, but others may be possible too.

2 Explain the difference in form and meaning between the members of each pair.

a. 1 She screamed and they ran away.

2 She screamed that they ran away.
Sentence (a1) is a compound sentence: she screamed and they ran away are both
main clauses. Sentence (a2) is a complex sentence: that they ran away is a dependent
clause. It describes what she screamed, while the second main clause in (a1) describes
an action that happened in addition to (possibly as a result of) her screaming.

INTRODUCING ENGLISH GRAMMAR, THIRD EDITION

KEY TO EXERCISES 6  Clauses and Sentences
 b. 1 Because he is smart, Peter reads a lot.
2 Peter is smart because he reads a lot.
Both sentences are complex sentences. Sentence (b1) starts with a dependent clause
and (b2) starts with the main clause. There is a possible meaning difference: in sen-
tence (b1) Peter’s reading is a consequence of his smartness. In (b2) it may be the
other way round; the reading makes him smart.

c. 1 Mary did the laundry and went out.

2 Mary did the laundry and Sarah went out.
Both sentences are compound sentences. In the second part of (c1) there is no subject.
This means that Mary is the subject for this second clause as well as the first. She did
the laundry before she went out. The second main clause in (c2) has Sarah as subject.
Thus two different people were involved in two different activities.

d. 1 It was sunny when he wore his new suit.

2 It was sunny, but he wore his new suit.
Sentence (d1) is complex and contains the dependent clause when he wore his new
suit. Sentence (d2) is compound. The second main clause is introduced by the co-or-
dinating conjunction but . The meaning of (d1) is that the sun was shining at the time
when he wore his new suit. Sentence (d2) means that he wore his new suit in spite of
the sun – maybe the suit would normally be considered too warm in sunny weather.

3 Read the following text and answer the questions below:

(i) The Mondana “school bus” picks up dozens of children every morning along the
banks of the River Napo. (ii) The Napo flows from Ecuador into the Amazon. (iii) It’s
one of the Amazon’s greatest tributaries, and in Mondana it’s also the local highway. (iv)
There are very few roads deep in the rainforest. (v) Without the school canoe, most of
these children would miss out on an education altogether because the journey to school
would be too difficult. (vi) But last year a road was built across the river from the school,
through the village. (vii) Lizbeth, age 17, lives next to the new road with her mother Rosa.
(viii) Now Lizbeth and her family can catch the bus to the local market town, which
has changed their lives.

a. Subjects are marked with green and verbals with red in sentences (i), (ii), (vii) and
(viii).
b. Only sentence (iii) is a compound sentence.
c. Dependent clauses in the text have been underlined.

INTRODUCING ENGLISH GRAMMAR, THIRD EDITION

KEY TO EXERCISES 6  Clauses and Sentences
4 Answers based on the British National Corpus at http://corpus.byu.edu/.

a. Because seems to occur most often later in the sentence, but is not uncommon in
the beginning of sentences either.
b. Especially some of the sentences that start with because are incomplete sentences,
such as Because I like it. This is a dependent clause that occurs on its own, and is thus
an incomplete sentence.
c. Seventeen instances of the word sentence probably refer to its grammar/linguistics
sense (one or two are a bit unclear in their meaning). Three refer to prison sentences.
d. The great majority of occurrences of the phrase main clause are in texts about gram-
mar/linguistics. But there is at least one from a legal text, where clause means “part of
a legal document or law that officially states that something must be done” (definition
from Macmillan Dictionary).

INTRODUCING ENGLISH GRAMMAR, THIRD EDITION

KEY TO EXERCISES 6  Clauses and Sentences
7 
CLAUSE ELEMENTS

1 Identify the syntactic function of the underlined element in each of the following
sentences.

a. Alice was getting very tired.

subject predicative
b. She was sitting beside her sister on the bank.
verbal
c. Her sister was reading a book.
direct object
d. Once or twice she had peeped into the book.
adverbial (circumstantial)
e. The book had no pictures or conversation.
direct object
f. The hot day made her very sleepy.
object predicative
g. Suddenly a White Rabbit with pink eyes ran close by her.
subject
h. At the time it all seemed quite natural.
subject predicative
i. If you drink much from a bottle marked ‘poison’, it is almost certain to disagree with
you, sooner or later.
adverbial (circumstantial)

INTRODUCING ENGLISH GRAMMAR, THIRD EDITION

KEY TO EXERCISES 7  Clause Elements
 j. However, this bottle was not marked ‘poison’.
adverbial (linking)
k. She generally gave herself very good advice.
indirect object

2 Explain the difference in form and meaning between the members of each pair.

a. 1 The cat was teasing the magpie.

2 The magpie was teasing the cat.
There is a difference of word order in the two sentences. In sentence (a1) the noun
“cat” is the head of the noun phrase that functions as subject, whereas the noun
“magpie” is the head of the noun phrase that functions as direct object. In sentence
(a2) it is the noun “magpie” that functions as the head noun in the subject, whereas
“cat” is the head noun in the direct object. Sentence (a1) means that the magpie was
the target of the teasing, while the opposite was the case in sentence (a2).

b. 1 Tom bought her a canoe.

2 Tom bought her canoe.
The most obvious difference in form between these sentences is that we find the
indefinite article “a” in sentence (b1), whereas in sentence (b2) we do not. This leads
to a difference in clause pattern. In sentence (b1) the clause pattern is S (Tom), V
(bought), iO (her) and dO (a canoe). In sentence (b2) the clause pattern is S (Tom),
V (bought) and dO (her canoe). “Her” is a personal pronoun in (b1) and a possessive
determiner in (b2). Sentence (b1) means that Tom gave her the canoe that he had
purchased. Sentence (b2) means that he bought a canoe that belonged to her.

c. 1 The problem has an obvious solution.

2 The problem obviously has a solution.
In these two sentences there is a difference in clause pattern. In sentence (c1) the
clause pattern is S-V-dO, whereas the clause pattern in sentence (c2) is S-A-V-dO.
There is also a lexical difference between the adjective “obvious” and the adverb
“obviously”. The adjective is part of the noun phrase that functions as direct object
in sentence (c1), while the adverb in sentence (c2) functions as a stance adverbial.
This makes the elements that function as direct objects different. In sentence (c1) the
direct object is realized by a noun phrase that consists of the determiner “an” (“-n”
because of the initial vowel sound in the next word), the premodifier “obvious” and
the head “solution”. In sentence (c2) the direct object is realized by a noun phrase

INTRODUCING ENGLISH GRAMMAR, THIRD EDITION

KEY TO EXERCISES 7  Clause Elements
 that consists of the determiner “a” and the head “solution”. Sentence (c1) indicates
that there is a self-evident way this problem can be solved. Sentence (c2) basically
means the same thing, but the difference is that it clearly involves the judgment or
opinion of the speaker/writer (stance adverbial).

d. 1 The bridge was closed by then.

2 The bridge was closed by the police.
The difference between these sentences lies in the prepositional phrases that function
as adverbials. There is no difference in clause pattern (S-V-A). In sentence (d1) the
adverbial is realized by a prepositional phrase in which the adverb “then” functions
as the complement of the preposition “by”. In sentence (d2) the noun phrase “the
police” is the complement of the preposition “by”. Sentence (d1) focuses on the fact
that bridge was closed by the time they came or checked (circumstantial time adver-
bial), while sentence (d2) focuses on the doers or agents of the action (circumstantial
participant adverbial).

e. 1 We are not best friends yet.

2 Yet, we are not best friends.
There is a word order difference between these sentences. There is also a comma
in sentence (e2), which we do not find in sentence (e1). In sentence (e1) the clause
pattern is S-V-sP-A (“not” may also be regarded as a separate adverbial), and the
adverb “yet” functions as a circumstantial time adverbial. In sentence (e2) the clause
pattern is A-S-V-sP (“not” can also be regarded as a separate adverbial), and the adverb
“yet” here functions as a linking adverbial. In sentence (e1) the use of the adverb “yet”
indicates that they may very well become best friends soon, whereas the use of the
adverb “yet” in sentence (e2) is used to contrast something stated before to the fact
that they are not best friends.

3 Determine whether the underlined adverbial in each sentence is a circumstantial

adverbial, a stance adverbial or a linking adverbial.

a. You know how to behave nicely.

circumstantial
b. Anyway, I enjoyed these relaxed performances.
stance
c. I’m better off most weeks.
circumstantial

INTRODUCING ENGLISH GRAMMAR, THIRD EDITION

KEY TO EXERCISES 7  Clause Elements
 d. If the plant is still green, then it is probably alive.
stance
e. If the plant is still green, then it is probably alive.
circumstantial
f. Comsat also sold meteorological information.
linking
g. We took him to the Castle Inn.
circumstantial
h. They sold information to a competing firm.
circumstantial
i. I’m not really worried about it to be honest.
stance
j. For that reason he volunteered to look after Ray Marsh.
circumstantial

4 Read the following text and answer the questions below:

Detectives investigating a drive-by style shotgun attack in Leeds have arrested a man on
suspicion of attempted murder. Two men were injured when a shotgun was fired from
one car at another in Maud Avenue, Beeston. Police said it was fired twice from a black
BMW after it pulled alongside a Toyota Yaris at around 11pm on Wednesday. The two
victims suffered minor injuries, including a pellet wound to the hand, in the shooting. A
24-year-old man was arrested as part of a planned firearms operation at an address in
Beeston at 3.30am today. West Yorkshire Police’s Firearms Prevent Team are continuing
to carry out extensive enquiries into the shooting.

a. What is the subject of the first sentence of the text?

Detectives investigating a drive-by style shotgun attack in Leeds
b. Find two adverbs in the text and state their syntactic function.
twice : circumstantial time adverbial.
today : circumstantial time adverbial.
c. Identify circumstantial adverbials of the following types in the text: time, place, reason.
in Leeds (place); on suspicion of attempted murder (reason); when a shotgun was
fired from one car at another in Maud Avenue, Beeston (time); from one car at
another (place); in Maud Avenue, Beeston (place); twice (time), from a black BMW
(place); after it pulled alongside a Toyota Yaris at around 11pm on Wednesday (time);
alongside a Toyota Yaris (place); at around 11pm on Wednesday (time); in the shooting

INTRODUCING ENGLISH GRAMMAR, THIRD EDITION

KEY TO EXERCISES 7  Clause Elements
 (place); as part of a planned firearms operation at an address in Beeston (reason);
at 3.30am today (time).
d. What is the syntactic function of the last phrase of the text (underlined)?
direct object

5 Notes based on searches in the Corpus of Contemporary American English at http://

corpus.byu.edu/ as per June 2018.

a. One example where considered is followed only by a direct object: …they considered
canceling the project… (canceling the project is dO)
b. One example where considered is followed by a direct object and an object predica-
tive: …because they considered him a lowly hairdresser (him = dO, a lowly hairdresser
=  oP)
c. The verb send can occur with either an indirect object or a prepositional phrase with
to functioning as an adverbial. Sent a message to is much more common than sent *
a message in the corpus.
d. The adverb negatively could have been used instead of in a negative manner in most
cases, with no difference in meaning. However, there are some cases in which nega-
tively would seem unidiomatic, e.g. to behave in a negative manner; They listen for a
heart beat and shake their heads in a negative manner. As regards certainly and in a
certain manner, the adverb tends to be interpreted as a stance adverbial, so in order
to emphasize the circumstantial meaning of manner, the phrase in a certain manner
may be a better option.
e. The phrase during the * occurs with both adjectives and nouns in the place of the
asterisk. The five most frequent nouns in the pattern during the * are day, war, sum-
mer, course, campaign. Some of these are also frequent after the adjectives following
during the (first, past, last, early).
f. Furthermore occurs 14459 times in the corpus. It is most frequent in academic English
(judged by frequency per million words), and least frequent in spoken English and
fiction. The adverb typically functions as a linking adverbial.

INTRODUCING ENGLISH GRAMMAR, THIRD EDITION

KEY TO EXERCISES 7  Clause Elements
8 
SYNTACTIC
ANALYSIS

1 Analyse the following sentences syntactically. The clause elements that contain more
than one word have been bracketed.

a. [Until he was four year old,] [James Henry Trotter] had [a happy life]. A- S-V-dO
b. He lived peacefully [with his mother and father]. S-V-A-A
c. There were [plenty of other children] there. aS-V-S-A
d. [Roald Dahl] was born [in 1916]. S-V-A
e. [His parents] were Norwegian. S-V-sP
f. [Roald Dahl’s many books] [are read] [by children all over the world]. S-V-A
g. [Quentin Blake] is [a well-known illustrator]. S-V-sP
h. He illustrated [a number of Roald Dahl’s books] [during the author’s lifetime]. S-V-
dO-A

2 Analyse the following sentences and explain the difference in form and meaning
between the members of each pair.

a. 1 The plane left early.

2 The early plane left.
The clause structure of sentence (a1) is subject-verbal-adverbial, whereas the clause
structure of sentence (a2) is subject-verbal. The adverb “early” functions as adverbial
in (a1). In (a2) “early” is an adjective that functions as a premodifier in the noun phrase

INTRODUCING ENGLISH GRAMMAR, THIRD EDITION

KEY TO EXERCISES 8  Syntactic Analysis
 that functions as subject. Sentence (a1) focuses on the time the plane left. Sentence
(a2) focuses on the fact that the plane departed.

b. 1 Sandra was a vegetarian.

2 Sandra married a vegetarian.
The difference lies in the elements that function as verbals, namely the verbs “was”
(linking verb) and “married”. The clause elements in (b1) are subject-verbal-subject
predicative. In (b2) the clause elements are subject-verbal-direct object. In other
words, the noun phrase “a vegetarian” functions as subject predicative in (b1) and
direct object in (b2). This means that “a vegetarian” is a description of Sandra in
sentence (b1) and a description of the person she married in sentence (b2).

c. 1 They found Mma Ramotswe a rather colourful woman.

2 They found Mma Ramotswe a rather colourful outfit.
In these sentences there is a lexical difference between the nouns “woman” and
“outfit”. The most likely interpretation of sentence (c1) is that their impression of
Mma Ramotswe was that she was a rather colourful woman, in which case the clause
structure is subject-verbal-direct object-object predicative. Sentence (c2) means
that they helped Mma Ramotswe finding something to wear. The sentence structure
of (c2) is subject-verbal-indirect object-direct object. Sentence (c1) could have the
same clause structure as (c2) if the meaning is that Mma Ramotswe was looking for
a worker, housemaid, girlfriend or the like, and they found one for her.

d. 1 I used to open the door with a key card.

2 I used a key card to open the door.
In sentence (d1) the verbal is “used to open”. This is followed by a direct object (“the
door”) and a circumstantial adverbial (“with a key card”). In (d2) the verbal in the main
clause is “used”. The infinitive clause “to open the door” functions as a circumstantial
adverbial (purpose). Sentence (d1) means that a key card was regularly used in the
past, while (d2) can be about a specific occasion.

e. 1 These people are now running the country.

2 These people are now running around the country.
On the surface the difference between the sentences is the preposition “around”,
which occurs only in sentence (e2). The verb “run” is a transitive verb in (e1), which
gives the clause pattern S-V-dO. In sentence (e2) the verb “run” is intransitive, and
the clause pattern of sentence (e2) is S-V-A. Sentence (e1) means that these people

INTRODUCING ENGLISH GRAMMAR, THIRD EDITION

KEY TO EXERCISES 8  Syntactic Analysis
 are now governing the country, whereas sentence (e2) refers to some people that are
now taking part in marathon races or the like at different places around the country.

3 Read the following text and answer the questions below:

An unfinished self-portrait by the Dutch master Rembrandt has been discovered under
another painting using advanced scientific techniques. No detail is visible in the face, but
experts say it matches a reproductive print from 1633 that has an inscription saying it is
by Rembrandt. X-ray scanning was used to detect the pigments in hidden layers of paint.
A leading expert on Rembrandt said he was convinced of its authenticity based on simi-
larities in painting style. The unfinished self-portrait was discovered under another panel
said to be by the master – “Old Man with a Beard”.

a. Identify the phrase that functions as verbal in the first sentence (line 1–2).
has been discovered
b. Analyse the underlined part of the second sentence.
subject (No detail) – verbal (is) – subject predicative (visible) – adverbial (in the face).
c. What is the syntactic function of the underlined clause to detect … paint?
adverbial (circumstantial)
d. Analyse the underlined part of the last sentence.
subject (The unfinished self-portrait) – verbal (was discovered) – adverbial (under
another panel).

4 Notes based on searches in the Corpus of Contemporary American English at http://

corpus.byu.edu/ as per June 2018, after clicking on “sample” to get examples from a
broader variety of text types than we would get simply by looking at those hits that
occurred first.

a. Look up the word told. Among the first 25–30 hits, find two sentences where told is
followed by an indirect object, and two where been told has a subject that refers to
the recipient of the message.

For instance:
Bandar told him (iO) his partner was still up on the Monument.
I’d told myself (iO) something that sounded good at the time.
…they were told which condition would be operative.
I mean he hasn’t been talked to by everyone and told what to say…

INTRODUCING ENGLISH GRAMMAR, THIRD EDITION

KEY TO EXERCISES 8  Syntactic Analysis
 b. Search for told a *. Among the phrases listed for this pattern, are there any where a*
does not seem to represent an indirect object? If so, which ones?

For instance told a story, told a lie, told a joke. Also phrases such as told a little…, told
a long…, told a good…, told a sad…, etc.

c. Search for keeping. Study the first 20 hits closely. What are the grammatical patterns
keeping occurs in? (Compare your findings to the examples in section 8.5.)

For instance:
S-V-dO (keeping those mittens)
S-V-dO-A (keeping global warming below 1.5 degrees Celsius)
S-V-sP (keeping trim)
S-V-do-oP (keeping his mouth shut)

d. Look at the two expressions subject to and object of. Which one is more common in
COCA? How would you translate the two expressions into Norwegian based on the
first 10 examples of each in the corpus?

The expression subject to is more common.

Examples of translations of subject to:
utsatt for, rammet av, gjenstand for, under forutsetning av, …
Examples of translations of object of :
Hensikt med, gjenstand for, mål for, årsak til …

INTRODUCING ENGLISH GRAMMAR, THIRD EDITION

KEY TO EXERCISES 8  Syntactic Analysis
9 
IT AND THERE

1 Identify and correct any errors in the sentences below. Explain your corrections. (NB:
not all the sentences contain errors!)

a. There It is no mean feat to be 13 years of age and a world-class skier.

It is wrong to use the existential there here because existence is not an issue. The anti­
cipatory it is correct because it functions as an anticipatory subject with a dependent
clause as real subject (to be 13 years and a world-class skier). Since the real subject is
a fairly long and heavy element (dependent clause), end position in the sentence is
preferable.
b. There is broad political consensus that the hospital needs a new children’s ward.
(existential there)
c. It was high time she stopped procrastinating. (anticipatory it)
d. It There is light at the end of the tunnel.
The existential there is correct because light exists (metaphorically) at the end of the
tunnel.
e. It is not the time between Christmas and New Year that makes you gain weight. (cleft
it )
f. It There has not come more information about the accident.
The existential there is correct because no more information exists.
g. There are many races left this season. (existential there)
h. The higher we go, the more snow it there is.
The existential there is correct because more snow exists.

INTRODUCING ENGLISH GRAMMAR, THIRD EDITION

KEY TO EXERCISES 9  It and There
2 Fill in either it or there in the blanks in the text below. If you find that either alternative
is acceptable in the context, explain any difference in meaning.

There are many kinds of changes that you can make in your home to make it the kind
of home that you are looking for. Starting with your bedroom, we suggest you install
sliding wardrobe doors to get instant and easy access to your clothing. There is a choice
of everything from contemporary designer doors to the traditional-looking Japanese
looking doors. When planning to install closet entryways, it is a good idea to think about
what look you are going for. In addition, it is important to think about the function of the
wardrobe bypass entry. Considering these things makes it possible for you to find the
greatest solution there is. If it/there is a completely unique look that you are after, there
are custom-fitted wardrobes in a range of materials from different suppliers.

In the one case where both it and there can be used, there creates an existential sentence
(such a unique look exists, and “you” are looking for it), while it is part of a cleft sentence,
giving extra focus to unique look , and possibly contrasting it with e.g. an ordinary look.
(The original text had it.)

3 Translate the following sentences into English.

a. Det er jo hundre år siden.

It/That was a hundred years ago, you know.
b. Det er ikke rart at de er bekymret.
No wonder they are worried.
c. Det er jeg helt sikker på.
I am quite sure of that.
d. Det var et egyptisk flagg som vaiet fra flaggstangen.
There was an Egyptian flag flying from the flagstaff. (existential sentence)
OR: It was an Egyptian flag that was flying from the flagstaff. (cleft sentence)
e. Det er klart det er dyrt.
Of course it is expensive.
f. Det er bare det at bussen kommer fra den andre kanten.
It’s only that the bus will arrive from the other direction.
g. Det er derfor vi har droppet seniorklassene.
That is why we have dropped the senior classes.

INTRODUCING ENGLISH GRAMMAR, THIRD EDITION

KEY TO EXERCISES 9  It and There
4 Explain the difference in form and meaning between the members of each pair.

a. 1 There is time for dessert.

2 It is time for dessert.
The difference between these sentences is the use of it and there. The use of the
existential there in sentence (a1) means that it is possible to have dessert because
the schedule allows it. The use of the empty it in (a2) means that the time has come
for dessert.

b. 1 He saw it as a great opportunity.

2 He saw there was a great opportunity.
In sentence (b1) the use of the reference it means that something concrete that has
been mentioned previously or that is understood from the context is seen as a good
opportunity. It functions as direct object in the sentence and as a great opportunity
as circumstantial adverbial. In (b2) there was a great opportunity is a dependent
clause which functions as direct object. In this dependent clause the existential there
functions as anticipatory subject and signals the existence of a great opportunity.

c. 1 It was a good thing that the missionary was doing.

2 It was a good thing that the missionary was doing that work.
The difference between these sentences is two different it-constructions. In (c1) we
have a cleft construction, which also includes the relative pronoun that. The pur-
pose is to underline or emphasize that it was a good thing the missionary did, not
a bad thing. In (c2) the use of an anticipatory it could be motivated by the long ele-
ment that functions as the real subject, namely the that-clause, which is a dependent
clause with the subordinating conjunction that. The dependent clause also contains
the noun phrase that work, in which that functions as demonstrative determiner.
Sentence (c2) praises the fact that the missionary did the work, not the work itself.

d. 1 There were some sandwiches that he wanted.

2 It was some sandwiches that he wanted.
The difference between these two sentences is the use of the existential there followed
by the lexical verb to be in the plural (simple past verb form) in (d1) and a cleft-it in
combination with the verb to be in the singular in (d2). Sentence (d1) means that
he wanted some sandwiches that existed or were to be found somewhere. In (d2)
the cleft construction is used to emphasize that it was sandwiches he wanted, not
something else.

INTRODUCING ENGLISH GRAMMAR, THIRD EDITION

KEY TO EXERCISES 9  It and There
 e. 1 (The phone rang.) It was my boyfriend.
2 (The doorbell rang.) There was my boyfriend.
In (e1) the referential it is used because the sentence gives information about the
phone call and it refers to the person who called. In (e2) the locative there is used,
which means that the boyfriend was located right there at the door, perhaps some-
what unexpectedly. The syntactic function of my boyfriend is subject predicative in
(e1) and subject in (e2).

5 Read the following text and answer the questions below:

As a long-time supporter of cricket it has been wonderful to see some great Test matches
played in good spirit by up and coming young players and legends alike. However, I hope
the snarling and bullying aggressiveness shown by James Pattinson is not a sign that the
Australian team is going to return to the bad old days when it might have been the best
team in the world but not very popular. At the conclusion of the game, it looked likely that
the team was not going to shake hands with the two Indian batsmen remaining. There is
no need for such displays. In the old days, it was the “best and fairest” that received the
award rather than the “Man of the Match”. It might be a good idea to restore this tradition.
Play the game hard, fast and aggressive but above all respect the opposition, respect the
rules and respect the game itself. That’s what cricket and, indeed, life is all about. (From
the Sydney Morning Herald, adapted.)

a. Study all uses of it in the text and classify them according to their type.
As a long-time supporter of cricket it (anticipatory it) has been wonderful to see
some great Test matches played in good spirit by up and coming young players and
legends alike. However, I hope the snarling and bullying aggressiveness shown by
James Pattinson is not a sign that the Australian team is going to return to the bad
old days when it (referential it) might have been the best team in the world but not
very popular. At the conclusion of the game, it (anticipatory it) looked likely that the
team was not going to shake hands with the two Indian batsmen remaining. There is
no need for such displays. In the old days, it (cleft-it) was the “best and fairest” that
received the award rather than the “Man of the Match”. It (anticipatory it) might be a
good idea to restore this tradition. Play the game hard, fast and aggressive but above
all respect the opposition, respect the rules and respect the game itself. That’s what
cricket and, indeed, life is all about.

INTRODUCING ENGLISH GRAMMAR, THIRD EDITION

KEY TO EXERCISES 9  It and There
 b. Analyse the sentence with there syntactically. Is there existential or locative? Could it
have been used in the same sentence?
The clause structure is aS-V-S. There is existential. It would not work in this case.

c. In the last sentence of the text, that would correspond to Norwegian det. Could it
have been used instead of that? If so, would there be any difference in meaning or
stylistic effect?
It could have been used with a very similar meaning. However, the referential it would
refer back to the previous text in a neutral way, without special emphasis on it . The use
of the demonstrative pronoun that underscores the statement more because it will
naturally be pronounced with extra stress, thus making it a good way to end the text.

6 Findings from the British National Corpus at http://corpus.byu.edu/:

a. Examples of it constructions found among the first 20 hits for it is.

Cleft it: It is then that fame, honour, chastity and glory have no longer their due
estimation.
Referential it: When love truly seizes the heart it is like a malignant fever…
Anticipatory it with to-infinitive as real subject: for it is not for me to hold an argument
with your honour.
Anticipatory it with that-clause as real subject: and it is my opinion that he finds he
can’t and that vexes his proud heart. Yet it is impossible (Ø) I should love him; for his
vices all ugly him over.
b. Examples of there constructions among the first 20 hits for there is.
Existential there: Now I begin to fear there is something in it. There isn’t any wind.
In a couple of instances, there and is do not belong to the same construction, and
there is locative, for instance in That great baby you see there is not yet out of his
swaddling clouts…
c. Write there ’s in the search box (note the space before the apostrophe) and study the
first 30 hits. Do any of the sentence have a real subject that is a plural noun phrase?
NOTE: we clicked on the word “sample” to get hits from a variety of texts for this
pattern.
There were sentences with there’s + plural noun phrase, such as there’s three races
worth five hundred pounds each; There’s four eggs; Listen there’s been developments.
These hits were found either in spoken English or in dialogue parts of fiction.

INTRODUCING ENGLISH GRAMMAR, THIRD EDITION

KEY TO EXERCISES 9  It and There
 d. In Norwegian it is fairly common to use verbs other than være in existential construc-
tions, for example Det står et tre i gården. Search for there [stand] and consider the
following: Does stand seem to be frequent after there? Go through the examples of
there stood. Are they all examples of the existential there?
Compared to there is, there + stand is very infrequent.
Among the examples of there stood, most seem to involve the locative there, for
example He opened it and there stood Santa in his doorway. Here is one example
of existential there with stood from the corpus: Suddenly, there stood beside me a
very tall figure…

INTRODUCING ENGLISH GRAMMAR, THIRD EDITION

KEY TO EXERCISES 9  It and There
10 
CONCORD BETWEEN
SUBJECT AND VERBAL

1 Pets and fireworks

I (i) am glad that Taronga Zoo’s and Sydney Wildlife animals (ii) are not affected by the
firework displays on New Year’s Eve. It’s a pity our pets (iii) do not have the opportunity
to get prepared for all the firework displays which (iv) happen all year round with no
warnings. We (v) know to keep our pets in on New Year’s and Queen’s Birthday; as a
wildlife carer with young animals in care, I (vi) make sure they (vii) are kept inside and in
a darkened area so as not to get stressed, but I can’t do much about fireworks that (viii)
go off at private parties all year round. I would like to know who (ix) gives out permits
for these private firework displays and why neighbours (x) are not given any warnings so
as to prepare their pets.

2 Identify and correct any concord errors in the text below. Explain your corrections.
(NB: not all the sentences contain errors!)

Everyone know knows that literary festivals are big business. The festival at Hay turns
over £9m–£10m; Edinburgh approach approaches £2m; and, my favourite, Bath, £1.3m.
But – and here’s the catch – this quasi-literary bonanza rely relies on the goodwill of the
authors who, in exchange for vital publicity, appears appear for nothing, as in “free” or
“gratis”. Well, not quite. At Hay, the author get gets half a case of Spanish fizz and a red
rose. It’s hardly a living wage. Most people acknowledge that the creative artist must be

INTRODUCING ENGLISH GRAMMAR, THIRD EDITION

KEY TO EXERCISES 10  Concord between Subject and Verbal
 able to earn a living. But how on earth, in the age of “free content”, are is that “living” to
be defined? Worse, where are is the money going to come from?

Explanation of corrections :
Everyone is an indefinite pronoun that counts as third person singular, so the verb
should have the s-form.
Edinburgh is singular and third person.
This quasi-literary bonanza is singular and third person.
The subject of appear is who , a relative pronoun with a plural noun phrase, the authors,
as antecedent.
The author is singular and third person.
The subject of the clause is that living, which is third person and singular.
Money is an uncountable noun that behaves as third person singular.

3 Explain the difference in form and meaning between the members of each pair.

a. 1 Gin and tonic is very expensive here.

2 Gin and tonic are very expensive here.
In sentence (a1) the verbal is realized by a singular verb phrase, so the subject is
regarded as singular. This means that we are talking about gin and tonic as a drink. The
verb gets the singular form because of notional concord. In sentence (a2) the verbal
is realized by a plural verb phrase. This means that the two co-ordinated nouns in the
subject noun phrase are seen as two entities, which means that both gin and tonic
are expensive. That is, we are not talking about the drink, but its main ingredients.

b. 1 Entertaining people is more of a challenge.

2 Entertaining people are more of a challenge.
The visible difference between the sentences is the form of the verb, which is singular
in sentence (b1) and plural in (b2). This means that the subjects must be interpreted
differently. The singular form indicates that entertaining people in (b1) is a clause
(equivalent to “to entertain people”), while in (b2), entertaining people refer to “people
who are entertaining/funny”. The sentences can thus be paraphrased as It is more of a
challenge to entertain people and People who are funny represent a greater challenge.

INTRODUCING ENGLISH GRAMMAR, THIRD EDITION

KEY TO EXERCISES 10  Concord between Subject and Verbal
 c. 1 The number of plants is growing fast.
2 A number of plants are growing fast.
The sentences differ as regards the definite vs. the indefinite article in the subject noun
phrase and in the form of the verb. The singular form combined with the definite noun
phrase in (c1) indicates that The number is what is growing fast, that is, we have more
and more plants. In (c2), a number of means many. The plural form of the verb agrees
with plants . So the sentence can be paraphrased as Many plants are growing fast.

d. 1 Their family are very musical.

2 Their family is very musical.
Family is a collective noun which can occur with either a singular or a plural verbal
(especially in British English). When the plural form is used, as in (d1), the emphasis is
on each individual family member; they are all musical. The singular form emphasizes
the family as a whole without singling out any individual members. So the collective
noun has distributive reading in (d1) and unit reading in (d2).

e. 1 All is quiet this morning.

2 All are quiet this morning.
The indefinite pronoun all can mean either everything , in which case it counts as third
person singular, as in sentence (e1), or everybody , in which case it behaves as a plural
subject, as in (e2). So the sentences mean, respectively, Everything/Everybody is quiet.

4 Read the following text and answer the questions below:

The ad that follows me

We all know what’s at stake here. I’m not paranoid. A paranoid person is someone who
thinks he’s being followed. I KNOW I’m being followed.
The other day I visited a website to check out a piece of jewelry for my wife. I liked
one particular product so I found my way to that link. But I wasn’t really sure about it.
So I didn’t buy it. A couple of minutes later, I logged on to my Yahoo e-mail account. And
there, on the right side of the screen, was a little advertisement for the product I had just
visited. I am being followed by a piece of jewelry.
I’m told the company that sells the jewelry doesn’t know my name. To them, I’m just
a series of computer codes which allow a piece of software to follow me.

a. That follows: the s-form is used because the relative pronoun that has a singular
antecedent. What’s: what is a pronoun that behaves as third person singular. Is: the

INTRODUCING ENGLISH GRAMMAR, THIRD EDITION

KEY TO EXERCISES 10  Concord between Subject and Verbal
 subject is a paranoid person, which is singular. Who thinks: the relative pronoun who
has a third person singular antecedent (someone).
b. Was has been used because the head of the subject noun phrase (which comes after
the verbal in this sentence) has singular form (advertisement).
c. The plural verb forms sell and don’t could have been used, at least in British English,
because company can be a collective noun. If the plural form of the verbs had been
used, this would have referred to the people who make up the company.
d. The plural form allow has been used because the subject, which, is a relative pronoun
with a plural noun phrase as its antecedent (computer codes).

5 Findings from the British National Corpus at http://corpus.byu.edu/:

a. Government is is more common (1501 hits) than government are (444 hits). The two
different verb forms can both be used because government is a collective noun. The
use of a singular verb phrase gives the noun a unit reading, while the use of the plural
gives it a distributive reading.
b. There are 9 instances of everybody have in the corpus. In most cases have is the
infinitive form, for example in does everybody have… In one case have is an imperative:
everybody (please) have a yawn. This is probably also the case in So everybody have
document and hit shift F ten.
c. The search for most of the * is and most of the * are shows that the noun following
most of the determines the form of the verb. Most of the + a singular noun combines
with a singular verb phrase (e.g. is), and most of the + a plural noun combines with
a plural verb phrase (e.g. are). An apparent exception seems to be most of the time
are. But in each of these cases most of the time is an adverbial and not the subject of
are. Another apparent exception is most of the staff are, but staff is a collective noun
that tends to get distributive reading.
d. The nouns occurring in the phrase a million * is are mostly units and measurements
(pounds, tonnes, …). The nouns occurring in the phrase a million * are have various
references (e.g. people, copies, children). The “units and measurement” nouns thus
indicate notional concord along the lines of a sum of money, a distance…, while a mil-
lion in front of other types of plural nouns does not indicate any kind of unit reading.

INTRODUCING ENGLISH GRAMMAR, THIRD EDITION

KEY TO EXERCISES 10  Concord between Subject and Verbal
11 
VERBS, TENSE
AND ASPECT

1 Choose between the progressive and the non-progressive verb form in each of these
sentences. In case both alternatives seem acceptable, explain any difference in meaning
between them.

a. That evening Mr. Peterson came / was coming home to his bachelor house in sombre
spirits. (The progressive was coming would imply that he was on his way home, which
is not a likely interpretation here.)
b. He sat / was sitting down to dinner without relish. (The simple past form sat implies
completed action, that is, he took a seat.)
c. Six o’clock struck / was striking on the bells of the church, and still he dug / was digging
at the problem. (In the first case both the simple past and the past progressive are
possible. Struck implies that the action is seen as completed, while was striking implies
that the church bells had not finished ringing yet at the time we are looking at. In the
second case the progressive is natural as the process of digging at the problem is still
ongoing.)
d. “I see you go / are going in,” said the lawyer. (The progressive must be used because
the action is ongoing at the moment of speaking.)
e. “How did you know / were you knowing me?” he asked. (Only the non-progressive
form can be used with a stative verb like know.)
f. The problem he debated / was debating as he walked / was walking was one of a class
that is rarely solved. (Both verb forms are possible in both cases, but the progressive

INTRODUCING ENGLISH GRAMMAR, THIRD EDITION

KEY TO EXERCISES 11  Verbs, Tense and Aspect
 is more likely, since the sentence describes ongoing activities. The simple past would
indicate that the actions of debating and walking are seen as completed. Note that
the same verb form must be chosen for both verb phrases here.)

2 Describe the structure of the italicized verb phrase in each of the sentences below in
terms of auxiliaries, tense, aspect and voice.

a. For my generation, the word “austerity” is associated (simple present + passive voice
+ lexical verb; passive auxiliary be in the present tense + past participle) with the
rationing regulations that were introduced (simple past + passive voice + lexical verb;
passive auxiliary be in the past tense + past participle) during World War II.
b. Sweet rationing did not end (simple past; grammatical auxiliary do + negative + lexical
verb) until 1953.
c. My mother used to count out (marginal modal in past tense + infinitive marker + lexical
verb) our scanty sweet allocation once a week.
d. In 1942 the Making of Civilian Clothing (restriction order) was passed (simple past +
passive voice + lexical verb; passive auxiliary be in the past tense + past participle).
e. Dresses could have (modal + lexical verb) no more than two pockets and five buttons.
f. The recent financial crisis has brought on (present perfect; present tense + past
participle form of lexical verb) a new sense of austerity.
g. We are all feeling (present progressive; present tense + progressive aspect + lexical
verb) a little bit less well off.
h. Things have been going (present perfect progressive; present tense + perfect aspect
+ progressive aspect + lexical verb) in the wrong direction.
i. Let’s hope that the situation will have improved (modal perfect; modal auxiliary +
perfect aspect + lexical verb in past participle form) by next year.

3 Explain the difference in form and meaning between the members of each pair.

a. 1 She walks the dog every night.

2 She is walking the dog tonight.
Sentence (a1) has the simple present tense and sentence (a2) has the present pro-
gressive. In addition the time adverbials are different: in (a1), every night describes
how often the action takes place, while in (a2) tonight refers to “this evening”. Simi-
larly, the simple present tense is used to describe habitual activity, while the present
progressive describes ongoing, incomplete activity. Sentence (a1) thus means that

INTRODUCING ENGLISH GRAMMAR, THIRD EDITION

KEY TO EXERCISES 11  Verbs, Tense and Aspect
 it is her habit to walk the dog every night. Sentence (a2) indicates that she is not at
home at the moment because she is walking the dog.

b. 1 Do you speak Chinese?

2 Are you speaking Chinese?
Sentence (b1) is a question about the addressee’s ability to speak Chinese. Sentence
(b2) is a question about what language the addressee is speaking at the moment. The
reason for the difference is that the simple present tense refers to permanent states
and habitual actions, while the progressive refers to ongoing activity.

c. 1 Mr Jones has been to New York.

2 Mr Jones was in New York.
Sentence (c1) means that Mr Jones has visited New York at some point, and this is
relevant at the moment of speaking. Sentence (c2) means that Mr Jones was in New
York at some specific time in the past. The meaning difference is due to the verb
phrases: Sentence (c1) uses the present perfect, which refers to a past event at some
unspecified time, while (c2) has the simple past tense, which refers to an event at a
specific (or specifiable) time.

d. 1 I was going for a walk when the sun came out.

2 I went for a walk when the sun came out.
Sentence (d1) contains a verb phrase with the past progressive (was going). This
refers to incomplete action. So the person was just about to go out when the sun
started shining. He or she may or may not have taken the walk in the end. In (d2)
the simple past tense has been used (went). The combination of a simple past verb
phrase in the main clause with a simple past verb phrase in the dependent clause is
interpreted as two actions following each other, in this case: then sun came out and
so I went for a walk.

e. 1 Sue was starting up a business.

2 Sue had started up a business.
As in sentence (d1), the past progressive in (e1) contains a past progressive verb
phrase which refers to an incomplete action. Sue was in the process of starting up a
new business. The verb phrase in (e2) combines past tense with the perfect aspect
(past perfect) and thus refers to an action that was completed in the past, before the
time of the “main story”. So Sue had already started up a business, and maybe she
was now ready to take on a new project.

INTRODUCING ENGLISH GRAMMAR, THIRD EDITION

KEY TO EXERCISES 11  Verbs, Tense and Aspect
4 Read the following text and answer the questions below:

In a village near Lyon in south-east France, a couple have become local celebrities by
virtue of their adopted “child”. Digit, as she is known, has been living in the same room as
Pierre and Elaine Thivillon for nearly 13 years. Their relationship began in 1999, when the
young primate came into the care of the couple, who manage the zoo at Saint Martin la
Plaine where she was born. Within three days of her birth, it was clear that Digit’s mother
Pamela was refusing to feed her. The Thivillons took her into their care, bottle-feeding
her during the day and returning her to her enclosure at night.
By 18 months old, the baby gorilla had begun to show a deep attachment to her foster
parents. After an illness left her requiring 24-hour care, Pierre and Elaine took her into their
bedroom at night, where she has slept ever since. For the first 10 years, she snuggled up
between the couple, but now at 130 kg she has to have a bed of her own. (From bbc.co.uk)

a. Have become is in the present perfect form. The past tense form became would be
possible if the sentence was taken out of its context. But since the following sentence
has the present tense, the present perfect is a much better choice. The notion of
present relevance associated with the present perfect gives the first two sentences
of the text a sense of news value.
b. Has been living consists of a grammatical auxiliary in the present tense, which marks
the perfect aspect together with the following past participle. Been is the past parti-
ciple form of the progressive auxiliary be, which is followed by an -ing participle. The
verb phrase can be characterized as present perfect progressive. The meaning of this
verb form is that the action started in the past, but continues into the present. That
is, Digit still lives with Pierre and Elaine.
c. The text switches to the past tense to recount events that are further back in time.
d. Since refuse denotes an action that cannot stretch out in time, the past progressive
aspect (was refusing) implies that the event was repeated over a period of time. The
simple past (refused) would indicate that it was a one-time event.
e. The perfect aspect (present or past) would not have been appropriate in this context
because snuggled refers to an activity that took place over a specific period of time
in the past.
f. There is a comparison between the past and the present. The shift to the present
time reference is marked by the time adverb now, which makes the use of the present
tense natural.

INTRODUCING ENGLISH GRAMMAR, THIRD EDITION

KEY TO EXERCISES 11  Verbs, Tense and Aspect
5 Findings from the Corpus of Contemporary American English at http://corpus.byu.
edu/:

a. The first ten hits that come up for was being in the COCA corpus will vary (because the
corpus keeps being added to), so you may not get the same hits as we did. However,
many of our examples of was being are part of a passive construction (for instance
was being done), indicating duration over time in the past. Sentences where being
is the main verb (for instance he was being grumpy) indicate that the subject was
behaving in a certain way (in this case being grumpy on purpose) over a limited period
of time. That is, in contrast to he was grumpy, the progressive form of be refers to a
situation which is not permanent.
b. One corpus example of the framing effect of the progressive is the following:
As they were leaving, Teo spoke to Furad. …The leaving was in progress, and the
speaking occurred in the middle of it.
c. We found (at least) two examples of had left which was not a past perfect verb phrase,
namely It was the only thing of monetary value he had left from his past and …he’d
clung to them as all he had left of his brother. In both cases left is part of the phrase
“to have something left”, meaning “to still have something that has not disappeared
or been used (yet)”. Two examples that illustrate how the past perfect refers to a time
prior to another point of time in the past are the following: (i) Mom motioned to the
young Amish woman who had left their table after filling the glasses with fresh iced
tea. (ii) …he turned and looked once more at the bridge and the figure they had left
there…
d. In our hits, most examples of she works occur in sentences that contain an adver-
bial referring to “her workplace”, for example, She works in a restaurant, or to her
employer, as in And she works for the company now. Some sentences describe the
way in which she works as a rule (the habitual simple present), for example, She works
hard is a manner adverbial. Some of the examples of the present progressive, such as
she is working on a new book…, refer to ongoing activity (rather than regular activity).
Another example that suggests activity that is not habitual or permanent is Seven
months before the Summer Olympics, she is working hard to find her stride. This is
due to the time adverbial, which limits the period in which she is working hard.

INTRODUCING ENGLISH GRAMMAR, THIRD EDITION

KEY TO EXERCISES 11  Verbs, Tense and Aspect
12 
MODALITY
AND FUTURE
TIME REFERENCE

1 Note that there may be acceptable alternatives to the following suggested translations.

a. Du skulle ikke ha gjort det. J You shouldn’t have done it.

b. Får jeg ta en titt? J Can/May I have a look?
c. Det kan ikke ha vært lett for deg. J It can’t have been easy for you.
d. De har villet gjøre noe med det lenge. J They have wanted (have been wanting) to
do something about it for a long time.
e. Du skal ikke tro på alt folk sier. J You shouldn’t believe everything (that) people say.
f. Det kommer til å bli kjempegøy. J It will be great fun / It’s going to be great fun.
g. De ville ikke ha forandret på noe selv om de hadde kunnet. J They wouldn’t have
changed anything even if they had been able to.
h. Jeg tror det blir regn snart. J I think it is going to rain soon.
i. Flyet til Madrid går om en time. J The plane for Madrid leaves in an hour.
j. Om en uke er jeg i London. J In a week I’ll be in London.
k. Skal du også til England? J Are you going to England too?

2 The expressions that have been marked in red and bold are the ones that occurred in
the original text.

INTRODUCING ENGLISH GRAMMAR, THIRD EDITION

KEY TO EXERCISES 12  Modality and Future Time Reference
 Thousands of fundamentalist Christians across the US are readying themselves for the
world to end tomorrow, after a fringe Biblical scholar, Harry Camping, made the predic-
tion several years ago. According to Mr Camping’s calculations, tomorrow is / will be*
exactly the 7,000th anniversary of Noah’s flood and God is angry again. He warns that
huge earthquakes will strike / are to strike tomorrow as the saved are lifted up to heaven.
Everyone else will get / is going to get* another five months of life before being consigned
to eternal damnation on October 21. Gary Daniels, a disciple of Camping’s, said his last
farewells to relatives on Monday. He told the New York Times: “I know I don’t see / am
not going to see them again, but they are very certain they will see* / are going to see
me, and that’s where I feel so sad,” he said. “I weep to know that they don’t have any idea
that this overwhelming thing is coming / shall come right at them like a meteor.” (from
thedailyedge.com, adapted)

Notes on the phrases marked with an asterisk (*):

P Tomorrow will be is possible, as the will-future is relatively neutral. But the simple
present implies a much greater degree of certainty on the part of the speaker; the
anniversary is part of a fixed schedule.
P Everyone else is going to get is possible, although the will-future is a better match
with the verb phrase in the previous sentence. Going to suggests that this will happen
according to someone’s planning.
P Certain they will see is possible, again because the will-future works as a multi-purpose
future marker. The going to-future denotes something like “according to present
evidence”.

3 Explain the difference in form and meaning between the members of each pair.

a. 1 She must walk in the other direction.

2 She must be walking in the other direction.
The verb phrase in sentence (a2) contains the progressive aspect. This suggests
that the modal is epistemic. With the non-progressive in (a1) we have root modality
(obligation). Thus (a1) means that her only option is to walk in the other direction.
Sentence (a2) conveys the speaker’s belief about where she is walking.

b. 1 I can fix the computer.

2 I’ll fix the computer.
In sentence (b1) the modal is can , which denotes ability (root modality). The meaning
is “I am able to fix the computer”. In (b2), the modal is the contracted form of will,

INTRODUCING ENGLISH GRAMMAR, THIRD EDITION

KEY TO EXERCISES 12  Modality and Future Time Reference
 denoting either willingness or future. This sentence can function as an offer to fix the
computer or as a statement about the subject’s future activity.

c. 1 Peter is supposed to give a presentation.

2 Peter is going to give a presentation.
The difference between is supposed to and is going to has to do with the planning of
the action. Supposed to indicates that somebody other than Peter made the plans,
and implies a possibility that the presentation may not be given. Going to indicates
that the subject (Peter) has made the plans and implies a high degree of certainty
that the action will take place.

d. 1 The train will arrive at platform 2.

2 The train is arriving at platform 2.
The will-future in (d1) denotes a neutral prediction of a future event. The present
progressive in (d2) refers to an action in progress; the train is already on its way into
the station.

e. 1 They can’t have made each other very happy.

2 They couldn’t make each other very happy.
Sentence (e1) contains the modal can followed by not and a perfect verb phrase.
The perfect means that the action took place in the past and also that the modality
is epistemic. The speaker thinks it is unlikely that they made each other happy. In
(e2) the modal could is followed by not and the bare infinitive. This is root modality
(ability), meaning that they were unable to make each other happy.

4 Read the following text and answer the questions below:

You can’t live off a view – but nothing feeds the soul like the wilderness
You might (epistemic) think that after 30 years in one of Britain’s most isolated homes,
Mike and Joyce Simpson, who have just announced their intention to sell up and move
nearer civilisation, are about to put their trials behind them. Their house, overlooking the
Isle of Skye, is nine miles from the nearest village. There is no road; to get to the village
they have to (root, obligation) embark on either a three-hour trek or a journey by quad
bike and 4x4. A visit to the post office requires an hour-long boat trip.
Mr Simpson, 62, talked about weeks at the mercy of the weather, and the recurring
nightmare of gales. But although the comforts of the 21st century must (epistemic) come

INTRODUCING ENGLISH GRAMMAR, THIRD EDITION

KEY TO EXERCISES 12  Modality and Future Time Reference
 as a relief, the Simpsons may (epistemic) be about to confront the hardest thing about
a life in the wild – leaving it.
“Every morning after we left, we woke up and listened to the silence,” I was told by Mike
Alexander, an ex-warden of Skomer Island, off south-west Wales. He and his wife missed it
terribly. “We would (habitual would) lie there and think about the island, and all the birds.”
You can (root, ability) hear the same story from anyone who has been lucky enough to live
in nature’s embrace. Coming down from the hill or off the island is a kind of bereavement.
Of course there are compensations. The Simpsons will (root, prediction) never be
so cold again. They need (root, obligation) not worry about access to doctors; helpful
neighbours will (root, prediction) be a blessing. They will (root, prediction) not be scared
again in the way that shrieking wind can (root, ability) make you scared. Life is going to
seem easy, if rather tame. (From The Telegraph, adapted)

a. The expression are about to suggests immediate future. If it were replaced by are
going to, this immediacy would disappear, and the focus would be on their intention
of moving.
b. The meanings of the italicized modal auxiliaries have been added in brackets in the
text.
c. The implication of be going to is that the “easy but tame life” seems a likely outcome
of the present evidence.

5. Findings from the Corpus of Contemporary American English at http://corpus.buy.

edu:

a. As per June 2018, the numbers are as follows (they may increase as the corpus is
being expanded):

will 293793
would 232441
may 89283
should 73212
might 49396
shall 1470

b. The first ten hits for should, in the sample studied, were the following (there may be
other acceptable translations as well)

INTRODUCING ENGLISH GRAMMAR, THIRD EDITION

KEY TO EXERCISES 12  Modality and Future Time Reference
 the change should be delayed until 2022 J endringen bør utsettes til 2022
and the county should have a mechanism to stop the increase J og fylkeskommunen
burde ha en mekanisme for å stanse økningen.
the county should focus on creating jobs J fylkeskommunen burde fokusere på å
skape arbeidsplasser.
Park should be removed from the presidency J Park burde fjernes fra presidentjobben.
to decide if Park should be removed or reinstated J å bestemme om Park bør/
burde fjernes eller gjeninnsettes.
…any brand should be proud to dress the first lady of the United States. J ethvert
merke burde være stolt av å lage klær til USAs førstedame.
and prosecutors should investigate. J og påtalemyntigheten bør/må undersøke.
Dang has said he built the house exactly where the city said he should… J Dang har
sagt at han bygde huset akkurat der kommunen sa han skulle gjøre det.
We shouldn’t be proud of the city just for following a law… J Vi trenger ikke være
stolt av byen bare fordi den følger en lov…
The Hall of Fame should be for celebrating great baseball players, not necessarily
great men… J Hall of Fame bør være for å feire de beste baseballspillerne, ikke
nødvendigvis de beste menneskene…
c. Of the first ten occurrences of must in the newspaper sample studied, nine convey
root modality. The only one that is clearly epistemic has the perfect aspect: How weird
must it have been for Plumlee to hear those late-game Nurkic chants?
All the first ten occurrences of ought to have root modality.
d. Some of the instances of was going to are preceded by for instance I thought, which
reveals that the speaker is uncertain, as in I really thought I was going to change the
world. Here the word really also indicates some degree of subjectivity. We infer that
the world was not changed.
e. Will see occurs 1497 times in the newspaper section of the COCA corpus (June 2018).
The first five do not seem to imply any planning; they are neutral predictions of future
events. Will be seeing occurs only 25 times. The first five are predictions of future
activities, not involving any planning, but indicating that the activities are fairly certain
to happen and will have some duration.

INTRODUCING ENGLISH GRAMMAR, THIRD EDITION

KEY TO EXERCISES 12  Modality and Future Time Reference
13 
THE PASSIVE

1 Active – passive paraphrases with comments on potential difficulties or differences in

meaning.

a. Very soon the Rabbit noticed Alice. J Very soon Alice was noticed by the Rabbit.
b. Alice was just going to leave the room. J The room was just going to be left by Alice.
The passive is awkward here, because the room does not seem to be a suitable subject;
it is not affected by the action.
c. She hastily put the bottle down. J The bottle was hastily put down (by her). The
agent phrase seems superfluous when the agent is realized by a pronoun (i.e. it is
given information).
d. The Rabbit ordered Alice about. J Alice was ordered about by the Rabbit.
e. After a few minutes she heard a voice outside. J After a few minutes a voice was heard
from the outside (by her). Again the agent seems superfluous. In addition the passive
would be more idiomatic with an added modal (could be heard), so as to imply that
there was a voice that anyone could hear.
f. They heard the sound of broken glass. J The sound of broken glass was / could be
heard (by them). The agent can be omitted, and a modal should be added to the verb
phrase (see above).
g. They could not hear anything else. J Nothing else could be heard (by them). The
agent can be omitted.

INTRODUCING ENGLISH GRAMMAR, THIRD EDITION

KEY TO EXERCISES 13  The Passive
2 Passive – active paraphrases with comments on potential difficulties or differences in
meaning.

a. The Web site was created by the people behind Kodak Gallery. J The people behind
Kodak Gallery created the Web site.
b. Tuesday’s power failure was caused by heavy rain, lightning and strong winds. J Heavy
rain, lightning and strong winds caused Tuesday’s power failure.
c. Each offer was accompanied by whooping laughter. J Whooping laughter accom-
panied each offer. (The active sentence sounds a bit awkward because it seems to
violate the information principle.)
d. She was surrounded by her friends and family. J Her friends and family surrounded her.
e. Teague was found hiding under a porch of a house. J Somebody found Teague hiding
under a porch of a house. Since the passive is short, a subject needs to be added in
the active version.
f. The victim was taken to the hospital. J Somebody / the ambulance drivers took the
victim to the hospital. Since the passive is short, a subject needs to be added in the
active version. Note that in British English the definite article the would be omitted.
g. His red hair could be seen from quite a distance. J We/people could see his red hair
from quite a distance. Since the passive is short, a subject needs to be added in the
active version.

3 Explain the difference in form and meaning between the members of each pair.

a. 1 Michael was instantly taken with Anna.

2 Michael was instantly taken by Anna.
The visible difference between the sentences is the choice of preposition. To be taken
with something means to like something very much. This use of taken is best analysed
as an adjective, which is postmodified by the prepositional phrase with Anna. The
whole adjective functions as subject predicative. In sentence (a2), taken is the main
verb in a passive verb phrase, and by Anna is the agent (adverbial). Sentence (a1)
means “Michael immediately liked Anna very much”, while (a2) means “Anna quickly
took/caught/chose Michael”.

b. 1 He was paid by the hour.

2 He was paid by the company.
To be paid by the hour means that you get a certain sum of money per hour. By the
hour is a manner adverbial, saying something about how he was paid. On the other
hand, by the company is an agent adverbial, so (b2) means “The company paid him”.

INTRODUCING ENGLISH GRAMMAR, THIRD EDITION

KEY TO EXERCISES 13  The Passive
 c. 1 The film is not going to be appreciated by everybody.
2 Nobody is going to appreciate the film.
Sentence (c1) has the passive voice and (c2) has the active voice. Besides, the imper-
sonal pronoun in (c1) is everybody (used in an agent phrase with by), while in (c2),
nobody is used as subject. Sentence (c1) means that there will be some people who
will not like the film and others who will. In sentence (c2), however, everybody is
going to dislike it.

d. 1 Everybody in class speaks two languages.

2 Two languages are spoken by everybody in class.
Sentence (d1) has the active voice and everybody in class as subject and two lan-
guages as direct object. Sentence (d2) has the passive voice, with two languages as
subject and by everybody in class as agent adverbial. Sentence (d1) says that all the
students know two languages each, but they may not know the same two languages.
In (d2), the subject position of two languages suggests that the same two languages
are known by all the students.

e. 1 She couldn’t trust John.

2 John couldn’t be trusted.
Sentence (e1) has the active voice with she as subject and John as direct object.
Sentence (e2) has the passive voice with John as subject and no agent phrase (= a
short passive). Since no agent is specified in (e2), the implication is that nobody could
trust John; he was not trustworthy. With (e1), however, it is possible that other people
might trust John even if she could not.

4 Read the following text and answer the questions below:

An email asking people to reconsider their cancellation of home delivery from The New
York Times accidentally was sent to some eight million people on Wednesday, but was
intended to reach only a few hundred.
Robert Christie, a Times spokesman, initially tweeted that the emails appeared to be
spam. But minutes later, that was recanted in a tweet from Amy Chozick, a corporate media
reporter for the paper. Her tweet said the emails were, in fact, sent by the newspaper,
but they were supposed to only reach about 300 people. Instead, they were errantly
delivered to more than eight million.
The paper issued a statement: “An email was sent earlier today from The New York
Times in error,” it said. “This email should have been sent to a very small number of

INTRODUCING ENGLISH GRAMMAR, THIRD EDITION

KEY TO EXERCISES 13  The Passive
 subscribers, but instead was sent to a vast distribution list.” A screenshot of the email,
received by SC Magazine, is below. (from www.scmagazine.com, abbreviated)

a. The short passives that occur in the first paragraph do not have an identified agent, so
a long passive (or an active sentence) would have been hard to produce. The second
sentence in the second paragraph could have had the active voice (But minutes later,
Amy Chozick, a corporate media reporter for the paper recanted that in a tweet) or
a long passive (But minutes later, that was recanted by Amy Chozick, a corporate
media reporter for the paper, in a tweet). The active version gets a very long subject
that violates the principle of end weight, while the long passive seems a bit awkward
if the phrase “in a tweet” is to be retained in the sentence. However, an agent is easily
found, in the postmodifier to tweet. For the passive they were delivered an agent is
hard to find, as emails are hardly delivered by people. In the rest of the short passive,
the speaker (= the New York Times) has probably avoided mentioning the agent, which
is the paper itself, because of the embarrassment associated with the unintentional
sending of emails.
b. The two long passives in the text are marked in red and bold. Their active counter-
parts might be, respectively, “In fact, the newspaper sent the emails” and “the email,
which the SC Magazine received”. The passive versions are better suited to their
context because the information in the agent phrases is new in both cases, while
email is given information. In addition the text is structured in such a way that email
occurs in subject position in many of the sentences.

5 Findings from the British National Corpus at http://corpus.byu.edu/.

a. In the case of was made there are only two long passives among the first 15. Was said
and was sold occur only with the short passive. Was found has one example of the
long passive among the first 15. This suggests that the short passive is vastly more
frequent than the long passive. It also suggests that the passive voice is often chosen
when the speaker cannot or does not want to mention the agent of the action.
b. The top ten verbs to occur in the passive are: used, made, seen, taken, found, done,
given, born, considered, held. Note that some of the lexical verbs occur several times
on the list because they occur with different forms of the auxiliary be.
c. The passive is most frequent in the text type called “Academic” and least frequent in
the spoken part of the corpus.

INTRODUCING ENGLISH GRAMMAR, THIRD EDITION

KEY TO EXERCISES 13  The Passive
14 
WORD ORDER

1
a. Chocolate did she really love. J Chocolate she really loved (She really loved chocolate.)
There is no inversion after a fronted direct object in English.
b. They went never further north than the Scottish border. J They never went further
north than the Scottish border . The verb comes after the adverb never .
c. Never once did they consider giving up. J Correct (inversion after negative sentence
opener).
d. Why on earth you have bought that very expensive outfit? J Why on earth have you
bought that very expensive outfit? An interrogative sentence has the finite auxiliary
before the subject.
e. After several hours of walking came they to a pub in a small village. J After several
hours of walking they came to a pub in a small village. No inversion after an optional
adverbial in initial position.
f. The authorities have because of a shortage of nurses been unable to implement the
health reform. J Because of a shortage of nurses the authorities have been unable
to implement the health reform. The adverbial is too long and heavy to be placed
in medial position and must be moved either to the beginning or to the end of the
sentence.
g. “Keep calm and carry on,” said the policeman. J Correct (inversion is normal in
reporting clauses with a simple verb phrase and a full noun phrase as subject).
h. “So you’re back again,” said she. J “So you’re back again,” she said. No inversion in
reporting clauses where the subject is realized by a pronoun.

INTRODUCING ENGLISH GRAMMAR, THIRD EDITION

KEY TO EXERCISES 14  Word Order
2 The following sentences should agree better with the principle of end weight.

a. A 30-year-old man from Lanarkshire who had participated in the race three years in a
row was the winner. J The winner was a 30-year-old man from Lanarkshire who had
participated in the race three years in a row.
b. Why they could not solve the riddle even after hours of trying was difficult to under-
stand. J It was difficult to understand why they could not solve the riddle even after
hours of trying.
c. To be out on one’s own during dark and stormy nights can be scary. J It can be scary
to be out on one’s own during dark and stormy nights.
d. The leading contemporary philosopher, Professor Jerry Fodor, wrote the article. J
The article was written by the leading contemporary philosopher, Professor Jerry
Fodor.
e. The question of what cause there is for celebration was asked. J The question was
asked of what cause there is for celebration. (Somebody asked the question of what
cause there is for celebration.)
f. We sent a letter explaining the details of the investigation to him. J We sent him a
letter explaining the details of the investigation.

3 Explain the difference in form and meaning between the members of each pair.

a. 1 Peter couldn’t see Paul.

2 Paul couldn’t see Peter.
The sentences differ as to which name is mentioned first and last. The placement of a
noun phrase usually signals syntactic function in English, so in (a1) Peter is the subject
(= the person who could not see) and in (a2) Paul is the subject.

b. 1 You don’t mess with me.

2 Don’t you mess with me.
Sentence (b1) has declarative form, with a subject before the verb phrase, while (b2)
has imperative form, with an implied subject after the auxiliary (but before the main
verb). Sentence (b1) is a statement or a warning; i.e. information of the fact that people
in general don’t, or shouldn’t, mess with the speaker. Sentence (b2) is a command for
the hearer not to mess with the speaker.

c. 1 There is a difference in cost.

2 Is there a difference in cost?

INTRODUCING ENGLISH GRAMMAR, THIRD EDITION

KEY TO EXERCISES 14  Word Order
 Sentence (c1) is a declarative and (c2) is a yes/no-interrogative. This is shown by the
placement of the finite verb, which is after the subject in (c1) and before it in (c2).
Sentence (c1) means that a difference in cost exists, while (c2) asks whether the
assessments of cost are similar or different.

d. 1 Naturally, you must behave.

2 You must behave naturally.
The difference is the placement of naturally. The placement carries with it a difference
in meaning: In (d1) the adverb is placed clause-initially and is followed by a comma. It
modifies the whole sentence and is a stance adverbial expressing the speaker’s view
(“of course you must behave”). In (d2) the final placement of the adverb suggests
that it modifies behave. Thus it is a circumstantial adverbial of manner: The speaker
urges “you” to behave in a natural manner.

e. 1 On no account must you speak to him.

2 You must not speak to him on any account.
Sentence (e1) has a negative adverbial in initial position and therefore also inversion of
auxiliary and subject. Sentence (e2) has the corresponding adverbial in initial position,
so no inversion is required. In (e1) the negation is provided by the determiner no in the
adverbial phrase. In (e2) the negation is provided by the negator not, which triggers
the use of the determiner any in the adverbial. The meaning of the two sentences is
much the same, but there is more emphasis on the adverbial in (e1) because it rep-
resents an unusual (marked) word order.

4 Read the following text and answer the questions below:

The current issue of the magazine Psychologies has attracted a lot of attention from
tweeters, readers and, funnily enough, newsagents. The reason? It features an Indian cover
star, British-born actress Archie Panjabi.
It seems odd that such a cover choice should elicit much attention. Magazines, not
just in the UK but globally, tend to be incredibly conservative (i.e. white) about their
choice of covers, yet recently there have been signs of change. In the past few months,
Kelly Rowland, Rihanna and Thandie Newton have appeared on the covers of Marie
Claire, Cosmo and InStyle respectively, while Red magazine’s January cover featured
chef Lorraine Pascale.
Despite the current vogue for magazines using more racially diverse stars, Asian faces
on the newsstand are still a rarity. “We’ve seen in the past how publishers were reluctant

INTRODUCING ENGLISH GRAMMAR, THIRD EDITION

KEY TO EXERCISES 14  Word Order
 to feature ethnic faces on their magazine covers because they felt it might affect sales,”
says Anjana Gosai, an expert on Asian beauty. “It’s encouraging to see more black and Asian
women on mainstream magazines. However, we have a long way to go before this becomes
the norm.”
But why does the ethnicity of the faces that greet us on the newsstand matter anyway?
Because if, like me and like countless others, you grew up avidly consuming magazines but
rarely seeing anyone of the same race or colour, it has a corrosive effect. The pleasure
of magazines has always been about a certain deluded aspiration – the “you, but better”
philosophy. If we are finally moving away from “you, but white…”, that really will give women
cause for celebration. (From The Guardian, abridged)

a. The first sentence of the text is declarative; it starts with the subject, which is followed
by the verbal (has attracted).
b. That such a cover choice should elicit much attention seems odd. The original sentence
agrees better with the principle of end weight, since the notional subject is so much
longer than the verbal. The other sentence with the anticipatory it is It’s encouraging
to see more black and Asian women on mainstream magazines.
c. The current trend for “racially diverse stars” to feature on the cover of magazines has
already been described, so it is given information. The fact that Asian faces are still
a rarity on the newsstand seems to contradict what has just been said, so it is new
information (which is also elaborated on in the next sentences).
d. Initial position: … yet recently there have been signs of change.
Medial position: The pleasure of magazines has always been about a certain deluded
aspiration…
End position: However, we have a long way to go before this becomes the norm.
e. The adverbial in the past occurs in medial position (between the main verb and the
direct object). If it had been moved to end position, it would lose contact with the
main verb seen and instead seem to modify affect sales. It could have been placed in
initial position; however, the speaker probably wanted to start the sentence with the
subject rather than focusing on the past from the outset.
f. The sentence is a wh-interrogative. Its subject contains a relative clause.

c A v |-----------------------------S----------------------------------| V A
But why does the ethnicity of the faces that greet us on the newsstand matter anyway?

S V dO |--------A----------|
that greet us on the newsstand

INTRODUCING ENGLISH GRAMMAR, THIRD EDITION

KEY TO EXERCISES 14  Word Order
5 Findings from the British National Corpus at http://corpus.byu.edu/:

a. The sentences starting with not until have subject-auxiliary inversion, as in Not until
1918 was universal manhood suffrage introduced.
b. Most examples of then came represent subject-verbal inversion. We give two examples
of then came which do not represent inversion; there are more examples of both
types in the corpus: (i) The young chap then came down stairs; here then is in medial
position after the subject. (ii) we went to see my cousins at West Suffolk and and,
and then came home again; the subject has been omitted in a coordinated clause.
c. Of course occurs in all three adverbial positions, but seems most common in initial
position.
d. Three among the first 20 occurrences of maybe in our sample are misspellings of
may be. Some of the positions are difficult to classify, particularly when maybe does
not occur in a complete clause structure. Of those that can safely be classified, we
found 7 in initial position and 5 in medial position. Perhaps occurs initially in 11 cases,
3 times in medial position and twice in end position, in addition to a few that are hard
to classify as clause elements.

In our sample, it was more difficult to classify maybe because almost half of them
occurred in unplanned speech with a less clear sentence structure than we usually find
in writing. The first 20 examples of perhaps, on the other hand, all occurred in writing.
Note, however, that if the search is restricted to the written genres of newspapers
and magazines, initial position is clearly preferred for both adverbs, but perhaps is
medial more often than maybe is.

INTRODUCING ENGLISH GRAMMAR, THIRD EDITION

KEY TO EXERCISES 14  Word Order
15 
DEPENDENT CLAUSES

1 Note that other alternatives than those shown here may be possible:

a. I sat awake at night reading biographies of famous grammarians.

b. I’ll ask Marcel if/whether they are here.
c. When we dined with Taylor the following Tuesday we turned out to be the only guests.
d. Mark didn’t care since he was confident he could face anything.
e. They were waiting for their bags at the airport when Chris felt a tap on his shoulder.
f. “I wouldn’t dream of it,” said Sarah, who was struggling with a huge suitcase.
g. When they arrived at the quayside the boat was already half-way across the bay.

2 A real-life Robinson Crusoe (a) who has spent 20 years on a desert island says he’s glad he
doesn’t have to worry about terrorist attacks. Former millionaire David Glasheen moved
to the idyllic Restoration Island, (b) which is located off North East Australia, after losing
his fortune in 1997. The ex-gold mining tycoon and property magnate, (c) who at his most
successful was worth about $27 million, now lives in a wooden beach shack with his loyal
dog Polly (d) who/which keeps him company. Self-sufficient David added there is nowhere
(e) that/Ø he’d rather be than on his “heaven on earth” natural paradise. “When I came
here I was sick of money – (f) which is what makes people sick – and my marriage had
broken apart.”
When David first arrived he swapped his former luxury home for his a wooden beach
shack (g) which/that dates back to pre-WWII. He has a limited supply of electricity, (h)
which relies on solar panels and a backup generator – and limited running water, (i)
which was only installed a few years ago. There is an internet connection (j) which/that

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KEY TO EXERCISES 15  Dependent Clauses
 allows him to follow the news, keep in touch with the outside world and watch Britain’s
Got Talent videos on YouTube, (k) which is his guilty pleasure. He travels to Cairns once
a year to do his grocery shopping, (l) which includes essentials like olive oil and rice and
luxuries like gummy bears and mars bars. But aside from that annual trip to the civilization,
the castaway survives on vegetables (m) which/that he grows himself and fish, crabs and
shrimp (n) which/that he catches from the ocean.

Reasons for choices: in each case where who is chosen, the antecedent is personal, except
in (d), where it is a dog, thus allowing the choice between who and which. Some of the
relative clauses with who and which are non-restrictive, as marked with commas or dashes,
so that and Zero are not alternatives. In the cases where both which and that are possible,
we have restrictive relative clauses with non-personal antecedents.

3 The type and syntactic function of the italicized dependent clauses:

a. The great oak door was opened before we had a chance to knock. J finite adverbial
clause functioning as a circumstantial adverbial (time).
b. The door was opened by a tall elegant man dressed in a tail coat and black tie. J
non-finite -ed participle clause functioning as postmodifier of man.
c. He informed us that he was Adams, the butler. J finite nominal that-clause functioning
as direct object.
d. He then escorted us to the morning room, where we were greeted by a large log fire.
J finite relative clause functioning as postmodifier of morning room.
e. Above the fireplace was a picture of a man who I presumed was Hamilton’s grandfather.
J finite restrictive relative clause functioning as postmodifier of man.
f. The one sculpture on display was of a Greek figure throwing a discus. J non-finite
-ing participle clause functioning as postmodifier of figure.
g. Looking around, I reflected that only the telephone belonged to the present century.
J (i) non-finite -ing participle functioning as circumstantial adverbial (time); (ii) finite
nominal that-clause functioning as direct object.
h. Hamilton entered the room as a gale might hit an unhappy seaside town. J finite
adverbial clause functioning as circumstantial adverbial (manner).
i. We took our places around an oak table that could comfortably have seated twenty.
J finite restrictive relative clause functioning as postmodifier of table.
j. Hamilton waited for the butler to go round the table and fill the glasses. J non-finite
infinitive clause functioning as direct object of the prepositional verb wait for.

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KEY TO EXERCISES 15  Dependent Clauses
 k. He looked round at the butler to confirm his statement. J non-finite infinitive clause
functioning as circumstantial adverbial (purpose).

4 Explain the difference in form and meaning between the members of each pair.

a. 1 I had a visit from my brother, who surprised me.

2 I had a visit from my brother, which surprised me.
The relative pronouns differ: who refers back to brother, so it introduces a non-re-
strictive relative clause that postmodifies brother. Which has the preceding clause as
its antecedent, so it introduces a sentential relative clause that functions as a stance
adverbial. Sentence (a1) means that “my brother surprised me” and (a2) means “the
fact that my brother visited surprised me”.

b. 1 She didn’t know that they had left.

2 She didn’t know whether they had left.
Both sentences contain nominal dependent clauses functioning as direct object, but
the subordinating conjunctions are different. That introduces a nominal that-clause,
while whether introduces an indirect question. Sentence (b1) means that “they had
left, and she was not aware of it”; in (b2) it is uncertain whether they had left or not,
because she did not know.

c. 1 You should tell us if we are meeting your needs.

2 If we are meeting your needs, you should tell us.
In sentence (c1) the clause starting with if functions as direct object. It is an indirect
question (nominal dependent clause), where if might be replaced by whether. In (c2)
if introduces an adverbial clause functioning as circumstantial adverbial (condition).
The meaning of (c1) is “you ought to inform us whether or not we are meeting your
needs”. Sentence (c2) means “in case we are meeting your needs, you can tell us so”.

d. 1 They know that the neighbour was here earlier.

2 They know because the neighbour was here earlier.
The dependent clause in sentence (d1) is a nominal that-clause functioning as direct
object. The dependent clause in (d2) is an adverbial clause functioning as adverbial
(reason). Thus there is no direct object in (d2); know is used intransitively. Sentence
(d1) means “the neighbour was here earlier, and they know that”. Sentence (d2) means
“the reason why they know something is that their neighbour was here earlier; maybe
he told them something”.

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KEY TO EXERCISES 15  Dependent Clauses
 e. 1 Sitting on the lawn, he saw a rare bird.
2 He saw a rare bird sitting on the lawn.
Both sentences contain a non-finite -ing clause: In (e1) it is placed before the main
clause and in (e2) it is placed after the main clause. In initial position it functions as
an adverbial: “While he was sitting on the lawn he saw a rare bird”. In end position it
functions as a postmodifier of bird: “He saw a rare bird which was sitting on the lawn”.
Thus in (e1) he was sitting on the lawn (because an adverbial -ing clause shares the
subject with the main clause), and in (e2) the bird was sitting on the lawn.

5 Read the following text and answer the questions below:

It’s nice to have a friendly work environment. But in some cases, “work friends” shouldn’t
be Facebook friends. Why not? A status update published on a Tuesday night can easily
turn into office gossip on Wednesday morning. Even worse: Co-workers and managers
could take you less seriously, you could be skipped over for promotions, and you might
find yourself first in line when layoffs occur, all based on your activity on Facebook.
In a new report conducted by my company, Millennial Branding, and Identified.com,
we gathered information from 4 million Gen-Y Facebook profiles to see how their per-
sonal and professional online identities overlap. We discovered that, to some degree,
most users limit what details of their professional lives get onto Facebook. Nearly two-
thirds (64%) of Gen-Y Facebook users don’t list their employer in their profiles, some
likely out of worries that they could be easily searchable by co-workers – a situation
they’d prefer to avoid.
There’s even reason to be careful about friending people you don’t work with right
now. The data shows that young people are job hoppers. They spend just over two years
at their first corporate job before moving on. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that
the average American will have about nine jobs between the ages of 18 and 32. All of this
job hopping increases the likelihood that a Facebook friend will someday be a colleague
at work – perhaps even an in-office rival, or the person who decides whether you get a
promotion. (Time Magazine, excerpts)

a. To have a friendly work environment: non-finite, infinitive clause. Published on a

Tuesday night: non-finite, past participle clause. When lay-offs occur: finite adverbial
clause.
b. To see how their personal and professional online identities overlap: infinitive clause
functioning as circumstantial adverbial (purpose). That, to some degree, most users
limit what details of their professional lives get onto Facebook: nominal that-clause,

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KEY TO EXERCISES 15  Dependent Clauses
 direct object. that they could be easily searchable by co-workers: nominal that-clause
functioning as apposition (of worries). They’d prefer to avoid: restrictive relative clause
functioning as postmodifier of situation.
c. The -ing form must be used because it comes after a preposition (about).
d. The dependent clause could be introduced by who or that, since it is a restrictive
relative clause with a personal antecedent (people) where the pronoun functions as
direct object in the relative clause. Whom is also an alternative, although the style of
the text makes this formal choice less likely.
e. That young people are job hoppers: nominal clause, direct object. That the average … 32:
nominal clause, direct object. That a Facebook friend … work: nominal clause, appo-
sition (and thus part of the direct object along with the likelihood).
f. A nominal clause, indirect question, which functions as direct object (in the relative
clause starting with who).

6 Findings from the Corpus of Contemporary American English at http://corpus.byu.

edu/:

a. Most of the examples of whom follow a preposition; the two that do not follow a
preposition function as direct object in the relative clause. This is in line with the rules
given in 15.3.1B. Whom is most frequent in the academic part of the corpus and least
in the spoken.
b. Because is more than twice as frequent as since in COCA. Because could have been
used in the following example: But the opening of the Erie Canal changed that, since
goods from Europe no longer needed to go through Pittsburgh, but not when since
has temporal meaning, as in It probably hadn’t been more than seven or eight years
since this man had been in high school himself. Furthermore, since does not seem
to be a good alternative to because as the answer to a why-question, as in The next
year, an election year, it was fifty-six percent. Why? Because Republicans in Congress
changed their behavior. (Besides, since cannot replace because in the complex prep-
osition because of, but because of does not introduce clauses.)
c. Start *ing is much more common in this corpus. The five most common verbs
following start to are finish, get, see, feel, think (and since finish probably functions
as a noun in most of the examples of start to finish, we add the sixth: look). The
five most common -ing verbs following start are talking, thinking, looking, getting,
making.
d. There are many hits for the word that following a preposition. In most of the cases that
is a demonstrative determiner or pronoun (and thus does not introduce a that-clause).

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KEY TO EXERCISES 15  Dependent Clauses
 An exception is in that meaning “because”, as in These data are most often rather bland
in that not all analytical persons are good students. Another is except that, as in The
number would be far higher except that up to 60 percent of sports concussions go
unreported.

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KEY TO EXERCISES 15  Dependent Clauses
16 
TEXT GRAMMAR

1 The original text is as follows:

Though many people dream of becoming self-employed, there are a number of advantages
to working for an employer. In many ways, it is simpler and much less stressful to have
a job working for an employer than it is to be self-employed. However, there are also
disadvantages to working for an employer. Before making the decision to be an employee
or self-employed, a person should thus carefully consider the differences.
With regard to taxes, there are two clear advantages of being employed. First, the
employer takes care of a making a tax withholding for an employee through payroll
deductions while self-employed person must make quarterly tax payments. Secondly,
an employer pays a percentage of the employee’s Social Security tax, while a self-em-
ployed person pays all of it himself. For example, in 2011 the Social Security tax rate was
10.4 percent. The employer paid 6.2 percent and the employee paid 4.2 percent of the
employee’s income.

2 The original order is as follows:

1. A volcano beneath the Red Sea has given Earth a New Year’s gift: a new island about
40 miles (60 kilometers) off the coast of Yemen.
2. The currently unnamed landmass first appeared in NASA satellite photos taken on
December 23.
3. By January 7, it had grown to a size of 1,730 by 2,300 feet (530 by 710 meters).
4. By January 15, the volcano had stopped erupting, NASA’s Earth Observatory reported.

INTRODUCING ENGLISH GRAMMAR, THIRD EDITION

KEY TO EXERCISES 16  Text Grammar
 5. The new island is the first permanent island to be formed since an eruption in Iceland
created the island of Surtsey in 1963.
6. But while Iceland is a known volcanic zone, the eruption in the Red Sea was more of
a surprise, experts say.
7. “We tend to forget that the entire floor of the Red Sea is a plate boundary, and that
submarine volcanism here is probably very frequent,” said Haraldur Sigurdsson, a
volcanologist at the University of Rhode Island.
8. The volcano is part of the Zubair island group, a chain of volcanoes whose last known
eruption was more than a hundred years ago, Sigurdsson said.

In the second sentence the currently unnamed landmass refers back to the new island
from sentence 1. Sentences (3) and (4) start with dates that follow on from December 23
in sentence (2). Sentence (5) starts with the new island – it could thus have been suitable
as a second sentence as well. But it is better placed as number (5) because the new island
is formed only after the volcano has stopped erupting, which we know from sentence (4).
Sentence (6) continues the topic of Iceland but sets up a contrast (but) to return to the
new island in the Red Sea. Sentences (7) and (8) represent “what the experts say” (= the
end of sentence 6); (8) fits better as the last sentence because the speaker is presented
more fully in (7) and is thus given information in (8) where he is referred to only by his
last name.

3 The members of the following sentence pairs differ in terms of vocabulary. Describe
the difference in terms of synonymy, hyponymy or lexical opposite.

a. Flowers is a superordinate term and roses is a hyponym. Sentence (a2) thus gives
more specific information about the flowers.
b. Very ill and quite healthy are lexical opposites (antonyms), thus the sentences con-
tradict each other.
c. Police and cops are synonyms, but they differ in style. The second sentence is thus
more informal than the first (which is neutral in style).
d. Withhold and give out are lexical opposites (antonyms). Thus the sentences contradict
each other.
e. Criticism and condemnation both convey negative judgements, but to different
degrees, so they are only near-synonyms. Condemnation is much stronger than crit-
icism.

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KEY TO EXERCISES 16  Text Grammar
4 Read the following text and answer the questions below:

Will first saw Angie – or, as it turned out, he didn’t see her – in Championship Vinyl, a little
record shop off the Holloway Road. He was browsing, filling up the time, vaguely trying to
hunt down an old R & B anthology he used to own when he was younger, one of those
he had loved and lost; he heard her tell the surly and depressive assistant that she was
looking for a Pinky and Perky record for her niece. He was trawling through the racks
while she was being served, so he never caught a glimpse of her face, but he saw a lot
of honey-blond hair, and he heard the kind of vaguely husky voice that he and everyone
else thought of as sexy, so he listened while she explained that her niece didn’t even
know who Pinky and Perky were. (From About a Boy by Nick Hornby)

a. The personal pronouns in the text have been marked with red and bold. All the
instances of he refer back to Will and all those of she/her refer to Angie. Two instances
of her have not been marked because they are possessive determiners rather than
personal pronouns. Similarly, it in the first line has not been marked, as it is an example
of a dummy it, and part of the construction it turned out.
b. Examples of lexical repetition in the text include record and forms of the verb see.
c. Words in the text that belong to the lexical field of “record shop” include: Champi-
onship Vinyl, record, R & B anthology, racks, assistant, browse, serve. The last three
(or even four) are more general, i.e. typical of more kinds of shops than just “record
shops”.
d. The definite article is natural with the shop assistant because people know that shops
have shop assistants, and so the presence of the assistant is a given, even if he/she
has not been mentioned earlier.
e. An example (though not a whole sentence): He was trawling through the racks while
she was being served, so he never caught a glimpse of her face… The subject (he) is
given information from the previous sentence, what he was doing is new information,
and also what Angie was doing (being served). After so, the subject he is still given
information, never caught a glimpse of echoes didn’t see in the first sentence, but her
face is new information. These clauses thus agree well with the information principle,
with given information first and new information last.
f. The conjunctions that connect clauses or sentences in the text have been underlined.
Or expresses addition (i.e. an added alternative); as is a subordinating conjunction
expressing comparison; when signals a temporal relationship; that (occurring twice)
is a subordinating conjunction introducing a nominal clause; while (occurring twice)
is a subordinating conjunction signaling a temporal relationship; so (occurring twice)

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KEY TO EXERCISES 16  Text Grammar
 is a conjunction signaling that what follows is an effect of what has gone before; but
signals a contrast; and signals addition.

5 The passages given under questions 5b–5d are just a few of the possible examples found
in the British National Corpus. You may have found others that illustrate the patterns
equally well.

a. In general, those connectors that occur most in spoken English are informal, par-
ticularly as the spoken English of the BNC contains a lot of informal conversation.
Academic language and newspaper language are considered more formal.

connector most least notes on formality level

frequent in frequent in
however academic spoken relatively formal
cos spoken newspaper very informal, not common in
writing
thus academic spoken formal
for a start spoken (+ fiction) academic informal, frequent also in fic-
tion, so acceptable in writing
(though possibly in fictional
dialogue)
in the end fiction academic non-academic: possibly used for
structuring narratives
finally fiction (+maga- spoken also probably used for structur-
zine) ing written narrative, not much
a feature of speech
therefore academic fiction formal
anyway spoken academic informal

b. The phrase the question is most typically brings out the question-answer pattern, but
problem-solution can also be found:

The problem-solution pattern:

[PROBLEM – i.e. grammar is not learned in an effective manner] The question is
how should grammar be learned so that its intrinsic communicative character is under-
stood and acted upon. [NOT RIGHT SOLUTION] This cannot be done by restricting
attention to its formal properties, the relations and regularities which make up the
internal mechanism of the device. No matter how legitimate it might be to define the

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KEY TO EXERCISES 16  Text Grammar
 scope of linguistics in this way (and this is currently a controversial matter), it will not
do for language pedagogy. [SOLUTION] Learners need to realize the function of the
device as a way of mediating between words and contexts,…

[PROBLEM – stated as a series of questions] the question is, how exactly should
they be interpreted? What is it that makes them intelligible? What kind of facts do the
propositions communicating such claims express? [OUTLINE OF SOLUTION] One
well-known and well-publicised attempt in recent philosophy to address this problem
in a “non-reductivist” spirit has gone under the name of Existentialism, and I shall now
comment briefly on what I take to be the main features of the existentialist approach
before outlining my own position.

The question-answer pattern:

And we do, the question is can we afford it [ANSWER] and we think we can.
…and the question is are we to express that reality or must we continue to obscure
it. [ANSWER] We must express it for the world to see and to believe.

The question is, what constitutes wild salmon at its best? [ANSWER 1] Not the
sexually played-out kelt, nor a fish that has undergone an exhausting twenty minutes
or so battling with a master angler. Fighting for its life causes chemical changes in the
flesh. That does not render it inedible if you cook it within a few hours – or freeze it
immediately. [ANSWER 2] If you want to eat a salmon at its best, try to find one that
has been netted at the river mouth or offshore early in the spring…

c. Note that most examples of the cause-effect structure have the effect before the
cause, as shown in the following:

Those readers who like the gossip found in “Heard on my Rounds” will have noticed
[EFFECT] that the column has not appeared in this issue. [CAUSE] The reason is
that there is nothing to put in.
Though commercial banks have lent the majority of the capital, [EFFECT] the debt-ser-
vicing burden is lower. [CAUSE] The reason is that Malaysia’s exports have been
much stronger.

d. In the first example below the fact is introduces an elaboration of the statement
preceding it; in the second it introduces a correction to a false statement (the true-
false pattern).

INTRODUCING ENGLISH GRAMMAR, THIRD EDITION

KEY TO EXERCISES 16  Text Grammar
 Some manufacturers now charge little or nothing extra for diesel. But at the other
extreme some manufacturers impose what seems an incredible loading against diesel
versions. The fact is that diesel engines are produced in huge volume compared
with a few years ago, reducing costs considerably, while petrol engines have grown
ever more complex.
Some shops are offering old squarials at knock-down prices and implying that [FALSE]
they’re a good buy because they can be converted to receive Sky next year. But that’s
all pie in the sky. [TRUE] The fact is, they’ll only give you BSkyB until December.

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KEY TO EXERCISES 16  Text Grammar
17 
GENRE AND STYLE

1 The following sentences are suggestions – other alternatives will also be acceptable.

a. Please refrain from smoking. J (Please) don’t smoke.

b. We must adhere to these rules. J We must follow the rules.
c. Offenders will be prosecuted. J You’ll be punished for breaking the rules.
d. We apologize for any inconvenience caused. J We are sorry if this makes things
difficult for you.
e. Their principal arguments so far are without foundation. J They don’t have any good
arguments.
f. The company put $4 million of new capital in for the development of new technologies.
J The company has paid $4 million for developing new technologies.

2 The following words/phrases are suggestions – other alternatives will also be acceptable.

a. If past or extant life is discovered on Mars, two possible outcomes follow, both pro-
foundly cool. J interesting
b. Three-ply Bristol board has a surface kind of like illustration board. J reminiscent of
c. The undersigned hereby acknowledges receipt of the stuff described on the annexed
invoice. J goods
d. Every author who has ever eyeballed a blank page knows the primary difficulty in
telling a story. J beheld, contemplated
e. The success of the program is directly related to the presence of highly motivated,
savvy teachers. J insightful, knowledgeable

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KEY TO EXERCISES 17  Genre and Style
 f. Combine a morning of exploring the historic city of York with an evening enjoying an
awesome performance of the York Mystery Plays in the city’s Museum Gardens. J
enthralling (a wonderful)

3 In what way(s) do the members of each of the following pairs differ in terms of topic,
target group, purpose and/or wording?

a. 1 Please take a seat.

2 Sit down, will you!
The differences in wording concern the presence/absence of the politeness marker
please and the tag will you . This makes the speaker of sentence (a1) sound more
polite than the speaker of (a2). The topic and purpose are the same = get hearer to
sit down. The differences in wording and politeness suggest that the speaker of (a2)
either has clear authority over the hearer or that the speaker is angry. The speaker
of (a1) treats the hearer as equal.

b. 1 Documented trends in increasing prevalence of overweight and inactivity mean

that pediatricians must focus preventive efforts on childhood obesity.
2 It has been well documented that more and more people are overweight, often
because they are inactive. Therefore paediatricians need to find out how they can
help children avoid becoming overweight or obese.
The topic is the same, but the target group probably is not. Sentence (b1) is formal,
with heavy noun phrases. The style would indicate that both the writer and the reader
are specialists. In (b2) the same information is given as in (b1), with a less heavy style.
The target group could be interested non-specialists, such as readers of a magazine
or a newspaper.

c. 1 Steel is an alloy of iron and carbon in which the carbon content ranges up to
2 percent (with a higher carbon content, the material is defined as cast iron).
By far the most widely used material for building the world’s infrastructure and
industries, it is used to fabricate everything from sewing needles to oil tankers.
2 Steel is a hard metal that people use to make many different products. Car bodies,
bridges, building frames, and containers are just a few of the things made from
steel.
The topic of passages (c1) and (c2) is roughly the same, and the purpose of both is to
inform about steel. However, (c1) contains much more information and uses a much
more specialized vocabulary, while (c2) uses everyday words. This suggests that the

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KEY TO EXERCISES 17  Genre and Style
 target groups are different. In fact both passages are taken from encyclopedias, of
which the second is specifically for children.

d. 1 The new Prius offers something for everyone. An EPA-estimated combined 50 mpg
rating for those who’d like to spend less on gas.
2 The current Prius is rated at 72.4 mpg based on European mileage testing, though
it registers 50 mpg in combined city/highway driving based on U.S. testing.
The topic of passages (d1) and (d2) is the same, namely a car called Prius. However,
(d1) contains more everyday language and makes reference to users of the car. Pas-
sage (d2) has more specialized vocabulary and refers to testing of the car. While (d1)
seems to offer the car and its features to a potential user, (d2) is merely informative.
This makes it likely that the purpose of d1 is to sell the Prius, while the purpose of
(d2) is to give information about the car to a relatively knowledgeable readership.

4 Newspaper-style versions of this text will vary greatly, so we make no attempt here at
producing a model text. However, the kinds of changes that would be required (even
for a local newspaper) include the following:

P The text must have a title that is likely to arouse interest, such as “Dead Duck Drama
in Regent’s Park” or “Local lad (11) kills duck with sandwich”.
P The text should start with an introduction of the incident and the people in it (and
since this is for a local newspaper, probably also their approximate addresses).
P The free indirect speech style of the fiction text will have to be changed, with more
focus on facts. Some of Marcus’s thoughts might be converted to statements from
him to the journalist, though.
P The dialogue cannot be kept in its original form: it can either be omitted altogether,
or just summarized. One or two of the utterances can be kept as statements to the
journalist, but possibly in a less colloquial style. For instance “That’s not a sandwich,
that’s a bloody French loaf. No wonder it keeled over. That would have killed me.”
might be turned into: Will Freeman (36), who witnessed the incident, says “It wasn’t
a sandwich, it was a French loaf which could have killed anyone”.

5 Findings from the British National Corpus:

a. I and you are most frequent in spoken English (and least in the academic genre) while
me is most frequent in fiction. So we may conclude that spoken (conversational)

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KEY TO EXERCISES 17  Genre and Style
 English are interactive and use a lot of first- and second-person pronouns. These are
also common in fiction, which may contain dialogue and/or be first-person narratives.
b. The pattern for pron. ALL is the same as those for I/me/you: the highest number is
found in spoken English, closely followed by fiction. Academic English contains the
lowest number.
c. The pattern for noun. ALL is almost the opposite of that for pronouns: Academic
English has the highest number, very closely followed by all the other written genres
except fiction. Spoken English has the lowest number. This indicates that more for-
mal written genres have more full noun phrases while spoken English relies more on
pronouns.
d. Nouns ending in -ization are most common in academic English. However, they do not
have the lowest number in spoken English. A look at 100 random examples of *ization
words in speech indicates that these words occur most in more formal settings, such
as meetings and speeches. Newspapers are somewhat surprisingly at the bottom of
the list. [The search should actually be repeated with *isation, which seems to be
the spelling variety favoured by most of the British newspapers and magazines. This
changes the picture quite a lot: academic English is still the genre that uses the high-
est number of *isation words, but the lowest number is found in fiction (followed by
spoken English). The use of such words seems to be closely connected with formality
level.]

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KEY TO EXERCISES 17  Genre and Style