Documenti di Didattica
Documenti di Professioni
Documenti di Cultura
Short notes
What is the difference between Inflectional and Derivational?
1- Inflectional suffixes are limited in number. In other words, there are eight
inflectional suffixes in English, they are as follows:
1. [-s pl]= noun plural, boys
2. [-s ps]= noun possessive, boy's.
3. [-s 3rd]= present 3rd person singular, plays.
4. [-ing vb]= present participle, discussing.
5. [-D pt]= past tense, played.
6. [-D pp] = past participle, walked.
7. [-ER cp]= comparative, smaller.
8. [-Est sp]= superlative, easiest.
On the contrary, the derivational suffixes are greater in number. Some of
these suffixes are as follows: 1- [-ment] e.g.. Government. 2- [-ing] singing.
3- [-acy] accuracy. 4- [-ship] membership. 5- [-th] truth. 6- [-hood] childhood.
7- [-ive] active. 8- [-er] player. 9- [-able] acceptable. 10- [tion] action.
Form VS Function
At first, we should refer to sentence structure which means how words are put
together in a sensible way. It consists of three types: form, function and meaning.
In this regard, we will deal only with form and function. Form is defined as a way
of writing or saying a word that shows its number, tense etc. For example, ‘was’
is a past form of the verb ‘to be’. Also, Form is divided into two categories:
morphology as (cat), and phonology as / kᴂt/.
Types of verbs
Adverbs: modify verb or an adjective. For example, "He studies hard (adverb)",
or "The food is extremely (adverb) delicious(adjective)". It can also modify only
part of the clause/sentence or the clause/sentence as a whole. In this latter case,
they are called sentence modifiers. An example is: Unfortunately, john
disappeared.
Kinds of adverbs
Adverb of Manner: bravely, fast, happily, hard, quickly, well.
Adverb of Place: by, down, here, near, there, up .
Adverb of Time: now, soon. still, then, today, yet .
Adverb of Frequency: always, never, occasionally.
CAN / COULD
May / Might
May and might are used for:
1- Possibility
The school might be closed. (the degree of possibility here is less than that
of may)
2- Permission
Might I Leave now? (the use of might for permission is rare, and it is more formal
than may).
Shall / Should
when shall is used to express future, it is used with I and we. Shall is less usual
than will In this sense and is restricted to British English. For example, I shall buy
the book tomorrow. We shall go to Alexandria in a week.
1- Making offers
Shall I fetch you another glass of wine?
2- Making suggestions
Shall we go to the cinema tonight?
3- Giving advice
I think you should study hard for the exam.
4- Obligation: weak form of must
The university should provide more sports facilities.
Will / Would
Will expresses neutral futurity. An example is "She will be the first woman to won
that prize.
1- Willingness : Will you repeat it again? "Will you kindly turn off the TV?
2- Intention: I will stay there for three months
3- Prediction: The city look much better after the elections.
4- Insistence: I will study photography, whatever you say.
Must:
The past of must in this sense is had to. Example: "I had to stay until the end of
the exam last week."
There are two different ways of negating this must, first by must not, which
indicates prohibition or negative obligation, and second by need not, which
implies lack of obligation, whether positive or negative. Examples, you must stay
until the end of the exam (positive). You must not stay until the end of the
exam.(negative obligations).
Must is also used for logical deduction, indicating high probability. Example:
Someone is at the door. It must be Jack.
Collective nouns
Adjectives are words used to modify nouns. They are not pluralized. They may
occur after the nouns they refer to. They also can be used in the comparative or
the superlative degree.
An attributive adjective occurs before the noun it modifies such as: a rich man,
and the clever girl, whereas a predicative adjectives are used in the predicate of
a sentence in which the main verb is a linking verb (e.g. be, seem, look, feel). e.g..
This man is rich. This girl seems clever.
1- Demonstrative adjectives: This car, These boys, That building, those girls
2- Distributive adjectives: each student, every man, either side, neither one
3- Interrogative adjectives: Whose car is that? What time is it now?
4- Possessive adjectives: this is my favorite book.
5- Quantitative adjectives: some flowers, few people, many houses
6- Adjectives such as: chief, main, only, principle, cheer or utter. e.g.. This is
the only/main reason.
Whereas the adjectives that can be used only predicatively are: afraid, abroad,
afloat, alive, alone, ashamed, asleep, and upset. Example: the boy was asleep and
the girl was afraid. That woman looks very upset.
The grammatical categories are a number of items (such as; tense, case, and
number) according to which the form of a word varies, without changing the part
of speech. For instance, the noun book has books as its plural; the pronoun he
has him as its objective case form; and the verb go has went as its past tense,
whereas the grammatical function is the role that a word or a group of words has
in the sentence. A noun, for example, can be the subject or the object of the
sentence, so "subject" and "object" are two grammatical functions of a noun.
Uses of comma
1- Use a comma to set off the elements of a series (three or more things),
including the last two. For example, "My favorite uses of the Internet are
sending e-mail, surfing the Web, and using chat rooms."
2- Use a comma and a coordinating conjunction (and, but, or, nor, for, yet, so)
to separate two independent clauses. For example: "The public seems eager
for some kind of gun control legislation, but the congress is obviously too
timid to enact any truly effective measures."
3- Use a comma to set off introductory elements. For example, "In the winter
of 1644, nearly half the settlers died of starvation or exposure."
4- Use a comma to separate coordinate adjectives. For example, "The designs
for an expensive, modern gym should make them happy."