Transcript CHOOSING NOMINALS

CHOOSING
NOMINALS
Appositives
• Appositives may look like adjectivals as they add
modifications, but the main difference is:
• An appositive actually renames the noun phrase!
• Egs.
• Tim, the deli manager at Giant Foods, used to own a
restaurant.
• Jack London’s novel The Call of the Wild was serialized in The
Saturday Evening Post in the summer of 1903.
• The relationship between the appositive and the noun it renames is
like the relationship between the two NP positions in Pattern 2
sentences:
• Something is something
• E.g.
• Tim, the deli manager at Giant Foods, used to own a restaurant.
• Tim is the deli manager at Giant Foods.
• Jack London’s novel The Call of the Wild was serialized in The
Saturday Evening Post in the summer of 1903.
• Jack London’s novel is The Call of the Wild.
• How do we use commas for appositives?
• It is similar to relative clause (restrictive or nonrestrictive).
• Our friend Blane drives a snazzy red Miata.
• (restricted: we may have more than one friend)
• The judge’s husband, Morrie, stays home with the kids.
• (nonrestricted: judge must have only one husband!)
• One important thing to remember:
• Not all appositives are noun phrases!!
• E.g.
• This role for the comma, to shift the peak of stress, is probably
one you hadn’t thought about before.
• Appositives are nominals in function, but verb forms can even
be appositives
• Now go to p. 181 for group discussion
Colon and Dashes with
Appositives
• Colon can be used to connect compound sentences
• Most of the buildings in the town were high: Some rose to
eighty feet.
• Colon can also be used as a signal for appositives (puts emphasis)
• I’ll never forget the birthday present my dad bought me
when I was ten: a new three-speed bike.
• This can also be written with a dash (informal colon)
• I’ll never forget the birthday present my dad bought me
when I was ten—a new three-speed bike.
• If you don’t want to put emphasis, use a comma instead
• One of the most common uses of the colon is to signal a list:
• Three committess were set up to plan the convention:
program, finance, and local arrangements.
• Sometimes the separate structures in the list have internal
punctuations of their own. In that case, you need to separate
them with semicolons:
• The study of our grammar system includes three areas:
phonology, the study of sounds; morphology, the
study of meaningful combinations of sounds; and
syntax, the study of sentence structure.
• When an appositive series is in the middle of the sentence, we use a
pair of dashes to set it off:
• Three committees—program, finance, and local
arrangements—were set up to plan the convention.
• All three areas of our grammar system—phonology,
morphology, and syntax—will be covered in the grammar
course.
• In these sentences, if we had used commas instead of dashes, the
reader might have been confused:
• All three areas of our grammar system, phonology,
morphology, and syntax, will be covered in the grammar
course.
Avoiding punctuation errors
• There is a simple rule to follow for the use of the colon with
appositives:
• The colon that introduces an appositive is preceded
by a complete independent clause.
• The colons in the following sentences are INCORRECT because
the parts preceding the colon are not full sentences:
• The committees that were set up to plan the
convention are: program, finance, and local
arrangements.
• The three areas of the grammar system are:
phonology, morphology, and syntax.
• It is possible to use «the following» to avoid such mistakes:
• The committees that were set up to plan the convention
are the following: program, finance, and local
arrangements.
• However, in this sentence the focus is on «the following», so the
best version of this sentence can be
• Three committees were set up to plan the convention: program,
finance, and local arrangements.
• Now go to p. 184 for Exercise 33
Sentence Appositives
• Instead of simply renaming a noun, sentence appositives
offer a conclusion about the sentence as a whole in the form
of a noun phrase (very similar to broad reference of which):
• The musical opened to rave reviews and standingroom-only crowds—a smashing success.
• A pair of cardinals has set up housekeeping in our
pine tree—an unexpected welcome event.
• In August of 2005 Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast
with winds that clocked 150 mph—the worst natural
disaster in the nation’s history in over 100 years.
NOMINAL VERB PHRASES
• Gerunds:
• Look at this participial phrase
• Going through airport security, the travelers do not look happy.
• How is this different from the following sentence?
• Going through airport security takes the fun out of air
travel
• -ing form as a nominal
• Going through airport security takes the fun out of air
travel
IT
• Gerunds can fill all the NP positions in the sentence:
• As subject complement
• The worst part of the security system is taking off your
shoes.
• As direct object
• I enjoy jogging early in the morning
• As object of preposition
• My biology professor often begins class by telling weird
jokes.
• As appositive
• My dad’s hobby, collecting stamps, can be time consuming.
• The Subject of the Gerund:
• Subject generally does not appear in gerund:
• Jogging is good exercise. (who is jogging?)
• Raising orchids requires patience. (who is raising?)
• If the subject of the gerund appears, then it is in the
possessive case:
• I objected to their arriving in the middle of the
meeting.
• My objecting didn’t make any difference.
• There is no point in your coming if you’re going to be
so late.
• Even if it is a person’s name, it is possessive:
• I was surprised at Terry’s refusing the job offer.
• However, if the subject is compound, the possessive is
generally not used:
• I was surprised at Bill and Terry turning down that
beautiful apartment.
• But a more natural way of saying this is as follows:
• I was surprised when Bill and Terry turned down that
beautiful apartment.
• Infinitives:
• Infinitives can also function as nominals (like gerunds)
• Remaining neutral on this issue is unconscionable.
• To remain neutral on this isse is unconscionable.
• Like gerunds, infinitives can function in all NP positions:
• Direct object
• My cousin wants to be a farmer
• Subject complement
• His ambition is to raise organic vegetables.
• Appositive
• My sister achieved her goal: to graduate in three years.
• Now go to Exercise 34, p. 188
NOMINAL CLAUSES
• They are the clauses that start with «that»
• I suspect that our history exam will be tough.
• The president recently announced that he will ask
Congress for tax cuts for the middle class.
• In these sentences, a complete sentence becomes the object
of another sentence.
• Our history exam will be tough.
• He will ask Congress for tax cuts for the middle class.
• Nominal clauses can also be in the subject position
• That the common cold is caused by a virus has been
clearly established by science.
• Sometimes we don’t even need «that» (if in object position)
• I suspect our history exam will be tough.
• Derek said he would be late.
• Make sure it doesn’t cause a confusion
• Last week I suspected my friend Kim, who never goes to class,
was getting into academic trouble.
• The reader might get confused (Is ‘my friend, Kim’ the subject or
the object?)
• If «that» is in the subject position, it cannot be omitted.
• The common cold is caused by a virus (that) has been
clearly established by science.
• Nominal clauses can also be used for interrogatives:
• I wonder why the students are protesting.
• Who will be at the party remains a mystery.
• (Unlike ‘that’ interrogatives cannot be omitted)
• Can also be used as objects of prepositions and appositives:
• The boy was curious about what was in the box. (Obj of
Prep)
• The students questions, why the summer schedule was
changed, has not been answered. (App)
• Nominals as delayed subjects:
• In spoken language nominals as subjects are prefered to be delayed:
• Instead of saying
• That the common cold is caused by a virus has been clearly established.
• We prefer to say
• It has been clearly established that the common cold is caused by a
virus.
• We do the same for infinitives
• Instead of saying
• To remain neutral on this issue is unconscionable.
• We prefer to say
• It is unconscionable to remain neutral on this issue.
• Now, go to exercise 35 on p. 191