Transcript Beni Culturali e Spettacolo

Università degli Studi di Cagliari
BENI CULTURALI E SPETTACOLO
Lingua Inglese 1
INTRODUCTION
Grammar is the study of how words combine to form sentences.
John has been ill
Conversely:
Ill John been has
Based on: Gerald Nelson, English an essential grammar, Routledge, 2011
GRAMMAR RULES
What is grammar, then?
Prescriptive rules were designed to provide
guidelines for writers of formal prose.
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Never split an infinitive
Never end a sentence with a preposition
Never omit the subject…
«to boldly go», «Who do you live with?», «(he)
came yesterday»…
Descriptive approach = the rules that native
speakers of English follow every time they speak.
STANDARD ENGLISH (SE) is the variety of
English used in public institutions, including
government, education, the judiciary and the media
(radio, television, newspapers, magazines…).
Ex. I was ill last week (SE)
I were ill last week (NSE)
Using SE involves making choices of grammar,
vocabulary and spelling and it has nothing to do
with accent. SE is the variety with the greatest
value in social terms.
ENGLISH AS A WORLD LANGUAGE
English speakers throughout the world are around
800 million. English is the mother tongue of an
estimated 380 million people.
Its importance in international communication and
trade is unquestioned.
The 20th century witnessed an important
development: the decline of British English and the
rise of American English as the dominant variety.
BRITISH ENGLISH VS AMERICAN ENGLISH
SPOKEN LANGUAGE…
GRAMMAR…
Despite their differences, American English and British
English share a very extensive, common core of
vocabulary, spelling and grammar which makes them
mutually intelligible.
THE GRAMMATICAL HIERARCHY
THE BASIC SENTENCE ELEMENTS
A sentence is any sequence of words that begins with
a capital letter and ends with a full stop (period), a
question mark or an exclamation mark:
Paul plays football.
Who lives in the house next door?
What a silly thing to say!
These are SIMPLE SENTENCES.
We can combine two simple sentences together using a
conjunction like and, but, or, and so:
Paul plays football.
Amy prefers tennis.
Paul plays football and/but Amy prefers tennis.
This is called COMPOUND SENTENCE.
CLAUSE
SUBJECT AND PREDICATE
Simple or
complex
The Subject is usually the first element in the sentence,
while the rest of the sentence, which includes the verb, is
the Predicate.
HOW CAN WE IDENTIFY THE SUBJECT?
1) Who? What?
Amy laughed
Q: Who laughed?
A: Amy ( = subject)
2) The inversion test
Declarative: James is at school
Interrogative: Is James at school?
3) The tag question test
Paul is getting big, isn’t he?
The children seem busy, don’t they?
It was Paul who sent the note, wasn’t it?
4) The agreement test
The subject of the a sentence agrees in number
with the verb that follows it:
The dog barks all night
The dogs bark all night
This test only applies when the verb has a presenttense form and a third-person subject.
I sleep all night
We sleep all night
EXERCISE
Rewrite each of the sentences below as questions and underline
the Subject in the question:
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He is her brother.
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The flight is great.
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They are excited.
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You are in England.
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This is his friend.
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It was Tom who made the suggestion.
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His Facebook account is closed.