Noun Phrases

A noun phrase is either a single noun or pronoun or a group of words containing a noun or a pronoun that function together as a noun or pronoun, as the subject or object of a verb.

§  Examples Of Noun Phrases:

EG: John was late.
('John' is the noun phrase functioning as the subject of the verb.)
EG: The people that I saw coming in the building at nine o'clock have just left.
('The people ... nine o'clock' is a lengthy noun phrase, but it functions as the subject of the main verb 'have just left').

Nouns

To begin our discussion, we must first establish the notion of a noun.   

English teachers commonly identify nouns by their content.    They describe nouns as words that "identify people, places, or things," as well as feelings or ideas—words like salesman , farm , balcony , bicycle , and trust.    If you can usually put the word a or the before a word, it’s a noun. If you can make the word plural or singular, it's a noun. But don't worry...all that is needed at the moment is a sense of what a noun might be.

Noun Pre-Modifiers

What if a single noun isn't specific enough for our purposes?      How then do we modify a noun to construct a more specific reference?    

English places modifiers before a noun.    Here we indicate the noun that is at the center of a noun phrase by an asterisk (*) and modifiers by arrows pointed toward the noun they modify.

white   house

       *

large     man

       *

Modification is a somewhat technical term in linguistics. It does not mean to change something, as when we "modify" a car or dress. To modify means to limit, restrict, characterize, or otherwise focus meaning. We use this meaning throughout the discussion here.

Modifiers before the noun are called pre-modifiers.    All of the pre-modifiers that are present and the noun together form a noun phrase .

NOUN      PHRASE

pre-modifiers noun

     *

By contrast, languages such as Spanish and French place modifiers after the noun

casa blanca       white house

*    

homme grand       big man

*      

            The most common pre-modifiers are adjectives, such as red , long , hot . Other types of words often play this same role.    Not only articles

the       water

        *

but also verbs

running      water

       *

and possessive pronouns

her      thoughts

           *

pre-modifiers limit the reference in a wide variety of ways.   

                           Order:                                      second, last

                           Location:                     kitchen, westerly

                           Source or Origin:         Canadian

                           Color:                                      red, dark

                           Smell:                                       acrid, scented

                           Material:                      metal, oak

                           Size:                                        large, 5-inch

                           Weight:                       heavy

                           Luster:                                     shiny, dull

A number of pre-modifiers must appear first if they appear at all.

                           Specification:                                      a, the, every

                           Designation:                                        this, that, those, these

                           Ownership/Possessive:            my, your, its, their, Mary’s

               Number:                                  one, many

These words typically signal the beginning of a noun phrase.   

Some noun phrases are short:

                                       the table

                                       ®       *           

Some are long:

the second shiny red Swedish touring sedan

     *

a large smelly red Irish setter

     *

my carved green Venetian glass salad bowl

     *

the three old Democratic legislators

        *

Notice that each construction would function as a single unit within a sentence.    (We offer a test for this below,)

The noun phrase is the most common unit in English sentences.    That prevalence can be seen in the following excerpt from an example from the section on the choice of language:

The stock market’s summer swoon turned into a dramatic rout
Monday as the Dow Jones industrial average plunged.

The stock market’s summer swoon turned into   a dramatic rout    *                                *

Monday as the Dow Jones industrial average plunged.
     *                    *

To appreciate the rich possibilities of pre-modifiers, you have only to see how much you can expand a premodifier in a noun phrase:

The book
The history book
The American history book
The illustrated American history book
The recent illustrated American history book
The recent controversial illustrated American history book
The recent controversial illustrated leather bound American history book

Noun Post-Modifiers

We were all taught about pre -modifiers: adjectives appearing before a noun in school.    Teachers rarely speak as much about adding words after the initial reference.    Just as we find pre -modifiers, we also find    post -modifiers—modifiers coming after a noun.

The most common post-modifiers are prepositional phrases:

the book on the table

   *      

civil conflict in Africa

       *     

the Senate of the United States

      *       

Post-modifiers can be short

a dream deferred

     *

or long, as in Martin Luther King Jr.’s reference to

a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves

    *    

and the sons of former slaveowners will be able to sit down together

at a table of brotherhood.

Post-modifiers commonly answer the traditional news reporting questions of who , what , where , when , how , or why .    Noun post-modifiers commonly take the following forms:

prepositional phrase                the dog in the store

              *   

_ing phrase                   the girl running to the store

              *   

_ed past tense                          the man wanted by the police

              *   

wh - clauses                              the house where I was born

                *      

that/which clauses                  the thought that I had yesterday

               *     

If you see a preposition, wh - word ( which, who, when where ), -ing verb form, or that or which after a noun, you can suspect a post-modifier and the completion of a noun phrase.   

The Pronoun Test

In school, we were taught that pronouns replaced nouns .    Not so.    Pronouns replace complete noun phrasesPronoun replacement thus offers a test of a complete noun phrase. Consider:

The boy ate the apple in the pie. 

   The boy ate                the apple in the pie.

              *      

Want proof? Introduce the pronoun “it” into the sentence.    If a pronoun truly replaces a noun, we’d get                                        

*The boy ate                  the it in the pie.

No native speaker would say that!    They’d say

               The boy ate                it.

The pronoun replaces the complete noun phrase, the apple in the pie .

Simple Future

Definition:
Simple Future Tense is used to describing job or action that will to do (happened) at future.

The Formula:
1. Will
(+) S + shall/will + Verb I
(-) S + shall/will + not + Verb I
(?) Shall/will + S + Verb I?

2. Going to
(+) S + be + going to + Verb I
(-) S + be + not + goimg to + Verb I
(?) be + S + going to + Verb I?

How do we use the Simple Future Tense?

·         No Plan: we use the simple future tense when there is no plan or decision to do something before we speak. We make the decision spontaneously at the time of speaking.

Example:

1. Hold on. I'll get a pen.
2. We will see what we can do to help you.
3. Maybe we'll stay in and watch television tonight
4. I think I'll go to the gym tomorrow.
5. I think I will have a holiday next year.
6. I don't think I'll buy that car.

·         Prediction: we often use the simple future tense to make a prediction about the future. Again, there is no firm plan. We are saying what we think will happen.

Example:

1. It will rain tomorrow.
2. People won't go to Jupiter before the 22nd century.
3. Who do you think will get the job?

Notes:

1.The written lesson is below.

2.Links to quizzes, tests, etc. are to the left.

The future tense is used to tell what "will" happen, or what "shall" happen.

-I will go to the beach next month.
-I shall write the letter next week.

But, the future tense is not used to express a willingness to do something. For this, use the verb "querer."

Note:
That when we have a plan or intention to do something in the future, we usually use other tenses or expressions, such as the present continuous tense or going to.

Time signal:

1. Tomorrow…

• Morning
• Afternoon
• Evening
• Night

2. Next…

• Time
• Week
• Month
• Year
• January

4.      Tonight
4. The day after tomorrow
5. Soon
6. Later
7. Two, three more days
8. Two, three days later

Finite Verbs

Defition of finite verbs:

A finite verbs is a verb that is inflected for person and for tense according to the rules and categories of the languages in which it occurs. Finite verbs can form independent clauses, which can stand by their own as complete sentences.

A non-finite verb has no subject, tense or number. The only non-finite verb forms are the infinitive (indicated by to), the gerund or the participle.

Some Types Tense:

• Finite verb forms include: I go, she goes, he went
• Non-finite verb forms include: to go, going, gone

Identify the finite verbs in a sentence:

1. Most finite verbs can take an -ed or a -d at the end of the word to indicate time in the past:cough, coughed; celebrate, celebrated. Nearly all finite verbs take an -s at the end of the word to indicate the present when the subject of the verb is third-person singular: cough, he coughs; celebrate, she celebrates.
2. Finite verbs are often groups of words that include such auxiliary verbs as can, must, have, and be: can be suffering, must eat, will have gone.
3. Finite verbs usually follow their subjects: He coughs. The documents had compromised him. They will have gone.
4. Finite verbs surround their subjects when some forms of a question are asked: Is he coughing? Did they celebrate?

News Item

Definition news item:

News item is a text which informs readers about events of the day. The events are considered newsworthy or important.

2.Generic Structure of News Item:

1.Newsworthy event

2.Background Events

3.Source

3.Language Feature of News Item

1.Using Action Verbs
2.Using Saying Verbs

3.Using Passive Sentence

4.  Examples and structures of the text:

Town Contaminated

Newsworthy events:

Moscow – A Russian journalist has uncovered evidence of another Soviet nuclear catastrophe, which killed 10 sailors and contaminated an entire town.

Background Events:

Yelena Vazrshavskya is the first journalist to speak to people who witnessed the explosion of a nuclear submarine at the naval base of shkotovo – 22 near Vladivostock.
The accident, which occurred 13 months before the Chernobyl disaster, spread radioactive fall-out over the base and nearby town, but was covered up by officials of the Soviet Union. Residents were told the explosion in the reactor of the Victor-class submarine during a refit had been a ‘thermal’ and not a nuclear explosion. And those involved in the clean up operation to remove more than 600 tones of contaminated material were sworn to secrecy.

Source
Sources A board of investigators was later to describe it as the worst accident in the history of the Soviet Navy.

Descritiptive Text

Descriptive text is available for a screen reader device to audibly describe a graph or map so a visually impaired user can understand the graphical information . Or to describe the characteristic of particular Person, thing , or place .

-Generic structure of descritiptive text :

Descritiptive text has structure as below:

Identification,identifity the phenomenon to be describe.

Description;describing the phenomecharacteristictinon in parts,qualities,or/and.

-The language feature of descriptive text:

·         Using attributive and indentifity process.

·         Using adjective and classifiers in nominal group.

·         Using simple present tense.

Direct speech and Indirect Speech

Direct speech is refers to reproducing another person’s exact word or saying exactly what someone has said(sometimes calles quoted speech) here what a person says appears within quotation(“…”) and should be word for word.

Example of Direct Speech:

1.Deli said.”I’m very busy.”

2.They said.”we have a bought a picture.”

3.He said,”I am learning my lesson.”

4.You said,”I will come help him.”

5.Ridha will say,”I will do my best.”

Indirect speech refers to reproducing the idea of another person’s words that doesn’t use quotation marks to enclose what the person said and it doesn’t have to be word for word.
Indirect speech is sometimes called reported speech.
There are 3 kinds of indirect speech:
1.Imperrative(command/request)
2.Interrogative(question)
3.Declarative(statement)
Direct speech Indirect speech
Present simple                                                                      Past simple
Vita said, “I eat fried rice.                              Vita said that she ate fried rice.
Past simple                                                                            Past Perfect
Mother said, “I went to market yesterday”.                           Mother said (that) she had gone to market the day before.
Future simple Past Future
Lea said, “I am going to wash my clothes”. Lea said (that) she was going to wash her clothes.
Dave said, “I will buy an I-Pod next week”.  Dave said (that) he would buy an I-Pod the week after.
Present continuous                                                             Past continuous
Gama said, “I am playing football”.                                        Gama said he was playing football.
Past continuous                                                                   Past perfect continuous
She said, “I was teaching earlier.”                                        She said she had been teaching earlier.
▪         When we want to report what someone said, we do not usually repeat their exact words, we use our words. We can use reporting verbs, such as tell, say, ask followed by ‘that-clause’.
Example: My mother said that she got up at 4 o’clock.
▪         When reporting verbs is in the Present, Present Perfect, or Future, there is no change of tense in the words reported.
Example: She will tell you
She says                       (that) she doesn’t know.
She has just saidIn time expressions and pronouns

Direct speech	Indirect speech
Now Today/tonight Yesterday Tomorrow Last week Next week Ago	Then That day/that night The day before/the previous day The next/following day The previous week The following week/the week after Before
This/these Here Pronouns	That/those There They change according to the context

Sometimes we need to report someone’s questions. The reported question are introduced with the verb ask, inquire, wonder, want to know, etc.

Type	Form	Examples
Yes-No questions	Ask                    +  if/whether  +  subject  +  verb Wonder etc.	“Do you speak English?” - He wondered if I spoke English.
Wh-questions	Ask                    +  question word + subject +  verb Wonder etc.	“What are you watching?” - She asked what I am watching.

Modals in the past from

Modals in the Past form dalam bahasa Indonesia adalah kata bantu pengandaian dalam bentuk lampau.

Modals in the past are:
1.Could is used to express possibility or past ablilty as well to make suggestions and requests.”Could” is also commonly used in conditional sentences as the conditional form of”can”.
2.Would is most commonly used to create conditional verb forms.It also serves as the past form of the modal verb”will”.Additionally,”would” can indicate repetition in the past.
3.Should is most commonly used to make recommendations or give advice.It can also be used to express obiligation as well expectation.
4.Might is most commonly used to express possibility.It is also often used in conditional sentences.English speakers can also use “might” to make suggestions or requestions,although this is less common in American English.*Could + Verb base
We can use this expression : to offer suggestion or possibilities.
Example :
Swan : I’m having trouble with math.
Rizki: Why don’t you ask Nuri ?
Perhaps she could help you.
*Would + verb base
Use would for an action that was repeated regulary in the past.
Example :
Yoan : What did you usually do on holidays ?
Lia : I would visit my grandparents In the village, but how not anymore.
*Would + Mind + V-ing
Use would to express polite request.
Example :
Mrs. Lady : Would you mind posting the letter ?
Nita : No, Not at all.
*Should + Verb base
Example :
Nisa : Ima , you should go to library now?
Ima : O.k.

*Might + Verb base
Use might to tell possibillities.
Example :
Helda : Why is Rio taking the bus to get home.
Fany : He might get a flat time.

Asking for Information

There are a number of formulas when asking for information:

• Could you tell me...?
• Do you know...?
• Do you happen to know....?
• I'd like to know...
• Could you find out...?
• I'm interested in...
• I'm looking for...
• Could you give me some information about...
• Is it true that...
• Have you got an idea of...

These two forms are used for asking information on the telephone:

• I'm calling to find out...
• I'm calling about...

§  Asking for Information
-Information about company
-What does your company do?
-What is your specialty?
-What do you specialize in?
-What is your main line of business?
-We produce marketing materials.
-We specialize in art and design.
-What are your major products?
-What services do you provide?
-We produce office machines.
-We design software.
-We provide technical suppor.