The Teacher’s Grammar of Englishby: Ron Cowan

Chapter 7:

Nonreferencial It & There

Presented by: Nadia BAT

Supervised by: - Jennifer Evans- Youssef Tamer

TEFL & ICT Master program

OutlineNonreferencial It

Nonreferencial There

Nonreferencial There in discourse

Additional facts about Nonreferencial there

Problems that ESL / EFL Ss have withNonreferencial IT & There

Exercise 1

Exercise 2

Nonreferencial IT & There

o The words it and there commonly function as pronouns.

o They refer to some other element in the samesentence or in the preceding discourse.

o Sentences beginning with nonreferencial itand there occur frequently in all registers of spoken and written English.

Nonreferencial It

Referncial/ Nonreferencial?

He picked up a flat stone and skipped it across the surface of water.

It’s raining pretty hard.Is it raining?It’s been raining all day.It was raining earlier,isn’t it?It’s a rainy day.It are raining.

Sentences with Nonreferencial It

Special constractions with Nonreferencial It

WeatherTemperatureTimeDays of the week and Holydays

Distance and environment

It’s sunny todayWhat time is it?It’s 27 degrees out thereI don’t know what day of the week it is.It’s Mother’s dayIt’s hot in here.

Cleft sentences:

It’s my brother who gotmarried,not me.It was 6 months ago that he got his promotion.

Extraposed subject clause:

It’s interesting [that you beleive that].It’s unusual [to find suchwisdom in someone soyoung].

Exercise 1

Referencial or NonReferencial?

It was so smoky in that room that my eyeswere watering.

Nonreferencial

The lost and found department called.they think they found

your watch, but you will have to go and identify it.

Referencial

A: Are you going out?

B: Are you kidding? It’s freezing out there.

Nonreferencial

He is so disorganized that he doesn’t even know

what day it is.

Nonreferencial

He found a good solid stock and invested all his

money in it.

Referencial

Nonreferencial there

Referncial/ Nonreferencial?

referencial:

Put the boxes over there

Nonreferencial:

Are there any cookies left?There is something we need

to talk about.

Contractions and There Occurrences

Subject-Verb Agreement

With is before ingularNPWith are before plural NPWith modalsWith modal verbs units of measurement,currency&time

• There’s a hole in my life.• There’re lots of deer.• There’s been some criticism

of his book.• There must be another

solution to this problem•There was 20 dollars in his

pocket

the verbs that follows thereshould agree in number withthe NP after it

• There are two beds in anyroom

•There is a crack in the seiling

Nonreference there in discourse

Sentences with nonreferencial there serve several basic functions:

Intoducing new information:

There is a new sheriff in town. And he’s going to clean all the corruption

Responding to questions about existence of something:

A:Where can i get some money?

B: there’s a bank overe there.

Shifting the focus of a discussion:

Using there to introduce new paragraph.

Calling something to mind:

A: I can’t decide where to take Debbie for lunch.

B: well, there’s that restaurant we ate at last month

Additional facts about nonreferencial there

Some sentences with nonreferencial therecan be rewritten as sentences with indifinitesubjects( a/an or some and a noun).

Nonreferencial there sentences and theircounterparts:

• There is a man standing under the tree.• A man is standing under the tree.

•There are some flowers in front of yourhouse.

•Some flowers are in front of your house.

• There was an accident on the freeway last night.

• An accident was on the freeway last night.

no

When the NP after be in a sentence with nonreferencialthere describes an event or an occurance, it does not havea grammatical counterpart sentece with an indefinitesubject

Indefinite NP Relative clause

• There are [[several possibilities][ that we haven’t considered]].

• Several possibilities are that we haven’t considered

Nonreferencial there with verbs other than be:

There appeared a strange face in the window.

once upon a time, there lived ab ancient mariner

There remain only two more issues to dealt with

Idioms with nonreferencial there:

There’s + no +present participle verb form

• There’s no telling what he will do.

• There’s no getting out of it.

Exercise 2

Is there any gas in that can cover there?

No,there isn’t.

Grammatical

There’s quite a lot of really strange looking characters hanging

around in the supermarket parking lot .

ungrammatical

There’s a number of ways to do that

ungrammatical

She told me that there was a dozen place mats

in that drawer.

Grammatical

Problems that EFl/ESL Students have with nonreferencial IT & There

The absence of nonreferencial IT in manylanguages:

• Today very hot.

• It’s very hot today.

Missing relative pronoun in nonreferencial thereis/are sentences (chinese).

• There are many varieties of cancer exist.

• There was a tire hanging from the roof servedas their playground.

There are many varieties of cancer that exist.

There was a tire hanging from the roof servedas their playground.

Incorrect use of polarity items with nonreferencialthere (Korean):

• There’s no any questions which check students’ reading comprehension.

• There’s no particular difficulties in understandingcultural background.

Thank you!