MODERN ENGLISH GRAMMAR AND

USAGE

Verbal, Noun Phrase and Relationals

Dr. Abha Pandey

Ppt prepared for pre Ph.D Course 2014-15

VERBAL

Like Subject, object and complement, verbal is a

Functional element

Verbal includes- Main verb, may also have modal/

auxillary verbs

Auxillary verbs function as operator. In sentence

initial position- sentence is changed to a yes/no

question.

MAIN VERB, MODALS

Verbal (play) Verbal( can speak)

Main Verb Auxiliary Main Verb

play can speak

PERFECTIVE

Perfective verbs also function as auxillary Verbal (have bought)

Auxiliary Main Verb

Perfective

have -en buy

PASSIVE

Verbal (is investigating)

Auxiliary Main Verb

Progressive

be -ing investigate

VERBAL

Verbal

Tense modal perfective progressive passive Main Verb

Past may have -en be -ing be –en

interviewed

VERBAL: HOW IS TENSE REALIZED?

Verbal

Auxillary Main Verb

Tense Modal Perfective Progressive Passive

Every finite verbal will have an auxillary node

and a main verb node. Every auxillary node will

have a tense node. It may have other nodes but

tense will always be the first node.

BE HAVE AND DO : PRIMARY VERBS

Be and have can be used as main verbs.

She is my daughter

Have has a stative meaning- possession and relationship and a dynamic meaning – experience

a). He has a car. Has he a car?

‘have’ functions as an operator. b). He had tea with biscuits. Did he have….?

‘have’ does not function as an operator.

It needs a do support or do insertion.

All other main verbs also require do as an empty or dummy operator

Do can also function as as main verb She has done the assignment

THE NOUN PHRASE: FUNCTIONS AND FORM

Noun phrase is a formal label, like verbal, adjective and adverb phrase.

Functional labels: subject, object (direct/indirect) subject complement, object complement and adjunct depending on its function in a sentence.

Form: Noun phrase is a group of words with a noun as a head, with and without any words before of after the head. A noun phrase must have a noun and may or may not have pre/post modifiers

NOUN PHRASE

A personal pronoun (he), A demonstrator (that), or a wh word( what) may constitute a noun phrase by itself.

Exception: The rich, The poor, infinitives-To believe is to see, That clause also work as noun phrases- as subject.

Noun phrase is a constitute, its constituents are:

Head word alone,

Premodifier + headword

Headword + post modifier,

Pre modifier + headword + postmodifier

DIAGRAMMATIC REPRESENTATION OF A NOUN

PHRASE- PRE MODIFIERS

NP

Predeterminer determiner ordinal quantifier

Adj phrase classifier Noun

Intensifier adjective

RELATIVE CLAUSE AND OTHER

POSTMODIFIERS

N P

(premodifier) Noun (postmodifier)

Relative clause: restrictive or non restrictive

Who, which, that clauses

Other post modifiers:

Prepositional phrases

Adverb phrases

Adjectives

THANK YOU