Tentative Grammar Guiding Questions for 3rd year Students of the English Department

1. Discuss SUBJECT and

the primary distinction between PREDICATE 2. Clarify the terms OPERATOR, AUXILIARY, and PREDICATION 3. What are the sentence elements and how are they realized? 4. What are the types of sentence structure? 5. What are the parts of speech? Give examples. 6. What is the difference between the closed-system items and open-class ones? 7. Give examples of proforms. 8. How can an assertive sentence be made nonassertive? 9. Discuss noun classes 10. What is the basis for classifying determiners? 11. Name the 6 groups of determiners. 12. What is the difference in terms of reference between the underlined words in A child needs love and There is a child waiting outside? 13. Explain the use of the article in He likes the music of France 14. Discuss the relationship between reference and the article. 15. Explain the use of the zero article in They elected him 0 President of the United States 16. Discuss the number classes in English 17. Clarify the double genitive in English 18. What are the components of a basic noun phrase? 19. What are the components of a complex noun

phrase? 20. What is the main difference between a basic noun phrase and a complex noun phrase? 21. What is the difference between restrictive and nonrestrictive modification? 22. Discuss the difference in modification between A timid man and A man who is afraid 23. Discuss explicitness in post modification 24. What is the difference between restrictive and nonrestrictive relative clauses? 25. Discuss multiple modification. 26. What is the relative sequence of premodifiers? 27. How are English verbs classified? 28. What are the verb forms and how are they used? 29. What are the marginal modal auxiliaries and why are they so called? 30. What is the relationship between tense and aspect? 31. Is it true that English has only two tenses: past and present? 32. How is the future expressed in English? 33. Discuss the distinction between dynamic and stative verbs 34. What is the difference between I will help her and I will be helping her 35. What is the difference between I think itll rain tonight and It is going to rain tonight 36. State the uses of the modal auxiliaries 37. What is the difference between He will do it, what ever you say and he shall do it, what ever you say? 38. State the use of the perfect progressive in He has been eating my chocolates 39. Explain the TIMELESS use of the present tense 40. What is meant in He is always ringing me up when I am in the bathroom 41. What are the different types of multi-word verbs?

Give examples. 42. What are the differences between a phrasal verbs and a prepositional verb? 43. Some multi-word verbs consist of a verb followed by two particles: To put up with. Can you find more verbs like that? 44. A sentence like He looked at the girl can be analysed in two different ways. What are they? 45. Discuss the complementation of intensive verbs 46. What are the transitive verbs that do not allow a passive transformation? 47. What is the difference between Bob is slow to react and Bob is hard to convince? 48. What are the three classes of verbs in the main clause that involve a finite clause as direct object? Give examples. 49. What is the difference between I remembered to fill out the form and I remembered filling out the form? 50. Discuss the complementation of ditransitive verbs. 51. Discuss the complementation of complex transitive verbs. 52. What is the difference in structure between He wanted Mary to teach Bob and He persuaded Mary to teach Bob? 53. How can you transform the following sentences into the passive? We reminded him of the agreement and They had made good use of the house 54. What are the clause elements and how are they realised? 55. What are the clause patterns? 56. In what way are clause elements obligatory to the clause structure? 57. How are the seven clause types distinguished from one another? 58. What are the syntactic features of clause elements

59. What are the semantic roles of clause elements? 60. What is the difference in terms of semantic role between the underlined words in I looked into her big round eyes but I saw nothing special in there 61. What is the typical semantic role of the direct and indirect object? 62. What is the semantic role of the underlined words? I paid her a visit 63. What is the semantic role of the underlined word? Hes having a bath 64. Discuss NOTIONAL concord. 65. Explain the use of the underlined verbs in Either your eyesight or your brakes were at fault and Either your brakes or eyesight was at fault 66. Explain the use of the singular verb in The hammer and the sickle was flying from a tall flag pole 67. What are the two functions of a vocative in English? 68. How can an assertive sentence be made nonassertive? 69. The sentence I dont love you because you are rich can be open to more than one interpretation. What are they? 70. The sentence Harry didnt attack the Labour Government can be interpreted in three different ways according to the different stress placement. True or false? 71. What is the relationship between the scope and focus of negation? 72. What is negated (main verb or auxiliary verb) in the following sentences? You may not smoke in here and She may not come if it rains again this afternoon 73. How are simple sentences classified according to their communicative purposes? 74. What are the three types of questions according to the kinds of answers they expect?

75. What is the difference between Has anyone called me? and has someone called me? 76. Discuss Yes-No questions with negative orientation. 77. What are the different types of Tag-questions? 78. Discuss the use of tunes in Alternative questions. 79. What are exclamatory and rhetorical questions? Give examples. 80. What is meant by asking Your car is outside, is it?? 81. What is the difference between subordination and coordination? 82. How is subordination indicated? 83. How are dependent clauses classified? 84. What are the possible functions of THAT-clauses? 85. Is the underlined part a nominal That-clause? Everyone that thinks so is not necessarily conceited 86. What are the possible functions of the WH-interrogative clauses? 87. What are the possible functions of the nominal relative clauses? 88. What is the difference between the two underlined parts in What caused the fire was unknown and What caused the fire was a cigarette end? 89. What is wrong with this sentence I dont care if or not your car breaks down? 90. What is the difference between I will give you whatever you want and I will give you what you want? 91. What are the possible functions of To-infinitive clauses? 92. What are the possible functions of Ing-participle clauses? 93. How are adverbial clauses classified? 94. Explain the ambiguity that might arise in the sentence He loves the dog more than his wife 95. Is the sentence The long journey over, we relaxed in the warm sunshine simple or complex?

96. How many dependent clauses are there in the following sentence What I want to say was, as I didnt know whether you were going to say that you could come or you couldnt, could you make it the following Saturday?? 97. What is the difference between the relative clause and the appositive clause? 98. Is that true that to some extent a complex sentence is a simple sentence, whose elements are realised differently? 99. Combine the following pair of sentences to form a question containing a dependent Yes-No clause. Are these guiding questions of any help to the 3rd year students ? I am not sure.