A Workbook to Communicative Grammar of English (32 page)
Read A Workbook to Communicative Grammar of English Online
Authors: Dr. Edward Woods,Rudy Coppieters
| B |
A. | It is forbidden to park here. |
B. | She asked if she could go to see the film with him. |
C. | He refused to help as he didn’t have the time. |
D. | He told him to sit down. |
E. | They told Pauline to let David tell them himself. |
F. | He asked her to help him with the work. |
G. | She suggested they spent the day in the country. |
H. | His father threatened to keep him home for a month if he came home late. |
I. | She was warned about walking in the hills alone. |
J. | She promised to be at the station to meet him. |
Task two **
Write the original statements. There could be several possibilities for each item.
1.
John suggested that he and Mary invested in the new company.
2.
Mrs McNorton warned her son not to go near the station after dark.
3.
They asked her to stand for President of the society.
4.
The doctor told her to do more exercise.
5.
The politician refused to support his government on the matter of lowering taxes.
6.
They threatened to sue the newspaper if it didn’t publish an apology.
7.
He promised to give back all the money he’d borrowed by March.
8.
He was prohibited from going into the club until he had paid his debts.
9.
It was recommended that they should spend at least four weeks travelling round Australia.
10.
Customers were told flights would be delayed because of a strike in France.
Task three ***
Write the reported statements for the statements below, using an appropriate verb according to the description in brackets at the end.
1.
Management: There will have to be some redundancies. (warning)
2.
Boss: You’re definitely being considered for promotion. (promise)
3.
Rob to Don: Let’s finish the work tonight, so we can have a free day tomorrow. (suggestion)
4.
Shirley to Mary: You couldn’t lend me £50, could you? (request)
5.
I wouldn’t invest in a dot com company, if I were you. (advice)
6.
You must finish this by nine o’clock. (command)
7.
You finish this quickly or we stay here all night. (threat)
8.
Club rules: No member can introduce a person under eighteen years old into the club. (prohibition)
9.
Secretary to Manager: The report will be on your desk tomorrow morning. (promise)
10.
Will you get the tickets for me. (request)
Addressing
Vocatives such as
Alice, Mr Pym, Dr Hyde
are often used to get someone’s attention.
Other vocatives mark the speaker’s relation to the hearer. They can range from formal (
Sir, My Lord, Your Excellency
) to informal (
daddy, my dear
).
Some occupational vocatives (
waiter, driver
) may sound impolite. A good alternative in such cases is the expression
Excuse me
!
Task **
Add suitable vocatives to the sentences below, taking into account the addressee(s) mentioned in brackets.
1.
I’m sorry it took me so long to answer your letter. (your pen friend Sarah)
2.
Your European allies are fully behind you. (the elected leader of the United States)
3.
Come over here! (your brother Eric)
4.
Could you put me through to Mrs Alice Hawkins, please. (telephone operator)
5.
I wish you a very happy birthday. (your grandmother)
6.
May I have your attention, please. (a mixed audience of adults)
7.
The witness has been traumatized by the events. (an American judge)
8.
Shall I prepare you a candle-lit dinner tonight? (your sweetheart)
9.
Report back in ten minutes! (private Harry Slocombe)
10.
Can I use your car tomorrow? (your father)
11.
Do you think I’ll make a complete recovery? (your GP)
12.
Please accept our sincere apologies. (the ambassador of Australia)
2nd person commands involve the use of the imperative verb, often accompanied by the downtoner
please
:
Shut
the door (
please
).
The only auxiliary used in commands is
do
, also in combination with
be
:
Stay
here./
Do be
quiet.
The implied subject
you
is sometimes expressed overtly, although this can sound impolite:
You stay
here!
1st and 3rd person commands often involve the use of the verb
let
:
–
Let me
answer your question first./
Let’s
go now.
–
Let each nation
decide its own fate./
Someone
help me, please.
Task one **
Complete the following extracts using one of the imperative forms below:
be | bear | beware | climb | cross |
keep | leave | make | take | turn |
Teign-e-ver Bridge leads onto an island formed where the river divides. ________________ the island by the other bridge and _______________ for Scorhill Circle to the north. ____________ the meandering track that passes to the right of the stone circle. (…)
_______________ careful not to miss the deflection from the main track at the first clearing. ______________ half-right here along a lovely path that threads through bluebells and begins to descend steeply. When it reaches the river, ________ right along a shady riverside path until you reach the footbridge. _______________ here and ________________ a steep path to reach a broad drive at the top. (…)
At the top the gate through which the footpath passes bears a sign saying, ‘_______________ of the Bull’. ______________ the hedge on the left to a gate at the top of the field (the bull, one hopes, being busy elsewhere).
(adapted from
Dartmoor Walks
, p. 47)
Task two **
Rephrase the sentences below, using a 1st or 3rd person command.
1.
I would just like to give you another example.
2.
I would like the two of us to go for a drink.
3.
I would like somebody to move all that stuff out of the way.
4.
I think they’d better eat cake.
5.
It would be better not to pretend that we support the idea.
6.
I would like to warn you just one more time.
7.
We had better settle the problem once and for all.
8.
There should be no doubt at all about our resolve.
9.
I would like us to move as fast as we can.
10.
I don’t really want to detain you any longer.
Focusing
Tone units represent the way we structure information when speaking.
A general rule is that a tone unit is the way we separate each piece of information.
Each tone unit has a nucleus which marks the focus of information in the unit.
Often, the nucleus is at the end of the tone unit, or rather on the last major class word. This is known as
end-focus
.
Sometimes, however, it is shifted to an earlier part of the tone unit when the speaker wishes to draw attention to something which is in contrast to something already mentioned or understood in the context. This is known as
contrastive focus
.
Task one **
In the following statements, mark the places where you would expect the boundaries of tone units. Some positions for a tone unit are more certain than others. Where you think the boundary is certain, mark it II. Where it is less certain, mark it I.
1.
I like Kent, but I prefer Sussex.
2.
I find that with so many of these problems – marriage, sex education – as soon as you try to make it a sort of formal lesson, the whole thing falls flat.
3.
The fact that Burti feels only bruised and battered after the accident with Schumacher is a measure of the progress we have made on the safety measures over the past two seasons.
4.
We had our breakfast in the kitchen and then we sort of did what we liked.
5.
We took some children to the environmental study centre the other day, and they have various animals around there.
6.
And the thing is that the journalists – I mean I’ve met some of these people – they know nothing about the country at all.
7.
Spectator sports are dying out. I think people are getting choosy. There’s more to do, of course. More choice.
8.
Sundays in London. If we’re all working or cooking or things like that, it can get fearfully dull.
9.
Dave rang me about this business of changing the groups.
10.
Of course the children have their own inhibitions about talking about sex. They’re just not frank about it.
(from D. Crystal & D. Davy (1975)
Advanced Conversational English
, Longman)
Task two ***
For each item in Task One, explain which of the following general rules informed your decision.
a. | clause or adverbial phrase at the beginning of the sentence |
b. | non-restrictive modifier in the sentence |
c. | medial phrase or clause |
d. | vocative or linking adverb |
e. | a clause or long noun phrase acting as a subject |
f. | two or more clauses are co-ordinated |
g. | (overriding rule) each piece of information deserves a separate tone unit. |
Task three ***
Mark the nucleus in each of the tone units in the following items. (Some items need more than one nucleus.) Show whether the tone is falling, rising or fall-rise. There may be more than one solution.
1.
She’s been painting that door for three days now.
2.
Sue teaches at the school in Queen Street.
3.
No. Sue teaches at the school. She’s not the social secretary.
4.
A: That’s a fine penguin. Are you taking it to the zoo?
B: No, I took it to the zoo yesterday. I’m taking it to the cinema today.
5.
I saw that film at the Duke’s.
6.
It was the film version of Orlando that I saw at the Duke’s.
7.
The phone’s ringing.
8.
Ivan lives in London in King Street.
He lives in London, but he also has an apartment in Cambridge.
9.
Can you understand all that? If you can’t, just phone again.
10.
I want more time, more money and more coffee.
11.
The editor was John Wrigley.
12.
Studio production was by Paul Moore; the editor was John Wrigley.
Task four **
Mark the nuclear tone in the underlined clauses below. (Where necessary divide a single sentence into more than one tone unit.)
1.
Weren’t you working in Berlin last summer?
No. It was the summer before last
.
2.
You haven’t visited our new art gallery.
Yes, I have. I’ve been several times
.
3.
All the voting papers were sent out early,
but only forty-six per cent of the voters replied on time
.
4.
He gets a lot of work on television,
but he’s not a very good actor
.
5.
They say he was very good in that job.
I say he’s just an opportunist who arrived at the right time
.
6.
Have you still got that old car?
Yes. And it still drives well
.
7.
Why have you changed your e-mail address?
I haven’t. The one I gave you was incorrect
.
8.
It looks as if it will take ages to get there,
but the time will fly past
.
9.
I can’t learn things just by reading the instructions.
I have to be hands-on
.
10.
Give him another chance.
He’s had four already
.
Task five **
Below is an interview given by a TV star. The answers have been changed. Rewrite the answers, so that the important information becomes its end-focus.
1.
What is your idea of perfect happiness?
A good meal with good friends is perfect happiness for me.
