Module Guides ENC1502 The Study of Language | Page 28

TEST

"There are many ways in which the same combination of facts can be 'packaged' in sentences. Pupils need to be aware of some of the main options for varying the structures within a sentence, for example by using subordinate clauses and passives. These options allow information to 'flow' through a sentence so that it is clear which parts are most important. They also improve the flow of information within the whole text, because they help the writer to integrate each sentence with those on either side of it."

University College London, Division of Psychology and Language

'Grammar' refers to the rules which make language function - and generally speaking this is something which we are aware of because we remember at school being told that 'London' is a noun while 'raining' is a verb, and 'wet' is an adjective. Possibly you may have wondered at the time what value it was to learn such things, and in truth I am not sure that schools have always been very good at explaining that value.

This assignment is designed to help you learn how the capacity to analyse grammar can help you to both understand sentences better, and to write them with greater variation and flexibility.

You will be required for this task to undertake an exercise in syntactic analysis - or the analysis of a sentence structure. It means being able to recognise how sentences can be broken down into different parts - or phrases - which function around the noun, verb, adjective, etc. which is its key word.

For this test you will be given a number of short, simple sentences, and your job will be to label them according to word classes and phrase classes using the 'tree' structure to make your analysis clear.