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Gerald P. Delahunty

James J. Garvey

The English Language

From Sound to Sense

PERSPECTIVES ON WRITING

Series Editor, Mike Palmquist

e Perspectives on Writing series addresses writing studies in a broad sense. Consistent with the wide ranging approaches characteristic of teaching and scholarship in writing across the curriculum, the series presents works that take divergent perspectives on working as a writer, teaching writing, administering writing programs, and studying writing in its various forms. e WAC Clearinghouse and Parlor Press are collaborating so that these books will be widely available through free digital distribution and low- cost print editions. e publishers and the series editor are teachers and researchers of writing, committed to the principle that knowledge should freely circulate. We see the opportunities that new technologies have for further democratizing knowledge. And we see that to share the power of writing is to share the means for all to articulate their needs, interest, and learning into the great experiment of literacy.

Existing Books in the Series

Charles Bazerman and David R. Russell, Writing Selves/Writing Societies (2003) Charles Bazerman, Adair Bonini, and Débora Figueiredo (Eds.), Genre in a

Changing World (2009)

David Franke, Alex Reid and Anthony DiRenzo (Eds.), Design Discourse: Composing and Revising the Professional and Technical Writing Curriculum (2010) Gerald P. Delahunty and James Garvey, e English Language: from Sound to Sense (2010)

The English Language

From Sound to Sense

Gerald P. Delahunty

James J. Garvey

e WAC Clearinghouse wac.colostate.edu

Fort Collins, Colorado

Parlor Press

www.parlorpress.com

West Lafayette, Indiana

The WAC Clearinghouse, Fort Collins, Colorado 80523 Parlor Press, 3015 Brackenberry Drive, Anderson, South Carolina 29621

© 2010 Gerald P. Delahunty

ISBN 978-0-97270-233-1 (pdf) | 978-1-60235-180-6 (pbk.)

DOI 10.37514/PER-B.2010.2331

Produced in the United States of America

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Delahunty, Gerald Patrick.

e English language : from sound to sense / Gerald P. Delahunty, James J. Garvey. p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-60235-180-6 (pbk. : alk. paper) -- ISBN 978-0-97270-233-1 ( adobe ebook)

1. Linguistics. 2. Language and languages. 3. English language--Study and teaching. I. Garvey, James

J. II. Title.

P121.D384 2010

425--dc22

2010011194

Copyeditor, Designer: David Doran

Series Editor: Mike Palmquist

e WAC Clearinghouse supports teachers of writing across the disciplines. Hosted by Colorado State

University, it brings together scholarly journals and book series as well as resources for teachers who use

writing in their courses. is book is available in digital format for free download at wac.colostate.edu.

Parlor Press, LLC is an independent publisher of scholarly and trade titles in print and multime- dia formats. is book is available in paperback and Adobe eBook formats from Parlor Press on the World Wide Web at www.parlorpress.com. For submission information or to nd out about Parlor

Press publications, write to Parlor Press, 816 Robinson St., West Lafayette, Indiana, 47906, or e-mail

editor@parlorpress.com.

For Marna and Cian

To the memory of James J. Garvey

vii

Contents

1 Introduction to the Linguistic Study of Language. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3 2 Conceptions of Language and Grammar. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .23 3 A Skeletal Introduction to English Grammar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .57 viii 4 Phonetics and Phonology . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .89 5 Morphology and Word Formation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .121 6 e Major Parts of Speech . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .147 A . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7 e Minor Parts of Speech. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .193 ix 8 Word Meaning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .235 9 Phrases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .273 10 Basic Clause Patterns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .321

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 364

x 11 Modications of Basic Clause Patterns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .383 12 Multi-Clause Sentences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .411 Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .445

The English Language

From Sound to Sense

3 1

Introduction to the Linguistic Study of

Language

KEY CONCEPTS

Who these books are for

How to use these books

What these books are about

Communication

Language

Discourse

Text Genre

Ideology

Language in education

inking critically about language

Standard English

Grammar

Other reasons for studying and teaching about language e organization of these books

Hints for success

WHO THESE BOOKS ARE FOR

is is the rst of two books for teachers about the English language. We be- lieve that all teachers, not just English teachers, share the responsibility for helping students develop their abilities to speak, read, and write. Students must learn to communicate appropriately about math, chemistry, history, and every other school subject. Teaching students these skills necessarily ex- tends across the curriculum. us, while one part of our intended audience is English K-12 teachers, we have prepared this book and its companion with teachers (and student teachers) from all disciplines in mind.

HOW TO USE THESE BOOKS

In these books, we use certain typographical marks to help you focus on key points. Important terms are bolded. You can nd their denitions in the text and in the glossary. Examples are noted in italics or are separated from the text.

WHAT THESE BOOKS ARE ABOUT

ese books are about language, but specically about the English language

Delahunty and Garvey

4 and its uses. e rst book is about the grammar of English; the second is about related topics, including language variation (e.g., dialects), language learning, English spelling, and the history of the English language. Generally, when people hear the word “grammar," they immediately think of “correct" or “incorrect" and “good" or “bad" language. inking about language in this way is said to be prescriptive. English has a long tradition of judging some expressions as “correct" and others as “incorrect." For example, expressions such as We was are viewed as “incorrect," even though a great many people use them. e “correct" version is said to be We were. Counter-posed to the prescriptive tradition is the descriptive one, which developed in linguistics, anthropology, and sociology. is approach is concerned with describing and understanding the linguistic behavior of a community, without judging it. From a descriptive point of view, We was is unobjectionable when used by a member of a community of speakers who characteristically use this expression. However, it is unacceptable to the wider English speaking community in, for example, formal speaking and writing. e point of view presented in these books is essentially descriptive. However, except where the topic is explicitly about linguistic variation, we describe the form of English used in relatively formal public speaking and writing. We recognize that language changes, and that consequently even the prescriptive rules have to change. We believe that these rules should be descriptions of the best accepted practices of the day rather than impos i- tions (often irrelevant) on the language and its use.

COMMUNICATION

Communication occurs when one person acts with the intention of inu- encing the mind of another, for example, by getting him/her to entertain some idea, and when that other person recognizes the rst person"s inten- tion to inuence his/her mind. Clearly, it is possible to inuence another person"s mind unintentionally; for instance, if I (unintentionally) sneeze, I might prompt you to think that I might have a cold. However, this is a rather di€erent kind of event than one in which I intentionally sneeze and you recognize that my sneeze was intentional. From my rst (unintentional) sneeze, you cannot infer that I am trying to get you to think I have a cold; from my second (intentional) sneeze, you can infer that I am trying to get you to think something or another, perhaps that I have a cold. Imagine that we have gone to a party together and that we want to co- ordinate our leaving. So, before we get to the party I say to you, “I"ll pre- 5

Introduction to the Linguistic Study of Language

tend to sneeze when I"m ready to go home," and you agree to interpret my sneeze in this way. When I sneeze at the party you can infer that I sneezed intentionally and interpret my sneeze as indicating my desire to leave. For this communication to succeed two elements must be in place: rst, the assumption that I intend to inuence you in some way, and sec- ond, our agreement about the meaning of my intentional sneeze. ere is nothing in the nature of a sneeze that requires it to mean “Let"s go home." We could have agreed that it was to mean, “It"s safe to slip upstairs to steal the host"s jewelry." By specifying a meaning for a sneeze, we have created a little code, a sort of miniscule language.

LANGUAGE

Fortunately, we cannot read each others" minds. So, if we want to allow some- one access to what we are thinking, we must provide them with clues that they can perceive. Language is a system that connects thoughts, which can not be heard, seen, or touched, with sounds, letters, manual signs, or tactile symbols (e.g., Braille) which can. In this way, one person"s private ideas may be communicated to another person. For example, imagine that I want to communicate to you my idea that my study needs to be tidied up. You can"t see, hear, touch, taste, or otherwise perceive that idea; it"s locked away in my mind. To communicate it to you I have to cast it in a form that you can perceive—typically in spoken, visual, or tactile form—that is systematically connected to the idea, for example, the sentence, My study needs to be tidied up. Without this perceivable expression, you cannot know that I have an idea to communicate; without the systematic connection between the idea and the form of the expression, you cannot know which idea I want to communicate. So, language is a code that systematically connects private thoughts with pub- lic expressions. ese books are about the systems we use to connect private ideas to public activities. Language has been a major topic of research for well over two centuries. Linguistic research intersects with anthropology, biology, computer science, history, human development, literature, philosophy, politics, psychology, as well as reading and writing.

DISCOURSE

When we communicate we engage in discourse; that is, we deploy language with the purpose of providing our audiences with clues about how we want to inuence them. All discourse takes place in context; that is, the producer of a piece of discourse (speaker/writer) purposefully deploys, at some time and in some

Delahunty and Garvey

6 place, clues about his or her intention which are to be interpreted by their intended recipient(s) (audience). e clues have, generally, been selected with that audience, in that time and place, and with those purposes in mind. Some scholars argue that because di€erent discourse situations require di€erent patterns of communicative practice, we must speak of discours- es rather than of discourse (Gee 1992, 1996). We have, for instance, the discourse in which we are currently engaged—the discourse of linguistics,quotesdbs_dbs14.pdfusesText_20

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