语法简答题汇总

英语语法简答题汇总

1. What are the two major types of alternative questions?

They are the type of YES-NO questions, e.g.

A: Would you like tea or coffee?

B: Tea, please.

And the type of WH-questions, e.g.

A: What would you like, tea of coffee?

B: Tea, please.

2. Why do we need to go beyond the sentence and study the text?

Because to express a clear and complete idea or thought, we need more than one sentence. It is quite rare that we only use one sentence to express our ideas. When an idea or thought is expressed in more than one sentence, we have a text, which relates sentences together. In other words, sentences in a text are coherent so that they help each other in expressing a complete idea. The study of the text is to know how sentences can be joined together coherently so that they can best express ideas.

3. Explain the syntactic distinction between the predictive and non-predictive use

of modal auxiliary with examples.

The syntactic distinction between the predictive and non-predictive use of modal auxiliary is clear in the following two sentences:

1) He can’t have been there yesterday.

2) He couldn’t be there yesterday.

The two sentences reveal two quite different uses of the modal auxiliary. The first sentence, where the predictive can’t relates to impos sibility and the main verb is marked for past time reference, refers to the speaker’s present denial of possibility of

a past event. In the second, the modal auxiliary itself, in non-predictive use, is marked

for past tense, referring to lack of ability in the past.

4. What’s the function of relative pronoun?

The relative pronoun serves as a “link” between the relative clause and its antecedent.

It performs two functions: showing concord with its antecedent and indicating its function within the relative clause.

5. Provide example to illustrate nominal, verbal and causal ellipsis.

1) Nominal ellipsis: Why give me two cups of coffee? I only asked for one.

2) Verbal ellipsis: --Have you seen him before?

--Yes, I have (seen him before).

3) Causal ellipsis: --Are you OK?

--Yes (, I am OK).

6. If tense is related to time, what is aspect related to?

When tense points to the temporal location of an event or a state of affairs, aspect “reflects the way in which the verb action is regarded or experienced with respec t to time”.

7. Apart from querying the truth of a statement, what other potential functions can

a No question perform?

They may be regarded as the speaker’s invitations or suggestions, made in a tentative way as they often are, rather than his negative assumptions. They are like imperatives.

For example:

Won’t you come in?

Won’t you sit down?

They can also be like exclamations:

Isn’t it lovely?

Aren’t you silly?

8. List the types of antecedents.