SUBORDINATE CLAUSES IN CONVERSATIONAL ENGLISH

TASK: In your textbook (p. 273-302) study the peculiarities of different types of subordinate clauses. Find a passage in any literary text (about 2,5 thousand characters long) and define each type of subordinate clause in it. Texts with comments are welcome here!

PARENTHESES

Parenthesis is an independent sentence element occuring in occurring in spoken English. Parenthesis may not form part of a sentence grammatical structure. It is connected to a sentence rather semantically than grammatically. It's main function is to show the speaker's attitude to the thought expressed in the sentence, to connect the the two utterances or to summarize the idea of the sentence.

Parenthesis may exploit the following groups of words and phrases:

• modal words (really, certainly, surely, in a word, in my oppinion, to be sure, to tell the truth, etc.);
• adverbs (firstly, secondly, besides; to turn now to, speaking of, as for, as to, etc.)
• parenthetic clauses ( I believe, I hope, you see, as you know, etc.)

TASK: Use different types of parenthetic sentences in a dialogue of your own. Make sure to use not less than 15 parenthetic words and phrases.

INTERJECTIONS

Interjections express a variety of emotions, such as joy, sorrow, surprise, anger, annoyance, indignation, etc. Interjections represent a specific class of emotive words and phrases, and they are not to be mixed with one-word sentences that are built by means of notional words.
Here are some examples of interjections:
Oh, Ah, Well, My God, Good God, My Goodness, By God, By Jove, By George, By Jupiter, Goodness graciuos, For God's sake, Heavens, Good heavens, Heavens above, Heavens forbid, Why, of course, Now then, now, There, Oh, come on, Darling, Oh, dear, My, I suppose, etc.

TASK: Use different interjections to illustrate the emotions they convey in a dialogue of your own.

INVERSION

TASK: Study the information about the Inversion and write a composition on any topic using different types of inversion mentioned below.

I. Verb + subject – optional inversion (stylistic)
Auxiliary verb + subject + verb phrase (grammatical inversion)

II. Here comes + noun
There goes + noun
Adverb expressing direction of movement + verb (come/go/fly)

III. Grammatical inversion: if-clause; as/than (comparison); so + adj. … that / such + be … that; neither … / nor …

IV. Lexical inversion: negative adverbials

ELLIPSIS

Read the theoretical information about ellipsis in the textbook Essentials of Conversational English Grammar (p.p. 34-45). Do the exercises after it (p.p. 45-52). Find any fiction text you like which contains at least twenty cases of ellipsis and post it here as a comment. Underline or write in capital letters the parts of the text with ellipsis.

Here is some brief information about ellipsis:

Types of Ellipsis

Omitted elements:
1) The subject expressed by:
a. 1st person pronoun
b. 2nd person pronoun
c. 3rd person pronoun
d. pronoun it
e. introductory subject there
2) Subject and part of the predicate:
a. I + auxiliary verb / link verb
b. he / she + auxiliary verb / link verb
c. in general questions part of the predicate (auxiliary verb / link verb)
d. in what-questions the subject and part of the predicate
e. introductory subject it and the link verb be
3) The subject and the whole predicate;
4) The whole predicate:
a. the entire predicate
b. in an adverbial clause of condition - pronouns anyone, no one, etc.
c. in comparative clauses
d. the semi-notional verb had.

Ellipsis takes place in different syntactic unities:
1) Statement and Question
2) Statement and Statement

Ellipsis in familiar style:
1) article
2) preposition

1. Ellipsis in Compound Sentences
2. Ellipsis in Complex Sentences
3. Ellipsis in Non-Restrictive Relative Clauses
4. Ellipsis in Comparative Clauses
5. Ellipsis Of the Infinitive Particle to