English 1 w1 9 English Week 1 To Week 9 Notes
English 1 w1 9 English Week 1 To Week 9 Notes
IIT MADRAS
BSC PROGRAMING & DATA SCIENCE
ENGLISH - 1
PROFESSOR RAJESH KUMAR
DR. LEENA ANIL
DR. RENNET SAMSON
DR. MANJULA RAJAN
SUDHA RAVI
DR. USHA MAHADEVAN
KARTHIKA SATHYANATHAN
PADMINI VAIDYNATHAN
English Letters
Consonant Sounds
❖ LISTENING
THE FOUR SKILLS
• Listening Speaking Reading Writing
• Good listeners Good readers
• Become good speakers Become good at Writing
• The challenge of listening is the manner in which the speaker is delivering the spoken
language, their pronunciation, intonation and above all speed of delivery.
MOVING FROM LANGUAGE TO MEANINGCOMPREHENSION
• Comprehension begins with first understanding………. sounds………. words........clauses…….
sentence…….text……. till meaning is derived
APPROACHES TO LISTENING
ACTIVITY
• Based on what you have understood till now answer the following questions:
1. Say whether the following statements are T/F
a. Comprehension is possible even if we do not listen to the speaker.
b. Thinking is an important aspect of language processing.
c. A good listener is a good communicator.
BOTTOM UP PROCESS
• - Recognize words and clauses
• - Recognize key words
• - Recognize key transition words/phrases in a discourse/speech
• - Recognize grammatical relationships between key words in the sentence
• - Recognize the order in which words occur in a sentence
TASKS THAT DEVELOP BOTTOM UP PROCESS
• Listening to positive and negative statements and choose an appropriate response. These
are statements from a longer spoken discourse.
• Statement Options
• a. That’s a nice bag Yes No
• b. That’s not a very good idea Yes No
• c. This tea isn’t hot Yes No
ACTIVITY TO DEVELOP IDENTIFYING KEY WORDS
• Listen to the following:
• My town is a nice place to visit as it is close to a forest, there are lots of interesting short
walks one can do before going into the deep. The town is surrounded by greenery.
• Task:
• Which of these words do you hear?
• Town, forest, walks, greenery, shops, countryside
Words
Simple words
• Most of the words are a sequence of consonants and vowel sounds.
• CVCV papa, daddy, mom
• CVC dad, mom,
• VCVC
• CVV
• CCVC what, glass
• CVCC sink
• Words only with vowels sounds
• Eye /aai/
Consonants
• Sounds produced by modification of the flow of exhaling air in the vocal tract
• /k/ – velar king, class
• /g/ -- velar great, glass
• /p/ -- bilabial pink, pure
• /b/ -- bilabial bliss, bless
• They have an inbuilt vowel sound ‘a’ with all of them.
Assimilation
• Impossible • Incomplete • Accident
Words
• Words are sequence of consonants and vowel sounds.
• CVCVCV papa, daddy, mom
• CVC dad, mom,
• VCVC
• CVV
• CCVC glass
• CVCC sink
• Sounds from same places of articulation do not come next to each other.
Pb bp td
• Words only with vowels sounds
• Eye /aai/
Consonant Clusters
• Two consonant sounds together
• Reduction of the inbuilt vowel sounds from the first one
• Not in random order
• Cluster - /klǝstǝr/ CCVCCVC
• Bliss - /blis/ CCVC
• School - /skuul/ CCVC
• Scooter - /skutar/ CCVCVC
• Blast - /blast/ CCVCC
Clusters of three consonants
• Spring /spring/ s p r cccvc
• Stress /stres/ s t r cccvc
• Screw /skrue/ s k r cccvv
• Splash /splash/ s p l cccvc
• String /string/ s t r cccvc
• Scrub /skrub/ s k r cccvc
Words
• A single distinct meaningful element of speech or writing, used with others (or sometimes
alone) to form a sentence and typically shown with a space on either side when written or
printed.
Examples of words: bees, hair, matter, tall etc.
Words combine to form phrases and sentences. All words belong to categories called word
classes (or parts of speech) according to the part they play in a sentence. The main word
classes in English are listed below.
Noun – Book, cat, Ram
Verb – play, sing, cry
Adjective – tall, beautiful, red
Adverb – loudly, really, very
Pronoun – She, him, that
Preposition – on, at, in, above
Conjunction – but, for, if
Determiner – a, an, the
Interjection – Hello!
BUILDING VOCABULARY
WHAT ARE THESE WORDS & PHRASES?
Unhappy Measurement Living room To appear = appearance
Multicultural Inflatable Ice cream To improve = improvement
Overwork Woollen Full moon Effective = effectiveness
Cyberspace Beautiful High school Difficult = difficulty
Supermarket Flexible
A see-through material
PREFIXES
We add prefixes before the base or stem of a word.
monorail, monolingual mono- means „one‟
multipurpose, multicultural multi- means „many‟
post-war, postgraduate post- means „after‟
unusual, undemocratic un- means „not‟ or „opposite to‟
SUFFIXES
We add suffixes after the base or stem of a word. The main purpose of a suffix is to show what
class of word it is (e.g. noun or adjective).
Conversion
Conversion involves the change of a word from one-word class to another.
For example, the verbs to email and to microwave are formed from the nouns email and
microwave
GOOGLE → GOOGLE THE INFORMATION
SEE THROUGH →SEE THROUGH FABRIC
STAND UP →STAND UP COMEDIAN
COMMON CONVERSIONS
Can you text her? (verb from noun text, meaning to send a text-message) They are always
jetting somewhere. (verb from noun jet) If you’re not careful, some downloads can damage
your computer. (noun from verb download) OK, so the meeting’s on Tuesday. That’s a definite.
(noun from adjective) It’s a very big if and I’m not at all sure we can afford it. (noun from
conjunction, meaning ‘it’s not at all certain’) All companies have their ups and downs. (nouns
from prepositions) We also use conversion when we change a proper noun into a common
noun: Has anybody seen my Dickens? (copy of a book by Dickens)
COMPOUNDING
When we use compounding, we link together
two or more bases to create a new word.
Synonyms
• A synonym is a word which has the same or nearly the same meaning in one or more
senses as another word.
• Use the right word… not almost the right word
• “THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE RIGHT WORD AND THE ALMOST RIGHT WORD IS THE
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN LIGHTNING AND THE LIGHTNING BUG”—Mark Twain
• A student who knows a lot of synonyms will have the ability to use the right word in the
right context. e.g. • Vigorous/lively/energetic • Elderly people who are frail should refrain
from ----exercise • Wrecked/demolished/ruined • The old mansion was ----to make way for
an expressway
Antonyms
• An antonym is a word that is opposite in meaning to another word
• Look at the following Examples.
• 1.Beating up a smaller person is not something brave. In fact it is a -----act
• 2. Some people are optimistic about the country’s economy while others are quite-----
about it.
• 3.Mr. Sharma’s frugality is in sharp contrast to his son’s -------.
Homophones
• These are words with the same pronunciation, but they are spelt differently and have
different meanings. Most of them are short and monosyllabic:
• Tail and tale • Bow and bough • Hail and hale
• Pail and pale • Blue and blew • Bear and bare • Fare and fair
Homonyms
• These are words spelt and pronounced alike, but have different meanings
• Bear • Stalk • Charge • Row • Bow • Swallow • Fine
Words with Classical roots
• -cide, -phile, -phobia are parts of words which can help you to multiply your vocab. They
are words with Greek or Latin origins
• Cide is an act of killing
• Suicide, Genocide, Patricide, Matricide, Insecticide, Regicide, ecocide
• Phobia is a strong unreasonable fear about something • Claustrophobia, Autophobia,
Xenophobia, Ornithophobia, Aerophobia, Sociophobia, Astrophobia
• Phile refers to fondness for, affinity towards a particular thing
• Anglophile • Bibliophile • Paedophile • Hellenophile
• Think of words commonly used like Bon voyage, viva voce
Idioms and slangs
• Knowing idioms and slangs can give a boost to your confidence.
• They cannot be understood literally. You must familiarize yourself with them.
• They can give you an edge over others who are not familiar with these phrases.
• American idioms and slangs are a huge part of American culture
Look at the following passage:
• Did you ever plan an exciting vacation only to get as sick as a dog when it was time to
leave? Being under the weather is no fun at all, but being sick on a vacation can make it
really hard to keep your chin up. Just scarf down some hot chicken soup and get better
lickety split…
Semantic field
• Words belong to different semantic fields like Medicine, Law, Journalism etc.
• Given below are set of words. Classify them according to four different semantic fields:
• Law, Cookery, Journalism, Politics
• Boil, Ballot, Appeal, Witness, Coverage, Court, Vote, Special Correspondent, Scoop, Knead,
Barbecue, Manifesto, Spices, Adjourn, Seasoning, Reporter, Nomination, Public Prosecutor,
Stir, Anaesthetics.
Loan words or foreign words
• American English /British English
• Dumb • Candy • Apartment • Gas • Druggist • Bill • Fall • French fries
• Now, help Veena who has a limited vocab.Try replacing „nice‟ with other suitable
adjectives
So, empower yourselves with a rich vocabulary.
All the Best.
Stress in Words
Words
• A single distinct meaningful element of speech or writing, used with others (or sometimes
alone) to form a sentence and typically shown with a space on either side when written or
printed.
Examples of words: bees, hair, matter, tall etc.
Syllables
• A syllable is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds.
• Syllables have nucleus (most often a vowel) with optional initial and final margins (typically,
consonants).
• Words can have several syllables.
• One syllable words • Two syllable word • Three syllable words • Four syllable words
• Words with one syllables → • sun life break tongue
• Words with two syllables
→ tiger /tai-gar/ police /po-lis/ Between /bit-wiin/ marriage /mae-rij/
• Examples of three syllable words :
energy /e-ner-jii/ capital /kae-pi-tal/ heritage /he-ri-tez/ suffering /saf-far-ing/
• Examples of four syllable words:
Invisible /in-vi-si-ble/ education /e-du-ke-shan/
aquarium /a-kwae-rii-am/ infinity /in-fi-ni-tii/
Stress Patterns
Stress patterns in words are mostly unpredictable in English. However, some general rules
can be applied to many words
• When a noun or adjective stems from a one-syllable word, (for example break and friend),
the stress usually stays on the syllable of the original word.
Example: break – BREAKable, friend – FRIENDly
• With most of the disyllabic nouns and adjectives, stress is on the first syllable.
Examples: Nouns→ PRE-sent TI-ger BREAK-fast
Adjectives→ HAND-some EA-sy HA-ppi
• To differentiate between a noun and a verb with the same spelling, stress position changes.
Example: a DEcrease (Noun) to deCREASE (Verb)
an OBject (Noun) to obJECT (Verb)
• In compound nouns (two words merged into one) the stress is on the first part.
Example:→ BOOKshop NOTEbook
• The words ending in -TION, -SION and -CIAN are usually stressed on the second last syllable.
Example: e-du-CA-tion per-MIS-sion phy- SI- cian
• Words ending with -IC are usually stressed on the second last syllable.
Example:→ rea-LIS-tic stra-TE-gic
• Words ending with –ee or –oo are usually stressed on the last syllable.
Example:→ gau- rent- EE shamp-OO
• Note: When in doubt, do not stress. It is better to not stress than stress the wrong syllable.
Plurality in English
Words (nouns)
• Nouns are naming words.
• All words denoting/referring to names are nouns.
• They could be:→ • Singular • Plural
Singular and Plural Nouns
•Dog Dogs •Friend Friends
•Judge Judges •Bench Benches
•Baby Babies •Book Books •Cap Caps
Plural Marking sounds
• Plural markers in English appear to be sounds like: /z/, /iz/, and /s/.
• Dogs /z/
• Friends /z/
• Judges /iz/
• Benches /iz/
• Babies /z/
• Books /s/
• Caps /s/
Morphemes
•sit •seats •Sits
•Five instances of the sound /s/
•Two types
•In [seats], the first /s/ does not mean anything, whereas the second /s/ is a plural marker.
•In [sits], the first /s/ does not have any meaning whereas the second /s/ is a singular marker.
Understanding Plurals in English
• In words ending in sounds /p/, /t/, and /k/, the plural markers sound as /s/.
• Everywhere else the plural marker in English is /z/.
• There does not seem to be much of a difference between /z/ and /iz/.
Plural rule
• The rule is:
• /Z/becomes /S/ (in the environment of /p/, /t/, /k/
• Everywhere else it remains /z/.
• The reason for this is the following: /p/, /t/, and /k/ are voiceless sounds, where /z/ is a
voiced sound. In the environment of a voiceless sound, a voiced plural marker becomes
voiceless.
Aspiration in English Words
Rules:
• Voiceless stops are aspirated at the beginning of a word, and at the beginning of a stressed
syllable.
• Voiceless stops are unaspirated at the beginning of an unstressed syllable. They’re also
unaspirated in any other position, like at the end of a syllable or the end of a word.
• Even if a syllable is stressed, a voiceless stop is unaspirated if it follows [s].
• Voiced stops are never aspirated. They’re always unaspirated.
SYLLABIFICATION
TWO SYLLABLE WORDS ONE SYLLABLE WORDS
1. Begin - / bih-gin / 1. Cat - / kat /
2. Bury - / ber-ee / 2. Buy - / bahy /
3. Equal - / ee-qwul / 3. Force - / force /
4. Happy - / hap-ee / 4. Drink - / dringk /
5. Funny - / fun-ee / 5. Walk - / wahk /
Takes stress on the syllable right before the suffix. This applies to words of all syllable lengths.
→The suffixes are – able, ary, cian, cial, ery, graphy, ial, ian, ible, ic, ical, ics, ion, ity, ium,
imum, logy, tal
1. able: Understandable / un-der-STAND-a-ble / DURable /DU-ra-ble /
2. ary: PRIMary / PRI-ma-ry / Diary /DI-a-ry/
PREFIX
→Usually, prefixes do not take the stress of a word.
→There are a few exceptions to this rule, however, like: un, in, pre, ex and mis, which are all
stressed in their prefix. in: IN-side, IN-efficient, IN-terest
→pre: PRE-cede, PRE-ar-range, PRE-li-min-ary
COMPOUND WORDS
→Compound nouns : a noun made out of two nouns in order to form one word. In a
compound noun, the first word usually takes on the stress.
→SEA-food →TOOTH-paste
→Compound adjectives : an adjective composed of at least two words.
→Rock- SOLID → Sparkling- RED
Words and Phrases in English
Determiners and Nouns
• The postman • A policeman • An architect
• A boy • The boy
• A man • An hour
Adjectives and nouns
• Big box • Brown monkey • Thick book
• Nice person • Pretty girl • Good guy
Preposition and nouns
• On the table • In the classroom • About a book
• In an empty box • In a big brown empty box
Phrases
• The student of English • Students from Chennai • The student of English from Chennai
• * The student from Chennai of English • The student of English from Chennai in long hair
Sentences
• Sit. • Get up.
• This is a book. • Raju likes books.
• Raju likes pizza with friends at the pizza-hut.
Sentences in English
Phrases
• [The [student [of English]]]
• [Students [from Chennai]]
• [The [student [of English]] [from Chennai]]
• * The student from Chennai of English
• The student [of English] [from Chennai] [with long hair]
Sentences
• Please (you) sit down. • (You) get up.
• This is a book. • [Raju] [likes books].
Imperative Sentences
•Come here.
•Sit down.
•Drink a glass of water.
Things to notice …
• Only sentences have full stops. • Imperative sentences have subjects (you).
• All sentences will have subjects and predicates. • Order of words in a sentence
• Subject verb object adverbs
• Order of words in a sentence in Hindi or any other Indian languages
• [subject] [adverbs [[object verb] ] ]
Command or Request?
Imperative Sentences in English
Order of words (place of a verb) in a sentence:
• English (verb medial):
• Raju likes pizza from the pizza hut.
• Hindi (verb final)
• Raju ko pizza hut meN pizza pasand hai.
Phrases to sentences …
• [The [student [of English]]] is working in a printing press.
• [Students [from Chennai]] love music.
• [The [student [of English]] [from Chennai]] works hard in the institute.
• The student [of English] [from Chennai] [with long hair] came to meet with me yesterday.
Command or request?
• Please (you) sit down. • (You) get up.
• Come home tomorrow. • Please give me a glass of water.
• Please bring a pen for me.
Subject in imperative sentences
•(You) come here.
•(You) sit down.
•(You) drink a glass of water.
Hindi Imperative Sentences
• (aap) baith-iye (You) please sit.
• (aap) andar aa-iye (You) please come in.
• (tum) baith-o (You) sit.
• (tum) andar aa-o (You) come in.
Please observe …
• John like pizza.
• I likes pizza. I are a doctor.
• We likes pizza. We is a doctor.
• They likes pizza. They is teachers.
Subjects and Predicates in Sentences
•John loves Mary.
•I like0 pizza. • We like0 pizza.
•John likes pizza with his friends. •John and Mary0 like pizza.
Imperative Sentences
•(You) come here.
•(You) sit down.
•(You) drink a glass of water.
Agreement in English
• Something between the subject and the verb in predicate is obvious.
• This is called agreement.
• How does this work.
• Number SINGULAR PLURAL
• Person FIRST SECOND THIRD
Number and Person in Agreement
Number-------------------→ Singular Plural
Person
•I I We
• II You You
• II He, She, It They
Examples:
• I am/was a doctor. I like-0 pizza.
•We are/were students. We like-0 pizza
• You are/were a teacher. You like-0 pizza.
• He/She is/was a teacher. He like-s pizza
• They are/were teachers. They like-0 pizza.
– B) that the colour of an animal is always adapted to match the background colour of its
environment
– C) that the colour of an animal is an extraneous detail, evolutionarily speaking
– D) that the colour of an animal is, statistically speaking, most likely to be adapted to match
the background colour of its environment
– E) None of these answers; it is an anecdotal story designed to inject some levity into the
passage
By actively reading or observing the text (structure of sentences) , you can improve your
grammar.
This also leads to better writing and speaking (English for academic and business purposes).
Agreement …
• John loves Mary.
•I like0 pizza.
• We like0 pizza.
• John likes pizza with his friends.
• John and Mary0 like pizza.
Correct Sentences
• John likes pizza.
•I like pizza.
• We like pizza.
• They like pizza.
Examples
• I sleep early.
• I like mangoes.
• I teach English to college students.
• I go home every week.
• I gave my book.
• I gave a book to my friend.
• I teach English.
• I teach English to college students.
Agreement in English
• Something between the subject and the verb in predicate is obvious.
• This is called agreement.
• How does this work.
Use of Will/Shall
• 1. John will be a doctor.
• 9. I shall go home now.
• 10. The players, as well as the captain, will win the match.
◦ A euphemism is a polite word or expression that is used to refer to things which people may
find upsetting or embarrassing to talk about, for example sex, the human body, or death.
◦ A proverb is a simple, concrete, traditional saying that expresses a truth based on common
sense or experience.
◦ A saying is any concisely written or spoken expression that is especially memorable because
of its meaning or style.
◦ Idioms. An idiom is a phrase, saying or a group of words that has a metaphorical (not literal)
meaning, which has become accepted in common usage. An idiom's symbolic sense is quite
different from the literal meaning or definition of the words of which it is made.
❖ COMMON PHRASES
1. A dark horse – unexpected winner
2. Bite a bullet – to force yourself to do something that is unpleasant or difficult, or be brave
in a difficult situation.
3. Break a leg – Good luck
4. Make a mountain out of a molehill – to exaggerate a minor difficulty
5. Kill two birds with one stone – achieve two aims with single effort
6. Move heaven and earth – to make maximum efforts
7. Keep the ball rolling – to continue the work
8. Be in the driving seat – Bearing all responsibilities
9. Out of my league – the other person is superior, better, at a higher level
10. Blessing in disguise – a good thing that seemed bad at first
11. A piece of cake – very easy
12. Money burns a hole in your (one’s) pocket – to spend money quickly
13. Cut ones coat according to ones cloth – to live within one’s means
14. Once in a blue moon – rarely
15. Put in cold storage – to keep a work pending
16. Look for a needle in a haystack – to seek what is impossible to find
17. To miss the boat – to miss the opportunity to do something
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55. It takes two to tango – actions or communication needs more than one person
56. To get something out of your system – to get rid of a wish or emotion especially a
negative one, by allowing yourself to express it
57. To sit/ be on the fence – undecided / taking a neutral stand / not take sides
58. To step up ones game – to start performing better
59. To sell someone out – to snitch on someone or let their secret out
60. To be all Greek – be not understood
INTRODUCTION(SPOKEN ENGLISH)
In learning to speak, remember the following:
1. Have something to say.
2. Politeness is more important than even pronunciation and grammar.
WORD STRESS
• In plays, films and theatres, artistes produce sounds in any manner.
• But in natural languages, no two sounds are produced equally loud or long.
• No two syllables are produced equally loud or long; one sound or one syllable is more
prominent than others.
• This is true of all languages.
• In English, difference between prominent syllable and other syllables in a word is much greater
than it is in other languages.
• The most prominent syllable in a word is also generally called stressed syllable.
• Stressed syllable is much louder, or longer or more prominent than others. And this difference
is more easily seen in English than in other languages.
• On words longer than one syllable, all English dictionaries show syllable with main or
prominent stress.
• But different dictionaries do it in different manners. In Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary,
a stressed syllable is preceded by a single inverted comma.
• Stress on words in many languages is fixed; a syllable in one or another part of the word is
stressed.
• In all words in the French language, for example, that have two or more syllables, the last
syllable has the most prominent stress. So, in Pa’ris in French, the second syllable is stressed.
• In Tamil, it is usually the first or the second syllable in a word of more than two syllables that
is stressed. such as for instance ‘Rajendran in Tamil, usually it is the first syllable that get
prominent stress.
• In Hindi, prominent stress is given on or near the final syllable of the word. So, the same word,
Ra’jendran, in Hindi may be stressed on the prefinal syllable.
• Unlike French, Tamil, Hindi, etc., word stress in English is not fixed for only a particular syllable
in a particular position.
• Drill will turn speaking that way into a habit. Then new words and other words not practiced
can also be pronounced correctly. Do the drill.
• Just as in Nouns, Verbs and Adjectives also follow some patterns. Verbs and Adjectives are
mostly stressed on the final or pre-final syllable.
• Like verbs, most adjectives in English are also stressed on the final or pre-final syllable.
• Adding these and/ or similar sounds, or letters when writing, to existing words, you can
make many new words.
• All languages make new words by adding sounds or letters to existing words. This is called
“Derivation”. In the READING MODULE of this course, we will look at the process in some detail.
• In grammar, existing word is called “Root” or “Root Word”. An added part to a Root Word is
called “Affix”. So “Un+” is an affix, “+ly” is an affix, “+ness” is an affix. We will see later in this
unit, and in some units in READING MODULE, that English has dozens of affixes.
• You may have seen that in English many suffixes can affect stress assignment. After a suffix is
added to the root, stress can move from one syllable to another.
• Finally, there are suffixes like +al, able, ary, ative, atory, ery, ible, ory, ous, utive, y, etc. These
suffixes do not affect stress on root words in a particularly fixed manner.
PHONETICS OF ENGLISH
➢ SOME VOWEL SOUNDS
• Most sounds in all languages are produced with air going out flowing out of lungs through the
glottis, pharynx and mouth.
• As speech air passes through them, these organs manipulate speech air.
• Glottis, which has vocal cords, can be wide open letting air pass freely; in that situation,
however, there is no voice, as is the case when you whisper.
• Glottis may be tightly shut. Air cannot pass, and there can be no speech.
• Within Glottis, vocal cords can be loosely together. Air passing through the glottis can, then,
vibrate these chords resulting into voice. If these chords do not vibrate, there can be no voice,
and we cannot be heard, at least not easily.
• Once it enters mouth, the oral passage, uvula and the tongue manipulate it. If Uvula is raised,
then all speech air passes through mouth; but if it is lowered, then some air can pass also
through nose, the nasal passage.
• In the mouth, tongue and lips and the opening between jaws mainly contribute to variety in
the production of sounds.
• To know more about the production of speech sounds, you can see some books suggested in
the desired reading list of this course.
• Vowels are voiced sounds produced without any obstruction in the oral passage, in the mouth.
This is how vowels are produced in all languages of the world.
• Though mouth does not create any obstruction in the production of vowel sounds, it can still
manipulate their length and type by changing the shape of lips, opening of the jaws, and
raising the tongue to different heights. All these things create various kinds of vowels in all
languages.
• “Pill” and “pull” are different words because vowel in one is produced by stretching the blade
or the front of the tongue towards the molar teeth, whereas in “pill” back of the tongue rises
towards but does not touch the soft palate.
• In the production of one the lips are spread; in the other, they are rounded. In the production
of “pit”, the jaws are very close to each other, though not closed; but in the production of
“part”, jaws are far apart.
• English has more vowel sounds than many other languages. Standard British English has 20
vowel sounds. American English has one or two fewer.
• Like all other languages, English also has both long and short vowel sounds.
• Some English vowels are so long that the time they take equals almost to the production of
two vowels, a long and a short one. Vowels of this kind are called “Diphthongs”, that is two
bursts of voice vowels, or extra-long (XL) vowels.
• We have diphthongs in English words
“bite” “bout” “boat” “bait”
• It may be a good idea to learn to pronounce diphthongs as diphthongs. All English dictionaries
show the pronunciation of words, and by merely looking at them you can come to know which
vowels can be rendered as diphthongs. But even if you cannot render them as very long, you
should produce them at least as words with long vowels.
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Only “w” as in “wet” and “y” as in “yet”, and other words, are produced without
obstruction and still called consonants.
• All other consonants in all other languages are produced only after some kind of obstruction
somewhere in the oral passage.
• Whereas all vowel sounds in all languages are voiced sounds, produced through the vibration
of vocal cords, some consonants may also be voiceless, may be produced when vocal cords
are wide apart, air from the lungs flows through the glottis freely without vibrating the vocal
chords.
• In the production of “h” and “s”, you feel no vibration under your finger; but you feel that
vocal cords vibrate when you produce “z”.
• For more on speech sounds, see books recommended for this course.
• It is important for us to learn to distinguish between voiced and voiceless consonants so that
we can pronounce words like “simple” and “symbol”, “temple” and “tumble”, “uncle” and
“angle”, etc. correctly.
• Many students of English have difficulty producing sounds like “v” in “van” and “w” in “wan”.
Sometimes they pronounce “v” like it were “bh”, or something closer to “w”, confusing their
listeners.
• They are both voiced sounds, but “v” as in “van”, “ever”, “move”, etc. is produced from the
lower lip coming close to upper teeth.
• “W”, as in “wan”, is produced with lips rounded like you do in the production of “u” in “put”,
“pull”, “push”, etc. In words like “quest”, “queen”, “quick”, you should round your lips before
you begin pronouncing them. You will produce “w” sound in these words quite correctly.
• English has many sounds, more than many Indian Asian languages, that are produced with
friction, though not with total obstruction. Just as we saw for “v” in “vet” above, one organ of
articulation, like lower lip, comes so close to the other, such as upper teeth in this case, that
even though there is no complete closure, there is audible friction. So, for instance, “s” as in
“sip” and “z’ as “zip” are produced by the tip of the tongue coming close to but not touching
the alveolar ridge, the line behind and above the upper teeth.
• All the other different sounds are produced by organs of articulation by moving from one
position to another. If you have difficulty with any English sound, look up the Better Spoken
English. It has lists of frequently used and mispronounced words of English. It also says how it
can be, and it tells you how you can pronounce them right.
CONCLUSION
1. Anyone who can speak one language can also speak another language equally well. All they
have to do is set their mind to it. We only have to pay attention and to follow the same specific
manner to produce the same sound or sounds, almost as we learn to drive a car. Actually,
learning to speak another language is simpler, just as many who have learnt speaking another
language tell us.
2. Nobody else can learn it for you. Only you can teach yourself, and, thus, learn to speak a
language. Enthusiasm can help you learn any language.
3. This course does not pretend to teach you how to speak English, but it seeks to become a
guide.
PHRASE STRUCTURE
• Any sentence in any language uses a variety of words, such as nouns, verbs, adjectives,
adverbs, prepositions, etc.
• A phrase can have only one word, as “It”, or it can have more words, as in “was Monday
morning”.
• Here again there is a phrase within a phrase, as in Verb Phrase, verb “was” head the phrase,
but it has another phrase “Monday morning”.
• These two words coming together behave like one word, and complete the meaning of “was”.
• So, one word or more, a phrase is part of a sentence that performs a function in it.
• But why can “It” be a phrase by itself, but “his” cannot be a phrase by itself? That is because
“his” by itself is incomplete, “eyes” by itself is incomplete; Questions like “his” what? Whose
“eyes”? etc. arise. Phrases can be of many kinds. They can be noun phrases headed by nouns
and working like nouns; or, there can be verb phrase, adjectival phrase, adverbial phrase and
prepositional phrase.
WORD ORDER
Word order, which word can come after which word, is fixed in English.
• In English, a question sentence, also called “Interrogative Sentence”, begins either only with
“Is/Are/Am/Was/Were/Will...”, etc. or with “What / When/ where / which / who / why...?”etc
• You must first have Noun working as subject, then verb followed by object / complement.
• In many other languages, word order is not so rigidly fixed. In Hindi or Tamil, for instance, one
can say SOMETHING LIKE the following:
[John a car drives.] [A car John drives.] [Drives John a car.]
• In, phrase, clause, sentence, at all levels, and in all kinds of sentences, word order is almost
fixed in English.
• Almost any two words or more come together in English only in a certain order.
• For instance, you can only say “a car”; you cannot say *“car a”.
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• If you have “a red car”, then again, the order is fixed; you cannot put these words together in
any other way.
• If it takes an adjective after itself, then it can come only as another phrase, such as in “a car
of red colour”, or “a car coloured red”, etc. Ordinarily, adjectives precede nouns in English.
• If you have two adjectives, “costly” and “new” before the noun “car”, then you can only say
“costly new car”, and not “new costly car”.
• If you have three or four adjectives before noun, even then the order is fixed. You generally
say “costly new Maruti car” you do not say “Maruti new costly car”, etc.
• Word order is fixed also for noun + noun, such as “class room”, “History teacher”, “Stations
Master”, “Assistant Station Master”, “Physics Laboratory”, “Boys’ Hostel”, “Night Express”, etc.
[The principle is to go from modifier to the modified. So, if the “history” is not of the teacher,
teacher teaches history, then history modifies “teacher”. You can ask which teacher, and the
answer is “history teacher”.]
•You can also have two nouns joined by a preposition. For instance,
[King of England] [Captain of the team] [Gun of the soldier]
The head of the Noun Phrase comes first. Modifiers joined by prepositions or otherwise follow.
• If you have two or three words together making verbal group, such as
“ John has been driving car since morning”, then “has been driving” is a verbal group, where
“has” comes first, followed by “been” which shows a time coming from the past, then you can
bring main verb, in this case “drive”, and to show that the action continues you can attach “-
ing” at the end of the main verb, not at its beginning, so you have “has been driving”; you cannot
say the following:
*has been ingdrive, or *been drive hasing, or *drive beening has, etc.
• A common general principle is to show time of action unambiguously, so you begin with
tense and end it in the present time. For example, see the following:
[You have tense (present/past) followed by aspect (has/have or had), voice (active/passive),
and then simple/progressive (v+ing)]
COMPLEX SENTENCE
➢ Agreement Across Phrases & Clauses
• A “Complex Sentence” has a main clause and at least one subordinate clause.
ACTIVITY
This Rajam was a rival to Mani. In his manner to Mani he assumed a certain nonchalance to
which Mani was not accustomed. If Mani jabbed, Rajam jabbed; if Mani clouted, he clouted; if
Mani kicked, he kicked. If Mani was the overlord of the class, Rajam seemed to be nothing less.
And add to all this the fact that Rajam was a regular seventy percenter, second only to Sankar.
There were sure indications that Rajam was the new power in the class.
• Rules of agreement of number apply across the clauses. Any reference to noun or pronoun
of the main clause in a noun, or pronoun or verb in the subordinate clause will have to have
the same number.
• If noun in the main clause is singular, then reference to it must be in singular. See the
following, for instance:
→These are the senior girls from this school who have been selected for training in life
saving skills.
[Main Clause--These are the senior girls from this school]
[Subordinate Clause--who have been selected for training in life saving skills]
• But in the subordinate clause, you cannot write *who has been... That is ungrammatical,
because “who” in this sentence refers to “girls”, a plural noun, in the earlier clause.
Therefore, it takes “have”, not “has”.
• Any verb or noun in the subordinate clause referring to a noun in the main clause must
agree with the noun in the main clause in number.
➢ NOUN CLAUSE
• We know that a complex sentence has a main clause and at least one sub-ordinate clause.
• A main clause necessarily has a noun phrase and at least one verb phrase, which has a verb
in either present or in past tense.
• But subordinate clause can be of many kinds, and may function in the sentence like a noun
• The sub-ordinate clause here works like a noun. It is the object to the verb ―” know”
in the main clause. What do you know – you know ―” where shoes pinches”.
• Let us look at another example.
→That the river is in spate here at this time of the year is well known.
• Here [That the river is in spate here at this time of the year] sub. noun clause functions like a
noun which is the subject to the verb -”is” within the main clause.
• The entire subordinate clause here functions like a simple word -”It” which has become the
subject of the sentence-”[[It] is well-known]”. The entire sentence could also be written or
spoken as:
→It is well known that the river is in spate here at this time of the year.
• So the subordinate clause [That the river is in spate here at this time of the year] is a noun
clause which is the subject of the main clause ―”[[ ] is well-known]”. So, like a noun, or like
a noun phrase, noun clause can also perform the function of a noun by becoming either
subject or object of a subordinate clause.
ACTIVITY
“...You don't know what a great fellow Rajam is.' He told her the story of the first enmity
between Rajam and Mani and the subsequent friendship. 'You know, he has a real police dress,'
said Swaminathan. 'Is it? What does he want a police dress for?' asked granny. 'His father is the
Police Superintendent. He is the master of every policeman here.' Granny was impressed. She
said that it must be a tremendous office indeed. She then recounted the days when her
husband, Swaminathan's grandfather, was a powerful Sub-Magistrate.
➢ ADJECTIVAL CLAUSE
• We saw in the earlier unit that some clauses work like nouns, and can be subject, or object
of verbs in another clause.
• Some subordinate clauses, in a similar manner, can also function like adjectives. These are
called adjectival clauses. For example.
→He that is down needs fear no fall.
• There are two clauses in this sentence, as shown through brackets below.
[He [that is down] (adj Cl) needs fear no fall (main cl).]
• In the sentence above, we have two clauses, as follows.
[Main Clause—He needs fear no fall]
[Subordinate Clause—that is down]
• This subordinate clause is an adjectival clause as it qualifies the subject of main clause “He”.
What is the test? If you ask who needs fear no fall, the answer is “He that is down...”.
➢ ADVERBIAL CLAUSE
• We have seen in earlier units of this module that a subordinate clause can function like a
noun clause and an adjectival clause.
• A subordinate clause can also function like an adverbial clause.
• See the following, for instance
• All of these functions of adverbs are also usually done by adverbial phrase and by adverbial
clause. See the following for example.
→Strike the iron while it is hot.
• “Strike the iron” is main clause, but “while it is hot” is the subordinate adverbial clause
indicating time of the verb “strike” in the main clause.
→As you sow, so you reap.
• “so you reap” is the main clause, but “As you sow” is the adverbial clause of manner
qualifying the verb “sow”.
→This is the night mail crossing the border.
• “crossing the border’ is the adverbial phrase indicating the place of verb “is”.
→The mail is bringing the cheques and the postal order.
• the adverbial phrase indicates the purpose of the verb “is”.
• Here “when your father was born” is the subordinate adverbial clause indicating time of the
verb “removed” in the main clause “ I removed the pendant”.
Activity
All adverbial clauses are underlined.
ARTICLES
1. Common Article Mistake # 1: I am doctor specialised in neurology.
Correction: I am a doctor specialised in neurology.
Rule: Always put a/an before a singular, common noun.
2. Common Article Mistake # 2: Ravi studies at an university.
Correction: Ravi studies at a university.
Rule: Use a before consonant sounds, an before vowel sounds
3. Common Article Mistake # 3: Savithri has best voice I have ever heard.
Correction: Savithri has the best voice I have ever heard.
Rule: Always put the before superlative degrees.
4. Common Article Mistake # 4: I need a advice from you about joining yoga class.
Correction: I need advice from you about joining yoga class.
Rule: Do not put a or an before uncountable nouns.(Idea-countable; advice- uncountable
5. Common Article Mistake # 5: The teachers should not punish their students.
Correction: Teachers should not punish their students.
Rule : Use no article when generalizing with plurals.
6. Common Article Mistake # 6: Mount Everest is the highest mountain in the world.
Correction: The Mount Everest is the highest mountain in the world.
Rule: Use the with oceans, rivers, valleys, deserts, mountain ranges, points on globe.
• Or, they start with some “wh-” word, like “how, what, when, where, which, whose, whom,
why” and a few other “wh-” words, such as the following.
• Notice that “How” does not begin with “wh-”, yet it is grouped with questions words of this
class, that is only for the sake of convenience. Since all other words here begin with “Wh-”,
this word is also clubbed with them.
• What is the difference between questions beginning with “Is/are” and the questions
beginning with “Wh-”?
• Depending upon what they begin with, they are either called “Wh-” questions, or “Yes/No”
questions. This seems arbitrary.
• Questions beginning with “Is/Are/...” are almost always answered in either “yes” or “no”.
Actually, therefore, they should rather be called “yes/no” answers, than “yes/no” questions.
But popular psychology and rule of convenience put them that way.
• “Wh-” questions, on the other hand, expect specific answers. You cannot say “yes” when
you are asked “what is the time, please?”, or, “What is your name, please?”. You will have
to answer these questions with specific words like It is 10:10 now, or, I am Shreesh, etc.
• So, let us first talk about the structure of “Yes/No” questions. All questions of this kind begin
with the first auxiliary verb in that sentence. See the following, for instance.
• In all of these sentences there are many auxiliary verbs. Some books of grammar also call
them helping verbs.
[People could have been told about the pandemic last year.]
• Verbal group has four words, “could have been tell + ed”, but because the group begins with
“Could”, the questions sentence is formed accordingly, beginning with “could”.
• There are some “yes/no” questions which begin with “Do/does/did” even when they are not
obviously there in the declarative sentence. Look at the following sentences, for instance.
→Devadutt rises with the sun every morning.
→Devadutt does not go to bed with the sun every evening.
• Questions for the sentences given above can be of the following kind.
→Does Devadutt rises with the sun every morning?
→Does Devadutt not go to bed with the sun every evening?
• Helping verbs, “is” and “can”, are seen in c. and d. But in a. and d. no such verb is seen. To
change them into question sentences, therefore, English uses “do/does/did”, as appropriate.
• So we see that sentences that do not have a helping verb to be taken the front of the sentence
use “do’/does/did”, as appropriate for this purpose.
• How does English make negative questions, such as the following.
→Do Eskimos not live near the North Pole?
→Does a man not go out for morning walks in cold countries?
• Ordinarily, in their neutral, declarative form sentences as above. Are like those given below.
→Eskimos do not live near the North Pole.
→A man does not go out for morning walks in cold countries.
• In all of the sentences in 1. above, the doer or the cause or the agent is either well-known,
or not known at all, or does not need to be known. Say, for instance. In 1.a, the governor has
signed the order, and the chief minister’s resignation has been accepted. In 1.b, the agent is
likely to be the Director of the college or a higher authority; in 1.c. we can say “by the Dean”;
in 1.d., “by police”; 1.e. “by the company”. We can go on in this manner. Actually it may be a
good idea for you to write this “by...” for the other sentences in the group. Some have
already been done for you.
ACTIVITY
• For sentences given in 1. above, write the name of the possible agent. At the end of each
sentence, use “by....” and after “by” write the name of the possible agent/cause/doer, etc.
f. Some students have been expelled from the hostel by the warden.
g. The Taj Mahal was built in over 20 years, between 1632- 53, by Shah Jehan.
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• Similar sentences are there in many languages. But, in English, again sentences of this kind,
called PASSIVE VOICE SENTENCES, have a fixed structure. They are constructed only in a
particular manner. If we look at their ACTIVE VOICE, we can soon and better understand
how they are constructed. See the following sentences.
• Sentences in 2. are in active voice. Agent or cause of action is at the beginning of the sentence.
But passive voice is done the other way round. Here the agent comes last, victim, result, effect,
etc. comes first, as follows:
• Rules for making passive voice sentences are given in steps as follows.
• Some nouns have no plural; you use them only in the singular number as given in the
dictionary.
• So, for instance, words like equipment, meat, oil, rice, wheat, milk, information, fish,
furniture do not have a singular or plural form.
• They are uncountable, and are shown in the dictionary with a “U”. So, for instance, for
“milk”, the dictionary cites milk as follows: “Milk (Noun) U”, meaning uncountable.
• Uncountable nouns do not take a/an, neither do they have a plural form. When milk is used
as a noun, you cannot say “milk+s”.
You cannot, for instance say, [*I like cow and buffalo milks.]
You can only say “I like both cow milk and buffalo milk.”
NOTE➔
• In a noun + noun combination, ordinarily the second noun is the head. See the following for
example:
[History Teacher, State Department, Home Minister, House Wife, Cinema Hall, etc.]
• But in a noun phrase created with a preposition, it is a noun before the preposition that is
usually the head.
ADITYA