NAE 112 The Study of Grammar

Description

This course is an introduction to grammatical analysis. It shows students how grammarians go about describing the structures and functions of words, phrases and sentences in modern English. The course aims to provide students with a consistent and explicit method which they can use to describe and analyse the basic syntactic structures of English.

Objectives

At the end of this course, students will:

• be aware of the criteria for the classification of word classes
• be able to label the constituents of phrases, clauses and sentences
• be able to identify and analyse basic clause types and sentence classes

Topics

1. functional constituents of the simple sentence
2. form vs. function
3. clause types
4. word classes
5. the structure of the noun phrase
6. the structure of the verb phrase
7. co-ordination and subordination

Reading

Required reading

Cane G., Ho C.L., Kandiah T., Tan P. (1997) Encounters with the English Language. Prentice Hall Sprintprint.

Recommended reading

Crystal D. (1996) Rediscover Grammar. Longman

Assessment

There will be one test (30%) and a final examination (70%).

Course Co-ordinator

Dr Graeme Cane, Raffles Building, room 319. Telephone : 460 5624. E-mail: gacane@nie.edu.sg