Ahmad Sharifzadeh - Academic English Grammar: For Intermediate and Advanced Learners

Academic English Grammar:

For Intermediate and Advanced Learners

Ahmad Sharifzadeh

2019

To

My most beloved, Fatemeh

About the book

When we are talking about a language, we are talking about the four skills -- listening or better to say watching, reading, writing, and speaking -- the first two of which are receptive skills and the second two are productive skills along with the two language components (i.e., grammar and vocabulary). This book, dedicated to language components (lexicon & grammar), has a different look at grammar.

Although theoretically grammar and lexicon are distinct components of languages, they are in practice interwoven to a great extent so that applying grammatical rules depends on the type of words used in a sentence and in a broader context. Their inextricable dependency on each other forced the author to take account of them both in this single volume.

In the authors view, grammar is the same as a map (plan) in carpet weaving, which makes it possible to put the linguistic knots (i.e., words) at the intersection of the weft (syntagmatic axis) and the wrap (paradigmatic axis) syntagmatically and paradigmatically so that the intended meaning is conveyed verbally or in a written form. Grammar (or better to say, syntax) lets us both produce and understand an unlimited number of sentences which are correct syntactically using a limited number of grammatical (syntactic) rules. Keep in mind that although sentences might be correct grammatically, they might be semantically or pragmatically incorrect.

Any language is the interface between syntax . Taking into account the fact that the readers of the book are familiar with the rudimentary concepts, this book aimed at familiarizing them with the more complicated aspects, especially those confronted in the academic and advanced texts and contexts.

In the first chapter of this book, with a slightly different view to language, the lexicon including word formation, word classification, parts of speech, affixes, and the like are in detail dealt with. In the second chapter, syntactic structures (grammatical rules) are clarified using examples.

What else is planned?

After the outstanding response to our release of the Academic English Grammar: For Intermediate and Advanced Learners as an eBook, I am developing a new English book dealing with tests driven from different international exams to help both students and teachers with their English language requirements. The test book will be published as soon as possible.

You can access regular updates to the book now that you have purchased this copy. All that is required is that you supply your username and password to begin the download. You will receive regular emails when new updates are available. The update subscription is valid for one year from the date you purchased the item from us.

To the readers

Since the audience of this book are intermediate and advanced academicians, the provided examples were collected based on some criteria: each sentence has at least one point to consider, some of them are very simple and straightforward but others very difficult, they were collected throughout years selectively, all the examples were selected to present a clear picture of syntax (and semantics), and the examples provided in the book were collected from different authentic academic texts (books and articles), the sources of which were credited to the extent possible. The author did his best to stick to his new view regarding teaching grammar in order to make it easily understandable by shying away from the traditional approach to teaching grammar.

The book is organized in a cross-linked way so that you can find the relevant information in different sections easily. The order of presentation of materials in the book does not necessarily connote their being pre-requisite or post-requisite.

Italic shows descriptions, bold shows rules, hanging indentation shows example sentences for grammatical rules, shows wrong sentences, shows correct sentences, bold words or phrases show the focus of grammatical points, bullets show grammatical formulas, and red words/phrases/clauses show the discussed grammatical rules/structures. Only proper nouns, headings, and the first letter of sentences were capitalized, otherwise words (both open-set words and close-set words) were written in lower-case letters.

Sometimes, footnotes and endnotes are more important than the text itself. Most of the footnotes are very essential so that skipping them might result in your confusion.

There are some practices in the book (either as footnotes or throughout the text) in order to make learners attentive.

Any corrective comments and suggestions will be welcomed at

Who can use the book?

The book can be useful for all the English language learners, especially for those planning to take the international language exams including IELTS, TOEFL, SAT, PTE, CAE, CPE, FCE, TOEIC, OPI, OPIC, and GRE, as well as MA applicants and students, and Ph.D. candidates.

I am preparing another book, which will deal with sample tests accompanied by illustrative explanations based on the descriptions provided in this book. The new book would clarify how users can make the most of Academic English Grammar: For Intermediate and Advanced Learners .

Acknowledgements

I am grateful to all who helped me prepare the book, especially those MA students and Ph.D. candidates whose constructive feedbacks added to the clarity of the book. I am also greatly in debt to my family, especially my mother who sacrificed her today for my tomorrow. I am honored to appreciate those authors whose writings were in one way or the other used throughout the book.

Ahmad Sharifzadeh

February 2019

Contents

A verbs in class A

adj. adjective

ADV adverbial clause

adv. adverb

Aux auxiliary, modal

B verbs in class B

C verbs in class C

conj. conjunctions

D verbs in class D

N noun

Nc countable noun

NP noun phrase

NP1 subject

NP2 first object

NP3 second object

Ns singular noun

Nu uncountable noun

P.P. past participle

PLN plural noun

Post-M1 post-modifier 1

Post-M2 post-modifier 2

pred. predicate

Pre-M1 pre-modifier 1

Pre-M2 pre-modifier 2

prep. preposition

prep.p prepositional phrase

PRN pronoun

pV passive verb with one NP

pV passive verb with two NPs

R relative pronoun

RC relative clause

RT reduction transformation

S sentence

to V infinitive

V verb

V(es) present tense verb

V verb with one valancy

V verb with two valancies

V verb with three valancies

Vd ditransitive verb (two objects)

Ved past tense verb

Vi intransitive verb (no object)

Ving gerund (present participle)

VP verb phrase

Vt transitive verb (one object)

Actually, vocabulary (lexis) is the main building block or raw material in order for erecting the building of any language, whether it be oral or written. Maybe, you can in some cases be able to convey meaning without sticking to the grammatical (syntactic) rules, but it is impossible to convey any meaning without words or lexis. Hence, we first touch upon it, its classification, affixes, the word formation, place, function of each part of speech, some exceptions, etc.

Without lexicon, no sentence can be made.

In the close set, the lexicon is limited in number, and the words in this category are among the most frequent words both in spoken and written texts.

In the open set, the lexicon is unlimited and increasing gradually. Each sentence has at least one word out of the open set (i.e., every sentence has at least one verb).