A workbook in language teaching: With special reference to English as a foreign language

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A Workbook in LanguageTeaching With $pecial Referenceto English as a foreign language

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EARL W. STEVICK

A WORKBOOK IN IANGUAGETEACHING With Speciol Reference to English o s o F o re i glno n g u oge

EARI W. STEVICK

AbingdonPress N e wY o r k

Noshville

Copyright O 1963 by Abingdon Press Standard Book Number: 687-46174X

AtI rights in this book are reserved,

Printed in the U.S.A.

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PREFACE

This book is designed to be used either as a whole or in part.

It should be

of value, either in the initial training of new language teachers or as a basis for rethinking

and mutually profitable discussions among those who are more ex-

perienced. Like HELPING PEOPLE LEARN to fundamentals.

ENGLISH, the present work confines itself

Unlike its companion volume, however, this "workbook"

mands active responses from the reader.

In this way, he begins to build within

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himself some of the skills that are essential to effective language teaching.

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teaching.

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other groups , Part I (" Phonetics and Phonemics of English" ) andlor

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de-

The workbook is divided into three parts,

each of which requires

approxi-

mately fifteen hours of class work in addition to a moderate amount of outside preparation.

The entire book, together with lectures and appropriate collateral

readings, might thus form the backbone of a first For very

soned teachers,

Kinds of Drill")

brief

semester

course in language

seminars in which most of the participants

Part III ("Talking

about Grammar")

are sea-

might be used alone.

With

Part II (" Four

may be more suitable.

Each part of this workbook has been tested and revised in work with groups of trainee teachers. teach their

These have inciuded not only Americans

native language, but also teachers from

whom may teach a language that is not their first.

going abroad to

many countries,

manyof

The author is grateful to The Ford Foundation,

The Methodist

Church,

and

the United States Information Agency for opportunities to observe and participate in the teaching of English and other languages in BraziI and in various parts of Africa.

Clifford

of an earlier

H, Prator and W. Freeman

Twaddell experimented with parts

version of this book in their classes in the summer of 1959.

tensive and helpfui comments on earlier BurksandbyRobert

Maston.

Ex-

drafts were made by the late Sidney L.

To these, and to the countless other colleagues and

studentswhohavebeenof help inso many ways, the writer expresses his sincere sratitude.

Earl W. Stevick

CONTENTS THE SOLNDSYSTEMOF ENGLISH.....

PART i:

S e r i e s 1 . H e a r i n g s o u n d s ,n o t s p e l l i n g s , . . . ,

9

......I0

Series 2.

Hearing sounds (cont'd)

. . . . 10

Series 3.

Hearing sounds (cont'd).

. .. i3

Series 4.

Hearing sounds(conciuded)

Series 5.

Hearing the sounds of one's own pronunciation...,.

Series 6.

Series 7.

Series 8.

Series 9.

P A R TI l :

Reading and writing transcription...,.

....

...14

........

15

one variety of phonemic ,.....".16

The vowels and consonants ofAmerican English.

.....f9

Familiarization with certain other varieties of phonemic notation.

, . ,. .4I

Some elements of English pronunciation which are neither vowels nor consonants. , .

F O U RK I N D SO F D z u L L .

1. "Minimalpair"drilis

. . . .43

.......52 ......53

When?.

......"53

What?.

.... ...53

Where?.

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... ...

How?. 1r -v6.' rnrnyrli rn.dr b h - ^l i^nnd d a l lleeyyss

2. Memorization.... When?.

......55 ........55 .....

-58

....59 .. ., . . .59

What?. Where? A d a p t a t i o n o f o r i g i n at e l xts.. How?. B u i l d i n gt o w a r d f r e e c o n v e r s a t i o n . Dialogues

... .. . . 59 ...."59 .. '.'.59 ",...,66 ,., . . , , ,67 .,....69 ..'..73

Temptingblindalleys

3 . S u b s t i t u t i o n D r i l. l

......73

When?

......73

What?

.'....74

lnterdependenceamong lists filling tlvo or more s l o t si n t h e s a m e s e n t e n c e

, ,,.. ..,.76 .....80

Where? How?. T a p i . n ga s l n g l e - c o l u m ns u b s t i t u t i o nd r i l l Mimeographingdriils T e m p t i n g b l i n da l l e y s

^

TransformationDrill

....

....83

.......84 ....85 ....86

When?

......86

What?

..,..'.86

Where? How?. q

......80

The Teacher's Plan: Combining Definiteness with Flexibility.

...'9I ..".91 , ' ,92

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PART III :

. . . .'.

ABOUT GRAMMAR.

.

1.

UnitsandHierarchies

2.

"Completeness"..

3.

R e c o g n i z i n g p a r t so f s p e e c h :s i o t s a n d l i s t s . .

4.

Arbitrariness

5.

Grammatical similarity

6.

Grammatical similariry (cont'd).

7.

"substitution" as a figure of speech.

8.

"Lexicalcombinations" ("LC's")

97

...98

..,..,.,99 .......100

in the recognition of "completeness"

...fOf ..,l0l .... ....103 . ,. .I04 ......105

g.,,Modification,,....

........106 ........f08

10. "BoundMorphemes 11.

"Privileges of Occurrence". . ..

. . .109

12.

"Parts of Speech"

. '.11f

13.

"Single word" vs. "list": the importance of membership in "lexical combinations"....

..'.lll , , . .Ll2

14. "Co- occurrence ranges 15.

"Lexical combinations" which recur in superficialLy differentconstructrons..,..

16. "Transforms,,.... 17 .

t

18.

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20,

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TALKING

Some grammatical words

....108 ........I14

characteristics

"Co-occurrence restrictions"

of certain "derived" ........r15

among various kinds of lists ....

19. "Co-occurrencerestrictions" (cont'd)... "Co-occurrence restrictions"

(concluded).

21. "Ship sinks" : a startingpointfor further discussion...,..II9

' . ' ' 116 ,',,,II7 . ' '. 1I8

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PART I. THESOUND SYSTEM OFENGTISH

Any teacher who deals with English, either as the language he is teaching or as the native language of his students, needs to have an understanding of its sound system. The materials whichfollow seek to develop the following necessary skills:

Perception of words and phrases in terms of sounds and notletters, Reading andwliting in at least one widely accepted variety nernrc rranscrlptlon. - ^ - i ^

of pho-

r - ^ - , - - : - * i

Awareness of the articulatory

phonetics of English.

P r a c t i c e i n u s i . n gm o r e t h a n o n e s y s t e m o f n o t a t i o n f o r r e p r e s e n t ing sounds, principally toi.mmunize the nev/ teacher against the technical and emotional problems of having to learn a slightly different transcription for each new book he uses. Awareness of the difference between phonetics and phonemics. Awareness ofthe existenceof contrasts of pitch, stress, and transition ("juncture") in English.

NOTSPEI.TINGS SOUNDS, I. HEARING SERIES

The goal in the first four series of exercises is to regain or reinforce In the ability to perceivespoken words in terms of sounds, instead of letters. cal.ledvowels commonly nuclei syliabic the first series wemeet theprincipal and diphthongs -of American English. ExerciseI Remembering that the choice between the words a andandependson word, add to each of the the first sound, not on the first letter of the following letter u, and fwo whose the following liststhree words whosespellingbeginswith spelling begins with e.

a unlcorn

an uncle

A

an an an an an

2 Exercise Listen to thesepairs of words as they are readby anativespeakerof live or on tape. (If English is your own first language, listen to them English, as pronouncedby another native speaker,) Theyshouldbe readinrandom order. Answer SAME or DIFFERENT according to whether the wolds sound the same as the speaker Pronounces them: seat-slt seed-cede slt- set bred- bread Dg(->dt

DdL-DUL

cooed- could wood-would cud- curd fir- fur

cud- cod code- cawed road- rode rays- raise wet-walt

3 Exercise Listen to thesepairs of words as readby anativespeakerofEnglish. Listen only to the vowel of the stressed syllable. State whether the vowels or

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diphthongsof the stressed syllables as he pronounces them sound SAME, orDIFFERENT:

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cheese- complete boating- unknown tread-lead (verb) tread-lead (the metal) rough- funny though- roughly first- curse

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fhnrnrrohrrortinal

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fnrrr - rronr

c u r i o u s -c u r s o r y foul- fowi

able- play shawl- falsely foot- put once - but ^G^^l$L-, DLgdrLrly-

^c^^r DLgdl

put- putt first- fist confusion- feud racial- made confemnlnlc-

e nJlg

whirling- cur

Exercise 4 Listen to these sets of words as read by anative speaker. Concentrate first on the vowel or diphthong ofthestressed syllable of the first word in the set. Use that sound as your basis for comparison. Then decide which of the three words that follow the model has a vowel or diphthongthat soundsmost iike that of the model. For this exercise also, base your decision on the pronunciation of the reader, not on your own p_ronunciation. Model conceit feed befuddle C O U SI N

dozen Pudding busy women woman

A

B

seat hid could could could could must mlst could

sit heed cod cod cod cod mist most c ode

L

s ate had cud cud cud cud messed mussed cod

(Depending on the dialect of the speaker, the answer in the last row may be A or B. Try to find at Ieast one speaker for whom the answerwouldbe A, andanother for whom it would be B . )

(contd.) StRltS 2. HEARING 50UNDS T h i s s e r i e s i s concernedprincipaiJ.ywith the contrasting consonant s o u n d su s e d i n E n g 1 i s h .

Exercise 5 Listen to these pairs of words. DIFFERENT? f ^^

-

lgdr-

Do the whole words sound SAME,

or

cap- cab grays - graze race- rays life-live (adj. ) house's- houses lacy-Iazy watt- what

- ,^^-

vYgr

fill- Phil shoe-sue shock-Jacques seed-cede sin- thin Sam- sang

For many native speakersofEnglish, the words spelledwatt andwhat pronounced alike; for many others they are different. are 6 Exercise Listenonly tothefirst soundof each of these words. State whether first sounds of the words in each pair are SAME or DIFFERENT.

ve ry- be rry so- she use- jam use- yes right- light wring- rouse chaos - cape tin- thin day- they chick- show champagne-chop phone- pone

fear- fact then- this thin- this knife - kite Known'gnome known- nine celestial- so cemetery- cat house- honor hear- heavy thatch- thumb thimble- the re

7 Exercise Listen onlyto thelast soundof each ofthese words. Statewhetherthe last sounds of the words in each pair are SAME or DIFFERENT. miss - dlsh miss - rtce mis s - his miss - hiss hiss - rice jazz-his

rug- p1g rack- rag rose- choice v^no

- rntp

watt-what leaf- save lEdI-

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8 Exercise

Give examples illustrating ling the last sound of peace:

Give examples illustratingthree sound of peas:

three common ways of representing in spel-

common ways of representing in spelJ.ingthelast

Exercise 9 Lisrfive words that begin with the same sound that begins thigh; list five that begin with the same sound that begins thy:

N0GU N D( C S oNrD.) 5ERrE 3 .5H E A R TS This series deals with the same materials as the first two series but in a more complex way.

0 E x e r c i sl e Listen to these pairs of words. CONSONANT? note- known note- net note- night known-none nine-night house (noun)- house (v.)

Is the difference in a VOWEL, ora

Llutt-put shave- shade live (verb) -llve (ad.1. ) lip- clip rope- robe lead (verb) - lead (metal) puss- pus

II Exercise Listen to these pairs of words. Is the difference in a VOWEL, or a coNSoNANT, or BorH? The answers willin somecases depend on the variety of English spoken by the person who reads the words.

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I four- fort forth- force bath- bathe goes - does

talk- tick known-note four- foul soap- rope

I2 Exercise Listen to theconsonantsoundsthat beg'ineachof thesewords. Oppo-

site eachpair, supplya pair of words that endwith thosesametwo sounds. Example:

rag - rack ten- ham

€oat- coat name- mouse

call- cite this- thick very-fairy back-pick s e e -z o o shine- cheese scene- show time-dive

_-

This exercise is more interesting if you try to make all your pairs of words "minimal pairs" (e.g., rack-Ieg, very-fairy). A "minimal pair" of wordsdiffer in sound at only on. pomt. e*u.ttpte" of non-minimal pairs of words are n a m e -m o u s ea n d t e n - h a m .

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(CoNCTUDED) 50UNDs 4. HEARTNG SERTES This series ofexercises deals with "clusters"of consonants,that is, with sequencesof two or more consonantsadjacent to one another.

Exercise l3 The following are words whose spelling makes them appear rtl begin with two or more consonants. As spoken, however, each word begins with only one consonant sound. Pronounce them aloudto yourself, then supply other words which begin with ttre same consonant sound, but whose spelling begins with only one consonant letter: Example:

pneumonia philharmonic mnemonic ghost chaos khaki pshaw shoe

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chip wrong Schaeffer thatch

Exercise l4 Do these words begin with one consonant sound, or two? phiiology flow smear scene score shrimp thimble

knock klaxon grow gnome wrlng bring throw

Exercise I5 State whether each of the foLlowingwords ends witha single consonant sound or with a cluster ofrwo or more consonant sounds following the lastvowel sound: fact knives breezes egg eggs miI mill false talk milk

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(none) (none)

Lrrvu6rr

n.

fh

wash washed washes walt waited waits put

purr long

S E R I E5S. H E A R I NTGH ES O U N DOSF O N E ' S O W NP R O N U N C I A T I O N In thisseries, his own pronunciation.

unlikethe fi.rstthree series, the reader is to listen to

l6 Exercise T^ Ib

rrnt

r

vnrrro

l

in said more like your vowel in red or in laid? ' ' 'T^O N C I " " ftr" ""e " rip " set " slt? ' " I"d !g9!

" .""r "

yggfl!."

l5

"@r

" head?

I rough" " do? rough" " put? " " worse? fit

" first

I7 Exercise Practicaily all native and near-native speakers of English will give In this exercise, uniform replies to the questions in the preceding exercise. their answers are likely to show much greater diversity. Is your vowel in cleanse more iike your vowel in wit or "bet " "measure " code " woman r' /' " eithe r slgn " t""r " pour ,, i,, " sa"t noot (or your vowel in cut?) " "fat " can't

in wet? " laltt " rcoul-d? " "ee? " four? " tootl

" fate?

IRANSCRIPTION OI PHONEMIC ANDWRIIINGONEVARITIY STRIES 6. READING tation.

This series provides practice in reading one system of phonemicnoOther systems will be introduced in Series Eight.

[xerciseI 8 Read aloud from the right-hand half of the page, using the key words (vowels on the left as your guide. Pay principal attention to the syllable nuclei and diphthongs): the consonant symbols used here have the same values that they Most, but not all of the prohave in most dictionary systems of transcription. nunciations in this exercise are those of real English words.

If If If If If If If If If

/kiy/

is "

/set/

"

/kit/

/feyt/ " " /het/ /keynt/" " /hat/ " /hayt/ /haw/ "

kit, what are: /sit, mit, mt, ztt/? key, : /siy, mry, ziY, rrY/? xe1, " : ,zheyt, weyt, bleyt, bleyd/? " fate, blet, met, maen/? /fet, ": /feynt, reynt, weynt/? hot (AmE), " " : /gat, blat, faks, hwat, nat, map/? " : /mayt, blayt, sayd, blaynd/? height, " how, /naw, saw, nawn, rawtl? hat, *

'r

*The syllable nucleus in this row does not occur in standard dialects of English, but occurs in some fair.ty common dialects, Try to arrive at the pronunciation by following analogies with the other syllable nuclei in this exercise.

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F Exerrise l9

F

This exercise is likethe precedingone exceptthatitintroduces syllable nuclei.

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wood

/wud/ /

/m rrrrrrl r r r ur r u/

/

/kud, rum, sut, fut/ ,/kuwd, kuwb, suwt, ruwm/ ,zklowv, rowv, bowt, nowz/ /rrb, wrn, san, klnb/ /wrts, f^rst, p^rk, wrrm/ /gct, blct, fcks, nx, mcP/ /scht. sch, kchl, lchg,/ /sat, Iag, bat, wat/

m ^^A r r r vvs

/stowv/ stove ,/stab/ stub /klrs/ curse /hct1 hot (Br.) /ktht/ caught cot (AmE) /kat/

A iai rly Iarge number of Ame ricans (including Canadians) lack a contrast between the caught words (next to last row) andthe cot words (last row). Ixerrise20 Read aloud from the columns and rows: L

/ay/

/O/ /d/ /t./ /j/ /3t 71,/ /V/ /tJ/

thish thy cnew judge itroe measure you song

/aw/

/Oayl /day/ ttay / rjay/ t\ay/ tLay/ /yay/ /ayn/

/nik/ nick

owe

/Qow/ /dow/ /tow / / jow/ /!ow/ /2ow/ /yow/ /owq/

/owO/ oath

/yry/

/eIk/ /drk/

/ow@/ /owd/

/ cLK/

/ owc /

/jik/ /!tu/ /LIk/ iyrk/ /sin/

/owi/ /owi/ /owL/

/yt'O/ /yr'd/ /yt t/ /yt i/ /yr'!/ /yr'2/ /yt'y/ /y t'tt/

,v'

/rirS/

young

These syllables are intended merely as practice in reading this system of transcriotion: therefore some of them sound Iike real Enclish words and some do not.

2l Exercise

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other

Further practice in reading transcription:

If /k|k/ " / riyi/ ,, tiest/ " iSeyk/ " /req/ " /rat/ " /i.ayd/ " /[aw I

is

Ll!_k, reach, jest,

what

shake, rang, not (AmE)," chide, chow,

are: / o i k , 6 i k , 3 i t , t i o , t i 4 7 t ": / riyO, riyd, iiyi, yiyiTf

" : i Jest, dest, Iest, ": ":

": ":

L7

Oest/?

/ Jeyk, -)eyk, ieyn, skeyd/? / bery,Jeq, kle4, Oe6/? / *a3, Iut, yat, oat/? / 5ayn, dayn, jay, tay/? / daw, law, 5aw, ]awl?

I 22 Exer
qeem

"

/

/ c- i- vJ m . - . t

/

t

" srt " /sit/, raKe /TeyK/, " set " /set/, " ?-at is /ret/, " boot " /buwt/, " put " /put/, " purt " /ptt/, " poke " /powk/,

transcribe: " : ,' : : " ', : transcribe: " : " : " : " :

shirk, clerk, murk gleam, clean, be, bee knit, whit, mirr, \Virs fake, ache, mace, maze jet, head, when, mess chat, chap, snag, jams too, rwo, zoo, brew foot, wood, would, pulls mud, one, once, tubs .Jokes, chose, known, own

In your speech the next two groups of words may have the same nucleus. The distinction in symbois is for those who pronounce the fwo groups differently. caught /kcht/ cot /kar/

(AmE)

raw, g-naw, lawn, long knot, knob, snob, robs

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sERIEs 7. THEVOWEI.S AND CONSOMNTS OF AMERICAN INGI.ISH This series of exercises is concerned with the ways in which the human speech apparatus is usedinformingthe principal vowel and consonant sounds of EngIish.

Exercise 23 The principalmovable parts ofthe speechapparatusare indicated in Fig. 23. Number

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Common Name

Adjective Form Used in Describing Sounds

Lower lip Tongue tip Blade of tongue Back of tongue Velic Vocal cords Lower jaw

Learn the above information

Labial / IabioApical / apicoBlade Dorsal ,/ dorsoNasal vs. non-nasal Voiced vs. unvoiced High vs. mid vs. low (vowels)

thoroughly.

[xercise 24 The most important non-movable parts of the speech apparatus are indicated in Fig. 24. Number

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Common Name

Technical Name

Technical Adjective

Upper lip

(not in common use)

Labial

Upper teeth

(not in common use)

Dental

Gum ridge Hard palate Soft palate Nasal cavity

Alveolar ridge Alveoiar Palate Palatal Velum Velar Nasal cavity NasaI

Learn the above information

thoroughly and practicedrawingthefaciai.

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diagrams

Principal

movablc

l)arts 0f thc spccch nrcchanisnr lts uscd in Iinslish.

Fig.24

(com pl c tc i 1' cl oscd)

"z---.>

( c o n s 1r i c t i o n ancl rcsulting turbtr-

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icnec)

Fig.26b

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until you can do so easily and accurately.

25 Exercise sound in which tongue tip approaches or touches the gum ridge is called: A sound in which the back of the tongue touches the soft palate is called:

"Apico- alveolar"

"Dorso- velar"

sound in which the velic is lowered, leaving a passage open into the nasai caviry is called:

" Nasal"

sound in which the lower lip touches the upper lip is called:

"BiIabial"

sound during which the vocal cords vibrate is called:

v olceo

A sound in which the tongue tip approaches the upper teeth would be called:

Exercise 26 Certain sounds require a split second of complete stoppage at some point in the speech tract(Fig. 26a). Ccrtain others do not employ stoppagc, but do require such a narrowing of the speech tract that the escaping air becomes audibly turbulent(Fig.26b).There are many other sounds which have neithcr of these charat terist.ics. Thesoundsthat do require stoppageare caiiedstops, duce audible turbulence are called fricatives.

Those that pro-

The sounds /p/ and /t/ and /g/ (transcription system of Exercises i8-21) are examples of stops. The sounds /s/, /v/, and /I/ are examples of fricatives. Are the following sounds stops or fricatives? /t/ /z/ /K/

/J/ /t/ /b/

/d/

/L/

/e/

/d/

Be sure that you have the above information clearly in mind, Then look at F igs . 26aand 26b and see how the drawings and the phonetic terms are related

21

to oneanother. In future problems i.n this series, you will need to supply either a part of the picture or a part of the words. (The completed versions of these diasrams will be found at the end of Part I of this book. )

Exercise27 The labial stops. Three of the contrasting soundsofEnglish require at least momentary, but complete, stoppageat thelips. They are /p,b,m/. Of these, /p/ and /b/ require that the velic also be closed, whlle /m/ requires that it be open. Forthis reason /p/ and /b/ arecalledlabial stops, but /m/usuallyis not. The contrasting sounds /p/ and /b/ differbetween themselves in three principal ways. With /p/ at thebeginning of a wordor phrase, the vibration of the voice begins much later than for /b/, whlle at the end of a word or phrase, ln fact, voice vibravoice vibration ceases much earlier for /p/ than for /b/. tion is sometimes going on whiie the lip closure is beingmade for/b/, butnever For this reason, phoneticians commonly refer to /p/ as"voiceless"or tor /p/. "unvoiced, " and to /b/ as "voiced, " Another difference is that /p/ is artlcllatedwithmoreforce other things being equal.

than /b/,

The third difference between the sounds is most easily observed when they occur at the beginning of a word or phrase, Here /p/ ts followed by a quite noticeable puff of air, while /b/ rs not. This puff of air is called "aspiration, " sothat /p/ is sometimes calledan "aspirated stop" and /b/ an"unaspiratedstop," These two sounds also differ inthe effecttheyseem to have on apreceding vowel when they occur at the end of a word or phrase, Under those circumstances, the vowel (syllable nucleus) before /b/ is likely to iast abit longer than the one bef.ore /p/ .

28 Exercise Physicaliy different varieties of /p/. in exactly the same way. formed always not

The contrasting

sound /p/

is

Sometimes, as deScribed in Exercise 27, the soundis produced with comparatively heavy aspiration following the opening of thelips. It is mostlikely to be produced in this way when it is at the beginning of a word or phrase or in the middle of a word before a stressed vowel or diphthong. At other times, the puff of air that follows the opening of the lips is much lighter (Fig. 28a). ln fact, the lips may not be open at all after the pronunciation of the word (Fig. 28b). This is most likely to be the case when,/p,/ occurs at the end of a Phrase.

I

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t t

T I

t

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t zz

I

F T T T IT

!

Fig

t tT

tpl

I

r9ll rrrll

rtr

I rl

t t t

27b

I

B i l a b i aI Nasai

3

Voiced

\ \ ' e a k l v a s p rr a t e d Bilabial stop Fig

Fig. 26a

ZJ

A third important variety of /p/ occurs immediatelyafterfricatives, This variety is unvoiced, and stronglyarliculated, but is unparticularly /s/, aspirated (Fig. 28c). A more careful description of the varieties of English /p/ would yield even more sub-types, butthesewill be sufficient for our present purposes. The important thing to notice at thispoint isthateach variety occurs mostcommonl.y in certain kinds of places, and thatin thepiaces where one variety occurs the others usually do not. Even if t."vovarieties should happentooccur in the same cnvironment, the differencebetweenone ofthese varieties and another wouldnot, in Engiish, serve for distinguishing one word from another. For these reasons, we say that all three sounds describedaboveare in some wayalikeJrom the point of view of English. Linguists saythat they are all membcrs ("allophones") of a single English "phoneme." Symbols for "phonemes" are written between slant lines. At times, it isconvenient todevise special symbols for thedifferent i,arieties (the "allophones") of a single phoneme or to reler to sounds withgut Leference to their status in a particular language. When we do so, we placethe s y m b o l b e f w e e n s q u a r c b r a c k e t s . T h u s , a l i r . r g u i s tm i g h t s a y t h a t " E n g l i s h / p / rncludes the allophones tp'l tp'1 tp I tpl : s t r o r r g L Ya s P i r a t c ' d

---tP')

/p/<- [|-l1"":j"J":::""'"0 -tl,

I

unaspirated, stlongty articulaced

A place where an a.[ophone occurs is called its "environment, " and the sum of the environments ir-rwhich an allophone occurs is called its "distribut i o n . " T h u s t p ' 1 w h i c h o c c u r s a t t h e b e g r n r . r i n go f w o r d s a n d p h r a s e s , a n d i p ' l rvhiclr occurs at the end, and 1p1whrcl.r occurs after /s/ have different"distribut i o n s . " B e c a u s e t h e i r d i s t r i b u t i o n s d o n o t o v e r l a p , l i r - r g u i s t ss a y t h a t t h e y a r e i n ''non-colrtrastive" (or"complemer-rtary")distributionwith one another. Sounds p h y s i c a l l y simila': but are in complementary distribution within a given which are language may be classed as "allophones" ofasingle "phoneme" of that language. Collect three wordswhich illustrateeach of theallophonesof /p/dts'i'ry to hear and feel for yourself the differences described. cussed above.

29 Exercise

/m/").

Refer to trig. 27c, which represents the phoneme E/m,u ("English Notice how it differs trom E/b/.

24

I

I I I I

I I

I I I I I I I I I

II

!t

F I

I

T

I

I I I t F l T

Exercise 30 Refer to Fig. 30, which represents an alrophone of E/t/. This a[ophone oceurs at the beginning of rvords and phrases, and is comparable, except for point of articulation, with the Jp'1 allophone of E/p/. Try the sound aloud, watching yourself in a mirror. Try to see in the mirror what is represented in the drawing.

Exercise 3| Refer to trig. 31, which represents adifferentailophone otE/t/. allophone occurs alter /s/ and is comparable to the tpl allophone of E/p/. pletc the description given below the drawing.

This corn-

32 Exercise F i g . 3 2 r e p r e s e n r sa n a r l o p h o n eo f F . / d / . c o m p l e t e t h e d r a w i ' g , u s i ' g a s y o u r g u i d c t h e p a i r e d p i c t u r e s a n d d r a w r n g so f e a r l i e r e x e r c l s e s .

Exercise 33 Fig. 33 -represents an allophone of E/n/. given below the drawrng.

complete rhedescription

lxertise34 Fig. 34 represents an allophone of E/t/ which has no parallelamong the allophones of other E phonemes. It consists of a light tap, or flap, of the tongue tip against thc gum ridge. This altophone of /t/ is characteristicofmost AmE (American English) but not of Received Standard British English. Speakers of some languages, when they hear this allophone in AmE, tend to hear it as representing /d/ or /r/.

Exercise 35 Figs. 35a-c represent two ariophones ofE/k/ and one allophone of E/S/ . Complete the pictures and the verbal descriptions as indicated, following the analogy of previous diagrams.

Exercise 36 Fig. 36 represents an allophone of E/n/. Thisphonemehas a pecu_ liar distribution in that it occurs medially and fi.nallyin words, but never initiaily. If a student of English meets thrs phoneme medially (as in singer)or finaliy (as in long), he may tend to keep his tongue in the dorso-velar position after his velic has closed and shut offthe passage to his nasal caviry. In this way, he in effect produces an extra /k/ or /g/ following the /l/. Speakers of other languages sometimes fail to get their tongues intothe dorso-velar position at all . Instead, they open their velics during the preceding vowe1, thereby nasalizing it.

25

I I tp-1 "top" " nip"

I I

Votceless Unrclcased Bilabial stop

2 3

I I

l.'ig. 28b

I V o i c e l e ss 2 . Aspirated 3 . Apico-alveolar stop Fig. 30

Fig. 31

26

I I I I I

T t t tr

lnl

tdl

" new" " not""

"do" "deed"

I I I I I I I I I I

I

\

1. Voiced 2. Unaspirated 3. Apico-alveolar stop

I

I. 2. 3.

(

Fig. 32

1 2

Fig.33

I 2 3

Voiced

Apico- alveolar flap *

Dorso-velar stop

*For many speakers ltl has briefer closure than does the aliophone of E/d/ which occurs in the same phonetic environments. The sound [t] is sometimes called a "flap, " or "tap, " of the tongue tip against the gum ridge.

27

trig 3 5 a

iri.g.3-c

l:ig.35b

['font \iew of I ol) ol tonSue

4l

I

2 (3

28

I

I I I I

I

t I

t t I l

I I I I I

Complete tie drawing in Fig. 36.

Exercise 37 Fig. 3Trepresents an allophone otE/s/. Somepeopleproduce this sound with the tongue tip up behind the gum ridge, while others produce it with the tongue tip down behind the lower teeth. No matter what the position of the tongue tip, E/s/ requires a narrowslit, or rill, running lengthwiseof thetongue, right at the point of articulation. The sound is more strongly articulated than E/z/. Try pronouncing the key words given with the drawing, and try to discover which way you personally form the /s/.

38 Exercise Fili in the drawing in Fig. 38, represefiing E/z/. Although the drawings do not show strength of articulation, this factor may be your students' easiest method of distinguishi.ng both in his hearing and in his speaking, between filaal /s/ and final /z/-race vs. raise, for example. The same is rrue of the greater length which vowels have before /z/ as compared with the same vowels before /s/ (cf. Exercise 27).

fxer
Exercise 40 Fig. 40 represents an allophone of Eyv/. Complete it. The same difference in strength of articulation that exists berween E7s/ and E/z/ exists also between E/f / and E/v/: in any environment where both E/t/ and E/v/ may occur, the /f./ wili be articulated with comparatively more force than the /v / .

Exercise 4l Fig. 4f represents anorher allophone ofE/v/. Inphrase-finalposition, /v/ is commonly voiceless, but voicing lasts longer before it than before a fital E/f./. Also, the preceding syllabJ.e nucleus lasts longer than before final Compare the discussion of E/p/ and /b/ in Exercise 27. /t/.

Exercise 42 F i g . 4 2 r e p r e s e n t sE / e / , C o n r r a r y r o c o m m o nb e l i e f ,

29

it is nor

30

I

I

t I I I I

ri

Front vlew of top of tongue -J

4

Front view of top of tongue

-L

2 . B I a d e -( a p i c o ) p a l a t a l 3.

Ungrooved

Shallou'croove

l.

Fig,43

Fig. ,14

+

liront Vrc\l,, top ol tongu(' at cnd o1 t.l I -)

I I

t t:, I I I

(--

l

Apico dcntal

t l

4

tLt

t; l

''pleas

ure" "collision"

"cherv' '' w:tch

1 2 3 4

1

Blade-palatal * Affricatcd srop Shailorv groove *Clouldalso be apico paiatal

Fig. -15

Fig..l6

3l

4 C-)

order to pronounce absolutelynecessaryto protrudethetonguebeyondtheteethin and relatively flat, so lax the tongue But it is necessary to leave E/Q/ properly. andupperteeth. Thischarbetween tong1e wide arc a over that the alr escapes E/Q/ between and distinguishing in E/s/ important . is acteristic

43 Exercise Complete Fig. 43, whi.chrepresents E,/d/. Again the voiceless E/A/ and the voiced /d/ are the strongly and weakly articulated members of a pair of s o u n d s , c o m p a r a b i et o / f / - / v / a n d / s / - / z / . 44 Exercise In the formation of this sound there is a Fig. 44 represents E/;/. *e groove groove in the tongue, much as there is for E/s/, except that for ti/ is much shallower.

Exercise 45 Complete Fig."45, which repre seils Et; / ; the voiced andweakly articulated counterpart ol E/s/ .

46 Exercise The phoneme F /t/ is what phoneticians call an "affricate, " or an "affricated stop," For this sound, the tongue first makes a complete stoppage against the fror.rt of the hard palate. As the stop is relcased it assumesthe(very similar) position for E/s/. Much has beenwritten about rvhether this sound shouldbe considered to be one phoneme ortwo. Thosewhofavor the latter view regard the.sound as consisring of a special allophone of E /t/ , followed by an allophone of E /i/ . Others treat it as a single stop phoneme, comparable with E/p' t' k,/. Butnomatter which view we hold, the sound and the problems in teaching it remain the same.

I

T I I I I I

t

T T T

[xercise 47

*h;; '"p'"'"nt" e717'thevoicedandweaklv J:[ii:: arricurared

i?;E;

48 Exercise The phoneme E/I/ lnvolves amovable part of the speechmechanism which we did not list in Exercise 23. It comes into play only in theproductionof this one phoneme in English. That ls the side of the tongue. To form the most important allophones of E /1/ the tip of the tongue remains against thegum ridge, but one or both sides of the tongue are pulled up so as to al1ow the resonating

32

I

T T I T

F F F tjt

F

" . i u d g e" " tt" " ",tgi

F

F F

1. 2. + 3. 1.

Fig.4tla

Fig. 47

I

h I I I I I I

Fig. 48c

Fig.48b

33

chamber which begins in the throat to extendall the way through themouth. At the same time, of course, a certain amount of air escapes around the tongue, but in a quantify insufficient to cause "friction." Can you feel - - and hear- - different allophone s of E / 1/ at the beginning

I t

cf lee andiaw (Fig. 48 a-c)? t Exercise 49 also has a characteristic

which makes it unique among English /r/ phonemes of the language, Thatcharacteristic is cal.led "retroflexion," which the means "bendingback." Commonly the tip of the tongue is curled backward a bit, so that it points toward the top of the mouth, but (for AmE) never touching it. Some speakers moLd the tongue into approximately the same shape, but withthe tip down behind the lower teeth. This sound although they mustlearn there is no need to insist words since many highly latter environments .

is difficult for speakers of many languages. Note that to make i.tat thebeginningofwords andbetween vowels, that they make it before consonants or at the ends of acceptable forms of English do not pronounce itin these

Listen to your own /r/ inanumber of words. How do you form when it begins words? Do you use it at all at the ends of phrases?

it

It is characteristic of most varieties of Englishthat in the position immediately before tinal /I/ or /r/, or before either of these sounds followed byanother consonant, vowels seem to undergo a process of diphthongization in such a way that the vocalic quallty begins with the sound which the vowel has in other environments, but movesfromthat qualirytowardamore mid-centralposition, approaching the qualiry of the vowei in hut.

50 Exercise The front vowels, The phonemes E/i, e, e/ are called "front vowels" because in-order to form them, the tongue must be pushed relatively far forward in the mouth. The lips aresomewhatspread tor /i,/. Thetongueand jaw are high for /i/, lower for /e/, and still lower for /e/. The tongueis farso f.or /e/, and stiLl less so for /e/. thest forwardfor /i/,less For at least some standard varieties of English, none of the tbree sounds involves a significant glide of tongue or jaw. Watch yourself in a mirror as you produce these three sounds, observing changes in position of tongue and lips . To make this observation easier, face a strong light and open your mouth somewhat wider than you would in your usual pronunciation of these vowels.

34

I I I I I I T I I I I T T

I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I

Fig. 50

Ftg..{t)

lul " 1o o t " lol [tr] "not" (BrE

Fi.s.5I

Fig. 53

35

I 5l Exercise vowels. In terms the Trager-Smithanalysis of English, back of The vowel is at all one simpleback only follo*ing itt tft"seexercises, ar" we which common inmost AmE dialects, That vowel is /u/, as in foot. A second, /c/, is very common in dialects such as ReceivedStandardBritish, occurringinwords likenot, mop and knock. Thethirdsimple back vowel, /o/, is almostinvariably followedbya"glide" (see Exercises 53-54)in bothBritishand American English. and in For /u/ the jaw at theback of the tongue is relativelyhigh, back the For are rounded. ianguage the lips the varieties of /o/, many standard Fot /c/, the back of of the tongue is less high, and the lips are less rounded, For the tongue is relatively low, and there is iittle or no rounding of the lips ' all three, the tongue is pulled toward the back of the mouth. Try the back vowels, observing L'oth the feel and the appearance of your speech apparatus as you do so.

52 Exertise The central vowels. ln for:mingthe central vowels, the tongue rs frot-rt and back vowels. There fo. ih" .o.r""ponding found between the po"tt-"r three are three simpie central vowels, /+/ (ht1h) /t/ (mid) and /a/ (low). All occur in the standard dialects, but clear contrasts bel-ween/i/ and othervowels, particularly /i/ and /t /, are so rare and so unimportant to communication that the plroneme /4/ went unnoticed until very recent years. Even now, because of the relatively lowimportance of thecontrasts in whichit plays a paIt, many linguists who recognize E/i/ as a separate phoneme omit it from the listof sounds to be mastered in the practical study of English as a foreign language. Try making the nine simple vowels yourself in a mirror.

of Exercises

50-52,

watching

Holding your jaw as low as y o u c a n , s a y / t u i u / s e v e r a l t i m e s . Watch and feel your tongue moving back and forth as you do so. In the same way, e x p e r i m e n t w i t h t h e s e q u e n c e s f e a e a e / , / e t r o t te , l o r r e / .

53 Exercise This phoneme is characterized, not The glide /y/ bef.ore vowels. by a certain position of the tongue, but by motion ol thetonguein acertaindirection. The tongue moves toward the position for the following vowel from a relaa tively higher and fronter position. This means that in producing /y/-iefote posilion than it has much lower glide from a its may begin tongue low vowel the before a mid or highvowel . At the same time, the lips change from a greater to a smaller

degree of spreading,

36

I I I I

I I I

t

I I I

t

I I I

Pronounce stowlyrhe rvords year /ythr/, yet /yet/, yack /yek/ an See whether you can dete-iTny differences in ,ongu" posrtron )a$l 7ychl7. al the beginni.ng of the /y/ sound,. How many differenf alrophones of the phoneme E/y/ can you discover in this way? The differing',distributions" of these allo_ phones would be summarized rn terms of the identities of the vowels that follow them.

Exercise 54 The gLide /w/ before vorveLs. The phoneme E/w/,Ilke E/y/, rs a glide. But instead of ghding from a higher, fronter position wrth relatively spread lips, the glide is toward the following vowel from a higher, backer tongue posi_ tion, with relatively rounded lips, w a t c h y o u r s e J . fi n a m i r r o r a s y o u p r o d u c e /w/beforevariousvowels in: we,ryqt, {ep, one, wall, woe, woo.

Exercise 55 The phoneme E/h/ before vowers. physica'y, this sound is oneof . the most interesting in the E"gii"r, runguag". It consists of a breathy or whis_ pered version, usually voiceless but sometrmes voiced, ofthesound thatfollows it. sometimes the breathy quarity is produced by turbulcnce ar a constriction formed by the vocal cords. In other: environments, trrc constrictron is up in the mouth.

of English,

ir.

A sec.nd peculiarity of this sound, as it is treated in most anaryses is that it occurs or.rlybeforc the nucleus of its syl1able, never after

Try to feel and hear the differences beLween trre allophon es of E/h/ t":. !g!, heat, hoot, iut, and hate, In what terms would you summarizethedist ributions of these uilophones?

The 41q+ that we use after vowels vowels. For example, more fronted position from the /e,/ position to

Exercise 56 /y,y/ afrer vowels. Briefly, rhe allophones of E /w,y/ are mirroi *rag". of trre allophorr". thn, we use before /y/ in /yes/ glides to the,/e/ position from a higher, in /sey/ the same phoneme E/y/ ts realizecras aglide a higher, more fronted position.

Try to hear and feel the glides ln: say rle now bow boy

/sey/ vs. vs. /tay/ /narv/ vs. , borvT /boy /

yes /yes/ yacht /yatl wan /wan/

Glide, from high back tonlluc position and rounded lips

F r g . 5 6 -5 7

Frig. 54

38

I I I I I I

I T F I I T

I

IT t I I I I I I

Exercise 57 A thrl9 kind of glide after vowers. A third kind of glide which follows vowels differs from /w,y/ inthat the gliding is from the vowel position toward a mid-central position of the tongue. This kind ofglide occurs in all dialects of English, but is most conspicuous in those which do not have an /r/phoneme occurring at the ends of phrases. In these dialects, we hear pronunciations that are sometimes represented in spellingas "heah," "cah," or "yahd,"

How should we represent this glide in a phonemic writing system? In some dialects perhaps, the presence of such a glide is entirely predictable in terms of the surrounding phonemes -- the "environment," ln such a dialect, there would be no reason to represent the glide at all, since we could infer its presence by inspecting the environment. In other dialects, however, there are pairs of words whose pronunciations differ only by the presence or absence of such a centering glide. If we are transcriblng one of these dialects ( or ifwe are trying to devise a transcription system that will work for allEnglishdialects)we must find some way of symbolizing i'1. How?

One group of scholars, following Trager and Smith, point out that since this center glide occurs only after vowels, never before them, and since the glides /w,y/ occur both before and after vowels, and since the thl of Exercise 55 occurs only before vowels, then the thl of Exercise 55andthecentering glide, being in complementary distribution, Day be considered as al|ophones of a single phoneme, for which they choose the arbitrary symbol /h/ . Other linguists feel that the physical difference befween prevocalic /h/ andthepostvocalic centering glide is too great; for this and other reasons, they refuse to recognize the poswocalic cenrering giide as an allophone of /h/ . These scholars either leave the glide out of their transcriptions altogether, or use some other svmbol (e.g. Gleason's /H/) ro srand for it. See whether you can hear centering glides in any or all of these words, as you pronounce them, Listen to another person's pronunciation of the same words, and see whether his pracrice is exactlv like vours: f e a r , f a i r , -fiot tul ri ", C f*a; t , f a d , f a n , f e d , f i l l , po"r, .*-"p. r"U rifi"a,

Exercise 58 Review and util.ization of the seventh s e r l e s A student whose ianguage contains no sound very similar to certain English sounds will almost certainlyhavetrouble withthose soundswhenhemeets them in English. Devise a nontechnical explanation of how ro form each of these sounds:

39

The The The The The

/r/ /e/ /n/ /tt1 /e. /

I

in rye. in both, in long. in nut. in at,

After you have done so, condenseyour explanationsinto 15 seconds or less apiece.

Exercise 59 Review and utilization (contd.) It frequently happens that a student who has in his own language two sounds whichare acousticallyvery muchlike rwodifferent English phonemes wiJ.l have troublein distinguishingthose sametwoEngiish phonemesfrom one another. This almost invariably means that the two sounds as they are used in his language do not represent different phonemes, but are allophones of a single phoneme in his language , One of the sounds occurs in one set of envi ronments, and the other in a different set. For example, thedifferenceberween E/s/ and E /X/ is troublesome for most Koreans, in spite ofthe factthat theirlanguagecontainF soundswhich an The English speaker hears as substantiallyidentical withhis own E/i/ and E/s/. reason is that in Korean, the tilsound occurs only before the vowel K/i/, andthe Is]sound occurs elsewhere. That is to say,'there is a singi.e Korean phoneme K/s/ with allophones t sl and til . Because those ailophones never get in each other's way, so to speak, and never constitute the sole sound difference between words of different meaning, the ear of the Korean speaker has learned to ignore But in English, if the Korean student is to hear and makethedifthe difference. ference between such pairs of words as see, she, andsew, show, his ear must learn to take notice of that same distinction.

Exerci ses Practice drawing facial diagrams on paper or on the blackboard unt i l y o u c a n p r o d u c e a n a c c u r a t e , r e c o g ' n i z a b l eo n e i n t e n s e c o n d so r l e s s .

I I I I I I I I T I I

'::'"'.i"""o".i""" "',),!,', t #i*',,',!:li # prepare nontechnical explanations of:

Using facial diagrams,

"

"

/w/

/ch/

'

"

yIg

"

/v/ "

caught " /ow/"

"i*

coat

For a full discussion of the ways in which a student's native language

40

I I I

habitsmay affecthis learning of a specific foreign language, see Robert Lado LinguisticsAcross Cultures,

Two manuals of phonetics which combine reliable andveryclearde scription with practical exercises are Prator's Manual of American English Pro nunciation (1957 edition) and SmaIIey's V"nu"i former is written primarily from the point of view of teachers and learners o Engiish, while the latter is designed for more general use.

I EFS PHONEM NIO CT A T I O N TH C E R T AOI N T H EVRA R I E T O TIO N SERI8 E.SF A M I T I A R I Z AW The purpose of this eighth series of exercises is to help the studen developflexibility in using more than one system of phonemicnotation for English

Exercise 60 In the firstfour series of exercises, we sawhowinconsistent Englisl spelling is in the way it matches Ietters to sounds. A person who hears a word and pronounces it perfectly may still not know how to spell it. A foreign studen who learns both pronunciation and spelling, and then forgets the pronunciation will get little reliable help from the usual spelling. Forthatreason, specialsystems have been devised for respelling English. Suchasystem servesthelearner first as an aid to listening, and Later as an aid in remembering what he heard

These systems arc commonly callecl phoneticl transcriptions. Ordinarily, a transcription has one and only one way of symbolizing each contrasting sound of English, and uses each symbol to stand for only one of these sounds.

It is a bit embarrassing, therefore, to find a number of rival systems, all claiming to represent the sameform of English. As a matter of fact, there is rather close agreement among designers of these systems as to what sounds contrast with what other sounds in English, Their disagreements arise first at the point of interpreting those contrasts, and second atthepointofchoosing symbols (letter-shapes or combinations of letter-shapes) to standforunits. Agreement is greatest concerningtheconsonants. onlv one svmbol is in common use: First sound in:

bow-b doe-d foe-f -g

go

hoe-h

key-k low-1 me-m no -n pea-p IOW-r

For

16 of them

so-s toevowwoezoo-

t v w z

I A phonetic transcription in which the symbols exactly reflect the significant sound units, and do not reflectany non-significantvariants of those units,is properly called "phonemic. "

A]

For the remaining eight consonants, more than one symbol is in use: Key word

Transcriptions

thin then chew

e

Juoge ihoe measure you song

Jv

l, 2

Tt,3,

d

Tr. 5 rh ctr

4

d

v a

,f

Y

d1

5 v

v !

rh TH ch j sh zh

ch

z

J sh zh

J tl

v

v

ng

ng

.l

z

Tr. 6

Transcribe the consonants of the following words into ail six systems. the vowel letter unchanged

Leave

srng push jig edge this chill thin yet fix things

Exercise 6l In Exercise 60, rve saw that the six systems of transcription shown there handle the consonantsof English in very similar ways. They differ much more in their representation of thecontrastingvoweisounds. Here are the principal vowels and diphthongs of American English in the same six sysrems: Key word beat bit bait bet bat cot caught boat foot boot but

Tr. ty i ey e a ch ow u uw a

I

Tr. 2 I I

e t

Tr. 3 (like 2 except as noted)

a

Tr, 4 i: i ei e e c (Br)

Tr. 5 ee II da

6e da do A

c o

1'

ou u u:

u u

oo oo oou oou

uu uur

nA

Bert

42

Tr. 6

I

I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I

F

buy boy bout

F

ay oy aw Now transcribe

aii ci au

al CI

au

oi ou

ou

your pronunciation of these words in a l l s i x s y s t e m s :

sino

F t I I

set sat cost purse sneeze shoal put mice noise house ralse shy nrrtt

T T t T I

Exercise 62

Each listof words inthis problem isin one of the systems of transcription which we have been comparing with one another. First decide which system has been used for each list, and then complete it in that same system:

I

I I I I

A.

back boat must first jest

/brek/ /bor/ /mi'st/

tt.

fish

raw cake shouid knot smooth th rough

/ ro/ /kak/ /shnd/

T IHOI N CA HR E STRIE 9 .SS O ME ET T M E N OTFE S N G I . IP SR H O N U N C I AW N E I T HV TO R W E IN. S O RC O N S O N A N T S

Exercise 63 L i s t e n t o t h e f o l l o w i n g p a i r o f e x p r e s s i o n s , a s p r o n o u n c e db y a s p e a k e ro f E n g l i s h : White Rain

\l/L', vYrry

r*^l-o tldrlr

J

These express:.onscontain exactly the same vowel and consonantphonemes. Yet in all exceptpossibly the mosrhasty styles of spokenEnglish, we make and hear a dj.fference between the two. what does this imply concerning our system of

43

I

sound units? It means that the units--the vowels and consonants--that we have recognized are not quite sufficient for our purposes . It means that English makes significant distinctions not only among vowels and consonants, but also between at least fwo manners of passing from one sound to the next: one manner which is sometimes cailed "close" or "normal" transj.tion, and onewhichis sometimes called "open" transition. Open transition often, but not always, occurs where we customarily put spaces between the corresponding written words , It also occurs fairly often within what we think of as "single words." Ciose transition, on the other hand, is the kind of transition used most often between the sounds of a "single word, " but it is by no means rare berween the last sound ofonewordand the first sound of the word that follows it, provided they are in the same phrase. Now how shall we symboiize these twotypes of transition inourphonemic writing system? The obvious and most common way to symboLize close transition is to write the phonemic symbols for vowels and consonants adjacent Forwritingopentransition, to one another: /hway/, /hwayt/, /reyn/, /treyn/. if we wish to be very explicit, we may adopt some symbol such as the plus sign: /hwayt+reyn/ vs. /hway+treyn/. Or, for eonvcnience, wc mayuseablankspace for the same purpose: ,zhwayt reyn/ vs. //hway treyn/ . That is to say, the phrases White Rain and Why train? differ their vowels or consonants, but in the location of an open transition.

notin

See whether you can hear in your own speech or in someone else's speech, the differences between: 'n' shoes wood wooden shoes gold'n' slippers golden sIiPPers Nye trait night rate nitrate What school? What's cooi?

Exercise 64 Be sure that you both hear and make the distinction between: van Allen Van AlIen

(a family name) (a Mr. Allen whose given name is Van)

The difference I i e s i n t h e d e g r e e o f " s r r e s s " w h i c h i s g i v e n t o t h e s y l l a b l e l v u n / : i t r e c e i v e s a little more emphasis when it is a given name than when it is the first part of a family name. whar we call.ed "stress" in English is physicaily a compositeof increased loudness and increased duration in time. As most presentdaylinguists

44

I

I I I I I I I I I I I I I I

among levels of stress. analyze it, English employs a four-way differentiation One set of names for these levels is "primary" ('),"secondary" (r), "tertiary" ( . ) and "weak " ( - ). In the above examples, the /ven/ in the family name has "tertiary" stress, while as a given name ithas' secondary." ln both, the sylstress, while the final syllable has "weak"' Iable /e/ has "primary" While all speakers of English use stress systems that are broadly alike, there is a certain amount of difference between the way in which various dialects and individual speakers of those dialects employ the contrasting levels of stress. Read the following aloud so as to produce distinct meanings: a paper boy

(a boy who delivers papers)

a paper boy

(a boy made of paper)

the big house

(the house which is big)

the big house

(slang:

the White house

(house where the Whites live)

the White House

(home of the president of the United States)

the white house

(the house that is white)

the penitentiary)

run around (verb) the run around

(noun)

Exercise 65 Two very common "stress patterns" are illustrated by the first four phrases below. Write the remaining phrases in the appropriate columns, marking stress as you see it marked in the examples.

'Stress Pattern"A s t 6 n ew a i l w6od fi're cow shed, steak dinner, thunder cloud, fire gold), gold brick (slang: a loafer)

"Stress Pattern" B --l-^ - r\^r6r drrrrrrar uuuN

birs boy truck,

gold brick (a brick made of

Exercise 66 We sometimes hear it said of a person that his manner of talking i s " m o n o t o n o u s , "o r t h a t " h e s p e a k s i n a m o n o t o n e . " W e s h o u l d n o t c o n c l u d e , however, that such a person actually uses only one musical pitch in most of his utterances. What he possibly does use is a single pitch pattern, applied to an unusually large percentage of the sentencesthat he produces.

Using a piano or other musical instrument for verification, try reading the following story aloud using only one musical. pitch. Then try reading it in a more natural manner, but making it sound as "dull" or "monotonous" as possible, It was a nice day. We wanted to go out, We decided to visit the Capitol . We had a flat tire. We had to get it fixed. We didn't have time to visit the Capitol . Exercise 67 ln the "duIl" reading of the story in the preceding exercise, most ''pitch pattern, " or "intonation pattern" applied to Americans will use a single each sentence. The highest pitches in the first three sentences will be on the first parts of the words 9gy, out, and Capitol, respectively. The lowest pitch in each of these sentences will be on the ends of these same words. The pitches which precede tiese words will be on alevel intermediate between these two extremes. Instead of being written with letters, these pitches are commonly written with numbers. They may also be symbolized graphically in a number of ways. For our purposes, we shall arbitrarily assign the number I to the lowest pitch, 2 to the intermediate pitch, and 3 to the high. A fourth pitch levelis also used in sentences which carry special emphasis. Thethreemostcommonpitches may be symbolized more graphically by rhe use of horizontat lines. Notice that these three or four so-called "pitch ievels" are distinct only in comparison with on another. A man and a child who read a single sentence in what we would ordinarily call "the same way" put their highest pitches on the same parts of the sentence, buttheactualmusicalpitches ofcorresponding syllables will of course be quite different from one another. The same rs likely to be true of two different men, or two different children or even of the same oerson speaking now calmiy, now excitedly. Read Column A aloud, using the matter-of-fact 23I, intonation which we have already discussed. Read Column B aloud using a natural intonation which is different from the corresponding phrase in Column A. B H e s l D u s yr

I I I I I I !

I I

I

unlrs ne /

I[Gowlso.

_!l rnlnK Is o .

I

46

T T T I

T T I I

I I T I I

t t t

68 Exercise We have seen that the intonation pattern symbolized by 231, is the common, matter-of-fact intonation used with ordinary American Euglish statements, lt is also usedfor questions whichcontain some interrogative word or phrase suchas who? which? why? where? how many? Other questions--those rvhich call for a yes or no answer--have a different intonation.

Read aloud from Columns A and B. Notice that the 231 intonafits easily trnto those in Coiumn A, but not so easily onto those in ColumnB. tion

It's raining. Who will help us? How many members came? What time is ir? ( P o s s i b l ea n s w e r : I t ' s 4 : 3 0 .)

The information presented in Exercises 23-68 concerningthe sound system of English does not cover all of the work which hasbeen doneinthisfield On virtually all of what has been outlined here, howby descriptive linguists. ever, scholars are in substantial agreement, even though differences of terminology and of theoretical outlook still exist. Beyond this point, however, the divergences among the theoreticians become much more striking, and consensus is much farther from being achieved. The practical teacher rnay be assured, at least, that if he has mastered and learned to utiiize allof thematerial covered in Part I of this book, and in the recommended collateralreadings, he wiII be able to deal efficientJ.y with all of the serious problems of pronunciation which his students are likely to encounter.

The following are the completed diagrams corresponding tocertain '7 o f t h e e x e r c i s e si n S e r i e s

I I

t I

It's raining? WilI you help us ? Did most of the members come? What time is ir? ( P o s s i b l ea n s w e r : Y e s , that's what I asked.)

47

tcll ''rio' clccd "

l'ig. 32

I"rg.33

Fit.

48

.l5l

t I

t I I I

tgl 'goat "go'

1 . Voiced 2 . Unaspi ratcd 3 . Dors o- vela r stolr

t

Fig.35c

I

Irrr)ttt Vi(.\V ('f

lolr o1 1r"ru.

t

t I

t I I

t I

trll

lz)

"loqg"

" zoo"

" s inge r"

was

1 2

1 . Dorso- velar 2 . Nasal 3 . Voiced F - io

3

{ 116

\/oiced Apico (or bladc) a l r . eo l a r F ricative Narrorv groove Fig.38

49

-t

lL

-\.Z-

I Front view of top of tongue

-+>

tdl tv l "this' " bathc

'very C V CT

L '2.

Voiced Labio-dental F ricatlve

I

2 3

.1. 1. Fig. .13

Fig.40 Fronl vlcw ol tol) ol tonguc at cnd ot 1i ) ?

+)

tJl ".1ud89" " c tiginc

1 2. 3, 4

Voiccd Blade/apico Palatal Affricatcd stoP Shallori'groove Fig. +7

Fig. .1Eb

5U

-)

+

I

I I I I I I t t I I

t t

Voiccd Low- tongue Late ral

Fig..18c

I

t I I

5i

OFDRILL KINDS II. FOUR PART study of Ianguages The varieties and sub-varieties of drilt used in the on the basis selected been fourhave spectrum entire the From are numberless, tothemostimmedcloselyrelated are they because and of their wide usefulness, iateandmosturgentgoalsofanyonewhoisStartingoutonthestudyofaforeign language. These goals are the following: AccuracY of Pronunciation' AccuracY of grammar' FluencY, in sYllables Per second' Flexibilityinrecombiningpaltsofoldsentencestoformnewones. The four styles of drill

are:

to the Phonological contrast, which is a style closely tied pronunciation' accurate an acquisition of Memorization,

which bears directly

on fluency'

both Substitution and transformation drills, which are connected ' flexibility with and with srammatical accuracy

from Each of these kinds of drill will bc discussed and illustrated findquestions English and/or other languages. Finally, thepracticalteacherwill of the principles disundersta'ding his test will which exercises suggested anJ cussed,providehimwithpracticeintheirapplication,andserveaSaStartlng point for discussion of the deeper implications of each technique' themThe basic kincis of drill which we sliall examinc have proved in and the world all over classrooms in teachers many selves fo be of value to teachingmanydifferentlanguages.ltshouldbeemphasized,lrowever,thatthese aimed at developing within the drills as we shali describe them are primarily of the language. Less mechanics the of in manipulation skill learner Ianguage of how to transquestion h"r been devoted to the very difficult but crucial "p"." ' This is in consituations fer the structural patterns into real life communication priority to the high assigned has formiry with modern language pedagogy, which to teachor undertakes who he Nevertheless, acquisition of manipulative skills. task' impossible almost an faces basis mechanical learn a language on a totaily comgenuine in patterns grammar or words, sounds, Use of the newly learned and imposunsupported is it alone, arch: an of keystone like the munication is are scattered' sible; without it, the other stones soon fall away and

Each type of drilt is discussed with reference to four questions:

52

I

T T I I T I I I T T I T T I I

F F F

! t

! tI t I I I

t{l-..

under what circumstances--is it needed? What does it consist of, andwhat :ieps go lnto its construction? Where can one find-materiai suitable forthedrill? uoy-"y itbe used in class? Fr"ally, a number of "tempting blind alleys" are pinpointed for the benefit of the less experienced teacher, l. ,,MtNtMAtPAtR"DRil.tS When "Minimal pair" drill is indicated most urgently when the learner finds himself saying things that he doesn't intend to say: robber bands instead of rullgj barq!, my launch instead of my lunch, she instcadof se". lti"aisoindicated, however, when his hearers haue difficulfin l o l l o w i n g w - h a tt h e l e a r n e r i s saying, even if they do not notice a large number of "wrong words."

Whor The cornerstone of this kind of drili is a pairofutterances--usually short--which differ in meaning, but which are exactly alike insoundexceptatone point' The two utterances are said to constitute a "minimalpair"witfrrespectto the difference between then; hence the name which is appiied to the drill . Minirrral pairs are most eommonly thought of inconnectronwithvowels and consonants. Some examples of vocalic pairs,,are: English

lick-leak fed- fade robber- rubber put- putt

French

vu-vous deux- de

German

bieten-bitten lesen- losen

Portuguese

sim-si seu- c6u

Some consonantal pairs are: English

Spanish

closing-clorhing mouth- mouthe high-eye (presence vs. absence of an initial consonant) caro- carro

EXERCISE: List "minimal pairs" for four vocalic and four consonantal contrasts in a language with which you are professionallv concerned. Minimar pairs may be found to illustrate phonorogical contrasts other than those. between consonants or vowels. Minimal pairs f-or English stress and intonation were given in the first part of this book, in Exercise s 64_6g.

53

Contrasts of both these types may be found for Russian and Portuguese; French has contrasts of intonation but not of Stress; some non-European languages apparently lack contrasts of both kinds. Does the language with which you are working have contrasts of EXERCISE: intonation? If so, give examples. Can one make the difference and stress both between statement and yes-noquestion merely bychanging the sentence melody ? If so, indicate graphically the contrasting pitch patterns that are involved.

There is a difference between the use of sentence and phrase melothe use of what the linguist calls "tone." ln languages dy--"intonation"--and part of that syllable, is an integral pitch syllabie of each the latter, the use which and two words which are pronounced exactly the same except for pitch may have entirely different meanings. In Burmese, for example, thewordsfor"waterlily" and "tiger" are identical except for tone; in Chinese, tone constitutes theonlyaudible difference befween the words for "buy" and "sell" and for countless other pairs of words. Many languages of Central and South America, Africa, andEast Asia are tonal in this sense. EXERCISE: Is the language with which you are working tonal? five or more minimal pairs which illustrate tonal contrasts '

If so, assemble

In using minimal pair drill, it is important tobe surethatoneisacOtherwise, the techniques tuaily deaiing with minimal pairs of words orphrases. will not work satisfactorily, just as an automobile will not function properlywith the wrong type of fuel . In English, for example, the pair mouth- mouthe is :Lmininral pair illustrating the contrast between /O/ and /d/ . The pair bath-bathe is not, however, because the vowel sounds of the two differ, as well ut tn" .onsobut. nants. The pair cooed-could is a minimal pai.r for the contrast /uw/-/u/, the pair food-foot is not. In French, vu and veux areaminimalpairwithrespect to the vowels, and veux and vieux are aminimal pair with respecttothepresence or absencc of the phoneme /y/, bu1 vu and vieux arc not a minimal pair, since they differ in two ways, not just in one. EXERCISE:

Which of the following are minimal

pairs of words in English:

code - cod

lightning- lighting

check- j ack

illuminate- eliminate

wool-whole

conform- confirm

hacked- fact

wash-watch

at- hat

EXERCISE: Make a list of four highly simi.lar pairs of words in your language which are nevertheless not quite minimal pairs. Be careful not to choosea pair which are spelled differently but pronouncedexactly alike.

54

I I I I I

t I I I I I

t

T I I T

Where Where does one find the raw materials for mimimal pairdrills? A few books have long lists of them . A larger number of books give a few here and there in the pronunciation section. It is sometimes possible tofindthembydilBy far the most convenient source, however, igent search of a good dictionary. is the live speaker of the language, provided only that he has learned to recognize them. Some of the exercises provided in this section have attempted to teach this simple skill to the users of this book, following the method of example and counter- example . The same method may be used quite informally to train others . The process is greatly speeded if the student reacts with obvious enthusiasm to the first few genuine minimal pairs that his tutor produces, EXERCISE: Elicit some minimal pairs from someone who doesn't alreadvknow what you are after. How First, make a list of the contrasts which cause c riifficulfy for the (For a comprehensive discussion of this students with whom you are working. problem, see Robert Lado's Linguistics Across Cultures, Chapters I and 2.) For each contrast, assemble the following: At least two short minimal pairs which do not contain any further difficultiesin pronunciation: chip-ship, witch-wish would be suitable for speakers of some languages. possible, short complete minimal pairs--if At least one or two longer sentences: He hurt his chin vs. He hurthis shin. These of course carry In addition, they give the learner greater meaning than do isolated words. practice in picking out the relevant distinction from the midst of a longer stream of sound. If at all possible, of course, the minimalpairs should be words and phraBut in addition, assemble a list of the most ses that are commonly used. common words you can find which contain the two sounds involved, regardless of whether they are members of minimal pairs. Through reading and/or through noticing how a native speaker produces the sounds,form a clear picture of the articulatory difference.

In using these materiaLs in class, it is important to exploit to the full the principle of "hearingbefore speaking." Itseems obvious that oneshould allow students to hear a given word before asking them to pronounce it aloud, though even this rule is sometimes disregarded by inexperiencedlanguage teachers. But beyond this, there are some indications that it is well to allow for a fairof a more or less systematic Iy long period of passive or semi-passivelistening

55

nature before the student is encouraged to begin audible production. r In any event, it is worthwhile to make an additional distinction, within the listening phase , betv/een the differentiation and the identification of the rwo sounds represented by a given pair. Remember aLsothat a contrastwhichis difficult in onepositionmay be easy in another. Thus, speakers of German have difficulty with the English contrasts p-b, t-d, k-g at the end of words, but notatthebeginning; speakers of English have no difficulty in distinguishing between the vowels of (American English)hotand hut when they occur in stressed syllables, yet we consistentlyhave difficulty in controlling our production of these same fwo sounds when they :rre unstressed ' The average speaker of English will pronounce the first syllable of Spanish casa with approximately the vowel quality found in American English hot, but will use in the secor-rd syllablc a vowel more hke his own sound on hut. In teaching a contrast,begin in the position where it is easiest and go on, one position at a time, untilthecontrasthas beenpracticed ineveryposition where it occurs.

ing the l-r

Here is a sanrple serics of techniques that might be used in teachcontrast of English.

Preparation: 1,

Short minimal pairs: a. In initial position: lie- rye; low- row b. Between vowels: Willie-weary; miller-mirror c. In final position: (the /r/ sound need not be taught here, since many speakers of English do not themselves pronounce it in final position) pill-peer, fell-fair d. After consonants: play-pray, grow-glow

2.

Minimal sentences: He's Willie. Where do they go to play?

He's weaty. Where do they go to pray?

3. Useful words and phrases which are very common, but which are not necessarilymembers of minimal pairs:

l,

E, A. Nida, !"q!g1g a Foreign Language, c h . I V . F . R . M o r t o n , " T E Language Laboratory as e Tgglhllg Machine, " i n F . J . O i n a s , e d . , L a n g u a g e Teaching Today (Indiana University, 1960).

56

I I I I I I I I I I I I

I I I I

T F T

I I I I I I I T t l

I I I

Iike

read

wili live

very try

place

breakfast

For each of these words, try to find one or two short sentences which the students are likely to use at reast once a day in normal life. In this way, they can practice the sounds in meaningfur context outside of the highly arti_ ficial atmosphere of the language classroom. 4.

The articulatory

difference (see part I, Exercises

29_Sg).

skip any steps that seem unnecessary, ]n t]3"tt but use as many sreps as are needed to keep the students rcsponding frcquentry, regularly and successfurly:

t

Qfirg:e.lgrig.

'feacher:

Row Low T: Low Low T: Low Row

Class: Different C: Same C: Different

T: T: T:

Different Same Different

etc. Then contir.rue as above, but with individual students giving most of the responses . (The whole class may be called on for a reply from time to time. ) 2.

Identification.

The teacher's right hand (or the number "r"on the blackboard, or any other thing or symbol) is arbitrarily assig-ned to stand for low, while row is assigned to his left hand (or "2,,, etc.). As the teacher says each of tn" r",o words, he at the same time identifies it sirently. The students liste., andcopy the identifying gesture. After a time, the teacher clelays the identificationof each word until the students have had a chance to make their own identifications. He watches to see whether they are almost always right. This is a simple kind of test. If it appears that the students are having some difficulty, let one student at a time indicate which word he wants to hear, and pronounce it aloud, After a while, switch back to the test.

s, l4iry:s:y. Mimicry model'

consists of nothing but immediate oral imitation of an audibre Begin mimicry of acontrast just as soon as thestudents areable to hear

57

For some sound contrasts, infact, you will the difference which it illustrates. all on special exercises in differentiaany time'at spend to find it unnecessary work in differenriation and identififor contrasts, other identification; and tion cation may need to be spread in many small doses over a numberof days before you do any serious work with mimicry. In mimicry drill, it is good to begin with response by the whole class or by have the comfort of groups within the class, so that the students individually be much time can kinks; the worst of the are working out anonymity while they saved in this way, But normally, most of the work in mimicry will be done with one individual at a time. At this stage it is of utmost importance that the student should know, immediately after eachattempt, whetherthat attemptwas (a) satisfactory, or (b) unsatisfactory, or (c) still not perfect, but an improvement.over Some teachers convey this information entirely by facial exprevious efforts. Others adopt the convention that if a response is satisfactory, they pression. go on to anothel student; calling on the same student a second time means that Whatever conventlon you his first response was defective in some respect. adopt, be sure that it is clear to the students, and stick to it; the responsibility for seeing that the information does get across remains with the teacher. TemptingBlindAlleys Using tongue-twisters too early. A teacher who is working on the contrast among the two "th-sounds" of English and /s/ and /z/ may think of using It is tempting a line like, "Is this the face that launched a thousand ships?" because the tongue twister is a medium through which the teacher himself, as a child, may have proved his mastery of the English sound system. Tempting aiso, perhaps, because a good, hard tongue-twister puts the students lnto Such a gratifying (to some teachers) feeling of dependence. And tempting because the students themselves may regard it as a game. L

It is a blind alley unless postponed as dessert until the end of the meal, because ir ii ,rery difficult, yet ls enjoyable enough to keep the students happily practicing mistakes when they should be working systematically toward mastery of the sound problem involved. 2 . In using minimai pairs, inexperienced teachers too often say one word after another without pausing between them: "Red, led, red, red, Ied, red, Ied, A Spanish example of the same error is "caro, carro,carlo, caled, led.,.." because it seems so brisk and efficient in the use of time. tempting ro." It is it can give to the teacher a feeling of great superithe tongue-twister, like And, ority over the students in respect to the use of English. But it is a blind alley because the students don't know which word they are hearing and supposed to be trying to imitate at any given moment, and because they don't have time to concentrate their attention on one word at a time.

58

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I I I I

T I I I I I I I I I

t

3. occasionalry,_a teacher willgo to great pains to puton thebrackboardan . elaborate and detailed diagramof the speech mechanism, showingttredifference between two troublesome sounds. It is terplrlg because it seems so scientific. Tempting to some, because the timespent indrawing the picturesprovides a re_ spite from the hard physical work of conducting a gooOAiitt. It is a blind alley because an artistic and detailed drawing conveys no more informationJolhE-student than oo". clear diagram drawn in one "'.""ronably tenth the time. 2. MEMORIZATION Memorizarion, or-virru"t -"-o.i1i:ll", t meaningful, interesring material should precede drill on grammar and vocabulary, Grammatical and lexical drills, in fact, dependfor much of their value on the student,s ability to relate them to larger meaningful context.

Whar? Material to be memorized or practically memorized, whether rt rs dialogue or non-dialogue, should have all four of these characteristics: It It It It

should should should should

be an authentic sample of modern usage. be intelligible to the student. be interesting to the student. consist of sentences short enough for oral practice.

Lack of any of of these qualities is sufficient to produce serious crrag; any fwo of them makes a passage virtually useless.

rack of

In many commercial rextbooks, ty:::: units are based on a memory selection- -frequently a conversation or an anecdote. In others, memo.zable material is not given such a prominent position. In using any rypeof textbook, the ability to adapt or create such materiarsis an asset to theteacher, It wiube discussed here first in connection with non- dialogue material and then in relation to dialozue. ADATTATION

OF ORIGINAL

TEXTS

The key to adaptation of prose texts is the ability to create parallel versions of the same original on various revers of difficurty. Grading of vocaburary is of obvious importance, but even more cruciat is contior ou". th.-g."mmaticar struc_ tures that are employed. The concept of parallel versions *itt o" illustrated first with one of themost popular forms of non-dialoguematerial--the anecdote. In a lesson planned around an anecdote, the students should go away from class feeling that they have understood easily an interesting story in the language

they are studying, and that they themselves have used the language freely and They may have the impression that naturally in a significant communication. the teacher simply opened the hour with routine greetings' told them a story that he happened to think of, and that then the class spent the rest of the hour in That is the way the hour should seem--to the students. But free conversation, inorder toproducethatillusion, the teacherwill haveused a whole bagof tricks' beginning, most likely, with the editing of the story itself . The story of Kenneth Mu1ler, for example, was taken from the Miscellany column of Time, in whlch it appeared as a single, cleveriy complex sentence. It has been rewritten into three versions' all of which employ much the same nouns, verbs, and adjectives, but which vary greatly in their glammatical simolicitv.

KennethMuller, Version A 1 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12 . 13. 14. t5.

Ker.rrrethMuiler was a little boy He was three Years old. Lle wanted to learn to read' He wanted to read books '

16. He learned to read "PuIl." 17. One day, Kenneth was ir.r the hallway of the school . lB. There was a red box in the

IIc was Young. He could not learn to read. He could not go to school. Three ycars Passed. Kenneth was six Years old. He went to school. He was in the first grade' He learned ve rY quicklY. He learned to read. He learned to read manY words' One of the words was "Pull ."

19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27 .

hallway. The red box was on the wall' Kenneth saw the red box. There was a handle on the box' Ker.rnethsaw the handle. There was a word on the box. Kenneth saw the word. T h e w o r d w a s " P u I 1. " Kenneth pulled the handle. The whole school had an unscheduled flre drill that daY.

it to them as If you gave this version to youl. students to read, or if you read But if they for them' tooeasy much it was that feel it star"rds, they would probably for imip h r a s e s s h o r t " C " " e n j o y " B , i f t h e y o r o r have trouble understanding advan with even quite " usable is A" that find may you tating you r pronunclation, ced classes. In Version "A," the sentences are short. Each sentence hason.lyoneclause. find waysto do withWe avoid allbut the simplest tenses of the verbs, We even those words knowthat "since" wheneverwe outcommon words like "enough" and ' in sentences correctly are hard for our students to use Dependingonrheabilityoftheclass,wemaywanttoreplacesomeofthe For example, the last Sentence in "A" is nouns, verbs, and adjectives as well. we might replace it somewhat as by far the most difficult in the whole version. f ollows:

60

I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I

t I I I I I

t I I I I

t

Bells began to ring, The teachers heard the bells. The pupils heard the bells. They stood up. They walked out of their classrooms. They walked through the halls. They walked carefully. They walked quietiy. They walked out of the school. They stood outslde the school. 'I-harr

rrroi tod

th-

r-

The principal came to the door of the school. FIe said, "The school is r.rotburning. There is no fire. C o m e i n t o t h e s eh o o l a g a . i n . This was a fire drill ." (The meaning of "fire drili" has been given in rhe sentences that precede this one. To get acrross the mcaning of "ur.rscheduled," we may add the sentences that follow.) The children and their teachers went into the school again, They began to study again. The fire drili surprised the pupils. It surprised thc teachers. It surprised the principal. Did it surprise Kenncth? Do you iike fire drills ? The last of these sentences goes beyond the subject matter of the original story and affords the students ar.ropportunity to express something out of their own Iives. This story was chosen in full r:ealization of the fact that little redfirealarm boxes nray not be known in many parts of the world. But the appearance andthe purpose of these cultural items is explained by the story itself. If you add the comment that all American schools have fire alarms of the same general type, your class willhave learned an interesting minor fact about life in the United States.

Kenneth Muller,

Version B

r r

rI

When little Kenneth Muller was three years old, he wanted toreadbooks. But he could not go to school or learn to read because he was very young.

I

After three years, when Kenneth was six years old, he went to school. He soonlearnedto read very well . Oneof the manywordsthathe learnedwas"pull ."

I

One day, when Kenneth wasin the hallway of theschool, hesaw ared boxon

I

I

6l

There was a handle on the box, and there was also a word on it. the wall. "puil." Kenneth read the word and pulled the handle. word was The whole school had an unscheduled fire drill

I

The

I

that day'

In Version "B" we have taken the sentences of "A" and joined them together in routine ways. These ways include the use of relative clauses, and, or, wher, after, before, and because. W"'r" still staying away from any but the si*pt"tt and most common tenses. If version "c" is too hard for your class, you can begin with "B." If on the other hand your class feels that "C" is better suited to them, you can still use "B" without their even being aware of its existence. It can serve as an alternate for "C" when you are first telling the story, or as a source of explanatory para-

I iI

I

I

I I

phrases . Kenneth Muller,

Version C

Little Kenneth Muller had wanted to learn to read ever since he was three years old. Finally, when he was six, he was old enough to go to school. He soon became rhe besr reader in the first grade.

I I I

Among the first words that he learned to recogrlize was "pull , " One day, he noticed that word pr:inted on a red box in the hallway of the school . There was a shiny metal handle sticking out of the box. Being an obedient child, Kenneth pulled rt. All thousand children in Kenneth's school had an unscheduled fire ciay.

drill

that

If you wil.l take the numbered sentences of "A" and see what has happened to them in "B" and "C, " you will see that there is much more grammatical diverthanin the other versions. Some classes would be able tobegin right siryin"C" away on "C"; others need the preparation of "A" and "B." And of course some classes can handle a much more complicated "C" than others can.

II

I I

I EXERCISE: Below are an "A" version of an anecdote and two other versions of it. Inspect these tvvo versions, and decide which is the simpler. Make a list of the grammatical structures which are contained in the "C" version, but are absent from the "B" version. Ambulance, Version A An ambulance was traveling down a highwaY. 2. The ambulance was traveling at

1.

8 0m . p .h .

62

3. 4.

The siren of the ambulance was wailing' A state policeman was on a motor-

I

t I I I

F h

h h

h

! t

!

T T T I I I I

;. t 9 10.

The state policeman overtook the ambulance. The state policeman stopped the ambulance. The driver said, "I was speeding. " "I know that. " "Ambulances carry sick people. "

11. "Why did you sropme?" 12. The policeman replied, "I was trying to rell you something.', 13. "There is no patient in your ambulance." 1 4 . " Y o u l e f t y o u r p a r i e n t ' sh o m e . " 15, "You were in a hurry " f6. "You forgot your patient, "

"The state allows ambulances to speed. " Ambulance,

Version X

@

An ambulance was traveling down a highway at 80 m.p.h. Its siren was rvailing. A state policeman onamotorcycle overtook the ambulance and stopped it.

An ambulance was travelingdown an open highway at B0 m.p.h. , wirh irs siren wailing, when a state policeman on a motorcycle overtook it and stopped it.

The driver of the ambulance said, know that I was speeding, but the state allows ambulancesto speed bccause they carry sick people. Why

The driver of the ambulance protested, "I know I was-speeding, but ambulances carrying patients are alIowed to speed. Why did you srop me ?"

''l

did

rrnu qtnn

me ?"

The policeman replied, "I was trying to tcll you that there js no patient in your ambulance. You were rn a hurry when you left your patient's home, and you forgot him."

The policeman replied, "That's what I was trying to tell you. you were in such a hurry when you left your patient's home that you forgot him!"

EXERCISE: Here are "A" and "C" versions of a single story. sion of intermediate grammatical complexity.

Supply a "B" ver_

Rock and Ro11,Version A 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.

Once there was a farmer. The farmer had an orchard. The orchard was large. The orchard produced pecans . The farmer had trouble with crows. The crows ate the young pecans . The crows did severe damage to the farmer's crop. The farmer went to town. The farmer bought some things .

10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. i6. 17. 18. 19.

The farmer bought some wire. The farmer bought a record player. The farmer bought three loudspeakers. The farmer bought an amplifier. The farmer bought some special records. The farmer installed his new equipment in the orchard. The farmer played his records, The music frightened the crows badly. The crows ieft the orchard. The crows never returned to the orchard.

63

20. Some human beings like rock and roll music 21 . Other human beings don't like rock and roll 1T]USIC.

22.

The crows agreed with the second group. Rock and Rol1, Version C

He used to In Alabama, tirere is a farmer who has a large pecan orchard, have a great deal of trouble with crows doing severe damage tohis cropbyeating the young Pecans. Then one day, the farmer had an idea. He went to town and bought some wire, three loudspeakers, an amplifier, and a record player. He also bought some special rccords. The ncxt day, the farmer installed his new equipment in the orchard, and begar.rplaying his records . The music frightened the crows so badly that they left the orchard and nevcr returned. Apparently they agreed withthose human beitrgs who clon't like rock and roll . EXIIRCISII: Supply a "8" version of this short

non-fiction passage:

4tftrl"JSet, Ygq19.4 1 . S o m e o n c h a s i n v e n t e d a new kind of scat. 2. The seat is for airlines. 3. Sabena adopted the new kind of seat in 1959. 4. The new kind of seat Protects passen[Jers. 5. Sometimes there are Plane crashes . 6. PIanes sometines hit the land 7.

The new kind of seat tips backward automatically 9 . T h e p a s s e n g e r ' s spine is r-rearly horizontal. 1 0 . T h e p a s s e r . r g e r ' swhole body is in a new position. 11. The passenger's whole body cat.t withstand shocks. f2. The seat has a low center of gravlry. 13. l'he force of the crash cannot rip the seat frorn the floor. 8.

verry hard. Planes sometimes hit the water verY hard. Airline Seat, Version C

A new kind of airline seat has been invented, which protects passengers in plane crashes, Sabenawas the first airline to adopt it. The seattipsbackward automaticallyin a crash, so that the passenger's spine is nearly horizontal . In this position, his whole bodyis able to withstand shocks better. The seat also has a low center of graviry, which prevents it flom being ripped from the floor by the force of the crash.

I

I I I I I I I I I I I

I I

I 64

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I

I

Study the "C" and "B" versions, and then supply an "A" version :.,,:--l-S:: --- - ' . , 1. 1 g p a s s a g e :

of

Speech, Version C ''Speech

is so familiar a feature of our daily life that we rarely pause to examine it. Although it seems as natural to man as walking or breathing,its naturalness is illusory. The processof acquiring speech is quitedifferent from the process of learning to walk. " (Slightly adapred from the opening lines of Language, by Edward Sapir.)

I I F F

lpgS:L:S'"fg

i

Speech is a very familiar feature in our daily life. We rarely pause to examine it. It seems as natural to man as walking or breathing. But the naturalness of speech is an illusory feeling. The process by which we acquire speech is different from the process by which we learn to walk. EXERCISE,: Write an "A" version of this biblical story : Version B Jesus told this story: Once there was a malt who had two sons. One day he went to the first son andsaid, "Goand workin thefieid today." Butthefirst sonreplied, "No, Father, I will not go and work in the field." But after thefather went away, the first son was sorry. and worked hard all day.

He went to thc field

The man went to his otl.rer son, and said, "Go and work in the field today." The second son replied, "All right, Father, I will go and work in thefield." But after the father went away, the second son did not go and work in the field. Jesus asked, "Who obeyed his father, the first son, or the second son?"

Version C This is one of Jesus' stories: Once there was a man who had rwo sons. One day he asked the first son to go and work in the fie1d. The sor.rreplied that he would not do it; but after his father had gone away, he went to the field and worked hard all day. The man went to his other son and asked him to soand workin the field.

65

The

second son replied that he would do it; but after his father hadgone away, he did not go. Jesus asked which boy obeyed his father,

How? As with all other rypes of drill, hearing and comprehensionmustprecede speaking; closely controlled speakingmust precede speaking in which the student exercises a large amount of free choice; speaking should precede reading and Here are eight ways of making the initial presentation of a story: writing. 1 With a very, very quick class you maywant to begin by readingthe story just as fast as you can, to give an extra challenge to their skill in hearing. Students' books, if they have any books or mimeographed sheets, are closed. Do this only with a class that really enjoys the challenge of extra fast reading. 2, With most classes, begin bytellingthe story (Version C or B) at a normal rate. Students listen with books closed, making no notes. You may often want to do this three or four times before going on to the next step. Perhaps, without calling attention to the fact, you will want to switch from one version to anAt the end of each telling, give the students a brief opportunity to tell other. you what they heard. 3" Read, with students'books still closed, pausing at the end ofeach sentence to answer questions. Keep your answers short at this stage. Most should be under 15 seconds, 4.

Read, with the students' books open.

5. Read onephrase (or one sentence from "A") at atime, andlet thestudents imitate in unison. 6, Do the same with students imitating individually so that you cancall their attention to points at which their mimicry needs improvement, 7. Let the students read asentence or aparagraph in a fixed order.

at a time, calling onthem

B. Do the same, calling on the students in random order.

66

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t

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I

t

BUILDING TOWARD FREE CONVERSATION

Ft

F

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T I T

II t I

one of the best ways of developing a story, and bridging the gap befween fixed text and free conversation, is through the use of questions and answers.

There are two important ways of classifying questions according to their relatlve difficulty and interest. The first is by the kind of answer that they call for. Easiest forthe student are yes-noquestions; next easiestare "alternative" questions, in which the studerrt replies by repeatingone of twoanswers suggested in the question. Most difficult, in general, are questions that begin with interrogative words and phrases, for in these the answer is not contained in the wording of the question. We may also classify questions according to their closeness to the subject matter of the "basic selection." Using ProfessorGurrey's labels, Stage I ques_ tions ask for answers that are contained within the wording of the story; stagell requires that the answer be inferred from the story; Stage III asks about the stud e n t ' s o w n i i f e a n d e x p e r i e n c . e s. Here is a chart which contains samples of these kinds of questions. Note that in general the difficulty and also the interest of these questions increases from left to right and from top to bottom. Stage I

Stage II

Stage III

Yes - no

Did Kenneth learn to read?

Was Kenneth intelligent?

Do you know the word "pull" ?

Alternative

Was the word "pull," or "push"?

Were the children angry,or happy?

Do Japanese children learn to read at home, or at school ?

Other

What color was the box?

Why did Kenneth pull the handie?

When do Japanese children learn to read?

The followingare

tenways ofusing any ofthe above nine varieties ofquestion:

With short answers ("Yes, he did, " "At school, "etc.) Unison answers I. 2.

Fixed order of questions. (Questions asked in fixed order.) Random order of questions (Questionsasked in random order.)

I

I

o/

I

Individual answers

'^ ;ff::*:;:i;::::l:::: :::::il: llii:::l il:ffi"ft'.:". I 5. Random order of questions, students called on in fixed order, 6. Random order of questions, students called on in random order.

I

With long answers ("Yes, he learned to read, " etc.)

:J,i,ri"..lJi:Lt::";," I i iffi:::::; :i;:::l:H: 9. 10.

Random order of questions, fixed order of students. Random order of questions, random order of students

EXERCISE: Ask a question from "Stage II" which includes two alternatives, one ofwhichis to be usedin the answer(i,e. the question shouldbe one whichfits Have a colleague then say either into the center box of the above diagram). If he says"easier", "casier" or "harder." respond with a question which is represented on the diagram in a box which is either higher up or farther to the respond with a quesIeft than the preceding question. If he says, "harder", a l o w e r f a r t h e r t o r i g h t . Continue,t.:nt":i.rl box that is or the tion from "easier" "hardcr" making each successive question or than the last. This exercise when properly done is a strenuoLls one, but is potentially one of the most r-ewarding in this parr of the book.

II

I I | rI

I Six ways of giving dictation. The purpose of dictation is to give the students practice in using English correctly, not to catch them in as many errors as possible. Here are six techWhichare suitableforyour r.riques, arranged in approximate order of difficulty. group? Dictation with key words written on blackboard. 1. 2. 3.

Each phrase or sentence repeated without limit. Each phrase given only twice, Each phrase given only once,

Dictation with key words given. 4. 5. 6.

Unlimited repetition. Each phrase given fwice. Each phrase given once.

Be sure you don't mouthe the words or break up phrasesmorethanyouwould in slow normal speech,

68

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I

DIAI.OGUES Even though you cannot predict the exact set of utterances that each student '.,,iil need for the next twelve months, you can foresee many of the situations in '.,,hLchhe willfind himself, and let himpractice conversations that are typicalof i.''hat might be said in those situations. If possible, use conversations that are :\\'o to ten lines in length; longer ones should be such that theyare easily broken --il into smallersections of this size. Each sentence within thewhole should con:r.st of one or at the most two breath groups. ordinarily, you wiII want to avoid slang, because when slang comes from a non-native or when it is used in the \\'rong context it is often pointless or even offensive. At the same time, however' you should avoid language that sounds stilted or bookish, Always reacl a conversationaloud to yourselfuntil it sounds natural, before you use itin class. if possible, even though you yourself may be a native speaker of English, run through the conversation with another native in order to get his reactions. EXERCISE: and sirl:

complete the revision of this conversation

ORIGINAL

REVISION

Hi ya, babe.

Hello, Jean,

What's cooking?

What are you doing?

I am preparing to go to the market.

I'm getting ready to go shopping.

If you are ready now, I will Are you ready now? take you as [ar as Main Slrec.t Let's go in my car, in my car. I'lI take you as far as Main Street.

Have you many purchases to make? Yes, there are many things which I need to buy. If you can be at the corner of Eighth Street and Mair.r Street by three o'clock, I will be happy to bring you home at that time. Great!

EXERCISE: write a short conversation which might take place at a railway ticket window, or after a concert, or at a doctor's office. Revise your own work and then submit it to a native speaker of English for further polishing. The teacher's goal in using a conversation of this kind is to lead his students

I

I

between a teenage boy

69

to the place where they can produce the utterances in it easilyand naturally, and formationof new utterances. But the can also use them as bases foranalogical students will not be able to use the sentences in this way if they have merely "learned" them: what is needed is rather "overlearning. " It is not enough that the student can say them correctly without looking at the book: if you start him at any point in the conversation, he should be able, without conscious effort, to run through the next two or three lines correctly by himself. a great amount of practice. How can we secure But "overlearning"requires amount of this much practice without building up at the same time a prohibitive monotony and frustration in the student? The answer lies in careful, conscious, and planned variation in the ways of handling the material . With each change in activity, the class has occasion tofeelthat it has successfullycompleted a small but real unit of work, and this feeling, coming not once but ten or twenty times an hour, is perhaps the most effective single source of day-to-day motivation and morale, The series of activities which follows has been worked out very conservaIn any given situation, the teacher may decide to omit some of these tively. but he should always be aware that they are there, available for use if steps, the planned sequence proves unexpectedly difficult for the class.

I I I I I

t t

Fi rst goal: comprehension I,

Books closed, teacher (T) reads the conversation aloud at normal speed.

2.

Books closed. T reads again, each sentence at normal speed, but pausing Repeat until whole class understands the after each one to allow questions. meaning of what is said.

!e.o"d

go.L accut.

Use two orthree repetitions of eachline be3. Books closed, Group imitation. fore golng to the next. All but the shortest and simplest phrases are "built up" This is done by lifting out the troublesome words and practicing from parts. before trying them in whole sentences, and by breaking the longer alone them sentences .intotwo or three parts.

Jean Hello, Jean what

(The / j/ sound is difficult for many students; those who have trouble with /I/ should also practice hello by itself before trying the whole sentences, Whether or not a student has these difficulties is largely determined by his previous language background.)

you

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T

What are you doing?

I It t I t

r I I I

store

n^

I

t I

f^

tha

et^ra

I'm getting ready I'm getting ready to go I'm getting ready to go to the store. 4.

Same as 3, but using one group repetition of each item followed by two or three individual repetitions of the same one.

5.

Omitthe build-ups. each item twice.

6.

Same as 5, but each item only once.

7.

Like 5, but individuairepetition. Each item onlyonce. Occasionalgroup repetition to keep attention from wandering.

Tqrrd goul,

u..u.ut"

Books are stillclosed, of course.

Group repetition,

pt

B.

Books open for the first time. Two group repetitions of each item. Group repeats after teacher, each item twice. Allow questions, but keep the cuswers vcry bricf.

9.

Individuals called on in random ordei-to read oneline apiece, Teacher repeats after each, and has student try again rfhis firstattempt was not satisfactory. Go through the whole conversation several tirr-res in this way.

Fourth goal:

fluency without loss of accuracy

10,

GroupAdoesgroup Books closed again. Divide class into two groups. repetition of Line 1, followed by Group B withLtne 2. They run through this two or three times. ThenGroup Agets Line 2, andGroup Btakes 3. Afterpracticing this exchange fortwo orthreetimes, Group A gets3 and B gets 4, and so on to the end of the conversation.

ll.

The two halves of the class take alternating parts of the dialogue, each line being spoken only once. Run throughthe entireconversation several times in this wav,

12,

Go through the dialogue, allowing individuals to take onelineapiece.

I

t

(Students who do not tend to say estore may not need to practice store by itself.)

to the store

7T

As

soon as each feels able, he should close his book. logue three or four times in this way, f3.

Go through the dia-

Pairs of individuals go through the dialogue. Each pair is timed to see which team can run through it most rapidly without mistakes.

EXERCISE: Hereare four short dialogues in Swahili. Learnone of thefirst two by the method outlined above and the other by another method. Do the same for the last two, which consistof slightiy longer sentences. Discuss withcolleagues the results of this experiment. lt niight be instructive to learn at least one pair of dialogues without reference to the E,nglish translations. For purposes of this exercise, pronounce the consonants as in English, and the vowels as in most other ianguages. Accent the marked syllables.

I.

II.

III.

IV.

Hujdmbo,bw6na.

How are you, (sir)?

Sijimbo. Hab6ri ," rikr, nylngr /

I'm fine.

Habiri nziri, bw6na.

Fine, (sir).

Umekiwa w5pi?

Where have you been?

Kwa h6ri, bw5na.

Good bye, (sir).

Kwa h6ri. TutaonSnak6sho.

Good bye.

S i t a k u l ak 6 s h o .

I'm not coming tomorrow.

Utakda nyumbani?

Are you going to stay at home?

Watoto w6nu wiko w6pi?

Where are your children?

Wamekwendashul6ni.

They've gone to school,

J e , w a p 6 n d am a s 6 m o y 6 o ?

And do they like their studies?

sina. Ndiyo, bw6na. Wayape'nda

Yes (sir).

W6we was6ma l6gha g6ni?

What languagedo you speak?

N a s 6 m aK i i n g e r e z a .

I speak English.

u l u t t u n z a s n u l e n lr

Did you study it in school?

How've you been

recently?

See you tomorrow.

They like them very much

I I

T T I

T T T t I

T

t

J

t

T

t

I La, bwdna. Tunakis6rna nyumb5ni.

l

t I

I

No (sir).

W e s p e a ki r a t h o m e .

Tempfing BlindAlleys I ' Letting the students keep thelr books open as they tisten to a dialogue for rhe first time is tempting because it seems to save time, and because students ,-rften feel frustrated the first few times they try to get a new passage by ear aione. But thisapparent short-cut proves to be a blind ai1ey, becausewith books ripen, stLldents hear what theprinted word leads them toexpect to hear; they are tirus Iargely prevented from noticing the differences between ther,r own Dronunciation and the teacher's. 2. Leaving a basic selection behind after the students have understood it, and practiced it a few times, but before they have ntacleit their own is temptilg, because going on to a new selection is interesting and fun, and because it givcs everyone sucha feelingof rapid progrcss. But this short-cut alsois a blind allcy for most classes because, after having skimmcd through a nuntber of dialogues or stories in this way, the students rnay Iind that they have rctained nothittg well enough to be able to use it as a basis for: building their own sentcnces for their own purposes.

I I F F E

3. Asking students to engage in free conversation, or to writc an origilal composrtioll on atopic for whlch theyhave hadinsufficient preparation -. pur:haps only one basic selection-is tempting because, as soon as they ar-c able to repl:o_ duce the basic selection itsell in an authentic-sounding way, wc somctinrcs tepd to forget that their resources for creation of new utterallccs havc not necessarily kept pace with their rrimicry and mcmorization. For most students, thiswill be another blind allcy, because they require alarge stock of sentences fron.r lvhich. by analogy ancl recombination of parts, they may put togcther a "Iree" conpositron or conversation. Lacking this, they will produce crrors at a rate that will discourage studcnts and teacher alike. on the other hand, as we have already noticcd, ability at frec conversatron is by far the most important criterion of success in language study, 3 . S U B S T I T U TD I ORNI T T

When? (1) when the students need to explore the grammatical structure of a sentence that they have met in a basic selection, or to use it as a model for constructlng new sentences. (2) When the teacher wants to give the class extensive practice with a single intonation pattern, with a variety of lexical meanings. (3) As a form of vocabulary practice, Substitution is among the most serviceable and most flexible of all the devices that the grammar teacher uses.

IJ

Whot? In its essence, a substitution drill consists simply of a number of utterances--usually six to twelve of them--which are in some sense identical in their grammatical structure; with respect to the vocabulary that theycontain, theyare largely, but not entirely, alike. Such a drillmaybe summarizedintabularform:

T. 2

i

r,lu" u lrsaoo 3 pen pencil watch hat handkerchief

The most conNotice that intonation and stress are indicated in this example. spicuous part of the table is thelist ofwordsin theslot at theendof thesentence. A1l ot these words are useful in everyday English. Just as useful, however, and just as everyday, is the part that does not change: I have a ( ), with the intonation contour 231. Two further examples of the simplest type of substitution table are the followinp: II. Why did hu I bring

I the wateh?

hrrrr

need want sell llt. Wu walked I throughI tltu park around past by F o r e a c h o f t h e s e three tables, all the sentences whi.cl.tit r e p r e s e n t s a r e g r a m matically parallel with one another. The same is not true, however, of Table IV: IV. The manager lcalled laplumber. hired needed admitted was

I I I

I I

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t 74

I

The words hired, -needed, admitted, and was are all past-tense =l!"9' verbs, of course, but The t"

::i;,l*ii",ffi*ffi?

rer two sentences are parallel to one another. Ino.derto-"k.Tab]e IVsuitable for use in substitution driil, it is necessary to strike out the word was, Another point ro watch in using drilrs of this kind is described VIII of the section on transformation drills.

in Diagram

EXERCISE: In Tabres v-vII, eliminate the word orphrasewhichdoes norfitwith the other items in its column. The package was left by the door. counter gate stalrway postman VI.

Y o u ' d b e t t e r s t a y at home for two days. three weeks a mougil

,17

VII'

Hc always helps me. often really

./

:il; Each of Tables I-VII contains only one column, or slot, in which substitutrons are made, and the items in any one slot are armost always identica_r witli one another in their par:t of slteech classification or their internat st-rucfure. Table vIII stands for a single-slot substitution drill which has greater diversity among the internai structures of items to bc substituted:

VIT.

I I I

He arrived

I ycsterday. last week on Tuesday at 6 p.m. six days ago before lunch before I left

The amount of diversr.ty which is torerab.re in a slot depends on the strength and maturity of the class with which the drill is used. EXERCISE: Add three or more items to each corumn.

75

chooseeachitemsothat:

(1) its internal structure or i t s p a r t o f s p e e c h c l a s s i l i c a t i o n is different from that of the rest of the items in the same ^^i,,-LUlUlrl

k,,+.-^ uut -u

tr,

fL^+ Lrld L

(2) it is iike the rest of rhe i t e m s i n i t s t o l u m n w i t h r e s p e c t to its grammatical function in this and a number of other sentences, IX.

Ilere would be a good place for this picturc. Over the desk

X.

He did the work

carcfully. as well as he could

Tables II and IV illustr-ate a special problemrnsingle-slotsubstitution. Thc vcrbs in Tablc IV arc in thc past tensc, which mcans that cach rnaybebroker-rup into a stcm and thc past tense ntorphemc. Sincc all of these particular vcrbs arc regular, this causes no difticulty: Thc tnanager

(D) call hire need admit

a plurnber

But if Tablc Il had consisteci of statcmcnts rathcr thar-rof qucstions, thc details of thc differences betwcen b_ring-brought, buy-bought, sell-sold lvou.Ldhaveconstituted an extra littlc lrrtrbk'm in thcir r)wn right. INTERDEPENDENCI]

AMONG LISTS ITILLING TWO

SAl'4qlENrE\ttrS

,nuruegEA

Up to this point we have becn conccrned or-rly with single-slot substitution at all, it is possible to lindtwo, or tablcs. But ir-rmost scntcnccs of any ler-rgtl-r three, or even morc slots where substitutions might be made. Itisofter-radvantageous to exploit two or more of them in a single cxercise. Thus, thc sentence John ate the mango mi.ght bc a part of cither of these two tables:

Jt-rhn I a rc t he' rlraLrgo.

John ate the I mango. olange pineapple

Mary Biii

76

I I I I I

I 1 I I I I I I

I I I

t

Superimposing the two, we have

John late the lmango. Mary | | orangc

Bill

I I

I I I I

|pirreapple

Opening still another slot in the orrgrnal like this one:

sentence, we might construct

a table

XI. John Mary Bill

l

I I T I I

|

ate the bougl.rt kept

mango. o range pincapplc

Notice that this table consists ofthree slots, cach containing threc rtcms. fhe total numbcr of sentcnces which can be made by mechanical recombtnation of these i t e m s i n t h e s e s l o t s i s 3 x 3 x 3 = 2 7 , a | r d a l l 2 7 o f t l t et h e o r e t i c a l l y p c i s s i b l e senIcnLes rcprcsentcd by rliis tablc 4.",-.qrrtty r*r',',rgl-rl, g-ICr]Inrtical, r1d idiomatic in Er.rglish. The drilI -'f"bl.Xi n"iutf"O n "muttrpte"u-marir",l "ruy slot drill with no interdcpendcnces." This kind of drill rs particularly usefui i. dclrollstrating and practicing thc gr:oss gramlnatical lcatures 9f a parrern sentence. But now suppose that to tl-re-tist in thc seconcl column of Table XI we added the word peel_ed,and to the thirdlist thc wgrrd oatmeal . The table will now gen_ t |Jtc 3 x 4 x 'l = 4U possiblc rir)nrbirlatiuZ{ tft..," ul wlrich (e.g. J o h r rp e e l t , d t l r c u a t n r e J l )d o r r o t P a s s l l r e l e s t o f . a s u 1 l , / r c . * p l r l l e L . b y u s e r s , , f t l l ; l a ; ; u a g . . our rr.rultiple-slot table now exhibits a dg{ree of "interdepenclence" between the lists rrf itcms in two of its slots . .,' If weasked a native speaker of English why these threc sentences ,,don,t sound right, " he would probab-ty reply that it is because "one just doesr.r't peel oatnieal"' In fact, cventhe non-native speaker ofEnglish, ifhe has a1y idea of thc meanings of the words involved, will probablymakcmuchthesanlecomment, and few if arry studcnts would ser:iously try to usc such a sentencc. This particular example then is in itself trivial ancl even a littlc silly. The same principle, however, rnay be usedinapproachingo'e of the slippery problems of language teacliing: helping stuclents to learn the use of words whose ranges of meaning are broader and harder to define than thc meanings of peel and oatmeal . Notice for example the interdependence between the lists r"tli-". two "lots:

XII.

His work bed hand voice test

was

hard easy s oft

77

EXERCISE: Devlse a multiple- slot substitution table suitable for teaching students to make proper use of one of these pairs of words: stop-cease; rapid-fast; hearunderstand; high-tall; narrow-thin

a ';

In a multiple-s1ot fab1e, interdependence may be between members of major stem classes ( nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs), or it may involve slots containing "function words" (prepositions, conjunctrons, certain"adverbs') o.r even prefixes and suffixes. XIII.

(lnterdependence between major stem class and function words)

I'm

tired worried afraid angry

of about

1l this noise.

Tables such as this are of great potential value with the perennially troublesome problem of prepositio[s. EXERCISE: Table Xlll covers one small part of the difference between the English prepositions of and about. Construct a similar table which would be useful in tcaching the difference between arogtrd and about; in, on, at; of,from;oranypair of prepositions fromanotherlangufewithwhichyouareconcernedprofessionally. XIV.

(Interdependence berween

/ajor

stem class and inflectional affixes)

I

He

work

iS D

hard

yesterday. everv dav

The first column contains the third-person singular morpheme (symbolized here by (S) and the past morpheme (D). The way in which choice of item in one onaccount of these slots is linked to choice ol item intheothermayseemobvious of the meanings. But exactly analogous is the problem of the difference between the so-called "simple present" and the "progressive present"(worksye. isworkfind that an explanation in terms of lng), and speakers of many other languages meaning is insufficient to enable them to use these two English tenses correctly. Native speakers of English should humbly consider their own comparable difficulties with the perfective and the imperfective "tenses" oI Romance languages, or with the "aspects" of Slavic languages. EXERCISE: Either amplify Table XIV sufficiently so that it could be used as a classroom drill, or construct a similar table for someotherlanguagewithwhich you are concerned. A celebrated example of interdependence involving affixes is the so-called concordial system found in the Bantu family of Ianguages. This phenomenon may

78

I I I I I I I I I I I I I I

:le iliustrated I\'.

most conveniently

from Swahili:

Mtoto wangu mkubwa yuko wapi? watoto wangu wakubwa wako wapi? Ng'ombelyangu mkubwayuko wapi? Ng'ombe wangu wakubwa wakowapi? Kitabu changukikubwa kiko wapi? Ngoma yangu kub*" iko wapi? Vitabu vJangu vikubwa viko wapi? Ndizi yangu kubwa iko wapi? Kijana wangu mkubwa yuko wapi? Mto wangu mkubwa uko wapi? Vijana wangu wakubwa wako wapi? Ndizi zangu kubwa ziko wapi? Panga langu kubwa Liko wapi?

concordial

Child my big is where? childrenmy bigare where? Ox my big is where? Oxen my big are where? Book my big is where? Drum my big is where? Books my big are where? Banana my big is where? Lad my big is where? pillow my big is where? Lads my big are where? Bananas my big are where? Knife my big is where?

prefixes have been underlined in four of these sentences.

EXERCISE: How many different sets of concordial prefixes are to be found in these data? (Each set will contain three prefixes: one to gowith -3!gl, one togo with -kubwa, and one ro go with -ko.) Rearrange the drill insuchawaythatsen_ tences which contain the same s.tof .or.ordialprefixeswillbegroupedtogether. Try to complete this exercise before consulting the English translations of the sentences which are given in the right-hand column. XVI.

(Interdependence of affix and "function word") Interdependence

of a Iist of affixes with a li.st of "function

words"

is difficult

ln this set of data, the stem of the demonstrative word is glgg-, and thedifference berween -er and -e represents a difference of "case, " one case being compatrble wltn aus and von, and the other with durch and in.

70

But this German construction also illustrates a second interdependence, which has a further effect on the choice of suffix used with the s t e m d i e s - : XVII.

Er kam

aus diesler dieslem aus von dieder von diesiem durch durch diesles in IN diesles

Stadt. Land. Stadt, Land, Stadt. Land. Stadt. Land.

This particular set of interdependences is commonly telmed "gencler" of nouns The tcacher should of course be careful that the students are made responsible for only one of these interdependences at a time.

Where? ready Many language textbooks today contain their own substitution drills, and waiting to bc uscd with a c1ass. Where these arcnotprovided, or wherethey are ir-rsufficient, tl-re teacher may construct liis own. Such drills may be kept closely related to th<: r:est oI the course by basing them on sentences takenfrom: that the students have

L

Dialogue or bricf narrative material lcarned by heart. ,i

2.

Passages that have bgbn used as reading assignments--tirough these sentences usu/ilY need to be abbreviated and simplified.

3.

Sentcnces used ast'xamples of rules in the grammar book.

EXERCISE: sentences:

Construct any type of substitution drill based on one of thefollowing

"I want to scnd him a tclegram."

(Thomson, p. I27.)

"Would you like something cool to drink?"

(Mclntosh et al . , I26. )

"It takes a long time to Iearn a ianguage."

(Paratore, p: 20.)

"Here comes my neighbor, Bob Armstrong."

(King and Campbell, p. 28.)

EXE,RCISE: Construct any type of substitution drill based on a part of one of the following sentences, all of which are taken from reading selectionrs. "New Orleans is the largest city in the South and one of the principal North American ports." (Wright, p' 226.) "Half a mile from home, at one edge of the woods where the land was highest, there was a great pine tree, the last of its kind still growing there. " (Croft, p. 6f .)

80

I

I I I I

I I I I I I I I I I I

I I

T

I

T t T

-.--- i.irstor:y of the region is abundantly rich in tal.es and legends : :rioneers from the earliest begir.rnings. . . through the long -:.',asion of the new country by swarms of pioneers . " (Bigelow and Harris, ' . :. , 9 , ) 'I ilnd, generally speaking, that the South African birds are i:rorc colourful and offer a startling variety, but the singing ri thc English songbirds just cannot be matchedinthiscountry." ( d u T o i t e t a 1 ., p . 9 0 . ) ..,rRCISE: Construct any type of substitution drili based on one of the examplcs . * - . ^ - . . '( rt l -g - g rules: JUI(rlllPdtly .i!il "All the cardinal and ordir-ral numerals may bccome nourrs and may take -\. a plural errding in somc of their senses. Onc is cuough.

_

f our are mlsslu8. Ttr" tt"'r formecl bVlggtq. Tlqggglq! pcrished by the way." p a r . 2 0 6 .)

B. "Thc present participlc ends in -_ir-rg.It usually describcs cn actron as taking placc at thc samc tinrc with some other action. up tlle path. Tom came !iut!gl1!g The bcggar shamblecl down the steps grumblir-rg. Rcachir.rgfor tl.re tlorver, I lost my balance. " (Kittrcdgc Farley, par. 332.)

I

I

I t t I t I I I

(Kittrcdgc and Farlcy,

and

How? An! method is good whicl-r keeps the studcnts I)ractlcinla thc sentencepattern in qucst\n with constant awarcnr:ss of the meaning of what thcy arc practicing, and with \s little use as possibie of thcir nativc languagc. One such series oI activitiesJfor presenting a singlc-siot clrill is outlined bclow. Thc full scrics should be used only with a class rcquilrng very gentle treatment; with stronlier classes, thc instructor may choose to leave out one or rrrorc stcps. He should always be conscious, howevcr:, of the existencc of thc omitted stcps so that l-rc can fall back on then-r i.f thc class should hit an unexpccted snag. I. Il the class cannnot alrcady say thc initial sentence ofthedrill, letthem imitate it until they can. Books should be closed. Usechoralimitation, followe d b y i r r d i v i d u u li m i t a t i o n . 2,

Be sure that everyone understands the initial sentencc.

3.

Repeat (1) and (2) for the remaining sentenccs.

4. lf you are using printed or mimeographed material, Iet the class look at the drill, and repeat (1), (2), (3).

or a blackboard,

5. With books sti1l open (or the drill stillontheboard), pronouncetheword a t t h e t o p o f t h e s u b s t i . t u t i o nl i s t . T h i s r v o r d n o w s e r v e s a s a " c u e , " i n r e s p o n s e

8l

to which the students should give the complete sentence. The purpose of this step is to be sure that the class can pronounce the sentences without animmediate oral model . 6, Dictate a few of the sentences with the visual students.

model still

before the

7. Repeat (5) with books closed. (lf the drili is on the board, eraseasmall part of it each time a student gives a correct response, until the entire drillhas been removed,) At first, give the "cues" in their original order, and then in random order. 8.

Let individuals give sentences of their own choice without cues.

9 . lf you use translation in your course, give as "cues" thewords or the entire sentences in the students' native language. 10.

Dictate a number of the sentences with books closed.

11. Have the students suggest other words for substitution in the same slot in the same sentcnce. In dris way, the drill is brought closer to the students' own interests, and the transition to genuine, meaningful conversation is facilitated. 12. Have the students suggest other sentences in which the same substitution iist might be used. 13. Throughout aii of the above activities, use of pictures and/or actions, first by the teacher and later by the students, wiII help to keep the drill lively Whethcr or not this is appropriate will depend parrly on rhe age and meaningfui. and maturity of the students. tions for discussion: (1) To what extent and at which steps is it wise to aIthe class to see the substitution drill on which thcyarcworking? (2) Towhat xtent is translaticln from or into the students' native language desirable in this ind of exercise? EXERCISE,: Preparc a srmple line drawing or other picture junction with the drill represented by Table III.

to be used in con-

EXtsRClSE: Select a substitution drill and devise your own procedure for presenting it, using a number of the activities chosen from those that havebeenoutThen go through it using a trinedabove. Write theprocedure out stepbystep. colleague or someone else as a simulated class. Note the timerequiredforeach step. Go through the same procedure a second and a third trme, againnotingthe time spent on each step. What changes would you now make inyouroriginalprocedure ? is basically similar to the above, While the procedure with multiple-slotdrills the apparent simplicity of a drill like the one represented by Table Xlmaybedeceptive, The reason lies in the gap between the teacher's firmgraspof the language, and the student's tentative grasp, For the teacher, making a substitution first in one slot andthen in another is as easy as makingtlvo successive substitutions

82

I I I I I I

t I I

I I I I I I I I

.-. -:-; and the same slot (and it is a shade less monotonous). For the student, '..--, is lar less experienced in the language, the change from oneslottoanother r:r-ir€S a shift of attention which may be sufficient to break the rhythm of the -:--i, reduce the number of correct sentences practiced per minute, and other-

. ', -:=

lr^^^,--^^^ ur5!uuldHE

L:* lllltt.

The first time through the drill, therefore, it is wise to work with only one --,rr at a time until it has been mastered; after all slots have been developed in ::-:s \\'ay, choose the key word first from one of the lists, then from a second, :.-d so on,'alternating columns, when this has become easy for the class, take ---: key word from either column at random. Finally, bring in words from any :dditional slots.

TAPING A SINGLE-COLUMN SUBSTITUTIONDRILL Tape-recorded versions of substitution drills cafi be highly useful forextra rractice and for later review. Here are some points to keep in mind. The quality of recording is important, especially if the original is tobecopied, or "dubbed," to make the lab copies. Minimize not only the obvious'background noises but also the echo, which we tend to overlook until wehearitplayed back to us. one way to cut down echo is to record in a room that has a rug, or to hang blankets against some of thc walls. Another way is to keep the microphone relatively close to the person speaking, but a bit to the side so that it does not pick up the puffs of air that accompary some of the consonants. The purpose of the recording is simple: to provide thestudentwithaseries of stimuli, each stimulus followed by an opportunity for his own response, foliowed by immediate confirmation or correction of that response. The series should be arrangcd in such a way that the studer.rt is almost invariably right in his first response. One possible system is the following: I.

The initial sentence.

2. A pause sufficient for repetition of the sentence at normal speed, plus about a second for reaction time. This added interval wilt be shorter for short and easy items, longer for more complex ones. 3.

The cue word which is found in the initial sentence. 4. A pause iong enough for the entire initial sentence plus reaction time. 5. The initial sentence' serving now as corr:ection or confirmation of the student's response and also as model for a final repetition. A pause long enough for final repetition of the initial sentence. 7. Repeat (3) - (6) for each succeeding sentence, in the orderinwhichthev appear in the book or in which they were introduced in class. 6.

8. If there is sufficient time and tape, repeat the exercise, the sentences in random order.

83

this time with

Questions for discussion: (f) What other systems of recording single-column substitution drills have you found--or might you find--effective? An outstanding and highly practical treatment of this subjectmaybefoundinE. Stack, The Language Laboratory and Modern !g$_!ggg Tggghirg (New York: Oxford University Press, 1960), especially Ql5. II, III, VII. (2) The format outiined above has no place for a tape-recorded explanation of the clrill or for recording ofequivalents in the students'language. Why not? Is it wise to exclude thc nativelanguagecntirely from recorded drills of this kind?

DzuLLS N,IIMEOGRAPHING The teacher who writes and clistributes his own drills must seek a compromisc berwcen legibility and attractivL'ness on the one hand, and economy of timc ar-rdpaper or] the othcr. Choice alrong the following tl-rree styles tvill vary according to the inclividual drill. 1. The most economical and lcast graphic [ormatconsists of the inltia] scnt e n c c , w i t h a b l a r . r ki n i t , i o L l o w e d b y a l i s t i n g i n a h o r i z o n t a l r o w o l t h c w o r d s This ar:riingcmcnt is well suitcd to singlc-slot drills, to bc substituted irt it. but is convenicnt with multiple-s1ot drills only if the students may rcasor:rbiybe cxpccted to identify for themselves thc slot into which each word is to bc fitted. 'l'hc University of Michigan's Intcnsive Coursc in E,nglish tnakes skiilful usc of this format. 2 . A s l i g l - r t l yl c s s c o r n p a c t b u t n r u c h m o r - c g r a p h i c a r r a l g c m c n t i s t h c t a b ulat:, wi.tll tlic wurds that are to be substitutccl for: one anothcr:arrangcd in vcrtical columns. The table as a rvholc may be enclosed within a rectanglc, and the slots set off by veltical lines. Tltis stylc of prcscntation is especially ap* propriatc to n-rultiple-slot driils with iittlc orrlointerdependence amongthelists. 3 . A s o n r e w h a t n ) o r c L r o s t l yf o r m a t m a y n e v e r t h e l e s s b e j u s t i f i e d w i t h d r i l l s i n w h i c l i i n t e r d c p e n d c n c e i s a r - n a . j o rf c a t u r e , a u c l p a r t i c u l . a r l y s t - rw i t h t h e n r o r c c o m p l c x i n t c r d e p e n d e n c c s . - E a c h s c n t . e n c ci n t h c d r i l i i s w r i t t e n o u t i n f u l i . A "cuc" lvord or phrasc is pl:rccd at tllc lcft of cach sentcncc. Although this Ior:mat consumes morc spacc tharl the othcrs, it niay wcll pay lirr itsclf in clealing with tr:icky rnatters like thc word orclcl oI Iir-cncl-tl)r()nouns. (T'he following is c s s e n t i a l i y a m u l t i p l c . - s I o t d r i l l w i t h m i i r o r r n t e r d e p c r r c l e n c e ,t h c c l i l l i c u l t y b c i r t g to lear:r-rto put the right clenteut tnto thc r:ight slot.)

11()us la leur en

Show thern to h i n . Shorv thcm to u s . S h o r vi t ( f c m . ) t o u s . Show it (fem. ) to tlrem. Show some to t h e m .

Montre z- les- lui . M o n t r e z * I e s - r r o u s. N 4 o n t r e z *l a - n o u s . Montrez- la- leur. N ' l o n t r e z -l e u l - e n . etc.

As this drill is set out here, it is necessary togivethe cues in the order in which

84

I I I I I I I

t t I I I I I I

I

::'.= ailpear on the page, if the students' response is to coincide with the center -:rrrnr. The cue may be taken either from the first or lrom the third of these - riumns. Trris more expricit format is arso of varue in teachi'g stltutrons: Miami Fifth Srrecr llO SccondAve. a n a p ar t m e n t t h e e o u n tr y

He lives in He livus * He lives ut H e l i v c , sG Hc lrves iu ute.

interdependent

sub-

Miami. niftf, Srrcur. l l O S c , c o n dA v c n u e . , , , a p ar t m e r t t . tl,- country.

The cues in this drill rray be given in any orclcr. A s t u d e n t u s i n g s u c l - ra d r i i l i n h o m e s t u d y c o v e r s t h e arswer coiurnn, looks at a kcy word, and tries t. give the sentence. As soo'as he hasdo'eso, he uncovers the corresponding pr-inted serltcnce ancl checks .I.he hirlself. great aclvantage lics in thc fact tliat instatlt confirnration or correction is vastlyrnoreeffective in the shaping of behavior than is ver:irication whichis de.tayedfortwentyfou r ol fo rty- cight hour-s . Q u e s t i o n s f o r d i s c u s s i o , r : ( 1 ) H a v e y o u used othcl ways of writing out substitu_ l i o r r d r l l l s l ( 2 ) I r r t h c l i g l r r ( ) f y u u r . o w n expcrience, what are the advar-rtagesand drsadvantages of cach method? L,XEI{CISII: Write our in full, in each oI rhe t h r e e s t y l c s dcscribed above, the Swahili drill Iound in Tablc XV.

I I

I I I I I

EXERCISE: Wr:ite out in fui1, in cach oI rhe three s t y l e s , a drill on gen<1eroron rrregular verb fornts in a language with which you arc professiorrally conce l-ned.

TemptingBlindAlleys Again, most of the "tempting blind alleys" look ro the inexperienced teacher as though they would be shortcuts. some oI the most.ur,rrron u.", -t. Failure to obser-ve the principle of hearing before speaking by expecting students to produce sentences that they have not yet practiced from rnodels that iltcy have not yet made their own. 2. Failure to ,bserve the principre of speaking before reading by beginning \vith the drill visible on the blackboard or on paper. 3. Failure to go beyond the rnechanical driil into other activities which aliow and require a gradual increase in initiative an4 creative effort on the partof the student. As we noteO e reaches either Lts culmination or its collapse. 4,

On

the other hand, it is even more

B5

drsastrous

to demand too much

originality too soon: giving oniy the initiai sentence, for example, and expecting the class to make unspecified substitutions in unclearly designated slots.

4. TRANSFORMATION DRITI.S When? Transformation drills, iike substitution drills, are useful in exploring and in mastering grammatical structures.

Whot? however, are in principle drills, Transformation an Here is example. drills . substitution than I.

one degreemorecomplex

Did they see the Picrure here? No, they saw it in New York. Did they run the race here? No, they ran it in New York.

The drill

continues for a total of ten lines, each with a differentirregularverb.l

In effect, then, the sentence with which the student is supposed to reply in the above exercise constitutes a very simple single-slot substitution table. The In a pure substitution exerdifference is in the item that is serving as "cue." cise, the cues would have had to be past-tense verbs: -saw, ran, etc. If a list of present-tense verbs had been used, the drill would have already beguntotake on the characteristics of transformation. Because transformation makes slightly greater demands on the student than does substiturion, it should in general come after it. By the same token, itis often wise to use in substitution drills the sentences which later are to enter into a transformation drill . H e r e , f o r e x a m p l e , a r e two substitution drills sema ngoja jaribu jificha soma

I

Nilisdma. Niling6.1a. Nilijaribu. Nilijificha. Nilis6ma.

I I I I I

Verbs: King, H. V., Irregular ington Pubiications, n.d.)' p. 8.

in Swahili:

spoke. waited. tried. hid. read,/studied.

Lessons and Oral Drills

86

(Washington:

Wash-

I

t

I I I I I I I I I I I I I I

- sa:le

Ni Ni Ni Ni Ni

'^.< JJ U

- aribu -; ifiche - some

lazima us6me t6na. l6zima ung6;e rena. l6zima ularibu tena. l6zima ujiffche tena. lazima us6me tena.

You must You must You must You must You must

The two, combined into a single transformation drill, thrs: I.

Nilisema. Nilingoja. Nilijaribu. Nilijificha. Nilisoma.

Ni Ni Ni Ni Ni

Iazima us6me lazima ungoje lazima ujaribu Iazima u.lifiche lazimausome

speak again, wait again. try again. hide again. read again,

would look somethinglike

(t6na).2 (tena). (tena). (tena). (tena).

EXERCISE: use yourself and your colreagues as guinea pigs and try to master this exercise ' It has been mastered when you can give any of the response sentences upon hearing the corresponding cue sentence. EXERCISE: Break into two substitution drills,each the following Swahili transformation drill: Nilifanya kazi jana. Nilinunua viatu jana. Nilipiga kelele jana. Nilicheza jana. Nilisafiri jana. EXERCISE: tables:

(Leo) (Leo) (Leo) (Leo) (Leo)

combine into a single transformation

shoes pictu-res horses dishes

These These These These

big good fast clean

They They They They

with its own column of cues,

sifanyi kazi. sinunui viatu. sipigr kelele. sichezi. sisafiri. drill the followrng substitution

shoes are very big. pictures are very good. horses are very fast. dishes are verry clearr.

aren't aren't aren't aren't

big enough. good enough. fast enough. clean enough.

The purpose for which an exercise of this kind would ordinarily be used would be to teach the placing of the word enough after adjectives, and not befcre them.

---

Parentheses around a word in this exercise and " the next mean that the word which they enclose is not essential to the grammatical structure of the sentence, but has been added in order to make the response sentence a more idiomatic rejoinder to the cue sentence.

87

When used as a part of a transformation drili, the sentences in the above tables may be joined by some such simple connective word as but. E,XERCISE: Without any knowledge of Swahili grammar, or of the meanings of most of the words in the Swahili examples given above, the experienced teacher can still state, in terms of form, the purpose of each of the two Swahili transWhat are those purposes? formation drills, Because transformation does allow the student to carrygreaterresponsibiliAnother ty, it should r.rotbe neglected as sequel to practice with substitution. of the great advantages of transformation is that each Iine in the drill constitutes a little two-sentence conversation. Transformation is in this respect one step closer to thc give and take of everyday language use. On the borderline between substitution and transformation lies the drill in which the cues are embodied in minimal scntence fragments, oftcn spoken with ouestion intonation: Cue

II.

And he ? And And And And

they? shc? you? John ?

Response I am hungry. Hc is hungry too, They ar:e hungry too. Sho is

h . 'n * nor\/ b_J

r_ r" r" o '

I arn hungry too. (ctc. )

E,XERCISE: Add six lines to Transforrration Drill l. E,XERCISE,: Write out the singie slotsubstitutiontables thatcorrespondtoTransformatiott Dri]Is I and II . W h c r e s u b s t i t u t i o n d r i 1 l d e a l s w i t h t h e rclationships amorlg words within a s i n g l e s e n t e n c e , t r a n s f o r m a t i o n d r i l l d e a l s with the relationships among sentenc c s . T h e s e s c n t e n c e s m a y c o n t a i l l c x a c t l y the same words, with only a change of intonation:

III.

He has it. He Iikes it. He nceds it etc.

He has it? He Iikes it? He needs it?

Or they m a y b e i d c n t i u a l e x e e p t f o r a c h a n g e a s s o c i a t e d w i t h c h a n g e o f s p e a k e r : IV,

I like it. I have it. etc.

You like it. You have it.

88

I

I I I

t

I I I I

t

I I I I I I

I I I I I l I I I

t t

t I

t I

I

T r - . ^ - ^ - +L :I L^U,r.41r ^ - Ur r*r rr rr r w o u l d b e m o r e r e a l i s t i c i f i t included also a change to ques1 ltI> Pdr lLon intonation. Slightly more difficult is a drill in which the w o r d s c h a n g e c o m p l c t c l y f r o n l one line to the next, but the relationship berween e a e h p a i r o f s e n l c n c e s r e m c i n s constant: You like it? He sees them? It's snowing? "Where is he?"?

I like it. He sees them. It's snowing. Where is he? etc.

In one of the most frequently used varieties of transformation drill, the studcut is asked to change a statement to a question, or a verb from past to future, or a statement from affirmative to negative: A rather crude cxample is thefollow-

rns V]

ls hc wor:king? Are tl.rey playing? Does hc work har-d? Do they play cl.rcss?

He is working. Tl.rey are playing. Ile works hard, They play chess.

This drill is loosely constructed in two fespccts. First, it is not -realistic as :l fwo-Iine conversation: the second half of each line, which is a qucstioL], asks for exactly the informatior.r which was given in the first half. Whcn wc do ask a question for that pulposc in real Iife, we do uot phrase the question in this way, but instcad ale morc likely to say something like "Did you say hc is w6rking?" or "Working, did you say?" In the second placc, the transformation, or change, illustratcd by tlie first two lines of VI is differer-rt from the transformation illustratcd by thc last two lines: Is he working?requircs only a change in word order, whilc Docs hc work hard? involves the addition of tl.reword does, and the loss of the suffix from thc n-iain ve rb . Drill Vl could be refined by breaking it into twoseparatedrills, thoughtl.rese ltight later be recombined into onc, aftertheyhavefirstbeenm:rstcredsellaratcI r . T l r e ' yc o u l d b e m a d e n r c r r ul i f e l i k e w i t h o u t s e r i o u s i n c r e a s e i n d i l f i c u l t y b y thc addltion of some short fixed increment, such as the advcrb hard: \.II.

Is he working hard? Are they playing hard? Is he running hard?

He is working. They are playing. He is running. at.

Exercises which involve change o f t e n s c s h o u l d o r d i n a r i l y c o n t a i u i n e c r ' l r of the line some word or Phrase which is compatible with the tense with which

89

it occurs there, but not comDatible with the tense in the other half of the line: VIII.

He is srudying now. He is taking a nap now. He is driving to work now. gLL

He studies every day. He takes a nap every day. He drives to work every day.

.

One common pitfall

is illustrated

in the following

drill:

I went to town vesterdav. Are you gorng to town tomorrow? I ate in a restaurant yesterday. Are you going to eat in a restaurant tomorrow? ola

The problem here Iies in the distribution of stress within the response half of each line. The sentence Are you going to go to town tomorrow? inmostconversational situations where it would be used, would have the heaviest stress on town, while as a -response to the sentence I went to town yesterday, it will have ln the design of drills this difficultycannotalways heaviest stress on tomorrow. be eliminated, but the teacher should always be aware of it. EXERCISE: Write out, for English or some other language, a transformation condrill of eight lines, involving one of the following grammatical problems: trast befween two tenses; contrast between question and statement; contrast between statement and exclamation . Lying in another sense on the borderline between substitution and transformation is a drill in which the presence or absence of some element or elements in the cue sentence determines the choice of some element in the response sentence. The successive lines of the drill may be quite independentofoneanother so far as their lexical content is concerned, but therelationshipbetweencueand response remains constant throughout the drill: You're doing well .

You're doing very well. You're doing pretty well ,

There aren't many buses,

There aren't very many buses,

She's a good dancer.

She's a very good dancer. She's a pretty good dancer,

It's not easy.

It's not very easy.

The room isn't iarge.

In this exercise, the word pretty does not occur in negative sentences. et al, El Ingl6s Hablado INew York: H o l t , 1 9 5 3 l s e c . 5 2 . 2 a . )

90

(Agard

I

T

!

:.':l.CISE: write a transformation drill which includes the sentence Kenneth '-; :-, ).oung ro go to schoor. The purpose of the drill should be to giv;lrac_ i.-: -r -:sing the construction too_ to_with adjectives in the first slot.

T r t t I I

t I I I I I I

t

:.'-nRClSE: write a transformation drill based on a sentence from ,,c,, a ver_ :- -: :i one of the anecdotes given in the earLier section of this part, state very ::=;iiically what the purpose of the drill is.

Where? Transformation drilIs are reratively plentifur in many foreignlanguagetext_ :,lKS. often, however, they need refinement and supplementatron in orderthat : - = - sc l a s s m a y g e t f r o m t h e m t h e g r e a t e s t amount of practice with the least possi_ :-' amount of error, losttime, andfrustration, Thefoilowingdrilr, forexample, :-.ight be broken down into several parts, eachpartbeing suppllmented by the addi_ ::rn of enough extra sentences to bring its total rength up tt .t least six rines: Change the following sentences to the negatrve:

(l) I am hungry. (-1) We are tired. (7) I have some stamps. (10) He Iikes oysters.

(2) They work hard. (S) He must go now. (g) Are you reacty?

(3) Can you speakporruguese? (6) He should wairfor rhem. (9) We bought some oranges.

EXERCISE: carry out the reorganization of this crrill as suggested above. Disringuish among sentences that require and those that do not iequire some form of the verb do to be added to the negative; between statements andquestions;be_ rween sentences which entail a change from some to any, and those that do not. what other distinctions might be observed in ttre process of refinrng this drill?

How? The techniques for using transformation drills do notdifferessentia.llyfrom rhose used with substitution exercises. The difference between the two types ot drill, as has been pointed out above, is in the nature of the cue and in the degree of responsibility placed on the student. As with the other kinds ofactivity discussed ln the preceding sections, the difference between a temptrng blind a1ley and a genuinely time-saving short-cut often depends, notsomuchonthenature of the activities themselves, as on the ability of the class. what is of ut_ most rmportance is that the teacher be aware at all times, notonly of whatheis doing, but of the other subtle variations of technique to which he may turn if the present one seems either too difficult or insufficiently challenging. In the delicate work of leading students from mere manipulaoon to real com_ nunication in a foreign language, one of the greatest assets that a teacher can have is the ability to "talk in pattern;" to converse extemporarleously, limiting rrs choice of words and grammatical structures in such awaythatmostof what

9)

and thatthestudents he says is within the limits of materialpreviouslystudied, do so, the teachcr must limits. In order to reply within the same to are able have a keen appreciation of just how small an increase ingrammaticalstructure may be, and he must have practice in working within very narrow restrictions. This ability is best gained by taking a real class througha series of lessons in which introduction of new grammar and vocabulary has beenstrir.rgentlycontrolled. This writer had such an opportunity using Fries, Kitchin, and French's English Through Practice, now long out of print. Another elementarytextwhich provides almost as strict control of new material isMitchell'sBeginningAmerican English. This book also includes a very heipful leaeher's S"td". ln an attempt to give to a number of student tcachers a brief taste of working within such restrictions, this writer once prepared a ratherlengthyexercise consisting of 74 discrete steps. The response of that grouit ar-rdof another similar group was so positive that the sanlc exercisc was included in Helping People Learn English (pp. f0Eff.). The response from users ofthat volume, in turn, has becn encouraging enough to justily refcrence to it here.

EtINITENW E SI TSHF I E X I B l t l T Y R [' 5 A N :C O M B I N I NDG 5 . T H tT E A C H E P The precise way in which one combines the various kinds of drill nrust of course depend on the situation and on the levcl of achievementwhichthestudcnts have already reacired. In many teaching situatio[s the teacher soongetstoknow the class quite well and can make out a fairly straightforwarci lesson plan bcfore each scssior-r. Such a plan is likc a singie set oI railroad tracks. In other situations, more flexibiiity is dcmandcd. Under such circumstances, it n-raybe n e c e s s a r y t o c o n s t r u c t a p l a n w h i c l - rp r o v i d e s a n u m b e r o f a l t e r n a t i v e s , c o m p a r able to a series of railroad switches. At cach switching point, there should bc ( i ) a c l c a r l y s t a t e d g o a l , ( 2 ) a c r i t e r i o n b y w l . t i c ht h e t e a c h e r m a y d c e i d e i n a v c r y short time whether that goal would bc wor:thwhi.le for the studcnt(s) withwhomhe is working at the moment, and (3) a series of activitics wtrich will help the students to reach the goal. The following is an example of this "branching" stylc of tcaching plan, It was actually used with encouraging results by a group of women in an eastern city who were engaged in giving individual l1elp to a lurnber ef "intermediate" students, at one two-hour "morning coffee" per week. The materials which werc used in the beginning were this writer's Supplementary Lessons in American E n g l i s h , b u t t h e l o r m a t p r o v e d a d a p t a b l e( b y t h e v " l u n t e c r t e a . h e r s t t e m s c l u " t to new material, including non-anecdotal texts. Some procedures which may l" starting with a short anecdote.

q94"1

i,r gi"i,rg i"f.

llnglish,

First of all, read the story to the entire group. Go through it two or three times, Then break up into smaller groups . Individual instructors may follow one or more of these procedures:

92

I T I I T I T I I I I I I I

I I

:. GOAL: Repetition =f vou the sentences of" the text? If st e ..n,-go

on to B or C.

.: she cannot: I . Go through the story one short sentence at a ttme. 2. 4nswer any questions about meanings. 3. Have the .t,rdg$_Igpgg! each short sentence after you. Do not ler her use ttre mof< tfie frrst time through! 4. r[ there is a ma.10r mistake in pronunciation, pronounce the entireword gorrectly and let the student imitate you. _ 5. lf the student seems to be profiting from this, repeat A3 ancl l{4 a few tlmes. 6. Go on to B or C.

t s' G O A L : A n s w e r i n g s i m p r e q u e s t i o n s o n the text. Ask questio.s from the ,,yes_ no" list. can the student answer: easiry and correctly wiih the book crosed? If she can, go on to C or D. If she cannot: i 2.

r I I

r I

t t I I

3' 4. 5.

Read each question aloud, making sure she understands rt. Read arso thcsente'ce in the story which contains the answer to that questron q99!q ttgJ so that shc gives the right answcr. If she iras serious difficulry, go back to A. Ask the qucstions again, in their originar or:cler, -tettinghergivethe an_ swers on her own. Ask the samc questious once more, ln ranclom order. GoontoCorD.

c. GOAL: Answering nrore complex qucstions . This time, use the rist of ,,oth_ er questions. " can the stuclert answer them easily and correctly./ lf shc can, goontoDorE. If she cannot: Usc the procedures of B with these new questions. Then go on to D or E.

D. GoAL: Making up new sentences by analogy, (The "similar sentences,,sectron requires the student to procluce sentences following a given analogical pat_ tern, which is exemplified in the sentences at the head of the same section,) see whether the student can fill in the blanks, or otherwise produce the de_ sired sentences easily and correctly. If she can, go on to.tl or F, If she cannot, help her untij she can.

93

Then go on to E or F.

E.

GOAL:

Use of articles

I

or prepositions.

See whether the student can read the story aloud, filling as she goes, If she can, go on to F or G.

in the blanks correctly

I

If she cannot, work with her until she can, and then go on to F or G. (Be sure that no one writes in the book itself.)

F.

GOAL:

I

Telling the story in one's own words.

Ask the student to tell the story in her own words . mistakes and let her tell it again.

her most serious

Correct

If you think she would profit from it, repeat the same process oncemore. goontoGorH.

G. GOAL:

t

Then

t

I

Vocabulary building on a related topic.

Prepare in advance a list of words and phrases used in some area of life related For example, the following Iist might be useful in connection with to tie story, the storv of Robert Lowe.

It

I Postal vocabulary:

l.

re"er ::#xla

postmark

air letter special delivery

second class mail "junk mail"

mailbox

;:I[:T:li'.""

Invite the student to try using the first word in a sentence, ortotellyou what it means. If she can do so easily and correctly, go on to the second word, and proceed in this way through the list. Then go on to H. If she has any difficulty at all, proceed without delay to G/2

II

I I

I I

2,

3.

Explain very briefly the meaning, and use the word two short simple sentences. Have her repeat them her theword or phrase only and let her try to give tence , Proceed in this way through the whole list.

or phrase in one or afteryou. Thengive you the whole senThen go on to G,/3 or

Review the vocabulary by giving the words and phrases in randomorder and allowing the guest to use them in short, simple sentences.

I I

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I T T T I t t I I

:-:.

GOAL:

Free conversation on topics related to the original text,

l:=:are questions which are likely to lead to discussion. .::=,r to the story of Robert Lowe, are:

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I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I

PARTIII. TAIKING ABOUT GRAMMAR

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t I I I I I I I I

I

The past twenty-five years have seen an increasing interest in and controversy over the subject of "grammar. " Much of the discussion has represented genuine difference in outlook, but a Iarge amount of the dispute has centered on the question of how best to formulate grammatical statements. This workbook does not espouse any one style of grammatical statement. Rather, it attempts to make the reader aware of the relationshipbetween the "rules" and the living langr-rage, and to give him practice in rnakingthekinds of observation of language which underlie any type of grammatical formulation. It is, in a sense, a brief introduction to what might be called "pre-statement grammar. " Of all the class time that languagc teachershavewasteddownthrough thc centuries, the largest amount has probab-ty been consumed in the activity '' k n o w n a s " d i s c u s s i r - r gg r a m m a r . T'hc typical answcr to a student's question ap o i n t ( 1 ) a g r a m m a t i c a l i s l ong, (2) centered onadiscussionof "meanings" bout and "logic, " and (3) garnished with intcresting but irrelevant spcculation. lt therefore does little to fulfill the purpose bcliind the student's qucstiorr. And what was the purpose behind his qucstion? As a mattcr of fact, the student's conscious aim may have becn to get just the sort oI reply that thc teacher gave. Yet his real. pur:pose in asking the question is a part of his total goal in all of his language study: to acquire habits whichwilllcadhirntoproduce the kind of utterances that are produced by atready establishcd speakers of the 1ar-rguageand to avoid producing tl-reother kinds of utterances. So when he asks what "part of speech" a word is, he is really asking his tcacher to guide him in using the word as cultivated nativc speakers do; when he asks "why" a certain construction has unusual word order, he is in eIl-ect asking under what circumstances he should use that kind of word order. In this respect, however, the most helpful comments and explanations about grammar are: (l) short, (2) refrain from speculative digressions, and (3) center on the audible and visible lorms o{ the language, with mention of but not dependence on "meanings." But tro* .un you and I, trainecl as mostof usare in an older tradition, planation ?

learn to make this more useful kind of grammatical

ex-

First, Iet us be clear about what we do not mean by a question of The choice between he doesn't and he donEs not a matterof "gram"r.rg* " qutt" .f"arly, mar"; it is primarily a question thc form which we "i should teach our stlrdents to produce is he doesn't. The acceptability ofthe reason is because is also a question of usage, not of grammar, though this writer "Usage" then, is *""1d oppose its use in textbooks for non-natives. "ett*.ty grammar.

concerned with deciding, on the basis of socialcriteria, forms is more prestigious, or more widely acceptable.

which of rwo competing

"Grammar," as we are using the term here, is concerned with the description of one language (or of one dialect)ata time. Agrammaticaldescripjusthowthatlangtion is supposed to tell, as accurately and clearlyaspossible, prefixes, suffixes, intonauage or dialect arranges its smaller forms--words, A tions and the like--within its larger forms, such as clauses and sentences. grammatical statement also gives information about the meanings of the constructions which it describes. Within the past thirty years, many fine books have appeared on the The titles scientific study of language, and their number is increasing rapidly. of some of them are given in the exercises contained in this section, Careful study of one or more of them will help to clarify the teacher's thinking about grammar, both byadding new information and by illuminatingoldknowledgefrom a new angle. The brief serles of discusslons whlch comprise Part III of this book are certainly not intended to replace such study, We have attempted only to select from thethoughtof some of the leading scholars inthe fieldcertainconcepts which we feel are essential for dealing intelligently with questions of grammar, and have tried to intertwine them intowhatwehopeisareasonablycoherent whole. A series of "Problems" are intended to stimulate thought and, in situations where a number of experienced teachers are using this book together, to provoke the sort of discussion which will enable each to profit from the experience of the rest. Bibliographical references at the end of the sections lead directly to the sources of the principal ideas or to important applications of them.

I. UNITSAND HIERARCHITS "Wait'til I get to a good stopping place." No matter whatwearedoing--painting the porch swing, reading a book, or making a dress--we somehow feel that certai,n points in the process are more suited for stopping than others. These stopping places help to make the boundaries of the little units into which, indeed our whole lives. consciously or unconsciously, we divide eur wqr(-snd These units may be of almost any size. The larger up of smaller ones, which in turn are composed of still smaller

ones are made ones.

Bibliographical: K. L. Pike, LanguageinRelationtoaUnifiedTheoryoftheStruc oFf-i.tgurstlm, ture of Human Behavior (Glendale, California: Sum*eitn-EtuG 1954) Part I" .hrJ-3.

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There is of course a lower Iimit beyond which wedon'tordinarilygo, but each slat in theporch swingis certainlyonesuch unit; thewholeseatisahigh_ er-level unit, comparable to the whole back; the entire first coat is a still larger unit contained within the total activity of painting the swing.

ProblemI Point out units of activity of various sizes in: (a) a football game, (b) a church service, garden.

2. "CoMPLETENESS" "And when I found the door was shut, I tried to turn the handle, but. " These final words of Humpry-Dumpry to Aliceleftherthoroughlydissatisfied, and with the feeling that he really ought to have goneonandsaidsomething more . Psychologists might say that for her the utterance lacked "closure. ,' Humpty-Dumpty had stopped, all right; there was no disputing that. But he had stopped at a place where Alice, on the basis of her past experience with English, had not expected that he would stop. Some strings of words have the property of creating, with an appropriate intonation contour, this feeling of closure. strings of words that grammarians apply the label "sentence."

when spoken It is to such

Problem2 Which of the following strings of words are "sentences" in the sense we have just discussed? boy spoke the boy spoke the boy said come after come along

rhree day by the refrigerator the man from ten very big understand sunlit

Bibliographical: Pike, op. cit., ch. 3, 4. G. L. Kittredge and F. E. Farley, AdvancedEnglish Grammar, par. 1: "A sentence is a group of words which expresses a complete thought..,.Every one of t h e m . . . c o m e s t o a d e f i n i t e e n d , a n d i s f o l l o w e db y a f u l l p a u s e , "

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(c) an academic course, (d) making a

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SI0TSANDIISTS 0F SPEECH: PARTS 3' RECOGNIZING "The my father is old." "Is very old?" Neither of the above word groups, though we have punctuated them as sentences, and though their meaning is perfectly clear, quite addsuptowhat speakers of English use as a "sentence." The first contains one wordtoomany, (the word the), and the second one word too few. A string of words which, without the addition or deletion of any of its members, "adds up" toa "sentence" may be said to "have connexiry, " or to "be connex." Customarily when we write a string of words which we intend to have property of connexity, we begin the first word with acapitalletterandplace this after the Iast word one of the three marks (' ? !). ln speaking, we useoneof a comparatively smallnumberof intonation contours with such a string; the most common is 231. Working in the opposite direction, if we see a stringof wordsbeginning with a capital and ending with one of those three punctuation marks, or if we hear one pronounced with one of thosc same rntonation contours, we try to interpret it as being connex. The word light, for example, is sometimes "used as an adjcctive"; it is then comparable to dark, heavy and othcr words that we call "adjectives." At other times, wc say that it is "used as a verb"; then itiscomparableto bring, extinguish, and so forth. Now, if we see the string of words Light the lamp. written in that way, or if we hear thosc sane words spoken with a 23I intoIf we know that nation contou-r, we wiII try to interpret it as being "connex." " "connex, dark the lampand but that are lamp and the extinguish bring thc. lamp verbal sense, light in its interpret tend to not, then we will are iamp heavy the rather than its adjectival sense. ln fact, thc other interpretation would not ordinarily occur to us at all, except whell we are studying theories of grammar.

Problem3 At times, paint is "used as a noun," and at other times it is "used " as a verb. Which interpretation fits each of these strings: Paint the barn. Bring some paint. . . . p a i n t a r o u n dt h e . , .

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Bibliographical: Pike, 1954, Chapters 1, 3; Y. Bar-Hiilel, "A Quasi-arithmetical Notation for Syntactic Description, " ( J a n . - M a r . , 1 9 5 3 )p p . 4 7 - 5 8 . L a n g u a g e ,2 9 : l L. Barrett, Writing for College, p, 30: "Words or groups of words which are symbols for things are called 'substantives,"'Why is this definition inadequate?

4. ARBITRARINESS IN THEREEOGNITION OF "COMPI.ETENESS'' "John soldier. " This string is not "connex" in Engiish, but the two Russian words which correspond to these, placed together in the same order in Russian, are connex: they form a perfectly normal, acceptable, and correct Russian "sentence," The free translation is "Johnis a soldier." The examples at the hcad of Section 3 show us that a string oI words may be perfectly intelligible without A string may also be "connex" without being completely intellibeing "connex." gible: The isosceles idea warbled warmlv. Each language has its own rules and ,ru,-r.io.A" for "connexity." In Portugucse, the string of words 6le soldado which correspond to he and soldier are not "connex" any more ttra.rttreyareingnglish. Butthestrings of *o.,1" tfr.t,rorrespon<1 one-for-one to the my father is oid and is very old do "senteniii.a d d u p t o q u i l c r r o r n r a .,l a c e e p t a b l e , .'o....-Po.trgr""" "nd Problem4 If you have studied one o-r more foreign languages, add to the above examples others which show how languages differ ln their requirements for "connexity. " Bibliographical: Regarding this and several other probiems in this series, see RobertLado, LinguisticsAcrossCultures. SeealsoE. A. Nida, Learning a Foreign Language, ch. B, "Putting Words Together. " Ifa non-native speaker of English produces sentences Iike "He going now, " what probably lies behind this error?

SIMITARITY GRAMMATICAT attend the conference before the conference leave the conference Anyone who uses English wili feel that the first

t0l

and third

of these

much more like one another than either is like word-groups are grammatically If he is grammatically sophisticated, hewillsaythatthetwosimilar the second. groups "are complete sentences," while the middle "is incomplete." Even a person who does not know the terminology willgivesomekind If we assume that two people have beentalking of equivalent reaction, however. about a certain meeting, and that one of them says, "Before the conference" as a whole utterance, with 23I intonation, the second person is likely to respond with "Huh? What did you say" or "yes? go on!" unless, of course, he himself has just asked a where question. The word-groups attend the meeting andleave the meeting on the other hand, are under no such restrictions. If they are spot(en with 231 intonation, the speaker of English reacts to them as "being connex. " The first and third word-groups, then, have a "privilege of occurrence" which is not shared by the second: namely, that they may combine with 231 intonation to produce utterances which speakers will normally treat as beinginsomesensefinished. But thesecondword-groupalsohasprivilegeswhich the first and third do not share. For example, it may combine with a preceding they are to form the Iarger word-group they are before the conference, which, when combined with 231 intonation has the same degreeof"closure"asattend the conference has. Our first and third word-groups do not have this prlvitege: *they are Ieave the conference or *they are attend the we do conference. ".t ".y It would be possible to go on and find a number of otherformallystatable differences between our first and third phrases on theonehandandoursecond phrase on the other. For our present purposes, it will not be necessary to do so. We have already done once what it will. be our aim to do continually in this part of the book: we have begun with a grammatical intuition and have looked directly at some of the formally statable characteristics nf the phrases which correlate with and in a sense lie behind the ininvolved--characteristics tuitive feeling. Our answer has been reduced finally to a statement about what we do and what we don't do in English: if we want an utterance to be accepted as having closure, then (with a suitable intonation) we do sometimes say: attend the conference leave the conference they are before the conference but we don't say: *before the conference *they are attend the conference *they are leave the conference

IO2

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Problem5 Find some other differences between the second word-group and the other two, which you can state in terms of what we say and what we don't say.

Bibliographical: C. F. Hockett, A Course inModernLinguistics, Ch. 19, "Form C l a s s e s a n d C o n s t r u c t i o n s ".

(CoNTD.) 6. GRAMMATTCAT S|MIARTTY In Section 5, we were concerned with places where the total phrase attend the conference may be used. A place where a word, phrase, or other form is used is called an "environment." For example, in he is working, we would say with respect to is that its "environment" is he ( ) worting; wittr respect to working, would say that its "environment" ir!g tl ( ). witttin working, the "environment" in which work occurs is ( ) ltrg, inwhich "ndthJ"enuironment" ]1g occurs is work ( ). In this section, we shall turn our attention to what is often calledthe internal atructure of our phrases. When we speak of the "internal structure" of a phrase, we imply reference to a number of other phrases which are in some sense "grammatically equivalent" to the one we aretalkingabout. Sometimes it is assumed that any native speaker of a language can tell us easily and reliably whether two utterances are or are not "grammatically equivalent, " Theassumption may be demonstrated to be false by such a simple test as asking a number of speakers of Englishwhetherhewenthome andhe wentyesterdayareequivalent. Pike also points out the untenability of the assumption.

Problem6 matically l. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8.

According to your intuition as a speaker of English, is (A) or (B) grammore like the model?

we work hard: he reads fast: a big dinner: a big dinner: red apples: red apples: to church: to church:

(A) (A) (A) (A) (A) (A) (A) (A)

to work hard, she reads well, to cook dinner, a fish dinner, eat apples, sour apples, to understand, to school,

(B) (B) (B) (B) (B) (B) (B) (B)

they work hard who reads well a fish dinner a hot dinner three apples three apples to the barn to the barn

(These examples have been tested with a number of classes of students, both native and non-native speakers of English. Their intuitionshavebeenfoundtoagree about 90/s of the time. )

I03

Pike, 6p. .i1., p. 119' libliographical: ican English, p. 229.

W . N . F r a n c i s , T h e S t r u c t u r eo f A m e r -

AS A FIGURE OF SPEECH 7. ''SUBSTITUTION'' With Pike, we have seen that the question whether two phrases have "same or "different" grammatical structure is by no means a simple one the for a native speaker to decide. Exercise 6 indicates, rather, that grammatical similarity is better thought of as being a matter of degree ' We may, however, with Pike, make an "analytical leap, " and use our intuition to pick out a number equivalent of other utterances which we at least suspect of being grammatically to one another. In a large number of cases our intuitions will prove to have been correct, but we must always test them in terms of what we do say and what we don't say in English. ln the case of attend the conference, for example, we might suggest the [ollowing tetttativccquiva]erlts: leave the conference observe the conference study the confcrence advertise the conference Whcn, as in these examplcs, the utterances being compared are alike exccptfor the words in sotnc one part of them, we may use a conventional figure of speech and say that leavc, observe, study, and advertise have been "substituted for at'slot'( ) the confercnce." The figure is harmless as longas we relglg in the member what it stands for. Beginnir.rgagain with attend the conference, we may "make substitutions for conferencc, " such as convcntion, scssion, meeting, class. Translated again into a statement oI what we say, this substitution list implies that we say: attulld the attund tlle attcnd the attend the

eottverttion scssion mceting class

and that we suspect these utterances of being "grammatically tend the conference.

equivalent to" at-

In the same way, we might "make substitutions" in the "slot" occupied by the, suggesting such tentative substitutes as a, this, that, our, every.

tJ:::;iJtnro Transratethe precedinr

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a srarementof whatwe say in

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t

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T

T

tt

English. Bibliographical . Pike, op. cit., p. 34 (for "spot"read"slor." C. C. Fries, Structure of English, ch. 5, "Parts ofSpeech," ch, 6 "Function Words."

Problem7-B In a manner parallel to the discussion in Section 6, discuss tentative equivalents for the word-group before the conference.

("r.C'S") 8. "r.EXrCAt C0MBtNATT0NS" lf we begin with the word-group study the conference, which we have already guessed to be equivalent to attend theconference, wemayproducethefollowing lists of trial substitutes: ( ) the conference attend study leave

study the ( ) conference book assignment

This means, by the definition in section 7, that we use in the first slot of this kind of utterance any of our first list, together with conference in the last slot: and that we use in the last slot of this same kind of utteran.e ,rry of the second list together with study in thc first slot. It does not, however, say anything about whether we do or do not form grammatically equivalent utterances using other combinations of members from the two lists. We would not, for example, say: *attcnd the book *attend thu assianment in present-day American English. There are, in other words, certain combinations of lexical items which are relatively likely to be used to fill the slots of this set of grammatically equivalent word-groups: attendstudy---leave-----study--study-

------conference ----conference ---conference ------book - - assig'nment

and certain other combinations that would never ( or hardly We have already seen that examples of this category are: attend---attend-

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---book ------assignment

ever) occur there.

In a sentence with three major slots , such as The bird swallowed the worm. the()()edthe(). some likely combinations are: snake child dog

swallow swallorv chase

bird pin cat

swallow swallow chase

dog child bird

and some unlikely ones are: cat pin house

Each of the horizontal rows in the examples given above is a "lexical combination. " A "lexical combination" then is a set of word stems which fiII the slots in The term will be coming up so often some slotted grammatical construction, An LC may have two members (attend, conferthat we shall abbreviate it LC, (snake, swallow, 4I9) ot even more. 9199) or three members

Problem8 From the following two lists of single-word substitutesforlovelyand day make a list of LC's which when fitted into the slots will produce phrases that are grammatically equivalent to the original, and which are actually used in English.

It is a lovely ( ). bird idea

It is a ( ) daY' nlce humid cloudy pretty short

Which LC's taken from the above iists would produce phrases which we do not normally use in English? Bibliographical: Z. S, Harris, "Co-occurrence and transformation in linguistic structure," Language, VoI.33, No.3, pp. 283-340, especially sec. 2.0-2.2. N. Chomsky, Syntactic Structures, sec. 5. 4.

9. "MoDltlcATloN" In Section 8, we sliced our data horizontally, in a sense, and talked about LC's which fit into pairs of slots in grammatically equivalentwordgroups. Now let us return for a moment to Section 7 where we were in the same sense

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We spoke there ofthree "slots, " and a "list" siicing our data vertically into lists. that was appropriate to fill each of them. In terms of linear order, thefirstslot was the one which could be filled by the Iist leave, watch, study, advertise; the second could be filled by the, a, this, that, our, every; the third could be filled by the Iist convention, session, meeting, class, Nothing in what we have said gives us any indication that the three slots are not all of equal and co-ordinate status. Yet we find our grammatical intuition rebeiling againsttreatingallthese slots alike. What facts, stated in terms of what we say anddonotsay, correlate with and presumably lie behind this intuition? Here are a few of them: We say: he is at the a this that our every

where is

conference conventror_ session class meeting

the conference etc. etc.

and we do say: he will

attend etc,

regularly

let's not attend etc. but we don't say: +he *he *he *he

will will will will

attend attend attend attend

the regularly a regularly our regularly every regularly

But what isimportantis We do, of course, say he will attend this regularly. the whole list which fitted into he is at ( ) conference and into ( )conference a success does not fit into he will attend ( ) regularly.

that was

Likewise, we don't say: *Iet's not attend the *let's not attend a etc. Generalizing from these and similar

data, we can say that the list that includes

t07

the precedes as it does in ments where with the may

the our the no[

list that includes conference in many other environments, just original sentence, On the other hand, there are many environlist that begins with attend occurs, where the list that begins Iol]ow directly alter it.

A convenient figure of speech for expressing the samegeneralization is that the list which includes the is a "satellite, " rvhichis relatedtoa"nucleus", w h i r ' h r s t h e l i s t t h a r i n c l u t l e s. o n f e r e r r e e . C a r r y i n g o u r r e a s o n i n g o n e s t e p f u r ther, we may also say that in tf-r" .trlgt" utterance attend the conference, the singiu wurdthc is u satcllite of thc single wordconfe."nc.. fhi"i""r"r-rtiallywhat w e m L ' a nw h e n w e s a y , i n J m o r e t r a d i t i o n a l f r g u r c , f s p e e c h ,c h a tr l t e " m o d i l r e s " eon[erencc

Problem9-A P r e s c r - t te v i d c n c e c o m p a r a b l c t o t h a t o f S c c t i o n 9 , d e m o n s t r a t i n l l t h a t in the phrase vcry old men the word very is asatelliteof thewordold, notof men.

Problem9-B Present a similar- argumcnt based on the plirasc ninc old men, shrrwir-rgthat nine is a satcilitc oI rncn, not of olcl .

Problem9-C From the same point of view, is not a satellite of is, or of good, or of neithcr, in thc utteraucc the idca is not good? Support your answer with evid ( , r r L (s' t a l c d i l l t L T n r s . , 1 * h r f w " t r y c * l u v l , r rw e t l o n o l s r y . 'Nuclear structurcs in linguistics,' Languagc, Bib.[iographical: R. S. Pittman, '21 ( i 9 4 E ) . . 287-92 Kittredge and Farley, op. cit., par. 16: "Tomodifyaword is to changc or affect its meaning ln some way." Doesopenhavethcsame"rneaning"inhe opened an account and in he opened a window? If not, do account and winclorv "modify" opened according to Kittredge and Farley's defrnition?

10."B0uND moRPHEmES" Con-rpare the word- groups: attending attended attends attend

the thc the the

conference conferencc conference conference

studying studied s tuoles

the the the the

book book book book

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Each of these eight word groups is like one of the word groups that we deait with in Section 8, except that six of them contain somethingextra. That something is in each case a small, but meaningful element, not divisible into smaller meaningful eJ.ements; some linguists call them "morphemes," There are three new morphemes in the above word groups. Because these three are never represented in writing or in speechasgraphicallyorphonologicallyseparate items, but always occur linked to some other element, thesemorphemesare called "bound morphemes. " Probably the least confusing way to look at morphemes is to think of them, not as consisting of sounds or letters, but as being represented invarious ways--through sounds in speech and through letters in writing. In this sense, the bound morpherne in our first word group in this section has only one written representation: -ing. (The hyphen stands for the fact that it is bound to something that precedes it.) In standard pronunciation, it also has only one common phonemic representation: / -rtJ/, The second bound morpheme in the data for this Sectionhas one regular written form: -ed. It has three regular phonemic representatrotts /- *J/ or /-t'd/ when the precedingphoneme is /t, d/, /-d/ after orher voiced phonemes, and /-t/ after other unvoiced phonemes.

Probleml0-A What are the regular written and spoken -representations of thebound morpheme present in attends and studies?

Probleml0-B What is one bound morpheme that can be attached to any member of the list conference, convention, session, 4!"r, meeting? What is its approximate meaning? How many regular written representations docs ithave, andwhat are they? What are its three regular phonemic representations, andwhenis each one used? Bibliographical: H. A. Gleason, An Introduction to Descriptive Linguistics, ch. B "out]ine of English Morphology." c. F. Hr.t"rt, op. .tr.,.tt 2JiInfl"..rion, " especially p. 2r0, last paragraph. on what basis do we say thar bent "is the same form of" bend that attended is of attend? Any answertotl.risquestionshould be based on a.td accro*pu.rt"a ly of what we say and what we dor-r't say ""u*pI"" in English.

I I . " P R I V I I . E GOEFSO C C U R R E N C E ' ' In Section 10 we saw that we can, so to speak, add any one ofat least three bound morphemes to attend, in the word-group attend the meeting. The

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three are "mutually exclusive with one another"; this is, we cannotaddmorethan one of them at a time.

Problem ll-A Translate the preceding sentence into lists of things that we say and things that we do not say. If to the word-groups attend the meeting, attendsthemeeting, attended the meeting, attending the conference we apply the kind of tests suggested in Section 5, we find that the four are by no means identical with respect to the environments in which they may be used. Only the first exhibits rhe kind of "closure" to which we referred there. The sequences they they

attend attended

the conference the conference

he he

attends attended

the conference the conference

he is they are

aftending attending

the conference the conference

all exhibit the same degree of "closure, " but not *they attending the conference *they are attended the conference *he is attends the conference etc. That is, the "privileges of occurrence" of our four word groups taken as wholes are by no means identical for phrases containing different members of our list of bound morphemes.

ProblemI l-B Assembie pairs of utterances that we do and do not use, differentonly in the presence or absence of the bound morpheme, showing the differences in privileges of occurrence between word groups whichdoanddonotcontainthemorpheme involved in Problem lOb. Bibliographical: J. Sledd, A Short Introduction to English Grammar, ch. 2 "Parts of speech, " esp. pp. 68ff. Is the modern English verb "inflected" for present perfect tense (e.9., go: have gone, attend: haveattended)? Asmostpresent-day grammarians use the term, the answer is no. Yetwedofindourselves(Kittredge and Farley) driven to talking about something like "phrasal inflection" or "compound tenses" for such phrases. Compare Sledd's treatmentof thisproblemwith that of Chomsky (op. cit., sec. 5.3) and of Fries (op. cit., p. 90ff).

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I2. "PARTS OFSPEECH'' Let us now turn our attention to a slightly longer and more complex sentence: Our teacher attended the conference, Lists of trial substitutes in the two new siotswouldincludeforteachersuchwords as friend, principal, boss, Jather; and for our such words rs rhe, this, [hat, every, a, The first of these lists is new, but the second is identical wittr ttre one that fills the slot occupied in this sentence by$g. lt is also true that the words in our list teacher, friend, etc., combine with the same bound morphemes that combine with the list conference, convention, meeting, etc. In these two respects, then, the two tists sfrow stritcrng simita.tty. tfris kind of similarity issr.r important in the Ianguage that it receives recognition inall systems of grammatical terminology, A common way of speaking of it is to say that in the sentence which we are discussing, teacher is "the same part of speech as" conference. The most common name for this "part of speech" is of cours" "nou.r.i- ln tt. same way, the and our are sometimes said to belong to a single"partof speech."

ProblemI2 Using Section 12 as a model, assemble evidence to showthatnewand young are "the same part of speech" in the new boy is young. Bibliographicai: Treatments of "parts of speech" in the works cited by Fries sledd, Hockett, and Francis. Explain why it is not very heipful tothenon-native student of English to tell him that both very and quickiy "are usually adverbs. " Why is it fruitless to argue over whether my "is' a plenominal adiective or an adjectival pronoun?

13."SlNGl.E WORD" VS."tlST";THEIMPORTANCE 0F MIMBERSHIP tN "tExtcAt coMBtNAI|0Ns" In the sentence of Section 12, the major slots are those filled byteacher' attend, and conference. These three words, and other sets ofwords that fi.tl the same slots, are "3-member LC's."

Probleml3-A Make a list of rwelve 3-member LC's that will fill the slots in rhe ( ) ( )ed the ( ). Four should contain teacher in the first slot, four should contain attend in the second slot, and four should containconferenceinthethirdslot. Notice that any word thatcan occur with some LC's in the first of these slots may as a member of other LC's occur in the third. Bycontrast, only

l|

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some of these words ever appear in the middle slot, and only some of the words This is athat appear in the middle slot ever appear in the first or thirdslots. nother part of what we have in mind when we say that teacher and conference are "the same part of speech. "

Problem l3-B Iliustrate say in English.

the preceding paragraph in terms of what we do and do not

Bibliographical: Look again at the article byHarri.s, Sec. 0-2.2. SeealsoChomsky, Ch. 9, "Syntax and Scmantics." How are LC's reiated to what has someWhat is the most helpful comment times been called "semantic compatibility"? you could give to a non-native student who produccd the senterrce I want to buy some tall shoe-strings? (In this instance, as in many othe-rs, the most heipfu,t eomment is eonsidcrably briefer tlrJnsomc ,rl-lhc more interesting, ntore confusing, and less helpfui ones.)

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I 4 . " C O - O C C U R R ERNAC NEG E S ' ' Related to the concept of lcxical combination is tic occurrence range." Rcferring to the slots

conccpt of

''co-

rhe( ) ( )edrhe( ) if we have attcnd in the middle slot, then the third slot is lrkely to be lilled by some such word as confercnce, convention, session, but is very ur-rlikelyto be ontheother filted by book, bird, breeze. If the word in the rniddle slot is hand, then likely choices for the third slot include book, lesson,4+.,whileconferencc is a little less Likely but quite possible. In defining a "co-occurrence rangc" we havc to give five kinds ofinformation: (1) the word with respcct to which we wish to establish the range (here, attend); (2) the grammatical construction within which we wish to establishtherange(here, the( ) ( )edthe ( ); (3)theslotinthatconstructionwhich (4) the is filled by the word we have choser.r(in this instance, the middle slot); 1 ' r o s i t i o ni n t h a t c o n s t r u c t i o n w h e r e t h e c o - o c c u r r e n t s a r e t o b e l i s t e d ( i n t h i s i n stance, the third slot); (5) a sampling of fhe words in that second positicinwhich are (a) very likely to appear (conference, session, meeting) and of those which are (b) unlikely to occur (book, bird, breeze).

Problem l4-A D e s c r i b e c o - o c c u r r e n c er a n g e s i n t h e s a m e s e n t e n c e : ( a ) f o r t h e f i r s t s l o t , w i t h a t t e n di n t h e s e c o n d s l o t a n d conference in the third slot. (b) for the second slot, with reporter

in the first

TI2

slot and meeting in rhe third.

I I . J I J I J J

I

( c ) f o r t h e f i r s t s l o t , w i t h d i s r u p t i n t h e second slot and conference tn the third.

t I

t t t I

t t I I I

t I

Problem l4-B E,stablish a co-occurrence

range in the first slot for nest in the sec-

ond slot. The()isinits(). Do the same for lair in t h e s e c o n d s 1 o t .

l4-C Problem Find a slotted sentencc in lvhich the words breeze and gale are partly diflcrent in thcir co-occurrcnce ranges.

Problem I4-D Find a slotted scntcncc in whrch thc words different in their co-occui:rence -rangcs. Bibliographical: Har-ris, op. cit.,

,'r\/

trr.

rrrrllrr

scc. l'.42-1.13.

I 5 . " I . E X I C ACI .O M B I N A T I O NWSH ' ' I C HR E C U R IN SUPTRFICIAI.I.Y D I F F E R EC NO T NSTRUCTIONS ln Englisl-r ."vedo norrnally say: wc wc we we

saw saw saw saw

an oid tcachcr a new tcachera busy tcachcr: an car[cst tcacher

but we do not r-rolrnally say: we saw a massrvc tcachcr Putting tcacher into new cnvironmcnts, wc do say: the old tcachcr is hcre he canrc lvith an old tcacher he paid the old teacher a comp-liment a n d i r - ra n y o f t h e s e n e w e n v i r o n n r c n t s w e I r r a y c a s i l y u s c n e w , b u s y , o r e a r n e s t as a substitute for old; in the same cnvironments we would be unlikely to use m a s s i v e . B u t i l a s i . t u a t i o L \r v c r u t o a r i s c i n w h i c h w e d i d f e e l m o v e c l t o s a y : w r ' s 3 w a m c s s i v c t e a c h er then we would be just as likely to use massive in the otherenvironments to above.

I

I

\r/'i't\ ilnrl

113

referred

I

That is to say, co-occurrence restrictions between two ormorelists are to a large degree independentof the phrasestructureofthesentencesinwhich they occur. It is this fact which makes them interesting to the grammarian as well as to the lexicographer,

Problem l5 The LC's tree-grow, farmer-work, plane-fly may beusedas subject and finite verb in simple sentences like the ( ) is ( )ing. Mention three orher sentences containing slots where these same LC's occur other than as subiect and finite verb. Bibliographical: Otto Jespersen, How to Teach a Foreign Language, p. 107, the discussion of grammaticai drills that involve the "reshaping" of whole sentences. On p. 109, Jespersen observes that "the pupils must always be trainedtoconsider whether a newly constructed sentence makes sense or not; thereby both their linguistic intuition and their powers of logic are sharpened at the same time." (Emphasis mine.) Restate in more objective terms. For a bookletof lessons in which "reshaping" exercises are handled in a masterful way, see H. V. King, Irregular Verbs,

16. "TRANSFoRmS" We saw in Sec. 15 that we sometimes find two ormoreconstructions which contain the same LC's of two or more members ( and also, possibly, other words, bound morphemes, and intonational contours), suchthatthesameLC's that satisfy (i.e., make sense in) one of the constructions also satisfy (make sense in) the other, and such that LC's which do not satisfy one also fail to satisfy the other. using a term borrowed from the works of Harris and of chomsky, we may say that constructions which are related to one another in this way are "transforms" of one another. Thus: the teacher attended the meeting ( 2 ) e d the (3) the (1) ("noun phrase")

("completc sentence")

the teacher's attending the meeting. the (J,)'s (2) ing the (3)

are different constructions, but LC's which satisfy one satisfy the other, Present to a speaker of English the sentence he is cleverer than the girl and he will accept it as normal English; sugge$t tfr" f,"i".teu"."t ".nt"n." than the mountain, and it will be rejecred, probablywiththe.orn-"nt"M*nGi* aren't clever." We can say the same thing in more formal terms: a sentence of the form the (1) rs (2)er than the (3)

Lt4

I

I I -J

I I I I I I I I J J

J J J J

I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I

I

implies the existence, in good standing, of the two simpler is

(2)

the (3) is

(2)

the (r)

sentences:

Using Harris' very useful figure of speech, we may then say thatthetwoshorter sentences are combined by means of a transformation to produce thelargerone; this particular transformation involves, among other things, the addition of -er and of than, and the "zeroing out" of the second occurrence of is(2). Adifferent figure of speech, which is perhaps more directly applicable to classroomneeds, is to say that the simpler constructions "underlie" the more complex ones.

ProblemI6 The sentences Dagwood calied Mr. Dagwood called Mr.

Dithers a taxi. Dithers a tyrant.

seem on the surface to be grammatically identical, since bothtaxiandtyrantare nouns, and thcre is no differenr'ein iutonalionor strcss bcrwecn rh. t*o "cnt.ttGive other ces. Yet we feel that two different constructions a-re represented. sentences which you feel to be parallel to the first, and others which you feeL to be parallel to the second. Then show how the fwo sentence constructions differ with respect to the simpler sentences that "underlie" them. Bibliograptry: Chomsky, op. cit., ch. 7 "Some Transformations in English." Harris, op. cit., Sec. 2.6, 2.9, 3.9, 5. Fries, op. cit., p. 193f.

D I R I V E DW '' ORDS H A R A C T E R I SOTFIC CTSR T A I"N AT I 7 . S O M TG R A M M A I I C C As speakers of English, we know that a phrase of the form the I'ear of X implies an underlying simple sentcnce, ft"_i"r.p_4, alsocontainingfeutunO whatever we would substitute for X in the first construction, and that ir-rthe underlyi.ng simple sentence fear would be "functioning as a verb, " while in the fear of not-.' [ n t h e u n d e r l y i n g s c n t u n e c , X i s r t r . o n 1 e . ' to f f " a r . X it "functions as " p o s s i b l e f o r X i n t hese two-member LC's is death. Suggest several value One i n a n d t e s t t h e m b o t h constructions, others, We also know, however, that a phrase of the form the help of X implies an underlying simple sentence in which help and X occur, In this respect, the help of X is Iike the fear of X. But in the underlying sentence that contains help, we find that X is the subject, not the object, of help. One possible value for X is the teacher. Suggest others, testing them in both constructions. In the above examples, the "nouns" help and fear sound and look exactly like the "verbs" help and fear. Butcomparethefollowingpairsofconstructions. For each pair there is a singlelist of values of X which willsatisfyeither

115

constructron. beiief in X. ."f i.f of X. a collector of X. rrt" x i. .t*ight. mispronunciation

' . of X'

He believes ln X' lt r"Ii"ued the X' He collects X. t etC-straigriten the X. . He mispronounced X.

Here, the forms of the nouns are different from the forms of the verbs. The systematic study of the forms of related qouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs, and of the differeut constructions in which they occur can be a most useful way of increasing one's vocabulary and also one's general fluencyinEnglish.

ProblemI 7 In terms of underlYing simPle sentences and of t h e L C ' s w h i c h t h e y contain, discuss the structural ambiguity in the phrase the Iove of God. A number of textbooks arc now making major usc of sets of reBibliographical: pur:pose we have ir-rdicated. Sce for examplc, Kcnneth Croft, the for latecl words S t u d y , P a r t I I . S e e a l s o F r i e s ' c h . 7 , " P a r t s o f S p e e c l . r :F o r a n d W o r d Reacling mal Characteristics . "

O FI . I 5 T S I 8 . " C O . O C C U R R ERNECSTT R I C T I OANMSO' ' N GV A R I O UKSI N D S We have seen that in the slotted scntencc: the( ) ( )cd the ( ) the worcls which may be used in the first slot are partially dependcL.rton which word is in the second slot, and that the words appropriate for the second slot are The same is true of partially dependent on which word we choose for the first. the relationship betlveen the second arrd third slots, and toalesser degreeof that wl-rich exists between the first and third slots. To refer to these facts, we have used thc term "co-occurrencc restrictions." We arc dealing, tlren, with a kind of "sensitivity" which the fil]ers of one slot display with respect to thc filLers of some other slot. Wl.ren the fiilers in both slots are members of large groups of word-stems, we refer to this sensitivity as tlte existence of "co-occurrence restrictions" between the slots, and ln the example to the resultsofthese restrictions as "co-occurrence ranges'" which we are discussing, the sensitivify is mutual- it operates in both directions .

l8 Problem mutual sensitivity which exists beof degree that the We have said than the degree of sensitivity which less is above slots and thlrd tween the fir:st this statement into examples of and Translate third. second the between exists use' don't we that sentences and we use that sentences

ll6

I I I I I I I I I I I I I I J I

I I I I I I

I I

t t

Check on the discussion of synonyms in an English-EnglishdicBibliographicai: tionary such as the American College Dictionary, or the Advanced Learner's Dictionary of Current English. In the formet, for example, wefind atreatment of the difference between improper, indecent, and unbecoming. Bothoccurinthe second slot in the sentence the ( ) was ( ). Showhowthesethreewordsarealike, and also how they differ with respect to the ranges of words that may be used in the first slot. AIso, think of a corxjtruction where unbecoming may be used, in which neither indecent nor improper may be substituted for it at all.

(c0NTD.) REsIRlcTl0Ns" 19."co-occuRRtNcE We also find "sensitivity" existing between slots which are not filled by members of large groups of word-stems: -#

the teacher

our book -#

borrow -ed

-b

-S

_S

The symbol # is uscd hcre to call attention to the absence of the other suffix(es) in its column. This simple diagran.r stands for twelvetheorctical-iypossiblesentences: *the teachcr borrow our book the teachcrs borrow our book *the teacher borrow our books the tcachers borrow our books tire tcacher borrowed our book 6t,.

Four of thc twclve, including the two markcd here with an asteriskarenotallowed in Engllsh.

Probleml9-A

t I I

t

Complete the iist of the twelve sentences which can be derived from Mark with an asterisk the ones wtrich arc not allowed in EngIislt, the diagram. In this example, the mutua.Lsensitivity is between certain members of the first and second columns of suffixes . The third column, though it contains the same elements as the first, is r-rotaffected. P r o b l e ml 9 - B Explain the precedingparagraph we have listed.

in terms of the twelve sentences which

Bibliographical: Fries, op. cit,, ch. 8, "Structuralpatternsofsentences,"esp' p. I44, and ch. 9, "Structural meanings: "Subjects and Objects, "esp. p. 176.

I il7

Gleason, op. cit., sec.10.20-I0.22. Hockett, op, cit., ch. 25, "Kinds of Syntactical Linkage." Compare the sentences John's got to do it, hasn't he?, Somebody's got to do it, haven't they? and Somebody's got to do it, hasn't he? How does the third parallel the first in ways in which the second does not? Ofthe second and third, which seems more "natural"toyou? Whichseemsmore"correct"? For an opinion in favor of using the second, see English Language Teaching, JulySeptember, 1959, P. 175.

(coNcLuDED) REsTRlcTloNs" 20."c0-occuRRENCE Inter-slot sensitivity of the kind we dealt with in Section l8 is usually called "semantic, " while that in Section 19 is "grammatical ." Between these extremes, there are many other varieties of inter-slot sensitivity, which differ from one another in the size of the lists involved, and in whether one or both or neither of the lists consists of suffixes.

20-A Problem D i s c u s s t h e s e n s i t i v i t i e s w l - r i c he x i s t b e t w e e nt h e l i s t s i n t h i s t a b l e . Try to do so in a way that would be helplul to a non-native student of English. he is

rcsponsible proud

his

to for of 'at

parents

Problem20-B Do the samc for these lists: I askcd

John Mary Waltcr Phyllis Marion

he

but

didn't know

20-C Problem Do the same for these lists: I said he she

so

my-

- self

Items in the first of these slots can be made to display mutual sensitivity among three slots in this sentence, not justone. Giveexamplestosubstantiatethis statement.

It8

T I I I I I I I I I I I I J I I

I I

I I I I D I

rI

I I I I I

20-D Problem Do the same for these lists: I asked the

boy glrl man mother teacher boys girls teachers

didn't know. ,but he she they

Bibliographical: Gleason, op. cit., 10.17-f0.19. Hockett, loc. cit. The "Question Box" in the same number of English Language Teaching referred to in 19 contains the question "Could you piease tell me the real difference between over This is of course a doublequestion, andeach and above, and under and below?" The questioner's half is phrased in a way that is obviously much too general. native as speakers of Engiish real purpose is to learn to use these four words use them. What helpful information can you give in terms of slotted sentences' and relationships of "mutual sensitivify" among the fillers of slots?

DISCUSSION POINTFORFURTHTR 21. "SHIP5lNK5":A STARTING The following short essay is intended for use as the basis of discussion among teachers who are already familiar with many of the basic works referred to in the bibliographical notes in Part IlI. "Ship sinks." Does this mythical telegram announce a maritime disaster, or is it a request for plumbing fixtures of a certain type? lts ambiguity, aided no doubt by its brevity, has made this kind of "message" a favorite topic for discussion We shall use it as the basis forfurtherelaborationoftheprinciples by linguists. been developing in Part III. we have which The smallest meaningful units (the "morphemes") plesentarereprethe lneitherinterpretationof /srrJk/ and/s/. /|ip/, sentedinpronunciationby beshownbythe may units three telegram, the hierarchical arrangement of these

t

single diagram:

I I I

Written as phonemes:

I

G

l sip/

/sirJk/

119

/s/

itis obviouslyinadeBecause the diagram applies equallytobothinterpretations, quate to explain the ambiguity of the sentence. lt is, in fact, nothing but a restatement of that ambiguity. If we interpret the telegram in a nautical framework, we will suggestas trial substitutes for ship the list f(ship1): boat, steamer, canoe, andfor There exists between these sink the list f (sink1): capsize, arrive, overturn. two lists, and between any two members of them used in combination, a grammatical relationship to whicl.r we could easily give a familiar name,butwhichwe shall refer to for the time being simply as Relationship J' By the lirst interpretation tl.re cnding which is pronounced /s/ represents an inflectional suffix i,vhich we shall designate with the symbol s. This suffix has three regular pronunciations: /s/ as in puts, /z/ asrn bids,and /nz/ as in races. The choice amongthese three pronunciations of s depends onthelast pr"."At,-tg sound in the stem of the verb. Another suflix wl.rich, likc s, occurs in the same position witl-r Lists f(ship1) and f(sink1) is the so-called past tense ending. We shall syn.rbolize it with ed. The pronunciation of thc past tcnsc cnding ecl is subject to even more v a r i a t i o r r t h a n i s t h e p r o n u n c i a t i o r - ro 1t h i r d - s i n g u l a r s . I t s m o s t c o m m o n p h o n e m i c reprcsentations arc the suffixes /d/ as in whirrcd, /t/ as in washed, and /r'd/ as ir-rwaited. Ttre pronunciation which represents the combination of thc past tcnsc morpheme with the stcm morpherne sink is however i-rrcgular: sink + cd

--)

/sa,:r1k/

The past tense sutfix ed may be adcied to our cliagrar-rrin the sarne column with third-singular s. There is another suffix that we may add to our diagram, Thisoneis pronounced as a suffix to the wor:d in List (sltipi) and is commonly called the uounplural ending. Our symbol Ior it 1s z. When this sulfix appears, witharnember oI List f (shipi), the third-singular suffix s does not occur with the corresponding membcr of List f (sink1). That is, we do not, in our first interpretation of the telegram, say "Ships sinks. " Our ])hv359-struuture diagram for the nautical interpretation telegram nolv looks like this:

u

+ boat canoc steante t:

Z

SInK

tI

a rftve capslze ove rtu rn

I

L-

(not both)

t20

of the

I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I I

I

T T T T t I I I l

t

t I

t t I

If on the other hand we take the telegram as a request to send sinks, we will suggest quite different lists of trial substirutes. Into Lisr f (ship2) we might put send,dispatch, keep, return, and into List f (sink2) faucet, pipe, bathtub ' Between Lists f (ship2) and f (sink2) or any two representatives of these lists used together in this way there exists a second relationship, which we shall call Relationship 2. With this second set of trial substitutes in the main slots, wewillnot suggest ed as a substitute for the morpheme represented in the original sentence by /s/. We will, however, suggest it as an optional satellite for ship. (Thc sequence ship+ed is pronounced /lipt/.) In the same waywewillsuggestthirdperson s as a sateilite for List f(ship2), and noun-plural z as a satellite for List f (sink2). We will note also that there are no limitations, as there were in Diagram (2), on using the morphemes s and z together. That is,wc maysay, in talking about plumbing, either ship sinks, ships sink, or,s-]!pg sinks. The phrase-structure tclegram now looks like this:

diagram

for the second interpretation

of the

III

+ "hlll

scrrcl cte .

+

+

sink i.i,r. . t

S

ecl

ctc.

In Diagrams II and IIl, we havc dealt with only some of the suffixes that occur as satellites of our four lists. Many other potentialsatellitesofthese same lists are pronounced as separate words: a, the, our, rnust, mav, new, g ! 1 9 ! l y , a n d s o f o r r h . l i w e l i k e d , w c c o u l c l L . c s i l yc t e n o r a t c r t r " J " r u - " . t i n g . * , to show the places where thesc other satcllites can occLlr. On page 120 we made our initial definition of Relationship t. That definition, like the definition of Relationship 2 (above), wasstateciin termswhich border on the semantic. Phrased in that way, however, the definitionsmaypossibly come nearer to having a diachronic and cross-linguistic usefulness than rvould definitj.ons in terms of the inflectional data shown in Diagrams II and III . Those diagrams are important summaries of some formal characteri.sticswhich Relationships I and 2have in present day English. There are of course a great many LC's (lexicalcombinations)which occur together in Reiationship L LC's which occur togetherinthefirstandthird columns of Diagram II also occur together in a wide range of other environments, some of which are:

r2t

(4)

I

He caused the He watched the ing was unexpected,

The LC's which occur together in Relationship 2, on the other hand, They do, however, occur in a do not consistently occur in these environments. somewhat different set, in which the LC's of Relationship 1 do not consistently Samples a re: occur.

(s)

ing the

Who

ed

was difficult. ?

They made us We ought also to take a look constructions represented by Diagrams such as the before List f (ship1), all the complete utterances, of a ^"y r"rrr" "s ces."

at the slots into which we can fit the total II andIIl. Withtheadditionof someword sequences represented by Diagram II type usually caLled "declarative senten-

The same is not true of the constructions representedbvDiagramlll: *Ttle_tgnd faucet, for example. lf we take the minus possibility inwe do not say dicated for Column 2, Diagram lll--that is, if we use neither the suffix s northe the sequencewhich the diagram represents may serve as a comsuffixed--then Ship sitks and plete utterance, but of a rype commonly labeled "imperative." in column 2, the cona morpheme without or are examples. With faucet Return struCtions corresponding to Diagram lll may combine with various preceding words or groups to form declarative sentences: Returned the bathtub is not a declarative sentence in standard prose style, but He returned the bathtub is. The same is not true of the constructions that correspond to Diagram II: We do not

I I I I I

I

t t I I

eapsize say *He-egneex

I To recapitulate, we began by defining a "Relationship l" as that relationship which exists between two Iists of our trial substitutes, andbetweenany We have defined members of an LC which consists of words from those lists. " "Relationship 2" in a similar way, on the basis of two other lists of trial substiWe then went on to sketch, interms tutes, and befween members of those lists, of suffixes and word order, fwo different "constructions, " shown in Diagrams II and III. We found that lists and LC's in Relationship I entered into one of these constructions, while those in Relationship 2 entered into the other. our telegram is ambiguous because it gives us no clue as to which If from any source we were able to pair of lists its words were chosen from, learn which lists were appropriate, we would know the construction, and the "gramIn almost any situation matical meaning" would become clear and unambiguous. in real life, we would be able to get this information from knowing who the telegram had been sent to: a maritime insurance agency would hardly be receiving

I J

I I

I

I _l

I r22

I I I I I I

I I I I

an order for sinks, and a plumbing supply house is not ordinarily promptly of a marine disaster.

informed

so

Another source of the needed information may be authority. If the teacher tells us that the words are in Relationship 2, then we know immediately that we are dealing with words from Lists f (ship2) and f (sink2), and not from the others, for that is precisely what "Relationship 2" means. We know, inother words, that the relationship between ship and sinks is the same as thatbetween and difthe two words of another telegram Return bathtubs (or Water flowers), relationship in Canoe capsizes. ferent from the Indeed, it is worthwhile to turn from examining the ambiguity of Ship sinks and comment on the structural u n a m b i g u i t y o f R e t u r r , bathtubs. The latter is unambiguous because (and only if) return and bathtub do not occur as LC's in Relationship 1 lf, parallel to The ship sank. He caused the ships to sink. we also said *The return bathtubbed. *He caused the rcturns to bathtub. then Return bathtubs would be just as ambiguous stfuctu-rally

as is Ship sinks.

To return to our examination of unambiguous sentences, nerther of the following would ordinarily be considered structurally ambiguous: Ship new sinks.

(Taken as unambiguously Relationship 2)

New ship sinks.

(Taken as unambiguously Relationship l)

rests Our feeling that these examples are structurally unambiguous first of all on our knowledge that new, when it occurs just before List f (ship1) or f (sink2) can serve as a satellite for members of these lists, butthatthe same is not true when new occurs just before Lists f (ship2) or f (sink,). Also necessary for our perception of the structural relations within these two sentences is our knowledge that the combination new + List f (shipt) when it precedes List f (sink1), wiII combine with that list rn the construction of II toproduce alarger We also know that the same is true of new + f (sink2) when it folconstruction. Iows Li.st f (ship2) in the construction of III . Now, the sentence "Ship sinks" is structurally ambiguous, while "New ship sinks" is not. The observable difference between the two sentences is the word new. ln this sense, we may say that new is serving as a "structural signal ."-S-ome other words which could serve rn the same way a-re the, our, this, those, large. The two sentences "New ship si.nks" and "Ship new sinks" containthe The observable difference but their structures are different. elements, same

I

t23

Under these circumstanceswemay between this pair is the order of the words. signal.'' "structural a as say that word order is serving still another kind of "stluctural

signal" may be illustlatedif

we shift

foramomenttoadifferentexample'lftheelementsinoulsentenceare black bird see 3 ] us the species of the bird' or we cannot be sure whether the writer is telling merelyitscolor.lnotherwords,wealeuncertainwhetherblackisservingas includes red, orange' green' J419y' a representative of a List f (blackl) which We know' howc:w' cat' red' includes u. uf o List I (black2) which lummr,ng' used inthisposition, theyhaveheavever, that when cat,-cow, and humming are lf' yeilow normally have less' and green' oranEie, while bird, ier stress than difobscrvable The is uninibi.guous. therefore, we hear the ubovc-scntenJe, it sentences the between ference (i' e' rrota yellow one) l see a blAck bird I see a Ui6ct
T

I T T

(i' e' not a carbird)

T I

sornctimes we uravthussavthatstress [J.i:tj""'::.,:,i'l:,T[itJ,]::,::,""""''

I

.l.hcmatcrialofthellrececlingparagraplrswilltake()namorefanili"the subject- predicate relationship' " a r r i n g i f i r . r s t e a dO f " R e i a t i o n s h r p l " w e r e a d relationship'" ltissuggestcdthat and for,,Ilclationship 2" rcad "the verb-object clear to hlm' already not is foregoing if the just tliat the readcr clo

I I

PRoBLEM:Theforegoingbriefcssaycanlrardlybecorrsideredacontr:ibutionto scr-vc as an occasion for rethinking linguistic theory. It is intendcd, rather, to have been much inuseamong orrJ r-rror" careful defi'ition oI certain terms which . some of thcsc tcrms aIe years linguistically o rie ntecllanqualle teachers in lecent ,,patter', ,, ',substrtutio', 'i an,t "structural signal . " Discussion mightbcginwith as a "structural signal" constithe question as to whether: our description of new tutcs J reductio rd absurdum'

124

T T T t t I I I I I I I I I

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B IB I.IOGR APHY

The following list providesstandardbibliographical data for the publications referredto in this workbook; it is not intended to be either selectiveor exhaustive.The readeris referredto the periodicalsin this field, and particularlyto the publicationsof the Center forApplied Linguistics,for information on recentpublicationsconcerning the teachingof English and other languages. Bar-Hillel _Y."A Quasi-ArithmeticalNotation for SyntacticDcscription," Language, 2 9 : l ( 1 9 5 3 ) p, p . 4 7 - 5 8 . Bigckrw,G. E. and Harris, D.P. The Llnited Statesol America: Rettdings in Englishas a Secctnd Language.New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, Inc., I g60. Chomsky, N. SynfoctlcStructures.The Hague: Mouton, 1g57. croft, K., ed. Readingand word Studu. Englewood cliffs, N.J.: prenticc-Hall, Inc., 19 6 0 .

du Toit et aI. In the stream.Johanncsburg:NasionaleBoekhandclBeperk,n.d. Francis,W. Nelson. The StructurectfAmerican English.Ncw York: The Ronald Prcss Co.,1958. Fries,c. c. Teuchingand Le.aning Englishas u For<:ignLanguage.Ann Arbor: I Ini, versityof Michigan Press,1947. -The

Structureof English. New York: Harcourt-Brace,I g52.

-(j1shin, A. and French, Y. English Through practice.Teacherscoilege, mime o g r a p h e d1, 9 4 7 . Gleason,H. A. An Introduction to DescriptiueLinguistics.Ncw York: Holt, Rinchart & Winston,Inc., 1961. Gurrey, P. TeachingEnglish as a ForeignLanguage.London: Longmans-Green, 1955. Harris, Z. "co-occurrence and Transformation in Linguistic Structure," Language,

) ,p .2 8 3 - 3 4 0 . 3 3 : 3( 1 9 5 7 p

Hockett, c. F. A course in Modern Linguistics.New York: The Macmillan co., 1g58.

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I King, H. Y. Irregular Verbs: Lessonsand Oral Drills. Washington, D.C.: English LanguageServices,Inc., 1956. ---and Campbell, RussellN. Modern English Primer, Part l. Washington. D.C.: Engllsh LanguageServices,Inc., 1956. Kittredge, G. L. and Farley, F.E. Aduanced EnglishGrammar.Boston: Ginn & Co.,

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t913. Cuhures.Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press,1957. Lado, R. LinguisticsAcross I Mitchell, E. G. Beginning American English. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall,

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Mclntosh, L. et al. Englishas a SecondLanguoge with SpecialReferencetttHungarians.Neu' York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, Inc., 1957. Nida, E. A. Learning a ForeignLanguage.New York: FriendshipPress,1957.

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Paratore, A. English Dtalogues.for FctreignStudents. New York: Holt. Rinehart

Inc.,1956. & Winston,

I Pike, K. L. Langua1iein Relatiortto a Uni.fied'fheoruof the Structureof Human Behauior.Glendale,Calif.: Summer Institutc of Linguistics,1954Pittman, R. S. "Nuclear Structuresin Linguistics," Language,2a (1948), pp.287-92.

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Prator, C. H. Manual of AmericanEnglish Pronunciation(rev. ed.). New York: Holt. R i n e h a r t& W i n s t o n , I n c . , 1 9 5 7 .

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Sledd,J. A ShortIntroduction to English Grammar. Chicago: Scott,Forcsman& Co.,

ress.

Smalley,W. Manual of Articulatory Phonetics.Tarrytown, New York: PracticalAnthropology, 1962. Stack, E. The Language Laboratory and Modern Language Teaching.New York: Oxford University Press,1960. Learn EngLish.Nashville:Abingdon Press,1957. Stevick,E.W. Helping PeopLe

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SupplementaryLessonsin American Englishfor Aduanced Students.Nashville: Abingdon Press,1959. Thomson, D. et aI. SpokenEnglish.4 vol. Kyoto: English Academy, 1960-62. Trager, G. and Smith, H. L. Outline of English Structure.Norman, Oklahoma: BattenbergPress,195l. Wright, A. PracticeYour English.New York: American Book Co., 1952.

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PERIODICATS

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English Language Teaching (quarterly), The BritisL Council, 65 Davies Street, London.

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Language Learning (quarterly), University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Linguistic Reporter (bimonthly), Center for Applied Linguistics of the Modern Language Association,Dupont Circle Bldg., Washington, D. C.

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