McGraw-Hill's Essential ESL Grammar

MCGR AW-H ILL'S ESSEN T I A L

ESL Grammar

A Handbook for Intermediate and Advanced ESL Students

MARK LESTER, PH.D.

New York Chicago San Francisco Lisbon London Madrid Mexico City Milan New Delhi San Juan Seoul Singapore Sydney Toronto

Copyright ? 2008 by Mark Lester. All rights reserved. Manufactured in the United States of America. Except as permitted under the United States Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

0-07-164234-X

The material in this eBook also appears in the print version of this title: 0-07-149642-4.

All trademarks are trademarks of their respective owners. Rather than put a trademark symbol after every occurrence of a trademarked name, we use names in an editorial fashion only, and to the benefit of the trademark owner, with no intention of infringement of the trademark. Where such designations appear in this book, they have been printed with initial caps.

McGraw-Hill eBooks are available at special quantity discounts to use as premiums and sales promotions, or for use in corporate training programs. For more information, please contact George Hoare, Special Sales, at george_hoare@mcgraw- or (212) 904-4069.

TERMS OF USE

This is a copyrighted work and The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. ("McGraw-Hill") and its licensors reserve all rights in and to the work. Use of this work is subject to these terms. Except as permitted under the Copyright Act of 1976 and the right to store and retrieve one copy of the work, you may not decompile, disassemble, reverse engineer, reproduce, modify, create derivative works based upon, transmit, distribute, disseminate, sell, publish or sublicense the work or any part of it without McGraw-Hill's prior consent. You may use the work for your own noncommercial and personal use; any other use of the work is strictly prohibited. Your right to use the work may be terminated if you fail to comply with these terms.

THE WORK IS PROVIDED "AS IS." McGRAW-HILL AND ITS LICENSORS MAKE NO GUARANTEES OR WARRANTIES AS TO THE ACCURACY, ADEQUACY OR COMPLETENESS OF OR RESULTS TO BE OBTAINED FROM USING THE WORK, INCLUDING ANY INFORMATION THAT CAN BE ACCESSED THROUGH THE WORK VIA HYPERLINK OR OTHERWISE, AND EXPRESSLY DISCLAIM ANY WARRANTY, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. McGraw-Hill and its licensors do not warrant or guarantee that the functions contained in the work will meet your requirements or that its operation will be uninterrupted or error free. Neither McGraw-Hill nor its licensors shall be liable to you or anyone else for any inaccuracy, error or omission, regardless of cause, in the work or for any damages resulting therefrom. McGraw-Hill has no responsibility for the content of any information accessed through the work. Under no circumstances shall McGraw-Hill and/or its licensors be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, punitive, consequential or similar damages that result from the use of or inability to use the work, even if any of them has been advised of the possibility of such damages. This limitation of liability shall apply to any claim or cause whatsoever whether such claim or cause arises in contract, tort or otherwise.

DOI: 10.1036/0071496424

Professional

Want to learn more?

We hope you enjoy this McGraw-Hill eBook! If you'd like more information about this book, its author, or related books and websites, please click here.

For more information about this title, click here

Contents

Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . v

part I Noun Phrases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1 1 Nouns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 2 Adjectives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21 3 Determiners . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29 4 Post-Noun Modifiers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49 5 Pronouns . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75 6 Gerunds and Infinitives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87 7 Noun Clauses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103

part II Verb Phrases . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .119 8 Basic Verb Forms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121 9 Verb Tenses and Modals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135 10 Special Verbs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169 11 Verb Complements I: Simple Complements . . . . . . . . . . . . 193 12 Verb Complements II: Multiple Complements . . . . . . . . . . 203 13 Predicate Adjective Complements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 223 14 Adverbs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 237 15 Using Adverbs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249

part III Sentences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .273 16 Conjunctions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275 17 Questions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 297 18 The Passive . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 319

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 335

iii

This page intentionally left blank

Introduction

This book is for nonnative speakers of English who have already attained extensive fluency in classroom English. It is designed to help you move to the next level of functioning comfortably in a fully English-speaking environment. For example, your job may take you to an English-speaking country, or your duties may require you to interact extensively with native English speakers in person, on the telephone, or on the Internet.

Even though the book includes many topics covered in other ESL books, it is not a textbook. It is an advanced-level reference work designed to give you instant access to detailed information about specific topics that you need to know and apply now. Each section of the book is a self-contained module. Unlike with a textbook, you do not need to start on page 1. Just use the table of contents or the index to locate the topic you need, and then go right to it.

The most important feature of this book is the immense amount of information about English grammar in general and about four specific areas of English grammar that are most likely to cause difficulties:

? Areas of unusual grammatical complexity. Nonnative speakers find certain areas of grammar especially difficult to master. The reason is simple: the grammatical mechanisms involved are indeed quite complicated. Unless you fully understand how these mechanisms work, you will never master the areas they govern. This book explains these mechanisms in much greater detail than most ESL textbooks attempt to do. ? Areas of unusual irregularity. Many grammatical options are controlled by particular words, often verbs. This book is full of lists that tell the reader which words control which specific grammatical structures. For example, it is impossible to predict in general whether a particular verb will permit

v

Copyright ? 2008 by Mark Lester. Click here for terms of use.

vi Introduction

a gerund, an infinitive, or both as an object. The only way you can tell is to look at the lists provided to see which construction is allowable. No other book (outside specialized linguistic reference works) provides such extensive listings of idiosyncratic, word-controlled grammatical structures. ? Areas in which native speakers routinely use special forms in conversational English. If your only use of English is as a formal, written language (as is the case for many nonnative speakers), and you don't foresee any need to ever talk to a native speaker of English under fifty years old, then this area is not a concern for you.

For everybody else, however, this may well be the most difficult of the four areas. Unless you have had extensive direct contact with native speakers of English in informal situations, you simply have not had the opportunity to acquire this type of English. It is not just a matter of contractions and rapid speech (though these will cause you plenty of problems); there are also well-established, predictable shifts in grammar that take place in casual conversation. Here's an illustration:

In formal English, the standard passive is formed with the helping verb be. For example:

We were interrupted.

In informal conversational English, most native speakers actually use the helping verb get instead of be. For example:

We got interrupted.

One of the key features of this book is the discussion of this kind of grammatical substitution wherever it is significant. (This occurs surprisingly often.) ? Areas in which both native and nonnative speakers often make mistakes. As you become more like a native speaker, you are bound to start making the same mistakes that native speakers do. For example, like native speakers, you will have problems distinguishing between restrictive and nonrestrictive adjective clauses in more complicated sentences. You will also have problems knowing when and how to use direct and indirect quotation. This book has extensive treatments of these predictable problem

 ................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download