Курсовая работа: Teaching sentence structure

Definite: In the old trunk we discovered a bettered canteen, a letter from a Georgia lieutenant, and a Confederate bank note.

POWERFUL VERBS Seek colorful, exact verbs.

Nouns and verbs provide the sinews of the sentence.

Freddie made a face when he tasted the cough medicine.

CONTROLLED ADJECTIVES AND ADVERBS. Use adjectives and adverbs for specific effects. Do not pile unnecessary detail upon detail by overusing these helpful words.

Ordinarily use a colorful noun (miser) instead of a weak adjective plus a general noun (greedy person). Ordinarily use a vigorous verb (scamper) instead of a weak adverb plus general verb (run hastily).

WORD FOR PHRASE Use a phrase only when the single word will add neither additional information nor desired emphasis

Ordinarily say speedily, not with great speed; the red-brick house, not the house of red brick.

PRACTICE 8 Improving sentences.

A. For each general underlined noun substitute a more specific noun.

1. For dessert we had fruit and cake.

2. In the drawer there were four things

3. At the nursery Dad bought a tree, a shrub, and a flower

4. My brother has three unusual pets.

5. During gym one squad played one game; the second squad played an other

B. Using the suggestions for improving style, make the following sentences more vigorous and concise.

1. The puppy with the brown fur walked unsteadily along the hall

2. During our vacation in Arizona we enjoyed skies of blue and days with sun.

3. Mel was not a cowardly person, but he was very much afraid of injections.

4. In Holland the shoes of wood protect against the fields of mud

5. Modern very tall buildings often look like peaks of glass.

WORD WITH DOUBLE ROLES Some words perform two jobs at the same time.

Have you ever seen my cousin’s collection of seashells?

Cousin’s plays a double role. It modifies collection like an adjective. It is modified by my like a noun. It performs both jobs at the same time. There are six common groups of words that play double roles.

1. The possessive noun acts like a noun and an adjective. It is diagramed like an adjective.

My young brother’s laughter is a happy sound in our house. (Brother `s modifies laughter: my and young modify brother’s.).

2. The possessive pronoun acts like a pronoun and an adjective. It is diagramed like an adjective. These are common possessive pronouns: my, our, ours, his-before a noun-her, its, and their.

The old soldiers took off their hats as the flag went by. (Their modifies hats like an adjective; it has an antecedent, soldiers, like a pronoun)

3. The adverbial noun acts like a noun and an adverb. It is a diagramed like an adverbial prepositional phrase.