Morphology
Write a concise definition for morpheme.
The minimal unit of meaning or grammatical function in a language.
Consider the following sentence:
I saw a tiger at the zoo yesterday.
What part of speech is the underlined word a
in the sentence above?
Article
A student writes the following sentence, "*The education is very important for children." With respect to the noun education, the student is struggling with what feature of English nouns?
Concrete vs. Abstract Nouns
- Abstract Nouns don't take the definite article the.
Write a concise definition for Semantics.
Semantics is the study of the meaning of words, phrases, and sentences.
The study of linguistic meaning.
What are the articulatory features (e.g., voicing, place of articulation, manner of articulation) of the phone [g]?
Voiced / Alveolar / Fricative
Voiced / Velar / Stop
Voiceless / Alveolar / Fricative
Voiceless / Velar / Stop
2. Voiced / Velar / Stop
The past tense -ed morpheme as in the words worked and helped is a/an ________ morpheme.
Bound Inflectional
Consider the following sentence:
I saw the movie yesterday.
Which part of speech is the underlined word saw in the sentence above?
Verb
English learners often incorrectly pluralize nouns that cannot be grammatically plural such as informations, homeworks, and advices. What is the name of this grammatical point that the learners have trouble with?
Count vs. Non-countable nouns
The words modern and contemporary are ________.
Synonyms
Synonymous
An EL student writes the following sentence in an essay: *I work here since 2015. In your written feedback, you correct the sentence to: I have worked here since 2015. What is the name of the tense that describes situations that began in the past and continue to the present that the EL has issues with?
Present Perfect
The morpheme -able changes verbs to adjectives as in read --> readable and do --> doable. Based on this data, we can call -able a/an _________ morpheme.
bound derivational
Rules such as never end a sentence in a preposition are an example of this kind of grammar.
Prescriptive Grammar
What are verbs like look up, get away, and put up with called in ESL grammar?
Phrasal verbs
What is the relationship between the words Sole (single) and Sole (part of the foot or shoe)?
Homonyms
What are vocabulary items that tend to be paired together such as salt and pepper and crystal clear known as from a language teaching perspective?
Associative meanings
Collocations
False cognates
Idiomatic expressions
Collocations
What are the morphological rules for plural and third-person singular -s in English as demonstrated by the following nouns: cats (s), dogs (z), and horses (iz)?
The ending depends on the last sound of the base word.
- If the last sound is Voiceless = s
- If the last sound is Voiced = z
- If the last sound is a Sibilant (S-like sounds) = iz
Sentences that end in prepositions in English such as Who are you looking at, Who do you work with, and what are you talking about are all grammatical sentences in English despite some language teachers being opposed to their usage. These sentences are an example of this kind of grammar:
Descriptive Grammar
Phrasal verbs are particularly difficult for ELs for a variety of reasons. List at 2 reasons why.
- Not common in the world's languages
- Many phrasal verbs have multiple meanings
- Difficult to translate
- Separable vs. Inseparable
- Transitive vs. Intransitive
- Pronoun Placement
When the meaning of one word is included in the meaning of another as in the pairs dog/animal, soda/beverage, and rose/flower, we refer to this relationship as:
Hyponymy
Consider the following words in French: /bo/ for beau (“handsome”) and /bõ/ for bon (“good”). The tilde above the symbol /õ/ indicates a nasalized vowel. What do these words tell us about the distribution of /o/ and /õ/ in French?
/o/ and /õ/ are phonemes in French
/o/ and /õ/ are in complementary distribution in French
/o/ and /õ/ are allophones in French
/o/ and /õ/ are in free variation in French
1. /o/ and /õ/ are phonemes in French
What are the pronunciation rules for the
-ed morpheme as demonstrated by the following
words:
walked (t), used (d), needed (id)
The ending depends on the last sound of the base word.
- If the last sound is Voiceless = t
- If the last sound is Voiced = d
- If the last sound is t/d = id
Consider the following sentence:
I have been to Disney before.
What part of speech is before in the above sentence?
Adverb
A student says the following, "*I have seen a movie yesterday." What is the student's issue in this particular sentence?
Present Perfect - Action at an indefinite time in the past
Simple Past - Action at a definite time in the past
Give an example of an English idiom and how you would explain the meaning of it to an EL in simple terms.
It's raining cats and dogs. (raining heavily)
It was only a slap on the wrist. (minor punishment)
Certain features of English Grammar are more difficult than others from an EL perspective. List at least 2 of the most problematic areas of grammar for ELs.
- Present Perfect
- Prepositions
- Phrasal Verbs
- Articles