Abstract
Teaching grammar has always constituted a major part of language education in curricula around the world. This paper investigates pre-modifiers in noun phrase in English and focuses on their definition and classifications. Pervious scholars have different focuses and give various definitions and classifications of pre-modifiers. Through thoroughly evaluating and comparing of the different theories given by previous grammarians and linguists, this study redefines modifiers from a semantic, formal and syntactical perspective and constructs a new classification based on word classes and classifies pre-modifiers into six categories: 1). adjectival pre-modifiers; 2). nominal pre-modifiers; 3). participle pre-modifiers; 4). genitive pre-modifiers; 5). adverb phrases pre-modifiers; 6). sentences, etc. The implications of this paper may provide new insights in grammar teaching in English classes.
Highlights
Teaching grammar has always constituted a major part of language education in curricula around the world (Liu, Sands-Meyer, & Audran, 2019)
Teachers need to help students to form a better understanding of the definitions and classifications of certain grammar structures, especially noun phrases. This current paper focused on the specific details and rationales on the definitions and classifications of noun phrases
Downing and Locke (2002) adopt a semantic point of view to classify pre-modifiers into epithets and classifiers only according to the meaning, context and environment
Summary
Teaching grammar has always constituted a major part of language education in curricula around the world (Liu, Sands-Meyer, & Audran, 2019). Numerous second language acquisition (SLA) researchers and teachers in practice have tried to decrease the difficulty of grasping grammar for learners in second and foreign language acquisition (Abdulmajeed & Hameed, 2017; Graus & Coppen, 2015; Kachru, 2010; Larsen-Freeman, 2003a; 2003b). One of the most debatable attempts is to form a better understanding of definitions and classifications of grammatical structures, so as the instruction may be more effective (Nan, 2015; Zhang, 2009; Rutherford, 2014). Some of them (Carter & McCarthy, 2006; Quirk et al, 1985) describe a general picture, while others only focus on the meaning and practical usage (Zhang, 1999; Kolln, 1996). Downing and Locke (2002, p. 445) do not www.scholink.org/ojs/index.php/selt
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