Vocabulary Development & Sentence Structure

1. Vocabulary Development&Sentence Structure Steve Whitmore May 2010 Vocabulary and Sentence Structure

2. Causes of Mortality • Japanese eat very little fat and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans. • Mexicans eat a lot of fat and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.  • Chinese drink very little red wine and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans. • Italians drink a lot of red wine and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.   • Germans drink a lot of beer and eat lots of sausages and fats and suffer fewer heart attacks than  Americans.  CONCLUSION: Eat and drink what you like. Speaking English is apparently what kills us. Vocabulary and Sentence Structure

3. Learning Objectives By the end of this module, you will understand how to further develop your vocabulary and vary the sentence structures you use. Vocabulary and Sentence Structure

4. An Oops (by a Factor of 1000) Vocabulary and Sentence Structure

5. Some Facts about English • Difficult to define the exact number of words in English, but the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) puts it at over 1 million: • Standard language of literature and discourse • Obsolete and archaic words • Technical terms • Slang and dialect • By number of speakers, English is the 2nd most common 1st language in the world (Mandarin is #1, Hindustani is #3, and Spanish is #4 Vocabulary and Sentence Structure

6. Some Facts about English • English has become the standard language of science, flight, and diplomacy: • Influence of British Empire in 18th and 19th centuries • American influence through TV, radio, and the internet in the 20th century • English is fluid: • Quickly adopts new technical and popular words • Steals words from all other languages Vocabulary and Sentence Structure

7. Some Facts about English • Main sources for English vocabulary: • French – 28% • Latin – 28% • Old and Middle English – 25% • Greek – 5% • Unknown – 4% • Proper names – 3% • Everywhere else – 7% • In other words, when you learn English, you learn several other languages as a “bonus” Vocabulary and Sentence Structure

8. Some Facts about English • Average literate person in Victorian era had a vocabulary of 25,000 words • Native English speaker with a university education is able to understand about 20,000 words (not including technical vocabulary) • Minimum of 10,000 is necessary to score high on TOEFL • English is the most widely learned 2nd language in the world Vocabulary and Sentence Structure

9. Expanding Your Vocabulary • Effective vocabulary expansion requires work in 2 key areas: idioms and general vocabulary (mainly verbs) • You can expand your facility with idioms by attending to spoken English and informal written English • Watch news programs on TV (CBC, Knowledge Network, PBS) • Watch educational programs on TV (Nova, Nature, @discovery.ca) • Practice speaking in English at every opportunity • Read newspapers and magazines (National Post – grade 12, Vancouver Sun – grade 10, Vancouver Province – grade 8) Vocabulary and Sentence Structure

10. Idioms are a Problem • That lecture was a real dog’s breakfast. • A good rule of thumb for paragraphs is that they should not be longer than they are wide. • Dog’s breakfast = a mess • Rule of thumb = a rough approximation • Look them up in a dictionary of idioms • Ask what they mean Vocabulary and Sentence Structure

11. Expanding General Vocabulary • Read novels that interest you: • Slowest method, but most effective • Requires spending time every week reading • Use a dictionary when reading the books (Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary is worth purchasing) • Try working on crosswords and tests found on the internet (moderately effective) • 30 Days to a More Powerful Vocabulary – least effective (words that aren’t used tend not to transfer to memory) Vocabulary and Sentence Structure

12. Expanding General Vocabulary • Use a good thesaurus when writing (The Synonym Finder): • Biggest help with verbs and adverbs (many common verbs in English originate in Old English and are too general – e.g., make, do, find, etc.) • Use a dictionary to help sort out connotations; under the word copy in a thesaurus you will find these possibilities: • duplicate, reproduce, caricature, parody, emulate, parrot, cheat, plagiarize, model, replicate, forge, counterfeit, mirror, etc. Vocabulary and Sentence Structure

13. Varying Sentence Structure • Strings of sentences that are all the same in structure (and length) become monotonous. • To avoid putting readers to sleep, try varying the following: • Sentence structure • Sentence openers • Sentence length Vocabulary and Sentence Structure

14. Simple Sentences • Simple sentences consist of one independent clause and any number of modifying words or phrases: • She banged the garbage can lids together. 2. At the same time, he slammed the kitchen cabinet doors. Vocabulary and Sentence Structure

15. Compound Sentences • Compound sentences consist of two or more independent clauses joined by a coordinating conjunction (and, but, or, for, nor, yet, so). They may also have any number of modifying words and phrases: • He yanked the cookie sheets from the cabinet with glee, and she rattled them enthusiastically. 2.She dropped the cookie sheets, but he picked them up. Vocabulary and Sentence Structure

16. Complex Sentences • Complex sentences have one independent clause, one or more dependent clauses and sometimes modifying words or phrases: • After the neighbors began to complain, the couple started both their motorcycles and roared off. 2. They went in search of an authentic air raid siren, a prize that they considered the ultimate in noisiness. Vocabulary and Sentence Structure

17. Compound-Complex Sentences • Compound-complex sentences have two or more independent clauses joined by a coordinating conjunction and one or more dependent clauses: 1. When they were finally arrested for disturbing the peace, the pair told the judge that they considered noise-making a new art form, and the judge, banging her gavel gleefully, said she’d always thought so herself. Vocabulary and Sentence Structure

18. Sentence Fragments • Sentence fragments are sentences that are grammatically incomplete because they either lack subjects and finite verbs or are made parts of larger structures by relative pronouns (who, which, that) or subordinating conjunctions (because, if, when, etc.). • Banging her gavel gleefully. (She was banging her gavel gleefully.) 2. I could tell she was happy. Because she was banging her gavel gleefully. (I could tell she was happy because she was banging her gavel gleefully.) Vocabulary and Sentence Structure

19. Run-On Sentences • Run-on sentences consist of two or more independent clauses in a sentence which are not joined by a coordinating or subordinating conjunction, or a semicolon (a comma splice consists of two or more independent clauses joined by a comma): 1. Three people celebrated the acquittal one of them was the judge. (Three people celebrated the acquittal, and one of them was the judge. Or. Three people celebrated the acquittal; one of them was the judge. Or. Although three people celebrated the acquittal, only one of them was a judge. But not. Three people celebrated the acquittal, one of them was the judge.) Vocabulary and Sentence Structure

20. Noun Sentence Openers • That creature was a fish. • Dust storms marched incessantly across the wilderness. • Jane Doe is not her real name. Vocabulary and Sentence Structure

21. Pronoun Sentence Openers • He breathed the air for a few hours. • They were small things. • Some, like the giant redwoods, lingered on as relics; many vanished entirely. • None of these insignificant creatures possessed any remarkable talents. • Everyone watched the twisting plane. Vocabulary and Sentence Structure

22. Adverb Sentence Openers • Finally, in the ruthless selection of the swamp margin, or in the scramble for food in the tidal flats, the land becomes home. • Always it marks the appearance of patterns of instinct and the end of thought. • Perhaps the old road through the marsh could tell us. • Then a small button-shaped object upon the rug caught my eye. • Nevertheless, if one had been seen stripped of its feathers, it would still have seemed a slightly uncanny and unsightly lizard. • Today we know that the abyss is haunted. • However, the females eventually subjugated the males. Vocabulary and Sentence Structure

23. Prepositional Phrase Sentence Openers • At times, the slowly contracting circle of water left little windrows of minnows. • By day, the temperature in the world outside rose to a frightful intensity; at night the sun went down in smoking red. • For this reason, we tended to visualize all of our remote relatives as tree dwellers. • Before the rise of the tree rodents, the environment that they occupy had remained peculiarly open to exploitation. • In stagnant swamp waters, only a highly developed blood supply to the brain can prevent disaster. • On the oily surface of the pond, from time to time a snout thrust upward, took in air with a queer grunting inspiration, and swirled back to the bottom. • Of all the fishes, the mudskipper is perhaps the strangest. Vocabulary and Sentence Structure

24. Dependent Clause Sentence Openers • When the sun rose next morning, the pond was an empty place of cracked mud. • As I tapped and chiseled there in the foundation of the world, I had ample time to consider the cunning manipulability of the human hand. • If it does not get oxygen, life is gone. • Because the struggle for life is incessant, the unceasing process promotes endless slow changes. • Although the traditional theory of evolution is usually framed in terms that imply conflict, modern evolutionary theories point out that cooperation as well as conflict is required for survival. Vocabulary and Sentence Structure

25. Coordinate Conjunction Openers • But in the mangrove swamps of the Niger, fish climb trees and ogle uneasy naturalists who try unsuccessfully to chase them back into the water. • And among those gasping, dying creatures, the Snout and his brethren survived. • Yet it was this poor specialization—this bog-trapped failure—whose descendants, in three great movements, were to dominate the earth. • Or consider its later wanderings. • Neither the birds nor the mammals, however, were quite what they seemed. Vocabulary and Sentence Structure

26. Verbal Sentence Openers • Groping there in the dark cave, I began to feel detached from the earth and all living creatures. • Equipped with beaks instead of with teeth, they pecked the seeds and gobbled the insects. • To explain the rise of man through the slow incremental gains of natural selection, Darwin had to assume a long struggle of man with man and tribe with tribe. • Struck by the thought, I went out next day and collected several others. Vocabulary and Sentence Structure

27. Other Sentence Openers • Gray was the dawn. (Adjective) • That I enjoyed. (Object) • The things she accomplished he envied. (Object) • There wasnothing to hold the land in place. (Filler) • There are strange things still coming ashore. (Filler) • It is here thatstrange compromises are made. (Filler) Vocabulary and Sentence Structure