ENGLISH BOOK 2, UNIT 3 GRAMMAR

Relative Pronouns

A relative pronoun is a pronoun that introduces a relative clause. It is called a "relative" pronoun because it "relates" to the word that it modifies. Here is an example:

• The person who phoned me last night is my teacher.

In the above example, "who":

• relates to "person", which it modifies
• introduces the relative clause "who phoned me last night"

There are five relative pronouns: who, whom, whose, which, that*

Who (subject) and whom (object) are generally only for people. Whose is for possession. Which is for things. That can be used for people** and things and as subject and object in defining relative clauses (clauses that are essential to the sentence and do not simply add extra information).

Relative pronouns can refer to singular or plural, and there is no difference between male and female.

Look at these examples showing defining and non-defining relative clauses:

	example sentences S=subject, O=object, P=possessive		notes
defining	S	- The person who phoned me last night is my teacher. - The person that phoned me last night is my teacher.	That is preferable
		- The car which hit me was yellow. - The cars that hit me were yellow.	That is preferable
	O	- The person whom I phoned last night is my teacher. - The people who I phoned last night are my teachers. - The person that I phoned last night is my teacher. - The person I phoned last night is my teacher.	Whom is correct but very formal. The relative pronoun is optional.
		- The car which I drive is old. - The car that I drive is old. - The car I drive is old.	That is preferable to which. The relative pronoun is optional.
	P	- The student whose phone just rang should stand up. - Students whose parents are wealthy pay extra.
		- The police are looking for the car whose driver was masked. - The police are looking for the car of which the driver was masked.	Of which is usual for things, but whose is sometimes possible
non-defining	S	- Mrs Pratt, who is very kind, is my teacher.
		- The car, which was a taxi, exploded. - The cars, which were taxis, exploded.
	O	- Mrs Pratt, whom I like very much, is my teacher. - Mr and Mrs Pratt, who I like very much, are my teachers.	Whom is correct but very formal. Who is normal.
		- The car, which I was driving at the time, suddenly caught fire.
	P	- My brother, whose phone you just heard, is a doctor.
		- The car, whose driver jumped out just before the accident, was completely destroyed. - The car, the driver of which jumped out just before the accident, was completely destroyed.	Of which is usual for things, but whose is sometimes possible

*Not all grammar sources count "that" as a relative pronoun.
**Some people claim that we cannot use "that" for people but must use "who/whom"; there is no good reason for such a claim.

Punctuation

Punctuation is the system of symbols (. , ! - : etc) that we use to separate sentences and parts of sentences, and to make their meaning clear. Each symbol is called a "punctuation mark".

The Value of Punctuation An English teacher wrote these words on the board: woman without her man is nothing The teacher then asked the students to punctuate the words correctly. The men wrote the top line. The women wrote the bottom line. Woman, without her man, is nothing. Woman! Without her, man is nothing.

Word Stress

What is Word Stress?

In English, we do not say each syllable with the same force or strength. In one word, we accentuate ONE syllable. We say one syllable very loudly (big, strong, important) and all the other syllables very quietly.

Let's take 3 words: photograph, photographer and photographic. Do they sound the same when spoken? No. Because we accentuate (stress) ONE syllable in each word. And it is not always the same syllable. So the shape of each word is different.

	shape	total syllables	stressed syllable
PHO TO GRAPH		3	#1
PHO TO GRAPH ER		4	#2
PHO TO GRAPH IC		4	#3

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This happens in ALL words with 2 or more syllables: TEACHer, JaPAN, CHINa, aBOVE, converSAtion, INteresting, imPORtant, deMAND, etCETera, etCETera, etCETera

The syllables that are not stressed are weak or small or quiet. Native speakers of English listen for the STRESSED syllables, not the weak syllables. If you use word stress in your speech, you will instantly and automatically improve your pronunciation and your comprehension.

Try to hear the stress in individual words each time you listen to English - on the radio, or in films for example. Your first step is to HEAR and recognise it. After that, you can USE it!

There are two very important rules about word stress:

1. One word, one stress. (One word cannot have two stresses. So if you hear two stresses, you have heard two words, not one word.)
2. The stress is always on a vowel.

Word Stress in English

Word stress is your magic key to understanding spoken English. Native speakers of English use word stress naturally. Word stress is so natural for them that they don't even know they use it. Non-native speakers who speak English to native speakers without using word stress, encounter two problems:

1. They find it difficult to understand native speakers, especially those speaking fast.
2. The native speakers may find it difficult to understand them.

Understanding Syllables

To understand word stress, it helps to understand syllables.
Every word is made from syllables.
Each word has one, two, three or more syllables.

word		number of syllables
dog	dog	1
green	green	1
quite	quite	1
quiet	qui-et	2
orange	or-ange	2
table	ta-ble	2
expensive	ex-pen-sive	3
interesting	in-ter-est-ing	4
realistic	re-al-is-tic	4
unexceptional	un-ex-cep-tion-al	5

Notice that (with a few rare exceptions) every syllable contains at least one vowel (a, e, i, o or u) or vowel sound.

English is not Phonetic

Always remember that English is not "phonetic". That means that we do not always say a word the same way that we spell it.

Some words can have the same spelling but different pronunciation, for example:

• I like to read [ri:d].
• I have read [red] that book.

Some words have different spelling but the same pronunciation, for example:

• I have read [red] that book.
• My favourite colour is red [red].

Learn the 52 Sounds of English
The English language may have 26 letters of the alphabet, but it has double that number of sounds: 52. Knowing and recognizing the 52 sounds will help to give you good pronunciation. Of course, everybody knows that good pronunciation helps our speaking. But do you know that good pronunciation also helps our listening?