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St. Louis Review Center: Licensure Examination For Teachers (Let)
St. Louis Review Center: Licensure Examination For Teachers (Let)
3. What does this excerpt from the Rigveda reveal about the Hindu belief on the god Purusha?
Poverty’s child –
He starts to grind the rice
And gazes at the moon.
5. This excerpt from Soyinka’s Telephone Conversation indicates the universal issue of __________.
Read the following excerpted dialogue from Injustice Done to Tou Ngo then answer questions 14 – 15
Donkey Chang: You’ve poisoned my father, Tou Ngo. Do you want to settle it in court or out of the court?
Tou Ngo: What do you mean ‘settle it in court or out of court?’
Donkey Chang: If you want to settle in court, I’ll take you there to be tried and cross-examined and put to the
torture. With a delicate body like yours you’ll find it hard to bear that. You’re bound to confess
to having poisoned my father. If you want to settle out of court, you’d better become my
wifejust as quick as you can. It’ll be doing you a favor.
Tou Ngo: I have not poisoned your father. I’ll go to court with you.
A. War is a challenge for the brave who are unafraid of the risks.
B. War is hateful because warriors have no control over their lives.
C. War is the revenge of the strong and the powerful.
D. War is freedom for the dreams of the people.
20. What is the main idea of this haiku by Bashō?
So soon to die,
And no sign of it showing –
locust cry.
A. beauty of nature C. permanence of things
B. transitoriness of life D. reality of death
21. One of these features is not characteristic of African oral literature
A. repetition and parallel structure C. call-and-response
B. tonal alliteration D. repeat-and-vary
22. The __________ is an important kind of African moral tale intended for listeners to discuss and debate usually with
an open-ending.
A. Trickster B. Ashanti C. enigma D. origin
23. He is the leading figure of the Negritude movement.
A. Leopold Senghor B. Dennis Brutus C. Wole Soyinka D. David Diop
Read this excerpt from Diop’s Africa then answer questions 24-25.
Africa, my Africa,
Africa of proud warriors
In ancestral savannas,
Africa of whom my grandmother sings,
On the banks of the distant river
I have never known you.
ANSWER KEY
ANALYZING TEST ITEMS ENHANCING TEST TAKING SKILL
1. D 10. C 19. B 1. B 10. A 19. A
2. B 11. A 20. B 2. B 11. A 20. C
3. C 12. A 21. B 3. B 12. B 21. A
4. A 13. D 22. C 4. B 13. A 22. D
5. D 14. C 23. A 5. D 14. C 23. C
6. C 15. D 24. D 6. D 15. C 24. D
7. D 16. C 25. D 7. B 16. A 25. C
8. C 17. B 8. B 17. A
9. B 18. A 9. B 18. C
When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept: A. dramatic irony
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff: C. causal irony
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious; B. irony of situation
And Brutus is an honourable man. D. verbal irony
Soft is the strain when Zephyr gently blows, A. Assonance and consonance
And the smooth stream in smoother numbers flows; B. Alliteration and onomatopoeia
but when loud surges lash the sounding shore, C. Consonance and cacophony
The hoarse, rough verse should like the torrent roar: D. Onomatopoeia and assonance
11. Which statement best summarizes the Holy Sonnet X by John Donne?
And poppy or charms can make us sleep as well A. Death shall cease in the after life.
And better than thy stroke; why swell'st thou then? B. Death comes through poppy or charms.
One short sleep past, we wake eternally, C. Death takes so many forms and ways.
And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die. D. Death should not be proud since it is not mighty.
12. What does the word “swell’st” in the Holy Sonnet X mean?
A. boast B. shrink C. grow D. swear
13. Which statement about love is true based on Shakespeare’s Sonnet 116?
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks A. Love dissipates when lovers live apart.
Within his bending sickle's compass come: B. Love adapts to changing circumstances.
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, C. Love never wanes even in old age.
But bears it out even to the edge of doom. D. Love grows even to the edge of doom.
14. In “To the Virgins to Make Much of Time,” what is the persona’s main message?
A. Be wise in marriage to make life more worthwhile.
B. Marry now, or you may never have another chance.
C. Gather the rosebuds now, before the roses bloom.
D. Choose only lovers who, like roses, are of the highest order.
15. Which word best describes the speaker in “To Lucasta, on Going to the Wars”?
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings: A. Power and arrogance are both destructive.
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!" B. Temples and statues are witnesses to history.
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay C. Powerful rulers and great civilizations perish.
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare D. Life is short and time is fleeting.
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
19. What 17th Century philosophy does Browning assert in the following lines from Rabbi Ben Ezra?
20. What lesson does the speaker learn in A.E. Housman’s When I Was One-and-Twenty?
'The heart out of the bosom A. The speaker realizes the value of listening to pieces of advice.
Was never given in vain; B. The speaker learns the foolishness of disobeying his elders.
'Tis paid with sighs a plenty C. The speaker realizes the folly and pain of youthful love.
And sold for endless rue.' D. The speaker learns the stupidity of wasting his youth.
And I am two-and-twenty,
And oh, 'tis true, 'tis true.
ANSWER KEY
1. B 5. A 9. D 13. C 17. B
2. C 6. C 10. C 14. B 18. C
3. A 7. A 11. D 15. C 19. B
4. D 8. B 12. A 16. B 20. C
Directions: Answer the questions by writing the letter of the best answer.
1. How does Shelley regard the west wind in the following ode?
A. It is responsible for preserving life. From Ode to the West Wind
B. It can both wipe out and maintain life. Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth, and fill
C. It is a wild spirit in nature that is very strong. (Driving sweet buds like flocks to feed in air)
D. It is strong but weak since it is everywhere. With living hues and odours plain and hill:
Wild Spirit, which art moving everywhere;
Destroyer and Preserver; hear, oh, hear!
2. How does the speaker picture God in the following sermon?
The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider; or some loathsome
insect, over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked: his wrath towards you burns like
fire; he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the fire; he is of purer eyes
than to bear to have you in his sight; you are ten thousand times more abominable in his eyes,
than the most hateful venomous serpent is in ours.
"All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.
They have their exits and their entrances; And one man in his time plays
many parts" - (As You Like It, Act II, Scene VII)
A. Life is just like going to the theater. C. Life is but an empty, senseless dream.
B. People have different roles to play in life. D. People live and die at different times.
13. What truth about humans do the following lines from A Noiseless Patient Spider reveal?
A. People need food and shelter
And you, O my Soul, where you stand,
B. People search for their meaning
Surrounded, surrounded, in measureless oceans of space,
C. People need friends and families
Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing,--seeking
D. People endlessly seek to create
the spheres, to connect them;
Till the bridge you will need, be form'd--till the ductile anchor hold;
Till the gossamer thread you fling, catch somewhere, O my Soul.
2. Which of the following is the resounding theme of contemporary stories like Hemingway’s A Clean and Well
Lighted Place and Anderson’s Hands?
A. alienation from the society C. respect for the old
B. melancholia in solitude D. contentment in life
3. Who is alluded to as the Captain in the following lines from Whitman’s poem?
A. Abraham Lincoln
O`captain! My Captain! Our fearful trip is done, B. George Washington
The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is C. John F. Kennedy
won. D. Thomas Jefferson
4. In the passage, which of the following best describes the speaker's attitude toward the very rich?
Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me. They possess and enjoy early,
and it does something to them, makes them soft where we are hard, and cynical where we are trustful, in a
way that, unless you were born rich, it is very difficult to understand. They think, deep in their hearts, that they
are better than we are because we had to discover the compensations and refuges of life for ourselves.
Even when they enter deep into our world or sink below us, they still think that they are better than we are. They
are different.
A. He finds their pessimism alarming and unwarranted. C. He believes that the rich know more than others do.
B. He finds them so different from the rest of society D. He thinks that he understands their way of life.
5. What is the tone of the speaker in the previous passage?
A. Optimistic B. Laconic C. Pessimistic D. Sarcastic
6. What do the novels of Bronte, Eliot, Gaskell and Dickens reveal about fiction produced during the Victorian period in
English Literature?
A. They closely represent the real social life of the times.
B. The novels were long and full of psychological musings.
C. They concentrate on the effect of industrialization on cities.
D. They were largely produced by upper middle-class women.
7. What do the last two lines from Freneau’s The Wild Honeysuckle reveal about life?
From morning suns and evening dews A. Life is just an hour.
At first thy little being came; B. Life is frail.
If nothing once, you nothing lose, C. Life is short.
For when you die you are the same; D. It is like a flower.
The space between is but an hour,
The frail duration of flower.
8. What do the following lines from Wordsworth’s Psalm of Life reveal about heroes and heroism?
ANSWER KEY
1. B 5. B 9. B 13. B 17. D
2. A 6. C 10. A 14. A 18. A
3. D 7. A 11. C 15. A 19. C
4. C 8. A 12. B 16. B 20. A
from Of Studies
Francis Bacon
Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested; that is, some
books are to be read only in parts; others to be read, but not curiously; and some few to be read wholly, and with
diligence and attention. Some books also may be read by deputy, and extracts made of them by others; but that
would be only in the less important arguments, and the meaner sort of books, else distilled books are like
common distilled waters, flashy things. Reading maketh a full man; conference a ready man; and writing an exact
man.
2. John Bunyan (1628-1688) was an English Christian writer and preacher notable for his Christian allegory The
Pilgrim's Progress.
Allegory is story illustrating an idea or a moral principle in which objects and characters take on symbolic
meanings external to the narrative. Pilgrim’s Progress shows Christian tormented by spiritual anguish. A
spiritual guide named Evangelist visits Christian and urges him to leave the City of Destruction. Evangelist
claims that salvation can only be found in the Celestial City, known as Mount Zion. Christian embarks on a
journey and meets a number of other characters before he reaches the Celestial City.
3. John Milton (1608-74) was a Puritan poet who served Cromwell as Latin secretary; he is best known for his epic
poem Paradise Lost and its sequel Paradise Regained.
Paradise Lost is an epic poem in blank verse that tells of the fall of the angels and of the creation of Adam and
Eve and their temptation by Satan in the Garden of Eden ("Of Man's first disobedience, and the fruit/ Of that
forbidden tree . . . ").
4. John Donne (1572-1631) was the greatest of the metaphysical poets best remembered for his use of metaphysical
conceits in the Holy Sonnets.
Metaphysical Poetry makes use of conceits or farfetched similes and metaphors intended to startle the
reader into an awareness of the relationships among things ordinarily not associated.
2. George Herbert (1593-1633), like Donne, was both a metaphysical poet and an Anglican priest. Some of Herbert's
most effective poetry deals with man's thirst for God and with God's abounding love.
Holy Sonnets X from Easter Wings To the Virgins to Make Much of
John Donne George Herbert Time
Robert Herrick
Death, be not proud, though some have My tender age in sorrow did
called thee beginne: Gather ye rosebuds while ye may,
Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so; And still with sicknesses and Old time is still a-flying:
For those, whom thou think'st thou dost shame And this same flower that smiles to-
overthrow, Thou didst so punish sinne, day
Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst thou kill That I became Most thinne. To-morrow will be dying.
me. The glorious lamp of heaven, the
From rest and sleep, which but thy With thee sun,
picture[s] be, Let me combine, The higher he's a-getting,
Much pleasure, then from thee much more And feel this day thy victorie, The sooner will his race be run,
must flow, For, if I imp my wing on And nearer he's to setting.
And soonest our best men with thee do thine, That age is best which is the first,
go, Affliction shall advance the When youth and blood are warmer;
Rest of their bones, and soul's delivery. flight in me. But being spent, the worse, and
Thou'rt slave to Fate, chance, kings, and worst
desperate men, Times still succeed the former.
And dost with poison, war, and sickness Then be not coy, but use your time,
dwell, And while ye may go marry:
And poppy, or charms can make us sleep For having lost but once your prime
as well, You may for ever tarry.
And better than thy stroke; why swell'st
thou then?
One short sleep past, we wake eternally,
And Death shall be no more; Death, thou
shalt die.
5. Andrew Marvell (1621-1678), Richard Crashaw (1612-1649), and Henry Vaughan (1622-1695) were other
metaphysical poets of merit. Marvell is famous for his well-loved lyric To His Coy Mistress.
6. Cavalier Poets include Thomas Carew (1595-1639), Richard Lovelace (1618-58), Sir John Suckling (1609-
42), and Robert Herrick (1591-1674). Cavalier poets preferred more straightforward expression. They value
elegance, and were part of a refined, courtly culture, but their poetry is often frankly erotic. Their strength was the
short lyric poem, and a favorite theme was carpe diem, "seize the day."
b. William Butler Yeats (1865-1939), John Millington Synge (1871-1909), and Lord Dunsany (1878-1957)
worked vigorously for the Irish cause. All were dramatists and all helped found the famous Abbey Theatre.
3. Writers after the World Wars
World War I brought discontent and disillusionment. Men were plunged into gloom at the knowledge that "progress"
had not saved the world from war. In fiction there was a shift from novels of the human comedy to novels of
characters. Fiction ceased to be concerned with a plot or a forward-moving narrative. Instead it followed the
twisted, contorted development of a single character or a group of related characters
a. William Somerset Maugham (1874-1965) focused on the alienation and despair of drifters. His Of Human
Bondage portrays Philip Carey struggling against self-consciousness and embarrassment because of his cub-
foot.
b. D.H. Lawrence (1885-1930) explored highly psychological themes as human desire, sexuality, and instinct
alongside the dehumanizing effects of modernity and industrialization in such great novels as Sons and Lovers,
Women in Love, The Plumed Serpent, and Lady Chatterley’s Lover.
c. James Joyce (1882-1941) was an Irish expatriate noted for his experimental use of the interior monologue
and the stream of consciousness technique in landmark novels as Ulysses, Finnegans Wake, and in his
semi-autobiographical novel The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man’.
Stream of consciousness is a technique pioneered by Dorothy Richardson, Virginia Woolf and James Joyce.
It presents the thoughts and feelings of a character as they occur.
Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is one of the most notable bildungs-roman in English
literature. A bildungsroman is a novel of formation or development in which the protagonist transforms
from ignorance to knowledge, innocence to maturity.
d. Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) also believed that reality, or consciousness, is a stream. Life, for both reader and
characters, is immersion in the flow of that stream. Mrs. Dalloway and To the Lighthouse are among her best
works.
e. Aldous Huxley (1894-1963) wrote Point Counter Point, Brave New World, and After Many a Summer
Dies the Swan where he showed his cynicism of the contemporary world.
f. William Golding (born 1911) was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 1983. His first novel, Lord of
the Flies tells of a group of schoolboys who revert to savagery when isolated on an island. In the novel, Golding
explores naturalist and religious themes of original sin.
g. George Orwell (1903-50) is world-renown, for the powerful anti-Communist satire Animal Farm. This was
followed in 1949 with an anti-totalitarian novel entitled Nineteen Eighty-Four.
h. Graham Greene (1904-91) is known for novels of highly Catholic themes like Brighton Rock, The Heart of
the Matter, The End of the Affair and The Power and the Glory. Among his better-known later novels are
The Quiet American, Our Man in Havana, A Burnt-Out Case, The Human Factor, and Monsignor
Quixote.
i. Kingsley Amis is considered by many to be the best of the writers to emerge from the 1950s. The social
discontent he expressed made Lucky Jim famous in England. Lucky Jim is the story of Jim Dixon, who rises
from a lower-class background only to find all the positions at the top of the social ladder filled.
j. Anthony Burgess (born 1917) was a novelist whose fictional exploration of modern dilemmas combines wit,
moral earnestness, and touches of the bizarre. He is known for A Clockwork Orange. His other novels include
Enderby Outside, Earthly Powers, The End of the World News, and The Kingdom of the Wicked.
k. Doris Lessing (born 1919) is a Zimbabwean-British writer, famous for novels The Grass is Singing and The
Golden Notebook. She won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2007.
l. Salman Rushdie is a British-Indian novelist and essayist noted for his Midnight's Children and The Satanic
Verses which prompted Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini to issue a fatwa against him, because Muslims considered the
book blasphemous. In July 2008 Midnight's Children won a public vote to be named the Best of the Booker, the
best novel to win the Booker Prize in the award's 40-year history.
AMERICAN LITERATURE
A. Early American and Colonial Period to 1776
American literature begins with the orally transmitted myths, legends, tales, and lyrics (always songs) of Indian
cultures. There was no written literature among the more than 500 different Indian languages and tribal cultures that
existed in North America before the first Europeans arrived.
Indian stories are characterized by the following:
o reverence for nature as a spiritual as well as physical mother
o nature is rendered alive and endowed with spiritual forces
o main characters may be animals or plants, often totems associated with a tribe, group, or individual
o Accounts of migrations and ancestors abound, as do vision or healing songs and tricksters' tales.
The songs or poetry, like the narratives, range from the sacred to the light and humorous: There are lullabies, war
chants, love songs, and special songs for children's games, gambling, various chores, magic, or dance ceremonials.
Examples of almost every oral genre can be found in American Indian literature: lyrics, chants, myths, fairy tales,
humorous anecdotes, incantations, riddles, proverbs, epics, and legendary histories. Certain creation stories are
particularly popular.
B. THE LITERATURE OF EXPLORATION
1. Christopher Columbus the famous Italian explorer, funded by the Spanish rulers Ferdinand and Isabella, wrote the
"Epistola," printed in 1493 which recounts his voyages.
2. Captain John Smith led the Jamestown colony and wrote the famous story of the Indian maiden, Pocahontas.
C. COLONIAL PERIOD IN NEW ENGLAND
1. William Bradford (1590-1657) wrote Of Plymouth Plantation and the first document of colonial self-
governance in the English New World, the Mayflower Compact.
2. Anne Bradstreet (c. 1612-1672) wrote the first published
book of poems by an American which was also the first American To my Dear and Loving Husband
book to be published by a woman. Anne Bradstreet
She wrote long, religious poems on conventional subjects,
but she is well loved for her witty poems on subjects from If ever two were one, then surely we.
daily life and her warm and loving poems to her husband If ever man were lov'd by wife, then thee.
and children. If ever wife was happy in a man,
She was inspired by English metaphysical poetry, and her Compare with me, ye women, if you can.
book The Tenth Muse Lately Sprung Up in America I prize thy love more than whole Mines of gold
(1650) shows the influence of Edmund Spenser, Philip Or all the riches that the East doth hold.
Sidney, and other English poets as well. My love is such that Rivers cannot quench,
3. Edward Taylor (c. 1644-1729) was an intense, brilliant poet, Nor ought but love from thee give recompense.
teacher and minister who sailed to New England in 1668 rather Thy love is such I can no way repay.
than take an oath of loyalty to the Church of England. The heavens reward thee manifold, I pray.
He wrote a variety of verse: funeral elegies, lyrics, a Then while we live, in love let's so persever
medieval "debate," and a 500-page Metrical History of That when we live no more, we may live ever.
Christianity (mainly a history of martyrs). His best works,
according to modern critics, are the series of short
Preparatory Meditations.
4. Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758) was molded by his extreme sense of duty and by the rigid Puritan environment,
which conspired to make him defend strict and gloomy Calvinism from the forces of liberalism springing up around
him. He is best known for his frightening, powerful sermon, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.
Puritans refer to two distinct groups: "separating" Puritans, such as the Plymouth colonists, who believed that
the Church of England was corrupt and that true Christians must separate themselves from it; and non-
separating Puritans, such as those in Massachusetts Bay Colony, who believed in reform but not separation.
Puritans believed in God’s ultimate sovereignty in granting grace and salvation; therefore, their lives center on
three important covenants – covenants of Works, Grace, and Redemption.
D. THE AMERICAN ENLIGHTENMENT
Enlightenment thinkers and writers were devoted to the ideals of justice, liberty, and equality as the natural rights of
man. Thus, the18th-century American Enlightenment was a movement marked by -
an emphasis on rationality rather than tradition,
scientific inquiry instead of unquestioning religious dogma, and
Representative government in place of monarchy.
1. Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790) was America's "first great man of letters," who embodied the Enlightenment ideal
of humane rationality.
Franklin was a leading author and printer, satirist, political theorist, politician, scientist, inventor, civic activist,
statesman, and diplomat.
He was an important figure at the 1787 convention at which the U.S. Constitution was drafted. In his later years,
he was president of an antislavery association and one of his last efforts was to promote universal public
education.
He used the pseudonym Poor Richard or Richard Saunders in Poor Richard’s Almanack – a yearly almanac he
released from 1732-1758. The almanac was a repository of Franklin’s proverbs and aphorisms.
2. Thomas Paine (1737-1809) is known for his political pamphlets. His pamphlet Common Sense sold over 100,000
copies in the first three months of its publication. He wrote the famous line, "The cause of America is in a great
measure the cause of all mankind."
3. Philip Freneau (1752-1832) was the poet of the American Revolution who incorporated the new stirrings of
European Romanticism in his lyric The Wild Honeysuckle.
4. Washington Irving (1789-1859) became a cultural and diplomatic ambassador to Europe, like Benjamin Franklin
and Nathaniel Hawthorne.
With the help of friends, he was able to publish his Sketch Book (1819-1820) simultaneously in England and
America, obtaining copyrights and payment in both countries. The Sketch Book of Geoffrye Crayon (Irving's
pseudonym) contains his two best-remembered stories, Rip Van Winkle and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.
5. James Fenimore Cooper (1789-1851) wrote the Leather Stocking tales in which he introduced his renowned
character Natty Bumppo, who embodies his vision of the frontiersman as a gentleman, a Jeffersonian "natural
aristocrat."
Natty Bumppo is the first famous frontiersman in American literature and the literary forerunner of countless
cowboy and backwoods heroes.
6. Phillis Wheatley (c. 1753-1784) is the first African-American author who wrote of religious themes. Just like that of
Philip Freneau, her style is neoclassical.
Among her best-known poems are To S.M., a Young African Painter, on Seeing His Works and On Being
Brought from Africa to America. These poems boldly confront white racism and assert spiritual equality.
E. THE ROMANTIC PERIOD, 1820-1860
The Romantic Movement, which originated in Germany but quickly spread to England, France, and beyond,
reached America around the year 1820, some 20 years after William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge had
revolutionized English poetry by publishing Lyrical Ballads.
Romanticism in America coincided with the period of national expansion and the discovery of a distinctive
American voice.
Romantic ideas centered on art as inspiration, the spiritual and aesthetic dimension of nature, and metaphors of
organic growth.
Art, rather than science, could best express universal truth. The Romantics underscored the importance of expressive
art for the individual and society. In his essay The Poet, Ralph Waldo Emerson asserts:
For all men live by truth, and stand in need of expression. In love, in art, in avarice, in politics, in
labor, in games, we study to utter our painful secret. The man is only half himself, the other half
is his expression.
The development of the self became a major theme; self- awareness a primary method. The idea of "self" - which
suggested selfishness to earlier generations - was redefined. New compound words with positive meanings emerged:
"self-realization," "self-expression," "self- reliance."
As the unique, subjective self became important, so did the realm of psychology. Exceptional artistic effects and
techniques were developed to evoke heightened psychological states. The "sublime" -- an effect of beauty in
grandeur, produced feelings of awe, reverence, vastness, and a power beyond human comprehension.
Romanticism was affirmative and appropriate for most American poets and creative essayists. America's vast
mountains, deserts, and tropics embodied the sublime. The Romantic spirit seemed particularly suited to American
democracy.
Transcendentalists
The Transcendentalist movement was a reaction against 18th century rationalism and a manifestation of the
general humanitarian trend of 19th century thought.
The movement was based on the belief in the unity of the world and God.
The doctrine of self- reliance and individualism developed through the belief in the identification of the individual
soul with God.
1. Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882) was a leading exponent of the transcendentalist movement who called for the
birth of American individualism inspired by nature.
In his essay Self-Reliance, Emerson remarks: "A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds."
Most of his major ideas – the need for a new national vision, the use of personal experience, the notion of the
cosmic Over-Soul, and the doctrine of compensation – are suggested in his first publication, Nature.
2. Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) wrote Walden, or Life in the Woods, which was the result of two years, two
months, and two days (from 1845 to 1847) he spent living in a cabin he built at Walden Pond on property owned by
Emerson.
In Walden, Thoreau not only tests the theories of transcendentalism, but he also re-enacts the collective
American experience of the 19th century by living on the frontier.
He also wrote Civil Disobedience, with its theory of passive resistance based on the moral necessity for the just
individual to disobey unjust laws. This was an inspiration for Mahatma Gandhi's Indian independence movement
and Martin Luther King's struggle for black Americans' civil rights in the 20th century.
3. Walt Whitman (1819-1892) incorporated both
transcendentalist and realist ideas in his works. He From Song of Myself
championed the individual and the country's democratic spirit Walt Whitman
in his Leaves of Grass.
Leaves of Grass, which he rewrote and revised I CELEBRATE myself, and sing myself,
throughout his life, contains Song of Myself, the And what I assume you shall assume,
strongest evocation of the transcend list ideals. For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to
I Heard a Fly Buzz When I Died you.
Emily Dickinson
I heard a fly buzz when I died; The stillness round my form
was like the stillness in the air between the heaves of storm. 4. Emily Dickinson (1830-1886) was a radical
The eyes beside had wrung them dry, and breaths were individualist who found deep inspiration in the birds,
gathering sure animals, plants, and changing seasons of the New
For that last onset, when the king be witnessed in his power. I England countryside. She wrote 1,775 poems but only
willed my keepsakes, signed away one was published in her lifetime.
What portion of me I could make assignable, and then
there interposed a fly,
With blue, uncertain, stumbling buzz, between the light and
me; And then the windows failed, and then
I could not see to see.
She shows a terrifying existential awareness. Like
Poe, she explores the dark and hidden part of the
mind, dramatizing death and the grave.
For I have known them all already, known them all: The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock embodies
Have known the evenings, mornings, afternoons, this approach, when the ineffectual, elderly Prufrock
I have measured out my life with coffee spoons; thinks to himself that he has "measured out his life in
I know the voices dying with a dying fall coffee spoons," using coffee spoons to reflect a
Beneath the music from a farther room. humdrum existence and a wasted lifetime.
So how should I presume?
Stopping By Woods on a Snowy
3. Robert Frost (1874-1963) combines sound and sense in his frequent use of rhyme and images. Frost's poems are
Evening
often deceptively simple but suggest a deeper meaning.
Whose woods these are I think I know. Between the woods and frozen
His house is in the village though; lakeThe darkest evening of the year.
He will not see me stopping here He gives his harness bells a shake
To watch his woods fill up with snow. To ask if there is some mistake.
My little horse must think it queer The only other sound's the sweep
To stop without a farmhouse near Of easy wind and downy flake.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
4. Wallace Stevens (1879-1955) lived a double life, one as an insurance business The Red Wheelbarrow
executive, another as a renowned poet. His associates in the insurance company did William Carlos Williams
not know that he was a major poet.
Some of his best known poems are "Sunday Morning," "Peter Quince at the so much depends
Clavier," "The Emperor of Ice-Cream," "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a upon
Blackbird," and "The Idea of Order at Key West."
Stevens's poetry dwells upon themes of the imagination, the necessity for a red wheel
aesthetic form, and the belief that the order of art corresponds with an order in barrow
nature. His vocabulary is rich and various: He paints lush tropical scenes but
also manages dry, humorous, and ironic vignettes. glazed with rain
5. William Carlos Williams (1883-1963) championed the use of colloquial speech; water
his ear for the natural rhythms of American English helped free American poetry from
the iambic meter that had dominated English verse since the Renaissance. beside the white
His sympathy for ordinary working people, children, and everyday events in chickens.
modern urban settings make his poetry attractive and accessible. The Red
Wheelbarrow, like a Dutch still life, finds interest and beauty in everyday
objects.
He termed his work "objectivist" to suggest the importance of concrete, visual objects. His work influenced the
"Beat" writing of the early 1950s.
Beat Generation refers to a group of American writers who became popular in the 1950s and who popularized
the “Beatniks" culture. The “Beatniks” rejected mainstream American values, experimented with drugs and
alternate forms of sexuality, and focused on Eastern spirituality.
The major works of Beat writing are Allen Ginsberg's Howl, William S. Burroughs's Naked Lunch and Jack
Kerouac's On the Road.
6. Edward Estlin Cummings (1894-1962), commonly known as e.e. cummings, wrote innovative verse distinguished
for its humor, grace, celebration of love and eroticism, and experimentation with punctuation and visual format on the
page.
8. Langston Hughes (1902-1967) embraced African- American jazz rhythms in his works. He was one of the leaders
of the Harlem Renaissance responsible for the flowering of African-American culture and writings.
AFRO-ASIAN LITERATURE
1. According to this religion human beings are bound to the wheel of life which is a continual cycle of birth, death, and
suffering.
A. Hinduism B. Buddhism C. Shintoism D. Taoism
2. __________ is a collection of sacred hymns in archaic Sanskrit which exalt the deities who personify various natural
and cosmic phenomena.
A. Dhammapada B. Upanishads C. Bhagavad Gita D. Rigveda
3. This is a story of a learned Brahman named Vishnusarman who used animal fables to instruct the three dull-witted
sons of a king.
A. Panchatantra C. Gitanjali
B. The Little Clay Cart D. On Learning to be an Indian
4. __________ dominates every scene in a Sanskrit drama and allows the audience to take part in the play and be one
with the characters.
A. artha B. rasa C. kama D. moksha
5. What is the rhythmical development of this excerpt from the Rigveda, ‘The Hymn of Man?’
When they divided Purusa, how many portions did them make?
What do they call his mouth, his arms? What do they call his thighs and feet?
The Brahman was his mouth, of both arms was Rajanya made.
His thighs became Vaisya, from his feet the Sudra was produced.
Read the poem by Ping Hsin then answer questions 6 –7 Time is a Pair of Scissors
6. What figure of speech is used in the title? Ping Hsin
A. simile C. personification And life, a bolt of brocade
B. metaphor D. hyperbole Section by section the brocade is cut;
7. What is the central idea of the poem? When the last section is done
A. cruelty of time C. destruction of beauty The scraps are committed to a bonfire.
B. impermanence of life D. beauty of nature
Time is an iron whip,
8. All of these are Chinese genres in poetry except _______. And life, a tree full of blossoms.
A. li sao C. shih One by one the flowers are lashed off;
B. chueh-chu D. renga When the last on is gone,
9. Which is not characteristic of Chinese theater? The fallen petals are trampled into the dirt and sand.
A. follows the unities of time, place, and action
B. conveys an ethical lesson in the guise of art in order to impress a moral truth
C. a total theater with singing, recitation of verses, acrobats, and dancing
D. there are two types of speeches – the dialogue and the monologue
10. China’s most famous teacher, philosopher, and political theorist, whose ideas have influence all civilization of East
Asia.
A. Confucious B. Lao-tzu C. Li Po D. Tu Fu
11. A farce normally performed between the Nō tragedies
A. kabuki B. kyogen C. Jorori D. bunrako
12. Yukio Mishima’s four-part epic including Spring Snow, Runaway Horses, The Temple of Dawn, and The Decay
of the Angel is known as __________.
A. The House of Sleeping Beauties C. Snow Country
B. The Sea of Fertility D. The Wild Geese
13. He is one of the most widely translated of all Japanese writers, and a number of his stories have been made into
films such as Rashomon
A. Yasunari Kawabata C. Oe Kenzaburo
B. Junichiro Tanizaki D. Ryunosuke Akutagawa
14. What is the atmosphere created by the image of nature when linked with the image of the woman?
A. romance
Blossoms on the pear; B. boredom
And a woman in the moonlight C. weariness
Reads a letter there … (Buson) D. excitement
Read the excerpt below from Chinua Achebe’s The Voter then answer questions 15 –16.
We have a Minister from our village, one of our own sons. He said to a group
of elders in the house of Ogbuefi Exenwa, a man of high traditional title,
“What honour can a village have? Do you ever stop to ask yourself why we
5
should be single our of this honour? I will tell: it is because we are favoured by
the leaders of PAP. Whether we cast our paper for Marcus or not PAP will
continue to rule. Think of the pipe-borne water they have promised us …
Besides Roof and his assistant, there were five elders in the room. An old
hurricane with a cracked sooty glass chimney gave out yellowish light in their
10
midst. The elders sat on very low stools. On the floor, directly in front of them,
lay two shilling pieces. Outside the moon kept a straight face. “We believe
every word you say to be true,” said Ezenwa. “We shall every one of us drop
his paper for Marcus. Who would leave an ozo feast and go to a poor ritual
mean? Tell Marcus he has our papers, and our wives papers, too. But what we
15
do say is that two shillings is shameful.” He brought the lamp close and tilted
it at the moment before him as if to make sure he had not mistaken its value.
“Yes, two shillings, it is shameful. If Marcus were a poor man which our
ancestors forbid I should be the first to give him my paper free, as I did before.
But today Marcus is a great man. We did not ask him for money yesterday; we
20
have climbed the iroko tree today and would be foolish not to take down all the
firewood we need.”
ANSWER KEY
Philippine Literature in English
1. A 9. A 17. A 25. A 33. B 41. B
2. C 10. D 18. A 26. C 34. A 42. C
3. D 11. B 19. C 27. C 35. B 43. B
4. A 12. B 20. D 28. D 36. B 44. B
5. B 13. C 21. B 29. B 37. D 45. C
6. A 14. C 22. C 30. C 38. C
7. A 15. B 23. B 31. B 39. A
8. D 16. D 24. A 32. B 40. C
Afro-Asian Literature
1. B 5. C 9. A 13. D 17. C
2. D 6. B 10. A 14. A 18. C
3. A 7. A 11. B 15. C 19. A
4. B 8. D 12. B 16. D 20. B
2. N be UW (= uninflected word),
where the uninflected word is an ADVERBIAL such as here, there, up, down, in, out, inside, upstairs,
downstairs, on, off, now, then, yesterday, and tomorrow. Be has the meaning of “be located” or “occur.”
The meeting was yesterday.
3. N1 be N1 where the superscript means that the two nouns have the same referent. The second noun following the
be verb is also a subject complement, in particular a PREDICATE NOUN or PREDICATE NOMINATIVE.
Her neighbor is my cousin.
5. N1 TrV (= transitive V) N2
where N2 does not have the same referent as N 1. N2 is called the direct object of the verb, “the receiver of
the action.”
The girl buys yellow roses.
6. N1 TrV N2 N3
where the superscripts 1, 2, and 3 indicate that each noun has a different referent.
Mother gave a gift to the orphan. (usually reads as Mother gave the orphan a gift.)
Two noun objects occur after the verb. Still N2 is the direct object and N3 is the indirect object. If we omit the last noun,
the pattern is identical to that in item 5. Note that the indirect object is preceded by the preposition to (sometimes for or
of). If the two objects are inverted, the preposition disappears.
He made a toy house for her.
He made her a toy house.
The teacher asked a question of her.
The teacher asked her a question.
7. } N2
} Adj
} Pronoun
N1 TrV N2 } Adv (of place), uninflected
} Verb, present participle
} Verb, past participle
There are a choice of different forms in sentence final position. These are illustrated as follows:
The class voted Henry secretary.
The principal found the gardener efficient.
We considered the writer you.
The teacher directed them outside.
She saw them praying.
I imagine my father overworked.
The most common illustration of this sentence pattern is one with the occurrence of a final N 2.
NOUNS
Nouns can be recognized by means of the following characteristics:
1. They are names of entities -- a person, place, thing, of idea.
2. They have two inflections, the plural {-es} and the possessive (sometimes called the genitive) {-‘s}. Both inflections
have various allomorphs
/əz/ appears after morphs ending in sibilants or affricates / s, z, š, ž, č j /
/s/ appears after morphs ending in voiceless consonants / p, t, k, f, Ɵ /,
except the sibilants and affricate / s, š, č /
/z/ appears after morphs ending in vowels and voiced consonants / b, d, g, v,
ð, m, n, ŋ, l, r. y, w /, except the sibilants and the affricate / z, ž, j /
3. They may be marked by noun-forming derivational suffixes added to bases or stems, usually belong to other parts of
speech, e.g.
added to verbs
{-age} breakage
{-ee} employee
added to adjectives
{-ity} facility
{-ness} happiness
added to other nouns
{-cy} advocacy
{-ian} librarian
{-ship} friendship
4. They fill certain characteristic positions in relation to other parts of speech in phrases and sentences.
just before a verb
Red roses bloom in my garden.
after determiners such as articles, demonstratives, and possessive adjectives, e.g. the examination, these
reviewees, my handouts
5. Unlike other languages, gender is not an important feature of English grammar. Gender is only marked in certain
pairs of nouns, e.g. waiter/waitress, host/hostess
6. Certain superfixes occasionally identify nouns from other parts of speech as in: récòrd and rècórd. These two words
are morphemically alike; however, we identify the stress pattern / ˊ ˋ / as a noun.
7. Nouns can serve as heads in a noun phrase. As heads they may be preceded by one or more single-word modifiers
and followed by a phrasal or clausal modifier or both
the small study table in my room which my father bought
Functions of Nouns
subject of verbs Several items have ambiguous stems.
direct objects of verbs They administered the test.
indirect objects of verbs The lecturer provided the participants handouts.
subject noun predicates/ We are LET reviewers.
predicate nouns
object noun predicates/ The reviewees chose him their representative.
object complements
objects of prepositions in our review class
appositives The LET, a professional examination, is conducted every year.
vocatives/nouns of address Anne, how did you find the exam?
Noun Types
1. common: nouns referring to a kind of person, thing, or idea
Count nouns, which take the plural inflection
Mass/noncount nouns, which don’t take the plural inflection
2. proper nouns: names for unique individuals or places
3. collective nouns: able to take either singular or plural verbs forms, depending on the interpretation given to the
noun, i.e, whether it is seen as a unit or as a collection of individuals
The team has won all its games.
The team have won awards in their respective events.
ARTICLES
Articles are a subclass of determiners, which are noun-marking words. They usually come before the nouns they modify.
PRONOUNS
Most pronouns stand for, refer to, or replaces a noun or a noun phrase within a text; hence, they occupy the same
position as a noun or noun phrase does. The word or words that a pronoun stands for are its antecedent or reference.
My brother holds dual citizenship. He is not only a Filipino but also a Canadian citizen.
I and me stand for the speaker or writer.
I am a Filipino, but I am living in Australia now.
Pronouns can also be a direct reference to an outside situation (e.g., “What is that?” in response to a sound or noise).
Kinds of Pronouns
There are many different kinds of pronouns: subject, object, possessive, reflexive, demonstrative and others. The forms
within each category are distinguished by number (singular/plural), person (first/second/third) gender
(masculine/feminine/neuter), and in the case of demonstratives, by number and proximity.
Things to remember:
1. Animals closely related to people can be referred to by he, him, and his or she, her, and hers.
The dog loves his/her/its master.
2. Use it and its to refer to inanimate objects except ships, which are always referred as she.
3. Countries and schools are sometimes referred matter are sometimes referred to by she or her.
4. Traditionally, the pronouns he, him, and his have been used for mixed groups or groups in which the sex is
unknown. Many people now object to this use, so they use both the masculine and feminine forms or the plural
forms to avoid the problem.
Everybody submitted his or her assignment. (awkward)
All the students submitted their assignments. (acceptable)
5. If I, me, my or mine or their plural counterparts are part of a pair or a series, put them last.
The teacher confiscated his toy and mine, too.
Father helped Tony with his project, and he will help my sister and me with ours tomorrow.
Reflexive Pronouns
1. Use the reflexive pronoun as the object of the verb form or preposition to refer to the subject of the sentence.
The baby is able to feed itself.
Luis cut himself with a razor blade.
2. The phrase by + self or its emphatic form all by + self means alone or without any help.
I crossed the river (all) by myself.
Intensive Pronouns
The intensive form occurs directly after the word it modifies or at the end of the clause.
The mayor herself distributed the relief goods.
The mayor distributed the relief goods herself.
Reciprocal Pronouns
1. The reciprocal pronoun forms are each other and one another. They means that each part of the subject did the
action and also received the action.
2. They must be objects of verb forms or objects of prepositions.
3. Some prefer to use each other for two people or things and one another for more than two.
The two finalists congratulated each other for making it to the top.l
The class members prepared surprise gifts for one another during the Christmas party.
Demonstrative Pronouns
1. Demonstrative pronouns occur alone. They do not precede nouns.
This is my favorite movie.
2. Demonstrative pronouns can show distance or contrast not connected with distance.
This is mine; that is yours over there. (distance)
Which ones do you prefer, these or those? (contrast)
Indefinite Pronouns
none another
anyone everyone someone
Personal no one other ones
anybody everybody somebody
nobody others
another
everything nothing
NonPersonal anything something other ones
every one none
others
Use singular verbs with compound pronouns and use singular pronouns to refer to them in formal writing.
Formal: Nobody brought his book today.
Informal: Nobody brought their books today.
Question Interrogative pronouns
Who, whom, whose, which, and what can begin questions.
1. Use who, whom, whose and which to refer to persons..
2. Use what and which to refer to things and events.
3. In formal writing, use who for the subject of a clause and whom for the object of the verb or preposition.
Relative pronouns
1. Relative pronouns (sometimes called clause markers) introduce dependent clauses (also called relative clauses).
2. Relative pronouns used in adjective clauses are who, whom, whose, which and that.
3. Who, whom, and whose are used for persons while which is used for non-persons.
The guest who came to dinner is the governor.
The book which I bought is a best seller.
4. That is a neutral form. It can be marked +human or –human. In other words, it can be a substitute for both who
(+human) or which (-human).
The guest who/that came to dinner is the governor.
The book which/that I bought is a best seller.
5. In informal writing, whom is optional; in formal writing, whom must be used
Nora is the girl you saw in the party last night. (informal)
Nora is the girl whom you saw in the party last night. (formal)
6. That, which and whom are the only relative pronouns that can be left out.
The instrumental music (that) I like to hear often is that of Zamfir.
The house pests (which) I hate to see are the rodents and the cockroach.
7. Who, whom, and whose can be used in both essential and nonessential clauses.
8. That instead of which is used only in essential or restrictive clauses, so do not put commas around clauses beginning
with that.
*The poster, that won first prize, pleased both the judges and the viewers.
9. Use which in nonessential or nonrestrictive clauses. Separate nonessential clauses from the rest of the sentence
by commas.
Our car, which has been running for three days, should be brought to the machine shop for check-up.
10. Relative pronouns used in noun clauses are that, what, whatever, whoever,
whomever, and whichever.
Whatever you offer will be appreciated. (noun clause as subject)
He will befriend whoever he gets acquainted with. (noun clause as direct object)
11. Look at the antecedent of who, that or which when used as subject to decide
whether the verb following should be singular or plural.
The painting which is exhibited is the painter’s masterpiece.
The farmers who own orchards earn much from their harvest.
PREPOSITIONS
Prepositions are notoriously difficult for ESL learners for several reasons.
1. Several English prepositions are realized as a single form in the learner’s first language.
Pumunta kami sa palengke. (We went to the market).
Lumangoy kami sa ilog. (We swam in the river.)
Sa kalye ang gulo. (The commotion occurred on the street.)
Antayin mo ako sa kanto. (Meet me at the street corner.)
2. The English preposition is not necessarily realized by a single word. There are complex forms like because of and
in spite of or coalesced forms like into and onto.
3. Certain prepositions co-occur with verbs, adjectives, and nouns to form clusters.
to substitute for to be afraid of
in favor of awareness of
4. English prepositions are polysemous. They bear varied meanings.
Throw the at the wall. (space)
It rains at night. (time)
Water freezes at 00C. (degree)
She’s good at dancing. (idiomatic)
Meanings of Prepositions
1. Many prepositions prototypically deal with locating objects in space involving two or more entities. One entity is
for foregrounding, while the other serves as background. The former is the figure and the latter is the landmark.
In
Throw the ball at the wall.
figure landmark
2. Note the following figure
at on in
by ↕ ↕ ↕ through
with about
under over
from off out of
By and with are proximity prepositions, which locate the figure in relation to a point of orientation marked by
the preposition at. By denotes the idea of “connection” while with denotes both a point of orientation and the
idea of connection. In its spatial sense, with can occur only with animate nouns as landmark.
He stood by me in all throughout the campaign.
He rides with me to our place of work.
Through and about require the landmark to the seen as a surface or a volume and are there positioned in the
diagram above next to in. Through structures space as a tunnel or channel. About denotes spatial movement
in any direction.
Move the other side of the mountain through the tunnel.
He walked briskly about the yard for his morning exercise.
Under and over are vertical space preposition. Under denotes a figure at a lower point than the landmark.
Over denotes a figure that is at a higher point than the landmark.
Don’t keep your shoes under the table.
We watched the game over the fence.
VERBS
A verb can be recognized by means of the following characteristics:
Denotes an action (e.g., read) or a state of being (e.g. know). Action verbs are dynamic. State of being verbs (or
stative verbs) include the copula or linking verbs, e.g. the be-verbs, remain, appear, and become.
Has four inflections
- {-s} of third person singular present tense verbs
- {-ed} of simple past tense verbs
- {-en} of the past participle
- {-ing} of the present participle
The third person singular –s has the same allomorphs as the noun plural and the noun possessive.
The –ed past tense inflection has three allomorphs:
- / əd / after morphs which end in / t / or / d / as in planted, raided
- / t / after morphs that end in voiceless sounds except / t / as in
brushed, jumped, walked
- / d / after morphs which end in voiced sounds except / d / as in cleaned, grabbed, agreed
Follows a subject noun and may be followed in turn by adjectives
}______ eager [to enhance their knowledge].
The reviewees }______ seriously.
}______ their handouts.
May fall under one more or more of these types
intransitive verbs, which does not take an object (direct)
Flowers bloom.
transitive verbs, which require an object (direct)
Flowers need water and sunlight.
ditransitive verbs, which take two objects (direct and indirect)
Alex gave his girlfriend three red roses.
linking/copula verbs, where what follows the verb relates back to the subject (subject complement -- a
predicate noun or a predicate adjective)
Roses are lovely Valentine’s Day gifts.
Roses are sweet.
complex transitive verbs, where what follows the object (direct) relates to the object
They chose Niña, muse of the team.
prepositional verbs, which requires a preposition phrase to be complete
We looked at the pictures taken during our graduation
Have tense and aspect qualities. Tense and aspect have to do with form. TENSE is “the grammatical marking on
verbs that usually indicates time reference relative to either the time of speaking or the time at which some other
situation was in force” (Jacobs 1995). Time reference has to do with meaning. Events and situations are located
in time, perhaps to our speaking about them, perhaps while we are speaking about them, or perhaps at some
later time. English has three tenses – present, past, and future. The present and the past tenses have inflectional
markings, while the future is marked by the inclusion of the modals will or shall. Simply put, tense is a set of
verb forms that indicate a particular point in time or period of time in the past, present, or future.
ASPECT is a general name given to verb forms used to signify certain ways in which an event is viewed or
experienced. Aspect can view an event as completed whole (simple), or whether or not it has occurred earlier
(perfect aspect) or is still in progress (progress).
Noel has attended the review classes. (perfect)
Now he is studying for the LET exam. (progressive)
The tenses in combination with aspects make up the following 12 tense-aspect categories. These make up the
traditional 12 tenses.
Sometimes, if we want to draw attention to the time of the action, we use an ADJUNCT OF TIME, which can be an
adverb, a noun group, or a prepositional phrase, e.g..:
She’s coming tomorrow. (adverb)
Results of the examination were released last week. (noun group)
He will feel relieved after the exam. (prepositional phrase)
Perfect-Progressive Aspect
1. Present perfect progressive
a. To talk about an activity or situation that started at some time in the past, continued, and is still
happening now.
The economy has been declining in many parts of the world.
2. Past perfect progressive
a. To emphasize the recentness and duration of a continuous activity which took place before a particular
time in the past.
The old woman had been living alone in that dilapidated house.
b. To say that something was expected, wished for, or intended before a particular time in the past.
I had been expecting a phenomenal rise in his political career.
3. Future perfect progressive
a. To emphasize the duration to an event at a specific time in the future
By January 2011, she will have been serving this university for 38 years.
3. Operators/operator verbs
The operator is a verb that has three main functions: 1) It precedes the negative and combines with it
when the negative is contracted to –n’t; 2) It is the verb that moves around the subject to the sentence
initial position in yes-no questions; and 3) It is also the verb that appears in the tag phrases of
interrogative sentences or tag questions.
My father will not approve your marriage proposal.
My father won’t approve your marriage proposal.
Will your father approve my marriage proposal?
Will your father not approve my marriage proposal?
Won’t your father approve my marriage proposal?
Your father will approve my marriage proposal, won’t he?
When a clause contains no verb eligible to be an operator, do is introduced.
He attends the graduation ball tonight.
He does attend the graduation ball tonight.
He does not attend the graduation ball tonight.
Does he attend the graduation ball tonight?
He attends the graduation ball tonight, doesn’t he?
If there are two auxiliary or more auxiliary verbs present in the verb phrase, the first auxiliary serves as
the operator.
He has been reading the Obama autobiography.
He has not been reading the Obama autobiography.
*He has been not reading the Obama autobiography.
Has he been reading the Obama autobiography.
He has been reading the Obama autobiography, hasn’t he?
VOICE
VOICE pertains to who or what serves the subject in a clause. In the active voice, the subject of a clause is most often
the agent, or doer, of some action. In the passive voice, the subject of a clause is the receiver or undergoer of the
action. The passive “defocuses” the agent. (Shibitani 1985 in Celce Murcia and Larsen-Freeman 2001)
The lifeguard saved the child. (active)
The child was saved [by the lifeguard]. (passive)
The passive voice is more limited than the active in that it requires only the transitive verbs – verbs that take direct
objects.
The passive morphology is be . . . –en, i.e., a form of the be verb + the past participle . Usually in passive sentences the
agent is not mentioned at all, referred to as the agentless passive. If the agent is mentioned (= agented passive), it
appears in a prepositional phrase marked by the preposition by.
When to use the passive presents the greatest challenge to ESL learners.
PHRASAL VERBS
These are verbs which consist of two or three words. They consists of:
1. a verb followed by an adverb;
go up, spill over, push through
2. a verb followed by a preposition; or
come upon, reckon with, bank on
3. a verb followed by an adverb and a preposition
break out of, look forward to, go along with
2. transitively
Let’s cut pollution down to conserve our environment
3. both intransitively and transitively
A plane took off.
She took her coat off because it was warm.
Meaning
A two-word verb often has a one-word synonym, which is generally more formal. Here are some examples:
Phrasal Verb Synonym Phrasal Verb Synonym
call up telephone give in/up surrender
keep on continue leave out omit
pick out choose put off postpone
ADJECTIVES
An adjective –
1. Is a word which describes or denotes the qualities of something
2. Commonly occurs between a determiner and a noun, or after be or other linking verbs or immediately following
the intensifier very
the _____ baby seems (very) _____
the hungry baby seems (very) hungry
3. Is associated with certain derivational morphemes
{-y} healthy, leafy
{-al} racial, normal
{-able} understandable, visible
{-ed} aged, learned
{-ful/-less} hopeful, hopeless
{-ish} childish, boyish
{-ive} active, native
{-ous} famous, marvellous
4. Has inflectional morphemes for comparative and superlative forms
pretty prettier prettiest
5. Modifies or complements nouns
the honest man (modifier)
The man is honest. (complement)
6. Has various types in terms of characteristic positions: ATTRIBUTIVE, which precede nouns, and PREDICATIVE,
which follow linking verbs
The diligent students pass the tough exam. (attributive)
They are happy with their high scores. (predicative)
The as . . . as construction is used to show that two things or groups are similar.
Ella is as tall as her mother.
COORDINATION
Conjunction or coordination is the process of combining ideas. Two constituents of the same type can be put together to
produce another larger constituent of the same type. Traditional grammar calls this process compounding.
Compound sentence: The boys sang and the girls danced last night.
Compound subject: The teacher and her students will join the parade.
Compound verb: The children play and eat during recess.
Compound object: We boiled corn and cassava.
Conjoining like constituents as shown above is referred to as simple coordination. Here are other ways of coordinating
ideas:
1. Ellipsis: Omission or elision of the first verb phrase in the second and adding the word too or either (for
uninverted forms), and so or neither (for inverted forms).
Affirmative forms
My friends like to read storybooks and I, too. (uninverted)
A horse runs fast, and so does an ostrich. (inverted)
Negative forms
Donna can’t climb a tree, and his little brother can’t, either. (uninverted)
Ducks can’t fly high, and neither can chickens. (inverted)
Other forms of correlative conjunctions are either . . . or, not only . . . but also, and neither . . . nor. These pairs are
used together
Either Tony or Nico will top the test.
Anna is neither friendly nor generous.
Our teacher is not only competent but also very understanding.
A deeper and thorough study of each conjunction, however, reveals certain properties beyond the given straightforward
account. To illustrate, here are the other meaning and uses of and.
1. As logical operator (the truth-conditional meaning)
The entire conjoined statement is true so long as each conjunct that makes it up is true. If one conjunct is false,
then the statement is false.
2. As marker of many meanings
Celce-Murcia and Larsen-Freeman (2001) citing Posner (1980) provides these illustrations:
Annie is in the kitchen, and she is making doughnuts. (and there . . .)
Annie fell into a deep sleep, and her facial color returned. (and during this time . . .)
The window was open, and there was a draft. (and coming from it . . .)
Peter married Annie, and she had a baby. (and after that . . .)
Paul pounded on the stone, and he shattered it. (and thereby . . .)
Give me your picture, and I’ll give you mine. (If you give me your picture, I’ll give you mine.)
3. As inferential connective
A reader/listener can draw an inferential connection from sentences like Susan jumped and hurt her ankle. The
use of and invites the listener/reader to seek some other implicit relevant connection between stated conjuncts.
4. As marker of speaker continuation
In conversational discourse, sometimes a speaker uses and to signal that the utterance to follow is in some way
connected with what has come before. This particular use of and goes beyond the usual content conjunctive use;
rather it places and into the category of discourse markers like oh and well.
SUBORDINATION
SUBORDINATION means putting less important ideas in less important grammatical structures like dependent clauses.
One means of subordination is sentence combining or reducing.
Sentence combining
Melissa topped the test.
Melissa was late by twenty minutes.
Although late by twenty minutes, Melissa topped the test.
dependent clause independent clause
Although late, Melissa topped the test
dependent clause independent clause
Subordinating Conjunctions
Subordinating conjunctions do the job of connecting dependent clauses to independent clauses. Shown below are
different types.
Type Conjunction Type Conjunction
when, before, after,
time since, while, until, conditional if, unless
as
purpose in order to, so that reason because, since, as
although, though,
result so that concessive
while, despite
place where, wherever manner as, like
Relative clauses
Another form of subordination involves the embedding of one clause within another. For example:
The lady came into the room.
The lady was small and slender.
The lady [the lady came into the room] was small and slender.
The lady who came into the room was small and slender.
The most common relative pronouns which mark relative clauses are: that, which, who, whom, and whose. Their uses
are presented earlier in the section on pronouns
NEGATION
In English, negation affects words, phrases, and sentences.
Determining which affix to use is not always predictable. However, the choice of im-, in-, il- or ir- is phonologically
conditioned by the consonant which follows it, i.e., im- is used if the following consonant is bilabial (b, p, m), il- goes with
a stem beginning with l, and ir- with a stem beginning with r. The prefix in- is the most common.
Nothing, nobody, and no one are indefinite pronouns while nowhere is an adverb.
Other negative items include never (negative adverb of frequency), nor (negative coordinating conjunction, and
neither . . . nor (negative correlative conjunction.
The basketball players never admitted their mistake.
They preschoolers can neither read nor write, nor can they comprehend do mathematical computations yet.
At the sentence level, not or its contraction n’t is the main negator. This applies to different sentence types.
Mrs. Palma is not/isn’t our teacher. (statement)
Are you not/Aren’t we meeting today? (question)
Do not/Don’t laugh. (command)
Was it not/Wasn’t it exciting! (exclamation)
No and not are negative substitutes. No can be a negative substitute for a whole sentence while not for a subordinate
clause.
A: Is she coming with us?
B: No. She’ll do library work for an hour.
Are you joining us on Friday? If not, please let me know by tomorrow.
A: Is Pepito interested in the post?
B: I’m afraid not. He’d rather be a plain member.
Placement of not
1. Not usually follows the be-verb, whether functions as a main verb (copula) or an auxiliary/helping verb.
Surprisingly today, the birds are not noisy. (main)
I’m wondering why they are not chirping. (auxiliary verb)
2. Other than be, not follows the auxiliary verb if one is present or the first auxiliary (modal, phrasal modal, or have) if
there are two or more.
I cannot swim well.
The principal must not have been joking when he said that.
We have not been analyzing the data since we received them.
3. With other main verbs, a do-verb is introduced before negation can take place.
The child swims in the pool. The child does swim in the pool.
The child does not swim in the pool.
YES/NO QUESTIONS
Yes/no questions may have a statement word order, i.e., the word order is uninverted. This sentence, however, is
likewise said with a rising intonation.
2
Lucy is your 3cousin3↑
2
She can speak 3fluently3↑
If the sentence contains more than one auxiliary verb, the short answer may also contain an auxiliary verb in addition to
the operator.
Will they have joined? {Yes, they will have.
{No, they won’t have.
Does Álex plan a foreign trip with Melly? (or did someone else?)
Does Alex plán a foreign trip with Melly? (or did he only suggest?)
Does Alex plan a foreign tríp with Melly? (or is it something else?)
Does Alex plan a foreign trip with Mélly? (or is it with someone else?)
The focused sentence element gets the primary stress as shown above.
WH-QUESTIONS
WH-QUESTIONS are used to seek specific information so they are also referred to as information questions. Except for
how, these words begin with wh- : who, whose, whom, what, which, where, when, why, and how.
Forming Wh-Questions
If who, what, or which is the subject of the sentence, it is followed by the normal word order of a statement.
Whom/who, what and which as objects form questions by putting the wh-words first, and do, does, or did next.
Statement: He planted fruit trees.
Question: What did he plant?
Statement: Mothers bathes my baby sister.
Question: Who (Whom) does my mother bathe?
A modal (e.g., can) cannot be replaced by do, does, or did. The do-verb replaces the main verb.
Statement: My three-year-old sister can read.
Question: What can my sister do?
ADVERBS
Adverbs modify or change the meaning of other words such as verbs, adjectives, another adverb, or even a whole
sentence.
The athlete can run fast. (verb modifier)
Sailboats are really beautiful to watch. (adjective modifier)
The athlete can run very fast. (adverb modifier).
Perhaps, Nena’s family will give a party.(sentence modifier)
Kinds of adverbs
1. Adverbs of frequency: answer the question how often?
(always, never, usually, rarely)
2. Adverbs of relative time can be used with all tenses as meaning permits
(just, still, already, lately)
Where we put only makes a big change in the meaning of a clause. To illustrate:
1. Only he (no one else) invited Alex to join the team this year.
2. He only invited Alex to join the team this year this year. (not ordered)
3. He invited only Alex (no one but Alex) to join the team this year.
2. He invited Alex only to join the team this year. (to join, not to do anything else)
3. He invited Alex to join the team only this year. (Before an adverb of time, only means as recently as or at no
other time.)
Positions of Adverbials
While some adverbials are fixed in their positions in the sentence, others are movable. They can occur sentence initially,
medially, or finally.
Sentence-initial: Doubtlessly, we must conclude that the findings are correct.
Sentence-medial: We, doubtlessly, must conclude that the findings are correct.
Sentence-final: We must conclude that the findings are correct, doubtlessly.
Order of Adverbials
When two or more adverbials co-occur in final position in the same sentence, ordering should be observed.