Viviana Cortes

Descriptive English Grammar

Viviana Cortes
Office:  319 Ross Hall, phone: 294-6690               E-mail:  viviana@iastate.edu

Course Description
We all know a lot about language. However, we are not conscious about this knowledge most of the time. When we study a language different from our mother tongue, we feel the need to discover what we know about the language in order to make comparisons and understand certain learning processes. In this course we are going to reflect about English, concentrating in its structure and use. We will be focusing on syntactic analysis, i.e. the categories and structures of English, in order to account for native English speakers’ intuitive knowledge of the language.
We will start the course analyzing the major components of the English language: content and function words, and we will move from there to the most sophisticated structures that make up the language. As this is a descriptive grammar class, we will always try to bring the real world in to the class, with analyses of real language production. Many recent studies have concentrated on the analysis of grammar targeting language description instead of prescriptive rules. We will make an attempt to go further than the examples in the book and analyze examples of real language.
The main objectives of the course are:

1. to help you become acquainted with the most salient structures of English,
2. to develop proficiency in grammatical analysis through tree diagramming, and
3. to provide a good framework of reference for the analysis of natural language.

The course is designed to make you think about English and develop logical analysis of English structures. For this purpose, you will be engaging in a wide variety of activities, from sentence analysis to text analysis, language reflection writing, group projects, and applications of new knowledge to the real world.
We will be working with a book which will be a class companion. This means that the book is only useful if you attend class. Many of the concepts in the book will not be easy to understand if you miss my lectures and explanations. They are useful, though, to back up our class work and for further examples and exercises.
Learning English grammar may sound challenging to the newcomers to the field. The class design will allow you to gradually develop your knowledge in order to feel confident using the metalanguage and conducting linguistic analysis.
 
Required books and materials:
DeCarrico, J. (2000). The structure of English. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press.
DeCarrico, J., & Franks, C. (2000). Workbook to accompany The structure of English.  Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press.

Supplementary materials will be sent in electronic form via email regularly during the semester.

Assignments and Grades
You will complete several individual and group assignments. Grades will be based on the following:

Class attendance, preparation & participation,                
completion of assigned readings, and in-class work                    15%
Mid-Term exam                                                                                 25%
Language Reflections (3 x 5)                                                           15%
Special diagramming project                                                          15%
Final Exam                                                                                         30%       
Total                                                                                                  100%

Class Policy

Attendance: If you need to miss class, please notify me by e-mail or by leaving a message at 4-6690. It is your responsibility to find out what you miss and to make up this work.  If you have more than 3 absences, your grade will be lowered.

Assignments: All assignments must be handed in on time for you to receive full credit. All assignments must be done on computer but for the final diagramming project.

Plagiarism: Any work you hand in should be the result of your active participation, be written in your own words, and reflect your understanding of the assignment. Plagiarism or cheating will result in your having to redo the assignment to meet acceptable standards and a grade no higher than D for the assignment.

Students with disabilities: If you have a disability and require accommodations, please contact me early in the semester so that your learning needs may be appropriately met. You will need to provide documentation of your disability to the Disability Resources (DR) office, main floor of the Students Services Building, Room 1076, 4-6624.

Schedule (adjustments will be necessary, so stay tuned! If you are late or miss a class, you are still responsible for knowing any changes that were announced.

Week	Class	Content	Reading	Exercises
Week 1	Tuesday,  August 21	Introduction to course content
	Thursday, August 23	Parts of speech. Recognizing word classes	Chapter 1 (1.1, 1.2)	Ch 1 # 1, 2, 3
Week 2	Tuesday,  August 28	The simple sentence I	Chapter 1 (1.3)	Ch 1 #  4, 5, 6
	Thursday, August 30	The simple sentence II. Introduction to diagramming	Chapter 1 (1.3)
Week 3	Tuesday, September 4	Grammatical and discourse functions	Chapter 1 (1.4, 1.5)	Ch 1 # 7, 8
	Thursday, September 6	Structure of the noun phrase Noun Classes	Chapter 2 (2.1, 2.2)	Ch 2 # 2, 3
Week 4	Tuesday, September 11	Structure of the noun phrase Determiners	Chapter 2 (2.3 – 2.9)	Ch 2 # 4, 7, 8
	Thursday, September 13	Adjectives	Chapter 3 (3.1, 3.2)	Ch 3 # 1 Reflection 1 due
Week 5	Tuesday, September 18	Adverbials Form and function	Chapter 3 (3.4, 3.5, 3.6)	Ch 3 # 2, 4, 6
	Thursday, September 20	Verb phrase structure Tense and aspect	Chapter 4 (4.1, 4.2, 4.3)	Ch 4 # 1, 2, 3, 4
Week 6	Tuesday, September 25	Tense, Aspect and Voice	Chapter 4  (4.4, 4.5)	Ch 4 # 6, 7
	Thursday, September 27	Prepositional and Phrasal verbs	Chapter 4 (4.6)	Ch 4 # 9, 10
Week 7	Tuesday,  October 2	Verb classes and sentence types	Chapter 5 (5.1, 5.2)	Ch 5 # 1, 2
	Thursday, October 4	Categories and functions	Chapter 5 (5.3, 5.4)	Ch 5 # 3, 4, 5, 6
Week 8	Tuesday,  October 9	Midterm exam
	Thursday, October 11	Pronouns	Chapter 6 (6.1, 6.2, 6.3)	Ch 6 # 1, 2, 3
Week 9	Tuesday,  October 16	Pro-forms	Chapter 6 (6.4, 6.5, 6.6)	Ch 6 # 4, 5, 6 Reflection 2 due
	Thursday, October 18	Functions of prepositions and prepositional phrases	Chapter 7	Ch 7 # 3, 4, 5, 6
Week 10	Tuesday,  October 23	Coordination	Chapter 8 (8.1,8.2)	Ch 8 # 1, 2, 3
	Thursday, October 25	Complex sentences and subordination	Chapter 8 (8.3 – 8.6)	Ch 8 # 4, 5
Week 11	Tuesday,  October 30	Relative clauses	Chapter 9 (9.1 – 9.3)	Ch 9 # 1, 2
	Thursday, November 1	Appositives and other modifiers	Chapter 9 (9.4 – 9.7)	Ch 9 # 4, 5, 8, 9

Week 12	Tuesday,  November 6	Nonfinite clauses	Chapter 10 (10.1-10.2)	Ch 10 # 1, 2, 3
	Thursday, November 8	Infinitives and gerunds	Chapter 10 (10.3 – 10.6)	Ch 10 # 5, 6, 7
Week 13	Tuesday,  November 13	General revision
	Thursday, November 15	General revision		Reflection 3 due
Week 14	Tuesday,  November 20	Thanksgiving week No class
	Thursday, November 22
Week 15	Tuesday,  November 27	Extra practice for exam		Diagramming project due
	Thursday, November 29	Extra practice for exam
Week 16	Tuesday, December 4	Reading Week No class
	Thursday, December 6
Week 17	Tuesday, December 11	Finals Week. No class. Final exam date will be announced when posted by the University