Pronouns Adjecives Verbs

 

Pronouns take the place of nouns. In English, we have pronouns for first person (i.e. the person doing the talking: I, we), second person (i.e. the person we are talking to: you), and third person (i.e. the person we are talking about: he, she, it, they). Only in the case of the third person singular (he, she, it) do we indicate gender of pronouns. However, other languages can indicate gender in all three persons, plural and singular. Each language has rules for how this is done, and you will learn these rules when you learn your language. In some languages, pronouns will change depending on the function they have in the sentence. If they are the subject (see discussion below about case), they may have one form, and if they are the object (see discussion below about case), they may have another form. That is what happens in English:

Ø     subject pronoun: He went to the store.

Ø     objective pronoun: I saw him at the store.

A number of languages do the same thing. Most of the Asian languages, on the other hand, do not do this.

 

 

Adjectives are the words that modify nouns. i.e. they tell the reader or listener more about the noun. Thus, we might have pretty deer or tall men. In English, adjectives come before the noun. In other languages, however, they can be placed in other locations. In French, for example, some specific adjectives, e.g. la jeune fille (the girl, lit. the young girl), come before the noun, but most come after it, as in le livre int´eressant (the interesting book, lit. the book interesting). In other languages, the adjective can be even farther away from the noun. Adjectives in English have one form for use with all the nouns they modify: the big man, the big woman, the big tree, the big tables, and so on. In some languages, however, adjectives will take on different endings based on gender and number (singular or plural) of the noun and even case of the noun.

 

Verbs are the action elements in a sentence. They tell you what is happening. Verbs can have many characteristics, depending on the language. Verbs in English are conjugated (change their forms), depending on person and tense. Let’s stay with person for a minute. We can say I eat, but we cannot say *he eat. We have to say he eats. That is what we mean by conjugation. In English, endings change, depending on whether we are using the first, second, or third person. In some languages, this does not happen. Verbs in English also have tense. The tense shows the time that something is happening, has happened, or will happen. In English, we have six of these tenses (present, past, future, present perfect, past perfect, future perfect). Tense changes can be shown by endings or by stem changes (changes in the word itself). An example of the former is the verb

to touch (every day I touch my toes; yesterday

    I touched my toes;

    tomorrow I will touch my toes,

    now I have touched my toes;

    yesterday I had already touched my toes when I saw you;

    by tomorrow I will have touched my toes when I see you).

An example of the latter is ring

    every day I ring the bell,

    yesterday I rang the bell,

    tomorrow I will ring the bell,

    now I have rung the bell,

    yesterday I had already rung the bell when I saw you,

    by tomorrow I will have rung the bell when I see you.

English also has continuous forms of all these tenses, as in

    I am ringing the bell,

    I was ringing the bell, and so on. A few other languages also have continuous tenses, but many do not. One form serves to mean I ring and I am ringing.

 

Many languages, including English, have something called voice. In English, there is active voice – a lady opened the door – and passive voice – the door was opened by a lady. There is a parallel phenomenon in many other languages although some languages do not make this distinction. In English and related languages, word order and verb forms tell us whether a sentence is active or passive. In other languages, both noun forms (case) and verb forms change to indicate passive, and word order may or may not be the same. In yet other languages, such as Thai and Cambodian, passive is indicated by a particle.

 

Some verb forms change according to mood. Depending on the language, you may encounter indicative, imperative, subjunctive, or conditional mood. Indicative mood reflects simple statements of fact: He opened the window. Imperative mood is the command form: Open the window! Subjunctive, in English, refers to statements contrary to fact: If he were you (he is not you), he would open the window. Conditional mood refers to fact that is accompanied by, as the name suggests, a condition: If it is hot, he will open the window.

 

 

Some languages have aspect. This is not something that we have in contemporary English, and it can take some time to get used to. 

 

Many, but not all, languages have auxiliary verbs. These are sometimes called helping verbs and are used in compound tenses. For example, in English the word have can be used both as a stand-alone verb and as a helper: I have a ball (verb) and I have seen the ball (auxiliary). English also has a phenomenon in which verbs can be used as nouns by simply adding an -ing ending to the verb. This form of verbal noun is called a gerund.

 

In addition to verbal nouns, English has verbal adjectives. These are called participles, and they look very much like adjectives, except that they are verbs with endings in -ing (present participles) or -ed (past participles). Thus, we can have a cleaning lady and a cleaned house. Some languages also have active and passive participles.

 

There is another verb combination that can be made. That is verbal adverbs. English does not have this phenomenon, but some other languages do. English would be more likely to express the verbal adverb with a participle, as in Having read the book (past verbal adverb in some languages), the man went to bed or While reading the book (present verbal adverb in some languages), the man fell asleep. Where a language has a verbal adverb, it is usually formed by making some ending change to the verb.

 

Bibliography:

 

1.    Brown, H.D. (2000): Principles of Language Learning and Teaching. White Plains, NY: Addison Wesley Longman, Inc. Gass,

 

2.    S.M. I L. Selinker. (2008): Second Language Acquisition. An Introductory Course. New York: Routledge. VanPatten,

 

3.    Leaver, B.L; Ehrman, M; Shekhtman, B. (2005): Achieving Success in Second Language Acquisition. CUP

 

4.    B. i J. Williams. (red.) 2007: Theories in Second Language Acquisition. Mahwah, New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers.

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