Random thoughts on that and wh-words in it-clefts

A couple of years ago I posted a lesson on cleft sentences where I said:

The structure is:

It is / was + emphasised noun phrase + who / that / when + rest of the sentence

Notice that the use of pronouns is the same as in defining relative clauses:

• who or that for people
• that (NOT which) for things and after prepositional phrases
• As in defining relative clauses, who and that can be left out when they refer to the object or the object of a preposition.

I'll quickly gloss over the fact that I compared using that and not which to the use of pronouns in defining relative clauses (where, of course, we can use which, despite the naysayers).

The problem was that a commenter, a certain elhamcz, had noticed that while I had ruled out which for things, one of the resources I had linked to included it in their list of allowable pronouns, and not surprisingly elhamcz was rather confused. Furthermore elhamcz wanted to know what other relative pronouns or wh-words, for example whom and where, could be used in it-clefts, and whether there were any sources that could provide an answer to this problem.

Now I am neither a linguist nor a grammar expert, and had based my lesson on EFL grammars that I use regularly, but I wondered if perhaps I was being too categorical in dismissing which for things, and should I have included when? Anyway, I decided to have a root around.

Random thoughts on 'Every little helps'

Recently The Guardian published an article on 'The Bad Grammar Awards', something guaranteed to bring the peevers out of the woodwork. One commenter wrote 'What about "every little helps"? That's not grammatical either.'

"Every little helps" is the current slogan of Tescos, Britain's biggest supermarket chain, and no doubt the commenter thought it was just another example of corporations playing free and easy with the English language, like McDonald's famous 'I'm lovin it' or the daddy of them all - 'Winston tastes like a cigarette should'.

Tescos' slogan had never particularly bothered me, perhaps because I had a funny feeling that this expression had been around rather longer than since Tescos started using it.

Admittedly it's rather difficult to analyse grammatically. Yes, you can have a little, but that's usually considered a pronoun rather than a noun, and you can't have two littles, so can you have every little? I suppose if I'd thought about it I would have seen it as an ellipsis of 'Every little bit counts'.

Let's imagine, however, that rather than a modern advertising slogan 'every little helps' was an old idiom or proverb; would people really be worrying about its grammaticality then, I wonder?

Random thoughts on Mr Gwynne, sex and gender

Neville Gwynne is the author of a best-selling grammar book 'Gwynne’s Grammar', modestly entitled 'The Ultimate Introduction to Grammar and the Writing of Good English'. I confess to not having read Mr Gwynne's book, but I think we can get a fairly good idea as to the affable Mr Gwynne's attitude to English in various other ways: from an interview he gave on BBC Radio 5, from a grammar quiz he wrote for the Telegraph newspaper, from the Preface, first two chapters and recommended reading from the book itself, available to read at Amazon; and from various reviews, especially rather a long one in the Telegraph.

While I was reading the preface to his book at Amazon, I came across an apparent distinction between the words gender and sex I had only vaguely heard about before.

Random-ise: Shakespeare and -ize suffix verbs

This is part of an investigation I've been doing into the use and spelling of -ize suffix verbs and their spelling (-ize or -ise) in British English. For more details, related posts and the methods I've used, see the -ize / -ise page.

Exploring coordinate relative clauses (aka connective relative clauses)

I recently came across this term, which was new to me, in a rather old, but rather good grammar book - Advanced English Practice by BD Graver (Oxford). I can only find one reference to it on the Internet, at the also rather good Polseguera.com, a Catalan website for English learners (links below).

Update - since writing this, I've discovered that coordinate relative clauses are also (and probably more often) referred to as connective relative clauses. I've added a few more links at the end.

Coordinate (or connective) relative clauses look similar to non-defining relative clauses, and follow the same rules as non-defining clauses. Indeed some people would classify them as a sub-species of non-defining clauses. But there are a couple of subtle though key differences between classic non-defining relative clauses and coordinate relative clauses.

• 1. While standard relative clauses tell us something about the noun they are modifying (the antecedent) , coordinate relative clauses give us new information
• 2. We don't use standard non-defining relative clauses in spoken English very much, their being seen as rather formal. But coordinate relative clauses are often used in spoken and as well as written language.

This post should be considered more as an exploration of one small area of English grammar, than as a lesson. There is so little literature available on coordinate relative clauses, that I have had to largely rely on my own judgement. If anyone spots any glaring mistakes, please let me know.

Present Perfect or Past Simple?

Even at advanced level, students whose native language doesn't have an equivalent can have problems with Present Perfect, and how its use differs from that of Past Simple.

Some aspects of Past Simple are better dealt with together with the other narrative tenses. Here I will only deal those areas where it can be confused with Present Perfect.

So I'll be concentrating here mostly on Present Perfect, as this seems to be where most problems lie, and some aspects of it I think are worth drawing attention to. Hopefully, by doing the exercises you will get a better feel for the differences between the two tenses.

Pronouns and determiners - some, any, no, none, somebody, anybody, nobody etc

Practise using some, any, somebody, anybody etc, with these gapfull exercises. And also check out some related idioms and expressions.

Exploring grammar - verb types

A recent discussion at GrammarGirl (link below) about the active voice talked a lot about unaccusative verbs and semantic patients in its explanation. I'm not convinced of the wisdom of using these specialist linguistic terms on a website read by a general audience of native speakers and learners. I have a slight suspicion that more than a few will have been more confused at the end than they were at the beginning.

But in the interests of understanding, I've tried to put these terms into some sort of scheme, while at the same time looking at different terms used for types of verbs, both by linguists and by more general grammar books. I hope this will be interesting, but I'm not suggesting that there is any need for the general reader or learner to learn these specialist terms.

Disclaimer - Please don't take this as any kind of gospel. As usual, I make no claims to be either a grammarian or a linguist. This is simply my way of trying to work it all out. Any linguists who might happen to stumble on this are welcome to let me know if I've gone wrong.

We'll be looking briefly at the following:

• Main (lexical) verbs and auxiliary (helping) verbs
• Transitive, intransitive verbs and linking verbs
• Subjects and objects, agents and targets (patients)
• Ambitransitive and ergative verbs
• Unaccusative verbs and unergative verbs
• Empty verbs and inchoative verbs
• Dynamic and stative verbs
• Finite and non finite verbs forms

Tag questions and short answers - exercises

Sometimes they're called question tags, sometimes tag questions. It's all the same. I'm sure you know the basic principles, so use your instinct to complete the exercises. The first exercise looks at some standard tags, the others at some more advanced points. There's also a video exercise at the end.

If you have any problems you can consult one of the websites linked to at the bottom. The BBC one is probably the clearest. But try the exercises first. And don't forget the video exercise; it's from a TV comedy series.

A British perspective on further or farther

The question of further vs farther is a popular topic on grammar websites and has been discussed often enough on sites like GrammarGirl, so why should it need anything more said about it?

Because firstly, nearly all these websites are American, and the British 'take' on this question is somewhat different. And secondly, they nearly all put forward a so-called 'rule' which is by no means universally accepted.

Personal pronouns - subject or object? - A discussion.

In few areas can the divide between traditional grammar and actual usage be as wide as in the 'case' of personal pronouns. Here we take a look at why.

EFL course books and websites usually steer clear of language controversies, no doubt so as not to confuse students. But for me this is part of what makes grammar such a lively subject, and as you are advanced students, I think you can 'take it', so here goes.

Pronouns and determiners - an overview

Some words can be both pronouns and determiners, and in some other cases pronouns and determiners are closely related, so it seems to make sense to look at them together.

Assorted gap fill exercises

Instant access to 100 gap fill exercises from the first year of the blog. These can be done in several different ways, and can even be edited.

Interactive formats (all also printable)

Note - Not every option will be suitable for every exercise

• Multiple choice - showing up to 4 options for each question
• Show the gapped words in a box at the top
• Show the missing words as anagrams
• Text entry - fill in the gaps without any clues
• In line - shows the base word after the gap - good for transformations

Printable non-interactive formats

Note - These are only suitable when the base word and the answer are the same

• Show first letter of missing words
• Show a dash for each letter of the missing word
• Combo - first letter and dashes
• Show consonants only
• Show vowels only