The following is an extract from Haraki Murakami's novel, IQ84 (p.801).
Tengo opened the refrigerator to see if he had any chilled white wine. In back, he found a bottle of Chardonnay he had recently bought on sale. The label had a picture of a wild boar. He pulled the cork, poured some into a wineglass, and placed it before Kuka-Eri. After some hesitation, he poured himself a glass as well. He was definitely more in the mood for wine than coffee. It was a bit too chilled, and a bit too sweet, but the alcohol calmed Tengo's nerves somewhat.
An explanation of any of the terms in the answers which are new to you can be found in the ELT Glossary. A direct link has been provided for those which might be most problematic.
1. to
Form: infinitive particle
Use: Used followed by a simple
infinitive verb to form an infinitive of purpose, indicating the reason why the action
was performed.
Problems
for Learners:
a) In many
languages there is no infinitive particle and the infinitive of purpose may be
expressed by “for” eg Italian. L1 interference might therefore cause Ls to
produce *…opened the refrigerator for see….
b) “To” is a
grammatical word in unstressed position in the sentence and the vowel would
therefore be subject to weakening from /u:/ to /ə/. Ls unfamiliar with features
of connected speech might therefore have difficulty decoding /tə si:/
Reference: http://www.grammaring.com/the-infinitive-of-purpose
2. if
he had any
chilled white wine
Form: past
simple (or second form - Lewis) of the transitive irregular verb have
Use: used as
the main verb in the clause; indicates possession and a past event (Lewis -
distance in time from “here and now reality”)
Problems
for Learners:
a) Decoding
meaning: The word “if” might lead learners to believe this was a hypothetical
statement – a “second conditional”. However, here “if” does not express a
condition but means “whether”, and the verb is therefore part of the past time
narrative of the story.
b)
Pronunciation – receptive : While Ls might be expecting the strong
pronunciation /hæd/, in connected speech the clause might be affected by
elision , liaison, vowel weakening and
catenation, producing the sequence /i:fi:jədenɪ/. This might make it difficult
for Ls to decode the individual words (bottom-up processing) and recognise
“had”
Reference
: Lewis M. 1994 – The English Verb – Language Teaching
Publications
3. chilled (See also
17)
Form: Past
participle formed by adding an –ed suffix to the regular verb chill.
Use: Used as
an attributive adjective premodifying the compound noun white wine
Problems
for Learners:
a) Ls whose
L1 does not include the consonant /ʧ/ may have productive pronunciation
problems. Eg French Ls would be liable to substitute /ʃ/
b) Ls who
had not yet assimilated the rule that the .ed suffix is only pronounced /ɪd/
after the consonants /t/ and /d/ might produce /ʧɪlɪd/ rather than /ʧɪld/.
c) Japanese
learners have problems with the consonant /l/ as in Japanese /l/ and /r/ are
allophones of the same phoneme. Their pronunciation might therefore be
decoded by listeners as /ʧɪrd/
Reference : Kenworthy, J. Teaching English Pronunciation, Longman
4. in
back
Form: Prepositional phrase,
consisting of preposition in (head of
prepositional phrase) + singular countable noun back (complement of
prepositional phrase), used as an adverbial in the main clause.
Use - Variety: Used in US English – the British English equivalent
would be “at the back”
Problems for Learners:
a) Meaning: Ls of British English would not have come across the expression before.
This, in combination with problem b, might lead to difficulties understanding
it if it had to be processed in the “real time” conditions of spoken English, or confusion over what was the correct expression if encountered (as here) while reading.
b) Pronunciation – receptive: Liable to be affected by regressive
assimilation of place - alveolar /n/ becomes bilabial /m/ before
bilabial /b/ resulting in /ɪm bæk/. This could cause decoding (bottom-up
processing) problems if the phrase was heard in spoken English.
c) In back can also mean behind (again in US English). Ls who had
previously met the phrase with this meaning might therefore misinterpret the
phrase, thinking the wine was behind the fridge.
Reference: Collins Dictionary
5. he
had recently bought
Form / Use:
he – 3rd person singular
masculine subject pronoun. Anaphoric reference to Tengo. Acts as subject of the
subordinate relative clause (with ellipted relative pronoun which/that)
had…bought – past perfect simple composed
of primary auxiliary verb have in
past form had plus past participle of
irregular verb buy (= bought).Past Perfect used to express
anterior time (Richards) – here to indicated that buying the wine happened
prior to finding the bottle.
recently – adverb of time (adjunct)
composed of adjective recent plus adverb suffix –ly. Acts as adverbial in the
relative clause.
Problems for Learners:
a)
he – in some languages (eg Finnish,
Hungarian), pronouns and determiners are not marked for gender. Elementary
learners of these languages may therefore confuse he/she/it (and other similar gender specific pronouns and
determiners) when using English.
b)
The position of recently is
flexible. Here it is in front of the main verb, but it could potentially also
be after the subject (he recently had
bought…) after the main verb (he had
bought recently) or, if the relative pronoun had not been omitted, before
the subject (which recently he had bought…). This flexibility, and the
restriction of the final option to sentences where the relative pronoun id
included, may cause confusion for Ls who will be unsure where it can be or can
best be placed be placed in a specific context.
c)
Japanese learners have problems with the
consonants /l/ and /r/ as in Japanese they are allophones of the same phoneme.
As “recently” includes both - /ri:səntli:/- this could make their pronunciation
of the word unintelligible.
Reference:
Kenworthy, J. Teaching English Pronunciation, Longman
6. on
sale
Form/Syntactic
Use: Prepositional phrase,
consisting of preposition on (head of
prepositional phrase) + singular uncountable noun sale (complement
of prepositional phrase) used as adverbial in the defining relative clause.
Semantic
Use: Fixed lexical chunk, collocation, meaning offered at a
discounted price
Problems
for Learners:
a) Ls who
did not know the (non-transparent) meaning of the chunk might infer it to mean for sale which (although possible in
some contexts – eg The new model is now
on sale) would not make sense in this context.
b) Japanese
learners could have both processing and productive problems with the consonant
/l/ in sale as in Japanese /l/ and
/r/ are allophones of the same phoneme and difficult for Japanese learners to
distinguish.
References:
See the links above, and The Longman Dictionary of Contemporary
English
7. some (Compare with 11)
Form: Pronoun
Use: Expresses indefinite quantity. Acts
as direct object of the verb poured, replacing the full noun phrase “some white wine”, which is
inferable from the context - although wine
was only mentioned some time ago (three sentences previously) it is the only
previous noun which collocates with the verb pour, and must therefore be what is referred to).
Problem for Learners: Some can only be used in assertive contexts and in non-assertive
contexts must be replaced by any. Ls
are often taught the rule that some
is used in affirmative sentences and any
in negative and interrogative contexts, which leads to confusion when they meet
examples like Would you like some? or
I wonder if there’s any left.
References: Longman Dictionary
of Contemporary English /
See the links above
8. into
Form / Syntactic
Use: preposition of movement; head of a prepositional phrase with the noun phrase a wineglass as
complement.
Problems for Learners: In can also be used as a
preposition of movement, often replacing into
- eg He got into the car or He got in the car. However, only in can be used as an adverb – He opened the car door and got in.
Learners who don’t understand the grammatical distinction might be confused
about when into can and can’t be
used, producing eg *He picked up the
glass and poured some into.
References: See the links above
9. before
Form/Use : preposition of place
- in front of
Use : Head of the prepositional phrase (with
Kuka-Eri as complement) which acts as an adverbial in the
clause.
Problem
for Learners: Ls are likely to have learnt that before is used to sequence events in time rather than indicate place.
This would cause problems in decoding the meaning of the phrase
References:
See the links above
10. after
Form/Use : preposition
expressing the idea subsequent to, or
following and thus sequencing the two
events – hesitating (first event) and
pouring his glass of wine (second
event)
Combined with the noun phrase (some
hesitation) forms a prepositional phrase which acts as adverbial in the
clause.
Problems
for Learners: Various L1 groups will have
problems pronouncing the initial vowel
/ɑ:/ (eg both Hokkien and Cantonese Chinese speakers) and/or the final
vowel /ə/ (eg Greek speakers)
Reference: Kenworthy, J. Teaching English Pronunciation, Longman
11. some
(Compare with 7)
Form/Syntactic Use: Quantifying expression used as determiner
in the noun phrase some hesitation, which
acts as the complement of the prepositional phrase After some hesitation. Here used before a singular uncountable
noun.
Use: Expresses indefinite quantity.
Problems for Learners: See (7)
Reference: Quirk et al, A Grammar of
Contemporary English, Longman
12. himself
Form: third
person singular masculine reflexive pronoun
Use: subject
complement indicating that the subject he
and himself are the same and acting
as indirect object of the verb poured
Problems
for Learners: Reflexive pronouns are sometimes formed from the possessive
pronoun (eg myself, ourselves) and
sometimes from the object pronoun (eg himself,
themselves). Learners may
therefore be confused about which to use, producing eg *He poured hisself a glass.
Reference: British Council : Learn
English – Reflexive Pronouns
13. as well
Form/Use
: Lexical chunk (polyword) Adverb (adjunct) used to indicate the relationship of addition. Normally follows the focused part of the
clause (here poured
himself a glass) unlike other additive adjuncts (eg also) which precede it
(he also poured himself a
glass). Acts as an adverbial in the clause.
Problems
for Learners:
a) The expression
is non-transparent in meaning and could therefore cause decoding problems when
first encountered.
b)
Understanding the chunk as meaning also
could lead to its use in inaccurate clause position, as also is more flexible - eg He also poured himself a glass but not *He as well poured himself a glass;
c) L1
interference might mean that speakers from L1 groups where the letter “w” is
pronounced as /v/ (eg German, Swedish, Norwegian) produced /əz vel/
Reference: http://www.tedpower.co.uk/phono.html
14. more
Form: Adverb
Use: Used to introduce an unequal comparison
Problems for Learners: more is most often met by Ls to form
the comparative of adjectives and adverbs. They are frequently confused as to
whether an –er version is appropriate (colder,
easier) or whether more should be used (more
comfortable, more expensive). This is particularly problematic with
two-syllable adjectives where either may often be used and Ls may be unsure
whether one form, the other or both are most appropriate. For example, the BNC Spoken Corpus
(checked on Lextutor) produces 793 examples
of easier as opposed to 8 of more easy, showing that while both are
used, easier is by far the most
frequent. Checking written corpora produced no examples at all of more easy.
References: The Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English; see the link above.
15. than
Use: Used to introduce the second part of an unequal comparison
Form: Subordinating conjunction – here joining two clauses, in the second of
which elements have been ellipted because the same as in the first ellipted – He was more in the mood for wine
than (he was in the mood for) coffee. Quirk et
al call than (followed
by a clause) a "correlative clause introducer" - correlative because
it must be connected to a previous comparative element in -er, more, less, etc. I'm
not happy with the term because it begs the question of whether the than clause is main or
subordinate - presumably subordinate, but then why isn't than just a
subordinating conjunction? Why suddenly invent the term "introducer".
Subordinating conjunction would be my answer in this instance and is the
answer given by eg the Macmillan Dictionary, and the American
Heritage Dictionary
Problems for Learners: Pronunciation- productive: the
phoneme /ð/ occurs in relatively few languages and is therefore a problem for
many L1 groups, who might tend to substitute another phoneme producing eg /zən/ or / dən /
References: Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English; Quirk et
al, A Grammar of Contemporary
English, Longman - see sections 11.53
onwards, Longman: and see the links above
16. a bit
Form /Use
: intensifying adverb (downtoner/minimiser,
cf slightly)
used as part of pre-head of adjective phrase "a bit too chilled".
Pre-modifies the adverb too
Formed by indefinite article (a rather
than an because
followed by a consonant sound) + singular countable noun bit.
Stylistic use:
informal.
Problems
for Learners: Not recognising the stylistic difference between a bit (informal) and a little (more formal) could lead to
inappropriacy of use.
References:
Quirk et al, A
Grammar of Contemporary English, Longman; and see the links
above
17. chilled (See
also 3)
Form / Use: Past participle of regular verb chill,
here used predicatively as head of the adjective phrase a bit too chilled which acts as complement of the copula BE
Problems for Learners: See 3
References: See the links above.
18. too
Form : adverb
Use: Used to premodify an adjective, and indicates
that the quality described by the adjective (here sweet) is excessive in
degree. Quirk et al consider it as a type of comparative clause : It was too sweet = It was sweeter than it
should have been.
Problems for Learners:
a) Speakers of languages where a single word translates too/ too much and too many
(eg Italian) may be confused about when each it used, producing *..and a bit too much sweet.
b) too with this meaning
premodifies an adjective. In final position in the clause it would mean also – compare The weather was foggy and too cold, so we didn’t go out / The weather
was foggy and cold too, so we didn’t go out. In
contexts like this, Ls who were unaware of the difference in meaning created by
the clause position might decode (or produce) the sentence erroneously without
being aware that they had misunderstood or not conveyed their intended meaning.
Reference: Quirk et al, A Grammar of Contemporary English, Longman
19. Somewhat
Form: Intensifying adverb, classed by Quirk et al in the
subcategories of downtoner/diminisher. See here for the different types of
intensifier : Intensifiers
Use: Post-modifies the verb phrase calmed
Tengo’s nerves with the implication to
a certain extent but not completely
Problem for Learners: L1 interference might mean
that speakers from L1 groups where the letter “w” is pronounced as /v/ (eg
German, Swedish, Norwegian) produced * /sʌmvɒt/
References: See the link above; http://www.tedpower.co.uk/phono.html
