/wa: eI greIt deI/

/wa: eI greIt deI/  It looks better here, because I didn't mean to put /l/´s cuz that would just sound wrong.....
Any way, we got your grammar exam back today, and here I have to brag a little - sorry! But I got 82% correct, I can't believe it!
But we have an other exam tomorrow, one on phonetics, so there is no more time to think about grammar.. I'm not so sure about this exam, but I find, that as long as I speak with a Texas accent, it is easier to sound the words right (if you want to sound American that is) So I'll try to sound like I'm from Texas from now on and till tomorrow :-)

Only one exam left

Just had two exams last week. One oral which was a good experience. We were supposed to be 5 in our group, byt one of the girls didn't show up, and we never heard from her! But that didn't distract us.We made a really good presentation, so good that our teacher didn't have any questions for us afterwards.
The written exam on the other hand I'm not so sure about. 13 pages of grammar to analyze was a lot, but I did my best, so I hope I passed.
The last exam we have is on Tuesday (in one week!!!) It is a Phonetics exam, and it will be a written exam as well. However, we are allowed to make a lot of noise durring the exam, because an exam about sounds, without sounds, would just be wierd. So My task for the next week, it to remember all the American sounds :-)

Before my first exam....

Tomorrow I'll have my first exam, one on function and form. It is a group exam where we will have to analyze how a students' task book uses grammar. In our group we are analyzing Pit Stop for grade 9. And yes it is a Danish book. The books the other students came up with looked too borring, and they were all facinated by the layout of Pit Stop. We have 15 min for our presentation, and since we are 5 in the group will will have to talk for 3 min. each. I didn't think it would be a problem to talk for "only" 3 min, but I was mistaken, so I'll have to go home and add some to my part of the presentation.

Help from a dictionary

Last weekend, I sat trying to study for the grammar exam I have next week. Our teacher has posted 3 documents with all the terms and terminology we need to know for the exam, believe me it is a lot to remember! Sometimes I found it hard to find a good explanation in our books, so I decided to turn to my “Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary”. The dictionary was a great help. In the back of the dictionary are a lot of pages concerning English grammar, as well other useful subjects concerning what is right and wrong in written and oral English.

Today we had our last grammar lecture, on Monday we will have our last workshop and Thursday is it time for the exam. In our workshop on Monday we will have to sit 2 hours trying to do a pre-exam. Afterwards, we will go trough the pre-exam, and the teacher will answer all the questions we have.

Right now I’m trying to relax about the exam, but it is hard. In side my head are a lot of new words flying around, trying to get me to remember their explanation. Copular verbs, canonical vs. non-canonical, predicate, adjunct and modality among others. My teacher told us e few days ago, that it is no wonder we find it hard to learn all the new terminology, because it is like learning a new language, the meta-language for Grammar. So I guess, it isn’t just a grammar exam I’m, taking next week, it is an exam in Grammar.

Prepositions

My Head is almost full of new terms and expressings, besides being filled up with all the things I have to remember for the exams. I have tree exams in March. Right now I’m focusing on the written exam I have in grammar, because I feel that exam is the hardest one (Might think otherwise when I’m over and done with it). Enough about exams let me tell you about Friday’s grammar lecture in stead. The lecture was about Propositions and prepositional phrases.  I had already read in one of grammar books, which is a descriptive grammar book, that the authors Huddleston and Pullum had decided to expand the category which traditional grammarians classify as prepositions. Traditional grammarians only classify prepositions if they take a noun phrase as a complement. Huddleston and Pullum, on the other hand, that this classification is outdated. So words which traditional was classified as subordination conjunctions, adverbials and adverbs are now included in prepositions. This has a big influence of the groups of subordinators which is only left with 3 words; if, that and whether. 

Maybe I should just add that prepositions talks about relations in time and place, as in these examples:

1)      I haven’t seen her since Easter

2)      I haven’t seen her since she left town

the single underlined + double underlined is the prepositional phrase, the double underlined is the preposition)

Sentence two isn’t in traditional grammar a prepositional phrase, because it isn’t followed by a noun phrase but a clause.