Grammatical Structure & Syntax Recognition Flashcards

Which sentence demonstrates correct use of a non-restrictive relative clause?

Answer: My brother, who lives in Boston, is visiting this weekend.

Non-restrictive clauses add extra (non-essential) information and are set off by commas; 'who' (not 'that') is used for persons.

In transformational grammar, what is a 'deep structure'?

Answer: The abstract underlying meaning of a sentence before surface transformations

Deep structure represents the abstract semantic and syntactic organization before transformational rules produce the surface form.

Which sentence correctly uses a past perfect to show earlier action?

Answer: By the time we arrived, the show had already started.

The past perfect ('had started') marks an action completed before another past event ('we arrived').

What syntactic phenomenon occurs in 'She is easy to please' vs. 'She is eager to please'?

Answer: In the first, 'she' is the logical object of 'please'; in the second, 'she' is the logical subject.

This illustrates the 'tough-movement' construction: 'easy to please' makes 'she' the understood object, while 'eager to please' makes 'she' the understood subject.

Identify the error in: 'Between you and I, this plan will fail.'

Answer: 'I' should be 'me' because pronouns after prepositions take objective case.

The preposition 'between' governs its objects in the objective case, so 'me' is required, not 'I.'

Which sentence exemplifies a garden-path effect?

Answer: The horse raced past the barn fell.

Readers initially parse 'raced' as the main verb, then must reanalyze it as a reduced relative clause when they reach 'fell.'

What is 'head' in the noun phrase 'a very talented young musician'?

Answer: musician

The head of a noun phrase is the central noun that all other elements modify—here, 'musician.'