Page 237 - English - Teaching Academic Esl Writing

ADJECTIVES AND ADVERBS 223
NOUN PHRASES OF TIME, MANNER, AND FREQUENCY
A subset of time adverbs can be particularly difficult for L2 writers to use correctly: those with demonstrative pronouns this, that, these, and those, as well as time phrases with every, last, next, all, as in *in this/that/last week/month/year. This type of error occurs when these time phrases are formed similar to other time adverbials such as in March/2001. The main point to make to students about these constructions is that this, that, these, those, every, last, next, and all + time phrase do not take the prepositions in or on (as in *on this Monday), although it is possible to say on this day or during this/that/the last month/year. As a general rule, nouns function as adverbials in contexts when they can answer the questions When? How often? How long? (see also chap. 4).
With all prepositional phrases, regardless of their functions, students must learn to recognize and use them appropriately in varied constructions. To construct coherent and grammatical sentences, students also have to sepa- rate prepositional phrases from the required key sentence elements such as subjects, verbs, and objects/complements. When working on academic text, L2 writers need to be aware of how the placement of the prepositional phrase in a particular sentence slot can change the meaning of the sentence.
PARTICIPLES AND INFINITIVES WITH MODIFYING FUNCTIONS
Present and past participles and infinitives represent other frequent types of adjectival and adverbial modifiers. For example, in the phrase developing countries, the present participle modifies the noun countries and therefore has an adjectival function, as does the past participle in developed nations or the infinitive in a method to_check the water level. However, such constructions as a solution emerged tosimplify ...,to calculate the temperature, we ..., compared to the average increase, or by drawing a straight line, all have adverbial functions because they modify verbs or entire sentences.
Participial Adjectives and Adverbs
Only a few things need to be mentioned about these modifiers because, on the whole, participials are relatively simple. However, participial adjective phrases (e.g., the thermostat controlling the temperature ... or the temperature held constant at 50+F) are very common in academic writing, far more so than the adjective clauses from which they are derived (see the following discussion; Biber et al., 1999; Swales & Feak, 1994).
(1) The labels present and past participle actually have little to do with the present or past. Present participles that end in -ing (e.g., amazing, boring, leading) actually mark active adjectives (i.e., the noun that they describe per- forms the action expressed by the participle). In fact, it is possible to think of
TLFeBOOK