Page 80 - English - Teaching Academic Esl Writing

66 CHAPTER 4
their positions relative to one another are sometimes called slots, and in many sentences some slots can be empty (e.g., the object slot is not filled if the verb is intransitive—does not require an object). However, in English sentences, for example, the verb slot is never empty because verbs are re- quired for all sentences to be grammatical, and the subject slot can be empty only in the case of imperatives (commands), (e.g., 0 dose the door).
It is important to note that an approach to teaching sentence- and phrase-structure systemsof English does not place a great deal of emphasis on conveying a particular meaning. Rather, the regularities and rigid order of sentence and phrase elements deals with syntactic accuracy as discussed in detail in chapter 3. Also as mentioned, for academically bound L2 learn- ers, a reasonable degree of grammatical accuracy represents a factor of cru- cial importance in their academic, professional, and social opportunities (Celce-Murcia, 1991; Celce-Murcia & Hilles, 1988; R. Ellis, 1990, 1994; Fries, 1945; Hammerly, 1991; Schmidt, 1994).
RIGID AND MOBILE SENTENCE ELEMENTS
In general, the breakdown of a sentence into ordered and sequential slots is based on three fundamental principles. The first principle states that sentence units occur not in isolation, but in relationship to other sentence elements (e.g., in most sentences [other than questions], the subject pre- cedes the verb.
Particles Commercials
Computer technology The temperature
Subject
A Minimal Sentence Sentence Slots
expand, proliferate.
evolves, rises.
Verb Predicate
According to the second principle, the contexts in which sentence ele- ments occur determine the variation among them (e.g., singular subject nouns require singular verbs or transitiveverbs [e.g., construct, develop, make] require the presence of objects that follow them). On the other hand, prepo- sitional phrases are slippery elements, and they can occur in various slots—at the beginnings or ends of sentences and/or following a subject or an object noun phrase.
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