Page 113 - Complete IELTS Bands 6.5-7.5_Neat

Language reference

Attitude adverbials apologize, UK USUALLY apologise /ə pɒ.lə.d aiz/ /ə pɑ lə.d aiz/ verb [I]
Attitude adverbials consist of a word or phrase which: to tell someone that you are sorry for having done something that has caused
s is normally placed at the beginning of the sentence them inconvenience or unhappiness:
s is normally followed by a comma (see Using commas on I must apologize to Isobel for my lateness.
page 121) She apologized profusely for having to leave at 3.30 p.m.
s expresses the writer’s attitude to what he/she is going to The examples show that you can apologise for something
say in the sentence: Surprisingly, many people believe which went wrong. You apologise to the person you are
that dogs cannot see colours. (The writer is saying he
addressing.
fi nds it surprising that many people believe this.)
Remember: a preposition must be followed by a noun, noun
Attitude adverbials may express: phrase, pronoun or verb + -ing:
s a feeling or emotion: He apologised to me for damaging my car.
Sadly, few students have applied for the grant. For a list of common verbs, adjectives and nouns and their
s a context: dependent prepositions, see page 123.
Generally speaking, grants are only given to post-
graduate students. Emphasising
Of course, this is not true in all cases. We emphasise things to show that they are particularly
s an attitude: important or worth giving attention to. Two common ways of
Frankly, I think people should take more care of their emphasising are fronting and cleft sentences.
pets.
s an opinion: Fronting
As far as I’m concerned, all public buildings should be We often place information at or near the beginning of a
decorated in bright colours. sentence to emphasise it. To do this, we have to alter the
s emphasis: normal word order of the sentence. We can do this by:
As a matter of fact, colour blindness is more common s placing the complement or direct object of a verb before
among men than women. the subject. Compare these sentences:
Actually, it affects about 8% of men in North America, We know quite a lot about the Moon and Mars. We have
whereas only 0.5% of women are affected. less information about Venus.
We know quite a lot about the Moon and Mars. Venus, we
Attitude adverbials can sometimes come between the object have less information about.
and the verb. Note the use of commas before and after the s placing the subordinate clause before the main clause.
adverbial when it is not in the usual position in the sentence:
Compare these sentences:
He was, surprisingly, very upset = Surprisingly, he was NASA has sent a spacecraft to Mars because they want to
very upset. fi nd out if there is life there.
Because they want to fi nd out if there is life on Mars,
Dependent prepositions NASA has sent a spacecraft there.
Many verbs, nouns and adjectives are followed by a s placing preposition and adverb phrases that are not part
particular preposition: of another phrase before the subject of the sentence.
In his lecture, Dr Patel focused on genetic variations in fruit Compare these sentences:
fl ies. There is a lot of interest in space exploration despite its
cost.
There are no clear rules to help you decide which
Despite its cost, there is a lot of interest in space
preposition should follow a particular word; the best
exploration.
strategy is to learn the preposition with the word.
You should use a dictionary to check how words and Cleft sentences
prepositions are used. Look at this example from the
These are some ways of forming cleft sentences:
Cambridge Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (CALD):
s What + subject + auxiliary verb + is/was + infi nitive
with/without to:
The Chinese sent a probe to the Moon. ­ What the
Chinese did was to send a probe to the Moon.