Using a past participle to start a relative clause

I have recently received a comment asking about the structure 'The significant percentage of work accomplished on the computer.'  

This is not a sentence as it does not contain a finite verb, but only the past participle ‘accomplished’. The actual structure is a noun phrase containing a relative clause.  However, the relative clause is not fronted by a relative pronoun, but by the past participle verb 'accomplished'.

The = determiner

(significant) percentage of = phrasal quantifier pre-modifying the main noun

work = main noun

accomplished on the computer = relative clause fronted by a non-finite past participle

The subordinate structure ‘accomplished on the computer’ could have been written ‘which was accomplished’.  Often in English we elide the relative pronoun and auxiliary verb to use the non-finite past participle in relative clause position.

So the whole structure is a noun phrase: the main noun work is pre-modified and also post-modified, but cannot stand on its own as a sentence.  You can test this by inserting it into the noun phrase position of sentences.  For example,

The significant percentage of work accomplished on the computer disproved the theory. (SVO structure with phrase in subject position)

The board approved the significant percentage of work accomplished on the computer. (SVO structure with phrase in object position)

If you wanted the original structure to act as a complete sentence, you would need to amend it so that ‘accomplished’ no longer appears as a non-finite verb:

The significant percentage of work was accomplished.  

(SV- the auxiliary verb ‘was’ + past participle ‘accomplished’ forms a passive verb.)

The significant percentage of work was accomplished.  

(SVC with ‘accomplished acting as an adjective in the complement position)

Pre- and post-modification

I was recently asked to explain pre- and post-modification.  

Pre- and post-modification are terms used for words, phrases and clauses that add information to a noun. By adding these you create a noun phrase.  

Premodification is where information is added before the noun, e.g determiners, adverbs, adjectives:

Post-modification is adding a phrase or relative clause (which is a type of subordinate clause) after the noun.

If we use the noun 'horse', we can, for example, add premodifiers:

the (determiner)

very (adverb)

beautiful (adjective)

and post-modifiers:

with the flowing mane (prepositional phrase)

or

which could gallop like the wind (relative clause because it starts with a relative pronoun - which - and includes a verb 'could gallop')

The very beautiful horse with the flowing mane...

The very beautiful horse which could gallop like the wind...

Determiners

Determiners usually start a noun phrase and are words which give us information about whether the noun is specific or general.  For instance, in the sentence 'This cat would be the best for me', the word 'this' indicates we are talking about a specific cat.  'A cat' or 'any cat' would not indicate any specific cat, as 'a' and 'any' are general determiners.

When children start writing, they very often rely on the general determiners 'a' and 'an', or the specific determiner 'the'.  We should encourage children to increase the range of determiners they use so that they can vary their writing and communicate more clearly whether they are talking about something specific or general. 

As children are taught to read and write many determiners as part of their phonics teaching in Reception and Year 1 classes, it is an ideal opportunity or them to put these words into practice. However, they do not need to know the term 'determiner' until they are in Year 4.

Here are some determiners you can use with children to help them improve their use:

• a, an, the  (these are also called 'articles' but this is not a term children are required to learn)

• this, that, these, those

• some, any, every, another

• my, your, his, her, its, our, their

• several, few, many

• next, last

• first, seventh, tenth  (ordinal numbers, which indicate an order)

• six, twelve  (cardinal numbers, which indicate a quantity)

• which, whose, what (when these words are used to start questions, e.g. Which book is mine?)

The table below contains some determiners, some of which can only be used with a singular noun, some with a plural noun and some with both singular and plural.  

a	an	the	this	that	these	those
my	his	her	our	your	their	some
all	one	two	three	other	many	another

You can use the table to create cards to match up to pictures of singular and plural nouns.  Discussing what the words mean and whether they can be matched with the nouns in the pictures will help your child develop understanding around their use.  Here is a picture to start you off.

flowers	rose
fern	leaves

 

• the flowers
• some flowers
• many flowers
• these flowers
• my flowers
• a rose
• the rose
• one rose
• our rose

Pronouns used to replace nouns and noun phrases

Once children learn to chain a few sentences together to create a piece of writing, it is important for them to understand that they don’t have to repeat the same nouns and noun phrases in every sentence.  If you read the following examples, you can see how repetition interferes with the flow of reading, but replacing some of the nouns and noun phrases with pronouns makes the text easier for the reader to understand.

• Jack went to town and Jack took the cow to sell at the market.  When Jack got to town, Jack looked for a buyer but Jack could not find a buyer.  Jack was getting worried but then an old lady gave Jack some magic beans for the cow.  When Jack got home, Jack’s mother was very cross with Jack and Jack’s mother threw the beans out of the window.
• Jack went to town and he took the cow to sell at the market.  When he got to town, Jack looked for a buyer but he could not find one.  Jack was getting worried but then an old lady gave him some magic beans for the cow.  When he got home, Jack’s mother was very cross with him and she threw the beans out of the window.

When pronouns refer to a person, we call them personal pronouns.  Children need to understand that we use different personal pronouns in different sentence slots:  we need subject pronouns in the subject position of a sentence and object pronouns in the object slots.

Subject pronouns                    Object pronouns

(use in the subject position        (use in the object position

before the verb)                         after the verb)

I                                                 me

he                                              him

she                                            her

it                                                it

you                                            you

we                                             us

they                                           them

For example,

• He saw her.
• I saw them.
• She saw me.
• My family and I saw them. 

Children will sometimes confuse these pronouns, which is incorrect in Standard English and will be marked incorrectly in the grammar and punctuation test:

• Me and my family saw them.  (Incorrect as object pronoun me used in the subject position.)
• She saw my family and I.  (Incorrect as subject pronoun I used in the object position.)

These sorts of mistakes usually happen when ‘I’ or ‘me’ is used with another subject or object.  For example, children will rarely say ‘Me saw them.’ or ‘She saw I.’ and will recognise these structures as wrong since they sound strange.  However, when another subject or object is added, the strangeness is not as apparent.  Many adults also make these mistakes and incorrect use is often heard in the media, so it is difficult for children to distinguish correct Standard English.

There are other types of pronouns, but the subject and object pronouns are the first that will need to be taught.

Activity: Take Tibbles Out: using subject and object pronouns correctly

The Ice Bear by Jackie Morris: developing synonyms with KS2 children

In addition to the ideas for developing sentence level structures using 'The Ice Bear', this is also a great text for developing synonyms with children. 

In the story, the boy finds amber stones and follows the trail of these, collecting them for his mother.  Jackie Morris uses a variety of synonyms for these stones.

• a pale shard of shining light
• a piece of amber, smoothed by the oceans, coloured, clear and beautiful, ike a fragment of fire, washed ashore from a far-off place.
• a trail of shining amber
• bright jewels
• fallen stars
• each shining piece
• the brightest and the best
• the treasure
• the smooth beads of amber
• the amber treasure
• the amber

Find an object for children to describe in different ways.  How many different synonyms can they create?

Using adverbs to premodify adjectives and other adverbs

During Sentence Toolkit training last week some questions arose about using adverbs to modify adjectives and other adverbs.

With primary children, we usually introduce adverbs/adverbial phrases as describing where, how or when the action has taken place in a sentence.  We explain how these words can provide our reader with more information and also create different effects, depending on where in the sentence they are positioned. 

We also show children how adverbs and adverbial phrases can be used cohesively, to link to prior information in the text.  These connecting adverbials can be used to structure/sequence the text (as 'in addition', 'moreover', 'furthermore' do when we are structuring paragraphs in a persuasive piece or writing) or they can add writer opinion (for example, 'obviously', 'certainly', 'surely').

However, there are some adverbs that can be placed in front of an adjective or another adverb to provide the reader with more information about 'how much' of the adjective is applicable in the sentence, or 'to what degree' the adverb describes the verb.  Being used in these ways, adverbs can be incorporated into noun phrases, adjective phrases or adverbial phrases.  In the following three sentences, I've highlighted the premodifying adverb.

• The rather quiet child sat in the corner.
• The princess was very beautiful.
• He ate his meal extremely quickly.

There is a confusing terminology around the groups of adverbs that can act in this way.  Depending on the grammar book you look in, this group of adverbs may be referred to as modifiers, sub-modifiers, intensifiers, emphasizing adverbs, or adverbs of degree.  I wouldn't worry too much about these terms/sub-categories, especially not with the children; just model how useful they are in writing!

Once children understand how this special group of adverbs behave, it might be a good idea to collect them on your working wall, so there are a range of words to choose from.  This will avoid over use of 'very' and 'extremely'.

I promised the delegates on the course that I would provide a list of some of these adverbs.  Below are two charts which may be useful for activities, especially in guided work.  Children can experiment with slotting them into noun phrases before the adjective, or in front of other adverbs, to see whether they make sense and add relevant information for the reader.  However, do explore texts and discover more examples with the children to add to your own collections!

Some adverbs which can be used to premodify adjectives
absolutely	almost	awfully
badly	completely	considerably
dearly	deeply	drastically
dreadfully	enormously	entirely
exceedingly	extraordinarily	extremely
fairly	fully	greatly
hard	hugely	immensely
incredibly	just	largely
moderately	nearly	noticeably
partly	perfectly	poorly
positively	powerfully	practically
pretty	purely	quite
rather	really	reasonably
remarkably	significantly	simply
slightly	strongly	sufficiently
surprisingly	terribly	totally
tremendously	truly	unbelievably
utterly	very	wonderfully

The most common adverbs which can be used to premodify other adverbs
awfully	exceedingly	extraordinarily
extremely	fairly	incredibly
moderately	noticeably	pretty
quite	rather	really
reasonably	remarkably	sufficiently
surprisingly	terribly	tremendously
unbelievably	very	wonderfully