Eckman_RC Instruction in Acquisition of Eng as Second Lang

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On the G eneralization of Relative ClauseInstruction in the Acquisition of Eng lishas a Second Language l

FRED R. ECKM AN, LAWREN CE BE LL, and DIANE NELSONUniversity of WisconsinMilwaukee

This paper reports on an experimental study intended to test the generalizationof instruction in second language learning. A group ofstudents in an English asa second language program served as subjec ts for sp ecial instruction in relativeclause formation. The subjects were given a pre-test on combining twosentences into one sentence containing a relative clause where either thesubject, object, or object of a preposition was the relativized noun phrase.Based on the pre-test results, four equal groups were formed, three of whichserved as experimental groups and one as the control group. Each experi-mental group was given instruction on the ormation of only one type of relativeclause. The subjects were then given a post-test. From the results of theexperim ent, it is argued that maximal generalization*of learning takes placefrom structures which are typologically m ore marked to those structures whichare typologically less marked, and not the reverse. Some implications of thisinterpretation are discussed.

1. INTRODUCTIONThe interaction between theory and practice in linguistics and language study,or mo re specifically, between theories of second language acquisition o n the on ehand and language pedagogy on the other hand, has not always been optimal.There has been doubt that insights into linguistic theory have any implicationsfor language teaching (Chomsky 1966), and there has been scepticism that,where linguistic tenets have been applied to language pedagogy, the applicationshave not always borne fruit (Wardhaugh 197 0).The purpose of this paper is to present the results of a pilot study whichsuggest that there are some important questions in language pedagogy that canbe answered by linguistics and second language acquisition theory. This studyattempts to replicate and extend the findings in a similar study by Gass (19 82) ,to be discussed b elow.The questions to w hich we addre ss ourselves in this pap er are listed in 1.1 (a) What aspects of the target language (TL) will be the easiest to acquire foranygiven learner?(b) What aspects of the TL will be the most difficult to acquire for any givenlearner?(c) What aspects of the TL will, if learned , result in maximal generalization ofthat learning to other structures?Applied Linguistics Vol. 9, No. 1 Oxford University Press 1988


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F. R. ECKM AN, L. BELL, AND D. NELSO N

Table 1: Presentation of some phonological contrasts by textText Contrast Position Chapter

initialmedial/finalinitialmedial/finalinitialmedial/final

12.413.414.517.2-37.47.5

Bens 1977 p-b

t-dELS 1966 Voice contrasts presented in all positions in same chapterLad o/Fries Point of articulation contrasts presented instead of voice contrasts; contrasts1981 presented in all possible positionsPrator/Robinett Contrasts presented according to vowel context rather than word position1972

introduce and drill each relative clause type, there is presumably no assumptionthat a learner will be able to generalize his /her learning from one type of relativeclause to an other. Again, this situation characterizes a number of other texts thatwe have investigated, as summarized in Table 2?While we have cited only a few texts in the area of both pronunciation andgrammar, the situation which we depicted is, to the best of our knowledge,

Table 2: Presentation of relative clause types by grammar textText

A z a r l 9 8 1Fingado 1981Frank 1972K r o h n l 9 7 1Ha rr is /Ro we l9 8 1Praninskasl981Rutherford 1975Sutherland 1982Wohl 1969

Subj. rel.

8.226.1A3.2*17A.112B10.7b12.B11.2E

Dir. obj. rel.

8.3.126.1B3.317A.11 2 Ct12D13.3E.2 and 3

Obj .o faprep. reL8 3 . 226.1C3.417A.21 2 Ct1 2 13.3

Whose

8.426.1D_t10.7a17.D13.1E.4

Where

8.526 . IEt10.7212.E

When

8.626.1E12.E

except for one item on wheret exercises presented in a different s ectionX presented in Book III presented together in 16.9


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4 ON THE GENERALIZATION OF RELATIVE CLAUSE INSTRUCTIONrepresentative of the state of the field in general, and was also noted in G ass(1982 ). Moreov er, although it seems that few, if any, current ESL texts presumeany systematic generalization of learning (but see note 2) , there have been somerecent pro posals in the area of second language acquisition theory w hich couldhave a bearing on the questions raised in 1. For example, it is proposed inEckm an (197 7) that the notion of typological markedness, defined as in 2, canbe cor relate d w ith the notion of degree of difficulty in second language acquisi-tion. This idea is contained in the Marke dness Differential H ypothesis (MD H),which is formulated in 3.2 A ph enom enon, X, in some language is relatively more marked than someother phenomenon, Y, if, cross-linguistically, the presence of X in somelanguage necessarily implies the presence Y, but the presence of Y in alanguage does not necessarily imply the presence of X.3 Markedness Differential Hypothesis (MDH )The areas of difficulty that a learner will have with a given TL can bepredicted on the basis of a systematic comparison of the NL and TL, suchthat:(a) tho se areas of the TL w hich are different from the NL an d relativelymo re marked than in the NL will be difficult;(b) the degre e of difficulty of any aspect of the TL w hich is different from theNL and relatively more marked than in the NL will correspond to therelative degree of markedness of that aspect;(c) those aspects of the TL which are different from the NL , but which arenot m ore marked than in the NL will not be difficult.

If we make the assumption that human beings win learn to do things which areless difficult before they learn to do related things which are more difficult, orrelatedly, if we assume that by virtue of being able to do something which ismore difficult a person has learned to do the related things which are lessdifficult, then it is possible to formulate som e hypotheses about the questions in1. The M D H w ould predict that those aspects of the TL which are least markedrelative to a learner's N L will be the easiest to learn. Conversely, those aspects ofthe TL which are m ost marked relative to the NL will be the m ost difficult tolearn. M ore importantly, however, the MD H suggests that it is the most markedaspects of a TL from which it should b e possible for a learner to gain maximalgeneralization of his/her learning. This would follow from the above assump-tion that the learners would be able to do easier (i.e. less marked) things by virtueof having learned to do more difficult (i.e. mo re marked) things.If we look at this question from the point of view of relative clause form ation,then according to the Keenan and Comrie (1977) Accessibility Hierarchyshown in 4, the easiest position to relativize should be the subject, while themost difficult should be the object of a comparative particle. The position ofrelativization which, if learned, will result in maximal generalization of learningto all other positions is the object of a com parative particle.


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F.R.ECKMAN ,L. BELL, AND D. NELSON 54 Accessibility Hierarchysubject least mark ed

direct objectindirect objectobject of a prepositionpossessiveobject of a comparative particle most markedThe purpose of this paper is to replicate and extend some research conductedby Gass (198 2). In particular, the goal of the present study is to d etermine whetherstudents generalize instruction to other related structures w hen they are taughtonly one particular structure. We were looking not at how Spanish speakers per-formed in comparison to speakers of Arabic, or some other language, but ratherat whether students across language backgrounds were able to generalizelanguage learning from one structure to another, and further, whether such

generalization followed a predictable pa ttern . Mor e specifically, we wanted to seewhether students who w ere instructed how to form relative clauses only wherethe subject is relativized (the least marke d stru cture) would be able to generalizethis learning to structu res w here an object (which is more m arke d) or an object ofa preposition (which is the most marked of the three) was relativized. And con-versely, wh ether a'studentwho was taught how to form relative clauses where onlyan object of a preposition is relativized would be ab le to generalize this knowledgeto relative clauses involving direct objects an d subjects.The results from Gass (19 82) suggest that generalization of learning proceed sfrom more marked structures to less marked structures. She found that anexperimental group, which was instructed on relative clauses where only theobject of preposition was relativized, generalized this instruction m ore than didthe control group, which was taught relative clauses using a standard text,namely Kro hn (1971). In this study, we used four groups rather than two: threeexperimental groups and one control group. Each experimental group wasgiven instruction on a different relative clause type: one group was taught how toform relative clauses where only the subject was relativized; anoth er group wastaught how to form relatives where only the direct object was relativized, and thethird group was instructed in the formation of relative clauses where onlyobjects of a preposition were relativized. The control group was not giveninstruction on relative clauses, but was given a lesson on an unrelated point ofgrammar. By using three different treatm ents for the experim ental groups, it waspossible to determine more precisely whether the generalization was uni-directional, and in which direction it went.With this in mind, let us turn to the discussion of our m ethodology.2. METHOD2.1 ProcedureThe subjects for this experiment were thirty-six ESL students who wereenrolled in the English as a Second Language Intensive Program at the


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6 ON THE GENERALIZATION OF RELATIVE CLAUSE INSTRUCTIONUniversity of W isconsinM ilwaukee. All students were from the interm ediateor low-intermediate proficiency levels of the program, as determined by thestuden ts' scores on th e Michigan Test of English Language Placemen t.Each of the subjects was given a written pre-test consisting of a sentencecombining task w hich was to be performed on twenty-one pairs of sentences.The only directions given to the subjects are those in 5; these instructionsappeare d o n the front page of the test boo klet, and w ere also given orally by theinstructor m onitoring the test.5 Com bine the following sentences, attaching sentence B to sentence A, usingthe words who, whom, which, or that.Exam ples of the test sentences to be com bined, as well as the target sentencecontaining the relative clause are shown in 6. The entire pre - and post-tests aregiven in Appe ndix 1.6 (a) A Joan likes the professor.B The professor gives easy exams to th e class.Joan likes the professor wh o/that gives easy exams to the class.

(b )A Janet rode the bicycle.B Yo ur father gave the bicycle to Jim.Janet rode the bicycle which/that your father gave to Jim.(c) A Th e chairman listened to the student.B The professor gave a low grade to th e student.Th e chairman listened to the student who(m)/that the professor gave alow grade to.Th e chairm an listened to the student to whom the professor gave a lowgrade.

As can be seen from the above examples, sentence A is always of the formNP V NP , and sentence B is always of the form NP V N P Pr ep. NP , where theindexed N P in sentenc e A is identical to on e of the NPs in sentence B . This isshown schematically in 7 .7 A N P V N P iB N P V N P P r e p . N PThe location of the head NP is an important aspect of sentences containingrelative clauses, since head position has been shown to be a factor in the degreeof difficulty associated with relative clauses in both first language acquisition(Sheldon 1 974) and in second language acquisition (Gass and A rd 1980).The twenty-one questions on the pre-test contain seven pairs of sentenceswhich are to be combined into resultant sentences containing a relativizedsubject, seven which are combinable into a sentence with a relativized directobject, and seven which are to result in sentences with a relativized object of apreposition. The different pairs of sentences are randomly ordered in the testbooklet.


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F.R-ECKMAN,L. BELL, AND D. NELSON 7To lessen the possibility of some students doing poorly on the first fewsentences they encountered on the p re-test, and thereby biasing the results, the

subjects were given a warm-up exercise consisting of three pairs of sentenceswhich were to be combined using co-ordinate conjunctions instead of relativepron ouns . The warm-up exercise used different sentence-types and was there-fore not task-related. This was in ord er to guard against a learning effect.After the pre-test was administered, the thirty-six subjects were randomlyassigned to one of four groups which were blocked according to nativelanguage, pre-test score, and English proficiency level. Each g roup consisted ofnine subjects, made up of four Arabic speakers, three Spanish speakers, oneJapanese speaker, and one Korean speaker. Three of the four groups were givena one-hour class on the formation of relative clauses in English. The fourthgroup acted as a control group and was given a placebo lesson that was notrelevant to relative clauses. The three experimental groups were thus giventreatm ents which differed with respect to the sentence type in which they wereinstructed: one group was instructed in the formation of relative clausesinvolving the relativizing of only subject NPs; another group received instruc-tion on relativizing only direct object N Ps, and the third group was taught howto form relative clauses where only the object of a preposition was relativized.Thus, for each of the three groups, all instruction centered aroun d only one typeof relative clause.Two days after the instruction, all of the subjects were given the post-testunder exactly the same conditions as the pre-test.As mentioned above, this methodology differs somewhat from that used inGass (1982), in which she used a control group and one experimental group.Moreo ver, unlike the present study, in G ass's study the control grou p was giveninstruction on relative clauses following the order of presentation in a text. Inour stud y, the control group was given no relative-clause-related instruction. InGass's study, the experimental group was instructed only on relative clauses inwhich the object of the preposition was relativized. In the present study, threeexperimental groups were used, thereby giving us the potential to test morefinely for generalization of learning.2.2. InstructionFollowing the pre-test and the grouping, each group of students receivedinstruction for o ne class hour. The proce dure for that hour was essentially thesame for the three groups receiving instruction on relative clauses, with only thefocus varying. Thefirstgroup received ins truction on only subject relatives, thesecond on only direct object relatives, and the third group on only object of apreposition relatives. The fourth grou p, the control gro up, received instructionon sentence combining techniques not related to relative clauses. Each groupwas given a brief explanation on modifiers and told that they were going to beshown a technique for combining sentences or ideas using one sentence tomodify or further d escribe another. The students in each of the three groupswere told that for the purpose of that lesson they would be using the second idea


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8 ON THE GENERALIZATION OF RELATIVE CLAU SE INSTRUCTION(sentence) to modify the first, and that it would have to be slightly changed inorder to become part of the first sentence. Part of the change would be to add amarker, that (for people and things), which (for things), and who/whom (forpeople). Th en, in each of the classes, the teacher proceeded to write out quicklyon the board pairs of short sentences and a simple sketch illustrating each.These pa irs were interrelated and told a sho rt story. These pairs of sentenceswere controlled so that those used with the first group of students wereappro priate for subject relativization, those used with the second group wereappro priate for direct object relativization, and those with the third group forobject of a preposition relativization. The sentences used for each group areshown in Appendix 2. Thus, for each of the groups, all instruction and examplescentered around only one relative clause type. The students were theninstructed to find the phrases in each sentence pair that referred to the sameperson or thing. They were shown how to substitute a marker for the second co-referential element and move the now-changed second sentence to the correctposition in the first.At this point in each class the students then did an oral exercise in whichthey listened to seven or eight pairs of sentences, again telling a story (a newstory). They were instructed to repeat each sentence pair, first mentallycombining them with a relative clause structure as they had just don e with thesentences on the board. Again the sentences were controlled so that thestudents were working only with the relative clause type that was the focus oftheir group.The third activity for each class was a written exercise. The students wereagain given pairs of sentencesanother storyand instructed to rewrite eachpair, putting the second sentence inside the first as a modifier. This was doneindividually, with the teacher walking around checking for problems and re-instructing when necessary. The sentences used in all three groups centeredaround the same stories, ensuring that the lexical content for the groups wasnearly identical. They differed only according to whether the relative clausesthat w ere to be form ed involved a relativized subject, direct object, or object ofpreposition.Two days after the instruction, the subjects were given the post-test.2.3 ScoringEach of the pre- and post-tests was scored on the basis of whether or not thestudent produced the correct target sentence. Only errors relevant to theformation of the target relative clause were counted. Thu s, for example, errorsinvolving subject-verb agreement or spelling were ignored, as were errors w herethe subject use d the wrong relative pronou n {what for that, or whom for who).On the other han d, if the subject comb ined the sentences in the wrong order byattaching sentence A to B, the sentence was scored as an error, regardless ofwhether a grammatically correct sentence was produced. Exam ples of this typeof error are shown in 8.


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326

336.7837.7562.14

112.2618.8810.37

34.015.723.14

10 ON THEGENERALIZATION OF RELATIVE CLAUSE INSTRUCTION

Table 4: Analysis of variance on pre- and post-test differencesSource df SS MS FGroupRel. cL structureGroup X structure

students' performance on a particular relative clause type. The results of theANO VA are presented in Tables 3 and 4.Table 3 shows the results of the AN OV A o n the pre-te st score s. The effect ofinstructional group was not significant for the pre-test, indicating that therewere no initial differences between the groups. The effect of relative clausestructure, however, was significant, indicating a difference in performance inrelative clause types. A multiple comparisons test (Scheffe) on the meansshowed that performance o n 'object of the preposition' relative clause types wasdifferent from that on the 'subject' and the 'direct object' types; but the subjects'performance on the subject and direct object relatives was not statisticallydifferent.3 The number of errors per group, broken down by relative clausestructure, for both the pre- and post-test is shown in Table 5.The interaction of group x relative clause structure on the pre-test was notsignificant, indicating that no instructional group did better than any othergroup on a particular relative clause type. Thus, it was not the case that onegroup knew one type of relative clause structure better than any of the othergroups.

The results of the ANO VA on the differences between the pre- and post-testscores is shown in Table 4. As can b e seen, the effect of instructiona l group wassignificant (p < .01). A m ultiple com parison s test (Scheffe) indicated that all fourgroups were significantly different from each other.

Table 5: Number of errors per group by relative clause structurePre-test

Subj. groupObj. groupOP groupControl group

Subj.str.34323527

Obj.str.36323930

OPstr.42424242

Post-testSubj.str.

4100

23

Obj.str.25124

30

OPstr.3838

142


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F. R. ECKMA N, L. BELL, AND D. NEL SON 11

4 . DISCUSSIONThe results of the analysis of the pre-test indica te that the effect of relative clausestructu re is significant. The fact that the num ber of err ors m ade on a relativizedobject of a preposition is significantly greater than that made on the objectsupports the Markedness Differential Hypothesis.4 This is true because therelative degree ofmarkedness of the structures in question corresponds directlyto the number of errors made.The results of the analysis of the post-test scores indicate tha t the group whichscored the best was the one trained on the object of a preposition, with theobject group next, subject group next, and con trol grou p last.The interaction of the group x structure, which is graphed in Figure 1, showsthe following: (1) all groups did best on the structure on which they were trained;(2) though the subject group generalized their learning somewhat to objectposition, neither the subject nor object group generalized to object of a pre-position relatives, and (3) virtually all of the generalization of learning tookplace in the direction of the less marked structure s.These results support the hypothesis underlying both Gass's study and thisone, namely, that the struc ture from which one will obtain maximal generaliza-tion is the relatively more marked structure rather than the less markedstructure. Thu s, if one were forced to choose only one relative clause structure

Ke y

~ 6

2 5auo.cI* 3

\

\

/

/

/

\

\

\

\

w N

Subject groupDirect object groupObject of preposition groupControl group

Subj. Dir. obj . Obj-of prep.Relativized positionFigure 1: Interaction of group and relativized position


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1 2 ON THE GENERALIZATION OF RELATIVE CLAUSE INSTRUCTIONto teach, that stru cture should be relativized objects of a preposition . This is truebecause the students in these studies not only learned to relativize objects of apreposition, in contrast to the o ther instructional groups, but they also general-ized this learning to object structures to a greater extent than did studentstrained on subjects, and generalized this learning to subject structures morethan those students trained on direct objects.Before con cluding, it is appropriate that we add a caution concerning how ourresults are interpreted. It would be incorrect to conclude, on the basis of ourresults alo ne, that the best way to teach relative clauses is to give instruction ononly the most marked of the structures to be taught. Before this conclusion canbe reached, it is necessary to determine how time is a factor in the learning. Thatis, our study does not address the question of whether results similar to ourscould have been obtained by teaching all three relative clause structures,allocating the one-hour instructional time as follows: ten minutes o n the subject,twenty minutes on the object, and thirty minutes on the object of a preposition.This altern ative is a real possibility, since no control was exercised in ou r studyto determine whether die same amount of time was required to learn torelativize each position.5 . CONCLUSIONIn conclusion, we have presented da ta in support of the hypothesis that maximalgeneralization of learning will result from the acquisition of relatively moremark ed struc tures . Such generalization will be unidirectional, and will be in thedirection of those structures which are relatively less marked. Thus, if only asingle structure of a set of implicationally related structures is to be taught,maximal generalization will result from teaching that which is most mark ed.(Received September 1986)NOTES1 The authors wish to acknowledge the following for numerous comments andcriticisms of earlier drafts of this pa pe r E lizabeth Cassell, Daniel Dinnsen, Jean Mileham,Edith M oravcsik, Jessica W irth, and two anonymous reviewers. Of course, none of thesepeople is responsible for any remaining errors or inconsistencies. We would also like toexpress our appreciation to Karen Levy for teaching each of the groups of subjects.2 Since some of the texts omit some relative clause types, it may be possible to concludethat these authors anticipate generalization. However, this conclusion seems somewhatdubious in view of the fact that the omitted relative clauses most often involve thoseformed with whose, when, and where. We believe that it is more likely that the authors arepostponing instruction on these relative clauses rather than that the authors are assumingthat the learners can automatically generalize their learning to these structures.3 We have no ex planation for why there is no difference in performance on the subjectand object relatives. In fact, the Markedness Differential Hypothesis would predict thatsuch a difference should exist4 The data in Tables 4 and 5 indicate that the treatment had a larger impact on thegroup trained on the object of a preposition than on either the subject or direct objectgroup, a fact for which we have no explanation, at p resent.


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F. R. ECKMAN, L. BELL, AND D. NELSON 13REFERENCESAzar, B. 1981. Understanding an d Using English G rammar. Englewood Cliffs, NJ:Prentice Hall.Bens, A. 1977. Active English Pronunciation and Speech. Englewoo d Cliffs, NJ : PrenticeHall.Eckman, F. 1977. 'Markedness and the contrastive analysis hypothesis.' LanguageLearning 27:315-30 .English Language Services, Inc. 1966. Drills an d Exercises in English Pronunciation.New York: Collier Macmillan International.Fingado, G. et al. 1981. The English Connection. Boston, Mass.: Little, Brown andCompany.Frank, M . 1972. Modern English Exercises for Non-native Speakers, Part II. EnglewoodCliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall.Gass, S. 1982. 'From theory to practice' in M. Hines and W. Rutherford (eds.) OnTESOL '81. Washington, DC: TESOL .Gass, S. and J. Ard. 1980. 'L2 data: Their relevance for language universals.' TESOL

Quarterly 14: 443-52.Harris, T. and A. Rowe. 1981. Practical English. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich.Keenan, E. and B. Comrie. 1977. 'Noun phrase accessibility and universal gramm ar.'Linguistic Inquiry 8:63-99.Krohn, R. 1971. English Sentence Structure. Ann A rb or University of Michigan Press.Lado, R. and C. Fries. 1981. English Pronunciation. Ann A rbo r University of MichiganPress.Praninskas, J . 1981. Rapid Review of English Grammar. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: PrenticeHall.Prator, C. Jr. and B. W. Robinett. 1972. Manual of English Pronunciation (3rd ed.).New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.Rutherford, W. 1975. Modern English (2nd ed.). New York: Harcourt BraceJovanovich.Sheldon, A. 1974. 'The acquisition of relative clauses in English.' Bloomington, Ind.:Indiana University Linguistics Club.Sutherland, K. 1982. English Alfa. Boston: Hough ton Mifflin C ompany.Wohl, M. 1969. Preparation for Writing and Grammar. Rowley, Mass.: Newbury House.

AP P ENDIX 1Pre-testDirections: Combine the following sentences, attaching sentence B to sentence A, usingthe words who, whom, which, or that.

1. A Amy grabbed the letter.B Jason handed the letter to Julie.2. A Betty dropped the note.B Bill wrote the note to the teacher.3. A Joan likes the professor.B The professor gives easy exams to the class.4. A The teacher looked at the girl.B I explained the sentence to the girl.


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F. R. ECKMAN, L. BELL, AND D. NELSON 15Directions: Com bine the following senten ces, at taching sentence B to sentence A , usingthe words who, whom, which, or that.

1. A You talked to the teacher.B The class sent theflowers o the teacher.2. A The editor published the story.B Bill sent the story to the magazine.3. A Lester obeyed the policeman.B The policeman gave a ticket to Mary.4. A I saw the player.B The player kicked the ball to the people.5. A Frank talked to the student.B The student lent the pen to Bill.6. A Judy knows the professor.B The professor gave a lecture to the English class.7. A Phillip read the book.

B Jane gave the book to my mother.8. A We saw the actor.B The director gave an award to the actor.9. A Alice met the man.B The man told the story to the children.

10. A The child broke the vase.B Jerry gave the vase to my mother.11. A Joan knows the writer.B I sent some questions to the writer.12. A The farmer grew the beans.B John sold the beans to the woman.13. A Sam listened to the singer.B We sent a letter to the singer.14. A Betty helped the teacher.B The teacher showed a film to the class.15. A Susan met the artist.B Jack showed some pictures to the artist.16. A We listened to the secretary.B The secretary read a statement to the crowd.17. A Lisa ate the apple.B I gave the apple to Julie.18. A Carol met the soldier.B The President presented a medal to the soldier.19. A Elaine wrote the story.B You sent the story to the publisher.20. A Barry read the letter.B You sent the letter to your friend.21 . A Dan knows the priestB The Pope sent a letter to the priest


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16 ON TH E GENERA LIZATION OF RELATIVE CLAUSE INSTRUCTION

APPENDIX 2Adjective clause instructionNote: M any of the ideas in this instructional plan ar e taken from Rutherford (1975).Preliminary thoughtsWhy? An adjective clause (also known as a relative clause) is one kind of modifier. Ittells us something more about what we are talking about in the senten ce. It givesus mo re information about our subject.Wh at? Some m odifiers are single words (colors, size, etc.). Some ar e phrases (pre-position + noun): e.g. 'on the table', 'after lunch', 'next to your left hand'. Someare also entire sentences which we put into (embed in) our main idea. Theseadjective clauses are sentences, too. They provide us with information aboutsomething we are already thinking about. Either they identify tha t thing for us orthey make it more interesting. We want to embed the second sentence into thefirst (main) one. Put B inside of A .How? By using a marker + subject + verb phrase. (Sometimes the marker and thesubject are th e same.)Markers: that (the most common), which (for things only), and who(m) (forpeople). That cannot be used in non-restrictive clauses, i.e. those which do notdefine bu t only provide more information.I'm going to a country which/that has a lot of spaceAustralia which has a lot of spaceFirst. I'm going to write some sentences on the board which we'll put together to make astory.First groupSubject focus (1)On the board:a. I saw a wom an. She was carrying a little boy.b. The child was wearing a hat. The hat had a feather in it.c. It was a long, brown feather. The feather came from a very big bird.d. The bird was caught by a man. The m an was the little boy's father.e. He caught the bird with a big net. The net was waiting high in the b ird's tree.f. The woman was very fat. (what woman?) She was carrying the child.g. The wom an was wearing a skirt. She was fat.h. The skirt was huge. It was bright red.i. The woman waseating bananas, (what woman? who was wearing. . . )j . The woman was eating bananas. They were yellow and ripe.1. F ind the pair.2. Substitute a marker.3. Move N P to immediately after the word it m odifies.


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F. R. ECKMAN, L. BELL, AND D. NELSON 17Subject focus (2)Practice to be done together orally.A. Direction s: Listen to the following pairs of sentence s. They are all about John. Witheach pair, embed the second sentence into the first one.

1. John is a stude nt He has a few problems.2. Yesterday he saw a doctor. The doctor told him to stop smoking.3. Then at the gym he lost his racket The racket was a present from his brother for hisbirthday.4. The racket was a present. It cost his brother twenty dollars.5. Once he got back to his room he had a phone call from his teacher. The teachertaught him English.6. The te ache r told him he was not going to get a good grade , (what teach er?)7. Finally he sat down to read his mail. Th e mail came everyday at four.8. He got a letter from his mother. It came at four.9. The letter was from his mother. She wro te and told him some bad news.10. She told him about his brother. His brother crashed their car.11. His brother crashed their car. It was a new expensive sports car.12. They had bought the car together only a few months ago. (It was a .. .)B. Now answ er these questions with a sentence b eginning with: / like that1. What kind of movies do you like? (interesting)2. What kind of food do you like? (hot)3. What kind of work do you like? (easy)4. What kind of music do you like?5. What kind of clothes do you like?Integration (subject forms)Tell me about some of thepeople in your life and identify them in some way.ExampleThere's John, w ho's my best friend.There's Rita, who isboth my mother and my friend.Ther e's my father-in-law, who enjoys sleeping in front of the TV .Written practiceNow read each of the following pairs of sentences carefully. Then combine the two byputting the second sentence into the first one as we did in class. Use that, which, who.1. Charlie Smith is a man. He has a few problems.2. Yesterday he saw a doctor. The doc tor told him he was too fat.3. Cha rlie Smith likes to eat food. The food is sweet and sugary.4. The day before he received a letter. The letter was from the government5. The government wanted some money from Charlie. He didn't pay enough taxes last

year.6. A week ago Charlie got a phone call. It was from a bill collector.7. The bill collector was trying to get some money from Charlie. Charliedoesn't have anymoney.


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F. R. ECKMAN, L. BELL, AND D. NELSON 194. What kind of clothes do you like?5. What kind of teachers do you like?6. What kind of cars do you like?Integration (direct object forms)Tell me ab out som e of the cities and towns (o r countries) you've visited and identify each .ExamplesI've been to L ondon which I visited twice last year.the second time last year.I went hiking in the Sierra Mountains which I drove to from Sacrame nto.I saw Athens which the ancient Greeks built centuries ago.Written practiceNow read each of the following pairs of sentences carefully. Then combine the two byputting the second sentence into the first one as we did in class. Us e that, which, whom.

1. I got an invitation to visit My cousins sent the invitation from London.2. My uncle's job is in London. H e just started the job.3. The ticket cost me $200.1 bought itrightaway.4. I traveled on a 747 jumbo jet. I took it from C hicago to London.5. In the airport I bought some souvenirs. I saw them in the gift shop.6. I gave the souvenirs to my cousins. I bought them in the gift sho p.7. On the flight I enjoyed a cocktail. The stewardess brough t it soon after the plane tookoff.8. The dinner was delicious, but unusual. W e were served dinner.9. I ate snails in butter. The dinner included snails.10. During dinner, I spoke to the stewardess. I could see her.

Now revise these statements with sentences beginning with: I don't like ...1. I can't chew this food.2. I can't understand the teacher.3. I can't eat this food w ith my fingers.4. I can't read this book.5. I can't do this exercise.Third groupObject of a preposition focus (1)On the board:a. I saw a little boy. A woman was talking to the little boy.b. The child was wearing a hat. A feather was attached to the hat.c. Near the child's home lived a big brown bird. The feather came from the big brown

bird.d. Now, the boy's father was a very tall man. The bird was caught by him.e. High in the bird's favorite tre e, he put a big net. He caught the bird with a big net.f. The man loved the little boy. He gave the feather to him.g. The little boy was very fat (A woman was talking to him .)h. The little boy liked bright colors very much. T he woman m ade striped short pants fo rhim.i. The little boy was eating a banana . The woman gave some fruit to him.


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20 ON THE GENERALIZATION OF RELATIVE CLAUSE INSTRUCTIONj . The banana looked ripe and delicious. The woman paid 10 cents for it.k. Th e woman loved her son very much. The little boy was smiling at her.Object of a prepo sition focus (2)Practice to be done together orally.1. John had a lot of problems. I was talking to him.2. Yeste rday he went to a clinic. His doctor has his offices at the clinic.3. Th e doc tor told him he had to stop smoking immediately. John told his problem to thedoctor.4. (Then he w ent to the gym). At the gym he lost his rack et H e paid $20 for it.5. (Then he went back to his room.) John was studying English and he liked one of histeachers very much. He got a phone call from this teacher.6. The teacher told him he was not going to get a good grade. He was speaking to theteacher on the phone.7. (Finally he sat down to read his mail.) His letter was written by his mother. John gotsome more bad news from her.8. She told him abou t his sister. John had lent his new car to his sister.9. His sister had cra shed the car. John had paid a lot of money last summer for it. (Hissister was fine but she destroyed his car.)Now answer the questions using this pattern: The which I enjoy -ing themost is .1. Wha t is your favorite music? (listen to)2. Wha t is your favorite hobby? (work at)3. What is your favorite car? (drive in)4. What is your favorite transportation? (travel by)5. What is your favorite kind of friend? (relaxing with)Written practiceNow read each of the following pairs of sentences carefully. Then combine the two byputting the second sentence into the first one as we did today in class. Use one of themarkers: that, which, or whom.1. My cousins live in London . I got an invitation from them to come and visit.2. My uncle works in London . I received a check from him.3. I bought my ticket right away. I paid $200 for it.4. Chicago ha s a very large international airpo rt. I took off from Chicago.5. In the airport I thought about my cousins. I bought some souvenirs for them.6. My cousins will be surprised. I bought som e presents for them.7. On the flight I enjoyed th e music. I listened to it all the way.8. I also enjoyed drinking a beer. I had to pay $2.0 0 for it.9. Unfortuna tely, the dinner was strange and unusual. 1 became ill from it.10 . How ever, during the flight I enjoyed talking to a very interesting young lady. I wassitting next to her.11 . We also enjoyed th e movie. We were looking at the movie during the flightNow u sing the same type of answers that w e did in class, answer these:1. Wha t is your favorite music?2. What is your favorite hobby?3. What is your favorite car?

Documents

Eckman_RC Instruction in Acquisition of Eng as Second Lang