Used to

LSA 1 Jessica Constable

Helping learners to understand and use

elements of pre-modificatication in noun phrases

(2494 words)

Contents

Page

1. Introduction

2

2. Analysis of Features

3

3. Learning Problems and Suggestions for Teaching

7

4. Conclusion

12

Bibliography

13

Appendix 1

17

Appendix 2

19

Appendix 3

20

Appendix 4

21

1. Introduction

My colleagues and I notice problems with -ed and -ing adjectives for French L1 learners, at all levels. e.g. * I am interesting instead of 'I am interested'.

Even higher level learners have difficulties identifying partcipial adjectives used in noun phrases (NP hereafter) and Thornbury points out that teaching materials deal very little with this subject despite the confusion learners experience (Thornbury #).

I have been inspired by Larsen-Freeman (2003), who encourages experience of the humaness of grammar, grammar as a process and a skill connected to the other skills.

My focus is pre-modification, one of the main means of building complex noun phrases (Thornbury 2006:136). Though within the grammatical systems area, there is considerable cross-over with other systems and skills.

My scope is limited to helping upper intermediate learners feel comfortable with pre-modification by participial adjectives, compounds, and jargon-heavy noun modification encountered in technical or marketing documents that they need to use.

Order of pre-modification is not part of my scope.

2. Analysis of features

2.1 Noun phrases

2.1.1 Meaning (NP in bold, other exemplifications underlined )

A noun phrase can be identified as: either a pronoun, word, or group of words that can be replaced by a pronoun (Bress, 2003). NPs are governed by a head noun which holds the barest meaning of the phrase.

2.1.2 Form

NPs can be simple

e.g. Jessica is asleep.

(subject + copula + complement)

Or the head noun may be modified by words in either attributive (pre-modifying) or predicative (post-modifying) position.

NPs may have other NPs embedded within them. (Willis 2003) adding to complexity.

(e.g. many of my higher-level learners)

2.1.3 Pre-modification

Pre-modification may be by:

determiner

A boy is born

adjective

Silent night

adverb-adjective combination

This lovingly restored armchair

a possessive (genitive)

Barry's knee

a noun

Learner driver

2.1.4 Use

NPs may function as:

· subject e.g. The Golden Chariot zoomed along,

· object e.g. I read the book about the botanist,

· complement e.g. She is a dentist, (subject complement)

e.g. They made her a saint (object complement)

· possessive e.g. My best friend's car

· object of a preposition. e.g. looked over the wall

2.1.5 Style

Pre-modification is used in informal discourse, but is a feature of formal register in texts with a lexically dense style. e.g. newspaper articles, academic and scientific documents, literature, poetry. It can include archaic, idiomatic and recently coined words and expressions.

2.1.6 Phonology

Phrase stress is closely linked to intonation.

Greater emphasis is used to underline, or clarify meaning.

e.g. The 'Golden 'Bullet (not any other one – with weak form of definite article 'the' /ðə/ )

The 'Golden 'Bullet (there is only one – full form of 'the' /ðiː/)

The 'Golden 'Bullet (and not any other golden thing – weak form of 'the')

2.2 Participial adjectives

2.2.1 Meaning and use

Participial adjectives are conversions of verb participles. Most can be used attributively and predicatively. (Crystal 1998)

They often retain a conceptualisation of the participial meaning.

e.g. Baked apple ('Baked' uses concept of past partiple of 'bake' (V) to describe a noun.)

The sleeping child ('Sleeping' describes a noun, with the concept of the present

participle)

2.2.2 Form

interesting

interested

bare infinitive + suffix

present participle of interest (v)

non-finite verb form

active concept of state verb

bare infinitive + suffix

past participle of interest (v)

non-finite verb form

passive concept of state verb

Adjectives converted from irregular past participles conserve irregular form.

e.g. fully-grown giraffes

2.2.3 Use in pre-modification

possible with intensifiers and mitigators

qualitative

✔

a very boring subject

classifying (What sort? Which?)

✘

the broken phone

formed by adding -ing or -ed to noun phrases

✔

talented comedian

compound: with verb participle, noun, adjective or adverb

✔

good-looking essay

(Thornbury 1997:110)

Like any adjective they can modify alone

e.g. A compelling argument

or combine with:

other adjectives

intriguing, battered, old chest

adverb

beautifully rendered exterior

noun

bite-sized breaded chunks

An -ing ending adjective can combine with a gerund (participle acting as noun)

e.g. It makes for interesting walking

or modify a compound

e.g. an interesting, carved walking-stick

2.2.4 Phonology

'boring

/'bɔːrɪŋ/

Stress on lexical part of word,

unstressed suffix

'grated

/'greɪtɪd/

weak syllable after t or d

themed

/θiːmd/

No syllable sounded after voiced phonemes

2.3 Compounds: adjectives and nouns

2.3.1 Form

Compounds including participial adjectives are usually hyphenated (Hewings 2007).

e.g. fee-paying, pear-shaped

2.3.2 Meaning

A compound “reduces information into a two-word expression” (Biber, Conrad & Leech 2002: 192).

Adjectives may convert a participial meaning e.g. sun-dried tomatoes

or may be formed from a noun e.g. The blue-eyed girl

i.e. 'The girl with the blue eyes'. 'Eyed' is not the past participle of the verb 'to eye' here (Langford 2015), but a conversion of the noun 'eye'.

2.3.3 Pronunciation

Primary stress is usually on the classifying word. (Hewings 2007)

e.g. 'brown-furred ,bear (adj+adj)

'sun-dried to'matoes (N+adj)

'health-re,lated (N+adj)

'bite-sized chunks of meat (N+adj)

'flower ,shop 'owner (N+N)

,un'leaded-'petrol (adj+N)

In many three word compounds ''the first two parts [often hyphenated] function as an adjective to describe the third part” (Hewings 2007:42). Parrot (2010) says such descriptions may be confusing. I agree. Modifying nouns are simplest identified as (classifying) nouns e.g. closed-circuit television. (What kind of television?) Only 'closed' is an adjective. However, Hewings makes an important point: in three-word compounds e.g. left-'luggage ,office the strength of compound ,left-'luggage carries the stress over as though one word.

2.4 Noun modification

2.4.1 Use

A noun can be used in attributive position (before the head) to pre-modify another, always singular, noun.

e.g.“I saw my bank manager”: “manager” is modified by “bank”, which acts as a classifier; telling us what type of manager.

But, may come after the head (predicative position) as part of post-modification with 'of'.

eg. The manager of the bank

Pre-modification may be by compound nouns:

e.g. flower shop window

Chains of pre-modifying nouns, called noun stacks (McMurrey #), are rife in technological writing.

e.g. “People who author web-pages have become aware of what is now known as

the uniform resource locator protocol problem.” (Eason & Williams #)

2.4.2 Pronunciation: noun modifiers

Stress is usually on the classifying word.

e.g.

pro'duction ,manager (What kind of manager? A pro'duction ,manager)

3. Problems

3.1.1: Confusion between participial adjectives

French learners, including at higher levels, sometimes confuse -ed and -ing adjectives

e.g. *“I am exciting” (meaning “I am excited”). Colleagues who teach German learners encounter similar problems, and studies show this is one of the main errors made by learners of all levels, across a wide range of L1 groups (Borer, 1990; Folse, 2012; Gao, 1997; Horiguchi, 1983; Kitzhader, 1998; Scovel, 1974 in Reilly 2013: 9-13).

The problem is linked to the “multiple syntactic functions” (Reilly 2013:13) of the forms, and interference with L1. However, my colleagues and I cannot detect straightforward L1 transfer, but “an example of the failings of contrastive analysis” (Langford 2015); as there are clear “structural and translation equivalents” (Sridhar 1980) with participial adjectives in French e.g interesting = intéressant and interested = intéressé. French has no progressive aspect or gerund, possibly leading to over-generalisation of -ing participle in conversion. It also uses reflexive form je m'intéresse for 'I am interested' perhaps adding to confusion.

3.1.2: Difficulty for teachers

Meanings of participial adjectives may sometimes be “unexplainable [...] in traditional ways” (Reilly 2013:16). Complexities include the verb type from which the adjective has been derived i.e. transitive, forming a pair (e.g.interesting/interested), or transitive with intransitive equivalents and not forming an adjectival pair (e.g. jumping/jumped) (Reilly 2013).

Course books give little space to this and have not taken corpora findings about frequency, collocations, or syntactical roles into account. (Reilly 2013)

3.2 Solution: Anecdote

To help French B2 learners to notice meaning, form and use (MFU hereafter) of participial adjectives in relation to verb participles.

Procedure

· Give teaser for anecdote (e.g. Appendix 1)

“I once fell in love with an archaeologist called Bob. He was absolutely fascinating.

But our romance was ruined by a millionaire and a broken cigar”

· Prediction question (“What happened?”) Brainstorm in pairs. Feedback.

· Part One of anecdote (allow interruptions/reactions)

· Write on board:

ignored cigar embarrassing

· Prediction question (“What happened?”) Pairs brainstorm. Feedback.

· Part Two of anecdote

· Discuss.

· Check MFU of Target Language (TL hereafter)

Commentary

I have done this with French upper-intermediate business learners (all women) who enjoy personal topics and dynamic interaction.

For transfer to occur, the practice activity has to be “psychologically authentic: The activity should be designed to allow learners to experience some of the normal psychological pressures felt by people engaged in real communication”. (Gatbonton and Segalowitz 1988:186 in Larsen-Freeman 2003:120)

Learners are engaged and keen to interact. Interest in meaning facilitates focus on form and monitoring of output. TL form is repeated several times, increasing likelihood of intake. These learners correct themselves and each other and “even very brief episodes of corrective feedback are related to correctness on subsequent tests.” (Loewen in Ellis 2006:94)

Adjectives “are less salient as a word class, [...] in comparison to nouns and verbs” (Schmitt and Zimmerman 2002 in Reilly 2013:12). I originally thought of dictogloss (Wajnryb 1990) as a solution, but decided it was unsuitable for this TL, in this context; whereas this “input stream” (Skehan 1998:48), with opportunities for repetition, enhancement of saliency of TL through storytelling techniques, and motivated interaction, hopefully reactivates previous study of TL (e.g. Murphy 2004 Unit 98), leading to intake.

Appendix 1 uses adjectives from the top 20 most frequent participial adjectives (Appendix 2) (Reilly 2013). Co-text includes gerunds and verb participles to help learners notice differences in meaning and use of TL forms in different parts of speech.

3.3 Problem: Compounds (form)

My French learners, including B1/B2 primary school teachers, sometimes invert compounds, during production, creating different meanings for the listener.

(e.g. * “They love White Snow” )

This is L1 negative transfer from 'Blanche Neige'; an example of the 'Mirror Effect' between Romance and Germanic languages, where the modifying word in compounds inverts position eg. key-ring ↔ porte-clé (Baker 1985, Davy 2015).

3.4 Solution

To clarify form of compounds for L1 Romance language learners.

Procedure: compound race (Appendix 3)

· Groups of learners race to form compounds from sets of words on cards.

· Feedback/clarification, with points for compounds (maybe invented) exemplified in a sentence. (Encourage dictionary use)

Commentary

This works with larger groups, or learners (like my primary school teachers) motivated by teamwork and games. They invent compounds e.g. 'door-window' (= 'French window') and scaffold each other's learning: sharing knowledge and ideas.

“Innovation [is] facilitated if our students are grammatically aware [...] not only of rules, but also, importantly of reasons” (Larsen-Freeman 2003:143). Explaining rules to each other helps anchor form and meaning.

3.5 Problem: Compounds (pronunciation)

Learners with syllable-timed L1s, including at higher levels, misuse stress in compound words leading to confusion.

(e.g. *,bird-'watching for 'bird-,watching.

Spanish and Catalan learners apparently have problems distinguishing between: the green 'house and the 'greenhouse in listening and speaking. (Swan & Smith 1987)

Negative transfer from syllable-timed L1 means learners miss relation of meaning to stress.

3.6 Solution

To raise awareness /clarify relation of pronunciation to meaning in compounds for Romance language L1 learners.

Procedure:

(having recently used authentic material containing compounds)

· Model and drill target forms.

· Use exaggerated acting techniques (e.g. frightened, joking, surprised) to play with changing meaning by changing stress.

Commentary

I find this effective with French L1 learners. of all levels, both one to one and in groups.

I believe in “enhancing fluency by furthering development of automaticity through practice” (Swain and Lapkin 1995 in Saville-Trioke 2006 in Richards 2008:6 and Johnson 2002). In my experience, repetition focusing on technical skill is useful for acquiring communicative proficiency in the improvised interaction of conversational discourse.

“Play […] is also of necessity concerned with form. The players have to know the rules.” (Cook 1997:227) Learners enjoy vocal play with contrastive repetition to explore rhythm, intonation, it also encourages a range of modulation. This is especially useful for learners with Romance language L1 who, because of narrower L1 pitch range, often “sound unenthusiastic or bored” (Swan & Smith 1987: 91). Productive practice helps anchor the phonological form in physiological experience.

3.7: Problem Noun stacking

My French L1 learners in business and industry use technological and marketing documents with complex NP pre-modification, including noun-stacking. They (and I) have trouble understanding what is modifying what.

e.g. “steroid-induced GABA channel burst duration prolongation” (O'Connor 1991)

Reason

a) Poor writing with jargon and “pompous word choice” (McMurrey #).

b) L1 transfer. French relies mainly on post-modification; only using pre-modifcation with certain adjectives. (Idem for Spanish, Italian, Portugese) (Swan &Smith 1987)

3.8 Solution

To help B2/C1 learners understand noun stacks

Procedure

· Use McMurrey's exercises for unpacking stacked nouns. (Appendix 4)

(either online, on board or worksheets)

· Move head noun to the front of the phrase

· Post-modify using a prepositional phrase if possible

· Convert nouns to verbs where possible.

· Add function words to create 'space'

· e.g.

Original

“Install a hazardous materials dispersion monitor system.”

Revision I:

Install a system for monitoring hazardous materials dispersion.

Revision 2:

Install a system for monitoring the dispersal of hazardous materials.

(McMurrey #)

Commentary

Explicit instruction with restricted practice is the simplest option here because “certain types of grammatical features cannot easily be acquired through interaction” (White 1987 in Noboyoshi & Ellis 1993: 209).

At upper-intermediate level, learners have good working knowledge of job-related lexis but, in my experience, need to be aware of the impact of fashion on generic writing style, to retain and build their confidence as readers.

My role is to give them strategies for reformulating these NPs into intelligible English. McMurrey's informal, sympathetic tone and opportunities for repeated practice are useful aids. “The more one manipulates, thinks about, and uses mental information, the more likely it is that one will retain that information” (Schmitt 2000: 120 in Thornbury 2013). McMurrey also links to a page for creating noun stacks for those that feel inclined.

4. Conclusion

My research has convinced me that it is the interconnectedness of meaning, form, phonology and use that are at the source of both difficulties and solutions for learners.

I was surprised at how little teaching resources specifically address these issues and to see that recent corpora findings reveal that teaching materials do not currently address the realities of participial adjective use, within and across genres. Research could also usefully be undertaken and applied to help learners who must use jargon dense texts including noun-stacking.

In response to Larsen-freeman's (2003) invitation to consider and teach the process, skill and humanness of grammar: I believe i) the process of acquiring the complex systematic skills required for understanding and using pre-modification of NPs requires both implicit familiarisation and explicit training. ii) Learners' needs, motivations and topic preferences are our best guides for creating personalised grammar systems learning opportunities.

Bibliography:

Research materials:

· Baker, M. 1985. The Mirror Principle and Morphosyntactic Explanation in 20D-219 MIT Cambridge, Massachusetts

· Biber, D., Conrad, S., Leech, G. 2002. Student Grammar of Spoken and Written English. Harlow: Longman/Pearson

· Borer. 1990. In Reilly 2013: 9-13)

· Bress, P. 2005. Noun Phrases. Retreived 16th December 2014 and available at: http://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/noun-phrase.

· Cook, G. 1997. Language play, language learning in ELT Journal Volume 51/3 July 1997. Oxford. OUP

· Crystal, D. 1998. Rediscovering Grammar. 3rd Edition (2004). Harlow: Pearson

· Davy, D. 2015. during seminar for DELTA Module One, ESOL Strasbourg

· # Eason, D. and Williams, J. ( date unknown) Style: Ten Lessons in Clarity and Grace Publisher unknown but acknowledged by unknown author talking about noun stacking /noun packing. Retrieved 15th December 2014 and available at: http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/GRAMMAr/phrases.htm

· Ellis, R. 2006. Current Issues in the Teaching of Grammar ESOL Quarterly Volume 40 No1 pp 83 – 105

· Ellis, R. 2008. Principles of Instructed Second Language Aquisition. CAL digest Dec 2008.

· Folse. 2012. In Reilly (2013: 9-13)

· Gao. 1997. In Reilly (2013: 9-13)

· Gatbonton, E. and Segalowitz, N. 1988. Creative automatization: Principles for promoting fluency within a communictive framework. TESOL Quarterly 22 (3): 473-49. In Larson-Freeman (2003:120)

· Hewings, M. 2007. English Pronunciation in Use. Pp 38-43. Cambridge:CUP

· Horiguchi. 1983. In Reilly (2013: 9-13)

· Johnson, K. 2008. An Overview of Lexical Semantics. In Philosophy Compass 3/1 (2008): 119–134 http://www.lps.uci.edu/~johnsonk/Publications/Johnson.AnOverviewOfLexicalSemantics.pdf

· Johnson, K. 2002. Language as skill. In ELT Journal Volume 56/2 April 2002. Oxford. OUP

· Kitzhader. 1998. In Reilly (2013: 9-13)

· Langford, C. 2015. 'Re: failings of contrastive analysis and the syntax-semantics interface'. Private email. 19th January 2015

· Larsen-Freeman, D. 2003. Teaching Language From Grammar to Grammaring. Boston: Heinle ELT

· Loewen, S. 2002. In Ellis (2006:94)

· # McMurrey, D. (date unknown). 'Noun Stacks'. Retrieved January 27th 2015 and available at: https://www.prismnet.com/~hcexres/style/noun_stacks.html

· # McMurrey, D. (date unknown). 'Pompous Word Choice' Retrieved January 27th 2015 and available at: https://www.prismnet.com/~hcexres/style/pompous_words.html

· Murphy, R. 2004. English Grammar in Use 3rd Edition. Cambridge: CUP

· Noboyoshi, J. & Ellis, R. 1993. Communication Tasks and SLA. In ELT Journal Volume 47/3 July 1993. OUP

· O'Connor, M. 1991. Writing Successfully in Science. E & FN Spon. In About Grammar: 'Stacking Term'. Retrieved December 16th 2014 and available at: http://grammar.about.com/od/rs/g/stackingterm.htm

· Parrot, M. 2010. Grammar for English Language Teachers, Cambridge University Press

· Reilly, N. 2013. A comparitive analysis of present and past participial adjectives and their collocations in the corpus of contemporary American English (COCA), Orlando: University of Central Florida available at: http://www.slideshare.net/NataliaReillyPhD/reilly-natalia-v201312ma

· Richards, J. 2008. Moving Beyond the Plateau - From Intermediate to Advanced Levels in Language Learning Cambridge: CUP

· Richards, J. & Schmidt, R. 1985. Longman Dictionary of Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics Fourth Edition (2010). Harlow: Pearson.

· Schmitt, N. 2000. Vocabulary in Language Teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. In Thornbury 2013

· Schmitt & Zimmerman 2002. In Reilly (2013:12)

· Scovel. 1974. In Reilly (2013: 9-13)

· Skehan, P. 1998. A Cognitive Approach to Language Learning. Oxford: OUP

· Sridhar, S.N. 1980. Contrastive analysis, Error Analysis and Interlanguage: Three phases of One Goal. In K. Croft (Ed.), Readings on English as a Second language for Teachers and Teacher Trainers Second Edition

· Swain & Lapkin. 1995. (in Saville-Trioke 2006) In Richards (2008: 6)

· Swan, M. & Smith, B. 1987. Learner English. Second edition (2001) Cambridge: CUP

· # Thornbury, S. (date unknown). '-ing forms and post modification'. Retrieved 20th December 2014 and available at: http://www.onestopenglish.com/support/ask-the-experts/grammar-questions/grammar-ing-forms-and-post-modification/146364.article

· Thornbury, S. 1997. ch.22 The noun phrase, ch. 24 Adjectives and adverbs, About Language – Tasks for teachers of English, Cambridge: CUP

· Thornbury, S. 1999. How to Teach Grammar. Harlow: Pearson

· Thornbury, S. 2006. An A-Z of ELT: A Dictionary of Terms and Concepts Used in English Language Teaching. Oxford: Macmillan

· Thornbury, S. 2013. V is for Vocabulary teaching. Retrieved Jan 20th 2015 and available at: https://scottthornbury.wordpress.com/2013/06/02/v-is-for-vocabulary-teaching/

· Wajnryb, R. 1990. Grammar dictation. Oxford: Oxford University Press

· White, L. 1987. In Noboyoshi & Ellis. 1993. pp 209

· Willis, D. 2003. Rules, Patterns and Words. Cambridge: CUP

· Willis, D. & Willis, J. 2007. Doing Task based Teaching. Oxford: OUP

Resource materials

· Greenwood, S. 2014. Your guide to new ski-holidays for the 2014-15 season. Retrieved 16th January 2015. Available at: http://www.theguardian.com/travel/2014/oct/25/guide-to-new-ski-holidays-2014-15-season

· McMurrey, D. (date unknown). ''Noun Stacks'. Retrieved January 27th 2015 and available at: https://www.prismnet.com/~hcexres/style/noun_stacks.html

· Reilly, N. 2013. A comparitive analysis of present and past participial adjectives and their collocations in the corpus of contemporary American English (COCA), Orlando: University of Central Florida. Retrieved January 20th 2015. Available at: http://www.slideshare.net/NataliaReillyPhD/reilly-natalia-v201312ma

Appendix 1

(3.2 Solution: Procedure - Example anecdote)

Cigar in Bugarach

Part One

When I lived in the Pyrenees I fell in love with an archeologist called Bob.

He was also a photographer and every year he spent: three months traveling and taking photographs of Greek and Roman remains in the Middle East, six months on his farm in Swaziland and three months writing books in a house just round the corner from mine.

He took me to visit archaelogical sites in Spain. We went shopping, watched films, he made me dinner and told me about his family. We discussed literature. We disagreed about politics.

He told the most interesting anecdotes I have ever heard. I adored him.

Then Peter came to stay. A millionaire from Botswana.

To begin with Peter was charming. I thought he approved of me.

One evening, they invited me to an expensive restaurant. I curled my hair and put on my best pink jumper.

They were good talkers. They remembered anecdotes about their exciting youth in South Africa: the murders... the amazing girls sun-bathing on their (Atlantic-crossing) yachts... the highly-cultivated school friends recently bumped-into at airports and now doing interesting, baboon-studying sorts of jobs... the stunning scenery... the paradoxes, strangeness and magic of it all.

They went on and on and on about their fascinating lives.

1) Here are three words:

a) ignored b) cigar c) embarrassing

2) What do you think happens next?

Part Two – Cigar in Bugarach

Neither Bob, nor his friend Peter spoke to me, or looked at me, during the whole meal!

They completely ignored me.

I was ignored.

I was bored.

Well, I ate and drank. (And ate and drank.)

And at the end of the meal, the smiling restaurant owner offered us each a big, fat cigar.

The gentlemen started smoking and I tried to light mine.

I was an inexperienced cigar-smoker - I huffed and I puffed, but no smoke came out.

After a while, Bob murmured in my ear “you need to bite the end off”.

So I did. But it went wrong: I bit off too much! A great big chunk!

How embarrassing! I looked at Bob, but he was listening to Peter.

I tried to smoke - it was really difficult - I had to open my mouth ridiculously wide and when I puffed, bits of tobacco were hoovered into my mouth and stuck to my lips and tongue.

Absolutely ridiculous.

I started giggling - and bits of tobacco scattered from my lips and fell into my wine... and onto the table...

Argh!

I looked from one to the other, while I tried to get the stupid bits out of my mouth.

But it was really weird: Bob and Peter didn't notice... They just carried on talking as though nothing had happened. I and the tobacco bits on the tablecloth, were invisible.

It was very confusing.

I tried not to giggle at the sad absurdity of ... well... Everything.

For some reason, I felt constrained to continue smoking the damned cigar. Peter paid. We all said Goodnight. Like that with a full-stop at the end. Goodnight.

Appendix 2

3.1 Solutions

Reilly, N. 2013. A comparitive analysis of present and past participial adjectives and their collocations in the corpus of contemporary American English (COCA), Orlando: University of Central Florida available at: http://www.slideshare.net/NataliaReillyPhD/reilly-natalia-v201312ma

Appendix 3

3.4 Solution – Compound Race from sets of words on cards

(Yellow highlights indicate sample of compounds

for use as one of the sets in this activity)

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Appendix 4

(3.8 Solution)

Extract from an html web page. Full html resource available at: https://www.prismnet.com/~hcexres/style/noun_stacks.html

Fixing Noun Stacks

by David McMurrey

Noun stack

Macro virus population diversity had gone from 1 to over 800 between 1999 to 2001.

Revision 1

The diversity of the macro virus population had gone from 1 to over 800 between 1999 to 2001.

Revision 2

The diversity of macro viruses had gone from 1 to over 800 between 1999 to 2001.

Revision 3

Types of macro viruses increased from 1 to over 800 between 1999 to 2001.

In this sequence of revisions, you can see that in the first revision sequence is pulled out of the noun stack Macro virus population diversity and brought to the beginning of the sentence. In the second revision, population is deleted: it adds no meaning here. In the third revision, diversity is replaced with Types of, the latter being more immediately understandable. And finally, the verb had gone is replaced with the more direct and active increased.

Noun stack

In 1997, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced new national ambient ground-level ozone air-quality standards.

Revision 1

In 1997, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced new standards for national ambient ground-level ozone air quality.

Revision 2

In 1997, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced new standards for ambient ozone.

Watch carefully what happens in each of the revisions. First, standards is chosen as the way to start unstacking this bureaucratic behemoth; it is combined with new, and the rest of the noun stack is dumped into a prepositional phrase. It's still too stacked up though! The next step is to weed out obvious words: the EPA operates nationally, so need for the word

national. If you ask an environmental engineer, you'll discover ground-level and ambient mean different things;

ambient is the precise term here. And air quality is just useless verbiage—if not a downright oxymoron in the twenty-

first century.

The main idea is that you can compress an idea into a single noun, give it more room in a prepositional phrase, or give it lots more room in an adjective clause. Or, you can take an even more powerful approach and fit your idea into a noun clause.

Explore a few more examples of noun stacks and strategies for unstacking them:

Noun stack: Combustion chamber exit gas temperatures are approximately 2400ºF.

This is easy: drag temperatures or gas temperatures forward to the beginning of the sentence; turn the nominalization exit into the verbal exiting.

Revision: Gas temperatures exiting the combustion chamber are approximately 2400ºF.

Noun stack: Install a hazardous materials dispersion monitor system.

Once again, the trick of dragging the final noun of the noun stack to the beginning of the sentence works. Also, you can turn the nominalization monitor into the verbal monitoring.

Revision 1: Install a system for monitoring hazardous materials dispersion.

And when you look at the result, you probably wonder what can be done about dispersion. Obviously, you can rework the sentence to create a prepositional phrase of hazardous materials, as is done in the second revision. However, dispersal is a clunky word. How about something more dramatic like escape? Let's ask the engineers.

Revision 2: Install a system for monitoring the dispersal of hazardous materials.

Noun stack: Your job will involve fault analysis systems troubleshooting handbook preparation.

In this case, the final word of the noun stack looks like a nominalization; try to work it into the verb phrase. Is there a

difference between fault analysis and troubleshooting. Maybe so, but let's live on the wild side and say there isn't.

And finally, systems is just a dumb useless word here—toss it outta there

Revision: Your job will be to prepare a troubleshooting handbook.

Noun stack: Remember to leave enough time for a training session participant evaluation.

Okay, we want to evaluate something—something related to the training session. Evaluate the participants? Or allow the

participants to evaluate the training session? Hard to say: this is a good example of how noun stacks can create ambiguity.

Revision A: Remember to leave enough time for participants to evaluate the training session.

Notice in both these revisions the nominalization evaluation is turned ito the verb evaluate.

Revision B: Remember to leave enough time to evaluate the participants of the training session.