This 26th collection of students’ pearls of wisdom, laboriously digitised from hand-written papers, demonstrates once again how students new to the study of language speculate about grammar after having imperfectly absorbed what their teachers think they have taught them.

Test question

Propose a single rule that accounts for the phrase structure of all the verb phrases in the sentences below:

The doorbell rang.
The doorbell sounded funny.
The doorbell made a funny sound.

Answers

• The VP comes after or follows an NP.

• In the sentences, the VP will always follow NP and sometimes vise-versus.

• Different verbs occur with different constituents.

• Verb phrases cannot be constituted. The determiner precedes the verb and the verb precedes the adjective.

• Rule: they are non-adjuncts.

• The sentences are all made up of different combinations of phrases, VP, NP, AdjP and etc.

• A VP precedes PP, AdjP, AdvP or NP.

• The verbs are all preceded by the subject.

• (Det) must always precede (N), whereby (N) is optional.

More to come...

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