Using LanguageⅡ课堂实录及点评

Unit 3

A taste of English humour

Learning about Language (The –ing form as the Predicative, Attributive & Object)

Aims

To help students learn about The –ing form as the Predicative, Attributive & Object) To help students discover and learn to use some useful words and expressions. To help students discover and learn to use some useful structures. Procedures I. Warming up Warming up by discovering useful words and expressions do exercises No. 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5. Check your answers against your classmates’.

II. Learning about The –ing form as the Attributive

What is attributive? It is something placed before the nouns to be modified: “red” is an attributive adjective in “a red apple”. “walking” is also an attributive adjective in “a walking stick”.

The –ing form as the Attributive

The –ing form作定语时表示该动作正在进行。单个The –ing form作定语通常放在被修饰词的前面。

The –ing form短语作定语则放在被修饰词之后。如:

The rising sun looks very beautiful. 冉冉升起的太阳看上去很美。

若被修饰词与The –ing form是被动关系时,须用The –ing form的被动式(being done)作定语。如:

The song being broadcast is very popular with the young students. 正在播放的歌曲深受青年学生的欢迎。

注意The –ing form作定语与所修饰的名词有逻辑上的主谓关系,或表示作用与用途。如:

Let sleeping dogs lie. 别招惹麻烦。(The –ing form相当于定语从句

which are sleeping)

I think some sleeping pills may help you. 我想安眠药可以助你入睡。(The –ing form表示用途,相当于pills for sleeping)

III. Ready used materials for The –ing form as the Predicative, Attributive & Object

Which verbs can be followed by the -ing form? One of the most important simple principles that grammarians tend to miss is the one that explains what verbs take the -ing form. The method of almost all books on English grammar is to give a list of such verbs. This implies that it is completely arbitrary whether a verb takes the -ing form or not, that God has closed his eyes and pricked off verbs here and there at random with a pin. Students are thus cut off from insight into a basic pattern of meaning, and confronted with a lifeless series of unconnected words which they have to learn by heart. They are pushed into a purely mechanical process that misses the essential truth that

learning languages is learning about meanings and their logical connections to other meanings. It is significant of the impractical arbitrariness of these lists that there are almost no two of them that are the same, even where the most common of the verbs used with -ing are concerned. When contrasting the -ing form with the infinitive, the basic point to remember is that

-ing

can always mean, among other things, a verb-noun, an 'action-thing'.

The fact that -ing can always mean a 'thing' gives us the following practical principle: If you can say I (etc.) - verb - it (e.g. I like it), you can use I - verb -ing (e.g. I like eating). Avoid it. Avoid stepping on the grass if you can. Do you mind it? Do you mind shutting the window? He couldn't risk it. He couldn't risk hurting the children. This is a principle virtually without exceptions. But naturally there are many verbs that in practice are never used with -ing simply because nobody ever wants to express that 'action' meaning of -ing with them. The process is always self-regulating, so to speak - one says whatever makes sense. We can look at some

examples of the use of -ing with verbs that appear on few, if any, of most grammarians' lists. They have added mistreating prisoners to the list of charges. I can't really afford living like this. The council no longer allows smoking in public buildings. aim - (It is hard to think of a sensible example of -ing being used with this verb. Can you?) The club arranges dancing for the pensioners. The chairman claimed breaking the strike as a great triumph. I don't count making money as a virtue. The investigators discovered cheating on a huge scale. We must encourage planting earlier in the season. I thank travelling for teaching me much about the human condition. The principle applies equally to phrasal verbs, both the 'prepositional' type and the 'adverbial particle' type. She insisted on helping me. Bill's putting off writing till tomorrow. (Or: ...putting writing off...) The managing director picked out idling on the job as the main cause of the declining profits. turn up - (Another example of a verb I am unable to think of any sensible use for with -ing.)

(Notice that in the second and third sentences above, an it used instead of the -ing form would come between putting and off and between picked and out.) There are uses of -ing which appear to contradict the it-substitution principle. Two examples of them involve expressions that both have the sense of continue: carry on and go on. One can say Carry on talking, but not *Carry on it. That, however, is merely because deemphasized pronouns are never used at the end of phrasal verb phrases (e.g. in a dictionary one looks it up, not *looks up it). With go on one cannot even say *go it on. This again can be explained simply. One does not *go a thing, while with the sense of continue one does not say *go on it for the same reason that one does not say *Carry on it. IV. Closing down Closing down by discovering To end the period you are going to skim the text and the previous texts to find out all the examples containing –ing forms used as the predicative, attributive and object. Closing down by exercises In the last few minutes you are to do exercises 1, 2, 3 and 4. Check your answers against those of your group mates’.