The Basic Teacher

 

STEP 3

 

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Vocabulary

 

     Read and memorize this nouns and adjectives.

 

Nouns

Arm
Box
Hand
Man
Office
Pocket
Shelf
Ticket
Side

 

 

Structure Words

  

Come - Go
Give - Get
Across
At
Of
To - From
With
He - She
Here – There

 

 

Structure

 

• Nouns

 

• Plural Forms

 

There are two nouns in this Step whose plurals are not formed in the regular way by the addition of s.

 

• Man  - Men
• Woman - Women

 

 All nouns ending in o, s, x, ch, except stomach, or sh add e before the s of the plural.

 

• box   - boxes

 

Some nouns ending in f or fe change these letters to ve before the s of the plural. In this Step we have:

 

• Shelf   - Shelves

 

• Nouns used to qualify other nouns

 

     A noun may be used like an adjective before another noun to qualify it in various ways that will generally be self-evident from the respective senses of the nouns concerned. Like a true adjective, a noun so used is not plural even when the noun it qualifies is. ¹

 

    Here are three examples:

 

• The office floor                        (the floor of the office)
• A side door                             (a door in the side of the building)
• The office floors

 

 

 

• Adjectives

 

    “Other is, like “my”, a non-descriptive adjective, and as such it is used only before a noun, never linked to it by be. In accordance with the general rule, it precedes descriptive adjectives before a noun, but it follows any other non-descriptive adjectives with which it is used. It cannot be used with a singular noun naming a single thing without “An”, the, or some non-descriptive adjective before it. ²

 

•    The other ticket is in my other pocket.

 

 

 

•    Other white tickets are in the box.

• A and An
  

 

As noted in Step 1, the form “An” is used instead of “A” before a word starting with a vowel sound. “A” becomes “An” before a word starting with a vowel sound

 

• An office.
• An arm

 

 

• Pronouns

 

Turn to the Table of Pronouns on (See Step 1/Pronouns) and learn the forms of the First Person Singular and the Third Person Singular. You already know I, my, and it. Examples of all these forms will be given in the next Section.

    The form for the object (me, him, her, etc.) is used after operators (with the exception of is, are, and other forms of be) and after prepositions.

 

 

• Operators

 

 

The chief tenses of the four new operators taught in this Step are given in the above Table. Here you will learn only the Present Tense.

 

Turn also to the Table of Operators on You will note that the Third Person Singular of the Present Tense of put and take is formed in the same way as that of the operators listed here. One more irregular form, the First Person Singular “am”, completes the Present Tense of “be”.    

 

Anything which moves towards the speaker comes; anything which moves away from the speaker goes. “To” is used after “give” to point to the receiver of what is given, and from is used after “get” to point to the giver or source of what is got.

 

• I am a women.     She is a woman.     He is a man.
• I give a book to the woman.
• She gets it from me and gives it to the man.
• The other man takes it from him and puts it in his pocket.
• He and she give a box of the other woman.
• I take the box from her.
• I am in her room. Its walls are white. He comes from this office to her house. He and she come to my room. He and I go from the houses. I go to my house and he goes to his house.

 

     So far, “take” has been used as the opposite of put (that is, in the sense of transfer from a position as opposed to transfer to a position). It is now to be noted that it may also be used with to or some other preposition indicating destination, in the general sense of "transport" or 'convey."

 

• I take the tickets to my office.

 

     On the other hand, take may be used without any sort of preposition in the sense of "take hold of" or, more generally, "take possession of".

 

• He takes her book and goes to the table.

 

 

• Prepositions

 

    The fundamental use of  “of” is as the sign for the relation of "belonging to" or "being owned by," in which sense it always comes between the name of something and the name of that to which it belongs. Of does not now name a position in space, but it was originally the same word as off, and it may be helpful to the learner to connect the two by reflecting that a part taken off something "belongs to" it in the sense of having come from it.

 

• This is the cover of the box.
• That is the house of the other man.

 

    The use of the opposites “to” and “from” has been illustrated in the previous section connection with come and go, give and get. In addition, you will see there a similar use of from after take. It is to be noted that take from expresses mere removal, whereas take off is used only when removal is from a position on. In their root sense, to and from are never used directly after be.
    “At” is the preposition used generally for indicating location. A thing is said to be at a place (that is, a point or area in space) or at some object which marks its position more or less exactly (that is, within the boundary of which, or near which, it is).

 

• The man is at the house. ³
• She is at the door.

 

 

 

     In this last example, at is very close in sense to by, but to be at the door is not merely to be near (by) it, but as nearly as possible in the same position of space with it, that is, right up to it. In addition, at is something used to give the idea that one object is near another for a purpose.

 

• The seat is at the table.       (In a position to be used in connection with it)

 

    The sense of accompaniment expressed by “with” is extended to cover the idea of "having" (as a part or in one's possession).

 

• I am in the room with him.
• She goes to the office with him.
• This is a box with a cover.
• He gives the tickets to the woman with the black book.

 

   “Across” completes the prepositions introduced in this Step.

 

• His arm is across the box.
• She goes across the room.

 

 

• Adverbs

 

    The commonest position for an adverb qualifying an operator is at the end of the statement.

 

• She puts the flowers here.
• He takes the picture with the white frame there.
• The man is here and the woman is there.

 

     Like a phrase starting with a preposition, an adverb of place or time may be put after a noun.

 

• The flowers here are white.

 

    Not is the adverb which forms the negative.

 

 

• Negative Statements

 

    In statements with “be”, the adverb not is placed directly after the operator. The way in which the negative is formed with other operators will be dealt with later.

 

• This is a shelf.

 

This is not a shelf.

 

• The sides of the boxes are not black.

 

The ticket is not in his hand.

 

 

• Compounds

 

    In English, compound words are formed very freely and the sense of the compound is generally self-evident. Most of the compounds used in Basic are of this straightforward kind, though there are a small number whose sense needs explaining.

    We have already seen that two nouns may be used together, the first qualifying the second. Compounds are frequently formed by joining two such nouns, one of the common types being that in which the first noun indicates the purpose or function of the thing named by the second. Sometimes the two nouns are simply out together as one undivided word, sometimes they are joined by a hyphen.

 

• bedroom(bedrooms) ⁴       (room for sleeping in)
• bookshelf ⁴                       (shelf for books)
• ticket-office                     (office where tickets are sold)

 

 

 

Compounds may also be formed with other parts of speech, but these are both rarer and, generally, less obvious in sense than the noun compounds. They will be introduced and explained individually in the course of the book, but we may give here tow simple examples.

 

“Another” (In additional or different)

 

• She gets another ticket.
• He is in another office.

 

“Into” ( which is used in place of in to indicate motion from out to in where here is not ambiguity, however, as with put and get, either in or into may be used for this sense.)

 

• I take the box into the office.

 

 

• Varying the Word Order

 

    In the first two Steps, only the simplest word order needed for making statements was used. Naturally, the pattern of English sentences is not as rigid as this. For example, for the purposes of emphasis, or to avoid monotony, we frequently put an adverb or phrase indicating place, time, or manner at the beginning of the statement instead of at the end.

 

• The woman goes to the seat. From it she takes a cushion.
• In this building, the rooms are offices.
• There the windows are narrow; here they are wide.

 

    Certain special rules which apply when the operator is “be will” be noted later.

 

 

Exercises

 

       

 

• Describe in Basic what is taking place in each of these pictures, assuming first that the man, and then the woman, is "I".

 

   A:

 

•  Turn these sentences into negatives.

 

• This is the hand of a man.

   A:

 

• Those are boxes and this is a frame.

   A:

 

• His books are on the other shelves.

   A:

 

 

• Define the following and use each of them in a sentence :

 

• Flower - Pot

   A:

 

• Picture - Frame

   A:

 

• Cushion - Cover

   A:

 

 

 

•  Put preposition in the blanks in these sentences :

 

• I give a book _____ my friend.
     A:

  
  (b)   She goes _____ me.
     A:

  
  (c)   This side _____ the ticket is white.
     A:

  
  (d)   I put the ticket _____ my pocket.
     A:

   

   

   

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