The Basic Teacher
Vocabulary
Read and memorize this nouns and adjectives.
Nouns
Country |
 |
Family |
 |
Food |
 |
Meal |
 |
Meat |
 |
Plate |
 |
Town |
 |
Place |
|
Work |
|
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Adjectives
Early - Late
Structure words
Be |
Before – After | Or |
Do |
For | When |
Have |
Will | Where |
Make |
Come | While |
May |
Some | |
Out |
But |
Structure
All nouns ending in “y” after a consonant change the “y” to “ie” before the “s” of the plural.
Up to this point, the nouns we have introduced have all been names that are applied to individual things of the same sort, which may be called "countable" (pot, drawer, flag, etc.). We come now to nouns of a different sort that is, to nouns naming substances of which separate examples are looked on as portions, not countable. Therefore, a, which has the sense of 'one',' is only used before the name of a substance in the sense 'a sort of,' an, correspondingly, the name of a substance may be used in the plural only in the sense 'sorts of.'
When talking of a substance in general, we are the noun without any special word in front of it.
When talking of an indefinite amount of a substance, the noun may similarly be used alone.
The used before the name of a substance indicates 'this particular amount of it which we are talking about.'
Nouns naming qualities, conditions, activities (though not single acts), and so on come under the same rules as names of substances.
Notes:
Country, in its root sense, is not treated as the name of a countable. But, unlike substance words, country in this sense is never used in the plural and never used unqualified. If not qualified in any other way, it requires the.
“Some” is another non-descriptive adjective. It is an adjective indicating an indefinite amount or an indefinite number greater than one. It is used before singular nouns naming substance etc. and before plural nouns naming countable or 'sorts.' It is never preceded by the or by a pointing or possessive adjective.
“Some” is also used as a pronoun, with the sense 'an indefinite numbed or amount of (wherever we are talking about).'
“Some” (and any of the other pronouns indicating quantity to which we shall be coming later) may be linked by of to the name of the thing or things to which it refers, provided this names a particular thing, or group and, if a noun, is therefore preceded by the or a pointing or possessive adjective.
Review plural forms of the Third Person.
Men
The { Women } are in the room.
Man and the woman
Root Form |
Present |
Past |
Future |
DO |
DO |
DID |
WILL DO |
But: He,she, it DOES |
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HAVE |
HAVE |
HAD |
WILL HAVE |
But: He,she, it HAS |
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MAKE |
MAKE |
MADE |
WILL MAKE |
But: He,she, it MAKES |
Here are three more operators. Learn all the forms in the Table except the Past.
DO Do is not the name of any particular act. We do something when we perform any action.
Special attention will have to be given to the words which may be used as objects of do, for these have been largely fixed by usage and cannot be discovered by the simple exercise of common sense. Not all names of acts or activities can be so used.
HAVE We have things, which are a part of us, and things of which we are the owners or which are in our possession, and things which are ours in some looser way.
An important use is in describing a person or thing as accompanied by, or wearing, or carrying, or having attached to it, some other thing. In this case, the precise relation often has to be specified by a preposition etc.
In the simplest sense of make, the things we make are physical things.
As you will have seen, the Future Tense is formed by putting the auxiliary will, which is the same in all Persons, before the root form of the operator. The Future of all operators is formed in the same way.
The auxiliary “May”, which is the same in all Persons, is used to indicate that something is possible, that is, that it possibly is a fact now or possibly will become one in the future. In either case, may is used in the Present Tense followed by the root form of he operator, the sense depending on the context.
You have already seen how negative statements are formed with the Present Tense of “be”. A negative with the Present Tense of “have” is formed in the same way, by putting not after the operator.
With all the other operators, negative statements in the Present Tense are made by using the appropriate form of “do” (which is here an auxiliary), followed directly by not and completed by the root form of the operator.
With the auxiliaries “may” and “will”, do is not required and not is placed immediately after the auxiliary.
The opposites “before” and “after”, though originally naming positions in space, are more importantly used to indicate position in time. “Before” is still used for a position in space, but “after” is used in this way only when there is also present an idea of succession.
The first use of “for” is as a pointer to a purpose or function.
Out names the opposite of the position in space which is named by in (which may also, as we shall see later, be used as an adverb).
“Or”, like and, links words, phrases, or independent statements, presenting an alternative between what is so linked.
Note that when the subject of a sentence consists of two singular nouns or pronouns joined by or, the operator is singular.
The conjunction “but” links only statements, the second statement will oppose what has been said in the preceding statement.
When two statements are linked by “and” or “or” but have the same subject, not only is this frequently omitted in the second statement (as we have already seen in connection with and) but also any parts of the second statement which repeat the first (i.e. the operator, or operation and its object, etc.).
Note that where not is needed in such a second statement it may be put in without the operator.
“Where” joins to the main statement a dependent statement indicating the place of the action of the main statement. The word-order after a word introducing a dependent statement is the same as in an independent statement.
“When” similarly links a dependent statement indicating the time of the action.
“While” similarly links a dependent statement indicating the time during or within which the action takes place.
“Where” and “While” are some of the statements of this sort are frequently put at the beginning of the sentence. 1
“Where” and “When” may also be relative adverbs (acting, that is, as a conjunction and adverb at the same time).
With all the other operators, negative statements in the Present Tense are made by using the appropriate form of do (which is here an auxiliary), followed directly by not and completed by the root form of the operator.
With the auxiliaries “may” and “will”, do is not required and not is placed immediately after the auxiliary.
1 Where-statements may also be transposed in this way, but with certain limitations which make it advisable for the learner to keep the straightforward order until he has had more experience. |
Exercises
1. Make a sentence in Basic describing what you see in each of these pictures, using the operator “do” in your sentence about (a), “make” in your sentence about (b), and “have” in your sentence about (c).
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2. Put these sentences into the Future Tense.
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3. Put a conjunction in the blanks in these sentences.
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4. Make up a sentence of each word
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5. Put these sentences into the negative form:
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6. Put the right form of the operator in place of the root form given in brackets:
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