Building English Sentences Verbs & Verb Phrases

This series of books is designed to give oral and written practice on the basic sentence patterns of English. It also shows the ways in which basic patterns can be combined into longer sentences. By pointing out similarities of structure, it should help prevent students of English from getting lost in a syntactic maze. Language is not just a finite number of patterns and sentences. More important, it is a system for creating and understanding sentences that have never been uttered before. These books contain exercises that will give students of English the ability to generate and comprehend new sentences. They contain extensive drills on the basic syntactic patterns of English, the handful of patterns that are repeated over and over again even in the longest sentences. They also provide drills on the essentially repetitive nature of syntactic composition. The aim of these books is to give a cumulative, synthesizing, and meaningful experience with the language. Building English Sentences is not intended as a complete course in English, but rather as a series of exercises to supplement courses that already exist. Because of its emphasis on the syntactic aspect of language experience, it does not include material on phonology or on many of the cultural features that are necessary to achieve complete understanding. Therefore, it is suggested that Building English Sentences be used in conjunction with complementary English-language series, such as NTC's Orientation in American English.