UNIVERSITETET
I OSLO
Institutt f or litteratur, områdestudier og europeiske språk
SKOLEEKSAMEN/SKULEEKSAMEN
2010 HØST/HAUST
2 sider
ENG1100 – Introduction to English grammar
Eksamen varer i 4 timer/timar.
Torsdag 09.12.2010
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Ingen hjelpemidler tillatt. / Ingen hjelpemiddel tillatne.
Pass marks are required on both questions.
1. (40 %) Explain the difference in form and meaning between the members of each of
the following sentence pairs.
1a They bought me an unbelievably expensive present for my birthday.
b Unbelievably, they bought me an expensive present for my birthday.
2a I’m going to work at Christmas.
b I’m going to York at Christmas.
3a It’s a tiresome task waiting for Alexander.
b There’s a tiresome task waiting for Alexander.
4a You must be our new president.
b You must ask our new president.
5a The problem is predicting which way she'll turn.
b The problem is escalating, which I predicted from the start.
2. (60 %) Read the following text and answer the questions below:
The Eternal City's Residents Fight Graffiti
On a blustery October day in the northern part of Rome, a group of nearly 100 volunteers
3 spreads out along a leafy street and sets to cleaning. Pedestrian barriers are scraped free of
rust and repainted in their original yellow. Old leaflets are peeled off walls. And graffiti, the
group's main target, is either scrubbed away or painted over. "This street is the Wild West,"
6 says Paola Carra, who's overseeing the operation. "We need to maintain it ourselves. We can't
wait for somebody else to do it."
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Carra's volunteers are part of an effort called Retake Rome that was sparked last year by
9 American lawyer Rebecca Spitzmiller. Frustrated by the graffiti defacing her apartment
building, Spitzmiller set out with her teenage son to clean it herself. "If everybody just
cleaned their own building, it would be done in a week," says Spitzmiller, 54.
12 To the Italians involved in the project, it's no surprise that it was an American who got it
started. "There's no history of collaboration between Italian society and the public
administration," says Francesco Garibaldi-Hibbert, the great-great-grandson of Giuseppe
15 Garibaldi, the 19th century revolutionary who helped unite the country. The result, says
Gianfranco Pasquino, professor of political science at the University of Bologna, is a
disconnect between the country's public spaces and those who use them. "If there is a
18 problem, it is not our business," he says of the average Italian's attitude. "It is the mayor's. He
has the power, and he should do it."
(Adapted from Time magazine)
Questions:
a. Explain the difference between the long and the short passive. Then identify one
construction of each type from the first two paragraphs of the text (lines 2-11).
b. Comment on the three underlined non-finite clauses at lines 7, 8 and 9-10. In each case
you should say what kind of non-finite clause it is (infinitive, -ing or past participle) and
what its syntactic function is. You should also give the internal structure of each non-finite
clause in terms of its clause elements.
c. Comment on the use of the plural form their at line 11. What is the syntactic function of
this word? Why do you think the plural was chosen? What might a singular alternative be
like?
d. Comment on the three uses of it at line 12. What is the syntactic function of this pronoun
in each case?
e. What is the word order of the two underlined reporting clauses at lines 14-15 and 18?
What do you think motivated the word order in each case?
f. What word class does disconnect as used at line 17 belong in? What other word class does
this word commonly belong in? Give an example of that other use of disconnect.
g. Give a complete syntactic analysis of the underlined sentence at lines 17-18 ("If there is a
problem, it is not our business").
h. Explain the difference between restrictive and non-restrictive relative clauses. Then
identify one construction of each type from the text. In each case you should say what the
syntactic function of the relative clause is and consider whether any alternative relative
pronoun could have been used.
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