Institutt f or litteratur, områdestudier og europeiske språk
SKOLEEKSAMEN/SKULEEKSAMEN
2009 II
2 sider
ENG1100 – English grammar, an introduction
Eksamen varer i 4 timer/timar
09.12.2009
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Ingen hjelpemidler tillatt./ Ingen hjelpemiddel tillatne.
Answer BOTH questions!
1. (40%) Explain the difference in form and meaning between the members of each of
the following sentence pairs.
1a
b
To tell you the truth, I asked him.
I asked him to tell you the truth.
2a
b
My professor found the paper boring.
My professor found the boring paper.
3a
b
They had a party when Grandma arrived.
They were having a party when Grandma arrived.
4a
b
He rode out the storm.
He rode out the gate.
5a
b
Few people saw any animals.
A few people saw some animals.
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2. (60 %) Read the following text and answer the questions below.
3
6
9
12
It happened this way. Father Quixote had ordered his solitary lunch from his housekeeper and
set off to buy wine at a local cooperative eight kilometres away from El Toboso on the main
road to Valencia. It was a day when the heat stood and quivered on the dry fields. There was
no air-conditioning in his little Seat 600, which he had bought, already second hand, eight
years before. As he drove he thought sadly of the day when he would have to find a new car.
A dog’s year can be multiplied by seven to equal a man’s, and by that calculation his car
would still be in early middle age, but he noticed how already his parishioners began to regard
his Seat as almost senile. ‘You can’t trust it, Don Quixote,’ they would warn him and he could
only reply, ‘It has been with me through many bad days, and I pray God that it may survive
me.’ So many of his prayers had remained unanswered that he had hopes that this one prayer
of his had lodged all the time like wax in the Eternal ear.
He could see where the main road lay by reason of the small dust puffs that were raised by the
passing cars.
(Slightly adapted from Graham Greene, Monsignor Quixote)
Questions:
a. Comment on the use of it at lines 1, 3 and 8. In each case you should say what syntactic
function it performs and what meaning/reference it expresses.
b. Explain the difference between restrictive and non-restrictive relative clauses. Identify one
clause of each type from the text. Would any alternative relative pronoun be possible in
either of the clauses you select?
c. Explain the difference between the long and the short passive. Identify one clause of each
type from the text. Suggest what motivated the choice of the passive voice in each case.
d. The word that occurs five times in this text (lines 6, 9, 10 [twice] and 12). In each case
state what word class this word belongs in and what syntactic function it performs.
e. Comment on the construction this one prayer of his (lines 10-11). What kind of phrase is
it?
f. Comment on the meaning of each of the underlined modal auxiliaries at lines 5, 8 (two)
and 9.
g. Explain what is meant by an auxiliary equivalent. Identify one such construction from the
text.
h. Give a syntactic analysis of the underlined sentence at lines 3-5 in terms of clauses and
clause elements.
Begrunnelse: Ta kontakt med din faglærer på e-post innen 1 uke etter at sensuren er
kunngjort i StudentWeb. Oppgi navn og kandidatnummer. Sensor bestemmer om
begrunnelsen skal gis skriftlig eller muntlig.
Grunngjeving: Ta kontakt med faglæraren din på e-post innen 1 veke etter at sensuren
er kunngjort i StudentWeb. Oppgje namn og kandidatnummer. Sensor avgjer om
grunngjevinga skal gjevast skriftleg eller munnleg.
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