{"id":10268,"date":"2023-10-10T12:20:59","date_gmt":"2023-10-10T16:20:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/aaron-toscano\/?page_id=10268"},"modified":"2023-10-11T11:45:36","modified_gmt":"2023-10-11T15:45:36","slug":"engl4183-5183october11","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/aaron-toscano\/engl4183-5183fall2023\/engl4183-5183october11\/","title":{"rendered":"October 11th: Choosing Adjectivals"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong><span style=\"color: #009e60\">Remember, Homework #4 is due tonight (10\/11) before 6:00pm.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Next Week: Review #2<\/strong>&#8211;check out the <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/aaron-toscano\/engl4183-5183fall2023\/assignmentsfall2023\/\">Assignments Page<\/a><\/strong> for more details<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h1 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Ch. 6: Choosing Adjectivals<\/strong><\/h1>\n\n\n\n<p>I will submit <strong>midterm grades<\/strong> based on your work up to this point of the semester, so, if you have below 70% (a C), you will get a midterm grade. Canvas should have your grade up to this point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Determiners<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>Kolln &amp; Gray tell us that determiners are a type of &#8220;preheadword modifier&#8221; and are &#8220;the noun signaler that occupies the opening position in a noun phrase&#8221; (p. 92). Determiners include the following: articles (<em>a<\/em>, <em>an<\/em>, <em>the<\/em>), possessives, numbers, and words identifying&#8211;determining&#8211;which particular person, place, or thing needs to be identified. Although there are many determiners, the following underlined and bolded ones are pretty common:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><span style=\"text-decoration: underline\"><strong>A<\/strong><\/span> rule to follow while driving is not to use <strong><span style=\"text-decoration: underline\">your<\/span><\/strong> cell phone.\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>&#8220;A&#8221; is an indefinite article and identifies one of millions of possible driving rules {Yes, there are tons of driving rules people don&#8217;t follow&#8230;}.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>&#8220;Your&#8221; is the second-person possessive pronoun that identifies the specific cell phone.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><span style=\"text-decoration: underline\"><strong>Dr. Toscano&#8217;s<\/strong><\/span> cats were well-behaved and adorable.<br><span style=\"text-decoration: underline\"><strong>Dr. Toscano&#8217;s<\/strong><\/span> adorable, well-behaved cats were orange tabbies. {why the comma?}\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Of course, all cats are adorable (not all are well behaved, though), but this sentence refers to <a href=\"https:\/\/webpages.charlotte.edu\/atoscano\/sunsetkitties\/Mari&amp;Netti_08months01.jpg\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/webpages.charlotte.edu\/atoscano\/sunsetkitties\/Mari&amp;Netti_08months01.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">&#8220;Dr. Toscano&#8217;s&#8221; cats<\/a> and not other cats. Notice this is <em>past tense<\/em>, which is very sad.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><span style=\"text-decoration: underline\"><strong>That<\/strong><\/span> job I had at Chili&#8217;s taught me how hard (and thankless) being <span style=\"text-decoration: underline\"><strong>a<\/strong><\/span> server is.\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>&nbsp;Which job? Not <em>this<\/em> one but <em>that<\/em> one. &#8220;That&#8221; is a determiner for job. Notice I could use the first-person possessive pronoun &#8220;my&#8221; in its place: &#8220;<em>My<\/em> job at Chili&#8217;s&#8230;&#8221;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The indefinite article &#8220;a&#8221; conveys to readers that <em>I<\/em> refer to many types of servers in all different types of restaurants.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>On pages 94-95, Kolln &amp; Gray refer to <strong>&#8220;modifier noun proliferation,&#8221;<\/strong> which I usually call noun stacks. Sometimes you can&#8217;t avoid them, but limiting their use will make your prose flow better. Having noun stacks makes your sentences <strong>noun driven<\/strong> as opposed to <strong>verb driven<\/strong>. Consider the revision suggestion for your future Suburbanization Prose Revision assignment:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Moreover, <strong>suburban area population growth<\/strong> has occurred while city populations have declined,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>suburban area population growth<\/strong>&nbsp;is the noun stack, and it sounds clunky and robotic.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>One solution was this revision:&nbsp;Moreover, suburban populations grew while city populations declined,\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Notice how the sentence&#8217;s subject &#8220;suburban populations&#8221; is closer to the verb &#8220;grew.&#8221;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Be on the lookout for nominalizations that trap perfectly good verbs. In the above sentence, &#8220;growth&#8221; traps the verb &#8220;grew&#8221;.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>By the way, Kolln used &#8220;noun stacks&#8221; in early editions of <em>Rhetorical Grammar<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Prepositional phrases<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>In this chapter, Kolln &amp; Gray focus on prepositional phrases as adjectivals, which modify nouns. These are the most common modifiers (p. 95). Notice what the underlined prepositional phrases modify:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>The man <span style=\"text-decoration: underline\">in the high castle<\/span> published revolutionary literature.<br>Which <strong>man<\/strong>? The one <em>in the high castle<\/em>.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>The coffee <span style=\"text-decoration: underline\">in the faculty lounge<\/span> tends to get stale and bitter by 5 pm.<br>The coffee at the Thoughtful Cup? No. The coffee at Starbucks? No. The coffee at Solstice? No. The coffee <em>in the faculty lounge<\/em>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Use prepositional phrases (and determiners) to make your sentences more concise, but avoid using them to lengthen your sentences unnecessarily. Which sentence flows better&#8230;and why?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>The car I owned at the age of sixteen got me from home to school to houses of my friends reliably during the school year.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>During my junior year of high school, my reliable car got me from school to home and to my friends&#8217; houses.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>First, what is this sentence trying to say? I had a reliable car in high school (thanks mom and dad!). Identify the prepositional phrases:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>at the age<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>of sixteen<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>from home<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>to school<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>to houses<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>of my friends<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Notice I didn&#8217;t include &#8220;age&#8221; in my revision because one is generally 16 their junior year of high school. I also dropped &#8220;during the school year&#8221; because other information reveals that I used the car <em>during the school year<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Please note, in the above sentence &#8220;during the school year&#8221; is actually an adverbial prepositional phrase, modifying the verb &#8220;got&#8221;. The adverb &#8220;reliably&#8221; is a good clue that &#8220;during the school year&#8221; also modifies the verb &#8220;got.&#8221; Perhaps &#8220;transported&#8221; is a more sophisticated choice than &#8220;got.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Participial Phrases<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>I think these phrases, conveying sophisticated language use, distinguish excellent writers from simply good writers. Remember, you have adverbial participial phrases, which modify verbs; and you have adjectival participial phrases, which modify nouns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Adverbial participial phrase: <span style=\"text-decoration: underline\">Waiting for the bus,<\/span> the students got wet from the rain.\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Adverbials often answer where, when, why, how often, and in what manner.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Adjectival participial phrase: The students <span style=\"text-decoration: underline\">waiting for the bus<\/span> got wet from the rain.\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Adjectivals often answer which one, what type, how big or small, etc. They distinguish nouns. Which students in the above sentence got wet? The ones waiting for the bus (as I drove by them in my car&#8211;Ha!).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>In the intro to this section, why did I use a semicolon to join two independent clauses if I also used the coordinating conjunction &#8220;and&#8221;. Don&#8217;t we usually use commas with for, and, nor, but, or, yet, &amp; so?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Relative Clauses<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>As Kolln &amp; Gray point out, a relative clause is &#8220;a structure with a subject and a predicate&#8230;[,] enabl[ing] the writer to embed a complete subject-predicate idea into a noun phrase&#8221; (p. 101). The relative pronouns&#8211;<em>that<\/em>, <em>who<\/em>, and <em>which<\/em>&#8211;begin these clauses, so you can easily identify that type. Relative clauses may also begin with relative adverbs, and the common ones are <em>where<\/em>, <em>when<\/em>, and <em>why<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>We could probably spend days on relative clauses, but I&#8217;d rather focus your attention to common usage for <em>that<\/em>, <em>which<\/em>, <em>who<\/em>, and <em>whom<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Use &#8220;that&#8221; to begin <strong>restrictive<\/strong> relative clauses. These won&#8217;t be set off by commas and cannot be deleted without change the sentence&#8217;s meaning or confusing readers.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Use &#8220;which&#8221;&nbsp;to begin <strong>nonrestrictive<\/strong> relative clauses. These should be set off by commas, and removing them won&#8217;t change the meaning of the sentence.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>It is generally expected to use &#8220;who&#8221; for restrictive relative clauses referring to a person. However, you may likely be able to drop &#8220;that&#8221; or &#8220;who&#8221; in these clauses without changing the meaning and, most likely, improving concision.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Punctuation<\/strong><\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>Please review punctuation for phrases and clauses the chapter refers to. Pay particular attention to how you punctuate restrictive and nonrestrictive clauses. As a general rule, if you can remove the phrase without changing the sentence&#8217;s meaning&#8211;often when commenting, making asides,* or adding extra information&#8211;you enclose the phrase in commas.<br>*I prefer to use parentheses to enclose asides.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>People often congratulate others on buying homes (as if 30 years of being in debt is something to celebrate).<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>What rhetorical effect do parenthetical asides convey? (I&#8217;m NEVER guilty of this&#8230;)\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Sarcasm? (Ha! Unlikely&#8230;)<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Bombast?<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Repetition?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Ch. 6 Exercises<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Of course, you&#8217;ll be turning in Exercises #21, #22, and #23, but try to do all the exercises in these chapters. <strong>Homework #4<\/strong> is the last time you&#8217;ll be turning in these chapter exercises, but continue to do them for future chapters in order to reinforce what you&#8217;re reading. The Homework #4 review will be on Canvas, but I want to direct us to a confusing sentence from Exercise #23:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>1) Many coal miners who work in West Virginia refused to approve two sections of the contract offered by management. They maintain <span style=\"background-color: #FFFF00\">that<\/span> the sections covering wages and safety represent no improvement over their present contract,&nbsp;which expires on Friday at midnight.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Let&#8217;s look at what you listed for these sentences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">Brief Mention about Rhetorical Meaning<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p>In the paragraph above the example, I wrote: &#8220;&#8230;I want to direct us to a confusing sentence from Exercise #23.&#8221; Thinking back to last week, consider the subtle meaning differences among the original and the following (also, is the opening phrase dangling?):<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Original:<\/strong> I want to direct us to a confusing sentence from Exercise #23.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Revision 1:<\/strong> I want to direct us to a sentence from Exercise #23 that may cause confusion.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Revision 2:<\/strong> I want to direct us to the confusion (that) a sentence from Exercise #23 caused.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Next Class<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>Next week, you&#8217;ll have <strong>Review #2<\/strong> to turn in on <strong><a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/canvas.charlotte.edu\/\" target=\"_blank\">Canvas<\/a><\/strong>. Check the <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/aaron-toscano\/engl4183-5183fall2023\/assignmentsfall2023\/\">Assignments Page<\/a><\/strong> for more details. <strong>Review #2<\/strong> is similar to the first, but it&#8217;s shorter (<strong>600-750<\/strong>&nbsp;words) because I&#8217;m expecting more efficient prose. Also, you must choose a different topic for your review (don&#8217;t review the same film or book), and I hope you branch out and choose a different medium (film, book, video game, etc.).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Exam #2<\/strong> is in two weeks (10\/25), and it&#8217;ll be on <strong><a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/canvas.charlotte.edu\/\" target=\"_blank\">Canvas<\/a><\/strong>, so we won&#8217;t meet in person. It will mostly cover material since <strong>Exam #1<\/strong>, but, as is the case with the final exam, anything we&#8217;ve covered is fair game.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Remember, Homework #4 is due tonight (10\/11) before 6:00pm. Ch. 6: Choosing Adjectivals I will submit midterm grades based on your work up to this point of the semester, so, if you have below 70% (a C), you will get a midterm grade. Canvas should have your grade up to this point. Determiners Kolln &amp; [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":598,"featured_media":0,"parent":10057,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-10268","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/P2HAOx-2FC","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/aaron-toscano\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/10268","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/aaron-toscano\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/aaron-toscano\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/aaron-toscano\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/598"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/aaron-toscano\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10268"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/aaron-toscano\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/10268\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10277,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/aaron-toscano\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/10268\/revisions\/10277"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/aaron-toscano\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/10057"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pages.charlotte.edu\/aaron-toscano\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10268"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}