Step 1 Noun clauses introduced by question words

Step 1: Noun clauses introduced by question words

Join each pair of sentences Where does a person come from? This will affect their style of speech. Where a person comes from will affect their style of speech.

Join each pair of sentences Why does English have such strange rules? You can begin to see it! You can begin to see why English has such strange rules

Join each pair of sentences Why is English a language with so many confusing rules? That is the reason. That is why English is a language with so many confusing rules.

We use a question word to introduce a noun clause when there is a wh-question. They can function as the subject, object or predicative of the sentence.

In fact, it is certain that we would not be able to understand it if we heard it today. (subject) The question of whether English will continue changing in the future is easy to answer. (object) That is why English is a language with so many confusing rules. (predictive)

We change the word order in a clause after a question word into that of a statement. What are people from the north saying? People from the south find it difficult to understand what people from the north are saying

We cannot leave out the question words in noun clauses in any cases.

Decide what sentence element each underlined noun clause is in its sentence. I always wondered when I O would get the English novel my parents had promised to give me. I finally got it today. The book is called Treasure Island. What S I always dreamt of has come true. It is really exciting! The difficulty is how I’m going to understand it P without a dictionary. Looking up every word will certainly be a waste of time. Now I’m worried about when I’m O going to finish the book. Miss Cheng always told us to guess the meanings of unknown words from the context. I used to wonder why. O we should do this. I understand now, but the question is what if I still cannot. P understand the meanings. I must talk to Miss Cheng about this tomorrow.

Fill in the blanks with suitable question words. ‘Borrowed words’ — good or bad? Languages keep borrowing words from other languages. why languages keep changing almost This is one of the reasons _____ What we should do about the increasing number every day. _______ of ‘borrowed words’ in our vocabulary is something people disagree about. In England today, there is no one to decide which new words should be included in the language. A ______ standard was first set for the English language when Herry Ⅶ how/why we have the phrase ‘the was King of England. That is _____ King’s English’. King Herry Ⅶ was a poet and a man who cared how people were about language. He set a standard for _____ who can make a decision like to speak English, but ______ that today is anyone’s guess!

However, there is a department to make decisions like How French will be used is decided by this in France. ______ a government department. At one time the department banned some ‘borrow words’ from English, including ‘weekend’ and ‘e-mail’. French people did this because they wanted to keep their language pure. Today, the spread of ‘borrow words’ is due to easily accessed television and radio programmes from across the world, and the Internet. Some people feel that this spread is good, and others feel it makes languages less special. Which ______ group you agree with is for you to decide.

高考链接 1. Along with the letter was his promise B ____ he would visit me this coming Christmas. （2005上海） A. which B. that C. what D. whether 2. The place _______ the bridge is supposed C to be built should be____the cross-river traffic is the heaviest. （2005 江苏） A. which; where B. at which; which C. at which; where D. which; in which 3. Mary wrote an article on ____ the A team had failed to win the game. （2005全国 II） A．why B．what C．who D．that

Step 2: Empty subject it

高考链接 1. The chairman thought B _____necessary to invite Professor Smith to speak at the meeting. （2005 全国Ⅰ） A．that B．it 　C．this 　D．him 2. The doctor advised Vera strongly that A she should take a holiday, but _______ didn’t help. （2005全国Ⅲ） A．it 　B．she　C．which　D．he

D 3. The Foreign Minister said, “______ our hope that the two sides will work towards peace. ” （2004北京） A This is 　　B There is　　 C That is　　D It is 4. The question is too difficult and we A found _____. A. it not easy to answer it B. it was not easy for us to answer it C. it’s not easy to answer D. it not easy to answer

5. Jim passed the driving test, A _____ surprised everybody in the office. (2005浙江) A．which　　B．that 　 C．this 　　 D．it 6. We’ve been looking at the houses A but haven’t found _____ we like yet. (2005浙江) A．one 　B．ones 　C．it 　D．them

The empty subject it is often used to balance the sentence with a long subject. The empty subject it acts as its grammatical subject and the real subject is at the end of the sentence.

It is important for us to learn English well today. (subject) today It is important that we should learn English well today It is no use wasting your time reading such books all day

finish Part A on page 31 Answers (2) It depends upon what you see and hear to decide what they are. (3) It always puzzles me why my dog barks in certain ways. (4) It won’t be difficult buying a machine like that.

finish Part B on page 31 Answers 2. It is because there are several racial groups living in Singapore that Singapore has four official languages. 3. It is for you that I’ve brought something special from Singapore. 4. It will be sometime next week that I’ll give it to you.