Functional Grammar of English Group 2

Functional Grammar of English
Homework assignment 1
1.
Source: 常春藤「文法從頭學」，賴世雄編著，2007 年初版
Questions: What’s the frequency of [curious/ worried about + whether/when /that+
nominal clause]? Do people usually place “curious/ worried about whether/ when”
before nominal clause? Can’t we use “curious about” before nominal clause that
begins with “that”?

BNC Corpus:
-curious about that
We only found one result from BNC corpus. But the sentence found ends with “that” as a
pronoun; there is no nominal clause at the back. And this proves that “curious about that”
plus nominal clause sentences is not of use.
-curious about when
no result
-curious about whether
Only one result was found.
-worried about that
In the 50 results found, there are 39 sentence end with “that” as a pronoun; 10 sentences
end with “that +N”. Only one result of “worried about that + nominal clause” was found.
-worried about when
Only one result was found.
-worried about whether
13 results of “worried about whether + nominal clause”were found in BNC Corpus.
There are still 2 results of “worried about whether + to V” be found.
已知名詞子句有三種，即「戴慧怡」是也。( page 12)
戴: that he works hard
慧: whether he’ll come
怡: when he left
名詞子句可做介詞的受詞 --僅「慧怡」適用 (page 13)
I’m worried about whether he can do it. (O)
I’m curious about when he’ll come.(O)
I’m worried about that he doesn’t study. (X)
由上得知，介詞之後若接名詞子句做受詞時，僅可使用whether 或疑問詞引導的名詞子
句；that 子句不可直接做介詞的受詞。

Conclusion:
First, the two patterns [curious about + whether/when + nominal clause]
[worried about + when nominal clause] are rarely found in a sentence. Therefore, it is
not suitable to point them out and make them a grammar rule.
Second, the grammar rule 戴慧怡 is making this pattern more complicated and
confusing. Students cannot really understand why a sentence is structured in certain
ways by this 戴慧怡rule, which is rarely used. As for the pattern [curious/ worried
about that +nominal clause] the grammar book is right about the pattern’s
ungrammaticality. However, we are wondering is it right to say “that 子句不可直接做
介詞的受詞”, and why? We don’t know how to answer this question and we hope that
Professor Li could give us some instruction. 

2.
Source:
超越巔峰 英文文法書 (朱才金 文笙書局)
Questions:
In “超越巔峰 英文文法書,” the author equates the above two patterns without
further explanation or limitations. However, based on our knowledge of English
grammar, we found the rule unreasonable (to some extent). Therefore, we decided to
search in the corpus to find out the validity of this rule. We especially want to discuss
whether the validity of this rule will vary because of different verbs for Vpp and Ving.
BNC Corpus (Results):
1. need (Appendix I)
To examine the validity of the rule, we chose BNC as our corpus and used “need to
be” as the keyword to search for possible verbs. After finding the verbs, we used each
verb, combining with “need to be”, to search for the total number of “need to be +
Vpp” form of each verb. Then we typed in “need + Ving”, examined the data and
deleted irrelevant sentences. The details are shown in the appendix. All in all, there
are 52 verbs in total. But we chose only 25 verbs for discussion because the other 27
verbs have few (less than 5) or no sentences in either Vpp or Ving forms. The
followings are the 25 verbs and the number of sentences we found in the corpus:
need need
want + to be + 過去分詞 = want + Ving (需要被...)
require require
(deserve) (deserve)

verb need + to
be + Vpp
need + Ving verb need + to
be + Vpp
need +
Ving
make 124 1 tackle 12 1
take 99 4 improve 11 3
consider 91 0 assess 11 0
address 50 2 fill 10 3
tell 45 11 find 10 1
do 45 15 evaluate 9 0
give 39 0 draw 8 0
remind 27 24 remove 8 0
put 26 2 pay 7 0
see 26 0 complete 6 0
develop 23 3 plan 5 0
replace 17 24 update 5 6
discuss 16 0
Through examining the numbers, we can find that need + to be + Vpp and need
+Ving are used disproportionally. Few verbs are used in the pattern of “need + Ving”.
Only “remind, replace and update” possess frequencies similar to the ones in “need to
be +Vpp” (remind: 27/24; replace: 17/24; update: 5/6). It is possible that a verb with
higher frequency of use might become more easily nominalized and thus more
acceptable in need + Ving form. For example, according to Webster’s Dictionary,
“replacing” has become a noun, meaning “the act of furnishing an equivalent person
or thing in the place of another”. If we regard “replacing” as a noun, the “need +
replacing” combination seems less awkward. However, not every word is endowed
with such privileges. Most of verbs have few or no “need + Ving” forms; for example,
“make, consider, assess…”. Therefore, to directly equate need + to be + Ving and
need + Ving will cause some problems because need + Ving is not applicable to every
verb.
2. require (Appendix II)
(1) Introduction
There are 110 examples containing “require to be” in the British National Corpus
[BNC]. However, due to the largeness of the data, we only observed and analyzed the
first fifty examples. After deleting the examples which do not conform to passive
tense, only 43 examples are left, in which 36 different verbs are used as past participle
following the wording “require to be.” For each verb, we further searched for its total
number in the corpus by typing “require to be Ved.” Besides, we also searched for its
Ving form by typing “require Ving,” “requires Ving” and “required Ving,” hoping that
we can test the validity of the rule by observing the existence (and the amount) of

examples of the two patterns (“require to be +過去分詞” and “require+ Ving”).
(2) Analysis
Most of the 36 verbs are rarely used in the pattern “require to be + Ved” since there
is mostly one example for each verb. The reason might due to the fact that sentences
containing the verb “require” usually have the pattern “S+ require + Noun.” The verbs
that only have one example are like “consult, outwit, insure, implement” etc (for more
information, please see Appendix). For these verbs, they can be used in the pattern
“require to be Ved” but not in “require/ required/requires + Ving.” Actually, there is
only 1 out of the36 verbs that can be used in the pattern “require/required/requires +
Ving.” The special verb is “take.” There are totally 3 examples in the data. (please see
the Appendix). However, comparing to the pattern “require/required/requires to be
taken,” “require/required/requires taking” only possesses half the number of examples
(“require/required/requires to be taken” gets 6 examples while
“require/required/requires taking” only gets 3 examples). Therefore, in terms of
frequency, “require/required/requires taking” is not parallel to
“require/required/requires to be taken.” Thus the two patterns should not be said to be
equal. From the data found in the corpus, we can make two conclusions. First, the
verb “require” is seldom used in either of the two patterns (“require to be Ved” and
“require Ving”) because mostly it is used in the pattern “require + noun.” Second, the
rule is proved to be invalid since we can find many examples with verbs used in the
pattern “require to be Ved” but not in the pattern “require/required/requires+ Ving” or
the number of the examples of “require to be Ved” is unequal to that of the pattern
“require Ving.”
3. want (Appendix III)
For “Want to be+ pp”, the search covered three variants: “want to be+ pp.”, “wants
to be +pp.” , “wanted to be +pp”. According to the results, there were over 40 verb
variants for “pp.” Then, the search for “want+Ving” was based on the “pp” verb
variants. For example, want to be done→want doing. For “Want+Ving”, the search
covered three variants: “want +Ving.”, “wants+Ving” , “wanted +Ving”.
The results showed that a few corpus data matched the assumption “want to be
pp.= want+ Ving” Among the plenty number of pp.verb forms, most of them had no
“want+Ving” form at all.
The matched results for the assumption “want to be pp.= want+ Ving” were: want
doing, want training, want reminding (please see the appendix). But still, when
searching for “want to be done”, there were only 3 results and for “want to be trained”
and “want to be reminded” both had fewer results.
The results amount for the assumption “want to be pp.= want+ Ving” was really
little might due to the meaning of “want” in most of time conveys the sense of “the
active willingness of the agent or the subject ”. Therefore, unlike the verb “need”, the

nonliving agent or subject here cannot “want” to commit a motion (that is, Ving). For
example, “the table needs to be clean= “the table needs cleaning”, but the table cannot
“want to be clean” so there was a little number of results could match to “want+
Ving”.
Conclusion:
After reviewing the data in the corpus, we can find that:
1. The pattern “need/ require/ want + Ving” is not prevalently used:
In terms of “need + Ving”, only five verbs have higher frequency of “need + Ving”.
The other nine verbs have less than four data, which might not be representative when
comparing with “need to be +Vpp”. Besides, there are eleven verbs which do not have
this kind of usage at all. In terms of “require + Ving”, only one verb applies this kind
of usage. When it comes to “want + Ving”, only three verbs are found. The number of
sentences given in the corpus is also limited.
2. The rule provided by the reference book is probably invalid.
According to the reference book, need/ require/ want + to be + Vpp equates need/
require/ want + Ving, which should have been applicable to every verb because there
is no restriction nor explanation especially specified in the book. However, based on
the results we found in the corpus, only few verbs adopt need/ require/ want + Ving.
Most verbs in need/ require/ want + to be +Vpp cannot find corresponding data in
need/ require/ want + Ving. Therefore, the rule provided by the reference book does
not faithfully reveal the real, practical use and thus invalid.
3. If we compare the three verbs, need, require and want, it is not hard to find that the
different nature of each verb actually brings an impact on our finding results. Take
“need” for example. Due to the low volition of this verb, we can put either an agent or
non-active subject before “need” and still make the sentence comprehensible. This is
also the reason why we can find more data than “want” and “require”. “Want”, on the
contrary, does not have such a characteristic because it involves the active willingness
of the agent or subject. “Require”, on the other hand, since “S. + require + N.” is more
prevalently used, it is harder for us to find verbs as in “require + to be + Vpp”.

3.
Sources:
A. 英文3 教師用書，林素娥 主編，龍騰文化
B.「高中英文總複習整理 句型篇」，王明富、林曉梅 編著，大正資訊，民92 年
C.「英文圖解句型100」，簡鳳儀、簡啟雯 編著，南一書局，2008 年
to one’s+ N (另某人感到…的)
A.L3 Pattern in Action I. To someone’s+ N, S+ V (p.56.1)
【說明】(1) 此句型用來表示某事引起某人某種情緒、感覺。
B.句型80 to one’s+ 抽象名詞 (p.91)
【說明】(1) 「to +所有格+抽象名詞」可表示「令某人感到…的」，其他常用的名詞有：relief
（放心），regret（後悔），content（滿意），shame（羞愧），joy（高興），disappointment（失望），
satisfaction（滿意）等。
C.「英文圖解句型100」進一步把此句型後可接的情緒名詞分類:
Usage Note 2.常用此句型的情感類名詞 (p.22):
驚訝 高興 悲傷 懊惱 尷尬 羞愧 驚慌；不安
surprise joy/delight sorrow/grief annoyance embarrassment shame dismay
amazement 滿意 失望 遺憾 寬心 害怕 沮喪
astonishment satisfaction disappointment regret relief horror discouragement
Questions:
按照教學指引和市面參考書的解說，對於to one’s＋ N 句型，學生可能會認
為情緒性的抽象名詞就能使用。也就是說，凡是表喜怒哀樂等的名詞可接在to
one’s 後，但真是如此嗎? 假如不是如此，此句型有沒有比較典型的用法?
BNC Corpus:
針對大部分書籍都有提及的情緒名詞，在 BNC 以 “to my + N” 為例，符合
此句型的資料筆數如下：
驚訝 高興 滿意 寬心 失望 遺憾 悲傷 羞愧
surprise 107 joy 2 sorrow 2
amazement 28
astonishment 27
delight 12
satisfaction
2
relief
17
disappointment
5
regret
4 grief 1
shame
7
Conclusion:
課本和參考書大都強調此句型名詞的多樣化，例如：「英文圖解句型100」
的翻譯練習(IV Translation p.23 1.讓Max 感到遺憾的是，他無法及時阻止他最好
的朋友自殺 To Max’s regret,… 2.令大眾感到非常震驚的是，有加油站在汽油中混
入甲醇 To the public’s amazement, …)，但實際上to one’s surprise 最常用的。書本
提及的 “常用”名詞，有些一點也不常用，譬如: BNC 中to my joy 只有兩筆、grief

只有一筆，至於to my/his/her content, 則是沒有，有些參考書寫的 to one’s
anger/fear 也找不到資料，可見不是任何學過的情緒名詞可套在此句型。
從BNC 的資料來看，此句型的Noun 常是neutral emotion nouns (surprise/
amazement/astonishment)，所以此副詞片語只表與心中期待不同，看不出當事者
正向(joy/ delight/ satisfaction…)或負向(regret/sorrow/shame…)的情緒反應，通常
要看其後接的句子或是上下文推論才會之當事者的反應是正向還是負向。然而，
市面的書籍花頗多篇幅補充非典型用法。學生在練習時，可能會誤解每個情緒名
詞的使用頻率差不多，因此作文中寫出不常見的用語或自創搭配詞。