ENGLISH Grade 8 ( Sunwu, Mencius, Confucius)

GRADE 8 – POETRY AND LITERATURE

 ( Refer to your book – Exploring Life through AFRO – ASIAN Literature)

The Old Man, His Son, and their Bike (pp. 33 – 39)

By: M. Ibrahim (pp. 33 – 39)

Song of a Flower

By: Kahlil Gibran ( pp.38 – 39)

About Work

By: Kahlil Gibran (pp. 43 – 46)

Tug of War ( A Bantut Tale of East Africa )

Anonymous (pp. 49 – 51)

The Cock

By: Tao Min Hai (pp. 54 – 58)

The Madman on the Roof

By: Kikuchi Kan (pp. 63 – 72)

NOTE:  Please include in your study ( About the Author) and (key learning points) of the story.

GRADE 8 - LANGUAGE

ADVERBS

Adverbs are words that modify

·         a verb (He drove slowly. — How did he drive?)

·         an adjective (He drove a very fast car. — How fast was his car?)

·         another adverb (She moved quite slowly down the aisle. — How slowly did she move?)

As we will see, adverbs often tell when, where, why, or under what conditions something happens or happened. Adverbs frequently end in -ly; however, many words and phrases not ending in -ly serve an adverbial function and an -ly ending is not a guarantee that a word is an adverb. The words lovely, lonely, motherly, friendly, neighborly, for instance, are adjectives:

·         That lovely woman lives in a friendly neighborhood.

If a group of words containing a subject and verb acts as an adverb (modifying the verb of a sentence), it is called an Adverb Clause:

·         When this class is over, we're going to the movies.

When a group of words not containing a subject and verb acts as an adverb, it is called an adverbial phrase. Prepositional phrases frequently have adverbial functions (telling place and time, modifying the verb):

·         He went to the movies.

·         She works on holidays.

·         They lived in Canada during the war.

And Infinitive phrases can act as adverbs (usually telling why):

·         She hurried to the mainland to see her brother.

·         The senator ran to catch the bus.

But there are other kinds of adverbial phrases:

·         He calls his mother as often as possible.

Adverbs can modify adjectives, but an adjective cannot modify an adverb. Thus we would say that "the students showed a really wonderful attitude" and that "the students showed a wonderfully casual attitude" and that "my professor is really tall, but not "He ran real fast."

Like adjectives, adverbs can have comparative and superlative forms to show degree.

·         Walk faster if you want to keep up with me.

·         The student who reads fastest will finish first.

We often use more and most, less and least to show degree with adverbs:

·         With sneakers on, she could move more quickly among the patients.

·         The flowers were the most beautifully arranged creations I've ever seen.

·         She worked less confidently after her accident.

·         That was the least skillfully done performance I've seen in years.

The as — as construction can be used to create adverbs that express sameness or equality: "He can't run as fast as his sister."

A handful of adverbs have two forms, one that ends in -ly and one that doesn't. In certain cases, the two forms have different meanings:

·         He arrived late.

·         Lately, he couldn't seem to be on time for anything.

In most cases, however, the form without the -ly ending should be reserved for casual situations:

·         She certainly drives slow in that old Buick of hers.

·         He did wrong by her.

·         He spoke sharp, quick, and to the point.

Adverbs often function as intensifiers, conveying a greater or lesser emphasis to something. Intensifiers are said to have three different functions: they can emphasize, amplify, or downtone. Here are some examples:

·         Emphasizers:

o    I really don't believe him.

o    He literally wrecked his mother's car.

o    She simply ignored me.

o    They're going to be late, for sure.

·         Amplifiers:

o    The teacher completely rejected her proposal.

o    I absolutely refuse to attend any more faculty meetings.

o    They heartily endorsed the new restaurant.

o    I so wanted to go with them.

o    We know this city well.

·         Downtoners:

o    I kind of like this college.

o    Joe sort of felt betrayed by his sister.

o    His mother mildly disapproved his actions.

o    We can improve on this to some extent.

o    The boss almost quit after that.

o    The school was all but ruined by the storm.

Adverbs (as well as adjectives) in their various degrees can be accompanied by premodifiers:

·         She runs very fast.

·         We're going to run out of material all the faster

Source: http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/adverbs.htm

CONJUNCTIONS

Conjunctions are words used as joiners.

Different kinds of conjunctions join different kinds of grammatical structures.

The following are the kinds of conjunctions:    

A. COORDINATING CONJUNCTIONS (FANBOYS)

for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so

Coordinating conjunctions join equals to one another:

            words to words,          phrases to phrases,          clauses to clauses.

Coordinating conjunctions usually form looser connections than other conjunctions do.

Coordinating conjunctions go in between items joined, not at the beginning or end.

      

Punctuation with coordinating conjunctions:

When a coordinating conjunction joins two words, phrases, or subordinate clauses, no comma should be placed before the conjunction.

            

A coordinating conjunction joining three or more words, phrases, or subordinate clauses creates a series and requires commas between the elements.

            

A coordinating conjunction joining two independent clauses creates a compound sentence and requires a comma before the coordinating conjunction

              

B. CORRELATIVE CONJUNCTIONS

either. . .or	both. . . and
neither. . . nor	not only. . .  but also

             

These pairs of conjunctions require equal (parallel) structures after each one.

C. CONJUNCTIVE ADVERBS

These conjunctions join independent clauses together.

The following are frequently used conjunctive adverbs:

after all

in addition

next

also	incidentally	nonetheless
as a result	indeed	on the contrary
besides	in fact	on the other hand
consequently	in other words	otherwise
finally	instead	still
for example	likewise	then
furthermore	meanwhile	therefore
hence	moreover	thus
however	nevertheless

Punctuation:

Place a semicolon before the conjunctive adverb and a comma after theconjunctive adverb.

     

D. SUBORDINATING CONJUNCTIONS

These words are commonly used as subordinating conjunctions

after	in order (that)	unless
although	insofar as	until
as	in that	when
as far as	lest	whenever
as soon as	no matter how	where
as if	now that	wherever
as though	once	whether
because	provided (that)	while
before	since	why
even if	so that
even though	supposing (that)
how	than
if	that
inasmuch as	though
in case (that)	till

Subordinating conjunctions also join two clauses together, but in doing so, they make one clause dependent (or "subordinate") upon the other.

A subordinating conjunction may appear at a sentence beginning or between two clauses in a sentence.

   

A subordinate conjunction usually provides a tighter connection between clauses than a coordinating conjunctions does.

Loose:	It is raining, so we have an umbrella.
Tight:	Because it is raining, we have an umbrella.

Punctuation Note:

When the dependent clause is placed first in a sentence, use a comma between the two clauses. When the independent clause is placed first and the dependent clause second, do not separate the two clauses with a comma.

Source: http://www.towson.edu/ows/conjunctions.htm

ADJECTIVES

Adjectives are words that describe or modify another person or thing in the sentence. The Articles — a, an, and the — are adjectives.

·         the tall professor

·         the lugubrious lieutenant

·         a solid commitment

·         a month's pay

·         a six-year-old child

·         the unhappiest, richest man

If a group of words containing a subject and verb acts as an adjective, it is called an Adjective Clause. My sister, who is much older than I am, is an engineer. If an adjective clause is stripped of its subject and verb, the resulting modifier becomes an Adjective Phrase: He is the man who is keeping my family in the poorhouse.

Position of Adjectives

Unlike Adverbs, which often seem capable of popping up almost anywhere in a sentence, adjectives nearly always appear immediately before the noun or noun phrase that they modify. Sometimes they appear in a string of adjectives, and when they do, they appear in a set order according to category. (See Below.) When indefinite pronouns — such as something, someone, anybody — are modified by an adjective, the adjective comes after the pronoun:

Anyone capable of doing something horrible to someone nice should be punished.
Something wicked this way comes.

And there are certain adjectives that, in combination with certain words, are always "postpositive" (coming after the thing they modify):

The president elect, heir apparent to the Glitzy fortune, lives in New York proper.

See, also, the note on a- adjectives, below, for the position of such words as "ablaze, aloof, aghast."

Degrees of Adjectives

Adjectives can express degrees of modification:

·         Gladys is a rich woman, but Josie is richer than Gladys, and Sadie is the richest woman in town.

The degrees of comparison are known as the positive, the comparative, and the superlative. (Actually, only the comparative and superlative show degrees.) We use the comparative for comparing two things and the superlative for comparing three or more things. Notice that the word than frequently accompanies the comparative and the word the precedes the superlative. The inflected suffixes -er and -est suffice to form most comparatives and superlatives, although we need -ierand -iest when a two-syllable adjective ends in y(happier and happiest); otherwise we use more andmost when an adjective has more than one syllable.

Positive	Comparative	Superlative
rich	richer	richest
lovely	lovelier	loveliest
beautiful	more beautiful	most beautiful

Certain adjectives have irregular forms in the comparative and superlative degrees:

Irregular Comparative and Superlative Forms
good	better	best
bad	worse	worst
little	less	least
much many some	more	most
far	further	furthest

The Order of Adjectives in a Series

It would take a linguistic philosopher to explain why we say "little brown house" and not "brown little house" or why we say "red Italian sports car" and not "Italian red sports car." The order in which adjectives in a series sort themselves out is perplexing for people learning English as a second language. Most other languages dictate a similar order, but not necessarily the same order. It takes a lot of practice with a language before this order becomes instinctive, because the order often seems quite arbitrary (if not downright capricious). There is, however, a pattern. You will find many exceptions to the pattern in the table below, but it is definitely important to learn the pattern of adjective order if it is not part of what you naturally bring to the language.

The categories in the following table can be described as follows:

                         I.            Determiners — articles and other limiters. See Determiners

                      II.            Observation — postdeterminers and limiter adjectives (e.g., a real hero, a perfect idiot) and adjectives subject to subjective measure (e.g., beautiful, interesting)

                   III.            Size and Shape — adjectives subject to objective measure (e.g., wealthy, large, round)

                   IV.            Age — adjectives denoting age (e.g., young, old, new, ancient)

                      V.            Color — adjectives denoting color (e.g., red, black, pale)

                   VI.            Origin — denominal adjectives denoting source of noun (e.g., French, American, Canadian)

                VII.            Material — denominal adjectives denoting what something is made of (e.g., woolen, metallic, wooden)

             VIII.            Qualifier — final limiter, often regarded as part of the noun (e.g., rocking chair, hunting cabin, passenger car, book cover)

THE ROYAL ORDER OF ADJECTIVES
Determiner	Observation	Physical Description				Origin	Material	Qualifier	Noun
		Size	Shape	Age	Color
a	beautiful			old		Italian		touring	car
an	expensive			antique			silver		mirror
four	gorgeous		long- stemmed		red		silk		roses
her			short		black				hair
our		big		old		English			sheepdog
those			square				wooden	hat	boxes
that	dilapidated	little						hunting	cabin
several		enormous		young		American		basketball	players
some	delicious					Thai			food

Source: http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/adjectives.htm

PREPOSITIONS

A preposition describes a relationship between other words in a sentence. In itself, a word like "in" or "after" is rather meaningless and hard to define in mere words. For instance, when you do try to define a preposition like "in" or "between" or "on," you invariably use your hands to show how something is situated in relationship to something else. Prepositions are nearly always combined with other words in structures called prepositional phrases. Prepositional phrases can be made up of a million different words, but they tend to be built the same: a preposition followed by a determiner and an adjective or two, followed by a pronoun or noun (called the object of the preposition). This whole phrase, in turn, takes on a modifying role, acting as an adjective or an adverb, locating something in time and space, modifying a noun, or telling when or where or under what conditions something happened.

Consider the professor's desk and all the prepositional phrases we can use while talking about it.

You can sit before the desk (or in front of the desk). The professor can sit on the desk (when he's being informal) or behind the desk, and then his feet are under the desk orbeneath the desk. He can stand beside the desk (meaning next to the desk), before the desk, between the desk and you, or even on the desk (if he's really strange). If he's clumsy, he can bump into the desk or try to walk through the desk (and stuff would fall off the desk). Passing his hands over the desk or resting his elbows upon the desk, he often looks across the desk and speaks of the desk or concerning the desk as if there were nothing else like the desk. Because he thinks of nothing except the desk, sometimes you wonder about the desk, what's in the desk, what he paid for the desk, and if he could live without the desk. You can walk toward the desk, to the desk,around the desk, by the desk, and even past the desk while he sits at the desk or leans against the desk.

All of this happens, of course, in time: during the class, before the class, until the class, throughout the class, after the class, etc. And the professor can sit there in a bad mood [another adverbial construction].

Those words in bold blue font are all prepositions. Some prepositions do other things besides locate in space or time — "My brother is like my father." "Everyone in the class except me got the answer." — but nearly all of them modify in one way or another. It is possible for a preposition phrase to act as a noun — "During a church service is not a good time to discuss picnic plans" or "In the South Pacific is where I long to be" — but this is seldom appropriate in formal or academic writing.

Prepositions of Time: at, on, and in

We use at to designate specific times.
The train is due at 12:15 p.m.

We use on to designate days and dates.
My brother is coming on Monday.
We're having a party on the Fourth of July.

We use in for nonspecific times during a day, a month, a season, or a year.
She likes to jog in the morning.
It's too cold in winter to run outside.
He started the job in 1971.
He's going to quit in August.

Prepositions of Place: at, on, and in

We use at for specific addresses.
Grammar English lives at 55 Boretz Road in Durham.

We use on to designate names of streets, avenues, etc.
Her house is on Boretz Road.

And we use in for the names of land-areas (towns, counties, states, countries, and continents).
She lives in Durham.
Durham is in Windham County.
Windham County is in Connecticut.

Prepositions of Location: in, at, and on and No Preposition
IN (the) bed* the bedroom the car (the) class* the library* school*	AT class* home the library* the office school* work	ON the bed* the ceiling the floor the horse the plane the train	NO PREPOSITION downstairs downtown inside outside upstairs uptown
Note: * You may sometimes use different prepositions for these locations.

Prepositions of Movement: to 
and No Preposition

We use to in order to express movement toward a place.
They were driving to work together.
She's going to the dentist's office this morning.

Toward and towards are also helpful prepositions to express movement. These are simply variant spellings of the same word; use whichever sounds better to you.
We're moving toward the light.
This is a big step towards the project's completion.

With the words home, downtown, uptown, inside, outside, downstairs, upstairs, we use no preposition.
Grandma went upstairs
Grandpa went home.
They both went outside.

Prepositions of Time: for and since

We use for when we measure time (seconds, minutes, hours, days, months, years).
He held his breath for seven minutes.
She's lived there for seven years.
The British and Irish have been quarreling for seven centuries.

We use since with a specific date or time.
He's worked here since 1970.
She's been sitting in the waiting room since two-thirty.

Common Prepositions

about above across after against around at before behind below beneath beside besides between beyond

by down during except for from in inside into like near of off on out

outside over since through throughout till to toward under until up upon with without

according to because of by way of in addition to in front of in place of in regard to in spite of instead of on account of out o

Source: http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/prepositions.htm

INTERJECTIONS

Hi! That's an interjection. :-)

"Interjection" is a big name for a little word. Interjections are short exclamations like Oh!, Um or Ah!They have no real grammatical value but we use them quite often, usually more in speaking than in writing. When interjections are inserted into a sentence, they have no grammatical connection to the sentence. An interjection is sometimes followed by an exclamation mark (!) when written.

Here are some interjections with examples:

interjection	meaning	example
ah	expressing pleasure	"Ah, that feels good."
	expressing realization	"Ah, now I understand."
	expressing resignation	"Ah well, it can't be heped."
	expressing surprise	"Ah! I've won!"
alas	expressing grief or pity	"Alas, she's dead now."
dear	expressing pity	"Oh dear! Does it hurt?"
	expressing surprise	"Dear me! That's a surprise!"
eh	asking for repetition	"It's hot today." "Eh?" "I said it's hot today."
	expressing enquiry	"What do you think of that, eh?"
	expressing surprise	"Eh! Really?"
	inviting agreement	"Let's go, eh?"
er	expressing hesitation	"Lima is the capital of...er...Peru."
hello, hullo	expressing greeting	"Hello John. How are you today?"
	expressing surprise	"Hello! My car's gone!"
hey	calling attention	"Hey! look at that!"
	expressing surprise, joy etc	"Hey! What a good idea!"
hi	expressing greeting	"Hi! What's new?"
hmm	expressing hesitation, doubt or disagreement	"Hmm. I'm not so sure."
oh, o	expressing surprise	"Oh! You're here!"
	expressing pain	"Oh! I've got a toothache."
	expressing pleading	"Oh, please say 'yes'!"
ouch	expressing pain	"Ouch! That hurts!"
uh	expressing hesitation	"Uh...I don't know the answer to that."
uh-huh	expressing agreement	"Shall we go?" "Uh-huh."
um, umm	expressing hesitation	"85 divided by 5 is...um...17."
well	expressing surprise	"Well I never!"
	introducing a remark	"Well, what did he say?"

Source: http://www.englishclub.com/vocabulary/interjections.htm