DLAB Grammar 5 — Questions and Answers
Question 1: In 'The more you practice, the faster you learn,' what grammatical structure is demonstrated?
- Comparative correlative construction (Correct answer)
- Superlative degree contrast
- Conditional inversion
- Parallel infinitive clauses
Correct answer: Comparative correlative construction
The 'the more...the faster' pattern is a comparative correlative structure linking two proportional comparisons.
Question 2: What is 'government' in syntactic terminology?
- A rule requiring a head word to determine the grammatical case or form of a dependent (Correct answer)
- A rule specifying word order within a sentence
- A constraint preventing double negation
- A principle governing the placement of adverbs
Correct answer: A rule requiring a head word to determine the grammatical case or form of a dependent
Government (or 'selection') means a head word — such as a preposition or verb — requires its complement to appear in a specific grammatical form or case.
Question 3: Which option is an example of an attributive adjective?
- The report seems classified.
- The classified report was filed. (Correct answer)
- The report was classified by the officer.
- Classifying the report took time.
Correct answer: The classified report was filed.
An attributive adjective ('classified') appears directly before the noun it modifies ('report'), unlike a predicative adjective which follows a linking verb.
Question 4: In the sentence 'She asked whether the test had been scored,' what is the grammatical role of 'whether the test had been scored'?
- Adverbial clause of condition
- Nominal (noun) clause acting as the object of 'asked' (Correct answer)
- Relative clause modifying 'she'
- Participial phrase modifying 'test'
Correct answer: Nominal (noun) clause acting as the object of 'asked'
'Whether the test had been scored' is a noun clause functioning as the direct object of the verb 'asked.'
Question 5: What distinguishes a phrase from a clause in English grammar?
- A phrase has a subject and predicate; a clause does not.
- A clause has a subject and a finite verb; a phrase lacks one or both. (Correct answer)
- A phrase must contain a noun; a clause must contain an adjective.
- A clause is always dependent; a phrase is always independent.
Correct answer: A clause has a subject and a finite verb; a phrase lacks one or both.
A clause contains a subject and a finite (tensed) verb, while a phrase is a grammatical group lacking that subject-verb combination.
Question 6: Which sentence contains a split infinitive?
- She failed to complete the task on time.
- She decided to boldly attempt the challenge. (Correct answer)
- To complete the task, she worked overnight.
- She appeared to have completed the task.
Correct answer: She decided to boldly attempt the challenge.
A split infinitive places an adverb ('boldly') between 'to' and the base verb ('attempt'), splitting the infinitive form.
Question 7: What is 'zero derivation' (also called 'conversion') in English morphology?
- Adding a zero morpheme to mark plural nouns
- Changing a word's grammatical class without adding any affix (Correct answer)
- Combining two free morphemes into a compound word
- Removing a suffix to create a new word (back-formation)
Correct answer: Changing a word's grammatical class without adding any affix
Zero derivation (conversion) shifts a word from one grammatical category to another with no change in form, such as using 'email' as both a noun and a verb.
DLAB Grammar 5
In 'The more you practice, the faster you learn,' what grammatical structure is demonstrated?