Somewhere Has Something 2

Error No.: 12 Error: Somewhere has something Some common examples

1. * Hong Kong has a lot of rubbish. 2. * In the park has many children. 3. * In the classroom has a plant. 4. * The table has a lot of books. 5. * Here has a lot of people. Core grammatical problem Students misuse a noun (e.g. Hong Kong), an adverbial of place (e.g. in the park), or an adverb (e.g. here) at the subject position of a sentence which carries the verb ‘have’ e.g. *Hong Kong has a lot of rubbish. *In the park has many children. Probable causes of this structural problem L1-related factors: 1. Corresponding Chinese/Cantonese sentences are acceptable. e.g. 6. 香港有很多垃圾。 7. 在公園裏有很多小朋友。 2. Students are not aware that the Chinese 有 is expressed in two different ways in English: a. The possessive ‘have’ as in e.g. 8. I have a book . e.g. 9. The house has a big balcony. The first sentence means ‘I possess the book’. The second sentence means ‘The balcony is one inherent part of the house’.

b. The existential ‘there + be’ as in e.g. 10. There is a book on the table. This sentence means ‘A book is now on the table’. The structure is used to describe the existence of something at a place.

Correction procedure To help students (Ss) overcome the structural problem relating to the use of nouns or adverbials as subjects in such sentence as: Hong Kong has a lot of rubbish. the teacher (T) can go through the following procedure with students (Ss ): 1. T shows one correct and one incorrect sentence: (i)

The table has four legs.

(ii) *The table has a lot of books.

2. T asks Ss, ‘Do the legs in sentence (i) belong to the table?’ 3. T asks Ss, ‘Can we say that the legs are the table’s legs or the legs of the table?’ 4. T asks Ss, ‘Do the books in sentence (ii) belong to the table?’ 5. T asks Ss ‘Can we say that the books are the table’s books or the books of the table?’ 6. T tells Ss that sentence (i) is correct but sentence (ii) is wrong. 7. T tells Ss that to rewrite sentence (ii), we have to use the THERE IS/ARE structure. 8. T repeats steps 1–7 using other similar examples with a noun as the subject. 9. T repeats steps 1–7 using examples with an adverbial as the subject. (iii) In the park has many children.

Follow-up exercise Correct the following sentences. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Next to my bed had a table. The room has many people. In this district has no school. The forest has many birds. In the New Territories still have land for development.