Classwork Series and Exercises {English Language – SS2}: Reported Speech and Rhymes

English Language SS2 Second Term

Week  3

Contents:

Grammar: Reported Speech

Oracy: Rhymes

Vocabulary Development

A. Grammar: Reported Speech

Look and compare the following  short texts, which have been adapted from the reading passage of this unit. In both  cases the person narrating the story is a man whose name we do not know.

A. Direct Speech

‘There is no water anywhere,’my wife said.’ ‘According to the radio, the pipes have burst.’

B. Indirect or Reported Speech

My wife says/said that there is no water anywhere. According to the radio, the pipes have burst.

In A we are given the direct speech of the man’s wife – the very words that came out of her mouth are quoted by her husband.

B has exactly the same meaning as A. However the words that came out of the woman’s mouth are no longer being quoted, but reported by her husband. So B is an example of reported speech.

Indirect speech is indicated

• a reporting verb – said, stated etc.
• the conjunction that (beginning a clause containing the report)
• the absence of quotation marks
• other changes to be discussed

In order to see what changes are required, look at the examples in the table  below.

Indirect speech or reported speech: ‘short time later’ reporting

A	B
Ojo’s original statement (spoken to, or in the presence of Dele)	Dele’s report (a short time later)
‘I hate amala.’	Ojo says/said he hates amala
‘I am  now preparing for my accountancy exam.’	Ojo says/said he is now preparing for his accountancy exam
‘I went to Ibadan last week to see my parents.’	Ojo says/said he went to Ibadan last week to see his parents
‘I shall/will never accept these conditions.’	Ojo says he will never accept these conditions

Note:

In ordinary conversation we do not narrate like A – we do not say  ‘”I hate amala,” says Olu.’ Instead we narrate like B. We use indirect or reported speech and say, ‘Olu says that he hates amala.’

Narrating A is normally found only in novels and short theories, where we want to show the exact words of characters in the story.

Reported Speech: ‘Long time later’

Now compare reported speech version B with reported speech version C.

A. Direct Speech

‘There is no water anywhere,’my wife said.’ ‘According to the radio, the pipes have burst.’

B. Reported Speech

My wife says/said that there is no water anywhere. According to the radio, the pipes have burst.

C. Reported Speech

My wife said that there was no water anywhere. According to the radio, the pipes had burst.

What differences between B and C do you notice?

As you can see, the tenses are different: the is of B becomes the was in of C; have  in B becomes had  in C. What is the reason for these differences.

In B, the time of the man’s narration is a ‘short time later’ report of the event. In C, the time of the man’s narration is a ‘long time later’report of the event.

1. ‘You are wasting all the water,’said my wife.
2. My wife said that I was wasting all the water

Which of these i an example of ‘reported speech, and which an example of reported speech? Does the reported speech example show ‘short time later’ or ‘long time later’ reporting?

Can you explain why this is so?

Practice

What is the ‘long time later’ reported  version of the following examples of direct speech? Make any person you like the speaker of the original words and make yourself the person addressed.

1. ‘I refuse to accept defeat.’
2. ‘I can’t stand reggae that isn’t played by Jamaicans.’
3. ‘We sit for our examinations next month.’
4. ‘I have to study for the whole of this weekend.’
5. ‘My father drove to Benin yesterday.’
6. ‘I was waiting for the bus when the accident happened.’
7. ‘I shall never forgive you.’
8. ‘I may not be a genius but I know how to behave.’
9. ‘You may never see me again.’
10. ‘I might have known that you would never do such a wicked deed.’

Reported speech: ‘Long time later’ reporting

A	B	Comment
Ojo’s original statement (spoken to, or in the presence of Dele)	Dele’s report (a long time later)	Comment (changes made, other than changing I to he)
‘I hate amala.’	Ojo said he hated amala	Present simple (habit) – Past simple
‘I am  now preparing for my accountancy exam.’	Ojo said that he was preparing for his accountancy exam	Present continuous (description)Past – Continuous:my – his, now – then
‘I went to Ibadan last week to see my parents.’	Ojo said he had gone to Ibadan the previous week to see his parents	Past simple – Past Perfect,last week – the previous weekour – their
‘I shall/will never accept these conditions.’	Ojo said that he would never accept these conditions	shall/will – would,these – those
‘I may fly to Port Harcourt next month.	Ojo said that he might fly to Port Harcourt the following month	may – might,next month – the following month

Rhyme

A rhyme is a repetition of similar sounds (or the same sound) in two or more words, most often in the final syllables of lines in poems and songs. The word “rhyme” may also be used as a pars pro toto (“a part (taken) for the whole”) to refer a short poem, such as a rhyming couplet or other brief rhyming poem such as nursery rhymes.

A rhyme occurs when two or more words have similar sounds. Typically, this happens at the end of the words, but this isn’t always the case.

Perfect rhymes

Perfect rhymes can be classified according to the number of syllables included in the rhyme, which is dictated by the location of the final stressed syllable. It is sometimes called exact, full or true, this rhyme is the typical rhyme where the ending sounds match. Examples are cat and hat, egg and beg, ink and pink, boo and true, soap and dope

• single: a rhyme in which the stress is on the final syllable of the words (rhyme, sublime)

• double: a rhyme in which the stress is on the penultimate (second from last) syllable of the words (picky, tricky)

• dactylic: a rhyme in which the stress is on the ante-penultimate (third from last) syllable. One example is Aristophanes and cacophonies

General rhymes

In the general sense, general rhyme can refer to various kinds of phonetic similarity between words, and to the use of such similar-sounding words in organizing verse. Rhymes in this general sense are classified according to the degree and manner of the phonetic similarity:

• syllabic: a rhyme in which the last syllable of each word sounds the same but does not necessarily contain stressed vowels. (cleaver, silver, or pitter, patter; the final syllable of the words bottle and fiddle are /l/, a liquid consonant.) Rhyming the last syllable, this is also called tail or end rhyme.

• imperfect (or near): a rhyme between a stressed and an unstressed syllable. (wing, caring). Also referred to as half, slant, approximate, off, and oblique, this rhymes the final consonants but not the vowels or initial consonants. Examples are bent and rant, quick and back.

• weak (or unaccented): a rhyme between two sets of one or more unstressed syllables. (hammer, carpenter)

• semi-rhyme: a rhyme with an extra syllable on one word. Examples are mend and ending, rye and buying, lick and pickle.(bend, ending)

• forced (or oblique): a rhyme with an imperfect match in sound. This is an imperfect rhyme because the sounds do not quite match. Sometimes these are called half, approximate, near, off, or slant rhymes. Examples are lap and shape, fiend and mean, one and thumb.

• assonance: matching vowels. (shake, hate) Assonance is sometimes referred to as slant rhymes, along with consonance.

• consonance: matching consonants. (rabies, robbers)

• half rhyme (or slant rhyme): matching final consonants. (Roxie’, Lexie)

• pararhyme: all consonants match. (tell, tall)

• alliteration (or head rhyme): matching initial consonants. (ship, short)

Identical rhymes

Identical rhymes are considered less than perfect in English poetry; but are valued more highly in other literatures such as, for example, rime riche in French poetry.

Though homophones and homonyms satisfy the first condition for rhyming—that is, that the stressed vowel sound is the same—they do not satisfy the second: that the preceding consonant be different. As stated above, in a perfect rhyme the last stressed vowel and all following sounds are identical in both words.

Identical rhyme – This is rhyming a word with itself, but often refers to a different meaning. An example is in Emily Dickinson’s “Because I Could not Stop for Death.”

We paused before a House that seem
A Swelling of the Ground—
The Roof was scarcely visible—
The Cornice—in the Ground.

If the sound preceding the stressed vowel is also identical, the rhyme is sometimes considered to be inferior and not a perfect rhyme after all An example of such a “super-rhyme” or “more than perfect rhyme” is the “identical rhyme”, in which not only the vowels but also the onsets of the rhyming syllables are identical, as in gun and begun. Punning rhymes such as “bare” and “bear” are also identical rhymes. The rhyme may extend even farther back than the last stressed vowel. If it extends all the way to the beginning of the line, so that there are two lines that sound identical, then it is called a “holorhyme” (“For I scream/For ice cream”).

Eye rhyme

Eye rhymes or sight rhymes or spelling rhymes refer to similarity in spelling but not in sound where the final sounds are spelled identically but pronounced differently. Examples in English are cough, bough, and love, move.

Mind rhyme

Mind rhyme is a kind of substitution rhyme similar to rhyming slang, but it is less generally codified and is “heard” only when generated by a specific verse context. For instance, “this sugar is neat / and tastes so sour.” If a reader or listener thinks of the word “sweet” instead of “sour”, then a mind rhyme has occurred.

Classification by position

Rhymes may be classified according to their position in the verse:

• Tail rhyme (also called end rhyme) is a rhyme in the final syllable(s) of a verse (the most common kind).

• Internal rhyme occurs when a word or phrase in the interior of a line rhymes with a word or phrase at the end of a line, or within a different line. The rhyming happens within a line of poetry. This example is from Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven.”
  Once upon a midnight dreary,while I pondered, weak and weary,
  Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,

• Off-centered rhyme is a type of internal rhyme occurring in unexpected places in a given line. This is sometimes called a misplaced-rhyme scheme or a spoken word rhyme style.

• Broken rhyme is a type of enjambment producing a rhyme by dividing a word at the line break of a poem to make a rhyme with the end word of another line.

• Cross rhyme matches a sound or sounds at the end of a line with the same sound or sounds in the middle of the following (or preceding) line.

• Feminine rhyme – Also referred to as double, triple, multiple, extra-syllable, extended, this has different beginnings of the words, but rhymes latter syllables. Examples include backing and hacking, tricky and picky, moaning and groaning, generate and venerate.
• Head rhyme – Also called alliteration or initial rhyme, this has the same initial consonant at the beginning of the words. Examples are blue and blow, sun and sand, merry and monkey.

• Light rhyme – Rhyming of syllable where one is stressed and the other is not. Examples include frog and dialog, mat and combat.

• Macaronic rhyme – This rhymes words from different languages. Examples are villa and manilla, amore and favor, sure and kreatur, lay and lei, sitar and guitar.

• Masculine rhyme – In this rhyme, the stress in on the final syllable in both words. Examples include support and report, dime and sublime, divulge and bulge.

• Perfect rhyme – .

• Rich rhyme – In this case, the words are pronounced the same but have different meanings, like homonyms. Examples include raise and raze, break and brake, vary and very, lessen and lesson.

• Scarce rhyme – This refers to words that have very few other words that rhyme with them. Examples are lips and whisp, oceanless and motionless.

• Syllabic – Rhyming the last syllable, this is also called tail or end rhyme. Examples include beaver and silver, dancing and prancing.

• Wrenched rhyme – This is an imperfect rhyme which rhymes a stressed with an unstressed syllable. Examples are caring and wing, lady and a bee.

A rhyme scheme is the pattern of rhyming lines in a poem.

Vocabulary Development: Insurance

Insurance is a method of (1) ____ people against sudden and unexpected loss. For example, the owner of a house can (2) ____ his house against the risk of fire. How does he do this?

First of all, he has to obtain a (3) ____ form from the insurance company and set out all the (4) ____. The representative of the (5) _____, the insurer has (7) _____ all this, he has to decide if he wishes to insure the house or not. He works out the (8) _____ the man will have to pay.

When the man has paid this, he is (9) ____ with a (10) ____. This document is an agreement setting out what the house is insured against and for how long. It is possible to insure one’s life so that in the (11) ____ of one’s death, money will be paid to one’s (12) ____.

The amount that has to be paid, monthly or yearly, depends on the risk involved. A man aged 25 would have to pay less than a man aged 65.

It is possible to insure (13) ____ almost anything. In some countries, it is even possible to insure against having twins, so that the expense (14) ____ in having an extra baby in addition to the one expected will not result in financial (15) ____.

	A	B	C	D	E
1	preventing	prevention	prohibiting	protecting	protection
2	insulate	insure	assure	insures	assures
3	proposal	proposition	policy	premium	proportion
4	particles	particulars	data	knowledge	known
5	agent	corporation	outfit	office	company
6	positioned	found	placed	situated	situation
7	assessed	inferred	guessed	assured	assumed
8	policy	cost	premium	bill	quoted
9	issured	assured	insured	ensured	enquired
10	statement	hydrant	policy	proposal	proof
11	occurrence	happening	event	incident	accident
12	dependencies	dependants	defendants	appendages	survival
13	in favor of	towards	regarding	against	about
14	occured	incurred	cured	inherited	acquired
14	kinship	disturb	disaster	problem	hardship

For more class notes, visit: http://passnownow.com/classwork-support/