Tense system + Embedded Qs

Article excerpt · target grammar marked

Of the roughly seven thousand languages spoken on Earth today, linguists estimate that around half will have vanished by 2100. The Endangered Languages Project has so far catalogued over three thousand languages at risk — each entry a kind of last act of witnessing.

Grammar Reference · Tense system + Embedded Qs

Embedded question:

I wonder what the linguist was recording. — statement word-order after the main clause

Embedded question:

Could you tell me how many speakers remain? — no inversion after the connector

Mixed tenses: why it

She has always spoken Yawuru, but her children are growing up in English. — tense choice signals permanence vs change

Common error

I wonder what does she mean. ✗ → I wonder what she means. ✓ — no auxiliary inversion inside embedded clause

01Exercise 1 — Form · Write the Correct Form

Tense system + Embedded Qs

1.I wonder why so many minority languages faster in the digital age.

2.Could you explain to me how Cornish declared extinct in 1777?

3.By the time the linguist arrived, the elder for six hours.

4.Nobody knows whether the immersion schools the language for future generations.

5.Since the project launched, it more than three thousand endangered languages.

6.Do you know how long Scots Gaelic before the first immersion schools opened?

02Exercise 2 — Transform

rewrite with the new structure

1.What does linguistic identity mean to young speakers today?

2.How many languages has the project catalogued so far?

3.Will Yawuru survive the next generation?

4.Why did so many governments enforce monolingualism in schools?

5.Where did Dolly Pentreath grow up?

6.How long had Cornish been declining before it was declared extinct?

03Exercise 3 — About You

in your notebook

Personalise: complete five sentences about yourself using the target grammar.

Tense system + Embedded Qs01EnglishPlans.com