English grammar

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English grammar
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English grammar is here understood as the body of rules describing the properties of the English language. A language is such that its elements must be combined according to certain patterns. This article is concerned with (and restricted to) morphology, the building blocks of language, and syntax, the construction of meaningful phrases, clauses and sentences with the use of morphemes and words.

The grammar of any language is commonly approached in two different ways: A descriptivist, usually based on a systematic analysis of a large text corpus and describing grammatical structures thereupon; and a prescriptivist, which attempts to use the identified rules of a given language as a tool to govern the linguistic behaviour of speakers (see Linguistic prescription and Descriptive linguistics). Prescriptive grammar concerns itself with several open disputes in English grammar, often representing changes in usage over time.

There are a number of historical, social and regional variations of the English language. For example, British English and American English have several lexical differences; however, the grammatical differences are not equally conspicuous, and will be mentioned only when appropriate. Further, the many dialects of English have divergences from the grammar described here; they are only cursorily mentioned. This article describes a generalized present-day Standard English, the form of speech found in types of public discourse including broadcasting, education, entertainment, government, and news reporting. Standard English includes both formal and informal speech.

Contents

[edit] Word classes and phrase classes

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Seven major word classes are described here. These are: noun, verb, adjective, adverb, preposition, conjunction, and determiners. The first six are traditionally referred to as "parts of speech." There are minor word classes, such as interjections, but these do not fit into the clause and sentence structure of English.[1]

Open and closed classes

Open word classes allow new members; closed word classes seldom do.[1] Nouns such as "celebutante," (a celebrity who frequents the fashion circles)" and "mentee," (a person advised by a mentor) and adverbs such as "24/7" ("I am working on it 24/7") are relatively new words; nouns and adverbs are therefore open classes.[1] However, the pronoun, "their," as a gender-neutral singular replacement for the "his or her" (as in: "Each new arrival should check in their luggage.") has not gained complete acceptance during the more than 40 years of its life; pronouns, in consequence, form a closed class.[1]

Word classes and grammatical forms

A word can sometimes belong to several word classes. The class version of a word is called a "lexeme."[2] For example, the word "run" is usually a verb, but it can also be a noun ("It is a ten mile run to Tipperary."); these are two different lexemes.[2] Further, as a lexeme, a word may have several grammatical forms: as a verb lexeme, "run" has grammatical forms such as "runs," "ran," and "running."[2] Words can sometimes be converted from one class to another and new words be created in such fashion. The noun "aerobics," for example, has recently been converted to the adjective "aerobicized" ("the aerobicized bodies of Beverly Hills celebutantes."[2])

Phrase classes

Words combine to form phrases which themselves can take on the attributes of a word class. These classes are called phrase classes.[2] The phrase: "The ancient pulse of germ and birth" functions as a noun in the sentence: "The ancient pulse of germ and birth was shrunken hard and dry." (Thomas Hardy, "The Darkling Thrush") It is therefore a noun phrase. Other phrase classes are: verb phrases, adjective phrases, adverb phrases, prepositional phrases, and determiner phrases.[2]

[edit] Nouns and determiners

Nouns form the largest word class. According to Carter and McCarthy, they denote "classes and categories of things in the world, including people, animals, inanimate things, places, events, qualities and states."[2] Consequently, the words, "Mandela," "jaguar," "mansion," "volcano," "Timbuktoo," "blockade," "mercy," and "liquid" are all nouns. Nouns are not commonly identified by their form; however, some common suffixes such as "-age" ("shrinkage"), "-hood" ("sisterhood"), "-ism" ("journalism"), "-ist" ("lyricist"), "-ment" ("adornment"), "-ship" ("companionship"), "-tude" ("latitude"), and so forth, are usually identifiers of nouns.[2] There are exceptions, of course: "assuage" and "disparage" are verbs; "augment" is a verb, "lament" can be a verb; and "worship" is a verb. Nouns can also be created by conversion of verbs or adjectives. Examples include the nouns in: "a boring talk," "a five-week run," "the long caress," "the utter disdain," and so forth.

Number, gender, type, and syntactic features.

Nouns have singular and plural forms.[3] Many plural forms have -s or -es endings (dog/dogs, referee/referees, bush/bushes), but by no means all (woman/women, axis/axes, medium/media). Unlike some other languages, in English, nouns do not have intrinsic gender that affects the form of the verb in a sentence.[3] However, many nouns can refer to masculine or feminine animate objects (mother/father, tiger/tigress, alumnus/alumna, male/female).[3] Nouns can be classified semantically, i.e. by their meanings: common nouns ("sugar," "maple," "syrup," "wood"), proper nouns ("Cyrus," "China"), concrete nouns ("book," "laptop"), and abstract nouns ("heat," "prejudice").[3] Alternatively, they can distinguished grammatically: count nouns ("clock," "city," "color") and non-count nouns ("milk," "decor," "foliage").[4] Nouns have several syntactic features that can aid in their identification.[4] Nouns (example: "cat") may be

  1. modified by adjectives ("the beautiful Angora cat"),
  2. preceded by determiners ("the beautiful Angora cat"), or
  3. pre-modified by other nouns ("the beautiful Angora cat").[4]

[edit] Noun phrases

Noun phrases are phrases that function grammatically as nouns within sentences. In addition, nouns serve as "heads," or main words of noun phrases. [4] Examples (the heads are in boldface):

  1. "The burnt-out ends of smoky days."[5]
  2. "The real raw-knuckle boys who know what fighting means, ..."[6]
  3. "The idle spear and shield ..."[7]

The head can have modifiers, a complement, or both. Modifiers can occur before the head ("The real raw-knuckle boys ...," or "The burnt-out ends ..." and they are then called pre-modifiers; or, they can occur after the head ("who know what fighting means ...") and are called post-modifiers.[4] Example: "The rough, seamy-faced, raw-boned College Servitor ..."[8] The pre-modifying phrase, for example, is composed of determiners ("The"), adjectives ("rough," "seamy-faced," ...) and other nouns ("College").

Complements occur after the head as well; however, they are essential for completing the meaning of the noun phrase in a way that post-modifiers are not.[9] Examples (complements are italicized; heads are in boldface):

  1. "The burnt-out ends of smoky days."[10]
  2. "The suggestion that Mr. Touchett should invite me appeared to have come from Miss Stackpole."[11]
  3. "The ancient pulse of germ and birth was shrunken hard and dry."[12]

Within a sentence, a noun phrase can be a part of the grammatical subject, the object, or the complement. Examples (the noun phrase is italicized, and the head boldfaced):[9]

  1. grammatical subject: "Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest."[13]
  2. object: "Dr. Pavlov ... delivered many long propaganda harangues ..."[14])
  3. complement: "'All they see is some frumpy, wrinkled-up person passing by in a carriage waving at a crowd."[15]

[edit] Verbs

Verbs form the second largest word class after nouns. According to Carter and McCarthy, verbs denote "actions, events, processes, and states."[16] Consequently, "smile," "stab," "climb," "confront," "liquefy," "wake," "reflect" are all verbs. Some endings, which while not dead giveaways, are often associated with verbs. Examples are: "-ate" ("formulate"), "-iate" ("inebriate"), "-ify" ("electrify"), and "-ize" ("sermonize").[16] There are exceptions, of course: "chocolate" is a noun, "immediate" is an adjective, "prize" can be a noun, and "maize" is a noun. Prefixes can also be used to create new verbs. Examples are: "un-" ("unmask"), "out-" ("outlast"), "over-" ("overtake"), and "under-" ("undervalue").[16] Just as nouns can be formed from verbs by conversion, the reverse is also possible:[16]

  • "so are the sons of men snared in an evil time"[17]
  • "[a national convention] nosed parliament in the very seat of its authority"[18]

Verbs can also be formed from adjectives:[16]

  • "To dry the old oak's sap, and cherish springs."[19]
  • "Time's glory is to calm contending kings"[20]
Regular and irregular verbs

A verb is said to be regular if its base form does not change when inflections are added to create new forms.[21] An example is: base form: climb; present form: climb; -s form: climbs; -ing form: climbing; past form: climbed; -ed participle: climbed.[21] Irregular verbs are ones in which the base form changes; the endings corresponding to each form are not always unique.[21] Examples:

  • base form: catch; present form: catch; -s form: catches; -ing form: catching; past form: caught; -ed participle: caught.
  • base form: choose; present form: choose; -s form: chooses; -ing form: choosing; past form: chose; -ed participle: chosen.

The verb "be" is the only verb in English which has distinct inflectional forms for each of the categories of grammatical forms: base form: be; present form: am, are; -s form: is; -ing form: being; past form: was, were; -ed participle: been.[21]

Type and characteristics

Verbs come in three grammatical types: lexical, auxiliary, and modal.[22] Lexical verbs form an open class which includes most verbs (state, action, processes, and events). For example, "dive," "soar," "swoon," "revive," "breathe," "choke," "lament," "celebrate," "consider," "ignore" are all lexical verbs.[22] Auxiliary verbs form a closed class consisting of only three members: be, do, and have.[22] Although auxiliary verbs are lexical verbs as well, their main function is to add information to other lexical verbs. This information indicates (a) aspect (progressive, perfect), (b) passive voice, and (c) clause type (interrogative, negative).[22] In the following examples, the auxiliary is in boldface and the lexical verb is italicized.

  1. aspect (progressive): "The business of life ... calls us to the exercise of those virtues of which we are lamenting our deprivation."[23]
  2. aspect (perfect): "'Yes, I want a coach,' said Maurice, and bade the coachman draw up to the stone where the poor man who had swooned was sitting."[24]
  3. passive voice: "When she was admitted into the house Beautiful, care was taken to inquire into the religious knowledge of her children."[25]
  4. clause type (interrogative): (Old joke) Boy: "Excuse me sir, How do I get to Carnegie Hall?" Man on street: "Practice, Practice, Practice."
  5. clause type (negative): Wasn't she monstrously surprised?"[26]

Modal verbs also form a closed class which consists of the core modals ("can," "could," "shall," "should," "will," "would," "may," "might," "must"), semi-modals ("dare," "need," "ought to," "used to"), and modal expressions ("be able to," "have to").[22] Modals add information to lexical verbs about degrees of certainty and necessity.[22] Examples:

  • less certain: "Before the snow could melt for good, an ice storm covered the lowcountry and we learned the deeper treachery of ice."[27]
  • more certain: "Eat your eggs in Lent and the snow will melt. That's what I say to our people when they get noisy over their cups at San Gallo ..."[28]
  • expressing necessity: "But I should think there must be some stream somewhere about. The snow must melt; besides, these great herds of deer must drink somewhere."[29]

Modal verbs do not inflect for person, number or tense.[22] Examples:

  • person: "I/you/she might consider it."
  • number: "I/We/She/They might consider it"
  • tense: "They might have considered/be considering/have been considering it."

Verbs too have features that aid in their recognition:

  1. they follow the (grammatical) subject noun phrase (in italics): "The real raw-knuckle boys who know what fighting means enter the arena without fanfare."
  2. they agree with the subject noun phrase in number: "The real raw-knuckle boy/boys who knows/know what fighting means enters/enter the arena without fanfare."
  3. they agree with the subject noun phrase in person: "I/He, the real raw-knuckle boy who knows what fighting means, enter/enters the arena without fanfare", and
  4. with the exception of modal verbs, they can express tense:"The boys ... had been entering the arena without fanfare."

[edit] Verb phrases

[edit] Adjectives

[edit] Adjective phrases

[edit] Adverbs

[edit] Adverb phrases

[edit] Prepositions

Position of a verb. when we talk some thing keep in,on,upon,beside,beyond etc

[edit] Prepositional phrases

[edit] Conjunctions

[edit] Sentence and clause patterns

[edit] Verb complementation

[edit] Clause types

[edit] Clause combination

[edit] Adjuncts

[edit] Information packaging

[edit] History of English grammar writing

[edit] History of English grammar

[edit] See also

[edit] Notes and references

  1. ^ a b c d Carter & McCarthy 2006, p. 296
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h Carter & McCarthy 2006, p. 297
  3. ^ a b c d Carter & McCarthy 2006, p. 298
  4. ^ a b c d e Carter & McCarthy 2006, p. 299
  5. ^ T. S. Eliot, "Preludes"
  6. ^ Charles Emmett Van Loan, "The Legs of Freckles," Inside the ropes
  7. ^ John Milton, "Hymn on the Morning of Christ's Nativity, Composed 1629"
  8. ^ Thomas Carlyle,"Dr. Johnson"
  9. ^ a b Carter & McCarthy 2006, p. 300
  10. ^ Unlike post-modifiers, which can be replaced by relative clauses, complements cannot, we cannot say: ends which are of smoky days ...
  11. ^ Henry James, Portrait of a lady Chapter XVI. Note: We cannot say: "The suggestion which is that Mr. Touchett should invite me"
  12. ^ Thomas Hardy, "The Darkling Thrush"
  13. ^ Thomas Gray, Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard. "here," an adverb, which qualifies "may rest," is not a part of the noun phrase.
  14. ^ Eleanor Roosevelt, Autobiography of Eleanor Roosevelt, Chapter 31, "I Learn about Soviet Tactics"
  15. ^ Jamaica Kincaid, A Small Place
  16. ^ a b c d e Carter & McCarthy 2006, p. 301
  17. ^ The Bible, Ecclesiastes, IX, 11-18, King James Version, 1611.
  18. ^ Edmund Burke
  19. ^ William Shakespeare, "The Rape of Lucrece"
  20. ^ William Shakespeare, "The Rape of Lucrece"
  21. ^ a b c d Carter & McCarthy 2006, p. 302
  22. ^ a b c d e f g Carter & McCarthy 2006, p. 303
  23. ^ James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson 1750 AETAT. 51, Letter from Johnson to James Elphinstone.
  24. ^ Maria Edgeworth, Popular tales, "The Lottery," Chapter VII.
  25. ^ John Bunyan, The Pilgrim's Progress, Chapter V.
  26. ^ Letter from Susan Burney to Frances Burney, in The early diaries of Frances Burney, volume 2.
  27. ^ Pat Conroy, The Prince of Tides, Chapter 10.
  28. ^ George Elliot, Romola, "A Florentine joke"
  29. ^ G. A. Henty, Under Drake's flag: a tale of the Spanish Main, Chapter XI, "The marvel of fire"

[edit] Bibliography

[edit] Grammar books

[edit] Monographs

  • Adams, Valerie. (1973). An introduction to modern English word-formation. London: Longman.
  • Bauer, Laurie. (1983). English word-formation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • Halliday, M. A. K. (1985/94). Spoken and written language. Deakin University Press.
  • Huddleston, Rodney D. (1976). An introduction to English transformational syntax. Longman.
  • Huddleston, Rodney D. (2009). The Sentence in Written English: A Syntactic Study Based on an Analysis of Scientific Texts. Cambridge University Press.　. p. 352. ISBN 0521113954. 
  • Jesperson, Otto (1982). Growth and Structure of the English Language. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press. p. 244. ISBN 0226398773. 
  • Kruisinga, E. (1925). A handbook of present-day English. Utrecht: Kemink en Zoon.
  • Leech, Geoffrey N. (1971). Meaning and the English verb. London: Longman.
  • Marchand, Hans. (1969). The categories and types of present-day English word-formation (2nd ed.). München: C. H. Beck.
  • McCawley, James D. (1998). The syntactic phenomena of English (2nd ed.). Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
  • Palmer, F. R. (1974). The English verb. London: Longman.
  • Palmer, F. R. (1979). Modality and the English modals. London: Longman.
  • Plag, Ingo. (2003). Word-formation in English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  • Scheurweghs, Gustave. (1959). Present-day English syntax: A survey of sentence patterns. London: Longmans.

[edit] External links

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