Basic English Grammar

Grammar deals with two aspects of language:

a) Accidence – the way that the form of words varies according to their grammatical
function in a sentence. (e.g. house (singular) > houses (plural).)
b) Syntax – the way that words go together to make sentences.

PARTS OF SPEECH

Words can be classified in the following 9 basic categories:

1. Noun – the name of a person, place or thing, (e.g. David, Oxford, book).
Nouns can be inflected to indicate the plural (book > books, man > men) and the
genitive case (David’s book, the students’ work).

2. Adjective – a word which describes a noun, e.g. happy, blue, pretty.

Adjectives can be inflected to indicate the comparative (happier) and the superlative
(happiest).
Some adjectives, though, use more and most, (e.g. more hopeful, most hopeful).

3. Adverb – a word which describes an adjective (very happy), a verb (walk slowly),
or another adverb (very slowly).
They most often end in –ly, and usually form the comparative and superlative with
more and most (more slowly, most slowly).

4.1. Verb – a word which describes an action or a state of being, e.g. run, walk, give.
There are two types of verb:
a) Main Verbs – these stand on their own (I run, I see you).
b) Auxiliary Verbs – these are used with main verbs, (e.g. I can go, I will run away).
They can be used to form questions, (e.g. Do you speak French?)
The verbs do, have, and be are special cases and can be used either as main verbs (I
have a cold), or auxiliary verbs (I don’t smoke).

4.2. Tense – a tense describes when an action takes place.

Only two tenses in Present Day English (PDE) are indicated by inflexion:
i) Present Tense (I run, he runs).
ii) Past Tense (I ran).

Other tenses are formed using auxiliary verbs (like have, shall and will):
i) Perfect Tense (I have run).
ii) Pluperfect Tense (I had run).
iii) Future Tense (I shall run, he will run).

4.3. Mood – there are three moods:

i) Indicative – used for statements and questions (e.g. I like you; Do you smoke?)
ii) Imperative – used for commands (e.g. Shut the window!)
iii) Subjunctive – used for wishes, demands, hypothetical or unreal situations (e.g. I
wish I were dead; I insist that he leave; If I were a rich man).
The subjunctive is now often not used in PDE (e.g. If I was you, vs If I were you).

4.4. Voice – there are two voices:

i) Active (e.g. The girl hit the man).
ii) Passive (e.g. The man was hit by the girl).
The passive is formed by adding the past participle (see below) of the verb to the
correct form of to be.

4.5. Participles – there are two forms of participle:

i) Present Participle (e.g. I was singing).
ii) Past Participle (e.g. I have finished).

5. Article – the definite article (the) and the indefinite article (a, an).

6. Pronoun – a word used instead of a noun:

i) Personal pronouns – I, you, he, she, we, you (plural), they.
ii) Possessive pronouns – my, mine, your, yours, he, his, etc.
iii) Reflexive pronouns – myself, yourself, etc.
iv) Relative pronoun – who, which, that (e.g. the man who did it).
v) Interrogative pronouns – who, what, which (e.g. who is that?)
vi) Demonstrative pronouns – this, that.

7. Preposition – a word which joins nouns or pronouns to the rest of the sentence,
(e.g. at, on, to, from, through, with).
They can be joined with other prepositions (away from, because of).

8. Conjunction – a linking word:

i) Co-ordinating conjunctions (e.g. and, but, or).
ii) Sub-ordinating conjunctions (e.g. if, although, because, when, so that).

9. Interjection – an exclamation, (e.g. damn! alas!)

SENTENCES

A sentence is a self-contained syntactical unit. It can contain the following six

elements:

1. Subject – the person or thing about which a statement is being made (e.g. The cat
sat on the mat; The man was hit by the ball).
If the verb is active (The cat sat), the subject carries out the action.
If the verb is passive (The man was hit), the subject has the action done to it.

2. Object – there are two types of object:

i) Direct objects – e.g. I like milkshake; He congratulated her.
ii) Indirect objects – these come before direct objects, (e.g. Give me the books; Get
the man a drink).
They can be replaced by prepositional phrases, (e.g. Give the books to me; Get a drink
for the man).

3. Complement – there are two types of complement:

i) Subject complements – e.g. He is sad (refers back to the subject of the verb).
ii) Object complements – e.g. They made him unhappy (refers to the object of the
verb).

4. Phrase – a phrase is a group of words which functions like a single word, but does
not make a whole sentence: e.g. in the kitchen (prepositional phrase); having given it
some thought (participial phrase); to be quite honest (infinitive phrase).

5. Clause – these can be either main clauses or subordinate clauses:

i) The cat sat on the mat – this is a simple sentence consisting of a single main clause.
ii) You like coffee, but I can’t stand it – this contains two main clauses linked by a
conjunction known as a co-ordinating conjunction (and, but, or).
iii) I can’t make it, because I’m busy – this contains a main clause and a subordinate
clause (because I’m busy).
Subordinate clauses can be introduced by:
subordinating conjunctions – if, because, although, since.
relative and interrogative pronouns – the man who was there…; I asked who he was…
relative and interrogative adverbs – On the street where you live…; I know what you
did last summer…

6. Apposition – this is where one noun or pronoun is followed by a second noun,

noun phrase, or pronoun which describes it: e.g. Did you see Anthony Hopkins, the
film star? I, Claudius; Tarzan, Lord of the Apes