English grammar - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

English grammar is the body of rules that describe the structure of expressions

Utterance

In spoken language analysis an utterance is a complete unit of speech. It is generally but not always bounded by silence.It can be represented and delineated in written language in many ways. Note that in such areas of research utterances do not exist in written language, only their representations...

in the English language

English language

English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...

. This includes the structure of words, phrases, clauses and sentences

Sentence (linguistics)

In the field of linguistics, a sentence is an expression in natural language, and often defined to indicate a grammatical unit consisting of one or more words that generally bear minimal syntactic relation to the words that precede or follow it...

. A text that contains more than one sentence is no longer in the realm of grammar, but is instead is in the realm of discourse

Discourse

Discourse generally refers to "written or spoken communication". The following are three more specific definitions:...

.

The grammar

Grammar

In linguistics, grammar is the set of structural rules that govern the composition of clauses, phrases, and words in any given natural language. The term refers also to the study of such rules, and this field includes morphology, syntax, and phonology, often complemented by phonetics, semantics,...

of a language is approached in two ways: descriptive grammar

Descriptive linguistics

In the study of language, description, or descriptive linguistics, is the work of objectively analyzing and describing how language is spoken by a group of people in a speech community...

is based on analysis of text corpora

Text corpus

In linguistics, a corpus or text corpus is a large and structured set of texts...

and describes grammatical structures thereof, whereas prescriptive grammar

Linguistic prescription

In linguistics, prescription denotes normative practices on such aspects of language use as spelling, grammar, pronunciation, and syntax. It includes judgments on what usages are socially proper and politically correct...

attempts to use the identified rules of a given language as a tool to govern the linguistic behaviour of speakers. This article predominantly concerns itself with descriptive grammar.

There are historical, social and regional variations of English. Divergences from the grammar described here occur in some dialects of English. This article describes a generalized present-day Standard English

Standard English

Standard English refers to whatever form of the English language is accepted as a national norm in an Anglophone country...

, the form of speech found in types of public discourse including broadcasting, education, entertainment, government, and news reporting, including both formal and informal speech. Although British English

British English

British English, or English , is the broad term used to distinguish the forms of the English language used in the United Kingdom from forms used elsewhere...

, American English

American English

American English is a set of dialects of the English language used mostly in the United States. Approximately two-thirds of the world's native speakers of English live in the United States....

and Australian English

Australian English

Australian English is the name given to the group of dialects spoken in Australia that form a major variety of the English language....

have several lexical differences, the grammatical differences are not as conspicuous, and will be mentioned only when appropriate.

Grammar is divided into morphology

Morphology (linguistics)

In linguistics, morphology is the identification, analysis and description, in a language, of the structure of morphemes and other linguistic units, such as words, affixes, parts of speech, intonation/stress, or implied context...

, which describes the formation of words, and syntax

Syntax

In linguistics, syntax is the study of the principles and rules for constructing phrases and sentences in natural languages....

, which describes the construction of meaningful phrases, clauses, and sentences out of word

Word

In language, a word is the smallest free form that may be uttered in isolation with semantic or pragmatic content . This contrasts with a morpheme, which is the smallest unit of meaning but will not necessarily stand on its own...

Word classes and phrase classes

Eight major word classes are described here. These are: noun

Noun

In linguistics, a noun is a member of a large, open lexical category whose members can occur as the main word in the subject of a clause, the object of a verb, or the object of a preposition .Lexical categories are defined in terms of how their members combine with other kinds of...

, pronoun

Pronoun

In linguistics and grammar, a pronoun is a pro-form that substitutes for a noun , such as, in English, the words it and he...

, verb

Verb

A verb, from the Latin verbum meaning word, is a word that in syntax conveys an action , or a state of being . In the usual description of English, the basic form, with or without the particle to, is the infinitive...

, adjective

Adjective

In grammar, an adjective is a 'describing' word; the main syntactic role of which is to qualify a noun or noun phrase, giving more information about the object signified....

, adverb

Adverb

An adverb is a part of speech that modifies verbs or any part of speech other than a noun . Adverbs can modify verbs, adjectives , clauses, sentences, and other adverbs....

, preposition, conjunction

Grammatical conjunction

In grammar, a conjunction is a part of speech that connects two words, sentences, phrases or clauses together. A discourse connective is a conjunction joining sentences. This definition may overlap with that of other parts of speech, so what constitutes a "conjunction" must be defined for each...

, and determiner. The first seven are traditionally referred to as "parts of speech". There are minor word classes, such as interjection

Interjection

In grammar, an interjection or exclamation is a word used to express an emotion or sentiment on the part of the speaker . Filled pauses such as uh, er, um are also considered interjections...

s, but these do not fit into the clause

Clause

In grammar, a clause is the smallest grammatical unit that can express a complete proposition. In some languages it may be a pair or group of words that consists of a subject and a predicate, although in other languages in certain clauses the subject may not appear explicitly as a noun phrase,...

and sentence

Sentence (linguistics)

structure of English.

Open and closed classes
Open word class

Open class (linguistics)

In linguistics, a word class may be either an open class or a closed class. Open classes accept the addition of new morphemes , through such processes as compounding, derivation, inflection, coining, and borrowing; closed classes generally do not....

es allow new members; closed word class

Closed class

In linguistics, a closed class is a word class to which no new items can normally be added, and that usually contains a relatively small number of items. Typical closed classes found in many languages are adpositions , determiners, conjunctions, and pronouns.Contrastingly, an open class offers...

es seldom do. 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

24/7

24/7 is an abbreviation which stands for "24 hours a day, 7 days a week", usually referring to a business or service available at all times without interruption...

" ("I am working on it 24/7") are relatively new words; nouns and adverbs are therefore open classes. However, the pronoun, "their

They

They is thethird-person pluralpersonal pronoun in Modern English.-Usage:The "singular" they is the use of this pronoun as a gender-neutral singular rather than as a plural pronoun. The correctness of this usage is disputed....

," as a gender-neutral singular

Gender-neutral pronoun

A gender-neutral pronoun is a pronoun that is not associated with any gender. It designates two distinct grammatical phenomena, the first being pronouns/periphrastics that have been assigned nontraditional meanings in modern times out of a concern for gender equity, and the second being genderless...

replacement for the "his or her" (as in: "Each new arrival should check in their luggage."), while in widespread conversational use, has not gained complete acceptance in the more than forty years of its use; pronouns, in consequence, form a closed class.

Word classes and grammatical forms
A word can sometimes belong to several word classes. The class version of a word is called a "lexeme

Lexeme

A lexeme is an abstract unit of morphological analysis in linguistics, that roughly corresponds to a set of forms taken by a single word. For example, in the English language, run, runs, ran and running are forms of the same lexeme, conventionally written as RUN...

". For example, the word "run" is usually a verb, but it can also be a noun ("It is a ten mile run to Tipperary

Tipperary

Tipperary is a town and a civil parish in South Tipperary in Ireland. Its population was 4,415 at the 2006 census. It is also an ecclesiastical parish in the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Cashel and Emly, and is in the historical barony of Clanwilliam....

."); these are two different lexemes. Further, the same lexeme may be inflected to express different grammatical categories: for example, as a verb lexeme, "run" has several forms such as "runs," "ran," and "running." Words in one class can sometimes be derived

Derivation (linguistics)

In linguistics, derivation is the process of forming a new word on the basis of an existing word, e.g. happi-ness and un-happy from happy, or determination from determine...

from those in another and new words be created. The noun "aerobics," for example, has recently given rise to the adjective "aerobicized" ("the aerobicized bodies of Beverly Hills celebutantes.")

Phrase classes
Words combine to form phrase

Phrase

In everyday speech, a phrase may refer to any group of words. In linguistics, a phrase is a group of words which form a constituent and so function as a single unit in the syntax of a sentence. A phrase is lower on the grammatical hierarchy than a clause....

s which themselves can take on the attributes of a word class. These classes are called
phrase classes. The phrase: "The ancient pulse of germ and birth" is a noun phrase

Noun phrase

In grammar, a noun phrase, nominal phrase, or nominal group is a phrase based on a noun, pronoun, or other noun-like word optionally accompanied by modifiers such as adjectives....

and functions as a noun in the sentence: "The ancient pulse of germ and birth was shrunken hard and dry." (Thomas Hardy

Thomas Hardy

Thomas Hardy, OM was an English novelist and poet. While his works typically belong to the Naturalism movement, several poems display elements of the previous Romantic and Enlightenment periods of literature, such as his fascination with the supernatural.While he regarded himself primarily as a...

, The Darkling Thrush
The Darkling Thrush
The Darkling Thrush is a poem by Thomas Hardy. Originally titled By the Century's Deathbed, it was published on New Years Day 1901 in The Times.Hardy wrote the poem on December 31, 1900...

) It is therefore a noun phrase. Other phrase classes are: verb phrase

Verb phrase

In linguistics, a verb phrase or VP is a syntactic unit composed of at least one verb and the dependents of that verb. One can distinguish between two types of VPs, finite VPs and non-finite VPs . While phrase structure grammars acknowledge both, dependency grammars reject the existence of a...

s, adjective phrase

Adjectival phrase

The term adjectival phrase, adjective phrase, or sometimes phrasal adjective may refer to any one of three types of grammatical phrase....

s, adverb phrase

Adverbial phrase

An adverbial phrase is a linguistic term for a group of two or more words operating adverbially, when viewed in terms of their syntactic function.Compare the following sentences:*I'll go to bed soon.*I'll go to bed in an hour....

s, prepositional phrase

Adpositional phrase

An adpositional phrase is a linguistics term defining a syntactic category that includes prepositional phrases and postpositional phrases. Adpositional phrases contain an adposition in the head position and usually a complement such as a noun phrase...

s, and determiner phrase

Determiner phrase

In linguistics, a determiner phrase is a syntactic category, a phrase headed by a determiner. The noun phrase is strictly speaking a determiner phrase, and NP designates a constituent of the noun phrase, taken to be the complement of the determiner. This is opposed to the traditional view that...

Nouns

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." 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 suffix

Suffix

In linguistics, a suffix is an affix which is placed after the stem of a word. Common examples are case endings, which indicate the grammatical case of nouns or adjectives, and verb endings, which form the conjugation of verbs...

es such as "-age" ("shrinkage"), "-hood" ("sisterhood"), "-ism" ("journalism"), "-ist" ("lyricist"), "-ment" ("adornment"), "-ship" ("companionship"), "-tude" ("latitude"), and so forth, are usually identifiers of nouns. There are exceptions, of course: "assuage" and "disparage" are verbs; "augment" is a verb, "lament" and "worship" can be verbs. Nouns can also be created by conversion

Conversion (linguistics)

In linguistics, conversion, also called zero derivation, is a kind of word formation; specifically, it is the creation of a word from an existing word without any change in form...

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

Grammatical number

In linguistics, grammatical number is a grammatical category of nouns, pronouns, and adjective and verb agreement that expresses count distinctions ....

and plural

Plural

In linguistics, plurality or [a] plural is a concept of quantity representing a value of more-than-one. Typically applied to nouns, a plural word or marker is used to distinguish a value other than the default quantity of a noun, which is typically one...

forms. 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 grammatical gender

Grammatical gender

Grammatical gender is defined linguistically as a system of classes of nouns which trigger specific types of inflections in associated words, such as adjectives, verbs and others. For a system of noun classes to be a gender system, every noun must belong to one of the classes and there should be...

. However, many nouns can refer to masculine or feminine animate objects (mother/father, tiger/tigress, alumnus/alumna, male/female). 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").
Alternatively, they can be distinguished grammatically: count noun

Count noun

In linguistics, a count noun is a common noun that can be modified by a numeral and that occurs in both singular and plural form, as well as co-occurring with quantificational determiners like every, each, several, etc. A mass noun has none of these properties...

s ("clock," "city," "colour") and non-count noun

Mass noun

In linguistics, a mass noun is a noun that refers to some entity as an undifferentiated unit rather than as something with discrete subsets. Non-count nouns are best identified by their syntactic properties, and especially in contrast with count nouns. The semantics of mass nouns are highly...

s ("milk," "decor," "foliage").

Noun phrases

Noun phrases are phrases that function grammatically as nouns within sentences. Nouns serve as "heads," or main words of noun phrases. Nouns have several syntactic

Syntax

In linguistics, syntax is the study of the principles and rules for constructing phrases and sentences in natural languages....

features that can aid in their identification. Nouns (example: common noun "cat") may be

modified
Grammatical modifier
In grammar, a modifier is an optional element in phrase structure or clause structure; the removal of the modifier typically doesn't affect the grammaticality of the sentence....

by adjectives ("the beautiful Angora cat
Turkish Angora
The Turkish Angora is a breed of domestic cat. Turkish Angoras are one of the ancient, naturally occurring cat breeds, having originated in central Turkey, in the Ankara region...

"),
preceded by determiners ("the beautiful Angora cat"), or
pre-modified by other nouns ("the beautiful Angora
Ankara
Ankara is the capital of Turkey and the country's second largest city after Istanbul. The city has a mean elevation of , and as of 2010 the metropolitan area in the entire Ankara Province had a population of 4.4 million....

cat").

Within the noun phrase, determiners occur at the far left edge of the noun phrase before the noun head and before any other modifiers:

Determiner	+	Other modifiers	+	Noun

The head can have modifiers, a complement, or both.

Modifiers which occur before the head are called '"pre-modifiers", and those which occur after the head ("who knows what fighting means") are called "post-modifiers". Pre-modifiers can be determiners ("The"), adjectives ("rough", "seamy-faced", "real raw-knuckle", or "burnt-out"), or other nouns ("College").

Complements occur after the head like post-modifiers, but are essential for completing the meaning of the noun phrase in a way that modifiers are not.

Examples of modifiers (heads are in boldface, modifiers are italicized) include:

"The burnt-out ends of smoky days."
"The rough, seamy-faced, raw-boned College Servitor ..."
"The real raw-knuckle boys who know what fighting means, ..."

Examples of complements (heads are in boldface, complements are italicized) include:

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

Within a sentence, a noun phrase can function as the grammatical subject or the object, as well as other uses. Examples (the noun phrase is italicized, and the head boldfaced):

Subject: "Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest."

Object: "Dr. Pavlov ... delivered many long propaganda harangues ...")

Noun phrases can be constructed with the determiner "the" and an adjective. Some examples are:

"The great and the good were present."
"Give to the poor."

Noun phrases can be compound:

"The idle spear and shield ..."

More examples of noun phrases are:

the	balloon
det	noun

many	balloons
det	noun

all	balloons
det	noun

the	big	red	balloon
det	adj	adj	noun

many	big	red	balloons
det	adj	adj	noun

all	big	red	balloons
det	adj	adj	noun

The distinctness of the determiner and adjective positions relative to each other and the noun head is demonstrable in that adjectives may never precede determiners. Thus, the following are ungrammatical English nouns phrases: *big the red balloon, *big red the balloon (as well as *big many red balloons, *big red many balloons, *big all red balloons, *big red all balloons).

Order of determiners

Determiners can be divided into three subclasses according to their position with respect to each other:

predeteminers
central determiners
postdeterminers

Predeterminers may precede central determiners but may not follow central determiners. Postdeterminers follow central determiners but may not precede them. Central determiners must occur after predeterminers and before postdeterminers. Thus, a central determiner e.g. the as in

the	red	balloons
det	adj	noun

can be preceded by a predeterminer e.g. all as in

all	the	red	balloons
predet	cent.det
det		adj	noun

or the central determiner the can be followed by a postdeterminer e.g. many as in

the	many	red	balloons
cent.det	postdet
det		adj	noun

A sequence of predeterminer + central determiner + postdeterminer is also possible as in

all	the	many	red	balloons
predet	cent.det	postdet
det			adj	noun

However, there are several restrictions on combinatory possibilities. One general restriction is that only one determiner can occur in each of the three determiner positions. For example, the postdeterminers many and seven can occur in the following

many smart children

seven smart children

the many smart children

the seven smart children

but both many and seven cannot occur in postdeterminer position rendering the following noun phrases ungrammatical: *many seven smart children, *seven many smart children, *the many seven smart children, *the seven many smart children. Additionally, there are often other lexical restrictions. For example, the predeterminer all can occur alone (as the sole determiner) or before a central determiner (e.g., all children, all the children, all these children, all my children); however, the predeterminer such can only occur alone or before a central determiner (e.g., such nuisance!, such a nuisance!).

Predeterminers include words e.g. all, both, half, double, twice, three times, one-third, one-fifth, three-quarters, such, exclamative what. Examples with predeterminers preceding a central determiner:

all the big balloons

both his nice parents

half a minute

double the risk

twice my age

three times my salary

one-third the cost

one-fifth the rate

three-quarters the diameter

such a big boy

what a clever suggestion

Central determiners include words e.g. the, a/an, this, that, these, those, every, each, enough, much, more, most, less, no, some, either, neither, which, what.

Examples of central determiners preceding adjectival modified noun heads:

the big balloon

a big balloon

this big balloon

that big balloon

these big balloons

those big balloons

every big balloon

each big balloon

no big balloon

some big balloons

either big balloon

In addition to the above determiners, noun phrases with a genitive enclitic -'s can have a determinative function like genitive determiners his, her, its, their. These genitive determinative nouns occur in the central determiner position:

[ my stepmother’s ] friendly children

both [ my stepmother’s ] friendly children

[ my stepmother’s ] many friendly children

all [ my stepmother’s ] many friendly children

Determiners

Determiners constitute a small class of words, including "that", "the", "a", "some", number words like "two" or "three", "some", and "various". They occur exclusively in noun phrases.

Pronouns

Pronouns are a small class of words which function as noun phrases. They include personal pronouns, demonstrative pronouns and relative pronouns.

Personal pronouns

The personal pronouns of English are the following:

Nominative	Objective	Reflexive	Genitive (attributive)	Genitive (predicative)
I	me	myself	my	mine¹
you²	you	yourself, yourselves	your	yours
she, he, it	her, him, it	herself, himself, itself	her, his, its	hers, his³
we	us	ourselves	our	ours
they⁴	them	themselves	their	theirs

Historical notes:

The difference between the forms such as "my" and "mine" developed in Early Modern English
In modern English, "you" can be used with both singular and plural reference. An obsolete alternative for the nominative form is "ye". An obsolete set of pronouns used for singular reference is "thou, thee, thy, thine".
"Its" is not commonly used in predicative function. "It is his" is grammatical; *"It is its" is not.
"They" is used as a plural pronoun and, in some cases, as a singular gender-neutral pronoun
Gender-neutral pronoun
A gender-neutral pronoun is a pronoun that is not associated with any gender. It designates two distinct grammatical phenomena, the first being pronouns/periphrastics that have been assigned nontraditional meanings in modern times out of a concern for gender equity, and the second being genderless...

.

Demonstrative pronouns

In English these are "this, these, that, those", when not followed by a noun, as in:

"These are good."
"I like that."

Note that all four of these words can also be used as determiners, as in "these cars".

Relative pronouns

In English the relative pronouns are "that", "which", "who", "whom", and "whose". Relative pronouns provide a link between a dependent clause

Dependent clause

In linguistics, a dependent clause is a clause that augments an independent clause with additional information, but which cannot stand alone as a sentence. Dependent clauses modify the independent clause of a sentence or serve as a component of it...

in which they appear, specifically a relative clause

Relative clause

A relative clause is a subordinate clause that modifies a noun phrase, most commonly a noun. For example, the phrase "the man who wasn't there" contains the noun man, which is modified by the relative clause who wasn't there...

, and a noun phrase in an independent clause

Independent clause

An independent clause is a clause that can stand by itself, also known as a simple sentence. An independent clause contains a subject and a predicate; it makes sense by itself....

, as in these examples:

"The concept that I am speaking of is new."
"The concept of which I am speaking is new."
"The shirt, which used to be red, is faded."
"The man who saw me was tall."
"The man whom I saw was tall."
"The man whose car is missing is angry."

Verbs

English verbs

Verbs in the English language are a part of speech and typically describe an action, an event, or a state.While English has many irregular verbs , for the regular ones the conjugation rules are quite straightforward...

form the second largest word class after nouns. According to Carter and McCarthy, verbs denote "actions, events, processes, and states." Consequently, "smile," "stab," "climb," "confront," "liquefy," "wake," "reflect" are all verbs.

Verbs have the following features which aid in their recognition:

They usually follow the (grammatical) subject noun phrase (in italics): "The real raw-knuckle boys who know what fighting means enter the arena without fanfare."
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."
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
They can express tense:"The boys entered the arena without fanfare."

Regular and irregular lexical verbs

Verbs are divided into lexical

Lexical verb

In linguistics a lexical verb or full verb is a member of an open class of verbs that includes all verbs except auxiliary verbs. Lexical verbs typically express action, state, or other predicate meaning. In contrast, auxiliary verbs express grammatical meaning...

verbs and auxiliary

Auxiliary verb

In linguistics, an auxiliary verb is a verb that gives further semantic or syntactic information about a main or full verb. In English, the extra meaning provided by an auxiliary verb alters the basic meaning of the main verb to make it have one or more of the following functions: passive voice,...

verbs. Lexical verbs form an open class which includes most verbs. For example, "dive," "soar," "swoon," "revive," "breathe," "choke," "lament," "celebrate," "consider," "ignore" are all lexical verbs.

A lexical verb is said to be regular if its base form does not change when inflections are added to create new
forms. An example is:

Base form: climb
Present form: climb
-s form: climbs
Present participle: climbing
Past form: climbed
Past/passive participle: climbed.

Irregular verbs are ones in which the base form changes; the endings corresponding to each form are not always unique. Examples are

Base form: catch
Present form: catch
-s form: catches
Present participle: catching
Past form: caught
Past/passive participle: caught

and

Base form: choose
Present form: choose
-s form: chooses
Present participle: choosing
Past form: chose
Past/passive participle: chosen.

The verb "be" is the only verb in English which has distinct inflectional forms for each of the categories of grammatical forms, with even the present form differing from the base form:

Base form: be
Present form: am, are
-s form: is
Present participle: being
Past form: was, were
Past/passive participle: been.

Auxiliary verbs

Auxiliary verbs constitute a closed class and their purpose is to add information to other lexical verbs, such as (a) aspect

Grammatical aspect

In linguistics, the grammatical aspect of a verb is a grammatical category that defines the temporal flow in a given action, event, or state, from the point of view of the speaker...

(progressive, perfect, habitual

Habitual aspect

In linguistics, the aspect of a verb is a grammatical category that defines the temporal flow in a given action, event, or state. As its name suggests, the habitual aspect specifies an action as occurring habitually: the subject performs the action usually, ordinarily, or customarily...

), (b) passive voice

Passive voice

Passive voice is a grammatical voice common in many of the world's languages. Passive is used in a clause whose subject expresses the theme or patient of the main verb. That is, the subject undergoes an action or has its state changed. A sentence whose theme is marked as grammatical subject is...

, (c) clause type (interrogative, negative), and (d) modality

Linguistic modality

In linguistics, modality is what allows speakers to evaluate a proposition relative to a set of other propositions.In standard formal approaches to modality, an utterance expressing modality can always roughly be paraphrased to fit the following template:...

.

The auxiliary verbs "be" and "have" are used to form the perfect, progressive and passive constructions in English: see #Verb phrases below. Examples (the auxiliary is in boldface and the lexical verb is italicized):

Aspect (progressive): "'She is breathing Granny; we've got to make her keep it up, that's all—just keep her breathing."
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."
Passive voice: "When she was admitted into the house Beautiful, care was taken to inquire into the religious knowledge of her children."

The auxiliary verb "do" is used in interrogative and negative clauses when no other auxiliary verb is present:

Clause type (interrogative): (Old joke) Boy: "Excuse me sir, How do I get to Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall
Carnegie Hall is a concert venue in Midtown Manhattan in New York City, United States, located at 881 Seventh Avenue, occupying the east stretch of Seventh Avenue between West 56th Street and West 57th Street, two blocks south of Central Park....

?" Man on street: "Practice, Practice, Practice."
Clause type (negative): "The loud noise did not surprise her."

For some but not all sources, "used (to)" is an auxiliary verb:

Aspect (habitual): "We used to go there often."

Modal verbs form a closed sub-class of the auxiliary verbs, consisting of the core modals ("can," "could," "shall," "should," "will," "would," "may," "might," "must") and semi-modals ("had better", "ought to", "dare", "need"). Modals add information to lexical verbs about (a) degrees of possibility or necessity (b) permission or (c) ability. Examples:

Ability: "Before the snow could melt for good, an ice storm covered the lowcountry and we learned the deeper treachery of ice."
Certainty: "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 ..."
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."

Modal verbs do not inflect for person or number. Examples:

Person: "I/you/she might consider it." "He dare not go." "He need not go."
Number: "I/we/she/they might consider it"

History of English verbs

Some examples of suffixes that have been used to form verbs include "-ate" ("formulate"), "-iate" ("inebriate"), "-ify" ("electrify"), and "-ise" ("realise"). These suffixes are not a certain indicator that a given word is a verb: "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. Some examples are: "un-" ("unmask"), "out-" ("outlast"), "over-" ("overtake"), and "under-" ("undervalue"). Just as nouns can be formed from verbs by conversion, the reverse is also possible:

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

Verbs can also be formed from adjectives:

"To dry the old oak's sap, and cherish springs."
"Time's glory is to calm contending kings"

Adjectives

According to Carter and McCarthy, "Adjectives describe properties, qualities, and states attributed to a noun or a pronoun." As was the case with nouns and verbs, the class of adjectives cannot be identified by the forms of its constituents. However, adjectives are commonly formed by the addition of a suffix to a noun. Examples: "-al" ("habitual," "multidimensional," "visceral"), "-ful" ("blissful," "pitiful," "woeful"), "-ic" ("atomic," "gigantic," "pedantic"), "-ish" ("impish," "peckish," "youngish"), "-ous" ("fabulous," "hazardous"). As with nouns and verbs, there are exceptions: "homosexual" can be a noun, "earful" is a noun, "anesthetic" can be a noun, "brandish" is a verb. Adjectives can also be formed from other adjectives through the addition of a suffix or more commonly a prefix: weakish, implacable, disloyal, irredeemable, unforeseen. A number of adjectives are formed by adding "a" as a prefix to a verb: "adrift," "astride," "awry."

Gradability

Adjectives come in two varieties: gradable and non-gradable. In a gradable adjective, the properties or qualities associated with it, exist along a scale. In the case of the adjective "hot," for example, we can speak of: not at all hot, ever so slightly hot, only just hot, quite hot, very hot, extremely hot, dangerously hot, and so forth. Consequently, "hot" is a gradable adjective. Gradable adjectives usually have antonyms: hot/cold, hard/soft, smart/dumb, light/heavy.
Some adjectives do not have room for qualification or modification. These are the non-gradable adjectives, such as: pregnant, married, incarcerated, condemned, adolescent (as adjective), dead, and so forth.

In figurative or literary language, a non-gradable adjective can sometimes be treated as gradable, especially in order to emphasize some aspect:

"When a man's verses cannot be understood, nor a man's good wit seconded with a forward child, understanding, it strikes a man more dead than a great reckoning in a little room."

A non-gradable adjective might have another connotation in which it is gradable. For example, "dead" when applied to sounds can mean dull, or not vibrant. In this meaning, it has been used as a gradable adjective:

"... the bell seemed to sound more dead than it did when just before it sounded in open air."

Gradable adjectives can occur in comparative and superlative forms. For many common adjectives, these are formed by adding "-er" and "-est" to the base form: cold, colder, coldest; hot, hotter, hottest; dry, drier, driest, and so forth; however, for other adjectives, "more" and "most" are needed to provide the necessary qualification: more apparent, most apparent; more iconic, most iconic; more hazardous, most hazardous. Some gradable adjectives change forms atypically: good, better, best; bad, worse, worst; little, less, least; some/many, more, most.

Adjective phrases

Forms

An adjective phrase may consist of just one adjective, or a single adjective which has been modified or complemented.

Adjectives are usually modified by adverb phrases (adverb in boldface; adjective in italics):

"... placing himself in a dignified and truly imposing attitude, began to draw from his mouth yard after yard of red tape ..."
"Families did certainly come, beguiled by representations of impossibly cheap provisions, though the place was in reality very expensive, for every tradesman was a monopolist at heart."
"... of anger frequent but generally silent, ..."

An adjective phrase can also consist of an adjective followed by a complement, usually a prepositional phrase, or by a "that" clause. Different adjectives require different patterns of complementation (adjective in italics; complement in bold face):

"... during that brief time I was proud of myself, and I grew to love the heave and roll of the Ghost ..."
"... her bosom angry at his intrusion, ..."
"Dr. Drew is especially keen on good congregational singing."

Examples of "that" clause in the adjective phrase (adjective in italics; clause in boldface):

"Was sure that the shrill voice was that of a man—a Frenchman."
"The longest day that ever was; so she raves, restless and impatient."

An adjective phrase can combine pre-modification by an adverb phrase and post-modification by a complement, as in (adjective in italics; adverb phrase and complement in boldface):

"Few people were ever more proud of civic honours than the Thane of Fife."

Attributive and predicative

An adjective phrase is attributive when it modifies a noun or a pronoun (adjective phrase in boldface; noun in italics):

"Truly selfish genes do arise, in the sense that they reproduce themselves at a cost to the other genes in the genome."
"Luisa Rosado: a woman proud of being a midwife"

An adjective phrase is predicative when it occurs in the predicate of a sentence (adjective phrase in boldface):

"No, no, I didn't really think so," returned Dora; "but I am a little tired, and it made me silly for a moment ..."
"She was ill at ease, and looked more than usually stern and forbidding as she entered the Hales' little drawing room."

Adverbs

Adverbs typically modify verbs, adjectives, or other adverbs. They perform a wide range of functions and are especially important for indicating "time, manner, place, degree, and frequency of an event, action, or process." Adjectives and adverbs are often derived from the same word, the majority being formed by adding the "-ly" ending to the corresponding adjective form. Recall the adjectives, "habitual", "pitiful", "impish", We can use them to form the adverbs:

"habitually": "... shining out of the New England reserve with which Holgrave habitually masked whatever lay near his heart."
"pitifully": "The lamb tottered along far behind, near exhaustion, bleating pitifully."
"impishly": "Well," and he grinned impishly, "it was one doggone good party while it lasted!"

Some suffixes that are commonly found in adverbs are "-ward(s)" and "-wise":

"homeward": "The plougman homeward plods his weary way."
"downward": "In tumbling turning, clustering loops, straight downward falling, ..."
"lengthwise": "2 to 3 medium carrots, peeled, halved lengthwise, and cut into 1-inch pieces."

Some adverbs have the same form as the adjectives:

"outside":
- Adverb: "'You'd best begin, or you'll be sorry—it's raining outside."
- Adjective: "It would be possible to winter the colonies in the barn if each colony is provided with a separate outside entrance; ..."
"straight"
- Adverb: "Five cigars, very dry, smoked straight except where wrapper loosened, as it did in two cases."
- Adjective: "Numbering among the ranks of the "young and evil" in this text are ... straight women who fall in love with gay men, ..."

Some adverbs are not related to adjectives:

"quite": "Mr. Bingley was obliged to be in town the following day, and ... Mrs. Bennet was quite disconcerted."
"too": "... like a child that, having devoured its plumcake too hastily, sits sucking its fingers, ...."
"so": "... oh! ... would she heave one little sigh to see a bright young life so rudely blighted, ...?"

Some adverbs inflect for comparative and superlative forms:

"soon"
- "O error, soon conceived, Thou never comest unto a happy birth, ..."
- "Nerissa: 'superfluity comes sooner by white hairs, but competency lives longer."
- "'Least said, soonest mended!' "
"well"
- "Valrosa well deserved its name, for in that climate of perpetual summer roses blossomed everywhere."
- "'I'm afraid your appearance in the Phycological Quarterly was better deserved,' said Mrs. Arkwright, without removing her eyes from the microscope ..."
- "Who among the typical Victorians best deserved his hate?"

Adverb placement

Adverbs are most usually placed at the end of a phrase. Time adverbs (yesterday, soon, habitually) are the most flexible exception. "Connecting Adverbs", such as next, then, however, may also be placed at the beginning of a clause. Other exceptions include "focusing adverbs", which can occupy a middle position for emphasis. "

Adverb phrases

Forms
An adverb phrase is a phrase that collectively acts as an adverb within a sentence; in other words, it modifies a verb (or verb phrase), an adjective (or adjective phrase), or another adverb. The head of an adverb phrase (roman boldface), which is an adverb, may be modified by another adverb (italics boldface) or followed by a complement (italics boldface):

"Yet all too suddenly Rosy popped back into the conversation, ...."

"Oddly enough, that very shudder did the business."
"The Stoics said, perhaps shockingly for us, that a father ceases to be a father when his child dies."

An adverb phrase can be part of the complement of the verb "be." It then usually indicates location (adverb phrase in boldface; form of "be" in italics):

"'... it is underneath the pink slip that I wore on Wednesday with my Mechlin.'"
"... north-by-northeast was Rich Mountain, ..."

Adverb phrases are frequently modifiers of verbs:

"They plow through a heavy fog, and Enrique sleeps soundly—too soundly."
"Sleepily, very sleepily, you stagger to your feet and collapse into the nearest chair."

Adverb phrases are also frequently modifiers of adjectives and other adverbs (modifier in boldface; modified in italics):

(adjectives) "Then to the swish of waters as the sailors sluice the decks all around and under you, you fall into a really deep sleep."
(adverbs) "'My grandma's kinda deaf and she sleeps like really heavily."

Adverb phrases can also be modifiers of noun phrases (or pronoun phrases) and prepositional phrases (adverb phrases in boldface; modified phrases in italics):

(noun phrase): "She stayed out in the middle of the wild sea, and told them that was quite the loveliest place, you could see for many miles all round you, ...."
(pronoun phrase): "... the typical structure of glioma is that of spherical and cylindrical lobules, almost each and everyone of which has a centrally located blood vessel."
(prepositional phrase): "About halfway through the movie, I decided to ..."

Adverb phrases also modify determiners (modifier in boldface; modified in italics):

"The devil knows best what he said, but at least she became his tool and was in the habit of seeing him nearly every evening."
"Nearly if not quite all civilized peoples and ourselves above almost all others, are heavily burdened with the interest upon their public debt."

Functions
According to Carter and McCarthy, "As well as giving information on the time, place, manner and degree of an action, event, or process, adverb phrases can also have a commenting function, indicating the attitude and point of view of the speaker or writer towards a whole sentence or utterance." Examples:

"Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn."
"Astonishingly, she'd shelled every nut, leaving me only the inner skin to remove."

Adverb phrases also indicate the relation between two clauses in a sentence. Such adverbs are usually called "linking adverbs." Example:

"... they concluded from the similarities of their bodies, that mine must contain at least 1724 of theirs, and consequently would require as much food as was necessary to support that number of Lilliputians."

Prepositions

Prepositions relate two events in time or two people or things in space. They form a closed class. They also represent abstract relations between two entities: Examples:

("after":) "We came home from Mr. Boythorn's after six pleasant weeks."
("after":) "'That was done with a bamboo,' said the boy, after one glance."
("to":) "I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life, ..."
("between" and "through":) "Between two golden tufts of summer grass, I see the world through hot air as through glass, ..."
("during":) "During these years at Florence, Leonardo's history is the history of his art; he himself is lost in the bright cloud of it."
("of":) "When to the sessions of sweet silent thought I summon up remembrances of things past."

Prepositions are accompanied by prepositional complements; these are usually noun phrases. In the above examples, the prepositional
complements are:

preposition: "after"; prepositional complement: "six pleasant weeks"
preposition: "after"; prepositional complement: "one glance"
preposition: "to"; prepositional complement: "the seas"; preposition: "to"; prepositional complement: "the vagrant gypsy life";
preposition: "Between"; prepositional complement: "two golden tufts of summer grass,"; preposition: "through"; prepositional complement: "hot air"; preposition: "as through"; prepositional complement: "glass."
preposition: "during"; prepositional complement: "these years at Florence."
preposition: "of"; prepositional complement: "sweet silent thought"; preposition: "of"; prepositional complement: "things past."

Prepositional phrases

A prepositional phrase is formed when a preposition combines with its complement. In the above examples, the prepositional phrases are:

prepositional phrase: "after six pleasant weeks"
prepositional phrase: "after one glance"
prepositional phrases: "to the seas" and "to the vagrant gypsy life"
prepositional phrases: "Between two golden tufts of summer grass," "through hot air" and "as through glass."
prepositional phrase: "During these years at Florence."
prepositional phrases "of sweet silent thought" and "of things past."

Conjunctions

According to Carter and McCarthy, "Conjunctions express a variety of logical relations between phrases, clauses and sentences." There are two kinds of conjunctions: coordinating conjunctions and subordinating conjunctions.

Coordinating

Coordinating conjunctions link "elements of equal grammatical status." The elements in questions may vary from a prefix to an entire sentence. Examples:

(prefixes): "The doctor must provide facilities for pre- and post test counselling and have his own strict procedures for the storing of that confidential information."
(words): "'No, I'll never love anybody but you, Tom, and I'll never marry anybody but you--and you ain't to ever marry anybody but me, either."
(phrases): "Can storied urn or animated bust back to its mansion call the fleeting breath?"
(subordinate clauses): "Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show.
(independent clauses): "Well, I think you're here, plain enough, but I think you're a tangle-headed old fool, Jim."
(sentences): "He said we were neither of us much to look at and we were as sour as we looked. But I don't feel as sour as I used to before I knew robin and Dickon."

A correlative conjunction is a pair of constituent elements, each of which is associated with the grammatical unit to be coordinated. The common correlatives in English are:

"either ... or":
- "The clergyman stayed to exchange a few sentences, either of admonition or reproof, with his haughty parishioner ...."
- "...; for I could not divest myself of a misgiving that something might happen to London in the meanwhile, and that, when I got there, it would be either greatly deteriorated or clean gone."
"neither ... nor":
- "Buck made no effort. He lay quietly where he had fallen. The lash bit into him again and again, but he neither whined nor struggled."
- "For I have neither wit, nor words, nor worth, action, nor utterance, nor the power of speech, to stir men's blood: I only speak right on; ..."
"both ... and"
- "There was no mistaking her sincerity—it breathed in every tone of her voice. Both Marilla and Mrs. Lynde recognized its unmistakable ring."
- "There messages have both ethical and pragmatic overtones, urging women to recognize that even if they do suffer from physical and social disadvantages, their lives are far from being determined by their biology."
"Not only ... but also"
- "The director of A Doll's House, the brilliant Zhang Min, ..., was impressed with Lin not only professionally but also personally."
- "... she attempted to persuade her husband to give up his affair. Not only did he refuse, but he also told her he loved them both ...."

Subordinating conjunctions

Subordinating conjunctions relate only clauses to one another. They make the clause in which they appear into a subordinate clause. Some common subordinating conjunctions in English are: (of time) after, before, since, until, when, while; (cause and effect): because, since, now that, as, in order that, so; (opposition): although, though, even though, whereas, while; (condition): if, unless, only if, whether or not, even if, in case (that), and so forth. Some examples are:

(time: "before"): "Perhaps Homo erectus had already died out before Homo sapiens arrived.
(cause and effect: "in order that"): "In order that feelings, representations, ideas and the like should attain a certain degree of memorability, it is important that they should not remain isolated ..."
(opposition: "although"): "Ultimately there were seven more sessions, in which, although she remained talkative, she increasingly clearly conveyed a sense that she did not wish to come any more."
(condition: "even if"): "Even if Sethe could deal with the return of the spirit, Stamp didn't believe her daughter could."

Clause syntax

A clause consists of a subject, which is usually a noun phrase, and a predicate which is usually a verb phrase with an accompanying grammatical unit in the form of an object or complement.

Verb phrases

A verb phrase contains verbs which can be lexical, auxiliary, or modal. The head is the first verb in the verb phrase. Example: '"I didn't notice Rowen around tonight," remarked Don, as they began to prepare for bed. "Might have been sulking in his tent," grinned Terry."' Here, the verb phrase "might have been sulking" has the form "modal-auxiliary-auxiliary-lexical."

A verb phrase contains the following optional features:

A modal verb (e.g., will)
The verb have to express perfect aspect
The verb be to express progressive aspect
The verb be to express passive voice

The modal comes first, then the auxiliary or several auxiliaries, and finally the lexical (main) verb. When a verb phrase has a combination of modal and auxiliaries, it is constituted usually in the following order: modal verb >> perfect have >> progressive be >> passive be >> Lexical verb. Whichever verbs are used in the verb phrase, the first verb is conjugated for tense, person and number.

The following table shows the different collections of these features being used:

Modal	Perfect	Progressive	Passive	Lexical verb
				takes
			is	taken
		is		taking
		is	being	taken
	has			taken
	has		been	taken
	has	been		taking
	has	been	being	taken
will				take
will			be	taken
will		be		taking
will		be	being	taken
will	have			taken
will	have		been	taken
will	have	been		taking
will	have	been	being	taken

An example of all being used is "He might have been being used by the CIA as part of their debriefing procedure, but he might just as easily have been part of the Russians' plans to use Oswald in America." Here, the verb phrase is: might (modal) have (perfect) been (progressive) being (passive) used (lexical).

Polarity

Grammatical polarity

Grammatical polarity is the distinction of affirmative and negative. In English, grammatical polarity is generally indicated by the presence or absence of the modifier not, which negates the statement. Many other languages contain similar modifiers: Italian and Interlingua have non, Spanish has...

is constructed with "not" or the clitic

Clitic

In morphology and syntax, a clitic is a morpheme that is grammatically independent, but phonologically dependent on another word or phrase. It is pronounced like an affix, but works at the phrase level...

"n't", which can combine with auxiliary verbs, such as "do not" becoming "don't". This negates the meaning of the clause. The word "not" follows the first verb. For example: "He will not have been taken away."

Tense

Verb phrases can vary with tense, in which case they are called "tensed verb phrases." Example:

"They have accomplished a lot this year, but they accomplished even more last year."

There are several non-finite constructions

Non-finite verb

In linguistics, a non-finite verb is a verb form that is not limited by a subject and, more generally, is not fully inflected by categories that are marked inflectionally in language, such as tense, aspect, mood, number, gender, and person...

as well:

The infinitive
Infinitive
In grammar, infinitive is the name for certain verb forms that exist in many languages. In the usual description of English, the infinitive of a verb is its basic form with or without the particle to: therefore, do and to do, be and to be, and so on are infinitives...

phrase with "to". Examples:
- "Did you see her, chief—did you get a glimpse of her pleasant countenance, or come close enough to her ear, to sing in it the song she loves to hear?'"
- "She got so she could tell big stories herself from listening to the rest. Because she loved to hear it, and the men loved to hear themselves, they would 'woof' and 'boogerboo' around the games to the limit."
Constructions with the "-ing" form, called the gerund
Gerund
In linguistics* As applied to English, it refers to the usage of a verb as a noun ....

or present participle
Participle
In linguistics, a participle is a word that shares some characteristics of both verbs and adjectives. It can be used in compound verb tenses or voices , or as a modifier...

. Examples:
- "From the very beginning, Coltrane was an indefatigable worker at his saxophone spending hours upon hours practicing every day."
- "By assuming a good position and by practicing every day he will in time acquire a feeling and an appearance of ease before people."

The time frame of a non-tensed verb phrase is determined by examining that of the main clause verb. For example, in the first example above the time frame (past) of "practicing" is determined by "was" in the main clause; in the second, the time frame (present and future) of "practicing" is determined by "will in time," also in the main clause.

Aspect

Verb phrases can also express three aspects

Grammatical aspect

In linguistics, the grammatical aspect of a verb is a grammatical category that defines the temporal flow in a given action, event, or state, from the point of view of the speaker...

: progressive, perfect, and habitual
Habitual aspect
In linguistics, the aspect of a verb is a grammatical category that defines the temporal flow in a given action, event, or state. As its name suggests, the habitual aspect specifies an action as occurring habitually: the subject performs the action usually, ordinarily, or customarily...

.

Progressive aspect

The progressive aspect refers to ongoing, uncompleted action and consists of the auxiliary

Auxiliary verb

be form and the -ing form of the lexical verb. Examples:

"Landlord, chambermaid, waiter rush to the door; but just as some distinguished guests are arriving, the curtains close, and the invisible theatrical manager cries out, 'Second syllable!' "
"She made her curtsy, and was departing when the wretched young captain sprang up, looked at her, and sank back on the sofa with another wild laugh."
"Restless, exciting and witty, he cannot resist a fantastic theory ..., so that one might be meeting Synge, Fielding, and Aldous Huxley, and on the same page." (an example with a modal verb)

The progressive aspect cannot be formed for non-tensed

Non-finite verb

-ing forms. For example, "By working every day, he had learned the peculiarities, the weaknesses and strengths, of opposing batters ..." cannot be changed to *"By being working every day, ...."

Progressive aspect can be combined with "to"-infinitive

Infinitive

In grammar, infinitive is the name for certain verb forms that exist in many languages. In the usual description of English, the infinitive of a verb is its basic form with or without the particle to: therefore, do and to do, be and to be, and so on are infinitives...

forms in a verb phrase.

"He loved to sit by the open window when the wind was east, and seemed to be dreaming of faraway scenes."

Perfect aspect

The perfect aspect is created by the auxiliary "have" and the "-ed" participle form of the lexical verb. It refers to a time period that includes the present moment. Contrast "The flowers didn't bloom this summer" with "The flowers haven't bloomed this summer." The latter sentence suggests that the summer is not over yet.

Examples:

"You might (modal) have invited (perfect) the Hatter to the tea-party." (with a modal verb)

The perfect can be combined with the -ing and the to-infinitive forms.

"Having turned the TV on, he now mindlessly flicked through the channels."
"To have run the marathon, she would have needed to be in good shape."

Finally, the two aspects progressive and perfect can be combined in a verb phrase: "They've been laughing so hard that their sides hurt."

Habitual aspect

The habitual aspect refers to an action or situation which occurred usually, ordinarily, or customarily. English can optionally mark for this aspect in the past tense, in one of two ways:

"In those days we would dance all night."
"We used to dance all night."

The "would" form requires explicit reference to a past time, while the "used to" formation forbids a very specific time reference, permitting either a vague past time reference or none at all.

Voice

The passive voice
Passive voice
Passive voice is a grammatical voice common in many of the world's languages. Passive is used in a clause whose subject expresses the theme or patient of the main verb. That is, the subject undergoes an action or has its state changed. A sentence whose theme is marked as grammatical subject is...

, which provides information about the roles of different participants in an event, is formed with the auxiliary "be" and the "-ed" participle

Participle

In linguistics, a participle is a word that shares some characteristics of both verbs and adjectives. It can be used in compound verb tenses or voices , or as a modifier...

form of the lexical verb. If this construction is not used, the clause is said to be in the "active" voice. In clauses in the passive voice, the noun phrase with a nominative function (which precedes the verb) plays the semantic role that would be played in a clause in the active voice by a noun phrase with a objective function (which would follow the verb).

The agent

Agent (grammar)

In linguistics, a grammatical agent is the cause or initiator of an event. Agent is the name of the thematic role...

of a verb can optionally be expressed in a prepositional phrases with "by".

Examples:

(Active voice) "The older critics slammed the play with vituperation inexplicable unless one attributes it to homophobia."
(Passive voice) "The play was slammed by the older critics with vituperation inexplicable unless one attributes it to homophobia."

(Active voice) "Ever notice how the critics slammed her until the actors started doing it themselves?"
(Passive voice) "Ever notice how she was (past of "be") slammed (-ed participle) by the critics until the actors started doing it themselves?"

"And if they couldn't get a handle on it soon, cities and towns all up and down the Eastern Seaboard could (modal) be slammed (passive) by the biggest storm of the year ...." (with a modal verb)
"The wind had picked up. The boat was being slammed by the swells, and floundering." (with progressive aspect)
"Although, alas, it's not such an exclusive club. I've sent them to everyone who has been slammed by that dreadful woman." (with perfect aspect)

The verb "get" is sometimes used to construct passive clauses: "She got beaten at her own game."

Passive voice can be combined with non-tensed verbs

Non-finite verb

such as "-ing" form and the "to-" infinitive

Infinitive

"There he was—getting slammed by the critics—and still taking the high road."
"We were about to be slammed by an 80-foot breaking wave."

Mood

A verb phrase can also express mood, which refers to the "factual or non-factual status of events." There are three moods in English: indicative, imperative, and subjunctive.
Indicative mood
The indicative is the most common mood in English. It is a factual mood, and most constructions involving the various choices of person, tense, number, aspect, modality are in the indicative mood. Examples:

"She will have a hangover tomorrow morning."
"The Prime Minister and his cabinet were discussing the matter on that fateful day in 1939."

Imperative mood
The imperative mood is a non-factual mood and is employed for issuing directives:. It is identical to the second person form of the verb except for the verb "be", in which case the form "be" is used. Clauses in the imperative mood usually do not include a subject, but a subject such as "you" sometimes does.

"Be careful!"
"You stand over there."
"Keep your eyes on the prize, hold on
Keep Your Eyes on the Prize
"Keep Your Eyes on the Prize" is a folk song that became influential during the American civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s. Although the song was composed as a hymn well before World War I, the lyrics to this version were written by civil rights activist Alice Wine in 1956...

"
"Your father's urn is on the backseat. Just leave the keys in the cup holder."
"Halt!"

Subjunctive mood

The subjunctive mood is also a non-factual mood.

The present subjunctive refers to demands or desires This uses the bare form of the verb (without inflections). The present subjunctive is rare in English and is used in subordinate clauses only in combination with a particular set of main-clause verbs such as "demand", "request", "suggest", "ask", "plead", "pray", "insist", and so forth.

Present subjunctives can be used after conditional subordinators.

"I accepted on the condition that I not be given a starring role."

They can also be used after expressions of necessity.

"Two nuns are asked to paint a room in the convent, and the last instruction of Mother Superior is that they not get even a drop of paint on their habits."

Other examples of the present subjunctive include:

"I demanded that Sheriff Jeanfreau stay. I even wanted worthless and annoying Ugly Henderson to stay."
"'I suggest that you not exercise your temper overmuch,' Mayne said, and the French tinge in his voice sounded truly dangerous now."
"'If he is a spy,' said Gorgik, 'I would rather he not know who I am."
"Whenever a prisoner alleges physical abuse, it is imperative that the prisoner be seen by an officer at the earliest possible opportunity."

The past subjunctive refers to hypothetical situations. It is identical to the preterite form of the verb for all verbs other than "be". For "be", "were" is preferred to the preterite form "was" in formal English, although "was" is still possible.

"If we finished early we could leave early."
"'Lin said, turning toward Pei, "I'm afraid she's excited at seeing me home again." Pei smiled. "I would be too, if I were she."

A protasis

Protasis (linguistics)

In linguistics, a protasis is the subordinate clause in a conditional sentence. For example, in "if X, then Y", the protasis is "if X"...

clause whose main verb is "be", which is conjugated in the past tense and subjunctive mood and is followed by an infinitive phrase with "to", denotes future hypothetical situations:

"She would be healthier were she to drink less.

or equivalently,

"She would be healthier if she were to drink less.

Adjuncts

The label adjunct refers to any part of a sentence which could be removed without leaving behind something ungrammatical. Adjuncts are usually adverbial in nature. For example, in the sentence ‘I met John yesterday’, the adverb yesterday is an adjunct because it can be removed without producing ungrammaticality.

Similarly, in the sentence ‘I visited France during the summer’, the adverbial phrase ‘during the summer’ is an adjunct because it can be removed without leaving behind a sentence fragment which is ungrammatical.

Verb complementation

Different verbs can be followed by different kinds of words and structures. For example, after a verb like write or read, it is normal to expect a noun, in which case the verb is being used transitively. Phrasal verbs contain a verb and a preposition or adverb; for example, wait for, followed by a noun object, has a different meaning from wait without for. Suggest can be followed by an object in the form of a that-clause or by an –ing form, but not an infinitive. There are no simple rules for determining what kind of structures can follow what verbs.

Transitive and intransitive verbs
Some verbs are usually followed by objects. In grammars these are called transitive verbs. Examples are invite, surprise, give, fill, etc. In what follows, the verbs are boldfaced and the objects are italicized:

I have invited my friends. (BUT NOT I have invited.)

She surprised us. (BUT NOT She surprised.)

Some transitive verbs are followed by two objects (indirect and direct).

I gave him a book. (BUT NOT I gave.)

Some verbs are not normally followed by direct objects. These are called intransitive verbs. Examples are: sit and sleep.

I didn’t sleep well.

Ergative verbs
An ergative verb is a verb which can be either intransitive or transitive. When it is used as an intransitive verb it is the subject that is receiving the action. When it is used as a transitive verb the direct object is receiving the action, and the subject is the person or thing causing the action.

Some common ergative verbs are: open, sink, wake, melt, boil, collapse, explode, freeze, start and sell.

The ship sank. (Intransitive)

The explosion sank the ship. (Transitive)

The kettle is boiling. (Intransitive)

Boil the water. (Transitive)

The ice melted. (Intransitive)

The sun melted the ice. (Transitive)

Sentence and clause patterns

Identified in English by a capitalized initial letter in its first word and by a period (or full stop) at the end of its last word, the sentence is the largest constituent of grammar. Sentences themselves consist of clauses which are the principal constituents of grammar.

Clause types

Independent

An independent clause is characterized by having a subject and predicate without any words or phrases that link the function of that clause to another clause, and whose meaning is not dependent upon that of any other clause. Examples of independent clauses include relatively simple sentences, such as

"My mother baked a cake."
"The dog was brown."

However, independent clauses can also be longer sentences that contain many prepositional and other phrases:

"Considering the alternative, the certain demise of our dear friend is quite comforting."
"Altruism in its purest sense can claim no interest in or motive for or boon from the benefit of another."

An independent clause can appear in the same sentence as a dependent clause, instead of constituting an entire sentence.

Dependent

A dependent clause is characterized by having a subject and predicate and a word or phrase (either explicit or implied) that links the function of that clause to another clause, making the meaning of the dependent clause dependent upon the other clause. The key here is the addition of some word or phrase that causes the entire clause to function in a broader sense, such as cause or background. In the following examples, the dependent clause is boldfaced, while the rest of the sentence is the independent clause:

"Because it was my birthday, my mother baked a cake."
"Although its bloodline included two Dalmatians, the dog was brown."
"I thought that he would go."
"I thought he would go."
"He is the person who saw me."
"He is the person whom I saw."
"He is the person I saw."

History of English grammars

The first English grammar, Pamphlet for Grammar by William Bullokar, written with the ostensible goal of demonstrating that English was just as rule-based as Latin, was published in 1586. Bullokar’s grammar was faithfully modeled on William Lily’s Latin grammar, Rudimenta Grammatices (1534), which was being used in schools in England at that time, having been “prescribed” for them in 1542 by Henry VIII. Although Bullokar wrote his grammar in English and used a “reformed spelling system” of his own invention, many English grammars, for much of the century after Bullokar’s effort, were written in Latin, especially by authors who were aiming to be scholarly. John Wallis’s Grammatica Linguæ Anglicanæ (1685) was the last English grammar written in Latin.

Even as late as the early 19th century, Lindley Murray, the author of one of the most widely used grammars of the day, was having to cite “grammatical authorities” to bolster the claim that grammatical cases in English are different from those in Ancient Greek or Latin.

External links

English Grammar, wikibook
Wikibooks
Wikibooks is a Wiki hosted by the Wikimedia Foundation for the creation of free content textbooks and annotated texts that anyone can edit....

in English
A Friendly Grammar of English by Robert de Beaugrande
Modern English Grammar by Daniel Kies
Grammar lessons, rules, and news for everyday use by Jennifer Frost
The Internet Grammar of English.
A Short Overview of English Syntax by Rodney Huddleston (based on The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language)
The interactive Grammar of English; iGE by Bas Aarts and Sean Wallis. App for Apple hand-held devices and Android phones.

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

Word classes and phrase classes

Nouns

Noun phrases

Order of determiners

Determiners

Pronouns

Personal pronouns

Demonstrative pronouns

Relative pronouns

Verbs

Regular and irregular lexical verbs

Auxiliary verbs

History of English verbs

Adjectives

Adjective phrases

Adverbs

Adverb placement

Adverb phrases

Prepositions

Prepositional phrases

Conjunctions

Clause syntax

Verb phrases

Tense

Aspect

Voice

Mood

Adjuncts

Verb complementation

Transitive and intransitive verbs

Ergative verbs

Sentence and clause patterns

Clause types

History of English grammars

See also

Grammar books

Monographs

External links