What is the word the called in grammar

When you start breaking it down, the English language is pretty complicated—especially if you’re trying to learn it from scratch! One of the most important English words to understand is the.

But what part of speech is the word the, and when should it be used in a sentence? Is the word the a preposition? Is the a pronoun? Or is the word the considered a different part of speech?

To help you learn exactly how the word the works in the English language, we’re going to do the following in this article:

• Answer the question, «What part of speech is the?»
• Explain how to use the correctly in sentences, with examples
• Provide a full list of other words that are classified as the same part of speech as the in the English language

Okay, let’s get started learning about the word the!

In the English language the word the is classified as an article, which is a word used to define a noun. (More on that a little later.)

But an article isn’t one of the eight parts of speech. Articles are considered a type of adjective, so «the» is technically an adjective as well. However, «the» can also sometimes function as an adverb in certain instances, too.

In short, the word «the» is an article that functions as both an adjective and an adverb, depending on how it’s being used. Having said that, the is most commonly used as an article in the English language. So, if you were wondering, «Is the a pronoun, preposition, or conjunction,» the answer is no: it’s an article, adjective, and an adverb!

While we might think of an article as a story that appears in a newspaper or website, in English grammar, articles are words that help specify nouns.

The as an Article

So what are «articles» in the English language? Articles are words that identify nouns in order to demonstrate whether the noun is specific or nonspecific. Nouns (a person, place, thing, or idea) can be identified by two different types of articles in the English language: definite articles identify specific nouns, and indefinite articles identify nonspecific nouns.

The word the is considered a definite article because it defines the meaning of a noun as one particular thing. It’s an article that gives a noun a definite meaning: a definite article. Generally, definite articles are used to identify nouns that the audience already knows about. Here’s a few examples of how «the» works as a definite article:

We went to the rodeo on Saturday. Did you see the cowboy get trampled by the bull?

This (grisly!) sentence has three instances of «the» functioning as a definite article: the rodeo, the cowboy, and the bull. Notice that in each instance, the comes directly before the noun. That’s because it’s an article’s job to identify nouns.

In each of these three instances, the refers to a specific (or definite) person, place, or thing. When the speaker says the rodeo, they’re talking about one specific rodeo that happened at a certain place and time. The same goes for the cowboy and the bull: these are two specific people/animals that had one kinda terrible thing happen to them!

It can be a bit easier to see how definite articles work if you see them in the same sentence as an indefinite article (a or an). This sentence makes the difference a lot more clear:

A bat flew into the restaurant and made people panic.

Okay. This sentence has two articles in it: a and the. So what’s the difference? Well, you use a when you’re referring to a general, non-specific person, place, or thing because its an indefinite article. So in this case, using a tells us this isn’t a specific bat. It’s just a random bat from the wild that decided to go on an adventure.

Notice that in the example, the writer uses the to refer to the restaurant. That’s because the event happened at a specific time and at a specific place. A bat flew into one particular restaurant to cause havoc, which is why it’s referred to as the restaurant in the sentence.

The last thing to keep in mind is that the is the only definite article in the English language, and it can be used with both singular and plural nouns. This is probably one reason why people make the mistake of asking, «Is the a pronoun?» Since articles, including the, define the meaning of nouns, it seems like they could also be combined with pronouns. But that’s not the case. Just remember: articles only modify nouns.

Adjectives are words that help describe nouns. Because «the» can describe whether a noun is a specific object or not, «the» is also considered an adjective.

The as an Adjective

You know now that the is classified as a definite article and that the is used to refer to a specific person, place, or thing. But defining what part of speech articles are is a little bit tricky.

There are eight parts of speech in the English language: nouns, pronouns, verbs, adverbs, adjectives, prepositions, conjunctions, and interjections. The thing about these eight parts of speech in English is that they contain smaller categories of types of words and phrases in the English language. Articles are considered a type of determiner, which is a type of adjective.

Let’s break down how articles fall under the umbrella of «determiners,» which fall under the umbrella of adjectives. In English, the category of «determiners» includes all words and phrases in the English language that are combined with a noun to express an aspect of what the noun is referring to. Some examples of determiners are the, a, an, this, that, my, their, many, few, several, each, and any. The is used in front of a noun to express that the noun refers to a specific thing, right? So that’s why «the» can be considered a determiner.

And here’s how determiners—including the article the—can be considered adjectives. Articles and other determiners are sometimes classified as adjectives because they describe the nouns that they precede. Technically, the describes the noun it precedes by communicating specificity and directness. When you say, «the duck,» you’re describing the noun «duck» as referring to a specific duck. This is different than saying a duck, which could mean any one duck anywhere in the world!

When «the» comes directly before a word that’s not a noun, then it’s operating as an adverb instead of an adjective.

The as an Adverb

Finally, we mentioned that the can also be used as an adverb, which is one of the eight main parts of speech we outlined above. Adverbs modify or describe verbs, adjectives, or other adverbs, but never modify nouns.

Sometimes, the can be used to modify adverbs or adjectives that occur in the comparative degree. Adverbs or adjectives that compare the amounts or intensity of a feeling, state of being, or action characterizing two or more things are in the comparative degree. Sometimes the appears before these adverbs or adjectives to help convey the comparison!

Here’s an example where the functions as an adverb instead of an article/adjective:

Lainey believes the most outrageous things.

Okay. We know that when the is functioning as an adjective, it comes before a noun in order to clarify whether it’s specific or non-specific. In this case, however, the precedes the word most, which isn’t a noun—it’s an adjective. And since an adverb modifies an adjective, adverb, or verb, that means the functions as an adverb in this sentence.

We know that can be a little complicated, so let’s dig into another example together:

Giovanni’s is the best pizza place in Montana.

The trick to figuring out whether the article the is functioning as an adjective or an adverb is pretty simple: just look at the word directly after the and figure out its part of speech. If that word is a noun, then the is functioning as an adjective. If that word isn’t a noun, then the is functioning like an adverb.

Now, reread the second example. The word the comes before the word best. Is best a noun? No, it isn’t. Best is an adjective, so we know that the is working like an adverb in this sentence.

How to Use The Correctly in Sentences

An important part of answering the question, «What part of speech is the word the?» includes explaining how to use the correctly in a sentence. Articles like the are some of the most common words used in the English language. So you need to know how and when to use it! And since using the as an adverb is less common, we’ll provide examples of how the can be used as an adverb as well.

Using The as an Article

In general, it is correct and appropriate to use the in front of a noun of any kind when you want to convey specificity. It’s often assumed that you use the to refer to a specific person, place, or thing that the person you’re speaking to will already be aware of. Oftentimes, this shared awareness of who, what, or where «the» is referring to is created by things already said in the conversation, or by context clues in a given social situation.

Let’s look at an example here:

Say you’re visiting a friend who just had a baby. You’re sitting in the kitchen at your friend’s house while your friend makes coffee. The baby, who has been peacefully dozing in a bassinet in the living room, begins crying. Your friend turns to you and asks, «Can you hold the baby while I finish doing this?»

Now, because of all of the context surrounding the social situation, you know which baby your friend is referring to when they say, the baby. There’s no need for further clarification, because in this case, the gives enough direct and specific meaning to the noun baby for you to know what to do!

In many cases, using the to define a noun requires less or no awareness of an immediate social situation because people have a shared common knowledge of the noun that the is referring to. Here are two examples:

Are you going to watch the eclipse tomorrow?

Did you hear what the President said this morning?

In the first example, the speaker is referring to a natural phenomenon that most people are aware of—eclipses are cool and rare! When there’s going to be an eclipse, everyone knows about it. If you started a conversation with someone by saying, «Are you going to watch the eclipse tomorrow?» it’s pretty likely they’d know which eclipse the is referring to.

In the second example, if an American speaking to another American mentions what the President said, the other American is likely going to assume that the refers to the President of the United States. Conversely, if two Canadians said this to one another, they would likely assume they’re talking about the Canadian prime minister!

So in many situations, using the before a noun gives that noun specific meaning in the context of a particular social situation.

Using The as an Adverb

Now let’s look at an example of how «the» can be used as an adverb. Take a look at this sample sentence:

The tornado warning made it all the more likely that the game would be canceled.

Remember how we explained that the can be combined with adverbs that are making a comparison of levels or amounts of something between two entities? The example above shows how the can be combined with an adverb in such a situation. The is combined with more and likely to form an adverbial phrase.

So how do you figure this out? Well, if the words immediately after the are adverbs, then the is functioning as an adverb, too!

Here’s another example of how the can be used as an adverb:

I had the worst day ever.

In this case, the is being combined with the adverb worst to compare the speaker’s day to the other days. Compared to all the other days ever, this person’s was the worst…period. Some other examples of adverbs that you might see the combined with include all the better, the best, the bigger, the shorter, and all the sooner.

One thing that can help clarify which adverbs the can be combined with is to check out a list of comparative and superlative adverbs and think about which ones the makes sense with!

3 Articles in the English Language

Now that we’ve answered the question, «What part of speech is the?», you know that the is classified as an article. To help you gain a better understanding of what articles are and how they function in the English language, here’s a handy list of 3 words in the English language that are also categorized as articles.

Article	Type of Article	What It Does	Example Sentence
The	Definite Article	Modifies nouns by giving them a specific meaning	Please fold the laundry. Do you want to go to the concert?
A	Indefinite Article	Modifies a noun that refers to a general idea; appears before nouns that begin with a consonant.	Do you want to go to a concert?
An	Indefinite Article	Modifies a noun that refers to a general idea; appears before nouns that begin with a vowel.	Do you want to go to an arcade? Let’s get an iguana.

What’s Next?

If you’re looking for more grammar resources, be sure to check out our guides on every grammar rule you need to know to ace the SAT (or the ACT)!

Learning more about English grammar can be really helpful when you’re studying a foreign language, too. We highly recommend that you study a foreign language in high school—not only is it great for you, it looks great on college applications, too. If you’re not sure which language to study, check out this helpful article that will make your decision a lot easier.

Speaking of applying for college…one of the most important parts of your application packet is your essay. Check out this expert guide to writing college essays that will help you get into your dream school.

Have friends who also need help with test prep? Share this article!

English grammar is the set of structural rules of the English language. This includes the structure of words, phrases, clauses, sentences, and whole texts.

This article describes a generalized, present-day Standard English – a form of speech and writing used in public discourse, including broadcasting, education, entertainment, government, and news, over a range of registers, from formal to informal. Divergences from the grammar described here occur in some historical, social, cultural, and regional varieties of English, although these are more minor than differences in pronunciation and vocabulary.

Modern English has largely abandoned the inflectional case system of Indo-European in favor of analytic constructions. The personal pronouns retain morphological case more strongly than any other word class (a remnant of the more extensive Germanic case system of Old English). For other pronouns, and all nouns, adjectives, and articles, grammatical function is indicated only by word order, by prepositions, and by the «Saxon genitive or English possessive» (-‘s).^[1]

Eight «word classes» or «parts of speech» are commonly distinguished in English: nouns, determiners, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, and conjunctions. Nouns form the largest word class, and verbs the second-largest. Unlike nouns in almost all other Indo-European languages, English nouns (with a few uncommon, non-mandatory exceptions) do not have grammatical gender.

Word classes and phrases[edit]

Nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs forms are called open classes – word classes that readily accept new members, such as the noun celebutante (a celebrity who frequents the fashion circles), and other similar relatively new words.^[2] The others are considered to be closed classes. For example, it is rare for a new pronoun to enter the language. Determiners, traditionally classified along with adjectives, have not always been regarded as a separate part of speech. Interjections are another word class, but these are not described here as they do not form part of the clause and sentence structure of the language.^[2]

Linguists generally accept nine English word classes: nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, pronouns, prepositions, conjunctions, determiners, and exclamations. English words are not generally marked for word class. It is not usually possible to tell from the form of a word which class it belongs to except, to some extent, in the case of words with inflectional endings or derivational suffixes. On the other hand, most words belong to more than one-word class. For example, run can serve as either a verb or a noun (these are regarded as two different lexemes).^[3] Lexemes may be inflected to express different grammatical categories. The lexeme run has the forms runs, ran, runny, runner, and running.^[3] Words in one class can sometimes be derived from those in another. This has the potential to give rise to new words. The noun aerobics has recently given rise to the adjective aerobicized.^[3]

Words combine to form phrases. A phrase typically serves the same function as a word from some particular word class.^[3] For example, my very good friend Peter is a phrase that can be used in a sentence as if it were a noun, and is therefore called a noun phrase. Similarly, adjectival phrases and adverbial phrases function as if they were adjectives or adverbs, but with other types of phrases, the terminology has different implications. For example, a verb phrase consists of a verb together with any objects and other dependents; a prepositional phrase consists of a preposition and its complement (and is therefore usually a type of adverbial phrase); and a determiner phrase is a type of noun phrase containing a determiner.

Nouns[edit]

Many common suffixes form nouns from other nouns or from other types of words, such as -age (as in shrinkage), -hood (as in sisterhood), and so on,^[3] although many nouns are base forms not containing any such suffix (such as cat, grass, France). Nouns are also often created by conversion of verbs or adjectives, as with the words talk and reading (a boring talk, the assigned reading).

Nouns are sometimes classified semantically (by their meanings) as proper nouns and common nouns (Cyrus, China vs. frog, milk) or as concrete nouns and abstract nouns (book, laptop vs. embarrassment, prejudice).^[4] A grammatical distinction is often made between count (countable) nouns such as clock and city, and non-count (uncountable) nouns such as milk and decor.^[5] Some nouns can function both as countable and as uncountable such as the word «wine» (This is a good wine, I prefer red wine).

Countable nouns generally have singular and plural forms.^[4] In most cases the plural is formed from the singular by adding -[e]s (as in dogs, bushes), although there are also irregular forms (woman/women, foot/feet, etc.), including cases where the two forms are identical (sheep, series). For more details, see English plural. Certain nouns can be used with plural verbs even though they are singular in form, as in The government were … (where the government is considered to refer to the people constituting the government). This is a form of synesis; it is more common in British than American English. See English plural § Singulars with collective meaning treated as plural.

English nouns are not marked for case as they are in some languages, but they have possessive forms, through the addition of -‘s (as in John’s, children’s) or just an apostrophe (with no change in pronunciation) in the case of -[e]s plurals and sometimes other words ending with -s (the dogs’ owners, Jesus’ love). More generally, the ending can be applied to noun phrases (as in the man you saw yesterday’s sister); see below. The possessive form can be used either as a determiner (John’s cat) or as a noun phrase (John’s is the one next to Jane’s).

The status of the possessive as an affix or a clitic is the subject of debate.^[6][7] It differs from the noun inflection of languages such as German, in that the genitive ending may attach to the last word of the phrase. To account for this, the possessive can be analysed, for instance as a clitic construction (an «enclitic postposition»^[8]) or as an inflection^[9][10] of the last word of a phrase («edge inflection»).

Phrases[edit]

Noun phrases are phrases that function grammatically as nouns within sentences, for example as the subject or object of a verb. Most noun phrases have a noun as their head.^[5]

An English noun phrase typically takes the following form (not all elements need be present):

Determiner	+	Pre-modifiers	+	NOUN	+	Postmodifiers/Complement

In this structure:

• the determiner may be an article (the, a[n]) or other equivalent word, as described in the following section. In many contexts, it is required for a noun phrase to include some determiner.
• pre-modifiers include adjectives and some adjective phrases (such as red, really lovely), and noun adjuncts (such as college in the phrase the college student). Adjectival modifiers usually come before noun adjuncts.
• a complement or postmodifier^[5] may be a prepositional phrase (… of London), a relative clause (like …which we saw yesterday), certain adjective or participial phrases (… sitting on the beach), or a dependent clause or infinitive phrase appropriate to the noun (like … that the world is round after a noun such as fact or statement, or … to travel widely after a noun such as desire).

An example of a noun phrase that includes all of the above-mentioned elements is that rather attractive young college student to whom you were talking. Here that is the determiner, rather attractive and young are adjectival pre-modifiers, college is a noun adjunct, student is the noun serving as the head of the phrase, and to whom you were talking is a post-modifier (a relative clause in this case). Notice the order of the pre-modifiers; the determiner that must come first and the noun adjunct college must come after the adjectival modifiers.

Coordinating conjunctions such as and, or, and but can be used at various levels in noun phrases, as in John, Paul, and Mary; the matching green coat and hat; a dangerous but exciting ride; a person sitting down or standing up. See § Conjunctions below for more explanation.

Noun phrases can also be placed in apposition (where two consecutive phrases refer to the same thing), as in that president, Abraham Lincoln, … (where that president and Abraham Lincoln are in apposition). In some contexts, the same can be expressed by a prepositional phrase, as in the twin curses of famine and pestilence (meaning «the twin curses» that are «famine and pestilence»).

Particular forms of noun phrases include:

• phrases formed by the determiner the with an adjective, as in the homeless, the English (these are plural phrases referring to homeless people or English people in general);
• phrases with a pronoun rather than a noun as the head (see below);
• phrases consisting just of a possessive;
• infinitive and gerund phrases, in certain positions;
• certain clauses, such as that clauses and relative clauses like what he said, in certain positions.

Gender[edit]

A system of grammatical gender, whereby every noun was treated as either masculine, feminine or neuter, existed in Old English, but fell out of use during the Middle English period. Modern English retains features relating to natural gender, namely the use of certain nouns and pronouns (such as he and she) to refer specifically to persons or animals of one or other genders and certain others (such as it) for sexless objects – although feminine pronouns are sometimes used when referring to ships (and more uncommonly some airplanes and analogous machinery) and nation-states.

Some aspects of gender usage in English have been influenced by the movement towards a preference for gender-neutral language. Animals are triple-gender nouns, being able to take masculine, feminine and neuter pronouns.^[11] Generally there is no difference between male and female in English nouns. However, gender is occasionally exposed by different shapes or dissimilar words when referring to people or animals.^[12]

Masculine	Feminine	Gender neutral
man	woman	adult
boy	girl	child
husband	wife	spouse
actor	actress	performer
rooster	hen	chicken

Many nouns that mention people’s roles and jobs can refer to either a masculine or a feminine subject, for instance «cousin», «teenager», «teacher», «doctor», «student», «friend», and «colleague».^[12]

• Jane is my friend. She is a dentist.
• Paul is my cousin. He is a dentist.

Often the gender distinction for these neutral nouns is established by inserting the words «male» or «female».^[12]

• Sam is a female doctor.
• No, he is not my boyfriend; he is just a male friend.
• I have three female cousins and two male cousins.

Rarely, nouns illustrating things with no gender are referred to with a gendered pronoun to convey familiarity. It is also standard to use the gender-neutral pronoun (it).^[12]

• I love my car. She (the car) is my greatest passion.
• France is popular with her (France’s) neighbors at the moment.
• I traveled from England to New York on the Queen Elizabeth; she (Queen Elizabeth) is a great ship.

Determiners[edit]

English determiners constitute a relatively small class of words. They include the articles the and a[n]; certain demonstrative and interrogative words such as this, that, and which; possessives such as my and whose (the role of determiner can also be played by noun possessive forms such as John’s and the girl’s); various quantifying words like all, some, many, various; and numerals (one, two, etc.). There are also many phrases (such as a couple of) that can play the role of determiners.

Determiners are used in the formation of noun phrases (see above). Many words that serve as determiners can also be used as pronouns (this, that, many, etc.).

Determiners can be used in certain combinations, such as all the water and the many problems.

In many contexts, it is required for a noun phrase to be completed with an article or some other determiner. It is not grammatical to say just cat sat on table; one must say my cat sat on the table. The most common situations in which a complete noun phrase can be formed without a determiner are when it refers generally to a whole class or concept (as in dogs are dangerous and beauty is subjective) and when it is a name (Jane, Spain, etc.). This is discussed in more detail at English articles and Zero article in English.

Pronouns[edit]

Pronouns are a relatively small, closed class of words that function in the place of nouns or noun phrases. They include personal pronouns, demonstrative pronouns, relative pronouns, interrogative pronouns, and some others, mainly indefinite pronouns. The full set of English pronouns is presented in the following table. Nonstandard, informal and archaic forms are in italics.

	Nominative	Accusative	Reflexive	Independent genitive	Dependent genitive
(subject)	(object)		(possessive)
First-person	Singular	I	me	myself	mine	my mine (before vowel) me (esp. BrE)
Plural	we	us	ourselves ourself	ours	our
Second-person	Singular	Standard (archaic plural and later formal)	you	you	yourself	yours	your
Archaic informal	thou	thee	thyself	thine	thy thine (before vowel)
Plural	Standard	you	you	yourselves	yours	your
Archaic	ye	you	yourselves	yours	your
Nonstandard	ye you all y’all youse etc. (see above)	ye you all y’all youse	yeerselves y’all’s (or y’alls) selves	yeers y’all’s (or y’alls)	yeer y’all’s (or y’alls)
Third-person	Singular	Masculine	he	him	himself	his
Feminine	she	her	herself	hers	her
Neuter	it	it	itself	its	its
Epicene	they	them	themselves themself	theirs	their
Plural	they	them	themselves	theirs	their
Generic	Formal	one	one	oneself		one’s
Informal	you	you	yourself	your	your
Wh-	Relative & interrogative	For persons	who	whom who		whose†	whose
Non-personal	what	what
Relative only	which	which
Reciprocal		each other one another
Dummy	there it

^† Interrogative only.

Personal[edit]

The personal pronouns of modern standard English are presented in the table above. They are I, you, she, he, it, we, and they. The personal pronouns are so-called not because they apply to persons (which other pronouns also do), but because they participate in the system of grammatical person (1st, 2nd, 3rd).

The second-person forms such as you are used with both singular and plural reference. In the Southern United States, y’all (you all) is used as a plural form, and various other phrases such as you guys are used in other places. An archaic set of second-person pronouns used for singular reference is thou, thee, thyself, thy, thine, which are still used in religious services and can be seen in older works, such as Shakespeare’s—in such texts, the you set of pronouns are used for plural reference, or with singular reference as a formal V-form. You can also be used as an indefinite pronoun, referring to a person in general (see generic you), compared to the more formal alternative, one (reflexive oneself, possessive one’s).

The third-person singular forms are differentiated according to the gender of the referent. For example, she is used to refer to a woman, sometimes a female animal, and sometimes an object to which feminine characteristics are attributed, such as a ship or a country. A man, and sometimes a male animal, is referred to using he. In other cases, it can be used. (See Gender in English.) The word it can also be used as a dummy subject, concerning abstract ideas like time, weather, etc.

The third-person form they is used with both plural and singular referents. Historically, singular they was restricted to quantificational constructions such as Each employee should clean their desk and referential cases where the referent’s gender was unknown. However, it is increasingly used when the referent’s gender is irrelevant or when the referent is neither male nor female.

The possessive determiners such as my are used as determiners together with nouns, as in my old man, some of his friends. The second possessive forms like mine are used when they do not qualify a noun: as pronouns, as in mine is bigger than yours, and as predicates, as in this one is mine. Note also the construction a friend of mine (meaning «someone who is my friend»). See English possessive for more details.

Demonstrative[edit]

The demonstrative pronouns of English are this (plural these), and that (plural those), as in these are good, I like that. Note that all four words can also be used as determiners (followed by a noun), as in those cars. They can also form the alternative pronominal expressions this/that one, these/those ones.

Interrogative[edit]

The interrogative pronouns are who, what, and which (all of them can take the suffix -ever for emphasis). The pronoun who refers to a person or people; it has an oblique form whom (though in informal contexts this is usually replaced by who), and a possessive form (pronoun or determiner) whose. The pronoun what refers to things or abstracts. The word which is used to ask about alternatives from what is seen as a closed set: which (of the books) do you like best? (It can also be an interrogative determiner: which book?; this can form the alternative pronominal expressions which one and which ones.) Which, who, and what can be either singular or plural, although who and what often take a singular verb regardless of any supposed number. For more information see who.

In Old and Middle English, the roles of the three words were different from their roles today. «The interrogative pronoun hwā ‘who, what’ had only singular forms and also only distinguished between non-neuter and neuter, the neuter nominative form being hwæt.» ^[13] Note that neuter and non-neuter refers to the grammatical gender system of the time, rather than the so-called natural gender system of today. A small holdover of this is the ability of relative (but not interrogative) whose to refer to non-persons (e.g., the car whose door won’t open).

All the interrogative pronouns can also be used as relative pronouns, though what is quite limited in its use;^[1] see below for more details.

Relative[edit]

The main relative pronouns in English are who (with its derived forms whom and whose), which, and that.^[14]

The relative pronoun which refers to things rather than persons, as in the shirt, which used to be red, is faded. For persons, who is used (the man who saw me was tall). The oblique case form of who is whom, as in the man whom I saw was tall, although in informal registers who is commonly used in place of whom.

The possessive form of who is whose (for example, the man whose car is missing); however the use of whose is not restricted to persons (one can say an idea whose time has come).

The word that as a relative pronoun is normally found only in restrictive relative clauses (unlike which and who, which can be used in both restrictive and unrestrictive clauses). It can refer to either persons or things, and cannot follow a preposition. For example, one can say the song that [or which] I listened to yesterday, but the song to which [not to that] I listened yesterday. The relative pronoun that is usually pronounced with a reduced vowel (schwa), and hence differently from the demonstrative that (see Weak and strong forms in English). If that is not the subject of the relative clause, it can be omitted (the song I listened to yesterday).

The word what can be used to form a free relative clause – one that has no antecedent and that serves as a complete noun phrase in itself, as in I like what he likes. The words whatever and whichever can be used similarly, in the role of either pronouns (whatever he likes) or determiners (whatever book he likes). When referring to persons, who(ever) (and whom(ever)) can be used in a similar way.

«There»[edit]

The word there is used as a pronoun in some sentences, playing the role of a dummy subject, normally of an intransitive verb. The «logical subject» of the verb then appears as a complement after the verb.

This use of there occurs most commonly with forms of the verb be in existential clauses, to refer to the presence or existence of something. For example: There is a heaven; There are two cups on the table; There have been a lot of problems lately. It can also be used with other verbs: There exist two major variants; There occurred a very strange incident.

The dummy subject takes the number (singular or plural) of the logical subject (complement), hence it takes a plural verb if the complement is plural. In informal English, however, the contraction there’s is often used for both singular and plural.^[15]

The dummy subject can undergo inversion, Is there a test today? and Never has there been a man such as this. It can also appear without a corresponding logical subject, in short sentences and question tags: There wasn’t a discussion, was there? There was.

The word there in such sentences has sometimes been analyzed as an adverb, or as a dummy predicate, rather than as a pronoun.^[16] However, its identification as a pronoun is most consistent with its behavior in inverted sentences and question tags as described above.

Because the word there can also be a deictic adverb (meaning «at/to that place»), a sentence like There is a river could have either of two meanings: «a river exists» (with there as a pronoun), and «a river is in that place» (with there as an adverb). In speech, the adverbial there would be given stress, while the pronoun would not – in fact, the pronoun is often pronounced as a weak form, /ðə(r)/.

Reciprocal[edit]

The English reciprocal pronouns are each other and one another. Although they are written with a space, they’re best thought of as single words. No consistent distinction in meaning or use can be found between them. Like the reflexive pronouns, their use is limited to contexts where an antecedent precedes it. In the case of the reciprocals, they need to appear in the same clause as the antecedent.^[1]

Other[edit]

Other pronouns in English are often identical in form to determiners (especially quantifiers), such as many, a little, etc. Sometimes, the pronoun form is different, as with none (corresponding to the determiner no), nothing, everyone, somebody, etc. Many examples are listed as indefinite pronouns. Another indefinite (or impersonal) pronoun is one (with its reflexive form oneself and possessive one’s), which is a more formal alternative to generic you.^[17]

Verbs[edit]

The basic form of an English verb is not generally marked by any ending, although there are certain suffixes that are frequently used to form verbs, such as -ate (formulate), -fy (electrify), and -ise/ize (realise/realize).^[18] Many verbs also contain prefixes, such as un- (unmask), out- (outlast), over- (overtake), and under- (undervalue).^[18] Verbs can also be formed from nouns and adjectives by zero derivation, as with the verbs snare, nose, dry, and calm.

Most verbs have three or four inflected forms in addition to the base form: a third-person singular present tense form in -(e)s (writes, botches), a present participle and gerund form in -ing (writing), a past tense (wrote), and – though often identical to the past tense form – a past participle (written). Regular verbs have identical past tense and past participle forms in -ed, but there are 100 or so irregular English verbs with different forms (see list). The verbs have, do and say also have irregular third-person present tense forms (has, does /dʌz/, says /sɛz/). The verb be has the largest number of irregular forms (am, is, are in the present tense, was, were in the past tense, been for the past participle).

Most of what are often referred to as verb tenses (or sometimes aspects) in English are formed using auxiliary verbs. Apart from what are called the simple present (write, writes) and simple past (wrote), there are also continuous (progressive) forms (am/is/are/was/were writing), perfect forms (have/has/had written, and the perfect continuous have/has/had been writing), future forms (will write, will be writing, will have written, will have been writing), and conditionals (also called «future in the past»), so forms equivalent to future ones but with would instead of will. The auxiliaries shall and should sometimes replace will and would in the first person. For the uses of these various verb forms, see English verbs and English clause syntax.

The basic form of the verb (be, write, play) is used as the infinitive, although there is also a «to-infinitive» (to be, to write, to play) used in many syntactical constructions. There are also infinitives corresponding to other aspects: (to) have written, (to) be writing, (to) have been writing. The second-person imperative is identical to the (basic) infinitive; other imperative forms may be made with let (let us go, or let’s go; let them eat cake).

A form identical to the infinitive can be used as a present subjunctive in certain contexts: It is important that he follow them or … that he be committed to the cause. There is also a past subjunctive (distinct from the simple past only in the possible use of were instead of was), used in some conditional sentences and similar: if I were (or was) rich …; were he to arrive now …; I wish she were (or was) here. For details see English subjunctive.

The passive voice is formed using the verb be (in the appropriate tense or form) with the past participle of the verb in question: cars are driven, he was killed, I am being tickled, it is nice to be pampered, etc. The performer of the action may be introduced in a prepositional phrase with by (as in they were killed by the invaders).

The English modal verbs consist of the core modals can, could, may, might, must, shall, should, will, would, as well as ought (to), had better, and in some uses dare and need.^[19] These do not inflect for person or number,^[19] do not occur alone, and do not have infinitive or participle forms (except synonyms, as with be/being/been able (to) for the modals can/could). The modals are used with the basic infinitive form of a verb (I can swim, he may be killed, we dare not move, need they go?), except for ought, which takes to (you ought to go). Modals can indicate the condition, probability, possibility, necessity, obligation and ability exposed by the speaker’s or writer’s attitude or expression.^[20]

The copula be, along with the modal verbs and the other auxiliaries, form a distinct class, sometimes called «special verbs» or simply «auxiliaries».^[21] These have different syntax from ordinary lexical verbs, especially in that they make their interrogative forms by plain inversion with the subject, and their negative forms by adding not after the verb (could I …? I could not …). Apart from those already mentioned, this class may also include used to (although the forms did he use to? and he didn’t use to are also found), and sometimes have even when not an auxiliary (forms like have you a sister? and he hadn’t a clue are possible, though becoming less common). It also includes the auxiliary do (does, did); this is used with the basic infinitive of other verbs (those not belonging to the «special verbs» class) to make their question and negation forms, as well as emphatic forms (do I like you?; he doesn’t speak English; we did close the fridge). For more details of this, see do-support.

Some forms of the copula and auxiliaries often appear as contractions, as in I’m for I am, you’d for you would or you had, and John’s for John is. Their negated forms with following not are also often contracted (see § Negation below). For detail see English auxiliaries and contractions.

Phrases[edit]

A verb together with its dependents, excluding its subject, may be identified as a verb phrase (although this concept is not acknowledged in all theories of grammar^[22]). A verb phrase headed by a finite verb may also be called a predicate. The dependents may be objects,complements, and modifiers (adverbs or adverbial phrases). In English, objects and complements nearly always come after the verb; a direct object precedes other complements such as prepositional phrases, but if there is an indirect object as well, expressed without a preposition, then that precedes the direct object: give me the book, but give the book to me. Adverbial modifiers generally follow objects, although other positions are possible (see under § Adverbs below). Certain verb–modifier combinations, particularly when they have independent meaning (such as take on and get up), are known as «phrasal verbs».

For details of possible patterns, see English clause syntax. See the Non-finite clauses section of that article for verb phrases headed by non-finite verb forms, such as infinitives and participles.

Adjectives[edit]

English adjectives, as with other word classes, cannot in general be identified as such by their form,^[23] although many of them are formed from nouns or other words by the addition of a suffix, such as -al (habitual), -ful (blissful), -ic (atomic), -ish (impish, youngish), -ous (hazardous), etc.; or from other adjectives using a prefix: disloyal, irredeemable, unforeseen, overtired.

Adjectives may be used attributively, as part of a noun phrase (nearly always preceding the noun they modify; for exceptions see postpositive adjective), as in the big house, or predicatively, as in the house is big. Certain adjectives are restricted to one or other use; for example, drunken is attributive (a drunken sailor), while drunk is usually predicative (the sailor was drunk).

Comparison[edit]

Many adjectives have comparative and superlative forms in -er and -est,^[24] such as faster and fastest (from the positive form fast). Spelling rules which maintain pronunciation apply to suffixing adjectives just as they do for similar treatment of regular past tense formation; these cover consonant doubling (as in bigger and biggest, from big) and the change of y to i after consonants (as in happier and happiest, from happy).

The adjectives good and bad have the irregular forms better, best and worse, worst; also far becomes farther, farthest or further, furthest. The adjective old (for which the regular older and oldest are usual) also has the irregular forms elder and eldest, these generally being restricted to use in comparing siblings and in certain independent uses. For the comparison of adverbs, see Adverbs below.

Many adjectives, however, particularly those that are longer and less common, do not have inflected comparative and superlative forms. Instead, they can be qualified with more and most, as in beautiful, more beautiful, most beautiful (this construction is also sometimes used even for adjectives for which inflected forms do exist).

Certain adjectives are classed as ungradable.^[24] These represent properties that cannot be compared on a scale; they simply apply or do not, as with pregnant, dead, unique. Consequently, comparative and superlative forms of such adjectives are not normally used, except in a figurative, humorous or imprecise context. Similarly, such adjectives are not normally qualified with modifiers of degree such as very and fairly, although with some of them it is idiomatic to use adverbs such as completely. Another type of adjective sometimes considered ungradable is those that represent an extreme degree of some property, such as delicious and terrified.

Phrases[edit]

An adjective phrase is a group of words that plays the role of an adjective in a sentence. It usually has a single adjective as its head, to which modifiers and complements may be added.^[25]

Adjectives can be modified by a preceding adverb or adverb phrase, as in very warm, truly imposing, more than a little excited. Some can also be preceded by a noun or quantitative phrase, as in fat-free, two-meter-long.

Complements following the adjective may include:

• prepositional phrases: proud of him, angry at the screen, keen on breeding toads;
• infinitive phrases: anxious to solve the problem, easy to pick up;
• content clauses, i.e. that clauses and certain others: certain that he was right, unsure where they are;
• after comparatives, phrases or clauses with than: better than you, smaller than I had imagined.

An adjective phrase may include both modifiers before the adjective and a complement after it, as in very difficult to put away.

Adjective phrases containing complements after the adjective cannot normally be used as attributive adjectives before a noun. Sometimes they are used attributively after the noun, as in a woman proud of being a midwife (where they may be converted into relative clauses: a woman who is proud of being a midwife), but it is wrong to say *a proud of being a midwife woman. Exceptions include very brief and often established phrases such as easy-to-use. (Certain complements can be moved to after the noun, leaving the adjective before the noun, as in a better man than you, a hard nut to crack.)

Certain attributive adjective phrases are formed from other parts of speech, without any adjective as their head, as in a two-bedroom house, a no-jeans policy.

Adverbs[edit]

Adverbs perform a wide range of functions. They typically modify verbs (or verb phrases), adjectives (or adjectival phrases), or other adverbs (or adverbial phrases).^[26] However, adverbs also sometimes qualify noun phrases (only the boss; quite a lovely place), pronouns and determiners (almost all), prepositional phrases (halfway through the movie), or whole sentences, to provide contextual comment or indicate an attitude (Frankly, I don’t believe you).^[27] They can also indicate a relationship between clauses or sentences (He died, and consequently I inherited the estate).^[27]

Many English adverbs are formed from adjectives by adding the ending -ly, as in hopefully, widely, theoretically (for details of spelling and etymology, see -ly). Certain words can be used as both adjectives and adverbs, such as fast, straight, and hard; these are flat adverbs. In earlier usage more flat adverbs were accepted in formal usage; many of these survive in idioms and colloquially. (That’s just plain ugly.) Some adjectives can also be used as flat adverbs when they actually describe the subject. (The streaker ran naked, not **The streaker ran nakedly.) The adverb corresponding to the adjective good is well (note that bad forms the regular badly, although ill is occasionally used in some phrases).

There are also many adverbs that are not derived from adjectives,^[26] including adverbs of time, of frequency, of place, of degree and with other meanings. Some suffixes that are commonly used to form adverbs from nouns are -ward[s] (as in homeward[s]) and -wise (as in lengthwise).

Most adverbs form comparatives and superlatives by modification with more and most: often, more often, most often; smoothly, more smoothly, most smoothly (see also comparison of adjectives, above). However, a few adverbs retain irregular inflection for comparative and superlative forms:^[26] much, more, most; a little, less, least; well, better, best; badly, worse, worst; far, further (farther), furthest (farthest); or follow the regular adjectival inflection: fast, faster, fastest; soon, sooner, soonest; etc.

Adverbs indicating the manner of an action are generally placed after the verb and its objects (We considered the proposal carefully), although other positions are often possible (We carefully considered the proposal). Many adverbs of frequency, degree, certainty, etc. (such as often, always, almost, probably, and various others such as just) tend to be placed before the verb (they usually have chips), although if there is an auxiliary or other «special verb» (see § Verbs above), then the normal position for such adverbs is after that special verb (or after the first of them, if there is more than one): I have just finished the crossword; She can usually manage a pint; We are never late; You might possibly have been unconscious. Adverbs that provide a connection with previous information (such as next, then, however), and those that provide the context (such as time or place) for a sentence, are typically placed at the start of the sentence: Yesterday we went on a shopping expedition.^[28] If the verb has an object, the adverb comes after the object (He finished the test quickly). When there is more than one types of adverb, they usually appear in the order: manner, place, time (His arm was hurt severely at home yesterday).^[29]

A special type of adverb is the adverbial particle used to form phrasal verbs (such as up in pick up, on in get on, etc.) If such a verb also has an object, then the particle may precede or follow the object, although it will normally follow the object if the object is a pronoun (pick the pen up or pick up the pen, but pick it up).

Phrases[edit]

An adverb phrase is a phrase that acts as an adverb within a sentence.^[30] An adverb phrase may have an adverb as its head, together with any modifiers (other adverbs or adverb phrases) and complements, analogously to the adjective phrases described above. For example: very sleepily; all too suddenly; oddly enough; perhaps shockingly for us.

Another very common type of adverb phrase is the prepositional phrase, which consists of a preposition and its object: in the pool; after two years; for the sake of harmony.

Prepositions[edit]

Prepositions form a closed word class,^[27] although there are also certain phrases that serve as prepositions, such as in front of. A single preposition may have a variety of meanings, often including temporal, spatial and abstract. Many words that are prepositions can also serve as adverbs. Examples of common English prepositions (including phrasal instances) are of, in, on, over, under, to, from, with, in front of, behind, opposite, by, before, after, during, through, in spite of or despite, between, among, etc.

A preposition is usually used with a noun phrase as its complement. A preposition together with its complement is called a prepositional phrase.^[31] Examples are in England, under the table, after six pleasant weeks, between the land and the sea. A prepositional phrase can be used as a complement or post-modifier of a noun in a noun phrase, as in the man in the car, the start of the fight; as a complement of a verb or adjective, as in deal with the problem, proud of oneself; or generally as an adverb phrase (see above).

English allows the use of «stranded» prepositions. This can occur in interrogative and relative clauses, where the interrogative or relative pronoun that is the preposition’s complement is moved to the start (fronted), leaving the preposition in place. This kind of structure is avoided in some kinds of formal English. For example:

• What are you talking about? (Possible alternative version: About what are you talking?)
• The song that you were listening to … (more formal: The song to which you were listening …)

Notice that in the second example the relative pronoun that could be omitted.

Stranded prepositions can also arise in passive voice constructions and other uses of passive past participial phrases, where the complement in a prepositional phrase can become zero in the same way that a verb’s direct object would: it was looked at; I will be operated on; get your teeth seen to. The same can happen in certain uses of infinitive phrases: he is nice to talk to; this is the page to make copies of.

Conjunctions[edit]

Conjunctions express a variety of logical relations between items, phrases, clauses and sentences.^[32] The principal coordinating conjunctions in English are: and, or, but, nor, so, yet, and for. These can be used in many grammatical contexts to link two or more items of equal grammatical status,^[32] for example:

• Noun phrases combined into a longer noun phrase, such as John, Eric, and Jill, the red coat or the blue one. When and is used, the resulting noun phrase is plural. A determiner does not need to be repeated with the individual elements: the cat, the dog, and the mouse and the cat, dog, and mouse are both correct. The same applies to other modifiers. (The word but can be used here in the sense of «except»: nobody but you.)
• Adjective or adverb phrases combined into a longer adjective or adverb phrase: tired but happy, over the fields and far away.
• Verbs or verb phrases combined as in he washed, peeled, and diced the turnips (verbs conjoined, object shared); he washed the turnips, peeled them, and diced them (full verb phrases, including objects, conjoined).
• Other equivalent items linked, such as prefixes linked in pre- and post-test counselling,^[33] numerals as in two or three buildings, etc.
• Clauses or sentences linked, as in We came, but they wouldn’t let us in. They wouldn’t let us in, nor would they explain what we had done wrong.

There are also correlative conjunctions, where as well as the basic conjunction, an additional element appears before the first of the items being linked.^[32] The common correlatives in English are:

• either … or (either a man or a woman);
• neither … nor (neither clever nor funny);
• both … and (they both punished and rewarded them);
• not … but, particularly in not only … but also (not exhausted but exhilarated, not only football but also many other sports).

Subordinating conjunctions make relations between clauses, making the clause in which they appear into a subordinate clause.^[34] Some common subordinating conjunctions in English are:

• conjunctions of time, including after, before, since, until, when, while;
• conjunctions of cause and effect, including because, since, now that, as, in order that, so;
• conjunctions of opposition or concession, such as although, though, even though, whereas, while;
• conjunctions of condition: such as if, unless, only if, whether or not, even if, in case (that);
• the conjunction that, which produces content clauses, as well as words that produce interrogative content clauses: whether, where, when, how, etc.

Subordinating conjunction generally comes at the very start of its clause, although many of them can be preceded by qualifying adverbs, as in probably because …, especially if …. The conjunction that can be omitted after certain verbs, as in she told us (that) she was ready. (For the use of that in relative clauses, see § Relative pronouns above.)

Case[edit]

Although English has largely lost its case system, personal pronouns still have three morphological cases that are simplified forms of the nominative, objective and genitive cases:^[35]

• The nominative case (subjective pronouns such as I, he, she, we, they, who, whoever), used for the subject of a finite verb and sometimes for the complement of a copula.
• The oblique case (object pronouns such as me, him, her, us, it, us, them, whom, whomever), used for the direct or indirect object of a verb, for the object of a preposition, for an absolute disjunct, and sometimes for the complement of a copula.
• The genitive case (possessive pronouns such as my/mine, his, her(s), our(s), its, our(s), their, theirs, whose), used for a grammatical possessor. This is not always considered to be a case; see English possessive § Status of the possessive as a grammatical case.
• The privative case (formed with the suffix -less), used for expressing the absence or lack of the marked noun, such as in the phrase the homeless man.
• The semblative case (formed with the suffix -like), used for denoting the similarity of one noun to another, such as in the newspaper headline Texas Man Catches Fish With Human-Like Teeth.^[36]

Most English personal pronouns have five forms: the nominative and oblique case forms, the possessive case, which has both a determiner form (such as my, our) and a distinct independent form (such as mine, ours) (with two exceptions: the third person singular masculine and the third person singular neuter it, which use the same form for both determiner and independent [his car, it is his]), and a distinct reflexive or intensive form (such as myself, ourselves). The interrogative personal pronoun who exhibits the greatest diversity of forms within the modern English pronoun system, having definite nominative, oblique, and genitive forms (who, whom, whose) and equivalently coordinating indefinite forms (whoever, whomever, and whosever).

Forms such as I, he, and we are used for the subject («I kicked the ball»), whereas forms such as me, him and us are used for the object («John kicked me«).^[37]

Declension[edit]

Nouns have distinct singular and plural forms; that is, they decline to reflect their grammatical number; consider the difference between book and books. In addition, a few English pronouns have distinct nominative (also called subjective) and oblique (or objective) forms; that is, they decline to reflect their relationship to a verb or preposition, or case. Consider the difference between he (subjective) and him (objective), as in «He saw it» and «It saw him»; similarly, consider who, which is subjective, and the objective whom. Further, these pronouns and a few others have distinct possessive forms, such as his and whose. By contrast, nouns have no distinct nominative and objective forms, the two being merged into a single plain case. For example, chair does not change form between «the chair is here» (subject) and «I saw the chair» (direct object). Possession is shown by the clitic -‘s attached to a possessive noun phrase, rather than by declension of the noun itself.^[38]

Negation[edit]

As noted above under § Verbs, a finite indicative verb (or its clause) is negated by placing the word not after an auxiliary, modal or other «special» verb such as do, can or be. For example, the clause I go is negated with the appearance of the auxiliary do, as I do not go (see do-support). When the affirmative already uses auxiliary verbs (I am going), no other auxiliary verbs are added to negate the clause (I am not going). (Until the period of early Modern English, negation was effected without additional auxiliary verbs: I go not.)

Most combinations of auxiliary verbs etc. with not have contracted forms: don’t, can’t, isn’t, etc. (Also the uncontracted negated form of can is written as a single word cannot.) On the inversion of subject and verb (such as in questions; see below), the subject may be placed after a contracted negated form: Should he not pay? or Shouldn’t he pay?

Other elements, such as noun phrases, adjectives, adverbs, infinitive and participial phrases, etc., can be negated by placing the word not before them: not the right answer, not interesting, not to enter, not noticing the train, etc.

When other negating words such as never, nobody, etc. appear in a sentence, the negating not is omitted (unlike its equivalents in many languages): I saw nothing or I didn’t see anything, but not (except in non-standard speech) *I didn’t see nothing (see Double negative). Such negating words generally have corresponding negative polarity items (ever for never, anybody for nobody, etc.) which can appear in a negative context but are not negative themselves (and can thus be used after a negation without giving rise to double negatives).

Clause and sentence structure[edit]

A typical sentence contains one independent clause and possibly one or more dependent clauses, although it is also possible to link together sentences of this form into longer sentences, using coordinating conjunctions (see above). A clause typically contains a subject (a noun phrase) and a predicate (a verb phrase in the terminology used above; that is, a verb together with its objects and complements). A dependent clause also normally contains a subordinating conjunction (or in the case of relative clauses, a relative pronoun, or phrase containing one).

Word order[edit]

English word order has moved from the Germanic verb-second (V2) word order to being almost exclusively subject–verb–object (SVO). The combination of SVO order and use of auxiliary verbs often creates clusters of two or more verbs at the center of the sentence, such as he had hoped to try to open it. In most sentences, English marks grammatical relations only through word order. The subject constituent precedes the verb and the object constituent follows it. The Object–subject–verb (OSV) may on occasion be seen in English, usually in the future tense or used as a contrast with the conjunction «but», such as in the following examples: «Rome I shall see!», «I hate oranges, but apples I’ll eat!».^[39]

Questions[edit]

Like many other Western European languages, English historically allowed questions to be formed by inverting the positions of the verb and subject. Modern English permits this only in the case of a small class of verbs («special verbs»), consisting of auxiliaries as well as forms of the copula be (see subject–auxiliary inversion). To form a question from a sentence which does not have such an auxiliary or copula present, the auxiliary verb do (does, did) needs to be inserted, along with inversion of the word order, to form a question (see do-support). For example:

• She can dance. → Can she dance? (inversion of subject she and auxiliary can)
• I am sitting here. → Am I sitting here? (inversion of subject I and copula am)
• The milk goes in the fridge. → Does the milk go in the fridge? (no special verb present; do-support required)

The above concerns yes-no questions, but inversion also takes place in the same way after other questions, formed with interrogative words such as where, what, how, etc. An exception applies when the interrogative word is the subject or part of the subject, in which case there is no inversion. For example:

• I go. → Where do I go? (wh-question formed using inversion, with do-support required in this case)
• He goes. → Who goes? (no inversion, because the question word who is the subject)

Note that inversion does not apply in indirect questions: I wonder where he is (not *… where is he). Indirect yes-no questions can be expressed using if or whether as the interrogative word: Ask them whether/if they saw him.

Negative questions are formed similarly; however, if the verb undergoing inversion has a contraction with not, then it is possible to invert the subject with this contraction as a whole. For example:

• John is going. (affirmative)
• John is not going. / John isn’t going. (negative, with and without contraction)
• Isn’t John going? / Is John not going? (negative question, with and without contraction respectively)

See also English auxiliaries and contractions § Contractions and inversion.

Dependent clauses[edit]

The syntax of a dependent clause is generally the same as that of an independent clause, except that the dependent clause usually begins with a subordinating conjunction or relative pronoun (or phrase containing such). In some situations (as already described) the conjunction or relative pronoun that can be omitted. Another type of dependent clause with no subordinating conjunction is the conditional clause formed by inversion (see below).

Other uses of inversion[edit]

The clause structure with an inverted subject and verb, used to form questions as described above, is also used in certain types of declarative sentences. This occurs mainly when the sentence begins with adverbial or other phrases that are essentially negative or contain words such as only, hardly, etc.: Never have I known someone so stupid; Only in France can such food be tasted.

In elliptical sentences (see below), inversion takes place after so (meaning «also») as well as after the negative neither: so do I, neither does she.

Inversion can also be used to form conditional clauses, beginning with should, were (subjunctive), or had, in the following ways:

• should I win the race (equivalent to if I win the race);
• were he a soldier (equivalent to if he were a soldier);
• were he to win the race (equivalent to if he were to win the race, i.e. if he won the race);
• had he won the race (equivalent to if he had won the race).

Other similar forms sometimes appear but are less common. There is also a construction with subjunctive be, as in be he alive or dead (meaning «no matter whether he is alive or dead»).

Use of inversion to express a third-person imperative is now mostly confined to the expression long live X, meaning «let X live long».

Imperatives[edit]

In an imperative sentence (one giving an order), there is usually no subject in the independent clause: Go away until I call you. It is possible, however, to include you as the subject for emphasis: You stay away from me.

Elliptical constructions[edit]

Many types of elliptical construction are possible in English, resulting in sentences that omit certain redundant elements. Various examples are given in the article on Ellipsis.

Some notable elliptical forms found in English include:

• Short statements of the form I can, he isn’t, we mustn’t. Here the verb phrase (understood from the context) is reduced to a single auxiliary or other «special» verb, negated if appropriate. If there is no special verb in the original verb phrase, it is replaced by do/does/did: he does, they didn’t.
• Clauses that omit the verb, in particular those like me too, nor me, me neither. The latter forms are used after negative statements. (Equivalents including the verb: I do too or so do I; I don’t either or neither do I.)
• Tag questions, formed with a special verb and pronoun subject: isn’t it?; were there?; am I not?

History of English grammars[edit]

The first published English grammar was a Pamphlet for Grammar of 1586, written by William Bullokar with the stated goal of demonstrating that English was just as rule-based as Latin. Bullokar’s grammar was faithfully modeled on William Lily’s Latin grammar, Rudimenta Grammatices (1534), used in English schools at that time, having been «prescribed» for them in 1542 by Henry VIII. Bullokar wrote his grammar in English and used a «reformed spelling system» of his own invention; but much English grammar, for much of the century after Bullokar’s effort, was written in Latin, especially by authors who were aiming to be scholarly. John Wallis’s Grammatica Linguae Anglicanae (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.

English parts of speech are based on Latin and Greek parts of speech.^[40] Some English grammar rules were adopted from Latin, for example John Dryden is thought to have created the rule no sentences can end in a preposition because Latin cannot end sentences in prepositions. The rule of no split infinitives was adopted from Latin because Latin has no split infinitives.^[41][42][43]

See also[edit]

• English usage controversies
• English prefixes
• Subject–object–verb

Notes and references[edit]

Further reading[edit]

Grammar books[edit]

• Aarts, Bas (2011). Oxford Modern English Grammar. Oxford University Press. p. 410. ISBN 978-0-19-953319-0.
• Biber, Douglas; Johansson, Stig; Leech, Geoffrey; Conrad, Susan; Finegan, Edward (1999). Longman grammar of spoken and written English. Pearson Education Limited. p. 1203. ISBN 0-582-23725-4.
• Biber, Douglas; Leech, Geoffrey; Conrad, Susan (2002). Longman student grammar of spoken and written English. Pearson Education Limited. p. 487. ISBN 0-582-23726-2.
• Bryant, Margaret (1945). A functional English grammar. D.C. Heath and company. p. 326.
• Bryant, Margaret; Momozawa, Chikara (1976). Modern English Syntax. Seibido. p. 157.
• Carter, Ronald; McCarthy, Michael (2006), Cambridge Grammar of English: A Comprehensive Guide, Cambridge University Press, p. 984, ISBN 0-521-67439-5 A CD-Rom version is included.
• Celce-Murcia, Marianne; Larsen-Freeman, Diane (1999). The Grammar Book: An ESL/EFL teacher’s course, 2nd ed. Heinle & Heinle. p. 854. ISBN 0-8384-4725-2.
• Chalker, Sylvia; Weiner, Edmund, eds. (1998). The Oxford Dictionary of English Grammar. Oxford University Press. p. 464. ISBN 0-19-280087-6.
• Cobbett, William (1883). A Grammar of the English Language, In a Series of Letters: Intended for the Use of Schools and of Young Persons in General, but more especially for the use of Soldiers, Sailors, Apprentices, and Plough-Boys. New York and Chicago: A. S. Barnes and Company.
• Cobbett, William (2003) [1818]. A Grammar of the English Language (Oxford Language Classics). Oxford University Press. p. 256. ISBN 0-19-860508-0.
• Curme, George O., College English Grammar, Richmond, VA, 1925, Johnson Publishing company, 414 pages . A revised edition Principles and Practice of English Grammar was published by Barnes & Noble, in 1947.
• Curme, George O. (1978) [1931, 1935]. A Grammar of the English Language: Volumes I (Parts of Speech) & II (Syntax). Verbatim Books. p. 1045. ISBN 0-930454-03-0.
• Declerck, Renaat (1990). A Comprehensive Descriptive Grammar of English. Kaitakusha,Tokyo. p. 595. ISBN 4-7589-0538-X. Declerck in his introduction (p.vi) states that almost half his grammar is taken up by the topics of tense, aspect and modality. This he contrasts with the 71 pages devoted to these subjects in The Comprehensive Grammar of English. Huddleston and Pullman say they profited from consulting this grammar in their Cambridge Grammar of the English Language. (p. 1765)
• Dekeyser, Xavier; Devriendt, Betty; Tops, Guy A. J.; Guekens, Steven (2004). Foundations of English Grammar For University Students and Advanced Learners. Uitgeverij Acco, Leuven, Belgium. p. 449. ISBN 978-90-334-5637-4.
• Fowler, H.W. (2015), Butterfield, Jeremy (ed.), Fowler’s Dictionary of Modern English Usage, Oxford University Press, p. 813, ISBN 978-0-19-966135-0
• Greenbaum, Sidney (1996). Oxford English Grammar. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press. p. 672. ISBN 0-19-861250-8.
• Greenbaum, Sidney (1990). A Student’s Grammar of the English Language. Addison Wesley Publishing Company. p. 496. ISBN 0-582-05971-2.
• Halliday, M. A. K.; Matthiessen, Christian M. I. M. (revised by) (2004). An Introduction to Functional Grammar, 3rd. edition. London: Hodder Arnold. p. 700. ISBN 0-340-76167-9.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
• Huddleston, Rodney D. (1984) Introduction to the Grammar of English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Huddleston, Rodney D. (1988) English Grammar: An outline. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Huddleston, Rodney D.; Pullum, Geoffrey K. (2002). The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language. Cambridge University Press. p. 1860. ISBN 0-521-43146-8.
• Huddleston, Rodney D.; Pullum, Geoffrey K.; Reynolds, Brett (2022). A student’s introduction to English grammar (2nd ed.). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 320. ISBN 978-1-009-08574-8.
• Jespersen, Otto. (1937). Analytic Syntax. Copenhagen: Levin & Munksgaard, 1937. 170 p.
• Jespersen, Otto. (1909–1949). A Modern English Grammar on Historical Principles (Vols. 1–7). Heidelberg: C. Winter.
• Jespersen, Otto (1933). Essentials of English Grammar: 25th impression, 1987. London: Routledge. p. 400. ISBN 0-415-10440-8.
• Jonson, Ben (1756). «The English grammar: Made by Ben Jonson for the benefit of all strangers, out of his observation of the English language now spoken and in use». The Works of Ben Jonson: Volume 7. London: D. Midwinter et al.
• Kolln, Martha J. (2006). Rhetorical Grammar: Grammatical Choices, Rhetorical Effects, 5th edition. Longman. p. 336. ISBN 0-321-39723-1.
• Kolln, Martha J.; Funk, Robert W. (2008). Understanding English Grammar (8th ed.). Longman. p. 453. ISBN 978-0-205-62690-8.
• Korsakov, A. K. (Andreĭ Konstantinovich). 1969. The use of tenses in English. Korsakov, A. K. Structure of Modern English pt. 1. oai:gial.edu:26766 at http://www.language-archives.org/item/oai:gial.edu:26766
• Maetzner, Eduard Adolf Ferdinand, 1805–1892. (1873). An English grammar; methodical, analytical, and historical. J. Murray, London.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)Three Volumes, translated by Clair James Grece from the German edition Englische Grammatik: Die Lehre von der Wort- und Satzfügung. Professor Whitney in his Essentials of English Grammar recommends the German original stating «there is an English version, but it is hardly to be used.» (p. vi)
• Meyer-Myklestad, J. (1967). An Advanced English Grammar for Students and Teachers. Universitetsforlaget-Oslo. p. 627.
• Morenberg, Max (2002). Doing Grammar, 3rd edition. New York: Oxford University Press. p. 352. ISBN 0-19-513840-6.
• Poutsma, Hendrik. A grammar of late modern English, Groningen, P. Noordhoff, 1914–29, 2 pt. in 5 v. Contents: pt. I. The sentence: 1st half. The elements of the sentence, 1928. 2d half. The composite sentence, 1929.—pt. II. The parts of speech: section I, A. Nouns, adjectives and articles, 1914. section I, B. Pronouns and numerals, 1916. section II. The verb and the particles, 1926.
• Quirk, Randolph; Greenbaum, Sidney; Leech, Geoffrey; & Svartvik, Jan. (1972). A Grammar of Contemporary English. Harlow: Longman.
• Quirk, Randolph (1985). A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language. Harlow: Longman. p. 1779. ISBN 0-582-51734-6.
• Rossiter, Andrew (2020). A Descriptive Grammar of English. Linguapress. p. 207. ISBN 978-2-958-38550-7.
• Schibsbye, Knud (1970). A Modern English Grammar: Second edition. London: Oxford University Press. p. 390. ISBN 0-19-431327-1. This book is a translation of Schibsbye’s three volume Engelsk Grammatik published between 1957 and 1961. Schibsbye was a student of Jespersen’s and co-author of the sixth volume –Morphology –of Jespersen’s seven volume Modern English Grammar.
• Sinclair, John, ed. (1991) Collins COBUILD – English Grammar London: Collins ISBN 0-00-370257-X second edition, 2005 ISBN 0-00-718387-9. Huddleston and Pullman say they found this grammar ‘useful’ in their Cambridge Grammar of the English Language. (p. 1765) A CD-Rom version of the 1st edition is available on the Collins COBUILD Resource Pack ISBN 0-00-716921-3
• Sledd, James. (1959) A short introduction to English grammar Chicago: Scott, Foresman.
• Strang, Barbara M. H. (1968) Modern English structure (2nd ed.) London: Arnold.
• Thomson, A. J. (Audrey Jean); Martinet, A. V. (Agnes V.) (1986). A practical English grammar:Fourth Edition. Oxford University Press. p. 384. ISBN 0-19-431342-5.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
• Visser, F. Th. (Fredericus Theodorus) (2003). An historical syntax of the English language. Brill. ISBN 90-04-07142-3. 4th impression. pts. 1–2. Syntactical units with one verb.—pt.3. 1st half. Syntactical units with two verbs.—pt.3. 2d half. Syntactical units with two and more verbs.
• Whitney, William Dwight, (1877) Essentials of English Grammar, Boston: Ginn & Heath.
• Zandvoort, R. W. (1972) A Handbook of English Grammar (2nd ed.) London: Longmans.
• Peter Herring (2016), The Farlex Grammar Book http://www.thefreedictionary.com/The-Farlex-Grammar-Book.htm

Monographs[edit]

• Adams, Valerie. (1973). An introduction to modern English word-formation. London: Longman.
• Bauer, Laurie. (1983). English word-formation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Fries, Charles Carpenter. (1952). The structure of English; an introduction to the construction of English sentences. New York: Harcourt, Brace.
• 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 978-0-521-11395-3.
• Jespersen, Otto (1982). Growth and Structure of the English Language. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press. p. 244. ISBN 0-226-39877-3.
• Jespersen, Otto (1992). Philosophy of Grammar. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press. p. 363. ISBN 0-226-39881-1.
• Jespersen, Otto (1962). Selected Writings. London: Allen & Unwin. p. 820.—includes Jespersen’s monographs Negation in English and Other Languages, and A System of Grammar.
• 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.
• Onions, C. T. (Charles Talbut), (1904, 1st edition) An advanced English syntax based on the principles and requirements of the Grammatical society. London: Keegan Paul, Trench, Trubner & co. A new edition of An advanced English syntax, prepared from the author’s materials by B. D. H. Miller, was published as Modern English syntax in 1971.
• 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.

External links[edit]

• The Internet Grammar of English at UCL
• The Englicious website for school teachers developed by UCL
• English Grammar at the British Council

1. The
   notion of ‘grammatical meaning’.

The word
combines in its semantic structure two meanings – lexical and
grammatical. Lexical meaning
is the individual meaning of the word (e.g. table).
Grammatical meaning
is the meaning of the whole class or a subclass. For example, the
class of nouns has the grammatical meaning of thingness.
If we take a noun (table)
we may say that it possesses its individual lexical meaning (it
corresponds to a definite piece of furniture) and the grammatical
meaning of thingness
(this is the meaning of the whole class). Besides, the noun ‘table’
has the grammatical meaning of a subclass – countableness.
Any verb combines its individual lexical meaning with the grammatical
meaning of verbiality – the ability to denote actions or states. An
adjective combines its individual lexical meaning with the
grammatical meaning of the whole class of adjectives –
qualitativeness – the ability to denote qualities. Adverbs possess
the grammatical meaning of adverbiality – the ability to denote
quality of qualities.

There are some classes of
words that are devoid of any lexical meaning and possess the
grammatical meaning only. This can be explained by the fact that they
have no referents in the objective reality. All function words belong
to this group – articles, particles, prepositions, etc.

1. Types
   of grammatical meaning.

The
grammatical meaning may be explicit and implicit. The implicit
grammatical meaning is not expressed
formally (e.g. the word table does
not contain any hints in its form as to it being inanimate). The
explicit grammatical
meaning is always marked morphologically – it has its marker. In
the word cats the
grammatical meaning of plurality is shown in the form of the noun;
cat’s –
here the grammatical meaning of possessiveness is shown by the form
‘s; is
asked – shows the explicit
grammatical meaning of passiveness.

The
implicit grammatical meaning may be of two types – general and
dependent. The general
grammatical meaning is the meaning of the whole word-class, of a part
of speech (e.g. nouns – the general grammatical meaning of
thingness). The dependent
grammatical meaning is the meaning of a subclass within the same part
of speech. For instance, any verb possesses the dependent grammatical
meaning of transitivity/intransitivity,
terminativeness/non-terminativeness, stativeness/non-stativeness;
nouns have the dependent grammatical meaning of
contableness/uncountableness and animateness/inanimateness. The most
important thing about the dependent grammatical meaning is that it
influences the realization of grammatical categories restricting them
to a subclass. Thus the dependent grammatical meaning of
countableness/uncountableness influences the realization of the
grammatical category of number as the number category is realized
only within the subclass of countable nouns, the grammatical meaning
of animateness/inanimateness influences the realization of the
grammatical category of case, teminativeness/non-terminativeness —
the category of tense, transitivity/intransitivity – the category
of voice.

GRAMMATICAL
MEANING

EXPLICIT
IMPLICIT

GENERAL
DEPENDENT

1. Grammatical
   categories.

Grammatical categories are
made up by the unity of identical grammatical meanings that have the
same form (e.g. singular::plural). Due to dialectal unity of language
and thought, grammatical categories correlate, on the one hand, with
the conceptual categories and, on the other hand, with the objective
reality. It may be shown with the help of a triangle model:

Conceptual
reality Conceptual category

Objective
reality Lingual reality Objective category Grammatical
category

It
follows that we may define grammatical categories as references of
the corresponding objective categories. For example, the objective
category of time
finds its representation in the grammatical category of tense,
the objective category of quantity finds
its representation in the grammatical category of number.
Those grammatical categories that have references in the objective
reality are called referential
grammatical categories. However, not
all of the grammatical categories have references in the objective
reality, just a few of them do not correspond to anything in the
objective reality. Such categories correlate only with conceptual
matters:

Conceptual
correlate

Lingual
correlate

They
are called significational categories.
To this type belong the categories of mood
and degree.
Speaking about the grammatical category of mood we can say that it
has modality
as its conceptual correlate. It can be explained by the fact that it
does not refer to anything in the objective reality – it expresses
the speaker’s attitude to what he says.

1. The
   notion of opposition.

Any
grammatical category must be represented by at least two grammatical
forms (e.g. the grammatical category of number – singular and
plural forms). The relation between two grammatical forms differing
in meaning and external signs is called opposition
– book::books
(unmarked member/marked member). All grammatical categories find
their realization through oppositions, e.g. the grammatical category
of number is realized through the opposition singular::plural.

Taking
all the above mentioned into consideration, we may define the
grammatical category as the opposition between two mutually exclusive
form-classes (a form-class is a set of words with the same explicit
grammatical meaning).

Means
of realization of grammatical
categories may be synthetic (near –
nearer) and analytic (beautiful
– more beautiful).

1. Transposition
   and neutralization of morphological forms.

In the process of
communication grammatical categories may undergo the processes of
transposition and neutralization.

Transposition
is the use of a linguistic unit in an
unusual environment or in the function that is not characteristic of
it (He is a lion).
In the sentence He is coming tomorrow
the paradigmatic meaning of the
continuous form is reduced and a new meaning appears – that of a
future action. Transposition always results in the neutralization of
a paradigmatic meaning. Neutralization
is the reduction of the opposition to one of its members : custom ::
customs – x :: customs; x :: spectacles.

LECTURE 4: THE PARTS OF
SPEECH PROBLEM. WORD CLASSES

The parts of speech are
classes of words, all the members of these classes having certain
characteristics in common which distinguish them from the members of
other classes. The problem of word classification into parts of
speech still remains one of the most controversial problems in modern
linguistics. The attitude of grammarians with regard to parts of
speech and the basis of their classification varied a good deal at
different times. Only in English grammarians have been vacillating
between 3 and 13 parts of speech. There are four approaches to the
problem:

1. Classical
   (logical-inflectional)

2. Functional

3. Distributional

4. Complex

The
classical
parts of speech theory goes back to ancient times. It is based on
Latin grammar. According to the Latin classification of the parts of
speech all words were divided dichotomically into declinable
and indeclinable
parts of speech. This system was
reproduced in the earliest English grammars. The first of these
groups, declinable words, included nouns, pronouns, verbs and
participles, the second – indeclinable words – adverbs,
prepositions, conjunctions and interjections. The
logical-inflectional classification is quite successful for Latin or
other languages with developed morphology and synthetic paradigms but
it cannot be applied to the English language because the principle of
declinability/indeclinability is not relevant for analytical
languages.

A
new approach to the problem was introduced in the XIX century by
Henry Sweet. He took into account the peculiarities of the English
language. This approach may be defined as functional.
He resorted to the functional features of words and singled out
nominative units and particles. To nominative
parts of speech belonged noun-words
(noun, noun-pronoun, noun-numeral, infinitive, gerund),
adjective-words
(adjective, adjective-pronoun, adjective-numeral, participles), verb
(finite verb, verbals – gerund, infinitive, participles), while
adverb, preposition,
conjunction
and interjection
belonged to the group of particles.
However, though the criterion for classification was functional,
Henry Sweet failed to break the tradition and classified words into
those having morphological forms and lacking morphological forms, in
other words, declinable and indeclinable.

A
distributional approach
to the parts to the parts of speech
classification can be illustrated by the classification introduced by
Charles Fries. He wanted to avoid the traditional terminology and
establish a classification of words based on distributive analysis,
that is, the ability of words to combine with other words of
different types. At the same time, the lexical meaning of words was
not taken into account. According to Charles Fries, the words in
such sentences as 1. Woggles ugged diggles; 2. Uggs woggled diggs;
and 3. Woggs diggled uggles are quite evident structural signals,
their position and combinability are enough to classify them into
three word-classes. In this way, he introduced four major classes
of words and 15 form-classes.
Let us see how it worked. Three test frames
formed the basis for his analysis:

Frame
A — The concert was good (always);

Frame
B — The clerk remembered the tax (suddenly);

Frame
C – The team went there.

It
turned out that his four classes of words were practically the same
as traditional nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs. What is really
valuable in Charles Fries’ classification is his investigation of
15 groups of function words (form-classes) because he was the first
linguist to pay attention to some of their peculiarities.

All
the classifications mentioned above appear to be one-sided because
parts of speech are discriminated on the basis of only one aspect of
the word: either its meaning or its form, or its function.

In
modern linguistics, parts of speech are discriminated according to
three criteria: semantic, formal and functional. This approach may be
defined as complex.
The semantic
criterion presupposes the grammatical meaning of the whole class of
words (general grammatical meaning). The formal
criterion reveals paradigmatic
properties: relevant grammatical categories, the form of the words,
their specific inflectional and derivational features. The functional
criterion concerns the syntactic
function of words in the sentence and their combinability. Thus, when
characterizing any part of speech we are to describe: a) its
semantics; b) its morphological features; c) its syntactic
peculiarities.

The
linguistic evidence drawn from our grammatical study makes it
possible to divide all the words of the language into:

1. those
   denoting things, objects, notions, qualities, etc. – words with
   the corresponding references in the objective reality – notional
   words;

2. those
   having no references of their own in the objective reality; most of
   them are used only as grammatical means to form up and frame
   utterances – function words,
   or grammatical words.

It is
commonly recognized that the notional parts of speech are nouns,
pronouns, numerals, verbs, adjectives, adverbs; the functional parts
of speech are articles, particles, prepositions, conjunctions and
modal words.

The
division of language units into notion and function words reveals the
interrelation of lexical and grammatical types of meaning. In
notional words the lexical meaning is predominant. In function words
the grammatical meaning dominates over the lexical one. However, in
actual speech the border line between notional and function words is
not always clear cut. Some notional words develop the meanings
peculiar to function words — e.g. seminotional words – to
turn, to get, etc.

Notional
words constitute the bulk of the existing word stock while function
words constitute a smaller group of words. Although the number of
function words is limited (there are only about 50 of them in Modern
English), they are the most frequently used units.

Generally
speaking, the problem of words’ classification into parts of speech
is far from being solved. Some words cannot find their proper place.
The most striking example here is the class of adverbs. Some language
analysts call it a ragbag, a dustbin
(Frank Palmer), Russian academician V.V.Vinogradov defined the class
of adverbs in the Russian language as мусорная
куча. It can be explained by the
fact that to the class of adverbs belong those words that cannot find
their place anywhere else. At the same time, there are no grounds for
grouping them together either. Compare: perfectly
(She speaks English perfectly)
and again
(He is here again).
Examples are numerous (all temporals). There are some words that do
not belong anywhere — e.g. after all.
Speaking about after all
it should be mentioned that this unit is quite often used by native
speakers, and practically never by our students. Some more striking
examples: anyway, actually, in fact.
The problem is that if these words belong nowhere, there is no place
for them in the system of words, then how can we use them correctly?
What makes things worse is the fact that these words are devoid of
nominative power, and they have no direct equivalents in the
Ukrainian or Russian languages. Meanwhile, native speakers use these
words subconsciously, without realizing how they work.

LECTURE
5: THE NOUN

1.General
characteristics.

The noun is
the central lexical unit of language. It is the main nominative unit
of speech. As any other part of speech, the noun can be characterised
by three criteria: semantic
(the meaning), morphological
(the form and grammatical catrgories) and syntactical
(functions, distribution).

Semantic
features of the noun. The noun possesses the grammatical meaning of
thingness, substantiality. According to different principles of
classification nouns fall into several subclasses:

1. According
   to the type of nomination they may be proper
   and common;

2. According
   to the form of existence they may be animate
   and inanimate.
   Animate nouns in their turn fall into human
   and non-human.

3. According
   to their quantitative structure nouns can be countable
   and uncountable.

This set of
subclasses cannot be put together into one table because of the
different principles of classification.

Morphological
features of the noun. In accordance
with the morphological structure of the stems all nouns can be
classified into: simple,
derived (
stem + affix, affix + stem – thingness);
compound (
stem+ stem – armchair
) and composite
( the Hague ). The noun has morphological categories of number and
case. Some scholars admit the existence of the category of gender.

Syntactic
features of the noun. The noun can be
used un the sentence in all syntactic
functions
but predicate. Speaking about noun combinability,
we can say that it can go into right-hand and left-hand connections
with practically all parts of speech. That is why practically all
parts of speech but the verb can act as noun determiners.
However, the most common noun determiners are considered to be
articles, pronouns, numerals, adjectives and nouns themselves in the
common and genitive case.

2.
The category of number

The grammatical category of
number is the linguistic representation of the objective category of
quantity. The number category is realized through the opposition of
two form-classes: the plural form :: the singular form. The category
of number in English is restricted in its realization because of the
dependent implicit grammatical meaning of
countableness/uncountableness. The number category is realized only
within subclass of countable nouns.

The
grammatical meaning of number may not coincide with the notional
quantity: the noun in the singular does not necessarily denote one
object while the plural form may be used to denote one object
consisting of several parts. The singular form may denote:

1. oneness
   (individual separate object – a cat);

2. generalization
   (the meaning of the whole class – The
   cat is a domestic animal);

3. indiscreteness
   (нерасчлененность or
   uncountableness — money, milk).

The plural
form may denote:

1. the
   existence of several objects (cats);

2. the
   inner discreteness (внутренняя
   расчлененность, pluralia
   tantum, jeans).

To sum it
up, all nouns may be subdivided into three groups:

1. The
   nouns in which the opposition of explicit
   discreteness/indiscreteness is expressed : cat::cats;

2. The
   nouns in which this opposition is not expressed explicitly but is
   revealed by syntactical and lexical correlation in the context.
   There are two groups here:

1. Singularia
   tantum. It covers different groups of nouns: proper names, abstract
   nouns, material nouns, collective nouns;

2. Pluralia
   tantum. It covers the names of objects consisting of several parts
   (jeans), names of sciences (mathematics), names of diseases, games,
   etc.

1. The
   nouns with homogenous number forms. The number opposition here is
   not expressed formally but is revealed only lexically and
   syntactically in the context: e.g. Look!
   A sheep is eating grass. Look! The sheep are eating grass.

3. The
category of case.

Case
expresses the relation of a word to another word in the word-group or
sentence (my sister’s coat). The category of case correlates with
the objective category of possession. The case category in English is
realized through the opposition: The Common Case :: The Possessive
Case (sister :: sister’s). However, in modern linguistics the term
“genitive case” is used instead of the “possessive case”
because the meanings rendered by the “`s” sign are not only those
of possession. The scope of meanings rendered by the Genitive Case is
the following :

1. Possessive
   Genitive : Mary’s father – Mary has a father,

2. Subjective
   Genitive: The doctor’s arrival – The doctor has arrived,

3. Objective
   Genitive : The man’s release – The man was released,

4. Adverbial
   Genitive : Two hour’s work – X worked for two hours,

5. Equation
   Genitive : a mile’s distance – the distance is a mile,

6. Genitive
   of destination: children’s books – books for children,

7. Mixed
   Group: yesterday’s paper

Nick’s
school cannot be reduced to one nucleus

John’s
word

To avoid
confusion with the plural, the marker of the genitive case is
represented in written form with an apostrophe. This fact makes
possible disengagement of –`s form from the noun to which it
properly belongs. E.g.: The
man I saw yesterday’s son,
where -`s is appended to the whole group (the so-called group
genitive). It may
even follow a word which normally does not possess such a formant, as
in somebody else’s
book.

There is no
universal point of view as to the case system in English. Different
scholars stick to a different number of cases.

1. There
   are two cases. The Common one and The Genitive;

2. There
   are no cases at all, the form `s is optional because the same
   relations may be expressed by the ‘of-phrase’: the
   doctor’s arrival – the arrival of the doctor;

3. There
   are three cases: the Nominative, the Genitive, the Objective due to
   the existence of objective pronouns me,
   him, whom;

4. Case
   Grammar. Ch.Fillmore introduced syntactic-semantic classification of
   cases. They show relations in the so-called deep structure of the
   sentence. According to him, verbs may stand to different relations
   to nouns. There are 6 cases:

1. Agentive
   Case (A) John
   opened the door;

2. Instrumental
   case (I) The key
   opened the door;
   John used the key to open the door;

3. Dative
   Case (D) John
   believed that he would win (the case of the animate being affected
   by the state of action identified by the verb);

4. Factitive
   Case (F) The key
   was damaged ( the result of the action or state identified by the
   verb);

5. Locative
   Case (L) Chicago is
   windy;

6. Objective
   case (O) John stole
   the book.

4. The
Problem of Gender in English

Gender
plays a relatively minor part in the grammar of English by comparison
with its role in many other languages. There is no gender concord,
and the reference of the pronouns he,
she, it is very
largely determined by what is sometimes referred to as ‘natural’
gender for English, it depends upon the classification of persons and
objects as male, female or inanimate. Thus, the recognition of gender
as a grammatical category is logically independent of any particular
semantic association.

According
to some language analysts (B.Ilyish, F.Palmer, and E.Morokhovskaya),
nouns have no category of gender in Modern English. Prof.Ilyish
states that not a single word in Modern English shows any
peculiarities in its morphology due to its denoting male or female
being. Thus, the words husband
and wife
do not show any
difference in their forms due to peculiarities of their lexical
meaning. The difference between such nouns as actor
and actress
is a purely lexical one. In other words, the category of sex should
not be confused with the category of sex, because sex is an objective
biological category.
It correlates with gender only when sex differences of living beings
are manifested in the language grammatically (e.g. tiger
– tigress).
Still, other scholars (M.Blokh, John Lyons) admit the existence of
the category of gender. Prof.Blokh states that the existence of the
category of gender in Modern English can be proved by the correlation
of nouns with personal pronouns of the third person (he,
she, it).
Accordingly, there are three genders in English: the neuter
(non-person) gender, the masculine gender, the feminine gender.

LECTURE
6: THE VERB.
1.General characteristics

Grammatically
the verb is the most complex part of speech. First of all it performs
the central role in realizing predication —
connection between situation in the utterance and reality. That is
why the verb is of primary informative significance in an utterance.
Besides, the verb possesses quite a lot of grammatical categories.
Furthermore, within the class of verb various subclass divisions
based on different principles of classification can befound.

Semantic
features of the verb. The verb possesses the grammatical meaning of
verbiality — the
ability to denote a process developing in time. This meaning is
inherent not only in the verbs denoting processes, but also in those
denoting states, forms of existence, evaluations, etc.

Morphological
features of the verb. The verb possesses the following grammatical
categories: tense, aspect, voice, mood, person, number, finitude and
phase. The common categories for finite and non-finite forms are
voice, aspect, phase and finitude. The grammatical categories of the
English verb find their expression in synthetical and analytical
forms. The formative elements expressing these categories are
grammatical affixes, inner inflexion and
function words.
Some categories have only synthetical forms (person,
number), others
— only analytical (voice).
There are also categories expressed by both synthetical and
analytical forms (mood, tense, aspect).

Syntactic features. The
most universal syntactic feature of verbs is their ability to be
modified by adverbs. The second important syntactic criterion is the
ability of the verb to perform the syntactic function of the
predicate. However, this criterion is not absolute because only
finite forms can perform this function while non-finite forms can be
used in any function but predicate. And finally, any verb in the form
of the infinitive can be combined with a modal verb.

2.
Classifications of English verbs

According to different
principles of classification, classifications can be morphological,
lexical-morphological, syntactical and functional.

A.
Morphological classifications..

I.
According to their stem-types all verbs fall into: simple (to
go), sound-replacive
(food —
to feed, blood —
to bleed), stress-replacive
(import
— to im port,
transport —
to transport, expanded
(with the help of suffixes and prefixes): cultivate,
justify, overcome, composite
(correspond to composite nouns): to
blackmail), phrasal:
to have a smoke, to give a smile
(they always have an ordinary verb as
an equivalent). 2.According
to the way of forming past tenses and Participle
II verbs can be regular
and irregular.

B.
Lexical-morphological classification is
based on the implicit grammatical meanings of the verb. According to
the implicit grammatical meaning of transitivity/intransitivity verbs
fall into transitive
and intransitive.
According to the implicit grammatical meaning of
stativeness/non-stativeness verbs fall into stative
and dynamic.
According to the implicit grammatical meaning of
terminativeness/non-terminativeness verbs fall into terminative
and durative.
This classification is closely connected with the categories of
Aspect and Phase.

C.
Syntactic
classifications. According to the nature of predication (primary and
secondary) all verbs fall into finite
and non-finite.
According to syntagmatic properties (valency) verbs can be of
obligatory
and optional valency,
and thus they may have some directionality or be devoid of any
directionality. In this way, verbs fall into the verbs of directed
(to see, to take, etc.)
and non-directed
action (to arrive, to drizzle, etc.):

Syntagmatic
classification of English verbs

(according
to prof.G.Pocheptsov)

V
Vobj. She shook her head

Vaddr. He phoned me

V2
– V10 Vobj.-addr. She gave me

her pen

V11
– V15 Vadv. She behaved well

V1
V2 – V24 V16 – V24 Vobj.-adv. He put his hat

on the table

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