English Grammar
Grammar is the process of describing the structure of phrases and sentences so that one accounts for all the grammatical sequences in a language and rule out all the ungrammatical sequences
Traditional Grammar
Number, person, tense, voice, and gender all matter in regards to agreement.
Number describes whether the noun is singular or plural, person which covers first (involving the speaker) second (involving the hearer) or third (involving any others), tense describes relation to time, voice either active (performs the action of the verb) or passive (not performing the action), and gender.
In English we have natural gender derived from biological distinctions between male and female.
Most other languages use grammatical gender which is based on the type of noun (masculine or feminine).
Traditional analysis is based on applying Latin grammar forms to English verbs.
| First person singular | (I) | love | amo |
| Second person singular | (you) | love | amas |
| Third person singular | (she) | loves | amat |
| First person plural | (we) | love | amamus |
| Second person plural | (you) | love | amatis |
| Third person plural | (they) | love | amant |
As seen in Latin these descriptive categories characterize verb forms but in English the categories describe different pronouns.
Prescriptive Approach
The prescriptive approach takes the view that there is a set of rules for the proper use of language and believe in linguistic etiquette.
Two example of old rules:
- Never split an infinitive
- Never end a sentence with a preposition
An example where a rule is broken is Captain Kirk’s infinitive. An infinitive has the form to+ base form of verb (such as go). When Captain Kirk says “To boldly go” he splits the infinitive. In Latin this is not possible as Latin infinitive are single words, so would have been Ire audacter.
Descriptive Approach
The descriptive approach looks at describing how the regular structure of how a language is used not according to some view of how it should be used.
There are two types of analyses for the descriptive approach.
-
Structural analysis which is concerned with the distribution of forms in a language. This method involved the use of “test-frames” which can be sentences with empty slots. This analysis shows what was wrong with the old Latin definition of a pronoun. Which was that a pronoun is used in place of a noun. The analysis shows this wrong because then he could replace man and it replace sandwich making The man ate the sandwich into The he ate the it.
-
Constituent analysis which is concerned with looking at how small components go together to form larger components. This is done through constituent diagrams which show the types of forms that can be substituted at different levels of constituent structures.
Distribution of constituents
Constituent analysis
Subjects and Objects
The subject is the first noun phrase before the verb. Object is the noun phrase after the verb. The part of a sentence, that typically contains an adverb or prepositional phrase, that provides additional information about where, when, or how is called an adjunct. English has different pronouns for subjects vs objects.
| Subjects | Objects |
|---|---|
| first noun phrase | noun phrase after verb |
| controls the verb (singular or plural) | no influence on verb |
| often performs the action | often undergoes the action |
| pronouns: I, he, she , we, they | pronouns: me, him, her, us, them |
Word Order
English word order is SVO. Most common pattern is SOV as in Japan. Scottish Gaelic is VSO and Madagascan Malagasy is VOS. Using word order patterns to talk about types of languages is called language typology.
Study Questions
- Identify all the parts of speech used in this sentence.
The woman kept a large snake in a cage, but it escaped recently.
| Word | Part of speech |
|---|---|
| The | article |
| woman | noun |
| kept | verb |
| a | article |
| large | adjective |
| snake | noun |
| in | preposition |
| a | article |
| cage | noun |
| but | conjunction |
| it | pronoun |
| escaped | verb |
| recently | adverb |
- How many adverbs are there in the following sentence? 3 - really, very, slowly
Really large objects move very slowly.
- What is the tense and voice of the verb in the following sentence? Past tense, passive voice.
My parents were married in Rome.
- What is the difference between grammatical gender and natural gender? Grammatical gender is masculine or feminine based on the type of noun, while natural gender is based on the biological distinction between male, female, and neither male nor female.
- How does Spanish differ from German in the number of grammatical genders? Spanish has two genders (masculine or feminine) while German has three (masculine, feminine, and neuter)
- What prescriptive rules for the “proper” use of English are not obeyed in the following sentences and how would they be “corrected”? a) You must not split an infinitive (to fully explain ⇒ to explain fully) b) You must not end a sentence with a preposition.
a) The old theory consistently failed to fully explain all the data.
b) I can’t remember the name of the person I gave the book to.
- How many noun phrases are there in the following sentence?
Robert brought a small puppy to the party and we all wanted to keep it.
- What was wrong with older Latin-influenced definition of English pronouns? It said that pronouns replaced nouns. Structural analysis proves this wrong as you otherwise could have a sentence say “The she” instead of “The woman”.
- What is the most common word order in the language of the world: verb-initial, verb-medial, or verb-final? Verb final.
- Is Malagasy a VSO language or something else? It is VOS.