INTRODUCTION TO GRAMMAR OF ENGLISH
WHAT IS GRAMMAR?
Grammar is concerned with how
sentences and utterances are formed. In a typical English sentence, we can see
the two most basic principles of grammar, the
arrangement of items (syntax) and the
structure of items (morphology):
I gave my sister a sweater for her
birthday.
1a - Arrangement of items (syntax)
The meaning of this sentence is
obviously created by words such as gave, sister, sweater and birthday. But there are other
words (I,
my, a, for, her) which
contribute to the meaning, and, additionally, aspects of the individual words
and the way they are arranged which enable us to interpret what the sentence
means. For example, we know it is I who gave the sweater, not my sister,
because I comes before the verb (gave). In English, subjects (the
doers of actions) come before verbs in statements. We also know the
relationship between the indirect object, my sister, and the direct object, a sweater,
(that the sweater
was given and my
sister was the recipient) because indirect objects come before
direct objects. We also expect my to come before sister, not after. These aspects
of the arrangement of things in sentences is referred to as syntax. Syntax is
one of the two basic principles of grammar.
1b - Structure of items (morphology)
The example sentence (i.e. I gave my sister
a sweater for her birthday.) also illustrates the other basic
principle of grammar. I and my are two different forms, one with a subject
meaning, the other with a possessive meaning, even though they both refer to
the same person. Gave
refers to past time, in contrast to give(s),
which refers to present time. Sweater is singular; if there were more than
one sweater, the form would be sweaters. These small items of meaning, such
as I,
my,
the past form gave,
a plural -s ending, are called grammatical morphemes, and
come under the heading of morphology. Morphology is concerned with the
structure of words and phrases. It is the second basic principle of grammar.
1c - Acceptable and unacceptable forms
Grammar is concerned with
acceptable and unacceptable forms and the distinctions of meaning these forms
create. The fact that sweater means ‘knitted outer garment worn on
the upper part of the body for warmth’ and that sister means ‘female sibling’
are matters of vocabulary (lexis), but the distinction between present and past,
one and more
than one, subject and object, possession
and non-possession, etc., are matters of
grammar. In every language, some forms are acceptable and others are not. So,
in English, we can create arrangements of our example sentence which are not
acceptable, either syntactically or morphologically:
I my sister gave a sweater for birthday
her.
Gave I my sister a sweaters for his
birthday.
I gives my sisters sweater a for her
birthday.
In Cambridge Grammar book, we
indicate unacceptable forms with a line through the text:
1d - Vocabulary (lexis)
Although some aspects of our
example sentence are concerned with lexis, lexis and grammar are not totally
independent. A ‘sweater’ is the kind of thing in the world that English treats
as countable (we may have one, two or more of them). However, if I gave my
sister ‘information’, the fact that information is an abstract entity, which
English considers to be uncountable, affects the grammar, and the sentence
would have to be I
gave my sister some information. ‘I gave my sister an information’
would be an unacceptable form.
1e - Phrases
Our initial example sentence may
also be seen as composed of units or building blocks of different sizes, not
just individual words and their endings. For example, the sentence could be
divided up thus:
I | gave | my sister | a sweater | for her birthday.
We have now divided the sentence
into its constituent phrases (items which have individual functions in the
sentence). It is the phrase a sweater which
acts as the object, not just the word sweater, and the whole phrase for her birthday indicates the reason or circumstances of the
giving.
1f - Clauses
We could extend the example
sentence:
I gave my sister a sweater for her birthday
and she bought me a CD for mine.
We can now see two larger
building blocks (in green) in the sentence, connected by and. These are clauses (separate
units containing their own verbs: gave/bought).
Grammar is concerned with how the constituent units of sentences (morphemes,
words, phrases and clauses) are put together to form sentences.
1g - Classes of word, phrase and clause
Words are not all of the same
type. Some, such as sweater and
sister,
are nouns (words referring to entities: persons, things, animals, abstract
concepts); some, such as gave and bought,
are verbs (words referring to actions, events or states); and so on. These
words belong to different classes.
Equally, the
phrases belong to different classes: for her birthday and for mine are prepositional phrases (phrases introduced by
prepositions).
Clauses too
belong to classes: some are declarative (they have the subject first and
typically make statements), some are interrogative (they have a verb such as do, be or
have
first, and typically ask questions). Grammar is concerned with how units and classes
relate to one another.
1h - Functions
The noun phrases my sister,
a sweater are types of object in our example sentence in 1f, and for
my birthday and for mine are
operating as phrases indicating the circumstances. They are referred to as
adjuncts. The terms subject, verb, object, adjunct refer to the functions the
different phrase-types carry out in the clause. Grammar describes what the
acceptable functions are.
1i - Sounds (phonology)
How sentences are spoken is also
relevant. The sentence I do like your car, on the face of it, seems
to break the rule that do is not used in statements. However, if the
sentence is spoken with appropriate stress, then it becomes acceptable. This is
the emphatic do,
which may be used in statements:
I do like your car.
Phonology (the sound systems of a
language) is therefore also connected in important ways with grammar and lexis,
and influences the interpretation of sentences.
1j - Choices
Throughout the construction of a
sentence, the speaker/writer makes choices. Choices involve things such as
number (singular or plural), tense (present or past), definiteness (a sweater versus the
sweater), etc. Every choice carries a different meaning, and grammar is
concerned with the implications of such choices.
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