English grammar Totally Explained

Everything about English Grammar totally explained

English grammar is a body of rules specifying how meanings are created in English. So-called Standard English is often what is meant when the term "English grammar" is used, but it's actually much broader than that. Accounts of English grammar tend to fall into two groups: the descriptivist, which describe the patterns through which meanings are typically created in functional speech and writing; and the prescriptivist, which set out pre-existing rules as to how meanings are created (see prescription and description).
The remainder of this article deals with English grammar as viewed from a linguistic perspective. Therefore, the issues addressed deal mainly with the grammars of natural dialects of everyday speech rather than those of formal writing. Issues common to all languages are not stressed here.

Word order

English is a subject verb object (SVO) language: it prefers a sequence of subject–verb–object in its simplest, unmarked declarative statements. Thus, "Tom [subject] eats [verb] cheese [object]" and "Mary sees the cat."
However, beyond these simple examples, word order is a complicated matter in English. In particular, the speaker or writer's point of departure in each clause is a key factor in the organization of the message. Thus, the elements in a message can be ordered in a way that signals to the reader or listener what the message concerns.

The duke has given my aunt that teapot. (for example, I'm going to tell you about the duke).
My aunt has been given that teapot by the duke. (for example, I'm going to tell you about my aunt).
That teapot has been given to my aunt by the duke. (for example, I'm going to tell you about that teapot).

The point of departure can also be set up as an equation, known as a thematic equative. In this way, virtually any element in a clause can be put first.

"What the duke gave my aunt was a teapot" (for example, I'm going to tell you what the duke gave my aunt).

"What happened was that the duke gave my aunt a teapot" (for example, I'm going to tell you what happened). Usually, the point of departure is the subject of a declarative clause; this is the unmarked form. A point of departure is marked when it isn't the subject — thus, occasionally it's the object ("You I blame for this dilemma") and more often an adverbial phrase ("This morning I got up late").
In questions, point of departure is treated slightly differently. English questions come in two types: wh-questions and yes-no questions. Ordinary (unmarked) questions of either type start with the word that indicates what the speaker wants to know.

"Where is my little dog?" (I want you to tell me where.) [wh-question]

"Is John Smith inside?" (I want you to tell me whether he's or is not). [yes-noquestion] Special (marked) questions displace this key "what I want to know" word with some other element.

"After tea, will you tell me a story?" (Still "will you or won't you?")

"In your house, who does the cooking?" (Still "who?") Either imperative clauses are of the type "I want you to do something" or "I want you and me to do something." The second type usually starts with let us; in the unmarked form of the first type, you is implied and not made explicit ("Improve your grammar!"), and included in the marked form ("You improve your grammar!"); another marked form is "Do improve your grammar." In the negative, "Do not argue with me" is unmarked, and "Do not you argue with me" is marked.
In spoken English, the point of departure is frequently marked off by intonation.
Generally, English is a head-initial language, meaning that the "anchor" of a phrase (segment of a sentence) occurs at the beginning of the phrase.

Ran quickly (verb phrase)

To the store (prepositional phrase) The main exception is that simple modifiers precede the noun phrases:

A dog (article + noun)

Blue house (adjective + noun)

Fred's cat (possessive + noun) but man of the house (noun + prepositional phrase) This leads to a sentence like: "Fred's sister ran quickly to the store." As can be inferred from this example, the sequence of a basic sentence (ignoring articles and other determiners as well as prepositional phrases) is: Adjective1 - Subject - Verb - Adverb - Adjective2 - Indirect Object - Adjective3 - Direct Object.
Interrogative sentences invert word order ("Did you go to the store?"). Changing a given sentence from active to passive grammatical voice changes the word order, moving the new subject to the front ("John bought the car" becomes "The car was bought by John"), and lexical or grammatical emphasis (topicalization) changes it in many cases as well (see duke-aunt-teapot examples above).
English also sees some use of the OSV (object-subject-verb) word order, especially when making comparisons using pronouns that are marked for case. For example, "I hate oranges, but apples I'll eat." Far more rare, but still sometimes used is OVS, "If it's apples you like, then apples like I," although this last usage can sound contrived and anachronistic to a native speaker.

Interrogative sentences

Interrogative word order is used to pose questions, with or without an expected answer. Most of the time, it's formed by switching the order of the subject and the auxiliary (or "helping") verb in a declarative sentence, as in the following:

Are you going to the party?

Is he supposed to do that?

How much do I owe you?

Where is the parking lot? However, when the information being requested would be the subject of the answer, the word order isn't inverted, and the interrogative pronoun takes the place of the subject, as in the following:

Who helped you with your homework?

What happened here? When spoken, an intonation change is often used to emphasize this switch, or can entirely reflect interrogation in some cases (for example "John ran?"). The interrogative phrase can further be formed in this manner by moving the predicate of a declarative sentence in front of the helping verb and changing it to a demonstrative, relative pronoun, quantifier, etc. Ending the sentence with a question mark denotes the interrogative phrase . Rhetorical questions can be formed by moving the helping verb-subject pair to the end of the question, for example "You wouldn't really do that, would you?"

Types of Interrogative Sentences

There are five types of interrogative sentences (questions) in English:

General questions require “Yes/No” answers. For example: Do you like modern music? Is he a driver?

Special questions require special information while answering them. They are characterized by the presence of an interrogative pronoun in the first place (Why? When? How much? etc.) and can be asked to any part of the sentence. For example: Where did you spend last summer? Why have you done it?

Alternative questions express opposition and can be asked to any part of the sentence (like special questions). For example: Do you prefer tea or coffee? Did you or your mum tell him the truth?

Disjunctive questions (tag questions) represent statements with tags separated by a comma. For example: You were at home yesterday, weren’t you? He won’t come tomorrow, will he?

Questions to the subject require mentioning the doer of the action in the answer. For example: Who has broken the window? Who was talking to you when I saw you?

Nominals

Noun phrases and pronouns both can have a referential function where they "point" (for example refer) to some person or object in the real world (or a possible world). Additionally, they share many of the same grammatical functions in that they can both act as subjects, objects, and complements within clauses.
Noun phrases can consist of only a single noun or they be complex consisting of a noun (which functions as the head of the noun phrase) that's modified by different types of elements (such as adjectives, prepositional phrases, etc.).
Pronouns are words that can act as substitutions for noun phrases. For instance, in the following sentence � Professor Plum kicked the very large ball with red spots over the fence.

the noun phrase the very large ball with red spots can be substituted with the pronoun it as in � Professor Plum kicked it over the fence.

In spite of the name pronoun, pronouns can't substitute for nouns — they only substitute for noun phrases. This can be shown with the same sentence above: the noun ball can't be substituted with the pronoun it (or any other pronoun) as in the ungrammatical sentence � *Professor Plum kicked the very large it with red spots over the fence.

The sections below describe English nouns (their morphology and syntax), the structure of noun phrases, and pronouns.

Nouns

Nouns are defined notionally (for example semantically) as generally describing persons, places, and things. This notional definition does account for what are the central members of the noun lexical category. However, the notional definition fails to account for several nouns, such as deverbal nouns like jump or destruction (which are notionally more like actions). For this reason, many grammatical descriptions of English define nouns in terms of grammar (for example according to their morphological and syntactic behavior). Nonetheless, traditional English grammars and some pedagogical grammars define nouns with a notional definition.
Non-proper nouns, in general, are not marked for case or gender, but are marked for number and definiteness (when referential).

Non-inflectional morphology

simple nouns

nouns with derivational affixes

compound nouns

compound nouns with derivational affixes Simple nouns consist of a single root which also acts as the stem which may be inflected. For example, the word (or, more precisely, the lexeme) boy is a simple noun consisting of a single root (also boy). The root boy also acts as the stem boy, which can have the inflectional plural suffix -s added to it producing the inflectional word-form boys.
More complex nouns can have derivational prefixes or suffixes in addition to a noun stem. For example, the noun archenemy consists of a derivational prefix arch- and a root enemy. Here the derived form archenemy acts as the stem which can be used to form the inflected word-form archenemies. An example with a derivational suffix is kingdom which is composed of root king and suffix -dom. Some English nouns can be complex with several derivational prefixes and suffixes. A considerably complex example is antidisestablishmentarianism which has the root establish and the affixes anti-, dis-, -ment, -ary, -an, and -ism.
English compound nouns are nouns that consist of more than one stem. For example, the compound paperclip is composed of the stem paper and the stem clip. Compounds in English can be usefully subdivided (following Bauer 1983) into different classes according to the lexical category of the individual stems and according to a semantic classification into endocentric, exocentric, copulative, and appositional subtypes.

Number

English nouns are typically inflected for number, having distinct singular and plural forms. The plural form usually consists of the singular form plus -s or -es, but there are many irregular nouns. Ordinarily, the singular form is used when discussing one instance of the noun's referent, and the plural form is used when discussing any other number of instances, but there are many exceptions to this rule. Here are some examples:

Number	Example
Singular	The girl* talks.*
	Every girl* talks.*
	No girl* talks.*
Plural	The girls* talk.*
	All girls* talk.*
	No girls* talk.*

Membership

Words that belong to the noun lexical category (or part of speech) can be simple words that belong primarily to the noun category. These include words like man, dog, rice, etc. Other nouns are derived from words belonging to other lexical categories with the addition of class-changing derivational suffixes. For example, the suffixes -ation, -ee, -ure, -al, -er, -ment are attached to verb bases to create deverbal nouns. �
In the subjunctive mood, all person and number distinctions are neutralized (see below).

Structure of the verb "complex"

Operatoroperator. It is displays a number of distinct syntactic and morphological characteristics.

subject-operator inversion � [ The large man with a cane ] has been coming your way.

Has [ the large man with a cane ] been coming your way? � [ The woman ] has been flying a kite, and [ her son ] has been flying a kite, too.

[ The woman ] has been flying a kite, and so has [ her son ] . (with coordination elipsis)

Time, tense and aspect

auxiliary verbs "to be" and "to have" and the use of the auxiliaries "will", "shall" and "would". (These auxiliaries can't co-occur with other modals like can, may, and must.) The examples below use the regular verb to listen:

Present tenses

Simple present (or simply "present"): "I listen." This tense typically expresses habitual actions. Rarely, it's used to refer to present time in reportative style speech.
Present continuous (or "present progressive"): "I am listening." This tense expresses actions in the present taking place as the speaker is speaking or in the future.
Present perfect: "I have listened." This tense expresses actions that began in the past but are still true in the present: "I have known her for six years" (and I still know her). This is also used to express a completed action that took place at a non-specific moment in the past. This tense often expresses actions that happen in the past, yet can't be considered a past tense because it always has a connection to the present.
Present perfect continuous: "I have been listening." This is used to express that an event started at some time in the past and continuing to the present.
All forms of the present tense are often used in place of their future-tense counterparts. In particular, various kinds of subordinate clauses — especially if and when clauses — can't generally use the future tense, so the present tense is used instead.

Past tenses

Simple past: "I listened." This is used to express a completed action that took place at a specific moment in the past. (Confusingly, in US English, the simple past may sometimes be used for a non-specific moment in the past).
Past continuous (otherwise known as the imperfect or past progressive): "I was listening." This is used to express an incomplete action in the past. (Thus an "imperfect" action, as opposed to a completed and therefore "perfect" action.)
Past perfect or pluperfect: "I had listened." This expresses an action completed before some other action in the past (often expressed by the simple past). The pluperfect is thus expressing an action even more in the past for example "He realised he had lost his way", "I was going to town because he had spoken to me".
Past perfect continuous or simply "perfect continuous": "I had been listening." Usually used with an explicit duration, this indicates that an event was ongoing for a specific time, for example "When Peter entered my room, I'd been listening to music for half an hour."

Future tenses

Simple future: "I shall/will listen." This is used to express that an event will occur in the future, or that the speaker intends to perform some action.
Future continuous: "I shall/will be listening." This is used to express an ongoing event that hasn't yet been initiated.
Future perfect: "I shall/will have listened." This indicates an action which will occur before some other action in the future: Normally two actions are expressed, and the future perfect indicates an action which will occur in the future but will, at the time of the main future action expressed, be in the past (for example "I will know the tune next week because I'll have listened to it").
Future perfect continuous or future imperfect: "I shall/will have been listening." Expresses an ongoing action that occurs in the future, before some other event expressed in the future.
"I am going to listen" is a construction using "to go" as an auxiliary. It is referred to as going to future, futur proche or immediate future, and has the same sense as the simple future, sometimes with an implication of immediacy. It isn't strictly a tense, and "to go" isn't strictly a tense auxiliary verb, but this construction often is presented as a tense for simplicity. By varying the tense of the auxiliary "to go", various other meanings can be achieved, for example "I am going to be listening" (future continuous), and "I was going to listen" (conditional perfect continuous).

Conditional tenses

Present conditional or simply conditional: "I would listen." This is used to express an event that occurred multiple times or was ongoing in the past (for example When I was younger, I'd listen. [multipletimes]), or something that would be done now or in the future when predicated upon another condition (for example “If I'd the time, I'd listen to you.” [Thiscondition could be known from context and omitted from the conditional statement.])
Present continuous conditional: "I would be listening." This is used to express an ongoing event that hadn't yet been initiated.
Conditional perfect: "I would have listened." Indicates that an action would occur after some other event.
Conditional perfect continuous: "I would have been listening": Expresses an ongoing action that would occur in the future in the past, after some other event.

Auxiliary verbs may be used to define tense, aspect, or mood of a verb phrase.
As mentioned above "going to" is used for some future pseudo-tenses:
Forms of "do" are used for some negatives, questions and emphasis of the simple present and simple past:

"Do I listen?" "I don't listen." "I do listen!"

"Did I listen?" "I didn't listen." "I did listen!"

Verb tense chart

English verb tenses can be better visualized in the following chart, which shows the times of the English language and its three aspects, namely Prior, Complete and Incomplete. Note that this chart only represents actions truly happening, be it present, past or future. Since unreal conditionals are obviously assumptions, conditional structures with 'would' are not included here.

	PAST	PRESENT	FUTURE
PRIOR ASPECT	Past Perfect	Present Perfect	Future Perfect
COMPLETE ASPECT	Simple Past	Simple Present	Simple Future
INCOMPLETE ASPECT	Past Continuous	Present Continuous	Future Continuous

Voice

English has two voices for verbs: the active and the passive. The basic form is the active verb, and follows the SVO pattern discussed above. The passive voice is derived from the active by using the auxiliary verb "to be" and the -en form of the main verb.
Examples of the passive:

Passive voice	i>Active voice
I am seen by John	John sees me
You will be struck by John	John will strike you
It was stolen by John	John stole it
We were carried by John	John carried us
They have been chosen by John	John has chosen them

Furthermore, the agent and patient switch grammatical roles between active and passive voices so that in passive the patient is the subject, and the agent is noted in an optional prepositional phrase using by, for example:

active: I heard the music.

passive: The music was heard (by me). (Note: me, not I) The passive form of the verb is formed by replacing the verb with to be in the same tense and aspect, and appending the -en form of the original verb. Thus:

Tense	ctive voice	he same sense, expressed with the passive voice
Simple present		The music is heard by me.
Present progressive	I am hearing the music.	The music is being heard by me.
Past progressive	I was hearing the music.	The music was being heard by me.
Past perfect	I had heard the music.	The music had been heard by me.
Simple future	I will hear the music.	The music will be heard by me.

This pattern continues through all the composite tenses as well. The semantic effect of the change from active to passive is the depersonalisation of an action. It is also occasionally used to topicalize the direct object of a sentence, or when the agent is either unknown or unimportant even when included, thus:

The plane was shot down.

Dozens were killed.

Bill was run over by a bus. Many writing style guides including Strunk and White recommend minimizing use of the passive voice in English; however, many others do not.
There is a third 'voice' in English, related to the classic "middle" voice. In this, the patient becomes the subject, as in passive, but the verb remains in apparently active voice, no agent can plausibly be supplied, and generally, an adverbial modifies the entire construction. Thus:

She doesn't frighten easily.

This bread slices poorly.

His novels sell well.

Modals and modality

English has "moods" of verb. These always include the declarative/indicative and the subjunctive moods, and normally the imperative is included as a mood. Some people include conditional or interrogative forms as verbal moods.

Indicative, or declarative, mood

The declarative mood or indicative mood is the simplest and most basic mood. The overwhelming majority of verb use is in the indicative, which may be considered the "normal" form of verbs, with the subjunctive as an "exceptional" form of verbs. (If any other forms are considered a mood (for example imperative), they may also be considered other "exceptional" verb forms.) Examples are most commonly used verb forms, for example: � * I think

   * I thought � * He was seen

   * I'm walking home. � * They are singing.

   * He isn't a dancer. � * We are very happy.

Subjunctive mood

The subjunctive mood is used to express counterfactual (or conditional) statements, and is often found in if-then statements, and certain formulaic expressions. It is typically marked in the present tense by the auxiliary "were" plus the -ing form of the verb.

Were I eating, I'd sit.
If they were eating, they'd sit.
Truth be told...
If I were you... I'd do that. The conjugation of these moods becomes a significantly more complex matter when they're used with different tenses. However, casual spoken English rarely uses the subjunctive, and generally restricts the conditional mood to the simple present and simple past. A notable exception to this is the use of the present subjunctive in clauses of wish or command which is marked in one or two ways: (1) if third person singular, the "-s" conjugation called for by the declarative mood is absent, and (2) past tense isn't used. For example, "They insisted that he go to chapel every morning" means that they were requiring or demanding him to go to chapel. However, "They insisted that he went to chapel every morning" means they're reasserting the statement that, in the past, he did attend chapel every morning. The underlying grammar of this distinction has been called the "American subjunctive". On the other hand, other constructions for expressing wishes and commands, which don't use the subjunctive, are equally common, such as "They required him to go..."

Imperative mood

The imperative mood is used for commands or instructions. It isn't always considered a verbal mood per se. Using the verb in its simplest, unconjugated form forms it: "Listen! Sit! Eat!" The imperative mood in English occurs only in the second person, and the subject ("you") is generally not expressly stated, because it's implied. When the speaker gives a command regarding anyone else, it's still directed at the second person as though it were a request for permission, although it may be a rhetorical statement.

Let me do the talking.
Come here.
Give him an allowance.
Let sleeping dogs lie.

Modal forms

Conditional forms of verb are used to express if-then statements, or in response to counterfactual propositions (see subjunctive mood, above), denoting or implying an indeterminate future action. Conditionals may be considered tense forms but are sometimes considered a verbal mood, the conditional mood.
Conditionals are expressed through the use of the verbal auxiliaries could, would, should, may and might in combination with the stem form of the verb.

He could go to the store.

You should be more careful.

I may try something else.

He might be heading north. Note that for many speakers "may" and "might" have merged into a single meaning (that of "might") that implies the outcome of the statement is contingent. The implication of permission in "may" seems to remain only in certain uses with the second person, for example "You may leave the dinner table." Two main conditional tenses can be identified in English: � I would think = Present Conditional

I would have thought = Conditional Perfect ==

Further Information

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