Grammatical Structure of The English Language

GRAMMATICAL
STRUCTURE
OF THE
ENGLISH LANGUAGE
What is Grammar?
Grammar is…
GRAMMAR is
In Glossary of Grammatical and Rhetorical Terms (at
grammar.about.com), you’ll find two definitions of
grammar:
• The systematic study and description of a language.

(DESCRIPTIVE - linguists)
• A set of rules and examples dealing with the syntax and

word structures of a language, usually intended as an aid to
the learning of that language. (PRESCRIPTIVE - teachers)
• 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)
“Grammar is the greatest joy in life, don't you
find?”
― Lemony Snicket, The Wide Window
“A complicated structure? Undoubtedly. But

after all, the cathedral of Milan is complicated
too, and you still look at it with awe.”
― Kató Lomb
“Every English poet should
master the rules of grammar
before he attempts to bend or
break them.”
― Robert Graves
“I know grammar by ear only, not by note,

not by the rules.”
― Mark Twain
Grammar is the structural foundation of our
ability to express ourselves. The more we are
aware of how it works, the more we can
monitor the meaning and effectiveness of the
way we and others use language. It can help
foster precision, detect ambiguity, and exploit
the richness of expression available in English.
And it can help everyone--not only teachers of
English, but teachers of anything, for all
teaching is ultimately a matter of getting to
grips with meaning.
(David Crystal, "In Word and Deed." TES Teacher, April 30, 2004)
Synthetic language, any language in which syntactic relations within
sentences are expressed byinflection (the change in the form of a word
that indicates distinctions of tense, person, gender, number, mood, voice,
and case) or by agglutination (word formation by means of morpheme, or
word unit, clustering). Latin is an example of an inflected language;
Hungarian and Finnish are examples of agglutinative languages.
Highly synthetic languages, in which a whole sentence may consist of a
single word (usually a verb form) containing a large number of affixes are
called polysynthetic. Eskimo and many American Indian languages are
polysynthetic.
Analytic language, any language that uses specific

grammatical words, or particles, rather thaninflection, to
express syntactic relations within sentences. + Word order.
ENGLISH?
One way to begin studying basic sentence structures in
English is to identify the traditional parts of speech
(also known as word classes). Here you'll learn the
names and basic functions of these eight sentence
parts.
Learning the names of the parts of speech probably
won't make you witty, wealthy, or wise. In fact,
learning just the names of the parts of speech won't
even make you a better writer. But you will gain a basic
understanding of the English language, which should
help you follow the other lessons (e.g. at About.com
Grammar and Composition). And those
lessons will help you to improve your writing.
PART OF SPEECH BASIC FUNCTION EXAMPLES
noun names a person, place, or thing pirate, Caribbean, ship
pronoun takes the place of a noun I, you, he, she, it, ours, them, who
verb identifies action or state of being sing, dance, believe, be
adjective modifies a noun hot, lazy, funny
adverb modifies a verb, adjective, or other softly, lazily, often

adverb
preposition shows a relationship between a up, over, against, by, for

noun (or pronoun) and other words
in a sentence
conjunction joins words, phrases, and clauses and, but, or, yet
interjection expresses emotion and can usually ah, whoops, ouch

stand alone
Traditional grammar classifies words based on
eight parts of speech: the verb, the noun, the pronoun,
the adjective, the adverb, the preposition, the
conjunction, and the interjection.
Each part of speech explains not what the word is, but
how the word is used. In fact, the same word can be a
noun in one sentence and a verb or adjective in the
next:
Books are made of ink, paper, and glue.

In this sentence, "books" is a noun, the subject of the
sentence.
Deborah waits patiently while Bridget books the

tickets.
We walk down the street.
The mail carrier stood on the walk.
The town decided to build a new jail.
The sheriff told us that if we did not leave town immediately he

would jail us.
They heard high pitched cries in the middle of the night.
The baby cries all night long and all day long.
Written by Heather MacFadyen
http://arts.uottawa.ca/writingcentre/en/hypergrammar/the-
parts-of-speech

It is necessary to know
grammar,
and it is better to write
grammatically than not,
but it is well to remember
that grammar is common
speechformulated.
Usage is the only test.
(William Somerset Maugham, The Summing Up, 1938)

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GRAMMATICAL

• The systematic study and description of a language.

• A set of rules and examples dealing with the syntax and

“A complicated structure? Undoubtedly. But

“I know grammar by ear only, not by note,

Analytic language, any language that uses specific

noun names a person, place, or thing pirate, Caribbean, ship

verb identifies action or state of being sing, dance, believe, be

adjective modifies a noun hot, lazy, funny

adverb modifies a verb, adjective, or other softly, lazily, often

preposition shows a relationship between a up, over, against, by, for

interjection expresses emotion and can usually ah, whoops, ouch

Books are made of ink, paper, and glue.

Deborah waits patiently while Bridget books the

The mail carrier stood on the walk.

The town decided to build a new jail.

The sheriff told us that if we did not leave town immediately he

They heard high pitched cries in the middle of the night.

The baby cries all night long and all day long.

Written by Heather MacFadyen

(William Somerset Maugham, The Summing Up, 1938)

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