1. English grammar is the body of rules that describe the structure of expressions in the English language.
This includes the structure of words, phrases,clauses and sentences. A text that contains more than one
[1]
sentence is no longer in the realm of grammar, but is instead is in the realm of discourse.
The grammar of a language is approached in two ways: descriptive grammar is based on analysis of text
corpora and describes grammatical structures thereof, whereas prescriptive grammar attempts to use the
identified rules of a given language as a tool to govern the linguistic behaviour of speakers. This article
predominantly concerns itself with descriptive grammar.
There are historical, social and regional variations of English. Divergences from the grammar described
here occur in some dialects of English. This article describes a generalized present-day Standard
English, the form of speech found in types of public discourse including broadcasting, education,
entertainment, government, and news reporting, including both formal and informal speech.
Although British English, American English and Australian English have several lexical differences, the
grammatical differences are not as conspicuous, and will be mentioned only when appropriate.
Grammar is divided into morphology, which describes the formation of words, and syntax, which
describes the construction of meaningful phrases, clauses, and sentences out of words.
Contents
[hide]
1 Word classes and phrase classes
o 1.1 Nouns
 1.1.1 Noun phrases
 1.1.1.1 Order of determiners
o 1.2 Determiners
o 1.3 Pronouns
 1.3.1 Personal pronouns
 1.3.2 Demonstrative pronouns
 1.3.3 Relative pronouns
o 1.4 Verbs
 1.4.1 Regular and irregular lexical verbs
 1.4.2 Auxiliary verbs
 1.4.3 History of English verbs
o 1.5 Adjectives
 1.5.1 Adjective phrases
o 1.6 Adverbs
 1.6.1 Adverb placement

2.  1.6.2 Adverb phrases
o 1.7 Prepositions
 1.7.1 Prepositional phrases
o 1.8 Conjunctions
2 Clause syntax
o 2.1 Verb phrases
 2.1.1 Tense
 2.1.2 Aspect
 2.1.3 Voice
 2.1.4 Mood
o 2.2 Adjuncts
o 2.3 Verb complementation
 2.3.1 Transitive and intransitive verbs
 2.3.2 Ergative verbs
3 Sentence and clause patterns
o 3.1 Clause types
4 History of English grammars
5 See also
6 Notes and references
7 Bibliography
o 7.1 Grammar books
o 7.2 Monographs
8 External links
[edit]Word classes and phrase classes
Eight major word classes are described here. These
are: noun, pronoun, verb, adjective, adverb, preposition, conjunction, and determiner. The first seven are
traditionally referred to as "parts of speech". There are minor word classes, such as interjections, but
[2]
these do not fit into the clause and sentence structure of English.
Open and closed classes
[2]
Open word classes allow new members; closed word classes seldom do. Nouns such as "celebutante",
(a celebrity who frequents the fashion circles)" and "mentee," (a person advised by a mentor) and
adverbs such as "24/7" ("I am working on it 24/7") are relatively new words; nouns and adverbs are
[2]
therefore open classes. However, the pronoun, "their," as agender-neutral singular replacement for the
"his or her" (as in: "Each new arrival should check in their luggage."), while in widespread conversational

3. use, has not gained complete acceptance in the more than forty years of its use; pronouns, in
[2]
consequence, form a closed class.
Word classes and grammatical forms
A word can sometimes belong to several word classes. The class version of a word is called a
[3]
"lexeme". For example, the word "run" is usually a verb, but it can also be a noun ("It is a ten mile run
[3]
to Tipperary."); these are two different lexemes. Further, the same lexeme may be inflected to express
different grammatical categories: for example, as a verb lexeme, "run" has several forms such as "runs,"
[3]
"ran," and "running." Words in one class can sometimes be derived from those in another and new
words be created. The noun "aerobics," for example, has recently given rise to the adjective "aerobicized"
[3]
("the aerobicized bodies of Beverly Hills celebutantes." )
Phrase classes
Words combine to form phrases which themselves can take on the attributes of a word class. These
[3]
classes are called phrase classes. The phrase: "The ancient pulse of germ and birth" is a noun
phrase and functions as a noun in the sentence: "The ancient pulse of germ and birth was shrunken hard
and dry." (Thomas Hardy, The Darkling Thrush) It is therefore anoun phrase. Other phrase classes
[3]
are: verb phrases, adjective phrases, adverb phrases, prepositional phrases, and determiner phrases.
[edit]Nouns
Nouns form the largest word class. According to Carter and McCarthy, they denote "classes and
categories of things in the world, including people, animals, inanimate things, places, events, qualities
[3]
and states." Consequently, the words "Mandela," "jaguar," "mansion," "volcano," "Timbuktoo,"
"blockade," "mercy," and "liquid" are all nouns. Nouns are not commonly identified by their form; however,
some common suffixes such as "-age" ("shrinkage"), "-hood" ("sisterhood"), "-ism" ("journalism"), "-ist"
("lyricist"), "-ment" ("adornment"), "-ship" ("companionship"), "-tude" ("latitude"), and so forth, are usually
[3]
identifiers of nouns. There are exceptions, of course: "assuage" and "disparage" are verbs; "augment" is
a verb, "lament" and "worship" can be verbs. Nouns can also be created by conversion of verbs or
adjectives. Examples include the nouns in: "a boring talk," "a five-week run," "the long caress," "the utter
disdain," and so forth.
Number, gender, type, and syntactic features
[4]
Nouns have singular and plural forms. Many plural forms have -s or -es endings (dog/dogs,
referee/referees, bush/bushes), but by no means all (woman/women, axis/axes, medium/media). Unlike
[4]
some other languages, in English, nouns do not have grammatical gender. However, many nouns can
refer to masculine or feminine animate objects (mother/father, tiger/tigress, alumnus/alumna,
[4]
male/female). Nouns can be classified semantically, i.e. by their meanings: common nouns ("sugar,"
"maple," "syrup," "wood"), proper nouns ("Cyrus," "China"), concrete nouns ("book," "laptop"),
[4]
and abstract nouns ("heat," "prejudice"). Alternatively, they can be distinguished grammatically: count
[5]
nouns ("clock," "city," "colour") and non-count nouns ("milk," "decor," "foliage").
[edit]Noun phrases
Main article: English noun phrase
Noun phrases are phrases that function grammatically as nouns within sentences. Nouns serve as
[5]
"heads," or main words of noun phrases. Nouns have several syntactic features that can aid in their
[5]
identification. Nouns (example: common noun "cat") may be

4. 1. modified by adjectives ("the beautiful Angora cat"),
2. preceded by determiners ("the beautiful Angora cat"), or
[5]
3. pre-modified by other nouns ("the beautiful Angora cat").
Within the noun phrase, determiners occur at the far left edge of the noun phrase before the noun head
and before any other modifiers:
DETERMINER + OTHER MODIFIERS + NOUN
The head can have modifiers, a complement, or both.
Modifiers which occur before the head are called '"pre-modifiers", and those which occur after the
[5]
head ("who knows what fighting means") are called "post-modifiers". Pre-modifiers can be
determiners ("The"), adjectives ("rough", "seamy-faced", "real raw-knuckle", or "burnt-out"), or other
nouns ("College").
Complements occur after the head like post-modifiers, but are essential for completing the meaning
[6]
of the noun phrase in a way that modifiers are not.
Examples of modifiers (heads are in boldface, modifiers are italicized) include:
[7]
 "The burnt-out ends of smoky days."
[8]
 "The rough, seamy-faced, raw-boned College Servitor ..."
[9]
 "The real raw-knuckle boys who know what fighting means, ..."
Examples of complements (heads are in boldface, complements are italicized) include:
[10]
1. "The burnt-out ends of smoky days."
2. "The suggestion that Mr. Touchett should invite me appeared to have come from Miss
[11]
Stackpole."
[12]
3. "The ancient pulse of germ and birth was shrunken hard and dry."
Within a sentence, a noun phrase can function as the grammatical subject or the object, as well as
[6]
other uses. Examples (the noun phrase is italicized, and the head boldfaced):
[13]
1. Subject: "Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest."
[14]
2. Object: "Dr. Pavlov ... delivered many long propaganda harangues ..." )
Noun phrases can be constructed with the determiner "the" and an adjective. Some examples are:
 "The great and the good were present."
 "Give to the poor."
Noun phrases can be compound:
[15]
1. "The idle spear and shield ..."
More examples of noun phrases are:
the balloon the big red balloo
DET NOUN DET ADJ ADJ NOUN

5. many balloons many big red ball
DET NOUN DET ADJ ADJ NOU
all balloons all big red balloo
DET NOUN DET ADJ ADJ NOUN
The distinctness of the determiner and adjective positions relative to each other and the noun head is
demonstrable in that adjectives may never precede determiners. Thus, the following are
ungrammatical English nouns phrases: *big the red balloon, *big red the balloon (as well as *big
many red balloons, *big red many balloons, *big all red balloons, *big red all balloons).
[edit]Order of determiners
Determiners can be divided into three subclasses according to their position with respect to each
other:
 predeteminers
 central determiners
 postdeterminers
Predeterminers may precede central determiners but may not follow central determiners.
Postdeterminers follow central determiners but may not precede them. Central determiners must
occur after predeterminers and before postdeterminers. Thus, a central determiner e.g. the as in
the red balloons
DET ADJ NOUN
can be preceded by a predeterminer e.g. all as in
all the red balloons
PREDET CENT.DET
DET ADJ NOUN
or the central determiner the can be followed by a postdeterminer e.g. many as in
the many red balloons
CENT.DET POSTDET
DET ADJ NOUN
A sequence of predeterminer + central determiner + postdeterminer is also possible as
in
all the many red balloons
PREDET CENT.DET POSTDET
DET ADJ NOUN

6. However, there are several restrictions on combinatory possibilities. One general
restriction is that only one determiner can occur in each of the three determiner
positions. For example, the postdeterminers many and seven can occur in the
following
many smart children
seven smart children
the many smart children
the seven smart children
but both many and seven cannot occur in postdeterminer position
rendering the following noun phrases ungrammatical: *many
seven smart children, *seven many smart children, *the many
seven smart children, *the seven many smart children.
Additionally, there are often other lexical restrictions. For example,
the predeterminer all can occur alone (as the sole determiner) or
before a central determiner (e.g., all children, all the children, all
these children, all my children); however, the
predeterminer such can only occur alone or before a central
determiner (e.g., such nuisance!, such a nuisance!).
Predeterminers include words
e.g. all, both, half, double, twice, three times, one-third, one-
fifth, three-quarters, such, exclamative what. Examples with
predeterminers preceding a central determiner:
all the big balloons
both his nice parents
half a minute
double the risk
twice my age
three times my salary
one-third the cost
one-fifth the rate
three-quarters the diameter
such a big boy
what a clever suggestion
Central
determiners
include words
e.g. the, a/an, this,
that, these, those,

7. every, each, enou
gh, much, more, m
ost, less, no, some
, either, neither, w
hich, what.
Examples of
central
determiners
preceding
adjectival modified
noun heads:
the big balloon
a big balloon
this big balloon
that big balloon
these big balloons
those big balloons
every big balloon
each big balloon
no big balloon
some big balloons
either big balloon
English grammar
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
(Redirected from English grammer)
English grammar series
English grammar
 Contraction
 Disputes in English grammar
 English compound
 English honorifics
 English personal pronouns

8.  English plural
 English relative clauses
 English verbs
 English irregular verbs
 English modal verb
 Gender in English
This box:
 view
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 edit
English grammar is the body of rules that describe the structure of expressions in the English language. This
includes the structure of words, phrases,clauses and sentences. A text that contains more than one sentence is
no longer in the realm of grammar, but is instead is in the realm of discourse.[1]
The grammar of a language is approached in two ways: descriptive grammar is based on analysis of text
corpora and describes grammatical structures thereof, whereas prescriptive grammar attempts to use the
identified rules of a given language as a tool to govern the linguistic behaviour of speakers. This article
predominantly concerns itself with descriptive grammar.
There are historical, social and regional variations of English. Divergences from the grammar described here
occur in some dialects of English. This article describes a generalized present-day Standard English, the form
of speech found in types of public discourse including broadcasting, education, entertainment, government, and
news reporting, including both formal and informal speech. Although British English, American
English and Australian English have several lexical differences, the grammatical differences are not as
conspicuous, and will be mentioned only when appropriate.
Grammar is divided into morphology, which describes the formation of words, and syntax, which describes the
construction of meaningful phrases, clauses, and sentences out of words.
Contents
[hide]

9. 1 Word classes and phrase classes
o 1.1 Nouns
 1.1.1 Noun phrases
 1.1.1.1 Order of determiners
o 1.2 Determiners
o 1.3 Pronouns
 1.3.1 Personal pronouns
 1.3.2 Demonstrative pronouns
 1.3.3 Relative pronouns
o 1.4 Verbs
 1.4.1 Regular and irregular lexical verbs
 1.4.2 Auxiliary verbs
 1.4.3 History of English verbs
o 1.5 Adjectives
 1.5.1 Adjective phrases
o 1.6 Adverbs
 1.6.1 Adverb placement
 1.6.2 Adverb phrases
o 1.7 Prepositions
 1.7.1 Prepositional phrases
o 1.8 Conjunctions
2 Clause syntax
o 2.1 Verb phrases
 2.1.1 Tense
 2.1.2 Aspect
 2.1.3 Voice
 2.1.4 Mood
o 2.2 Adjuncts
o 2.3 Verb complementation
 2.3.1 Transitive and intransitive verbs
 2.3.2 Ergative verbs
3 Sentence and clause patterns

10. o 3.1 Clause types
4 History of English grammars
5 See also
6 Notes and references
7 Bibliography
o 7.1 Grammar books
o 7.2 Monographs
8 External links
[edit]Word classes and phrase classes
Eight major word classes are described here. These
are: noun, pronoun, verb, adjective, adverb, preposition, conjunction, and determiner. The first seven are
traditionally referred to as "parts of speech". There are minor word classes, such as interjections, but these do
not fit into the clause and sentence structure of English.[2]
Open and closed classes
Open word classes allow new members; closed word classes seldom do.[2] Nouns such as "celebutante", (a
celebrity who frequents the fashion circles)" and "mentee," (a person advised by a mentor) and adverbs such
as "24/7" ("I am working on it 24/7") are relatively new words; nouns and adverbs are therefore open
classes.[2] However, the pronoun, "their," as agender-neutral singular replacement for the "his or her" (as in:
"Each new arrival should check in their luggage."), while in widespread conversational use, has not gained
complete acceptance in the more than forty years of its use; pronouns, in consequence, form a closed class.[2]
Word classes and grammatical forms
A word can sometimes belong to several word classes. The class version of a word is called a "lexeme".[3] For
example, the word "run" is usually a verb, but it can also be a noun ("It is a ten mile run to Tipperary."); these
are two different lexemes.[3] Further, the same lexeme may be inflected to express different grammatical
categories: for example, as a verb lexeme, "run" has several forms such as "runs," "ran," and
"running."[3] Words in one class can sometimes be derived from those in another and new words be created.
The noun "aerobics," for example, has recently given rise to the adjective "aerobicized" ("the aerobicized
bodies of Beverly Hills celebutantes."[3])
Phrase classes
Words combine to form phrases which themselves can take on the attributes of a word class. These classes
are called phrase classes.[3] The phrase: "The ancient pulse of germ and birth" is a noun phrase and functions
as a noun in the sentence: "The ancient pulse of germ and birth was shrunken hard and dry." (Thomas

11. Hardy, The Darkling Thrush) It is therefore anoun phrase. Other phrase classes are: verb phrases, adjective
phrases, adverb phrases, prepositional phrases, and determiner phrases.[3]
[edit]Nouns
Nouns form the largest word class. According to Carter and McCarthy, they denote "classes and categories of
things in the world, including people, animals, inanimate things, places, events, qualities and
states."[3] Consequently, the words "Mandela," "jaguar," "mansion," "volcano," "Timbuktoo," "blockade,"
"mercy," and "liquid" are all nouns. Nouns are not commonly identified by their form; however, some
common suffixes such as "-age" ("shrinkage"), "-hood" ("sisterhood"), "-ism" ("journalism"), "-ist" ("lyricist"), "-
ment" ("adornment"), "-ship" ("companionship"), "-tude" ("latitude"), and so forth, are usually identifiers of
nouns.[3] There are exceptions, of course: "assuage" and "disparage" are verbs; "augment" is a verb, "lament"
and "worship" can be verbs. Nouns can also be created by conversion of verbs or adjectives. Examples include
the nouns in: "a boring talk," "a five-week run," "the long caress," "the utter disdain," and so forth.
Number, gender, type, and syntactic features
Nouns have singular and plural forms.[4] Many plural forms have -s or -es endings (dog/dogs, referee/referees,
bush/bushes), but by no means all (woman/women, axis/axes, medium/media). Unlike some other languages,
in English, nouns do not have grammatical gender.[4] However, many nouns can refer to masculine or feminine
animate objects (mother/father, tiger/tigress, alumnus/alumna, male/female).[4] Nouns can be classified
semantically, i.e. by their meanings: common nouns ("sugar," "maple," "syrup," "wood"), proper nouns ("Cyrus,"
"China"), concrete nouns ("book," "laptop"), and abstract nouns ("heat," "prejudice").[4] Alternatively, they can
be distinguished grammatically: count nouns ("clock," "city," "colour") and non-count nouns ("milk," "decor,"
"foliage").[5]
[edit]Noun phrases
Main article: English noun phrase
Noun phrases are phrases that function grammatically as nouns within sentences. Nouns serve as "heads," or
main words of noun phrases.[5] Nouns have several syntactic features that can aid in their
identification.[5] Nouns (example: common noun "cat") may be
1. modified by adjectives ("the beautiful Angora cat"),
2. preceded by determiners ("the beautiful Angora cat"), or
3. pre-modified by other nouns ("the beautiful Angora cat").[5]
Within the noun phrase, determiners occur at the far left edge of the noun phrase before the noun head and
before any other modifiers:

12. DETERMINER + OTHER MODIFIERS + NOUN
The head can have modifiers, a complement, or both.
Modifiers which occur before the head are called '"pre-modifiers", and those which occur after the head
("who knows what fighting means") are called "post-modifiers".[5] Pre-modifiers can be determiners
("The"), adjectives ("rough", "seamy-faced", "real raw-knuckle", or "burnt-out"), or other nouns ("College").
Complements occur after the head like post-modifiers, but are essential for completing the meaning of the
noun phrase in a way that modifiers are not.[6]
Examples of modifiers (heads are in boldface, modifiers are italicized) include:
 "The burnt-out ends of smoky days."[7]
 "The rough, seamy-faced, raw-boned College Servitor ..."[8]
 "The real raw-knuckle boys who know what fighting means, ..."[9]
Examples of complements (heads are in boldface, complements are italicized) include:
1. "The burnt-out ends of smoky days."[10]
2. "The suggestion that Mr. Touchett should invite me appeared to have come from Miss
Stackpole."[11]
3. "The ancient pulse of germ and birth was shrunken hard and dry."[12]
Within a sentence, a noun phrase can function as the grammatical subject or the object, as well as other
uses.[6] Examples (the noun phrase is italicized, and the head boldfaced):
1. Subject: "Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest."[13]
2. Object: "Dr. Pavlov ... delivered many long propaganda harangues ..."[14])
Noun phrases can be constructed with the determiner "the" and an adjective. Some examples are:
 "The great and the good were present."
 "Give to the poor."
Noun phrases can be compound:
1. "The idle spear and shield ..."[15]
More examples of noun phrases are:
the balloon the big

13. DET NOUN DET ADJ
many balloons many b
DET NOUN DET A
all balloons all big
DET NOUN DET ADJ
The distinctness of the determiner and adjective positions relative to each other and the noun head is
demonstrable in that adjectives may never precede determiners. Thus, the following are ungrammatical
English nouns phrases: *big the red balloon, *big red the balloon (as well as *big many red balloons, *big
red many balloons, *big all red balloons, *big red all balloons).
[edit]Order of determiners
Determiners can be divided into three subclasses according to their position with respect to each other:
 predeteminers
 central determiners
 postdeterminers
Predeterminers may precede central determiners but may not follow central determiners. Postdeterminers
follow central determiners but may not precede them. Central determiners must occur after predeterminers
and before postdeterminers. Thus, a central determiner e.g. the as in
the red balloons
DET ADJ NOUN
can be preceded by a predeterminer e.g. all as in
all the red balloons
PREDET CENT.DET
DET ADJ NOUN
or the central determiner the can be followed by a postdeterminer e.g. many as in

14. the many red balloons
CENT.DET POSTDET
DET ADJ NOUN
A sequence of predeterminer + central determiner + postdeterminer is also possible as in
all the many red balloons
PREDET CENT.DET POSTDET
DET ADJ NOUN
However, there are several restrictions on combinatory possibilities. One general
restriction is that only one determiner can occur in each of the three determiner
positions. For example, the postdeterminers many and seven can occur in the following
many smart children
seven smart children
the many smart children
the seven smart children
but both many and seven cannot occur in postdeterminer position
rendering the following noun phrases ungrammatical: *many seven
smart children, *seven many smart children, *the many seven smart
children, *the seven many smart children. Additionally, there are often
other lexical restrictions. For example, the predeterminer all can occur
alone (as the sole determiner) or before a central determiner (e.g., all
children, all the children, all these children, all my children); however,
the predeterminer such can only occur alone or before a central
determiner (e.g., such nuisance!, such a nuisance!).
Predeterminers include words e.g. all, both, half, double, twice, three
times, one-third, one-fifth, three-quarters, such, exclamative what.
Examples with predeterminers preceding a central determiner:
all the big balloons
both his nice parents
half a minute

15. double the risk
twice my age
three times my salary
one-third the cost
one-fifth the rate
three-quarters the diameter
such a big boy
what a clever suggestion
Central determiners
include words
e.g. the, a/an, this, t
hat, these, those, e
very, each, enough,
much, more, most,
less, no, some, eith
er, neither, which,
what.
Examples of central
determiners
preceding adjectival
modified noun
heads:
the big balloon
a big balloon
this big balloon
that big balloon
these big balloons
those big balloons
every big balloon
each big balloon
no big balloon
some big balloons
either big balloon

22. [ my stepmother’s ] friendly children
both [ my stepmother’s ] friendly children
[ my stepmother’s ] many friendly children
all [ my stepmother’s ] many friendly children

1176. [ my stepmother’s ] friendly children
both [ my stepmother’s ] friendly children
[ my stepmother’s ] many friendly children
all [ my stepmother’s ] many friendly children