1. Summary
Grammatical units • 2
The grammatical units of English are these: word, phrase, clause and sentence.
Word classes • 3
The main word classes are these: verb, noun, adjective, adverb, preposition,
determiner, pronoun and conjunction.
Phrases • 4
There are these kinds of phrase: verb phrase, noun phrase, adjective phrase,
adverb phrase and prepositional phrase.
Sentence elements • 5
The sentence elements are these: subject, verb, object, complement and adverbial.
English compared with other languages • 6
English words do nor have a lot of different endings for number and gender.
Word order is very important in English.
The verb phrase can have a complex structure.
There are many idioms with prepositions.
2.Grammatical Units
A FLIGHT ANNOUNCEMENT
'Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. On behalf of British Island Airways, Captain.
Massey and his crew welcome you on board the Start Herald Flight to
Southampton. Our flight time will be approximately forty-five minutes, and we
shall be climbing to an altitude of eight thousand feet and cruising at a speed of
two hundred and fifty miles per hour.'
(from M. Underwood and P. Barr Listeners)
The grammatical units of English are words, phrases, clauses and sentences.
1. Words
The words in the announcement are good, evening, ladies, and, gentlemen, on etc.
2 Phrases & clauses
We use phrases to build a clause. Here is an example.
Subject Verb Complement
(noun phrase) (verb phrase) (noun phrase)
Our flight time will be approximately forty-five minutes.
Here the noun phrase our flight time is the subject of the clause. A clause has a
subject and a verb. There can be other phrases, too. In this next example we use a
prepositional phrase as an adverbial.
Adverbial Subject Verb Object Object
(prepositional phrase) (noun phrase) (verb phrase) (noun phrase) (noun phrase)
On behalf of the airline we wish you a pleasant flight.
For more about the different kinds of phrases, • 4.
For subject, object, complement and adverbial, • 5.
For finite and non-finite clauses, • 239
3 Sentences
A sentence can be a single clause.
On behalf of British Island Airways, Captain Massey and his crew welcome you on
board the Start Herald flight to Southampton.
A written sentence begins with a capital letter (On) and ends with a mark such as a
full stop.
We can also combine two or more clauses in one sentence. For example, we can
use and to link the clauses.
Our flight time will be approximately forty-five minutes, and we shall be climbing
to an altitude of eight thousand feet and cruising at a speed of two hundred and
fifty miles an hour.
For details about sentences with more than one clause, • 238.
3. World Classes
1 There are different classes of word, sometimes called 'parts of speech'. The word
come is a verb, letter is a noun and great is an adjective.
NOTE
Some words belong to more than one word class. For example, test can be a noun or a verb.
He passed the test. (noun)
He had to test the machine. (verb)
2 There are eight main word classes in English.
Verb: climb, eat, welcome, be
Noun: aircraft, country, lady, hour
Adjective: good, British, cold, quick
Adverb: quickly, always, approximately
Preposition: to, of, at, on
Determiner: the, his, some, forty-five
Pronoun: we, you, them, myself
Conjunction: and, but, so
4 Phrases
NOTE There is also a small class of words called 'interjections'. They include oh, ah and mhm.
3 Verbs, nouns, adjectives and adverbs are 'vocabulary words'. Learning vocabulary
means learning verbs, nouns, adjectives and adverbs.
Prepositions, determiners, pronouns and conjunctions belong to much smaller
classes. These words are sometimes called 'grammatical words'.
4 Most word classes can be divided into sub-classes. For example:
Verb Ordinary verb: go, like, think, apply
Auxiliary verb: is, had, can, must
Adverb Adverb of manner: suddenly, quickly
Adverb of frequency: always, often
Adverb of place: there, nearby
Linking adverb: too, also
etc
Determiner Article: a, the
Possessive: my, his
Demonstrative: this, that
Quantifier: all, three
4 Phrases
There are five kinds of phrase.
1 Verb phrase: come, had thought, was left, will be climbing
A verb phrase has an ordinary verb (come, thought, left, climbing) and may also
have an auxiliary (had, was, will).
2 Noun phrase: a good flight, his crew, we
A noun phrase has a noun (flight), which usually has a determiner (a) and/or
adjective (good) in front of it. A noun phrase can also be a pronoun (we).
3 Adjective phrase: pleasant, very late
An adjective phrase has an adjective, sometimes with an adverb of degree (very).
4 Adverb phrase: quickly, almost certainly
An adverb phrase has an adverb, sometimes with an adverb of degree (almost).
5 Prepositional phrase: after lunch, on the aircraft
A prepositional phrase is a preposition + noun phrase.
5 Sentences & Elements
1 Each phrase plays a part in the clause or sentence. Here are some examples.
Subject Verb Adverbial
The flight is leaving shortly.
Subject Verb Complement
The weather is very good.
My father was a pilot.
Subject Verb Object
I was reading a newspaper.
Two stewards served lunch.
Subject Verb Object Adverbial
The aircraft left London at three o'clock.
We must book the tickets next week.
2 These are the elements of an English sentence and the kinds of phrase that we can
use for each element.
Subject Noun phrase: the flight, I, two stewards
Verb Verb phrase: is, served, must book
Object Noun phrase: a newspaper, lunch
Complement Adjective phrase: very good
Noun phrase: a pilot
Adverbial Adverb phrase: shortly
Prepositional phrase: at three o'clock
Noun phrase: next week
NOTE
a The verb is central to the sentence and we use the word 'verb' for both the sentence
element - 'The verb follows the subject' - and for the word class - 'Leave is a verb.'
For more details about sentence patterns, • 7.
b The word there can be the subject. • 50
There was a letter for you.
6 English compared with other languages
1.Endings
Unlike words in some other languages, English words do not have a lot of different
endings. Nouns take s in the plural (miles), but they do not have endings to show
whether they are subject or object.
Verbs take a few endings such as ed for the past (started), but they do not take
endings for person, except in the third person singular of the present tense
(it starts).
Articles (e.g. the), Possessives (e.g. my) and adjectives (e.g. good) do not have
endings for number or gender. Pronouns (e.g. lime) have fewer forms than in
many languages.
2 Word oder
Word order is very important in English. As nouns do not have endings for subject
or object, it is the word order that shows which is which.
Subject Verb Object
The woman loved the man. (She loved him.)
The man loved the woman. (He loved her.)
The subject-verb order is fixed, and we can change it only if there is a special
reason.
3 Verb phrases
A verb phrase can have a complex structure. There can be auxiliary verbs as well as
the ordinary verb.
I climbed up the ladder.
I was climbing the mountain.
We shall be climbing to an altitude of eight thousand feet.
The use of tenses and auxiliary verbs can be difficult for speakers of other
languages.
4 Prepositions
The use of prepositions in English can be a problem.
We flew here on Friday. We left at two o'clock.
Both prepositions and adverbs combine with verbs in an idiomatic way.
They were waiting for the flight. The plane took off.
There are many expressions involving prepositions that you need to learn as items
of vocabulary.
0 Comments: