In this short discussion of grammar the attempt is not made to discuss exhaustively all the features of English grammar. The purpose is only to survey and to identify all the elements of an ordinary sentence. The definitions are few, and are descriptions rather than formal definitions. The parts of speech are treated as they become important in the structure of the sentence. Such a treatment of essentials as this is necessary partly as a review, but especially because a teacher and a student cannot discuss many of the commonest sentence faults unless they have a mutually intelligible terminology. A student must be able to recognize such grammatical elements as a subject or an object, a participle or an infinitive, a phrase or a clause, in order to produce correct and effective sentences. There is a minimum amount of grammatical knowledge without which a writer cannot rewrite his compositions so as to avoid the commonest errors and imperfections.

What Grammar Is

Grammar is the study of the structure of sentences, and of the forms and functions of words and word-groups within sentences. In simple terms, grammar is the examination of the machinery of language.

Sentences

Sentences make assertions (declarative sentences), or ask questions (interrogative sentences), or give commands (imperative sentences), or express emotion (exclamatory sentences). Written sentences begin with a capital letter and end with a period, a question mark, or an exclamation point.

The most common kind of written sentence is that which makes an assertion. This kind, called declarative, may well be taken, therefore, as the most available basis for the discussion of the machinery of the sentence. The word sentence in this chapter will accordingly mean a declarative sentence.

The Parts of a Sentence—Subject and Predicate

A sentence has at least two parts—a subject and a predicate.

The subject is that part which designates what the assertion is about.

The predicate is that part which makes the assertion.

Many students earn their way through college.

It is obvious that Many students designates what the assertion is about, and is therefore the subject. Earn their way through college makes the assertion about Many students, and is, therefore, the predicate.

Although the sentence may contain other elements, although the subject or the predicate or both may be long and complicated, and although the elements making up the subject and the predicate may be variously arranged, nevertheless every normal declarative sentence contains these two parts, and can be divided into these two parts.

Subjects

The fundamental word or element in the subject is a noun, a pronoun, a gerund, an infinitive, or a clause.

A noun is simply a name word. It may signify a person or an animate being (Frank, boy, dog), an object (tree, box), a color (red), an action (walking, step, discussion), a quality (goodness), an abstract idea (truth, space), a general idea (speed, thing), to name only a few kinds of nouns. But it is always the name of an individual or of a class of persons or things.

A pronoun is a substitute or symbol word which signifies a noun which is either expressed near the pronoun or implied by the circumstances (he, it, who, anyone, I, you).

A gerund is a noun made by adding the suffix -ing to a verb (walking, hoping, sitting, being).

An infinitive is a form of a verb, usually preceded by the word to, often used to name the action signified by the verb (to think, to have gone).

A clause is a sentence element consisting of a subject (in the nominative case) and a predicate (with the verb in a finite form—that is, not an infinitive or a participle).

Predicates

The fundamental word in the predicate is the verb.

A verb is a word—or a word-group—the function of which is to assert something about the subject.

The verb may consist of one word—as in the examples given—or it may consist of a group of words, called a verb-group, containing sometimes as many as five words. This verb group consists of one, two, three, or four auxiliary verbs, followed by a form of the verb expressing the meaning or sense. The form of the sense-verb is an infinitive, a present participle, or a past participle.

Structural Parts of the Predicate—Objects

Intransitive verbs are those which, like rise, make assertions the action of which does not involve any person or thing other than the subject.

Transitive verbs are those which, like light, make assertions which involve some person or thing other than the subject in the action of the verb. In the sentence He lighted the lamp, lamp is such an object.

The same verb may sometimes assert one, and sometimes the other kind of action.

Some transitive verbs make an assertion which involves two nouns, both signifying the same thing or person.

Some transitive verbs make an assertion which involves two different objects or persons.

Here apple or story is the object directly affected by the action of the verb, and is, therefore, called the direct object. Frank or him designates the person for whose benefit the action of the verb affects the direct object, and is called the indirect object.

Copulas and Complements

Still another kind of verb, called a copula, though it does not take a direct object, makes only part of the assertion. The rest is made by means of another word (or element) which characterizes the subject but which is an essential part of the assertion. In fact, the complement, as the element completing the verb is called, is the most significant part of the predicate; the verb is merely a bit of machinery by means of which the complement is turned into an assertion.

In these sentences, red, a house, cheap, in the house, and where the heart is, are parts of the predicate, though they characterize the subject. Such elements are called complements because they complete the assertion of the verb; if adjectives, they are called adjective complements, or better, predicated adjectives; if nouns, they are called noun complements, or predicated nouns; if clauses or phrases, they are called complements, or predicated phrases or clauses. The verbs by means of which these complements are predicated are called copulas.

Modifiers

Almost every word in the sentence is capable of having its meaning described, restricted, emphasized, or toned down in some way—that is, any meaning in the sentence may be characterized or modified.

Heavy both describes and restricts automobiles.

Words which characterize nouns in this way are called adjectives.

Smoothly describes and restricts run.

Words which characterize verbs are called adverbs.

Very emphasizes heavy. A word which thus characterizes an adjective is called an adverb.

More characterizes smoothly. Much characterizes more. A word which characterizes an adverb is called an adverb.

Prepositional Phrases

Nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs are also frequently described or limited in the same way by an element or group of words called a prepositional phrase. This usually consists of a noun, pronoun, or gerund whose exact relationship to the modified word is shown by means of a preposition. The preposition is placed before the modifying noun or pronoun and its adjective modifiers.

• At home
• In the house
• With large tires
• Over rough roads

With large tires is a prepositional phrase, consisting of the preposition with and its object tires; the phrase modifies or characterizes automobiles.

Over rough roads is a prepositional phrase which characterizes run.

A prepositional phrase characterizing a noun is called an adjective prepositional phrase. One characterizing a verb is called an adverbial prepositional phrase.

Subordinate Clauses

A clause is any part of a sentence consisting of a subject in the nominative case and a predicate containing a verb in a finite form (not a participle or an infinitive). Some clauses are used as nouns; others are used to characterize or modify nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, or adverbs. Clauses used as nouns are called noun clauses. Those used as adjectives are called adjective or relative clauses. Those used to modify verbs, adjectives, or adverbs are called adverb clauses.

Noun Clauses

Noun clauses may be used in practically any construction in which a noun is used.

Adjective Clauses

Adjective clauses are those which modify a noun or a pronoun.

Adverb Clauses

Adverb clauses usually modify a verb. They characterize the verb in several different ways.

Adverb clauses of degree, and sometimes those of manner and of result modify an adverb or an adjective.

Participles

The participle is any form of the verb used as an adjective. There are several forms: rising, risen, having risen; raising, raised, having raised, being raised, having been raised.

Infinitives

The infinitive is usually preceded by its sign, to, but after some verbs (do, shall, will, may, can, dare, help, need, see, hear, feel, let, make, bid) and after the expressions had better, had rather, it is usually the pure or root infinitive without to.

There are six forms of the infinitive:

The infinitive has various uses:

Conjunctions

It is often necessary or desirable to join together two or more similar words, elements, or clauses in a sentence. Two nouns constituting the subject, for example, may have the same assertion made about them.

And, which joins time and tide, is a conjunction.

Two adjectives, two verbs, two adverbs, two prepositional phrases, or two clauses may be joined together with a conjunction.

Words like and and but are conjunctions.

Conjunctions which connect words, phrases, or clauses of equal grammatical value are called co-ordinating conjunctions.

The most frequent are and, but, or, nor, for.

Subordinating conjunctions are used to join a subordinate clause—noun, adjective, or adverb—to another clause or to some word in another clause. At the same time they show the exact significance and bearing of the subordinate clause.

Subordinating conjunctions are also sometimes used to join participles or adjectives to the rest of the sentence. In such cases, the participle or the adjective modifies a noun.

Structure of Sentences

According to certain features of their structure, sentences are classified as simple, compound, or complex.

A simple sentence is one consisting of a single clause or assertion.

The subject of a simple sentence may consist of one noun or pronoun with its modifiers, or of two or more nouns with their modifiers. In the latter case, the subject is called a compound subject. Similarly, the predicate may contain one verb or two or more verbs. Occasionally a sentence will have a compound subject and a compound predicate, as in the last example given.

Compound Sentences

A compound sentence is one which consists of two or more assertions of equal grammatical value—that is, neither assertion is grammatically subordinate to the other or to any part of the other.

Complex Sentences

A complex sentence is one which contains not only a main assertion (or more than one), but also one or more subordinate assertions—that is, it contains one or more assertions which are grammatically incorporated as a noun or an adjective or an adverb into the main clause or into another subordinate clause.

Absolute Elements

Most of the elements of a sentence have a clear grammatical relation to one another. But there are pieces of structure which have no evident relationship to anything else.

The participle absolute is more frequent.

Parenthetical Elements

Parenthetical elements, like so to speak, it is hoped, it is reported, they remark, which have no grammatical connection with the rest of the assertion, occur frequently. Sometimes they are inclosed within dashes, sometimes within parentheses, sometimes within commas.

Flexibility of the Sentence Elements

Although the sentence has a normal order—subject, verb, object; or subject, verb, complement—it is rich and varied in the possibilities it possesses of variety and rearrangement, especially in the position of adjective, participial, and adverbial elements, and in the case of adverb clauses.

Inflections

Nouns, pronouns, verbs, and two adjectives show changes in function and meaning by means of changes in form, by endings, or, sometimes in the case of verbs, by prefixing auxiliary verbs.

Noun Declension

Nouns are declined to show case and number.

Pronoun Declension

Pronouns are declined to show case and number.

Adjective Declension

Two adjectives show differences in number.

Verb Conjugation

Verbs are conjugated to show person, number, tense, mood, and voice. Most of these changes are shown by the use of auxiliary verbs, which are placed before the infinitive or the past or present participle of the sense-verb. The combinations are called verb-groups.

Conjugation of Be

Be is an extremely irregular composite verb. It is made up of three verbs, is (am, are, art), be, and was (were).