English grammar

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 is 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. (i.e., I am going to tell you about the duke).
• My aunt has been given that teapot by the duke. (i.e., I am going to tell you about my aunt).
• That teapot has been given to my aunt by the duke. (i.e., I am 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" (i.e., I am going to tell you what the duke gave my aunt).
• "What happened was that the duke gave my aunt a teapot" (i.e., I am 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 is not the subject — thus, occasionally it is 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 is or is not). [yes-no question]

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 will not 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 will eat." Far more rare, but still sometimes used is OVS, "If it is apples you like, then apples like I," although this last usage can sound contrived and anachronistic to a native speaker.

Nominals

Noun phrases and pronouns both can have a referential function where they "point" (i.e. 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 is 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 cannot substitute for nouns — they only substitute for noun phrases. This can be shown with the same sentence above: the noun ball cannot 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.

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

Nouns

Nouns are defined notionally (i.e. 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 (i.e. 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

See also: English compound

English nouns may be of a few morphological types:

• 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 compoun 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

Main article: English plural

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. Examples include:

• The girl (singular) talks.
• The girls (plural) talk.
• Every girl (singular) talks.
• All girls (plural) talk.
• No girl (singular) talks.
• No girls (plural) 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.

vex (verb)	>	vexation (noun)
appoint (verb)	>	appointee (noun)
fail (verb)	>	failure (noun)
acquit (verb)	>	acquittal (noun)
run (verb)	>	runner (noun)
adjust (verb)	>	adjustment (noun)

Still other suffixes (-dom, -hood, -ist, -th, -ness) form derived deadjectival nouns from adjectives:

free (adjective)	>	freedom (noun)
lively (adjective)	>	livelihood (noun)
moral (adjective)	>	moralist (noun)
warm (adjective)	>	warmth (noun)
happy (adjective)	>	happiness (noun)

These derivational suffixes can also be added to (compound) phrasal bases like in the noun stick-it-to-itiveness, which is derived from the phrase stick it to it + -ive + -ness.

Besides derivational suffixation, words from other lexical categories can be converted straight to nouns (without any overt morphological indication) by a conversion process (also known as zero derivation). For example, the word run is a verb but it can be converted to a noun run "point scored in a baseball game (by running around the bases)" as in the sentence:

The team won with five runs in the ninth.

Here it is evident that run is a noun because it is pluralized with the inflectional plural suffix -s, it is modified by the preceding quantifier five, and it occurs as the head of the noun phrase five runs which acts as the complement of the preposition with in the prepositional phrase with five runs. Other lexical categories can also be converted:

if (subordinator) > if (noun) as in no ifs, ands, or buts about it [idiomatic]

daily (adjective) > daily (noun) [= "newspaper"] as in did you buy a daily for me?

down (preposition) > down (noun) [in American football] as in they made a new first down

Additionally, there are phrases which can be converted into nouns, such as jack-in-the-box, love-lies-bleeding (type of flower). These may be viewed as compounds (see noun morphology section). There are also conversion processes that convert from one noun subclass to another subclass (see the noun subclass conversion section).

Subclasses

Three basic noun classes in English can be distinguished according to syntactic criteria:

• proper nouns (proper name)
• count nouns
• noncount nouns

These syntactic subclasses also correspond fairly well to semantic categories (as indicated by their names and explained below).

Count and noncount nouns — such as dog (count), rice (noncount) — show article contrast: a dog, the dog, dogs, the dogs are all possible just as rice, the rice are both possible.

Count nouns differ from noncount nouns in that they cannot stand alone, cannot be modified by some unless they are in plural forms, can be modified by a, and can be pluralized. Semantically, they generally refer to easily individuated objects. Examples of count nouns include the following: remark, book, bottle, chair, forest, idea, bun, pig, toy, difficulty, bracelet, mountain, etc.

Noncount nouns, in contrast, can stand alone, can be modified by some, cannot be modified by a, and cannot be pluralized. Semantically, noncount nouns refer to an undifferentiated mass. Examples of noncount nouns include: rice, furniture, jewelry, scenery, gold, bread, grass, warmth, music, butter, homework, baggage, sugar, coffee, luck, sunshine, water, air, Chinese (language), soccer, literature, rain, walking, etc.

The morphosyntactic differences between count and noncount nouns are displayed in the table below.

	Count Noun	Noncount Noun
standalone	*remark	rice
some + NOUN	*some remark	some rice
a + NOUN	a remark	*a rice
plural	remarks	*rices
some + plural NOUN	some remarks	*some rices

On the other hand, proper nouns, which include personal names — such as Peter, Smith and placenames like Paris, Tokyo — do not show article contrast. Typically, they cannot be preceded by an article. Thus, *a Peter, *the Peter, *a Tokyo, *the Tokyo are all ungrammatical (only Peter and Tokyo without articles are possible). Although several proper nouns (e.g. Peter, Smith, Paris, Tokyo) cannot be preceded by an article, there are some proper nouns which must obligatorily be preceded by an article. These include proper nouns like The Hague, the Netherlands, the West Indies, the Andes. However, like proper nouns without article modification, these proper nouns with preceding articles also lack article contrast. Thus, while The Hague is grammatical, *a Hague and *Hague are ungrammatical. Semantically, proper nouns have unique reference.

As seen above, the different subclasses affect grammatical number and quantification.

Dual membership, conversion

Complicating the membership of the basic subclasses described above is the existence of some nouns which have dual membership in more than one subcategory and the conversion of a noun from its basic subcategory to a different subcategory. (See the noun membership section.)

Nouns like brick and cake have dual membership. For example, observe the following sentences with brick:

The house was made of brick.		brick = noncount
The house was made of bricks.		bricks = count

In the first sentence, brick is a noncount noun. This can be determined by the lack of an article preceding brick, which is characteristic of noncount nouns (and, thus, this sentence is parallel to a sentence like The ball was made of rice). In the second sentence, bricks is a count noun because it is plural, which is a characteristic of only count nouns (and, thus, this sentence is parallel to a sentence like The toy house was made of matches). Other nouns that have dual membership in both count and noncount subclasses are stone, paper, beauty, difficulty, experience, light, sound, talk, and lamb.

As mentioned above, several nouns can be undergo a conversion from one subclass to another. One type of conversion is from proper noun to count noun. A proper name like Picasso may become a count noun through metonymic extension, as in the sentence:

Did you see the Picassos hanging on the wall?

Although Picasso usually has a unique referent (which is the person Pablo Picasso), it can be used metonymically to mean "a painting created by Picasso". This converted noun can be seen as belonging to the count subclass by the fact that it is plural and that it is preceded by the article the. There are also two idiomatic constructions which involve the conversion of a proper noun to a count noun:

Excuse me ma'am, a Mr. Smith is on the phone.

You don't mean THE Margaret Thatcher, do you?

Here the article a before Mr. Smith indicates a meaning of "a certain person called Mr. Smith that is otherwise unknown to you" in the first sentence while in the second sentence the article the (with intonational stress) gives a reading of "the well-known person called Margaret Thatcher".

Adjectival modification

Post-modification

• adjectival modification (jokes galore)
• prepositional phrase modification (men in tights)
• clausal modification (planes flying overhead, jokes that I love, etc.)

Noun phrases

Pre-modification

Determiners

Determiners include articles (like the, a/an), demonstratives like (this, these, that, those), quantifiers (like all, many, some, any, each), numerals (like one, two, first, second), genitives (like my, your, his, her, its, our, their), interrogatives (like which, what), and exclamatives (like such, what) that modify noun heads in noun phrases.

Determiners function as words that "determine" other nouns, where "determine" is generally conceived of as indicating information about quantification, grammatical (and/or semantic) number, issues involving reference, and noun subclass membership (i.e. count, noncount, and proper noun subclasses). These "determining" functions make determiners quite distinct from adjectival modifiers which generally provide qualitative information about nouns and cannot provide determining functions.

Within the noun phrase, determiners occur at the far left edge of the noun phrase before the noun head and before any optional adjective modifiers (if present):

Determiner	+	Adjective(s)	+	Noun

Examples follow:

the	balloon
det	noun

many	balloons
det	noun

all	balloons
det	noun

the	big	red	balloon
det	adj	adj	noun

many	big	red	balloons
det	adj	adj	noun

all	big	red	balloons
det	adj	adj	noun

The distinctness of the determiner and adjective positions relative to each other and the noun head is demonstratable 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).

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 like the as in

the	red	balloons
det	adj	noun

can be preceded by a predeterminer like all as in

all	the	red	balloons
predet	cent.det
det		adj	noun

or the central determiner the can be followed by a postdeterminer like 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

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 two can occur in the following

many smart children

seven smart children

the many smart children

the seven smart children

but both many and two 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 central determiner a (e.g., such nuisance!, such a nuisance!).

Predeterminers include words like 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 like the, a/an, this, that, these, those, every, each, enough, much, more, most less, no, some, either, 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

While the, a/an, no, and every only function as determiners, the other central determiners can also function as members of other lexical categories, especially as pronouns. For example, that functions as a determiner in

That item is our belonging.

but as pronoun in

That is our belonging.

In additional to the above determiners, noun phrases with a genitive enclitic -’s can have a determinative function like genitive determiners his, her, its, their. These genitive determinative noun phrases occur in the central determiner position:

[ my stepmother’s ] friendly children

both [ my stepmother’s ] friendly children

[ my stepmother’s ] many friendly children

all [ my stepmother’s ] many friendly children

Articles

Articles are words like a/an, and the that modify nouns. They occur in the central determiner position. Articles have several functions including marking definiteness, specific/generic reference, given/new information in discourse, and noun subclass membership (i.e. count, noncount, and proper noun subclasses).

The definite article "the" is used to refer to a specific instance of the noun, often already mentioned in the context or easy to identify. Definite articles are slightly different from demonstratives, which often indicate the location of nouns with respect to the speaker and audience.

• "Let us look for a good restaurant."
• "What about the restaurant we ate at last week?"
• "That restaurant was terrible. What about this one on the corner here?"

Pronouns

See also: English relative clauses

Gender

Main article: Gender in English

A remnant of grammatical gender is also preserved in the third person pronouns. Gender is assigned to animate objects based on biological gender (where known), and to personified objects based on social conventions (ships, for example, are often regarded as feminine in English). He is used for masculine nouns; she is used for feminine nouns; and it is used for nouns of indeterminate gender and inanimate objects. The use of it to refer to humans is generally considered ungrammatical and impolite, but is sometimes used deliberately as a term of offence or insult as it implies the person is of indeterminate gender or, worse, sub-human - a thing. (See for example: A Child Called "It")

Traditionally, the masculine he was used to refer to a person in the third person whose gender was unknown or irrelevant to the context; recently, this usage has come under criticism for supporting gender-based stereotypes and is increasingly considered inappropriate (see Gender-neutral language). There is no consensus on a replacement. Some English speakers prefer to use the slightly cumbersome "he or she" or "s/he"; others prefer the use of they (third plural) (see singular they). This situation rarely leads to confusion, since the intended meaning can be inferred from context, e.g. "This person has written me a letter but they have not signed it." However, it still is considered by some to be incorrect grammar. Spivak pronouns have also been proposed which are essentially formed by dropping the leading <th> from the plural counterpart, but their use is relatively rare compared to other solutions. For comparison, speakers of German distinguish between the homophonous sie ("she"), sie ("they"), and Sie ("you", polite) with little difficulty.

The categorization of nouns is typically expressed by one or more of the elements called deictic, numerative, epithet, and classifier. We shall consider each of these in turn.

Case

Further information: [[:English personal pronouns]]

Historically, English used to mark nouns for case, and the two remnants of this case marking are the pronominal system and the genitive clitic (which used to be called the Saxon genitive). The genitive is marked by a clitic at the end of the modifying noun phrase. This can be illustrated in the following manner:

The president from the company’s daughter was married yesterday.

The ’s clitic attached to company does not modify company but rather modifies the entire noun phrase president from the company. This can be shown more clearly using brackets:

[The president from the company]’s daughter was married yesterday.

English pronoun forms vary with number, person, case, and notional gender (only in 3rd person singular). Number and case distinctions have collapsed in the 2nd person singular in the standard formal language, although informal dialectal forms have number distinctions (for example singular you vs. plural yall, youse, etc.).

Case		1st		2nd	3rd
		sg.	pl.		sg.			pl.	interrogative
					male	female	nonhuman
Subjective		I	we	you	he	she	it	they	who
Objective		me	us		him	her		them	who(m)
Genitive	determiner	my	our	your	his		its	their	whose
	nominal	mine	ours	yours		hers		theirs

Notes

1. Some dialects use different forms for the second person plural pronoun: they include you-all or y'all , you guys, yu'uns , youse , or ye . These forms are generally regarded as colloquial and non-standard.
2. The pronoun thou was the former second person singular pronoun; it is considered an archaism in most contexts, although it is still used in some dialects in the north of England. Thou was originally the informal form to the formal you, is very rare, and is confined to dialects and religious and poetic functions. In modern Standard English, the second person plural you is used instead.
3. Mine (and thine) were also previously used before vowel sounds to avoid a glottal stop. e.g., "Do mine eyes deceive me?” "Know thine enemy." This usage is now archaic.
4. The objective form whom is most often found in formal English (as in writing) while the more common objective who is found in less formal writing and most speech. Prescriptivists state that who when used in objective context is "incorrect".

The reflexive pronouns are compounds consisting an genitive determiner pronoun and a following -self, with exception of the 3rd person singular male form which consists of the objective form him + -self and the 3rd person plural form with consists objective them + -self + -(e)s. In the plural, these reflexives take the regular plural suffix -s (with voicing of the f > v as with the free form of self > selves) along with the plural inflected pronoun form.

Case		1st		2nd		3rd
		sg.	pl.	sg.	pl.	sg.			pl.
						male	female	nonhuman
Reflexive		myself	ourselves	yourself	yourselves	himself	herself	itself	themselves

Ourself is used instead of ourselves for any semantically singular version of we, such as the royal we.

In some dialects, the 3rd person male and 3rd person plural reflexives are formed with the genitive determiner his > hisself and their > theirself. Thus, these dialects have regularized the entire paradigm to genitive forms.

Verbs

Main article: English verbs

Inflectional morphology

English verbs only have eight possible inflectional forms:

• non-finite (or non-tensed) forms:

(1) base form (also called plain form)

(2) -ing form

(3) -en form

• finite (or tensed) forms:

nonpast forms:

(4) general nonpast form

(5) 1st person singular nonpast form

(6) 3rd person singular nonpast form

past forms:

(7) general past form

(8) 1st/3rd person singular past form

The copula be has eight distinct inflectional forms as seen in the example sentences below:

The girl wants to be in school	(base form: be)
The girl is being a nuisance	(-ing form: being)
The girl has been a great help	(-en form: been)
The girls are students	(general nonpast form: are)
I am a student	(1st sg. nonpast form: am)
The girl is a student	(3rd sg. nonpast form: is)
The girls were students	(general past form: were)
The girl was a student	(1st/3rd sg. past form: was)

However, most verbs (which include all "regular" verbs and some "irregular" verbs) have only four distinct inflectional forms:

The girl wants to jump in the lake	(base form: jump)
The girl is jumping in the lake	(-ing form: jumping)
The girl has already jumped in the lake	(-en form: jumped)
The girls jump in the lake everyday	(general nonpast form: jump)
I jump in the lake everyday	(1st sg. nonpast form: jump)
The girl jumps in the lake everyday	(3rd sg. nonpast form: jumps)
The girls jumped in the lake yesterday	(general past form: jumped)
The girl jumped in the lake yesterday	(1st/3rd sg. past form: jumped)

Unlike copula be, the verb jump has the same syncretic word-form jump for the base, general nonpast, and 1st. sg. nonpast forms (where the copula has be, are, am, respectively) and the same syncretic word-form jumped for the -en, general past, and the 1st/3rd sg. past forms (where the copula has been, were, was, respectively). Upon comparing other verbs with the copula, one finds that only the copula has a 1st/3rd sg. past form that is distinct from the general past form, a 1st sg. nonpast form that is distinct from the general nonpast, and a base form that is distinct from the general nonpast form — all other verbs display syncretism in these forms. The copula and a regular jump can be compared with each other and three types of irregular verbs in the table below.

English Verb Inflectional Paradigm

	Copula be	Regular verb	Irregular verb with 5 inflections	Irregular verb with 4 inflections	Irregular verb with 3 inflections
-ing form	being	jumping	taking	catching	hitting
3rd Sg. Nonpast	is	jumps	takes	catches	hits
1st Sg. Nonpast	am	jump	take	catch	hit
General Nonpast	are
Base	be
General Past	were	jumped	took	caught
1st/3rd Sg. Past	was
-en form	been		taken

All verbs (including the copula) form the -ing form with the addition of the -ing suffix to the base form:

BASE FORM   +   -ing

All regular verbs form the past/-en form (as well as the syncretic 1st/3rd past) with the addition of the -ed suffix to the base form:

BASE FORM   +   -ed

Irregular verbs may have the same syncretism as regular verbs (like catch) or may show less syncretism with five distinct forms (like take) or more syncretism with only three distinct forms (like hit). (See also: English irregular verbs.) Examples of the three types differing in the number of distinct inflectional forms:

• irregular verbs with 5 forms: take, break, swim, grow, drive, do
• irregular verbs with 4 forms: catch, build, have, feel, tell, say
• irregular verbs with 3 forms: hit, put, hurt, bet, cut, cast

Irregular verbs with five distinct inflectional forms do not syncretize the general past and the -en forms. Irregular verbs with only three forms have the syncretism involving all forms except for the -ing form and the 3rd sg. nonpast form.

Irregular verbs with five and four inflectional forms have different patterns of past formation and -en formation. Many of the patterns involve vowel ablaut (i.e. internal vowel changes) and/or the addition of suffixes. Some of the more common patterns are briefly mentioned below. Note that the spelling does not always reflect pronunciation changes in the internal vowel, so the pronunciation is transcribed phonetically:

• Voicing change in last consonant between base and past/-en forms (d is voiced, t is voiceless):

bend	~	bent
build	~	built

• Vowel change and suffixation of t between base and past/-en forms:

sleep	[sliːp]	~	slept	[slɛpt] (slep + -t)
deal	[diːl]	~	dealt	[dɛlt] (deal + -t)

• Replacing of vowel and final consonant(s) in base form with [ɔːt] in past/-en form:\

think	[θɪŋk]	~	thought	[θɔːt]
catch	[kætʃ]	~	caught	[kɔːt]

• Vowel change between base and past/-en forms and -(e)n suffixation:

break	[breɪk]	~	broke	[broʊk]	~	broken	[broʊkən] (broke + -(e)n)
steal	[stiːl]	~	stole	[stoʊl]	~	stolen	[stoʊlən] (stole + -en)
tear	[tɛər]	~	tore	[tɔər]	~	torn	[tɔːrn] (tor(e) + -n)

• Vowel change between base/-en and past forms and -(e)n suffixation:

draw	[drɔː]	~	drew	[druː]	~	drawn	[drɔːn] (draw + -n)
fall	[fɔːl]	~	fell	[fɛl]	~	fallen	[fɔːlən] (fall + -en)
take	[teɪk]	~	took	[tʊk]	~	taken	[teɪkən] (take + -(e)n)

• Vowel changes in base, past, & -en forms:

swim

[swɪm]

~

swam

[swæm]

~

swum

[swʌm]

• Vowel changes in base, past, & -en forms with -(e)n suffixation:

drive	[drаɪv]	~	drove	[droʊv]	~	driven	[drɪvən] (drive + -(e)n)
fly	[flаɪ]	~	flew	[fluː]	~	flown	[floʊn] (flow + -n)

A few verbs also have irregular changes between the general present and the 3rd sg. present forms:

have	[hæv]	~	has	[hæz]	(and not the expected 3rd sg. *haves [hævz])
do	[duː]	~	does	[dʌz]	(and not the expected 3rd sg. *dos [duːz])
say	[seɪ]	~	says	[sɛz]	(and not the expected 3rd sg. [seɪz])

The copula paradigm also has suffixation and vowel ablaut, but it is additionally marked by suppletion.

Agreement

Most English verbs mark number (in agreement with their subjects) only in the non-past tense, indicative mood. In this context, there is a contrast between the 3rd person and all other persons (i.e., 1st and 2nd): the 3rd person is marked with a -(e)s suffix while all other persons are unmarked (i.e. without overt marking). Furthermore, the inflectional suffix -(e)s also indicates singular number, i.e. -(e)s indicates a 3rd person singular subject. Similarly, singular number is only indicated in the 3rd person — number in the other persons are unmarked. The plural in the 3rd person is unmarked. The 3rd person singular suffix is added to the general present tense form while the unmarked form is general present tense form. There is, thus, only a distinction between a general present form and 3rd person singular form.

General	3rd Singular
listen	listen-s
push	push-es

Combined with personal pronoun subjects, the following are the possible subject-verb combinations:

General	3rd Singular
I/we/you/they push	he/she/it pushes

The copula be, however, makes additional distinctions of the 1st person singular in the non-past and and the 1st or 3rd person singular in the past. Unlike other verbs, these inflected forms of be lie in a suppletive relationship.

Non-past				Past
General	1st Singular	3rd Singular		General	1st/3rd Singular
are	am	is		were	was

Pronoun subject-verb combinations:

Non-past				Past
General	1st Singular	3rd Singular		General	1st/3rd Singular
we/you/they are	I am	he/she/it is		we/you/they were	I/he/she/it was

In the subjunctive mood, all person and number distinctions are neutralized (see below).

Interrogative sentences

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

1. Are you going to the party?
2. Is he supposed to do that?
3. How much do I owe you?
4. Where is the parking lot?

However, when the information being requested would be the subject of the answer, the word order is not inverted, and the interrogative pronoun takes the place of the subject, as in the following:

1. Who helped you with your homework?
2. What happened here?

When spoken, an intonation change is often used to emphasize this switch, or can entirely reflect interrogation in some cases (e.g. "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, e.g. "You would not really do that, would you?"

Time, tense and aspect

Main article: English_verb § Tenses

Changes in tense in English are achieved by the changes in ending and the use of auxiliary verbs "to be" and "to have" and the use of the auxiliaries "will", "shall" and "would". (These auxiliaries cannot 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 is 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 cannot 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 — cannot 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 e.g. "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, e.g. "When Peter entered my room, I had 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 has not 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 (e.g. "I will know the tune next week because I will 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 is not strictly a tense, and "to go" is not 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, e.g. "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 (i.e. When I was younger, I would listen. [multiple times]), or something that would be done now or in the future when predicated upon another condition (i.e. “If I had the time, I would listen to you.” [This condition 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 had not 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:

1. "Do I listen?" "I do not listen." "I do listen!"
2. "Did I listen?" "I did not listen." "I did listen!"

Verb tense chart

Main article: Grammatical aspect

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

Main article: English passive 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	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:

1. active: I heard the music.
2. 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	Active voice	The same sense, expressed with the passive voice
Simple present	I hear the music.	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:

1. The plane was shot down.
2. Dozens were killed.
3. 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:

1. She does not frighten easily.
2. This bread slices poorly.
3. His novels sell well.

Mood

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 (e.g. imperative), they may also be considered other "exceptional" verb forms.)

Examples are most commonly used verb forms, e.g.:

• I think
• I thought
• He was seen
• I am walking home.
• They are singing.
• He is not 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.
  1. Were I eating, I would sit.
  2. If they were eating, they would sit.
  3. Truth be told...
  4. If I were you... I would do that.

The conjugation of these moods becomes a significantly more complex matter when they are 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 is not 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 are 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 do not 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 is not 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 is implied. When the speaker gives a command regarding anyone else, it is still directed at the second person as though it were a request for permission, although it may be a rhetorical statement.
  1. Let me do the talking.
  2. Come here.
  3. Give him an allowance.
  4. Let sleeping dogs lie.

Modal forms

Main article: English modal auxiliary verb

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.

1. He could go to the store.
2. You should be more careful.
3. I may try something else.
4. 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, e.g. "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

Notes

1. In English, a long-standing prescriptive rule holds that shall denotes simple futurity in the first person, and will denotes simple futurity in the second and third persons. In American English, this distinction has largely vanished; will is normally used for both cases, and shall is rare. In British English, adherence to the rule has declined during the 20th century (see Shall and will for a more detailed discussion), although use of shall remains for expressing the simple future in the first person.
2. The distinction between tense, aspect, and mood is not clear-cut or universally agreed-upon. For example, many analysts would not accept that English has twelve tenses. The six "continuous" (also called "progressive") forms in the list above are often treated under the heading of "aspect" rather than tense: the simple past and the past continuous are examples of the same tense, under this view. In addition, many modern grammars of English agree that English does not have a future tense (or a future perfect). These include two large recent grammars:

1. Biber, D., S. Johansson, G. Leech, S. Conrad & E. Finegan. 1999. Longman grammar of spoken and written English. Harlow, Longman.
2. Huddleston, R. & G. Pullum. 2002. The Cambridge grammar of the English language. Cambridge, CUP.

The main argument given by Huddleston and Pullum (pp 209-10) that English does not have a future tense is that "will" is a modal verb, both in its grammar and in its meaning. Biber et al. go further and say that English has only two tenses, past and present: they treat the perfect forms with "have" under "aspect". Huddleston & Pullum, on the other hand, regard the forms with "have" as "secondary tenses".

Other topics

Comparison

Semantic gradability

Adjectives and adverbs typically have the semantic feature of being gradable, that is the quality or state that they describe exists on a gradual scale between two opposite poles. For example, there is a gradable scale between the antonyms cold and hot. Gradable words of this type can have several modifiers that qualify where on the scale a particular quality or state rests as in the following $\left(intensifier\right)+{\begin{Bmatrix}adjective\\adverb\end{Bmatrix}}$ combinations:

very quick

rather quick

quite quick

too quick

quick

very quickly
rather quickly
quite quickly
too quickly
quickly

Most adjectives are gradable but some adjectives are not. For example, the adjective infinite is not gradable making the adjective phrases very infinite, rather infinite and more infinite semantically odd.

Types of comparison

Gradable adjective and adverbs can also be involved in comparison where to the positions of two or more entities on a gradable scale are compared with each other. Semantically, three types of comparison can be distinguished:

• higher degree (superior)
• same degree
• lower degree (inferior)

Comparisons of the same degree use only the general base adjective form.

In higher degree comparisons, the comparison is indicated either by inflectional suffixation, using -er, -est (morphological marking) or by periphrastic constructions involving more, most modifiers preceding the adjective (syntactic marking). The three inflectional forms are known as

• absolute (or positive)
• comparative
• superlative

Lower degree comparisons only use periphrastic constructions involving less and least adjectival modifiers.

Examples:

		Inflectional	Periphrastic
Same degree (Absolute)		tall	beautiful
Higher degree	Comparative	taller	more beautiful
	Superlative	tallest	most beautiful
Lower degree		–	less tall, less beautiful
		–	least tall, least beautiful

See also

• Disputes in English grammar
• Capitalization
• English prefixes
• Nominal group
• Thematic equative
• Grammar checker

Bibliography

• Adams, Valerie. (1973). An introduction to modern English word-formation. London: Longman.
• Bauer, Laurie. (1983). English word-formation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Biber, Douglas; Johansson, Stig; Leech, Geoffrey; Conrad, Susan; & Finegan, Edward. (1999). Longman grammar of spoken and written English. Pearson Education Limited.
• Celce-Murcia, M.; & Larsen-Freeman, D. The grammar book: An ESL/EFL teacher's course (2nd ed.). ISBN 0838447252
• Curme, George O. (1931). Syntax. Boston: Heath.
• Curme, George O. (1935). Parts of speech and accidence. Boston: Heath.
• Halliday, M. A. K. (2004). Introduction to functional grammar (3rd. ed.). London: Hodder Arnold.
• Halliday, M. A. K. (1985/94). Spoken and written language. Deakin University Press.
• Huddleston, Rodney D. (1976). An introduction to English transformational syntax. Longman.
• Huddleston, Rodney D. (1984). Introduction to the grammar of English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Huddleston, Rodney D. (1988). English grammar: An outline. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Huddleston, Rodney D.; & Pullum, Geoffrey K. (2005). A student's introduction to English grammar. Cambridge University Press.
• Huddleston, Rodney D.; & Pullum, Geoffrey K. (2002). The Cambridge grammar of the English language. Cambridge University Press.
• Jespersen, Otto. (1909-1949). A modern English grammar on historical principles (Vols. 1-7). Heidelberg: C. Winter.
• Kruisinga, E. (1925). A handbook of present-day English. Utrecht: Kemink en Zoon.
• Leech, Geoffrey N. (1971). Meaning and the English verb. London: Longman.
• Marchand, Hans. (1969). The categories and types of present-day English word-formation (2nd ed.). München: C. H. Beck.
• McCawley, James D. (1998). The syntactic phenomena of English (2nd ed.). Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
• Palmer, F. R. (1974). The English verb. London: Longman.
• Palmer, F. R. (1979). Modality and the English modals. London: Longman.
• Plag, Ingo. (2003). Word-formation in English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Quirk, Randolph; Greenbaum, Sidney; Leech, Geoffrey; & Svartvik, Jan. (1972). A grammar of contemporary English. Harlow: Longman.
• Quirk, Randolph; Greenbaum, Sidney; Leech, Geoffrey; & Svartvik, Jan. (1985). A comprehensive grammar of the English language. Harlow: Longman.
• Scheurweghs, Gustave. (1959). Present-day English syntax: A survey of sentence patterns. London: Longmans.
• Strang, Barbara M. H. (1968). Modern English structure (2nd ed.). London: Arnold.
• Zandvoort, R. W. (1972). A handbook of English grammar (2nd ed.). London: Longmans.

External links

• English Grammar, wikibook in English
• A Friendly Grammar of English by Robert de Beaugrande
• Modern English Grammar by Daniel Kies
• The American Heritage Book of English Usage. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1996. [Date of Printout].
• The Internet Grammar of English.
• An easy to understand guide to grammar and writing with active community college classroom site and links to other writing, grammar sites. by Word Rouges, Leon Lanzbom.
• Adjectives, Compounds and Words (Laurie Bauer)