Sentence and Text: English Grammar

In the English language, there are four categories of grammatical units: words, phrases, clauses, and sentences.

Word has been defined in previous posts.  Words in English have eight different categories, referred to as the eight parts of speech.  These are verbs, nouns, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, determiners, pronouns, and conjunctions.  Verbs, nouns, adjectives and adverbs are often referred to as vocabulary words; prepositions, determiners, pronouns and conjunctions are referred to as grammatical words.  There are also sub-categories of the parts of speech.

A phrase is a group of words functioning as a single unit; we use phrases to build clauses.  There are five categories of phrases: noun phrases, verb phrases, adjective phrases, adverb phrases, and prepositional phrases.  A noun phrase has a noun (or pronoun) which is often accompanied with a determiner and/or an adjective.  A verb phrases has an ordinary verb which may or may not have an auxiliary.  An adjective phrases has an adjective and may or may not have an adverb of degree.  An adverb phrase has an adverb and also may or may not have an adverb of degree.  A prepositional phrase is a preposition and a noun phrase.

A clause is a pair or group of words consisting of a subject and a predicate.  The predicate is an expression that can be true of something, and in the case of a clause that “something” is the subject.  If you can read this right now, then you should already know what a subject is.  If you don’t, then I think you are a loser but you won’t be offended because you can’t understand this anyway.

A sentence can consist of a single clause, as long as the predicate of that clause contains a verb.  Within the English language, a sentence is not complete unless it contains both a subject and a verb.  Thus, a clause can be a complete sentence or not a complete sentence; a sentence can consist of a single clause or more than this.  Sentences can contain objects, complements and adverbials, but these elements are not necessary for a sentence to be complete.

In the English language, nouns and verbs take fewer endings due to case or person when compared to many other languages.  There are also fewer forms of pronouns and articles, possessives and adjectives are not adjusted for number or gender.  Because nouns do not have distinct endings for the subject and the object, word order is very important in English for understanding this difference.  The subject-verb order is considered to be fixed.

The use of verb tenses and auxiliary verbs can sometimes be a problem to those new to the English language.  This is also true of prepositions, as prepositions and adverbs can combine with verbs in an idiomatic way.  Some expressions with prepositions must also be learned as items of vocabulary.

These notes are based on John Eastwood’s Oxford Guide to English Grammar.