Grammar - Introduction

Grammar is the set of structural rules that govern the composition of sentences, phrases, and words in any given language.

The grammar is approached in two different ways: Descriptive and Prescriptive. The descriptive way tries to look at the grammar of any spoken language or dialect as it actually exists and it judges whether a sentence is grammatical or not based on the rules of the speech rather than on a set of rules. The perspective grammar prescribes rules for the proper usage of language.

• Parts of Speech

All words in English language are divided into nine categories. These categories are called the Parts of Speech. The function the word serves in a sentence is what makes it whatever part of speech it is.

Nouns: are the names of people, places, animals, things, and abstract ideas.
Verbs: are words that indicate what is being done in a sentence, and tell us about the activities of its subject and about states and conditions.
Pronouns: are words that are used instead of nouns and have exactly the same functions as nouns.
Adjectives: are words that go with or qualify or modify nouns and sometimes pronouns. They are often used to describe the thing that the noun refers to.
Adverbs: are words that typically modify verbs. They tell you how, when, where, why or how often an action takes place. They can also modify adjectives, other adverbs and even whole clauses.
Determiners: are small words used before nouns to tell you which one, or how many, or whose, and so on. They include articles (a, an, the), demonstratives (this, that, these, those), possessives (my, his, our, ...) and quantifiers (all, some, no, ...).
Prepositions: typically come in front of noun phrases and pronouns and tell you how the noun /pronoun is related to the rest of the sentence in terms of place, time, reason and so on.
Conjunctions: are joining words that typically link clauses in a sentence. They can also link nouns, pronouns, verbs, etc.
Interjection: are words used to express some sudden feeling or emotion and they are not grammatically related to the other words in a sentence. For example: Hello! Alas! Hurrah! Ah! Oh! Well! etc.

• Grammar - Terms

Clause: group of related words containing a subject and verb
Gerund: a verb form acting as a noun
Adjective: word that modifies a noun
Participle: verb form acting as an adjective
Adverb: word that modifies a verb, adjective or adverb
Phrase: group of related words not containing a subject and verb
Infinitive: to plus the root of the verb
Preposition: locates something in time or place
Predicate: completer of a sentence
Interjection: command, protest, or exclamation

• Parts of a Sentence

The basic unit of speech and writing is the sentence. A sentence is a series of words (or combination of words) that form a complete thought. For example:

• Birds fly.
• The house stands on the hill.

A complete sentence has two main parts: Subject and Predicate.

The Subject

The subject is the person, thing or topic which the sentence deals with. When we speak or write, we speak or write about something, The subject is what is being spoken about. For example:

• Birds fly.
• The house stands on the hill.

The Predicate

The predicate is all of the sentence except the subject. The predicate is what we say about the subject. For example:

• Birds fly.
• The house stands on the hill.

Phrases and Clauses

A phrase is a group of words that does not contain the main verb. A clause is a group of gramatically related words that does contain a main verb.