English Grammar

Lesson 1: Introduction

1.1 What is grammar?

Grammar is the system of a language, by which words are formed and put together to make sentences. To put it more academically, grammar is the study of the internal structure of words (morphology形態學) and the use of words in the construction of phrases and sentences (syntax句法).

It is not the “rules” of a language because we don’t start with grammar first, and then the language. We start with the language first, and then we figure out the grammar (the system) of that language. Languages were started by people making sounds which evolved into words, phrases and sentences. And all languages change over time. So grammar as a reflection of a language at a particular time, also changes over time.

(Morphology is a big word, like syntax, that tends to scare off students. What it is, the internal structure and changes of words, is of things you all are quite familiar with already. Eg.

use - useless, useful, (affixes –prefix, suffix)

like - dislike, likeable,

depend – in-depend-ent, dependent-ly

dog – dogs (inflection) number (singular vs. plural)
fish – fishes

time – timetable (word formation by compounding)

dish – dishwasher

go went gone (tenses)

do did done

cut cut cut

Chinese (capital letter for proper nouns)

chinese (porcelain-small letter)

I, we, you, you, he/she/it, they -- the categories of person (1st., 2nd., 3rd.)

he, she, it -- gender (masculine, feminine, neuter)

he’s, its, Peter’s – possessive

he-him, we-us, you-you, I-me, she-her – (subjective, objective)

1.2 Do we need to study grammar to learn a language?

Well, if you are a native speaker of a language, you probably don’t need to study grammar of that language. Children start to speak grammatically before they even know the word “grammar.” However, if you want to learn a foreign language well, it is easier to do so to learn some grammar of that language.

1.3 Why do we study English grammar?

To me, I study grammar because I want to speak and write English correctly and intelligently. If that’s your reason as well, let’s begin our journey together, beginning at the basics.

1.4 Sentence.

1.4.1 A sentence is the basic unit of communication that expresses a complete thought.

1.4.2.1 Every sentence must always include a subject主詞 and a predicate 述語 (except for imperatives命令語句). Or, put it in another way:

14.2.2 Every sentence must always include a subject主詞 and a verb動詞 (except for imperatives命令語句). What happens after the verb depends on the type of verb—transitive or intransitive.

1.4.3 A written sentence starts with a capital letter and ends with a full stop (.), question mark (?) or exclamation mark (!).

1.4.4 The shortest sentence consists of just one word, which must be a verb. This is the imperative form, eg: “Stop!”

1.4.5 The common word order of a sentence is “subject-verb-object (SVO),” where the subject is followed by the verb and then the object.*

eg: "Henry ate an apple."

1.4.6 The subject is one of the two main parts (subject and predicate) of a sentence; the subject is the part that is not the predicate; typically, the subject is the first noun or noun phrase in a sentence and is what the rest of the sentence "is about."

eg: "The drinking water was dirty", "Julie is beautiful", "Who saw you?"

1.4.7 The predicate is the other one of the two main parts of a sentence; the predicate is the part that is not the subject, and this part usually consists of a verb with or without objects, complements, or adverbial modifiers.

eg: "She is a dentist," "Who did you call?", "The girl wearing a yellow dress helped me."

* There are in total 10 such sentence patterns in English grammar. See Lesson 14 for details.

1.5 The 8 Parts of Speech

Sentences are composed of words, and there are thousands of them. All words serve some kind of purpose, and have different functions. For example, some words express “action,” which are called “verbs;” others name “things,” and are called “nouns.” Still other words are used to join one word to another word, and they are called “conjunctions.” These are the “building blocks” of the language. When we want to build a sentence, we use the different types of word. Each type has its own function.

In English, there are 8 basic types of words. So all English words* are classified into these 8 types, which we call them the 8 parts of speech. They are:

part of speech / function or “job” / example words / example sentences
Verb / action or state / (to) be, have, do, like, work, sing, can, must / Chu Hai College is an education institute. I like to watch movies.
Noun / thing, place, person or idea / book, dog, work, music, town, Hong Kong, teacher, John / This is my dog. He lives in my house. We live in Hong Kong.
Adjective / describes a noun / a/an, the, 69, some, good, big, red, well, interesting / My dog is big. I like big dogs.
Adverb / describes a verb, adjective or adverb / quickly, silently, well, badly, very, really / My dog eats quickly. When he is very hungry, he eats really quickly.
Pronoun / replaces a noun / I, you, he, she, some / Tara is Indian. She is beautiful.
Preposition / links nouns to other words, and describes a relationship between the words / to, at, after, on, but / We went to school on Monday.
Conjunction / joins words or clauses or sentences / and, but, when / I like dogs and I like cats. I like cats and dogs. I like dogs but I don't like cats.
Interjection / short exclamation, sometimes inserted into a sentence / oh!, ouch!, hi!, well / Ouch! That hurts! Hi! How are you? Well, I don't know.

1.6. Examples of the Parts of Speech

Here are some sentences made with different English parts of speech:#

verb
Stop!
/ noun / verb
John / works.
/ noun / verb / verb
John / is / working.
pronoun / verb / noun
She / loves / animals.
/ noun / verb / adjective / noun
Animals / like / kind / people.
noun / verb / noun / adverb
Tara / speaks / English / well.
/ noun / verb / adjective / noun
Tara / speaks / good / English.
pronoun / verb / preposition / adjective / noun / adverb
She / ran / to / the / station / quickly.
pron. / verb / adj. / noun / conjunction / pron. / verb / pron.
She / likes / big / snakes / but / I / hate / them.

Here is a sentence that contains every part of speech:

interjection / pron. / conj. / adj. / noun / verb / prep. / noun / adverb
Well, / she / and / young / John / walk / to / school / slowly.

# Adapted from http://www.englishclub.com/grammar/parts-of-speech_2.htm.

*The total number of English words:

- Webster's Third New International Dictionary (1971) lists over 450,000 words;
- Oxford English Dictionary (2nd ed. 1989) lists 616,500 words;
- a joint Harvard/Google study (December 2010) found 1,022,000 English words, and
the number expands at the rate of 8,500 words per year.

In comparison, German has 184,000 words, and French, 100,000 words (Bill Bryson, The Mother Tongue, p. 13).

And the total number of Chinese characters through history is shown as below:

- 東漢許慎《說文解字》(121 AD) 540 部首，9,353 字。

- 宋陳彭年《廣韻》(1008 AD) 206 韻， 26,194字。

- 清張玉書、陳廷敬《康熙字典》(1716 AD) 47,035字。

- 日本諸橋轍次《大漢和辭典》(1955-1960) 50,000字 (530,000 entries) 。

- 徐中舒《漢語大字典》(1990, 2nd ed. 2010) 60,370字。

- 冷玉龍、韋一心《中華字海》(1994) 85,568字。

- 中華民國教育部《異體字字典》(2000, 5th ed. 2004) 正字與異體字共106,230字。收字如此多的原因是將寫法只有很小分別者皆視為不同字，例如「黃」字即有十一個之多。