English grammar

Introduction

English grammar is a set of rules that explains how you use the English language. From a proscriptivist viewpoint, grammar may be conceived of as a set of instructions that explains how to form sentences, questions, express events that occurred in the past, present, and future, and provides the expressions for other forms of communication. This model of grammar as a set of instructions about the proper ordering of such syntactical elements is complemented by generative grammar, which looks at the underlying deep structures the enable natural-language speakers to generate meaningful utterances, as well as by the descriptivist model, which regards actual utterances, and the variable usages of different dialects, levels of formality, and regional variation as intrinsically meaningful, whether or not they conform to the standards advocated by prescriptivists.

The traditional model of grammar commonly taught in US elementary and secondary schools uses the model of parts of speech. Parts of speech define words. They tell us whether a word is a verb, noun, adjective, adverb, and so on. Within linguistics as a discipline, a different set of models, based more on the function of words rather than their categorization, is preferred. Particularly with English, the model is useful, as we have so many words capable of functioning as several different "parts of of speech." The word fish, for instance, can function as a verb, a noun, or an adjective, depending on its syntactical placement in an sentence.

Models of Grammar

There are different models of grammar. The two most common ones are prescriptive grammar and descriptive grammar. Prescriptive grammar explains the rules of a language. It is like a prescription, it tells you how to use the language. "In linguistics, prescription is the laying down or prescribing of normative rules of the language. This is in contrast to description of language, which has no normative component. For example, a descriptive linguist working in English will try to describe the usage, distribution, and history of "ain't" and "h-dropping" neutrally, without judging them as good or bad, superior or inferior. A prescriptivist (one who is prescriptive), on the other hand, will judge whether or not these forms meet some criterion of intelligence, rationality, aesthetics, or conformity to a standard dialect, and, if not, will condemn them, prescribing that they not be used." prescriptive grammar

Descriptive grammar describes how people use the language. This type of grammar documents how people use the language in daily life. "A descriptive grammar looks at the way a language is actually used by its speakers and then attempts to analyse it and formulate rules about the structure. Descriptive grammar does not deal with what is good or bad language use; forms and structures that might not be used by speakers of Standard English would be regarded as valid and included. It is a grammar based on the way a language actually is and not how some think it should be."descriptive grammar

Parts of Speech Overview

This section provides definitions for the different parts of speech. Each part is explained in detail in a later section.

• Verbs
• Nouns
• Pronouns
• Adverbs
• Adjectives
• Prepositions
• Conjunctions