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 ) and the use of words in the
construction of phrases and sentences (syntax ).
It is not the rules of a language because we dont 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)
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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)
hes, its, Peters 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 dont 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 thats your reason as well, lets 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 and a predicate
(except for imperatives ). Or, put it in another way:
14.2.2 Every sentence must always include a subject and a verb (except
for imperatives ). What happens after the verb depends on the
type of verbtransitive 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."
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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, My dog is big. I like big

good, big, red, well,
dogs.
interesting

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

noun

verb

noun

verb

verb

Stop!

John

works.

John

is

working.

pronoun

verb

noun

noun

verb

adjective

noun

She

loves

animals.

Animals

like

kind

people.

noun

verb

noun

adverb

noun

verb

adjective

noun

Tara

speaks

English

well.

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

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:
-

(121 AD) 540 9,353

(1008 AD) 206 26,194
(1716 AD) 47,035
(1955-1960) 50,000 (530,000 entries)
(1990, 2nd ed. 2010) 60,370
(1994) 85,568
(2000, 5th ed. 2004) 106,230