I. Introduction to Grammar

I.1 What is grammar?

Grammar comprises the rules of how language is structured. For example, ‘dog chase cat’ means something very different from ‘cat chase dog’, because the rules of syntax or word order are fundamental in grammar. In English, the subject, which is at least a noun, usually comes first and is followed by the predicate, which consists of a verb and sometimes an object, which is also a noun. The subject does the action, and in sentences it comes before the verb, which is the action. The thing that follows the verb is the receiver of the action – the object. But it doesn’t have to be this way. Because English is a subject-verb-object or SVO language, when English users hear a noun followed by a verb followed by a noun, they assume the noun before the verb is the subject and the noun after it is the object. Other languages have different rules of syntax. To a speaker of an SOV language like Japanese or Korean, ‘dog cat chase’ would mean the dog is chasing the cat, and ‘cat dog chase’ would mean the cat is chasing the dog.

The view we take of grammar here is centered on language use, but it also recognizes that there is fundamental grammatical knowledge that is important for all approaches, whether structural or functional. From our perspective, to use language is to make a series of word choices from many possibilities to convey intended meaning. When a language user says or writes something they don’t just follow the rules of syntax, they also consider what information to convey (ideational or referential meaning), the relationship between themself and the audience (interpersonal or interactional meaning), and the connection between what they’re saying and what is known or already said (textual or discursive meaning). They also take the context of where they say it into consideration, as well as broader cultural issues. A situation might be more or less formal, the user might have a particular relationship with the listener, or the user might intend to convey a certain perspective on the information. These impact the lexicogrammatical choices that the user makes.

Colloquially speaking, ‘grammar’ can also mean the rules of style and usage, that is, the rules of what is appropriate or inappropriate in different registers of use, like formal academic writing. For example, you might have heard never to end a sentence with a preposition, or to use ‘whom’ instead of ‘who’ if it’s an object, or to never split an infinitive, or never to start a sentence with a coordinating conjunction like ‘and’, ‘but’, or ‘or’. The people who preach these rules as standards that shouldn’t be violated are sometimes called ‘grammarians’, and the most enlightened ones understand that there are differences in rules among different linguistic varieties, that what is expected in one context is not in another, and that standards change over time.

In contrast to people who teach and study how language is used in different ways for different social purposes, linguists think of grammar as something to describe scientifically rather than to prescribe as more or less appropriate. A linguist recognizes that there are inviolable rules, like SVO word order, and consider a grammatical error to be when those are violated, not when a stylistic error has been made. Learners of English as an additional language may make these kinds of errors, especially when just starting.

I.2 Registers and corpora

A more exact way to talk about the differences among contexts of use is to recognize the concept of register, which is a kind of language used in a particular kind of situation, for example, formal register, academic register, news register, and conversation register. English use really is different in these different registers, and what is appropriate in one is not in another. For example, in academic register you find words like ‘moreover’, which you rarely if ever find in conversational registers, and you find more pronouns like ‘I’ and ‘you’ in conversational than in academic registers. Written and spoken registers are very different, and over time different kinds of texts reflecting these differences called genres have emerged with specific social purposes and conventions or expectations – for example, a personal letter is written but conversational, and it conventionally has an opening, a greeting, and a closing. Its purpose is to communicate and socialize. To understand genres we have to understand that the author, purpose, and audience of any instance of language use, whether written or spoken, makes a difference in what lexicogrammar has been chosen.

Corpus linguistics is a field in applied linguistics that sees language as composed of registers of use, each with potentially differing grammar rules and tendencies – a tendency being a rule that is followed most — but maybe not all — of the time. Corpus linguists argue that we can’t really understand grammar and language if we don’t analyze language use, instead of trying to think of examples that may or may not violate the rules we think there are. They collect language use examples as data and create gigantic databases of it called corpora (singular: corpus), and then analyze it for trends; they’ve found that how people use language is not always how the grammarians say they do or should.

I.2 Parts of Speech

The first step in understanding grammar is to know the parts of speech. All words in English can be categorized according to the part-of-speech (POS) that they are when they are used. Some words are almost always one POS no matter what, but some words can change their part of speech depending on when and how they are used. For example:

• Did you read that book? (book is a noun)
• Did you book the flight? (book is a verb)

Every POS category is either an open or closed class, meaning that we can add new words to the category, or we cannot. Nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs are open class, but the others are closed class. Generally speaking, open class words are also content words, meaning they refer to something specific, while closed class words are function words, meaning that they play a grammatical function. Some parts of content words, e.g. the endings on some nouns, adjectives, and verbs, a.k.a. inflections, may also show grammatical function.

• cat love fish – (all content)
• This cat loves fish. – (with function words and inflections)

There are 9 parts of speech, each listed below and preceded by its common abbreviation. They are defined very briefly here along with a mention, for the content word classes and pronouns, of the role each can play in certain language power techniques.

N – Nouns

A noun is a content word that names or identifies a person, place, concept, or thing, for example:

couch potato interrogation swamp tree hugger neutralization

Nouns are used in many language power techniques. They play a prominent role in the use of euphemism, dysphemism, jargon, and other techniques commonly understood as doublespeak. Nouns are also key in name-calling and the use of epithets. They are also the end product of the process of nominalization, a kind of weasel language. For example,

• ‘Couch potato’ is a euphemism for a lazy person.
• ‘The Swamp‘ is dysphemistic doublespeak for the Washington D.C. establishment.
• ‘Enhanced interrogation‘ is doublespeak for torture. (note: ‘enhanced’ is an adjective)
• ‘Tree hugger‘ is a pejorative term used to name-call an environmentalist.
• ‘Neutralization‘ is a nominalization meaning ‘the act of neutralizing something’, used as doublespeak for murder or killing.

V – Verbs

A verb is a content word that describes an action, state, or occurrence, for example:

shoot build have pay

A verb explains what a noun is doing, or is being done to a noun. Auxiliaries, or helping verbs, which include forms of be, have, and do, as well as modals, are also considered verbs, for example:

is are will

All forms of verbs, including past tense and participle forms (-ing and -ed) all count as verbs, for example:

shot paid going

Verbs are perhaps the most complex part of speech. They can be found in a variety of language power techniques, but they play a key role in storytelling and in weasel language. As an example of storytelling, President Donald Trump used future tenses to make a promise that was coherent with the narrative he was building about illegal immigration to build a wall on the US-Mexico border. During a campaign speech in June 2015 he used ‘will’ for making the proclamation sound certain and inevitable:

I will build a great, great wall on our southern border. And I will have Mexico pay for that wall.

In an interview in March 2016 he used ‘going to’, which is used for emphasizing the previously planned nature of an action.

Mexico is not going to build it, we’re going to build it.

Trump’s strategic use of verbs for building a narrative with him at its center contributed to his popularity, even though the wall was only 33% complete by the time he was voted out of office, and Mexico did not pay for any of it.

Verbs are also used in weasel language especially when in the passive voice, which can mask or deemphasize agency, that is, the actor who actually did or is doing the action. For example, in:

A dozen protestors were arrested yesterday.

In this sentence there is no mention of who did the arresting, although we assume it was the police. We might expect that a reporter who sympathized with those who were arrested might instead use the active voice and choose a less threatening sounding noun, saying instead:

Police arrested a dozen demonstrators.

Note: the GF modules focused specifically on verbs will be available in January 2024

ADJ – Adjectives

An adjective is a content word that modifies (i.e. describes or qualifies) a noun, often coming before the noun it modifies, but not always. For example:

This legislation is dangerous.

This dangerous legislation must be stopped.

Adjectives are powerful in name-calling techniques. Attributive adjectives, or adjectives that come before their nouns, are especially powerful because they lead and can have definitive, delimiting power. For example, the phrase ‘a person who is blind‘ may be preferable to ‘a blind person‘, since in the second, ‘blind’ defines the person rather being only one of many features that defines them.

The role of adjectives in hyperbole is also notable. Hyperbole is extreme exaggeration in a statement to garner an emotional response – fear, shock, humor, or disbelief; for example, a politician might say:

This is the most dangerous legislation I’ve ever seen.

Although such legislation might be very dangerous in the politician’s opinion, unless they have objectively rated every piece of legislation they have seen and this tops them all, such a statement is an exaggeration of the truth.

PRO – Pronouns

A pronoun replaces a noun so that it doesn’t have to be repeated. For example:

The man ran off. → He ran off.

Examples of pronouns include I, they, he, you, and it. While speaking or writing without pronouns would be impossible, their status as address forms that index social relationships makes them very powerful. For example, the inclusive ‘we’, the generic ‘you’, and the singular ‘they’ can be used strategically to make appeals towards respect or solidarity. For example, Barack Obama is attributed as saying:

We are the change we have been waiting for.

In this use of the inclusive ‘we’, Obama invites the audience to identify with the group. ‘We’ can also be used exclusively, however, as when Obama said:

We don’t ask you to believe in our ability to bring change, rather, we ask you to believe in yours.

Since ‘we’ and ‘our’ are contrasted with ‘you’ and ‘yours’, it is exclusive in that it does not include the audience.

The generic you refers to the use of ‘you’ in English to mean ‘one’, ‘people’, or ‘anyone’, not specifically the audience. For example, the ‘you’ and ‘your’ in:

You should start building credit in your early twenties. 

does not refer specifically to the person reading or hearing the sentence, but are understood to be general advice to anybody. The sentence might resonate, however, with a reader who is actually in their early twenties.

DET – Determiners

A determiner modifies a noun by specifying which noun it is. Determiners are similar to adjectives, but they are a closed class. They include words like this, every, and the.

ADV – Adverbs

An adverb describes a verb, that is, how, when, or in what manner the verb is done. Adverbs can also describe adjectives and clauses. They have relatively free word order.  An example is happily, as in:

I happily accept. or Happily, I accept. or I accept happily.

Adverbs are used everywhere, but the use of negation is important for making arguments, and is therefore involved in making logical fallacies.

CONJ – Conjunctions

A conjunction connects words, phrases, and clauses. Examples include if and and; examples of how they connect clauses include:

If you build it, they will come.

They will come if you build it.

I like chocolate and vanilla.

Because conjunctions imply logical connections between two ideas, they may be involved in logical fallacies.

PREP – Prepositions

A preposition shows a relationship, often temporal or spatial, between other words. A common preposition is with, as in:

He was covered with mud. or With whom am I speaking?

Note: the GF modules focused specifically on adverbs, conjunctions, and prepositions will be available in January 2024

INT – Interjections

Interjections are stand-alone words that we use to express emotion or stance, like well, wow, hey, or some four-letter swear words. There’s not much to say about them grammatically in English, except that they are used almost exclusively in spoken registers like conversion.

Module author: Jonathon Reinhardt

Last updated: 6 January 2024

This module is part of Modern English Grammar and the Power of Language, a open educational resource offered by the Clarify Initiative customized for English 406, a course at the University of Arizona. The Clarify Initiative is a privately funded project with the goal of raising critical language awareness and media literacy among students of language and throughout society.