This article presents the basic concepts that English grammar operates on. The terms are given with priority original designation. First of all, these are the members of sentences and the general structure described in relation to the standard word order. In addition, it must be taken into account that non-narrative constructions ('irrealis moods'), such as interrogative turns ('interrogative mood'), requests and commands ('Imperative mood'), conditional sentences ('conditional sentences'), often change the structure of the sentence. With inversion, the predicate (or part of the predicate) becomes ahead of the subject. Also, some minor members may come to the fore to take on a rhematic role. This does not apply to definitions, since they do not depend on any members of the sentence, but directly on nouns.
Clause, simple and composite (grammatical basis, simple and complex sentence)
Modern English syntax is not equivalent to Russian, although it has common points. What is in the traditionalsystem is denoted by similar concepts, in a practical situation it can behave differently. Thus, we will briefly designate the grammatical terms of the English language without rigid reference to the Russian classification system.
'Sentence' - a sentence, a set of words containing a relatively complete idea.
‘Rhema’ is a rheme, an accented part, designed to express unique or fundamentally important information, something that caused the message to be voiced (or written).
'Theme' - a passive part that serves as a frame for a rheme and contains well-known or not affecting the essence of what is happening details.
'Clause' - The verb part of a sentence, usually translated as a grammatical stem.
'Composite sentence' - a complex sentence containing several 'clauses' ("grammatical foundations"), according to hierarchical distribution is divided into:
- sentences with equivalent parts - ‘Compound sentences’ (compound sentences);
- sentences with dependent and subordinate parts - ‘Complex sentences’ (complex sentences).
In addition, depending on the presence of minor members, there is such a grammatical term as 'non-extended sentence' (non-extended sentence) and 'extended sentence' (common).
Members of non-extended sentences
'Non-extended sentence' - non-extended sentence, contains only the main members of the sentence: subject and / or predicate.
‘Predicate’ –predicate, grammatical term for the verb itself with all its auxiliary units - 'simple predicate' (simple), for a multi-part predicate - 'complex predicate' (complex).
‘Verbal predicate’ is a compound predicate consisting of several verbs.
‘Predicative expression’ is the nominal part of a nominal predicate, usually expressed by a noun or pronoun.
'Subject' - a grammatical term used to denote the main argument ('argument') of the predicate, can be expressed in almost any part of speech or phrase. Even a 'clause' can play this role. Theoretically, in English it should be present in the sentence at least as a formal ‘It’, but in practice it is often omitted.
Members of extended sentences
‘Extended sentence’ – a common sentence, contains, in addition to the subject and / or predicate, secondary members, such as, for example, an object, a circumstance and a definition.
'Object' is an addition. A direct object (‘direct object’) refers directly to the verb and says who / what or with what the action is performed.
‘Adverbial’ (‘adjunct’) is a circumstance. In a broader sense, it characterizes the details of the situation of the events described, such as time, place, cause, antecedents, conditions of probability and consequences.
‘Attribute’ – a definition that finds its position in the text regardless of the general structure,i.e., its place is dictated by the main word, and not by the standards of the order of members in a sentence.
'Wh-words' are interrogative words or words used to form special questions and similar constructions.
Modal words and Wh-words
'Modal words' - modal (introductory) words (not to be confused with modal verbs).
'Wh-words' and 'Modal words' are usually counted separately, not defined as members of a sentence.
The following is a summary of the grammar in tables. One part (upper) combines the members of the sentence, the other (lower) - parts of speech.
Parts of speach
The grammar of a word implies a set of rules for the operations of morpheme formation and consideration of the criteria by which words are assigned to a particular class. Parts of speach - categories of words that tend to express a certain range of concepts. For example, adjectives designate a sign of objects and phenomena, and pronouns are intended for indirect designation of other parts of speech. Separate open ('open') and closed ('closed') groups of parts of speech.
Open groups
'Open groups' is a grammatical term for ever-growing groups. New words appear by adding prefixes and suffixes, by adding roots, forming from other parts of speech, borrowing from other languages, the emergence of new terms and names, and also as a resultlinguistic evolution from already existing obsolete words.
'Nouns' - nouns express an object or phenomenon and differ in degree of independence from general to proper names, which, except for the peculiarities of the use of articles and the rules of compatibility, does not affect their syntax.
‘Verbs’ – verbs. Referring to the verb as a key component of the predicate, one can single out the grammatical term 'main verb' (semantic verb), the rest of the verbs are official and rather belong to a closed group: 'modal verb' (a non-semantic verb with a transitive sense) and 'auxuliary verb' (auxiliary verb), used to form tense-aspect, voice and subordinate constructions, as well as a variety of 'auxiliary verbs' - 'link verb' (link verb), used to ensure the verbality of a nominal (nominal) predicate. In the case where 'link verb' is the only verb in the grammatical stem, it is considered the main verb, 'main verb'.
Verb forms:
- 'basic form', basic form (or 'infinitive without 'to'', 'bare infinitive'), or just the indefinite present tense of the verb;
- 'infinitive' (infinitive);
- '-s'-form, which is used in the present indefinite tense in the third person singular;
- Past Indefinite Active - the form that the verb takes in the past indefinite tense (regular verbs form it, getting the ending 'ed', and the wrong ones can be seen in the second column of the table of irregular verbs);
- 'participle I'or 'present participle' - present participle, having the form of a verb with the addition of the ending 'ing';
- 'participle II' or 'past participle' - the past participle, which looks like adding the ending 'ed' for regular verbs, and like the third column of the table of irregular verbs for irregular verbs;
- 'gerund' is a gerund that combines the properties of a noun and an action.
'Adjectives' - adjectives, express the sign of a noun, can be part of the subject and predicate or definition.
'Adverbs' - adverbs, often reveal the details of the action, but can also refer to the sentence as a whole, often form the core of the circumstance.
Closed groups
'Closed groups' - groups of parts of speech, the number of units in which, as a rule, always remains unchanged. As rare exceptions, new morphemes are formed, as in open groups, by modernizing existing words when the grammar of the language is updated and modernized.
‘Pronouns’ – pronouns.
‘Prepositions’ – prepositions.
‘Conjunctives’ – unions.
'Determiners' are descriptive words. They are divided into ‘particles’ – particles, and ‘articles’ – articles.
‘Interjections’ – interjections.
