Download English Grammar

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
fish – fishes
(inflection) number (singular vs. plural)
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)
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."
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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
book, dog, work,
music, town, Hong
Kong, teacher, John
This is my dog. He
lives in my house. We
live in Hong Kong.
Noun
thing, place, person or
idea
like to watch movies.
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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,
Tara is Indian. She is
beautiful.
some
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
Stop!
John
works.
noun verb
John
is
verb
working.
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pronoun
verb
She
noun
loves animals.
noun
verb
adjective
noun
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
She
likes
big
snakes
conjunction pron.
but
I
verb
pron.
hate
them.
Here is a sentence that contains every part of speech:
interjection
pron.
conj.
adj.
Well,
she
and
young
noun verb
John
walk
prep.
noun
adverb
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).
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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。
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