ENGLISH GRAMMAR

English grammar is a body of rules (grammar) specifying how phrases and sentences are constructed in the English language. Accounts of English grammar tend to fall into two groups: the descriptivist, which describes the grammatical system of English; and the prescriptivist, which does not describe English grammar but rather sets out a small list of social regulations that attempt to govern the linguistic behaviour of native speakers (see Linguistic prescription and Descriptive linguistics). Prescriptive grammar concerns itself with several open disputes in English grammar, often representing changes in usage over time.
This article describes a generalized Standard English, which is the form of speech found in types of public discourse including broadcasting, education, entertainment, government, and news reporting. Standard English includes both formal and informal speech. The many dialects of English have divergences from the grammar described here, which are only cursorily mentioned.
Contents[hide]
1 Lexical categories and phrasal syntax
1.1 Nominals
1.1.1 Nouns
1.1.1.1 Non-inflectional morphology
1.1.1.2 Number
1.1.1.3 Membership
1.1.1.4 Subclasses
1.1.1.4.1 Dual membership, conversion
1.1.2 Noun phrases
1.1.2.1 Pre-modification
1.1.2.1.1 Determiners
1.1.2.1.2 Number agreement, selectional restrictions
1.1.2.1.3 Articles
1.1.2.1.4 Adjectival modification
1.1.2.2 Post-modification
1.1.3 Pronouns
1.1.3.1 Gender
1.1.3.2 Case
1.2 Verbs
1.2.1 Verb classes
1.2.2 Inflectional morphology
1.2.2.1 Irregular verb morphology
1.2.2.2 Defective verbs
1.2.2.3 Auxiliary inflection
1.2.2.4 Agreement
1.2.3 Structure of the verb "complex"
1.2.3.1 Operator
1.2.4 Time, tense and aspect
1.2.4.1 Verb tense chart
1.2.5 Voice
1.2.6 Modals and modality
1.2.6.1 Indicative, or declarative, mood
1.2.6.2 Subjunctive mood
1.2.6.3 Imperative mood
1.2.6.4 Modal forms
1.2.7 Notes
1.2.8 Verb phrases
1.3 Adjectives
1.3.1 Adjective phrases
1.3.2 Semantic ordering
1.4 Adverbs
1.4.1 Degree adverbs
1.5 Prepositions
2 Clausal syntax
2.1 Word order
2.2 Interrogative sentences
2.2.1 Types of Interrogative Sentences
2.2.2 Yes/No questions
2.2.3 Information questions
2.2.4 Tags
2.2.4.1 Reversed polarity tags
2.2.4.2 Constant polarity tags
2.3 Sentential complements
2.3.1 Finite complements
2.3.2 Control constructions
2.3.3 Raising constructions
2.4 Topicalization
2.5 Negation, negative polarity, and assertion
2.6 Comparison
2.6.1 Semantic gradability
2.6.2 Types of comparison
2.6.3 Comparative constructions
2.7 Ellipsis
3 See also
4 Notes and references
5 Bibliography
5.1 Grammar books
5.2 Monographs
6 External links