Jonson, Ben (1756). "The English grammar: Made by Ben Jonson for the benefit of all strangers, out of his observation of the English language now spoken and in use". The Works of Ben Jonson: Volume 7. London: D. Midwinter et al. English adjectives, as with other word classes, cannot in general be identified as such by their form, [24] although many of them are formed from nouns or other words by the addition of a suffix, such as -al ( habitual), -ful ( blissful), -ic ( atomic), -ish ( impish, youngish), -ous ( hazardous), etc.; or from other adjectives using a prefix: disloyal, irredeemable, unforeseen, overtired.

The basic form of the verb ( be, write, play) is used as the infinitive, although there is also a "to-infinitive" ( to be, to write, to play) used in many syntactical constructions. There are also infinitives corresponding to other aspects: (to) have written, (to) be writing, (to) have been writing. The second-person imperative is identical to the (basic) infinitive; other imperative forms may be made with let ( let us go, or let's go; let them eat cake). Noun phrases can also be placed in apposition (where two consecutive phrases refer to the same thing), as in that president, Abraham Lincoln, ... (where that president and Abraham Lincoln are in apposition). In some contexts, the same can be expressed by a prepositional phrase, as in the twin curses of famine and pestilence (meaning "the twin curses" that are "famine and pestilence").Inversion does not apply in indirect questions: I wonder where he is (not * ... where is he). Indirect yes–no questions can be expressed using if or whether as the interrogative word: Ask them whether/if they saw him. The status of the possessive as an affix or a clitic is the subject of debate. [6] [7] It differs from the noun inflection of languages such as German, in that the genitive ending may attach to the last word of the phrase. To account for this, the possessive can be analysed, for instance as a clitic construction (an " enclitic postposition" [8]) or as an inflection [9] [10] of the last word of a phrase ("edge inflection"). the conjunction that, which produces content clauses, as well as words that produce interrogative content clauses: whether, where, when, how, etc. Hudson, Richard (2013). "A cognitive analysis of Manyanda's hat". In Börjars, Kersti; Denison, David; Scott, Alan (eds.). Morphosyntactic Categories and the Expression of Possession. Manyanda Simon Publishing Company. pp.123–148. ISBN 9789027273000. Words combine to form phrases. A phrase typically serves the same function as a word from some particular word class. [3] For example, my very good friend Peter is a phrase that can be used in a sentence as if it were a noun, and is therefore called a noun phrase. Similarly, adjectival phrases and adverbial phrases function as if they were adjectives or adverbs, but with other types of phrases, the terminology has different implications. For example, a verb phrase consists of a verb together with any objects and other dependents; a prepositional phrase consists of a preposition and its complement (and is therefore usually a type of adverbial phrase); and a determiner phrase is a type of noun phrase containing a determiner.

Isn't John going? / Is John not going? (negative question, with and without contraction respectively) The dummy subject can undergo inversion, Is there a test today? and Never has there been a man such as this. It can also appear without a corresponding logical subject, in short sentences and question tags: There wasn't a discussion, was there? There was.Biber, Douglas; Leech, Geoffrey; Conrad, Susan (2002). Longman student grammar of spoken and written English. Pearson Education Limited. p.487. ISBN 0-582-23726-2. Many nouns that mention people's roles and jobs can refer to either a masculine or a feminine subject, for instance "cousin", "teenager", "teacher", "doctor", "student", "friend", and "colleague". [13] The possessive determiners such as my are used as determiners together with nouns, as in my old man, some of his friends. The second possessive forms like mine are used when they do not qualify a noun: as pronouns, as in mine is bigger than yours, and as predicates, as in this one is mine. Note also the construction a friend of mine (meaning "someone who is my friend"). See English possessive for more details.

Butler, Christopher S. (2003). Structure and Function: A Guide to Three Major Structural-Functional Theories, part 1 (PDF). John Benjamins. pp.121–124. ISBN 978-1-58811-358-0. Archived (PDF) from the original on 22 January 2020 . Retrieved 19 January 2020. Subordinating conjunction generally comes at the very start of its clause, although many of them can be preceded by qualifying adverbs, as in probably because ..., especially if .... The conjunction that can be omitted after certain verbs, as in she told us (that) she was ready. (For the use of that in relative clauses, see §Relative pronouns above.)

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Dependency grammars reject the concept of finite verb phrases as clause constituents, regarding the subject as a dependent of the verb as well. See the verb phrase article for more information. All medium vocabulary | 6 Minute Vocabulary| English in a Minute| How to speak English naturally | Friday Phrase From the latter part of the 18th century, grammar came to be understood as a subfield of the emerging discipline of modern linguistics. The Deutsche Grammatik of Jacob Grimm was first published in the 1810s. The Comparative Grammar of Franz Bopp, the starting point of modern comparative linguistics, came out in 1833.