Traditional grammars define verbs as “action or state of being words.” Verb phrases are phrases that consist of a verb plus any modifiers, complements, particles, and auxiliaries. In addition to five primary functions, English verbs and verb phrases also perform seven nominal functions in English grammar. Nominal functions are grammatical functions prototypically performed by nouns, […]
Traditional grammars define prepositions as “words that indicate a relation between the noun or pronoun and another word, which may be a verb, an adjective, or another noun or pronoun.” Prepositional phrases consist of a preposition plus a prepositional phrase complement. In addition to six primary grammatical functions, prepositions and prepositional phrases perform six nominal […]
Adjective phrases including adjectives perform four main grammatical functions within sentences in the English language. The four functions of adjectives and adjective phrases are: Adjectives are traditionally defined as “words that describe nouns.” (But not all words that describe nouns are adjectives.) Adjective phrases are defined as phrases that consist of an adjective plus any […]
English verbs and verb phrases perform nine primary grammatical functions within sentences in the English language. Traditional grammars define verbs as words that name actions and states. Verb phrases consist of a verb plus any modifiers, complements, particles, and auxiliaries. The nine prototypical functions of English verbs and verbs phrases are: The following sections explain […]
The smallest grammatical unit that can express a complete proposition, a clause is defined as a grammatical structure that contains a subject and a predicate. The English language has four forms of clauses: Verb clause Noun clause Adjective clause Adverb clause Each grammatical form of clause in English performs distinct grammatical functions. The following sections […]
Adjective clauses are dependent clauses that consists of a relative pronoun followed by a clause and that perform adjectival functions. Adjective clauses perform four grammatical functions within sentences in the English language. The four functions of adjective clauses are: Noun phrase modifier Verb phrase modifier Prepositional phrase modifier Noun clause modifier Some grammars use the […]
English verbs and verb phrases perform four primary and six nominal functions within English grammar. Auxiliary verbs, however, differ from prototypical verbs in that auxiliary verbs perform a limited set of grammatical functions. The auxiliary verbs in English include the modal verbs and quasi-modal verbs, the do-operator, perfect have, progressive be, and passive be. The […]
A noun clause is a dependent clause that consists of a subordinating conjunction followed by a clause and that performs a nominal function. Noun clauses perform nine grammatical functions in English grammar: Subject Subject complement Direct object Object complement Indirect object Prepositional complement Noun phrase complement Adjective phrase complement Appositive The following sections define and […]
Traditional grammars define prepositions as words that “link to other words, phrases, and clauses” and that “express spatial or temporal relations.” Prepositional phrases are phrases that consist of a preposition plus another word, phrase, or clause functioning as a prepositional complement. Prepositions and prepositional phrase perform six primary grammatical functions within sentences in the English […]
Notional grammars define adjectives as “words that describe nouns.” Big, cute, green, small, and wonky are prototypical adjectives. In big bully, The baby is cute, and I painted the wall green, each adjective describes a noun. Big describes the noun bully, cute describes the noun baby, and green describes the noun wall. However, stating that […]
A few weeks ago, I saw a tweet from a TERF (trans-exclusionary radical feminist) who attempted to exclude trans women from the definition of woman by arguing that nouns are “words for concepts that have a series of definitions to narrow categories and exclude other concepts.” My initial reaction was: “Do not try to use […]
As I have written repeatedly, the line between grammatical forms is blurry at best, especially among lexical categories like noun, verb, and adjective. Grammatical form and grammatical function distinguish one word class from other. The lines between functional categories are typically much clearer than the lines between lexical categories. As closed classes that do not […]
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