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Grammar series – 2
UNITS OF LANGUAGE (Basic)
Author: Peter Wilson
Grammar, in the sense used in these Study Advice Service Guides, is a description of how a language
works. They are, in practice, about academic writing in English. The grammar of spoken English and
informal written English is often different in detail from that of academic English; but to write a full
description of the English Language in some of its varieties took Professor Randolph Quirk and his team
1,779 pages. Our Guides are for beginners, and are therefore short (and incomplete).
(There are other senses of 'grammar' for which the Guide may be useful – for example, Prescriptive
Grammar, or how to write or speak a language ‘correctly’, particularly in an academic context. My own
belief is it is not necessary to know the theory of Grammar in order to write correctly, any more than you
need to know Sports Science in order to be able to run. But it can help to explain corrections if you know
the terminology – and it is hard to understand the terminology without some knowledge of the theory.)
Units of (the English) language
Guide 2 is a brief Introduction to some basic ideas. It aims to show you what the different building blocks
of language are. Briefly, the main unit of a language is the Sentence. A sentence contains at least one
Clause; a clause contains at least one Phrase; a phrase contains at least one Word; a word contains at
least one Syllable; and a syllable contains at least one Letter.
(The paragraph is a stylistic unit, not a grammatical one. It is more connected with the writer's thoughts
and their arrangement than it is with the structure of language. It is also a matter of taste. (Those who
have problems should realise that academic English probably has an average of between two and five
paragraphs per page. Check what the average is in your subject.) The paragraph is not covered in this
leaflet.)
At the first, most basic level, written words are made up of letters. (Spoken words are made up of
sounds, which correspond only roughly with letters.) These are either vowels or consonants. The letters
a, e, i, o, u – and sometimes y – are used, either singly or in combinations, to represent the over 20 vowel
sounds of English. All the other letters represent consonant sounds.
Syllables are units of sound, and sometimes of sense. They virtually always contain a vowel; often they
start with a consonant, and usually they end with one. Native speakers usually have a good ‘feeling’ for
where syllables begin and end; in a foreign language it is harder to be sure. In English, the large number
of silent “‘e’-s” – at the ends of words, and in other places – can make it hard to decide where syllables
begin and end. A good dictionary may help.
If you have to break a word to move from one line to the next, you should break it – and insert the hyphen
– between syllables.
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(Note that the hyphen goes at the end of the first line, not at the beginning of the second.)
Syllables can be treated as morphemes (units of word-building, like un-, -ing, and so on); phonemes
(units of sound); or semantemes (units of meaning). To use any of these terms is not very helpful to most
beginners, so this Guide will pass on to Words. Words are units that native speakers recognise as units.
A word is the smallest unit of meaning that can stand by itself and make sense, even if that sense is only
limited. Another way of looking at it is that a word is the unit shown in writing by being between two
spaces, or a space and a punctuation mark.
There are many different kinds of words – see the Study Advice Service’s Grammar series -1. Word
Classes (Basic) for descriptions of nine of them.
Phrases
Words are commonly combined into phrases. Phrases are groups of words that make more sense when
they are together. They can be classified in two main ways: by their form – how they are made (what
sorts of words make them); and by their function (the job they do in a sentence).
1.
Phrases defined by form
Two common sorts of phrases that are defined by their form (how they are made) are verb phrases and
preposition phrases.
Verb phrases are combinations of verbs that indicate the tense or the mood of a verbal idea, e.g. I may
have been bored (a verb phrase with 4 words); he was thinking (2 word verb phrase); it will have been
three days since … (3 word verb phrase); she said … (1 word verb phrase).
Preposition phrases are phrases where a noun (+ extra words, or not) is joined to the rest of the sentence
by a preposition, e.g.the Queen of Britain (the simplest possible preposition phrase, with just preposition
+ noun); she hit him on the head (3 words, preposition + article + noun); he was dressed in an
extraordinarily bright green suit (6 words, preposition + article + adverb + adjective + adjective + noun).
2.
Phrases defined by function
A phrase defined by its function is usually a group of words that does the same job as a word in one of the
semantic Word Classes.
Noun Phrases do the same job as nouns. They are usually two or more words in length (though it can be
useful to be able to classify a single noun (or even a Pronoun) as a Noun Phrase, most commonly when
analysing grammar for purposes of computerising ‘natural language’.) The commonest has article + noun
(the boy, a car, etc); then the ones that insert an adjective between the article and the noun (the small boy,
a red car, etc.). In theory, one can add as many adjectives (and nouns used as adjectives) as one likes,
along with adverbs: the very small rather cheeky boy; a powerful, smart, bright red-brown Rolls Royce car,
etc.
Adjective Phrases work like adjectives, to describe nouns – though, unlike adjectives, they usually follow
the noun they qualify. They often take the form of Preposition Phrases. Examples: the man with the hat;
the picture on the wall; the house on the right; who is that between Sarah and her sister? etc.
A special form of adjectival phrase is the Possessive Phrase – with the preposition of + a Noun Phrase:
the ideas of Marx; the beauty of the lilies; the campus of Hull University; the University of Hull; etc.
This is equivalent to the possessive Marx’s ideas, etc.
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Like adverbs, Adverbial Phrases (which often take the form of Prepositional Phrases) tell your reader more
about how, where or when the action of a Verb is ‘carried out’. Examples: she spoke in a threatening
manner (how); he laughed with a glint in his eye (note how this breaks down: [with a glint [in his eye] ] –
there are two adverb phrases here, one saying ‘where the glint was’ inside the other which says ‘how he
laughed’); I’ll see you after the lecture (when); we’ll talk after lunch in my office (there are two adverb
phrases here, separately: [after lunch] (when) and [in my office ] (where)); we’ll talk in more detail after
lunch in my office (how, when and where); etc.
Note that phrases, like other elements of grammar, can be recursive (or nested): there can be phrases
inside phrases. This process can in theory be prolonged indefinitely.
Clauses
The most central unit of grammar is the clause. The Clause is hard to define. Essentially it is a group of
words that a) contains a verb; and b) expresses an idea, more or less completely. (For the theoretical
study of grammar, this is an unsatisfactory definition; for the purposes of this Guide, it is a good enough
starting point.) (This introduction limits discussion to the more usual types of Clause – finite Clauses –
because they serve to show some of the important ideas of grammatical functions.)
To begin with, our examples are of the most basic type of Clause – a simple declarative statement, in a
simple Sentence – i.e. one with only one Clause. We look at longer sentences later. Note that there are
broadly three kinds of sentence: the statement, which says something ’is’ (some grammars call these
declarative, others indicative); the question or interrogative; and the command or imperative.
Functional elements of the Clause
1.
A clause must contain a Verb.
2.
Most clauses also have a Subject – the person or thing that is ‘doing’ or ‘being’ the action, or state,
of the Verb. These are usually in the order S + V: e.g. I think; she sings; we shall play (note that the
Verb here is a Verb Phrase, of two words); they have been punished (here, a three-word Verb Phrase);
etc. Subjects can also be Phrases (Noun Phrases), and have any number of words: The man spoke; the
tall man spoke; the very tall man with spectacles spoke; a bus came; a red bus came; a red number
49 bus with a dent on the left of its body came; etc.
In a sense, the Subject is what or whom we are talking about – but this is not always true in Grammar.
For example, the words it and there are often the grammatical Subject of a Clause (e.g. It is raining; there
were three of them; etc.); but they are certainly not the “subjects” in the everyday ‘logical’ sense: these
words do not actually mean anything. We sometimes call them Dummy Subjects.
Two (or up to five – grammar is rarely precise) other elements are common in Clauses.
3. The first is when we feel that a S + V combination needs something to complete it. This is often called
a Complement (note spelling – and the link to ‘complete’ may help you).
3a.
Traditionally, Complement is used as the name of the sort of phrase that finishes off a Clause
whose verb is to be or to become, or other verbs like that (known as copular verbs). These are such
phrases as those in: it is Tuesday (S + V + C; the C is a noun – a one word phrase); her dress is a green
one (the C is a three word Noun Phrase); her dress is green (S + V + C); here the Complement is an
adjective); it is in the drawer (here the Complement is an adverbial phrase); it is becoming clearer (S + V
+ C; C is an adjective); it was growing dark; etc.
3b.
Other verbs, such as make or paint or punch (transitive verbs) are ‘completed’ by a phrase that
identifies what or whom they are ‘done to’ or performed on. Examples: they built a house; Parliament
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passes laws; she made a mistake; I like him; she drives a Mercedes; we thought brown, but we chose
blue; etc.
These are all examples of Direct Objects, often called just Objects – and in traditional Grammar, that
was the usual name for them.
3c.
Some verbs seem, at first sight, to have two Objects – she gave him (1) a book (2); we wish you
(1) a happy birthday (2); the mother sang her baby (1) a lullaby (2); tell me (1) a story (2); etc.
When we look at these more closely, we can see that the two kinds of Object are different. We don’t ‘sing
a baby’ in the same way that we ‘sing a song’. All the Objects marked (1) in these examples can be
replaced by a Preposition Phrase with to or for (she gave a book to him; we wish a happy birthday for
you; the mother sang a lullaby to her baby; tell a story to me). These Objects (1) are called Indirect
Objects. (They are never called just ‘Objects’.) An Indirect Object is rarely used without a Direct Object
in the same sentence: we don’t ‘give him’ unless we say what it is that we gave to him (though in spoken
English, at least, we can say ‘tell me’). (Note that the two Objects can be in the reverse order, (2) (1), e.g.
I am writing it for you; King Lear gave his kingdom to his daughters. Here the Indirect Object is usually a
Preposition Phrase.)
Some modern grammarians say that the Complement also includes the two Objects. They call the
Complement to a copular verb the Complement (C); they call the Direct Object the Complement (Object
Direct) (COd); and they call the Indirect Object the COi. It seems easier, as well as more traditional, to use
the three terms separately.
Some verbs – Intransitive verbs – do not have Objects. These are verbs such as to go, to come and
most verbs of motion, as well as other verbs. They are verbs which talk of actions that the Subject does,
but does not do to anyone or anything. Examples: I’m going; she was talking; the dog barked; etc.
Many verbs can be used both transitively (with Objects) and intransitively (without). He was whistling
(intransitive) and he was whistling a tune (transitive) are both possible; as are she was running and she
was running a race (and she was running the business – but here the meaning is different). Mary
dressed is not quite the same as Mary dressed her children. (Do you find the reflexive form – Mary
dressed herself – different in meaning?) Sometimes the meaning of a verb changes subtly when it has
an Object: in They were cooking dinner, the verb means something different from its meaning in Dinner
was cooking. (Dinner cannot cook anything; when a noun which is the name of a food is the Subject of
to cook, the verb is always intransitive. When people are the Subject, it is more usually transitive – they
cook something; but it is also possible to say “John is cooking” intransitively (= doing the cooking, taking
charge of this meal). Again, the meaning changes slightly. This is the answer to a question like "What is
John doing?"). The transitive sentence “John is cooking rice” is the answer to the question “What is John
cooking?”, and has an Object – rice. The intransitive sentence has no Object – of course.
4.
The last element in a Clause is the most optional of all. A writer can include it or not, with great
freedom of choice. It is also more ‘mobile’ than the others – that is, it can appear in any part of the
sentence. This is the Adverbial, which, as its name suggests, does the job of an adverb. Therefore it is
the name of a functional element of the Clause. In form it may be an adverb (one word), an adverb
phrase (most often in the form of a Prepositional Phrase, therefore with more than one word), or an
Adverbial Clause (a group of words centred on a verb).
Examples: he spoke quickly (adverb in an intransitive Clause); he thought in a very personal way (Advb
Phr, intr sentence); he sang while they were waiting (Advb Clause, intr sentence); John cooked the
dinner in the oven (Advb Phr, tr sentence); Peter sang the song badly (advb, tr sentence); we are making
hay while the sun shines (Advb Cl, tr Sentence); etc.
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One warning for beginners in grammar: sometimes Adverbials can look like Objects. Indeed, one type of
Complement is the Adverbial Complement, e.g. it is in the book; it was on Tuesday; it is growing out of
all proportion. Here the Adverbial completes the meaning of a copular verb.
There is also a lack of clarity about the Complements of phrasal verbs. (Phrasal verbs are semantic units
in which verbs are always (in a particular meaning) accompanied with a preposition. Examples: to carry
out an order (not the same as to carry out a body); to rely on (we don’t ‘rely’ with a Direct Object); to put
up with (which has very little to do with ‘putting’ anything anywhere; and nothing to do with putting up
e.g. a shelf); etc.) Some grammarians think of these as a single, multi-word unit, with an Object. Others
say that they are Verb + Preposition + Prepositional Complement. If you want to analyse grammar, use
whichever is more helpful.
Mention of the Prepositional Complement above needs an explanation. A preposition is always followed
by a noun phrase, of one or more words. The preposition is said, in traditional grammar, to ‘govern’ the
noun (phrase). The modern usage is to call the noun phrase the Complement (that which is needed to
complete) of the Preposition, or a Prepositional Complement.
The use of the word Complement to describe attributes of two Word Classes as different as Verbs and
Prepositions might remind people new to the study of grammar of two things. First, that the function
names for elements of Clauses are terms to describe the jobs that grammatical units do. In this case,
most verbs and all prepositions take an extra unit in order to have a complete meaning. In both cases,
this extra unit is doing a similar job. So it has the same name – the Complement.
The second point is that grammar is not an exact science. In order to understand grammar well, the
student should use some judgement, and always be aware that there may be few clear rules in English
grammar, but there are many exceptions. My own belief is that the study of Grammar is an art, not a
science.
The Sentence
I said above that a Sentence contains at least one Clause. The sentence is the Unit that is most obvious
when you read it – it starts with a Capital (upper case) letter and ends with a full stop.
Some writers are not sure where to put the full stop in their own writing. If you understand grammar, it
may help. (See also the Study Advice Service Guide to Punctuation.) Basically, you need a full stop
every time you use a new Subject word – unless you have some other kind of connection, usually a
conjunction or ‘joining word’.
The easiest sentences to analyse are those that contain exactly one Clause. These are called Simple
Sentences. (This is an example.) However, most sentences – certainly in academic English – are
multiple sentences. These contain more than one Clause, in one or both of two ways.
The first is the compound sentence, which contains at least two Clauses linked by co-ordinating
conjunctions (and, but, or, and nor – as well as either and neither). The two Clauses are of equal
importance in a grammatical – if not a logical – sense. "I got up and I got dressed and I had breakfast and
we went out" is a typical childish version, with four Clauses. A more academic example with two Clauses
is "Demand rose, but supply fell". All the Clauses in a compound sentence are called Main Clauses,
chiefly because of the other kind of Multiple sentence – the complex sentence.
Complex sentences have a Main Clause which is felt, in grammatical terms to be ‘commanding’ the
sentence. It may not be as important in terms of its meaning as the other, subordinate, Clauses. (The
word subordinate implies that they ‘take orders from’, or are less important than, the Main or
superordinate, Clause.) For example, the sentence “He said that he would resign the next day” has two
Clauses, “He said” and “that he would resign the next day”. The first has a Subject + (transitive) Verb, and
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so needs to be completed by a Direct Object. The second, subordinate, Clause, is the Od – it is what he
said. In context, the information about the resignation is probably more important than the news that the
speaker spoke. But "He said" is still the Main Clause, grammatically speaking.
Subordinate Clauses perform the functions of three word classes.
a
Noun Clauses act as the Subject of a Verb, e.g. That Britain now stood alone was painfully
obvious, or its Complement (either Object, e.g He thought that this was inevitable, or copular
Complement, e.g. It is what they had wanted).
b
Adjectival or Relative Clauses do the job of an adjective – they give more information about a noun.
They usually start with a wh- word (or a relative pronoun), like which or who. Unlike adjectives, but like
adjective phrases, they usually come after the noun they describe: they postmodify it – e.g. The
Company, which had been losing its grip on the market, now increased its share of sales; In the place
where she was born,…
c
Adverbial Clauses perform a huge variety of functions, just as adverbs do. They can say how,
when or where the verb is ‘done’; e.g. He ran as if he had just been let out of prison; When I lived in
Manchester, I worked as a teacher; I am going where there is peace and quiet. In more traditional
grammars, there are said to be eight types of Adverbial Clauses: Place, Time, Manner, Consequence,
Cause, Concession, Condition and Purpose. This classification may be helpful, mostly in the study of
classical Greek and Latin; I am not convinced that it is very useful in the study of modern English.
Note that the Subordinate Clause has its own Clause structure. In the adjective Clause given as an
example above, The Company, which had been losing its grip on the market, now increased its share
of sales, the Clause can be analysed as: which [S] + had been losing [V] + its grip on the market [Od].
So the whole sentence may be diagrammed as [S [Adj Cl = S V Od] V Od]. Thus a Clause may contain
another Clause nested inside it – and, like Phrases (see above), Clauses can be recursive.
There may be more than one Subordinate Clause in a complex sentence. When there is more than one
Main Clause and at least one Subordinate Clause, the sentence is called compound-complex; but it is
usually simpler to call all sentences with more than one Clause multiple.
STUDY ADVICE SERVICE Guides
If you have understood “Grammar series - 1. Word Classes (Basic)” and “Grammar series - 2. Units of
Language (Basic)”, you have a very good basis for the study of grammar. The desk has at times run
classes for groups of interested students. If there are enough of you to make a worthwhile teaching group,
consult us to see what can be done.
If, on the other hand, you only want to write better, consider our usual service. You may like to consult
some of our more specific leaflets, written to address the problems that some of our clients have had. In
either case, good luck with your writing!
For more about Grammar see: “Grammar: recommended resources” on the website at
www.hull.ac.uk/studyadvice.
All web addresses in this leaflet were correct at the time of publication
The information in this leaflet can be made available in an alternative
format on request. Telephone 01482 466199.
© 01/2008
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