Notice that there is a place for both description and prescription in language study. For example, when adults learn a foreign language, they typically want someone to tell them how to speak, in other words to prescribe a particular set of rules to follow, and expect a teacher or book to set forth those rules. But how do teachers know what rules to prescribe? At some point in time, someone had to describe the language and infer those rules. Prescription, in other words, can only occur after the language has been described, and good prescription depends on adequate description. We obviously don't want to be teaching people the wrong things about language.

In an ideal world, descriptive and prescriptive approaches to language would follow this harmonious relationship: linguists would describe the rules of a language, and pedagogues would use those descriptions to make textbooks to teach language learners. In the real world, however, practitioners of the two approaches often separate themselves into hostile camps. Prescriptivists accuse descriptivists of being anarchists who want to do away with all rules of language. Descriptivists accuse prescriptivists of uninformed bigotry. With each side posting guards at the ramparts to repel the enemy, both tend to ignore the work and concerns of the other. Grammar textbooks used in K-12 education often neglect the findings of linguistics and instead copy outdated, factually incorrect material from older textbooks. For their part, linguists frequently treat prescriptivism as a bad word but fail (with some honorable exceptions) to show how their abstract theorizing is relevant to language teaching.

The conflicts between prescriptivism and descriptivism originate in a difference in focus: scientific study versus teaching. But that difference hardly explains why the two groups are so hostile. Other disciplines don't have a similar divide. High school physics teachers don't scorn the abstruse theorizing of university professors in quantum mechanics or string theory, even if those theories are far beyond the level of high school physics. They take it for granted that there is a continuity between the basic—and simplified—principles taught in introductory classes and the work that cutting-edge research scientists perform. Why is the study of language different?

One reason may be the emotional investment we all have in language. Language is more than a neutral medium for transmitting a message. It has washed over us like a river continually since birth. We use it constantly. It shapes who we are. Think back to your earliest memories. Can you ever remember a time when you were without language? Identity and language twine about each other so tightly that they are impossible to separate. Children of immigrant families, for example, often associate the language of their home with warmth and strong personal connections, with the deepest, private sense of who they are, in contrast to the formal public language of school and the outside world.

Language serves as a symbol of group identity. With the words we use and the way we pronounce them, we send signals to others—conscious and unconscious—about where we come from and how we see ourselves. Children, and adults for that matter, will adopt slang terms to show that they are hip, part of the in crowd. Some people view English as the unifying force of America. According to this perspective, the major thread holding a diverse society together is language. Those who stress this point emphasize the need for immigrants to master English, and sometimes insist that English should be the only language used in public life in the United States.

You don't have to accept this conclusion yourself to see that the choice of language involves deep questions of who we are and how we envision our relationship with society at large. For that reason, pronouncements about language can provoke strong reactions. When someone tells us that the way we use or understand language is inadequate, it's only natural to bristle. A challenge to our language can be tantamount to a challenge to our inner selves. So when disagreements arise over how we use language, the emotional stakes are higher. Over the years, we have developed a strong intuitive sense of what language is. Most of us probably find ourselves much more detached from questions such as, "How did the universe begin?" or "What happens if you travel at the speed of light?" If our assumptions about physics are wrong, we don't take it personally.

The traditional understanding of grammar—the one we associate with the prescriptivist position—began in ancient Greece and Rome. For hundreds of years, grammar was synonymous with the study of Greek and Latin.[1] These languages were regarded as perfect—or nearly so—and their grammatical structures were taken to be universal forms by which all "vulgar" languages should be judged. It was not until the seventeenth century that writers began to turn their attention systematically to the grammar of English itself, and when they did so, they applied the structures that they had learned studying classical languages to English.

English, of course, differs greatly from Latin, and the grammatical categories developed to describe Latin did not always fit perfectly with English. How the early English grammarians reacted to these difficulties depended on the individual inclination and aptitude of the writers, but most tended to assume that when the two languages differed, it was English that was corrupt and in need of reform.

The grammarians who shaped traditional English grammar were largely amateurs, people of no particular training, qualified chiefly by their interest in the subject. Some had a strong intuitive understanding of their subject; others were little more than hacks. They bequeathed later generations a mixed heritage. On the one hand, linguists continue to use much of their terminology, although they have refined many details. On the other hand, the emphasis on the perfectibility of language encouraged a severity towards the day-to-day language of many people that can still be seen in many writing handbooks and in the way many people view language errors.

Traditional definitions of grammar do not vary much. Samuel Kirkham, author of one of the best-selling grammar books in nineteenth-century America, defines grammar as "the art of speaking and writing the English language with propriety"[2]

The first thing to notice is that grammar is seen as an art. In other words, the overriding goal of traditional grammar is to produce aesthetically pleasing English. Traditional grammar doesn't try to explain the most basic aspects of language—the point at which linguistics begins. It takes the basics for granted. Traditional grammar is not about speaking any old form of English, but one particular form—a proper one.

Kirkham's word "propriety" suggests that grammar is a form of social decorum and therefore that grammar involves following rules. And so, as even cursory thought will show, language must. Without some agreement as to the rules, there could be no communication. But just what do we mean by a rule?

The rules in traditional grammar books comprise a list of dos and don'ts: make subjects agree with verbs, don't split infinitives, don't end a sentence with a preposition, and so on. Notably, many of these rules are regularly violated by native speakers. Traditional grammar books spend little time with rules such as "put adjectives before nouns." And they would never think to explain the ungrammaticality of a sentence like

(2) *The boss would like to may see you immediately.[3]

Native speakers never make mistakes with such structures, and so traditional grammar books ignore them. The lists of rules do not so much explain how a sentence of English is put together as constrain what is permissible. As an unfortunate consequence of this approach, traditional rules form a semi-random collection of scattered bits of information, presented without system. And anyone who has ever tried to memorize lists of unconnected information knows how hard it is to retain all that trivia.

Linguists, like the writers of prescriptive grammar books, also assume that language is rule governed. When linguists speak of grammatical rules, however, they generally mean something different. To a linguist, grammatical rules mean one of two things. First, grammar can signify the internal, largely unconscious system that we use to combine sounds into words and words into larger meaningful units. Native speakers learn most of this system intuitively, without explicit training, when they acquire the language as children. To learn a language this way involves a tacit knowledge of grammar distinct from knowledge about grammar. Knowledge about grammar implies an explicit understanding of these normally unconscious processes. This explicit knowledge is not a natural process and is the subject of this course. When people say "I don't know any grammar," what they really mean is that they lack conscious knowledge about grammar.

Because these rules are inside our minds, they are not directly accessible to study. We cannot peer inside someone's skull to observe words being combined into sentences. So in addition to grammar as an internal system, linguists also use the term grammatical rule to refer to a formal mechanism that tries to explain how language is generated. Sometimes these rules are even presented in the form of equations using a quasi-algebraic notation.

In many ways, these rules are analogous to equations in other sciences, since they provide a formal description of something that happens. Also as in other sciences, these rules are hypotheses about the way language works. In other words, they make predictions about future actions that we can test. If the hypothesis doesn't match the observed results, it needs to be revised or abandoned. In a similar way, an equation of motion in physics lets us both describe what we have already seen—the path of a flying arrow, for example—and predict the path that future arrows will take.

The analogy to laws of physics is not perfect, though. For one thing, the rules of language are not immutable. Every language has its own set of rules, and these rules change over time, which explains why Shakespeare's language seems very different from our own. Gravitation does not work differently in France than it does in the United States, nor did objects fall differently after Galileo refuted Aristotle's old theory.[4] Unlike physical laws, you can violate rules of grammar, although with some loss of intelligibility.

(3) *Her slept the bed until 10 o'clock.

No native speaker of English would consider sentence (3) to be well-formed. Clearly it violates some basic grammatical rules. But we can imagine someone—say a non-native speaker—uttering it, and we can figure out what is intended with a little more work than normal. But just try to violate the law of gravity!

It's important to remember that linguistic rules are formal abstractions. That is, by referring to a rule, we are not claiming that anyone is consciously applying it to produce language. We don't even need to assume that the rules are the unconscious steps that the brain performs when putting together language, although linguists would obviously like to know just what those steps are. Rules create a model that can be studied. Similarly, when we say a projectile follows a path, we mean we can describe where it goes, not that it chooses a particular course, or solves an equation in order to tell where to go next.

If linguistic rules resemble scientific equations, traditional prescriptive rules resemble table manners. You can eat your food perfectly well if you put your elbows on the table or chew with your mouth open. Many people do so all their lives. But if you want to join the local country club, watch out. Certain social circles expect you to follow the rules for table etiquette, and may exclude you if you violate them. Likewise, if you break prescriptive rules of language use, you will still be understood, but some may put you down as uneducated.

Like table manners, prescriptive rules are imposed by an outside authority. Traditional grammar puts great stock in authorities. Something is right or wrong because a book or a teacher tells us so. But who gets to decide? Some countries have a central body, such as the Academie Française in France, which pronounces on disputed issues. Whether such academies have any influence on actual language use is doubtful, but in any event neither the United States nor any other English-speaking country has such a group. Instead, prescriptions about grammar are made by "arbiters of usage." This group is not an organized body; rather it consists of anyone in a position to influence how other people use language: authors, editors, journalists such as William Saffire, writers of grammar textbooks and dictionaries. But those who have perhaps the greatest influence on the general public are classroom teachers. They are the ones who enforce the rules they believe are important when they correct student writing and speech. Even people who claim they don't remember, or never learned, any grammar in school can usually recall teachers with grammatical pet peeves who consistently criticized students for violating some rule or other.

Given the heterogeneous nature of this group, pronouncements on English usage vary widely from one another. Read any two usage manuals and you will likely find they contradict each other in many places. If you think about it, that's an odd situation. Prescriptive grammar begins with the assumption that there is a single standard form of the language which is correct. Why then can't the supposed experts agree? We're entitled to ask what criteria these authorities use to pass their own judgments. One purpose of this book is to equip you with the necessary tools to make your own judgments about issues involving language.

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Notes:

[1] The earliest grammarians were Greek, and Latin grammars were first developed in antiquity following Greek models. But in Western Europe, from the Middle Ages through the Renaissance, practically all educated people understood Latin but very few knew any Greek. Latin, therefore, had a much greater influence than Greek in the development of English grammatical teaching.

[2] Samuel Kirkham, English Grammar in Familiar Lectures, 12th ed. 1829.

[3] By convention an asterisk marks a sentence that is descriptively ungrammatical, that is, which native speakers intuitively judge to be unacceptable.

[4] Aristotle had claimed that a heavier object would fall faster than a light one. Galileo showed that they fell at the same speed, although not—as legend has it—by dropping anything off the Leaning Tower of Pisa.

If we call something descriptively grammatical, we mean that it obeys the usual practice of native speakers. Conversely, something that is descriptively ungrammatical violates the usual practice of native speakers. When linguists use the term ungrammatical by itself, they almost always mean descriptively ungrammatical. By convention, we mark something that is descriptively ungrammatical with an asterisk (*). Sentences (2) and (3) above illustrate sentences that are descriptively ungrammatical.

A common way that linguists determine whether something is descriptively grammatical is simply by asking a native speaker if the utterance sounds right or not. If we are studying our native language, we can be our own informant—in other words we can use our intuition and knowledge of how we and others speak to decide what is grammatical. This introspection makes it seem as if judgments about grammaticality are simple. But there are several factors that complicate the process. First, it isn't the case that anything which comes out of someone's mouth counts as descriptively grammatical. People do make slips of the tongue, or change their minds about what they were going to say halfway through the utterance, and the result can be word salad. The point is that such slips are not regular. They do not form an internally consistent set of rules. Remember that grammar, whether descriptive or prescriptive, implies following a rule of some kind. Second, native speakers will occasionally disagree in their intuitions. For example, the presence of regional or ethnic dialects means that something can be grammatical in one variety of English and ungrammatical in another. Despite such differences, native speakers do show a large measure of consistency for most features of language.

If we call something prescriptively grammatical, we mean that it obeys the rules of usage which are listed in handbooks and taught in school.[1] Conversely, a prescriptively ungrammatical utterance violates those rules. In almost all cases, if something is descriptively ungrammatical, it is also prescriptively ungrammatical. That is, the authors of traditional grammar books would object to it too. In these cases, we can simply call the statement ungrammatical and mark it with an asterisk. But often prescriptive rules do not represent the way people ordinarily speak. In some cases, prescriptively grammatical utterances will sound formal, uncommon.

(4) !Whom shall I say is calling?

People may not commonly speak this way, but we still recognize sentence (4) as part of one register of English. We will indicate such sentences, which are only found in formal contexts, with an exclamation point (!).

Detecting a prescriptive violation, when it is not also a descriptive violation can be hard because you cannot trust your instincts. Unless someone has taught you the rule, you may not notice the violation at all. Moreover, different handbooks differ in the rules they present. What may be prescriptively ungrammatical according to one book is just fine according to another. If we need to indicate something that is prescriptively ungrammatical but descriptively observed among native speakers, we mark it with the pound sign (#).

(5) #Give Al Gore and I a chance.[2]

The final logical relationship between prescriptive and descriptive grammar—a statement that is prescriptively grammatical but descriptively ungrammatical—is possible, although rare. Such sentences follow prescriptive rules literally, but the result is something that no native speaker would ever utter. For example, many traditional grammar books claim that you must use a singular pronoun to refer to the indefinite pronouns. The following rule is found in Warriner's English Grammar, one of the most widely used high-school grammar books of the second half of the twentieth century:

"The words each, either, neither, one, everyone, everybody, no one, nobody, anyone, anybody, someone, somebody are referred to by a singular pronoun—he, him, his, she, her, hers, it, its."[3]

Following this rule, we are supposed to write sentences such as (6a) rather than (6b), the latter of which reflects the way that most people actually use English:

(6a) !If someone calls, tell him I'll be out of town until Tuesday.
(6b) #If someone calls, tell them I'll be out of town until Tuesday.

But obeying this rule can, in some instances, lead to nonsense.

(7) ?Everyone in the room was speaking Spanish, so I spoke Spanish with him.

There is no way that him in (7) can be taken to refer to everyone. If we're approaching this rule from the point of view of a linguist, it appears flawed because it makes a false prediction that (7) should be grammatical.[4] There is no special symbol for this situation, although the question mark can be used for any sentence whose grammatical status is ambiguous.

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Notes:

[1] One complicating factor in deciding whether or not something is prescriptively grammatical is that grammar books and English teachers often disagree about what is correct. For simplicity's sake, we will assume that any rule which is widely found in many usage books counts.

[2] This sentence, uttered by Bill Clinton, violates the prescriptive rule that the case of the pronoun inside a coordination ("Al Gore and I") should be the same that you would use if the pronoun appeared alone (i.e., "give me a chance", hence "Give Al Gore and me a chance.").

[3] John E. Warriner and Francis Griffith, English Grammar and Composition, rev. ed., Harcourt, Brace, and World (1965), p. 100.

[4] Warriner's suggests that for such sentences, it's acceptable to ignore the rule, but begs the question of why we should believe that the rule is correct in the first place if it creates such problems.

If change is inevitable, that implies we must look to the way people use language now to establish our notions of correctness. The prescriptive tradition pays lip service to the inevitability of change. The standard most frequently offered is that of "present, national, and reputable use."[1] That is, the usage of highly-regarded contemporary authors which is free of regional peculiarities. But often, the prescriptive tradition tends to treat change as bad, as evidence of corruption. It is conservative, clinging to older forms of the language well after they have died out in ordinary speech. For example, textbooks throughout the nineteenth century forced students to learn the old second person singular pronouns thou, thee, and thine, even though all but a handful of English speakers had abandoned their use over a century and a half earlier. Today, traditional grammar books continue to insist that students use whom in the appropriate place, although whom would seem to be defunct if we examine how people actually speak when they aren't consciously thinking about schoolbook rules.

Notes:

[1] First formulated by George Cambell in his Philosophy of Rhetoric (1776). See Albert C. Baugh and Thomas Cable, A History of the English Language, 4th ed. (Englewood Cliffs, NJ, 1993), pp. 278-9.

What is true of languages also holds true of dialects within a language. Occasionally, you may hear it said that some dialect, such as African American Vernacular English (AAVE) or Puerto Rican Spanish is ungrammatical or deficient. In truth, though, these dialects follow internally consistent rules. That is, they have their own consistent grammatical systems, but ones that differ from the grammars of other speakers of English or Spanish.

Sometimes, it is claimed that some thoughts cannot be expressed in a particular language or contrarily that an idea can only be uttered in one language. If true, that would presumably make some languages better than others. But such claims turn out to be hard to substantiate. What does it mean to say that a concept cannot be expressed in a language? Often, people seem to mean that one language has a particular word for a concept that another language lacks. For example, German has the term schadenfreude, which means "taking pleasure in the misfortune of others." Some English speakers borrow this word when they want to express the idea. Does that mean that we can't express the idea in English? The very act of explaining what the word means demonstrates that it is possible to express the idea. True, it may not be always possible to translate an idea word-for-word, but paraphrase and other techniques will get the job done. Languages are flexible enough to adapt and expand to the needs of speakers. And if speakers of a language need a particular concept often enough, they will create a word to express it, either by relying on native word-creation processes or by borrowing the term from another language. Indeed, enough English speakers have found schadenfreude to be a useful term that it can now be found in the larger English dictionaries, although it still has the feel of a foreign word. Over three quarters of the words in Modern English, particularly the more learned terms, are borrowed from other languages.

Other arguments for the intrinsic superiority of one language over another make equally little sense. Language is fundamentally an arbitrary convention. There is no principled reason why the animal that English speakers label dog must be identified with that particular string of sounds. Speakers of other languages get along just fine with entirely different strings of sound: chien in French, perro in Spanish, gae in Korean, naayi in Tamil,[1] and so on. It would be unreasonable to say that one of these words was a more logical fit for the animal.

Similarly, we would laugh if someone asked us which is better, to put your adjectives before your nouns (as English does) or to put them after (as does Spanish). The question is fatuous. The order that each language follows is simply a convention that must be followed if we wish to be understood in that language. Evaluations of better or worse don't enter into the picture.

What holds for individual words and rules of a language holds for the whole collection of words and rules that constitute the language: there is no linguistic basis for declaring one language better than another. For the same reasons, it's impossible to find objective reasons to declare a particular dialect of a language superior to another dialect. This equality of dialects is important to stress because traditional grammar typically values one dialect as proper and denigrates others as inferior corruptions. Labels like "substandard English," which are sometimes used in older works to label certain dialects of English, reflect such attitudes. In this view, correct grammar is an elite property of a few "correct" speakers. When traditional grammarians appeal to usage in order to justify their rules, they do not invoke the general usage of most people. They select a handful of prestigious writers as their models. Linguists try not to privilege the language of one group over another just because that group has the prestige in society. That distinction is social, not linguistic.

Most linguists do accept the practical usefulness of having a standard form, especially in writing, and virtually all conform to the traditional notions of standard English in their professional work. But one can adopt a standard as an arbitrary convenience without bringing along with it elitist assumptions that using it makes you better than those who do not. Rather than conceiving of prescriptive violations as "errors" or "wrong", many linguists speak of sentences as being acceptable or unacceptable. Teachers, for example, will often tell students "ain't is not a word." In a linguistic sense, of course, ain't certainly is a word. Among many groups, however, particularly those with power, it is not a socially acceptable one. That is, a linguist would find a sentence such as

(8) #They ain't coming.

to be perfectly grammatical, but unacceptable in many contexts, such as formal writing, a job interview, etc.

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Notes:

[1] Tamil is one of the major languages of India and is mostly spoken in southern India and the northern portion of Sri Lanka. It is also spoken by immigrant communities in various countries around the world.

(4) She has no ____.
(5) She can ____.

The first sentence can be completed with words like bicycle, shoes, worries, ability, home, etc., that is, with nouns, but not with words like went, happy, in, or cheerfully (verb, adjective, preposition, and adverb respectively). The second sentence works with words such as hide, fly, delay, lie, cry, etc. (verbs), but not shoes, beautiful, happily, into, etc. Such sentence frames show that there's more to a word than its meaning. Words also belong to categories, and knowing membership in a particular category lets us predict where the word can fit in the sentence.

(6) *My sons both graduation high school.

A sentence like (6) is ungrammatical because the slot that graduation occupies in the sentence requires a verb, not because the general meaning of graduation is inaccurate.

Some linguists avoid the term parts of speech and prefer to speak simply of categories. What is gained by changing the terminology?

It is true that "parts of speech" is misleading if we take the expression literally, as components of language. Clearly, there are many more parts to language than word categories. On the other hand, "part of speech", as a term of art, differs little in its basic meaning from category.

It's really the implication of the term--its association with old grammar books--that causes some to avoid it. I, however, find it hard to see enough difference between the two terms to justify abandoning so familiar a term as "part of speech." Although traditional definitions are muddled, in practical terms, older grammarians meant largely the same thing as modern linguists do with major categories such as noun, verb, or adjective. Even where old fashioned grammarians could not explain the parts of speech adequately, they would still assign the majority of words to the same categories linguists do. (The exceptions, we will see shortly.) In other words, even if traditional grammarians did not define what they were doing very well, their intuitions about these categories led them to many of the same conclusions. So the lexical categories are essentially the same thing as the parts of speech. The fact that the details differ doesn't really affect that essential similarity.

The insistence upon the generic term category, however, does have the virtue of emphasizing just what the parts of speech are, something that is opaque in the traditional term. For that reason, we will use part of speech and category interchangeably, keeping in mind that using the traditional term does not imply we accept the details of traditional classification uncritically. Instead, we will examine how these categories can be redefined to better reflect the way they actually work.

Our basic procedure will be to look for elements that are grammatically distinct in English. In other words, we must find structural reasons to distinguish one item from another. For example, we can justify distinguishing verbs from nouns based on the relationships they enter into:

(7) Brown should denounce the need to memorize grammatical definitions.
(8) Brown's denunciation of the need to memorize grammatical definitions.

In example (7), denounce belongs to a category (verb) that can take an -ed inflection to indicate past time (for example, "Brown denounced it."). It can also follow an auxiliary verb (in this instance, should). It can also, in turn, be followed by a noun phrase (the need) that functions as something called the direct object. (Don't worry if some of these terms are unfamiliar. We will cover them in the upcoming chapters.) One way to speak about these possibilities is to say that denounce can enter into a variety of structural relationships with other elements in a sentence. These relationships are not a matter of the word's meaning. Notice that a wide variety of different words can replace denounce. If we were to substitute them, the sentence's meaning would change entirely. Yet all those words appear in the same structural contexts.

The word denunciation in (8) enters into an entirely different series of relationships, even though its meaning is quite similar to that of denounce. It can be preceded by a definite article (the) or a noun phrase marked with the so-called "possessive" ('s), it can take a plural -s inflection, and it can be modified by an adjective (for example, "Brown's quick denunciation). If we try to make denunciation fit into any of the patterns that work for denounce, we get ungrammatical nonsense:

(8a) *Brown's denunciationed of the need to memorize grammatical definitions.
(8b) *Brown's can denunciation of the need to memorize grammatical definitions.
(8c) *Brown's denunciation the need to memorize grammatical definitions.

As a result, we say that denunciation belongs to a different category (noun).

We will use both procedures repeatedly both to explain how we arrive at our categories and to figure out which category any particular word belongs to.

Another important point about word categories is that they exist within a hierarchy. That is, we will recognize both primary categories and subcategories. For example, we accept the primary category of noun, but not all nouns behave the same way. Words like Gina and car are both nouns and share properties such as the ability to appear as the principal word in a subject. But they also differ in the words that appear with them. Car, as long as it is singular, must appear with a word like the or a. Gina, on the other hand, cannot appear with these words:

(9) *Car is in the driveway.
(10) *The Gina was late for work.

We therefore say that car and Gina belong to the same primary category, but different subcategories.

One distinction that is sometimes made is between lexical categories and functional categories.
Lexical categories contain the content words--nouns, verbs, etc. These are the words that carry the primary meaning of the sentence. There are also words that carry little specific meaning of their own. Their main purpose is to serve as the glue to hold the content words together. Such words belong to functional categories. Although this distinction is conceptually useful, it's not always easy to assign categories clearly to one group or the other. Prepositions, as we will see, have some lexical qualities and some functional qualities.

For that reason, we will not make too much of the lexical vs. functional distinction. Instead, we will simply describe the primary categories. We will examine how these categories work in more detail as we learn more about sentence structure. For now, here's a brief overview.

(1) All happy families resemble one another, but each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

It's not very helpful to think of the individual words in isolation. What, for example, is the relationship between each and resemble? In fact, they don't have a direct relationship. They are more closely related to other words in the sentence than they are to each other. We can appreciate some of this structure by dividing the sentence into some of its component parts.

First, we can see that this sentence breaks down into two halves:

 
And in each of these parts, we can identify smaller units, for example[1]

 
How do we know that these words I have put in brackets are in fact units? In a variety of ways. For example, we can substitute a single pronoun they for "all happy families" or it for "each unhappy family." And "in its own way" could be the answer to the question "how is each unhappy family unhappy?"

These units are constituents in the sentence. A constituent is any word or group of words that functions together as an entity. Most rules of syntax do not, in fact, apply to individual words but to larger constituents. There is no limit, in principle, to the size of a constituent. It may be one or two words, or it may be hundreds of words long.

At its heart, grammatical analysis involves deciding what the constituents are in a sentence. Syntax consists of the rules by which different constituents relate to one another, so constituency is the central issue in grammatical analysis, and in interpreting sentences in general. The most important constituents we'll be working with are phrases, clauses, and sentences.

Notes

[1] This is a very brief and informal analysis, and we have only singled out a few of the constituents in this sentence. In other words, don't think that this analysis is anywhere near complete.

(2) Russia's proposal at the conference

The phrase in example (2) is talking about a kind of proposal. Russia's and at the conference tell us what specific proposal we're talking about. Proposal, therefore is the head word.[1]

The lexical category of the phrase's head gives its name to phrase. Thus a noun is the head of a noun phrase (abbreviated NP), a verb the head of a verb phrase (VP), and so forth. Since proposal is a noun, (2) is a noun phrase.

Other Examples:

 
Apart from simply being a convenient way to name phrases, the relationship between the head word and the phrase type captures a significant fact of syntax: the category of the head word plays an important role in determining where in the sentence the phrase can go, as well as a variety of grammatical rules such as agreement between subject and verb.

(4) {The [contract] between the boards of the two companies} [was] nullified by regulators.

For example, in sentence (4), contract is the head word of the NP which is the subject. The whole subject, therefore is singular, and agrees with the verb was, despite the two plural nouns (boards and companies) which are closer to the verb in terms of linear order, but which are actually buried in prepositional phrases.[2]

This example also illustrates another important point: phrase structure is hierarchical. That is, phrases can nest within phrases to any level of complexity. Thus the subject of (4), "the agreement between the boards of the two companies," contains two prepositional phrases, each of which itself contains a noun phrase. We can show this relationship in a diagram:

Take a moment to study this diagram. We will refine it later with additional details, but it's important that you recognize what information it's trying to communicate. It shows that the whole noun phrase contains three parts: a determiner, the, the head noun, agreement, and a prepositional phrase, between the boards of the two companies. In turn, that prepositional phrase consists of its head word, between and a noun phrase, the boards of the two companies. That noun phrase contains yet another prepositional phrase, of the two companies, which contains its own noun phrase, the two companies. That's what we mean when we say that phrase structure is hierarchical: one phrase can contain another phrase inside it.

Viewed this way, even the most elaborate sentence can always be broken down into a handful of relatively simple patterns that repeat over and over.

One final note on phrases: in ordinary, non-technical usage, the word phrase means "more than one word." Thus you will sometimes encounter books that use the expression "word or phrase" to explain concepts like the subject. As we have defined phrases here, however, that expression is redundant. Because the attributes of a phrase are often optional, it is possible to have a phrase that consists of a single word.

(5) Computers intimidate many people.
(6) The young man was naïve.

In sentence (5), computers is a noun in a phrase with no attributes. It is a noun phrase all by itself. In sentence (6), naïve is a one-word adjective phrase. Treating these constituents as phrases, and not just individual words, allows us to account for many aspects of grammar in a simpler and more consistent fashion than if we treated them differently.

Notes

[1] This semantic test works reasonably well for prototypical cases, but be careful. There are many cases where the idea of the phrase won't really match the structural head. In other words, this notional definition of the head is meant to get you started with the easy cases, but it's only a rough guide. As you look at the examples that follow, pay attention to the structural patterns first, and meaning second.

[2] We are, of course, speaking of Standard English when we refer to subject-verb agreement rules. Some people do from time to time operate by a principle of attraction, making the verb agree with the nearest noun rather than the head noun of the whole phrase.

(7) Her dog chases rabbits.

For example, her dog and rabbits in (7) are both noun phrases, but they have different functions in the sentence. Although we haven't yet specified these functional roles, we can already see that each noun phrase has a different role in the sentence. The dog is doing the chasing, and the rabbits are being chased. The role of her dog is probably already familiar to you: it serves as the subject of this sentence. Rabbits plays a role known as the direct object, which we will study in the next chapter.

(8a) His happiness was evident.
(8b) That he was happy was evident.

Although subjects are typically noun phrases, they need not be. The underlined constituents in (8a) and (8b) are both subjects, but these two subjects are realized by different forms. The first is a noun phrase while the second is a clause (another term we're about to get to). In other words, just as the same form can serve different functions, the same function can have different forms.

(9) Shelly wrote a short story.
(10) The baseball player underwent elbow surgery.

If we consider constituents that are underlined in (9) and (10) above, we can see that they both have the same form (NP) and that they are both subjects, but in another way their functions are different. Shelly in (9) plays the role of the actor; she performs an action. The baseball player, however, is not the actor in (10); the surgery is performed upon him. He plays the role of the experiencer, commonly called the patient. (That's the general term, and not just because this particular sentence is about a medical procedure.)

Notice that in discussing these roles, we are invoking the meaning of the sentence. They are, in other words, semantic roles, and they are not the same thing as grammatical roles like subject and direct object. Grammatical roles are defined by structural relationships within the sentence, semantic roles by relationships of meaning.

Keep in mind these distinctions. The form of a constituent, its grammatical function, and its semantic function, do not exist in one-to-one relationships. We will see many instances as we proceed where there are prototypical relationships. For example, subjects prototypically are NPs and actors. But as soon as you start to generalize and assume, for example, that subjects are always actors, you will get into trouble. You will save yourself a great deal of confusion if you distinguish form, grammatical function and semantic function carefully. As we proceed, take note of when we are discussing form and when we are discussing function.

(11)

Subject and predicate are both grammatical functions. The predicate is realized by a verb phrase, and in the most common case, the subject is realized by a noun phrase. Notice that in the diagram above, we indicate both the grammatical form (the phrase type) and the function. The two are separated by a colon. Thus our notation follows the pattern form: function.[1]

One important point to note about subjects is that they frequently consist of more than one word.

(12)

Many students are taught in grade school to identify the word senator alone as the subject. However, notice that senator is merely the head noun of the subject. The determiner the and the prepositional phrase from California are also part of the subject. In other words, subjects and predicates, along with other grammatical functions we will encounter later, are functions of phrases, not of individual words. As we noted above, however, those phrases may consist of only one word from time to time.

Notes

[1] Some theories of grammar do not mark functions as a matter of principal. Such theories attempt to give the most parsimonious account possible, and in this way of looking at things, grammatical roles such as subject are predictable from the structure. Although it may be redundant to mark such roles, we do so here for pedagogical reasons. We are primarily interested in describing all the relevant grammatical features in a way that is relatively easy to interpret, and to that end, we will tolerate a certain amount of redundancy.

(13a) George seems quite relieved.
(13b) It's obvious George seems quite relieved.
(13c) George seems quite relieved, but his brother remains uneasy.

In each example, George seems quite relieved is a clause. But only in (13a) is the clause equivalent to the sentence. In (13b), the clause is embedded into a larger sentence. It is known as a subordinate clause. In example (13c), the clause is linked by coordination to another clause, but neither one is contained inside the other. In the next few chapters, we will be dealing with simple, one-clause sentences like (13a), but it's important to keep in mind that real sentences frequently contain more than one clause. We will return to multi-clause sentences after developing an understanding of basic clauses.

Another understanding of the sentence commonly found in traditional grammars defines a sentence to be a group of words that expresses a complete thought. Like the notional definitions of parts of speech, though, this leaves much to be desired. How can (13a) count as a complete thought while the identical string of words in (13b) and (13c) do not? How do we tell what counts as a complete thought? The more we think about it, the emptier this definition appears.

(14a) The founding of the college by Leland Stanford.
(14b) Leland Stanford founded the college.

Most people would have no problem saying that (14b) is a sentence while (14a) is not, but do they not contain all the same information? And why do we even think that (14a) is complete? If this sentence appeared in a larger essay, would it not be reasonable to claim that the whole essay expresses the writer's complete thought, and that this sentence is just a fragment of that thought? The traditional definition relies on a preexisting intuition of what constitutes a sentence. In other words, it takes for granted that we understand what it means to be complete without ever actually defining completeness.

For the moment, we will define the sentence negatively and say that it consists of at least one clause that is not contained in a larger grammatical unit. That is, if we look at texts that contain multiple sentences, the only relationship among sentences is one of simple sequence, as sentences are placed one after another.[1] Note that there are additional restrictions on what is and is not a sentence, but they will be easier to define after we have studied more types of phrases and clauses.

Notes

[1] We are not considering here the "orthographic" sentence—that is a string of words that begins with a capital letter and ends with a period, question mark, or exclamation point. While this often, especially in formal writing, aligns with syntactic sentences, the two do not necessarily coincide.

William Powell: So I'm a hero ... I was shot twice in the Tribune.
Myrna Loy: I read where you were shot five times in the Tabloids.
Powell: It's not true ... he didn't come anywhere near my Tabloids."
—From "The Thin Man"

Many jokes, such as the banter between William Powell and Myrna Loy above, depend on an ambiguity in the sentence structure. Loy means that she read the story in the Tabloids, but Powell plays on the idea that he was shot in the Tabloids, and therefore that the tabloids are a body part. In effect, Powell reanalyzes the original statement in order to make his joke. Such ambiguities are frequent in all sorts of language, not just jokes.

(15) The Red Cross evacuated the refugees from Sudan.

This sentence can be interpreted as saying either that the refugees were evacuated from Sudan or that they were from Sudan. You may be predisposed to read this sentence with the first interpretation. In fact, the second version may seem as if it means the same thing. But consider sentence (15) in the following context:

After Hurricane Katrina struck the New Orleans, Maria Veracruz, a long-time worker for the Red Cross, experienced a feeling of deja vu. When she arrived in the stricken city, she saw faces that she had encountered only six months before on the dusty plains of East Africa. With full appreciation of the irony, the Red Cross evacuated the refugees from Sudan for a second time.

With this larger context, we are now primed to read the sentence according to the second grouping. But whichever interpretation we apply to (15), it's important to notice that our interpretation is reflected in the constituency of the items in the sentence. We can show the structure of each interpretation visually by means of diagrams:

The first diagram shows a line extending from the prepositional phrase (PP) to the noun phrase (NP), indicating that the prepositional phrase is part of (i.e., a constituent of) the noun phrase. This grouping reflects the second interpretation above. Notice that not only does it imply a particular meaning—the refugees are originally from Sudan—but it also indicates that the complete string of words, the refugees from Sudan, acts as a unit. So, for example, if we ask, "Who did the Red Cross evacuate?" we would answer "The refugees from Sudan." Or if we expressed the idea in the passive voice, we would say

(15a) The refugees from Sudan were evacuated by the Red Cross.

The second diagram shows a line extending from the prepositional phrase directly to the verb phrase. This diagram reflects the first interpretation above: the refugees are evacuated from Sudan. By connecting the line directly to the verb phrase, we indicate that from Sudan gives information that modifies the verb evacuated rather than the noun refugees. Notice that in this interpretation, the noun phrase the refugees is also part of the verb phrase, but the noun phrase and the prepositional phrase do not form a single unit. For example, the passive form would be

(15b) The refugees were evacuated from Sudan by the Red Cross.

In other words, the string of words the refugees from Sudan does not behave as a single structural unit (constituent) under this reading of the sentence.

Sometimes, particularly once you become more familiar with syntax, the constituency of words in a sentence will be intuitively obvious. At other times, however, you will need to think carefully. To tell if words are constituents, if they are working together or not, you can try several tests.

Substitution is a particularly good test. If you can replace the candidate phrase with a pronoun (e.g., they or it) it's a noun phrase:

(16a) The golfers were forced off the course by the approaching lightning.
(16b) They were forced off the course by the approaching lightning.

Verb phrases can usually be replaced with do so:

(17) Yolanda has saved for retirement since her 20s. John has done so only since he married.

Prepositional phrases can often be replaced by a single word (traditionally identified as an adverb):

(18a) She went to the bar.
(18b) She went there.

You can also demonstrate phrase structure if the words will move as a unit. In other words, it is often possible to recast a sentence so that it still has more or less the same meaning but so that its elements appear in a different order. Sometimes, you can do this by simple rearrangement:

(19a) They found their guest waiting in the den.
(19b) In the den, they found their guest waiting.

Movement can also be shown by creating a so-called "wh-cleft" sentence.[1] Wh-cleft sentences are formed by rearranging a basic sentence in this fashion:

(20a) That woman left her abusive husband.
(20b) Her abusive husband is whom that woman left.

The cleft sentence has the form:

moved item + form of TO BE + wh-word + clause

Notice that only phrases move—you can't cleft a single word, or any other string of words that doesn't constitute a phrase:

(20c) *Husband is whom that woman left her abusive.
(20d) *Abusive husband is whom that woman left her.
(20e) *Her abusive is whom that woman left husband.

One other test that often works is to see if the candidate phrase could be the answer to a (normal) question.

(21) Where did they find their guest? In the den.

But there is no natural question about the content of the sentence that could elicit "found their" as an answer.[2]

These tests for constituency are important to understand when you come to analyze sentences for yourself, so it's a good idea to take some time to make sure you fully understand how to apply them.

Notes

[1] The name comes from the presence of a wh- word (who, why, etc.). There are also other types of cleft sentences.

[2] Of course you can ask questions such as "what are the second and third words of the sentence," but those aren't sentences about the content of the sentence.

Q. Please explain how to diagram a sentence.
A. First spread the sentence out on a clean, flat surface, such as an ironing board. Then, using a sharp pencil or X-Acto knife, locate the 'predicate,' which indicates where the action has taken place and is usually located directly behind the gills. For example, in the sentence: 'LaMont never would of bit a forest ranger,' the action probably took place in a forest. Thus your diagram would be shaped like a little tree with branches sticking out of it to indicate the locations of the various particles of speech, such as your gerunds, proverbs, adjutants, etc.
—Dave Barry, Ask Mr. Language Person

Grammarians like diagrams. You may have been compelled to draw something this in school:

from Reed and Kellogg, Graded Lessons in English, p. 60

Sometimes, students spend so much time drawing diagrams that they come to think of them as all there is to grammar. So what's the point of diagrams? Diagrams show you the constituency of sentences visually. As we have said above, constituency is one of the central issues of syntax, so diagrams make important assertions about language, but keep in mind that diagrams are only a tool, a method of showing what you understand about sentence structure that other people will be able to apprehend rapidly.

Diagrams drawn with the method illustrated above are known as Reed-Kellogg diagrams, after the authors who developed this system in the 1860s. Although such diagrams are frequently encountered in junior high and high school textbooks, they are rarely found outside the schoolroom. Of course, Reed-Kellogg diagrams are meant to be pedagogical, so that limitation is not necessarily a bad thing. They do capture a number of important features of sentence structure in a clear visual layout. In the diagram above, for example, we can quickly appreciate the core of the sentence and how the other elements relate to that core.

For the purposes of giving a truly accurate structural view of a sentence, however, Reed-Kellogg diagrams have many limitations. One drawback is that to understand these diagrams, you need to learn the significance of a relatively wide variety of different symbols. In this diagram alone we have thick horizontal line, thin horizontal lines, different kinds of slanting lines, and a dotted line. And there are a number of other symbols for structures not found in this example. More significantly, notice, in the diagram above, that determiners like the, adverbs like very, and prepositions like of are all indicated in the same way: by writing them on a slanting line. In other words, no distinction is made among these three very different word classes. As we develop our account of English syntax, we will see other ways in which Reed-Kellogg diagrams give a misleading picture of English syntax.

Linguists favor a different method for representing structure, known as a "tree diagram." You have already seen several of these tree diagrams, but we have not stopped to look closely at them. They get their names because they look somewhat trees turned upside down, and they show the various constituents branching off. Tree diagrams are used in many disciplines other than linguistics, for example, computer science. They are very good at showing structures that are hierarchical. As language is organized this way, it is a good candidate for representation with tree diagrams. The following is an example of the sort of tree diagram that we will be using for this course:

(28)

Tree diagrams have several advantages over Reed-Kellogg diagrams. They are drawn by following a few simple principles, so you don't have to remember what different line shapes and orientations signify. Despite that simplicity, tree diagrams can represent phrase structure accurately. One practical disadvantage, however, is that they become unwieldy for very long sentences. In comparison, Reed-Kellogg diagrams are more compact. That is, you can more easily fit your analysis of a longer sentence on one page if you use Reed-Kellogg notation than if you use tree notation.

Both tree and Reed-Kellogg diagrams are unreasonably awkward to use in certain contexts, for example in an e-mail or on-line posting where graphics may not be available. In such places, you may also run across other attempts to show syntactic relationships using only ordinary characters. One possibility is to use labeled brackets. The brackets substitute for the lines in showing how the constituents are grouped:

[[Mozart (NP: subj)] [remains (VL) [beloved (AP: s-comp)] [by [contemporary audiences (NP: obj-prep)] (PP: agent) (VP: predicate)] (Clause)].

All the same information is here, but unfortunately, this method tends to lack visual clarity. It's difficult to grasp the constituency of the sentence at a glance the way you can with a diagram. Still another method to indicate constituents uses horizontal lines and labels above (or below). These are a kind of flattened tree diagram, which have the advantage of saving space:[1]


|----------------------- Clause ------------------------------|
             |---------------- VP: predicate -----------------|
                                    |--------PP: agent--------|
|-NP: subj-|         |AP: SComp|        |-----NP: obj-prep----|
    N          VL      Adj            P      Adj          N
  Mozart     remains beloved         by contemporary audiences.

We will generally use tree diagrams in this course. As long as the diagram accurately conveys the sentence structure, however, the exact diagramming scheme we use does not make too much difference.[2] The purpose of diagrams is merely to help us visualize the structure. They are the tools, not the ends, of grammatical analysis.

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Notes

[1] Making such diagrams legible requires that you use a fixed-space font such as Courier rather than the more ordinary proportional fonts used by default in word processors and web pages.

[2] Note that this requirement makes Reed-Kellogg diagrams unsuitable. Their representation of verb phrases in particular is lacking.

(1a) Reginald neglected his hygiene.
(1b) *Reginald neglected.
(1c) *Reginald neglected hygienic
(1d) Reginald neglected his chores.
(1e) *Reginald neglected his hygiene his chores.
(1f) *Reginald neglected his chores unpleasant.

As these examples show, neglected requires exactly one noun phrase to follow it (1a and 1d). It does not permit us to drop the NP (1b) or to replace it with an AdjP (1c). It also doesn't allow two NP's (1e) or one NP and one AdjP (1f). All of these permutations, however, are possible with other verbs:

(2a) Reginald primped. [verb only]
(2b) Reginald seems hygienic. [verb + AdjP]
(2c) Reginald gave his barber a tip. [verb + NP + NP]
(2d) Reginald found his chores unpleasant. [verb + NP + AdjP]

Because the verb determines the rest of the structure, we will say that the verb licenses (i.e., permits) these constituents, which are known as complements. Thus neglected licenses a single noun phrase after it, and no other pattern. In this instance, we could say that the verb requires a noun phrase, rather than simply permitting one. One complement that is required by every verb is the subject.[1] But in many cases, verbs license multiple patterns:

(3a) Susan ate dinner.
(3b) Susan ate.

As the examples above show, eat can be followed by a noun phrase or by nothing at all. To call the complement required, therefore, can be misleading if you assume that "required" means only one pattern is permitted.

Although verbs differ in what complements they license, there are a relatively small number of patterns that occur very frequently. We can, therefore, group verbs into subtypes based on what complements they license. The following patterns are essential to recognize.

(4) Bob kicked John.

In (4), John is the direct object. In this case, which is the prototypical situation, the direct object is used to indicate the thing affected by the verb.[1]

Verbs that have direct objects are known as transitive verbs. Note that the direct object is a grammatical function rather than a form. That function is usually filled by a noun phrase.

One useful test for transitive verbs is to see if you can change the sentences in which they appear into passive equivalents. The direct object of the active sentence becomes the subject of the passive version:

(5a) The fans applauded Jennifer's performance. [active]
(5b) Jennifer's performance was applauded by the fans. [passive]

If a sentence can be made passive, it is transitive. Be aware, however, that a small subgroup of transitive verbs (e.g., cost, resemble), do not have a passive equivalent. So if you cannot make a sentence passive, the verb may not be a transitive verb, but you need to check more closely.

We will label transitive verbs VT, which stands for "verb-transitive."

Notes:

[1] When we talk of the usual range of meaning for the direct object, we are indicating its semantic function, or thematic role as it is often called. The usual name given to this particular role is the patient. We won't have much to say about these semantic roles, but they should not be confused with grammatical roles like direct object. Note also that the direct object actually plays a much wider range of roles than the patient, but in these cases, it still has the same grammatical properties as the central cases in which the NP is a patient.

(6a) A howl rose.
(6b) *The audience rose a howl
(7a) Margaret slept.
(7b) *Margaret slept her bed.

We call these verbs intransitive and will label them "VI."

Unlike other types of verbs, intransitives can end sentences. Note, however, that intransitive verbs are not required to end the sentence. They can be followed by adverbs, prepositional phrases, and other optional elements:

(8) A howl rose from the audience.
(9) Margaret slept peacefully.

Such optional elements are called adjuncts of the verb phrase. Adjuncts can be added to any of the subtypes of verbs and don't serve to distinguish one subtype from another. We will return to adjuncts, and how to tell them apart from complements, after we have finished our survey of verb patterns.

(8a) Lewis remained an obstinate man.

In this case, the NP to the right of the verb does not identify an object that is separate from the subject, as was the case with transitive verbs. Effectively, this NP renames the subject. If we think about what's going on here in terms of predication, the second NP predicates something (that is, it makes an assertion) about the subject. Contrast that with transitive sentences like (4) above, repeated here for convenience:

(4) Bob kicked John.

Here, the second NP (Bob) doesn't predicate anything about the subject (John) directly. Only the entire verb phrase does the predication. For this reason, these phrases are not called objects but subject complements, because they complete (complement) the meaning of the subject.

Because the NP after the verb is not a distinct object, linking verbs are not transitive. They are a special kind of intransitive verb, one with complex predication.[1] One consequence of being intransitive verbs is that linking verbs cannot be made passive:

(8a) *An obstinate man was remained by Lewis.

Linking verbs can also be followed by an adjective phrase, in which case the AdjP describes some characteristic of the subject:

(9) The president looked haggard.

Whether this phrase is an AdjP or an NP, it fills the same grammatical role: subject complement.[2]

Linking verbs are a small class. Some examples: seem, become, remain, taste, smell, feel. We will label such verbs VL.

BE

The most common verb in English, and also the most irregular, is to be. This verb is generally considered a linking verb. Like other linking verbs, BE[3] can take a subject complement, either an NP or an AdjP:

(10) That toddler is a hyperactive child. [NP: subject complement]
(11) Dorothy Parker was witty. [AP: subject complement]

Unlike other linking verbs, you can also follow BE with a modifier that indicates a place, either literally or metaphorically:

(12a) My mother was in the next room. [PP: place]

Ordinary linking verbs do not permit this construction:

(12b) *My mother became in the next room.

We will label BE as another linking verb, but you should be aware of its differences from other members of this category. Later we will find still more ways in which BE is an exceptional verb.

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Notes

[1] Many grammar books treat linking verbs as a separate category, neither transitive nor intransitive, but we are considering transitivity to be a binary quality. Any verb can be categorized as transitive or intransitive, but there is more to verb-phrase structure than just transitivity.

[2] Some grammar books call subject complements either predicate noun or predicate adjective depending on whether they are noun phrases or adjective phrases, but we will not use those terms, because they blur the distinction between form (NP or AdjP) and function (subject complement).

[3] By writing the verb in capital letters, we mean any of the forms of the verb. In this instance, BE includes am, are, is, was, were, be, been, and being.

 
Because such verbs have two objects they are called ditransitive verbs, in contrast with the monotransitive VT verbs. There is no generally accepted label to distinguish this verb type from ordinary monotransitive verbs, so we will label them VD.

Verbs that allow this two-noun-phrase pattern often have an alternate form where a prepositional phrase serves the same function as the indirect object:

(13b) The school board gave a raise to the teachers.
(14b) The exchange student bought a thank-you gift for her hosts.

Many grammar books label these prepositional phrases indirect objects, but technically they are not. The prepositional phrases here play the same semantic role as the equivalent indirect objects, a role known as the recipient, but remember that semantic roles differ from grammatical roles. Recipient is a semantic role, indirect object is a grammatical role.[1] A verb can only be VD if it is followed by two noun phrases. If it is followed by only one NP, it is an ordinary monotransitive (VT) verb.

Ditransitive verbs can be made passive just like monotransitive ones. The passive forms of ditransitive verbs move one object into the subject position and leave the other in the original place. Usually, however, it is the indirect rather than the direct object that is moved. Moving the direct object typically sounds slightly strange:

(15a) Teachers were given a raise by the school board.
(15b) ?A raise was given the teachers by the school board.

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Notes

[1] Notice that our logic here in distinguishing indirect objects from PPs with the same semantic role is exactly parallel to the uncontroversial treatment of by-phrases in passive sentences (e.g., "John was kicked by Bob"). There, the by-phrase expresses the role of the actor, the same role played by the subject in the active equivalent ("Bob kicked John"). But no one would call by Bob the grammatical subject of the passive sentence. That role is filled by John.

Here is a summary list of the five patterns we have learned, with the elements presented in linear order. This list is deliberately abstract. To see examples of sentences of these types, see the preceding sections:

1.Intransitive: subject + VI
2.Linking: subject + VL + subject complement
3.Transitive: subject + VT + direct object
4.Ditransitive: subject + VD + indirect object + direct object
5.Complex Transitive: subject + VC + direct object + object complement

And here are diagrams of the same patterns, showing how they typically appear in a clause:

Instransitive:

Linking:
Note: to be can have subject complements of other phrase types, e.g., PP, etc.

Transitive:

Ditransitive:

Complex Transitive:

Looking at the list above, it becomes evident that the subject is the only complement that is found in every pattern. Subjects are also unusual in that they are not part of the verb phrase; they are known as external complements. All the other complements are internal complements; that is, they are part of the verb phrase and hence part of the predicate.

To analyze sentences fluidly, you need to learn these verb patterns thoroughly. You should be able to look at the constituents after a verb and say to yourself, "This pattern means that this verb is of type __". Note that if you consult a major reference grammar such as A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language or The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language, you will find more subtypes of verbs. These other patterns, however, are minor variations on the basic ones we have presented. If you understand these five, the subtler variations will be relatively easy to understand.

Just as words can fall into several different parts of speech, verb can employ several different patterns. For this reason, you can't just assume that a particular verb will always fall into one subtype. You must look at the sentence in which that verb appears.

Simply ignoring adverb phrases and prepositional phrases, however, will not be enough to allow us to distinguish all complements from all adjuncts. Under some conditions NPs and AdjPs can also be adjuncts. If we don't distinguish those adjuncts, we can misanalyze our sentences.

(18) My wife fed the dog freshly-cooked chicken.
(19) My wife fed the dog Tuesday morning.

In both (18) and (19), two NPs follow the verb fed. (18) is straightforward. The dog receives the chicken; we have a pattern of indirect object + direct object. On the other hand, if we try to fit (19) to the same pattern, things seem strange. Is Tuesday morning being fed to the dog? Clearly not. The other pattern with two NPs, VC, doesn't make much sense either. For that to work, Tuesday morning would be the object complement. But clearly that phrase isn't renaming the dog. Tuesday morning actually tells us when the action occurred. In other words, it is an adjunct, and fed in (19) is of type VT, with only a direct object as a complement.

If all this seems very intricate, don't despair. First, the better you know the basic patterns, the easier it will be to spot the unusual cases. Second, there is a relatively simple test to distinguish complements from adjuncts: do so substitution. The phrase do so, changed as necessary for the appropriate tense and number, can be used to replace a verb phrase and all its complements. It does not replace the adjuncts, however:

(18a) My wife fed the dog freshly-cooked chicken yesterday, and I did so today.
(19a) My wife fed the dog Tuesday morning, and I did so Wednesday evening.
(19b) *My wife fed the dog Tuesday morning, and I did so the cat.

In (18a), did so replaces the verb and both noun phrases (fed the dog freshly-cooked chicken). In (19a), it replaces fed the dog, but as (19b) shows it cannot replace fed in the morning, or even fed alone.

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Notes

[1] Some verbs (e.g., put) do require certain prepositional phrases; strictly speaking, such prepositional phrases are actually complements rather than adjuncts. But since none of our verb subtypes involve prepositional phrases, you do not need to distinguish between PP complements and adjuncts for this course.

[2] In some grammar books, you will find verb-phrase adjuncts called adverbials. This label is meant to express the traditional notion that such prepositional phrases and other constituents function in the same roles that adverbs do, while keeping distinct the form (AdvP, PP, etc.) from the function (adverbial). Although the desire to distinguish form and function is sound, I don't use the term because in practice I have found that the similarity in form between adverb and adverbial produces continuing confusion.

Consider, for example, how we can complete a frame sentence like "I saw ____." with different NPs.[1]

 
The elements of this table flagged with asterisks are ungrammatical as completions for the given frame.[2] In short, different nouns have different restrictions on what determiners they can take and on whether or not they can be made plural. This behavior is regular enough among groups of nouns that we can say that there are subtypes of nouns. We can explain the behavior of the nouns above by introducing two subdivisions: proper vs. common nouns, and count vs. non-count nouns.

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Notes

[1] The frame sentence is deliberately brief to allow it to make sense with a wide variety of nouns, but because of this vagueness, some people don't see why some of the items in column 5 are not flagged as ungrammatical. If you're in that group, try expanding the frame sentence a bit to give yourself more context. For example, add ("in the courtyard").

[2] Some here should be read as the unstressed determiner with the meaning "an unspecified quantity," not the stressed word, which often means something like "a remarkable" (e.g., "She is some tennis player.")

The behavior of proper nouns is illustrated in the first two columns of the table above. Most proper nouns behave like Fred in column 1. They do not allow a plural form (*Evelyns, *Cairos, etc.) and do not appear with determiners (*a Baltimore, *some Evelyn, etc.). Some proper nouns do appear in a plural form and with a determiner: the Netherlands in column 2, for example. But these proper nouns still behave differently from common nouns. There is no contrast in number; the Netherlands cannot be made singular (*the Netherland), and the determiner cannot be varied the way it can with ordinary common nouns:

(1) *I went to Netherlands.
(2) *I only had time to visit a Netherland.

There are also singular proper nouns that take an article, such as the Kremlin. Here too, there is no plural counterpart (*the Kremlins) and the article cannot be varied.

Expressions like Princeton University or the United States of America are frequently called proper nouns as well, but this a somewhat misleading simplification. Remember that noun is a category label for an individual word. Strictly, the proper nouns here are Princeton and America. University and states are common nouns, and united is an adjective. The complete expressions are proper names. A proper name contains a proper noun, and may contain other elements. If there is only a proper noun in the NP, it is still a proper name.[1]

In some situations, a proper noun can be converted to a common noun and can be plural or take a determiner:

(3) The Newtons of this world perceive connections that the rest of us have never even thought to look for.

Here, a proper name has been made to stand for a whole class, and hence behaves like other common nouns.

Proper names have a few structural peculiarities. We won't go into them in detail in this course, but we will discuss the patterns that may cause problems for your analysis when we review NP structure at the end of the chapter.

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Notes

[1] The proper noun does not need to be the head of the proper name. For example, in the United States of America, the head is states.

Nouns that behave like the one in column (4) are called mass nouns (or non-count nouns). They typically refer to things that are viewed as a mass rather than individual units, or which have no precise shape or boundary. Mass nouns also can be either concrete (milk, wool, spaghetti, etc.) or abstract (happiness, communism, integrity). They cannot usually be made plural (*two wools), nor do they take the indefinite article (*a wool). If we want to count mass nouns, we must add a count noun to specify the quantity (two glasses of milk).

Count/Mass as a Function

Nouns like those in column (5) (brick, cake, paper, stone, etc.) can take all the determiners that count nouns can take, as well as all the determiners that mass nouns can take. There is, however, a distinction in meaning. With stone or some stone, the mass-noun uses, noun phrase refers to the material; with stones, the count-noun use, the noun phrase refers to individual items. The stone, which can be used for both mass and count nouns, is ambiguous: we may be thinking of either material or an item. Often, context will make it clear which use is intended:

(4) The stone used in this building comes from Italy
(5) The stone that broke the window was lying on the floor.

In sentence (4), stone is used as a mass noun; in sentence (5) it is used as a count noun. Additionally, some nouns that are typically either mass or count can be pressed into service the other way. For example, butter is typically a mass noun, and it seems strange to say two butters, but we can use it in a count sense in a sentence like the following:

(6) She likes butters from Wisconsin better than those from other states.

For this reason, we say that nouns are not inherently mass or count, but are rather used in mass or count functions.

[1]

Only a little more complex is the case of a noun appearing with a determiner. Determiners are extremely common in noun phrases. You will encounter a great many noun phrases that contain them. If you are still unclear about the category of determiner, you may want to review the relevant section of chapter 3 at this point

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Notes

[1] For the purposes of diagrams in this course, we will label proper nouns as “PropN” and pronouns as “Pro,” although it would be equally correct (although less specific) to label then as “N”. We will not distinguish mass from count nouns in the diagram.

We have already defined prepositions as a class of words that most commonly express relationships of space or time, or which mark syntactic functions.

Examples of Prepositions:

Spatial Relationship: behind the house
Temporal Relationship: after the party
Syntactic Function: the crux of the matter

Like other major word classes, prepositions are the heads of their own phrases. Prepositions are typically followed by a complement, called the object of the preposition. Most of the time, the object of the preposition is a noun phrase. In other words, the abstract phrase structure generally looks like this:

As we will see shortly, there are exceptions to this rule, but this pattern is so typical that it is worth memorizing. If you see a word that you think is a preposition, look for the noun phrase after it.

I have asked these questions of many students over the years. By far the most common answers are that tense has something to do with the time of the sentence and that there are three tenses: past, present, and future. Some people, perhaps remembering their foreign-language classes, will list more tenses, with names like pluperfect and so on. Some grammar books have long lists of inflections of verbs with names like the past perfect tense (for example, "had played"), or the future progressive tense (for example, "will be playing").

If you never could keep all these straight, you are not alone. One reason you may have problems is that the story that most schoolbook grammars tell about tense is not particularly accurate. These books are frequently vague about just what tense is, and they implicitly lump together separate elements of the verb phrase into this single category. One consequence of this muddled pedagogy is that students come away with the sense that anything having to do with the verb should be called a tense. It is easy, for example, to find instances of journalists or other educated people talking about the "passive tense" (it's actually a voice, as we will see in a later chapter).[1]

Before I reveal how we will actually treat tense, I would like to step you through a short exercise that will show some of the problems with the traditional conception of tense. To begin, fill in the sentence "Marissa ________ her dog" with the form of the verb walk that is appropriate for each of the three primary tenses that you were taught: past, present, and future. Write these down so you will have something to refer to as you look at the next set of examples.

Form used in the present tense: ________________
Form used in the past tense: ________________
Form used in the future tense: ________________

Pay attention in particular to what distinguishes one form of the verb from another. (Note that the form of the present-tense verb that you wrote could have been different if we had used a different subject, for example, they. This difference is separate from tense, and so to keep things simple, all of the examples that follow will use will employ similar subjects so that we only need to consider one form for each tense.)

Now consider the following sentences. For each one, look at the underlined verb. What tense does each one have? Don't be distracted by the meaning of the sentence. Just look at the form to answer this.

(2) My flight leaves at 10 pm.
(3) Marissa walks her dog each evening.
(4) Your mother tells me you plan to go to law school.
(5) Sherry will be sorry that she missed seeing you this evening.
(6) If he studied, he could pass the upcoming test.

Now look at the time of the action to which each verb refers. Do you see the problem?

In sentence (2), you may have been tempted to declare leaves a future-tense verb, but compare the form to our previous list. It is actually a present-tense form, although the sentence refers to a future event. In sentence (3), walks is a present-tense verb, but notice that the time it describes is not really now. This statement can be true even if the dog-walking is not occurring at the moment of the statement, for example if it's morning. Sentence (4) also contains a present-tense verb, tells, but the act of telling clearly took place before the statement, and so refers to past-time. In sentence (5), missed is in the past tense, but notice that this event (the missing) is ongoing during the time that the sentence is being uttered. From the frame of the speaker, it occurs in the present time. In sentence (6), the proposed action (studying), along with the test, lies in the future, but studied is a past-tense form.

What is going on here?

These examples illustrate that tense does not always equate simply with time. When we use the term tense, we are referring to a grammatical form. Time, however, is a semantic concept that can be expressed in ways other than a grammatical marking of the verb. In sentence (2), for example, the futurity of the action is conveyed not by the verb but by the prepositional phrase at 10 pm. Further, tense can be used, in extended senses, to convey meanings other than time. In sentence (6), the past tense marks not past time but the speaker's opinion that the subject is unlikely to actually study and that the situation is therefore a hypothetical one.

Once we appreciate this crucial distinction between form and meaning, we are ready to look at exactly what tense is. As we will define it, tense refers to a grammatical form, or system of forms, whose primary function is to refer to a point in time.

This definition of tense is narrower than the one typically given in schoolbooks. Note in particular that while pointing to a time is the primary function of tense, it is not the only function. Further, this function doesn't involve every possible aspect of time, only reference to basic points in time. As we will discover shortly, there are other features of a temporal situation that are conveyed with different means.

How many tenses does English have? By now, I hope I have convinced you to mistrust the simple explanations of the schoolbooks. Let's return to the examples of the basic tenses that we produced before:

Tense according to the schoolbooks:

 
Looking at these forms, the future seems very different While the present and the past are formed synthetically, that is by means of an inflection, the future is formed analytically, that is by means of an auxiliary verb. By itself, that difference may not be decisive—the comparative degree of adjectives, for example, can be expressed either synthetically (quieter) or analytically (more pleasant)—but enough differences distinguish the traditional future tense from the present and past tense forms that it does not make much sense to lump them together.

First, in terms of grammatical structure, will is not unique. It operates like many other auxiliary verbs, verbs which are sometimes called conditionals, but which we will call modal verbs. Examples of other modal verbs are can, may, should, or must. These verbs will be the subject of the next section, but for now notice that each of these combines with another verb in exactly the same way: the auxiliary is followed by the bare form of the verb:

(7a) Marissa will walk her dog.
(7b) Marissa can walk her dog.
(7c) Marissa may walk her dog.
(7d) Marissa should walk her dog.
(7e) Marissa must walk her dog.

In terms of the semantics, there are various shades of meaning conveyed by the different modal verbs. Sentences 7a-e differ in the degrees of possibility or obligation that they express, but all of these sentences refer in some way to an event that has not yet occurred. In other words, the situation is located in the future. Thus will is not unique in picking out a future time. Moreover, there are some contexts in which will is not the normal way we refer to a future action. For example, suppose you have plans to go to a party tomorrow, and a friend asks you to see a movie with her. Which response would be normal to decline that invitation?

(8a) Sorry, I will go to the party.
(8b) Sorry, I'm going to the party.

Sentence (8b), of course, would be the normal response. English speakers regularly use the second form to refer to future action when there is a definite plan. Indeed, if we think about the contexts in which (8a) might be acceptable, we can see that (8a) expresses more than just the future time of an event. It also conveys the speaker's firm determination. You might say it, for example, in response to someone who has told you that you should stay home and study. ("Sorry, I WILL go to the party.") This additional element, telling us something about the speaker's attitude in addition to the time, is frequently conveyed by other modal auxiliaries.

(9) She must have been drunk.

As in (8a), sentence (9) expresses a conclusion about the speaker's attitude or understanding of a situation. As we will see shortly, expressing this sort of meaning is one of the common functions of modal auxiliaries.

Finally, and perhaps most strikingly, in sentences with multiple verbs, will appears in contexts with present-tense verbs. Conversely, the closely related would appears in contexts with past-tense verbs.

(10a) Scientists predict that the volcano, which has been inactive for many years, will erupt at any moment.
(10b) Scientists predicted that the volcano, which had been inactive for many years, would erupt at any moment.

Notice that the highlighted verbs in (10a) are present tense, and the highlighted verbs in (10b) are past tense. Moreover, we cannot substitute would for will or vice versa.

(10c) *Scientists predict that the volcano, which has been inactive for many years, would erupt at any moment.
(10d) *Scientists predicted that the volcano, which had been inactive for many years, will erupt at any moment.

Sentences (10a) and (10b) illustrate the tendency of tense consistency. In other words, unless there is some overriding reason to switch tenses, the basic tense of a sentence will remain consistent throughout. In short, will is consistent with present-tense verbs and inconsistent with past-tense verbs.

Taken together, all these observations lead to a surprising conclusion: English does not have a future tense. English tenses are expressed by inflections on the verb. That means that English has only two tenses: present and past. Will is an auxiliary and part of a different verbal system, that of mood. Will does have a tense, but as examples 10a-d show, it is a present-tense verb.

This conclusion differs dramatically from what is typically taught in schoolbook grammars, but it is not new-fangled linguistics. The two-tense nature of English, and of other Germanic languages,[2] was first recognized in the early nineteenth century, and is currently the standard account in the reference works used by professional linguists. That so many books used in primary and secondary education still cling to an outdated description is scandalous but unfortunately typical of the disconnect between the authors of such books and linguistic scholarship.

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Notes

[1] As far as I know, no grammar book actually calls the passive voice a tense. The problem, in this instance, is not with the actual labels used but with the failure to teach how the overall system actually works in a way that students retain.

[2] English is classified as a Germanic language because, despite heavy later borrowings of French, Latin, and Greek words, its core words and grammar are most closely related to languages like German, Dutch, Swedish, etc., all of which belong to the Germanic family of languages.

Modality refers to a set of related concepts primarily involving the attitude of the speaker of a sentence towards the reality of a particular assertion. What exactly that means is complicated and best illustrated with an example:

(12a) Tad programs computers for a living.
(12b) Tad must program computers for a living.

In sentence (12a), the speaker asserts the truth of a proposition. In (12b), by contrast, the speaker qualifies the proposition. The situation is presented not as one the speaker knows directly but as one the speaker has inferred. In other words, in (12b), must indicates something about the speaker's mental state. These sentences, therefore, contrast in their modality.

Mood refers to a grammatical system that is primarily used to convey modality. The difference between mood and modality is parallel to the difference between tense and time. Like time, modality is a semantic concept; like tense, mood is a grammatical realization of a concept. For the most part, English expresses mood analytically, through a system of modal auxiliaries.[1] As with tense, mood does not always correspond in a simple fashion with modality. One modal verb can express several different modalities, depending on the context. And just as time can be expressed in different parts of a sentence, for example by prepositional phrases, modality can be indicated with things other than auxiliary verbs:

(13) I heard his supposed apology.

In sentence (13) the adjective supposed expresses the speaker's conclusion that the apology is not a valid one, for example because it lacks sincerity. Words such as supposed, then, express modality, but not mood.

Sentence (12a) represents the default situation, one without a modal verb, in which the speaker simply indicates that something is true. This unmarked situation is called the indicative mood, although since this is the ordinary case, we usually don't mention it unless we're contrasting it with another mood.

In some grammar books, the presence of a modal auxiliary is said to mark the conditional mood. This label reflects the fact that modal auxiliaries commonly appear in sentences that express a condition:

(14) If you build it, they will come.

However, the label conditional is not ideal. There are many other situations in which modal auxiliaries appear other than the conditional structure. Further, many conditional sentences do not use modal auxiliaries:

(15) If he got a ticket to the concert, he was lucky.

Because modal auxiliaries express a variety of different modalities, we will not try to lump them all into a single mood. Instead, we will simply call such verb phrases modal, and if we need to distinguish among them, we will do so by their meaning.

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Notes

[1] Exceptions to the analytical nature of English mood are the constructions traditionally called the "subjunctive", which are marked on the verb itself. They play a fairly small role in the grammar of English, but are more prominent in languages like Spanish, French, or Latin.