Module 1: GRAMMAR

Objectives: After finishing this module, learners will be able to review

- Major issues related to syntax and morphology
- Sentence/clause structures and the rules for arrangement of words into
phrases, clauses, and sentence.
- The grammatical categories and syntactic functions of language units, the
basic clause/sentence structures , the clause/sentence elements and their
realization
I. General concept:
1. The study of sentence/clause structures and the rules for arrangement of words
into phrases, clauses, and sentence. Grammar is a broader concept including Syntax
and the rules for forming words (Morphology). It is normally, and traditionally,
referred to as a school subject rather than a linguistic branch.
2. The subject matter: The grammatical categories and syntactic functions of
language units, the basic clause/sentence structures , the clause/sentence elements
and their realization
B. Module 1.1. Parts of speech & phrases
1. General concept:
a/ Parts of speech: Words which have some general characteristics in common are
grouped into a part of speech. Parts of speech may belong to open classes (open to
new items) such as N, V, Adj, Adv or closed systems such as Pre, Conj, Pron…
b/ Phrases: A phrase is a group of words of which one word is head, other(s) –
modifier or complement. In case of sole realization a phrase goes without
modifier. Phrases serve as basic elements for syntactic analysis of sentence, and the
syntactic function of the whole phrase is performed by the head, which dictates all
kinds of concord with the rest (other phrases) of the sentence outside the phrase.

2. Parts of speech – the classification

a/ The Noun: Count – Non-count N, Common – Proper N, Concrete – Abstract N
b/ The Verb:
+ Lexical verbs: Intensive – Extensive, Dynamic – Stative, Transitive – Intransitive

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The transitive verb may be: monotransitive, ditransitive , and complex transitive.
+ Auxiliary V: Primary – Modal Auxiliary V
c/ The Adjective: Central – Attributive – Predicative Adj, Stative – Dynamic Adj,
Gradable – Non-gradable Adj.
d/ The Adverb: The most important classification of adverbs is that according to
their meaning : Adv of time – of place – of reason, etc.

3. Parts of speech – the grammatical categories

a/ The Noun:
+ Number: Singular vs Plural. Nouns, in terms of number, are classified as
invariables and variables. Invariables, depending on meaning, may be Singular
only (furniture, homework, Henry, news, the true), or Plural only (scissors, thanks,
the Philippines, cattle, the rich). Most of invariable nouns are classified as non-
count. Variables – can be used as either Singular or Plural (boy – boys). They are
count nouns.
Note1: In many cases, a non-count noun can be used as a count noun with changes
from abstract or general meanings to concrete or particular meanings
(difficulty – difficulties, light – lights, paper – a paper, beauty – a beauty).
Note 2: Nouns are used with determiners of different classes: articles (a, the, zero),
many types of pronoun (possessive, indicative, indefinite), quantifiers, and so on.
Articles are the most important determiners because a noun is always used with one
of the three: a (indefinite article) or the (definite article), or zero article. The
choice of article strongly depends on the reference (meaning) of the noun phrase.
There are some general restrictions for using articles:
Sing. count Ns Pl. count Ns Non-count Ns
indefinite article a Yes No No
definite article the Yes Yes Yes
zero article No Yes Yes

+ Case : ‘s genitive & of-genitive: a teacher’s book ; the cover of a book.

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There is a choice of either -s genitive or of-genitive: Normally, animate nouns
(persons & higher animals) take the -s genitive, inanimate nouns (things & lower
animals) take the of-genitive, but there is a large overlap between the two choices.
+ Gender (unimportant in English): Masculine actor – feminine actress

b/The Verb:
+ Tense – to indicate time of action/state: Present – Past tense
+ Aspect – to denote the manner in which the action/state is performed:
Simple – Perfect – Progressive – Perfect Progressive.
+ Voice – to denote the relationship between the Subject and the Verb element:
Active – Passive voice.
+ Mood – to indicate the speaker’s attitude to the predication (action/state):
Indicative – Imperative – Subjunctive mood.
Note1: Tense is a gr. category of E. verbs to express time relation through the form
of the verb. Tense, Time, Form, all of them are involved in the usage of E. verbs,
but they are of different concepts. For instance, there are five forms of the verb:
base form (do/to do), -s form (does), -ed past form (did), -ing participle (doing), -
ed participle (done) but only three of them are used for Tenses: base form and -s
form are used in Present tense , -ed past – in past tense. , and the present tense can
be used to express different time: present, future, even past time. Time is not a
linguistic term.
Note2: There is no obvious correspondence between the verb-form and future
time; in linguistic terms, there is no future tense in English. We have many devices
to denote future time ( will/shall + V, be going to +V, present progressive, simple
present, be to + infinitive, be about to + V, …)

* Five forms & the functions related to the grammatical categories of Verb:
1. The base form – to use for the present tense except 3rd person singular, in
imperative sentences (Come in, please! ), in the subjunctive mood
(I demanded that he go there.), and as the bare infinitive or to-infinitive.
2. The -s form – to use for 3rd person singular present tense.

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 3. The -ed past – to use for the past tense and the subjunctive mood (If I were
you…).
4. The -ing participle – to use for the progressive aspect and in -ing participle
clause.
5. The -ed participle – to use for the perfect aspect, the passive voice, and in -
ed participle clause.
* With regular verbs the -ed past and -ed participle are identical; With irregular
verbs their form vary from three (put, puts, putting) to eight ( be, am, is, are, was,
were, been, being)
c/ The Adjective & Adverb:
The only grammatical category of Adj & Adv is that of Comparison with three
degrees: Absolute (quick - quickly) – Comparative (quicker) – Superlative
(quickest) degree.

4. Phrases – the structures

a/ Noun phrase:
+ Basic NP: Closed system Premodifier + Head Noun ( the tasks, all these people)
+ Complex NP: Open-class Modifiers + Head Noun. Modifiers of a complex NP
may be either or postmodifier (the difficult questions which we have answered…)
premod. + HEAD + Postmod.
* The realizations/expressions of modifier
+ Pemodifiers: By Adjectives (a difficult question), by Nouns (school children),
and (rarely) by Adverbs (quite a problem)
+ Postmodifiers:
- By phrases: Prepositional phrases (students in Hanoi), Adjectives (students
good at English), Adverbs (students here).
- By clauses: Relative clauses (students who are learning English) and by non-finite
clauses (students learning English).

b/ Verb phrase:
+ Finite VP:

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- Simple finite VP: a lexical V with its form based on an S-V concord to show the
simple tenses – present or past (He comes – simple present tense, third person,
singular).
- Complex finite VP: consists of an Auxiliary verb with its form based on an S-V
concord to show the tense+ aspect and/or voice of the VP and a Lexical verb in
base form (He has come – present perfect).
+ Non-finite VP: Non-finite VP goes without tense and S-V concord. It may be a
simple VP (to do, do, doing, done), or a complex non-finite, if it expresses aspect or
voice categories in ( to have done, having done...). There are three forms of the
non-finite verb: the base form (either bare or to-infinitive), the -ing participle, and
the -ed participle.

c/ Adjective phases :
+An Adjective phrase is a phrase with an adjective as Head (very happy) or as sole
realization (happy). For convenience, Adjectives phrases are normally referred to
simply as Adjectives only.
+ Adjectives may be modified by Adverb phrases (very happy).
d/ Adverb phrases:
+An Adverb phrase is a phrase with an adverb as Head (far more easily) or as sole
realization (easily). Like adjective phrases, adverb phrases are normally referred to
simply as adverbs only
+ An adverb may be modified by another adverb (far more)
e/ Prepositional phrase:
+ There are two obligatory components in a prepositional phrase: a preposition as
Head and the prepositional complement (in the room).
+ The prepositional complement is realized variously:
By a NP (at the door), by a finite clause (in what you have said), and by non- finite
clause (in learning English).

5. Phrases – the syntactic functions

a/ Noun phrase:

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S (My students are here.); Od (I love my students.) ; Oi (I ask my students some
questions.); Cs (You are my students) ; Co (What makes you my students? ), Cprep
(I take pride in my students); Cadj (That book is worth the money); App (I love
them, my students), and rarely: Premodifier (Student life is not easy.); A (I ‘ll see
you next week.)
b/ Verb phrase:
+ Finite Verb phrases function as Predicate sentences (We have been learning
English.)
+ Non-finite Verb phrases can takes many different functions, and in sentences they
are normally referred to as Non-finite clauses:

- As A ( We come here to learn English); as S ( To learn/learning is not easy.); as O

(We want to learn.); as Cs (Our duty is to learn/learning.); as Co (We want our
English to be practically useful); as Cadj (Our English is sure to be better.); as
Cprep (We can learn a lot from making mistakes); as App (Our task, to master
English, is rather challenging.); as modifier (Look at the sitting man; he is looking
attentively at the people sitting outside.)
c/ Adjective phrase: as Modifier (good students – students good at English), Cs
(my students are very dynamic), Co ( Foreign languages will make us more
dynamic) and rarely as: Head noun (The rich are helping the poor.)
d/ Preposition Phrase: as A (We live in Hanoi), as Postmodifier in NP (Students in
our faculty will win.), as Cadj (We are proud of our success.)
e/ Adverb phrase: as A ( We are here.), as Modifier of Adj ( very good) , as
Modifier of Adv ( rather more difficult), as Modifier of Det ( about ten people), as
Modifier of of NP ( such a big family), as Modifier of prep ( right through the
wall), as Cprep ( since then).

Module 1.2 Clauses

1. General concept: A clause consists of more than one phrase combined in a
certain order to express a piece of information, with each phrase being a clause
element functioning as: S, V, O, A, or C. Normally, there should be an S-V
construction as core part of clause. A clause can be seen as fundamental unit of

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syntax because a sentence is, in fact, a clause which can exist on its own. The basic
structures of clause and of sentence are the same.
2. Classification
a/ Based on usage:
+ Superordinate/main/independent clause = the whole sentence
+ Subordinate/dependent clauses. Each subordinate clause (finite or non- finite)
functions as a sentence element (S, O, C, A) in the superordinate clause, and
logically relates to one of the elements.
Very often, a subordinate clause functions as a phrase component (The man who
helped me is there. – postmodifier of NP).

b/Based on structure:
+ Finite clauses: In finite clauses there is an S-V construction and S-V concord
(He is a student)
+ Non-finite clauses: Non-finite clauses often go with an implicit subject, which
should be logically related to the explicit subject in its‘mother’clause. The V-
elements are non-finite – to-infinitive (We come here to learn English), V-ing
(Learning English we know better about our mother tongue), or V-ed participle
(Spoken widely in the world English has become an international language.)
If there is a subject in a non-finite clause, there will be no S-V concord. (The train
come late, we took a taxi.)
+ Verbless clauses: In a vebless clause both the subject and the v-element are
implicit, and can be understood in the logical relation with the main clause (When at
home we feel easy.)
c/ Based on function:
+ Nominal clauses (functioning like NP ): That-clause (That all of you come make
me happy.), Wh-inter clause (I know who he is.) , Nominal relative clause (I
understand whatever he said ), and Yes-no inter. clause (I don’t know if he can
help me.)
+ Adverbial clauses (functioning like AdvP):
As Adjunct, modifying the V-element (When I came he left.)

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 - As Disjunct, modifying the whole sentence (As far as I know, you need some
help.)
- Conjunct, having connective function (What is more, the help has been
available.)
+ Relative clauses, functioning like AdjP postmodifying the head noun in a NP
(The clause which is independent can exist on its own). A relative clause may
modify the whole sentence and then be referred to as sentential relative clause (We
are now systematically revising what we have learnt, which helps a lot in filling the
gaps of knowledge).

Module 1. 3. Sentences
1. General concept: When it exists on its own to express a complete sense unit for
communication a clause becomes sentence. Very often, a sentence has more than
one clause, one being superordinate, other(s) – subordinate. A sentence is built up
from elements according to certain syntactical rules.
2. Sentence/clause elements: There are Five in type: S, V, O, A, C, each with some
specific features:
a/ The Subject (S):
- Realization: By NP, VP or Nominal clause (either finite or non-finite).
- Semantic and syntactic roles: An obligatory element, often as ‘doer’,
determining the V-form according to grammatical principle of S-V concord in
finite cl.
- Position: Initial (We were sitting here.), medial (Here we were sitting), and final
(At the door, stood a man).
- Type: The subject may be both semantic and syntactic (My students are here.),
syntactic only, or semantic only (It is your task to master English grammar. It –
syntactic subject only; to master English grammar – semantic subject only)
b/ The Verb element (Finite V):
- Realization: By VP (either simple or complex)
- Semantic and syntactic roles: An obligatory element, often means action or
state. Each type of the verb requires a certain type of complementation.
- S-Vconcord – There are three principles:

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1/ Grammatical concord: In conformity with grammar rules (We go. He goes ).
2/ Notional principle: Based on meaning (My family is big. – Family= a single
unit.) but (My family are very happy to see you. – Family=all members)
3/ Principle of proximity: The form of the verb depends on the element of the
subject which is nearer (Neither students nor the teacher is there.)
c/ The Object (O):
- Realization: By NP, VP, or Nominal cl.
- Semantic and syntactic roles: An obligatory element, often as affected element
(Od=‘product’, Oi =‘receiver’).
d/ The Adverbial (A):
- Realization: By AdvP, PrepP, or Adverbial cl .
- Semantic an syntactic roles: Often optional, modifying the V-element (Adjunct)
or the whole sentence (Disjunct & Conjunct).
e/ The complement (C):
- Realization:
*Cs & Co – By NP, VP, AdjP, or clause
*Cadj– By NP, VP, PreP, or clause
*Cprep – By NP or Nominal cl.
- Semantic an syntactic roles: An obligatory element, completing the S, the O, the
Adj and the Prep, semantically and syntactically as well.
Note: The complement is an obligatory element (The question is difficult.) , and it
is different from the modifier,which is an optional component within a phrase (It is
a difficult question.)

3. Classification
a/ Based on Communicative functions:
- Statements/declarative sentences (We are having lovely weather.)
- Interrogative sentences (Are you having lovely weather?)
- Exclamatory sentence (What lovely weather we are having!)
- Imperative sentences (Enjoy it!)
b/ Based on structure (on type and number of clauses):
- Simple sentence: One independent clause.

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- Compound: More than one independent clause combined by coordination. There
are different coordinators: and, but, or… They express different types of semantic
relationship between the coordinate clauses in the sentence.
- Complex: More than one clause combined by subordination. The subordination
is realized by subordinators, which are numerous in types, expressing different
types of semantic relationship between the subordinate and superordinate
clauses.

c/ Based on basic structure (on the obligatory elements for required

complementation to a certain kind of V-element) – The most important
structural classification of the English sentences, and there are Seven types:
1/ SV: Intransitive V (Zero complementation )
2/ SVO: Mono-transitive V (Required complementation: O)
3/ SVC: Intensive V (Required complementation: C)
4/ SVA: Intensive V (Required complementation: A)
5/ SVOCo: Complextransitive V (Required complementation: O Co)
6/ SVOA: Complextransitive V (Required complementation: O A)
7/ SVOiOd: Ditransitive V (Required complementation: Oi Od)
Note: These seven structures are basic for both: clauses and sentences.

4. Applications of the basic structures

a/ To develop sentences:
By coordination and subordination we make a sentence ‘bigger’ and more
powerful. Coordination results in compound sentences, BUT
Subordination results in complex sentences, in which there are different
‘generations’ of clauses: ‘Mother’/ superordinate clause and ‘daughter’, ‘grand
daughter’…/dependent clauses.
+ Compound sentences: one structure can be linked with another by using
coordinators
and, or, but… , depending on the communicative purpose ( He works hard and I
want him to have a rest.– SV + SVOCo).
+ Complex sentences: different devices of subordination are used:

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- Using subordinators: Subordinators make any clause with basic structure become
dependent and function only as a sentence element (Because he works hard I want
him to have a rest.– optional A + SVOCo).
There are many kinds of subordinators and they are used to express different
relationship in meaning: Time (when, while after…), Cause-effect (because, so,
that, that 's why…), Concession (although, even though, no matter what/how…),
etc.
- Using non-finite clauses (Learning English we know better about our mother
language.)
- Using inversion (Had I been there I’d have given them a helping hand!)= If I…
Note: Normally a subordinate clause should go with a subordinator although in
some cases the use of subordinators is optional (I know that you are right…; The
film which I have seen is interesting).

b/ To check the acceptability of a sentence:

+ For clause/sentence structure to be acceptable: Any phrase in a sentence should
have a function both syntactical and semantic, or, at least, syntactic, and so become
an element of the sentence, either obligatory or optional, (Optional BUT NOT
Redundant). With its obligatory elements, any sentence can be assigned to one of
the Seven basic structures.
+ For S-V construction: Except for ellipses, the relationship between S-V (finite)
is strictly one-to-one. The subject should be ‘free’ from being other functions. The
form of V-element based on 3 principles for S-V concord and on the gr. categories
of the V being used.
+ For V-element & complementation:
+ The semantic feature of the V-element determines the type of complementation,
and the verb is classified/ named after the type of complementation it requires.
+ By conversion, the same verb may occur in various structures.
+ For nonfinite clause: Non-finite clause is normally used with ‘implicit’ subject,
which should be logically related to the explicit subject in its ‘mother’ clause. When
a non-finite clause goes with subject, the subject is semantic only, not syntactic.

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