The grammar of simple sentences

- What is grammar for?

- Types of Grammar
- One English Grammar or Many?
- Grammatical structure and function
- Five functional elements
- Interpreting a sentence
 What is grammar for?

John is watching Amy

If we only know the meaning of each of the words

above, we cannot know that John is the person
doing the watching and Amy is the person being
watched. The fact that in English subjects typically
come before verbs, and objects typically come after
them, enables us to know that John is doing the
watching and Amy is being watched. So grammar
is used in languages to specify the relations
among the words and phrases we use.
 Types of Grammar
Synthetic languages: they can specify grammatical
relations among words and phrases by adding
grammatical morphemes to words (e.g. Italian, Spanish,
etc.)
Analytic languages: they can use place ordering by
associating particular grammatical functions with particular
places in sentences, clause and phrases (e.g. Mandarin
Chinese)
English is a predominantly analytic language, doing most of its
grammar by place-ordering. However, it still uses grammatical
morphemes to do some of its grammar, e.g. '-ed' past tense
endings on verbs, plural markers on nouns and comparative (-
er') and superlative (-est) endings on short adjectives, etc.
 One English Grammar or Many?

The grammar of (modern) English

varies over time (cf. Shakespeare’s vs.
today’s) and according to places (in
Yorkshire you can still hear people use
“thee” and “thou” instead of “you”).

So there is not one monolithic English

grammar - no complete system we
could call THE grammar of English
 Example

[Daylong this tomcat lies…] Then reappear his eyes

(Ted Hughes, Easter's Tomcat)

Subjects in English clauses normally come before the

predicators they are acting as subject to. Hence, we should
normally have:

Then his eyes reappear

Comment: by using the unusual ordering, Hughes

foregrounds the clause, and also positions the subject at the
end of the clause, thus helping to 'enact' grammatically the
idea of the eyes appearing out of nowhere (effect!).
 Exercise 1

Place the words in what you consider it to be

the correct order, and work out why it is that
your ordering feels more usual than the one
Hughes uses.
Then, think of the reason why Hughes uses
the ordering below:

Over the roofs go his eyes and outcry

(Ted Hughes, Easter's Tomcat)

 Exercise 1 - key

His eyes and outcry go over the roofs

Comment: The noun phrase ‘his eyes and outcry’
acts as subject to the predicator 'go' and therefore
needs to be placed before that predicator. The
prepositional phrase ‘over the roofs’ needs to go at
the end of the sentences (the normal position in
English sentences).

As before, Hughes achieves a foregrounding effect

by means of a deviant grammatical structure that
pushes the subject to the end of the sentence.
 Grammatical structure and function

N V N
John kissed Mary
Mary kissed John

These two sentences have the same grammatical structure.

However, they mean different things because the two words (or,
more accurately, the two one-word phrases) 'John' and 'Mary'
have different grammatical functions in the sentences.

REMEMBER: the verb is the PREDICATOR!

 Five functional elements
Subjects (S): A Noun Phrase; usually comes first in the
sentence, before the Predicator.
Predicators (P): A Verb Phrase which expresses the
action/process or relationship.
Objects (O): A Noun Phrase; refers to the entity which is
the recipient of the action/process. Only occurs with
transitive verbs. Usually comes after the Predicator.
Complements (C): A Noun Phrase or Adjective Phrase;
normally comes after a linking Predicator; expresses
some attribute or role of the SUBJECT or the OBJECT.
Adverbials (A): An Adverbial, Prepositional or Noun
Phrase which usually specifies some condition related to
the Predicator; Its most normal position is at the end of
the sentence.
Grammatical structure and function
(AGAIN)
N V N
John kissed Mary
S P O

Mary kissed John

S P O
 Exercise 2

Let’s now look at these two sentences again

and try to analyse them according to the five
functional elements presented above:

Then reappear his eyes

Over the roofs go his eyes and outcry

 Exercise 2 - key

Then reappear his eyes

A P S

Over the roofs go his eyes and outcry.

A P S
 Interpreting a sentence

Picture the scene described by

the following sentence:

Mary kissed the boy on the nose.

 Interpreting a sentence

The grammatical analysis of the sentence is

the following:

Mary kissed the boy on the nose.

S P O A
 Interpreting a sentence
But the sentence is actually grammatically
ambiguous, leading to two different understandings
(or 'readings') of it. Let's make the alternative
meaning obvious by adding a bit more context:
Mary kissed the boy on the nose. But the
nose sneezed and the boy fell off.
This would also lead to a different analysis of
the sentence:
Mary kissed the boy on the nose.
S P O
 Interpreting a sentence

If we wanted to avoid the ambiguity we would

have to change the structure, for example to:
Mary kissed the boy who was standing on the nose.
S P O

Now only this absurd interpretation is possible.

Note that to achieve the disambiguation we
have had to use a more complex structure.
The above sentence now has a clause
embedded inside the noun phrase, post-
modifying 'boy‘.
 Exercise 3
Find all the examples of deviant grammar and stylistic devices you can
think of. Also reflect on the possible meaning of this poem:
love is more thicker than forget
more thinner than recall
more seldom than a wave is wet
more frequent than to fail
it is most mad and moonly
and less it shall unbe
than all the sea which only
is deeper than the sea
love is less always than to win
less never than alive
less bigger than the least begin
less littler than forgive
it is most sane and sunly
and more it cannot die
than all the sky which only
is higher than the sky
(cummings 1954 [1939]: 381)
 Exercise 3 - Key

love is more thicker than forget

more thinner than recall
more seldom than a wave is wet
more frequent than to fail
it is most mad and moonly
and less it shall unbe
than all the sea which only
is deeper than the sea
love is less always than to win
less never than alive
less bigger than the least begin
less littler than forgive
it is most sane and sunly
and more it cannot die
than all the sky which only
is higher than the sky

(for a full commentary, please read Simpson, Stylistics, p.53-59)