Description

Terms and Concepts in English Grammar

In this section you will be introduced as far as possible to a simple and clear discussion of the major terms and
concepts that are frequently deployed to use in English grammar.. For all practical purposes, these terms and
concepts refer to grammatical processes and operations in the English language. They signal various
relationships that obtain among the units and tools for grammatical analysis. Essentially, they will enhance our
understanding of the grammatical organisation of English sentences (Egbe 2000, p.33).

Because these grammatical terms and concepts are very complex, you will be provided with only a short but
informative description of each term and concept while leaving out the complexities and controversies that may
surround them. Technical terms and concepts are significant in grammar but there are quite a number that we
may not be able to cover in this section. We shall only focus on the major and significant ones especially those
that are crucial for the description and analysis of the grammar required for this level of learning.
 Table of contents
1. Terms and Concepts in English Grammar
1.1. Concepts and terms relating to nouns and pronouns
1.2. The structure of the English Sentence
 1. Terms and Concepts in English Grammar
In this section you will be introduced as far as possible to a simple and clear discussion of the major terms and
concepts that are frequently deployed to use in English grammar.. For all practical purposes, these terms and
concepts refer to grammatical processes and operations in the English language. They signal various
relationships that obtain among the units and tools for grammatical analysis. Essentially, they will enhance our
understanding of the grammatical organisation of English sentences (Egbe 2000, p.33).

Because these grammatical terms and concepts are very complex, you will be provided with only a short but
informative description of each term and concept while leaving out the complexities and controversies that may
surround them. Technical terms and concepts are significant in grammar but there are quite a number that we
may not be able to cover in this section. We shall only focus on the major and significant ones especially those
that are crucial for the description and analysis of the grammar required for this level of learning.
 1.1. Concepts and terms relating to nouns and
pronouns
Concepts and terms relating to nouns and pronouns

There are quite a number of terms and concepts associated with nouns and pronouns which relates
fundamentally to their forms and functions within sentence contexts. These terms and concepts include:

1. 1. Gender

This refers to the state of being masculine, feminine or neutral. In English language, it relates to such
distinctions as:

(i) Personal and Non-personal, and,

(ii) Sex

When items are marked as ‘personal’, they are used to refer to human beings only. When they are non-personal,
they are used for other creatures or objects. For example:

Fig. 1

ITEM PERSONAL NON-PERSONAL

i Interr.Pro. who, whom, whose, which, what

ii Rel.Pro. who, that which, that

As for sex distinction, such items as:

MALE FEMALE Fig. 2

I He/him/his She/her

Ii Himself herself

Example sentences:

(a) The man at times says what he is not sure about.

(b) Mary took her children to school last week.

ACTIVITY: 1. Pick a prose passage from any text of your choice and make a list of twenty names and indicate
their gender.

1. Construct one sentence with each of the names listed.

Number

(A) Forms

Number refers to the idea of one (singular number) or more than one (plural number). In English, both nouns and
verbs, by and large, change their forms to signal number, very much unlike the indigenous languages which
change the forms of their nouns only to reflect number. For example:

Fig. 3

SINGULAR PLURAL

i Girl Girls

ii bottle bottles

iii kiss kisses

iv wish wishes

v knife knives

vi seraph seraphim

vii millennium millennia

viii index indices

ix complexity complexities

x locus loci

xi stadium stadia

xii cargo cargoes

xiii I we

xiv He/she/it they

They add either the plural morpheme -s(as in (i) and (ii) or -es (as in (iii) and (iv) to form their plurals.

Those borrowed from other languages add such plural morphemes as reflect their origins.

One pronoun and some nouns however do not change their forms for number (e.g.: you, sheep), some change
their forms by adding -en (e.g. ox - oxen), some form their plurals by mutation (e.g.: man - men), some have
plural forms (e.g.: mumps, measles) and some have plural meanings only (e.g. people).
(B) Count and Non-count

Generally, nouns like those in the table above (which have both singular and plural numbers) are count. Others,
which have only the singular number (e.g.: cowardice, furniture), are non-count.

ACTIVITY: Watch any animal movie or documentary of your choice and write the plural forms of the names of
any ten animals you have seen in the movie or documentary.

1. 3. Case

This is a change in the form of a word as a result of its relationship with other words in the sentence. In English,
nouns, pronouns and possessive adjectives show cases as follows:

Fig. 4

Subject Object Genitive

i He Him His

ii She her her

iii I me my

iv We us our

v Ayo Ayo Ayo’s

vi Jamal Jamal Jamal’s

Example sentences:

(a) She brought out her new dresses.

1. GEN. OBJ.

(b) Jamal has taken Miss Ayo’s telephone number.

SUB. GEN.
OBJ.

(c) I advised him to be patient.

SUB. OBJ.

(d) He sent his child here yesterday.

1. GEN. OBJ.

The element in the sentence that makes words adopt some cases are discussed below.

1. 4. Subject and Object cases

(A) Subject: This is the noun, noun phrase or pronoun that relates directly to the verb (e.g.: carrying out the
action of the verb or being involved in a state portrayed by the verb) in the sentence. Such a noun or pronoun is
said to be in the subject or nominative case.

(B) Object: This is a noun, pronoun or phrase to which the action of the verb has been done. This is the direct
object. For the indirect object, it is the result of the action that is in question. Example sentences:

(a) I didn’t touch the table.

SUB. VERB OBJ.

(b) The government gave the school some books.

1. VERB INDIR.OBJ DIR. OBJ.

Thus, the books suffers the action giving and the school is the beneficiary of the action.

A pronoun, noun or noun phrase can also be the Object or Complement of a preposition in a prepositional
phrase. Verbs and prepositions thus enable nouns and pronouns to be in subject and object cases.

Fig. 5

PREPOSITION OBJECT/COMPLEMENT

i to me

ii with Tomi

iii in the bathroom

Example sentences:

(c) He threw the ball to me.

(d) We spoke with Tomi before.

(e) I saw her in the bathroom. (Egbe, 2000, p.41).

These objects of verbs and prepositions are in the objective or accusative case. The complement of a
preposition is also in the same case but complement of a linking verb is not always in the objective case as in
indicated in the example sentences below.

(i)it was she that stole the book.

(ii) it they who won the prize.

In the examples above, both she and they are in the subjective case as it which is the subject also in the
nominative case.

ACTIVITY: 1. Construct ten sentences using prepositions and explain how the preposition in each sentence
influenced the case of the nouns they govern.
 2. Write ten sentences that contain nouns used in both subjective and objective cases.

1. 5. Determination

The determiner system is an important concept in grammatical analysis. This is because it borders on the
construction of structures such as phrases, clauses, and sentences.

Determiners provide more information about nouns, which they often co-occur with. For instance, they could
provide information about definiteness, number, possession, etc. They also identify or point to the nouns or
entities they refer to. They following are the categories of determiners:

1. Articles: a/an (indefinite articles), the (definite article)

2. Numerals: five, seventh, eighth, etc.
3. Demonstrative adjectives: this, that, these, those
4. Indefinite adjectives: a few, a little, some, etc.
5. Possessive adjectives: her, our, his, my, etc.

ACTIVITY: 1. Write six examples of indefinite adjectives or pronouns and construct two sentences with each of
them.

2. Pick any news story from any newspaper of your choice and identify and correct the wrong use of
determiners identified in the story.

6. Antecedent

This is a word or phrase to which another word, often a pronoun, refers to in a sentence. The antecedents come
before the words that refer to them. Consider the following example:

1. The boys eat whatever they like.

In the above example, the phrase ‘the boys’ is an antecedent of the pronoun ‘they’. ‘They’, which is a personal
pronoun, still points to ‘the boys’.

You must note that number of an antecedent must agree with that of the word that refers to it. As seen in the
above-stated example, ‘the boys’ and ‘they’ are plural. Therefore, they agree. If the antecedent were singular, the
appropriate pronoun would be a singular one.

7. Person

This refers to the perspective of the person speaking (1st person), the person spoken to (2nd person) or the
person/thing spoken about (3rd Person). Each of these persons can be in the subjective or object case. Also,
they could also be in the singular or plural forms, as indicated in Fig. 6 below.

Fig. 6

PERSON Singular Plural

t
 st
1

(Subjective) I we

(Objective) me us

2nd

(Subjective) you you

(Objective) you you

3rd

(Subjective) he, she, it they

(Objective) him, her, it them

 1.2. The structure of the English Sentence
In this section, you will be introduced to the structure of the English sentence. Your knowledge of the structure of
sentences will enable you do in-depth grammatical analysis different sentences no matter how complex. Your
knowledge of the various constituents of a sentence from both Modern Grammar and Systemic Functional
Grammar perspectives will enable you analyse the units of a sentence more accurately. The structure of a
sentence bothers on how grammatical units are arranged in accordance with the grammatical rules of the
language to form phrases and sentences. It is related to how language users fuses together the units to form
individual sentences and their parts. For you to have a fair mastery of the structure of a sentence, you must
come to terms with the constituent parts and the constituents of a sentence. This, from Modern English
Grammar perspective, is illustrated as S + V + O + C +A and S + P + C+A from Systemic Functional Grammar
perspective.

From Modern Grammar perspective, we may have the following examples:

1) Tola came to school yesterday.

S V P O C

2) The boy deceived the mum cleverly.

S V O A

From Systemic Functional Grammar’s perspective however, we may have the following structural elements of a
sentence.

1) She clutched Wilhelmina.

S P C

2) Kunle was brave.

S P C

3) I took Joke by the hair.

S P C