Introduction to traditional grammar

contents



1. Introduction

aims and audience



2. The basics

2.1 accidence and syntax

2.2 PARTS OF SPEECH | 2.3 noun | 2.4 adjective | 2.5 adverb | 2.6 verb | 2.7 article | 2.8 pronoun | 2.9 preposition | 2.10 conjunction | 2.11 interjection | 2.12 words with more than one function

2.13 PARTS OF THE SENTENCE | 2.14 subject | 2.15 predicate | 2.16 phrase | 2.17 clause | 2.18 apposition



3. Old English

introduction

3.1 DECLENSION | 3.2 number | 3.3 gender | 3.4 case | 3.5 nominative | 3.6 accusative | 3.7 genitive | 3.8 dative | 3.9 instrumental | 3.10 cases after prepositions | 3.11 noun-declension | 3.12 adjective-declension | 3.13 pronoun-declension

3.14 CONJUGATION | 3.15 strong and weak verbs | 3.16 preterite-present verbs | 3.17 anomalous verbs

3.18 syntax



Grammatical terms

general index



Acknowledgements



1. Introduction

This guide is designed mainly for students who haven't been taught formal grammar at school, and find that the study of medieval literature at University level requires basic language skills that they don't have. It is deliberately conservative, keeping as far as possible to the terminology of 'traditional grammar', which is found in most of the dictionaries, glossaries and grammars you are likely to use. Since this terminology is mainly derived from Latin and Greek grammar, it isn't an ideal way of describing English, which in some respects has a very different structure. If your main interest is in modern English language rather than medieval literature, you should consult a reference work using a more recent analytical model; two approachable examples are the Collins Pocket English Grammar (London: HarperCollins, 1992), and David Crystal's Rediscover Grammar (London: Longman, rev. ed. 1996).



You should also note that the guide is descriptive rather than prescriptive; it introduces you to basic grammatical terms and concepts rather than telling you what you should or shouldn't do in your written English.

2. The basics

2.1 Accidence and syntax

Grammar deals with two aspects of language, accidence and syntax.

i) Accidence is mainly concerned with how individual words vary in form according to their grammatical function: e.g. book, books; write, wrote . This variation in form is known as inflexion.

ii) Syntax is concerned with how individual words are put together to make sentences.

2.2 THE PARTS OF SPEECH

Words can be classified into 9 categories: noun, adjective, adverb, verb, article, pronoun, preposition, conjunction, interjection.

2.3 Noun the name of a person, place, or thing: Clarissa, Middlemarch, book . Nouns can be inflected to indicate the plural ( book, books; man, men ) and, in some instances, the possessive (or genitive) case (see 3.4, 3.7): Shakespeare's Sonnets, the wife's admirers, the men's room, a week's holiday.

2.4 Adjective a word describing (or 'qualifying') a noun: purple patches, a handsome husband, the posture is ridiculous, the three Musketeers, the fifth column, my country, that woman . Some adjectives are inflected to indicate the comparative ( happier ) and superlative ( happiest ); others use more and most instead: e.g. Mama says that she was then the prettiest, silliest, most affected husband-hunting butterfly she ever remembers .

Most adjectives can be used either attributively ( the green hat ) or predicatively ( the hat is green ); e.g.:

Johnson: I had no notion that I was wrong or irreverent to my tutor. Boswell: That, sir, was great fortitude of mind. Johnson: No, sir, stark insensibility.

2.5 Adverb a word qualifying an adjective ( very fat, so sweet, seriously displeased ), a verb ( he almost ran, I read slowly ), another adverb ( I read incredibly slowly, I am most seriously displeased ), or the sentence as a whole ( Then my trousers fell down. Fortunately nobody noticed ). Most adverbs form their comparative and superlative with more and most , but a few are inflected ( f aster, fastest ). The characteristic adverb-ending is - ly .

2.6 Verb a word expressing a state or action: be, have, do, run, write, love give, can, must .

2.6 i) Main verbs and auxiliary verbs

Verbs are divided into two classes, main verbs and auxiliary verbs.

The great majority of verbs function as main verbs, which can be used on their own in a sentence:

Run! I send no compliments to your mother. I saw something nasty in the woodshed.

A small number of very common verbs (e.g. can, may, will, must, dare ) function as auxiliary verbs. As the term suggests, auxiliary verbs act as a support system to the main verbs, and will only occur together with a main verb, expressed or understood: e.g. I cannot reconcile my heart to Bertram. I may, I must, I can, I will, I do / Leave following that, which it is gain to miss. He would say that, wouldn't he?

The verbs do , have , and be can be used either as main verbs ( I have an overdraft at the bank. I do as little work as I can. Why am I a fool? ) or as auxiliaries ( We have seen the lions at Longleat. You don't mind if I smoke, do you? Yes, I do! Why are we waiting? ).

Auxiliary verbs can be used to form questions ( Why does he conduct the music with a poker? ) and negative statements ( A lady does not move ),and to express tense, mood, voice, and aspect (see next four sections).

2.6 ii) Tense indicates the time at which, or during which, the action described by the verb takes place. Only two tenses are marked by inflexion in English, the present ( I/you/we run, he/she/it runs ) and the past ( I ran , etc.; I walked , etc.). Other tenses are formed periphrastically (that is, by the use of auxiliary verbs): e.g. the perfect ( You have wasted two whole terms ) and the pluperfect ( Mr McKnag had been so shocked by Flora's letter that his old trouble had returned ) are formed by adding have to the main verb, and the future usually by adding will or shall ( In this life or the next, I will have my vengeance. Not only marble, but the plastic toys / In cornflake packets will outlive this rhyme ).

2.6 iii) Mood

The verb has three moods:



a) Indicative , used for statements and questions ( No man but a blockhead ever wrote except for money. Shall I compare thee to a summer's day? ). By far the most common mood; often not specifically indicated in glossaries.



b) Imperative , used for commands ( Publish and be damned! Unhand it, sir! Do not lean out of the window. Keep Britain tidy ).



c) Subjunctive , used to express wishes, demands, and hypothetical or unreal conditions ( I wish I were dead! I insist that he leave [or: should leave] at once. If you were to read Richardson for the story, your patience would be so fretted that you would hang yourself. Had we but world enough and time, / This coyness, lady, were no crime. Be that as it may... ).

Apart from the dropped -s ending in the present tense of verbs (as in that he leave ), which tends in any case to be an American rather than an English idiom, the only distinctive subjunctive forms in modern English are found in the verb to be (present tense be , past tense singular were ); the subjunctive mood is now mainly indicated by past tense forms ( If I said you had a beautiful body, would you hold it against me? ) or by the use of auxiliary verbs ( If I were as rich as Mr Darcy, I should not care how proud I was. I would keep a pack of foxhounds, and drink a bottle of wine every day ).

2.6 iv) Voice

The verb has two voices, active (e.g. I write my essays at the last minute. The dog bit the man ) and passive (e.g. My essays are written at the last minute. The man was bitten by the dog ). The passive is formed by the verb be and the past participle of the verb (see 2.6 vi)).

2.6 v) Aspect indicates the way in which the action or state described by the verb is regarded (e.g. as completed or in progress); compare the simple past tense form I wrote with the forms I was writing (progressive aspect) and I have written (perfective aspect).

2.6 vi) Finite and non-finite forms

A finite form of the verb is one that expresses tense and mood. The non-finite forms of the verb are called the infinitive, the present participle, and the past participle (the last two terms are rather misleading, however, as neither expresses tense: e.g. in I was singing , singing is a present participle, and in he will be beaten , beaten is a past participle).



a) the infinitive

This usually has to in front of it, except after auxiliary verbs:

We laugh at the elixir that promises to prolong life to a thousand years; and with equal justice may the lexicographer be derided who, being able to produce no example of a nation that has preserved their words and phrases from mutability, shall imagine that his dictionary can embalm his language, and secure it from corruption and decay, that it is in his power to change sublunary nature, or clear the world at once from folly, vanity, and affectation.



b) the present participle

Marked by its ending in - ing :

We were working in the Library. The English winter, ending in July / To recommence in August . . .



c) the past participle

Usually (though not always) ends in - ed ( I love, I have loved, I was loved ) or -en ( I write, I have written, it was written ).

E.g.: The English language, while it was employed in the cultivation of every species of literature, has itself been hitherto neglected; suffered to spread into wild exuberance, resigned to the tyranny of time and fashion, and exposed to the corruptions of ignorance, and caprices of innovation.

Note: often the past tense form of the verb is the same as that of the past participle, and the grammatical context must be used to distinguish them. Compare I walked home, she won the match (past tense, finite form) with I have walked home, the match was won (past participle, non-finite form following auxiliary verb).

All other forms of the verb are finite. Test your recognition of finite and non-finite forms on this example:

The Devil, having nothing else to do,

Went off to tempt my lady Poltagrue.

My Lady, tempted by a private whim,

To his extreme annoyance, tempted him.

2.7 Article

This minute category contains only the definite article ( the ) and the indefinite article ( a, an ).