English grammar

English grammar covers a broad a diverse subject area. There exist both prescriptive and descriptive grammars of English; this article attempts to be primarily descriptive in nature. English grammar is in some ways relatively simple, and in others quite complex. For example, its word order is relatively fixed due to its analytic nature, making this aspect of grammar relatively simple. The verbal system, on the other hand, is quite extensive and complex, like many of its Indo-European relatives. This article will discuss various aspects in sections, addressing word order, nouns, verbs, and other areas as they become relevant in the course of discussion.

Word Order

Typologically, English is a SVO language, meaning that it prefers a sequence of subject, verb, object in its simplest (declarative) statements. Thus:

Tom eats cheese
Mary sees the cat

In general, English is a head-initial language, meaning that the "anchor" of a phrase (segment of a sentence) occurs at the beginning of the phrase. For example:

ran quickly (verb phrase)
to the store (prepositional phrase)

The primary exception is in noun phrases, which are head-final:

blue house (adjective + noun)
Fred's car (possessive + noun)

Leading to a sentence like: "Fred's car ran quickly to the store". As can be inferred from this example, the sequence of a basic sentence (ignoring articles and other determiners) in English is: Adjective1 - Subject - Verb - Adverb - Adjective2 - Direct.Object - Adjective3 - Indirect.Object.

Changes in word order are effected through the use of grammatical markers (such as "by", "did", etc.) and express interrogatives ("Did you go to the store?"), changes in voice ("The car was bought by John"), and to provide lexical or grammatical emphasis (topicalization).

Nouns

In English, nouns generally describe persons, places, things, and abstract ideas, and are treated as grammatically distinct from verbs. English nouns, in general, are not marked for case. Nouns are, however, marked for number and definiteness. For example:

the (definite article):the house refers to a specific house
a/an (indefinite article): a house refers to any one generic house
singular:the house refers to one house
plural: the houses refers to more than one house

English does not have dual or trial numbers for nouns.

The two primary exceptions to case marking are the possessive clitic and the pronomial system. In English, the possessive is marked by a clitic at the end of the possessing noun phrase. This can be illustrated in the following manner:

The king's daughter's house fell.

The first <'s> clitic on king indicates that the daughter in question is the king's. The second <'s> clitic does not attach to "daughter", as many people mistakenly believe, but in fact to the entire noun phrase The king's daughter.

On the other hand, English preserves relics of the old Germanic noun case system in its pronouns. The full set of cases are listed below; note that there is no distinction in number for the second person pronoun¹.

Person:	1st singular	3rd singular	1st plural	3rd plural	2nd
Nominative	I	he, she, it	we	they	you
Accusative	me	him, her, it	us	them	you
Genitive	mine	his, hers, its	ours	theirs	yours
Dative	my	his, her, its	our	their	your

Additionally, a remnant of grammatical gender is also preserved in the third person pronouns. Gender is assigned to animate objects based on biological gender (where known), and to personified objects based on social conventions (ships, for example, are feminine). "He" is used for masculine nouns; "she" is used for feminine nouns; and "it" is used for nouns of indeterminate gender and inanimate objects. It is generally considered impolite to refer to humans as "it"; English speakers will prefer the use of "they" (3rd. plural) when a person's gender is unknown or irrelevant to context. This situation rarely leads to confusion, since the intended meaning can be inferred from context. For comparison, German handles having homophonous "sie" ("she") and "Sie" (2nd plural and 1st singular polite) with little difficulty.

Verbs

In English, verbs generally describe actions, and can also be used to describe certain states of being. In contrast to the relative simplicity of English nouns, verbs come in a large array of tenses, some moods, two voices, and are marked for person.

Person in Verbs

Verbs in English are marked in limited fashion for person. Unlike some other European languages, person cannot generally be inferred from the conjugation attached to the verb. As a result, subject nouns are generally required elements in English sentences for clarity's sake. Most regular verbs in English follow the paradigm exemplified below for the simple present:

Stem: listen
1st. sing.: I listen
3rd. sing.: He/She/It listens
1st. plur.: We listen
3rd. Plur.: They listen
2nd. s (p): You (Y'all) listen

Voice in Verbs

English has two voices for verbs: the active and the passive. The basic form is the active verb, and follows the SVO pattern discussed above. The passive voice is derived from the active through a change in tense, an inversion of position for the subject and direct object, and marking the subject with "by". For example:

active: John heard the music.
passive: The music was heard by John.

The semantic effect of the change from active to passive is the depersonalization of an action. It is also occasionally used to topicalize the direct object of a sentence.

Verbal moods

English has four primary moods of verb. These are the declarative, the imperative, the conditional, and the little-used subjunctive. Again, the declarative is the simplest, and most basic form. The declarative mood is, very simply put, a statement in the active voice of a verb.

The imperative mood is used in issuing commands. It is formed by using the verb in its simplest, unconjugated form: "Listen!", "Sit!", "Eat!".

The conditional mood is used to express if-then statements, or in response to counterfactual propositions (see subjunctive mood, below). It is expressed through the use of the verbal auxiliaries could, would, should, may and might in combination with the stem form of the verb. For example:

He goes to the store.
He could go to the store. (He is able to go, but hasn't necessarily committed to going.)
He should go to the store. (There is some necessity for him to go, but he hasn't yet.)
He may go to the store. (He is has been given permission to go, but hasn't committed.)
He might go to the store. (Indeterminate whether he will go or not, and implies that it is subject to changing conditions.)

The subjunctive mood is used to express counterfactual statements, and is often found in if-then statements, and certain formulaic expressions. It is typically marked in the present tense by the auxililary "were" plus the stem form of the verb.

I am eating, so I will sit. (Factual/declarative)
Were I eating, I would sit. (Counterfactual)
If they were eating, they would sit. (Counterfactual conditional / If-then)
Truth be told... (Archaic use of subjunctive)
If I were you... (Archaic use of subjunctive)

The conjugation of verbal moods becomes a significantly more complex matter when the are intertwined with tenses. However, casual spoken English rarely uses the subjunctive, and generally restricts the conditional mood to the the simple present and simple past.

Verb tenses

English has a wide variety of verb tenses, all of which convey only time-related information. English has no spatial tenses. The following are illustrative examples of the primary verb tenses encountered in English. (Adapted from the grammatical tense article.)

Tenses in which he main verb declines for person:
Simple present: "I listen." For many verbs, this is used to express habit or ability ("I play the guitar").

Tenses in which the auxiliary declines for person:
Present continuous: "I am listening." This is used to express what most other language use the simple present tense for. Note that this form in English can also be used to express future actions, such as in the phrase "We're going to the movies tonight". Past continuous: "I was listening." Used to express an ongoing action completed in the past. Present perfect: "I have listened." This is ususally used to express that an event happened at an unspecified or unknown time on the past. Present perfect continuous: "I have been listening." This is used to express that an event started at some time in the past and continues to the present. Simple future: "I will listen." Can be used to express intention, prediction, and other conditions. Future continuous: "I will be listening." Expresses an ongoing event that has not yet been initiated.

Tenses in which neither the main verb nor the auxiliary decline for person:
Infinitive: "to listen" Used in combination with other verbs: "I was to listen to the story." Simple past: "I listened." In English (unlike some other languages with aorist? tenses), this implies that the action took place in the past and that it is not taking place now. Past perfect: "I had listened." Expresses that an action was completed prior to some other event. Past perfect continuous: "I had been listening." Usually expressed with a duration, this indicates that an event was ongoing for a specific time, then completed before a specific event. Future perfect: "I will have listened." Indicates that an action will occur after some other event. Future perfect continuous: "I will have been listening." Expresses an ongoing action that occurs in the future, after some other event.

Irregular verbs

No discussion of English grammar would be complete without coverage of irregular verbs. While many verbs in English follow the relatively simple paradigm illustrated at the beginning of this section, there is a large corpus of verbs that do not. There are two categories of such verbs: the "transparently irregular" and the true irregular verbs.

The term "transparently regular" is used to describe verbs that appear irregular at first, but actually follow a common paradigm. This group of verbs are relics of the older Germanic umlaut system for conjugation. This is generally confined to atypical simple past verb forms. For example:

I meet ~ I met ~ I had met
I read ~ I read ~ I had read
I lead ~ I led ~ I had led
I swim ~ I swam ~ I had swum
I sing ~ I sang ~ I had sung
I steal ~ I stole ~ I had stolen

True irregular verbs have forms that are not predictable from umlaut rules. The most common of these in English is the verb "be". A sampling of its verbal paradigm is listed below; the majority of other forms are predictable from the knowledge of these four.

Person:	1st singular	3rd singular	1st plural	3rd plural	2nd
Infinitive:	to be
Simple present:	I am	He is, she is, it is	We are	They are	You are
Simple past:	I was	He was, she was, it was	We were	They were	You were
Present continuous:	I am being	He/she/it is being	We are being	They are being	You are being

Irregular verbs include "eat", "sit", "loan", "keep", among many others. Some paradigms are based on obsolete root words, or roots that have changed meaning. Others are derived from old umlaut patterns that changes in phonemic structure and grammar have distorted (keep ~ kept is one such example). Some are unclear in origin, and may date back to Proto Indo-European times.