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Text and/or other creative content from this version of English grammar was copied or moved into English pronouns on 14:47, 25 March 2021. The former page's history now serves to provide attribution for that content in the latter page, and it must not be deleted as long as the latter page exists. |
According to WP:SPLITTING, an article of more than 100 KB "Almost certainly should be divided." This article is slightly more than 120 KB. Other users have also recommended splitting, above.
Perhaps new articles called English nominals (grammar), English verbs (grammar), English word order, English interrogative sentences, English negation (grammar), and English comparatives (grammar) should be created and linked to, with very brief summaries included on this page. Those seem to be the longest sections.
Alternately, the article could be split into English phrasal syntax and English clausal syntax. The resulting articles would probably still be quite long, though. Cnilep ( talk) 19:43, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
This is just off the top of my head. This way, we can keep the main articles relatively reader-friendly, while having subheadings or sub-articles to discuss more comparative and technical material. I'd also hasten to point out that there's a lot of material that belongs under English grammar in such articles as negation (grammar) or subjunctive mood. - Smerdis of Tlön ( talk) 19:44, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
Well done. That was indeed what I meant, the history of aproaches to grammar, not the history of the grammatical constructions themselves, which we do cover already. You've done a lot of work there - unless you found that list complete somewhere. Very useful, thanks. It does need some text now. I'm sorry, I can't help much just now, I have an ultra-stressful time at work. This revamping of the whole complex will be a long process, and for the moment all I can really say is, go ahead, it's the right idea. I'll help out if I can.-- Doric Loon ( talk) 07:09, 19 April 2009 (UTC)
In addition to the sources recommended by Fowler&fowler (Quirk et al. Student's Grammar of the English Language and Huddleston & Pullum Student's Introduction to English Grammar) I would add the Longman Student Grammar of Spoken and Written English. In terms of organization, it might be easier to either adapt the contents of the current page or one of the other pages discussed above as a model. On the other hand, it might be more meaningful to adopt a new organization, inspired by these student grammars. With that noncommittal suggestion, I leave it to other users to approach consensus. Cnilep ( talk) 19:10, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
There appear to be no arguments against. In fact the multiplication of articles already has begun. What do you say we get going on this? I recommend using the outline above. Why don't some of you take some of these red titles? The whole thing of course can be tied together by various sorts of cross-references, which you skilled editors know already. It's too big for one editor, so feel free to pitch right in. If you should go wrong, there is plenty of assistance here to straighten you out. Dave ( talk) 12:41, 21 November 2009 (UTC)
Two of my young reporters say that they should be able to use the word "referencing" as a verb, i.e. "This is the new reality, said Perkins, referencing a new report on the English language." They say it's now part of the modern lexicon and I'm being old-fashioned by wanting to stick to "This is the new reality, said Perkins, referring to a new report."
Any opinions?
Many thanks, Martha 69.159.224.121 ( talk) 20:31, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
I agree this article should be split into multiple articles.
In general, the articles that are most helpful to me as a user, are those that quickly lay out the basics of a topic, and then branch out or build up to the deep complexities. THis article dives into very heavy material on the first screen, and I (personally) found its style to be tedious and not very readable. I speculate that this is the product of many, many experts adding and editing details, piecemeal, over time. In its present state, I find it to be very rich in content and detail, which is a good thing, but its highly fragmented and is not comfortably readable. I confess I didnt read very far, I wasnt getting what I looked for from the article.
When a user comes to an article for the first time, and is trying to digest the core concepts, it is highly distracting to encounter in the first few paragraphs, links to all the exceptions and side-topics. The reader has to mentally subtract all that extra chatter to find the core concepts. Its as if everyone is trying to get in their say, in one sentence. While there's a lot to be said for the Wiki concept of anyone being able to edit, there also comes a time when things have to be de-fragged or compressed, for the sake of maintaining readability for the average Joe.
What the article needs now is some quality time with a good editor to examine it as a whole, to rewrite all this content into a more readable set of articles, without losing any of the valuable contributions users have made so far. The topic of "English Grammar" is far too vast to be covered in one article, and too important to be left in this condition. I cannot do the job, my talent is in physical sciences, not languages. I hope one of Wikipedia's wonderful editors can dedicate some time to this one. Solviva ( talk) 05:35, 8 May 2009 (UTC)
Can someone from here please help with cleaning up the grammar on the linguistics article? It is terrible. TroubledTraveler ( talk) 20:15, 5 June 2009 (UTC)
E.g. Is this mine? *No, it's its
Doesn't sound right to me. Can anyone supply an example of this from usage or literature? Surely there is no nominal genitive for the third person neuter. Grover cleveland ( talk) 04:41, 29 October 2009 (UTC)
Examples from the CGEL provided here: Talk:Possessive_adjective#Its. CapnPrep ( talk) 16:48, 29 October 2009 (UTC)
So why, over two years later, is "It is its" declared ungrammatical? Kdammers ( talk) 10:02, 28 April 2012 (UTC)
What's the motivation for this nomenclature? Does it come from some reference work? Why not just call it a past participle? It is claimed that " the -en form does not express tense or a past time frame", but
Is this anything more than a trendy neologism? Grover cleveland ( talk) 04:58, 29 October 2009 (UTC)
Ditto for "nonpast". What's wrong with "present"? I admit that there are uses that refer to the future such as we go to the beach tomorrow, but does that really make it worth throwing out the traditional terminology that is widely known? This page is probably going to be used by students who are learning English. Grover cleveland ( talk) 05:03, 29 October 2009 (UTC)
There appear to be no arguments against. In fact the multiplication of articles already has begun. What do you say we get going on this? I recommend using the outline above. Why don't some of you take some of these red titles? The whole thing of course can be tied together by various sorts of cross-references, which you skilled editors know already. It's too big for one editor, so feel free to pitch right in. If you should go wrong, there is plenty of assistance here to straighten you out. Dave ( talk) 12:41, 21 November 2009 (UTC)
Apropos this latest post above, I feel that it is time to work on the article again and make a concerted effort to at least bring it up to Good Article class. For the benefit of those who are new to the discussion, here's a little history. In April 2009, we had a long discussion upstairs on splitting up the article into digestible bits (or in technical lingo to make it more modular). It was felt that the page was too long and was presenting—all at once—the nitty-gritty of the subject rather than a reader-friendly overview with links to the details. (Please also see the post by user:Solvivo in section From simple to complex above.) In the end, the consensus seemed to be that the "English grammar" article should have the following three sections:
In my view, things got bogged down, in part, because we were trying to work from the bottom up. I would like to suggest that we do the opposite:
I will wait a week before I write the overview section. I will also then have a sub-section structure for the grammar overview section (which, as I mentioned above, will be the main section of the article) and editors will then also have concrete pages for addition of the finer details. An important point to remember, both for this page and for the sub-pages, is that we are not writing a text book. We can't make the Wikipedia article as detailed as the text-books we are using as references. That, among other things, wouldn't be fair to the authors of the text-books (who have done the hard work to earn their copyrights)!
Please let me know what you think. In the absence of major objections I will create the tripartite section structure and start writing the overview section next Saturday. Fowler&fowler «Talk» 14:49, 21 November 2009 (UTC)
I believe that Carter and McCarthy is the most accessible of the modern grammars; it is also the most recent. I will write the first draft of the overview based on this book. At that time, the details in the current text will be moved to sub/parent articles. However, no information will be lost. Many people have already done the hard work of creating many examples and definitions. Think of the overview as initially just a place holder. It may have new examples, but the old ones already in place will gradually be blended in. Similarly, the overview may have terms that are different from those in the current text; those too will be disambiguated in the second round of revisions. In addition, I'll be integrating information from the three books we've discussed above in the later revisions. These books are:
Fowler&fowler «Talk» 14:50, 28 November 2009 (UTC)
PS I will add the tentative toc-structure in a minute. Fowler&fowler «Talk» 14:50, 28 November 2009 (UTC)
Here is the tentative table of contents structure I'll be following:
If there are no objections, I'll start writing the overview tomorrow, Sunday 29 November 2009. Regards, Fowler&fowler «Talk» 14:55, 28 November 2009 (UTC)
Hi, I'm back. I will start the revision shortly. Instead of splitting the current page into different subpages and worrying about content forks, I will be (temporarily) moving the current page to the talk page subpage: Talk:English grammar/English grammar old. I will be following the section structure I've described above. Thanks. Regards, Fowler&fowler «Talk» 22:14, 2 December 2009 (UTC)
Is it correct to say " Advanced Equipments and Maintenance Company"? or it should be "Advanced Equipment and Maintenance Company"? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.82.18.178 ( talk) 21:47, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
"Advanced Equipment...". LaRoza ( talk) 16:04, 25 April 2010 (UTC)
The section on regular and irregular verbs ignores the history of English. English has Germanic strong and weak verbs in addition to irregular verbs. The internal vowel changes of strong verbs are somewhat regular and a class of their own. Perhaps the article could reflect the reality of English instead of over-simplifying it based on ignorance of Germanic verbs? LaRoza ( talk) 16:06, 25 April 2010 (UTC)
Maybe determiners or prepositions would make a better example of a closed class. But I changed it to refer to Spivak pronouns rather than singular "they", as singular "they" makes a very, very poor example of how pronouns are a closed class. "They" is already a pronoun, so singular "they" wouldn't be an example of a new pronoun being incorporated into the pronoun system, but of a pronoun changing in usage (that is, it's not very different from "you" expanding to take over the functions of "thou"). Furthermore, the article before I edited said that it hadn't achieved acceptance in its 40 years of existence, even though as you can see on the wiki page for singular "they" (and referenced in other articles), sing. "they" has a very long history. Spivak pronouns, on the other hand, as they demonstrate how neologisms can't be accepted as pronouns very easily - the cases of new 2nd person plural pronouns grew organically out of phrases that all incorporate "you" in them (y'all, yinz, you guys, etc.). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.189.134.229 ( talk) 11:10, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
Are pronouns a "closed" class? I hear all sorts of "xe/xey/xem" examples offered as gender neutral pronouns. — Preceding
unsigned comment added by
2600:6C5E:700E:300:D170:A6CA:C90A:173D (
talk) 18:01, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
is it grammatical correct to use this phrase (the whole entire )world —Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.188.168.11 ( talk) 21:10, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
An edit of mine has been challenged on the grounds that the English language - contained in the edit - is inadequate and in large parts even incomprehensible plus some further not very positive predications . If you have time to spend, please have a look over at the talk-page Talk:Migration_Period#Critical comments to the intro, and here -> Draft for intro and chronology section . Sechinsic ( talk) 11:24, 20 July 2010 (UTC)
why a man cry when laugh or cry hertly? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.199.63.135 ( talk) 06:45, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
Where is the emphatic mood? 128.146.32.245 ( talk) 22:20, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
The page has no reference to euphemism, meiosis, litotes, etc. That is entirely right for a main "English Grammar" page. Wikipedia has articles on those three topics, and presumably on other terms.
But there is nothing obvious in the page even linking to such things.
The page should have a link to a page which lists English grammatical terms, with one-line descriptions (HTML DL/DD ?) and that page should link to the pages for those terms.
82.163.24.100 ( talk) 11:21, 28 November 2010 (UTC)
Shouldn't we also include the Conditional Mood and maybe note that Interrogative Mood exists? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.92.79.130 ( talk) 13:23, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
there are not synonyms , homophones, etc. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.196.66.59 ( talk) 12:55, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
What is Noun of Proudly,extremely,sadly,fairly,vigorously —Preceding unsigned comment added by 223.27.120.189 ( talk) 15:38, 24 January 2011 (UTC)
I suggest that a chart like one found here here could be inserted to show the various combinations of progressive aspect, modal verb, etc., instead of mentioning individual combinations in each section. Count Truthstein ( talk) 18:31, 6 May 2011 (UTC)
I think the section at the beginning about closed classes needs some help. For one thing it says that their has not gained "complete acceptance" after "more than 40 years of use." A couple of things with this: First of all, it implies that complete acceptance of a new word is requisite for that class to be called open as opposed to the statement earlier in the same section that closed classes "seldom" admit new words. Secondly, "more than 40 years" implies that they has been used for only somewhat longer than exactly 40 years, yet the article on singular they gives examples dating back 100s of years. I'm not disputing that prepositions are a closed class if such things as closed and open classes really exist, but the example given is very poor. Also, when it says it has not been accepted, who or what exactly is doing the accepting? It would be nice if actual quotations from Carter and McCarthy could be provided so that some context could be provided and those without access to the book can make judgments about whether it really supports the assertions being made in the article.
I'd also like to say that I personally would be much more inclined to accept use of singular they than I would the word celebutante. Surely there are better examples of new nouns that have become commonplace and accepted... How bout x-ray? Theshibboleth ( talk) 23:47, 12 May 2011 (UTC)
Right now a very large number of examples of English grammar in this article are drawn from English literature. This approach shows that the authors of the article are very well-read, but the examples are needlessly long and complicated, and as such they make it difficult for the reader to find the relevant part of the example — the part that is actually intended to illustrate the grammatical point.
I suggest that we (or I) go through the article and purge it of all the examples that meet the above description, and replace them with examples that are short and to the point (even though not drawn from literature). Comments, anyone? Duoduoduo ( talk) 16:50, 27 May 2011 (UTC)
User:Duoduoduo has added "used to" as a non-modal auxiliary verb. I'm not comfortable with this and would like to have a source for this. It seems to be one of those exceptional parts of the language which are hard to fit in with everything else. Look at section 6.3 of A Short Overview of English Syntax by Rodney Huddleston - "used to" isn't listed there, only be, have and do. Count Truthstein ( talk) 16:23, 29 May 2011 (UTC)
We're not deciding anything here about how to define terms: this is Wikipedia, so we just report what's out there in the literature. What's out there is that no phrase with "modal" in it is used for something that has no modal meaning, and the literature treats modality as something entirely different from aspect. "Used to" is aspectual; see e.g. Comrie's Aspect. "Used to" is not modal; see e.g. Palmer's Mood and Modality or any other publication on modality.
Do you have a source that says that "used to" is a modal auxiliary or modal anything? If not, we can't treat it that way on Wikipedia. Duoduoduo ( talk) 22:24, 4 June 2011 (UTC)
hi i just want to ask a question about pronunciation as i've been studying this language for a while and i am still looking for the answer to my question, is there a rule or anything like it that i can follow when it comes to pronounce letters they are pronouced differently according to where in the word they are located????? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 187.132.60.254 ( talk) 03:16, 6 February 2012 (UTC)
In the phrase "Florence is nice when it's not too crowded, which it won't be if you come off season," "which" appears to be referring to the adjective "crowded." How is this catered for in the rules of English grammar?
220.136.82.13 ( talk) 13:34, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
I have changed Kwami's recent edit of the pronoun section in which he switched things over from objective to oblique case to Dative/Accusative and created an article describing this phenomenon. I have added only basic information to the new article so if someone wants to play around and add a bit more English-centric detail / linking, have at it.
The reason for my changes is that the term objective case is a misnomer because this supposed objective is not actually a case (nor is it most often purported to be one) but rather is a net term used to describe situations in which the forms used for dative & accusative cases are identical and of course in English, these forms are almost always used as some sort of object (direct, indirect, preposition) thus the word objective.
I can understand Kwami's change from objective (which is less than ideal for the reasons cited above) to oblique as this is at least a legitimate case in many languages and from a surface standpoint seems like what English is using as well. The reason for changing it from oblique to dative/accusative though is that English in fact does not fall into that group of languages that uses an oblique case but rather still falls firmly into the Germanic language family's Nominative-Dative-Accusative-Genitive system but just having that morphologically combined form that makes it difficult to discern the presence of two cases in both nominative and dative situation.
Man, wouldn't describing English be a lot easier if we didn't have so many situations where different things look exactly the same? ;) Drew.ward ( talk) 16:55, 18 March 2012 (UTC)
This article is an absolute embarrassment. Not only is the vast majority of information entirely incorrect, but it doesn't even come close to matching up with coordinating articles on the individual topics and concepts discussed herein. Also, far too many people without competent knowledge of English grammar are editing this page while at the same time the works of individual authors are being cited as trusted references regardless of whether the views they purport are in line with accepted linguistic consensus. I've just scanned through the section on mood and there was so little in that section that was correct that the only thing I could justify leaving was the initial sentence and only that after rewording it.
If this article cannot be brought up to snuff, it should be removed and links to the appropriate coordinating pages be put in its place. Drew.ward ( talk) 07:14, 22 March 2012 (UTC)
I have reverted Kwami's reversal of my edit (which was reversed without discussion counter to WP policy.
Kwami you have asked why I did not 'fix sourced material rather than delete it'. Sourced or not, that material is too incorrect to be 'fixed'. Verb phrases do not express mood. English does not 'have three moods'. It has probably hundreds of moods just like every other language. Everything in that section was absolutely and totally incorrect. It cannot be fixed because there is not enough there to fix. Sourced incorrect information is still incorrect information and has no place in Wikipedia. I can easily source David Duke's and Hitler's views on race into a nicely referenced article on the topic but I really doubt it's going to express a factual view. Sourced trash is still sourced trash. There are already existing articles on mood in wikipedia that while not perfect are far more factual than anything previously proposed in the mood section of this page. Drew.ward ( talk) 08:01, 22 March 2012 (UTC)
I propose that English syntax, which currently redirects to English grammar, should cover the material in English grammar#Clause syntax and English verbs#Syntax, which both cover the same material.
English grammar would have very brief remarks about English syntax and link to the main article. It would also continue to list the lexical categories of English and other categories of constituents (such as noun phrases and prepositional phrases), as well as discussing structures of sentences above the level of clause (independent and dependent clauses).
English verbs would focus on verbs as a lexical category, rather than describing the complex interactions of auxiliary and non-auxiliary verbs. It would continue to reference possible uses of forms of verb lexemes, but for a systematic description the reader would be directed to other articles. Count Truthstein ( talk) 20:01, 4 July 2012 (UTC)
@Victor Yus, could you provide some references for the sections referring to "There" as a component of "There+BE" as a pronoun? Just as "it" in the similar "It+BE" construction is not acting as a pronoun, I don't think that "there" within the "there+BE" construction can be analyzed separately from the construction as a whole. There are similar equivalents in many other languages including "hay" (there is/are) in Spanish and "Es+GEBEN" (it gives) in German that perform the identical function and for which it's also not possible to divide off the components even though they can be used for other things otherwise in the language. "There" in "there are many reasons" doesn't represent or refer back to some missing noun (a requisite of a pronoun). Thus, unless considerably consensus can be found among grammarians and linguists of English, it seems that the section on there as a pronoun should be deleted.
My second concern is with calling "which" an interrogative pronoun. Which is an interrogative adjective (which you do point out), but even when used alone, always is used as an adjective modifying either an explicit or contextual noun. Consider even the example from your revision: "The word which is used to ask about alternatives from what is seen as a closed set: which (of the books) do you like best? (It can also be an interrogative determiner: which book?; this can form the alternative pronominal expressions which one and which ones.)" Even in your example you have included missing contextual information "(of the books". "Which" is the universal interrogative yet requires something to modify. In fact, every other interrogative is nothing but a shorthand representation of a longer "which form": who = which person; what = which thing; where = which place; when = at which time; how = in which manner; why = for which reason; etc. But, just as when it is used as an interrogative (adjective), when seemingly appearing as a pronoun, it in fact not a pronoun, nor is it even occupying the pronoun position, but is instead, as usual, acting as an interrogative adjective modifying an (assumed understood) pronoun, noun, etc.
Again, perhaps there is consensus among the majority of grammarians and linguists to go ahead and refer to "there" and "which" as pronouns, but unless you ignore the linguistics of English, it seems to me a mistaken analysis. Cheers on working so hard on this article all this time. Drew.ward ( talk) 21:54, 9 September 2012 (UTC)
Is this really good English? It doesn't sound it to me. 81.159.106.160 ( talk) 20:45, 30 June 2013 (UTC)
OK, so having now been accused twice of edit warring by the user who reverted my original edit and insists on restoring two external links without justifying their relevance ( WP:EXT is very clear on this: "The burden of providing this justification is on the person who wants to include an external link."), I'm raising the matter here to see what the consensus is on this. Wikipedia is not a directory (my edit summary for my initial edit) and as there are currently five other external links, I see no reason whatsoever for more, one of which is borderline spam. -- Technopat ( talk) 00:56, 11 August 2013 (UTC)
... with the G capped?
It's a pretty silly section, in my view. Tony (talk) 09:33, 10 October 2015 (UTC)
"There are historical, social, cultural and regional variations of English. Divergences from the grammar described here occur in some dialects of English. This article describes a generalized present-day Standard English, the form of speech and writing found in types of public discourse including broadcasting, education, entertainment, government, and news reporting, including both formal and informal speech. There are differences in grammar between the standard forms of British, American, and Australian English, although these are minor compared with the lexical and pronunciation differences."
This seems disorganised. Can I make it:
"This article describes a generalized present-day standard English—the form of speech and writing found in types of public discourse such as broadcasting, education, entertainment, government, and news reporting, including both formal and informal registers. There are differences in grammar between the standard forms of British, American, and Australian English, although these are minor compared with the lexical and pronunciation differences."
Isn't it too detailed for the lead to list "historical, social, and cultural"? Are these followed up specifically in the article? Tony (talk) 09:14, 19 August 2016 (UTC)
This is right at the top:
"There are differences in grammar between the standard forms of British, American, and Australian English, although these are minor compared with the differences in vocabulary and pronunciation."
I've never been happy with it, because it implies that the differences in lexis and pronunciation are substantial. The relativity ("minor compared with") does hold up, I suppose, but in this context there's an argument that vocabulary and pronunciation are remarkably homogenous (say, New York vs London) compared with the differences between standard and non-standard English (New York vs Leeds vs Mumbai vs Liberia). I'm trying to arrive at a way around this, as yet unsuccessfully. Tony (talk) 12:13, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
I think the bloated section on gender needs to be scaled back. It seems unimportant and roundabout to describe something that is common in Indo-European languages, the examples are trivial, and it's based on a source of questionable reliability ("EDUfinder.com"). Tony (talk) 07:42, 13 July 2018 (UTC)
"Words combine to form phrases." Ridiculous proposition in its exclusive implication. Words combine to form clauses and sentences, too. Tony (talk) 06:57, 18 April 2021 (UTC)
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:
Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. — Community Tech bot ( talk) 00:54, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
In my view it's confusing, often places undue emphasis on some aspects, and is not well-written throughout.
First offering of the day, at random: "English word order has moved from the Germanic verb-second (V2) word order to being almost exclusively subject–verb–object (SVO)."
Aside from the logic problem (SVO does seem to be "verb-second"), and the fact that English is a Germanic language, the "almost exclusively" claim is ridiculous, unless we give up asking questions or using passive voice, or availing ourselves of the relatively fluid options for word order in English. Tony (talk) 07:27, 7 February 2021 (UTC)
Why do some speakers prefer to say "I exercise" while other would rather say "I do exercise", as if the verb were "to do exercise" rather than simply "to exercise"? I find the lattherh more typincal of British English than the first one, especially when people list exercise along wihth eating a well-balance diet.-- Fandelasketchup ( talk) 21:16, 17 March 2021 (UTC)
A 2A03:2880:FF:9:0:0:FACE:B00C ( talk) 16:14, 30 January 2022 (UTC)
The world are also noun Khan hafeez ullah khan hafeez ( talk) 06:18, 22 August 2023 (UTC)
the man you saw yesterday's sister
This is really clunky English. Many people would object. Isn't there a more standard example? Tony (talk) 10:18, 1 September 2023 (UTC)
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Text and/or other creative content from this version of English grammar was copied or moved into English pronouns on 14:47, 25 March 2021. The former page's history now serves to provide attribution for that content in the latter page, and it must not be deleted as long as the latter page exists. |
According to WP:SPLITTING, an article of more than 100 KB "Almost certainly should be divided." This article is slightly more than 120 KB. Other users have also recommended splitting, above.
Perhaps new articles called English nominals (grammar), English verbs (grammar), English word order, English interrogative sentences, English negation (grammar), and English comparatives (grammar) should be created and linked to, with very brief summaries included on this page. Those seem to be the longest sections.
Alternately, the article could be split into English phrasal syntax and English clausal syntax. The resulting articles would probably still be quite long, though. Cnilep ( talk) 19:43, 14 April 2009 (UTC)
This is just off the top of my head. This way, we can keep the main articles relatively reader-friendly, while having subheadings or sub-articles to discuss more comparative and technical material. I'd also hasten to point out that there's a lot of material that belongs under English grammar in such articles as negation (grammar) or subjunctive mood. - Smerdis of Tlön ( talk) 19:44, 15 April 2009 (UTC)
Well done. That was indeed what I meant, the history of aproaches to grammar, not the history of the grammatical constructions themselves, which we do cover already. You've done a lot of work there - unless you found that list complete somewhere. Very useful, thanks. It does need some text now. I'm sorry, I can't help much just now, I have an ultra-stressful time at work. This revamping of the whole complex will be a long process, and for the moment all I can really say is, go ahead, it's the right idea. I'll help out if I can.-- Doric Loon ( talk) 07:09, 19 April 2009 (UTC)
In addition to the sources recommended by Fowler&fowler (Quirk et al. Student's Grammar of the English Language and Huddleston & Pullum Student's Introduction to English Grammar) I would add the Longman Student Grammar of Spoken and Written English. In terms of organization, it might be easier to either adapt the contents of the current page or one of the other pages discussed above as a model. On the other hand, it might be more meaningful to adopt a new organization, inspired by these student grammars. With that noncommittal suggestion, I leave it to other users to approach consensus. Cnilep ( talk) 19:10, 12 May 2009 (UTC)
There appear to be no arguments against. In fact the multiplication of articles already has begun. What do you say we get going on this? I recommend using the outline above. Why don't some of you take some of these red titles? The whole thing of course can be tied together by various sorts of cross-references, which you skilled editors know already. It's too big for one editor, so feel free to pitch right in. If you should go wrong, there is plenty of assistance here to straighten you out. Dave ( talk) 12:41, 21 November 2009 (UTC)
Two of my young reporters say that they should be able to use the word "referencing" as a verb, i.e. "This is the new reality, said Perkins, referencing a new report on the English language." They say it's now part of the modern lexicon and I'm being old-fashioned by wanting to stick to "This is the new reality, said Perkins, referring to a new report."
Any opinions?
Many thanks, Martha 69.159.224.121 ( talk) 20:31, 20 April 2009 (UTC)
I agree this article should be split into multiple articles.
In general, the articles that are most helpful to me as a user, are those that quickly lay out the basics of a topic, and then branch out or build up to the deep complexities. THis article dives into very heavy material on the first screen, and I (personally) found its style to be tedious and not very readable. I speculate that this is the product of many, many experts adding and editing details, piecemeal, over time. In its present state, I find it to be very rich in content and detail, which is a good thing, but its highly fragmented and is not comfortably readable. I confess I didnt read very far, I wasnt getting what I looked for from the article.
When a user comes to an article for the first time, and is trying to digest the core concepts, it is highly distracting to encounter in the first few paragraphs, links to all the exceptions and side-topics. The reader has to mentally subtract all that extra chatter to find the core concepts. Its as if everyone is trying to get in their say, in one sentence. While there's a lot to be said for the Wiki concept of anyone being able to edit, there also comes a time when things have to be de-fragged or compressed, for the sake of maintaining readability for the average Joe.
What the article needs now is some quality time with a good editor to examine it as a whole, to rewrite all this content into a more readable set of articles, without losing any of the valuable contributions users have made so far. The topic of "English Grammar" is far too vast to be covered in one article, and too important to be left in this condition. I cannot do the job, my talent is in physical sciences, not languages. I hope one of Wikipedia's wonderful editors can dedicate some time to this one. Solviva ( talk) 05:35, 8 May 2009 (UTC)
Can someone from here please help with cleaning up the grammar on the linguistics article? It is terrible. TroubledTraveler ( talk) 20:15, 5 June 2009 (UTC)
E.g. Is this mine? *No, it's its
Doesn't sound right to me. Can anyone supply an example of this from usage or literature? Surely there is no nominal genitive for the third person neuter. Grover cleveland ( talk) 04:41, 29 October 2009 (UTC)
Examples from the CGEL provided here: Talk:Possessive_adjective#Its. CapnPrep ( talk) 16:48, 29 October 2009 (UTC)
So why, over two years later, is "It is its" declared ungrammatical? Kdammers ( talk) 10:02, 28 April 2012 (UTC)
What's the motivation for this nomenclature? Does it come from some reference work? Why not just call it a past participle? It is claimed that " the -en form does not express tense or a past time frame", but
Is this anything more than a trendy neologism? Grover cleveland ( talk) 04:58, 29 October 2009 (UTC)
Ditto for "nonpast". What's wrong with "present"? I admit that there are uses that refer to the future such as we go to the beach tomorrow, but does that really make it worth throwing out the traditional terminology that is widely known? This page is probably going to be used by students who are learning English. Grover cleveland ( talk) 05:03, 29 October 2009 (UTC)
There appear to be no arguments against. In fact the multiplication of articles already has begun. What do you say we get going on this? I recommend using the outline above. Why don't some of you take some of these red titles? The whole thing of course can be tied together by various sorts of cross-references, which you skilled editors know already. It's too big for one editor, so feel free to pitch right in. If you should go wrong, there is plenty of assistance here to straighten you out. Dave ( talk) 12:41, 21 November 2009 (UTC)
Apropos this latest post above, I feel that it is time to work on the article again and make a concerted effort to at least bring it up to Good Article class. For the benefit of those who are new to the discussion, here's a little history. In April 2009, we had a long discussion upstairs on splitting up the article into digestible bits (or in technical lingo to make it more modular). It was felt that the page was too long and was presenting—all at once—the nitty-gritty of the subject rather than a reader-friendly overview with links to the details. (Please also see the post by user:Solvivo in section From simple to complex above.) In the end, the consensus seemed to be that the "English grammar" article should have the following three sections:
In my view, things got bogged down, in part, because we were trying to work from the bottom up. I would like to suggest that we do the opposite:
I will wait a week before I write the overview section. I will also then have a sub-section structure for the grammar overview section (which, as I mentioned above, will be the main section of the article) and editors will then also have concrete pages for addition of the finer details. An important point to remember, both for this page and for the sub-pages, is that we are not writing a text book. We can't make the Wikipedia article as detailed as the text-books we are using as references. That, among other things, wouldn't be fair to the authors of the text-books (who have done the hard work to earn their copyrights)!
Please let me know what you think. In the absence of major objections I will create the tripartite section structure and start writing the overview section next Saturday. Fowler&fowler «Talk» 14:49, 21 November 2009 (UTC)
I believe that Carter and McCarthy is the most accessible of the modern grammars; it is also the most recent. I will write the first draft of the overview based on this book. At that time, the details in the current text will be moved to sub/parent articles. However, no information will be lost. Many people have already done the hard work of creating many examples and definitions. Think of the overview as initially just a place holder. It may have new examples, but the old ones already in place will gradually be blended in. Similarly, the overview may have terms that are different from those in the current text; those too will be disambiguated in the second round of revisions. In addition, I'll be integrating information from the three books we've discussed above in the later revisions. These books are:
Fowler&fowler «Talk» 14:50, 28 November 2009 (UTC)
PS I will add the tentative toc-structure in a minute. Fowler&fowler «Talk» 14:50, 28 November 2009 (UTC)
Here is the tentative table of contents structure I'll be following:
If there are no objections, I'll start writing the overview tomorrow, Sunday 29 November 2009. Regards, Fowler&fowler «Talk» 14:55, 28 November 2009 (UTC)
Hi, I'm back. I will start the revision shortly. Instead of splitting the current page into different subpages and worrying about content forks, I will be (temporarily) moving the current page to the talk page subpage: Talk:English grammar/English grammar old. I will be following the section structure I've described above. Thanks. Regards, Fowler&fowler «Talk» 22:14, 2 December 2009 (UTC)
Is it correct to say " Advanced Equipments and Maintenance Company"? or it should be "Advanced Equipment and Maintenance Company"? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.82.18.178 ( talk) 21:47, 20 February 2010 (UTC)
"Advanced Equipment...". LaRoza ( talk) 16:04, 25 April 2010 (UTC)
The section on regular and irregular verbs ignores the history of English. English has Germanic strong and weak verbs in addition to irregular verbs. The internal vowel changes of strong verbs are somewhat regular and a class of their own. Perhaps the article could reflect the reality of English instead of over-simplifying it based on ignorance of Germanic verbs? LaRoza ( talk) 16:06, 25 April 2010 (UTC)
Maybe determiners or prepositions would make a better example of a closed class. But I changed it to refer to Spivak pronouns rather than singular "they", as singular "they" makes a very, very poor example of how pronouns are a closed class. "They" is already a pronoun, so singular "they" wouldn't be an example of a new pronoun being incorporated into the pronoun system, but of a pronoun changing in usage (that is, it's not very different from "you" expanding to take over the functions of "thou"). Furthermore, the article before I edited said that it hadn't achieved acceptance in its 40 years of existence, even though as you can see on the wiki page for singular "they" (and referenced in other articles), sing. "they" has a very long history. Spivak pronouns, on the other hand, as they demonstrate how neologisms can't be accepted as pronouns very easily - the cases of new 2nd person plural pronouns grew organically out of phrases that all incorporate "you" in them (y'all, yinz, you guys, etc.). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.189.134.229 ( talk) 11:10, 3 June 2010 (UTC)
Are pronouns a "closed" class? I hear all sorts of "xe/xey/xem" examples offered as gender neutral pronouns. — Preceding
unsigned comment added by
2600:6C5E:700E:300:D170:A6CA:C90A:173D (
talk) 18:01, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
is it grammatical correct to use this phrase (the whole entire )world —Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.188.168.11 ( talk) 21:10, 7 June 2010 (UTC)
An edit of mine has been challenged on the grounds that the English language - contained in the edit - is inadequate and in large parts even incomprehensible plus some further not very positive predications . If you have time to spend, please have a look over at the talk-page Talk:Migration_Period#Critical comments to the intro, and here -> Draft for intro and chronology section . Sechinsic ( talk) 11:24, 20 July 2010 (UTC)
why a man cry when laugh or cry hertly? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.199.63.135 ( talk) 06:45, 26 August 2010 (UTC)
Where is the emphatic mood? 128.146.32.245 ( talk) 22:20, 23 November 2010 (UTC)
The page has no reference to euphemism, meiosis, litotes, etc. That is entirely right for a main "English Grammar" page. Wikipedia has articles on those three topics, and presumably on other terms.
But there is nothing obvious in the page even linking to such things.
The page should have a link to a page which lists English grammatical terms, with one-line descriptions (HTML DL/DD ?) and that page should link to the pages for those terms.
82.163.24.100 ( talk) 11:21, 28 November 2010 (UTC)
Shouldn't we also include the Conditional Mood and maybe note that Interrogative Mood exists? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 193.92.79.130 ( talk) 13:23, 15 December 2010 (UTC)
there are not synonyms , homophones, etc. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.196.66.59 ( talk) 12:55, 23 December 2010 (UTC)
What is Noun of Proudly,extremely,sadly,fairly,vigorously —Preceding unsigned comment added by 223.27.120.189 ( talk) 15:38, 24 January 2011 (UTC)
I suggest that a chart like one found here here could be inserted to show the various combinations of progressive aspect, modal verb, etc., instead of mentioning individual combinations in each section. Count Truthstein ( talk) 18:31, 6 May 2011 (UTC)
I think the section at the beginning about closed classes needs some help. For one thing it says that their has not gained "complete acceptance" after "more than 40 years of use." A couple of things with this: First of all, it implies that complete acceptance of a new word is requisite for that class to be called open as opposed to the statement earlier in the same section that closed classes "seldom" admit new words. Secondly, "more than 40 years" implies that they has been used for only somewhat longer than exactly 40 years, yet the article on singular they gives examples dating back 100s of years. I'm not disputing that prepositions are a closed class if such things as closed and open classes really exist, but the example given is very poor. Also, when it says it has not been accepted, who or what exactly is doing the accepting? It would be nice if actual quotations from Carter and McCarthy could be provided so that some context could be provided and those without access to the book can make judgments about whether it really supports the assertions being made in the article.
I'd also like to say that I personally would be much more inclined to accept use of singular they than I would the word celebutante. Surely there are better examples of new nouns that have become commonplace and accepted... How bout x-ray? Theshibboleth ( talk) 23:47, 12 May 2011 (UTC)
Right now a very large number of examples of English grammar in this article are drawn from English literature. This approach shows that the authors of the article are very well-read, but the examples are needlessly long and complicated, and as such they make it difficult for the reader to find the relevant part of the example — the part that is actually intended to illustrate the grammatical point.
I suggest that we (or I) go through the article and purge it of all the examples that meet the above description, and replace them with examples that are short and to the point (even though not drawn from literature). Comments, anyone? Duoduoduo ( talk) 16:50, 27 May 2011 (UTC)
User:Duoduoduo has added "used to" as a non-modal auxiliary verb. I'm not comfortable with this and would like to have a source for this. It seems to be one of those exceptional parts of the language which are hard to fit in with everything else. Look at section 6.3 of A Short Overview of English Syntax by Rodney Huddleston - "used to" isn't listed there, only be, have and do. Count Truthstein ( talk) 16:23, 29 May 2011 (UTC)
We're not deciding anything here about how to define terms: this is Wikipedia, so we just report what's out there in the literature. What's out there is that no phrase with "modal" in it is used for something that has no modal meaning, and the literature treats modality as something entirely different from aspect. "Used to" is aspectual; see e.g. Comrie's Aspect. "Used to" is not modal; see e.g. Palmer's Mood and Modality or any other publication on modality.
Do you have a source that says that "used to" is a modal auxiliary or modal anything? If not, we can't treat it that way on Wikipedia. Duoduoduo ( talk) 22:24, 4 June 2011 (UTC)
hi i just want to ask a question about pronunciation as i've been studying this language for a while and i am still looking for the answer to my question, is there a rule or anything like it that i can follow when it comes to pronounce letters they are pronouced differently according to where in the word they are located????? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 187.132.60.254 ( talk) 03:16, 6 February 2012 (UTC)
In the phrase "Florence is nice when it's not too crowded, which it won't be if you come off season," "which" appears to be referring to the adjective "crowded." How is this catered for in the rules of English grammar?
220.136.82.13 ( talk) 13:34, 13 February 2012 (UTC)
I have changed Kwami's recent edit of the pronoun section in which he switched things over from objective to oblique case to Dative/Accusative and created an article describing this phenomenon. I have added only basic information to the new article so if someone wants to play around and add a bit more English-centric detail / linking, have at it.
The reason for my changes is that the term objective case is a misnomer because this supposed objective is not actually a case (nor is it most often purported to be one) but rather is a net term used to describe situations in which the forms used for dative & accusative cases are identical and of course in English, these forms are almost always used as some sort of object (direct, indirect, preposition) thus the word objective.
I can understand Kwami's change from objective (which is less than ideal for the reasons cited above) to oblique as this is at least a legitimate case in many languages and from a surface standpoint seems like what English is using as well. The reason for changing it from oblique to dative/accusative though is that English in fact does not fall into that group of languages that uses an oblique case but rather still falls firmly into the Germanic language family's Nominative-Dative-Accusative-Genitive system but just having that morphologically combined form that makes it difficult to discern the presence of two cases in both nominative and dative situation.
Man, wouldn't describing English be a lot easier if we didn't have so many situations where different things look exactly the same? ;) Drew.ward ( talk) 16:55, 18 March 2012 (UTC)
This article is an absolute embarrassment. Not only is the vast majority of information entirely incorrect, but it doesn't even come close to matching up with coordinating articles on the individual topics and concepts discussed herein. Also, far too many people without competent knowledge of English grammar are editing this page while at the same time the works of individual authors are being cited as trusted references regardless of whether the views they purport are in line with accepted linguistic consensus. I've just scanned through the section on mood and there was so little in that section that was correct that the only thing I could justify leaving was the initial sentence and only that after rewording it.
If this article cannot be brought up to snuff, it should be removed and links to the appropriate coordinating pages be put in its place. Drew.ward ( talk) 07:14, 22 March 2012 (UTC)
I have reverted Kwami's reversal of my edit (which was reversed without discussion counter to WP policy.
Kwami you have asked why I did not 'fix sourced material rather than delete it'. Sourced or not, that material is too incorrect to be 'fixed'. Verb phrases do not express mood. English does not 'have three moods'. It has probably hundreds of moods just like every other language. Everything in that section was absolutely and totally incorrect. It cannot be fixed because there is not enough there to fix. Sourced incorrect information is still incorrect information and has no place in Wikipedia. I can easily source David Duke's and Hitler's views on race into a nicely referenced article on the topic but I really doubt it's going to express a factual view. Sourced trash is still sourced trash. There are already existing articles on mood in wikipedia that while not perfect are far more factual than anything previously proposed in the mood section of this page. Drew.ward ( talk) 08:01, 22 March 2012 (UTC)
I propose that English syntax, which currently redirects to English grammar, should cover the material in English grammar#Clause syntax and English verbs#Syntax, which both cover the same material.
English grammar would have very brief remarks about English syntax and link to the main article. It would also continue to list the lexical categories of English and other categories of constituents (such as noun phrases and prepositional phrases), as well as discussing structures of sentences above the level of clause (independent and dependent clauses).
English verbs would focus on verbs as a lexical category, rather than describing the complex interactions of auxiliary and non-auxiliary verbs. It would continue to reference possible uses of forms of verb lexemes, but for a systematic description the reader would be directed to other articles. Count Truthstein ( talk) 20:01, 4 July 2012 (UTC)
@Victor Yus, could you provide some references for the sections referring to "There" as a component of "There+BE" as a pronoun? Just as "it" in the similar "It+BE" construction is not acting as a pronoun, I don't think that "there" within the "there+BE" construction can be analyzed separately from the construction as a whole. There are similar equivalents in many other languages including "hay" (there is/are) in Spanish and "Es+GEBEN" (it gives) in German that perform the identical function and for which it's also not possible to divide off the components even though they can be used for other things otherwise in the language. "There" in "there are many reasons" doesn't represent or refer back to some missing noun (a requisite of a pronoun). Thus, unless considerably consensus can be found among grammarians and linguists of English, it seems that the section on there as a pronoun should be deleted.
My second concern is with calling "which" an interrogative pronoun. Which is an interrogative adjective (which you do point out), but even when used alone, always is used as an adjective modifying either an explicit or contextual noun. Consider even the example from your revision: "The word which is used to ask about alternatives from what is seen as a closed set: which (of the books) do you like best? (It can also be an interrogative determiner: which book?; this can form the alternative pronominal expressions which one and which ones.)" Even in your example you have included missing contextual information "(of the books". "Which" is the universal interrogative yet requires something to modify. In fact, every other interrogative is nothing but a shorthand representation of a longer "which form": who = which person; what = which thing; where = which place; when = at which time; how = in which manner; why = for which reason; etc. But, just as when it is used as an interrogative (adjective), when seemingly appearing as a pronoun, it in fact not a pronoun, nor is it even occupying the pronoun position, but is instead, as usual, acting as an interrogative adjective modifying an (assumed understood) pronoun, noun, etc.
Again, perhaps there is consensus among the majority of grammarians and linguists to go ahead and refer to "there" and "which" as pronouns, but unless you ignore the linguistics of English, it seems to me a mistaken analysis. Cheers on working so hard on this article all this time. Drew.ward ( talk) 21:54, 9 September 2012 (UTC)
Is this really good English? It doesn't sound it to me. 81.159.106.160 ( talk) 20:45, 30 June 2013 (UTC)
OK, so having now been accused twice of edit warring by the user who reverted my original edit and insists on restoring two external links without justifying their relevance ( WP:EXT is very clear on this: "The burden of providing this justification is on the person who wants to include an external link."), I'm raising the matter here to see what the consensus is on this. Wikipedia is not a directory (my edit summary for my initial edit) and as there are currently five other external links, I see no reason whatsoever for more, one of which is borderline spam. -- Technopat ( talk) 00:56, 11 August 2013 (UTC)
... with the G capped?
It's a pretty silly section, in my view. Tony (talk) 09:33, 10 October 2015 (UTC)
"There are historical, social, cultural and regional variations of English. Divergences from the grammar described here occur in some dialects of English. This article describes a generalized present-day Standard English, the form of speech and writing found in types of public discourse including broadcasting, education, entertainment, government, and news reporting, including both formal and informal speech. There are differences in grammar between the standard forms of British, American, and Australian English, although these are minor compared with the lexical and pronunciation differences."
This seems disorganised. Can I make it:
"This article describes a generalized present-day standard English—the form of speech and writing found in types of public discourse such as broadcasting, education, entertainment, government, and news reporting, including both formal and informal registers. There are differences in grammar between the standard forms of British, American, and Australian English, although these are minor compared with the lexical and pronunciation differences."
Isn't it too detailed for the lead to list "historical, social, and cultural"? Are these followed up specifically in the article? Tony (talk) 09:14, 19 August 2016 (UTC)
This is right at the top:
"There are differences in grammar between the standard forms of British, American, and Australian English, although these are minor compared with the differences in vocabulary and pronunciation."
I've never been happy with it, because it implies that the differences in lexis and pronunciation are substantial. The relativity ("minor compared with") does hold up, I suppose, but in this context there's an argument that vocabulary and pronunciation are remarkably homogenous (say, New York vs London) compared with the differences between standard and non-standard English (New York vs Leeds vs Mumbai vs Liberia). I'm trying to arrive at a way around this, as yet unsuccessfully. Tony (talk) 12:13, 15 May 2018 (UTC)
I think the bloated section on gender needs to be scaled back. It seems unimportant and roundabout to describe something that is common in Indo-European languages, the examples are trivial, and it's based on a source of questionable reliability ("EDUfinder.com"). Tony (talk) 07:42, 13 July 2018 (UTC)
"Words combine to form phrases." Ridiculous proposition in its exclusive implication. Words combine to form clauses and sentences, too. Tony (talk) 06:57, 18 April 2021 (UTC)
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:
Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. — Community Tech bot ( talk) 00:54, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
In my view it's confusing, often places undue emphasis on some aspects, and is not well-written throughout.
First offering of the day, at random: "English word order has moved from the Germanic verb-second (V2) word order to being almost exclusively subject–verb–object (SVO)."
Aside from the logic problem (SVO does seem to be "verb-second"), and the fact that English is a Germanic language, the "almost exclusively" claim is ridiculous, unless we give up asking questions or using passive voice, or availing ourselves of the relatively fluid options for word order in English. Tony (talk) 07:27, 7 February 2021 (UTC)
Why do some speakers prefer to say "I exercise" while other would rather say "I do exercise", as if the verb were "to do exercise" rather than simply "to exercise"? I find the lattherh more typincal of British English than the first one, especially when people list exercise along wihth eating a well-balance diet.-- Fandelasketchup ( talk) 21:16, 17 March 2021 (UTC)
A 2A03:2880:FF:9:0:0:FACE:B00C ( talk) 16:14, 30 January 2022 (UTC)
The world are also noun Khan hafeez ullah khan hafeez ( talk) 06:18, 22 August 2023 (UTC)
the man you saw yesterday's sister
This is really clunky English. Many people would object. Isn't there a more standard example? Tony (talk) 10:18, 1 September 2023 (UTC)