This article describes a generalized, present-day Standard English – forms of speech and writing used in public discourse, including broadcasting, education, entertainment, government, and news, over a range of registers, from formal to informal.
Divergences from the grammar described here occur in some historical, social, cultural, and regional varieties of English, although these are minor compared to the differences in pronunciation and vocabulary.
Modern English has largely abandoned the inflectional case system of Indo-European in favor of analytic constructions.
For other pronouns, and all nouns, adjectives, and articles, grammatical function is indicated only by word order, by prepositions, and by the "Saxon genitive or English possessive" (-'s).
[2] Linguists generally accept nine English word classes: nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, pronouns, prepositions, conjunctions, determiners, and exclamations.
It is not usually possible to tell from the form of a word which class it belongs to; inflectional endings and derivational suffixes are unique and specific to.
[6][7] It differs from the noun inflection of languages such as German, in that the genitive ending may attach to the last word of the phrase.
Coordinators such as and, or, and but can be used at various levels in noun phrases, as in John, Paul, and Mary; the matching green coat and hat; a dangerous but exciting ride; a person sitting down or standing up.
Modern English retains features relating to natural gender, most prominently the use of pronouns (such as he and she) to refer specifically to persons or animals of one or other genders and certain others (such as it) for sexless objects – although feminine pronouns are sometimes used when referring to ships (and more uncommonly some airplanes and analogous machinery) and nation-states.
Many nouns that mention people's roles and jobs can refer to either a masculine or a feminine subject, for instance "cousin", "teenager", "teacher", "doctor", "student", "friend", and "colleague".
The most common situations in which a complete noun phrase can be formed without a determiner are when it refers generally to a whole class or concept (as in dogs are dangerous and beauty is subjective) and when it is a name (Jane, Spain, etc.).
You can also be used as an indefinite pronoun, referring to a person in general (see generic you), compared to the more formal alternative, one (reflexive oneself, possessive one's).
For example, she is used to refer to a woman, sometimes a female animal, and sometimes an object to which feminine characteristics are attributed, such as a ship or a country.
Historically, singular they was restricted to quantificational constructions such as Each employee should clean their desk and referential cases where the referent's gender was unknown.
A small holdover of this is the ability of relative (but not interrogative) whose to refer to non-persons (e.g., the car whose door won't open).
The possessive form of who is whose (for example, the man whose car is missing); however the use of whose is not restricted to persons (one can say an idea whose time has come).
The relative pronoun that is usually pronounced with a reduced vowel (schwa), and hence differently from the demonstrative that (see Weak and strong forms in English).
Another indefinite (or impersonal) pronoun is one (with its reflexive form oneself and possessive one's), which is a more formal alternative to generic you.
[20] These do not inflect for person or number,[20] do not occur alone, and do not have infinitive or participle forms (except synonyms, as with be/being/been able (to) for the modals can/could).
The modals are used with the basic infinitive form of a verb (I can swim, he may be killed, we dare not move, need they go?
Modals can indicate the condition, probability, possibility, necessity, obligation and ability exposed by the speaker's or writer's attitude or expression.
The adjective old (for which the regular older and oldest are usual) also has the irregular forms elder and eldest, these generally being restricted to use in comparing siblings and in certain independent uses.
Consequently, comparative and superlative forms of such adjectives are not normally used, except in a figurative, humorous or imprecise context.
[28] Many English adverbs are formed from adjectives by adding the ending -ly, as in hopefully, widely, theoretically (for details of spelling and etymology, see -ly).
When there is more than one type of adverb, they usually appear in the order: manner, place, time (His arm was hurt severely at home yesterday).
Examples of common English prepositions (including phrasal instances) are: of, in, on, over, under, to, from, with, in front of, behind, opposite, by, before, after, during, through, in spite of or despite, between, among, etc.
In addition, a few English pronouns have distinct nominative (also called subjective) and oblique (or objective) forms; that is, they decline to reflect their relationship to a verb or preposition, or case.
The Object–subject–verb (OSV) may on occasion be seen in English, usually in the future tense or used as a contrast with the conjunction "but", such as in the following examples: "Rome I shall see!
[39] Like many other Western European languages, English historically allowed questions to be formed by inverting the positions of the verb and subject.
The clause structure with an inverted subject and verb, used to form questions as described above, is also used in certain types of declarative sentences.