English Grammar Basics

Grammatical Function in Modern English

• Grammatical function is indicated through word order, prepositions, and auxiliary verbs for nouns, adjectives, and articles.
• Word order is crucial in determining grammatical function, as it can change the meaning of a sentence.

Largest Word Classes in English

• The two largest word classes in English are nouns and verbs.
• Nouns make up about 40% of English words, while verbs make up around 30%.

Abandonment of Indo-European Features

• Modern English has largely abandoned inflectional suffixes from Indo-European.
• This loss of inflectional suffixes has led to a simpler grammatical system.

Public Discourse in Modern English

• Standard English is used in public discourse, including broadcasting, education, entertainment, government, and news.
• Standard English is considered the most formal and prestigious form of English.

Morphological Case in Modern English

• Pronouns retain morphological case more strongly than any other word class in Modern English.
• Pronouns have distinct forms for different cases, such as nominative, accusative, and genitive.