句法学与英语语法

English Grammar and the Syntax

The grammar is the key of learning a language. So if you want to learn English well, the basis is to learn English grammar well. We’ve learn English about ten years. Until I learn the syntax of the Linguistics. In this paper, I want to talk about the relationship between English grammar and the syntax that I thought from a little knowledge I have.

Linguistics is generally defined as the scientific study of language. It studies not any particular language, but languages in general. And the Syntax is a branch of linguistics that studies how words are combined to form sentences and the rules that govern the formation of sentences. The grammatical categories concluding the following aspects:

1. Categories: grammatical categories: the defining properties of language units like nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverb, etc.

2. Number: the grammatical category of nouns, pronouns and verbs in English. There are two terms of number: singular and plural.

3. Gender: the grammatical category of nouns and pronouns in English. E.g. actor, actress; waiter, waitress. In English the gender distinction is natural as contrasted with the grammatical gender in many other European languages. There are only a small number of nouns indicating the gender distinction. In German, der Abend; die Fachhochschule; das Auto.

4. Case: the grammatical category of nouns and pronouns. In English pronouns have three cases: nominative (I, he, they), accusative (me, him, them), and genitive (my, his, their), but nouns have only two cases: common (Jim, boy), and genitive (Jim’s, boy’s).

5. Tense: the grammatical category of verbs, indicating the time of an event in relation to the moment of speaking, e.g. I am a student. I went to the zoo yesterday. Traditionally: past, present, future, past future. Nowadays: past and present.

6. Aspect: the grammatical category of verbs, distinguishing the status of events in relation to the time of another event, e.g. I was reading when he came to see me. When I got to the railway station the train had already left. Progressive or continuous vs perfect.

7. Voice: the grammatical category of verbs expressing the way sentences may alter the relationship between the subject and object of a verb, without changing the meaning of the sentence.

8. Mood: the grammatical category of verbs referring to a set of syntactic and semantic contrasts signaled by alternative paradigms of the verb.

And in this paper, I want to introduce some frequently-used Tense simply. In the English grammar, tense is a verb form which expresses behavior, action and status under the all kinds of time conditions. Different tense represent different time and forms. So when we say tense, it means verb form in the corresponding

tense. There are ten frequently-used tense as following:

1. The present indefinite tense:

Concept: something is often or regularly happens and the truth.

Adverbials of time: always, usually, often, sometimes, every week (day, year, month…), once a week (day, year, month…), on Sundays (on Mondays…).

Fundamental structure: Verb + other things (if the Subject is singular form in third person, the verb should be the singular form in third person.).

Negative sentence: Subject + am \\is \\are +not +other things.

Illustrative sentences: It seldom snows here.

He is always ready to help others.

2. The past tense:

Concept: some action and status happened in the past time or some chronic action and status.

Adverbials of time: ago, yesterday, the day before yesterday, last week (year, month, night…), just now, once upon a time, etc.

Fundamental structure: Subject + Verb\\was\\were + Noun.

Negative sentence: Subject + was \\ were + not + other things; add didn’t in front of The Action Verb.

Illustrative sentences: She often came to help us in those days.

I didn’t know you were so busy.

3. The simple future tense:

Concept: something will happen or something you are calculated to do.

Adverbials of time: tomorrow, next day (week, year, month…), in a few minutes, soon, the day after tomorrow, etc.

Fundamental structure: Subject + am\\is\\are + going to do + other things; Subject + will\\shall + do + other things.

Negative sentence: Subject + am \\is \\are + not going to do + other things; Subject + will \\shall + not do +other things.

General questions: put verb be or shall \\ will at the beginning of the sentence.

Illustrative sentences: It is going to rain.

They are going to have a competition with us in studies.

4. The present continuous tense:

Concept: something or actions is happening at the present stage\\when you are talking.

Adverbials of time: now, at this time (day), etc, look, listen…

Fundamental structure: Subject + be + doing + other things.

Negative sentence: Subject + be + not +doing + other things.

General questions: put verb be at the beginning of the sentence.

Illustrative sentences: How are you feeling today?

He is doing well in his lessons.

I'm watching TV.

5. The past continuous tense:

Concept: something or actions happened in the past time.

Adverbials of time: at this time yesterday, at that time or Predicate Verb leaded

by when is adverbial of time of the past tense.

Fundamental structure: Subject + was\\ were + doing + other things.

Negative sentence: Subject + was \\were + not +doing + other things.

General questions: put was \\ were at the beginning of the sentence.

Illustrative sentences: At that time she was working in a PLA unit.

When he came in, I was reading a newspaper.

6. The future continuous tense:

Concept: something or actions will happen in the future or will happen in the future and will continue. This tense always express enquiry and request.

Adverbials of time: soon, tomorrow, this evening, on Sunday, by this time, in two days, tomorrow evening…

Fundamental structure: Subject + shall\\ will + be + the present participle + other things.

Negative sentence: Subject + shall \\ will + not + be + the present participle + other things.

Illustrative sentences: This time next day they will be sitting in the cinema.

He won’t be coming to the party.

7. The present perfect tense:

Concept: something or actions happened in the past or something or actions have finished have been influencing the present.

Adverbials of time: yet, already, just, never, ever, so far, by now, since + time point, for + time, recently, lately, in the past few years, etc…

Fundamental structure: Subject + have\\ has + p.p + other things.

Negative sentence: Subject + have\\ has + not + p.p + other thins.

General questions: put the have \\has at the beginning of the sentence.

Illustrative sentences: I've written an article.

The countryside has changed a lot in the past few years.

8. The past perfect tense:

Concept: take some past time point as standard, actions happened before this time point or before some actions happened in the past. Namely, the past before

the past.

Adverbials of time: before, by the end of last year (term, month…), etc…

Fundamental structure: Subject + had + p.p + other things.

General questions: put had at the beginning of the sentence.

Illustrative sentences: As soon as we got to the station, the train had left.

By the end of last month, we had reviewed four books.

9. The future perfect tense:

Concept: actions will happen before a future time point.

Adverbials of time: by the time of, by the end of + time phrase, by the time + clauses, etc…

Fundamental structure: Subject + be going to\\will\\shall + have + p.p + other thins.

By the time you get back, great changes will have taken place in this area.

10. The present perfect continuous tense:

Concept: actions happened in the past time and continue to the present. These actions maybe just began and maybe still continue and maybe continue to the future.

Adverbials of time: since + time point; for + time, etc…

Fundamental structure: Subject + have\\ has + been doing +other thins.

Illustrative sentences: I have been sitting here for an hour.

The children have been watching TV since six o'clock.

There are some simple introductions of ten tenses which we often use. We don’t understand English grammar before we learn the Linguistics. Now we can understand the English grammar from source of the Linguistics. So I think the Linguistics help English college students to learn English easily. And we can try to understand English grammar and enhance the ability of studying English.

Reference： The handbook of contemporary syntactic theory. Baltin & Collins.

Radford. Syntactic theory and the structure of English -- A minimalist approach.