Grammar

Grammar is the set of rules or 'rule-like conventions' that users of language follow so that their sentences can carry the meaning intended. You need to have knowledge of sentence structure (syntax) and word form (morphology). There are three types of grammar: Standard grammar - grammar of the prestige English dialect, also known as Standard English.  Non-standard grammar - feature of some regional dialects, e.g) 'I don't want any' vs. 'I don't want none' (double negative) Inaccurate grammar - feature of spontaneous speech, mistakes easily made

What is grammar?

People use certain types of grammar for various reasons: Divergence - when a user intends to separate themselves linguistically from others Convergence - when a language user attempts to match the other users of language 'Hypercorrection' - when a user tries to create for themselves a prestige for themselves through over-formality? It is important to note that everyone regularly departs from the grammar of Standard English, which is sometimes deliberate e.g) text messages are often informalSpeech, emails and advertising are also examples of how language can be compressed into non-standard grammarhttp://www.englishbiz.co.uk/grammar/index.htm

Syntax

Syntax refers to the structure and relationship of the 'coherent individual units' that make up a sentence (its phrases). Syntax can be simple, complex or highly standardised. A formal text will contain many examples of complex syntax.  When you discuss word order, use the term syntax. However, when you are talking about the form of words (i.e the use of inflexions, prefixes and suffixes), use the term morphology. A bound morpheme  is a prefix or suffix that is 'bound' because it cannot exist alone as a lexical item or word. (e.g. -ing, -ment, un-, dis-). It's role is to change the meaning or grammatical form of the root word that it is attached to. A free morpheme is a minimal unit of meaning that is itself a lexical item or root word. e.g) interest

Syntax is also concerned with the function of sentences. There are three basic types: Declarative sentence - has an active structure, tells directly who is doing what by making a statement. e.g) 'I burned the cake' Interrogative sentences - create questions by reversing the subject and verb positions (or rely on auxiliary verb 'do') e.g.) 'Do I know you?' 'Is it a dog?' Imperative sentences - give commands e.g) 'Shut up' 'Sit down' 'Please go away' Imperative sentences are syntactically odd because they lack the usual, but easily understood grammatical subject (i.e 'you') A persuasive text may use imperatives throughout, in its attempt to make you do something, whilst a story may largely use the declarative sentence function.

Phrases

Phrases are minimal units of grammar that act as the building blocks for clauses.  They are composed of a single lexical item or group of words and they fill a syntactic space within a sentence, as they can be a subject, finite verb, complement, adverbial or object. Subject - The subject is what or who performs the action of the verb (or who is 'being') Finite verb - the finite verb tells of an action or state of being e.g.) crashed, feeling, seems, appears  Complement - the complement completes or adds meaning to the subject e.g) tall, ill  Adverbial - the adverbial tells about the time, place or manner e.g) awkwardly, fortunately Object - the object is the thing that is affected by the action of the verb e.g) He hit me Some verbs take two objects; a direct object and an indirect object: e.g) He gave me (IO) a kiss (DO)

An important type of phrase is a noun phrase.  A noun phrase consists of a head word along with, often, adjectives that modify their nouns by adding defining qualities to the head word e.g) That awkward little idiot In the above example, the head word was 'idiot', the determiner was 'that' and the two pre-modifying adjectives were 'awkward' and 'little'. Noun phrases can form the subject or object of a verb or the object of a prepositional phrase.

Clauses

Clauses are built from two or more phrases, one of which must be acting as a subject to a finite verb phrase e.g) The cat is purring Clauses are the building blocks of sentences. There are two kinds of clauses: Main clause - can exist alone as a simple sentence e.g) The cat caught the mouse Subordinate clause - act purely to add extra information to a main clause e.g) even though it had just been fed The combination of these two clause types is called a complex sentence. Subordinate clauses can be elliptical (missing lexical items but ones that can be easily inferred).

Sentences

Sentences can be simple, compound, complex or compound-complex. Simple sentences have one main clause. e.g) 'The cat sat in the rain'. Complex sentences consist of a main clause and a subordinate clause. e.g) 'Because it was raining, the cat moved to sit inside.' Compound sentences consist of two or more main clauses joined by a conjunction.  e.g) 'It was raining, but the cat sat there.' Compound-complex sentences are a mixture of complex and compound sentence structures.  In conversation especially, fragments of sentences can be used such as 'What, me?'  These elliptical sentences often lack a verb phrase even though this is always implied ('What - do you mean me?') These are called minor sentences.

Ellipsis

Ellipsis is a way of making language more compact. It refers to the omission of words from available syntactic spaces within a sentence. Ellipsis occurs, for instance in minor sentences: e.g) '[You] Shut up!'e.g) 'He was going to come along, but he didn't [come along]'e.g) 'The car [that is] over there is parked badly.'e.g) 'There are six students [who are] absent from class today.'The omitted or 'ellipted' words are implied and understood. 

Active and Passive 'Voice'

When a sentence directly tells who is carrying out the action told of by the verb (i.e. the 'doer' of the action, properly known as the grammatical agent), the syntactic space for the subject is always just before the finite verb. e.g) The cat caught the mouse. This is said to be in the active voice. However, the sentence can be constructed so that the normal grammatical subject position is occupied by the grammatical object of the verb. e.g) The mouse was caught by the cat. This is said to be a passive voice construction.

Passive constructions are an important feature of written language and are common in news reporting. They are important because they allow the agency of a clause to be diminished or removed. e.g) 'Bombs dropped on capital.' As it is not clear who did the dropping, the agent of the action has been omitted. Passives can be used to reduce the sense of responsibility for an action. They are also used in reports where the same person does a number of tasks where the agency of the action is unimportant. e.g) '100ml of distilled water was added and raised to boiling point.'

Modification

Nouns and verbs are often insufficient to express the required meaning and need to be given extra qualities through a grammatical process called modification. Adjectives are used to add extra information to nouns. Adverbs add extra information to verbs and to other modifying words. e.g.) She acted very quickly Relative clauses add extra information by using 'that', 'which' or 'who' e.g.) The bus that left an hour ago was late Subordinate clauses add extra information to a main clause e.g.) The train is early, even though it was running ten minutes late. Prepositional phrases add extra information, often adverbially to tell about time, place and manner. e.g) 'I'll look in a minute'  'It's over there'  'He did it in an awkward way'  Pre-modification - words (usually adjectives) come before a noun to describe it. e.g) 'the pink, gently swaying flower' Post-modification - words coming after a noun to describe it e.g) 'The flower, which was pink, swayed gently.'

Verbs

There are three types of verbs - auxillary, main and modal. Main verbs are the action of the subject. Auxillary verbs provides additional information as to when it occurred and 'helps' the verb. e.g) The fish was lunged at by the cat. Modal verbs change the mode of writing; can, could, may, might, must, ought (to), shall, should, would, will Modal verbs create four different modes: Mode of possibility - may, might Mode of prescription - ought, should Mode of certainty - will, must shall, can Mode of condition - could, would Modal verbs can change a declarative sentence to an imperative. e.g) 'You can walk' is a declarative. 'You must walk' is an imperative.