Key Concepts

While English grammar is complex, much of it can be boiled down to a number of key concepts.

Introduction

We're going to tackle some tricky things later in this guide, but all of them are connected to a handful of key concepts that are explained here.

In this section of the guide, we learn about the different parts of speech that individual words can belong to. We also learn about the ways that parts of speech can combine to form sentences.

Parts of Speech

Communication using the English language relies upon the exchange of words. Individually, each of these words carry meaning, but it is when they are combined to form sentences that complex communication is achieved. 

Words are categorised into parts of speech, each of which perform a specific role within a sentence. 

Let's introduce each part of speech, beginning with nouns.

Nouns

Nouns refer to people, places and things. We can think of them as the foundations around which sentences are formed.

Pronouns

To avoid having to constantly refer to the same nouns in our sentences we can choose to substitute them with pronouns. These pronouns are like shortcuts that prevent our sentences from becoming too repetitive.

Verbs

Verbs provide energy to sentences. They express actions or states of being, although we must make sure to express them in the right way depending on the number of people involved and the time period we are referring to. 

Adjectives

Adjectives are describing words. We can use them to add qualities to nouns, and to compare different nouns with one another.

Adverbs

While adjectives are used to describe nouns, adverbs describe verbs, adjectives and other adverbs. However, too many adverbs should be avoided as they can water down sentences if not used carefully. 

Prepositions

Prepositions indicate relationships between words. We can use them to specify things like orientation and direction.

Conjunctions

Conjunctions allow us to connect ideas within sentences so that we can express more complex thoughts. 

Articles

Articles are used to introduce nouns. Their usage depends on how familiar the reader is with the noun being referred to.

Sentences

Parts of speech combine to form sentences. Regardless of their size and complexity, there are a number of rules which govern how these sentences are constructed. 

A sentence must contain at least one noun and one verb. This noun is known as the subject of the sentence. If there is another person or thing that is affected by the subject's actions, this is known as the object.

Most sentences in English follow the SVO order (subject + verb + object).

Clauses

To express more complex thoughts, sentences can contain multiple clauses.

There are two types of clauses: independent clauses and dependent clauses.

Independent clauses

An independent clause contains a subject and a verb that express a complete thought. Thus, an independent clause can be a sentence by itself, although it doesn't have to.

Consider the following example of a sentence that consists of a single independent clause. 

Dependent Clauses

A dependent clause contains a subject and a verb, but cannot form a sentence by itself. This is because the clause depends on something else to form a complete thought.

Consider the following example of a dependent clause.

In this example, the presence of the word While means this clause cannot exist independently. (Try saying the sentence out loud to confirm this if you're not sure.)

However, we can connect this dependent clause to something else so that it does express a complete thought.

This sentence has a dependent clause connected to an independent clause. If we read it out loud, we can see that it expresses a complete thought and is thus grammatically complete. 

Conclusion

The rules governing the ways that different parts of speech combine to form sentences are complex, but important. 

Next, let's examine the different parts of speech in more detail. 

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Nouns