Irregularities in English word order

Even though the English language has a fixed word order, there are some exceptions. In addition to normal clause patterns, there are variations depending upon a range of semantic, pragmatic and textual factors. The grammar of English allows a set of options for reordering information in the message in order to achieve communicative dynamism. Untypical word order serves to give a special emphasis on particular elements.

Conditional clauses, subject and operator inversion, non-finite conditional clause

Conditional sentences can be introduced by IF, UNLESS, GIVEN THAT, ON CONDITION THAT, PROVIDING THAT, PROVIDED THAT, SUPPOSING THAT, ASSUMING THAT.

 Open (real) conditional sentences are based on some fact in real time and express a possible condition and its possible result.

Hypothetical (unreal) conditional sentences are not based on fact since they express a situation which is contrary to reality. This unreality is shown by a tense shift to the past.

Clauses of similarity, comparison, proportion, preference. Comment Clauses. Clauses of contrast and exception

Clauses of similarity are introduced by conjunctions (exactly) as, (just) as

Please do it (exactly) as I said/ instructed. (in the way that...)

If an as-clause is placed initially, the correlative form so, in formal literary English, may introduce the main clause.

Adverbial clauses

Adverbial clauses are dependent clauses that use as an adverb within a sentence to indicate time, place, condition, contrast, concession, reason, purpose or result. They can occur in an initial or final position.

Relative clauses, coordination and apposition

Relative clauses give more information about something we have just mentioned in a sentence. They are subordinate clauses, defining the noun phrase and introduced by a special class of pronouns called relative pronouns (who, whom, whose, whoever, whosoever, whomever, which, what, whatever, and that).

To-Infinitive clauses, ING clauses, bare infinitive clauses, verbless clauses, direct object and clause

Nominal clauses

Complement (nominal) clauses complete the superordinate clause. They can be finite or non-finite and are controlled by a preceding verb, adjective, noun, or preposition. They are also called nominal clauses because their syntactic roles are comparable to those of a noun phrase. Thus they are used as subject, predicative or object in the main clause. Non-finite clause with a non-finite verb phrase do not show tense and cannot occur with modal auxiliaries. Non-finite are clauses of TO infinitive, bare infinitive, participle –ing/-ed.

Coordination and subordination, syntactic functions of subordinate clauses and their functional classes, finite, non-finite, and verbless clauses

Coordination (parataxis)

Coordinative clause = two or more clauses of equal value that make up a sentence. A co-ordinate clause does not function as a subject, object, complement or adverbial in another clause. Coordinate clauses are connected by coordinators (coordinating junctions).

Sequence of tenses, pro-forms and ellipsis

In English, the relation between the introductory clause and the subordinate clause is decisive for the time relation. Unlike in Czech where the introductory clause is irrelevant to indicate time relation. Especially conditional sentences and reported speech require a specific sequence of tenses.

Direct and indirect speech

Direct speech is noted directly in the words used by the original speaker without any changes of tense or pronouns. Quotations marks are used to signal direct speech.

She looked at me and said: "This is my family." OR "This is my family," she said, looking at me.

Clause elements concord

Verb forms change according to whether the subject is singular or plural or whether the subject is the first, second or third person. Pronouns reflect the gender of a subject. This agreement is called concord.

Broad modality, questions, commands and exclamations

Broad modality or intentional modality reflects the intention of the speaker to:

·         to simply convey information – declarative sentence (Mary is registered as your student.)

·         to require information – interrogative sentence (Is Mary registered as your student?)

Statement tags,short answers, clause negation and partial negation

Statement tags

Statement tags function to emphasise what had been already said.

Noun phrase referring back to an earlier pronoun (He helped us a lot, young Mick did. They use some confusing terms, these grammarians.)

Passive voice transformation

Voice is a grammatical category of verbs being active or passive. Voice gives information about the roles of different participants (agents or recipients) in an event. In order to form a passive verb phrase, there is added the auxiliary BE in the same tense as the sentence should have followed by past participle of the active verb. Transformation from active to passive voice has the following results: the active subject becomes the passive agent, the active object becomes the passive subject, the preposition ‘by’ is inserted before the agent (optional and commonly omitted).

Word order in statements

Word order deals with the elements of the clause (S, P, O, C, A) and how they are arranged within the sentence. It is also important how information is arranged within the clause. Theme gives the information who or what is the topic of the sentence, positioned at the beginning, while rheme follows theme and is the main part of the message that gives information about the topic. Jane (theme) is my daughter (rheme).

Verb phrase, type of clause and verb classes

Verb phrase (VP) is a structure composed of the predicative elements of a sentence and its function is to provide information about the subject of the sentence. A verb phrase contains of verbs which can be lexical, auxiliary or modal. The head is the first verb in the verb phrase. The verb in a verb phrase may be either transitive, intransitive and Verb phrase parts can be often split (What is he doing?).

Nouns phrase, determinatives and modifiers

Noun Phrase (NP) = a word or a group of words functioning in a sentence exactly like a noun, with a noun or pronoun as a HEAD. A good way to recognise a NP is to ask: Have you heard about...? NP can be a noun or a pronoun alone but it is frequently accompanied by modifiers.

Sentence and clause elements

Sentence is a basic building block of written language, marked by a capital letter at the beginning and a full-stop at the end. In speech, the term utterance is used. because it is difficult to define sentences in spoken language.

Prepositions, conjunctions and interjections

Prepositions

Prepositions are words used with nouns, noun phrases(I gave the book to Charlie.), pronouns (I gave it to him.) and gerunds (Charlie devotes his time to reading.)  to express a relationship between one person, thing, event and another.

Numerals

Numerals are usually used like determiners with a following noun but they can also occur as heads of noun phrases (Four of them were arrested.). In linguistics, numbers can be classified according to their use.

Adverb

Adverb is one of the four lexical word classes, very common in all registers, but less common than nouns and verbs. Its naming suggests the idea of adding to the meaning of a verb. There are two types of syntactic function that characterize adverbs: