Subject-Auxiliary Inversion, also called Subject-Aux inversion, or simply SAI, is one of the types of movements in English grammar. In an ordinary sentence, the subject comes before the predicate VP, and inside that predicate, the Aux (if there is any) comes before the V. But there are situations where the Aux jumps out of the VP and comes before the subject of the sentence. Subject-Aux inversion is when the auxiliary verb comes before the subject. That is when the movement happens (Huddleston & Pullum 68).

The second kind of movement this chapter will cover occurs with the other major category of questions in English, i.e., content questions. Unlike yes-no questions, this kind of question requests a more detailed answer, and begins with one of the classic ‘question words’–most of which begin with WH. These are who, whose, what, which, where, why, when, and (the odd one out, in terms of spelling) how. We can analyze WH-questions in the same way as yes-no questions, by recourse to deep structure.

A non-restrictive relative clause (sometimes called an appositive relative clause) is the opposite of a restrictive clause. This is information that could be left out of a sentence without affecting its meaning (Lexico 1). It is your choice to add the extra information or not.

In (4), if the subordinate clause [I should have checked my bank account] were removed, it could stand as a sentence on its own. In (5), that’s almost the case, but the subordinator that makes it unacceptable as a sentence. In (6), [my car running reliably] would not be able to work independently. However, all of these are subordinate clauses–for that reason, we’ll drop the terms dependent and independent, and we’ll discuss the differences between (4-5) on the one hand and (6) on the other as the difference between finite (‘tensed’) and non-finite (‘untensed’) clauses later in this chapter.

Like prepositional phrases, adjective phrases generally occur as modifiers to noun phrases, but in contrast to prepositional phrases, which follow the head noun they modify, adjective phrases precede the head noun.

All of these differences indicate that up in in (3) behaves like a typical preposition, but in sentence (2) it does not. Words that function in this unusual way are called . A particle forms a one-word phrase that can, but doesn’t have to, appear between the verb and the direct object. Historically, most particles derive from prepositions, but their behavior is so different from ordinary prepositions that we will classify them separately. Particles usually combine with the verb to produce a specific idiomatic meaning that is different from a verb and a prepositional phrase.

If we’re going to call these determiners too, then we are saying that entire phrases can be described as a word category, making a mess of our descriptive system. The solution to this puzzle is to recognize that the contrast between (7) and (7a) is one of two different forms, a determiner on the one hand and a genitive noun on the other, that share a common function. We will call this function the determinative.[1] In its most basic semantic role, a determinative indicates the definiteness of a noun phrase. That is, it tells us whether the NP has a specific referent or not.

The distinction between proper and common nouns is probably familiar to you from your earlier education. Fred and Netherlands are instances of proper nouns. A proper noun is a type of noun that refers to a specific person, place, or thing (Evelyn, Cairo, Saturday, etc.) Common nouns refer to classes of things (cat, trash, stone, etc.) rather than particular ones. All nouns that are not proper are common.

Many grammar books label these prepositional phrases indirect objects, but technically they are not. The prepositional phrases here play the same semantic role as the equivalent indirect objects, a role known as the recipient, but remember that semantic roles differ from grammatical roles. Recipient is a semantic role, indirect object is a grammatical role.[1] A verb can only be VD if it is followed by two noun phrases. If it is followed by only one NP, it is an ordinary monotransitive (VT) verb.

If a sentence can be made passive, it is transitive. Be aware, however, that a small subgroup of transitive verbs (e.g., cost, resemble), do not have a passive equivalent. So if you cannot make a sentence passive, the verb may not be a transitive verb, but you need to check more closely.

Subject and predicate are both grammatical functions. The predicate is realized by a verb phrase, and in the most common case, the subject is realized by a noun phrase. Notice that in the diagram above, we indicate both the grammatical form (the phrase type) and the function. The two are separated by a colon. Thus our notation follows the pattern form: function.

These units are constituents in the sentence. A constituent is any word or group of words that functions together as an entity. Most rules of syntax do not, in fact, apply to individual words but to larger constituents. There is no limit, in principle, to the size of a constituent. It may be one or two words, or it may be hundreds of words long.

Taken together, all these observations lead to a surprising conclusion: English does not have a future tense. English tenses are expressed by inflections on the verb. That means that English has only two tenses: present and past. Will is an auxiliary and part of a different verbal system, that of mood. Will does have a tense, but as examples 10a-d show, it is a present-tense verb.

The verb has in this sentence is a member of a subset of verbs called auxiliary verbs.[1] The purpose of this chapter is to 1) examine the different forms main and auxiliary verbs appear in, i.e. the verb paradigm, explore the auxiliary constructions main and auxiliary verbs appear in, and particularly how these relate to the concept of tense, and how tense and time are distinct concepts.

One distinction that is sometimes made is between lexical categories and functional categories. Lexical categories contain the content words–nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs. These are the words that carry the primary meaning of the sentence. Words that belong to functional categories–determiners, auxiliaries, prepositions, coordinators, and subordinators, for our purposes–carry little specific meaning of their own. Their main purpose is to serve as the glue to hold the content words together. Such words belong to functional categories.

Nouns often do label objects in the real world (car, tree, apple, etc.) and verbs most commonly express action (run, play, eat, etc.).

Indeed, language is often said to be a combinatorial system, where a small number of basic building blocks combine and recombine in different patterns. A small number of blocks can account for a very large variety indeed. DNA, another combinatorial system, uses only four basic blocks, and combinations of these four blocks give rise to all the biological diversity we see on earth today. With language, different combinations of a small number of sounds yield hundreds of thousands of words, and different combinations of those words yield an essentially infinite number of utterances.

In some languages, there are only simple words and straightforward compounds, and therefore very little morphology—most of the grammatical complexity is syntactic in these languages. Languages like these are referred to as having an isolating morphology.

Although a lucky few can absorb new languages easily, most people require laborious study to learn a new language after childhood. Many immigrants, for example, live in their new country for years and never completely master the local language, even after making sustained efforts to study it.

By the end, you should, in principle, be able to analyze–break into components–most English sentences, not just the artificially constructed examples of grammar books. Just as importantly, you should have developed the skills to analyze other people’s assertions about grammar critically.