Many grammar books and teaching course books resort to tables of the following kind to show the differences between what is called direct and reported speech and how the two are connected.

Direct Speech	Reported Speech
“I’m tired,” John said.	John said he was tired.
My mother said, “I’ll be late”.	My mother said she would be late.
He said, “I can’t ride a bike.”	He said he couldn’t ride a bike.

The most widely used verbs in reported speech that introduce what someone said are say and tell. Choosing which one to use is a question of whether the person who was originally addressed is important or not, since with say this person is very rarely introduced into the conversation. The verb tell, requires the person addressed to be explicit:

• They told me that he couldn’t come.
• The police officer told me to leave.
• He told me an interesting story.
• Maria told her what she did last week.
• The note told us where to wait.

There are, of course, many other reporting verbs that can be used to introduce what someone said or wrote. Some of these verbs do not convey anything of the attitude of the reporter towards what was said, while others do. Examples of the first kind are reply, answer, explain, mention, where the reporter is merely giving information.

Other verbs show the attitude and opinion of the speaker to the words that s/he is reporting; for example, insist, warn, threaten, promise, complain, claim, demand and so on.

• He was complaining that I hardly ever visit him anymore.
• They warned me to stay away.
• He insisted that I should give him a lift to the station.

The type of grammatical construction that follows reporting verbs depends on the verb itself. There is a choice from the six following basic types:

• question word + infinitive clause – He described how to get to his house.
• that + a clause (that may be optional) – They all denied (that) any one of them had stolen the money.
• infinitive clause – She asked me to leave the building.
• preposition + -ing clause – He insisted on seeing the evidence for himself.
• question word + a clause – Could you please explain howthe accident happened?
• -ing clause – A friend of mine recommended going to see this film.

You may already have noticed while reading the examples above that the words of the original text (spoken or written) usually have to be altered when they are being reported. Although there are no hard and fast rules for transforming the original text into reported speech, some broad general statements can be made to explain what happens to verb tenses in such cases. It needs to be stressed that these ‘rules’ are only guidelines and indicate some of the characteristic changes that native speakers might choose while relating a past incident. Below you will find some of the more common possible verb changes, with examples of each; however, the list is not exhaustive.

Original tense	Reported tense	Example
Simple Present	Simple Past	“We enjoy fishing” – They said they enjoyed fishing
Simple Past	Past Perfect	“He saw it” – She said he had seen it
Present Perfect	Past Perfect	“She’s gone” – You said she had gone
Present Continuous	Past Continuous	“I’m leaving” – You said you were leaving
Past Continuous	Past Perfect Continuous	“He was reading” – He said he had been reading
can	could	“I can sing” – She said she could sing
may	might	“We may stay” – They said they might stay
must	had to	“I must go” – He said he had to go
will	would	“I’ll buy them” – You said you would buy them

Of course, any verb that is already in one of the Past Perfect tenses cannot change any further, but there are several other modal auxiliaries that usually do not change either; these are: could, might, ought to, should and would.

“It might rain tomorrow.” – He said it might rain tomorrow (or today).

As you can see from the example above, the word tomorrow could be replaced by today. There are a limited number of words and phrases connected with time and place that may need to be changed in order for the reported message to make sense. Once more, these are not unbreakable rules, but a range of possibilities that need to be considered when dealing with reported speech. Some of these words and phrases are given in the lists below – you may be able to think of more.

Place
come	go
bring	take
this	that
these	those
here	there

Time
today	that day/then
tomorrow	the next/following day
yesterday	the day before
this week	that week
next month	the following month
now	then

When reporting someone’s words, we also need to think about the pronouns that have been used and whether it is necessary to change them. Until this point we have been discussing how we report someone’s speech, but this is a little misleading since we also frequently report our own and other people’s thoughts and very often the same rule-of-thumb guidelines that are given above need to be applied. Typically, first-person and second-person expressions are converted to third-prson; third-person expressions typically do not need to change the pronoun.

Pronouns in reported speech
I	he/she	He said, “I am late” – He said he was late.
you	he/she/they	“Will you help me?” – She asked if he would help her.
he/she/it	he/she/it	She said, “He hit me” – She said he had hit her.
we	they	I said, “We are lost” – He said they were lost.
they	they	They said, “We are hungry” – They said they were hungry.
us	them	John said, “She gave us presents” – John said she had given them presents.
our	their	He said, “Our jobs are at risk” – He said their jobs were at risk.
his/hers/its	his/hers/its	She said, “It’s hers” – She said that it was hers.

Note that in cases such as the last example above where the replacement of pronouns might lead to ambiguity, the sentence may need further adjustment. For example:

• She said, “She took my purse” – might become: Mary said that Janet had taken her purse.

The most common kind of conditional sentence that you are likely to meet will contain two clauses, one of which will start with the word if, as in If it rains, we’ll have to stay at home. The clause without the if is the main clause of the sentence, while the if clause is subordinate. The order of the two clauses is generally not that important to the meaning of the sentence; so we can switch the if clause to the end of the sentence if we want to.

Most grammar books tend to recognise four basic configurations of tenses in conditional sentences which vary in structure according to the time that we are talking about (past, present or future) and the meaning. These four types are normally referred to as the zero, first, second and third conditionals; we will look at the forms and meanings of each of these in turn and also examine some of the alternatives to these four basic types.

Zero-type conditionals

Form and meaning

The form of the zero conditional causes no problems since the present tenses are used in both clauses.

Zero-type conditionals
If clause	Main or conditional clause
If + Present tense	Present tense
If you heat water	it boils.

The zero conditional is normally used to talk about facts and to express general truths.

First-type conditionals

Form and meaning

The basic form for this type of conditional sentence can be seen in the chart below. As before, the order of the clauses can be changed with no change in meaning.

This type refers to future possibilities that are certain or probable.

First-type conditionals
If clause	Main or conditional clause
If + Present tense	Future tense
If they don’t arrive soonIf they are late	we’ll leave without them.I’m going to be angry.

You will note that on the if side of the sentence any present tense can be used, while in the main clause the speaker is free to choose any future that helps to express any additional meaning that the speaker wants to express.

If he’s sleeping, he won’t wake up until morning. (The Present Continuous in the first part of the sentence expresses the present temporary nature of the situation and the will in the second part is making a prediction about the future.)

Alan is going to post me the recipe, if he finds it. (In the first clause I am expressing Alan’s intention so going to is the best future to use, while the second clause contains a Simple Present tense.)

If he’s staying at the party, I’m leaving. (In the first clause I am thinking about the possible current state of affairs, so I choose the Present Continuous, while in the second I am referring to the future plan that I have in mind should he decide to stay, so again I choose the Present Continuous.)

If you have finished the essay, leave it on my desk. (By using the Present Perfect tense in the if clause I am stressing the completed nature of the action, while in the second clause I have used an imperative, which has a future meaning.)

Second-type conditionals

Form and meaning

This type is often called the hypothetical or ‘unreal’ future conditional since it is usually used to speculate about either very unlikely future situations or present and future impossibilities.

Second-type conditionals
If clause	Main or conditional clause
If + Past tense	would + verb
If I had timeIf I had wings	I would drop you off at school.I would fly.

Other examples are:

• If you were coming with us, you would have a great time. (Either I am not expecting you to come or you have already told me that you do not intend to come, so the situation is very unlikely to happen.)
• I’m sure my mother would help if you asked her. (I am unsure whether you are going to ask so I hedge my bets by using an ‘unreal’ conditional; if I had used I’m sure my mother will help instead, this gives the impression that I feel you are likely to ask.)
• If I were you, I’d call back later. (This is a fixed expression used for giving advice, but since I can never be you, I use the future hypothetical conditional; you should note that many people would say if I was you and this is becoming increasingly common.)

Third-type conditionals

Form and meaning

This type refers to hypothetical situations in the past. In this case we use the Past Perfect tenses in the if clause and would + have in the main clause.

Third-type conditionals
If clause	Main or conditional clause
If + Past Perfect tense	would have + past participle
If I had known about his conditionIf we had known about the storm	I would have phoned for you earlier.we wouldn’t have started our journey.

The main uses of the third conditional are for speculating about the past, expressing regrets, excusing our own actions and criticising others. Some of the uses tend to overlap in practice as the examples below demonstrate:

• If we’d taken the first turning, we would have been at home by now.
• If I’d bought the lottery ticket, we would have won millions.
• If I’d realised you were going to be so sensitive, I’d have kept quiet.
• The meeting would’ve finished before 1:00 if you’d said less.

There is one other major variation to the form given in the chart above; in place of the more usual

If I had known about his condition…

we can use

Had I known about his condition… where the if is omitted and the subject and auxiliary verb are inverted.

Mixed conditionals

The four types of conditional sentence discussed above appear to fit into very rigid patterns of form and meaning but we often find exceptions to these rules. In many cases we may want to talk about events that happened or did not happen in the past and the present results of those events. Therefore, we will often need to mix clauses from different conditional types in order to get our meaning across clearly and unambiguously. Taking one example from above, we might want to say:

If I’d bought the lottery ticket, we would be millionaires now.

In this sentence I want to refer to something that I did not do in the past (and probably regret) and the possible effect that this action might have had on the present – so I use a third-conditional if clause and a second-conditional main clause. Swapping around these two types we also get:

• If he was going to come, he would have arrived by now (with a second-conditional if clause and a third-conditional main).

This kind of mixing of conditional types is not uncommon.

The Complement can often be confused with the Object. While the Subject and Object of a clause, in the vast majority of cases, refer to different entities, the Complement gives more information about either the Subject or the Object. As with the Subject and Object elements, there is only one grouping or phrase which is considered to be the Complement of a clause.

The Subject Complement

Let’s begin by looking at some pairs of sentences where this information centres on the Subject.

• Bill hit Harry.
• Bill is a policeman.
• The camel carried the load.
• The camel smells awful.
• A car hit the lamp post.
• A car was what she wanted for her birthday.

So, in the preceding examples the first sentence of each pair contains an Object – Harry, the load, the lamp post. These are clearly not the same entities as the Subjects of the sentences. However, the same cannot be said for the second sentence of each pair where there is a strong connection between the Subjects and the phrases a policeman, awful and what she wanted for her birthday. These phrases act to identify the Subject more precisely. These are known as Complements; more specifically they are subject complements because they define the Subjects of the clauses, in this case Bill, the camel and a car.

In most sentences where the Complement defines the Subject, you will find a particular type of verb being used. The most usual is the verb be and its forms (e.g. am, are, was, have been) followed by a noun phrase or an adjective phrase, often as a single word. In the instances above, a policeman is a noun phrase and awful is an adjective phrase. Other examples are:

Noun phrase as Subject Complement:

• Love is a drug.
• This is her pen.
• He is the father of three.
• Time is the great healer.
• Those animals were very rare Siberian tigers.
• The Earth is 150 million kilometres from the Sun.

Adjective phrase as Subject Complement:

• The weather is hot.
• All the passengers were Russian.
• The little cottage was nice and cosy.
• Her teeth were pearly white.
• The argument became more heated.
• The weather gradually got hotter and hotter.

In all of these cases, the phrases after is, was and were define the Subject. You should notice that, although two of the Complements in the first set of examples contain adjectives (great, very rare Siberian), these are still treated as noun phrases because the main words in the groups are themselves nouns (healer, tigers).

Earlier I commented that a particular type of verb is often used in clauses with a subject Complement and that verb is usually be. However, there is a small number of other verbs either closely connected with be or to do with sensing that frequently occur in this type of clause. A short list with examples might include:

Be type: seem, appear, become, turn out, grow, remain

• The sky seems clearer today.
• He turned out to be a bad influence.
• His client became more and more angry.

Sense type: look, sound, feel, taste, smell (all followed by like with a noun)

• Her voice sounds lovely.
• That sounds like heaven.
• The tea tastes foul.

There is still one type of subject Complement that we haven’t looked at yet – this is the subordinate clause. The example from the original sentences is:

A car was what she wanted for her birthday.

Here a car is the Subject, the Verb is was and the Complement defining the Subject is what she wanted for her birthday, which is a clause since it has its own Subject (she) and Verb (wanted). Other examples of clauses used as subject Complements are:

• Justice is what we’re looking for.
• The first thing I did was open all the windows.
• The remaining problem is where to find the money.
• Our only option is to run away.

The Object Complement

In all the instances in the previous section the Complement gave additional information about the Subject of the clause. Additional information can similarly be given about the Object. Look at the examples below:

• Everyone thought him an idiot.
• The accusation made me livid.
• The whole town wanted the outlaw dead.
• The board has made him manager.
• I find it difficult to believe.

Here, the phrases in bold are giving extra information about the Objects of the clauses which are him, me, the outlaw, him, it. The object Complement usually follows the Object of the clause as in all the examples above and the choice of verb is not so restricted as it is with the subject Complement clauses.

Morphemes may be elements of a word which you have not met before. An example is probably the best way to introduce this concept. We will begin with the lexical item nation and develop the notion of morpheme from there.

• nation
• nation-al
• inter-nation-al
• inter-nation-al-ise
• inter-nation-al-is-ation

So, in the above example, nation, -al, inter-, -ise, and -ation are all morphemes. By adding small units of meaning to the base form, nation, we have created four new, but closely related, lexical items. You should note that these units of meaning are totally dependent on the base form and, therefore, cannot exist on their own. These fundamental units of meaning are morphemes. The examples above are called bound morphemes since they need to be added to an existing base; there are, however, many words which cannot be broken down into smaller elements and these are known as free morphemes. Instances of this are: table, lion, platform, some, horror, label.

A relative clause gives extra information about nouns – how exactly does it do this? Unlike an adjective, which in English comes before the noun, relative clauses always follow the noun that they are defining or describing. In the following examples, the whole relative clause is in bold:

• I enjoyed the concert that we went to last night.
• The book which I’m reading comes from the library.
• The people who you met at the party are all old friends of mine.
• He hadn’t met the man who I was talking about.

The first thing to notice from these examples is that the relative clause can come both at the end and in the middle of the sentence. The second point of interest is the type of word that can introduce a relative clause, in these instances, which, who and that – in this context these words are known as relative pronouns.

We can opt to use that where we might sometimes use which or who, as you can see from these sentences modified from the ones above:

• The book that I’m reading comes from the library.
• The people that you met at the party are all old friends of mine.
• He hadn’t met the man that I was talking about.

You may also have noticed that there is another relative clause construction that can be applied to all the above examples – the relative pronoun can be left out with no obvious change in meaning.

• I enjoyed the concert we went to last night.
• The book I’m reading comes from the library.
• The people you met at the party are all old friends of mine.
• He hadn’t met the man I was talking about.

But what about the following sentences?

• I can’t find my notebook that contains all my addresses.
• She has never met the lecturer who is leading today’s seminar.
• The tall man who was standing by the bar is my uncle.
• The newspaper which first reported the incident is being sued.

Again, the relative clause can occupy the same positions as before, but try to take out the relative pronoun this time and compare the results. You should find that they do not produce acceptable English sentences. Can you see why?

Subject and object relative clauses

The answer is that in the first set of four sentences the relative pronoun is the object of the relative clause, like this:

• I enjoyed the concert. We went to the concert last night.
• The book comes from the library. I’m reading the book.
• The people are all old friends of mine. You met the people at the party.
• He hadn’t met the man. I was talking about the man.

In each case the sentence which becomes the relative clause is shown second and adds extra information to the subject or the object of the first (main clause) sentence.

With this type of clause we can choose either to use the relative pronouns or to omit them. In fast colloquial speech, omission is the norm, whereas in written English we tend to leave them in.

In the second set of four sentences, however, the subject or the object of the main clause is the subject of the relative clause:

• I can’t find my notebook. My notebook contains all my addresses.
• She has never met the lecturer. The lecturer is leading today’s seminar.
• The tall man is my uncle. The tall man was standing by the bar.
• The newspaper is being sued. The newspaper first reported the incident.

In these cases we cannot leave out the relative pronoun and expect a fully coherent sentence to remain. However, as with object relative clauses we can use that instead of which or who.

• She has never met the lecturer that is leading today’s seminar.
• The tall man that was standing by the bar is my uncle.
• The newspaper that first reported the incident is being sued.

So, when you first see a relative clause it is a good idea to decide whether you are looking at subject relative clause or an object relative clause.

Reduced relative clauses

Although it is not possible to omit the relative pronoun in the subject relative clauses that we have just looked at, we can, if we want, omit an even larger piece of the relative clause and still retain a grammatically acceptable sentence. Using the examples from above, we can say:

• I can’t find my notebook containing all my addresses.
• She has never met the lecturer leading today’s seminar.
• The tall man standing by the bar is my uncle.
• The newspaper first reporting the incident is being sued.

This is usually referred to as a reduced relative clause and can only be applied to subject relative clauses not object relative clauses.

The most obvious feature of this type of reduced clause is that the relative pronoun is left out and the verb following the noun always ends in -ing. The second, but perhaps not quite so obvious feature is that the tense of the verb in the original relative clause is not taken into account. Note how the verb tenses varied in the original sentences:

• I can’t find my notebook that contains all my addresses. (Present Simple)
• She has never met the lecturer who is leading today’s seminar. (Present Continuous)
• The tall man who was standing by the bar is my uncle. (Past Continuous)

These -ing forms of the verb in a reduced relative clause are called non-finite verbs, that is, they are not marked in any way for tense. Here, the tense is carried only in the verb of the main clause.

So, to sum up so far, subject relative clauses cannot lose their relative pronoun, except when the whole relative clause is reduced to a non-finite -ing verb form. Object relative clauses can lose their relative pronoun, but cannot form reduced relative clauses.

Now consider the following set of sentences:

• The information given in the brochure is wrong.
• The criminal picked up at the airport was taken into police custody.
• We saw the new play written by Tom Stoppard at the Old Vic.
• The second piece played by the orchestra was very well received.

These are also examples of reduced subject relative clauses, but this time the word immediately following the noun which is being described is not an -ing type finite verb but a past participle; these are in bold.

The difference here is that those reduced relative verbs ending in -ing (looked at above) stand in for active verbs, while the past participles replace passive verbs and, as with the former type, they can replace almost any tense.

However, continuous tenses are usually replaced by being + past participle, so in the last sentence we might want to bring it into the here and now by saying: The second piece being played by the orchestra was especially commissioned. Among the possibilities for the full relative clauses for each of the above examples are:

• The information which is given in the brochure is wrong.v
• The criminal who was picked up at the airport was taken into police custody.
• We saw the new play that was written by Tom Stoppard at the Old Vic.
• The second piece which was played by the orchestra was very well received.

Defining and non-defining relative clauses

So far we have looked at subject and object relative clauses, and reduced active and passive subject relative clauses. There is one more relative clause pair that we need to consider – defining and non-defining relative clauses. Look at the following examples of each type – can you find the essential difference between them?

• My sister who lives in London is married to a lawyer.
• My sister, who lives in London, is married to a lawyer.

The difference in meaning is that in the first sentence I have more than one sister, whereas in the second I have only one. The relative clause in the first sentence is crucial to identifying which of my sisters I am talking about – the one in London, not the one in Manchester; this is called a defining relative clause because it singles out one thing of many. The second relative is not necessary for identifying my sister since I have only one, but is, rather, just a bit of extra information; this is called a non-defining relative clause.

In everyday life, it is fairly uncommon to use non-defining clauses if only because we are interested in giving news rather than repeating what is already known to our listener, so you are more likely to hear and see defining relative clauses. Non-defining relative clauses are generally confined to academic and similar types of text where the writer or speaker needs to demonstrate that s/he knows more information about the topic under discussion. For example:

• The koala, which is native to Australia, mainly eats eucalyptus leaves.
• Shakespeare, who was born in Stratford, moved to London.
• Relative clauses, which have been the topic of this section, cause many problems for people trying (who are trying) to learn English.
• Refuse collection, which takes place every Friday in this particular district, is paid for out of the local council tax.

In all four cases, the information inside the commas is only additional; the main clauses could stand on their own as perfectly grammatical, meaningful sentences in English.

Other relative pronouns

In addition to the relative pronouns which, who and that which we have already looked at, there are two others that we should mention: whose and where. First of all let’s see a few examples of sentences containing whose.

• Do you know the actor whose new show started on TV last night?
• Those of you whose names are called out should go to the front row.
• My mother, whose father was also a lawyer, married when she was 28.
• I heard that a house whose owner had been out of the country for more than a year was demolished by mistake.
• The treaty, whose signatories include all the major industrialised nations, was fully ratified last night.

It should be clear from these examples that whose is used to talk about possession in relative clauses. This possession is not restricted to just animate beings, but covers inanimate objects as well (the last two sentences). You can also see that whose is used in both defining and non-defining clauses – the third and sixth sentences are examples of non-defining clauses.

In relative clauses where is used place of in/at/on which, so:

• This is the house where I was born.
• This is the house in which I was born. (more formal)
• The envelope where the number was written has been mislaid.
• The envelope on which the number was written has been mislaid. (formal)
• I’ll never forget the concert where we first met each other.
• I’ll never forget the concert at which we first met. (formal)

When talking about places, it is quite easy to confuse this use of where with which, but you need to remember that where replaces a prepositional phrase usually containing in, at or on. Look at the next two sentences as an illustration of this:

• London, which has been the capital of England for many centuries, is the largest city in the UK. (London as a thing.)
• London, where I was born, is the largest city in the UK. (London as a place in which something happened.)

Look at the sentences below.

• When I heard the disturbance, I dropped the files that I had been examining, then ran out into the corridor.
• I let the door slip from my fingers and it closed behind me.

In the first sentence it appears that there are as many as four separate segments which look like partial sentences connected to each other in different ways:

• When I heard the disturbance,
• I dropped the files
• that I had been examining,
• then ran out into the corridor.

In the second sentence there are two segments:

• I let the door slip from my fingers
• and it closed behind me.

We can call these segments clauses. Many sentences are short – they contain only one segment or clause. These single-clause units are called simple sentences. Examples of simple sentences might include:

• She has already read this book.
• The policeman asked me for some identification.
• The postman didn’t arrive.
• No one knew the way.
• Why did he do it?
• Where did you last see your father?
• How much does this cost?
• Have you put the cat out?
• Will Bill be staying?
• Did they finish painting the house?

As you can see, it is not possible to divide any of these up into smaller segments that look like sentences. However, many sentences, both in the spoken and the written language, are often longer and more complicated than this simple type; such sentences are called multiple sentences. Sentence 2 (above) is an instance of a sentence which can be broken down into smaller segments or clauses.

Main clauses

Look at the three multiple sentences below:

• Harry put the phone down and he stood up.
• I gave him my address, but he didn’t contact me.
• We could go to the cinema or we could stay at home.

The sentences can be divided into clauses as follows, and the main clauses are in bold.

• Harry put the phone down
• (and) he stood up.

• I gave him my address,
• (but) he didn’t contact me.

• We could go to the cinema
• (or) we could stay at home.

In all three sentences each of the main clauses (those without the connecting words and, but and or) can stand on its own as an acceptable sentence – they all act as complete sense units in their own right. Clauses which can stand on their own in this way and have equal importance are referred to as main clauses; this will, of course, also include simple sentences, which contain only one clause. Sentences which are constructed using the linking words and, but, or and the few words which can be used in the same way, like also, too, yet, are called compound sentences. These linking words for compound sentences are known as coordinators since they serve to connect main clauses on an equal footing.

Subordinate clauses

The construction of compound sentences is essentially quite straightforward since we only have to take two or more simple sentences and insert a basic coordinatingword like and, but and or. There are, however many more ways in which clauses can be connected to each other to form longer sentences. The following are just a few examples of how clauses can be conjoined. The main clauses are in bold.

• After he left work, he headed straight for the hotel.
• We’re going to have to take the train because the car’s broken down.
• If you heat water, it boils.
• Although she’s the best in the class, she did badly in the exams.
• While I’m out, could you tidy up a bit?

If you examine the sentences carefully, you will notice that only one of the clauses in each sentence can stand alone as a complete idea; these are shown in bold. The remaining clause in each sentence feels unfinished when used on its own. For example a native speaker would find the sense of ‘although she’s the best in the class‘ to be incomplete without a second clause expressing an unexpected contrast, in this case ‘she did badly in the exams‘. The clause which can stand alone is called a main clause, while the clause which depends on the main clause is said to be subordinate.

The range of linking words used with subordinate clauses is much wider than with the linkers in compound sentences. A short list would include:

• Time : after, before, as soon as, while, when, as
• Cause : because, since, as,
• Condition : if, provided that, as long as, unless
• Concession : although, though, even though
• Relative : which, who, that, where, whose

These different types of sentence structure will be examined in more detail in other sections of this guide. Sentences which are made up of clauses joined in this way are known as complex sentences. Here is an example:

• When I heard the disturbance,
• I dropped the files
• that I had been examining,
• then ran out into the corridor.

The main clause here is b since this can be used on its own as a complete sense unit.

Note that every sentence needs a subject telling us who or what is doing the action. In these sentences the subject is in bold:

• The man was clearly in pain.
• The child was sitting beside the door of my old car.
• The old olive tree was still producing wonderful olives.
• The man wearing the old red hat was walking slowly down the road.

One feature of the levels of sentence and clause is that they both need to include a person(s) or thing(s) carrying out some sort of action. The word denoting the action in a sentence or clause is called a verb, while the person or thing performing the action is typically a noun acting as the subject. The presence of this structure subject + verb, indicates that the collection of words is either a sentence or a clause; without this structure, a string of words is referred to as a phrase.

A phrase can consist of just one word, but usually it will contain more than one. Examples include:

• the unseen intruder
• the files that I had been examining
• the chance to clear my name
• couldn’t believe
• had lost
• Quite carelessly
• about midnight
• from my fingers
• Because of this one stupid mistake

The most important point about phrases is that they do not include verbs that can change according to the time reference and in many cases they do not have a subject either. Unlike clauses, they can never stand alone as sentences.

Phrases are often classified into four basic types, taking their names from what is considered to be the class of themost important word in the phrase. There are seven word classes; these are:

• the verb
• the noun
• the adverb
• the preposition
• the adjective
• the pronoun
• the conjunction

The respective phrase types are named, unsurprisingly, the verb phrase, noun phrase, adverb phrase and prepositional phrase. The adjectival phrase and pronoun phrase are of minor interest to us here since the former usually comprises short, simple phrases like, very sad, old enough, too sudden, while the latter are used in only a small number of expressions like, they all, almost no one, I myself etc. The conjunction (words like and, but, so) is a special case in that it does not form a phrase, but helps to connect clauses into larger structures.

The class of the most important word in any phrase will decide what type of phrase it is. This important word is often referred to as the head of the phrase. In the following examples, the head word is given in bold:

• the unseen intruder
• the files that I had been examining
• the chance to clear my name
• couldn’t believe
• had lost
• Quite carelessly
• about midnight
• in the blue suit
• off the table

• The first three extracts have a noun as their head word; they are all, therefore, noun phrases (from this point on I will refer to them as NP).
• In d and e the head word is a verb (believe and lost), so they are verb phrases (VP).
• Extract f is an adverb phrase (AP) with two adverbs – the second is the main adverb, while quite qualifies it.
• The last three are all prepositional phrases (PP) as they start with prepositions.

The verb

A group of words cannot be described as a sentence or a clause unless at least one of the words is a verb. In some ways, we can describe it as the most important part of speech because it is the ‘action’ word that tells the listener or reader what is happening in the sentence. Verbs can be ‘action’ words like run, initiate, judge, throw, but they can also denote less active notions and have more to do with mental processes and perceptions, like see, know, think and so on.

The noun

A noun is a word which is used to denote a person (traffic warden, woman, Prime Minister, pianist etc.), a concrete or abstract entity (binoculars, fork, field, truth, incoherence etc.) or a place (office, garden, railway station). These are all common nouns; there are also proper nouns which are the names of a specific person, place, event etc., usually starting with a capital letter, for example, York , John, Christmas, Saturday.

A noun can be extended to a noun phrase. In the example phrases given below, the noun (in the first example) and the noun phrase (in the remaining examples) is in bold. Note how much the noun phrase can be extended by adding extra information each time.

Dogs can be vicious

Some dogs can be vicious

Some of the dogs can be vicious

Some of the bigger dogs can be vicious

Some of the bigger dogs in the dog pound can be vicious

The adverb

The traditional approach to adverbs has been to assign mainly those words which are made from adjectives by the addition of the ending –ly (quickly, hopelessly), plus certain other words which are difficult to classify, like not, just and soon. Their main function is to qualify the action of the verb in the clause in some way, but they can also be used to add more information to an adjective or other adverb e.g. awfully good, incredibly slowly. The class of adverbs is very wide-ranging in form and is used to add comments to many of the other word classes.

The preposition

Prepositions allow us to talk about the way in which two parts of a sentence are related to each other. They include words like in, on, under, beside, through, inside, before, opposite. More often than not, these relationships are to do with either time or space, but other types of relationship, such as possession, cause and effect and method can be expressed by using prepositions. The words themselves are generally short and simple but some prepositions are multi-word units; for example, out of, by means of, in spite of, instead of, up to etc. Unless they are part of a verb (get in, pick up, switch off), prepositions are always followed by a phrase containing a noun – at school, in the summer, over the moon and so on.

The adjective

An adjective gives the reader or speaker extra information about a noun or delimits it in some way. It can occur in two positions in a phrase:

• before the noun as in clear water, beautiful beaches, a terrible decision. The adjectives in these examples are said to be attributive,
• following any form of the verb be (e.g. am, is, was, been) and similar verbs (seem, appear, become) as in the water became clear, the beaches are beautiful. These adjectives are in predicative position.

The pronoun

Pronouns are usually treated as a special sub-class of nouns. This is because they stand in for a noun or group of nouns. They are limited in number and belong to what is called a closed set, that is, a group of words to which new members are, for practical purposes, not allowed. Some examples of pronouns are: I, you, he, she, our, its, something, anyone and so on. Thus, instead of saying, Bill’s arrived. Bill’s in the lounge, we prefer Bill’s arrived. He’s in the lounge. Or a person called for you; better would be someone called for you. There are several other words which fall into this class; for example (the) one(s), when used to replace dishes in the example: pass me the dishes – the ones on the top shelf.

The conjunction

It would be very unusual for anyone to either speak or write completely in simple sentences; instead we tend to use a mixture of simple, compound and complex sentences. One way to create longer, more complicated sentences is to use conjunctions. As we have already noted in the section on types of clause, conjunctions serve to connect two or more clauses, phrases or words together to make longer constructions. In the following examples, the conjunction is in bold:

• The coffee was strong, but sweet.
• We can go to the match or watch it on TV.
• She has a dog and two cats.
• When I arrived home, they had already eaten.
• I had to stop driving because the rain was so bad.
• Can I have a word with you, if you’ve got the time?
• Although he can’t swim, he goes sailing.

There are two types of conjunction. The first is the coordinating conjunction; examples of this can be seen in sentences a to c above. This type is always used to connect elements that share the same grammatical status, that is, main clause to main clause, verb to verb, noun to noun, adjective to adjective and so on. In sentence a two adjectives, strong and sweet, are conjoined, in b two verbs, go and watch and c two nouns, dog and cats.

The second type is the subordinating conjunction, which most often joins two or more unequal clauses to one another. Typically a main clause will be connected to a subordinate clause as we saw in the section on clause types. So in sentences d to g above, the subordinate clause (which you will remember cannot stand on its own, but needs another more important clause to complete the meaning) begins with a conjunction, here when, because, if and although.

Word class membership

Although the description above may give the impression that any one word within a single meaning belongs exclusively to one word class, you should note that this is not the case. Study the words in bold in the following examples:

• I couldn’t give her an immediate answer .
• I was surprised when he answered my letter.
• Do not write on the front of the answer sheet.

• In the first sentence, answer is being used as a noun – note the attributive adjective immediate and the word an, both indicative of a following noun.
• In the second, answer is a verb – the subject he and the ending –ed­ show this.
• While in the third, answer tells you what kind of sheet is being talked about and is, therefore, an adjective.

This flexibility in word class membership is a peculiar feature of English among the European languages, many of which would require different endings to show the class of the word.

What is a word?

What precisely is a word? At first glance you may find it easy to find many examples of what would unambiguously constitute a ‘word’, for instance: you, the, those, some, hers, them, luck, irritation, large, conspicuously, hide, chemical, preference, of, at, from and similar examples.

Are these English words?

• dilly-dally
• rose-tinted
• eavesdropper
• glockenspiel
• splendiferous
• supacalifragilisticexpialidocious

If I were to say The girl over there is frakusiling with the gambanger could you replace any words you don’t know there with other words of a similar type? Does that make the words you replaced words?

Are all the words in this sentence acceptable? Applying a stochastic production frontier to sector-level data, this paper examines the extent to which industrial countries’ R&D contributes to East Asian economies’ TFP growth.

What about this one? Hence, our analysis addresses foreign technology spillovers as sources of TP in an endogenous framework in addition to autonomous enhancement captured by the time trend as formulated by neoclassical theory.

Once we start to think about words seriously, things don’t look so clear!

Let’s think for a moment about how words are put together. There are two major ways:

1. Inflection

As soon as a new word comes into current use, it invariably takes over a whole range of other forms.

• microbe microbes
• house houses
• large larger largest
• fit fitter fittest
• (to) progress progresses progressed progressing
• qualify qualifies qualified qualifying

2. Word formation

Words can be joined in a number of different ways.

• foot + ball = football
• fox + trot = foxtrot
• ham + burger = hamburger
• dress + maker = dressmaker
• house + husband = house-husband
• hyper + inflation = hyper-inflation
• in + flexible = inflexible

The last example uses the word in to mean the opposite of the main noun. This is a very common way to produce a meaning that is the opposite of the base noun.

• in + excusable = inexcusable
• in + vertebrate = invertebrate
• in + experienced = inexperienced

There are a very large range of these additions. When they are at the front of a word, they are called prefixes. When they are at the end of a word, they are called suffixes. Here are some examples of prefixes:

• defrost, defuse, deskill
• disapprove, disappear, dislike
• downsize, downturn, downtrodden
• endanger, enslave, enrich
• extraordinary, extra-curricular, extravagant
• handbag, handkerchief, hand-held
• improbable, impenetrable, imperfection
• illegitimate, illegible, illiterate
• lowlife, low-grade, low-level
• midnight , mid-term, mid-life
• misunderstood, misjudge, misplace
• newsworthy, newspaper, newsagent
• off-shoot, off-hand, off-colour
• outside, outrun, outclass
• post-war, post-haste, posthumous
• reply, recover, re-site
• unfair, unkind, unhealthy
• There are just as many suffixes, if not more! Here are some of them:
• American, Mexican, Tanzanian
• alcoholic, workaholic, chocoholic,
• freedom, stardom, kingdom
• audible, flexible, visible
• breakdown, splashdown, comedown
• carefree, interest-free, rent-free
• clearly, sweetly, smoothly
• fattish, lightish, boyish
• hostess, authoress, stewardess (note: these are less common today)
• largest, smallest, fattest
• manhood, priesthood, brotherhood
• management, employment, development
• muddle-headed, cool-headed, curly-headed
• pregnancy, fluency, clemency
• readable, dependable, portable
• snowbound, outward-bound, housebound
• started, ended, tumbled
• tradecraft, witchcraft, stagecraft
• trainee, trustee, employee
• Watergate, Irangate, Blairgate (Note: a fairly new addition to the language)
• weakness, lightness, kindness

How many other prefixes and suffixes can you think of?

But we not only add prefixes and suffixes, we also take things away. Think about the original words:

• auto
• bus
• demo
• fridge
• lab
• phone
• piano
• pram
• TV

Just for good luck, we also make names into everyday words ( Hoover ), we borrow from other languages (bungalow from Hindi) we join things together because they sound neat (easy-peasy) and if we can’t do anything else, we just sit down and make up a new word (Internet).

Putting words together

Now that we have the more useful notion of what a word is, we can move on to consider in what ways words occur together to create longer stretches of language. One common view of language is that, as a text develops, at any point the speaker or writer is free to select whatever lexical item he or she desires, provided that the item conforms to the grammar rules of English. This has been called the ‘open choice principle’, where, following a grammatical unit – a clause, phrase or ‘word’ – a wide range of options is available to the speaker/writer. However, this cannot be true for English. In fact, many words attract options from a very limited list. This tendency for certain lexical items to appear together (co-occur) is called collocation and the lexical items themselves are called collocates.

One example which attracts a very restricted choice of noun would be lukewarm, which will only co-occur with words for liquids (water, beer) and, strangely enough, reception. It would be very unusual to find any other words or word-types occurring with it. The collocates for lukewarm are narrow. Even more restricted is the word unedifying, which will automatically attract only one noun, spectacle; this has become an almost fixed expression and we would be surprised to hear it followed by anything else. Many commonly used phrases are constructed in a very similar way, so that the moment of … should automatically trigger truth as a response.

This idea can be extended further to include not just single lexical items, but also lexical items of a particular range or type. For example, the verb cause has a very strong tendency to co-occur with unpleasant events like mayhem, heartbreak, damage, havoc, but not with nicer feelings. Try using notions like happiness and goodwill after cause and see what the effect is.

One method of recording collocations is through a semantic grid. Look at the semantic grid below and put a cross in the boxes where you feel the lexical items are compatible. A few have already been done as examples.

	man	woman	view	village	face	walk	scene
handsome	X				X
beautiful		X
nice
regal
distinguished
ugly
pretty