grammar

To understand each other, we must express our thoughts correctly, with words and sentences. However, a sentence must follow some rules. Otherwise, it will not make sense or it will be difficult to understand.

For example, if I want to say: This is a book, it will not have the same meaning if I combine words differently, i.e., Book a is this. The second sentence doesn't make any sense.

Grammar is how we combine words so that other people can understand us. 

In this lesson, we are going to learn the following: 

• What is grammar
• Types of grammar
• What does the grammar include

And we will discuss, in general, punctuation marks, capital letters, sentence structure, and parts of speech as parts of grammar.

 

What is grammar?

Grammar is the set of structural rules governing the composition of clauses, phrases, and words in a natural language. Or grammar is the study of the way words are used to make sentences, their inflections, and their functions and relations in the sentence.

There are two main types of grammar:

• The first type refers to the structure of a language used by speakers and writers. It's called Descriptive grammar.
• The other type refers to the structure of a language as certain people think it should be used. It's called Prescriptive grammar.

Both grammar types are concerned with rules, but not in the same way. 

What does grammar include?

Grammar is the system of a language which sometimes is described as the "rules" of a language. Essential parts of grammar are parts of speech and sentence structure. Other grammar rules go for punctuation marks and the use of capital letters. Let's discuss them now separately. 

Parts of speech

To form sentences, we use words. Words are divided into various categories. A category of words that have similar grammatical properties is called part of speech. The classification below, or with slight differences, is present in most languages. 

Naming words

The naming words are called nouns. A noun is a word that identifies a person (captain, teacher, Anna), place (park, school, Europe), animal (cat, dog, bird), or thing (glass, chair, window). Nouns can be classified into five broad categories: Proper nouns, Common nouns, Collective nouns, Concrete nouns, and Abstract nouns.

• Proper nouns: Europe, Anna, Sam.
• Common nouns: tree, restaurant, toy, drink, city, shoe
• Collective nouns: government, jury, federation, crew, staff, crowd,
• Concrete nouns: lemon, ball, book, cat, dog, water
• Abstract nouns childhood, love, idea, freedom, ability, speed, coldness

Doing words

The words we use to describe what we are doing, or show states of being, can express ability, obligation, possibility, and many more are called verbs. Jump, run, dance, and eat are examples of verbs. Verbs in a sentence will look like this:

• I have a new bike.
• What are you doing?
• She eats pizza. 

Describing words

Describing words are called adjectives. Adjectives describe nouns. They can tell if the car is blue, if the dog is brown, if the person is tall, and so much more: 

• The car is red. 
• My dog is brown.
• My friend is tall. 

Words that tell us how, when, where, to what extent, and why

These words are called adverbs. Adverbs are words that describe (modify) verbs, adjectives, and other adverbs. 

• He arrived early. 
• I will go into the market later.
• She never eats mushrooms. 

Words that take the place of a noun

Words that take the place of a noun are known as pronouns. Pronouns are usually small words that stand in place of a noun, often to avoid repeating the noun. They include words like I, you, he, we, hers, they, and it.

• I am happy. 
• She is wearing a blue skirt.
• They are having fun. 

Words that relate words to each other

Prepositions are words that relate words to each other. They usually come before nouns or pronouns and typically show a connection.

• The cat is sitting on the chair. 
• He lost his watch at the beach. 
• She is hiding under the table. 

Words that link other words, phrases, or clauses together

These words are called conjunctions. And, but, for, nor, or, so, and yet are examples of conjunctions. 

• The flower is small and red. 
• I left the party because it was so noisy and I felt dizzy. 
• I closed the window, but the wind opened it again. 

Parts of speech table

 

Part of speech	Example in a sentence
Nouns	Hellen has a dog.
Verbs	I will buy a new dress.
Adjectives	The sky is blue and clear.
Adverbs	I will call you later.
Pronouns	They are going to the beach.
Prepositions	The cat is hiding under the bed.
Conjunctions	The weather is sunny and warm.

***Remember, not all languages include all of these categories of words. Some of them may have others. The above categories of words are part of the English language and other languages.

Grammar also includes sentence structure. Sentence structure is the arrangement of words, phrases, and clauses in a sentence. Structural organization is essential in language. The grammatical rules for sentence structure tell us what a complete sentence must include, the correct order of part of speech in a sentence, etc. 

Other examples of grammar are how we use punctuation marks or when a word should have a capitalized letter. 

What are the punctuation marks? 

Symbols that create the real meaning of a sentence in the written language are called punctuation marks. Grammar has rules that will tell us how to use them correctly to separate words, phrases, or sentences. Some of the punctuation marks are:

Comma	,
Full stop	.
Colon	:
Semicolon	;
Question mark	?
Exclamation mark	!
Quotation mark	"

It is not the same if we say: "Feeling hungry." or "Feeling hungry?". Can you notice the difference? At the end of the first sentence, we use a full stop (.) to state that we are hungry, but if we replace the full stop with a question mark (?), we get a question if someone is hungry.

***Remember, not all languages include all of these punctuation marks. They may differ.

Also, grammatical rules tell us when and how to use a capital letter. For example, in most languages, the sentence always begins with a capital letter. Or capital letters are used when writing names of people, specific places, and things. But some languages do not use capital letters in writing—for example, Japanese, Chinese, Arabic, and Hindi.

Remember, each language has its own grammar rules. Knowing and respecting the rules of your grammar is of great importance in everyday life. That is how we can understand each other, correctly express our thoughts, and communicate with people around us.