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Grammar

Modern English grammar is the result of a gradual change from a typical Indo-European dependent marking pattern with a rich inflectional morphology and relatively free word order, to a mostly analytic pattern with little inflection, a fairly fixed SVO word order and a complex syntax.[158] Some traits typical of Germanic languages persist in English, such as the distinction between irregularly inflected strong stems inflected through ablaut (i.e. changing the vowel of the stem, as in the pairs speak/spoke and foot/feet) and weak stems inflected through affixation (such as love/loved, hand/hands). Vestiges of the case and gender system are found in the pronoun system (he/him, who/whom) and in the inflection of the copula verb to be. As is typical of an Indo-European language, English follows accusative morphosyntactic alignment. English distinguishes at least seven major word classes: verbs, nouns, adjectives, adverbs, determiners (i.e. articles), prepositions, and conjunctions. Some analyses add pronouns as a class separate from nouns, and subdivide conjunctions into subordinators and coordinators, and add the class of interjections.[159] English also has a rich set of auxiliary verbs, such as have and do, expressing the categories of mood and aspect. Questions are marked by do-support, wh-movement (fronting of question words beginning with wh-) and word order inversion with some verbs.

The seven word classes are exemplified in this sample sentence:[160]

Thechairmanofthecommitteeandtheloquaciouspoliticianclashedviolentlywhenthemeetingstarted

Det.NounPrep.Det.NounConj.Det.Adj.NounVerbAdvb.Conj.Det.NounVerb