Syntax

Sentences can be classified as (1) simple, containing one clause and predication: John knows this country; (2) multiple or compound, containing two or more coordinate clauses: John has been here before, and he knows this country; and (3) complex, containing one or more main clauses and one or more subordinate clauses: John, who has been here before, knows this country or Because he has been here before, John knows this country. Simple, declarative, affirmative sentences have two main patterns with five subsidiary patterns within each. Verb and complement together form the predicate. Complement is here used to cover both the complement and the object of traditional grammarians.

In (1) the complement is the direct object of a transitive verb; in (2) it is a predicative nominal group forming the second component of an equation linked to the first part by the meaningless copula is; in (3) it is a predicative noun linked with the subject by the meaningful copula becomes; in (4) it is a predicative adjective; and in (5) it is a predicative past participle.

In the next table each sentence contains four components: subject, verb, and two complements, first and second, or inner and outer. In (6) inner and outer complements consist of indirect object (without preposition) followed by direct object; in (7) these complements are direct object and appositive noun; in (8) direct object and predicative adjective; in (9) direct object and predicative past participle; in (10) direct object and predicative infinitive.

One can seldom change the word order in these 10 sentences without doing something else adding or subtracting a word, changing the meaning. There is no better way of appreciating the importance of word position than by scrutinizing the 10 frames illustrated. If, for instance, in (6) one reverses inner and outer complements, one adds to and says, John gives a ring to Mary; one does not say John gives a ring Mary. Some verbs, such as explain and say, never omit the preposition to before the indirect object: John's father explained the details to his son. He said many things to him. If, in (10), the inner and outer complements are reversed (e.g., We want to know you), the meaning is changed as well as the structure.

Apart from these fundamental rules of word order, the principles governing the positions of adjectives, adverbs, and prepositions call for brief comment. For attributive adjectives the rule is simple: single words regularly precede the noun, and word groups follow e.g., an unforgettable experience but an experience never to be forgotten. There is a growing tendency, however, to abandon this principle, to switch groups to front position, and to say a never to be forgotten experience. In the ordering of multiple epithets, on the other hand, some new principles are seen to be slowly emerging. Attributes denoting permanent qualities stand nearest their head nouns: long, white beard, six-lane elevated freeway. The order in multiple attribution tends to be as follows: determiner; quantifier; adjective of quality; adjective of size, shape, or texture; adjective of colour or material; noun adjunct (if any); head noun. Examples include: that one solid, round, oak dining table, these many fine, large, black race horses, those countless memorable, long, bright summer evenings.

Adverbs are more mobile than adjectives. Nevertheless, some tentative principles seem to be at work. Adverbs of frequency tend to come immediately after the substantive verb (You are often late), before other verbs (You never know), and between auxiliaries and full verbs (You can never tell). In this last instance, however, American differs from British usage. Most Americans would place the adverb before the auxiliary and say You never can tell. (In the title of his play of that name, first performed in 1899, George Bernard Shaw avowedly followed American usage.) Adverbs of time usually occur at the beginning or end of a sentence, seldom in the middle. Particular expressions normally precede more general ones: Neil Armstrong set foot on the Moon at 4 o'clock in the morning on July 21, 1969. An adverb of place or direction follows a verb with which it is semantically bound: We arrived home after dark. Other adverbs normally take end positions in the order of manner, place, and time: Senator Smith summed it all up most adroitly [manner] in Congress [place] last night [time].

In spite of its etymology (Latin prae-positio before placing), a preposition may sometimes follow the noun it governs, as in all the world over, the clock round, and the whole place through. This seems a good place to live in seems more natural to most speakers than This seems a good place in which to live. Have you anything to open this can with? is now more common than Have you anything with which to open this can?

The above are principles rather than rules, and in the end it must be agreed that English syntax lacks regimentation. Its structural laxity makes English an easy language to speak badly. It also makes English prone to ambiguity. When walking snipe always approach up wind, a shooting manual directs. The writer intends the reader to understand, When you are walking to flush snipe always approach them up against the wind. John kept the car in the garage can mean either (1) John retained that car you see in the garage, and sold his other one or (2) John housed the car in the garage, and not elsewhere. Flying planes can be dangerous is ambiguous because it may mean either (1) Planes that fly can be dangerous or (2) It is dangerous to fly planes.

Two ways in which John gives Mary a ring can be stated in the passive are: (1) A ring is given to Mary by John and (2) Mary is given a ring by John. Concerning this same action, four types of question can be formulated: (1) Who gives Mary a ring? The information sought is the identity of the giver. (2) Does John give Mary a ring? The question may be answered by yes or no. (3) John gives Mary a ring, doesn't he? Confirmation is sought of the questioner's belief that John does in fact give Mary a ring. (4) John gives Mary a ring? This form, differing from the declarative statement only by the question mark in writing, or by rising intonation in speech, calls, like sentences (2) and (3), for a yes or no answer but suggests doubt on the part of the questioner that the action is taking place.


Vocabulary

The vocabulary of Modern English is approximately half Germanic (Old English and Scandinavian) and half Italic or Romance (French and Latin), with copious and increasing importations from Greek in science and technology and with considerable borrowings from Dutch, Low German, Italian, Spanish, German, Arabic, and many other languages. Names of basic concepts and things come from Old English or Anglo-Saxon: heaven and earth, love and hate, life and death, beginning and end, day and night, month and year, heat and cold, way and path, meadow and stream. Cardinal numerals come from Old English, as do all the ordinal numerals except second (Old English other, which still retains its older meaning in every other day). Second comes from Latin secund us following, through French second, related to Latin sequi to follow, as in English sequence. From Old English come all the personal pronouns (except they, their, and them, which are from Scandinavian), the auxiliary verbs (except the marginal used, which is from French), most simple prepositions, and all conjunctions.

Numerous nouns would be identical whether they came from Old English or Scandinavian: father, mother, brother (but not sister); man, wife; ground, land, tree, grass; summer, winter; cliff, dale. Many verbs would also be identical, especially monosyllabic verbsbring, come, get, hear, meet, see, set, sit, spin, stand, think. The same is true of the adjectives full and wise; the colour names gray, green, and white; the disjunctive possessives mine and thine (but not ours and yours); the terms north and west (but not south and east); and the prepositions over and under. Just a few English and Scandinavian doublets coexist in current speech: no and nay, yea and ay, from and fro, rear (i.e., to bring up) and raise, shirt and skirt (both related to the adjective short), less and loose. From Scandinavian, law was borrowed early, whence bylaw, meaning village law, and outlaw, meaning man outside the law. Husband (hus-bondi) meant householder, whether single or married, whereas fellow (fe-lagi) meant one who lays fee or shares property with another, and so partner, shareholder. From Scandinavian come the common nouns axle (tree), band, birth, bloom, crook, dirt, egg, gait, gap, girth, knife, loan, race, rift, root, score, seat, skill, sky, snare, thrift, and window; the adjectives awkward, flat, happy, ill, loose, rotten, rugged, sly, tight, ugly, weak, and wrong; and many verbs, including call, cast, clasp, clip, crave, die, droop, drown, flit, gape, gasp, glitter, life, rake, rid, scare, scowl, skulk, snub, sprint, thrive, thrust, and want.

The debt of the English language to French is large. The terms president, representative, legislature, congress, constitution, and parliament are all French. So, too, are duke, marquis, viscount, and baron; but king, queen, lord, lady, earl, and knight are English. City, village, court, palace, manor, mansion, residence, and domicile are French; but town, borough, hall, house, bower, room, and home are English. Comparison between English and French synonyms shows that the former are more human and concrete, the latter more intellectual and abstract; e.g., the terms freedom and liberty, friendship and amity, hatred and enmity, love and affection, likelihood and probability, truth and veracity, lying and mendacity. The superiority of French cooking is duly recognized by the adoption of such culinary terms as boil, broil, fry, grill, roast, souse, and toast. Breakfast is English, but dinner and supper are French. Hunt is English, but chase, quarry, scent, and track are French. Craftsmen bear names of English origin: baker, builder, fisher (man), hedger, miller, shepherd, shoemaker, wainwright, and weaver, or webber. Names of skilled artisans, however, are French: carpenter, draper, haberdasher, joiner, mason, painter, plumber, and tailor. Many terms relating to dress and fashion, cuisine and viniculture, politics and diplomacy, drama and literature, art and ballet come from French.

In the spheres of science and technology many terms come from Classical Greek through French or directly from Greek. Pioneers in research and development now regard Greek as a kind of inexhaustible quarry from which they can draw linguistic material at will. By prefixing the Greek adverb tAle far away, distant to the existing compound photography, light writing, they create the precise term telephotography to denote the photographing of distant objects by means of a special lens. By inserting the prefix micro- small into this same compound, they make the new term photomicrography, denoting the electronic photographing of bacteria and viruses. Such neo-Hellenic derivatives would probably have been unintelligible to Plato and Aristotle. Many Greek compounds and derivatives have Latin equivalents with slight or considerable differentiations in meaning (see table).

At first sight it might appear that some of these equivalents, such as metamorphosis and transformation, are sufficiently synonymous to make one or the other redundant. In fact, however, metamorphosis is more technical and therefore more restricted than transformation. In mythology it signifies a magical shape changing; in nature it denotes a postembryonic development such as that of a tadpole into a frog, a cocoon into a silkworm, or a chrysalis into a butterfly. Transformation, on the other hand, means any kind of change from one state to another.

Ever since the 12th century, when merchants from the Netherlands made homes in East Anglia, Dutch words have infiltrated into Midland speech. For centuries a form of Low German was used by seafaring men in North Sea ports. Old nautical terms still in use include buoy, deck, dock, freebooter, hoist, leak, pump, skipper, and yacht. The Dutch in New Amsterdam (later New York) and adjacent settlements gave the words boss, cookie, dope, snoop, and waffle to American speech. The Dutch in Cape Province gave the terms apartheid, commandeer, commando, spoor, and trek to South African speech.

The contribution of High German has been on a different level. In the 18th and 19th centuries it lay in technicalities of geology and mineralogy and in abstractions relating to literature, philosophy, and psychology. In the 20th century this contribution has sometimes been indirect. Unclear and meaningful echoed German unklar and bedeutungsvoll, or sinnvoll. Ring road (a British term applied to roads encircling cities or parts of cities) translated Ringstrasse; round trip, Rundfahrt; and the turn of the century, die Jahrhundertwende. The terms classless society, inferiority complex, and wishful thinking echoed die klassenlse Gesellschaft, der Minder wertigkeits komplex, and das Wunschdenken.

Along with the rest of the Western world, English has accepted Italian as the language of music. The names of voices, parts, performers, instruments, forms of composition, and technical directions are all Italian. Many of the latterallegro, andante, cantabile, crescendo, diminuendo, legato, maestoso, obbligato, pizzicato, staccato, and vibratoare also used metaphorically. In architecture, the terms belvedere, corridor, cupola, grotto, pedestal, pergola, piazza, pilaster, and rotunda are accepted; in literature, burlesque, canto, extravaganza, stanza, and many more are used.

From Spanish, English has acquired the words armada, cannibal, cigar, galleon, guerrilla, matador, mosquito, quadroon, tornado, and vanilla, some of these loan words going back to the 16th century, when sea dogs encountered hidalgos on the high seas. Many names of animals and plants have entered English from indigenous languages through Spanish: potato through Spanish patata from Taino batata, and tomato through Spanish tomate from Nahuatl tomatl. Other words have entered from Latin America by way of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California; e.g., such words as canyon, cigar, estancia, lasso, mustang, pueblo, and rodeo. Some have gathered new connotations: bonanza, originally denoting goodness, came through miners' slang to mean spectacular windfall, prosperity; maana, tomorrow, acquired an undertone of mysterious unpredictability.

From Arabic through European Spanish, through French from Spanish, through Latin, or occasionally through Greek, English has obtained the terms alchemy, alcohol, alembic, algebra, alkali, almanac, arsenal, assassin, attar, azimuth, cipher, elixir, mosque, nadir, naphtha, sugar, syrup, zenith, and zero. From Egyptian Arabic, English has recently borrowed the term loofah (also spelled luffa). From Hebrew, directly or by way of Vulgate Latin, come the terms amen, cherub, hallelujah, manna, messiah, pharisee, rabbi, sabbath, and seraph; jubilee, leviathan, and shibboleth; and, more recently, kosher, and kibbutz.

English has freely adopted and adapted words from many other languages, acquiring them sometimes directly and sometimes by devious routes. Each word has its own history. The following lists indicate the origins of a number of English words: Welshflannel, coracle, cromlech, penguin, eisteddfod; Cornishgull, brill, dolmen; Gaelic and Irishshamrock, brogue, leprechaun, ogham, Tory, galore, blarney, hooligan, clan, claymore, bog, plaid, slogan, sporran, cairn, whisky, pibroch; Bretonmenhir; Norwegianski, ombudsman; Finnishsauna; Russiankvass, ruble, tsar, verst, mammoth, ukase, astrakhan, vodka, samovar, tundra (from Sami), troika, pogrom, duma, soviet, bolshevik, intelligentsia (from Latin through Polish), borscht, balalaika, sputnik, soyuz, salyut, lunokhod; Polishmazurka; Czechrobot; Hungariangoulash, paprika; Portuguesemarmalade, flamingo, molasses, veranda, port (wine), dodo; Basquebizarre; Turkishjanissary, turban, coffee, kiosk, caviar, pasha, odalisque, fez, bosh; Hindinabob, guru, sahib, maharajah, mahatma, pundit, punch (drink), juggernaut, cushy, jungle, thug, cheetah, shampoo, chit, dungaree, pucka, gymkhana, mantra, loot, pajamas, dinghy, polo; Persianparadise, divan, purdah, lilac, bazaar, shah, caravan, chess, salamander, taffeta, shawl, khaki; Tamilpariah, curry, catamaran, mulligatawny; Chinesetea (Amoy), sampan; Japaneseshogun, kimono, mikado, tycoon, hara-kiri, gobang, judo, jujitsu, bushido, samurai, banzai, tsunami, satsuma, No (the dance drama), karate, Kabuki; Malayketchup, sago, bamboo, junk, amuck, orangutan, compound (fenced area), raffia; Polynesiantaboo, tattoo; Hawaiianukulele; African languageschimpanzee, goober, mumbo jumbo, voodoo; Inuitkayak, igloo, anorak; Yupikmukluk; Algonquiantotem; Nahuatlmescal; languages of the Caribbeanhammock, hurricane, tobacco, maize, iguana; Aboriginal Australiankangaroo, corroboree, wallaby, wombat, boomerang, paramatta, budgerigar.