Complete English Grammar Rules

This grammar guide offers an extensive overview of English language components, covering everything from nouns—including concrete, abstract, predicate, and compound forms—to various types of verbs like transitive, intransitive, auxiliary, and phrasal verbs. It explores adjectives and their order, distinguishing between attributive, predicative, collective, and demonstrative uses, while also explaining the roles of adverbs in modifying other parts of speech and forming comparative or superlative structures. The text also clarifies the proper use of pronouns, prepositions in various phrases, and conjunctions for linking clauses, providing a foundational understanding of sentence construction, including simple, complex, and compound forms, and differentiating between active and passive voice.

The Renaming Power of Predicate Nouns

Predicate nouns, also sometimes referred to as predicative nouns, are nouns that follow linking verbs and serve a specific grammatical function: they rename or re-identify the subject of a sentence or clause.

Here are the key aspects of predicate nouns:

• Location and Verb Type:
• Predicate nouns always appear after a linking verb.
• The most common linking verb is “to be” (e.g., “is,” “was,” “are,” “seem,” “appears,” “become”). Unlike action verbs, linking verbs describe a state of being rather than an action.
• Even though they describe the subject, they are dependent on the linking verb and are considered part of the predicate.
• Function and Form:
• Predicate nouns are a subset of subject complements. A subject complement is information that follows a linking verb to describe, identify, or rename the subject of the clause.
• If the noun acting as a predicate noun is accompanied by modifiers, such as articles, adjectives, or prepositional phrases, the entire noun phrase functions predicatively.
• Noun clauses can also serve as predicate nouns, functioning grammatically like nouns to rename or re-identify the subject.
• Examples:
• “Love is a virtue.” (Here, “a virtue” renames the subject “Love” after the linking verb “is”.)
• “Tommy seems like a real bully.” (“a real bully” renames “Tommy” after the linking verb “seems”.)
• “Maybe this is a blessing in disguise.” (“a blessing in disguise” renames “this” after the linking verb “is”.)
• “She is a bully.” (“a bully” renames “She” after “is”.)
• “They are a lost cause.” (“a lost cause” renames “They” after “are”.)
• “I have been a mess lately.” (“a mess” renames “I” after “have been”.)
• “Japan is where I want to go most.” (The noun clause “where I want to go most” acts as the predicate noun, renaming “Japan”.)
• “The thing I wish for most is that people would all just get along.” (The noun clause “that people would all just get along” is the predicate noun, renaming “the thing I wish for most”.)
• “Politicians are who create the laws.” (The noun clause “who create the laws” acts as the predicate noun, renaming “Politicians”.)

In essence, predicate nouns clarify or specify what the subject is, but they do so through the mediating action of a linking verb, distinguishing them from nouns that directly perform the action of a verb as a subject.

The Many Forms of English Verbs

Verbs are fundamental components of English sentences, serving to describe actions, processes, conditions, or states of being of people or things. They are essential, as every sentence must include at least one verb and they form the root of the predicate. Verbs are subject to conjugation, which refers to the process of changing their form to reflect specific meanings, such as tense, aspect, mood, voice, and person.

Here are the various types of verbs as described in the sources:

• Finite and Non-finite Verbs
• When discussing verbs’ role in the predicate, they are fundamentally divided into finite and non-finite verbs.
• Finite verbs are verbs that have subjects and indicate grammatical tense, person, and number. They describe the action of a person, place, or thing in the sentence and do not require another verb to be grammatically correct. Examples include “I swim every day” or “The lion is the king of the jungle”. Finite verbs are crucial because sentences need a finite verb to be complete; without one, a sentence would be disjointed and fail to express a full action. Finite verbs are typically in their base form (infinitive without “to”), past tense form, or third-person singular form. Modal auxiliary verbs are always finite.
• Non-finite verbs do not express a direct relationship with the subject and do not have tenses or subjects they correspond to. Instead, they are usually infinitives, gerunds, or participles. Non-finite verbs often require a finite verb to make a complete sentence.
• Infinitives: These are the most basic construction of a verb, typically the uninflected base form of the verb plus the particle “to” (e.g., “to run,” “to be”). Infinitives do not actually function as verbs in a clause; instead, they can be used as nouns, adjectives, or adverbs to express an action as a concept. For example, “To err is human” uses “to err” as the subject (a noun function).
• Participles: Words formed from verbs that can function as adjectives or gerunds, or be used to form continuous and perfect tenses.
• Present Participle: The “-ing” form of a verb (e.g., “singing,” “running”). This form is always the same, regardless of whether the verb is regular or irregular.
• Past Participle: Usually the same as a verb’s simple past tense form (ending in “-d” or “-ed” for regular verbs) but can be irregular (e.g., “worked,” “seen”). Past participles are used with the auxiliary “have” to form perfect tenses and can also function as adjectives.
• Transitive and Intransitive Verbs
• Every verb is classified as either transitive or intransitive.
• Transitive verbs describe an action that happens to someone or something, known as the direct object of the verb. They “take one or more objects”. For example, in “He’s reading a book,” “book” is the direct object. Transitive verbs can also take indirect objects, which are the people or things receiving the direct object.
• Monotransitive verbs are transitive verbs that only take one direct object. Most verbs fall into this category.
• Ditransitive verbs take two objects: a direct object and an indirect object. The indirect object typically receives or benefits from the action as a result of the direct object.
• “Tritransitive” verbs are an unofficial third type that takes (or seems to take) three objects, where the third “object” is usually a prepositional phrase or clause.
• Intransitive verbs do not have objects; their action is not happening to anyone or anything. For example, in “Our dog ran away,” there is no object receiving the action.
• “Ambitransitive Verbs”: Some action verbs can be both transitive and intransitive depending on the context or information the speaker wishes to include. For example, “She eats before going to work” (intransitive) vs. “She eats breakfast before going to work” (transitive).
• Regular and Irregular Verbs
• All English verbs are either regular or irregular.
• Regular verbs form their past simple tense and past participle by adding “-d” or “-ed” to their base form. Their past tense and past participle forms are identical.
• Irregular verbs have different forms for their past simple tense and past participle that do not adhere to a distinct or predictable pattern. These forms must be memorized individually (e.g., “sing,” “sang,” “sung”). The verb “be” is highly irregular, with eight different conjugations.
• Auxiliary Verbs (Helping Verbs)
• Auxiliary verbs are used to add functional meaning to other “main” verbs in a clause. They create different tenses, form negatives, ask questions, or add emphasis, but they do not have semantic meaning on their own.
• Primary Auxiliary Verbs: These are “be,” “do,” and “have”. They are the most common auxiliaries and can also be used as main verbs. They conjugate to reflect plurality, tense, or aspect.
• Modal Auxiliary Verbs (Modal Verbs): These include “can,” “could,” “will,” “would,” “shall,” “should,” “must,” “may,” and “might”. They express modality—possibility, likelihood, ability, permission, obligation, or future intention. Modals are unique because they cannot conjugate into different forms and are always followed by a main verb in its base form.
• Semi-Modal Auxiliary Verbs (Semi-Modal Verbs, Marginal Modal Verbs): These verbs sometimes behave like modal auxiliaries but do not share all their characteristics. They include “ought to,” “used to,” “need,” and “dare”. “Dare” and “need” can also function as main verbs.
• Action Verbs (Dynamic Verbs)
• These verbs describe an active process that results in an effect. They show what the subject is “doing”. Examples include “run,” “walk,” “write,” or “sing”. Action verbs can convey nuances about how an action is performed (e.g., “collapsed” vs. “sat”).
• Stative Verbs (State Verbs, Non-continuous Verbs, Non-progressive Verbs)
• In contrast to action verbs, stative verbs describe states of being or conditions of a subject. They are usually unable to be used in continuous or progressive forms because they describe static conditions.
• Categories of stative verbs include linking verbs (like “be” and verbs of the senses), and verbs that express emotions, possession, cognition, and general states or qualities. Examples are “I am hungry,” “She likes old movies,” “They own three cars,” or “I understand the issue”.
• Linking Verbs (Copulas, Copular Verbs)
• A subset of stative verbs, linking verbs are used to describe the state of being of the subject of a clause. They connect the subject to an adjective, noun, noun phrase, or pronoun (collectively called subject complements) that describes or renames it, without expressing any action.
• The verb “to be” is the most common linking verb. Other linking verbs include “seem,” “feel,” “sound,” “appear,” “taste,” and verbs of progression like “become,” “get,” “grow,” “prove,” “remain,” and “turn”.
• To identify if a verb is functioning as a linking verb, one can check if the predicate describes the subject, or try replacing the verb with “be” to see if the sentence still makes sense.
• Light Verbs (Delexical Verbs, Thin Verbs, Semantically Weak Verbs, Empty Verbs)
• Light verbs do not carry unique meaning on their own; instead, they rely on another word or words that follow them (usually a noun or noun phrase) to become meaningful.
• Common examples include “do,” “have,” “make,” “get,” and “take”. For instance, in “I took a shower,” “took” gains its specific meaning from “shower”. Light verbs can have different meanings depending on the word they are paired with. Unlike auxiliary verbs, which work with other verbs, light verbs primarily get their meaning from nouns.
• Phrasal Verbs
• Phrasal verbs are verb phrases that have idiomatic meanings—their meaning is not obvious from the individual words that make up the phrase. They consist of a verb + a preposition or an adverbial particle.
• Examples include “take up” (occupy space) or “give up” (stop trying). They are distinct from prepositional verbs, which use the literal meaning of the verb.
• Conditional Verbs
• These are verb constructions used in conditional sentences, which express something that might happen depending on whether a particular condition is met. The word “if” is commonly used to denote such conditions.
• Causative Verbs
• Causative verbs are used to indicate that a subject causes another action to be performed. They require another action to be mentioned, forcing the sentence to have at least one other verb. Examples include “force,” “make,” and “let”. For instance, “They let the light stay on”.
• Factitive Verbs
• Factitive verbs are used to indicate the resulting condition or state (object complement) of a direct object caused by the action of the verb. They answer how a person, place, or thing was changed. Examples include “elect,” “appoint,” “make,” and “choose”. For example, “The school appointed Mrs. McMillian principal”. They differ from linking verbs because they show a change in status, category, or characteristic, rather than just adding information about an existing state.
• Reflexive Verbs
• These are verbs whose subjects are also their direct objects; the action of the verb is both committed and received by the same person or thing. They are often identified by the use of reflexive pronouns (e.g., “myself,” “herself”) as direct objects. For instance, “I accidentally burned myself”.

The Essential Guide to English Adverbs

Adverbs are crucial components of English sentences, serving to modify or describe verbs, adjectives, other adverbs, or even entire clauses. They add descriptive meaning and can appear almost anywhere in a sentence, depending on what they modify and how.

Here’s a comprehensive discussion of adverb usage:

What Adverbs Modify

Adverbs provide additional information by answering questions such as when, where, how, why, or to what extent an action occurs.

• Verbs: “You write beautifully“.
• Adjectives: “He owns the bright red car”.
• Other Adverbs: “She ran very quickly”.
• Entire Clauses: “She looked excited, as if she could jump up and dance at any moment“.

Formation of Adverbs

• Regular Adverbs: Most adverbs are formed by adding “-ly” to the end of an adjective. For example, “beautiful” becomes “beautifully”. There are specific spelling adjustments, such as “-ic” changing to “-ically” (e.g., “enthusiastic” to “enthusiastically”) or adjectives ending in “-y” changing to “-ily” (e.g., “happy” to “happily”).
• Irregular Adverbs: Some adverbs do not follow these standard patterns and often have the same spelling as their adjectival counterparts. Examples include “fast,” “hard,” “late,” and “early”. The adverb form of “good” is “well”.

Categories of Adverbs

Adverbs are classified based on the specific kind of description they provide:

• Adverbs of Time: Describe when or for how long something happens (e.g., now, tomorrow, still, yet). They are often placed at the end of a sentence, or at the beginning for emphasis.
• Adverbs of Frequency: A subset of adverbs of time that describes how frequently something occurs (e.g., always, usually, sometimes, daily). Indefinite frequency adverbs usually come before the main verb, but after auxiliary verbs or the linking verb “be”.
• Adverbs of Place: Indicate direction, distance, movement, or position related to a verb’s action (e.g., here, there, north, everywhere, upstairs). They are usually placed after the verb they modify.
• Adverbs of Manner: Describe how something happens or is done, often formed by adding “-ly” to adjectives (e.g., beautifully, slowly, happily). They typically come after intransitive verbs or after the direct object of transitive verbs.
• Adverbs of Degree: Indicate the intensity, degree, or extent of the word they modify (e.g., undoubtedly, very, quite, somewhat). They usually appear before the word they describe. These include mitigators (decrease intensity, e.g., slightly, a bit) and intensifiers (increase intensity, e.g., very, incredibly).
• Adverbs of Purpose (or Reason): Tell why something happens (e.g., therefore, thus, consequently). These are often conjunctive adverbs, prepositional phrases, infinitive phrases, or adverbial clauses.
• Focusing Adverbs: Draw attention to a particular part of a clause, often implying contrast (e.g., also, just, only, especially, mostly, notably). “Too” and “as well” usually take the final position in a clause.
• Negative Adverbs: Modify meaning in a negative way (e.g., no, not, hardly ever).
• Conjunctive Adverbs: Connect independent clauses and express a relationship between them (e.g., therefore, nevertheless, likewise).
• Evaluative Adverbs (or Commenting Adverbs): Express the speaker’s opinion or attitude about something, modifying the entire clause (e.g., clearly, sadly, honestly, fortunately).
• Viewpoint Adverbs: Indicate whose point of view is being expressed or specify an aspect of something (e.g., personally, scientifically, biologically, in my opinion). They typically appear at the beginning or end of a clause, set off by a comma.
• Relative Adverbs: Introduce relative clauses that relate to a place, time, or reason (e.g., where, when, why).
• Adverbial Nouns: Nouns or noun phrases that function grammatically as adverbs, usually specifying time, distance, weight, age, or monetary value (e.g., tomorrow, an hour, five dollars).

Adverbial Phrases and Clauses

Adverbs can be single words, phrases, or entire clauses. Phrases and clauses that function as adverbs are collectively called adverbials.

• Adverbial Phrases: Groups of words functioning as an adverb. These can be:
• An adverb modified by another adverb (e.g., “very quickly” where “very” intensifies “quickly”).
• Prepositional Phrases functioning as adverbs (e.g., “at the park” modifying a verb like “playing”). They can describe time, location, manner, or reason.
• Infinitive Phrases functioning as adverbs, primarily to express purpose or reason (e.g., “to get some lettuce” explaining why someone went to the store).
• Adverbial Clauses: Dependent clauses that modify verbs, adjectives, or adverbs, introduced by subordinating conjunctions. They can express cause, comparison/manner, condition, place, reason, or time.

Placement of Adverbs

Adverbs are notably flexible in their sentence placement.

• General Rule: While adverbs can appear almost anywhere, there’s a “royal order of adverbs” to follow when multiple adverbs describe the same verb: Manner, Place, Frequency, Time, Purpose.
• Flexibility: Adverbs can appear at the beginning, middle, or end of a sentence, often for emphasis.
• Transitive vs. Intransitive Verbs: Adverbs of manner usually follow intransitive verbs directly. For transitive verbs, they can come before the verb or after the direct object.
• Adjectives: Adverbs modifying adjectives always come before the adjective.

Degrees of Comparison

Similar to adjectives, adverbs can be inflected (changed in form) to show degrees of comparison:

• Positive Degree: The basic form of the adverb (e.g., “fast”).
• Comparative Degree: Compares differences between two actions, usually formed by adding “-er” to one-syllable adverbs (e.g., “faster”) or “more/less” before longer adverbs (e.g., “more carefully”).
• Superlative Degree: Identifies the highest or lowest degree of an action, usually formed by adding “-est” to one-syllable adverbs (e.g., “fastest”) or “most/least” before longer adverbs (e.g., “most carefully”).
• Irregular Forms: Some adverbs have irregular comparative and superlative forms (e.g., “well” becomes “better,” “best”; “badly” becomes “worse,” “worst”).
• Gradability: Adverbs must be “gradable” (able to move on a scale of intensity) to form comparative and superlative degrees.

Important Usage Notes

• “Good” vs. “Well”: “Good” is an adjective, used to describe nouns. “Well” is the adverb derived from “good” and describes how an action is performed. For example, “She sings well” (correct) versus “She sings good” (incorrect). However, “well” can also function as a predicative adjective meaning “healthy”.
• Adverbials vs. Complements vs. Adjuncts: While “adverbial” is a broad term for any word or group of words functioning as an adverb, it’s important to distinguish between adverbial complements and adjuncts.
• Adverbial complements are required to complete the meaning of the verb; removing them would make the sentence incomplete or fundamentally alter its meaning (e.g., “The teacher sent Tim home“).
• Adverbial adjuncts elaborate on or modify the verb but can be removed without altering the grammatical integrity or core meaning of the sentence (e.g., “She walked to the park slowly“).
• Squinting Modifiers: These are adverbs placed between two words where it’s unclear which word they modify, leading to ambiguity. For example, “The way he sings so often annoys me” could mean he sings frequently or that his frequent singing is annoying. Clarification requires rephrasing.
• Particles in Phrasal Verbs: Particles, which are often identical in appearance to prepositions, function like adverbs to modify and uniquely expand the meaning of the verbs they are paired with in phrasal verbs. Unlike prepositions, particles do not introduce a prepositional phrase. For example, “ask out” (idiomatic phrasal verb) vs. “ask for” (prepositional verb using literal meaning).

Understanding these various types and uses of adverbs allows for more precise and effective communication in both speech and writing.

Understanding Clauses in English Grammar

Clauses are fundamental grammatical units that always contain both a subject and a predicate. They form the basic building blocks for sentences in English .

There are two main types of clauses:

• Independent Clauses
• Dependent Clauses

Let’s discuss each type in detail:

Independent Clauses

An independent clause, also known as a main clause, is a group of words that forms a complete, independent thought. It does not require anything else to be considered complete and can therefore stand alone as a sentence. A single independent clause constitutes a simple sentence. It contains a subject and a predicate, both of which can have modifiers.

Examples of independent clauses include:

• “I refuse.”
• “The wind blows.”
• “Dogs bark.”
• “Bees sting.”
• “Cats meow.”

Independent clauses can be joined together to form compound sentences (using coordinating conjunctions, conjunctive adverbs, or semicolons) or combined with dependent clauses to form complex sentences.

Dependent Clauses

A dependent clause, also called a subordinate clause, relies on information from an independent clause to form a complete, logical thought. As such, it cannot stand on its own as a sentence. Dependent clauses are typically marked by dependent words such as subordinating conjunctions, relative pronouns, or relative adverbs, which link them to independent clauses.

Examples of dependent clauses include:

• “Whenever I travel” (introduced by “whenever,” a subordinating conjunction)
• “whom we met on the plane” (introduced by “whom,” a relative pronoun)
• “that they like to eat sushi” (introduced by “that”)

Dependent clauses serve a variety of grammatical functions within a sentence. There are three primary categories of dependent clauses:

1. Noun Clauses
2. Relative Clauses (also called Adjective Clauses)
3. Adverbial Clauses (also called Adverb Clauses)

1. Noun Clauses

Noun clauses are dependent clauses that function grammatically like nouns. Because they behave like nouns, they can fulfill all the roles that a regular noun would in a sentence.

Noun clauses commonly begin with words such as “that,” “how,” “if,” and “wh-” words (e.g., “what,” “where,” “when,” “why,” “who,” “whom,” “whether”). Like all clauses, they contain a subject and a predicate.

Functions of noun clauses include:

• Subject of the sentence: “What I decide will determine who gets the promotion”. (“What I decide” is the subject).
• Direct object of a verb: “I want to see what is available before I make a purchase”.
• Indirect object of a verb: “I’ll send whoever is responsible a strongly worded letter”.
• Predicate noun (or subject complement): “The thing I wish for most is that people would all just get along“.
• Object of a preposition: “This is the man to whom I owe my life“.
• Adjective complement: “I’m thrilled that you are coming to visit!”.

A sentence can contain multiple noun clauses functioning in different ways.

2. Relative Clauses (Adjective Clauses)

Relative clauses, also known as adjective clauses or adjectival clauses, are dependent clauses that provide descriptive information about a noun or noun phrase.

They are introduced by either a relative pronoun (who, whom, which, whose, that) or a relative adverb (where, when, why). They always appear directly after the noun they modify.

Relative clauses can be categorized into two types:

• Restrictive clauses (defining clauses): Provide essential information that identifies the noun being modified. They are not set apart by commas. The relative pronoun “that” and relative adverb “why” can only introduce restrictive clauses.
• Example: “The book that I wrote is being published in January”.
• Non-restrictive clauses (non-defining clauses): Provide extra, nonessential information about a noun that is already clearly identified. They are separated from the rest of the sentence by commas. The relative pronoun “which” is normally reserved for non-restrictive clauses describing things or non-domestic animals.
• Example: “The escaped giraffe, which had been on the loose for weeks, was finally captured”.

3. Adverbial Clauses (Adverb Clauses)

An adverbial clause, or adverb clause, functions like a regular adverb to modify verbs, adjectives, other adverbs, or sometimes entire clauses.

Adverbial clauses use subordinating conjunctions to connect to an independent clause. The type of subordinating conjunction indicates the specific function or idea being modified.

Functions of adverbial clauses, based on the subordinating conjunction, include:

• Time: “I will arrive when dinner is ready“. (Other conjunctions: whenever, while, before, after, since, until, once).
• Place: “Grandma and Grandpa want to go where their children live“. (Other conjunctions: wherever, everywhere, anywhere).
• Reason or Purpose: “I am exhausted because I was working all night“. (Other conjunctions: as, since, so (that), in order that, for fear that, hence, lest).
• Condition: “If it snows tonight, I’m not going to work tomorrow”. (Other conjunctions: unless, whether or not, in the event, provided).
• Comparison or Manner: “I work better when I have total privacy“. (Other conjunctions: like, as, as…as, as if, the way, than).
• Contrast: “Though the sun is out, the wind is very chilly”. (Other conjunctions: although, even though, whereas, even if).

Clauses and Sentence Structure

Clauses are the foundation of all sentence structures.

• A simple sentence consists of a single independent clause.
• A compound sentence joins two or more independent clauses.
• A complex sentence contains one independent clause and at least one dependent clause.
• A compound-complex sentence links a complex sentence to a simple sentence or another complex sentence.

English Noun Inflection and Declension

Noun inflection refers to the way nouns are changed in form to create new, specific meanings. In English grammar, the process of inflecting nouns is collectively known as declension. While verbs undergo conjugation, nouns, pronouns, adjectives, and adverbs undergo declension.

In modern English, nouns are primarily declined to reflect two main aspects: plurality and, in some cases, gender.

Plurality

The most common reason nouns are inflected is to mark plurality, indicating when there is more than one person, place, or thing being discussed.

• Regular Plurals:
• The standard method for forming regular plurals is to add “-s” to the end of the noun (e.g., “one boy – two boys,” “one book – two books”).
• If a noun ends in “-s,” “-x,” “-z,” or a consonant cluster like “-sh,” “-ch,” or “-tch,” we add “-es” (e.g., “one coach – two coaches,” “one box – two boxes,” “one watch – two watches”).
• When a noun ends in a consonant followed by “-y,” the “y” is changed to “i” and “-es” is added (e.g., “one country – two countries,” “one city – two cities”).
• Nouns ending in “-ff” or “-ffe” simply add “-s” (e.g., “one cliff – two cliffs”).
• Irregular Plurals: Many nouns have irregular plural forms that do not follow these standard conventions. These are unique words that must be memorized.
• Examples include: “person – people/persons” (though “persons” is often reserved for formal or legal contexts), “mouse – mice,” “child – children,” “foot – feet,” “man – men,” “woman – women”.
• Some nouns maintain the same form for both singular and plural (e.g., “one deer – two deer,” “one fish – two fish,” “one sheep – two sheep”).
• Certain nouns ending in “-f,” “-fe,” or “-lf” replace these endings with “-ves” (e.g., “one leaf – two leaves,” “one life – two lives”), but there’s no fixed rule, and these must also be memorized.
• Nouns borrowed from Latin or Greek may retain their original plural forms (e.g., “fungus – fungi,” “criterion – criteria,” “thesis – theses”), though some may also have shifted to more conventional English plural forms (e.g., “index – indices/indexes,” “cactus – cacti/cactuses”).
• Uncountable Nouns: Uncountable nouns (also known as mass nouns or non-count nouns), which refer to things that cannot be divided or counted as individual elements (like “water,” “furniture,” “love,” “news”), generally cannot be made plural. They cannot take indefinite articles like “a” or “an”. To quantify them, a unit of measure or specific phrasing must be added (e.g., “a piece of advice” instead of “an advice,” “a few pieces of advice” instead of “a few advices”).
• Uncountable nouns are grammatically singular and must take singular forms of verbs (e.g., “The furniture in my living room is old,” not “are old”).
• Some collective nouns, like “police,” are plural-only and always take plural verbs (e.g., “The police are investigating”).

Gender

In contrast to many other languages (like Romance languages), English nouns are generally gender-neutral. However, some instances of gender inflection still exist, mainly for nouns describing people who perform an action.

• Making a Noun Feminine: Most gender-declined nouns indicate feminine gender, though this practice is becoming less common.
• The most common suffix is “-ess,” used primarily for professional, noble, royal, or religious titles of women (e.g., “stewardess,” “waitress,” “actress,” “princess”). However, for professions, non-gendered alternatives are increasingly preferred (e.g., “flight attendant” over “stewardess”).
• Other less common feminine suffixes include “-ine” (e.g., “heroine” from “hero”) and “-trix” (e.g., “executrix” from “executor”), often found in older or legalistic terms.
• Making a Noun Masculine: Nouns distinguished by masculine gender are often in their basic form and tend to end in “-er” or “-or” to denote someone who performs a verb’s action.
• Nouns with Inherent Gender Identity: A relatively small number of English nouns are inherently gendered without using suffixes, describing male or female individuals directly. These often include familial, social, or royal titles (e.g., “queen – king,” “girl – boy,” “mother – father,” “wife – husband”).
• Specific gendered words also identify male and female members of animal types (e.g., “mare – stallion” for horses, “hen – rooster” for chickens).

It is important to note that adjectives in English are never made plural to agree with plural nouns; only the noun itself is pluralized.

By Amjad Izhar
Contact: amjad.izhar@gmail.com
https://amjadizhar.blog

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