ENGLISH GRAMMAR English grammar is the body of rules describing the properties of the English language. A language is such that its elements must be combined according to certain patterns. This article is concerned with (and restricted to) morphology, the building blocks of language, and syntax, the construction of meaningful phrases, clauses and sentences with the use of morphemes and words. The grammar of any language is commonly approached in two different ways: A descriptivist, usually based on a systematic analysis of a large text corpus and describing grammatical structures thereupon; and a prescriptivist, which attempts to use the identified rules of a given language as a tool to govern the linguistic behaviour of speakers (see Linguistic prescription and Descriptive linguistics). Prescriptive grammar concerns itself with several open disputes in English grammar, often representing changes in usage over time. There are a number of historical, social and regional variations of the English language. For example, British English and American English have several lexical differences; however, the grammatical differences are not equally conspicuous, and will be mentioned only when appropriate. Further, the many dialects of English have divergences from the grammar described here; they are only cursorily mentioned. This article describes a generalized present-day Standard English, the form of speech found in types of public discourse including broadcasting, education, entertainment, government, and news reporting. Standard English includes both formal and informal speech. Word classes and phrase classes Seven major word classes are described here. These are: noun, verb, adjective, adverb, preposition, conjunction, and determiner. The first six are traditionally referred to as "parts of speech." There are minor word classes, such as interjections, but these do not fit into the clause and sentence structure of English.[1] Open and closed classes Open word classes allow new members; closed word classes seldom do.[1] Nouns such as "celebutante," (a celebrity who frequents the fashion circles)" and "mentee," (a person advised by a mentor) and adverbs such as "24/7" ("I am working on it 24/7") are relatively new words; nouns and adverbs are therefore open classes.[1] However, the pronoun, "their," as a gender-neutral singular replacement for the "his or her" (as in: "Each new arrival should check in their luggage.") has not gained complete acceptance during the more than 40 years of its life; pronouns, in consequence, form a closed class. [1] Word classes and grammatical forms A word can sometimes belong to several word classes. The class version of a word is called a "lexeme."[2] For example, the word "run" is usually a verb, but it can also be a noun ("It is a ten mile run to Tipperary."); these are two different lexemes.[2] Further, the same lexeme may have several grammatical forms: for example, as a verb lexeme, "run" has several finite forms such as "runs," "ran," and "running."[2] Words in one class can sometimes be derived from those in another and new words be created. The noun "aerobics," for example, has recently given rise to the adjective "aerobicized" ("the aerobicized bodies of Beverly Hills celebutantes."[2])
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