Grammar notes

A sentence pattern is the order of slots in a clause. Thomson–Martinet and Bhatnagar name five letters: S subject (who or what the clause is about), V verb (the finite verb), O object (the person or thing the verb acts on), C complement (a noun or adjective that renames or describes S or O), A adverbial (place, time, manner). The verb decides which slots follow. To find the pattern, keep the finite verb in view and ask what must sit after it for the clause to be complete.

Seven classroom patterns. SV: intransitive verb, no object — “The child sleeps.” “Rain fell.” SVO: transitive verb plus object — “The student reads a book.” SVC: a linking verb plus a subject complement that describes or renames the subject — “She is a teacher.” “The tea is hot.” Linking verbs: be, become, seem, look, feel, remain. SVA: verb plus adverbial — “She is in Bikaner.” “They live here.” SVOO: two objects, the person first, the thing second — “She gave him a pen” (the same meaning as “She gave a pen to him”). SVOC: object plus object complement — “They elected her captain.” “We painted the door green.” The complement here describes the object, not the subject. SVOA: object plus adverbial — “She put the book on the table.” “He sent the letter yesterday.”

Two empty subjects fill a slot without naming a thing. There in “There is a book on the table” is a dummy S; the real thing named is a book. It in “It is raining” and “It is clear that she came” holds the subject place because English wants a word before the verb. Complement and object are not the same job: a complement after be describes S (“She is honest”); an object after a transitive verb is a different person or thing (“She praised the honest girl”). Adjective complements do not become objects.

A short test: if you can ask what? or whom? after the verb and get a noun that is not describing the subject, you have O. If the word after the verb is an adjective or a noun that is still the same person as S, you have C. If it answers where / when / how?, you have A. “She became a doctor” is SVC. “She visited a doctor” is SVO.

A determiner sits at the front of a noun phrase and marks the noun: which one, whose, how many, whether known or not. Unit 1 named a, an, the as articles. Here the whole set is in view. Murphy and Thomson–Martinet group articles, demonstratives, possessives, quantifiers and numerals as determiners. They are not adjectives of quality: old in “the old book” is an adjective; the is the determiner. Two determiners of the same slot do not stack: we write my book or the book of mine, not the my book.

Articles. A/an is the indefinite article: first mention, one of a class, a profession — “She is a teacher.” Choose an before a vowel sound, not merely a vowel letter: an hour, an MBA, a university, a one-rupee note. The is the definite article: something unique (the sun), already mentioned, a superlative or ordinal, rivers (the Ganga), mountain ranges (the Himalayas), oceans, newspapers (the Hindu), a known invention. Zero article (no a/the): most names of people and places, meals in general (breakfast), uncountable nouns in a general sense (Water is useful), plural nouns in a general sense (Books are costly), languages, most countries, lakes, a single mountain (Mount Everest).

Demonstratives: this, that, these, those — near and far, singular and plural. Possessives: my, your, his, her, its, our, their before a noun (mine, hers as pronouns stood in Unit 1). Quantifiers: some in a positive sentence; any in a negative or a question (“I have some paper.” “I do not have any paper.” “Have you any paper?”). No = not any. Each and every take a singular noun and a singular verb. Either / neither of two; both / all of more. Much with uncountable, many with countable. Little = almost none (negative); a little = some (positive). Few = almost none; a few = some. Enough, several, all, half. Numerals: one, two, first, second.

Order inside the noun phrase: determiner, then adjective, then noun — “those two old books.” Countable singular nouns in English need a determiner: we say a book or the book or my book, not a bare book as a whole noun phrase. Uncountable and plural can stand with zero article when the sense is general.

Tense is the form of the verb that places the action or state in time. Murphy and Thomson–Martinet teach twelve classroom forms: three times (present, past, future) × four aspects (simple, continuous, perfect, perfect continuous). Aspect is how the action is viewed — as a fact, as ongoing, as completed, or as ongoing up to a point. The time-words in the sentence (every day, now, already, yesterday, while, by Monday) often choose the form.

Present. Simple (write / writes): habit, fact, timetable — “She writes every day.” “Water boils at 100°C.” Continuous (am/is/are writing): now, temporary, a fixed near plan — “She is writing now.” Perfect (has/have written): a past act with a present result, or life-experience — “She has written the letter.” (the letter exists now). Perfect continuous (has/have been writing): duration up to now — “She has been writing for an hour.” Past. Simple (wrote): finished past, often with a time — “She wrote yesterday.” Continuous (was/were writing): ongoing around a past moment — “She was writing at five.” Perfect (had written): the earlier of two past acts — “She had written before he came.” Perfect continuous (had been writing): duration before a past point — “She had been writing for an hour when he came.”

Future. Simple (will write): prediction, promise, a decision made now — “She will write tomorrow.” Continuous (will be writing): ongoing at a future moment — “She will be writing at five.” Perfect (will have written): finished before a future point — “She will have written by Monday.” Perfect continuous (will have been writing): duration up to a future point — “She will have been writing for an hour by five.” Going to marks a plan or present evidence: “She is going to write.” “Those clouds — it is going to rain.” Shall with I/we is a formal future; in ordinary English will is used for all persons.

Murphy’s state verbs are not normally continuous: know, believe, love, want, own, seem, contain, belong. We say “I know her,” not “I am knowing her.” Sequence of tenses: when both acts are past, the earlier takes past perfect. “When he arrived, she had left.” Do not mix a present perfect with a finished past-time word: “She has written yesterday” is not standard English; write “She wrote yesterday” or “She has written the letter.”

Modals are helping verbs that add the speaker’s attitude to the main verb: ability, permission, possibility, obligation, advice, habit. The set is can, could, may, might, must, shall, should, will, would, ought to, and the semi-modals need, dare, used to. Thomson–Martinet and Swan treat them as a closed list. A modal does not take -s in the third person: “She can write,” not “She cans write.” The main verb after a modal is the base form, without to — except ought to and used to and have to. Two modals do not sit together: we do not write “She might can come.”

Can: present ability, permission, general possibility — “She can swim.” “You can go.” Could: past ability, polite permission, weaker possibility — “She could swim at ten.” “Could I borrow a pen?” For a single past success Swan prefers was able to: “The hall was dark, but she was able to find the door.” May: permission and possibility. Might: a thinner possibility. Must: obligation the speaker feels, or a strong deduction — “You must wear the card.” “He is not in class; he must be in the library.” The negative splits: must not = prohibition; no obligation is need not or don’t have to. Have to is external obligation (a rule, a timetable).

Should and ought to: advice, duty, expectation — “You should revise Unit 1.” Shall with I/we offers or asks: “Shall we start?” Will: future, willingness, a request — “Will you close the door?” Would: past of will in reported speech, a polite request, a hypothetical — “Would you close the door?” Used to: a past habit that has stopped — “She used to walk to college.” Need as a modal is chiefly negative or interrogative: “You need not wait.” In a positive sentence the ordinary form is need to / needs to. Dare as a modal is chiefly negative or interrogative: “She dare not speak.”

Time sits on the pair, not on a tense-ending of the modal. “She can write” is present ability; “She could write” may be past ability or polite now. “She will be able to write tomorrow” carries ability into the future. Name the use with the word: ability, permission, possibility, obligation, advice.

Concord (subject–verb agreement) is the rule that the finite verb matches the subject in number and person. Thomson–Martinet, Murphy and Bhatnagar all start from one line: look at the subject, not at a noun that sits nearer the verb. “The box of books is heavy” — the subject is box, singular. “The boxes of paper are heavy” — boxes, plural. First and second person take their own forms of be and have: I am / you are / she is; I have / she has.

Joined subjects: and normally makes a plural verb — “Ram and Sita are here.” If the two names are one dish or one idea, the verb stays singular — “Bread and butter is his breakfast.” Each / every before two nouns keeps a singular verb: “Every boy and girl has a card.” With or, nor, either…or, neither…nor, the verb follows the nearer subject: “Neither the teacher nor the students are ready.” “Neither the students nor the teacher is ready.” Phrases with with, along with, as well as, besides do not change the first subject: “The teacher, with the students, is here.”

Indefinite pronouns everyone, somebody, nobody, anyone, each, every take a singular verb: “Everyone is present.” None of + plural noun may take a singular verb in careful style (“None of the books is cheap”) or a plural verb in easy style (“None of the books are cheap”). Use one form in one answer. Collective nouns (team, class, committee) take singular when the group is one unit, plural when the members are in view — British English: “The team is strong.” “The team are wearing their colours.” Always-singular: news, physics, measles, economics. Always-plural: scissors, trousers, spectacles — unless you write a pair of scissors is.

There agrees with the real noun: “There is a book.” “There are two books.” Titles, sums and distances are singular: “The Arabian Nights is a book.” “Ten kilometres is a long walk.” Not only A but also B follows B. A relative clause agrees with its own noun: “He is one of the boys who are late.” Concord is a match, not a guess from the last word of the sentence.