Grammar course

This is the starting point for a structured course in English grammar. The intention is to help students understand the basic terms to discuss language. This will be shown in many brief items of knowledge, all accessible individually. The course in grammar groups them in certain structured ways. There are three major groups in the course. Complete beginners are advised to start with Word Classes. (The traditional name for these is Parts of Speech.) You may go to each group and learn about the topic as a whole, or you may click on separate items for more 'bite-sized' pieces of knowledge.

• Word classes - nouns, verbs, conjunctions and so on.
• Units of Language - sentences, clauses, phrases and so on.
• The Structure of a Clause - Subject, Verb and Objects etc.

Traditionally, grammar was often divided into accidence and syntax. Accidence is very important when describing many languages, such as Latin and Greek, which are highly inflected. In English, which has comparatively few inflections, accidence is not so important. So modern descriptions of English grammar concentrate on the syntax - the structure of the sentence. But everyone who wants to understand how language works should know the names of the word classes, so if you do not, it is best to start the course here.