GRAMMAR FORMS AND FUNCTIONS

What are Grammar Forms and Functions?

To fully understand grammar, you need to know how these two concepts work: grammar forms and functions. The grammatical form describes what they are, while the grammatical function explains what the linguistic units do. It’s worth noting that we start function labels with capital letters, but this isn’t standard practice worldwide.

Objective

Understanding how form and function interact has significant implications for text creation and comprehension. Therefore, mastering the rules and norms of grammar forms and functions will make your writing more understandable and entertaining for your readers.

In the table below, here are the linguistic units applicable to the levels of form and function in a table.

Grammatical Forms Breakdown:

Word classes:

Nouns

A noun gives the name of a person (Flora and woman), place (China, city), thing (Toyota, car), or idea (Philosophies, warmth, love).

Pronouns

A pronoun replaces a noun, and they are a close word class. Some examples are he, I and you. Also, it can take the place of a noun phrase.

Verbs

One of the keywords classes are verbs, which express events (dynamic or action) or states of being.

Physical Verbs 

Physical verbs are also called action verbs. You can also call events action verbs. To understand action verbs better, ask the question, is something happening or not? When you draw, run, drive, or talk, something happens: events or actions. In general, they express a physical activity or tell what a person or thing is doing.

For instance:

• Let’s walk to the playground.
• I hear the noise outside.
• Call me when you get to work.

Mental Verbs

Mental verbs have meanings relating to discovering, understanding, thinking, or planning. In general, a mental verb refers to a cognitive state.

For example-

• I know the solution.
• He recognized her from across the other room.
• Do you believe that story?

States of Being Verbs

These are also linking verbs that describe conditions or situations that exist. State of being verbs are inactive since there is no performance of an action. Adjectives usually complement these verbs.

For example-

• I am a doctor.
• We are social workers.
• Please be quiet.

Determiners

A determiner is a word that comes before a noun or informs the reader about its amount or quantity. After a determiner, you can have modifiers like adjectives or other nouns.

Example:

• The red team scored the first goal. (The determiner comes directly before the adjective(red) and noun (team)).
• All workers came to work today. (The determiner all qualifies the noun workers).
• My colleague went for lunch. (The determiner my comes directly after the noun colleague).

Adjectives

An adjective describes a noun, giving extra meaning to it. 

The placement of an adjective comes:

• Before a noun or after verbs to be such as is, are.

Examples:

• The employees did some excellent work. [adjective “excellent” before the noun works to modify it].
• Their performance was good. [adjective “good” used after the verb “was”].

Adverbs

Adverbs often modify verbs, adjectives, other adverbs, or entire clauses.

Example:

• Alex soon started talking loudly. [adverb soon modifying the verb started while adverb loudly modifies the verb talking]

Prepositions

A preposition connects a noun, pronoun, or noun phrase to other words in the sentence. 

Prepositions often define locations or directions.

Example:

The prepositions are in bold.

• Tom waved goodbye to Christy.
• She’ll be back from Egypt in three weeks.

Conjunctions

Conjunction links two words or phrases together.

Example:

The conjunctions are in bold.

• Mary bought a book and crayons. [links the words’ book and crayon’ as an equal pair]
• Tom is young but she can kick the ball hard. 

Interjections

An interjection communicates a sudden thought or feeling. One says interjections loudly and so, an exclamation mark often follows it.

Example:

Wow! There’s a rat in the room!  

Ouch! That scorpion just stung me! 

Picture source: englicious.org

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