The Text Linguistics and Grammar

Text linguistics is a branch of linguistics that deals with texts as communication systems. Its original aims lay in uncovering and describing text grammars. The application of text linguistics has, however, evolved from this approach to a point in which text is viewed in much broader terms that go beyond a more extension of traditional grammar towards an entire text. Text linguistics takes into account the form of a text, but also its setting, i.e. the way in which it is situated in an interactional, communicative context. Both the author of a (written or spoken) text as well as its addressee are taken into consideration in their respective (social and/or institutional) roles in the specific communicative context. In general it is an application of linguistic analysis at the much broader level of text, rather than just a sentence or word.

Glossary of English Grammar Terms
*Active Voice In the active voice

, the subject of the verb does the action (eg They killed the President). See also Passive Voice.
*Adjective A word like big, red, easy, French etc. An adjective describes a noun or pronoun.
*Adverb A word like slowly, quietly, well, often etc. An adverb modifies a verb.
*Article The "indefinite" articles are a and an. The "definite article" is the.
*Auxiliary Verb A verb that is used with a main verb. Be, do and have are auxiliary verbs. Can, may, must etc are modal auxiliary verbs.
*Clause A group of words containing a subject and its verb (for example: It was late when he arrived).
*Conjunction A word used to connect words, phrases and clauses (for example: and, but, if).
*Infinitive The basic form of a verb as in to work or work.
*Interjection An exclamation inserted into an utterance without grammatical connection (for example: oh!, ah!, ouch!, well!).
*Modal Verb An auxiliary verb like can, may, must etc that modifies the main verb and expresses possibility, probability etc. It is also called "modal auxiliary verb".
*Noun A word like table, dog, teacher, America etc. A noun is the name of an object, concept, person or place.
A "concrete noun" is something you can see or touch like a person or car.
An "abstract noun" is something that you cannot see or touch like a decision or happiness.
A "countable noun" is something that you can count (for example: bottle, song, dollar).
An "uncountable noun" is something that you cannot count (for example: water, music, money).

*Object In the active voice, a noun or its equivalent that receives the action of the verb. In the passive voice, a noun or its equivalent that does the action of the verb.
*Participle The -ing and -ed forms of verbs. The -ing form is called the "present participle". The -ed form is called the "past participle" (for irregular verbs, this is column 3).
*Part Of Speech One of the eight classes of word in English - noun, verb, adjective, adverb, pronoun, preposition, conjunction and interjection.
*Passive Voice In the passive voice, the subject receives the action of the verb (eg The President was killed). See also Active Voice.
PhraseA group of words not containing a subject and its verb (eg on the table, the girl in a red dress).
*Predicate Each sentence contains (or implies) two parts: a subject and a predicate. The predicate is what is said about the subject.
*Preposition A word like at, to, in, over etc. Prepositions usually come before a noun and give information about things like time, place and direction.
*Pronoun A word like I, me, you, he, him, it etc. A pronoun replaces a noun.
*Sentence A group of words that express a thought. A sentence conveys a statement, question, exclamation or command. A sentence contains or implies a subject and a predicate. In simple terms, a sentence must contain a verb and (usually) a subject. A sentence starts with a capital letter and ends with a full stop (.), question mark (?) or exclamation mark (!).
SubjectEvery sentence contains (or implies) two parts: a subject and a predicate. The subject is the main noun (or equivalent) in a sentence about which something is said.
TenseThe form of a verb that shows us when the action or state happens (past, present or future). Note that the name of a tense is not always a guide to when the action happens. The "present continuous tense", for example, can be used to talk about the present or the future.
VerbA word like (to) work, (to) love, (to) begin. A verb describes an action or state.


What is Grammar?
Grammar is the system of a language. People sometimes describe grammar as the "rules" of a language; but in fact no language has rules*. If we use the word "rules", we suggest that somebody created the rules first and then spoke the language, like a new game. But languages did not start like that. Languages started by people making sounds which evolved into words, phrases and sentences. No commonly-spoken language is fixed. All languages change over time. What we call "grammar" is simply a reflection of a language at a particular time.
Do we need to study grammar to learn a language? The short answer is "no". Very many people in the world speak their own, native language without having studied its grammar. Children start to speak before they even know the word "grammar". But if you are serious about learning a foreign language, the long answer is "yes, grammar can help you to learn a language more quickly and more efficiently." It's important to think of grammar as something that can help you, like a friend. When you understand the grammar (or system) of a language, you can understand many things yourself, without having to ask a teacher or look in a book.



Parts of Speech Table
This is a summary of the 8 parts of speech*. You can find more detail if you click on each part of speech.

Verb
action or state
(to) be, have, do, like, work, sing, can, must
EnglishClub.com is a web site. I like EnglishClub.com.
Noun
thing or person
pen, dog, work, music, town, London, teacher, John
This is my dog. He lives in my house. We live in London.
Adjective
describes a noun
a/an, the, 69, some, good, big, red, well, interesting
My dog is big. I like big dogs.
Adverb
describes a verb, adjective or adverb
quickly, silently, well, badly, very, really
My dog eats quickly. When he is very hungry, he eats really quickly.
Pronoun
replaces a noun
I, you, he, she, some
Tara is Indian. She is beautiful.
Preposition
links a noun to another word
to, at, after, on, but
We went to school on Monday.
Conjunction
joins clauses or sentences or words
and, but, when
I like dogs and I like cats. I like cats and dogs. I like dogs but I don't like cats.
Interjection
short exclamation, sometimes inserted into a sentence
oh!, ouch!, hi!, well
Ouch! That hurts! Hi! How are you? Well, I don't know.
* Some grammar sources categorize English into 9 or 10 parts of speech. At EnglishClub.com, we use the traditional categorization of 8 parts of speech. Examples of other categorizations are:
Verbs may be treated as two different parts of speech:
Lexical Verbs (work, like, run)
Auxiliary Verbs (be, have, must)
Determiners may be treated as a separate part of speech, instead of being categorized under Adjectives



Words with More than One Job
Many words in English can have more than one job, or be more than one part of speech. For example, "work" can be a verb and a noun; "but" can be a conjunction and a preposition; "well" can be an adjective, an adverb and an interjection. In addition, many nouns can act as adjectives.
To analyze the part of speech, ask yourself: "What job is this word doing in this sentence?"
In fact, if you look in a good dictionary you will see that the word but has six jobs to do:
verb, noun, adverb, pronoun, preposition and conjuction!