Editing English language (section)

== Grammar ==
{{Main|English grammar}}
As is typical of an Indo-European language, English follows [[Nominative–accusative language|accusative]] [[morphosyntactic alignment]]. Unlike other Indo-European languages though, English has largely abandoned the inflectional [[case system]] in favour of [[analytic language|analytic]] constructions. Only the [[personal pronouns]] retain morphological case more strongly than any other [[word class]]. English distinguishes at least seven major word classes: verbs, nouns, adjectives, adverbs, determiners (including articles), prepositions, and conjunctions. Some analyses add pronouns as a class separate from nouns, and subdivide conjunctions into subordinators and coordinators, and add the class of interjections.{{sfn|Huddleston|Pullum|2002|page=22}} English also has a rich set of auxiliary verbs, such as ''have'' and ''do'', expressing the categories of mood and aspect. Questions are marked by [[do-support]], [[wh-movement]] (fronting of question words beginning with ''wh''-) and word order [[Subject–auxiliary inversion|inversion]] with some verbs.<ref name="EGT">{{cite book |last1=Carter |first1=Ronald |last2=McCarthey |first2=Michael |last3=Mark |first3=Geraldine |last4=O'Keeffe |first4=Anne |title=English Grammar Today |date=2016 |publisher=Cambridge Univ Pr |isbn=978-1-316-61739-7}}</ref>

Some traits typical of Germanic languages persist in English, such as the distinction between irregularly inflected [[strong inflection|strong]] stems inflected through [[ablaut]] (i.e. changing the vowel of the stem, as in the pairs ''speak/spoke'' and ''foot/feet'') and weak stems inflected through affixation (such as ''love/loved'', ''hand/hands'').<ref name="HOEL">{{cite book |last1=Baugh |first1=Albert |last2=Cable |first2=Thomas |title=A history of the English language |date=2012 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-0-415-65596-5 |edition=6th}}</ref> Vestiges of the case and gender system are found in the pronoun system (''he/him, who/whom'') and in the inflection of the [[Copula (linguistics)|copula]] verb ''to be''.<ref name="HOEL" />

The seven word-classes are exemplified in this sample sentence:{{sfb|Aarts|Haegeman|2006|page=118}}
{| style="text-align: center;"
|-
| ''The'' || ''chairman'' || ''of'' || ''the'' || ''committee'' || ''and'' || ''the'' || ''loquacious'' || ''politician'' || ''clashed'' || ''violently'' || ''when'' || ''the'' || ''meeting'' || ''started''.
|-
| Det. || Noun || Prep. || Det. || Noun || Conj. || Det. || Adj. || Noun || Verb || Advb. || Conj. || Det. || Noun || Verb
|}

=== Nouns and noun phrases ===

English nouns are only inflected for number and possession. New nouns can be formed through derivation or compounding. They are semantically divided into [[proper nouns]] (names) and common nouns. Common nouns are in turn divided into concrete and abstract nouns, and grammatically into [[count noun]]s and [[mass nouns]].{{sfn|Payne|Huddleston|2002}}

Most count nouns are inflected for plural number through the use of the plural [[suffix]] -''s'', but a few nouns have irregular plural forms. Mass nouns can only be pluralised through the use of a count noun classifier, e.g. ''one loaf of bread'', ''two loaves of bread''.{{sfn|Huddleston|Pullum|2002|page=56–57}}

Regular plural formation:
* Singular: ''cat, dog''
* Plural: ''cats, dogs''

Irregular plural formation:
* Singular: ''man, woman, foot, fish, ox, knife, mouse''
* Plural: ''men, women, feet, fish, oxen, knives, mice''

Possession can be expressed either by the possessive [[enclitic]] -''s'' (also traditionally called a genitive suffix), or by the preposition ''of''. Historically the -s possessive has been used for animate nouns, whereas the ''of'' possessive has been reserved for inanimate nouns. Today this distinction is less clear, and many speakers use -''s'' also with inanimates. Orthographically the possessive -s is separated from a singular noun with an apostrophe. If the noun is plural formed with -s the apostrophe follows the -s.<ref name="EGT" />

Possessive constructions:
* With -s: ''The woman's husband's child''
* With of: ''The child of the husband of the woman''

Nouns can form [[noun phrase]]s (NPs) where they are the syntactic head of the words that depend on them such as determiners, quantifiers, conjunctions or adjectives.{{sfn|Huddleston|Pullum|2002|page=55}} Noun phrases can be short, such as ''the man'', composed only of a determiner and a noun. They can also include modifiers such as adjectives (e.g. ''red'', ''tall'', ''all'') and specifiers such as determiners (e.g. ''the'', ''that''). But they can also tie together several nouns into a single long NP, using conjunctions such as ''and'', or prepositions such as ''with'', e.g. ''the tall man with the long red trousers and his skinny wife with the spectacles'' (this NP uses conjunctions, prepositions, specifiers, and modifiers). Regardless of length, an NP functions as a syntactic unit.<ref name="EGT" /> For example, the possessive enclitic can, in cases which do not lead to ambiguity, follow the entire noun phrase, as in ''The President of India's wife'', where the enclitic follows ''India'' and not ''President''.

The class of determiners is used to specify the noun they precede in terms of [[definiteness]], where ''the'' marks a definite noun and ''a'' or ''an'' an indefinite one. A definite noun is assumed by the speaker to be already known by the interlocutor, whereas an indefinite noun is not specified as being previously known. Quantifiers, which include ''one'', ''many'', ''some'' and ''all'', are used to specify the noun in terms of quantity or number. The noun must agree with the number of the determiner, e.g. ''one man'' (sg.) but ''all men'' (pl.). Determiners are the first constituents in a noun phrase.{{sfn|Huddleston|Pullum|2002|pages=54–5}}

==== Adjectives ====

Adjectives modify a noun by providing additional information about their referents. In English, adjectives come before the nouns they modify and after determiners.{{sfn|Huddleston|Pullum|2002|page=57}} In Modern English, adjectives are not inflected so as to [[agreement (linguistics)|agree]] in form with the noun they modify, as adjectives in most other Indo-European languages do. For example, in the phrases ''the slender boy'', and ''many slender girls'', the adjective ''slender'' does not change form to agree with either the number or gender of the noun.

Some adjectives are inflected for [[comparison (grammar)|degree of comparison]], with the positive degree unmarked, the suffix ''-er'' marking the comparative, and ''-est'' marking the superlative: ''a small boy'', ''the boy is smaller than the girl'', ''that boy is the smallest''. Some adjectives have irregular comparative and superlative forms, such as ''good'', ''better'', and ''best''. Other adjectives have comparatives formed by [[periphrasis|periphrastic constructions]], with the adverb ''more'' marking the comparative, and ''most'' marking the superlative: ''happier'' or ''more happy'', ''the happiest'' or ''most happy''.{{sfn|König|1994|page=540}} There is some variation among speakers regarding which adjectives use inflected or periphrastic comparison, and some studies have shown a tendency for the periphrastic forms to become more common at the expense of the inflected form.{{sfn|Mair|2006|pages=148–49}}

==== Pronouns, case, and person ====

English pronouns conserve many traits of case and gender inflection. The personal pronouns retain a difference between subjective and objective case in most persons (''I/me, he/him, she/her, we/us, they/them'') as well as an animateness distinction in the third person singular (distinguishing ''it'' from the three sets of animate third person singular pronouns) and an optional gender distinction in the animate third person singular (distinguishing between ''she/her'' [feminine], ''[[Singular they|they/them]]'' [neuter], and ''he/him'' [masculine]).<ref name="oedthey">{{OED|they|id=200700}}</ref><ref name="apathey">{{Cite web|title=Singular "They"|url=https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/grammar/singular-they|access-date=24 November 2021|website=APA Style|archive-date=21 October 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201021234745/https://apastyle.apa.org/style-grammar-guidelines/grammar/singular-they|url-status=live}}</ref> The [[subjective case]] corresponds to the Old English [[nominative case]], and the [[objective case]] is used in the sense both of the previous [[accusative case]] (for a patient, or direct object of a transitive verb), and of the Old English dative case (for a recipient or [[indirect object]] of a transitive verb).{{sfn|Leech|2006|page=69|ps=: "Nominative is a traditional name for the subjective case"}}{{sfn|O'Dwyer|2006|ps=: "English has subjective, objective and possessive cases."}} The subjective is used when the pronoun is the subject of a finite clause, otherwise the objective is used.{{sfn|Greenbaum|Nelson|2002}} While grammarians such as [[Henry Sweet]]{{sfn|Sweet|2014|page=52|ps=: "But in that special class of nouns called personal pronouns we find a totally different system of case-inflection, namely, a '''nominative''' case (he) and an '''objective''' case (him)"}} and [[Otto Jespersen]]{{sfn|Jespersen|2007|pp=173–185}} noted that the English cases did not correspond to the traditional Latin-based system, some contemporary grammars, for example {{harvcoltxt|Huddleston|Pullum|2002}}, retain traditional labels for the cases, calling them nominative and accusative cases respectively.

Possessive pronouns exist in dependent and independent forms; the dependent form functions as a determiner specifying a noun (as in ''my chair''), while the independent form can stand alone as if it were a noun (e.g. ''the chair is mine'').{{sfn|Huddleston|Pullum|2002|page=425–26}} The English system of grammatical person no longer has a distinction between formal and informal pronouns of address (the old second person singular familiar pronoun ''[[thou]]'' acquired a pejorative or inferior tinge of meaning and was abandoned).

Both the second and third persons share pronouns between the plural and singular:

* Plural and singular are always identical (''you'', ''your'', ''yours'') in the second person (except in the reflexive form: ''yourself/yourselves'') in most dialects. Some dialects have introduced innovative second person plural pronouns, such as ''y'all'' (found in [[Southern American English]] and [[African American Vernacular English|African American (Vernacular) English]]), ''youse'' (found in [[Australian English]]), or ''ye'' (in [[Hiberno-English]]).
* In the third person, the ''they/them'' series of pronouns (''they'', ''them'', ''their'', ''theirs'', ''themselves'') are used in both plural and singular, and are the only pronouns available for the plural. In the singular, the ''they/them'' series (sometimes with the addition of the singular-specific reflexive form ''themself'') serve as a gender-neutral set of pronouns, alongside the feminine ''she/her'' series and the masculine ''he/him'' series.<ref name="oedthey" /><ref name="apathey" /><ref name="apawelcome">{{Cite web|url=https://apastyle.apa.org/blog/singular-they|title=Welcome, singular "they"|website=American Psychological Association|access-date=24 November 2021|archive-date=14 February 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200214220442/https://apastyle.apa.org/blog/singular-they|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="pedantthey">{{cite web|last=Kamm|first=Oliver|title=The Pedant: The sheer usefulness of singular 'they' is obvious|access-date=24 November 2021|date=12 December 2015|website=The Times|url=https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-pedant-the-sheer-usefulness-of-singular-they-is-obvious-3qs05ngflkj|archive-date=19 June 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190619175236/https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/the-pedant-the-sheer-usefulness-of-singular-they-is-obvious-3qs05ngflkj|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="denverthey">{{cite web|url=https://www1.ucdenver.edu/docs/librariesprovider102/default-document-library/resources-for-using-they-as-a-singlular-pronoun.pdf|title=Resources for using "they" as a singular pronoun|website=www1.ucdenver.edu|access-date=24 November 2021|archive-date=25 January 2021|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20210125205916/https://www1.ucdenver.edu/docs/librariesprovider102/default-document-library/resources-for-using-they-as-a-singlular-pronoun.pdf|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="chicagothey">{{cite web|title=Chicago Style for the Singular ''They''|date=3 April 2017|url=https://cmosshoptalk.com/2017/04/03/chicago-style-for-the-singular-they/|website=cmosshoptalk.com|access-date=24 November 2021|archive-date=22 February 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200222164116/http://cmosshoptalk.com/2017/04/03/chicago-style-for-the-singular-they/|url-status=live}}</ref><ref name="themself">{{Cite web|url=https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/themself|title=Themself|website=merriam-webster.com|access-date=24 November 2021|archive-date=11 November 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201111225310/https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/Themself|url-status=live}}</ref>

{| class="wikitable"
|-
|+ English personal pronouns
|-
! scope="col" | Person
! scope="col" | Subjective case
! scope="col" | Objective case
! scope="col" | Dependent possessive
! scope="col" | Independent possessive
! scope="col" | Reflexive
|-
! scope="row" | 1st p. sg.
| ''I'' || ''me'' || ''my'' || ''mine'' || ''myself''
|-
! scope="row" | 2nd p. sg.
| ''you'' || ''you'' || ''your'' || ''yours'' || ''yourself''
|-
! scope="row" | 3rd p. sg.
| ''he/she/it/[[Singular they|they]]'' || ''him/her/it/them'' || ''his/her/its/their'' || ''his/hers/its/theirs'' || ''himself/herself/itself/themself/themselves''
|-
! scope="row" | 1st p. pl.
| ''we'' || ''us'' || ''our'' || ''ours'' || ''ourselves''
|-
! scope="row" | 2nd p. pl.
| ''you'' || ''you'' || ''your'' || ''yours'' || ''yourselves''
|-
! scope="row" | 3rd p. pl.
| ''they'' || ''them'' || ''their'' || ''theirs'' || ''themselves''
|}

Pronouns are used to refer to entities [[Deixis|deictically]] or [[Anaphoric reference|anaphorically]]. A deictic pronoun points to some person or object by identifying it relative to the speech situation—for example, the pronoun ''I'' identifies the speaker, and the pronoun ''you'', the addressee. Anaphoric pronouns such as ''that'' refer back to an entity already mentioned or assumed by the speaker to be known by the audience, for example in the sentence ''I already told you that''. The reflexive pronouns are used when the oblique argument is identical to the subject of a phrase (e.g. "he sent it to himself" or "she braced herself for impact").{{sfn|Huddleston|Pullum|2002|page=426}}

==== Prepositions ====

Prepositional phrases (PP) are phrases composed of a preposition and one or more nouns, e.g. ''with the dog'', ''for my friend'', ''to school'', ''in England''.{{sfn|Huddleston|Pullum|2002|page=58}} Prepositions have a wide range of uses in English. They are used to describe movement, place, and other relations between different entities, but they also have many syntactic uses such as introducing complement clauses and oblique arguments of verbs.{{sfn|Huddleston|Pullum|2002|page=58}} For example, in the phrase ''I gave it to him'', the preposition ''to'' marks the recipient, or Indirect Object of the verb ''to give''. Traditionally words were only considered prepositions if they governed the case of the noun they preceded, for example causing the pronouns to use the objective rather than subjective form, "with her", "to me", "for us". But some contemporary grammars such as that of {{harvcoltxt|Huddleston|Pullum|2002|pp=598–600}} no longer consider government of case to be the defining feature of the class of prepositions, rather defining prepositions as words that can function as the heads of prepositional phrases.

=== Verbs and verb phrases ===

English verbs are inflected for tense and aspect and marked for agreement with present-tense third-person singular subject. Only the copula verb ''to be'' is still inflected for agreement with the plural and first and second person subjects.{{sfn|König|1994|page=540}} Auxiliary verbs such as ''have'' and ''be'' are paired with verbs in the infinitive, past, or progressive forms. They form [[periphrasis|complex]] tenses, aspects, and moods. Auxiliary verbs differ from other verbs in that they can be followed by the negation, and in that they can occur as the first constituent in a question sentence.{{sfn|Huddleston|Pullum|2002|page=51}}{{sfn|König|1994|page=541}}

Most verbs have six inflectional forms. The primary forms are a plain present, a third-person singular present, and a preterite (past) form. The secondary forms are a plain form used for the infinitive, a gerund-participle and a past participle.{{sfn|Huddleston|Pullum|2002|page=50}} The copula verb ''to be'' is the only verb to retain some of its original conjugation, and takes different inflectional forms depending on the subject. The first-person present-tense form is ''am'', the third person singular form is ''is'', and the form ''are'' is used in the second-person singular and all three plurals. The only verb past participle is ''been'' and its gerund-participle is ''being''.

{| class="wikitable"
|-
|+ English inflectional forms
|-
! scope="col" | Inflection
! scope="col" | Strong
! scope="col" | Regular
|-
! scope="row" | Plain present
| ''take'' || ''love''
|-
! scope="row" | 3rd person sg.<br/>present
| ''takes'' || ''loves''
|-
! scope="row" | Preterite
| ''took'' || ''loved''
|-
! scope="row" | Plain (infinitive)
| ''take'' || ''love''
|-
! scope="row" | Gerund–participle
| ''taking'' || ''loving''
|-
! scope="row" | Past participle
| ''taken'' || ''loved''
|}

==== Tense, aspect and mood ====

English has two primary tenses, past (preterite) and non-past. The preterite is inflected by using the preterite form of the verb, which for the regular verbs includes the suffix ''-ed'', and for the strong verbs either the suffix ''-t'' or a change in the stem vowel. The non-past form is unmarked except in the third person singular, which takes the suffix ''-s''.{{sfn|Huddleston|Pullum|2002|page=51}}

{| class="wikitable"
|-
|+
|-
! scope="col" |
! scope="col" | Present
! scope="col" | Preterite
|-
! scope="row" | First person
| ''I run'' || ''I ran''
|-
! scope="row" | Second person
| ''You run'' || ''You ran''
|-
! scope="row" | Third person
| ''John runs'' || ''John ran''
|}

English does not have future verb forms.{{sfn|Huddleston|Pullum|2002|pages=208–210}} The future tense is expressed periphrastically with one of the auxiliary verbs ''will'' or ''shall''.{{sfn|Huddleston|Pullum|2002|page=51–52}} Many varieties also use a [[near future tense|near future]] constructed with the [[phrasal verb]] ''be going to'' ("[[going-to future]]").{{sfn|Huddleston|Pullum|2002|pages=210–11}}

{| class="wikitable"
|-
|+
|-
! scope="col" |
! scope="col" |Future
|-
! scope="row" | First person
| ''I will run''
|-
! scope="row" | Second person
| ''You will run''
|-
! scope="row" | Third person
| ''John will run''
|}

Further aspectual distinctions are shown by auxiliary verbs, primarily ''have'' and ''be'', which show the contrast between a perfect and non-perfect past tense (''I have run'' vs. ''I was running''), and compound tenses such as preterite perfect (''I had been running'') and present perfect (''I have been running'').{{sfn|Huddleston|Pullum|2002|page=50–51}}

For the expression of mood, English uses a number of modal auxiliaries, such as ''can'', ''may'', ''will'', ''shall'' and the past tense forms ''could'', ''might'', ''would'', ''should''. There are also subjunctive and [[imperative mood]]s, both based on the plain form of the verb (i.e. without the third person singular ''-s''), for use in subordinate clauses (e.g. subjunctive: ''It is important that he run every day''; imperative ''Run!'').{{sfn|Huddleston|Pullum|2002|page=51–52}}

An infinitive form, that uses the plain form of the verb and the preposition ''to'', is used for verbal clauses that are syntactically subordinate to a finite verbal clause. Finite verbal clauses are those that are formed around a verb in the present or preterite form. In clauses with auxiliary verbs, they are the finite verbs and the main verb is treated as a subordinate clause.<ref name="meg">{{cite web |title=Finite and Nonfinite Clauses |url=https://myenglishgrammar.com/lesson-17-clauses/6-finite-and-nonfinite-clauses.html |website=MyEnglishGrammar.com |access-date=7 December 2019 |archive-date=7 December 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191207091436/http://myenglishgrammar.com/lesson-17-clauses/6-finite-and-nonfinite-clauses.html |url-status=live }}</ref> For example, ''he has to go'' where only the auxiliary verb ''have'' is inflected for time and the main verb ''to go'' is in the infinitive, or in a complement clause such as ''I saw him leave'', where the main verb is ''to see'', which is in a preterite form, and ''leave'' is in the infinitive.

==== Phrasal verbs ====

English also makes frequent use of constructions traditionally called [[phrasal verb]]s, verb phrases that are made up of a verb root and a preposition or particle that follows the verb. The phrase then functions as a single predicate. In terms of intonation the preposition is fused to the verb, but in writing it is written as a separate word. Examples of phrasal verbs are ''to get up'', ''to ask out'', ''to back up'', ''to give up'', ''to get together'', ''to hang out'', ''to put up with'', etc. The phrasal verb frequently has a highly [[English-language idioms|idiomatic]] meaning that is more specialised and restricted than what can be simply extrapolated from the combination of verb and preposition complement (e.g. ''lay off'' meaning ''terminate someone's employment'').{{sfn|Dixon|1982}} In spite of the idiomatic meaning, some grammarians, including {{harvcoltxt|Huddleston|Pullum|2002|page=274}}, do not consider this type of construction to form a syntactic constituent and hence refrain from using the term "phrasal verb". Instead, they consider the construction simply to be a verb with a prepositional phrase as its syntactic complement, i.e. ''he woke up in the morning'' and ''he ran up in the mountains'' are syntactically equivalent.

==== Adverbs ====

The function of adverbs is to modify the action or event described by the verb by providing additional information about the manner in which it occurs.<ref name="EGT" /> Many adverbs are derived from adjectives by appending the suffix ''-ly''. For example, in the phrase ''the woman walked quickly'', the adverb ''quickly'' is derived in this way from the adjective ''quick''. Some commonly used adjectives have irregular adverbial forms, such as ''good'', which has the adverbial form ''well''.

=== Syntax ===

[[File:Constituent structure analysis English sentence.svg|right|thumb|In the English sentence ''The cat sat on the mat'', the subject is ''the cat'' (a noun phrase), the verb is ''sat'', and ''on the mat'' is a prepositional phrase (composed of a noun phrase ''the mat'' headed by the preposition ''on''). The tree describes the structure of the sentence.]]

Modern English syntax language is moderately [[Isolating language|analytic]].{{sfn|McArthur|1992|pp=64, 610–611}} It has developed features such as [[English modal verb|modal verbs]] and [[word order]] as resources for conveying meaning. [[Auxiliary verb]]s mark constructions such as questions, negative polarity, the [[Grammatical voice|passive voice]] and progressive [[grammatical aspect|aspect]].

==== Basic constituent order ====

English word order has moved from the Germanic [[V2 word order|verb-second (V2) word order]] to being almost exclusively [[subject–verb–object]] (SVO).{{sfn|König|1994|page=553}} The combination of SVO order and use of auxiliary verbs often creates clusters of two or more verbs at the centre of the sentence, such as ''he had hoped to try to open it''.

In most sentences, English only marks grammatical relations through word order.{{sfn|König|1994|page=550}} The subject constituent precedes the verb and the object constituent follows it. The example below demonstrates how the grammatical roles of each constituent are marked only by the position relative to the verb:

{| style="text-align: center;"
|-
| ''The dog'' || ''bites'' || ''the man''
|-
| S || V || O
|-
| ''The man'' || ''bites'' || ''the dog''
|-
| S || V || O
|}

An exception is found in sentences where one of the constituents is a pronoun, in which case it is doubly marked, both by word order and by case inflection, where the subject pronoun precedes the verb and takes the subjective case form, and the object pronoun follows the verb and takes the objective case form.<ref>{{cite web |title=Cases of Nouns and Pronouns |url=http://guidetogrammar.org/grammar/cases.htm |website=Guide to Grammar and Writing |access-date=24 November 2019 |archive-date=16 November 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191116081858/http://guidetogrammar.org/grammar/cases.htm |url-status=live }}</ref> The example below demonstrates this double marking in a sentence where both object and subject are represented with a third person singular masculine pronoun:

{| style="text-align: center;"
|-
| ''He'' || ''hit'' || ''him''
|-
| S || V || O
|}

[[Indirect object]]s (IO) of ditransitive verbs can be placed either as the first object in a double object construction (S V IO O), such as ''I gave <u>Jane</u> the book'' or in a prepositional phrase, such as ''I gave the book <u>to Jane</u>''.{{sfn|König|1994|page=551}}

==== Clause syntax ====
{{Main|English clause syntax}}

In English a sentence may be composed of one or more clauses, that may, in turn, be composed of one or more phrases (e.g. Noun Phrases, Verb Phrases, and Prepositional Phrases). A clause is built around a verb and includes its constituents, such as any NPs and PPs. Within a sentence, there is always at least one main clause (or matrix clause) whereas other clauses are subordinate to a main clause. Subordinate clauses may function as arguments of the verb in the main clause. For example, in the phrase ''I think (that) you are lying'', the main clause is headed by the verb ''think'', the subject is ''I'', but the object of the phrase is the subordinate clause ''(that) you are lying''. The subordinating conjunction ''that'' shows that the clause that follows is a subordinate clause, but it is often omitted.{{sfn|Miller|2002|pages=60–69}} [[Relative clause]]s are clauses that function as a modifier or specifier to some constituent in the main clause: For example, in the sentence ''I saw the letter that you received today'', the relative clause ''that you received today'' specifies the meaning of the word ''letter'', the object of the main clause. Relative clauses can be introduced by the pronouns ''who'', ''whose'', ''whom'' and ''which'' as well as by ''that'' (which can also be omitted.){{sfn|König|1994|page=545}} In contrast to many other Germanic languages there are no major differences between word order in main and subordinate clauses.{{sfn|König|1994|page=557}}

==== Auxiliary verb constructions ====
{{Main|Do-support|Subject–auxiliary inversion}}

English syntax relies on auxiliary verbs for many functions including the expression of tense, aspect, and mood. Auxiliary verbs form main clauses, and the main verbs function as heads of a subordinate clause of the auxiliary verb. For example, in the sentence ''the dog did not find its bone'', the clause ''find its bone'' is the complement of the negated verb ''did not''. [[Subject–auxiliary inversion]] is used in many constructions, including focus, negation, and interrogative constructions.

The verb ''do'' can be used as an auxiliary even in simple declarative sentences, where it usually serves to add emphasis, as in "I ''did'' shut the fridge." However, in the negated and inverted clauses referred to above, it is used because the rules of English [[syntax]] permit these constructions only when an auxiliary is present. [[Modern English]] does not allow the addition of the negating adverb ''not'' to an ordinary [[finite verb|finite]] lexical verb, as in ''*I know not''—it can only be added to an auxiliary (or [[copular verb|copular]]) verb, hence if there is no other auxiliary present when negation is required, the auxiliary ''do'' is used, to produce a form like ''I do not (don't) know.'' The same applies in clauses requiring inversion, including most questions—inversion must involve the subject and an auxiliary verb, so it is not possible to say ''*Know you him?''; grammatical rules require ''Do you know him?''{{sfn|Huddleston|Pullum|2002|page=114}}

Negation is done with the adverb ''not'', which precedes the main verb and follows an auxiliary verb. A contracted form of not ''-n't'' can be used as an enclitic attaching to auxiliary verbs and to the copula verb ''to be''. Just as with questions, many negative constructions require the negation to occur with do-support, thus in Modern English ''I don't know him'' is the correct answer to the question ''Do you know him?'', but not ''*I know him not'', although this construction may be found in older English.{{sfn|Huddleston|Pullum|2002|pages=786–790}}

Passive constructions also use auxiliary verbs. A passive construction rephrases an active construction in such a way that the object of the active phrase becomes the subject of the passive phrase, and the subject of the active phrase is either omitted or demoted to a role as an oblique argument introduced in a prepositional phrase. They are formed by using the past participle either with the auxiliary verb ''to be'' or ''to get'', although not all varieties of English allow the use of passives with ''get''. For example, putting the sentence ''she sees him'' into the passive becomes ''he is seen (by her)'', or ''he gets seen (by her)''.{{sfn|Miller|2002|pages=26–27}}

==== Questions ====

Both [[yes–no question]]s and [[wh-question|''wh''-questions]] in English are mostly formed using [[subject–auxiliary inversion]] (''Am I going tomorrow?'', ''Where can we eat?''), which may require [[do-support|''do''-support]] (''Do you like her?'', ''Where did he go?''). In most cases, [[interrogative word]]s (''wh''-words; e.g. ''what'', ''who'', ''where'', ''when'', ''why'', ''how'') appear in a [[Wh-movement|fronted position]]. For example, in the question ''What did you see?'', the word ''what'' appears as the first constituent despite being the [[grammatical object]] of the sentence. (When the ''wh''-word is the subject or forms part of the subject, no inversion occurs: ''Who saw the cat?''.) [[Prepositional phrases]] can also be fronted when they are the question's theme, e.g. ''To whose house did you go last night?''. The personal interrogative pronoun ''[[who (pronoun)|who]]'' is the only interrogative pronoun to still show inflection for case, with the variant ''whom'' serving as the objective case form, although this form may be going out of use in many contexts.{{sfn|Huddleston|Pullum|2002|pp=7–8}}

==== Discourse level syntax ====
While English is a subject-prominent language, at the discourse level it tends to use a [[Topic and comment|topic-comment]] structure, where the known information (topic) precedes the new information (comment). Because of the strict SVO syntax, the topic of a sentence generally has to be the grammatical subject of the sentence. In cases where the topic is not the grammatical subject of the sentence, it is often promoted to subject position through syntactic means. One way of doing this is through a passive construction, ''the girl was stung by the bee''. Another way is through a [[cleft sentence]] where the main clause is demoted to be a complement clause of a copula sentence with a [[dummy subject]] such as ''it'' or ''there'', e.g. ''it was the girl that the bee stung'', ''there was a girl who was stung by a bee''.{{sfn|Huddleston|Pullum|2002|pages=1365–70}} Dummy subjects are also used in constructions where there is no grammatical subject such as with impersonal verbs (e.g., ''it is raining'') or in existential clauses (''there are many cars on the street''). Through the use of these complex sentence constructions with informationally vacuous subjects, English is able to maintain both a topic-comment sentence structure and a SVO syntax.

[[Focus (linguistics)|Focus constructions]] emphasise a particular piece of new or salient information within a sentence, generally through allocating the main sentence level stress on the focal constituent. For example, ''the girl was stung by <u>a bee</u>'' (emphasising it was a bee and not, for example, a wasp that stung her), or ''<u>The girl</u> was stung by a bee'' (contrasting with another possibility, for example that it was the boy).{{sfn|Huddleston|Pullum|2002|page=1370}} Topic and focus can also be established through syntactic dislocation, either preposing or postposing the item to be focused on relative to the main clause. For example, ''That girl over there, she was stung by a bee'', emphasises the girl by preposition, but a similar effect could be achieved by postposition, ''she was stung by a bee, that girl over there'', where reference to the girl is established as an "afterthought".{{sfn|Huddleston|Pullum|2002|page=1366}}

[[Cohesion (linguistics)|Cohesion]] between sentences is achieved through the use of deictic pronouns as [[anaphora (linguistics)|anaphora]] (e.g. ''that is exactly what I mean'' where ''that'' refers to some fact known to both interlocutors, or ''then'' used to locate the time of a narrated event relative to the time of a previously narrated event).{{sfn|Halliday|Hasan|1976}} [[Discourse marker]]s such as ''oh'', ''so'' or ''well'', also signal the progression of ideas between sentences and help to create cohesion. Discourse markers are often the first constituents in sentences. Discourse markers are also used for [[Stance (linguistics)|stance taking]] in which speakers position themselves in a specific attitude towards what is being said, for example, ''no way is that true!'' (the idiomatic marker ''no way!'' expressing disbelief), or ''boy! I'm hungry'' (the marker ''boy'' expressing emphasis). While discourse markers are particularly characteristic of informal and spoken registers of English, they are also used in written and formal registers.{{sfn|Schiffrin|1988}}