01. Chapter title and learning objectives
Chapter one. Some key concepts, terms, and ways of thinking about English grammar.
By the end of this chapter, you should be able to do the following.
Understand why necessary and sufficient conditions fail for linguistic definitions.
Distinguish everyday from technical meanings of grammatical terms.
Apply critical thinking strategies, including looking for counter-examples.
Begin to identify the basic lexical categories of English: nouns, verbs, adjectives, and determinatives.
Recognize how words can belong to different categories in different contexts.
Understand the concept of lexical categories as prototype-based rather than rule-based.
Apply systematic criteria to identify lexical categories despite boundary cases.
And appreciate the complexity underlying seemingly simple grammatical concepts.
02. Getting started with grammar
If the idea of teaching English grammar makes you nervous, you're not alone. Many aspiring English-language teachers feel intimidated by grammar, unsure about the difference between an adverb and an adjective, or worried they don't know enough about the intricacies of the language they hope to teach.
But here's a secret: understanding grammar isn't about memorizing a set of rigid rules. There will, of course, be memorization, but that won't be of much use unless we develop new ways of thinking about language, ways that will help us make sense of English and, eventually, help your future students do the same.
This chapter is designed to ease you into this new way of thinking. I'm not going to start by bombarding you with entirely unfamiliar terms like “clitic,” “deixis,” or “ergative,” and I won't be setting out any complex rules. Instead, we'll begin by questioning some basic assumptions about language and exploring how we define the things we think we understand.
We'll start with some fundamental concepts and gradually build up to more specific grammatical ideas. Along the way, we'll develop critical thinking strategies that are crucial for anyone planning to teach language. You'll learn to look for counter-examples, to consider different perspectives, and to recognize the difference between everyday and technical uses of terms.
03. What teachers need to know
If you're skeptical that there's any value at all in knowing a lot about English, again, you're in good company. But research on teacher language awareness suggests that teachers who understand how language works as a system are better equipped to diagnose learner errors, anticipate difficulty, and adapt their explanations on the fly.
As Stevick puts it, in a passage quoted by Andrews, the teacher needs to know the pathways and obstacles of the language “not only to run back and forth in them for herself, but also to see them as they look to a newcomer.”
Don't get me wrong: this book is not about becoming able to teach linguistics to your students. It's about what you, as a teacher, need to know in order to anticipate their problems, respond to them, and put into words what fluent speakers do without thinking.
But for something to count as knowledge, it has to be true, and much of what passes for knowledge about language fails this test. Nouns are people, places, and things; verbs are action words. These are beliefs about language, not knowledge.
Bartels cautions that academic knowledge about language doesn't automatically transfer to classroom practice. I'd say that's partly because it doesn't qualify as knowledge. True knowledge about language does become useful when teachers connect it to the demands of their classrooms, and this book includes many exercises that help you make those connections.
04. Soup, definitions, and counter-examples
Don't worry if you feel unsure about your grammar knowledge right now. By the end of this chapter, you'll have a basic toolkit for thinking about language that will help you approach grammar with more confidence. And we'll start with a question that might seem simple at first, but will challenge us to think more deeply: What makes soup soup?
It seems like a silly, irrelevant, and trivially easy question, at least until you try to answer it. What's the difference between tea and soup, sauce and soup, porridge and soup, stew and soup, juice and soup? Don't forget that there's gazpacho, salmorejo, cucumber soup, and other cold soups.
This isn't special to soup. Most things, when you start looking at examples and counter-examples, turn out to be really hard to pin down. The problem is that we try to define things by picking out necessary and sufficient conditions.
In both philosophical and scientific circles we find the concept of necessary and sufficient conditions. A necessary condition must be present for acceptance; a sufficient condition, if present, guarantees acceptance. In other words, when we say a condition is necessary and sufficient for a word to be categorized as a noun, we mean that the word can't be a noun unless it possesses characteristic A, and that if characteristic A is present, the word is definitely a noun.
A clear and straightforward example of this is the concept of even numbers in mathematics. An integer is an even number if dividing it by two results in another integer. This is both a necessary and sufficient condition for an integer to be even. No even number exists that is not divisible by two in this way, making it a necessary condition. And any such number is always even, making it a sufficient condition.
There's a psychological qualification here. Research suggests that some numbers are processed as more typical examples of odd or even numbers than others. That concerns how people think about numbers; the mathematical definition remains categorical.
So, from philosophical abstractions to mathematical certainties, necessary and sufficient conditions often frame our understanding of concepts.
But when we come to language and its components, definitions that use necessary and sufficient conditions tend to fail. Let's say you defined a noun as “a word that denotes a person, place, or thing” and you defined a verb as “an action word.” Take a moment to think about what kind of word could be more of an action word than the word “action.” And then think about whether “action” is a verb or a noun. Here's a hint: check a dictionary. Pause here if you'd like to try it.
To be clear, “action” is usually a noun, but it's also a verb. For example: “We need to action these tasks before the end of the day.” Or perhaps it would be better to say that there are two words pronounced “action,” the more common one being a noun and the relatively rare one being a verb.
But it's not just “action.” Consider the definition of “violation.” It's a noun, and it's an action. The same is true of many nouns, from “blow” to “cue” and “signal” to “sin.” They are defined using the phrase “the action of,” so this pretty much destroys the very common idea that a noun is a person, place, or thing and a verb is an action word. Nouns can be action words too.
We define words to understand language, but we need to understand language to define words.
Here's a thinking trap. Imagine four cards on a table. Each card has a number on one side and a colour on the other side. The sides you can see have a three, an eight, and the colours blue and red. To check the rule “if a card has an even number on one side, then the other side is blue,” which cards should you flip over?
Pause here and decide which cards you'd turn over. The answer comes next.
Many people would say the eight and the blue. And indeed, you need to check the eight. If the other side is not blue, the rule is violated. On the other hand, flipping the blue card doesn't test the rule. The rule says nothing about odd numbers at all, only about even numbers, which is presumably why almost nobody checks the three card.
So, whether the other side of the blue card is an even or odd number, it doesn't affect the rule. The red card holds the key. Turn it over, and if you find an even number, the rule would be violated.
Our goal is not only to affirm the rule but also to look for counter-examples, situations where the rule fails. This is just as important with the definitions of linguistic concepts. A definition that either includes non-members or excludes members is not a good definition. If we're assessing “an action word” as a definition for a verb, we need to consider both affirming and contradicting evidence.
For example, we can check whether the word “run” is an “action word.” It is. And whether it is a verb. It is. On the other hand, we also need to look for contradicting evidence such as words that are considered “action words” but are not verbs, like “action,” or “run” in the sentence “I went for a run.” And words like “exist” and “sense,” which are not necessarily perceived as “action words,” can be verbs.
But maybe we can save something here. Can you think of any words denoting physical objects that are verbs? Pause here and spend a few moments.
It's safe to say that nouns and verbs can both denote actions, but verbs never denote physical objects, or people or places, for that matter. We need a noun for that. This leads us to the following conclusion.
It's true that “persons, places, and things are only denoted by nouns.” But it's false that “nouns only denote persons, places, and things.”
That's a subtle difference, but an important one. Nouns can denote a wider variety of things, while verbs are more limited, and the sets of things that nouns and verbs can denote overlap.
So far, we've identified three issues when it comes to defining nouns and verbs. When it comes to adjectives and other lexical categories, similar points apply, but let's take stock right now.
First, a simple definition with necessary and sufficient conditions will include things that don't belong. Gravy is made from stock but it's not soup. And it will exclude things that do belong. Gazpacho is served cold but it's still soup.
Second, we can't just make our definition fit the examples we have in mind. We need to consciously think of counter-examples.
Third, sometimes we need to restate our ideas to accurately express them.
As language teachers, we use categories like “noun” and “verb” a lot. But categorizing words is a tool, not the end goal. The purpose of categorizing is to be able to make general statements about the world or, in our case, about language.
Here's why this matters: the wrong categories lead to more “rules” and more “exceptions” than you need. Having the right categories means you can say more with less, and this makes life easier for you and for your students.
Here are five review questions. Pause after each one if you'd like time to answer.
One. What's the main goal of this course?
Two. What's wrong with the idea that an English noun is the name of a person, place, or thing?
Three. Which statement is a necessary and sufficient definition of English verbs? Option A: verbs denote actions. Option B: actions are denoted by verbs. Or option C: neither of the above.
Four. How is the soup question relevant to defining word categories?
Five. What's the thinking trap we should try to avoid?
Pause here before continuing to the answers.
Here are the answers to the five review questions.
One. The main goal of this course is to gain facility with the analysis of language so that we can provide our students with tools they can use to decide how to speak English.
Two. In English, nouns denote a far wider range of concepts than persons, places, and things, including actions and characteristics.
Three. C. The category of verbs can't be reliably defined based on denotations.
Four. The soup question illustrates that categories in general don't have necessary and sufficient properties.
Five. We look only for confirmatory evidence to support our hypotheses, and we fail to look for evidence that might disconfirm them.
05. Everyday and technical meanings
Just as we found with nouns and verbs, some of our most basic assumptions about language can trip us up. Take the word “phrase,” for instance. You probably think you know what it means. After all, we use phrases every day.
In everyday language, a phrase is just a group of words that go together to express an idea, like “on the table” or “be going to.” And that's a perfectly good sense of “phrase.” It's the most common one, and the one most people associate with the word.
But there is also a technical sense, and that's the one I'll be using throughout. A phrase in English grammar is a specific type of structure with two key properties.
First, it has a head: a core word that determines the basic properties of the whole phrase.
Second, it may have dependents: words or other phrases that modify or complete the meaning of the head.
This is quite different from the everyday notion of “words that go together.” For example, “coffee and tea” might seem like a perfectly good phrase in everyday speech, but technically it's not a single phrase. It's a coordination of two noun phrases, “coffee” and “tea,” joined by “and.” None of these words is the head of the whole expression. The section on coordination in Chapter eighteen explains this further.
06. Incomplete expressions and coordination
Here are six expressions that are phrases in the everyday sense but aren't phrases in the technical sense.
One: “can't help but.”
Two: “let alone.”
Three: “want to,” taken out of “want to try again.” In the printed example, brackets enclose just “want to.”
Four: “pick up,” taken out of “pick up the pencil.” Again, brackets enclose just “pick up.”
Five: “good or bad.”
And six: “salt and pepper.”
The first two examples, “can't help but” and “let alone,” are missing their required dependents. You can't say “this isn't working, let alone” and stop there.
The next two show portions that we've artificially extracted from their full contexts. The complete phrases would be “want to try again” and “pick up the pencil.”
The coordination examples, “good or bad” and “salt and pepper,” present a different issue entirely. Unlike the headed structures we've been discussing, coordination joins elements of equal status with no single head. When we say “salt and pepper,” neither noun licenses the other; they're simply equals. This makes coordination fundamentally different from phrases in our technical sense, which require a head.
07. Technical meanings and one-word phrases
For now, there's no need to think too hard about what a phrase is. I just want to alert you to the fact that I'm going to be using “phrase” in a way that might seem familiar but is actually subtly different.
This distinction between the technical meaning of “phrase” and the everyday meaning is not so unusual. Academics often adopt common words but give them a technical meaning. This doesn't mean that the everyday sense is wrong or that the technical one is; it's common for words to have various meanings. But it's useful for English teachers to be aware that many linguistic terms, like “phrase,” have a technical sense which is similar to but slightly different from the everyday meaning.
This technical definition of phrases will be important throughout the following chapters. When we talk about noun phrases, verb phrases, and other phrase types, we'll always be referring to these headed structures, whether or not they have dependents, not just any group of connected words.
To be explicit, this allows for one-word phrases. In the command “Stop!” the word “stop” is a phrase. In “Would you like pepper with that?” the word “pepper” is a phrase.
With this clearer understanding of what we mean by phrases, we can now turn to the specific types of phrases we find in English, starting with noun phrases and the nouns that head them.
08. The main properties
There's no perfect definition of “noun,” just as there's no perfect definition of “soup,” but we can get very close, as long as we're willing to hedge with words like “can,” “almost,” and “typically.”
This book is about English, and so, here and throughout, I mean English nouns, verbs, tenses, and so on. When I want to talk about nouns in languages in general, I'll make that clear.
I will use words here that have not yet been explained. This may be frustrating, but it is inevitable. Syntax is a system, and its elements can only be defined in relation to each other. The meaning of the other words will become clear soon, and the Glossary collects all the technical terms in one place. For now, the main properties are as follows.
Nouns can denote almost anything.
A word that denotes a person, place, or thing is a noun. But that doesn't mean “a noun is a word that denotes a person, place, or thing.”
A word that is countable is a noun. But that doesn't mean “all nouns are countable.”
Almost any word that is plural is a noun. But that doesn't mean “all nouns can be plural.”
Nouns often follow “the” or “a.” But that doesn't mean “words following the or a are nouns.”
Nouns head noun phrases.
Noun phrases can typically include adjective phrases as modifiers, and other types of phrases typically can't.
Noun phrases can't typically include adverb phrases as modifiers, but other types of phrases typically can.
Noun phrases can perform a variety of functions, including subject and object. But that doesn't mean “subjects and objects are noun phrases.” Some examples follow, and I'll say more about what subjects and objects are later.
Noun phrases can typically be possessive. The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language uses the term “genitive” instead of “possessive,” because the relationship is often not one of possession. The term “possessive,” though, is much more common, so I will use it here, as long as you promise to remember that “your pet's vet” is not a vet possessed by your pet.
09. The direction of a claim
Each of these characteristics can be odd or unfamiliar to English-language learners. In the other languages they speak, there may be no plural nouns, for example. So the elements of the definition point to facts about English nouns that may be useful for English-language learners to learn.
Many of the statements are not commutative. Multiplication is commutative: X times Y equals Y times X. Division isn't: reversing the order can change the answer. In other words, the way you say something can be really important.
Unfortunately, people often won't notice, or will later disregard, the difference between “nouns can typically follow the or a” and “a word that follows the or a is typically a noun.”
In my calculations from the Corpus of Contemporary American English, “the” is followed immediately by a noun about thirty-four thousand five hundred times per million words, while it's followed immediately by a non-noun about forty-eight thousand four hundred times per million words. So, while the next word after “the” is often a noun, anyone relying on this to be true will be wrong more often than they're right.
The following examples will make the characteristics more concrete. After considering each set, try to think of nouns that do not have one or more of the properties listed. In other words, look for counter-examples.
10. Denotation and countability examples
We've already seen how nouns can denote actions. We also have characteristics, such as “beauty,” “happiness,” “size,” and “aptitude”; states, such as “absence”; relations, such as “togetherness” and “superiority”; and on and on.
Here are some examples of count nouns: “apple,” “book,” “chair,” “pen,” “tree,” “giraffe,” “telescope,” “flute,” “cathedral,” “quasar,” and “enzyme.”
And here are some non-count nouns: “water,” “information,” “rice,” “music,” “furniture,” “advice,” “syrup,” “flour,” “machinery,” “courage,” “syntax,” and “kinship.”
Many learner dictionaries describe the same contrast as “countable” versus “uncountable.” I use “count noun” and “non-count noun” for the grammatical categories.
11. Plurals and nouns following the or a
Consider the following examples of plural nouns: “we,” “women,” “children,” “students,” “things,” “eyes,” “police,” “fish,” “words,” “thanks,” “feet,” and “problems.”
Now consider these very simple noun phrases with “the” or “a” plus a head noun: “the world,” “a lot,” “the way,” “the end,” “the people,” “a man,” “the day,” “a couple,” and “a year.”
12. Adjective-phrase modifiers and head nouns
Next, examine these noun phrases with adjective-phrase modifiers and head nouns. I'll read each whole noun phrase, then identify the adjective phrase and the head noun.
“A long time.” The adjective phrase is “long”; the head noun is “time.”
“A little bit.” The adjective phrase is “little”; the head noun is “bit.”
“Other people.” The adjective phrase is “other”; the head noun is “people.”
“The twelfth one.” The adjective phrase is “twelfth”; the head noun is “one.”
“The supreme court.” The adjective phrase is “supreme”; the head noun is “court.”
“A very good morning.” The adjective phrase is “very good”; the head noun is “morning.”
“The only way I know.” The adjective phrase is “only”; the head noun is “way.”
“An old man.” The adjective phrase is “old”; the head noun is “man.”
“Social media.” The adjective phrase is “social”; the head noun is “media.”
13. Subjects and possessive noun phrases
In each of the following sentences, I'll identify the noun phrase functioning as subject.
“You win.” The subject is “you.”
“Time is on my side.” The subject is “time.”
“A little bit goes a long way.” The subject is “a little bit.”
“Other people can help.” The subject is “other people.”
“The supreme court released its decision.” The subject is “the supreme court.”
“Often, the twelfth one is perfect.” The subject is “the twelfth one.”
“A very good morning is a rare pleasure.” The subject is “a very good morning.”
“On Monday, the shop will be closed.” The subject is “the shop.”
“What do human rights mean?” The subject is “human rights.”
The following noun phrases are possessive: “my,” “mine,” “its,” “whose,” “Brett's,” “time's,” “other people's,” “the supreme court's,” and “the lady who lives here's.” Their written forms are in the transcript.
14. Prototypical nouns
A word like “school,” for instance, has all the properties listed above. It's a prototypical noun, a “good” example.
Here are some other generally good examples of nouns, though they might not each exhibit every property given above: “person,” “way,” “day,” “life,” “man,” “school,” “student,” “thing,” “house,” “family,” “work,” “part,” “night,” “country,” “government,” “place,” “money,” “water,” and “room.”
Which nouns lack which properties? Pause here if you'd like time to think through the list.
15. Less prototypical nouns
A word like “umbrage,” for instance, is missing a number of the properties listed above. For instance, it has no plural, nor do you find possessive noun phrases with “umbrage” as the head. It doesn't denote a physical object, a person, or a place. It is not countable and therefore it doesn't follow “an.” It has other oddities too. Can you think of any?
Other not-so-good examples include “contemplation,” “crockery,” “furniture,” “sake,” as in “for heaven's sake,” “shrift,” “what,” and “behalf.” What properties does each of them lack?
Practice thinking of nouns that are missing one or more of the properties. Use a good dictionary to check if you're not sure the word is a noun. I would suggest the Simple English Wiktionary. I'm an editor there, and I'll stand behind the category system there. If you don't find the word you're looking for there, then try the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English. Links are in the source notes.
Pause here to try the examples before moving on.
16. Choosing the true and relevant statement
From each group of statements, choose the one that is true and relevant. Pause after each group to decide. The answers are in the next segment.
One. Option A: nouns denote almost anything: objects, actions, and characteristics. Option B: a noun is a word that denotes only people, places, and things.
Two. Option A: any word that is countable is a noun. Option B: you can count nouns. Option C: all nouns are countable.
Three. Option A: a plural noun always ends in an S. Option B: any noun can be plural. Option C: almost any word that is plural is a noun.
Four. Option A: a noun is any word that follows “the” or “a.” Option B: nouns can typically follow “the” or “a.” Option C: any word that typically follows “the” or “a” is a noun.
Five. Option A: a noun phrase can typically include an adjective phrase as a modifier. Option B: a noun phrase can typically include an adverb phrase as its modifier. Option C: any phrase with an adjective phrase as its modifier is a noun phrase.
Six. Option A: nouns themselves can perform a variety of functions, including subject and object. Option B: noun phrases function only as subjects or objects. Option C: noun phrases can perform a variety of functions, including subject and object.
Pause here before continuing to the answers.
17. Answers to the six groups
Here are the answers.
One: A. Nouns denote almost anything: objects, actions, and characteristics.
Two: A. Any word that is countable is a noun.
Three: C. Almost any word that is plural is a noun.
Four: B. Nouns can typically follow “the” or “a.”
Five: A. A noun phrase can typically include an adjective phrase as a modifier.
Six: C. Noun phrases can perform a variety of functions, including subject and object.
18. Find the nouns
Find the nouns in this passage from Italo Calvino's “The distance of the moon.” Follow the written passage in the transcript so that you can mark each noun. I'll read the passage first; the answer list is in the next segment.
In reality, from the top of the ladder, standing erect on the last rung, you could just touch the Moon if you held your arms up. We had taken the measurements carefully (we didn't yet suspect that she was moving away from us); the only thing you had to be very careful about was where you put your hands. I always chose a scale that seemed fast (we climbed up in groups of five or six at a time), then I would cling first with one hand, then with both, and immediately I would feel ladder and boat drifting away from below me, and the motion of the Moon would tear me from the Earth's attraction. Yes, the Moon was so strong that she pulled you up; you realized this the moment you passed from one to the other: you had to swing up abruptly, with a kind of somersault, grabbing the scales, throwing your legs over your head, until your feet were on the Moon's surface.
Pause here to find the nouns before continuing to the answer list.
19. Noun-finding answer list
Here are the nouns, in the order given by the book's answer key. Repeated words are repeated in this list. Pronouns are included.
“reality”, “top”, “ladder”, “rung”, “you”, “Moon”, “you”, “your”, “arms”, “We”, “measurements”, “we”, “she”, “us”, “thing”, “you”, “you”, “your”, “hands”, “I”, “scale”, “we”, “groups”, “time”, “I”, “hand”, “I”, “ladder”, “boat”, “me”, “motion”, “Moon”, “me”, “Earth's”, “attraction”, “Moon”, “she”, “you”, “you”, “moment”, “you”, “other”, “you”, “kind”, “somersault”, “scales”, “your”, “legs”, “your”, “head”, “your”, “feet”, “Moon's”, “surface”.
20. The two-X test
Countability is a remarkably easy concept. If you can say “two X,” where X is the noun, then X is a count noun. For example, “two pencils” is fine, so “pencil” is a count noun. But the book marks “There are two furnitures” as ungrammatical, so “furniture” is a non-count noun.
Sometimes, words like “jeans” seem like they might be count nouns, but it turns out that we count pairs of jeans, not jeans. Another perhaps surprising example of a non-count noun is “police.” The book marks “two police were standing on the corner” as ungrammatical. Instead, we say “two officers” or “two police officers,” where “officer” is a count noun.
“Meat” is an example of a noun that is not usually countable but can be if we mean “kinds of meat.” This way of creating count nouns from non-count nouns in a “kinds-of” meaning is quite common.
The concept of countability may be easy to understand, but the trick is in knowing for which nouns one can or can't say “two X.” It may seem quite obvious to you what is countable and what is not, and you might think that because it's so obvious, it will be very easy to explain to students.
You might even have some deep down feeling that somebody who failed to get the concept must be a little slow. But if you have that feeling, it's only because you already know. In fact, even experts can have a very muddled concept of countability. Take, for example, the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English.
21. Testing a dictionary definition
I check this excellent dictionary regularly because it has very informative entries. The entry for “uncountable” quoted in this chapter gives the following definition.
“An uncountable noun has no plural form and refers to something which can't be counted or regarded as either singular or plural, for example ‘money’ or ‘happiness’.”
Sadly, Longman has fallen into the very thinking trap we considered earlier. They thought up a few matching examples and failed to consider counter-examples. Let's look, on their behalf, for the counter-examples.
Can you think of a noun that does have a plural form but which can't be counted? In other words, a plural noun for which you can't say “two X”? We've already considered at least one example in the earlier section called “Some examples.”
Pause here before continuing to the answer.
22. Plural non-count nouns
We've already seen “police.” “Pants” is another example. We say “two pairs of pants.” The book marks “two pants” as ungrammatical. Still others include “groceries,” “remains,” “clothes,” “scissors,” and “genitals.”
The funny thing is that the dictionary applies these labels correctly to individual words. In the entry cited here, “glasses,” for instance, is correctly labelled as “uncountable.” The editors know that “glasses” is plural and that it's a non-count noun, but they haven't noticed that their definition is in conflict with their practice.
23. Why does this matter?
Consider the following examples.
“I had tea.” And “I had a tea.”
“I had a cookie.”
And, marked as ungrammatical in the book, “I had cookie.”
I hope you'll agree with me that the tea example is perfectly fine with or without the word “a,” but that the cookie example requires it. What could explain this difference?
It turns out that singular count nouns require a determiner, a term I'll explain in a later chapter. The words “a” and “the” can function as determiners. So can words like “one,” “his,” “Brett's,” “every,” and so on.
So, if you have a concept of count versus non-count, and you've got a sense of singular versus plural, you can use that to explain why the tea example is fine either way, but the cookie example isn't. This is what I mean when I say that we're working with a system. As you learn about some parts of it, you can use those parts to solve mysteries in other areas that are not obviously connected.
24. Countability across languages
So, we see that the definition of “uncountable” quoted from the Longman dictionary is wrong, even though it's generally a very good dictionary and even though its own entry for “glasses,” among many others, contradicts that definition. Maybe this determination isn't so easy.
But even if creating a good definition turns out to be a little harder than we thought, it may still feel like it should be quite obvious what is countable and uncountable based on certain properties. If that were the case, though, then we would find that singular nouns always translated as singulars and plural nouns always as plurals, at least when a language has plurals. But what counts in one language may not count in another.
If you're multilingual, perhaps you've already run into this. Consider the French sentence “J'ai coupé mes cheveux.” The translation is “I cut my hair.” A word-for-word gloss is “I have cut my hair,” with both “my” and “hair” marked as plural in the gloss.
The French word “cheveux” is a plural count noun, though it would be rare to count hairs, even in French. In English, “hair” is usually a singular non-count noun. As the French shows, there's no need to enumerate hairs; you could just say “I cut my hairs” and leave it at that. English treats hair as an undifferentiated substance; French treats it as discrete items. Neither is more logical.
It's easy to think that ideas that we take for granted, such as whether something is countable or not, are objective facts. In many cases like this, they are actually inter-subjective judgments, many entirely unpredictable to those outside the community of speakers of a given language or dialect.
Part of the trouble is that “countable” pulls double duty. It describes a grammatical property of the noun, taking numerals and pluralizing, and a conceptual property of what the noun refers to, individual items versus undifferentiated stuff. These mostly line up, but when they don't, as with “furniture” or “news,” confusion follows. We'll see this kind of double duty again.
25. Plums, fruit, rice, and seeds
And yet, many language-teaching materials treat countability as if it were obvious from mere introspection. Far from it! Consider the explanation in Rosemary Allen's textbook for children. It's perfectly simple if you speak English and almost entirely unhelpful if you don't.
The example contrasts a tree with plenty of plums on it and a tree with plenty of fruit on it. It calls “plum” countable and explains that you make it plural by adding an S. It calls “fruit” uncountable. The full quotation is in the written reference material.
The book assumes that plums are countable because you can count them, and you can count them because they're countable. What could be easier? What about “rice” and “seed”?
There is no way for a learner of English to guess that you can say “two seeds” but not “two rices” if you mean “two grains of rice.” The book marks “two rices” as ungrammatical in that intended meaning. “Two rices” can only mean “two kinds of rice,” not “two grains.”
26. Countability practice
For each item, decide whether the noun is singular or plural, and whether it is a countable sense of the noun or a non-countable sense. For example, in “The two fish escaped,” “fish” is countable and plural.
Pause after each item to make your decision. All twenty-one items are in the transcript.
One. “The data were accurate.”
Two. “The data was accurate.”
Three. “The Canadian media are generally reliable.”
Four. “The Canadian media is generally reliable.”
Five. “The sheep are grazing.”
Six. “Little difference could be seen.”
Seven. “A run will be calming.”
Eight. “A little sugar.”
Nine. “Made of rock.”
Ten. “The remains are buried here.”
Eleven. “More suction, please.”
Twelve. “Pizza is tasty.”
Thirteen. “Eating lamb is less common here.”
Fourteen. “Two or three times.”
Fifteen. “The children are studying.”
Sixteen. “A little knowledge can be dangerous.”
Seventeen. “The police.”
Eighteen. “Some new jeans.”
Nineteen. “Two coffees.”
Twenty. “New employment statistics.”
Twenty-one. “A little time.”
Pause here to finish the practice before moving on.
27. The same shapes in different contexts
So, what can we say about English verbs? Here's a list of verbs, nice verby verbs, really typical ones: “jump,” “walk,” “ask,” “turn,” “work,” “move,” “play,” “pull,” “reach,” and “laugh.”
Are they action words? Of course they are. Did you notice that this could be a list of nouns, though?
“She missed the jump.” Here, “jump” is a noun.
“I went for a walk.” Here, “walk” is a noun.
“That's a pretty big ask.” Here, “ask” is a noun.
“Give it a turn and see.” Here, “turn” is a noun.
“I went to work.” Here, “work” is a noun.
If you doubt me, consider the characteristics we studied earlier. But in the following cases, they're verbs.
“She jumped the gap.” Here, “jumped” is a verb.
“I walk the dog each morning.” Here, “walk” is a verb.
“He's asking for a ten-thousand-dollar raise.” Here, “asking” is a verb.
“It's hard to turn the knob.” Here, “turn” is a verb.
“I work in Toronto.” Here, “work” is a verb.
So, how can we tell the difference between nouns and verbs? Sometimes we can't until they're in context. In form, they may be the same. In function, they are worlds apart. That opening list of words was perfectly ambiguous.
28. The main properties of verbs
Still, verbs generally have the following properties.
Verbs typically denote actions and states, and they don't denote physical objects.
A word that has a past-tense form is a verb. But not all verbs have past-tense forms.
Almost every verb has an S form, but not all.
Almost every verb has an I N G form, but not all.
Almost every verb can follow the infinitive marker “to.”
A verb can't be modified by an adjective phrase.
A verb can typically be modified by an adverb phrase.
A verb phrase must be headed by a verb, always.
A clause must be headed by a verb phrase, always.
A verb is often in an agreement relationship with a phrase functioning as the subject of the clause.
Let's look at some examples.
29. What verbs denote
These are just everyday classifications, not technical ones, and other types could be added to the list.
Actions: “come,” “go,” “wave,” “run,” “swim,” “play,” and “hit.”
Mental activities: “consider,” “wonder,” “decide,” and “recall.”
States: “be,” “seem,” “own,” “need,” “taste,” “matter,” “appear,” and “exist.”
Mental states: “believe,” “know,” “agree,” “mind,” and “like.”
Accomplishments: “win,” “sleep,” “become,” “remain,” “relax,” “stop,” and “fail.”
30. Past-tense forms
Verbs almost always have a past-tense form, while nouns never do. Here are the verb forms from the table.
“Want” becomes “wanted.” “Play” becomes “played.”
“Go” becomes “went.” “Come” becomes “came.”
“Run” becomes “ran.” “Make” becomes “made.”
“Is” becomes “was.” “Are” becomes “were.”
Compare the nouns “magazine,” “jeans,” “idea,” and “government.” A past-tense form is not applicable to any of them.
Can you think of any verbs that lack a past-tense form? Pause here before continuing to the answer.
31. Missing past-tense forms and word families
“Must,” “beware,” and “ought” are the only verbs that don't have a past-tense form, as far as I know. Verbs that lack one or more forms are said to be “defective.”
There are a lot of nouns and verbs that share a history, spelling, and pronunciation, such as those in our opening list of verbs. They belong to the same word family, but they are distinct words, in the same way that my brothers and I belong to the same Reynolds family but are, nevertheless, distinct people. Chapter eight's section on word families, lemmas, shapes, and tokens returns to this distinction.
32. Other verb forms
Almost all verbs also have an S form and an I N G form, along with their plain form. I'll read each set in that order: plain form, S form, and I N G form.
“Run,” “runs,” “running.”
“Go,” “goes,” “going.”
“Try,” “tries,” “trying.”
“Make,” “makes,” “making.”
“Do,” “does,” “doing.”
“Have,” “has,” “having.”
“Contemplate,” “contemplates,” “contemplating.”
“Recondition,” “reconditions,” “reconditioning.”
Can you think of any verbs that lack these forms? Pause here before continuing to the answer.
33. Missing forms and modification
“Can,” “may,” “will,” “shall,” “must,” and “ought” are the most common verbs that lack these forms.
A verb phrase typically allows an adverb phrase as a modifier but not an adjective phrase. Here are some verb phrases modified by adverb phrases: “run quickly,” “think deeply,” “try consistently,” “always be good,” “easily do it,” and “happily help.”
And for comparison, here are some matching noun phrases modified by adjective phrases: “a quick run,” “deep thoughts,” “consistent effort,” “an easy goal,” and “the happy helper.”
34. Verbs heading verb phrases
Each of the following examples is a verb phrase. I'll identify its head verb. Some examples contain smaller verb phrases inside larger ones.
“Try.” The head verb is “try.”
“Never go to school.” The head verb is “go.”
“Had a new idea.” The head verb is “had.”
“Usually playing tennis with a friend.” The head verb is “playing.”
“Have finished dinner.” The head verb of the whole phrase is “have.” Inside it is the smaller verb phrase “finished dinner,” whose head is “finished.”
“May be leaving soon.” The head verb of the whole phrase is “may.” Inside it is “be leaving soon,” headed by “be.” And inside that is “leaving soon,” headed by “leaving.” The printed example uses parentheses to show these smaller verb phrases.
35. Verb phrases heading clauses
Now each example is a clause. I'll identify the verb phrase that heads it.
“Dogs never go to school.” The verb phrase is “never go to school.”
“She is usually playing tennis with a friend.” The verb phrase is “is usually playing tennis with a friend.”
“Who had a new idea?” The verb phrase is “had a new idea.”
“The folks at table five have finished dinner.” The verb phrase is “have finished dinner.”
“I may be leaving soon.” The verb phrase is “may be leaving soon.”
“Try.” Here, the whole clause consists of the verb phrase “try.”
36. Agreement with the subject
In the case of present-tense verbs, if the subject is third-person singular, then the verb typically “agrees” with the subject by appearing in the S form.
A third-person noun phrase is any one that is not first person, such as “I,” “me,” “myself,” “we,” or “ours,” or second person, such as “you,” “yours,” or “yourself.”
“She studies English.” “She” is third-person singular, and the S form of the present-tense verb “studies” marks the agreement.
“She studied English.” “She” is third-person singular, but the verb is in the past tense.
“They study English.” In this example, “they” is plural.
37. Auxiliary verbs
There is a small sub-category of verbs called the auxiliary verbs. These are known as the “NICER” properties: negation, inversion, contraction, ellipsis, and rebuttal. These are set out in the table called “The NICER properties.” I'll read each property, its examples, and its counter-examples. The book marks the counter-examples as ungrammatical.
N is for negation. “Lee will not eat.” The auxiliary is “will.” The ungrammatical counter-example is “Lee eats not.”
I is for inversion. “Lee has eaten” becomes “Has Lee eaten?” The auxiliary is “has.” The ungrammatical counter-example is “Eats Lee?”
C is for contraction. “Didn't.” “Shouldn't.” The ungrammatical counter-examples are “eatn't” and “keptn't.”
E is for ellipsis. “Kim was eating, and Lee was, too.” The table highlights “was” in both parts. After the second “was,” “eating” is understood but left unsaid. The ungrammatical counter-example is “Kim kept eating, and Lee kept, too.” Here, the attempted omission follows the second “kept.”
R is for rebuttal. Listen to the stress on “too” and “so”: “I did TOO read it.” Or, “I did SO read it.” And, “Did not!” The ungrammatical counter-examples are “I tried TOO to read it,” “I tried SO to read it,” and “Tried not!”
The auxiliary verbs include the modal auxiliary verbs.
Will and won't; would and wouldn't.
Shall and shan't; should and shouldn't.
May; might and mightn't.
Can and can't; could and couldn't.
Must and mustn't.
And a few others.
Be; do, for interrogatives; and have, for the perfect.
Need, dare, and ought, as modal auxiliaries, though not typically in North America.
Again, these explanations use terms that I haven't yet defined. I understand that it may be frustrating, but it is inevitable. Syntax is a system, and its elements can only be defined in relation to each other. The meanings of the other words will become clear soon. When you meet them, you should cycle back and have another look at this material.
Language learners face this kind of frustration all the time. It's not helpful to say it builds character, but it is true that those who can accept this kind of temporary ambiguity tend to be more successful in the end.
38. Chapter summary
In this chapter, along with introducing some key grammatical terms and concepts, I've tried to suggest some mental habits and dispositional attitudes that, I believe, are extremely useful for English-language teachers. These approaches to thinking about English include the following.
Seeking counter-examples. This habit pushes us beyond simplistic rules and explanations and helps us to avoid telling our students things that are common knowledge and also wrong.
Scrutinizing definitions. By examining how we define grammatical concepts, we can better explain them to learners and anticipate their questions.
Recognizing non-commutativity in language descriptions. Understanding that “A implies B” doesn't mean “B implies A” can help us avoid common pitfalls in explanation.
Challenging our linguistic intuitions. What seems obvious to us as expert English speakers may be opaque to learners. This awareness can help us empathize with our students' struggles.
Distinguishing between technical and everyday meanings of terms. Such distinctions can help prevent the familiar meanings from confusing our understanding.
An important overarching concept is that language is a system. Each part relies on others, and none can be fully understood in isolation. The more we weave ideas together, the more of the whole tapestry will appear both for us as teachers and for our students.
39. Short answer quiz
Answer the following questions in two or three sentences each. Pause after each question to work on your answer. The answer key is in the next segment.
One. Why can't we simply define verbs as “action words”? Use examples to support your answer.
Two. Explain how a word like “walk” can be either a noun or a verb. What determines its category?
Three. What are the forms that most lexical verbs can take? What are some exceptions?
Four. Explain the difference between how adjective phrases and adverb phrases function as modifiers in relation to verbs.
Five. What is meant by “agreement with subject” for verbs? When does it occur?
Six. What distinguishes auxiliary verbs from other verbs? Give examples of two properties.
Seven. How do verbs differ from nouns in terms of what they can denote? Why is this distinction important?
Eight. What is the relationship between verbs, verb phrases, and clauses?
Nine. What are “defective” verbs, and which forms do the examples in the chapter lack?
Pause here before continuing to the answer key.
40. Answer key
Here are the answers to the short answer quiz.
One. Many nouns denote actions, for example, “action,” “run,” and “walk,” while some verbs don't denote actions, for example, “exist” and “seem.” The relationship between meaning and grammatical category is more complex than simple action versus non-action.
Two. Words like the noun “walk” and the verb “walk” belong to the same word family but are different words. The verb takes verbal inflections and heads verb phrases; the noun takes determiners and inflects for number.
Three. Most lexical verbs have a plain form, an S form, and an I N G form. In fact, there are a few other forms, but we'll cover those later.
Four. Adverb phrases commonly function as modifiers in verb phrases, as in “run quickly,” but adjective phrases don't. The situation is reversed in noun phrases, where we have “a quick run,” but not “a quickly run,” which the book marks as ungrammatical.
Five. Agreement selects between the plain present form and the third-person singular present form. It also selects between “were” and “was” in the past tense.
Six. Auxiliary verbs have the NICER properties, including the ability to form negations directly, as in “will not,” and participate in subject–auxiliary inversion, as in “Has Lee eaten?” Regular verbs lack these properties.
Seven. Verbs are chiefly limited to denoting actions and states, though they also denote time through tense. Nouns are not limited in this way.
Eight. Verbs head verb phrases, which in turn head clauses. This hierarchical relationship is fundamental to English sentence structure.
Nine. Defective verbs are those that lack one or more of the typical verb forms. The chapter gives examples like “must,” “beware,” and “ought,” which lack past-tense forms, and modal auxiliaries like “can,” “may,” “will,” “shall,” and “must,” which lack S and I N G forms.
41. Discussion questions
Here are four discussion questions. Pause after each one to develop your response.
One. Discuss how formal properties, such as inflection and modification patterns, and meaning interact in the identification of nouns versus verbs in English. How does this understanding help us avoid oversimplified definitions like “action words” or “person, place, or thing”? Provide specific examples from the text.
Two. Explain how seemingly straightforward concepts like countability and plurality reveal the complex and often arbitrary nature of linguistic categories. Use examples from different languages to illustrate why these categories are inter-subjective judgments rather than objective facts.
Three. Analyse the relationship between verbs and auxiliary verbs in English. How do the NICER properties distinguish auxiliaries, and what implications does this have for English language teaching?
Four. Examine the hierarchical relationships among lexical and phrasal categories, for example, between nouns and noun phrases, or verbs, verb phrases, and clauses. How does understanding these technical relationships help teachers better analyse and explain grammatical structures?