ENGLISH IN A “NUT SHELL”

ENGLISH IN A “NUT SHELL”

There about 750,000 words in the English language. Nearly half of these are of Germanic (or Teutonic) origin, and nearly half from the Romance languages (languages of Latin origin - such as French, Spanish, and Italian - or Latin itself). English school texts from grades 3 through 9 contain approximately 88,500 distinct word families. Most adult English speakers will use between 10,000 and 40,000.

The original inhabitants of the British Isles did not speak English, but Celtic languages. English comes from Germanic tribes who arrived in England in the 5th century AD. About half of the common vocabulary of Modern English comes from Old English, especially names of everyday objects. The Norman Conquest of 1066 brought in Norman French. In 1458 Gutenberg invented printing and in 1525 William Tyndale published an English translation of the New Testament. English “grew up” in the next 90 years and saw the plays of Shakespeare (1564-1616) and the publication of the King James Version of the Bible in 1611.

English has become the world’s language due to a number of factors: computing, communications, entertainment, economic, political, cultural. But in addition, English is one of the simplest languages:

English has no gender
English has no case endings on nouns
English has no changes for adjectives or articles
English has a fairly rigid and predictable word order, even in clauses
English has few verb conjugations

However, as every learner of English knows, there are, however, some strange things about learning English.

Almost any English word can change its category by the process known as conversion. Even a Noun can become a Verb as in the 1940 film Casablanca when Humphrey Bogart's character says to the heroine at one point, “Cigarette me.”

“S”

Some say, English has no grammar. English grammar, in many respects, is mostly about S and no-S. AGREEMENT means that third person singular verbs take an “S” on the verb. Otherwise, there is no “S.”

Sandra wears strange socks.

2. Sandra wear strange sock. (Wrong).

1. They wear strange socks.

2. They wears strange socks. (Wrong).

In #1, the VERB “wear” requires an “S” to agree with Sandra (Singular), and

The NOUN “sock” must be plural, so it takes an “S.”

In #3, the VERB “wear” does not take an “S” because it is plural.

PARTS OF SPEECH

There are eight parts of speech: nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, pronouns, conjunctions, prepositions and interjections.

Part of Speech	Description	Conversion
Noun: book, friend, table	A noun is a naming word. It names a person, place, thing, idea, living creature, quality, or action.	=> Adjective {ish}: book-ish, {ly}: friend-ly => Verb {be-}: befriend,
Verb: study, teach, speak	A verb is a word which describes an action (doing something) or a state (being something).	=> Adjective {ous}: stud-i-ous => Adverb {wise}: stud-i-wise => Noun {er}: teach-er, speak-er
Adjective: red, sick, sharp	An adjective is a word that describes a noun. It tells you something about the noun.	=> Adjective {ish, ly,}: red-ish, sick-ly, => Adverb {ly}: sharp-ly => Noun [Plural{s}]: "the red-s"
Adverb: quick-ly, best, well	An adverb is a word which usually describes a verb. It tells you how something is done. It may also tell you when or where something happened.	=> Noun {ness}: quick-ness, => Adjective [# change]: good
Pronoun: I, you, he, she, it, we, they	A pronoun is used instead of a noun, to avoid repeating the noun.	=> Noun He-man She-cat
Conjunction: but, so, and, because, or	A conjunction joins two words, phrases or sentences together.	=> Verb "But me no buts". Shakespeare
Preposition: on, in, by, with, under, through, at	A preposition usually comes before a noun, pronoun or noun phrase. It joins the noun to some other part of the sentence.	=> Noun Joe knows the ins and outs of the hospital.
Interjection: Ouch!, Hello!, Hurray!, Oh no!, Ha!	An interjection is an unusual kind of word, because it often stands alone. Interjections are words which express emotion or surprise, and they are usually followed by exclamation marks.	=> Verb He helloed me a sad hello.

Figure 8 Parts of Speech

PLURALS

Regular Plurals: Most NOUNS simply add “S” to indicate the Plural Form.

SINGULAR	PLURAL
Student	Students
Car	Cars
Pencil	Pencils

Figure 9 Regular Plurals

Irregular Plurals. Irregular Plurals should be memorized.

SINGULAR	PLURAL
Man	Men
Woman	Women
Child	Children
Mouse	Mice
Louse	Lice
Goose	Geese
Foot	Feet
Tooth	Teeth
ox	oxen
sheep	sheep
fish	fish
moose	moose

Figure 10 Irregular Plurals

Final F and V. A small set of nouns change “F” to “V” for the Plural form:

SINGULAR	PLURAL
Knife	Knives
Elf	Elves
Thief	Thieves
Dwarf	Dwarves
Leaf	Leaves
Calf	Calves
Wharf	Wharves
Half	Halves
Life	Lives
Hoof	Hooves
Wife	Wives

Figure 11 Irregular Plurals Continued

Borrowed Words. Some borrowed words follow special formation rules for Plurals.

SINGULAR	PLURAL
Parenthesis	Parentheses
Thesis	Theses
Vortex	Vortices
Vertex	Vertices
Syllabus	Syllabi

Figure 12 Borrowed Words

GENDER

One of the features of a noun phrase. In English, gender is only marked in third-person singular pronouns and associated words. The possible values of the gender feature are masculine, feminine, and neuter.

*TYPE*	*MASCULINE*	*FEMININE*	*NEUTER*	*EXAMPLE*
pronoun (nominative)	he	she	it	he hit the ball.
pronoun (accusative)	him	her	it	Frank hit him.
pronoun(possessive adjective)	his	her	its	Frank hit his arm.
pronoun(possessive)	his	hers	its	The ball is his.
pronoun(reflexive)	himself	herself	itself	Frank hurt himself.

Figure 13 Gender

English has some pairs of words which differ between male and female.

MALE	FEMALE
Bachelor	Maid
Boy	Girl
Brother	Sister
Drake	Duck
Earl	Countess
Father	Mother
Gander	Goose
Hart	Roe
Horse	Mare
Husband	Wife
King	Queen
Lord	Lady
Wizard	Witch
Nephew	Niece
Ram	Ewe
Sir	Madam
Son	Daughter
Uncle	Aunt
Bull	Cow
Boar	Sow

Figure 14 Paired Plurals

GERUNDS

Gerunds are NOUNS that end in -ING. Gerunds can be subjects, subject complements, direct objects, indirect objects, and objects of prepositions.

The WRITING was carefully proof-read by the professor.

(WRITING is the subject of the VERB “Was”)

Susan’s first love is DANCING.

(DANCING is the SUBJECT COMPLEMENT of “Is”)

Jose enjoys WRITING in class.

(WRITING is the Direct Object of VERB “Enjoys”)

Pedro gives WRITING all his time and talent.

(WRITING is the Indirect Object of VERB “gives”)

Joseph was devoted to WRITING.

(WRITING is object of PREPOSITION “To”)

VERBS

Most verbs having five distinct forms.

Some are Regular:

PRESENT	PRESENT 3^RD PERSON	PROGRESSIVE	PAST	PAST PARTICIPLE
WALK	WALKS	WALKING	WALKED	WALKED

Figure 15 Regular Verbs

About 100 are Irregular:

PRESENT	PRESENT 3^RD PERSON	PROGRESSIVE	PAST	PAST PARTICIPLE
EAT	EATS	EATING	ATE	EATEN

Figure 16 Irregular Verbs

The verb BE is the most irregular:

PRESENT	PRESENT 3^RD PERSON	PROGRESSIVE	PAST	PAST PARTICIPLE
I AM	He IS	BEING	WAS	BEEN
They ARE			They WERE

Figure 17 BE Verb

Below is a table of the most common English Irregular Verbs:

Present	Past	Past Participle
be	was, were	been
become	became	become
begin	began	begun
blow	blew	blown
break	broke	broken
bring	brought	brought
build	built	built
burst	burst	burst
buy	bought	bought
catch	caught	caught
choose	chose	chosen
come	came	come
cut	cut	cut
deal	dealt	dealt
do	did	done
drink	drank	drunk
drive	drove	driven
eat	ate	eaten
fall	fell	fallen
feed	fed	fed
feel	felt	felt
fight	fought	fought
find	found	found
fly	flew	flown
forbid	forbade	forbidden
forget	forgot	forgotten
forgive	forgave	forgiven
freeze	froze	frozen
get	got	gotten
give	gave	given
go	went	gone
grow	grew	grown
have	had	had
hear	heard	heard
hide	hid	hidden
hold	held	held