This document provides an overview of grammar concepts, including the classes of words, types of phrases, and functions of phrases. It describes the forms and functions of noun phrases, verb phrases, and inflectional phrases. The document also notes that traditional grammar terminology can confuse orthographic and linguistic units, and outlines traditional, linguistic, and rhetorical terminology and concepts.

1. GRAMMAR CHEAT SHEET 1 of 2
CLASSES OF WORDS
Form Classes
· Noun
· Adjective
· Verb
· Adverb
words in these classes carry lexical meanings:
“Quick sandwich notoriously romantic displace brew
independently rectitude commit write.”
Structure Classes
· Conjunction
· Determiner
· Auxiliary
· Qualifier
· Preposition
· Pronoun
words in these classes provide grammatical structure:
“The bronky waff of gorpitude chabbed and porbed
ixiously; however, non-gorpies without zork never chab.”
As the above nonsensical sentences show, you need both form and structure words to make meaning!
PHRASE = one or more words that function as a group or unit
Types of Phrases
· Noun Phrase
· Verb Phrase
· Verbal Phrase (Participial or Infinitive)
· Absolute Phrase (noun + participial)
· Prepositional Phrase
· Inflectional Phrase (the “clause”)
Functions of Phrases
· nominal (acts as a noun)
· adjectival (acts as an adjective)
· adverbial (acts as an adverb)
· predication (verb phrases only!)
Noun Phrases
FORM:
· Det + Adj + Qualifying N + Head N/Pron + Prepositional P + Participial P + Relative IP
· Not all slots above must be used; a Noun Phrase can be one word—the head noun or pronoun.
◦ An example using all slots: “An almost-adequate holistic scoring rubric from the foul-smelling pit of central
urban New Jersey, cluttering the inboxes of novice English teachers, that an over-confident group of education
management professionals had constructed without soliciting the advice of linguists and composition
theorists”
▪ (the farther away a relative IP gets from the head noun, and the longer the other adjectivals are, the more
opportunity for structural ambiguity is created. Commas can therefore be used to disambiguate.)
· Single-word adjectivals generally go before the head noun, multi-word adjectivals generally go after. To use a
multi-word adjectival before the head noun, one must usually hyphenate it.
· Non-restrictive participial phrases, set off by commas, can be moved to different locations in the sentence. “Non-restrictive”
means not essential to the meaning of the rest of the NP.
· Paratactic and Asyntactic elements that disrupt the syntax pattern of NPs (in bold above) should be set off by
commas. These include not only relocated non-restrictive adjectivials, but also appositives and absolutes.
FUNCTION:
· NPs act as nominals in sentences:
◦ subject
◦ direct object
◦ indirect object
◦ subject complement
◦ object complement
◦ object of preposition
◦ appositive
· Note: Verbal phrases can also act as nominals.
Absolute Phrase: Det + Noun/Pronoun + Participial Phrase.
· Absolute phrases look like IPs—they are almost clauses. However, instead of a finite verb, they have a past or
present participle. For example:
◦ My lazy black cat stretching his limbs to create a road block in the middle of the hallway
· An absolute phrase act as an adjectival, and therefore modifies a nominal.
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2. Verb Phrases
FORMS:
· Intransitive: Verb
· Transitive: Verb + [Indirect Object] + Direct Object
· Transitive: Verb + [Indirect Object] + Direct Object + Object Complement
· Linking: Verb + Subject Complement
· The main verbs in verb phrases must be finite—it must be inflected in past or present tense.
◦ What about future tense? The future auxiliary (will, shall, is going to, etc.) is actually in present tense!
◦ If the main verb is not finite, and is instead an infinitive (“to x”) or participle (“x-ed” or “x-ing”), the phrase is
called a verbal phrase, or specifically an infinitive phrase or participial phrase. Infinitive phrases serve
nominal, adjectival, or adverbial functions; participial phrases serve only adjectival functions.
◦ If the main verb is a present participle (“x-ing”) serving a nominal function, it is called a gerund, and the
phrase a gerund phrase.
· Adverbials are phrases that modify verbs, and the following structures can function as adverbials:
◦ adverbs
◦ noun phrases
◦ prepositional phrases
◦ verbal phrases
◦ clauses
FUNCTION:
· Verb phrases have only one function—predication.
· Without an inflected, finite verb phrase, you have no Inflectional Phrase (“clause”). Predication, then, is necessary
to the construction of inflectional phrases.
INFLECTIONAL PHRASES
· Noun Phrase + Verb Phrase. IPs are defined by their form (NP + VP); this is an essential definition.
· The inflected verb must agree in number, person, and tense with the head noun/pronoun.
· IPs are called “clauses” in traditional grammar.
· IPs can function as nominals, adjectivals or adverbials. Traditional grammar calls IPs serving these functions
“subordinate clauses.”
LINGUISTIC LEVELS AND UNITS:
TRADITIONAL, ORTHOGRAPHIC, LINGUISTIC, AND RHETORICAL NOMENCLATURE
Traditional grammar confuses orthographic (written) units with linguistic units; also, the definition of “clause” in
traditional grammar is problematic. So, in this course I will primarily refer to grammatical structures as defined by
linguistics. I may, however, occasionally use traditional names in certain contexts. In other contexts, it will be
appropriate to use terms from classical rhetoric to describe linguistic structures. So, please learn the correlations
between the terms as presented in the table below, and please learn the definitions of the linguistic terms and rhetorical
terms, which are not analogous to each other nor the traditional terms:
TRAD./ORTHOGRAPHIC
CONCEPTS
LINGUISTIC CONCEPTS RHETORICAL CONCEPTS
Letter Phoneme, Grapheme, Allograph, Glyph -
Word, Prefix, Suffix Morpheme, Bound Morpheme -
Phrase Phrase, Tagmeme Comma
Clause Inflectional Phrase Colon, Membrum
Sentence (One or more Inflectional Phrases) Periodos (Periodic Sentence), Tricolon, Isocolon
Paragraph Discourse, Text Paragraphos
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