English grammar

English grammar is the set of structural rules of the English language. This includes the structure of words, phrases, clauses, sentences, and whole texts.

This article describes a generalized, present-day Standard English – a form of speech and writing used in public discourse, including broadcasting, education, entertainment, government, and news, over a range of registers, from formal to informal. Divergences from the grammar described here occur in some historical, social, cultural, and regional varieties of English, although these are more minor than differences in pronunciation and vocabulary.

Modern English has largely abandoned the inflectional case system of Indo-European in favor of analytic constructions. The personal pronouns retain morphological case more strongly than any other word class (a remnant of the more extensive Germanic case system of Old English). For other pronouns, and all nouns, adjectives, and articles, grammatical function is indicated only by word order, by prepositions, and by the " Saxon genitive or English possessive" (''-'s'').

Eight "word classes" or "parts of speech" are commonly distinguished in English: nouns, determiners, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, and conjunctions. Nouns form the largest word class, and verbs the second-largest. Unlike nouns in almost all other Indo-European languages, English nouns (with a few uncommon, non-mandatory exceptions) do not have grammatical gender.

Word classes and phrases

Nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs form open classes – word classes that readily accept new members, such as the noun '' celebutante'' (a celebrity who frequents the fashion circles), and other similar relatively new words. The others are considered to be closed classes. For example, it is rare for a new pronoun to enter the language. Determiners, traditionally classified along with adjectives, have not always been regarded as a separate part of speech. Interjections are another word class, but these are not described here as they do not form part of the clause and sentence structure of the language.

Linguists generally accept nine English word classes: nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, pronouns, prepositions, conjunctions, determiners, and exclamations. English words are not generally marked for word class. It is not usually possible to tell from the form of a word which class it belongs to except, to some extent, in the case of words with inflectional endings or derivational suffixes. On the other hand, most words belong to more than one-word class. For example, ''run'' can serve as either a verb or a noun (these are regarded as two different lexemes). Lexemes may be inflected to express different grammatical categories. The lexeme ''run'' has the forms ''runs'', ''ran'', ''runny'', ''runner'', and ''running''. Words in one class can sometimes be derived from those in another. This has the potential to give rise to new words. The noun ''aerobics'' has recently given rise to the adjective ''aerobicized''.

Words combine to form phrases. A phrase typically serves the same function as a word from some particular word class. For example, ''my very good friend Peter'' is a phrase that can be used in a sentence as if it were a noun, and is therefore called a noun phrase. Similarly, adjectival phrases and adverbial phrases function as if they were adjectives or adverbs, but with other types of phrases, the terminology has different implications. For example, a verb phrase consists of a verb together with any objects and other dependents; a prepositional phrase consists of a preposition and its complement (and is therefore usually a type of adverbial phrase); and a determiner phrase is a type of noun phrase containing a determiner.

Nouns

Many common suffixes form nouns from other nouns or from other types of words, such as ''-age'' (as in ''shrinkage''), ''-hood'' (as in ''sisterhood''), and so on, although many nouns are base forms not containing any such suffix (such as ''cat'', ''grass'', ''France''). Nouns are also often created by conversion of verbs or adjectives, as with the words ''talk'' and ''reading'' (''a boring talk'', ''the assigned reading'').

Nouns are sometimes classified semantically (by their meanings) as proper nouns and common nouns (''Cyrus'', ''China'' vs. ''frog'', ''milk'') or as concrete nouns and abstract nouns (''book'', ''laptop'' vs. ''embarrassment'', ''prejudice''). A grammatical distinction is often made between count (countable) nouns such as ''clock'' and ''city'', and non-count (uncountable) nouns such as ''milk'' and ''decor''. Some nouns can function both as countable and as uncountable such as the word "wine" (''This is a good wine'', ''I prefer red wine'').

Countable nouns generally have singular and plural forms. In most cases the plural is formed from the singular by adding ''- '' (as in ''dogs'', ''bushes''), although there are also irregular forms (''woman/women'', ''foot/feet'', etc.), including cases where the two forms are identical (''sheep'', ''series''). For more details, see English plural. Certain nouns can be used with plural verbs even though they are singular in form, as in ''The government were ...'' (where ''the government'' is considered to refer to the people constituting the government). This is a form of synesis; it is more common in British than American English. See .

English nouns are not marked for case as they are in some languages, but they have possessive forms, through the addition of ''-'s'' (as in ''John's'', ''children's'') or just an apostrophe (with no change in pronunciation) in the case of ''- '' plurals and sometimes other words ending with ''-s'' (''the dogs' owners'', ''Jesus' love''). More generally, the ending can be applied to noun phrases (as in ''the man you saw yesterday's sister''); see below. The possessive form can be used either as a determiner (''John's cat'') or as a noun phrase (''John's is the one next to Jane's'').

The status of the possessive as an affix or a clitic is the subject of debate. It differs from the noun inflection of languages such as German, in that the genitive ending may attach to the last word of the phrase. To account for this, the possessive can be analysed, for instance as a clitic construction (an "enclitic postposition") or as an inflection of the last word of a phrase ("edge inflection").

Phrases

Noun phrases are phrases that function grammatically as nouns within sentences, for example as the subject or object of a verb. Most noun phrases have a noun as their head.

An English noun phrase typically takes the following form (not all elements need be present):
:

In this structure:
*the ''determiner'' may be an article (''the'', ''a ') or other equivalent word, as described in the following section. In many contexts, it is required for a noun phrase to include some determiner.
*'' pre-modifiers'' include adjectives and some adjective phrases (such as ''red'', ''really lovely''), and noun adjuncts (such as ''college'' in the phrase ''the college student''). Adjectival modifiers usually come before noun adjuncts.
*a ''complement'' or '' postmodifier'' may be a prepositional phrase (''... of London''), a relative clause (like ''...which we saw yesterday''), certain adjective or participial phrases (''... sitting on the beach''), or a dependent clause or infinitive phrase appropriate to the noun (like ''... that the world is round'' after a noun such as ''fact'' or ''statement'', or ''... to travel widely'' after a noun such as ''desire'').

An example of a noun phrase that includes all of the above-mentioned elements is ''that rather attractive young college student to whom you were talking''. Here ''that'' is the determiner, ''rather attractive'' and ''young'' are adjectival pre-modifiers, ''college'' is a noun adjunct, ''student'' is the noun serving as the head of the phrase, and ''to whom you were talking'' is a post-modifier (a relative clause in this case). Notice the order of the pre-modifiers; the determiner ''that'' must come first and the noun adjunct ''college'' must come after the adjectival modifiers.

Coordinating conjunctions such as ''and'', ''or'', and ''but'' can be used at various levels in noun phrases, as in ''John, Paul, and Mary''; ''the matching green coat and hat''; ''a dangerous but exciting ride''; ''a person sitting down or standing up''. See below for more explanation.

Noun phrases can also be placed in ''apposition'' (where two consecutive phrases refer to the same thing), as in ''that president, Abraham Lincoln, ...'' (where ''that president'' and ''Abraham Lincoln'' are in apposition). In some contexts, the same can be expressed by a prepositional phrase, as in ''the twin curses of famine and pestilence'' (meaning "the twin curses" that are "famine and pestilence").

Particular forms of noun phrases include:
* phrases formed by the determiner ''the'' with an adjective, as in ''the homeless'', ''the English'' (these are plural phrases referring to homeless people or English people in general);
* phrases with a pronoun rather than a noun as the head (see below);
* phrases consisting just of a possessive;
* infinitive and gerund phrases, in certain positions;
* certain clauses, such as ''that'' clauses and relative clauses like ''what he said'', in certain positions.

Gender

A system of grammatical gender, whereby every noun was treated as either masculine, feminine or neuter, existed in Old English, but fell out of use during the Middle English period. Modern English retains features relating to natural gender, namely the use of certain nouns and pronouns (such as ''he'' and ''she'') to refer specifically to persons or animals of one or other genders and certain others (such as ''it'') for sexless objects – although feminine pronouns are sometimes used when referring to ships (and more uncommonly some airplanes and analogous machinery) and nation-states.

Some aspects of gender usage in English have been influenced by the movement towards a preference for gender-neutral language. Animals are triple-gender nouns, being able to take masculine, feminine and neuter pronouns. Generally there is no difference between male and female in English nouns. However, gender is occasionally exposed by different shapes or dissimilar words when referring to people or animals. ''EF Education First''

Many nouns that mention people's roles and jobs can refer to either a masculine or a feminine subject, for instance "cousin", "teenager", "teacher", "doctor", "student", "friend", and "colleague".

*Jane is my friend. She is a dentist.
*Paul is my cousin. He is a dentist.

Often the gender distinction for these neutral nouns is established by inserting the words "male" or "female".

*Sam is a female doctor.
*No, he is not my boyfriend; he is just a male friend.
*I have three female cousins and two male cousins.

Rarely, nouns illustrating things with no gender are referred to with a gendered pronoun to convey familiarity. It is also standard to use the gender-neutral pronoun (it).

*I love my car. She (the car) is my greatest passion.
*France is popular with her (France's) neighbors at the moment.
*I traveled from England to New York on the ''Queen Elizabeth''; she (Queen Elizabeth) is a great ship.

Determiners

English determiners constitute a relatively small class of words. They include the articles ''the'' and ''a '; certain demonstrative and interrogative words such as ''this'', ''that'', and ''which''; possessives such as ''my'' and ''whose'' (the role of determiner can also be played by noun possessive forms such as ''John's'' and ''the girl's''); various quantifying words like ''all'', ''some'', ''many'', ''various''; and numerals (''one'', ''two'', etc.). There are also many phrases (such as ''a couple of'') that can play the role of determiners.

Determiners are used in the formation of noun phrases (see above). Many words that serve as determiners can also be used as pronouns (''this'', ''that'', ''many'', etc.).

Determiners can be used in certain combinations, such as ''all the water'' and ''the many problems''.

In many contexts, it is required for a noun phrase to be completed with an article or some other determiner. It is not grammatical to say just ''cat sat on table''; one must say ''my cat sat on the table''. The most common situations in which a complete noun phrase can be formed without a determiner are when it refers generally to a whole class or concept (as in ''dogs are dangerous'' and ''beauty is subjective'') and when it is a name (''Jane'', ''Spain'', etc.). This is discussed in more detail at English articles and Zero article in English.

Pronouns

Pronouns are a relatively small, closed class of words that function in the place of nouns or noun phrases. They include personal pronouns, demonstrative pronouns, relative pronouns, interrogative pronouns, and some others, mainly indefinite pronouns. The full set of English pronouns is presented in the following table. Nonstandard, informal and archaic forms are in ''italics''.

^† Interrogative only.

Personal

The personal pronouns of modern standard English are presented in the table above. They are ''I, you, she, he, it, we'', and ''they''. The personal pronouns are so-called not because they apply to persons (which other pronouns also do), but because they participate in the system of grammatical person (1st, 2nd, 3rd).

The second-person forms such as ''you'' are used with both singular and plural reference. In the Southern United States, y'all (you all) is used as a plural form, and various other phrases such as ''you guys'' are used in other places. An archaic set of second-person pronouns used for singular reference is ''thou, thee, thyself, thy, thine, ''which are still used in religious services and can be seen in older works, such as Shakespeare's—in such texts, the ''you'' set of pronouns are used for plural reference, or with singular reference as a formal V-form. ''You'' can also be used as an indefinite pronoun, referring to a person in general (see generic ''you''), compared to the more formal alternative, '' one'' (reflexive ''oneself'', possessive ''one's'').

The third-person singular forms are differentiated according to the gender of the referent. For example, ''she'' is used to refer to a woman, sometimes a female animal, and sometimes an object to which feminine characteristics are attributed, such as a ship or a country. A man, and sometimes a male animal, is referred to using ''he''. In other cases, ''it'' can be used. (See Gender in English.) The word ''it'' can also be used as a dummy subject, concerning abstract ideas like time, weather, etc.

The third-person form ''they'' is used with both plural and singular referents. Historically, singular ''they'' was restricted to quantificational constructions such as ''Each employee should clean their desk'' and referential cases where the referent's gender was unknown. However, it is increasingly used when the referent's gender is irrelevant or when the referent is neither male nor female.

The possessive determiners such as ''my'' are used as determiners together with nouns, as in ''my old man'', ''some of his friends''. The second possessive forms like ''mine'' are used when they do not qualify a noun: as pronouns, as in ''mine is bigger than yours'', and as predicates, as in ''this one is mine''. Note also the construction ''a friend of mine'' (meaning "someone who is my friend"). See English possessive for more details.

Demonstrative

The demonstrative pronouns of English are ''this'' (plural ''these''), and ''that'' (plural ''those''), as in ''these are good, I like that''. Note that all four words can also be used as determiners (followed by a noun), as in ''those cars''. They can also form the alternative pronominal expressions ''this/that one'', ''these/those ones''.

Interrogative

The interrogative pronouns are ''who'', ''what'', and ''which'' (all of them can take the suffix '' -ever'' for emphasis). The pronoun ''who'' refers to a person or people; it has an oblique form ''whom'' (though in informal contexts this is usually replaced by ''who''), and a possessive form (pronoun or determiner) ''whose''. The pronoun ''what'' refers to things or abstracts. The word ''which'' is used to ask about alternatives from what is seen as a closed set: ''which (of the books) do you like best?'' (It can also be an interrogative determiner: ''which book?''; this can form the alternative pronominal expressions ''which one'' and ''which ones''.) ''Which'', ''who'', and ''what'' can be either singular or plural, although ''who'' and ''what'' often take a singular verb regardless of any supposed number. For more information see ''who''.

In Old and Middle English, the roles of the three words were different from their roles today. "The interrogative pronoun ''hwā'' 'who, what' had only singular forms and also only distinguished between non-neuter and neuter, the neuter nominative form being ''hwæt.''" Note that neuter and non-neuter refers to the grammatical gender system of the time, rather than the so-called natural gender system of today. A small holdover of this is the ability of relative (but not interrogative) ''whose'' to refer to non-persons (e.g., ''the car whose door won't open'').

All the interrogative pronouns can also be used as relative pronouns, though ''what'' is quite limited in its use; see below for more details.

Relative

The main relative pronouns in English are ''who'' (with its derived forms ''whom'' and ''whose''), ''which'', and ''that''.

The relative pronoun ''which'' refers to things rather than persons, as in ''the shirt, which used to be red, is faded''. For persons, ''who'' is used (''the man who saw me was tall''). The oblique case form of ''who'' is ''whom'', as in ''the man whom I saw was tall'', although in informal registers ''who'' is commonly used in place of ''whom''.

The possessive form of ''who'' is ''whose'' (for example, ''the man whose car is missing''); however the use of ''whose'' is not restricted to persons (one can say ''an idea whose time has come'').

The word ''that'' as a relative pronoun is normally found only in restrictive relative clauses (unlike ''which'' and ''who'', which can be used in both restrictive and unrestrictive clauses). It can refer to either persons or things, and cannot follow a preposition. For example, one can say ''the song that'' r ''which''''I listened to yesterday'', but ''the song to which'' ot ''to that''''I listened yesterday''. The relative pronoun ''that'' is usually pronounced with a reduced vowel ( schwa), and hence differently from the demonstrative ''that'' (see Weak and strong forms in English). If ''that'' is not the subject of the relative clause, it can be omitted (''the song I listened to yesterday'').

The word ''what'' can be used to form a free relative clause – one that has no antecedent and that serves as a complete noun phrase in itself, as in ''I like what he likes''. The words ''whatever'' and ''whichever'' can be used similarly, in the role of either pronouns (''whatever he likes'') or determiners (''whatever book he likes''). When referring to persons, ''who(ever)'' (and ''whom(ever)'') can be used in a similar way.

"There"

The word ''there'' is used as a pronoun in some sentences, playing the role of a dummy subject, normally of an intransitive verb. The "logical subject" of the verb then appears as a complement after the verb.

This use of ''there'' occurs most commonly with forms of the verb ''be'' in existential clauses, to refer to the presence or existence of something. For example: ''There is a heaven''; ''There are two cups on the table''; ''There have been a lot of problems lately''. It can also be used with other verbs: ''There exist two major variants''; ''There occurred a very strange incident''.

The dummy subject takes the number (singular or plural) of the logical subject (complement), hence it takes a plural verb if the complement is plural. In informal English, however, the contraction ''there's'' is often used for both singular and plural.

The dummy subject can undergo inversion, ''Is there a test today?'' and ''Never has there been a man such as this.'' It can also appear without a corresponding logical subject, in short sentences and question tags: ''There wasn't a discussion, was there? There was.''

The word ''there'' in such sentences has sometimes been analyzed as an adverb, or as a dummy predicate, rather than as a pronoun. However, its identification as a pronoun is most consistent with its behavior in inverted sentences and question tags as described above.

Because the word ''there'' can also be a deictic adverb (meaning "at/to that place"), a sentence like ''There is a river'' could have either of two meanings: "a river exists" (with ''there'' as a pronoun), and "a river is in that place" (with ''there'' as an adverb). In speech, the adverbial ''there'' would be given stress, while the pronoun would not – in fact, the pronoun is often pronounced as a weak form, .

Reciprocal

The English reciprocal pronouns are ''each other'' and ''one another''. Although they are written with a space, they're best thought of as single words. No consistent distinction in meaning or use can be found between them. Like the reflexive pronouns, their use is limited to contexts where an antecedent precedes it. In the case of the reciprocals, they need to appear in the same clause as the antecedent.

Other

Other pronouns in English are often identical in form to determiners (especially quantifiers), such as ''many'', ''a little'', etc. Sometimes, the pronoun form is different, as with ''none'' (corresponding to the determiner ''no''), ''nothing'', ''everyone'', ''somebody'', etc. Many examples are listed as indefinite pronouns. Another indefinite (or impersonal) pronoun is '' one'' (with its reflexive form ''oneself'' and possessive ''one's''), which is a more formal alternative to generic ''you''.

Verbs

The basic form of an English verb is not generally marked by any ending, although there are certain suffixes that are frequently used to form verbs, such as ''-ate'' (''formulate''), ''-fy'' (''electrify''), and ''-ise/ize'' (''realise/realize''). Many verbs also contain prefixes, such as ''un-'' (''unmask''), ''out-'' (''outlast''), ''over-'' (''overtake''), and ''under-'' (''undervalue''). Verbs can also be formed from nouns and adjectives by zero derivation, as with the verbs ''snare'', ''nose'', ''dry'', and ''calm''.

Most verbs have three or four inflected forms in addition to the base form: a third-person singular present tense form in ''-(e)s'' (''writes'', ''botches''), a present participle and gerund form in ''-ing'' (''writing''), a past tense (''wrote''), and – though often identical to the past tense form – a past participle (''written''). Regular verbs have identical past tense and past participle forms in ''-ed'', but there are 100 or so irregular English verbs with different forms (see list). The verbs ''have'', ''do'' and ''say'' also have irregular third-person present tense forms (''has'', ''does'' , ''says'' ). The verb ''be'' has the largest number of irregular forms (''am, is, are'' in the present tense, ''was, were'' in the past tense, ''been'' for the past participle).

Most of what are often referred to as verb tenses (or sometimes aspects) in English are formed using auxiliary verbs. Apart from what are called the simple present (''write'', ''writes'') and simple past (''wrote''), there are also continuous (progressive) forms (''am/is/are/was/were writing''), perfect forms (''have/has/had written'', and the perfect continuous ''have/has/had been writing''), future forms (''will write'', ''will be writing'', ''will have written'', ''will have been writing''), and conditionals (also called "future in the past"), so forms equivalent to future ones but with ''would'' instead of ''will''. The auxiliaries ''shall'' and ''should'' sometimes replace ''will'' and ''would'' in the first person. For the uses of these various verb forms, see English verbs and English clause syntax.

The basic form of the verb (''be, write, play'') is used as the infinitive, although there is also a "to-infinitive" (''to be'', ''to write'', ''to play'') used in many syntactical constructions. There are also infinitives corresponding to other aspects: ''(to) have written'', ''(to) be writing'', ''(to) have been writing''. The second-person imperative is identical to the (basic) infinitive; other imperative forms may be made with ''let'' (''let us go'', or ''let's go''; ''let them eat cake'').

A form identical to the infinitive can be used as a present subjunctive in certain contexts: ''It is important that he follow them'' or ''... that he be committed to the cause''. There is also a past subjunctive (distinct from the simple past only in the possible use of ''were'' instead of ''was''), used in some conditional sentences and similar: ''if I were'' (or ''was'') ''rich ...''; ''were he to arrive now ...''; ''I wish she were'' (or ''was'') ''here''. For details see English subjunctive.

The passive voice is formed using the verb ''be'' (in the appropriate tense or form) with the past participle of the verb in question: ''cars are driven, he was killed, I am being tickled, it is nice to be pampered'', etc. The performer of the action may be introduced in a prepositional phrase with ''by'' (as in ''they were killed by the invaders'').

The English modal verbs consist of the core modals ''can'', ''could'', ''may'', ''might'', ''must'', ''shall'', ''should'', ''will'', ''would'', as well as ''ought (to''), ''had better'', and in some uses ''dare'' and ''need''. These do not inflect for person or number, do not occur alone, and do not have infinitive or participle forms (except synonyms, as with ''be/being/been able (to'') for the modals ''can/could''). The modals are used with the basic infinitive form of a verb (''I can swim, he may be killed'', ''we dare not move'', ''need they go?''), except for ''ought'', which takes ''to'' (''you ought to go''). Modals can indicate the condition, probability, possibility, necessity, obligation and ability exposed by the speaker's or writer's attitude or expression.

The copula ''be'', along with the modal verbs and the other auxiliaries, form a distinct class, sometimes called "special verbs" or simply "auxiliaries". These have different syntax from ordinary lexical verbs, especially in that they make their interrogative forms by plain inversion with the subject, and their negative forms by adding ''not'' after the verb (''could I ...? I could not ...''). Apart from those already mentioned, this class may also include ''used to'' (although the forms ''did he use to?'' and ''he didn't use to'' are also found), and sometimes ''have'' even when not an auxiliary (forms like ''have you a sister?'' and ''he hadn't a clue'' are possible, though becoming less common). It also includes the auxiliary ''do'' (''does'', ''did''); this is used with the basic infinitive of other verbs (those not belonging to the "special verbs" class) to make their question and negation forms, as well as emphatic forms (''do I like you?''; ''he doesn't speak English''; ''we did close the fridge''). For more details of this, see ''do''-support.

Some forms of the copula and auxiliaries often appear as contractions, as in ''I'm'' for ''I am'', ''you'd'' for ''you would'' or ''you had'', and ''John's'' for ''John is''. Their negated forms with following ''not'' are also often contracted (see below). For detail see English auxiliaries and contractions.

Phrases

A verb together with its dependents, excluding its subject, may be identified as a verb phrase (although this concept is not acknowledged in all theories of grammar). A verb phrase headed by a finite verb may also be called a predicate. The dependents may be objects,complements, and modifiers (adverbs or adverbial phrases). In English, objects and complements nearly always come after the verb; a direct object precedes other complements such as prepositional phrases, but if there is an indirect object as well, expressed without a preposition, then that precedes the direct object: ''give me the book'', but ''give the book to me''. Adverbial modifiers generally follow objects, although other positions are possible (see under below). Certain verb–modifier combinations, particularly when they have independent meaning (such as ''take on'' and ''get up''), are known as "phrasal verbs".

For details of possible patterns, see English clause syntax. See the Non-finite clauses section of that article for verb phrases headed by non-finite verb forms, such as infinitives and participles.

Adjectives

English adjectives, as with other word classes, cannot in general be identified as such by their form, although many of them are formed from nouns or other words by the addition of a suffix, such as ''-al'' (''habitual''), ''-ful'' (''blissful''), ''-ic'' (''atomic''), ''-ish'' (''impish'', ''youngish''), ''-ous'' (''hazardous''), etc.; or from other adjectives using a prefix: ''disloyal'', ''irredeemable'', ''unforeseen'', ''overtired''.

Adjectives may be used attributively, as part of a noun phrase (nearly always preceding the noun they modify; for exceptions see postpositive adjective), as in ''the big house'', or predicatively, as in ''the house is big''. Certain adjectives are restricted to one or other use; for example, ''drunken'' is attributive (''a drunken sailor''), while ''drunk'' is usually predicative (''the sailor was drunk'').

Comparison

Many adjectives have comparative and superlative forms in ''-er'' and ''-est'', such as ''faster'' and ''fastest'' (from the positive form ''fast''). Spelling rules which maintain pronunciation apply to suffixing adjectives just as they do for similar treatment of regular past tense formation; these cover consonant doubling (as in ''bigger'' and ''biggest'', from ''big'') and the change of ''y'' to ''i'' after consonants (as in ''happier'' and ''happiest'', from ''happy'').

The adjectives ''good'' and ''bad'' have the irregular forms ''better, best'' and ''worse, worst''; also ''far'' becomes ''farther, farthest'' or ''further, furthest''. The adjective ''old'' (for which the regular ''older'' and ''oldest'' are usual) also has the irregular forms ''elder'' and ''eldest'', these generally being restricted to use in comparing siblings and in certain independent uses. For the comparison of adverbs, see Adverbs below.

Many adjectives, however, particularly those that are longer and less common, do not have inflected comparative and superlative forms. Instead, they can be qualified with ''more'' and ''most'', as in ''beautiful, more beautiful, most beautiful'' (this construction is also sometimes used even for adjectives for which inflected forms do exist).

Certain adjectives are classed as ungradable. These represent properties that cannot be compared on a scale; they simply apply or do not, as with ''pregnant'', ''dead'', ''unique''. Consequently, comparative and superlative forms of such adjectives are not normally used, except in a figurative, humorous or imprecise context. Similarly, such adjectives are not normally qualified with modifiers of degree such as ''very'' and ''fairly'', although with some of them it is idiomatic to use adverbs such as ''completely''. Another type of adjective sometimes considered ungradable is those that represent an extreme degree of some property, such as ''delicious'' and ''terrified''.

Phrases

An adjective phrase is a group of words that plays the role of an adjective in a sentence. It usually has a single adjective as its head, to which modifiers and complements may be added.

Adjectives can be modified by a preceding adverb or adverb phrase, as in ''very warm'', ''truly imposing'', ''more than a little excited''. Some can also be preceded by a noun or quantitative phrase, as in ''fat-free'', ''two-meter-long''.

Complements following the adjective may include:
* prepositional phrases: ''proud of him'', ''angry at the screen'', ''keen on breeding toads'';
* infinitive phrases: ''anxious to solve the problem'', ''easy to pick up'';
* content clauses, i.e. ''that'' clauses and certain others: ''certain that he was right'', ''unsure where they are'';
* after comparatives, phrases or clauses with ''than'': ''better than you'', ''smaller than I had imagined''.

An adjective phrase may include both modifiers before the adjective and a complement after it, as in ''very difficult to put away''.

Adjective phrases containing complements after the adjective cannot normally be used as attributive adjectives ''before'' a noun. Sometimes they are used attributively after the noun, as in ''a woman proud of being a midwife'' (where they may be converted into relative clauses: ''a woman who is proud of being a midwife''), but it is wrong to say *''a proud of being a midwife woman''. Exceptions include very brief and often established phrases such as ''easy-to-use''. (Certain complements can be moved to after the noun, leaving the adjective before the noun, as in ''a better man than you'', ''a hard nut to crack''.)

Certain attributive adjective phrases are formed from other parts of speech, without any adjective as their head, as in ''a two-bedroom house'', ''a no-jeans policy''.

Adverbs

Adverbs perform a wide range of functions. They typically modify verbs (or verb phrases), adjectives (or adjectival phrases), or other adverbs (or adverbial phrases). However, adverbs also sometimes qualify noun phrases (''only the boss''; ''quite a lovely place''), pronouns and determiners (''almost all''), prepositional phrases (''halfway through the movie''), or whole sentences, to provide contextual comment or indicate an attitude (''Frankly, I don't believe you''). They can also indicate a relationship between clauses or sentences (''He died, and consequently I inherited the estate'').

Many English adverbs are formed from adjectives by adding the ending ''-ly'', as in ''hopefully'', ''widely'', ''theoretically'' (for details of spelling and etymology, see ''-ly''). Certain words can be used as both adjectives and adverbs, such as ''fast'', ''straight'', and ''hard''; these are flat adverb

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