The following is a relatively comprehensive structure for English grammar learning, covering all aspects from basic to advanced.
Basic Part
Parts of Speech
- Nouns: countable and uncountable nouns, singular and plural forms of nouns, and the possessive case of nouns.
- Pronouns: personal pronouns, possessive pronouns, reflexive pronouns, demonstrative pronouns, indefinite pronouns, interrogative pronouns, etc.
- Adjectives: the usage of adjectives, the formation and usage of the comparative and superlative degrees.
- Adverbs: the types and usage of adverbs, the comparative and superlative degrees of adverbs.
- Verbs: the classification of verbs (transitive verbs, intransitive verbs, linking verbs, auxiliary verbs, modal verbs), and the basic forms of verbs (the base form, the third person singular form, the past tense, the past participle, the present participle).
- Numerals: the formation and usage of cardinal numbers and ordinal numbers.
- Articles: the usage of the indefinite articles (a/an) and the definite article (the), and the cases of zero article.
- Prepositions: the basic meanings and usage of common prepositions, and the formation and usage of prepositional phrases.
- Conjunctions: the usage of coordinating conjunctions (such as and, but, or, etc.) and subordinating conjunctions (conjunctions that introduce various clauses).
Sentence Elements
- Subject: the doer of the action described in the sentence or the object being described.
- Predicate: describes the action or state of the subject.
- Object: the object of the action (including direct object and indirect object).
- Predicative: used to describe the identity, nature, characteristics, etc. of the subject, usually used together with a linking verb.
- Attributive: modifies nouns or pronouns, playing a limiting or descriptive role.
- Adverbial: used to modify verbs, adjectives, adverbs or the whole sentence, indicating time, place, cause, purpose, result, condition, concession, etc.
- Complement: supplements and describes the state and characteristics of the subject or object.
Sentence Types
- Simple Sentence: a sentence that contains only one subject-predicate structure, including five basic sentence patterns (Subject + Predicate; Subject + Predicate + Object; Subject + Predicate + Indirect Object + Direct Object; Subject + Predicate + Object + Object Complement; Subject + Linking Verb + Predicative).
- Compound Sentence: a sentence formed by connecting two or more simple sentences with coordinating conjunctions.
- Complex Sentence: a sentence that contains a main clause and one or more subordinate clauses. The subordinate clauses include noun clauses (subject clause, object clause, predicative clause, appositive clause), attributive clauses and adverbial clauses (adverbial clause of time, adverbial clause of place, adverbial clause of cause, adverbial clause of purpose, adverbial clause of result, adverbial clause of condition, adverbial clause of concession, etc.).
- Simple Present Tense: used to express habitual or regular actions or objective facts.
- Simple Past Tense: used to express an action that happened at a certain time in the past or a state that existed in the past.
- Simple Future Tense: used to express an action that will happen or a state that will exist at a certain time in the future. Common expressions include “will + the base form of the verb” and “be going to + the base form of the verb”.
- Present Continuous Tense: used to express an action that is happening now or something that is happening during the current stage.
- Past Continuous Tense: used to express an action that was happening at a certain moment or during a certain period of time in the past.
- Future Continuous Tense: used to express an action that will be happening at a certain moment or during a certain period of time in the future.
- Present Perfect Tense: used to express the influence or result of an action that happened in the past on the present, or an action or state that started in the past and has continued until now.
- Past Perfect Tense: used to express an action that had already happened or been completed before a certain time or action in the past.
- Future Perfect Tense: used to express an action that will have been completed before a certain time in the future.
- Present Perfect Continuous Tense: emphasizes that an action has been going on from the past until now and may continue.
- Past Perfect Continuous Tense: used to express an action that had been going on before a certain time in the past and may have had an impact on a certain situation in the past.
Voice
- Active Voice: the subject is the doer of the action.
- Passive Voice: the subject is the receiver of the action. Its structure is “be + past participle”. The structures of the passive voice in different tenses are different, so it is necessary to master the formation and usage of the passive voice in various tenses.
- Infinitive: formed by “to + the base form of the verb”, and can function as the subject, object, predicative, attributive, adverbial and object complement in a sentence.
- Gerund: formed by the base form of the verb + -ing, having the nature of a noun, and can function as the subject, object, predicative and attributive in a sentence.
- Participle: including the present participle (the base form of the verb + -ing) and the past participle (the past participle form of the verb), and can function as the attributive, adverbial, predicative and object complement in a sentence.
Advanced Grammar
- Subjunctive Mood: used to express assumptions, wishes, suggestions, etc. that are not in line with the facts. It is necessary to master the formation and usage of the subjunctive mood under different conditions.
- Inverted Sentences: including full inversion and partial inversion. It is necessary to understand the rules for forming inverted sentences and common usage scenarios.
- Emphatic Sentences: used to emphasize a certain element in a sentence. The common emphatic structure is “It is/was + the emphasized part + that/who + other parts”.
- Elliptical Sentences: sentences in which certain components are omitted in a certain context to avoid repetition or make the sentence more concise. It is necessary to master common cases and rules of omission.
Discourse Grammar
- Discourse Structure: learning how to use grammatical knowledge to construct a coherent and reasonable discourse, including the organization of paragraphs, the connection and transition between sentences, etc.
- The Application of Grammar in Context: understanding and applying grammatical knowledge in a specific context, choosing the appropriate grammatical forms and vocabulary according to the context to make the expression more accurate and appropriate.