What grammar is, the six traditions of grammar, word classes, phrases, clauses, functional grammar for analysis — with examples, citations and Band 6 application.
Grammar is the system by which words combine into phrases, clauses and sentences to make meaning. It is not a set of arbitrary prohibitions; it is the operating system of English. When a poet breaks a rule deliberately — e.e. cummings writing "he danced his did" — the deviation only means something because the system exists. That is why NESA frames grammar knowledge as analytic power: students who can name what a sentence is doing can explain precisely how a text positions them.
Grammar operates at four levels. At the word level, we classify items into word classes (nouns, verbs, adjectives). At the phrase level, words group into units built around a head (noun phrase, verb phrase). At the clause level, phrases combine around a verb into clauses with functions (subject, object, complement). At the text level, clauses chain through cohesion devices (pronouns, conjunctions, lexical repetition) into paragraphs and whole texts.
Sentence: "Exhausted, the runner dragged herself toward the line."
Band 6 use: "By fronting the participial adjective 'exhausted', the writer foregrounds the runner's physical state before her action, positioning readers to admire endurance rather than speed."
Language most shows a man: speak, that I may see thee.— Ben Jonson, Timber, or Discoveries (1640)
"Grammar" means different things in different traditions. Knowing the six types lets you answer the questions every senior student must face: which rules are real, which are conventions, and how do I use grammar analytically?
Descended from Latin teaching via eighteenth-century grammarians such as Lindley Murray (English Grammar, 1795), traditional grammar classifies the eight parts of speech: noun, pronoun, verb, adverb, adjective, preposition, conjunction, interjection. It treats the sentence as subject + predicate and judges constructions against Latinate norms.
Prescriptive grammar states how language should be used: avoid double negatives, don't split infinitives, "between you and me" not "between you and I". Its authority is convention — often codified by usage guides like Fowler's Dictionary of Modern English Usage (1926).
Descriptive grammar records how speakers actually use language without judgement. Modern linguists (from Leonard Bloomfield's Language, 193, onward) treat every systematic dialect — Aboriginal English, African American Vernacular English, Australian slang — as grammatically complete.
Functional grammar asks what each unit does. A clause is analysed into process (the verb), participants (who/what), and circumstances (when/where/how) — the "transitivity" system developed within Halliday's systemic-functional linguistics.
Halliday's full framework (An Introduction to Functional Grammar, 1985) holds that every clause performs three meanings at once: the ideational (representing experience), the interpersonal (negotiating relationships — mood, modality: "might", "must"), and the textual (organising information via theme and rheme — whatever comes first frames the message).
Noam Chomsky (Syntactic Structures, 1957) proposed that humans possess an innate capacity generating infinitely many sentences from finite rules. Generative grammar models deep structure vs surface structure: "Visiting relatives can be boring" has one surface form but two underlying structures.
| Class | Function | Examples | Analysis angle |
|---|---|---|---|
| Noun (common/proper/abstract/collective) | Name entities, ideas, groups | storm; Sydney; justice; flock | Abstract nouns signal theme ("freedom"); proper nouns build specificity. |
| Pronoun | Replace nouns; track participants | she, they, who, themselves | Inclusive "we" builds solidarity in speeches. |
| Verb (material/mental/relational) | Express action, thought, being | shatter; ponder; remain | Violent verbs energise imagery; mental verbs open interiority. |
| Adjective | Describe nouns | bleak, golden | Adjective stacking controls tone and pace. |
| Adverb | Modify verbs/adjectives/sentences | silently, unfortunately | Sentence adverbs ("clearly") manage reader stance. |
| Preposition | Relate nouns to other elements | beneath, despite | Prepositional chains slow pace, layer space. |
| Conjunction (coordinating/subordinating) | Link units | and/but; although/because | Polysyndeton vs asyndeton control rhythm. |
| Determiner | Specify nouns | the, some, my | Definite articles presuppose shared knowledge. |
| Interjection | Exclaim emotion | O! Alas! | Heightens dramatic immediacy. |
A phrase is a group of words built around a head word without a subject–verb pair: the crumbling lighthouse (noun phrase), had been singing (verb phrase), wildly proud of her (adjective phrase). A clause contains a subject–verb pair. Independent clauses stand alone; dependent (subordinate) clauses cannot: "Although the storm passed" leaves us waiting.
Sentence architecture follows from clause combination — covered fully in the Sentence Structure pack. Here, note the analytic payoff: subordination creates hierarchy of importance (what is subordinate is backgrounded), and coordination creates equality or relentless accumulation (polysyndeton).
Grammar becomes marks when paired with effect and purpose. The formula: Name the feature → quote the evidence → explain the effect on meaning/reader → link to the question.
"Halliday's transitivity reveals the poem's politics: where the coloniser appears as Actor in active material processes ('he cleared, he drained, he fenced'), the land appears only as Goal, acted upon and voiceless — a grammatical silencing that mirrors its historical one."
The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.— Ludwig Wittgenstein, Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1922)
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