The Real Rules — a Quick Guide

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Contents

1. Introduction
2. Nouns
3. Determiners
4. Adjectives
5. Pronouns
6. Verbs
7. Prepositions
8. Adverbs
9. Conjunctions

Introduction

The rules in this section are the most basic and most important in our language. You probably haven’t been taught any of these grammatical rules; you were probably unaware of their existence, but you already know them inside out. It's still very important to have a conscious knowledge of these basic rules because these are the ones where middle-class and working-class forms differ, creating the secret class passwords. A fuller explanation is given in The Real Rules of English Grammar.

Nouns

The basic definition is that nouns are words for people, places and things. Nouns can be the subject or the object of a sentence – “the dog (the subject, the doer) bit the man” (the object, the done-to); "the boy (subject) ate the ice-cream" (object). Unlike other European languages, English’s nouns have only one change of form, adding an “s” to make a plural (“one dog”, “two dogs”) or a possessive (“the man’s dog”).

There is a small group of irregular nouns which go into a plural in different ways – brother / brethren, child / children, foot / feet, goose / geese, louse / lice, man / men, mouse / mice, ox / oxen, tooth / teeth, and woman / women.

English has two different kinds of noun – countable and uncountable. Countable nouns are of things which can be itemised and numbered, like “men”, “dogs” and “teeth”. Uncountable nouns are of things which our language thinks are indivisible and can’t be broken down into component bits, like “salt”, “butter” and “weather”. They usually stay in the singular.

There is just one rule which is different for nouns in middle-class standard and working-class non-standard dialects – in all non-middle-class, non-standard dialects, nouns that are being measured don’t go into the plural: he drove at seventy mile an hour; two hundred dollar that cost me. In the standard dialect only, the plural form is used – she ran for six miles; that bag weighs five pounds.
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Determiners

Determiners are little words that go before nouns to identify them.

The

The definite article, which specifies its noun – “the boy ate the ice-cream” = you know which boy and which ice-cream.

A/an

The indefinite articles, used before a noun if the noun is not specific – “a boy ate an ice-cream” = it’s not a particular boy or a specific ice-cream.

This/that, these/those

Demonstratives or pointing words, indicating either near or further away. Many working-class non-standard dialects use them instead of those.
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Many/much/few, little. Fewer/less, fewest/least

The comparatives and superlatives. “Many” and “few” are used for countable nouns, “much” and “little” for uncountables. “Many” and “much” have the same comparative and superlative forms – “more” and “most”. “Few” has “fewer” and “fewest”, and “little” has “less” and “least”.

Which/what

Interrogative determiners, used in questions, “which” for specific and “what” for general – “which ice-cream van did he go to?”; “what ice-cream is your favourite?”

Adjectives

Words which describe nouns, appearing after any determiners and before their nouns – “the cold ice-cream”, “that green dinosaur”. Adjectives can also appear after some “link” verbs, like “be”, “become”, “get” and “seem” – “it is getting cold”; “that dinosaur is green”.

Some adjectives appear only before nouns and not with link verbs – “chief”, “former”, “future”, “main”, “principal”, “sheer” and “utter”. Others appear after link verbs (like "be" and "become") and not before nouns – “glad” and “well” plus a small group of others which all begin with “a” (“abroad”, “alike”, “alive”, “alone”, “ashamed” and “asleep”).

Comparatives and Superlatives

There are two ways of turning an adjective into a comparative and superlative. One is to put “more” or “most” before the adjective, the other is to add an “er” or “est” to the end. In many working-class dialects both forms are used together for emphasis – the more faster car, the most loveliest sunset -- which is frowned on by many standard speakers.
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The only time when English’s adjectives change form is with the comparatives and superlatives of a handful of irregular adjectives. These are the irregular forms of middle-class standard English:

good, better, best

bad, worse, worst

many/much, more, most

little, less, least

far, further, furthest

old, elder, eldest (usually with people, where the regular form – old, older, oldest – can apply to everything, including people)

Many non-standard dialects allow regular forms for these like badder and goodest, which are always seen by standard speakers as errors.
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Pronouns

These are the usually little words that can take the place of nouns. There are lots of different kinds of pronoun – the basic ones are called the personal pronouns. These are the personal pronouns of middle-class standard English:

	Subject	Object	Possessive with a noun	Possessive instead of a noun	Reflexive
First person singular	I	me	my	mine	myself
Second person singular	you	you	your	yours	yourself
Third person singular	he	him	his	his	himself
	she	her	her	hers	herself
	it	it	its	its	itself
First person plural	we	us	our	ours	ourselves
Second person plural	you	you	your	yours	yourselves
Third person plural	they	them	their	theirs	themselves

There are lots of different versions of these pronouns in non-standard dialects. Middle-class, standard speakers treat each variation as a mistake – for example, youse or you all as a plural of “you”.
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Verbs

According to the traditional definition, verbs are “doing” words. “The man bit the dog”; “the boy ate an ice cream”. There are also some “link” verbs, like “be”, “appear”, “get” and “become”.

Verbs have thirteen different tenses in English. Apart from the simple present and the simple past, these tenses are formed with the “auxiliary” (helping) verbs, “be” or “have”. This is the table of tenses for middle-class standard English – it’s the same table for all other dialects apart from their variations in the auxiliary verbs:

Simple Present	I walk
Present Continuous	I am walking
Present Perfect Continuous	I have walked
Present Perfect Continuous	I have been walking
Simple Past	I walked
Past Continuous	I was walking
Past Perfect	I had walked
Past Perfect Continuous	I had been walking
Future	I will walk
Future Perfect	I will have walked
Future Perfect Continuous	I will have been walking
Conditional	I would walk
Past Conditional	I would have walked

Regular verbs make only one change of form for these tenses, adding an “ed” for the simple past and for all the tenses with “have”. However, some of our most common verbs are irregular, using a different method. The middle-class, standard English dialect has the most irregular forms; non-standard, working-class dialects are less irregular because they tend to have the same form for the simple past and the form used in tenses with “have”. Although they are logical and rule-governed, the working-class versions are still seen as errors. PASSWORDS

Differences between standard and non-standard in twenty of the most common  irregular verbs

	Middle-class standard		Working-class non-standards
verb	simple past	past participle	simple past	past participle	example of banned form
Be	was + were	been	was or were	been	"it were"
Begin	began	begun	begun	begun	"it begun"
Break	broke	broken	broke	broke	"he has broke it"
Choose	chose	chosen	chose	chose	"she has chose"
Come	came	come	came	came	"I would've came"
Do	did	done	done	done	"I done it"
Drink	drank	drunk	drunk	drunk	"he drunk it"
Drive	drove	driven	drove	drove	"he had drove"
Forget	forgot	forgotten	forgot	forgot	"they have forgot"
Give	gave	given	gave	gave	"she has gave"
Go	went	gone	went	went	"they have went"
Mistake	mistook	mistaken	mistook	mistook	"I had mistook"
Ride	rode	ridden	rode	rode	"he has rode"
Run	ran	run	ran	ran	"I have ran"
See	saw	seen	seen	seen	"I seen it"
Sing	sang	sung	sang	sang	"she would have sang"
Speak	spoke	spoken	spoke	spoke	"he has spoke"
Swear	swore	sworn	swore	swore	"I could've swore"
Take	took	taken	took	took	"they have took"
Write	wrote	written	wrote	wrote	"he has wrote"

A list of the differences between the irregular verbs of middle-class and working-class dialects is given in the ebook, The Rules of English.

Passive Verbs

Most verbs are used in the active mood, when the subject comes before the verb (“the boy ate”), but most can also be turned into passives, when the object, the done-to, starts the sentence (“the ice-cream was eaten by the boy”). Passives are formed with “be” plus the past participle:

Tense	Active	Passive
Simple present	holds	is held
Present continuous	is holding	is being held
Simple past	held	was held
Past continuous	was holding	was being held
Present perfect	has held	has been held
Past perfect	had held	had been held
Future	will hold	will be held
Future perfect	will have held	will have been held
Conditional	would hold	would be held
Past conditional	would have held	would have been held
Infinitive	to hold	to be held
Past infinitive	to have held	to have been held
Present participle/gerund	holding	being held
Past participle	having held	having been held

Infinitives

We create infinitives by placing a “to” before the verb. There are six forms:

Present	to enjoy
Present continuous	to be enjoying
Perfect	to have enjoyed
Perfect continuous	to have been enjoying
Passive present	to be enjoyed
Passive past	to have been enjoyed

Some non-standard dialects use two words, for to, and Scottish and northeast-English dialects have tae instead of to.
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Gerunds

Gerunds are verbs that have become nouns. They always have an “ing” ending – “No parking”; “he talked about running”; “my hobby is shopping”.

Most verbs following another verb are infinitives – "I aim to go", "it needs to be", "she wants to do it" – but the following verbs must be followed by gerunds:

• admit
• anticipate
• appreciate
• avoid
• consider
• defer
• delay
• deny
• detest
• dislike
• dread
• enjoy
• excuse
• finish
• forgive
• imagine
• involve
• keep
• loathe
• mind
• miss
• pardon
• postpone
• practise
• prevent
• recall
• resent
• resist
• risk
• suggest
• understand

Some verbs can be followed by either a gerund or an infinitive, sometimes with a change of meaning:

• advise
• agree
• allow
• begin
• cease
• continue
• forget
• hate
• intend
• like
• love
• mean
• need
• permit
• prefer
• propose
• recommend
• regret
• remember
• require
• start
• stop
• try
• used to
• want

Prepositions

Prepositions are the little words that place other words, usually nouns, in space or time or some other way – “before breakfast”, “on the ceiling”, “in the puddle”, “beyond belief”. They never change form.

The ten most used prepositions: of, in, to, for, with, on, as, by, at, from.

There are only a hundred-odd prepositions in English, and very few of them vary between standard and non-standard, but all differences are noticeable.

Adverbs

The traditional definition is that adverbs describe verbs. Well, yes, they do – adverbs can describe verbs (“she drove quickly”), but they can also describe adjectives “a really cold ice-cream”), other adverbs “(really beautifully done”) and sometimes whole sentences (“Really, this has to stop”.)

In middle-class standard English, some adverbs are formed by adding an “ly” to the adjective – quick / quickly, real / really. This is the only dialect in English or any other Germanic language which has a special adverbial ending, but not producing the “ly” when it’s required by standard is frowned on as a lazy error.
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Conjunctions

Co-ordinating conjunctions – “and”, “but”, “for”, “nor”, “or”, “so” and “yet”. These can join two or more individual words of the same word-class – “Simon and Garfunkel”, “he drove quickly and dangerously”. They can also join main statements in a sentence – “He drove off and he crashed the car”.

Subordinating conjunctions join phrases or words that are dependent or subordinate to the main statement. They can be single words or phrases.

Single words:

• after
• although
• as
• at
• because
• before
• beside(s)
• between
• by
• despite
• if
• since
• so
• than
• that
• though
• unless
• until
• when
• where
• while
• with
• without

Phrases:

• as if / though
• as long/soon/much as
• as well as
• because of
• due to
• even if / though
• in accordance with
• in addition to
• in case
• in order that / to
• in spite of
• instead of
• on account of
• only if
• owing to
• provided that
• so that