Content created: 2021-05-09
File last modified:
Grammar Terms
Uninflected Little Words (Particles)
Return to index
articles,
conjunctions,
interjections,
prepositions
Articles
An article is word used to identify a noun and specify its application. English has two articles: “a(n)” and “the.”
Obs.: There is no difference in meaning between “a” and “an.” “An” is used before a word beginning with a vowel; “a” elsewhere.
Obs.: For some speakers of English, “the” is pronounced “thee” before a vowel and “thuh” elsewhere; for others it is “thuh” in all positions. The difference may be region or social class or both.
Articles are distinguished as definite and indefinite.
The definite article (“the”) is used to specify that a particular item is under discussion, not merely a member of a class: “He saw the dog [i.e., a particular dog].”
The indefinite article (“a/an”) is used to specify that no particular item is under discussion, but only a member of a class: “He saw a dog [i.e., some dog].”
Obs.: In Romance languages the definite article is also used before some abstractions. Since English uses the indefinite article only with singular “count” nouns, it does not normally occur before abstractions. (In French one says la liberté; in English merely “liberty.”)
Obs.: The equivalent of the English indefinite article in several European languages also means “one.”
Obs.: Germanic and Romance languages also distinguish definite and indefinite articles. Greek has only the definite article. Slavic languages do not have articles. Neither do East Asian languages.
Return to top.
Conjunctions
A conjunction is a word which links two nouns, phrases, or clauses. It may be “coordinating” or “subordinating,” depending upon whether the two items have an equal or unequal status. “And,” “or,” “if,” and “but” are conjunctions. A subordinating conjunction attaches a subordinate clause to a main clause.
Some conjunctions work as pairs: “both … and,” “neither … nor,” “if … then.”.
Coordinating conjunctions include “but,” “and” and “or”:
- “George and Tim are brothers.”
- “Both Anna and Theo have red hair.”
- “At camp I both swam and rode a horse.
- “I like both tigers and lizards.”
- “Do you prefer cake or ice dream?”
- “We will go to Las Cruces and El Paso.”
- “We will see the movie and have dinner afterward.”
- “I like neither flies nor mosquitoes.”
Subordinating conjunctions include “whether” “unless,” “if,” “because,” “since,” and “when.”
- “She didn’t know whether she would ever see him again.”
- “We’ll see him when he comes.”
- “We won’t see him unless he comes.”
- “I’ll move to Santa Barbara if I win the bet, to Needles if I lose everything.”
- “They will come when they please”
- “If that is true, then they must already have eaten.”
Return to top.
Interjections
An interjection (exclamation) is a word or phrase uttered to express an emotion. Examples are “hooray,” “hello,” “oh shit,” “ugh,” “wow,” and “gesundheit.” Expressions like “Bless you!” said when someone sneezes or “God damn it!” when the mucus lands in your soup are built like sentences, but are fixed and function like exclamations.
Return to top.
Prepositions
A preposition is an invariant (unchanging) word used to link a noun or noun phrase in order to modify a noun or verb. “Beneath,” “across,” and “from” are prepositions. A preposition therefore takes or implies an object of its own to make up a “prepositional phrase.”
Obs.: In some European languages —conspicuously Spanish— the inventory of prepositions is very limited, and most expression functioning as prepositions are compounds.
Obs.: In Chinese words corresponding to English prepositions are classed as “stative verbs” because of the ways they resemble other Chinese verbs.
- “He put the flowers in the vase on the table.”
- “They’ll arrive in Tuscaloosa.”
- “The cat was sleeping behind the stove.”
- “She hit him with a lawsuit.”
- “They talked through the dispute.”
- “A mouse ran out from under the bed.”
- “He shouted,“marry me” over the background noise, but she heard “bury me” and thought he was having a heart attack.
Return to top.