“Grammar is the business of taking language to pieces to see how it works”
David Crystal, 1988
Grammar, as much as we may love to hate it, is a overwhelmingly fundamental part of our language. I’ve recently been visiting this topic for various client pieces and thus, wanted to share some of my recap with you.
The English language is absolutely fascinating to me. As a writer, having well-constructed sentences and knowing your grammar basics is obviously important – but as a designer and someone who always wants to know how things work, learning the systems behind our words is just as interesting.
More than just impressing your clients and readers, the process behind language is just pretty intriguing. Because it’s a system – a set process that follows the same formula time and time again.
Having dusted off my grammar word classes recently, here’s a brief overview of what these are and how they integrate into our everyday language.
Word Class Basics
To start off, grammar is always broken down into two main brackets. These are:
Morphology: the structure of words
Syntax: the structure of sentences
Within this, we meet word classes. Word classes or ‘parts of speech’ are categories all words fall into depending on how they are used grammatically in context. There are eight major classes: nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, determiners, pronouns and conjunctions.
Word classes are split into open class words and closed class words.
1 Open Class – lexical/content words:
Also known as lexical or content words, these are used to convey meaning. They do most of the work when it comes to the jumble we call language and because they communicate ideas and information, they’re constantly changing. Mostly because we’re always coming up with newfangled inventions.
These refer to: nouns, adjectives, main verbs, adverbs.
2 Closed Class – grammatical/function words:
I think of these words as like the Wizard of Oz. AKA, the man behind the curtain. Closed class words, also known as grammatical or function words, act as the mortar within our sentences. They cement the words together. Much like the boring sibling of the family, there’s a fixed number of these words which don’t change or evolve over time.
They help to express meaning more accurately by indicating the precise relationship between elements within a sentence. So you can see where the cement correlation stems from…
These refer to: pronouns, predispositions, determiners, conjunctions, auxiliary verbs.
Using Word Classes in Everyday Language
Interestingly, there are a few things to note about word classes.
First off, according to linguists there are far fewer open class words in our everyday spoken language compared to how we write. That’s because as writers, we have more time to think things through and construct our sentences. A little bit like having more time to make something look good. When we’re conversing, our language tends to bubble over with closed class words instead. We’re in the moment – who cares if it sounds perfect?
Our language also changes as we develop too. Nobody’s born with a full set of word classes at their disposal. Toddlers and small children speak in what’s known as the Telegraphic stage – because their speech sounds like an old school telegram!
This is because they omit the grammatical verbs and non-count nouns when they speak to us, thus sounding like a broken telegram.
An example of this would be:
Jon take train (Jon took the train).
To Conclude
The world of words is complex, there’s no doubt about it. This is a topic that has fascinated me since my early teens – I actually tried to switch university courses during college because I wanted to dissect language so much. I didn’t in the end, but here I type today – giving you a word class overview and a toe dip into the world of grammar linguistics.
References
Rediscover Grammar by Prof David Crystal, 1988: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Rediscover-Grammar-David-Crystal-1988-03-14/dp/B01LPDBPV8
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