Gramley, Stephan; P?tzold, Kurt-Michael. A Survey of Modern English

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hundred of them in English. Among other things, some verbs have no distinct past and

past participle forms (e.g. hurt, set, let, burst). The verb be, on the other hand, has eight

distinct forms (be, am, are, is, was, were, being, been). See also 12.3.1.

Verbs may be complex, consisting of more than one word. At least the following types

are distinguished:

a) Verb + adverbial particle: put up, set out, hand over etc. For example, put up in

they put up my cousin means ‘to provide with a place to stay’. The particle is stressed

in pronunciation, which indicates that it is lexical rather than grammatical (see below

b). If the verb is transitive and the direct object is a noun, the word order is variable:

they put my cousin up. This word order is normally the only kind possible with

pronouns: they put him up, but not *they put up him.

b) Verb + preposition: look at, count on, reckon with etc. For example, count on in

we are counting on you means ‘to trust in, depend on’. The prepositional particle is

not stressed, which indicates that it is more grammatical than lexical. Word order is

invariable.

c) Verb + particle + preposition: put up with, stand up for, run out on etc. This is a

combination of (a) and (b). Since the preposition is always the element before the

object, word order is invariable as in they are standing up for their rights.

d) Verb + noun: take a bath, give a talk, do (some) work etc. For example, take a bath

is one of the meanings of ‘to bathe’. The noun is syntactically restricted (take a

bath, take two baths etc. are possible, but ?*take the bath is not normally used). This

is part of what is referred to as nominal style (see 6.5.2).

e) Verb + adjective: be satisﬁed, become angry, turn sour etc. A copular (linking) verb

and a predicative adjective express a unitary meaning, which it is generally not

possible to express with a single word in English (but grow red = ‘to redden’).

Auxiliary verbs The auxiliary verbs are, as has already been pointed out, a closed

set of function words. The non-modal auxiliaries are be (eight forms, see above), have

(four forms: have, has, had, having) and do (three forms as an auxiliary: do, does, did).

The modal auxiliaries are defective. None of them has the {-S} inﬂection of the third

person singular present tense. In fact, some have only one form, must, ought (to).

This applies to dare, need, used (to), had better inasfar as they are modal verbs at all.

102 ENGLISH AS A LINGUISTIC SYSTEM

Table 5.4 Verb morphology

irregular regular

verbs verbs

inﬁnitive and present

(not 3rd person singular) write ﬁx

3rd person singular writes ﬁxes

past wrote ﬁxed

present participle writing ﬁxing

past participle written ﬁxed

There are four paired sets of modals: shall, should; can, could; will, would; may, might.

These pairs are seldom related to each other in the same way as the present and past

tenses of lexical verbs (see 5.4.5).

A ﬁnal unusual formal feature of some of the auxiliaries is the pronunciation many of

them have in RP when combined with the contraction of not: do /du

/ becomes don’t

əυnt/ (the vowel of do becomes // in does); will /wl/ becomes won’t /wəυnt/; shall

ʃl/ becomes shan’t /ʃɑnt/; can /kn/ becomes can’t /kɑnt/ (in RP); am /m/ becomes

aren’t /

ɑnt/ (for some speakers). In GenAm the /əυ/ of don’t and won’t is, of course /oυ/,

and the /

ɑ/ of shan’t, can’t is //. Furthermore, there is no contracted form *mayn’t in

either variety for most speakers.

Syntactically, the auxiliaries differ from the lexical verbs in four ways, the so-called

NICE

features. First of all, Negation: they may be negated directly, e.g. auxiliary I couldn’t

come and lexical *I camen’t. Second, Inversion: auxiliaries may invert with the subject

(for example, in interrogatives), Could you come?, but not *Came you? Third, Code:

this refers to reduced, elliptical forms, possible with auxiliaries (A: Could you come

tomorrow? B: Yes, I could), but uncommon with lexical verbs alone (A: Did you come

yesterday? B: ?Yes, I came). Finally, Emphatic afﬁrmation: auxiliaries can freely and

easily be stressed, as in I could come, which is possible but not very common with lexical

verbs alone.

These

NICE

-operations require an auxiliary, which means that if there isn’t one in the

sentence the dummy auxiliary do must be introduced. This results in negative I didn’t

come, interrogative Did you come?, emphatic I did come and elliptical Yes, I did. The

only lexical verbs which allow direct negation and question inversion are the lexical verbs

be and, for some speakers in some cases, have (Aren’t you afraid? or Haven’t you an

idea?). In order to be able to refer easily to verbs with the

NICE

-syntactic features, whether

an auxiliary or lexical be or have, the term operator is sometimes used.

Catenative verbs A number of lexical verbs are semantically very similar to auxil-

iaries. We see this in pairs like must : have got to (Must we do that? : Do we have to do

that?) or will : want (He won’t go : He doesn’t want to go). These lexical verbs, which,

like auxiliaries, are followed by non-ﬁnite verb forms (inﬁnitives, gerunds, participles) or

by indirect statements and questions in the form of ﬁnite that- and wh-clauses, are here

called catenative verbs (see 5.7).

5.1.4 Adjectives

Adjectives are an open class with numerous semantic subgroups (terms of colour, size,

age, weight, value etc.). They typically attribute qualities or properties, which are grad-

able in terms of more or less. These properties and qualities may be stative, i.e. not subject

to wilful control. An example of this is tall; either a person is or is not tall. It is not

possible to direct someone (*Be tall!), nor can a person be temporarily tall (*She’s being

tall today). Other adjectives may be dynamic and hence subject to will (Be careful! or

We’re being very careful with the good china). It is chieﬂy dynamic adjectives which can

be made into adverbs by adding -ly (see next section).

Attribution of quality or property may be to a noun; here adjectives generally appear

before the noun (attributively), e.g. an old man. Or it may be to a whole NP; in this case

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they appear most commonly after a copula (predicatively), e.g. the left-over milk turned

sour. Some adjectives can only be used attributively; others, only predicatively: in the

system of criminal justice ‘the court system for dealing with crime’ the adjective has a

different meaning and it should be regarded as a different lexical item (lexeme) from the

same word form used predicatively in the system of justice is criminal ‘the court system

is unjust/dishonest’. Some adjectives occur after nouns (post-positively), either in ﬁxed

expressions (secretary general, court martial) or as the head of a complex adjectival

construction (an author famous for her/his words).

The inﬂection of adjectives is restricted to those which express some kind of relative

degree (gradability) and it is realized either by the endings {-er}, {-est} or by the peri-

phrastic elements {more}, {most}. Only monosyllabic and some bisyllabic adjectives,

those ending in an unstressed syllable (< -y>, <-ow>, <-le>, <-er>, <-ure>, e.g. prettier,

mellower, littlest, cleverest, obscurest) take the endings (for exceptions see most grammar

books): cute – cuter – cutest; pretty – prettier – prettiest; but beautiful – more beautiful

– most beautiful). All negative forms use less and least regardless of the number of

syllables (less cute, least beautiful). There are also some adjectives with irregular com-

paratives and superlatives, e.g. good – better – best; bad – worse – worst; much – more

– most. A few have no comparative, but superlatives only, e.g. inner – innermost,

outer – outermost etc. Where degree is not involved comparatives and superlatives do

not exist, for example with adjectives of material (usually derived from nouns), such as

atomic, metal, wooden etc., where there is an atomic power plant but no *a more atomic

power plant.

5.1.5 Adverbs

Adverbs are more difﬁcult to deﬁne than nouns, verbs and adjectives because there are

so many subclasses and positional variations. Some of the basic semantic areas are those

of time, place and manner, as represented by the adverbial pro-forms then/now, there/here

and thus/so. However, intensiﬁers (such as very, awfully, hopelessly) and conjuncts

(connective adverbs such as however, nevertheless, furthermore etc.) also belong here.

Endings are involved in two ways. First, numerous adverbs are derived from the corre-

sponding dynamic adjectives by adding the ending {-ly}. This is the case with adverbs

of manner (quick → quickly), which tell how something is done (He left quickly). This

also includes sentence adverbs, or disjuncts (hopeful → hopefully), which modify a

whole sentence (Hopefully, it won’t snow). Note that adverbs are not derived from other

classes of adjectives; hence there is no *oldly or *greenly.

The second type of ending is the inﬂection involved in connection with the compara-

tives and superlatives of adverbs of degree (quickly – more quickly – most quickly). In

addition, a few adverbs have comparatives and superlatives with the endings {-er} and

{-est} ([to work] harder/hardest); however, this is not common since these endings can

only be used with adverbs which do not end in {-ly}.

Adverbial expressions derived from adjectives in {-ly} (friendly), {-like} (ladylike),

{-style/-fashion} (western-style) must be constructed periphrastically, e.g. in a friendly

way/manner/fashion, in the style of the west.

Some adverbs are not derived from adjectives. Generally these are parts of various

closed (sub-)sets, for example, time adverbs like yesterday – today – tomorrow, place

104 ENGLISH AS A LINGUISTIC SYSTEM

adverbs like here – there – yonder, but also numerous adverbs identical in form to prepo-

sitions or derived originally from prepositional phrases (above, ahead, behind, outside,

upstairs etc.).

5.1.6 Prepositions

Prepositions are often close to adverbs because they, like adverbs, express time, place

and manner/modality. In addition, they are used for degree (over two hours, under twenty

pounds, about sixty years old) and comparison (like, as), subject matter (e.g. about) and

motivation/contingency (because, despite, in case of). As a group they are more a closed

than an open class, but it is hard to draw the line between complex prepositions and

similar constructions which are not prepositional. That is, the commonest simple prepo-

sitions, about, at, by, from, for, in, of, on, over, through, to, with, are clear cases, and so

are such highly ﬁxed complex prepositions as in front of or in regard to. More marginal

are at the front of or in sight of. At the further extreme are clearly non-prepositional

constructions, such as in the considered opinion of or at the new shop of, which consist

of individual units joined by normal syntactic processes, which are signalled in part by

the presence of the article (the) and of an adjective (considered, new).

Prepositions have no inﬂectional morphology to deﬁne them. Perhaps the most satis-

factory criterion is positional: they are followed by an NP, together with which they form

a prepositional phrase (PP). This distinguishes them from (subordinating) conjunctions,

which are followed by clauses (preposition after the party vs conjunction after we left

the party). It also distinguishes them from adverbs, which are not followed by any partic-

ular types of word or phrase (preposition they dropped a letter in the box vs adverb they

dropped in). However, this also means that items such as e.g. or namely, must be included

because they are regularly followed by NPs, even though they are not traditionally consid-

ered to be prepositions.

5.1.7 Articles/determiners and conjunctions

These are the ﬁnal parts of speech to be considered. They may be deﬁned positionally by

their occurrence before (adjective and) noun, e.g. the large basket. Since there are only

two words which are articles, deﬁnite the and indeﬁnite a/an, the simplest deﬁnition is

simply to name them. However, a large group of determiners might be included here.

These consist of: the demonstratives this, that, these, those; possessive determiners (my,

your, our, her etc.); interrogatives and relatives (what, which, whose etc.); and quantiﬁers

such as some, any, no, all, double, half, both, (n)either, each, every, many, more, most,

enough etc. as well as both cardinal (one, two, three, . . .) and ordinal (ﬁrst, second, third,

. . .) numerals. They all share the feature of appearing before attributive adjectives as part

of an NP. Furthermore, they are subdivided by position into pre-determiners, central

determiners and post-determiners (see 5.5.2).

Conjunctions are basically of two types, coordinating (and, or, nor, but, yet, for) and

subordinating (e.g. after, because, although etc.). Both groups consist of relatively limited

sets. They include not only single word items but also double (correlative) forms such as

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GRAMMAR 105

both . . . and or either . . . or as well as phrasal constructions such as ever since, in case,

or as soon as.

5.2 FUNCTIONAL PHRASES

In the preceding section the focus of attention was on individual words, even though they

are sometimes actually complex (string bean, one another, put up, ever since etc.). This

section will point out that words do not so much occur individually as in groups of syntac-

tically related items, called phrases. Nouns, for example, may appear in such phrasal

structures as determiner + adjective + noun + prepositional phrase (e.g. the large apples

on the table or a weak spot in your argument). Phrases of this sort are referred to as

noun or nominal phrases (NPs) because the noun is the member (or constituent) which

must be present. The noun phrase may, however, appear with or without a determiner,

adjective or prepositional phrase. Hence in the following even the single word apples is

an NP:

NPs: the large apples on the table

the large apples are delicious

the apples

apples

An NP always consists of at least a noun (or nominal or pronoun) which is its centre or

head. Determiners and modiﬁers are optional.

Three other types of phrases also consist of either single words as minimal obligatory

elements or of these plus further accompanying words. They are the verb phrase (VP),

the adjective phrase (AdjP) and the adverb phrase (AdvP), e.g.

VP: go, will go, would have gone

AdjP: green, amazingly green, amazingly light green

AdvP: gently, very gently, very gently indeed

The ﬁnal type of phrase, the prepositional phrase (PP), as understood here, differs from

the others inasmuch as it must consist of at least two elements, a preposition and an NP.

Without the preposition this would be an NP; without the NP, an adverb (see 4.1.5).

PP: in trouble, in big trouble, in very big trouble

Phrases occur within other phrases. For instance, PPs may be part of a higher level NP

(e.g. the small dog on the porch, where the PP on the porch belongs to the whole, which

is an NP) and so too may AdjPs (small in the previous example is at one and the same time

an adjective and a (simple) AdjP). In the following, however, the chief concern will be

with phrases as the realization of the functional elements which make up the parts of a sen-

tence or clause, e.g. subject, object, predicator. These elements are realized exclusively and

completely by the phrase types just enumerated. Before looking more closely at the two

most important and complex phrasal types, the VP and the NP, the functional elements of

English sentences as well as a typology of English sentence patterns will be introduced.

106 ENGLISH AS A LINGUISTIC SYSTEM











5.3 FUNCTIONAL SENTENCE ELEMENTS

5.3.1 The predicator

Within the description of the structure of English in this Chapter the clause or sentence

is the highest level unit (for larger units see Chapter 6). It consists for our purposes of a

predicator, which consists of or at least contains a verb. There are, however, sentences

without predicators, for example, The sooner, the better. These are called minor sentence

types and will not be treated here. The predicator is the central syntactic element in a

sentence. This is the case because it is the predicator which determines the number of

complements that will occur and, indeed, whether a particular element is a complement

or an adjunct (see below).

5.3.2 Complements

Connected with every predicator is at least one kind of element which serves to complete

the predication. Such elements are called complements. If there is only one it will be the

subject of the predicator and therefore of the sentence/clause (She fell asleep). If there

are two the second will be either the direct object (She lost her keys) or the predicate

complement (She became a specialist). If there are three such complements, there will be

a subject, a direct object and either an indirect object (She gave us her report) or a predi-

cate complement (She named him her assistant). There are never more than three.

In addition to ﬁlling the grammatical functions of subject, object, indirect object and

predicative complement, the complements also realize a variety of differing semantic

roles or relations depending on the verb involved. The most common of these roles are

the following, but note that the number and the names of the roles vary considerably from

author to author.

agentive: the deliberate instigator of an act or activity (My brother has gone to

Chicago);

cause: the inanimate source of an event or process (The storm ruined the harvest);

experiencer (or dative): the animate subject of thoughts, feelings, sensations (We think

you’re right);

instrument: the inanimate tool used to do something (I used a pen to make my notes);

objective: the goal affected by a predication (I read the book);

factitive: the object created by the activity of the predicator (I baked a pie).

These roles are not necessarily associated with any particular sentence function (such as

subject or object); rather, any one verb will have a certain constellation of roles associ-

ated with it. For example, the verb make will have an agentive (e.g. the carpenter), a

factitive (a table) and an instrument (the tools). The preferred subject is the agentive with

the factitive as the object and the instrument as a prepositional phrase (The carpenter

made a table with the tools). Other constellations are also possible such as passive The

table was ﬁnished by the carpenter with the new tools.

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GRAMMAR 107

5.3.3 Sentence patterns

Just how many complements there are in a sentence depends on the type of verb in the

predicator. The following are the major types of verbs:

A Predicators with one complement only:

I Intransitive verbs: sleep (I was sleeping), walk (She walked to work), be

worried (He’s worried).

II Impersonal (weather) verbs: rain (It was raining), snow (It’s going to snow).

These verbs are often regarded as having no complement at all on semantic

grounds since the subject it has no reference and is only a ‘dummy’ which

must appear because predicators in ﬁnite sentences must have (grammatical)

subjects.

B Predicators with two complements:

III Transitive verbs: read (Did you read the report?), carry (She was carrying the

groceries), delight (The weather delighted me).

IV Copular verbs with predicative complements:

a) With an NP identical to the subject: Bill is my brother; subject and predi-

cate complement are reversible: My brother is Bill.

b) With a predicative nominal or NP: be (I’m a student), become (The

teacher became a bore), sound (That sounds a mess). Verbs of physical

appearance such as sound, look, feel etc. cannot be followed by a predicate

noun in AmE; a PP with like must be used in AmE (see 12.3.1).

c) With a predicative adjective (AdjP): be (We were tired), get (They got

drunk), look (You look happy).

d) With a predicative adverbial (of place): be (Who’s in there?), live (She

lives in Wilmington), there + be (There was no one at home). The immedi-

ately preceding example (the ‘existential there’ construction) consists

regularly of a ‘dummy’ subject there, some form of the verb be, which is

the ‘logical’ subject, and an expression of place. Although verbs other than

be may occur and the place expression may be missing occasionally, the

pattern given is the predominant one.

V Intransitive verbs + adverbial complement: last + duration (The concert lasted

(for) two hours), weigh + amount (My brother weighs 200 pounds), cost + value

(The peaches cost $2.00 a pound), walk + distance (We walked 20 miles).

C Predicators with three complements:

VI Ditransitive verbs: give (We must give her a party), show (Who showed you

the way?), tell (I told him a joke). The indirect object often appears after the direct

object and is introduced by the preposition to or for (We must give a party for her,

I told a joke to him).

108 ENGLISH AS A LINGUISTIC SYSTEM

VII Transitive verbs with predicative complements:

a) With a predicative nominal (NP): call (She called me a weakling), elect

(They elected her captain), declare (The newspaper declared you an enemy

of the people).

b) With a predicative adjective (AdjP): call (She called me stupid), make

(That made me mad), ﬁnd (The court found them guilty).

c) With a predicative adverbial: spend + place (He spent the day in bed),

put + place (Who put the peanut butter in the fridge?), behave/treat +

manner (The CD player is behaving (itself) capriciously/in an unpredictable

way).

If any of these predicators are used in the imperative form, the subject, of course, does

not appear and the number of complements is lessened by one (e.g. Give the money to

her). The same applies when a transitive predicator (III, VI, VII) is passive (She was

given the money).

The complements are usually NPs, as the examples have shown, but in a number of

cases they are also PPs and AdvPs and of course the predicate adjectives are AdjPs. In

fact, as a rule, subjects are NPs; direct objects usually are as well. Indirect objects vary

between NPs and PPs with to or for. Adverbial complements may be PPs, AdvPs, or NPs.

5.3.4 Adjuncts

The third type of functional sentence element is the adjunct. As its name suggests, it is

adjoined or added to the sentence. This means that its status is one of optionality. In other

words, an adjunct, however important it may be for the meaning communicated, is not

grammatically necessary: if it is left out the sentence is still ‘well formed’. A complement,

on the other hand, may not be omitted without the sentence becoming ungrammatical or

having a grammatically different structure. The predicative adverbial, a complement,

in The waiter set the plate on the table cannot be left out, e.g. *The waiter set the plate;

the adjunct of place in I cut the meat on the table may be, e.g. I cut the meat.

Adjuncts and complements are thus theoretically distinguishable according to the

criterion of omissibility. In reality this criterion is extremely hard to apply. Indirect objects

as complements, for example, are part of the ‘essential’ structure of sentences with ditran-

sitive verbs, yet they can often be left out without the sentence becoming ungrammatical

(I told (him) a joke); the resulting sentence is, however, perhaps a different structure: type

VI (ditransitive) has become type III (transitive).

Adjuncts may be realized as NPs, AdvPs, PPs and even as subordinate clauses: They

drove the car two miles (NP); They drove the car too fast (AdvP); They drove the car to

town (PP); They drove the car till it got dark (subordinate adverbial/temporal clause).

Adjuncts may indicate time, place, manner, means, agent, instrument, cause, condition,

purpose, concession etc. What is a complement in one sentence may be an adjunct in

another. Status as a complement or as an adjunct is a syntactical question, not one of

semantic role: The craftsman [agent, complement] used a special tool [instrument,

complement] to cut the tiles as compared to The tiles were cut by a craftsman [agent,

adjunct] with a special tool [instrument, adjunct].

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5.3.5 Connectors

The ﬁnal sentence element is the connector (or connective). It is used to connect sentence

elements with each other, or to link clauses with each other. Connection can be realized

by conjunctions, but also by PPs, AdvPs, relative pronoun NPs and some special elements

called complementizers, which will be introduced later (5.6). Here are some short

examples of all but this last type:

Conj: John and I played tennis (coordinating conjunction) I left as it was late

(subordinating conjunction)

PP: We went skiing; in addition, we did some skating

AdvP: It was cold; nevertheless, we went skiing

NP: I just met someone who knows you

5.4 THE VERB PHRASE (VP)

The verb phrase may be subcategorized into two major types, ﬁnite and non-ﬁnite. The

difference between the two is that ﬁnite ones always occur as clause predicators, always

include tense and always have a (nominative) subject. For example, in I was looking for

a solution the ﬁnite VP was looking is the clause predicator, it is in the past tense, and

it has a subject (I).

Non-ﬁnite VPs, in contrast, need not be clause predicators and need not have a subject

of their own. For instance in He seems to like me, where like is the predicator of the

inﬁnitive clause to like me, it has to ‘share’ its subject (he) with seems. In other cases,

non-ﬁnite forms may be modiﬁers instead of predicators and therefore adjectival in

nature, e.g. the past participle in a broken window, the present participle in a raging ﬁre,

or the inﬁnitive in the way to do that. Furthermore, non-ﬁnite forms can also be nominal

in nature, e.g. the inﬁnitive subject in To err is human or the gerund prepositional object

in She is in charge of renting additional ofﬁce space.

The following section deals exclusively with ﬁnite VPs. Non-ﬁnite forms will be taken

up again in a later section on catenative verbs (5.7).

5.4.1 Finite VPs

Every ﬁnite VP consists of at least one and as many as six elements. The six can be illus-

trated by the following sentence, in which each of the elements represents one of the

grammatical choices of English in the area of the verb, always in the same relative order:

[Henry] might have been being entertained [royally].

might: expresses modality; this takes the form of a modal verb, which is

followed by an inﬁnitive; if a modal verb is present, it always

occupies the initial position;

might: also expresses tense, here the past of may; the ﬁrst element in every

ﬁnite VP must be either past or present;

110 ENGLISH AS A LINGUISTIC SYSTEM

have: expresses perfect aspect; this is always introduced by have and

followed by a past participle;

being: expresses (passive) voice; passive is frequently introduced by be,

but sometimes by get or have followed by a past participle;

been: expresses progressive aspect, which is always introduced by be and

followed by an {-ing} form;

entertained: expresses the predication; this may appear as any lexical verb and

may consist of more than one word; it may also appear as one of

the pro-forms, do or so, where appropriate.

VPs in which all ﬁve categories are represented are highly infrequent. However, any

combination of the categories may occur so long as the relative order is not changed. In

the vast majority of cases the lexical verb, indicating the predication, will be present, but

in cases of repetition, it is often elided or replaced by a pro-form (do and with inversion

so), e.g. A: Have you turned in your paper? B: Yes, I have (or, Yes, I have done, a form

more common in BrE than in AmE, see 12.3.1) A: So have I. Note that more than just

the lexical verb is elided (or replaced by done and so): the direct object is as well.

5.4.2 Tense

This is the category of the verb which was described above as being obligatory in the

ﬁnite VP. In terms of form alone, the ﬁrst element in every ﬁnite VP will be one of two

tenses, present or past. In this sense a sentence with will (often called the ‘future tense’),

such as When will you get an answer?, is really present, because will is the present tense

form just as would is the past tense form of will. The same applies to all other initial

forms. Hence the present also includes, for example, it’s raining, it has rained and it must

have rained; and the past includes it would be nice, it had been nice and it was nice.

(Note that modals such as must, dare and need have only one form and therefore only

one tense.)

Concord All the verbs of the language except the modals have an inﬂectional {-S} in

the third person present singular. This is all that is left in English of a system of marking

agreement between subject and verb, a system which was at one time considerably

fuller and which served to mark the subject and the predicator as belonging together

through concord or agreement in person and number. Besides the single instance of

third person singular present tense {-S}, there are the further special forms of be (I am,

he/she/it is, we/you/they are in the present; I/he/she/it was, we/you/they were in the

past). The fact that inﬂection has grown so weak in modern English, has been compen-

sated for by relatively strict word order. The subject is usually the NP which comes

directly before the VP.

The subject normally determines concord according to its own grammatical number.

This is called grammatical concord. If the subject is singular, the verb is singular and

if it is plural, so too is the verb. However, not only the grammatical number of the subject,

but also the concept of number which lies behind the form of the noun subject may deter-

mine concord. This is called notional concord. Since a team consists of various members,

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GRAMMAR 111