As with the grammars of most languages, the grammar of English is a complicated thing with many rules that are effective most of the time combined with a whole raft of exceptions, particulars and quirks that often confuse even native speakers. However, the basic rules of English are really quite simple, and these simple rules have contributed to its spread across the globe.The most salient aspect
. of English's grammar is its word order. In English, sentences typically develop according to the following structure: Subject + Verb + Object (SVO). This word order is shared by many languages across the globe, from Albanian to Yoruba. Although there are certainly exceptions, most English sentences unfold first with the subject, which is a noun phrase that performs the action of the verb, followed by a verb, which explains what the noun is doing or what the noun is, and then perhaps an object, a noun phrase which receives the action of the verb. "Mary ate a hot dog", for example, is a typical English sentence; "Mary" is the subject, "ate" is the verb and "a hot dog" is the object.In English, singular nouns are the regular form of the word, and plural nouns are generally marked with an "-s" or "-es", though there are some words, such as "child", "sheep" and "foot", which violate this rule (their plurals are "children", "sheep" and "feet"). Verbs are a bit more complicated. For most verbs, the regular present form is just the bare infinitive; however, for third person singular verbs, one generally adds an "-s" to the end of the verb. For example, one says "I run", "you run", "we run" and "they run", but for the singular third person (that is, "he", "she" and "it"), one says "he/she/it runs".Another interesting feature of English grammar is its use of what linguist John McWhorter calls the "meaningless do". In English, questions that involve action verbs are typically formed by adding the word "do" to the beginning of a sentence and inverting the order of the subject and verb, such that the statement "Pelicans live in Florida" becomes the question "Do pelicans live in Florida?" This feature of the English distinguishes it from, for example, Romance languages, which typically form a question by merely changing the intonation of the sentence.English is a complex tongue, the result of centuries of conquest and reconquest of the British Isles that effected a great blending of languages and grammar rules, thus creating the complicated warren of exceptions that bedevils scholars and casual speakers alike. However, the basic rules at the root of the language are simple. More reference links: http://www.englishgrammar.org/ http://heliologue.com/2011/04/30/our-magnificent-bastard-tongue/
