I
I and ME
1 Standard uses of I/ME as first person singular pronoun
The “vertical” or “perpendicular” pronoun I is used for the first person singular, i.e. when the person speaking is referring to herself/himself as the subject of a clause:
I think, therefore I am.
While I is the nominative (subject) form of the pronoun, ME is the form for accusative and dative:
The consultant rang me and then wrote me a letter.
(accusative: direct object) (dative: indirect object)
For more about nominative/accusative/dative, see See also personal pronoun, section 4; for the two kinds of object, see See also object.
The genitive/possessive form MY is discussed under determiner, sections 1 and 3; and the independent pronoun MINE under possessive pronoun.
2 Idiomatic use of I in non-subject role
Despite those standard grammatical rules, there are occasions when I is used in constituents of the clause other than the subject. It happens especially when I is coordinated (as second coordinate) with another name or noun phrase within the predicate. See for example:
He used to refer to John and I as “the midnight gardeners.”
It’s a great opportunity for my wife and I to visit our children
In each case, I and its coordinate form part of the complement of the verb. In traditional grammar terms I is incorrect (it should be ME). Yet this “common fault” (Treble and Vallins Reference Treble and Vallins1936) was probably believed to be more genteel. Decades later (Quirk et al. Reference Quirk, Greenbaum, Leech and Svartvik1985) conclude that X and I has acquired the status of a “polite formula.” Some grammarians regard it as a hypercorrection; others (Huddleston and Pullum Reference Huddleston and Pullum2002) suggest that it is now simply a variant of standard English. Idiomatic use of between you and I is the same phenomenon, though often stigmatized by conservative usage commentators.
3 Informal uses of ME for I
- ME used in subject role in coordinated structures, in colloquial speech:
Jamey and me lived in the same suburb.
Me and Jamey played in the jazz group.
These examples from casual conversation show ME substituting for I in coordinated subjects, as first or second coordinate. Research shows that using the nonstandard pronoun for the first coordinate (“me and Jamey”) is in fact more common than for the second (Biber et al. Reference Biber, Johansson, Leech, Conrad and Finegan1999; Peters Reference Peters, Bowen, Mobärg and Ohlander2009a). It is very old, as evidenced by the traditional Scottish song about Loch Lomond, where “me and my true love were ever wont to gae.” It is well entrenched in British English as an alternative paradigm (Wales Reference Wales1996), and now regarded as one of the “vernacular universals” of English (Kortmann and Szmrecsanyi Reference Kortmann, Szmrecsanyi, Kortmann and Schneider2004). Despite this, I rather than ME prevails in subject role in coordinated structures in writing of all kinds, from everyday news to academic prose (Longman Grammar Reference Biber, Johansson, Leech, Conrad and Finegan1999). - ME commonly takes on the subject role in dislocated phrases and fragmentary sentences:
You and me, we’re a great team.
Who’s going? You and me, George.
See further under See also sentence, section 2. - ME in comparative clauses after THAN or AS:
Leo remembered it better than me.
Leo remembered it just as clearly as me.
The use of ME is more common in conversation, and it correlates with THAN/AS being prepositions. However traditional grammarians have long argued that the final pronoun should be I, on the grounds that it’s the subject of an ellipted clause (in which case THAN/AS are conjunctions). See further under comparative clause, section 3.
4 Use of ME for the determiner MY
The use of ME rather than MY in front of a gerund in object territory is now widely attested in writing as well as spoken discourse, as:
They referred to me coming with them.
See further under See also gerund-participle, section 3.
5 ME used for unstressed pronunciation of MY
ME is sometimes used in vernacular narrative and informal dialogue to render the unstressed pronunciation of the determiner MY before a noun, as in:
I got back on me bike.
As written, this looks like a gross grammatical error in replacing the first person singular determiner with a pronoun. It is however the conventional way of indicating that the vowel written as “y” is unstressed and probably reduced from /ai/ to a short /ɪ/ or indeterminate vowel. But the written “e” suggests the long /i/ of the accusative pronoun, hence the stigma it carries. This usage of ME is an artifact of the representation of speech, rather than a grammatical error. In any case, corpus-based research (Quinn Reference Quinn and Peters2009) found only very limited use of ME in this nonstandard role.
➤ For the use of ME rather than I as the complement of the clause (It’s me), see object territory.
➤ For the conventional order of I/ME and other personal pronouns, see under person, section 2.
➤ For the substitution of myself for ME, see MYSELF.
ideational function
In systemic–functional grammar, this is one of the three See also metafunctions of language, along with the See also interpersonal and See also textual functions. The ideational function is presented by Halliday and Matthiessen (Reference Halliday and Matthiessen2004) as consisting of both an See also experiential component and a See also logical component. See further under See also metafunction of language.
idiom
This word is used in several ways to refer to aspects of language. In nontechnical discourse, it can still refer to a particular speech style, e.g. speaking in the Scottish idiom.
Among lexicologists, See also idiom is the term for a range of more or less fixed expressions, especially those whose meaning cannot be extracted from the words they are made up of, e.g.
off his rockerover the moonraining cats and dogs
Some See also idioms can be varied a little, e.g. changing the tense of the verb from present to past: kick the bucket > kicked the bucket. There are degrees of idiomaticity (Fernando Reference Fernando1996), but idioms allow little by way of paraphrase: over the moon > ?? above the moon.
Grammarians use the term See also idiom to refer to expressions which are well-established items of the language without conforming to syntactic rules. Thus the expression I’ll try and come does not conform to the normal catenative structures for verbs (see catenative verb, section 3). Its place in English idiom (in the nontechnical sense above) cannot be denied, however.
IF
In traditional grammar, IF was classed as a subordinating conjunction. In modern English grammars it is recognized as having two distinct conjunctive roles:
- as a complementizer for interrogative content clauses:
Asked if he liked sailing, he admitted to having hydrophobia.
- as the subordinator for adverbial clauses of condition:
We’ll go sailing if the weather improves.
The term See also IF-clause refers to the subordinate clause (See also protasis) of a conditional sentence, the main clause being the See also apodosis. The structure is the same whether or not the IF-clause exemplifies an open condition, as illustrated in the first example above; or a hypothetical condition, as in:
We would have gone sailing if the weather had improved.
We might go sailing if the weather were to improve.
As those two examples show, the term See also hypothetical covers different degrees of certainty. So the first example (“we would have . . .”) represents a See also closed or See also impossible condition, whereas the second (“we might . . .”) just makes it unlikely or See also remote. Other terms sometimes used for the first type of condition are See also real condition and for the second: See also unreal condition.
Both open and hypothetical conditions are See also direct conditions. Compare the See also indirect condition, exemplified in:
If I may comment further, the budget looks extravagant.
The clause prefaced by IF in such cases is not a protasis for the main clause, and is only indirectly related to it.
➤ For alternative ways of expressing the hypothetical in English grammar, see under See also hypothetical.
IF-clause
This term refers to a conditional clause headed by IF, on which see under IF.
➤ For See also complement clauses introduced by IF, as in See if they are coming down the road, see under complement clause, section 1.
➤ For clauses beginning with AS IF, see under hypothetical.
illocutionary force
The terms See also illocution and See also illocutionary force were coined by philosopher J. L. Austin ([Reference Austin1955]1975) in his speech-act theory to identify the pragmatic force or communicative function of any utterance. It may for example:
- state a proposition: The world is flat.
- ask a question: How are you?
- make a request: Please pass the salt.
- indicate an offer: Shall I make coffee?
- express a wish: I’d like her to call me when she gets back.
Complementing the illocutionary force is the perlocutionary force (or locutionary force), terms also coined by Austin. They refer to the effect of the illocution on the listener(s), in terms of their beliefs, attitudes, awareness, and behavior, and the further impact on any situation under their control. Because such effects are more diffuse, not necessarily linguistic, and less measurable, perlocutionary force is less often discussed.
The See also illocutionary force of utterances in everyday discourse is distinguished by Austin from the very particular See also performative function of certain verbs, e.g. advise, declare, promise, warn, when they constitute actual performance of the speech act they refer to, as in:
You are advised to check in 90 minutes before departure time.
I declare the meeting closed.
We promise never to sell my grandmother’s jewelry.
This is to warn you that your license will expire on April 1.
Verbs used in this way are referred to as See also performative verbs: see further under that heading.
immediate constituent analysis (IC)
This type of grammatical analysis, drawing on structural linguistics and the work of American Leonard Bloomfield (Reference Bloomfield1933), divides each component of a sentence into its syntactic components, starting at the highest level, e.g. its component clauses, if applicable. IC analysis then passes to the level of the clause, dividing it into its chief constituents: the subject NP and the VP including its complements and/or adverbial adjuncts. The NP and VP are then divided into their structural constituents for more delicate analysis.
IC analysis is usually represented by a tree diagram, as shown below.
The tree diagram shows the See also immediate constituents of each higher syntactic unit, down to the ultimate constituents, the lexical items on the lowest level of the tree. It is however possible to take the IC analysis of words down further to the level of morphemes within them, and so to recognize the plural suffix -s on “camellias” which affects the agreement with the VP, i.e. the fact that the verb DO takes the plural/base form (rather than the singular inflected form “does”). In complex words the morphemes are the ultimate constituents.
IC analysis articulates the functional components of the clause by syntactically labeled nodes at each level, showing the dominance of mother nodes over daughter nodes (or descendants) lower down the tree, so that syntactic properties are inherited by the lower from the higher ones. The terminal nodes are the lexical items at the bottom, because they do not dominate any other items. The preterminal nodes are the syntactically labeled set immediately above them, i.e. Det, N, Aux, V, etc.
IC analysis is effective in explaining the distinct syntactic roles of each constituent of the clause. It does not however provide for discontinuous units, e.g. an adverbial adjunct interposed between the NP and VP, as in The critics really liked the show; or between Aux and V, as in I’ve always liked it. Gapping is also difficult to accommodate: see further under gap and gapping.
imperative
This term refers to the type of clausal syntax used typically in commands. In traditional English grammar it was one of the contrasting See also moods of English grammar, expressed by its distinctive clause pattern. See also Imperatives usually consist of a finite verb (V) as the first constituent of a clause, without a preceding subject (S), but with object(s) or adverbial adjunct(s) following the verb (see further under See also clause, section 2). For example:
Give it to her.
Call him now.
Make them welcome.
Although the subject (YOU) is not normally expressed in second person imperatives, it can be, as in the directive You make them welcome.
A curious subclass of commands that use imperative syntax are imprecations like:
Damn it!
Bugger the umpire!
Curse this new operating system!
These resemble the second person imperative, in not having an express subject – which is arguably God (Börjars and Burridge Reference Börjars and Burridge2010). This is explicit in the formulation of older imprecations such as Goddamn it, and the intensifier goddamned.
A third person imperative is also sometimes found with an explicit subject, as in:
Everybody be quiet.
Somebody answer the phone.
Although the subject is explicit, some suggest that the implied (covert) subject is still second person (YOU). For LET-imperatives, see under that heading.
See also Imperatives are not necessarily punctuated with exclamation marks, especially when their pragmatic function is to express a polite request, as in the first and second examples above. When the imperative is a very public command, meant to move listeners to action, its See also perlocutionary intent may be marked by an exclamation mark:
Make way for the President!
See further under See also illocutionary force.
imperfective
IN
With its various spatial, temporal, and more abstract senses, this is one of the highly grammaticized prepositions of English (see further under See also preposition, section 1).
It also serves as the subordinator for nonfinite clauses, as in:
I relived the whole experience in going back to the school grounds.
It is integrated with the verb in various phrasal, prepositional, and phrasal-prepositional verbs: turn in, delight in. See further under phrasal verb and prepositional verb, sections 1, 2, and 3.
incipient modal
See under See also auxiliary verb, section 5.
inclination
This term is used as an alternative to intention or volition to identify one of the subtypes of modality, often expressed by WILL. See further under modality and modal verb, section 3.
indefinite article
This is the term used in traditional grammar for the determiners A and AN. Though commonly found at the beginning of noun phrases, they are in fact central determiners. See further under determiner, section 3; and A/AN.
indefinite pronoun
See also Indefinite pronouns reference a nonspecific set of possibilities. ANY and SOME refer to an indeterminate subset, larger or smaller as in:
They will buy any/some of the books in that category.
Whereas EACH and NONE refer to the whole set, making it an all-or-nothing reference:
They will buy each/none of the books in that category.
ANY, EACH, SOME, NONE are the simple forms of the indefinite pronouns, which can refer to both animate and inanimate objects. All of them except NONE also serve as determiners: see further under determiner, section 3.
The compound See also indefinite pronouns fall into two sets according to whether they refer to humans or inanimate. Compare:
There is no simple pronoun form for EVERY, and no compound form for EACH. Note also that the use of -body or -one for human indefinites varies with the register and the variety of English. In the Longman Grammar corpus (Biber et al. Reference Biber, Johansson, Leech, Conrad and Finegan1999), the -one forms were the commonest overall, though the -body forms were relatively more common in conversation, and used more freely in American than British fiction.
See also Indefinite pronouns like those above are all loosely quantificational. Others like them are:
Some of these have special properties. ALL and BOTH are universal in the sense that they take out the whole set while remaining indefinite in their reference. EITHER and NEITHER presuppose a pair of referents, where EITHER presents no commitment as to which will be selected, and NEITHER deselects both of them. ANOTHER marks the second of a set, without any indication of the size of the set. The indeterminacy of indefinite pronouns in relation to number and reference means that they often raise questions of agreement with the following verb (see further under agreement, section 4).
The See also indefinite pronouns EACH, BOTH, and NONE are distributive pronouns, in that they refer to every individual in the set. For the corresponding set of distributive determiners, see determiner, section 4.
➤ For the indefinite or generic use of the auxiliary pronoun ONE, as in One never knows, see ONE.
indent
See also Indents (i.e. the use of an indented first line) have long been used to mark the start of a paragraph. They thus expand the use of white space in the punctuation inventory beyond its use in relation to compound words and marking the boundaries between sentences. Indents retain this role in most printed books, although See also line space is increasingly used instead in official report writing, and in online documents. See further under See also line space.
independent pronoun
See the pronoun paradigm under See also pronoun, section 4.
indicative
The See also indicative is one of the types of See also mood identified by traditional grammarians in English syntax. It is the default pattern for clauses that make See also statements, as in:
The BBC is a trustworthy source.
Food parcels arrive by parachute.
Most educated people know the terms “alpha-” and “beta-testing.”
Such indicative clauses foreground the subject (agent), followed by the verb and its complement/adjunct/object, i.e. SVO/A/C: see further under See also clause, section 1. An alternative term for the indicative clause pattern is See also declarative.
In modern English, the See also indicative form of the verb contrasts with:
- the See also imperative, consisting of the base form of the verb without a subject:Keep stillLine upGo over thereCome backSee further under See also imperative.
- the See also subjunctive, which is distinct only for the verb BE, and for lexical verbs in the third person singular only, which have no -s inflection. For example:
They asked that he be accompanied.
They asked that he come with a bodyguard.
See further under See also mandative subjunctive.
indirect question
Questions reported in ordinary discourse may be quoted so as to show that they are verbatim formulations of what was actually said:
John asked his sister “Would you like me to call you a taxi?”
Or less directly, as in:
John asked his sister if she would like him to call a taxi.
The first (= See also direct question) is set off with quotation marks and a final question mark. The directness is also expressed by means of the typical See also interrogative word order, with the subject following the modal verb. The use of the first and second person pronouns (“you”, “me”) are further indicators of the direct question. In the second version, reported as an See also indirect question, the pronouns are all in the third person (“her”, “him”), and the question is reported as a complement clause introduced by See also subordinator “if”. It is expressed in the normal See also declarative word order, with subject preceding the verb (see further under See also declarative; and See also clause, section 2). Apart from IF, indirect questions can be prefaced by any of the wh-words: what, when, where, which, who, whom, whose, how. Of those, what, which, who, and whom can be both subordinators and pronouns in indirect questions. See further under WHAT, section 2.
Note that in modern grammars the See also indirect question is termed the dependent wh-interrogative (Quirk et al. Reference Quirk, Greenbaum, Leech and Svartvik1985; Biber et al. Reference Biber, Johansson, Leech, Conrad and Finegan1999) or the subordinate interrogative (Huddleston and Pullum Reference Huddleston and Pullum2002).
inferable
In the analysis of discourse structure and cohesion, this term refers to information which is not made explicit in the preceding text, but easily inferred from it. See further under given and new.
infinitive
This is the base form of a lexical verb or primary auxiliary, which may or may not be prefaced by TO in actual clauses: compare I will go with I aim to go. As those two examples show, the bare infinitive is used with modal verbs, and the TO-infinitive typically with catenative and semi-auxiliary verbs (see further under auxiliary verb, section 4).
The TO-form is also found when the infinitive is used as the subject of a clause, as in;
To err is human, to forgive divine.
Note that the TO-infinitive is often used to refer to the infinitive in grammars and in dictionary definitions, so as to distinguish it from other uses of the base form.
inflection
These are the suffixes associated with particular grammatical word classes such as nouns and verbs, which express the properties of the class, e.g. the plurality (of nouns) or pastness (of verbs). In English the default plural See also inflection for nouns is See also -s, and for the past forms of regular verbs it is See also -ed. See further under See also noun, section 3; See also verb, section 4; See also suffix; and See also derivational affix.
➤ For the inflections associated with the comparison of adjectives, see See also adjective, section 3.
inflectional affix
inflectional morphology
See See also morphology, section 3.
information focus
1 Information delivery via clause structure
The projection and delivery of information intersects with the grammar of the clause. The two coincide naturally when the subject of the clause is the default focus of the sentence, as in the regular patterns of the declarative clause: SVO/SVA/SVC (see further under See also clause, section 1). But there are grammatical mechanisms for varying the standard order, to shift items other than the subject into the spotlight at the start of a sentence (i.e. initial position). One well-known method is to turn an active sentence into the passive:
A golf ball broke the car window. > The car window was broken by a golf ball.
In the passivized version, the primary focus of the sentence is the “car window,” not the “golf ball” (see further under See also voice (1), section 2).
The following sections detail various ways of altering the standard order of sentence constituents and especially the fronting of a constituent so as to adjust the sentence focus and enhance information delivery. Note that the final constituent in a clause/sentence also bears some end weight. This is a factor in dative shift, which adds positional weight to the object by making it the final constituent of the clause. Compare:
They gave flowers to the conductor.
They gave the conductor flowers.
With the forward movement of the indirect object, the direct object “flowers” gains emphasis by coming after it and completing the clause. See further under See also dative shift and See also end weight.
2 Mobilizing adverbs
Adverbs are the most mobile elements of the clause, except when they are obligatory constituents in SVA clauses. Otherwise they can be moved forwards or back in the sentence according to information delivery needs. Adverbs of time (yesterday, tomorrow) are often fronted to foreground clear time reference points in a text; likewise attitudinal adverbs (also known as “sentence adverbs”) such as fortunately, regrettably can be moved to the start of the sentence, so that it is read in their light. The ability of modal adverbs such as possibly, definitely to appear early in the sentence helps to establish the relative certainty of the proposition sooner than in the modal verb itself.
Apart from those options the standard declarative clause order of S followed by V is often reversed in the presence of particular adverbs, such as locative and negative adverbs: Never had they seen it before. This happens especially with a pronoun as subject, which does not add information, and so the fronted adverb contributes more to the fabric of information: see further under inversion, section 2.
3 Topicalizing of nonfinite clauses
Like adverbials, See also nonfinite clauses can be moved to initial position in declarative sentences, as a prominent way of packaging information or signaling a change of perspective in the ongoing text. For example:
This chapter discusses the results of the experiment. With the conclusions summarized, the final chapter moves on to future lines of research.
See further under See also topic, topicalization, and topical progression.
4 Fronting of the clausal object
In less formal discourse, the object of the clause can be moved forward into initial position in the clause, especially as a way of foregrounding a subject for discussion: Computer games he finds irresistible. For the fronting of other clausal elements, see under fronting.
5 Clefting and left dislocation
The standard SVO/A/C order is easily manipulated through clefting, especially the use of IT-clefts, as illustrated in:
She brought those pot plants with her.
compared with
It was those pot plants she brought with her.
In the second clefted example, the clausal object is moved ahead of the other constituents. The same is achieved by extraposition of the object in left dislocation:
Those pot plants, they took them camping.
6 Focusing adverbs
Focusing adverbs like also, even, only can be deployed at various points in a sentence, so as to draw a neighboring word, especially the following word, into the spotlight.
The captain would also invite the sailors’ wives to the ship.
They could even show their wives round the ship.
They could only bring their wives to the ship.
Apart from the inherent semantics of these adverbs (adjusting the scope of the following verb and its predicate), they all add emphasis to the verb in mid-sentence (Taglicht Reference Taglicht1984). This allows a non-initial item in the sentence to be picked out as potential topic for the ongoing text.
-ing form
1 Verbal suffix for present participle and adjective
The See also -ing form as a verbal suffix makes the so-called “present” participle, as in:
they are comingwe were goinghe was being driven
It provides -ing participles for all English verbs except modals (see under verb, section 4). It combines with the verb BE to express the continuous (progressive) aspect (see further under progressive aspect). The -ing verbal suffix is a relatively recent feature of English grammar. In Middle English it steadily replaced the earlier -and suffix which was used for the present participle of Old English verbs.
The See also -ing form is generally active in meaning, though it is also seen and heard to express the See also mediopassive, as in:
This hotel is renovating.
See further under See also voice (1), section 3. Note also that the -ing participle when used as an adjective seems to distance itself from the most active sense of the verb. Compare:
He was charming her with his talk.
His manner with others was not so charming.
There is thus a kind of verb–adjective cline, like that of the verbal–nominal scale: see below, section 3.
2 Nominal suffix for verbal noun
The See also -ing form as a nominal suffix has an even longer history: it has been used from Old English on to derive verbal nouns as in:
Her coming was anticipated.
Going to bed early was what he never did.
3 Verbal–nominal scale
Verbal and nominal uses of the -ing suffix can be plotted on a verbal–nominal scale, in line with their syntactic roles and the types of dependencies they take. The following examples show the gradience of -ing, from clearly verbal use as the participle in the first sentence, to conventional noun phrase use in the fourth sentence, where it is postmodified by an OF-phrase:
I was painting the veranda when they came home.
They were enthusiastic about me painting the veranda.
They were enthusiastic about my painting the veranda.
My painting of the veranda raised some cheers.
While the syntax of the See also -ing forms in the first and fourth sentences is clear, those in the second and third sentences show how close the two can come to each other, especially in postverbal position or as the predicate of the clause. Heated debate from C18 on, about whether this “fused participle” should be preceded by a pronoun or a determiner, shows that the coincidence of the two -ing forms in English grammar is far from new, though its full syntactic implications have been recognized only quite recently (Quirk et al. Reference Quirk, Greenbaum, Leech and Svartvik1985). But whether the verbal and nominal forms should be treated as two separate morphemes, or as a single, multifunctional structure, is the theoretical question, and the nomenclature still presents challenges (see next section).
4 Nomenclature for -ing forms
The term See also -ing form does not indicate its role in syntax, or where on the verbal–nominal scale any particular instance sits. This is in fact desirable for indeterminate cases, e.g. I hate singing. There applying the term -ing form allows the structure to be referred to without prejudice, and the formal coincidence between the two underlying forms to be acknowledged. But elsewhere a functional label is really needed for the -ing form and the syntactic structures it constructs (participial clause vs. noun phrase). Using the term -ing participle for the -ing form in the second sentence in the set in section 3, and gerund for the verbal noun in the third sentence helps to specify their respective places towards the verbal and nominal ends of the scale respectively. It rationalizes the use of the double-barreled term gerund-participle (Huddleston and Pullum Reference Huddleston and Pullum2002), which does at least highlight the ambivalence of the -ing form on the verbal–nominal scale. For more on the syntactic and semantic issues inherent in their construction: see under gerund-participle, section 3.
instrumental case
See under See also case, section 1.
integrated relative clause
See See also relative clause, section 3.
intensifier and downtoner
Both See also intensifiers and See also downtoners are adverbs which modify other adverbs or adjectives and function as See also subjuncts to them. Many are adverbs of degree or extent (see under See also adverb, sections 2 and 3).
See also Intensifiers operate in two ways, either to amplify the characteristic expressed by the adverb/adjective, or to emphasize its aptness (Quirk et al. Reference Quirk, Greenbaum, Leech and Svartvik1985). The amplifier type can be subdivided into boosters like very, illustrated in very keen, which push things further up the notional scale; and maximizers like totally, as in totally supportive, which put them at the extreme end. Meanwhile the emphasizers simply underscore the speaker’s/writer’s conviction about the adjective or adverb selected, as in really keen, definitely ready.
See also Downtoners can be similarly distinguished as either diminishers or hedges. The diminishers include minimizers which push the reference characteristic down to the bottom of the scale, as in hardly present, others simply put it lower down, as in partly developed. Hedges may be expressed through compromisers: rather good, somewhat supportive, or by means of approximators as in almost full, nearly ready. The latter all suggest that the adjective or adverb which they modify is not entirely apt.
While amplifiers and diminishers adjust the referential content of the message, emphasizers and hedges work in the interpersonal dimension of discourse. See further under See also metafunction of language.
interjection
This is one of the word classes inherited from classical grammar, though they were on the margins of English grammar until the later C20. Until then See also interjections were loosely defined as emotional ejaculations, usually illustrated by monosyllables such as:
ahohouchphewughuhuhwow
Uttered in isolation, they do not combine to form syntactic units, and do not express any propositional content. They are of course much more strongly associated with spoken than written discourse.
More recently and with increasing interest in the grammar of speech, the word class of See also interjections was expanded by Quirk et al. (Reference Quirk, Greenbaum, Leech and Svartvik1985) to include the wide variety of formulaic utterances used in initiating and maintaining everyday discourse, for example:
- reaction signals, e.g. yes, no, thanks, sure, quite, mm, mhm, oh, uhuh
- expletives, e.g. bugger, damn, gosh, good heavens, geez, shit
- greetings and farewells, e.g. cheers, good morning, hi, hello, goodbye
All these are included under the updated term See also inserts by Biber et al. (Reference Biber, Johansson, Leech, Conrad and Finegan1999), as well as See also discourse markers such as well, right, okay. Some inserts are preferred in particular regional varieties of English, e.g. sure in American English, and quite in British English. Expletives are included in the general class of interjections by Huddleston and Pullum (Reference Huddleston and Pullum2002), without commenting on the other types of insert listed above. But clearly the interjection word class is being substantially enlarged in ongoing analysis of English discourse. See further under word class, section 2.
interrogative
The See also interrogative is one of the types of mood identified by traditional grammarians in English syntax. It is the default pattern for clauses that formulate questions, as in:
How are you doing?
Do you like sugar with your coffee?
In interrogative syntax, the default clausal order of statements (subject followed by verb) is reversed, so that the verb, or rather the See also operator of the VP comes first, and is followed by the subject (see See also clause, section 2). Note the insertion of the support verb DO in the second sentence above, used to formulate the interrogative when no other auxiliary/modal is used. See further under operator.
Note that sentences formed with See also interrogative syntax are not necessarily questions. In some cases their function is that of a statement, for example:
Haven’t we all heard that before?
In others, the interrogative may function as a directive or polite command:
Why don’t you take a seat?
In yet others, as an exclamation:
Wasn’t she great!
As the examples show, the final question mark may be varied when the function of a sentence formed with the interrogative is something other than a question. See further under See also question, section 1; and See also question mark.
interrogative adverb
The See also interrogative adverbs (when, where, why, how) are used to introduce both direct and indirect questions:
The interrogative adverbs are identical with those used as See also subordinators in adverbial clauses and See also complementizers in noun clauses:.
They’ll be here when they are ready. (subordinator)
Only she knew how the key came to be there. (complementizer)
See also Interrogative adverbs are part of the larger set of See also wh-words, along with the See also interrogative pronouns: see further under See also wh-word.
interrogative pronoun
The See also interrogative pronouns (WHO, WHICH, WHAT, WHOM, WHOSE) serve to introduce either direct or indirect questions:
Which is their house? The delivery man asked which was their house.
What is he doing there? They inquired what he was doing there.
For the changed order of words in the second pair, see See also indirect question.
WHICH and WHAT are neutral in terms of case (can be either nominative or accusative) and usually refer to inanimates. The others are used to refer to humans and are case-specific: WHO is nominative, WHOM is accusative, WHOSE is genitive (see further under case).
Note that WHICH, WHAT, and WHOSE also function as determiners, as in:
Which/what/whose car will they be coming in?
See further under See also determiner, section 3.
The See also interrogative pronouns are identical with the See also relativizers used to introduce relative clauses and See also complementizers in complement clauses:
The house which is on the corner is theirs. (relativizer)
I wondered what he was doing there. (complementizer)
➤ For more on relativizers, see under See also relative pronoun, sections 2, 3, and 5.
➤ For complementizers, see under See also complementizer.
See also Interrogative pronouns are part of the set of See also wh-words, along with the See also interrogative adverbs: see further under See also wh-word.
intransitive preposition
The notion of See also intransitive prepositions, i.e. prepositions appearing without any complement (noun phrase or otherwise), is flagged by Huddleston and Pullum (Reference Huddleston and Pullum2002) in their reclassification of most subordinating conjunctions as prepositions. See further under See also preposition, section 4.
intransitive verb
See under See also transitivity, section 1.
intrinsic modality
See under See also modality and modal verb, section 2.
invariant tag
See under See also question, section 4.
inversion
1 Subject–verb inversion in direct questions
The most common and familiar kind of See also inversion in English grammar is the switching of the clausal subject and verb in direct questions:
Are you coming with us?
How does this bell work?
See further under See also clause, section 2.
2 Inversion following fronted adverb
See also Inversion is not uncommon in indicative sentences when particular kinds of adverbial adjunct are moved forward into initial position in the sentence. For example:
- negative or restrictive (“near negative”) adverbs
Never could they accept the challenge.
Hardly had she arrived than she started to make demands.
- comparative adverbs and adjectives
So keenly did the children miss their parents, they cried themselves to sleep.
Such was their sadness, they could never enjoy going out.
- locative and temporal adverbs
Here comes the bus.
Now is the hour when we must say goodbye.
- prepositional phrases
Down the road came the person we were waiting for.
On the wall hung a large notice saying “closed for renovations.”
Note that the first two types of inversion (with negative and comparative adverbs) both have auxiliaries or modals as operators of the clause, and could not be phrased with a simple lexical verb. Their inverted subjects can be either personal pronouns or complex NPs. The third and fourth types are phrased with a simple verb, and with a complex NP – not a personal pronoun.
3 Inversion in hypothetical conditions
Subject–verb inversion at the start of a clause is found with some auxiliary and modal verbs as a way of formulating a hypothetical condition:
Had we known then that she had another job, we would never have appointed her.
Were I younger, I would be there like a shot.
We’ll come and visit you in Brussels, should the tour finish early.
Note that this type of See also inversion associated with conditional clauses goes with special forms of the verb: the remote past perfect, the WERE-subjunctive, and the modal SHOULD meaning “(if it) happens that . . .” See further under IF and hypothetical.
4 Subject–verb inversion with quotation
See also Inversion of subject and verb is quite common in news reporting and narratives that contain verbatim material, especially following a quotation:
“The unrest is spreading through the country” writes our Jakarta correspondent.
In research associated with the Longman Grammar (Reference Biber, Johansson, Leech, Conrad and Finegan1999), this type of inversion (VS) was strongly preferred over SV in news reporting.
irregular verb
1 Irregular and regular verbs
The See also irregular verbs (also known as See also strong verbs) are a relatively small subset in modern English, less than 20% of the more than 300 which were used in Old English (Fries Reference Fries1940). The core members show changes to the stem vowel to express the past tense and past participle, as in swim/swam/swum, though many also mark the past by the addition of t to the stem, or using it to replace a final d. They can be negatively defined as not manifesting the characteristic -(e)d inflection used to mark the past tense and participle of regular verbs (also known as weak verbs), for example define(d), want(ed).
The categories of irregular and regular verbs do not include the See also auxiliary and See also modal verbs of English, which are also rather irregular, especially the verb BE, with its amalgam of different forms (see section 11 below). Both HAVE and DO behave somewhat like regular verbs in adding d for the past tense, but HAVE also shows changes to the stem consonant (loss of v), and DO a radical change to the stem vowel, neither of which is matched in other regular or irregular verbs. The modal verbs all have unique histories, and their “past” forms now represent the past tense only very occasionally: see further under modality and modal verb.
The See also irregular verbs are grouped below according to the number and types of changes they make to form their past tense and past participle, from those which make no change at all, to those which make multiple adjustments. Note that the classifications are based on the orthographic forms of the verb (i.e. spelling), rather than invoking their phonological form (i.e. sound), as in Quirk et al. (Reference Quirk, Greenbaum, Leech and Svartvik1985) and Huddleston and Pullum (Reference Huddleston and Pullum2002). So read and lead are assigned below to different groups because the first is spelled the same way for present and past tense (despite their different pronunciations), whereas lead uses different spelling and pronunciation (see sections 2 and 4 respectively). The doubling of a consonant, the loss of a final orthographic (“silent”) e, or the alteration of a vowel from two letters to one are all used below as classificatory features. They are the points of differentiation in writing.
2 Verbs with the same form for past and present
These have monosyllabic stems ending in t or d, some with preceding s and/or r. For example:
In some cases, the past forms vary with the meaning of the stem. Thus bid belongs with the set above when it means “declare” (a wager); cf. bid “utter” (a greeting), whose past forms are bade/bidden (see section 10 below). When cost means “be the price of” it has no distinct past forms; but it takes the regular past inflection (costed) when it means “estimate the value of.”
The verb beat belongs here with its identical past tense, and its informal past participle (also beat). In standard writing however, the past participle is beaten.
3 Verbs that simply use -t for the past
These are monosyllabic stems ending in -nd or -ld, where the -d is replaced:
bendbuildlendrendsendspend
Other similar verbs which simply add t to the stem without changing their spelling are deal, mean.
Note also that a number of regular verbs ending in -rn, -l, -m, -n, or -p can take t for their past forms, including:
burndreamleanleaplearnspoil
While the regular -ed spellings are used more generally in North America, in Britain they are often used for the past tense and -t for the past participle. In Australia and New Zealand where -t varies with -ed for the past tense (Peters Reference Peters, Bowen, Mobärg and Ohlander2009a), some associate the -t with transitive verbs and the -ed with intransitive ones (see further under -ed). Compare the dwell group discussed below in section 5.
4 Verbs that change only the stem vowel for the past
These monosyllabic verbs with a variety of stem vowels simply change it to mark their past forms:
Special cases are win (i > o), shoot (oo > o), sit (i > a), hold (o > e), hang (a > u), which are all one-off examples with the same vowel change for both past forms. Note also come, run, which present a vowel change for the past tense, but revert to the present tense vowel for their past participles.
5 Verbs that change the stem vowel and add t or d for the past
A smallish group of verbs change not only the stem vowel but add t as well for their past forms:
Two special cases are sell and tell, which change the vowel (e > o), reduce double to single l, and add d.
Another related set of verbs make no change to the stem vowel but do reduce a double consonant (ll) to single and add t. They include:
dwellsmellspellspill
The use of -t with such verbs is more common in Australia and New Zealand, and to a lesser extent in Britain; whereas the regular -ed prevails in North America (Peters Reference Peters2004). Compare the burn group in section 3 above.
6 Verbs that change the stem vowel and one or more consonants before adding t
This group of verbs show the most substantial changes to the stem of all the See also irregular verbs:
Others showing major changes to the stem but no additional t are:
stand > stoodstrike > struck
Both were strong verbs in Old English, having an -en inflection for the past participle in Middle English.
7 Verbs with a changed vowel for past tense, but the same for present tense and past participle
This very small group includes
Others showing similar vowel changes as well as the -(e)n suffix are draw (drew/drawn); eat (ate/eaten); fall (fell/fallen); see (saw/seen).
A one-off case to add here is fly (flew/flown), whose idiosyncratic stems reflect the verb’s rather variable forms in the earlier history of English.
8 Verbs with different vowels, for the present, past tense, and past participle
This group still shows the historical See also strong verb vowel declination from present to past to past participle:
Most of these also show signs of reverting to a two-way vowel contrast (i > u), which can be seen in more informal writing and transcribed speech (Peters Reference Peters and Peters2009b). They manifest the reduced vowel contrasts of verbs like cling, fling, etc. (see above section 4). It is one of the few irregular verb groups which has attracted new members in modern English, e.g. sneak > snuck, distinguished by the fact that their stems typically end in a velar nasal consonant.
9 Verbs with three different stem vowels, plus -(e)n for the past participle
This group includes
Note that for bear the past participle is borne. Further members of this set are forget and get, which change the stem vowel (e > o) for the past forms, and add -en for the past participle, at least in forgotten, less universally for got (see GET: get, got, gotten).
10 Verbs using combinations of vowel changes and orthographic adjustments, plus -en to distinguish present, past tense, and past participle
A small group have three contrasting stems, by virtue of different vowel–consonant combinations. Some involve doubling of the stem-final consonant, contrasting with dropping of the orthographic e of the stem:
Similar cases are bite (bit/bitten) and hide (hid/hidden), where the consonantal and other orthographic contrasts involving e are the key to the different forms.
A further trio of verbs to be grouped here are bid (bade/bidden), give (gave/given), forgive (forgave/forgiven), where the spelling of the present tense and past participle stems differs by virtue of the doubled consonant, or presence/absence of orthographic e. Note also the subset:
where the -en is the key contrast between present tense and past participle stems.
A one-off case involving other kinds of orthographic variation for the three contrasting stems is lie (lay/lain). Compare the regular verb (lay/laid) with which it is often confused: see LAY and LIE.
11 Verbs using suppletion for their past forms
Two outstanding examples of this borrowing from other verbs are:
- the verb go: this was a “weak” verb in Old English, which in Middle English replaced its regular past tense/participle with went, the earlier past form of the verb wend “make (one’s way)”
- the auxiliary verb BE: the standard modern English paradigm involves suppletion from the stems of multiple dialectal variants, including those with an initial /b/ in be, being, been; with an initial /w/ in was, were; contrasting with the initial vowel of the present forms in am, is, and possibly are. See further under BE.
12 Unstable irregular verbs
As part of the historical erosion of the irregular verb system, some of those surviving show signs of reversion to the regular verb paradigm in allowing alternative past tense forms with -ed. They include:
In some cases the regular past form has a slightly different meaning from the irregular one(s). Note that some verbs show regularization of the past tense but not the past participle. For example hew, mow, which have long since acquired a regular past tense with -ed, but their -n past participles are still widely used, at least in British English (Peters Reference Peters2004).
13 Irregularization of regular verbs
In counterpoint to the general trend towards regularization of See also irregular verbs, there are a few remarkable cases even in modern English where regular verbs have been endowed with irregular parts. One example is thrive, historically a regular verb which in early modern English became associated with irregular verbs such as strive (see section 10 above). Its irregular parts throve/thriven are all but obsolete now. Other examples are the verb hang, whose regular past form is still around in judicial use: hanged by the neck; and the past participles sewn and sawn (Peters Reference Peters and Peters2009b).
IT and ITS
1 IT as the neuter third person singular pronoun
This is the youngest pronoun in the English personal pronoun system, dating only from C16. It is used to refer to things inanimate or abstract, and to persons and animals whose gender is unknown or not salient in the context. It has the same form for all cases: nominative, accusative, and dative.
The ball glanced off the wall . . .
It bounced back on the grass. (nominative – subject)
The dog chased it. (accusative – direct object)
The children gave it the ball. (dative – indirect object)
The examples also show how “it” can be applied to an inanimate referent (“ball”), as in the second pair of sentences, and to an animate but nongenderized reference (“dog”). Using “it” for the dog suggests that the speaker/writer has no personal relationship with it. Were it the family pet, a genderized pronoun (HIM/HER) might well have been selected. The same animate yet nongenderized use of IT can be seen when applied to corporate nouns, such as army, clergy, committee, government, etc. The alternative would be to use THEY as if referring to the people who make up those organizations (a solution not favored by the traditional grammarian), because it represents notional rather than formal agreement: see further under agreement, section 2.
With all these referential and nonreferential uses (see next section), IT is the most common of the three third person pronouns (singular or plural) in conversation, and outnumbers all other pronouns in academic writing (Biber et al. Reference Biber, Johansson, Leech, Conrad and Finegan1999).
2 Nonreferential uses of IT
Apart from its referential uses, the pronoun IT has several syntactic roles as a slot-holder in certain types of clause and sentence:
- empty subject of simple clause, as in:
It’s raining.
It’s 8 am.
It’s the New York plane.
This is See also prop-IT (Quirk et al. Reference Quirk, Greenbaum, Leech and Svartvik1985), which provides the See also dummy subject needed to turn the observations about time, distance, ambient events, etc. into predications. It is not a grammatical See also participant in the process (see further under See also participant) and does not count as an argument of the verb. See further under See also valency, section 3. - empty object, as in:
footing it out to the finishing line
toughing it out
he made it (“managed to get there”)
IT here provides a generic object to the verb, but is nonreferential. Again it does not count as an argument of the verb. - anticipatory subject of an extraposed content clause (finite or nonfinite), for example:
It was agreed that there would be monthly meetings.
It would be nice to go to the airport with them.
This use of IT is deliberately impersonal and athematic, as it looks forward to the following complement clause (see further under complement clause, section 3). IT is then cataphoric, whereas the ordinary referential pronoun is normally anaphoric. See further under anaphora. - focusing subject of a cleft construction, for example:
It was yesterday that we met for the first time.
IT here takes as its complement an item extracted from the following clause, putting the spotlight on it. See further under IT-cleft sentence.
All these nonreferential uses of IT as the subject of the clause mean that it is easily overused as a sentence opener in expository prose. This is doubly unsatisfactory, because of the repetitious pattern it creates, and because it is an empty theme or topic in terms of the information structure of sentences. See further under theme, section 2; and topic, topicalization, and topical progression, section 3.
3 ITS as the possessive determiner and pronoun
ITS is the possessive determiner and pronoun for IT, used for inanimate and nongenderized animate references:
The letter was on its way before Christmas.
The dog ran beside the bicycle of its owner.
The company kept all its records online.
For more on the grammar of ITS, see possessive pronoun; and determiner, section 3.
➤Note that ITS has been spelled without an apostrophe since the early C19. See further under ITS or IT’S.
IT-cleft sentence
This is a type of See also clefting in which one or other of the noun phrases (subject or object) of a simple clause is extracted to be the focus of a fronted subordinate clause, as in:
It’s cream cheese that makes it a rich cake.
Cf. Cream cheese makes it a rich cake.
It’s cream cheese that you need for the recipe.
Cf. You need cream cheese for the recipe.
See also IT-clefts are the most widespread form of clefting, used in conversation and fiction writing as well as academic prose, according to Longman Grammar (Reference Biber, Johansson, Leech, Conrad and Finegan1999) research. This makes them stylistically neutral. Compare pseudo-cleft sentence, section 3.
The See also IT-cleft sentence deviates from the conventional topic–comment order of information by “predicating” the topic (Halliday and Matthiessen Reference Halliday and Matthiessen2004), as in the first example above. In both examples the dummy subject IT is inserted into the usually significant first information slot to highlight the constituent which otherwise loses salience as the given item, or the object of the sentence. See further under topic, topicalization, and topical progression, sections 1 and 2; and IT and ITS, section 2.
ITS or IT’S
ITS is the singular third person neuter possessive pronoun/determiner, used primarily for inanimates, as in:
It comes with its own battery.
For the grammar of ITS, see further under personal pronoun, section 4; and determiner, section 3. For the contextual meanings of ITS, see further under IT and ITS.
IT’S is a contraction of it is, as in: It’s no secret. See further under contraction (1).
ITS and IT’S are easily substituted for each other – most often IT’S appears instead of ITS. The explanation usually given for adding the apostrophe is that possessive nouns in the singular are marked that way, although none of the other possessive pronouns has an apostrophe: compare HERS, OURS, THEIRS, YOURS. Admittedly they function only as independent pronouns, whereas ITS is both a determiner and an independent pronoun (see further under pronoun, section 4).
IT’S was in quite often used instead of ITS for the possessive of IT in C18 and up to about 1815, according to the Oxford Dictionary (1989). Before then, the contraction for it is was not IT’S but rather ’tis, so there was no grammatical ambiguity if the determiner was endowed with an apostrophe.
