English Grammar

Australian English

English is a West Germanic, Indo-European language.

Phonology

Pulmonic Consonants

Where symbols appear in pairs, the one to the right represents a voiced consonant.

	Bilabial		Labio- dental		Dental		Alveolar		Post- alveolar		Palatal		Velar		Glottal
Nasal		m						n						ŋ
Plosive	p pʰ	b					t tʰ	d					k kʰ	g
Fricative			f	v	θ	ð	s	z	ʃ	ʒ	ç				h
Approximant								ɹ				j
Lateral approximant								l

• Aspirated consonants are not distinguished from their non-aspirated equivalent.

Co-articulated Consonants

ʍ	Voiceless labialized velar approximant
w	Voiced labialized velar approximant
tʃ	Voiceless postalveolar affricate
dʒ	Voiced postalveolar affricate

Vowels

Unrounded vowel appear on the left of the bullet point, rounded ones on the right.

	Front	n-front	Central	n-back	Back
Close	iː •		• ʉː
Near Close		ɪ •		• ʊ
Close mid
Mid			ə
Open mid	ɛ ɛː •		ɜː •		• ɔ
Near open	æː •
Open	a aː •				ɑ •

Dipthongs and Triphthongs

• Australian English has the following dipthongs: [æɪ], [ɑɪ], [ɔɪ], [æɔ], [əʉ], [ɪə], [ʊə].
• Dipthongs not ending in [ǝ] can take another [ǝ] (or [a]) to form the following triphthongs: [æɪə], [ɑɪə], [ɔɪə], [æɔə], [əʉə].

Tone

• Used to indicate questions
• Used for emphasis

Stress

• First syllable of nouns is stressed.
• Last syllable of verbs is stressed.

Orthography

Alphabet

English uses the 26 character Roman alphabet with no diactrics and ligatures.

A a	B b	C c	D d	E e	F f	G g	H h	I i	J j	K k	L l	M m
[æɪ]	[biː]	[siː]	[diː]	[iː]	[ɛf]	[dʒiː]	[hæɪtʃ]	[ɑɪ]	[dʒæɪ]	[kæɪ]	[ɛl]	[ɛm]
N n	O o	P p	Q q	R r	S s	T t	U u	V v	W w	X x	Y y	Z z
[ɛn]	[ǝʉ]	[piː]	[kjʉ]	[aː]	[ɛs]	[tiː]	[jʉ]	[viː]	[dabl jʉ]	[ɛks]	[wɑɪ]	[zɛd]

Spelling

Pulmonic Consonants
m	media, mammoth, numb, hymn
n	noon, funny, known, gnome, pneumatic
ŋ	sing, sink, tongue
p	spit, happy
pʰ	pat
b	bat, rubber
t	stack, thyme
tʰ	tick, latter
d	dud, ladder
k	act, account, skit, quit, acknowledge, chrome, cheque
kʰ	key, cat, tack
g	gone, bigger, ghoul, guard, exam
h	how, who
f	free, scuff, rough, sapphire
v	voice, savvy, of
θ	those
ð	then
s	sale, mess, century, scythe, psychology
z	zoo, fuzz, has, scissors, xylophone
ʃ	shin, election, machine, mission, schedule
ʒ	treasure, evasion, azure
ç	human
ɹ	red, parrot, rhino
j	yes, onion, vignette
l	lime, hall
Co-articulated Consonants
ʍ	when
w	wow, quit
tʃ	chip, nature, batch
dʒ	jam, adjective, soldier, usage
Simple Vowels
a	undo, son, flood, rough
aː	father, alms, sergeant, heart, car
æ	bat, plait
ɛ	pen, bury, heifer, said, says
ɛː	bear, air, bare, prayer, stair, where, mayor
ɪ	bit, pretty, build, busy, nymph, sieve
iː	seen, receive, evil, magazine, siege, protein, city
ɜː	turn, burr, fern, fir, learn, worm
ə	taken, eloquent, pencil, nation
ʉː	too, do, queue, shoe, spew, true, you
ɑ	pot, wasp
ɔ	torn, paw, broad
ʊ	cook, pull, should, women
Diphthongs
æɪ	ape, day, hey, feign, neigh, rain, gauge, grey
ɑɪ	hive, cry, eye, benign, aisle, guy, might, rye
ɔɪ	boy, oil
æɔ	now, croud, bough
əʉ	over, tow, dough, hoe
ɪə	near, here, beer, tier
ʊə	cure, skewer
Triphthongs
æɪə	layer
ɑɪə	fire, buyer, liar, tyre
ɔɪə	lawyer
æɔə	hour, cower
əʉə	lower

Morphology

Inflectional

Inflection	Usage	Spellings
-[s/z/əz]	plural	cats / dogs, mazes, rubies / busses
-[s/z/əz]	genetive	the cat's / the dog's / the bus's
-[s/z/əz]	3rd person	he wraps / he runs / she rushes
-[t/d/əd]	past participle	jumped / slammed / sanded
-[n]	past participle	seen
-[ɪŋ]	present participle	writing, running
-[ɜː/iɜː]	comparative	faster / heavier
-[əst/iəst]	superlative	fastest / heaviest

Derivational

Affix	From	To	Usage	Example
re-	verb	verb	repeat	tie/retie
un-	adjective	adjective	opposite	tidy/untidy
un-	verb	verb	reverse	tie/untie
-able	verb	adjective	can be done	win/winnable
-ity	adjective	noun	-	obese/obesity
-ly	adjective	adverb	-	quiet/quietly
-ous	noun	adjective	-	glamour/glamourous

Syntax

Basic word order is subject, verb, object.

Simplified Phrase Structure

S  : NP VP (conj S)
NP : (determiner) (AP+) noun (PP+)
VP : (aux) (AP+) verb ({NP,S'}) (AP+) (PP+)
AP : (AP) {adjective,adverb}
PP : preposition (NP)

Agreement

• Subject/Verb: Verbs agree with case of subject.

Transformations

• Subject and verb can be inverted to form a question.
• Subject and object can be swapped for passive mood.

Semantics

Vocabulary

Essential phrases

How do you say .... in English?
What is ... in French?
Do you understand?
How do you spell that?

Interjections

hello
excuse me
sorry
please
thank you
okay
goodbye

Responses

yes
no
maybe

Interrogatives

who
what
when
where
why
how
how much

Personal pronouns

case		subject	object	determiner	possessive object
1st	singular	I	me	my	mine
	plural	we	us	our	ours
2nd	singular	you	you	your	yours
	plural	you	you	your	yours
3rd	male	he	him	his	his
	female	she	her	her	her
	neutral	it	it	its	its
	plural	they	them	their	theirs

Relative pronouns

that
where
which
who

Demonstrative pronouns

this, these
that, those

Determiners

a, an
the
this, these
that, those
some

Conjuctions

and
or
if
but
because	He speaks English very well because he is English.
as
however
since
when

Prepositions

at
in
of
for
by
with
without
except
like
on
after
before
against
around
behind
in front
beside
during
inside
of
on top
near
next to
under
until
towards

Verbs

ask
be
can
come
do
give
go
have
know
meet
take
think
say
speak
want
will

Irregular Verbs

be
can
go
have

Adverbs

about
also
always
enough
even
less
maybe
more
never
now
obviously
often
really
several
so
somewhere
sometimes
still
surely
very
yet

Adjectives

best
better
new
next

Cardinal numbers

0 .. 10	zero, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten
11 .. 19	eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen
20 .. 90	twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, sixty, seventy, eighty, ninety
10 ^ x	hundred, thousand, million

Ordinal numbers

1 .. 10	first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth, ninth, tenth
11 .. 19	eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth, fourteenth, fifteenth, ...
20 .. 90	twentieth, thirtieth, fortieth, fiftieth ...
10 ^ x	hundredth, thousandth, millionth

English Grammar