SAT R&W 8: Standard English Conventions — Form, Structure, and Tense

How is the English present subjunctive formed?

It uses the base form of the verb, including be, regardless of third-person singular agreement, as in It is important that he follow them or that he be committed.

Which grammatical features most strongly indicate function in modern English?

Word order, prepositions, and the English possessive or Saxon genitive generally indicate grammatical function. Personal pronouns retain more morphological case marking than most other English word classes.

What is the typical structure of an English noun phrase?

A common pattern is predeterminer + determiner + pre-modifiers + noun + postmodifiers or complement. Not every position must be filled.

In the noun phrase “that rather attractive young college student to whom you were talking,” what roles do the major elements play?

That is the determiner; rather attractive and young are adjectival pre-modifiers; college is a noun adjunct; student is the head noun; and to whom you were talking is a relative-clause postmodifier.

What can function as a postmodifier or complement in an English noun phrase?

Possible postmodifiers include prepositional phrases, relative clauses, participial or other adjective phrases, dependent clauses, and suitable infinitive phrases.

How can coordination operate within noun phrases?

Coordinators such as and, or, and but can join nouns, modifiers, or larger constituents at different levels, as in John, Paul, and Mary or a dangerous but exciting ride.

Term: apposition

A construction in which two adjacent phrases refer to the same entity, as in that president, Abraham Lincoln.

What is the difference between a restrictive and a nonrestrictive modifier or relative clause?

A restrictive modifier identifies which noun or group is meant and is essential to the reference. A nonrestrictive modifier adds extra information and is set off from the rest of the sentence, typically with commas.

How should a modifier be positioned to make its intended meaning clear?

A modifier should be placed as close as possible to the word or phrase it modifies. Misplaced or dangling modifiers can make the sentence suggest that the modifier describes the wrong subject.

What is parallel structure?

Parallel structure uses the same grammatical form for elements joined by a coordinator or compared with one another. For example, “She enjoys reading, writing, and hiking” keeps all three items in the -ing form.

How should subjects and verbs agree in Standard English?

A singular subject generally takes a singular verb, and a plural subject generally takes a plural verb: “The student writes” but “The students write.” Intervening phrases do not change the number of the subject.

How does English mark person in its personal pronoun system?

First person refers to the speaker, second person to the addressee, and third person to others. The label personal pronoun refers to this grammatical-person system, not merely to human referents.

What are the principal grammatical forms of English personal pronouns?

They distinguish subject or nominative forms, object or accusative forms, reflexive forms, and possessive forms. For example, the first-person singular set is I, me, myself, mine, and my.

How should pronoun case be determined in a sentence?

Use a subject form for a pronoun functioning as a subject, an object form after a verb or preposition, and a possessive form to show ownership. For example: “She and I went,” “The teacher spoke to her and me,” and “The choice was theirs.”

How should a pronoun agree with its antecedent?

A pronoun should ordinarily match its antecedent in number and person and should refer clearly to the intended noun. Singular antecedents generally take singular pronouns, while plural antecedents take plural pronouns; singular they is standard when gender is unknown, irrelevant, or nonbinary.

What is distinctive about the English pronoun “you”?

Standard you serves as both singular and plural in the subject and object forms. Regional alternatives such as y'all or you guys can explicitly mark plural reference.

How are possessive determiners different from independent possessive pronouns?

Possessive determiners occur before a noun, as in my friends. Independent possessives stand without a following noun or serve as predicates, as in mine is larger or this one is mine.

What is singular they used for?

They can refer to one person when gender is unknown, irrelevant, or nonbinary, as in Each employee should clean their desk. It also remains the ordinary third-person plural pronoun.

What are the main English interrogative pronouns, and how do they differ?

Who asks about people, what asks about things or abstract matters, and which asks about alternatives from a relatively closed set. Their related forms include whom, whose, and the emphatic -ever forms.

When is “whom” used, and what happens in ordinary informal English?

Whom is the object form of who and is most associated with formal usage. In informal speech and writing, who commonly replaces whom.

Term: relative pronoun

A pronoun that introduces a relative clause and connects it to an antecedent. Main forms include who, whom, whose, which, and that.

How do “who,” “which,” and “that” differ in relative clauses?

Who generally refers to people, while which refers to things; that can refer to people or things. That is normally restricted to restrictive relative clauses and cannot directly follow a preposition.

When can a relative pronoun be omitted in English?

A relative pronoun may be omitted when it is not the subject of its relative clause, as in the song I heard yesterday. Subject relative pronouns cannot normally be omitted this way.

How does “there” function as a dummy subject in existential sentences?

In sentences such as There are two cups on the table, there fills the subject position while the logical subject follows the verb. The verb generally agrees in number with that following complement, although informal there's is often used with both singular and plural complements.

How can existential “there” be distinguished from place adverb “there”?

Existential there is usually unstressed and means that something exists, as in There is a river. Adverbial there is stressed and means in or at that place, as in A river is there.

What inflected forms do most English verbs have?

In addition to the base form, most verbs have a third-person singular present form in -(e)s, an -ing present participle or gerund, a past-tense form, and a past participle. Regular verbs usually share the past and past-participle form in -ed.

How do regular and irregular English verbs differ in their past forms?

Regular verbs typically form both past tense and past participle with -ed, as in played. Irregular verbs use other patterns, as in wrote/written, and English has roughly a hundred commonly recognized irregular verbs.

What verb constructions express progressive, perfect, future, and conditional meanings in English?

Progressive forms use be plus an -ing form, and perfect forms use have plus a past participle. Future forms commonly use will, while conditional or “future in the past” forms use would; combinations such as will have written express multiple meanings together.

How are perfect progressive forms constructed?

They combine have in the appropriate tense with been and an -ing form, as in have been writing or had been writing.

How does verb tense establish time relationships among events?

The simple past commonly places an event before the time of speaking, while present forms describe current or habitual situations. Perfect forms mark an earlier event in relation to a later reference point, and progressive forms present an action as ongoing.

What is the difference between the bare infinitive and the to-infinitive?

The bare infinitive is the basic verb form, such as write or be. The to-infinitive adds to, as in to write or to be, and both occur in different syntactic environments; aspectual versions include to have written and to be writing.

How is the English imperative formed?

The ordinary second-person imperative uses the base verb, identical in form to the bare infinitive, as in Leave. Let can create other imperative constructions, including Let us go or Let's go.

When can the past subjunctive differ from the simple past?

The main visible distinction is often the use of were instead of was, especially in hypothetical or contrary-to-fact clauses such as If I were rich or I wish she were here. Informal English may also use was.

How is the English passive voice formed?

The passive uses an appropriate form of be followed by the main verb's past participle, as in cars are driven or he was killed. An agent may be added with a by-phrase, as in killed by the invaders.

What are English modal verbs, and what grammatical restrictions do they have?

Core modals include can, could, may, might, must, shall, should, will, and would; related expressions include ought and had better. Modals do not inflect for person or number, do not normally occur alone, and lack ordinary infinitive and participle forms.