English Grammar: An Introduction

1a. 1. Shakespeare was a writer. 2. Shakespeare was born in Stratford on Avon in 1564. 3. Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway. 4. Anne Hathaway was older than Shakespeare. 5. Anne Hathaway and Shakespeare had three children. 6. Shakespeare went to London. 7. Shakespeare settled in London. 8. Shakespeare wrote famous plays. 9. Hamlet is a famous play by Shakespeare. 10. Macbeth is a famous play by Shakespeare.

1b. 1. [Shakespeare was a writer [WHO was born in Stratford on Avon in 1564]] 2. [HE married Anne Hathaway [WHO was older [than HE was]]] AND [THEY had three children] 3. [LATER, HE went to London [WHERE HE settled] and [wrote HIS famous plays [INCLUDING Hamlet and Macbeth]]]

Over the years, English prose style has developed into a complex medium for communicating meaning. The two passages above communicate approximately the same meaning, but do so in different ways. Passage (1a) consists of ten simple sentences (see 5.4.), each containing a single piece of information. Passage (1b) communicates the same amount of meaning in three sentences, but these sentences are much more complicated in structure, as the capitalised words and brackets show.

More specifically, passage (1b) makes use of three essential features of English grammar:

1. SUBSTITUTION.
   Instead of referring to the characters repeatedly by name, the writer has used pronouns.
2. ELLIPSIS.
   In sentence (3) the second pronoun is omitted in "he settled and (he) wrote".
3. COMPOUND and COMPLEX sentences.
   Each of the three sentences contains more than one predicator (italicised in the text) and therefore cannot be a simple sentence. Their internal structure includes linking elements such as conjunctions and relative pronouns. A great variety of sentence patterns like these is available in English, which makes the language much more interesting. Unfortunately, it also makes grammatical analysis more difficult!