Word order
English used to be a language with a less concrete word order, but over time it has developed a very rigid structure. The words in the wrong order sound out of place, or poetic old English.
Here is a guide for word order. (For inversions, see 'extras')
Terminology
To understand word order we first have to understand the categories.
The subject is who/what is doing the action.
Auxiliaries are verbs that modify other verbs - see verbs and modals for more info
Indirect and direct objects.
On the phrasal verb page I talked about transitive and intransitives.
Direct objects answer the question of Subject+verb = who/what
for example, the subject is 'I' and the verb is 'Fly'
I fly (what?) I fly a plane
Therefore 'plane is the direct object.
An indirect object is an object that is in someway affected by the verb, but not in the same way. For instance
I fly a plane for my brother.
My brother is an object to, but I don't fly him, I fly the plane.
Time and Place are examples of adverbs
Conjunctions are words that link sentences (see extras)
Types of sentences and clauses
Sentences and clauses refer to statement blocks. Here this is explained below in a little more detail:
Sentences
On the verbs page You might have seen 'affirmative' and 'interrogative'. Declaratives can be both affirmative and negative, and Interrogatives stay the same.
There are also Imperatives that just use the base form of the verb, and exclamatives which just phrases used to voice emotion.
Here is the general word order for these types of sentence, explained in further detail below.
Clauses
Clauses can be independent and stand alone, or dependent and need to be with a main clause.
Here is a simple explanation of the different clauses.
Sentences can be:
Simple with one main clause
Complex (a main clause and a subordinate)
Compound (Coordinate and main clauses)
And compound-complex which contains both.
Word order in further detail
Here is a simple breakdown of the word order in main clauses.
Word order in further detail
The sentence "I will tell you about her at work tomorrow" is broken down into the categories explained at the top of this page.
I is the subject.
Will is an auxiliary that expresses the future, or 100% intention/likelihood
The main verb is 'Tell'
The direct object is about her, the indirect object is 'you'.
I will tell (what) tomorrow? about her is the answer.
But tell in English usually needs an indirect object, otherwise you should use 'talk'
Place is at work, and the time is tomorrow.
If you want the sentence to be a negative the 'not' goes after the auxiliary.
All negative sentences need an auxiliary:
I like pizza
I do not like pizza
If you want to add a conjunction it goes BEFORE the clause.
You can say I will tell you about her at work tomorrow because I do not have time now.
OR
Because I do not have time now, I will tell you about her at work tomorrow.
REMEMBER
The subject and object are very important in English to determine meaning.
Because the verb forms are very similar no matter who is the subject, the personal subject pronoun is necessary to use.
The object is equally as important. Of course, very simple sentences which do not have an object don't require one, but the majority do.
I broke the chair.
Not just I broke.
A common mistake I see in English is the omission of the subject when it is an object.
For instance I read:
Today is my day off. I love.
And I say okay, who or what do you love? From context we know that it is 'today', but love has an object. If it is singular use 'it' and if it is plural use 'them'.
Adverbs
Here are the different types of adverbs explained with the word order.
Interrogatives
The auxiliary or verb is before the subject in interrogative sentences.
Also you need to have the question words for open questions, or for yes or no questions you can just use the auxiliary.
When did you learn to drive? In 2001
Did you learn to drive? Yes
