Sentence structure across languages. English-specific rules remain in English Grammar.
Test your knowledge with these top questions!
In the English sentence "Maria kicked the ball," which word order appears?
English relies on this order to show who acts, so swapping the subject and object flips the meaning.
German action passives like "wird gebaut" use which helper verb?
"Wird gebaut" means "is being built," literally "becomes built," framing the event as coming into being.
Which Amazonian language figured in a debate over lacking recursion?
Daniel Everett argued Pirahã avoids embedding clauses, a claim other linguists strongly disputed.
What does recursion allow speakers to embed inside an English phrase?
This nesting can repeat without limit, so finite grammar rules can build endlessly long sentences.
Which rhyme stacks phrases inside phrases with "the house that Jack built"?
Each verse adds a clause inside the last one, stacking relative clauses with no fixed limit.
Which unusual word order does Yoda use in "Powerful you have become"?
Linking verbs such as become connect a subject to a description; they do not take a direct object.
Which present-tense verb correctly completes "She ___ to work every day"?
Present-tense English verbs add an -s ending after third-person singular subjects like she, he, or the dog.
Why is "The rat the cat the dog chased caught ran" hard to follow?
Center embedding piles middle clauses together, so listeners lose track before the verbs arrive.
Which verb correctly completes "There ___ two sandwiches in the fridge"?
The verb after there agrees with the noun that follows it, so plural nouns like sandwiches take are.
In English grammar, subjects and verbs must agree in which features?
I am and he is differ by person; he is and they are differ by number, even though all describe the present.