[Linguists’ Forum] From Dread to Delight: An Insight into Grammatical Names and Functions by Lateef Kugbayi, PhD

Can you remember how you felt when you encountered questions on grammatical names and functions in secondary school during English language classes and examinations? Responses to a question as this from those of my generation, no doubt, are multifarious. Those who were fortunate enough to have been taught by English teachers who had studied the subject as a college or university course might not have experienced “the giant” embedded in the grammar-related question. Having access to good grammar books, which were very scarce in those days, would have partially saved those who were not so much frightened by the “dreaded” grammatical name and function issues from the fears. Interestingly, the ability to explain the construction of grammatical units in the language still determines the possibility of students securing good grades in the English language in various secondary school certificate examinations today. It is a standard for measuring grammatical correctness. A good knowledge of grammar is also necessary for constructing contextually acceptable sentences in both writing and speaking. That being the case, it is a worthy exercise to evaluate the processes of constructing well-structured sentences in the language. Therefore, in the subsequent articles from Linguists’ Forum, attention will be given to the internal structures of sentences in English, particularly from the perspectives of phrase and clause units, to emphasise the conceptual and structural differences between the two grammatical units.

To start with, a phrase is a group of words that is used as a part of a sentence and does not have a subject or a (finite) verb. A clause, on the other hand, is a group of words that is used as a part of a sentence, which has a subject and a (finite) verb. While a phrase cannot stand alone as a sentence, a clause can stand alone if it is an independent clause. Types of phrases include noun, verb, adjectival, prepositional and adverb phrases. Meanwhile, clauses are generally divided into two: main (independent) clauses and subordinate (dependent) clauses. It is the subordinate clause that is consequently categorised as a noun clause, an adjectival/relative clause and an adverbial clause. Each of these types of phrases and clauses will be discussed explicitly in the subsequent articles. Before then, you may test your ability to identify grammatical names and functions of grammatical units in English by providing answers to the following questions. You can send your answers to [email protected]/+2347032985052.

1. Identify whether the following are phrases or clauses:
2. At the store.
3. When I was going home.

• Before she left home.

1. He swept her room.
2. Two of the students in my class.
3. Give an example each for:
4. main (independent) clause; and
5. subordinate (dependent) clause.

Lateef Iyanda Kugbayi Ph.D

Senior Lecturer

Department of English Language

Zamfara State University

Talata Mafara

[email protected]/+2347032985052