Grammar and Parts of Speech
What if you could get your hands on a system which would enable you to work out what the structure was going to be in any given situation? There is one, and every language has its own. It is called grammar.
In all sentences you need to indicate:
The verb. This is the action. Technically, a group of words is not a sentence unless it contains an active verb. Beware, though, some verbs are not very active - like being or sleeping.
The subject of the verb. The person or thing doing the action.
The cat sat on the mat.
You may also have:
The direct object. One of my students described this as the recipient of the action. It is the person or object who receives the action directly.
I sent a letter.
The indirect object. This is the person or object to which the action is done indirectly. If you are not sure whether an object is direct or indirect, try putting the word to into the sentence.
I sent her a letter. I sent a letter to her.
Adverbial phrases. These tell us where, why, when and how something happened. Many languages express these ideas by word order (English, French, Spanish for example). Others express them by inflection - adding endings on to words or the markers in front of them, words like a, the, describing words (German, Latin). In both systems there is also a default word order. If the word order is not an indication of the function or importance of words in the sentence, it follows a set pattern.
Prepositions Or pre (in front of) positions (places). Prepositions usually come in front of words and show the relationship of that word to others in the sentence. For example:
She was by the door.
He came to school with his mother.
One main snag with prepositions is that within their own language they often have many different meanings, and they do not translate exactly. For example by in English can mean near to or through the means of (when used with transport). Mit in German means with or by (when used with transport). You have to learn them for each individual language. In inflected languages, different prepositions are followed by different endings.
