Word order?

[Muhshonatil]

Hi, would you please send a lesson about word order, i am confuse about that..thank you for your reply

[OxfordBlues]

There are four basic word orders in the active voice:

Affirmative statements: Subject - Auxiliary Verb (or verbs) - Content Verb - Object.

*Note -- sometimes there is no object at all, and sometimes there can be more than one. Also, depending on the combination of tense/mood/aspect, there may be several auxiliary verbs. Only the first auxiliary is important in practicing word orders as it is the only one that changes position. In the case of affirmative statements in the present non-durational when the subject is 1st person, 2nd person, or 3rd person plural, the auxiliary is often omitted; with 3rd person singular it is often combined with the content verb as an ending (does eat = eats). The same omission occurs in past non-durational affirmative statements by combining the auxiliary with the content verb by giving it an ending (did walk = walked) or with irregular verbs giving it a special form (did[/d] eat = [b]ate). This sort of combination is only possible with affirmative statements (this is where "do" comes from ).

**Note also that the first auxiliary is the one that handles agreement with the subject as well as the one that expresses time. In practicing word order, this is called Verb1. In the most simple forms, there are two verbs in every sentence an auxiliary (Verb1) and a content verb (Verb2). If there were more auxiliaries (as with modals or more complex sentences), the first auxiliary would still be Verb1, and then you'd have Verb2, Verb3, Verb4, etc with the content verb being the highest number. Keep in mind though, that for the sake of practicing word order only Verb1 is important.

So here are the patterns to practice:

Affirmative Statement -- S V1 V2 O
Affirmative Question -- V1 S V2 O
Negative Statement -- S V1 (not) V2 O
Negative Question -- V1 S (not) V2 O ***

***If using a contraction, the (not) is attached to V1 so in negative question form, the order then appears as V1+(not) S V2 O ==> "Do you not know?" vs "Don't you know"?

So you can see that to change any affirmative statement to an affirmative question, all you do is swap the positions of the S and V1:

John does eat pizza. Does John eat pizza?
S V1 V2 O V1 S V2 O

Likewise to change from an affirmative statement to a negative statement just insert 'not' immediately following V1:

John does eat pizza. John does not eat pizza. =or with contraction= John doesn't eat pizza.
S V1 V2 O S V1 (not) V2 O S V1+not V2 O

And, to change from a negative statement to a negative question just swap the positions of S & V1 or with contractions, S & V1+not:

John does not eat pizza. Does John not eat pizza. =or with contraction= John doesn't eat pizza. Doesn't John eat pizza?
S V1 (not) V2 O V1 S (not) V2 O S V1+not V2 O V1+not S V2 O

_____________________________________

That's pretty much all there is to word order. No matter how complex the sentence is, it's still only these first few components that change position. Everything else stays the same.

There are set word orders for special forms like questions with interrogatives (who/whom/whose, what, when, where, why, how, how many, to what extent, etc). Once the basic four forms are mastered the same approach can be used to master these. Finally, for every word order that occurs in the active voice, there is an equivalent word oder in the passive voice. BUT -- the only changes that occur (swapping S and V1) are the same for all of them.

Hope this helps
_________________
There's no such thing as an exception to the rule...

My blog: http://calleteach.wordpress.com