What is grammar?

Simply put, a language grammar is a set of mechanisms allowing for use of words to produce or receive a message. We usually formulate the working of such mechanisms as rules. Such wording helps us understand those mechanisms or simply memorize them and apply them without any understanding at all.

Actually, there are two sets of such mechanisms: one lets us build different forms of words – morphology, and the other lets us put those words together in sentences – syntax.

For instance: when asking a question, an English speaker will always put the predicate (verb) before the subject (noun, pronoun, etc.) Such mechanisms, helping us put words together, determine a particular word order, and put adequate punctuation are accumulatively called syntax. So, simply put, the syntax is a set of rules that help us put the words in the right order.

Another set of rules regulate how words are built. Again, any rule is how we put a language mechanism in words, how we describe it. So, here both words are interchangeable. The mechanisms allowing us to make the word “interchangeable” and even spell it correctly are called morphology. The word “morphology“. So, morphology, in a nutshell, is a set of rules telling us how we can make words from word parts (roots, suffixes, etc.) or how we can combine words to make other words. Like “nutshell” = “nut” + “shell”.

The thing is that both English morphology and syntax operate in a very similar way to the one-armed bandit. If we look into a declarative English sentence, we’ll see that the word order is quite rigid: you can’t simply swap the subject and the predicate, you’ll get a question. In Russian, the word order is much more flexible. Which may be a problem for English speakers learning Russian 🤷‍♂️

The same goes for morphology. By the way, in Russian as well. For instance you can’t swap the prefix and the root. Or you will get something like fixpre…

So, the main principle, all of the English grammar (both morphology and syntax) is based on is: you can change elements of the sentence… or a word. But you can’t change their order.