However, we have not accounted for the fact that these words can only be combined in
a limited number of patterns. We recognize that the phrase the lucky boys is a wellformed
phrase in English, but that the following two “phrases” are not at all wellformed.
*boys the lucky *lucky boys the
(We use an asterisk * to indicate that a form is unacceptable or ungrammatical.)
From these examples, we can see that English has strict rules for combining words
into phrases. The article (the) must go before the adjective (lucky), which must go
before the noun (boys). So, in order to be grammatical, this type of phrase must have
the sequence article + adjective + noun (and not *noun + article + adjective, for
example).
The process of describing the structure of phrases and sentences in such a way that
we account for all the grammatical sequences in a language and rule out all the
ungrammatical sequences is one way of defining grammar. It is the kind of definition
assumed when we talk about the grammar of English as opposed to the grammar of
Swahili, Tagalog or Turkish. As illustrated in Chapter 6, each of these languages has
different ways of forming grammatical phrases and sentences. Studying grammar in
this way has a very long tradition.