Grammatical categories of English

Grammatical categories of English:

• Number: In English, only singular and plural are indicated. In count nouns, -s is used to mark the plural.  The plural is also marked in demonstratives (this vs. these, that vs. those). first and third person pronouns (I vs. we, he/she/it vs. them), first and third person possessive determiners (my vs. our, his/hers vs. their), and first and third person reflexive pronouns (myself vs. ourselves, himself/herself/itself vs. themselves).  Some pronouns and adjectives mark the singular (every, each, someone, anybody, a/an), while others mark the plural (all, many, few, most, several).  Third person forms of the verb in present tense also mark singularity by use of -s, and the forms of be mark number as well. 
• Gender: English expresses natural gender but not grammatical gender.  That is, nouns have a gender based on biological sex, and are not assigned a separate grammatical gender as in Spanish or German.  Gender in English may be masculine, feminine, common (male or female), or neuter (sexless).  Gender is expressed in pronouns.  For example, third person pronouns include he (masculine), she (feminine), it (neuter) and they (common or neuter when referring to sexless things).  The pronouns you, I, and we have common gender. Gender is generally not expressed morphologically on the noun, but some nouns to mark gender (eg. nouns with gendered suffixes like actress, compound nouns with a gendered component like gentleman-, and nouns with separate forms for different genders, like goose and gander). 
• Person: First, second, and third person are differentiated in personal pronouns (I/we you, he/she/it/they), personal possessive determiners (my/our, your, his/her/its/their), personal possessive pronouns (mine/ours, yours, his/hers/its/theirs), and personal reflexive pronouns (myself/ourselves, yourself, himself/herself/itself/themselves).  Verb inflections also show person by adding -s to singular present indicative forms in the third person, and in forms of the verb "to be" (I am, we/you/they are, he/she/it is).  
• Case:  Case shows the function of the noun phrase or its relationship to other noun phrases or a verb.  Personal and relative pronouns show nominative (subject) case, genitive (possessive) case, and objective (direct/indirect object) case.  Nouns only differentiate between genitive and non-genitive (eg. dog vs. dog's). Genitive case can also be expressed paraphrastically with "of" rather than through inflection.  Nouns distinguish between nominative and objective through word order.  English has SVO (subject-verb-object) word order, so the noun preceding the verb is perceived as the subject, while the noun following the verb is perceived as the object. 
• Degree:  Degree is reflected in adjectives and adverbs.  The positive degree is used to describe a quality, while the comparative describes the quality of one item as greater than that of another item, and the superlative describes the quality of one item as greater than that of two or more other items.  Adjectives and adverbs may be inflected (-er for comparative and -est for superlative) if they are monosyllabic or disyllabic and end in -y.  For all other adjectives and adverbs, degree is expressed periphrasatically using more + adj/adv for comparative and most + adj/adv for superlative.
• Definiteness:  Previously known or mentioned items are treated as definite, while new and unfamiliar items are treated as indefinite.  Definiteness is marked with the article the,  while indefiniteness is marked with the articles a/an.
• Deixis:  Deixis marks the time and place referenced in an utterance.  Personal deixis is marked in English through the pronouns.  Spatial deixis is marked in the use of some verbs, like come vs. go and bring vs. take.  Temporal deixis is marked by adverbs that reference the time of the utterance (yesterday, now, tomorrow) and by verb tense (see below). 
• Tense:  Tense marks the time of an event compared to a reference point.  Two tenses are expressed inflectionally in English: present and past.  Present is not marked inflectionally.  The present tense is used for expressing habits, states, generic and timeless statements, future events, making commentary on something happening, summarizing the plot of a story, narrating, and using the information present (I see that you turned off the light).  Past is marked in regular verbs by the -ed ending.  Past tense is used for past events, past habits (with used to), polite present or future (I was hoping she would come to the party), and for hypothetical statements (If I had a million dollars, I would buy a new house).  The future tense is marked paraphrasatically by will/shall + infinitive, present + adverb, present progressive, be going to + infinitive, be about to + infinitive, and shall/will + progressive. 
• Aspect:  Aspect is expressed in the perfect and progressive tenses of English verbs.  Aspect tells whether an event is complete (perfect) or incomplete (imperfect).  Tense in progressive and perfect forms is expressed in the auxiliary verb.  Progressive aspect is expressed by is + verb + ing for the present, was + verb + ing for the past, and will be + verb + ing for the future.  Perfect aspect is expressed by has + verb + past tense for present, had  + verb + past tense for past, and will have + verb + past tense for future.  Progressive aspect is used for activities or events which are continuous, repeated, or processes that have a natural endpoint (She washes dishes every day.  She is finishing the book).  The perfect is used for activities or events that continue into the present or have relevance in the present, including those that have reached a natural endpoint (She has finished the book.)
• Mood:  Mood expresses whether an event is fact (indicative) or nonfact (including wishes, hopes, impossibilities, commands etc.; subjunctive or imperative).  Simple forms of the verb are used for indicative mood.  The subjunctive is only inflected on the third person singular (no -s) and with the verb be (forms be and were).  The imperative is marked by the use of the infititive with no subject (directed toward the second person) or the use of let's + infinitive. 
• Voice:  Voice shows whether the subject is acting or being acted upon.  Simple forms of the verb are used for active voice.  Passive voice is expressed paraphrasatically by be +past participle (The car was washed) or by get + past participle (The car got crushed)