1
Say why English can afford a fixed order
Because the pronoun itself carries the job: he and him are not the same word, so position and shape agree.
Course · English
Word Order
English does not mark who does what with word endings. It marks it with position, and with the shape of the pronoun — he against him. That makes the order rules checkable on ordinary printed text, with nothing marked up by hand, and this course checks them, on a novel and on a play.
he or him she or her they or them
the word changes with the job
subject pronoun then its verb 90.0%
adverb in the middle 70.8%
question opens with a helper:
in a novel, 90 questions 57.8%
in a play, 256 questions 34.8%
What this course is about
- Subject
- English
- Lessons
- 4
- Format
- Interactive
Overview
What you will be able to do
By the end you can state three rules about English order, say how often each holds on real text, and describe what the leftovers are made of.
2
Score the order rule without marking anything up
A subject pronoun followed by its verb, counted over printed text, with nothing marked, no trees, nothing decided by hand.
3
Read what is left over and say which kind it is
A missing word, a word that comes between, or the one real turn-around English keeps — and they are not the same thing.
4
Put a frequency adverb where it belongs
In the middle: before the main verb, after the first helping verb, after be, scored on 120 printed lines.
5
Build a question, and say how often real ones follow the rule
A helping verb in front of the subject, or do added. It covers 57.8% of 90 questions from a novel and 34.8% of 256 from a play.
6
Name the kinds of question the rule leaves out
A joining word first, a name first, a pronoun first, a question word with no helping verb after it, and a few words with no verb.
Lessons
4 lessons
Pronouns first, because they are what makes the order checkable at all. Then adverbs, where the rule is weaker. Then questions, scored twice: on a novel, where the rule covers over half, and on a play, where it covers a third.
Who Does What to WhomEnglish shows the subject in the pronoun, and a count shows how exactly the order holds.Not marked
Where the Adverb GoesWords like always and never sit in the middle of the verb, and a count shows how often.Not marked
Asking a QuestionThe rule for questions is real, it covers a little over half of the questions in a novel, and the rest are printed here.Not marked
How People Really AskOn the lines of a play, the same rule covers about a third, and the rest are short, fronted, or statements with a question mark.Not marked
Recommended background
The three courses before this one. The scans here look for a verb next to a pronoun, so they need the forms Tense Tables builds and the broken ones Irregular Verbs lists. The adverb rule puts a word after a helping verb, and the question rule moves one; Helping Verbs introduces them. Nothing else is assumed, and the number work is still counting and working out a share.
Practice suggestions
Read the printed text before you read the number. Every figure in a lab here is counted from words printed on the same page, and the point is that you can check a row and disagree with it. Where a lesson quotes a count made over a whole text, which no page can carry, it says so beside the figure.
Treat what is left over as the lesson. A rule that holds nine times in ten is only useful if you know what the tenth looks like, and each lesson names what is left rather than rounding it away.
Remember the texts are old. The novel was written in 1813 and the play in 1895, and where that changes an answer the lesson says so.
What it does not cover
Sentences with more than one clause. Everything scored here is a pronoun and the word beside it, or the first words of a question. Where two clauses join, the scan stops, and the lesson says how often that happens rather than guessing at it.
Question tags, such as isn’t it? at the end of a statement. The novel has 7 and the play 19, quoted, so few that a count over them would be a list and not a measure. Where a printed question carries one, the lab sorts the line by its first words like any other, and How People Really Ask names the kind; no lesson scores the tag itself.
Which order sounds better. Several orders are allowed and one is normal; that difference is a matter of what writers do, and nothing on this page measures it.
Recorded speech. A play is written to be said, but every line in it was made up by a writer, and every figure is from printed text. A course that measured a script and talked about speech would be claiming something it had not checked.