This chapter introduces the concept of grammar of a particular language. The basic units of grammar in Chinese are introduced in order to underline the distinguishing characteristics of Chinese grammar. By comparing Chinese with English, the chapter demonstrates that Chinese words have no form changes in sentences regardless of quantity or tense; thus, the relationship between words plays an important role in determining their parts of speech.

This chapter introduces simple sentences in terms of their components and structures. The functions of a simple sentence are explained. Special simple sentences without a subject or a predicate are introduced by their grammatical features and functions.

There is, typically, some resistance when the word grammar is mentioned, especially if it is in the context of a textbook. That is because grammar is often seen as something that must be forced on students. As with most ideas of freedom, compulsion in grammatical education is resisted when people see no value in it. Another reason for resistance to grammar is because formal grammar (beyond a few basics) was dropped from the education system in many English-speaking countries around 30 years ago, and it is thus unfamiliar, or even ‘strange’. Generations of students have been convinced that they do not need to ‘do’ grammar, since they can already speak the language quite fluently. There is even the belief, articulated by people who are most typically monolingual in English, which is that grammar is only for people who need to be taught how to speak English; that is other people.

This chapter discusses three stylistic hallmarks of Clara Schumann’s songs: (1) a fascination with expansive themes; (2) a tendency to modify cadences so that themes pushe onward to the next and decisive closure arrives only at the end of songs; and (3) an inventive use of the piano. I explore each of these hallmarks via brief analyses of representative songs, in preparation for the more detailed music analyses in later chapters.

If you’re coming to this book from a traditional grammar or with little or no background in grammar, or if you plan to read only individual chapters, then this chapter was written to orient you to our approach and make your life easier.

We start by discussing words, different senses of what a word is, and the ways that words are categorized. Then show how words can be combined into phrases with heads and dependents, where each phrase category is named after the category of its head word. These phrases build into a special larger phrase called a clause.

With this framework in hand, we move into the core of the chapter. Beginning with §2.3, each of the sections corresponds with a chapter. So, Ch. 3 and §2.3 are Verbs and verb phrases, Ch. 4 and §2.4 are Complements in clauses, etc.

The chapter also includes an appendix explaining the book’s notational conventions.

Chapter 5 examines syntax, how sentences and phrases are built. It explores the relation between structure and meaning, showing how structure allows us to clarify ambiguity. Readers see how sentences are made up of phrases that in turn are made up of different words. These words belong to specific categories, with the category of the phrase determined by its head. The chapter explains the distinction between lexical and functional categories and presents the two basic processes for building sentences: Merge and move. Readers explore and practice the representation of sentence structure with tree diagrams. They are presented with a template for the representation of structure and shown how to use trees to indicate the difference between complements and adjuncts, and how the tree must represent not only word order but also how different phrases relate to each other. Tense is presented as the head of the sentence, with the verb phrase as its complement. In a parallel fashion, the determiner is presented as the head of the determiner phrase, with the noun phrase as its complement. Different structures such as questions, passives, and relative clauses are introduced and practiced. An appendix details step-by-step how to build syntactic trees.