School of Humanities,Arts and Education,Shandong Xiehe University,Jinan,China Email:huoxincun@sdxiehe.edu.cn

[Abstract]English grammar is the rules of lexical chunks in forming sentences and conveying meanings,while philosophy of life is the rules of individuals in how to deal with others and themselves.As rules,the two necessarily have similarities.In the process of forming words by morphemes the laws of Use and Disuse and No Absolute Equality are explored.In words and phrases,the big-picture awareness of verbs,the respect for professionalism and authority of pronouns,the importance of relations in modifiers and meanings and the importance of sacrifice in teamwork could be seen.In sentence formation process the philosophy of Authority,Existence and Development and Relativity are revealed.

[Keywords]English grammar;rules;philosophy of life

Introduction

Nothing can be accomplished without norms.The harmonious and perfect conveying of meaning by the sentence is the result of all kinds of sentence components fulfilling their duties and compromising with each other.Grammatical rules,whether explicit or implicit,are highly consistent with the life philosophy concerning individual’s survival and development.

as a unique symbol system peculiar to human beings,language can best show human sociality in itself.The ways morphemes form words and words form sentences reflect the hidden rules rooted in all aspects of human society.The correspondence of grammar rules with social rules and the interaction of language elements in different linguistic level can help us explore the wisdom of human social life.Grammar rules themselves are the most vivid lessons for life.

Morpheme and Philosophy of Life

a morpheme may be classified into different types based on its function.Some are used independently as a word,while others combine with other morphemes to form new words.Some exist for notion,others for relations.From the roles the morpheme plays in word formation,we can get two ideas:

Metabolism by Use and Disuse

The silent letter-e at the end of a word is often omitted when a base verb changes into its-ing or-ed form or an adjective into-er/estform.The wordpronouncewhen changed into its noun formpronunciation,the letter-o-will also be discarded.The removal of silent or meaningless letters conforms to the principle of economy.It is so much like the individual in our society:No function,no place.Losing value,you will be eliminated.The only way to survive is to become more valuable in any place and at any time.

No Absolute Equality

Roots and affixes are indispensable for word formation,but they have distinct status in derived words.Similar inequality,or unbalance can be easily noticed in a phrase between the headword and modifier or in a complex sentence between the main clause and the subordinate clause,which is essential to the perfect expression of meanings.Such discrepancies or unbalance are not determined by linguistic symbols themselves,but by the functions they play in a sentence and the need of society.Similar inequality or unbalance also exist among individuals in society,which an individual cannot narrow as well.Actually,absolute equality is not necessary and cannot be achieved.

Word and Philosophy of Life

a word is like a human in many ways.Diachronically,the word’s metabolism is highly consistent with human’s life cycle.A newly-coined word in the beginning has just one meaning,but gradually acquire more and develops into a polysemant with a variety of sense relations,such as synonymy,antonymy and hyponymy.When the number of meanings and sense relations network reaches its peak,the word may gradually decline,and finally goes out of the linguistic world completely.This is just like an individual who grows up from an inexperienced baby and achieve the most glorious prime of life after being endowed with multiple roles and social responsibilities.After that,he or she will go gradually to the old age,withdraw from society,then lose life,completely disappearing from the world.Synchronically,polysemants usually have hypernyms and hyponyms as well as synonyms and antonyms,which is similar to the situation where a human is connected by leaders,subordinates,friends and opponents.The relations a word establishes by being a part in a sentence is likened to those an individual builds by playing different social roles.

From the perspective of function,a word also resembles a human.In grammatical world,the function fulfillment of a word depends not only on its part of speech and meaning,but also on its collocability and position in a sentence.So is an individual,whose role playing not only depends on his own characteristics and abilities,but also on the relations to others.In addition,the meaning of a word can be widened or narrowed,and elevated or degraded(Zhang,2019,p.135),which is similar to the ups and downs of individual’s destiny in society.

as a grammatical unit,words can bring us the following four inspirations:

Verbs:Seeing the Big Picture

In English grammar,the courage of the verb to bear the responsibility is shown incisively and vividly and can be regarded as our role model.The verb has super adaptability and strong penetrative ability.First of all,it forms a predicate,the key component of a sentence,by combining with various tenses,aspects,voices and moods.Secondly,it takes the forms of the present,past and future tense as finite verbs and the past participle,present participle and infinitive as the non-finite verbs,which exert the overall control on English sentences.Thirdly,through the construction of non-finite verbs in simple,continuous and perfect form,it has performed a powerful function comparable to the predicate in tense,aspect,voice and mood,and can be used as subject,object,complement,attribute,adverbial and other components.In a sense,the verb achieves a state where it can act as any component in a sentence,substitute for any word class,and assume any function.

However,the verb is not proud for being such a superman,but is willing to change itself for the meaning of the sentence.It sees the big picture.No matter what forms it takes,finite or the non-finite,it isn’t conceited and firmly relies on the subject or the headword it modifies to determine its own form,strictly and rigorously following the orders of subject or logical subject.In addition,in order to achieve its function in sentences,it is not afraid of loneliness and runs the risk of becoming a dangling participle.

Pronouns:Respect For Professionalism and Authority

In the field of law,it is a customary rule the special law should be adopted before the common law.Similar cases also exist in the grammatical world.For example,in the selection of relative pronouns in restrictive clause,who and thatmay be used as subject of a restrictive clause to refer to people,but in practice,who is used more often thanthat,becausethatrefers to both people and things whilewhorefers particularly to people.When the relative pronoun is used as the object of a relative restrictive clause,although you can usewho,in formal occasions,whomis more frequently adopted(Zhang,2017,chap.34).Who,as the relative pronoun to refer to person,is definitely more professional thanthat.When used as the object,whomas the objective case,is more professional thanwho.

Dominance of man is the embodiment of human subjectivity.As the elements to directly express people’s thoughts and emotions,the selection of words directly reflects the absolute subjectivity of people to language.The distinction between nominative case and objective case in pronouns,seem to be deliberately created to make a difference,is the best example to reflect people’s self-centeredness.For all the rest things in nature,whether living or not,just an it can cover them all.

Usually,we useheandshefor people anditfor things.However,we can also usesheor evenitto express disgust for man andheorsheto express affection for the family dog or even the non-living things.Similarly,in relative clauses,different introducing words are used to refer to people and things.We can usewhoto express our respect for dogs,andwhichto express our contempt for man.We usually usesheto refer to our motherland,and the crew also usesheto refer to the ship carrying them(Zhang,2017,p.93)as it carries the strongest feelings of human beings.Sheconcides with the unique Chinese concept ofKun(the earth,also refers to the female)inBook of Changesin denoting the meaning ofcarrying.

The idea of dominance of man is also reflected in the changes between active and passive voice.When an active sentence becomes passive,by-phrase can be retained or removed,completely depending on the speaker.If he/she doesn’t think it’s necessary,or if he/she wants to hide the agent of the action,by-phrase would be omitted.For the same thing in the past,we can use simple past or the present perfect based on the speaker’s judgement.We can also use the simple present tense to express the vividness and truthfulness of past events,or the present tense to express future events to show the speaker’s confidence.

Relations Do Matter

The essence of man is social relations,so is the essence of words.The influence of context on the meaning best reflects the importance of relations to words.Context can define meanings.For example,in the relative clause,the choice of relative words are influenced by the following three factors:the meaning of the antecedent before the relative words; the missing component in the clause guided by the relative word; whether the whole context is formal or not(Zhang,2017,chap.34).All of them reflect that the function of words is not only realized in themselves,but also sometimes in other words.The same is true of the realization of human value.What kind of person you can become depends more on your social relations,especially people around you,your leaders,subordinates and followers.

as a subordinate component,the position of modifier depends on its relationship with the headword.The more objective the modification to the headword is,the closer it is put to the headword.This is true of adjectives as attributive.According to Zhang(2017,p.93),when two or more adjectives premodify nouns,the order is usually as follows:determiner—adjectives denoting the speaker’s evaluation—adjectives denoting size,shape,age—adjectives denoting colour—adjectives denoting nationality,origin and material—adjectives denoting use or purpose—noun head.From it,we can clearly see the following things:adjectives denoting the speaker’s evaluation are quite subjective and unstable; color is less unstable and subjective; the size and shape in space and the old and new of time is more stable and subjective; nationality,origin and material are relatively stable as they can show the most essential characteristics.The order of modifiers reflects the relationship from subjective to objective and from unstable to stable.Words of time and space are placed in the middle of modification,reflecting the fact that the space and time become the media between subjective and objective.

This is also true of adverbs as adverbials.Disjunctive and non-restrictive relative clause generally have a comma to separate itself from the main sentence,while the adjunct and restrictive clause generally do not have comma due to the relatively closer relations to the modified component.A comma indicates not only the pause,but also whether the relations are close enough .Although different modifiers play different roles in the description of headword,they all fulfill their missions together,without any of which the features of a headword cannot be fully reflected.

Teamwork and Compromise

a single tree does not make a forest.Unity is the best way for individuals to realize their value.In a society,the value of an individual is measured by his or her contribution to the collective and realized within the framework of the collective.Similarly,in the world of grammar,the value of a word and its contribution is based on the numbers of its meanings and functions performed in sentences.For example,basic words are characterized by all national character,stability,polysemy,productivity and collocability(Zhang,2019,p.6).By virtue of its high productivity in word-formation,it constantly forms new words and expands the meanings.Meanwhile,it relies on abundant collocation to establish relations with other words to maximize its functions,thus becoming the hard core of English vocabulary.

Words when used as an idiom not only form a fixed collocation,but also have the tendency of mutual assimilation both in meaning and sound,which in nature is a sacrifice or compromise of its original state.The meaning of an idiom can not be obtained from the separate elements,so the word element in an idiom actually plays the role of morpheme in a word,and the idiom can function as a word based on its part of speech.Similarly,in a word,liaison and vocalization of voiceless consonants(such as sp,st and sk)both show the mutual influence of letters in a word.These changes in pronunciation show the unity of letters in words.And the essence of unity is that you and me are in and for each other,changing each other for the purpose of conveying meanings,that is,the sacrifice and compromise,without which teamwork can never be achieved.

Sentence and Philosophy of Life

Flower needs green leaves to look better.The process of forming words by morphemes,phrases by words and sentences by phrases demonstrates the power of the community.A phrase consists of a headword and modifiers,and without exception,the headword is surrounded by modifiers.The significance of the headword lies in the sacrifice of willing modifiers.Sentence formation is similar to that of words by morphemes,both of which are composed of indispensable elements of unequal status.From the relevant rules of sentences,we can find the following two truths:

Subject is the Authority

BothSubject-Verb Agreement and Attachment Ruleshow the respect for the authority of the subject and recognize its central role.Just as in the real society,the big-picture consciousness is shown in the subordination of the whole country to the Party and the Party to the Central Committee.Attachment Ruleis the alignment of the verb to the noun and the non-finite element to the finite element.Dangling participles are the exception,the few who don’t see the big picture.

Meaning is the basis for the existence of sentences and the embodiment of their value,to which the structure and form of a sentence are subject.A sentence can be just simple,complex or compound and very long or quite short,exactly depending on the meaning and the intention of the speaker.The complexity can be achieved by adding clauses,but predetermined by meaning conveyance.Meaning is the priority of grammar.Focusing the meaning is the principal goal of the sentence.

Space and Time:Carrier of Existence

Understanding yourself and others,and building close relationships are essential to existence and achieving development in life.Space and time is the carrier and basis of existence for all things and people,without either of which,our significance and value would be greatly reduced.We punish the most serious criminals with the death penalty,or life imprisonment without parole.In fact,death is to deprive him of his time and his future existence,while imprisonment is to compress his space and limit his existence in other areas.The certainty of place for existence and the uncertainty of time are well represented in the formula of existential sentence:there +be+NP+Locative Expression+(Zhang,2017,p.331).Without time and space there would be no such pattern.

Relativity is the Key

Everything is relative,so are words and sentences.Proper nouns can be commonized,liketwo Mr.Brownswhile common nouns can also become proprietary,likethe Great Wall.An abstract noun can be very specific suchas a successwhile a concrete noun can also be very abstract such ashave too much family.A biggest worm may not be as big a smallest elephant,and a prettier girl can sometimes just be plain-looking.Sentences are similar.Negative sentences do not always negate,and can even be positive in meaning,and questions sometimes need no answers at all,just to express exclamations(Zhang,2017,p.322).Transitive verbs may not have passive form such ashave,lack,let,escapewhile intransitive verbs plus prepositions can also take objects and become passive.

as to the restrictive or non-restrictive clause,when the antecedent is an indefinite pronoun,or modified by an indefinite determiner,people tend to use a restrictive clause.When a proper noun is the headword of a relative pronoun,it can only be followed by a non-restrictive clause.The balance and check of finite and non-finite are perfectly represented in a sentence.

Conclusion

Morphemes,words,phrases,sentences,paragraphs and passages constitute a complete social and hierarchical system of grammar.Differences and unbalance between roots and affixes,modifiers and headwords,main clauses and subordinate clauses permeates all the language.As to part of speech,the noun is the commander in chief,the verb is the general,and the adjective and adverb are all soldiers of different ranks.As to phrases,noun phrases and verbal phrases become the core due to the high status of nouns and verbs,while prepositional phrases are extremely powerful in becoming a attributive,adverbial and a complement,but they are no match with noun and verb phrases(headword)owing to their inborn weakness(modifier).As to subordinate clauses,nominal clauses are obviously more important than adjectival clauses and adjunctive clauses for similar reasons.

The grammatical hierarchy is a true reflection of the social order.The society is stratified,and great differences exist among individuals of different levels or even within the same stratum,which are essential to the well functioning of an imperfect society.Different people must belong to different classes and different groups(whether formal or informal)in order for society to function normally.As individuals in the society,they also gain the material,psychological and spiritual support necessary for progress in a shared community.If you become a loner,you are doomed to elimination by the society.

The idea of philosophy of life in English grammar focuses on the exploration into the nature and similarities of rules.Effective learning in English grammar not only require us to combine students’experience in language use with their understanding of relations and rules.Probing deeply into the humanistic elements of English grammar will increase their interest in grammar learning,enrich their life experience,and help them better understand their relationship with others and the society,which will prepare them for more opportunities and fiercely competition in a globalized world.

Acknowledgments

The paper is the phased research finding of the project A Study on Chinese Imprints in Post-war American Drama[ Approval NO.17CWZJ41],funded by Shandong Social Science Planning and Management Office and A Study On the Internationalization of Applied Talents in Local Universities Under Road and Belt Initiative[Approval NO.2016xh16],funded by Shandong Xiehe University.