Grammatical Category

The term “grammatical category” refers to specific properties of a word that can cause that word and/or a related word to change in form for grammatical reasons (ensuring agreement between words).

For example, the word “boy” is a noun. Nouns have a grammatical category called “number“. The values of number are singular (one) and plural (two or more).

The boy is playing.
The boys are playing.

In sentence 1, “boy” is in its basic form, giving its “number” the value of singular. There is one boy and the related auxiliary verb “to be” is in the singular form (is).

In sentence 2, the form of “boy” has changed to “boys”, giving its “number” the value of plural. There is more than one boy and the related “to be” is in the plural form (are).

In the above example, the “number” of “boy” influences the form of boy, and also influences the form of a related word (be). “Number” is a “grammatical category”.

English has over twenty grammatical categories. Below we list the most common ones for English learners and summarise their main features.

Number

Number is a property of nouns and pronouns, and indicates quantity. Number has two values:

singular: indicates one only
plural: indicates two or more

word type	number
word type	singular	plural
noun	boy	boys
pronoun	I	we

Case

Case is a property of pronouns and nouns, and expresses their relationship to the rest of the sentence. Case has three values (two of which do not apply to nouns):

subjective (pronouns only): when the word is the subject
objective (pronouns only): when the word is the object
possessive (pronouns and nouns): when the word indicates possession (ownership)

word type	case
word type	subjective	objective	possessive
pronoun	I	me	mine
noun			boy’s

Gender

Natural gender is a property of pronouns, and differentiates the sexes. Natural gender has three values:

masculine: indicates male
feminine: indicates female
neuter: indicates everything else

word type	gender
word type	masculine	feminine	neuter
pronoun	he/him/his	she/her/hers	it/its

Note that Old English had “grammatical gender” where words themselves had gender. Remnants of this are found in “natural gender”, which is based on the sex of people rather than the gender of words.

Person

Person is a property of pronouns, and differentiates participants in a conversation. Person has three values:

first person: refers to the speaker
second person: refers to the hearer
third person: refers to all other people or things

word type	person
word type	1st	2nd	3rd
pronoun	I/me we/us	you	he/him, she/her, it they

Tense

Tense is a property of verbs, and most closely corresponds with location in time. Tense has two values:

past: indicates before now
present: indicates now (and sometimes before and after now)

word type	tense
word type	past	present
verb	was did had worked ran	am do have work run

Note that “future tense” is not shown here because strictly-speaking it is not a tense but a structure to talk about the future (after now).

Aspect

Aspect is a property of verbs, and expresses our view of the time structure of an activity or state. Aspect has three values:

simple: the time has no structure
continuous: expresses ongoing action
perfect: expresses completed action

word type	aspect
word type	simple	continuous	perfect
verb	they work	they are working	they have worked

Mood

Mood is a property of verbs, and relates to the speaker’s feelings about the reality of what he is saying. Mood has three values:

indicative: expresses simple statement of fact
imperative: expresses command
subjunctive: expresses something desired or imagined

word type	mood
word type	indicative	imperative	subjunctive
verb	James stood up.	Stand up!	We insist that he stand.
verb	Is it quiet enough?	Be quiet!	It is essential that you be quiet.