Elementary English Grammar For Lawyers

Sydney Law School
Legal Studies Research Paper

No. 17/62
July 2017
Elementary English Grammar for Lawyers
Joe Campbell
This paper can be downloaded without charge from the

Social Science Research Network Electronic Library
at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=3011086
Electronic copy available at: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3011086

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Elementary English Grammar for Lawyers
J.C Campbell 1
The English language is of fundamental importance for a lawyer. It is one of the most important
subject matters of the lawyer’s practice. A large part of a lawyer’s practice involves producing
documents like contracts and trust deeds and powers of attorney. Another large part of a lawyer’s
practice involves reading and trying to understand documents like contracts and trust deeds and
powers of attorney and statutes, so that the lawyer can give advice about what types of conduct are
required, or are possible, or are not possible, in the light of those documents. Sometimes the lawyer’s
practice involves arguing with someone else, or in a court, about the meaning of one of those sorts of
documents. The law relating to interpretation concerns what are the correct principles for
ascertaining the meaning of a text whose meaning is disputed.
The English language is also the main tool through which the lawyer conducts his or her practice. It is
by the English language that the lawyer argues about the meaning of documents, and seeks to
persuade other people to see a problem in a way that is favourable to the lawyer’s client.
Real skill in the use of the English language requires an understanding of how the language works.
Understanding how the language works not just an ability to use the language. It also requires an
ability to talk about how it works. There are some analytical tools that are available, that can let you
talk about how the language works.
Grammar
One of these analytical tools is grammar. Every language has its grammar. It is the set of principles
about what the elements of the language are, and how they operate and interrelate. The word
“grammar” comes from the Greek – grammatike techne, the art of letters. “Techne” is a word that
means art or learning or skill – it has produced the English words “technique”, and “technical”. And
“grammatike” is a simple word, meaning just a thing that is drawn or written. It is derived from the
Greek “gramma”, meaning a letter. That word has English derivatives in “aerogram”, a letter sent by
air. The Greek word for distance is “tele” so a “telegram” is a letter sent at a distance. In its Greek
roots, the idea of the “art of letters” was quite a simple one.
But the word “grammar” has drifted from its simple etymological roots. Now it refers to the labelling of
the different parts of a passage of language by reference to the function that each of those parts
performs, and some rules about how the different parts of a passage of language operate.
Why is it that there are different functions that parts of a passage of language perform? It arises
because even though the language includes all of its individual words, the language is used on
particular individual occasions to enable one person (or group of people) to communicate with another
person (or group of people). Sometimes a single word can communicate to another person – the
starter at an athletics meeting saying “Go”, the parent saying “Stop” to a child about to wander onto a
street, a person saying “thanks” when someone has done him a small social courtesy, the bushwalker
saying to another member of the bushwalking group “snake” (usually accompanied with pointing).
1
Hon J C Campbell QC FAAL is an Adjunct Professor at The University of Sydney Law School, Sydney, New
South Wales, Australia, and a former judge of the New South Wales Court of Appeal. This paper has benefited
from discussions with James McAlpine and Lorraine McAlpine.
© Joseph Campbell 2017

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But usually what one person wants to communicate to another person is more complex than can be
conveyed by just an individual word. Usually it takes a collection of words, arranged in a particular
way, to communicate anything of complexity. Then it is both the individual words, and the way that
they are put together and relate to each other, that communicates from one person to another. Lord
Hoffmann has expressed this by saying
“The unit of communication by means of language is the sentence and not the parts of which
it is composed. The significance of individual words is affected by other words and the syntax
of the whole...” (Lord Hoffman in R v Brown [1996] 1 All ER 545, 560).
As ordinary users of the language, we are all aware of how the one group of words can be arranged
in different ways and convey different meanings. “Mary gave Fred the apple” has a different meaning
to “Fred gave Mary the apple”. An example that Aristotle gave in about 350 BC is that “…if a man is
a shoemaker and is also good, we cannot construct a composite proposition and say that he is a good
2
shoemaker” .
It is essential for a lawyer to understand the terminology of grammar. Legislation sometimes uses that
3
terminology . The reasons for judgment of courts very often use the terminology of grammar in the
course of solving problems of interpretation, so any reader of judgments must be proficient in the
terminology to understand the court’s reasons. This paper gives many examples, usually in the
footnotes, of reasons for judgment that use the terminology of grammar. In those examples the
grammatical term is printed in bold.
As well, an understanding of grammar can be useful to lawyers in several different ways in the task of
interpreting disputed texts. It can provide some concepts that can explain why it is that different
arrangements of the same words have different meanings. It can be used to make clear to a reader
the different possible interpretations that a disputed text might have. It can provide a way of
articulating in what way it is that an ambiguous piece of language is ambiguous. A very important
part of explaining why it is that a particular arrangement of words has a particular meaning is to
explain their grammatical inter-relationship. The beginning of solving a problem of construction arising
from ambiguity is being able to identify with precision what the ambiguity consists of.
However it is not as though the grammatical structure of a sentence is always clear and immediately
apparent. Sometimes it is only through understanding other aspects of the disputed text, like its
2
Aristotle, On Interpretation, translated by E M Edghill, http://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/a/aristotle/interpretation/
Part 11
3
Eg, section 20B Law Enforcement (Controlled Operations) Act 1997 (NSW) provides:
(1) for the purposes of this Part … "suspect" , when used as a noun, means a person reasonably
suspected of having committed or being likely to have committed, or of committing or being likely to be
committing, a relevant offence.
Section 4 Mining Act 1992 (NSW) provides:
"mine" means:
(a) when used as a noun -any place, pit, shaft, drive, level or other excavation, drift, gutter,
lead, vein, lode, reef or salt-pan (whether occurring naturally or artificially created) in, on or by
means of which, any mining operation is carried on, and
(b) when used as a verb -to extract material from land for the purpose of recovering minerals
from the material so extracted or to rehabilitate land (other than a derelict mine site) from which
material has been extracted, but does not include any activity declared not to be mining by a
regulation under section 11A or by an order made under such a regulation.
Another example appears at footnote 22 below

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purpose, or the particular shade of meaning that some of its words have, that the grammatical
4
structure become apparent .
There is significant disagreement amongst grammarians about the details of the theory of English
grammar, and about some of the terminology. In particular there is a divergence of opinion between
traditional grammarians, whose tradition dates back at least to the propositional logic of ancient
5
Greece , and more modern theorists who developed their account of grammar for purposes other
than propositional logic. What follows is in the traditional camp rather than the more modern camp –
because that is the type of grammar that lawyers tend to use. It is designed to give the reader
enough of the terminology and theory to be of some practical assistance in construing disputed texts.
It is highly likely that considering actual texts will point out a need to make analytical distinctions
beyond those that this article sets out.
I stress that this article is nothing like a complete account of English grammar – it is just a fragment of
an introduction to the topic. Any serious study of English grammar will need to go well beyond what I
say here.
Labelling the parts of speech

The parts of speech can be labelled by providing definitions of them, or by providing practical tests of
when it is that a particular word or group of words should be called by a particular name. Because
language makes up an integrated whole, it is not possible to explain the parts of speech by starting
with one set of defined terms, and building up a set of definitions or explanations in the way that a set
of theorems can be built up in mathematics. Thus in the following explanations you will find some
terms used whose meaning is explained only at a later point in the document. This document can only
be understood fully by going through it more than once, as what you come to understand from later in
the document affects how you understand an earlier part of the document. Thus this document is
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itself an example of the hermeneutic circle .
At the end of this article is an index that provides cross-references to the places where various terms
are discussed. If you understand each of the terms in the index you will be on the way to mastering
the analytical terms to enable you to explain how a piece of English speech is structured. The more
basic terms are in bold print in the index.
Language, Meaning and Reference

When one is speaking about words it is important to be able to draw a clear distinction between a
word or group of words – the spoken or written piece of language considered as a thing in itself – and
the meaning that the word or group of words has. Sometimes, but not always, a word or group of
words refers to – ie points out or identifies - something that exists independently of talking about it.
The thing that the word or group of words points out is the reference of that word or group of words.
There is a fundamental analytical distinction between the word or group of words itself, the meaning
of the words or group of words, and the reference of the word or group of words.
4
Byrne v Macquarie Group Services Pty Ltd [2011] NSWCA 68 at [2]-[10]
5
Propositional logic is concerned only with propositions, ie statements that are either true or false. It deals with
what propositions can be validly deduced from other propositions. A valid deduction is made when, starting from
two propositions that are true, one reasons to another proposition that is true.
6
Explained in Joseph Campbell and Richard Campbell, "Why statutory interpretation is done as it is done" (2014)
39 Aust Bar Rev 1 at 14-16, 42-44

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A useful convention is that when one is using a word as an example of a piece of language, it is
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placed in inverted commas . In accordance with that convention, “table” is the word that consists of
two syllables and five letters. Depending on the context in which “table” is used the meaning of the
word “table” might be one (or more than one) of the items you find under the heading “table” in a
dictionary, or it might be what a reader or hearer takes to have been conveyed by a particular usage
of the word “table”. Depending on the context in which it is used the reference of the word “table”
might be all the items in the class of tables that exist or it might be some particular table that exists,
while a table is (in some contexts) an item of furniture or (in other contexts) an arrangement of
information into rows and columns.
Nouns
A noun can be defined as the name of a person, place or thing. Thus examples of nouns are “table”,
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“Sydney”, “Fred”, “bravery”.
A test for a noun is that it is possible to follow the noun by the word “is”, and another word that tells
you a characteristic that the thing that the noun identifies has. Thus you can properly say, “Peter is
tall”, “The table is wobbly”, “Sydney is the capital of NSW”, and “Cowardice is despicable”.
Common nouns and proper nouns
Nouns can be subdivided in various ways. One subdivision is into common nouns and proper nouns.
Proper nouns are the names of people or places. A proper noun should always be written starting
with a capital letter – eg “Peter”, “Australia” (notwithstanding that some pop stars and poets ignore
this convention).
Common nouns are all the nouns that are not proper nouns. Common nouns are written without a
capital letter, unless they happen to start a sentence. “Dog” and “table” are common nouns.
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An example is Brennan J in Theophanous v Herald & Weekly Times Ltd (1994) 182 CLR 104 at 146:
"Freedom" can be used in several senses and there is a danger in attempting to define a constitutional
principle by use of an abstract noun of imprecise meaning, especially when the history of s 92
[Constitution] reveals that the corresponding adjective is extremely troublesome.
Other examples appear repeatedly in the quotations from judgments in this paper.
8
In Johnston v Commissioner for Railways (1973) 128 CLR 632 the workers’ compensation entitlement of an
injured worker depended on "the weekly amount which the worker would probably have been earning but for the
injury and had he continued to be employed in the same or comparable employment". The question was whether
a worker who was injured while employed in a particular role, but who would have had reasonable prospects of
promotion to different and better paid roles with the same employer, could have that prospect taken into account
in calculating his workers compensation entitlement. Stephen J held it could be taken into account. He said, at
639-640:
the wording of the subsection appears to me of itself to provide a sufficient indication of the particular
meaning to be given to the words "employee" and "employment"; this arises from the conjunction of the
verb and the noun, used together to express one concept. To refer to a worker as being employed in
some employment is not, I think, natural or appropriate language in which to describe the condition of
being employed by a particular employer or under a particular contract of employment…. Nor does the
subsection use language appropriate to describe engagement in a particular task or function; for such a
meaning to be conveyed it is more appropriate to use the verb or noun in conjunction with some words
which either refer to some particular activity or function."

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Proper nouns can include the names of specific organizations or institutions that are treated as
though they are separate things that exist. Thus Sydney University is a proper noun, and the United
Nations is a proper noun, Woolworths Limited (the company that operates the chain of retail shops) is
a proper noun, and the Red Cross is a proper noun. These last examples are each proper nouns
even though they comprise more than one word. Indeed a proper noun can be made up of a lot of
words – eg the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization.
Sometimes a proper noun can refer to an entity that the law recognises as having a separate legal
personality – Sydney University is incorporated by an Act of Parliament, Woolworths Limited is
incorporated. But even if the Balmain Literary Society is as a matter of law a voluntary
unincorporated association, and thus has no legal personality separate to its members, if it is spoken
of as though it exists separately to its members “Balmain Literary Society” is a proper noun. Legal
categorization is carried out for the purpose of applying the law, but grammatical characterization is
carried out for the purpose of explaining how a particular piece of language operates. They do not
necessarily coincide in the divisions they make.
Singular and plural nouns
Common nouns have an attribute of number. That is, the noun can be singular or plural. A noun is
singular when it is used to refer to only one item of the type it means – eg I say “the car in my
garage”, if I have only one car in my garage, and intend to refer to that car rather than any other car.
In that sentence “car” is a singular noun.
A noun is plural if it is used to refer to more than one item of the type it means - eg I say “the cars in
my garage”, if there is more than one car in my garage and I am intending to refer to all of the cars
that are there. In that sentence “cars” is a plural noun.
It is common for the plural form of a common noun to be formed by adding an “s” to the end of the
singular form of the same noun – eg one virtue, but several virtues. However there are some plurals
that are irregular - one sheep, but also several sheep, one child but several children, one woman but
several women.
There is usually no occasion to distinguish between singular and plural forms of proper nouns.
Usually, because each proper noun refers to an individual person or place each proper noun is
necessarily singular. However, there are some contexts in which this is not so – the creators of The
Simpsons have asserted that the most frequently occurring name for a town in the United States is
Springfield, and it is possible to talk of “all the Springfields in the United States”.
Gender of nouns
Nouns have an attribute of gender – of being masculine, feminine, or neuter. Unlike many foreign
languages that attribute to nouns a gender even when the thing that the noun names does not itself
have a gender, in English a common noun has a masculine gender when it names a male thing (eg
man, bull), feminine when it names a female thing (eg girl, cow) and is otherwise nearly always neuter
(eg table, loyalty). Very rarely a common noun is given a gender – eg a ship is sometimes spoken of
as being feminine. Proper nouns have the same gender as the person or thing that they name – thus
“Susan” is feminine, “William” is masculine, and whether “Chris” is masculine or feminine depends on
whether the person named is Christopher or Christine.

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Concrete and abstract nouns

9 10
Common nouns can be concrete , or abstract . “Table”, when it means an item of furniture, is a
concrete common noun, because each table is a particular physical thing that you can see and touch.
But the names of virtues like “goodness” or “bravery” do not refer to a physical thing – they are
abstract.
The one word can sometimes be a concrete noun, and sometimes an abstract noun, depending on
how it is used. Even though “table” is a concrete noun when it is referring to an item of furniture,
“table” is an abstract noun when it is referring to the eight times table that you learned in primary
school.
Sometimes it is hard to fit a noun into one or other of the concrete or abstract categories. A university
usually has students, and teachers, and physical facilities like lecture rooms and libraries and sports
facilities. However when you use the word “university” you do not simply mean a collection of
students, teachers and physical facilities – it is rather the organization of those people and facilities in
a way that achieves purposes connected with higher education and research.
Collective nouns
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Sometimes a common noun is a collective noun . That is a noun that:
“under the singular form expresses a grouping of individual objects or persons, as herd, jury,
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and clergy.”
The Macquarie Dictionary notes a peculiarity concerning the usage of collective nouns:
9
in Sunbeam Corporation v Morphy-Richards (Aust) Pty Ltd (1994) 180 CLR 98 Windeyer J said at 103, in
construing the patent specification for the Sunbeam electric frying pan, which included as one element of the
claimed invention "thermoresponsive means disposed in a completely sealed chamber":
The word "means" is much used by draftsman of patent specifications, to avoid limiting claims and thus
offering a way to avoid infringement. But that precautionary use has led to the word "means" being often
used not as denoting any means of attaining a specified end, but as a concrete noun, meaning a thing
or device, adjectivally qualified.
10
In Singh v The Commonwealth (2004) 222 CLR 322 at [112] McHugh J quoted from an earlier judgment that
had said:
Throughout the British Empire there is one King, one allegiance, one citizenship. I use this last word, not
in the Roman or in the American sense, but only because there is no suitable abstract noun
corresponding to the word 'subject' (natural-born or naturalised).
11
In Re McJannet, ex parte Minister (1995) 184 CLR 620 at 640 Brennan CJ Deane and Dawson JJ said:
A branch of the federal industrial organisation is not a person; it has no existence apart from that of the
members of the branch. The word "branch" in that context is no more than a collective noun which,
although singular in form, is used with a plural implication.
12
Macquarie Dictionary Online accessed July 2017, “collective noun”

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“It is possible to treat collective nouns as singulars or plurals depending on whether the sense
of unity or the sense of plurality is uppermost in the mind of the writer. Thus thinking of a
team, we can say Australia is batting first or, thinking of the players, Australia are batting first.”
Mass nouns and count nouns
A distinction is sometimes drawn between a mass noun and a count noun. A count noun refers to
something that occurs as individual entities, such that they can be counted, eg apple, dog.
By contrast a mass noun refers to a thing that occurs without differentiation into individual entities, eg
“Grass is green”. “Grass” is a mass noun, even though it consists of individual leaves, and leaf is a
count noun.
A mass noun might also be a concrete noun (eg “water”), or might be an abstract noun (eg “loyalty”).
The Macquarie Dictionary notes:
“Some words can be used either as a mass noun or a count noun, depending on the
intended sense. As a mass noun they cannot occur in the plural, but as a count noun they
13
can: I prefer wine to beer; many different Australian wines are exported to Europe.”
Verbal nouns
A verbal noun is one that is derived from a verb, and refers to the carrying out of the action, or the
persistence of the state of affairs, to which the verb refers. A verbal noun is usually formed by adding
14
“ing” to the basic form of the verb (ie the infinitive , minus the “to” of the infinitive). Thus “running” is
the carrying out of the action that is referred to by the verb “to run”. Similarly, being is derived from
15
the verb “to be”, and “owning” from the verb “to own”. A verbal noun is sometimes called a gerund .
Examples of verbal nouns are:
Running is a healthy activity.
Owning a car is very expensive.

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Being a lawyer is very interesting .
13
Ibid, “mass noun”
14
Infinitives are discussed at page 12 below
15
Verbal nouns are discussed further at page 14. In Byrne v Macquarie Group Services Pty Ltd [2011]
NSWCA 68 the issue was whether a contractual provision that operated "if the employee ceases employment
with Macquarie” was triggered when the employee was dismissed. Whealey JA said at [45]:
The expression "ceasing employment" may be described, in grammatical terms, as a compound verb
(where each of the two words perform together the function of a verb) or, perhaps more accurately, as
a gerund where it functions as a noun.
16
In the last two examples “owning a car” and “being a lawyer” are noun phrases, discussed below on page 8

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Nouns that are substantive forms of adjectives
Sometimes a word that is capable of being an adjective is used as a noun. The meaning of the word
can be affected by whether it is being used as an adjective or a noun. In Australasian Temperance
and General Mutual Life Assurance Society Ltd v Howe (1922) 31 CLR 290 the High Court
construed section 75 (iv) of the Constitution, which gives the High Court original jurisdiction in all
matters “between residents of different States”. The majority held that in section 75 (iv) the word
“resident” meant only a natural person, not a corporation. The reasoning of Knox CJ and Gavin Duffy
J included:
“Now, what is the literal and popular meaning of the noun substantive “resident”? We say
“noun substantive” because in the English language the meaning of the adjectival form of a
word is often extended while the substantive form retains its original literal meaning. This is a
natural and even an inevitable evolution in the case of epithets, because they denote, not
permanent things, but variable qualities. They are elusive, not necessarily conveying precisely
the same meaning to any two persons, and they are constantly used to express imperfect
analogies. For example, the words “attendant,” “incumbent,” “co-adjutant,” “respondent,”
“dependent,” when used as substantives always denote an individual, while the same words
used as adjectives are subject to no such restriction. This divagation has taken place in the
use of the word “resident.” Its meaning when used as a noun is, according to the Oxford
Dictionary, “one,” that is, a natural person, “who resides permanently in a place.” But
according to the same authority the adjectival form, while primarily applying to individuals,
may also be used in relation to corporeal things and abstract ideas.”
Noun phrases and noun clauses
Sometimes several words together perform the same function as a noun, of naming a person, place
or thing. If the group of words that performs that function contains a verb, it is called a noun clause. If
it does not contain a verb it is called a noun phrase. Noun phrases and noun clauses all contain a
noun, and one or more other words that convey some information about the thing that is identified by
the noun.
In the following examples the noun phrases are in italics, and the basic noun in each is in bold italics:
Those three books on the shelf are not worth reading.
The current El Niño weather pattern will cause a drought next year.
Those three books on the shelf are interesting for advanced students of economics, but not
for ordinary readers.
In the following examples the noun clauses are in italics, and the basic noun in each is in bold italics:
Any student who has not completed the prerequisites will not be permitted to enrol.
The bike that I bought last week has a puncture.
Fred has borrowed the bike that I bought last week.

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The Oxford comma
When a sentence contains a list of nouns, the Oxford comma is a punctuation device that is inserted
before the last of the items to make clear that each of the nouns refers to a different item. Often it will
be clear that separate items are referred to even if an Oxford comma is not used – eg in the sentence
“We went to the shop and bought peas, beans and carrots”. However it sometimes makes a critical
difference – consider the difference between “I like my parents, Superman, and Minnie Mouse” and “I
like my parents, Superman and Minnie Mouse.”
Sometimes the Oxford comma can make a vital difference to the outcome of litigation. In O’Connor v
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Oakhurst Dairy a statute exempted employers from an obligation to pay overtime to workers
engaged in “the canning, processing, preserving, freezing, drying, marketing, storing, packing for
shipment or distribution of …perishable foods”. Drivers of milk delivery trucks were clearly engaged in
the distribution of perishable foods, but they succeeded in an argument that the exemption did not
apply to them, because there was no comma after “shipment”, and thus the last item of the list of
exempted activities related only to the activity of packing for the purpose of shipping or distribution,
not to the shipping or distribution itself.
Determiners
A determiner is a word that is used in conjunction with a noun, noun phrase or noun clause, and
identifies the reference (or lack of reference) of that noun, noun phrase or noun clause. Determiners
can be:
(1) articles. “The dog” indicates that only one particular dog is being spoken of, and it is
assumed that it is clear to the hearer or reader which particular dog it is that is being spoken
about. That is, it is assumed that it is clear to the hearer or reader what is the reference of the
words “the dog”. “The dogs” indicates that more than one dog is being spoken about and it is
assumed that it is clear to the hearer or reader which are the individual dogs that are being
18
spoken about. In each of these sentences “the” is a definite article , because it makes clear
that a definite (=specific) dog, or some definite (=specific) dogs are being spoken about.
“A dog” indicates that an example of the general type of things, dogs, is being spoken about,
but the hearer or reader is not assumed to know which particular dog is being spoken about.
“Some dogs” indicates that more than one dog is being spoken about the hearer or reader is
not assumed to know which are the individual dogs that are being spoken about. Each of “a”
17
United States Court of Appeals, First Circuit, 13 March 2017 http://cases.justia.com/federal/appellate-
courts/ca1/16-1901/16-1901-2017-03-13.pdf?ts=1489437006
18
In Kartinyeri v The Commonwealth (1998) 195 CLR 337 the issue was whether the power under section 51
(xxvi) Constitution to make laws with respect to "the people of any race for whom it is deemed necessary to make
special laws" empowered the making of laws that affected only some aboriginals. At [120]-[121] Kirby J said that
the parties contending for the lack of power:
… pointed to the use of the definite article ([t]he people of any race). They submitted that this made
clear that the power was confined to the making of laws with respect to all of the people. Not a small
segment of them. There is no substance in this argument. As a textual matter, the definite article at the
beginning of par (xxvi) is to be read as part of a provision which contemplates the making of "special
laws". Of their nature, such laws may need to address subgroups or particular categories of a given
people defined by reference to their race.

10
19
and “some” in these sentences are indefinite articles , because the sentence does not
convey which particular dogs are being spoken about. It may be that the speaker has a
particular dog in mind – eg if he says “I was bitten by a dog this morning” he is presumably
quite clear about which dog he is talking about, but it is appropriate to use the indefinite article
because the hearer or reader is not assumed to know what dog it being spoken about.
A negative article indicates that the verb of the sentence applies to none of the type of thing
to which the noun refers, eg “No dogs are allowed here”
(2) demonstratives. These are words that serve to point out the particular items that are
being spoken about, eg “this dog”, “that dog”, “these dogs”, “those dogs”
(3) possessive determiners. These identify the item being spoken about by reference to
who owns the item in question, eg “my dogs”, “his dog”
(4) quantifiers. These indicate the quantity of the thing in question that is being talked of,
eg “some butter”, “all horses”, “many people”, “few students”, “a lot of people”
Pronouns
A pronoun is a word or form that can be used as substitute for a noun, a noun phrase, a noun clause,
or another pronoun. Use of a pronoun is a short way of conveying that a particular person place or
thing is being referred to in circumstances. Pronouns are used where the context in which the
sentence in question is uttered should make it clear to the reader or hearer which particular person
place or thing is being referred to. The person place or thing for which the pronoun stands is called its
antecedent.
The relevant type of context that makes clear what the antecedent of the pronoun is might arise from
it being clear who is speaking or writing to whom. Thus who it is who is referred to by “I”, “me” “we”
and “you” should be apparent from understanding who is speaking or writing to whom. What the
speaker is pointing to or indicating determines the reference of “I’ll take these”.
Another way in which the context might make clear what the pronoun refers to is if the antecedent of
the pronoun has been referred to explicitly by a nearby noun, noun phrase or noun clause. Examples
of this are “The headmaster is old, and he should retire.” “”The bike I bought last week has a
puncture, and it is unusable”.
One type of pronoun is the relative pronoun. It is used to link one phrase or clause to another phrase
20
or clause. The simple relative pronouns are “who”, “whom”, “that” and “which” . Compound relative
19
in Airservices Australia v Canadian Airlines (1999) 202 CLR 133 an issue concerned the validity of an
aircraft landing charge, defined as "a charge payable in respect of the use by aircraft of facilities or a service
relating to an aerodrome". The particular charges had been arrived at by aggregating the cost of providing
facilities at aerodromes generally. Gaudron J said, at [128]:
Clearly, the definition is not directed to particular aircraft, particular facilities or particular services. And
although it is, perhaps, less clear, it is not directed to the facilities or services provided at any particular
aerodrome. That follows from the use of the indefinite article – "an aerodrome" – in a context in which
there is an absence of specificity in relation to aircraft, facilities or services.
20
In Independent Commission Against Corruption v Cunneen (2015) 318 ALR 391, 89 ALJR 475 the Court
was construing the words " … conduct of any person … that adversely affects …. the exercise of official functions
by any public official … and which could involve any of the following matters: [long list of types of bad

11
pronouns are “whoever”, “whatever”, and “whichever”. In “The student who has the highest results
gets the prize”, “who” is a relative pronoun, the antecedent is “the student”, and “who has the highest
results” is an adjectival clause.
Some pronouns are definite – eg “She is the best student in the class”. Some pronouns are indefinite
– eg “Each gets a prize”, “Everyone must wear a life jacket”, “Anybody can do that”, “Both are equally
qualified”.
Singular and plural pronouns
Like nouns, pronouns have an attribute of number. That is, a pronoun is either singular, or plural.
The English pronoun “you” is sometimes used to refer to only one person (as is apparent from the
context when the maker of the sentence in question is speaking or writing to only one person). It is
sometimes used to refer to more than one person (as is apparent from the context when the maker in
the sentence in question is speaking or writing to more than one person).
There are some dialects of English that make a distinction between the singular "you" and the plural
"you" – a broad Australian dialect sometimes expresses the plural "you" by saying "youse", and a
southern United States dialect sometimes expresses it by “yo’all”. However most educated English
does not make that distinction in the way that the word is spoken or written. Even so, for purposes of
grammatical analysis one needs to distinguish between the singular "you" and the plural "you".
The singular English pronouns are “I”, “you” (singular), “he”, “she”, “it”, and “one”. The particular
usage of "one" as a pronoun occurs where one is speaking impersonally. Speaking impersonally
occurs when talking about how people in general behave, or might behave (eg “One could be amused
by this”) or what people in general should do to behave properly (eg. "One does not wear a swimming
costume to the Opera".)
The plural English pronouns are "we" "you" (plural) and "they".
First, second and third person pronouns
Pronouns also have an attribute of person. A first person pronoun is one that refers to the person who
is speaking, or the group of people on whose behalf the statement is being made. Thus the first
person pronouns are "I" and "we".
A second person pronoun is one that refers to the person who is being spoken to, or the group of
people that is being spoken to. Thus the second person pronouns are "you" (singular) and "you"
(plural).
A third person pronoun is one that refers to someone or something other than the person who is
speaking, the group of people on whose behalf the statement is being made, and the person or
people to whom the statement is being made. Thus the third person pronouns are "he", "she", "it",
"one", and "they".
For the purpose of grammatical analysis, nouns are also given an attribute of person. However nouns
are nearly always third person. An odd exception is that a noun can be second person when the thing
referred to by the noun is being addressed (eg “Melbourne, I hate you.”)
behaviour]". The plurality judgment at [66] referred three times to the "that" and the "which" in the disputed words
as pronouns.

12
Gender
Pronouns sometimes have an attribute of gender. A pronoun is masculine if it refers to a male person
21
(e.g. “he”, “his”) and feminine if it refers to a female person (“she”, “her”) .
Verbs
A verb is a doing, being or having word or expression. It indicates
- the action that the thing identified by a noun is engaged in, or

- that the thing identified by the noun is in a particular state, or
- that the thing identified by the noun possesses some particular other thing (or things) or
quality (or qualities).
Examples of verbs are:
Mary reads the book
Mary’s car is green
Mary has three cats.
A properly formed sentence always contains a verb.
Infinitives
The one verb can take several different forms. There is a form of a verb that indicates in the abstract
the relevant type of doing, being or having, without saying that any particular person or place or thing
is doing, being or having it. That form of the verb consists of the most basic part of the verb,
22
preceded by “to”. That form of a verb is called the infinitive of the verb. An aid to recalling the term
is that an infinitive is not finished – it needs to be modified to create nearly all of the forms of the verb
23
that derive from it. Examples of infinitives are “to read”, “to be”, and “to have” .
Simple verbs
Some verbs consist of a single word. They are called simple verbs. The verb in each of the three
“Mary” examples just given is a simple verb. Other examples of simple verbs are “John ate the apple”,
“The cat slept on the couch”.
Compound verbs
21
In Robbins v Federal Commissioner of Taxation (1974) 129 CLR 332 Walsh J, construing a document
requiring a particular notice to be "under his own hand" said, at 341:
I think that there would be no difficulty in construing "his" as including, where necessary or appropriate,
the plural or the feminine equivalent of that pronoun."
22
Section 5 (23) Migration Act 1958 (Cth), as construed by the High Court in Sok v Minister (2008) 238 CLR
251, provided:
[t]o avoid doubt, in this Act is taken, when followed by the infinitive form of a verb, has the same force
and effect as is deemed when followed by the infinitive form of that verb.
23
In fact the etymology is from the Latin for "not limited" – i.e., not limited by reference to who or what is doing,
being or having. It has a close etymological connection with "infinite".

13
24
Other verbs consist of more than one word, and are called compound verbs . A very important type
of compound verb consists of verbs comprising an auxiliary, and a participle. An auxiliary is always
one of the parts of the verb “to be” or one of the parts of the verb “to have”, or a compound of a part of
the verb “to be” and a part of the verb “to have”.
In the following sentences the auxiliaries are italicized:
“I am eating.”
“The dog will be sleeping at midnight.”
“Peter has been swimming.”
“Mary has eaten.”
“The cake has been eaten”
“The cake will have been eaten.”
Participles
Participles are formed from the simple or basic verb that appears in an infinitive – ie, you take the
infinitive of the verb (eg “to run”), and drop the “to” to obtain the simple or basic verb.
A participle indicates the process of carrying out the action that the infinitive identifies.
A present participle is formed from the simple verb with the ending “ing” added to it. Examples are
that the present participle of the verb “to walk” is “walking”, and the present participle of the verb “to
read” is “reading”. Sometimes a final consonant of the simple verb might be doubled to form the
present participle – eg the present participle of “to swim” is “swimming”, the present participle of “to
25
travel” is “travelling” .
A past participle is usually formed from the simple verb with an ending, usually “ed” or “en”.
Examples are that the past participle of “to walk” is “walked”, the past participle of “to eat” is “eaten”.
However some verbs have irregular past participles – eg the past participle of “to swim” is “swum”, the
26
past participle of “to read” is “read” (pronounced the same as “red”, as in “I have read”) .
24
See footnote 15 above
25
In Re Dingjan; ex parte Wagner (1995) 183 CLR 323 at 362 Gaudron J said:
The present tense may be used descriptively or it may be used to signify contemporaneity. Although
there is no fixed rule, the use in a statute of the present tense, simpliciter, generally indicates that it is
being used descriptively (the "simple present"), whereas "is" followed by a present participle (the
"continuous" or "progressive" present) usually indicates contemporaneity.
26
Section 51(xx) Constitution gives the Federal government power to make laws with respect to "foreign
corporations, and trading or financial corporations formed within the limits of the Commonwealth". In the
Incorporation Case (1990) 169 CLR 482 at 498 the High Court held that the Commonwealth had no power to
pass laws enabling the incorporation of companies because:
The word "formed" is a past participle used adjectivally, and the participial phrase "formed within the
limits of the Commonwealth" is used to describe corporations which have been or shall have been
created in Australia … The subject of a valid law is restricted by that phrase to corporations which have
undergone or shall have undergone the process of formation in the past, present or future. That is to
say, the power is one with respect to "formed corporations". That being so, the words "formed within the
limits of the Commonwealth" exclude the process of incorporation itself.

14
Whenever a compound verb consisting of an auxiliary and a participle is used, it always speaks as at
some particular point in time. The time as at which the compound verb is speaking might be the
actual present – ie the time at which the statement is made – or it might be a future time, or past time,
by comparison with the time as at which the statement is made.
A present participle is used if the action that the simple verb identifies is going on at the time as at
which the compound verb is speaking. When one says “I am eating”, the time as at which the
compound verb is speaking is the same as the time that the utterance is made – and the present
participle is used because I am eating right now. However in the sentence “the dog will be sleeping at
midnight” the sentence is speaking as at a future time, namely midnight. It indicates that it is speaking
as at a future time, by comparison with the time at which the sentence is uttered, by using the future
auxiliary, “will be”. The present participle “sleeping” is used to indicate that, as at midnight, the dog
will then (presently, at that time) be in the process of sleeping. The sentence “Last year he was living
in Melbourne” is speaking as at a time that is in the past by comparison with the time the sentence is
uttered, ie it is speaking as at last year, and thus uses the past tense auxiliary “was”. However, at the
time as at which the sentence is speaking, the action of the verb, to live, was then being carried out,
so the present participle “living” is used. Similarly “He had been living in Melbourne for ten years
when he moved to Sydney” is speaking as at a time that is in the past by comparison with the time
that the sentence is uttered, and so the past auxiliary “had been” is used, but at the time as at which
the sentence is speaking the action of living was then going on, so the present participle “living” is
used.
The sentence “Mary has eaten the cake” is speaking as at the time that the sentence is uttered, and
so uses the present auxiliary “has”. However the action to which it relates occurred at a time that is
earlier than the time as at which the sentence is uttered, and so the past participle “eaten” is used.
The sentence “We will have finished the assignment by midnight” is speaking as at a future time,
namely midnight, and so uses the future auxiliary “will have”. However, as at the time at which the
sentence is speaking, the action of finishing the assignment will be in the past, so the past participle
“finished” is used.
Other types of compound verb are
- A prepositional verb. This combines a verb and a preposition 27 to make a verb with a distinct
meaning (eg “to vote for”, “to look after”, “to swear by”, “to believe in”). A noun or a pronoun
28
must follow the preposition – thus all prepositional verbs are transitive .
- A phrasal verb. This combines a verb with a prepositional adverb (eg “to take away”, “to find
out”, “to run out of”, “to put out”)
- Compound single-word verbs (eg “to babysit”, “to waterproof”, “to brainwash”)
More on verbal nouns
Sometimes a word that is usually a verb performs the function of a noun. Sometimes the present
participle of a verb can be used as a noun, eg “Swimming is good exercise”. As mentioned earlier,
when the present participle of a verb is used as a noun it is called a gerund. Sometimes the infinitive
of a verb is used as a noun, eg “He likes to swim”, “To swim on a hot day is very refreshing”. It is the
27
Prepositions are explained at page 25 below
28
Transitive verbs are explained at page 15 below

15
function that a word or phrase performs in a sentence that determines what part of speech it should
be classified as, for the purposes of that sentence.
Interrelation of nouns, pronouns and verbs
Nouns as subject and object of verbs
When a noun identifies the person place or thing that is carrying out an action or state to which the
verb relates, that noun in the subject of the verb. Thus in the sentence “Mary reads the book”, the
verb is “reads” and the subject of the verb is “Mary”, because it is Mary who is doing the reading. In
the sentence “The book is being read by Mary”, the verb is “is being read”, because it indicates the
state of being that the book is in. The subject of the sentence is “the book”, because the book is the
thing that is in the state of being read.
The subject of a verb can be identified by finding the verb, and asking “who or what” before the verb –
ie who or what (does, or is, or has) that?
The object of a verb identifies the person or thing to which the action of the verb is done. Finding the
verb, and asking who or what after the verb does (or has, or is) it. Thus if the sentence is “Mary reads
the book”, you find the verb (reads) and ask, “Reads who or what”. “the book” is the object of the verb.
Subject and predicate of sentences
A different way of analysing a piece of text is to identify the subject and the predicate of each
sentence. The subject of the sentence is what the sentence is about. It is the same as the subject
of the verb in the sentence. The predicate of a sentence gives some information about the subject.
There is a simple subject of the sentence if there is only one noun that is the subject of the verb in the
sentence. In the sentence “There are three pieces of pie left” there is a simple subject, namely
“pieces”, while “three” is an adjective and “of pie” is an adjectival phrase.
The simple subject of a sentence plus the modifiers of the simple subject is called the complete
subject. In the example just given the complete subject is “three pieces of pie”. There can be a
complex subject if there are two or more nouns that are the subject of the sentence joined by a
29
conjunction , eg “Mary and her uncle went to the park”. “Peter or Harry will do it.”
A simple predicate is the verb when there is only one verb in the predicate of a sentence. In “Mary
and her uncle went to the park” the simple predicate is “went”. The complete predicate is the simple
predicate plus all modifiers of the verb – in this example, “went to the park”. There is a complex
predicate if there is more than one verb in the predicate. In the sentence “Mary and her uncle went to
the park and kicked a ball” the predicate is “went to the park and kicked a ball”. Because it has two
verbs (“went” and “kicked”) it is a complex predicate.
Transitive and intransitive verbs
Sometimes a verb indicates an action that is done to a thing. A verb that indicates an action that is
done to a thing is called a transitive verb. The thing that the action is done to is called the direct
29
Conjunctions are explained at page 26 below

16
object of the verb. If the verb in a sentence is x and there is an answer to the question “xs who or
what”, the answer to that question is the direct object of the sentence.
Examples
“Mary reads the book” – “reads” is a transitive verb, and “the book” is the direct object of the verb.
“The dog is eating the meat” - “The dog” is the subject of the verb, “is eating” is a transitive verb, and
“the meat” is the direct object of the verb.
Verbs that do not have a direct object are called intransitive verbs. In “Peter drives to work”, “to work”
30
is an adverbial phrase , because it adds meaning to the verb “drives” by telling you where it is that
Peter drives. But “to work” is not the object of the sentence, because it does not tell you who or what
it is that Peter drives.
The one word can be a transitive verb in some contexts, but an intransitive verb in other contexts – eg
in “”Peter drives an old car” “drives” is transitive while in “Peter drives” “drives” is intransitive; in “The
31
dog is eating” “is eating” is intransitive, while in “The dog is eating the meat” “is eating” is transitive .
The direct object of a verb might be a noun (“Peter likes ice-cream”), or a pronoun (“Peter is throwing
it”), or a noun phrase (“Mary preferred the bright blue T-shirt”), or a noun clause (“Mary explained
what had happened to her that morning”)
A sentence that has a direct object can also have an indirect object if the sentence identifies the
recipient of the direct object. In “She gave the courier the letter” the direct object is “the letter”
(because it is what she gave), while “the courier” is the indirect object (because that is to whom or
what she gave the letter).
Pronouns as subject and object of verbs
Similarly to nouns, pronouns can be the subject of a verb, or the object of a verb.
Thus in “”She reads the book”, “she” is the subject of the sentence. In “It is being read by Mary” “it”
is the subject of the sentence. In “Mary is reading it”, “it” is the object of the verb. In “It is being read
by her” “it” is the subject of the sentence, and “by her” is an adverbial phrase.
Case of nouns
Another attribute that nouns have is their case.
When a noun or pronoun is the subject of a verb, that noun or pronoun is in the subjective case.
Sometimes, using terminology derived from Latin grammar, that case is also called the nominative
case.
30
Adverbial phrases are explained at page 25
31
in Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Co v Beiersdorf (Australia) Ltd (1980) 144 CLR 253 Aicken J said
at 279, in construing a patent specification containing a cognate of "interlock":
The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary gives as meanings of the intransitive verb "to engage with each
other by partial overlapping or interpenetration of alternate projections and recesses" and as the
transitive verb "to lock or clasp within each other".

17
When a noun or pronoun is either the direct object or indirect object of a verb, or the object of a
preposition, it is said to be in the objective case.
When a noun or pronoun indicates that the thing referred to by noun A belongs to the thing referred to
by noun B, noun B is in the possessive case. Sometimes, derived from Latin grammar, that case is
referred to as the genitive case. An example is that in “Robert’s car has white tyres”, “car” is the
subject of the sentence and so is in the subjective case, “white tyres” is a noun phrase that is the
direct object of the sentence and so “tyres” is in the objective case, while “Robert’s” is in the
possessive case because it indicates that the car belongs to Robert.
A noun has the same form for the subjective and objective case, but a different form (involving the
use of an apostrophe and the letter “s”) for the possessive case. Thus in “The dog ate the meat”,
“dog” is in the subjective case, in “The girl patted the dog”, “dog” is in the objective case, but there is
no change to the noun to indicate the difference of case. However in “The dog’s collar is broken”
“dog’s” is in the possessive case, and a different form of the noun is used to indicate the difference of
case. Further, the plural possessive case of a noun has a different form to the singular possessive
case of the noun. In “The dog’s toys” “dog’s” with the apostrophe before the “s”, is singular
possessive (indicating that the toys belong to only one particular dog), while in “The dogs’ toys”
“dogs’“, with the apostrophe after the “s”, is in the plural possessive (indicating that the toys belong to
more than one dog).
There is an oddity concerning how case of nouns operates in connection with the verb “to be”. In a
sentence like “Mary is the treasurer” “Mary” is the subject of the sentence, and so is in the subjective
case. However because “the treasurer” is identical to Mary, “the treasurer” is given the same case as
“Mary” – ie the subjective case. When that happens, the thing that is identical to the subject of the
sentence is said to be in the subjective case in apposition.
Case of pronouns
Like nouns, pronouns always have a case. A pronoun has different forms for each of the subjective,
objective and possessive case - examples of the three cases of the first person plural pronoun are
“We went to the beach”, “The mayor invited us”, and “Our dog is old.”
Attributes of verbs
Attributes of verbs – tense
Verbs can be categorized by reference to attributes that they have in their grammatical functioning.
A verb has an attribute of tense. The tense of a verb indicates when the action to which the verb
refers takes place, by reference to the time at which the statement in question is made.
The present tense often indicates that the action is taking place at the same time as the statement in
question is made – eg “The dog eats the meat”.
A present tense can be a simple present, which communicates only that the action takes place at the
same time as the statement in question is made - eg “The dog eats the meat”. Alternatively it can be
a continuous present, which communicates that the action takes place at the same time as the
statement in question is made, and that it is part of an ongoing action – eg “the dog is eating the
meat”.

18
But sometimes the present tense is used in a way that does not have any temporal relationship to the
time at which the statement in question is made. The present tense can be used to describe facts
that are always the same, for example "water freezes at 0°C", "Paris is the capital of France";
"Shakespeare is the author of Hamlet". When the present tense is used that way, it is referred to as
32
the timeless present tense . Another way of explaining this is that sometimes the timeless present
tense is used to show an attribute that something has, rather than an action that is being carried out.
Consider the difference between “I drink beer”, and “I am drinking beer”: the first sentence uses the
timeless present tense, and states an attribute that I have, ie a willingness or ability to drink beer
regardless of what I am doing right now, while the second sentence uses a continuing present tense
and describes an action I am now engaged in.
The future tense indicates that the action in question will take place at a time that lies in the future
from when the statement is made. It is indicated by a compound verb that includes the word “will” or
“shall”. For example, “I will go to Brisbane next week”.
A future tense can be a simple future tense – eg “I will play squash at the weekend”, or a continuous
future tense – eg “I will be working in Brisbane next week.” A future perfect tense indicates that, at a
time that lies in the future from when the statement in question is made, the action to which the verb
refers will have been completed – eg “I will have finished the assignment by the end of the week”. A
future perfect continuous tense is one that indicates that, by a time that lies in the future from when
the statement in question is made, some action will have been going on – eg “By the end of next
week I will have been working here for three months.”
The past tense indicates that the action in question occurred at a time that lies in the past from the
time when the statement in question is made.
A simple past tense communicates nothing more than that the action happened in the past – eg “Mary
bought the car”. A continuous past tense is formed by using a past auxiliary of the verb “to be”, and a
present participle. It indicates that the action in question was continuing at a time in the past – “Last
week he was studying history”. A past perfect tense indicates that at a time in the past, the action in
question was already completed – eg “Last week he had completed the course.” Sometimes the past
perfect tense is called by the name it has in Latin, the pluperfect tense.
Attributes of verbs – agreement with its subject in number and person
Any verb has attributes of number, and person. A verb agrees with its subject in number and person.
That is to say, if the subject of the verb has a particular number-attribute (singular or plural), then the
verb itself must have the same number-attribute; if the subject of the verb has a particular person-
attribute (being first person, second person or third person), the verb itself must have the same
person-attribute.
Many languages have different endings on a verb to indicate the number and person of the subject of
the verb. When that happens one says that the verb is inflected. For example the present tense of
the Italian verb meaning “to eat” (mangare) is
32
see the quotation from In re Dingjan at footnote 25 above. For a practical example of the significance of
whether a provision in the statute is in the timeless present, or is a present tense which indicates a temporal
relationship to the time the statement in question is made, see Sydney Local Health Network v Q Y and Q Z
[2011] NSWCA 412; (2011) 83 NSWLR 321 at [43]-[54].

19
singular plural
st
1 person mango mangiamo
nd
2 person mangi mangate
rd
3 person manga mangano
For that Italian verb, there is a different ending for every one of the 6 different combinations of number
and person.
Mostly English alters a verb ending only to indicate a third person singular subject of a verb. Thus the
English verb “to eat” only alters its form for the third person singular of the simple present tense-
he/she/it/one eats, compared with I/you (both singular and plural)/we/they eat. (Further, this alteration
of the form of the verb happens only for the third person singular of the present tense when the
sentence is making an affirmative statement – for a negative statement one says “He/she/it/one does
not eat”.)
However some verbs are irregular in this respect. In particular the verb “to be” in its present tense is
more highly inflected than most English verbs:
Singular Plural
st
1 person am are
nd
2 person are are
rd
3 person is are
The verb “to have” in its simple present tense has a different inflexion only in the third person singular
(he/she/it/one has, compared with I/you (both singular and plural) /we/they have). The simple past
tense of “to be” is also irregular – it goes “I was” “you/we/they were” and “he/she/it one was” Because
“to be” and “to have” are used as auxiliary verbs in the construction of various past and future tenses,
those past and future tenses are also somewhat inflected.
Even though there is only some inflexion in English verbs, every verb is still analysed as agreeing with
its subject in both number and person. That is, the verb has the same person and number as its
subject has.
Sometimes the one verb can have two subjects – eg in “Peter and Mary like ice-cream” the subject of
the verb is “Peter and Mary”. Because that subject is plural in number, the verb must agree with the
subject in number and person. That is why it is incorrect to say, “Peter and Mary likes ice-cream.”
However it would be correct to say, “Peter likes ice-cream and Mary likes ice-cream”.
Sometimes two nouns can be used as the subject of a sentence as though they constitute a single
thing, in which case the verb must be singular in number – eg “Fish and chips is our usual Saturday
meal”.
The subject of a verb is not necessarily the noun that is closest to the verb. For example, in “A virus
in a company’s computers causes havoc”, it is “virus” that is the subject of the sentence;
“virus” is singular, and thus the verb must be the singular “causes”, not the plural “cause”.
Active and passive voice
Sentences have an attribute of voice, which is expressed through the verb in the sentence. A
sentence is in the active voice when the subject of the verb does the action that the verb expresses –

20
eg “Fred kicked the ball”. A sentence is in the passive voice when the subject of the verb has the
33
action expressed by the verb done to it – eg “The ball was kicked by Fred”, or “The ball was kicked” .
It is only sentences with transitive verbs that can be put into the passive voice. A sentence that has a
direct object is put into the passive voice by making the direct object become the subject of the
sentence. Thus in the immediately preceding example of a sentence in the active voice “the ball” is
the direct object of the verb “kicked”; one puts the sentence into the passive voice by making “the ball”
become the subject of the sentence.
A sentence in the passive voice does not tell you who is doing the action (or being, or having) in
question. For that reason sentences in the passive voice are imprecise. It is good rule of thumb to be
suspicious of sentences in the passive voice when you read them, and not to use them in your own
writing unless you are trying to be imprecise.
Mood of verbs
Verbs have an attribute of mood.
- A verb is in the indicative mood when it is making a statement that some state of affairs
exists.
- A verb is in the imperative mood when it is giving an order.
- A verb is in the interrogative mood when it is asking a question.
- A verb is in the subjunctive mood when it is considering a possibility that is not asserted by
the sentence to be an actuality – eg “If I were you I would study harder”, “If I had a million
dollars I would give it away”.
The verb “be” in “It is important that you be thrifty” is in the subjunctive mood because it is
contemplating the possibility that you might not be thrifty. By contrast the verb “are” in “It is admirable
that you are thrifty” is in the indicative mood because it recognises the existing fact that you are thrifty,
and expresses an opinion concerning it. In both of these sentences the verb “is” is in the indicative
mood, because it states an opinion that the speaker actually has.
The verb in “It is important that they be here by 4pm” is a subjunctive, because it contemplates the
possibility that they might not be here by 4pm. In “The court ordered that the defendant pay $100 to
the plaintiff” “ordered” in in the indicative mood, because it expresses a situation as being factual
(namely, that the order was made), but “pay” is subjunctive, because it recognises the possibility that
payment might not occur. As these examples show, when a sentence is in the subjunctive mood
often the verb is inflected in a different way to the way it would be inflected in the indicative mood. (It
is not “the defendant pays $100 to the plaintiff”.)
An example of the mood of a verb affecting the construction of a statute occurs in Forsyth v Deputy
Commissioner of Taxation [2007] HCA 8; (2007) 231 CLR 531. Section 44 (1) (a) the District Court
Act was enacted in 1997. It conferred on the District Court jurisdiction to hear actions "which, if
brought in this Supreme Court, would be assigned to the Common Law Division of that Court", in
33
Section 471.12 Criminal Code (Cth) forbade a person to use a postal service “ in a way … that reasonable
persons would regard as being, in all the circumstances, menacing, harassing or offensive.” In Monis v R (2013)
249 CLR 92 French CJ said at [40] that a predecessor section of the legislation was in the same terms, save that
it:
… used the passive voice “would be regarded by reasonable persons” instead of the active voice
“reasonable persons would regard as being” used in the present version of the section.

21
which the amount claimed does not exceed $750,000. In 1997 an action to recover a particular type of
taxation penalty would have been commenced in the Common Law Division of the Supreme Court, in
accordance with a provision of the Supreme Court Act. In 1999 there were amendments to the
Supreme Court Act that altered the distribution of business between the Divisions of the Court (though
not in a way relevant to any tax penalty recovery action), and conferred on the Rules Committee
power to make rules affecting the distribution of business between the Divisions. In 2000, the Rules
Committee of the Supreme Court made a rule under which the distribution of business in the Supreme
Court was changed, so that an action to recover a taxation penalty was thenceforth to be begun in the
Equity Division. In 2001 the Deputy Commissioner sued Mr Forsyth, in the District Court, to recover
the taxation penalty. He argued that the District Court did not have any jurisdiction to hear the action.
His argument failed. One reason of the plurality judgment at [35] was:
“Secondly, the appellant submitted that the text of s 44(1)(a) imported a notion of futurity
through use of the expression “would be assigned” in sub-para (i). However, this is not so.
The provision speaks to actions “of a kind” and asks where such actions “would be assigned”.
The Solicitor-General for the Commonwealth pointed out in oral submissions on behalf of the
Deputy Commissioner that the provision is phrased in the subjunctive so as to identify what
are hypothetical actions and that s 44(1)(a) says nothing as to time.”
And at [43]:
“On the other hand, it is consistent with the removal of doubts that the jurisdiction of the
District Court be fixed by reference to those actions which at the time of the enactment were
not assigned to a specialist Division within the Supreme Court. The phrasing of sub-para (i) of
s 44(1)(a) in the subjunctive is apt to accommodate future actions by asking whether, at the
time of the commencement of s 44, they would have been assigned to the Common Law
Division if commenced in the Supreme Court. On the other hand, the reference in sub-para (ii)
to the limit of $750,000 was fixed. This secured the evident objective of equipping the District
Court to handle many common law actions that before the enactment of s 44 would have
been instituted and remained in the Supreme Court. The circumstance that the structure of
the Supreme Court subsequently was altered does not detract from the cogency of these
considerations.”
Adjectives
An adjective is a word that identifies a quality or attribute that the something that is identified by a
34
noun has, and that differentiates it from other things that can be identified by the same noun . An
adjective is said to describe or modify the noun to which it relates.
Examples of adjectives are:
“Mary’s green car” (as opposed to Mary’s black car, or someone else’s black car.)
“An interesting book” (as opposed to a tedious book)
34
in Northern Territory v GPAO (1999) 196 CLR 553 at [180] McHugh and Callinan JJ construed section 77 (iii)
Constitution, which enables the Parliament to invest State courts with federal jurisdiction with respect to any of
the matters mentioned in sections 75 and 76 of the Constitution. They said:
in S 77 (iii), the adjective "federal" qualifies "jurisdiction" and places a limitation on the matters that
may be the subject of invested State jurisdiction. If "federal" jurisdiction was synonymous with the
matters referred to in ss 75 and 76, the adjective "federal" would be superfluous

22
An adjective can sometimes describe or modify pronouns. For example in “The blue one is better.”
both “blue” and “better” are adjectives.
Adjectives sometimes are used comparatively, to indicate which of several items exhibits more of a
particular quality than another item, or than all the items of that type that are being talked about. For
example:
This suitcase is heavier than that one
This suitcase is the heaviest.
Sometimes an adjective can be a word that identifies a quality or attribute of a noun by reference to a
quality or attribute that has already been identified – e.g. “goods or services of that kind”, “this type of
35
person”. Such adjectives are demonstrative adjectives .
Compound adjectives
Sometimes a hyphen is used to join two adjectives into a compound adjective, where the meaning of
the compound adjective is different to that of its components. There is significant difference in
meaning between “a little used car” and “a little-used car”. In “a little used car” “little is an adjective
describing “car”, while in “a little-used car” “little has become an adverb qualifying “used”
Adjectival phrases and adjectival clauses
Sometimes a group of words performs the same function as an adjective. If such a group of words
contains a verb it is an adjectival clause. If it contains no verb it is an adjectival phrase.
36
Examples of adjectival phrases
“The students are exhausted from so much study.” (“exhausted from so much study” is an
adjectival phrase describing “students”. “exhausted” itself is an adjective, and “from so much
study” is an adverbial phrase that qualifies “exhausted”, by attributing a cause to their being
exhausted. )
The landlord can enter upon giving the tenant two days previous notice. (“Two days previous”
is an adjectival phrase describing “notice”)
Every deed shall be attested by at least one witness not being a party to the deed. (“not being
a party to the deed” is an adjectival phrase describing “witness”. “Being” here is not a verb, it
35
ACCC v Channel Seven Brisbane Pty Ltd (2009] 239 CLR 305 at [114]
36
The definition of "disability" in the Disability Discrimination Act 1992 (Cth) includes "a disorder, illness or
disease that affects a person's thought processes, perception of reality, emotions or judgment or that results in
disturbed behaviour." In Purvis v New South Wales (2003] 213 CLR 92 at [209] Gummow, Hayne and Heydon
JJ said that that part of the definition:
… can be divided into two grammatical sections – a group of three nouns (a disorder, illness or
disease) and two adjectival phrases which qualify those nouns. The first adjectival phrase looks to
the effects of the disorder, illness or disease on the person – the disorder, illness or disease is one that
"affects a person's thought processes, perception of reality, emotions or judgment". The second looks to
another kind of effect on the person – the disorder, illness or disease is one that "results in disturbed
behaviour"

23
is a gerund. Thus there is no verb in “not being a party to the deed”, and hence it is properly
categorized as an adjectival phrase.)
An adjectival clause has three attributes:
- it contains both a subject and a verb

- it begins with a relative pronoun (who, whom, whose, that or which) or a relative adverb
(when, where or why)
- it functions as an adjective, answering the question What kind? How many? or Which one?
Examples of adjectival clauses are:

37
The Registrar-General may on such evidence as appears to him sufficient amend the plan .
(“’as appears to him sufficient” is an adjectival clause describing “evidence”.)
“The lessee will wash, stop, whiten, or colour such parts of the demised premises as are now
38
plastered” (“as are now plastered” is an adjectival clause describing “parts”.)
Sometimes the relative pronoun at the start of an adjectival clause is omitted, but the sense of the
sentence requires that the relative pronoun be understood – eg in “His results show the student has
not studied enough” the sense of the sentence requires a “that” at the start of the adjectival clause.
Sometimes adjectival clauses are called relative clauses.
Restrictive and Non-Restrictive Adjectival Clauses
An adjectival clause that makes more precise the class that is referred to by the noun it modifies is not
put between commas. The children are noisy does not itself identify which children are being talked
about. In The children who travel on the bus are noisy the adjectival clause “who travel on the bus”
narrows the class of children who the sentence refers to, and is not put between commas. It restricts
the children who are being talked about from children in general, to those children who travel on the
bus. Such adjectival clauses are sometimes called restrictive adjectival clauses or defining adjectival
clauses. .
If the noun that an adjectival clause modifies is not made more precise in its reference by the
adjectival clause, but instead the adjectival clause gives extra information about that noun, the
adjectival clause is put between commas. In Mary and Tom, who travel on the bus, are noisy the
complex subject Mary and Tom itself refers to who the sentence talks about, while who travel on the
bus gives more information about them without making more precise who or what the noun refers to.
Such clauses are sometimes called non-restrictive adjectival clauses, or non-defining adjectival
clauses.
Whether an adjectival clause is restrictive or non-restrictive can change the meaning of the sentence.
Consider the difference between All members of the Council, who are nominated by the Minister,
should attend on Tuesday and All members of the Council who are nominated by the Minister should
attend on Tuesday. The first sentence conveys the message that all members of the Council are
nominated by the Minister, and they all should attend on Tuesday. The second sentence conveys the
37
Derived from s 184I Conveyancing Act 1919
38
Derived from Conveyancing Act 1919 Sch IV clause 10

24
message that perhaps the Minister does not nominate some members of the Council, and it is only
those members who are nominated by the Minister who should attend.
Adverbs
One definition of an adverb is that it is “a word added to a verb, an adjective or another adverb to
39
express some modification of meaning or an accompanying circumstance” . A more elaborate one
is:
“ 1. one of the major parts of speech, comprising words used to modify or limit a verb, a
verbal noun (also, in Latin, English, and some other languages, an adjective or another
adverb), or an adverbial phrase or clause. An adverbial element expresses some relation of
place, time, manner, attendant circumstance, degree, cause, inference, result, condition,
exception, concession, purpose, or means.
40
2. such a word, as well in English she sings well.”
When an adverb is used in relation to a word or phrase it is said to qualify that word or phrase. An
41
example of an adverb that is used to qualify a verb is “He drove quickly” . An example of an adverb
42
that is used to qualify an adjective is “Her dress is light blue.” An example of an adverb used to
qualify an adverb is “He drove moderately quickly”.
Some adverbs are relative adverbs. They can be defined (with some circularity) as an adverb that
introduces a relative clause. Examples are when, where, or why.
Adverbial phrases and adverbial clauses
Just as there can be noun phrases and noun clauses that perform the function of a noun, and
adjectival phrases and adjectival clauses that perform the function of an adjective, so there can be
43
adverbial phrases and adverbial clauses that perform the function of an adverb.
39 th
Chambers 20 Century Dictionary revised edition 1972
40
Macquarie Dictionary online, accessed July 2017
41
Insurance Commissioners of Western Australia v Container Handlers Pty Ltd (2004) 218 CLR 89
construed an insurance policy which gave indemnity concerning injury "directly caused by, or by the driving of, a
motor vehicle". Kirby J at [107] said that that version of the section differed from a previous version in that:
the adverb "directly" was inserted to modify the words "caused by". In the context of the purposes of
Parliament, and the terms of the repeated references in the Act and the statutory policy to these
changes, it is clear that the word "directly" governed not only the words "caused by" but also the phrase
within commas (, or by the driving of,).
42
An alternative analysis is that “light blue” is a compound adjective.
43
In Chew v the Queen (1992) 173 CLR 626 a statute required that a corporate officer "shall not make improper
use of his position as such an officer or employee, to gain, directly or indirectly, an advantage for himself or for
any other person, or to cause detriment to the corporation." Mason CJ, Brennan Gaudron and McHugh JJ said at
630:
The sense in which the word "to" is used in association with the infinitive maybe purposive (""in order
to") or causative ("so" or "so as to", though "so as to" may sometimes signify purpose rather than result.
it is common to use "to" with the infinitive in the sense of "in order to”, so as to express purpose,
particularly in an adverbial clause, as an adjunct.

25
Examples of adverbial phrases are:
The vendor shall not be entitled to exercise any right to rescind the contract on the ground of
any requisition or objection made by the purchaser unless and until he has given the
purchaser reasonable notice of his intention to rescind so as to enable the purchaser to waive
44
the requisition or objection . “On the ground of any requisition or objection made by the
purchaser” is an adverbial phrase qualifying “exercise” – it states the circumstance in which
exercise of the right to rescind is forbidden.
Every alienation of property made with intent to defraud creditors shall be voidable at the
45
instance of any person thereby prejudiced. “At the instance of any person thereby
prejudiced” is an adverbial phrase, qualifying “voidable”, and identifying the circumstance in
which the transaction is voidable.
Examples of adverbial clauses are:

46
No assurance of land shall be valid to pass an interest at law unless made by deed .”Unless
made by deed” is an adverbial clause, qualifying “valid”. There is a verb in the clause
because the sense of “unless made” is “unless it [ie the assurance] is made”.
“Where a provision of a settlement which creates an interest consisting of the conferring of a

general power of appointment would, but for this section and section 9, infringe the rule
against perpetuities, the interest shall be treated, until such time (if any) as it becomes certain
that the power will not be exercisable within the perpetuity period, as if the provision did not
47
infringe the rule." “until such time (if any) as it becomes certain that the power will not be
exercisable within the perpetuity period" is an adverbial phrase qualifying "shall be treated",
because it identifies the period of time during which the interest shall be treated in the way
specified.
Prepositions
A preposition usually precedes a noun or a pronoun (it is placed before the noun or pronoun, ie, pre-
positioned) and shows the relationship of the thing referred to by that noun or pronoun to another
thing referred to by a different noun or pronoun in the sentence. The relationship might be a spatial
relationship, a causal relationship, a purposive relationship, a temporal relationship, or (sometimes)
the sorts of relationships between classes of things that can be shown by a Venn diagram. Thus in
“This is a tool for cutting” “for” is a preposition, and shows the purposive relationship between “tool”
and “cutting”. In “The shelf is over the bench” “over” is a preposition, and shows the spatial
44
Based on s 56 Conveyancing Act 1919
45
Based on s 37A Conveyancing Act 1919
46
S 23B Conveyancing Act 1919
47
Perpetuities Act 1984, s 8 (2)

26
relationship between the shelf and the bench. In “All the students except Tom passed” “except” is a
48
preposition that shows that Tom is excluded from the class of students who passed .
Prepositional phrases
Sometimes a phrase performs the same function in a sentence as a preposition can perform. If
49
that happens, the phrase is called a prepositional phrase .
Conjunctions
Conjunctions join individual words or groups of words together and indicate the relationship between
them. Sometimes the relationship is the type of relationship that can be expressed by a Venn
diagram, of class inclusion, exclusion, or intersection:
- Eg “John and Mary will come”

- “John or Mary will come”
Sometimes the relationship is to draw a contrast between the two things that are joined – eg “The
machine is small but powerful”. Sometimes the relationship is a causal one. eg “I will not be there
because I have another appointment”. Sometimes the relationship is one of one statement qualifying
another statement eg “I like rock-climbing although it makes me very tired.”
48
Rv Neil; ex parte Cinema International Corporation Pty Ltd (1976) 134 CLR 27 concerned whether people
who worked for movie distributors to perform tasks like hiring films to theatre operators, advertising films or
obtaining censorship clearance were "employees employed in any kind of amusement whether indoor or outdoor
…". Gibbs J said at 31:
I am unable to agree that a person employed to supply to others something that those others use to
provide amusement can himself be said to be employed "in any kind of amusement" within the ordinary
meaning of those words. The preposition "in" indicates that the nature or scope of the activity of the
employee is indicated by the following words – he must be directly engaged in the amusement, and not
merely engaged in some related activity.
49
In Unsworth v Commissioner for Railways (1958) 101 CLR 73 at 87 Fullagar J, in the course of deciding
that an action that a widow brought under Lord Campbell’s Act to recover damages arising from the death of
her husband was “an action to recover damages or compensation in respect of personal injury” said:
“… the prepositional phrase “in respect of” is wider than the preposition “for”, and the words are capable
of referring to cases where the cause of action arises out of personal injury but the plaintiff is someone
other than the person injured.”

27
Index
Abstract noun 6
Active Voice 19
Adjectival Clause 22
Adjectival Phrase 22
Adjective 21
Adverb 24
Adverbial clause 24
Adverbial phrase 25
Agreement of verb and its subject 19
Antecedent of a Pronoun 10
Article 9
Auxiliary of verb 13
Case of nouns 16
Case of pronouns 17
Collective noun 6
Common noun 4
Complete subject of a sentence 15
Complex subject of a sentence 15
Compound adjective 22
Compound verb 13
Concrete noun 6
Conjunctions 26
Continuous future tense 18

Continuous past tense 18
Continuous present tense of verbs 17
Count noun 7
Defining adjectival clause 23
Definite article 9
Demonstrative 10
Determiner 9
Direct object of a verb 15
First person pronoun 11

Future Perfect Continuous Tense 18
Future Perfect Tense 18
Future tense of verbs 18

28
Gender of Nouns 5
Gender of Pronouns 12
Genitive Case of Nouns 17
Gerund 7, 14
Imperative Mood 20
Impersonal speech 11
Impersonal Pronoun 11
Indefinite article 10
Indefinite pronoun 11
Indicative Mood 20
Indirect object of a verb 16
Infinitive of Verb 12
Inflected Verb 18
Interrogative Mood 20
Intransitive Verb 16
Mass noun 7
Mood of Verbs 20
Nominative case of nouns 16

Non-defining adjectival clause 23
Non-restrictive adjectival clause 23
Noun 4
Noun clause 8
Noun phrase 8
Number of a noun 5
Number of a pronoun 11
Number of a verb 18
Object of a verb (see also direct object 15
and indirect object)
Objective case of nouns 17
Oxford comma 9
Participle of verb 13
Passive voice 20
Past participle of verb 13

Past perfect tense of a verb 18
Past tense 18
Person of a pronoun 11
Person of a verb 18
Phrasal verb 14
Pluperfect tense of a verb 18
Plural noun 5
Plural Pronoun 11
Possessive case of nouns 17
Possessive determiner 10
Predicate of a sentence 15
Prepositional verb 14

29
Prepositional phrase 26
Prepositions 25
Present participle of verb 13

Pronoun 10
Proper noun 4
Quantifier 10
Reference of a word 3
Relative clause 23
Relative pronoun 10
Restrictive adjectival clause 23
Second person pronoun 11
Simple future tense 18
Simple past tense 18
Simple present tense of verbs 17
Simple subject of a sentence 15
Simple verb 12
Singular noun 5
Singular Pronoun 11
Subject of a sentence 15
Subject of a verb 15
Subjective case in apposition 17

Subjective Case of nouns 16
Subjunctive Mood 20
Tense of verbs 17
Third Person Pronoun 11

Timeless present tense of verbs 18
Transitive verb 15
Verb 12
Verbal noun 7, 14
Voice of Verbs 19

Elementary English Grammar For Lawyers

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Elementary English Grammar for Lawyers

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Elementary English Grammar for Lawyers

© Joseph Campbell 2017

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Section 4 Mining Act 1992 (NSW) provides:

Another example appears at footnote 22 below

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Labelling the parts of speech

Language, Meaning and Reference

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Common nouns and proper nouns

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Singular and plural nouns

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Concrete and abstract nouns

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Mass nouns and count nouns

Examples of verbal nouns are:

Running is a healthy activity.

Owning a car is very expensive.

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Nouns that are substantive forms of adjectives

Noun phrases and noun clauses

Those three books on the shelf are not worth reading.

The bike that I bought last week has a puncture.

Fred has borrowed the bike that I bought last week.

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The Oxford comma

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Singular and plural pronouns

First, second and third person pronouns

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A verb is a doing, being or having word or expression. It indicates

- the action that the thing identified by a noun is engaged in, or

Examples of verbs are:

Mary reads the book

Mary’s car is green

Mary has three cats.

A properly formed sentence always contains a verb.

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In the following sentences the auxiliaries are italicized:

“The dog will be sleeping at midnight.”

“Peter has been swimming.”

“Mary has eaten.”

“The cake has been eaten”

“The cake will have been eaten.”

© Joseph Campbell 2017