The main purpose of this work is to provide a practical handbook of grammar for readers and writers of expository prose,language written for explanation and read for understanding.The information provided here may or may not apply to other forms of written communication or to the spoken language. We are not trying to cover the structure of all uses of the English language, and we do not promise to encompass every instance in the language area specified. Basically, we hope that our analysis will perform two functions:

1. Help the reader receive with clarity, if at all possible, the communication intended by the writer.

2. Provide a basis, depending on purpose, for achieving efficiency in this reading process.

In our society, language and the automobile have at least one interesting similarity. Use of the automobile as a vehicle of transportation does not require too great a knowledge of the mechanisms involved. Move this lever. Depress that pedal. Two hands on the steering wheel, please. And off you go.

Driving in traffic under varying conditions is an additional matter, of course, but here again, with a certain amount of practice, the necessary skill can be developed without the faintest notion of the operating mechanisms.

Language, as a vehicle of communication, seems to be used in similar fashion. The child somehow learns to make the sounds he has heard made or those he has made himself and was encouraged to repeat.He also eventually learns the contexts in which these sounds are appropriately made and, like the beginning driver, becomes a user of this vehicle without any knowledge of what makes it work. Even when the child progresses to the use of language in symbolic form, in writing and reading, he is still able to perform more or less adequately without an understanding of the mechanisms and principles involved.

It must be obvious that knowledge of the "how" and "why" in almost any endeavor could lead to greater control and, possibly, appreciation of that activity. Driver awareness of the precision timing which sends explosive force to wheels which move the vehicle with the power of herds of horses must add to the efficiency and joy of driving. In the event of malfunction, one can at least be somewhat knowledgeable about the repairs required and their cost.

The reading of expository prose is also an activity in which understanding of mechanisms can result in greater control and appreciation. And here we may add one further note to the automobile analogy. Efficient reading can never occur in the "automatic" mode. It must always be a "stick shift" operation, with the reader constantly aware of the "reading gear" most appropriate for the reading purpose at hand and the written terrain being traversed. Understanding language structure can make for smoothness both in the shifting of gears and the efficiency of their use.

This text, drawing from the various current grammar "systems", hopes to provide a foundation for such understanding in a manner simple enough for almost anyone to comprehend. The view of written language sought here is not the ultimate of an electron microscope, but rather the clarity of a contact lens.

Students with exposure to any system of grammar, traditional or otherwise, will have little difficulty with our presentation providing they accept the definitions exactly as stipulated in this text.

If there is any novelty in this presentation, it is to be found in the diagraming system used for illustration. One very important function of a diagram is to illustrate and clarify the relationship between parts of a whole. We believe that our "word nests" perform this function with far greater efficiency than the traditional "fishhooks".