Basic English - Rules

Rules

Also see Basic English ordered wordlist from Simple English Wikipedia.

The word use of Basic English is similar to full English, but the rules are much simpler, and there are fewer exceptions. Not all meanings of each word are allowed.

Ogden's rules of grammar for Basic English help people use the 850 words to talk about things and events in a normal way.

  1. Make plurals with an "S" on the end of the word. If there are special ways to make a plural word, such as "ES" and "IES", use them.
  2. There are two word endings to change each of the 150 adjectives: "-ER" and "-EST".
  3. There are two word endings to change the verb word endings, "-ING" and "-ED".
  4. Make adverbs from qualifiers by adding "-LY".
  5. Talk about amounts with "MORE" and "MOST." Use and know "-ER" and "-EST."
  6. Make opposite adjectives with "UN-"
  7. Make questions with the opposite word order, and with "DO".
  8. Operators and pronouns conjugate as in normal English.
  9. Make combined words (compounds) from two nouns (for example "milkman") or a noun and a directive (sundown).
  10. Measures, numbers, money, days, months, years, clock time, and international words are in English forms, e.g. Date/Time: 20 May 1972 at 21:00
  11. Use the words of an industry or science. For example, in this grammar, some special words are for teaching languages, and not part of Basic English: plural, conjugate, noun, adjective, adverb, qualifier, operator, pronoun, and directive.

Read more about this topic:  Basic English

Famous quotes containing the word rules:

    “The duce of any other rule have I to govern myself by in this affair—and if I had one ... I would twist it and tear it to pieces, and throw it into the fire when I had done—Am I warm? I am, and the cause demands it—a pretty story! is a man to follow rules—or rules to follow him?”
    —Laurence Sterne (1713–1768)

    “... a large portion of success is derived from flexibility. It is all very well to have principles, rules of behavior concerning right and wrong. But it is quite as essential to know when to forget as when to use them.”
    —Alice Foote MacDougall (1867–1945)

    “One might get the impression that I recommend a new methodology which replaces induction by counterinduction and uses a multiplicity of theories, metaphysical views, fairy tales, instead of the customary pair theory/observation. This impression would certainly be mistaken. My intention is not to replace one set of general rules by another such set: my intention is rather to convince the reader that all methodologies, even the most obvious ones, have their limits.”
    —Paul Feyerabend (1924–1994)