The Fundamentals of English Grammar by Alafe Adebayo, F&J Ventures, Lagos, 2007 pp238

Many students of English usually have an intriguing challenge getting to master some specialised usages that defy normal grammatical rules of the language.

Imagine a student who has, right from elementary school, been taught that the Present Tense is used to describe an action of the present, and the Past Tense for an action that took place in the past.

All of a sudden, the teacher returns to tell him that it is wrong to say, “ It is time you go there.” The right thing, the tutor adds, is to say, “ It is time you went there despite the fact that the action is yet to take place. In many cases, most people are unable to get over the confusion.

Hence, while many students get questions testing the usages wrong in examinations, majority of adults speakers of English erroneously says” It is time you go out” day in day out.
But why must one say, It is time you went out? This is one of the issues treated in The Fundamental of English Grammar, a book written by a Lagos-based teacher, Alafe Adebayo, who is also proprietor of Ade Osho Group of Schools, in Palm Grove area of the city. Although the book deals primarily with elements that will guide readers, especially students, in forming basic correct sentences in English, and in passing the subject both at school and external examinations, it devotes at least two topics to the irregular English constructions.

In chapter two of the 234-page work, for example, the Osun State-born Adebayo, who hails from Odeomu, and studied English at both Universities of Ibadan and Lagos, dissects the grammatical ‘myths’ that surround expressions in which as if, would rather, it is time, had better, it is time etc are used. According to him, unless students and other users pay special attention to them, they will continue to handle them incorrectly. The expressions are guided by what he calls “rigid rules”.

On It is time, he explains on page 21, “ They take a rigid form. The rigidity is due to their mode of operation. The constructions It is time and It is high time cannot be followed by any other type of verb than those in their simple past tense forms.” He, therefore, gives some examples thus:
It is time we went to bed (despite the fact that the people involved have not gone to bed).
It is time we left the room. It is high time they postponed the meeting.

Readers will also find out in the book how It is about time, It is almost the time and It is exactly time also fall in line here. In the same vein, Adebayo gives a detailed explanation on why the correct thing to say is She dictates as if he were the owner of the house and not … as if he is the owner of the house.

Yet The Fundamentals of English Grammar has a lot more in store for students. In Chapter one, Elements of Grammar, the book deals with the rule of Concord. Chapters three to seven deal with word classes, with guidelines on the correct usage of items such as one of the…, a few, too etc. While others deal with other aspects of English Grammar, Chapter 10 would particularly interest students as it treats Tenses in a comprehensive manner.

Printed in a neat and readable, The Fundamentals of English Grammar is a valuable text for students and other users of English who desire improvement on their competence level. And the fact that it also contains class activities at the end of each chapter, as well as WASC/UME styled tests in the closing chapters, the book promises to assist users of the language at different levels.