GRAMMAR

Grammar

Nouns

Nouns are naming words, they are used to identify any class of people, places or objects.

Nouns are then split into different groups:

Proper Noun; a name used for an individual person, object or place spelled with an initial capital letter.

Collective Noun; A noun which refers to a group of something(e.g. a swarm of bees)

Pronoun; a word that can function as a noun phrase used by itself and that refers to either yourself (e.g. I, you ) or to someone or something else(e.g. she, it, this ).

Concrete; A noun that names something physical, something that you can see, hear, touch, smell or taste.

Abstract; A noun that names an idea or concept.

Pronoun

Pronouns are a major subclass of nouns. They are called pronouns because they can sometimes replace a noun in a sentence.

Pronouns – He, she, it, him, her etc.

Pronouns have many different forms and can be used in any tense.

Noun Phrase

A noun phrase is made up of a noun and any words that modify the noun (different modifications can change the meaning of a noun).

Adjectives

Adjectives are words or phrases that modify or describe nouns or pronouns.

The job of an adjective is to be evaluative, emotive or descriptive.

Verbs

Put simply, verbs are doing words.

The base form of a verb is called an infinitive.

On one side you have the ‘main verbs’ – Verbs that tell you the action (run, jump).

On the other side you have auxiliary verbs. These are verbs that give extra information or affect the meaning of the main verb.

Auxiliary Verbs

Primary auxiliaries – Do, have, be etc.

Modal auxiliary verbs – can, could, would, should, must, may, might, shall etc.

Modal verbs are then broken down into two groups, Epistemic and Deontic.

Epistemic verbs allow freedom or choice (may, might etc.)

Deontic verbs are direct or strict (must, will etc.)

Clauses and Voices

Primary auxiliary verbs often help distinguish the tense of a sentence.

Modal auxiliary verbs often show possibility.

Clauses – In the same way that words form phrases, phrases form longer structure called clauses. These are groups of words centred around a verb phrase.

A clause will consist of:

The subject

The verb

The object

Clauses

Coordinated Clauses – This is when two clauses are joined together by using a conjunction. However, coordinated clauses must make sense on their own if you remove the conjunction.

Subordinate Clauses – A subordinate clause means there will be a main clause (a unit that can stand on its own and still make sense) and by phrases that only make sense when linked to the main clause.

Verb Phrases

Verb phrases are built around the main verb.

Modal auxiliary verbs can be placed along a continuum to show degrees of strength towards commitment.

Verbs can tell you when thing happen (verbs can be in any tense and can be in a passive or active voice).