Contents

The following Help Topics are available:

Adjectives

Adverbs

Articles

Auxiliary verbs

Clause

Conjunctions

Demonstratives

Gerunds

Grammatical Terms

Infinitives

Interjections

Modals

Nouns

Participles

Phrase

Phrasal verbs

Possessive Adjectives

Prepositions

Pronouns

Question Words

Sentence

Verbs

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Adjectives

Adjectives modify (describe or limit) nouns.  Qualifying adjectives describe some quality of the noun in question (red book, magnificent view).  Quantifying adjectives and determiners limit the type or number of noun (two oranges, this house).  Attributive adjectives precede the noun they modify; predicate adjectives are found after a linking verb.  In the sentence The ugly dog was sad, ugly is an attributive adjective and sad is a predicate adjective.


Adverbs

Adverbs modify verbs, adjectives, and other adverbs and even sentences.  Classes of adverbs:

•	Sentence - Unfortunately the stock market crashed.

•	Manner - John ran swiftly.

•	Time - Yesterday I saw a giraffe.

•	Intensifier - The very angry bear roared.

•	Denomial - These concepts are philosophically unsound.

Adverbs formed from adjectives or nouns frequently carry the suffix -ly:  intelligent becomes intelligently; anger becomes angrily.


Articles

There are three articles in English:  a, an, and the.  A and an are the indefinite articles.  They refer to nouns not specifically known to the hearer (I saw a hummingbird at the mall).  The refers to nouns that are specific to both speaker and hearer (The apple you ate was rotten).


Auxiliary verbs

The auxiliary or helping verbs in English are be, can, could, do, have, may, might, must, shall, should, will, and would.  These are the verbs that occur with other verbs (past participles and gerunds) to form compound tenses.  They can also be identified by their positioning at the beginning of questions.

•	I am typing this letter to Uncle Bob.  (Compound tense:  present progressive)

•	Am I a good listener?  (First word in a question)

•	Sean has read many books by James Joyce.  (Compound tense:  present perfect)

•	Amy does understand the question.  (Compound:  emphatic)

Be, do, and have differ from the other auxiliaries in that they can also serve as ordinary verbs in a given sentence.

•	The salad is good!

•	The children did their homework rapidly.

•	John has the flu today.


Conjunctions

Conjunctions connect words, phrases, and clauses.  Coordinating conjunctions (and, but, or, nor) link words or phrases of the same grammatical type:  I like hiking and skiing.  Subordinating conjunctions (as, while, since, because, that, etc.) are attached to a clause that cannot stand by itself, but is rather part of a whole sentence:  We were late because the flight was delayed.


Demonstratives

Demonstratives are part of a class of words also known as determiners.  They serve to point out a noun or noun phrase.  In English, the demonstratives are:  this, that, these, and those.  This and these refer to things close to the speaker.  That and those refer to things more distant from the speaker.


Gerunds

The gerund is the verb form in English that ends in ing and is used as a noun.

•	Jogging is a good way to exercise.  (From the verb to jog)


Infinitives

Infinitives are the verb form introduced by to in English:  to go, to see, to accomplish.  They are considered infinite because they have no reference to time.


Interjections

Interjections express surprise or strong feelings and stand apart grammatically from any complete sentence:  Oh!  Darn!  My Goodness!


Nouns

Nouns designate persons, places, things, or abstract ideas.  They can be proper nouns (Russell, France, Lake Michigan) or common nouns (dog, spider, truth).  Only nouns and noun phrases can serve as the subject, direct object, or indirect object in a sentence.


Verbs

Verbs indicate action (throw, run) existence (be), or state of being (know, love).  Transitive verbs take a direct object:  (John hit the ball) while intransitive verbs need only a subject (Jim slept).  Some verbs, like give, can take both direct and indirect objects.  In the sentence Mary gave the boy a quarter, boy is the indirect object and quarter is the direct object.


Modals

All the auxiliary verbs except be, do and have are called modals.  Modals only exist in their helping form; they cannot act alone as the principle verb in a sentence:

•	The astronauts may return to the moon.  (Modal may used in compound)

•	The astronauts may to the moon.  (Ungrammatical:  may by itself)


Phrasal verbs

Phrasal verbs are made up of a verb and a particle.  Examples of phrasal verbs are:  look up, find out, beat up, come across.  Particles look like prepositions, but they are attached to the verb in a special way to form a single meaning unit.  Thus, look up (research) as a phrasal verb is different in meaning from a mere combination of the verb look and the preposition up.

•	Ann will look up the word in the dictionary.

•	John looked up the street before crossing it.

The particle up is considered separable because a pronoun, if it occurs, must be placed between the verb and the particle:  look it up, look them up, etc.  Many such phrasal verbs are separable.  Others, such as come across, are considered inseparable.  That is, one cannot say I came it across.


Prepositions

Prepositions are a limited class of words that indicate relationships between nouns, pronouns, and other words in a sentence.  Examples of prepositions are:  above, through, with, before, after, until.


Pronouns

Pronouns stand for nouns and noun phrases.  Types of pronouns:

•	Personal - I, you, he, she, it, we, they

•	Demonstrative - this, that, these, those

•	Relative - who (whom), who(m)ever, which, that, what, whatever

•	Reflexive - myself, yourself, himself, herself, itself, ourselves, yourselves, themselves

•	Possessive - mine, yours, his, hers, ours, theirs, its

•	Interrogative - what, which, who (whom)

•	Indefinite - any, anyone, all, each, everybody, everyone, one, some, someone, nobody, none, no one, few


Participles

Participles are verbal forms that are used as adjectives or as part of certain verb tenses.  The present participle in English ends in -ing.  The past participle ends in -ed or -en.

•	As adjectives:

      The raging storm finally subsided.

      The workers tore down the battered tenement.

•	As verbs:

      Mary is studying for her finals today.  (Progressive tense)

      This valley was discovered by Cabrillo in 1507.  (Passive voice)


Possessive Adjectives

Possessive adjectives are also part of the class of determiners.  The possessive adjectives in English are:  my, your, his, her, its, our, their.


Phrase

A phrase is an important grouping of words within a sentence.  Phrases can consist of one word or many.  The constituents of a phrase center around a major part of speech within it.  For example, noun phrases must contain a noun, verb phrases must contain at least a verb, etc.

•	Noun Phrase:

      We watched the two astronauts on the moon.

      All of the computers were stolen.

•	Verb Phrase:

       Nick ate the two doughnuts.

       The paint looked dull.

•	Adjective Phrase:

      The tall building was on fire.

      Their program was very complicated.

•	Prepositional Phrase:

      The roads from Paris were blocked.

Phrases often contain other phrases as smaller constituent syntactical units.  Thus, the verb phrase ate the two doughnuts contains the verb ate and the smaller noun phrase the two doughnuts.


Clause

A clause is a unit within a sentence that contains at least a subject and a verb.  The two types of clauses are independent and subordinate.  Independent clauses can stand as simple sentences since they are not introduced by a subordinating conjunction:

•	The shipment will be sent when the payment arrives.

•	After the game, we went home.

Subordinate clauses cannot stand alone and are introduced by subordinating conjunctions or relative pronouns.

•	We saw the Eiffel Tower, which is the tallest monument.

•	Because it was Sunday, the shops were closed.


Sentence

A sentence is a group of words containing one or more clauses.  At a minimum, then, a sentence must contain a subject and a verb.


Question Words

Question words (interrogatives) are usually placed at the beginning of questions.  There are three types of question words:

•	Interrogative Pronouns:  who, what

      Who would like to read this story?

      What is the answer?

•	Interrogative Adjectives:  whose, which, what

      Whose paper is this?

      Which candidate will win the election?

      What game did you buy?

•	Interrogative Adverbs:  when, where, why, how

      When is the party?

      Where does this road lead?

      Why did the witness leave?

      How will you bake the pies?


Grammatical Terms

Agreement

Case

Comparison

Direct Object

Indirect Object

Mood

Morpheme

Subject

Tense

Voice


Agreement

In English, pronouns are said to agree when they have the same gender, number, case, or person as the noun or noun phrase to which they refer.

•	The boys bought the candy that they wanted.  (they agrees in person and number with the noun phrase the boys:  i.e. they is third person plural because the noun boys is third person plural.)

Verbs agree in person and number with their subject noun or noun phrase.

•	Harold hates to study English but likes math.  (The verbs hates and likes are singular in number because the subject, Harold, is singular.)


Case

Case is a series of inflections (changes) undergone by nouns and pronouns to indicate their relationship to other words in the sentence.  The English language does not have an elaborate system of case endings; the position of a word normally provides all the necessary information about its role within a sentence.  Some languages, like German and Russian, have many different cases, and inflect adjectives (or articles) as well as nouns and pronouns.  The English case system:

•	Nominative (subject and predicate following a linking verb)

      She is a good student

      This is she.

•	Possessive (ownership or relationship)

      Dave's modem was offline yesterday.

      The cakes belong to the Women's Auxiliary.

      They continued to talk despite our not hearing a word.

•	Objective

      (Direct object) The governor will meet him.

      (Indirect object) We won't speak to them.

      (Object or preposition) The gift is from us.

      (Infinitive complement) He was expecting it to be us.


Comparison

Qualifying adjectives and many adverbs can be compared in two ways.  One way is to add -er, -est to the root word, e.g., black (positive), blacker (comparative), blackest (superlative).  The second way is to precede the adjective or adverb with more or most, e.g., importantly, more importantly (comparative), most importantly (superlative).


Direct Object

The direct object in a sentence is the recipient (noun or noun phrase) of the action performed by a transitive verb.  It immediately follows the verb and is not linked to it by a preposition.

•	Hancock signed the Declaration of Independence.

•	The receiver caught the football with one hand.


Indirect Object

Nouns or noun phrases that are the beneficiaries of actions performed by transitive verbs are called indirect objects.  The normal position of the indirect object in a sentence is in a prepositional phrase (usually containing to) following the direct object:

•	Mike sold his old car to Bob.

Many transitive verbs, such as give and send, allow repositioning of the indirect object to a slot immediately after the verb:

•	I sent her my condolences.

•	Alternatively:  I sent my condolences to her.


Mood

The mood of a verb indicates something about the speaker's attitude towards what is being asserted in the sentence.  There are three kinds of mood:

•	Indicative:  The speaker assumes a degree of certainty or reality.  The indicative mood is marked by tense and number endings of the verb.

Bob takes the trolley to work.  (factual statement)

Ellen was a nurse during the war.  (assertion of truth)

•	Subjunctive:  There is a sense of conditionality, subjectivity, or unreality to what is being asserted.

I wouldn't feed that lion if I were you.  (But I am not you!)

The commission ruled that he be censured.  (conditionality)

Verbs in the present subjunctive mood lack tense and number endings.  Except for the verb to be, verbs in the past subjunctive look identical to their past indicative forms.

If I took the test, I could enter college early.

Another verbal mood is the imperative, or command form.  It is the only type of verb in English that does not require a subject noun or noun phrase:

Give me that book!

Always tell the truth!


Morpheme

A morpheme is a minimal linguistic unit that has meaning.  A morpheme cannot be broken down into smaller morphemes.  Syllables, suffixes, and prefixes can be morphemes.  The word writing contains two morphemes:  write and ing.  The possessive morpheme in English is 's.  In the phrase the teacher's notebook, teacher's is composed of the morpheme teach, the suffix morpheme er and the possessive morpheme 's.


Subject

The subject of a sentence is the noun or noun phrase that occurs immediately before the verb and leads or carries out the action or state indicated by the verb.

•	Nature abhors a vacuum.

•	John and Mary will get married next month.

•	She retired last week.


Tense

Tense is the change that occurs in verb form to express time.  Simple tenses are made up of a single word.  English has two simple tenses:  present and past.

•	Present tense:  I go, you sing, etc.

•	Past tense:  I went, you sang, etc.

All other tenses in English are compound tenses:

•	Future tense:  I will speak.

•	Present perfect:  I have spoken.

•	Present emphatic:  I do speak.

•	Present progressive:  I am speaking.

The progressive tenses express an ongoing action in the present, future, or past.


Voice

All English verbs are considered to be in a certain voice.  Voice is the expression of how a subject is related to its verb.  Two kinds of voice in English are active and passive.  In active voice, the subject causes the action to take place:

•	Mark is writing a paper on John Locke.

•	The children play soccer every Saturday.

In passive voice, the subject is the recipient of the action:

•	A paper on John Locke is being written by Mark.

•	Hockey is played by the children every Saturday.

Sometimes the subject (agent) of the action may be omitted by the speaker:

•	The plane was landed safely.   (Omitted agent:  by the pilot)