Grammar Basics Part I

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Grammar BasicsPart I

• Union Catholic High School
• Humanities Department

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PARTS OF SPEECH

• Nouns
• Pronouns
• Verbs

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Nouns

• A noun is defined as a word that names a person,
  place, thing, or idea.
• Examples
• person boy, Tom
• place classroom, Scotch Plains
• thing book, Of Mice and Men
• idea friendship, justice

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Nouns can be categorized or labeled in several
ways

• common or proper
• concrete or abstract
• singular or plural
• collective
• compound

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Common Nouns vs. Proper Nouns

• A noun can be categorized or labeled as common or
  proper.
• A common noun does not name a particular person,
  place, or thing.
• Ex. movie
• A proper noun names a particular person, place,
  or thing
• Ex. Shrek II
• Note A proper noun is capitalized and may be
  more than one word
• Can you give examples of common and proper nouns?

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Concrete Nouns vs. Abstract Nouns

• A noun can be categorized or labeled as concrete
  or abstract
• A concrete noun can be seen and touched. A
  concrete noun is tangible.
• Ex. desk, pen, sweater
• An abstract noun can not be seen or touched in
  the way that a desk can be seen and touched. An
  abstract noun often names an idea.
• Ex. Perseverance, freedom

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Singular Nouns vs. Plural Nouns

• A noun can also be categorized as singular or
  plural.
• A singular noun names one person, place, or
  thing.
• Ex. girl, child
• A plural noun names more than one person, place,
  or thing.
• Ex. girls, children

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Collective Nouns

• A noun can be categorized or labeled as a
  collective noun. A collective noun names a group
  of persons or things.
• Ex. class, choir, pod

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Compound Noun

• A noun can be categorized or labeled as a
  compound noun. A compound noun is a single noun
  formed from two or more words.
• Ex. Afternoon, playground, income tax

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Tips For Finding Nouns

• Look for words that do the following

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Who? Or What?

• Look for a word that answers the question who or
  what, thus naming a person, place, thing or idea.
• Who called? John, the teacher
• What is that? A city, New York City

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-ment, -tion, -ity, -ness

• Look for a word that ends in ment, -tion, -ity,
  -ness.
• Ex. enjoyment
• satisfaction
• equality
• happiness

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Flag Words - A, An, The

• Words such as a, an, the are called articles.
  Use these words as flag words. If you see a
  flag word, a noun will follow.
• Ex. a cat, an egg, the song
• Note Sometimes a word that describes a noun
  (adjective) will be used after the article and
  before the noun. Be careful to choose the noun,
  the word that names, and not the word that
  describes the noun.
• Ex. a small dog a is the article (flag word),
  small is the adjective (descriptive word),
  dog is the noun

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Pronouns

• A pronoun is a word that is used in place of a
  noun.
• If the English language did not have pronouns, we
  would have to talk like this
• John asked Mary if Mary would like to go to the
  concert with John. Mary said Mary would have to
  check Marys calendar before saying yes or no to
  John.
• How would you re-write the above using pronouns?

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Pronouns

• John asked Mary if she would like to go to the
  concert with him. She said she would have to
  check her calendar before saying yes or no to him.

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Personal Pronouns vs. Indefinite Pronouns

• There are different kinds of pronouns, just like
  there are different kinds of nouns.
• For now, you need to know about two kinds of
  pronouns personal and indefinite

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Personal Pronoun

• A personal pronoun refers to a specific person,
  place, thing, or idea. The noun that the pronoun
  replaces is called the pronouns antecedent.
  (antebefore)
• Ex. John antecedent him pronoun
• Mary antecedent her pronoun

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Personal Pronoun cont.

• How do you know what personal pronoun to use? How
  do you know whether to say he or him?
• The pronoun you choose depends upon the way the
  pronoun is used in the sentence. The pronoun can
  be used as a subject, to indicate ownership, or
  as an object.

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Pronoun as a subject

• If the pronoun is used as a subject of the
  sentence or follows a linking verb (subject
  complement), use I, you, he, she, it, they

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Pronoun to indicate ownership

• If the pronoun is used to indicate ownership, use
  my, mine, your, yours, his, her, hers,
• its (no apostrophe), their, theirs, our, ours

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Pronoun as an object

• If the pronoun is used as an object (in other
  words, neither of the above situations) use me,
  you, him, her, it, us, them
• For now, just make sure that you can recognize
  pronouns. Well worry about the correct use of
  pronouns at a later date.

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Indefinite Pronouns

• An indefinite pronoun does not refer to a
  particular person, place, thing, or idea.
• The correct use of an indefinite pronoun is very
  important. However, for the moment, you need
  only to be aware of the following indefinite
  pronouns

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Indefinite Pronouns cont.

• Singular each, either, neither, -one, -body,
  -thing
• Plural several, few, both, many, others
• Singular or Plural most, all, any, none, some
  (MAANS)
• We will return to our discussion of indefinite
  pronouns when we work on subject verb
  agreement.

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Verbs

• There are two kinds of verbs action or linking
  (also called state of being verbs)

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Action Verbs

• An action verb tells what a person or thing is
  doing. The action may be physical or mental.
• Ex. Run, jump, talk, think, wish, remember

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Linking Verb

• If the verb does not express an action, then it
  is called a linking verb because it links the
  subject of the sentence (the part that tells who
  or what the sentence is about) to a word in the
  predicate (the last part of the sentence). This
  word could be a noun (or pronoun) or an adjective
  (a word that describes a noun or pronoun). A
  linking verb acts like an sign.
• Ex. The principal is Sister Percylee. The
  principal Sister Percylee (noun)
• The principal is nice. The
  principal nice (adj.)

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Linking Verb cont.

• The most common linking verbs are a form of to
  be. These to be verbs should be memorized am,
  are, is, was, were
• Ex. The child is happy.
• Other linking verbs are words that can be used in
  place of a to be verb and yet mean the same.
  For example, rather than say The child is happy
  you could say
• The child seems happy.
• The child remains happy.
• The child feels happy.
• The child looks happy.
• The child appears happy.

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Verbs

• Note A word can be used in different ways. In
  one sentence, a word may be an action verb and in
  another a linking verb.
• Ex. The boy tastes the donut. (action verb)
• The donut tastes good. (linking verb)
• __________________________________________________
  _____________
• Note A person feels bad. (adj)
• A person does not feel badly. (adv)
• This is the 1 error educated people make. Do
  not make this mistake yourself when using
  standard English

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Verbs Transitive vs. Intransitive

• An action verb may also be categorized as
  transitive or intransitive. When a verb is
  defined in the dictionary, the dictionary will
  indicate v.t. (verb transitive) or v.i. (verb
  intransitive)
• If the action verb is transitive, that means that
  there is a receiver of the action (called a
  direct object).
• Ex. Mary saw Tom.
• Mary subject (doer)
• saw action verb
• Tom direct object (receiver of the action)
• Note Both the subject and the direct object must
  be a noun or pronoun

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Verbs Transitive vs. Intransitive cont.

• If the action verb is intransitive, there is no
  receiver of the action (no direct object
  following the action verb).
• Ex. The man listened carefully.
• The dog ran up the street.

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Verbs

• The main verb (MV) must be action or linking.
  Both action and linking verbs sometimes are
  preceded by helping verbs (HV) (also called
  auxiliary verbs). There may be 1, 2, or even 3
  helping verbs preceding the main verbs.
• Ex. I can play.
• HV MV
• I should be playing.
• HV HV MV
• I should have been
  playing.
• HV HV HV MV

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Verbs cont.

• Note What often causes confusion is the fact
  that the to be verbs can be linking or helping.
  The good news is that am, are, is, was, were
  are always verbs (either linking or helping).
• Ex.1 Jean will be the president.
• will HV
• be MV (linking)
• Jean will be running for president.
• will HV
• be HV
• running MV (linking)

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Verbs cont.

• Ex. 2 I am a swimmer
• am LV
• I am swimming
• am HV
• swimming MV
• Note The helping verbs always come before the
  main verb. The main verb is always the last verb.

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Nouns, Pronouns Verbs

• Nouns, pronouns and verbs are the basic building
  blocks used to construct a sentence.
• This marks the end of the first Grammar Basics
  presentation. The second presentation will
  discuss sentences and sentence structure.