Grammatical munchkins - Grammar

The little red writing book - Brandon Royal 2007

Grammatical munchkins
Grammar

This section contains a repository of grammatical terms that serves as a glossary, replete with clarifying examples. The value of this material lies in its ability to provide a convenient summary of important terms as well as a jumping-off point — a means of engendering interest — for those readers wishing to pursue more in-depth study.

THE EIGHT PARTS OF SPEECH

There are eight parts of speech in English: nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, and interjections.

NOUN

A noun is a word that names a person, place, thing, or idea.

Example: Sally is a nice person and you can speak freely with her.

PRONOUN

A pronoun is a word used in place of a noun or another pronoun.

Example: Sally is a nice person and you can speak freely with her.

VERB

A verb is a word that expresses an action or a state of being.

Example: Sally is a nice person and you can speak freely with her.

ADJECTIVE

An adjective is a word used to modify or describe a noun or pronoun.

Example: Sally is a nice person and you can speak freely with her. The adjective “nice” modifies the noun “person.”

ADVERB

An adverb is a word that modifies an adjective, a verb, or another adverb.

Example: Sally is a nice person and you can speak freely with her. The word “freely” modifies the verb “speak.”

PREPOSITION

A preposition is a word that shows a relationship between two or more words.

Example: Sally is a nice person and you can speak freely with her.

Prepositions are sometimes informally referred to as words that describe “the directions a squirrel can go.” Squirrels, after all, seem to be able to run, climb, or crawl in nearly every possible direction.

Examples of prepositions include: after, against, at, before, between, by, concerning, despite, down, for, from, in, of, off, on, onto, out, over, through, to, under, until, up, with.

CONJUNCTION

A conjunction is a word that joins or connects words, phrases, clauses, or sentences. Three major types of conjunctions include coordinating conjunctions, subordinating conjunctions, and correlative conjunctions.

Example: Sally is a nice person and you can speak freely with her.

INTERJECTION

An interjection is a word or a term that denotes a strong or sudden feeling. Interjections are usually, but not always, followed by an exclamation mark.

Example: Sally is a nice person and you can speak freely with her. Wow!

PARTS OF SPEECH VS. THE SEVEN CHARACTERISTICS

Each of the eight parts of speech has one or more of the following characteristics: (1) gender, (2) number, (3) person, (4) case, (5) voice, (6) mood, and (7) tense. The matching of a particular part of speech with its relevant characteristics is the primary “cause” of grammar.

Note: Adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, and interjections do not have gender, number, person, case, voice, mood, or tense. Only nouns, pronouns, and verbs have one or more of the seven characteristics.

GENDER

Gender may be feminine or masculine. Only nouns and pronouns have gender.

Examples: Masculine — "boy" (noun), "him" (pronoun). Feminine — "girl" (noun), "her" (pronoun).

NUMBER

Number may be singular or plural. Only nouns, pronouns, and verbs have number.

Examples: Singular — "home" (noun), "I" (pronoun), "plays" (verb). Plural — "homes" (noun), "we" (pronoun), "play" (verb).

PERSON

Person may be first person, second person, or third person. A person doing the speaking is considered first person; the person spoken to is considered second person; a person spoken about is considered third person. Only pronouns and verbs have person.

Examples: First person — "I write" (pronoun + verb). Second person — "you write" (pronoun + verb). Third person — "he writes" (pronoun + verb).

Note: When verbs are matched with personal pronouns, verbs differ only in number with respect to third-person singular pronouns. In the third-person singular, verbs are formed with the letter “s.” For example: “He or she travels.” But: “I travel,” “you travel,” and “they travel.”

CASE

Case may be subjective, objective, or possessive. Only nouns and pronouns have case.

Examples: Subjective — "Felix has a cat." (“Felix” is a noun); "He has a cat." (“he” is a pronoun). Objective — "The cat scratched Felix." (“Felix” is a noun); "The cat scratched him." (“him” is a pronoun). Possessive — "Felix’s cat has amber eyes." (Felix’s is a noun); "His cat has amber eyes." (“his” is a pronoun).

Note: Although nouns have case, noun forms remain virtually unchanged in the subjective, objective, and possessive cases.

VOICE

Voice may be active or passive. Only verbs have voice.

Examples: Active voice — "You mailed a letter." Passive voice — "The letter was mailed by you."

Note: In the active voice, the doer of the action is placed at the front of the sentence; the receiver of the action is placed at the back of the sentence. In the passive voice, the receiver of the action is placed at the front of the sentence while the doer of the action is relegated to the back of the sentence.

MOOD

Mood can be described as being indicative, imperative, or subjunctive. Only verbs have mood.

Examples: Indicative mood (makes a statement or asks a question) — "It’s a nice day." Imperative mood (makes a request or gives a command) — "Please sit down." Subjunctive mood (expresses a wish or a contrary-to-fact situation) — "I wish I were in Hawaii."

TENSE

Tense refers to time. There are six tenses in English — present tense, past tense, future tense, present perfect tense, past perfect tense, and future perfect tense. Each of these six tenses occurs within two forms: the simple form and the progressive form.

Examples: Present tense in the simple form — "I study." Present tense in the progressive form — "I am studying."

OTHER GRAMMATICAL TERMS

ADJECTIVE CLAUSE

An adjective clause is a subordinate clause that, like an adjective, modifies a noun or pronoun.

Example: “The house that sits on top of the hill is painted in gold.” The adjective clause “that sits on top of the hill” describes the “house.”

ANTECEDENT

An antecedent is the word to which a pronoun refers. It is the word that the pronoun is effectively taking the place of.

Example: “The clock is broken; it is now being repaired.” The pronoun “it” is substituting for the antecedent “clock.”

APPOSITIVE PHRASE

An appositive phrase is used merely for description and is typically set off by commas.

Example: "The world’s oldest book, which was discovered in a tomb, is 2,500 years old."

ARTICLE

An article serves to identify certain nouns. English has three articles: a, an, the. The is known as a definite article; a and an are known as indefinite articles. Articles are often erroneously referred to as one of the eight parts of speech.

CLAUSE

A clause is a group of related words that does have a subject and a verb.

Example: “Many people believe in psychics even though they never hear of a psychic winning the lottery.” The previous sentence contains two clauses. The first clause — “many people believe in psychics” — is an independent clause, containing the subject “people” and the verb “believe.” The second clause — “even though they never hear of a psychic winning the lottery” — is a dependent clause, containing the subject “they” and the verb “winning.”

COLLECTIVE NOUN

Collective nouns are nouns which represent a group.

Examples: audience, band, bunch, class, committee, couple, crowd, family, group, herd, jury, majority, people, percent, personnel, team.

COMPLEMENT

A complement is something that completes a subject and verb. Not all sentences have complements.

Examples: "I am." — This three-letter sentence (incidentally the shortest in the English language) does not contain a complement. "I am fit." — This sentence does contain a complement; the complement is the word “fit.”

COORDINATING

Coordinating conjunctions join clauses of equal weight.

Examples: There are seven coordinating conjunctions in English — and, but, yet, or, nor, for, and so.

CORRELATIVE CONJUNCTION

Correlative conjunctions join clauses or phrases of equal weight. They also impose a sense of logic.

Examples: either … or, neither … nor, not only … but (also), and both … and. The word "also" appears in brackets because it is deemed optional.

DEMONSTRATIVE PRONOUN

Demonstrative pronouns serve to point out persons or things.

Example: There are four demonstrative pronouns in English: this, that, these, and those.

DEPENDENT CLAUSE

A dependent clause is a clause that cannot stand on its own as a complete sentence. Dependent clauses are sometimes called subordinate clauses.

Example: “Keep an umbrella with you because it’s forecast for rain.” The dependent clause is “because it’s forecast for rain.”

DIRECT OBJECT

A direct object (of a verb) receives the action of that verb or shows the result of that action.

Example: “The outfielder caught the ball.” The word “ball” is the direct object of the verb “caught.”

See also Indirect Object.

GERUND

Gerunds are verb forms that end in “ing” and function as nouns. Informally they may be referred to as “words that look like verbs but function as nouns.”

Examples: "Eating vegetables is good for you." "Learning languages is rewarding." "Seeing is believing." (“Eating,” “learning,” “seeing,” and “believing” are all gerunds.)

INDEFINITE PRONOUN

Indefinite pronouns are pronouns that do not refer to a specific antecedent.

A more complete list of indefinite pronouns includes: all, any, anybody, anyone, anything, both, each, either, every, everybody, everyone, everything, few, many, most, neither, nobody, none, no one, nothing, one, several, some, somebody, someone, and something.

INDEPENDENT CLAUSE

An independent clause is a clause that can stand on its own as a complete sentence. Independent clauses are sometimes called main clauses.

Example: “I’m going to back up my computer because it might crash.” The independent clause is “I’m going to back up my computer” while the subordinate clause is “because it might crash.”

INDIRECT OBJECT

An indirect object (of a verb) precedes the direct object and usually tells to whom or for whom the action of that verb is done.

Example: “The maître d’ gave us a complimentary bottle of wine.” The word “us” functions as the indirect object, even though it comes before the direct object. The words “bottle of wine” serve as the direct object.

See also Direct Object.

INFINITIVE

Infinitives are verb forms, in which the basic form of a verb is preceded by “to.” Infinitives generally function as nouns but may also function as adjectives or adverbs. Informally they may be referred to as word pairings in which the preposition “to” is placed in front of a verb.

Examples: "To see is to believe." (“To see” and “to believe” are both infinitives.)

INTERROGATIVE PRONOUN

Interrogative pronouns are used in questions.

Examples: who, which, what, whom, and whose.

INTRANSITIVE VERB

Intransitive verbs do not require an object to complete their meaning.

Example: "He waits." The verb “waits” does not require an object to complete its meaning.

See also Transitive Verb.

NONRESTRICTIVE CLAUSE

A nonrestrictive clause is a clause that is not essential to the meaning of a sentence. Nonrestrictive clauses are generally enclosed by commas.

Example: "The green book, which is on the top shelf, is the one you need for math class." “Which is on the top shelf” is a nonrestrictive clause.

Note: In choosing between “that” or “which,” it is common practice to use “that” with restrictive (essential) phrases and clauses and “which” with nonrestrictive (nonessential) phrases and clauses. For this reason, “that” is used with clauses that are not set off by commas and to use “which” is used with clauses that are set off by commas.

See also Restrictive Clauses.

OBJECT

An object (of a verb) is a word or words that receives the action of a verb. An object is a special kind of complement. Objects can be either direct objects or indirect objects.

See Direct Object and Indirect Object.

PARENTHETICAL EXPRESSION

Parenthetical expressions are expressions which are set off by commas and which seek to add some clarity to a sentence.

Example: “Yogurt, on the other hand, is a fine substitute for ice-cream.” “On the other hand” is a parenthetical expression and could be removed from the sentence without destroying sentence meaning.

Words commonly used as parenthetical expressions include: after all, by the way, for example, however, incidentally, indeed, in fact, in my opinion, naturally, nevertheless, of course, on the contrary, on the other hand, to tell you the truth.

PARTICIPLE

A participle is a verb form (ending in “ed” or “ing”) that can function as an adjective. A participle is a type of verbal. Refer to the definition of “verbal.”

Examples: “Cars parked near emergency exits will be towed.” (“Parked” is a participle; it’s an adjective describing “cars.” The actual verb in the sentence is “will be towed.”) “A sleeping dog never bit anyone.” (The participle “sleeping” describes “dog.” The actual verb in the sentence is “bit.”)

PARTICIPLE PHRASE

A participle phrase (also called a participial phrase) is a group of related words that contains a participle and, as a unit, typically functions as an adjective.

Examples: “Allowing plenty of time, Bill started studying twelve weeks before taking his College Board exams.” (“Allowing plenty of time” functions as a participle phrase in describing “Bill.”)

PERSONAL PRONOUN

A personal pronoun is a pronoun designating the person speaking, the person spoken to, or the person or thing spoken about.

The following is a complete list of personal pronouns: I, he, her, him, his, it, its, me, mine, my, our, ours, she, their, theirs, them, they, us, we, who, whom, whose, you, your, yours.

PHRASE

A phrase is a group of words which doesn’t contain both a subject and a verb.

Examples: “Learning to be happy is difficult for a variety of reasons.” The phrase “for a variety of reasons” does not contain a verb.

PREDICATE

A predicate is one of the two principal parts of a sentence. The predicate is “any word or words that talk about the subject”; the subject is “the word or words being talked about.” Technically, the word “predicate” is a broader term than the word “verb,” referring to both a verb and its possible complement. It is, however, much more common to refer to the verb and complement separately. In such cases, the verb can be referred to as the simple predicate; the predicate is referred to as the complete predicate.

Examples: “Water is the key to our survival.” In this sentence, the subject is “water” and the predicate is “is the key to our survival.” Breaking things down further, the predicate consists of the verb “is” and the complement “the key to our survival.”

REFLEXIVE PRONOUN

A reflexive pronoun refers back to a given noun or pronoun.

The following is a complete list of reflexive pronouns: herself, himself, itself, myself, ourselves, themselves, yourself.

RELATIVE CLAUSE

A relative clause is a group of related words that begins with a relative pronoun, and as a unit, functions as an adjective. A relative clause is commonly referred to as an adjective clause (and sometimes as a subordinate adjective clause).

Examples: “Jim Thompson, who mysteriously disappeared while going for an afternoon walk on Easter Sunday, is credited with having revitalized the silk trade in Thailand.” “Who mysteriously disappeared while going for an afternoon walk on Easter Sunday” is a relative clause which serves to modify “Jim Thompson.”

See also Adjective Clause and Subordinate Clause.

RELATIVE PRONOUN

A relative pronoun modifies a noun or pronoun (called its antecedent). A relative pronoun also begins a relative clause (also known as a subordinate adjective clause).

Examples: There are five relative pronouns in English: that, which, who, whom, and whose.

RESTRICTIVE CLAUSE

A restrictive clause is essential to the meaning of a sentence. Restrictive clauses are not enclosed by commas.

Example: “The book that is red is the one you need for English class.” “That is red” is a restrictive clause.

RUN-ON SENTENCE

A run-on sentence refers to two sentences that are inappropriately joined together, usually by a comma.

Example: “The weather is great, I’m going to the beach.” (A comma cannot join two complete sentences. See Editing II — Punctuation Highlights for further discussion on how to fix a run-on sentence).

SENTENCE

A sentence is a group of words that contains a subject and a verb, and can stand on its own as a complete thought.

Example: “The world is a stage.” The subject is “the world” while the verb is “is”; the complete thought involves comparing the world to a stage.

SENTENCE FRAGMENT

A sentence fragment is a group of words that cannot stand on their own to form a complete thought.

Example: “A fine day.” This statement is a fragment. It does not constitute a complete thought and cannot stand on its own. The fragment can be turned into a sentence by adding a subject (“today”) and a verb (“is”) — "Today is a fine day."

Sentence fragments are not acceptable for use in formal writing. In contrast, sentence fragments are commonly used in informal writing situations (e.g., e-mail and text messaging), and frequently seen in creative communications such as advertising, fiction writing, and poetry.

The following sentence fragments would be acceptable in informal written communication:

Will Michael Phelps’ feat of eight gold medals in a single Olympics ever be equaled? Never.

We need to bring education to the world. But how?

Dream on! No one beats Brazil at football when its star forwards show up to play.

SPLIT INFINITIVE

A split infinitive occurs when a word (usually an adverb) is placed between the two words that create an infinitive (i.e., between the word “to” and its accompanying verb). Splitting an infinitive is still considered a substandard practice in formal writing.

Example: The sentence, “To boldly go where no one has gone before,” contains a split infinitive. The sentence should be rewritten, “To go boldly where no one has gone before.”

SUBORDINATE CLAUSE

A subordinate clause is a clause that cannot stand on its own as a complete sentence. It must instead be combined with at least one independent clause to form a complete sentence. Subordinate clauses are sometimes called dependent clauses.

Example: “We should support the winning candidate whomever that may be.” The subordinate clause is “whomever that may be.” The independent clause is, “We should support the winning candidate.”

SUBORDINATING CONJUNCTION

A subordinating conjunction is a conjunction that begins an adverb clause, and serves to join that clause to the rest of the sentence.

Examples: after, although, as, as if, as long as, as though, because, before, if, in order that, provided that, since, so that, than, though, unless, until, when, whenever, where, wherever, whether, while.

Note that many of the words in the above list, when used in different contexts, may also function as other parts of speech.

TRANSITIVE VERB

Transitive verbs require an object to complete its meaning.

Example: “She posted a parcel.” The verb “posted” requires an object, in this case “parcel,” to complete its meaning.

See also Intransitive Verb.

VERBAL

A verbal is a verb form that functions as a noun, adjective, or adverb. There are three types of verbals: gerunds, infinitives, and participles. Gerunds, infinitives, and participles can form phrases, in which case they are referred to as gerund phrases, infinitive phrases, and participle phrases.

Chapter 3

Grammar and logic free language

from being at the mercy of the tone of voice.


—R. Buckminster Fuller