introduction to grammar

Introduction to grammar

A noun is a word used to identify any class of people, place or things. A noun is a naming word.

However…

Different types of nouns

• Common – concrete and abstract nouns
• Proper
• Collective

Common noun – preceded by the word ‘the’.

Proper noun – names for unique individuals e.g. London, Laura…

Concrete noun – something that has any of the 5 senses.

Abstract noun – a noun that names an idea or a concept, e.g. love, hate etc.

Collective noun – refers to a group of things or people e.g. swarm of bees, a crowd of people etc.

Noun phrase – made up of a noun and any words that modify that noun (determiners, prepositions).

Noun phrases

Whenever you modify a noun this becomes a noun phrase. Essentially, you have changed the meaning of the noun in the same way:

1. Plane crash!
2. A horrific plane crash!
3. The most horrific plane crash ever!

Nouns add lexical cohesion (glue.)

How do nouns make a difference to a piece of writing?

• Lexical cohesion
• Paint a picture/describe
• Create an emotional response

Adjectives

The weary painter took off his blue, green and white overalls and ate a day-old Chinese meal because he felt ravenous.

Adjectives modify nouns or pronouns.

Three functions:

• Attribute, predicative (describing words).
• Evaluate, emotive and descriptive.
• Superlative – to exaggerate, comparative – comparing between the two.

Jack – adjectives in a book.

• Black sheep (someone who has been shunned).
• Supremely successful billionaire (shows he is the best)
• Pleasurable solution – selfish man.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Verbs

 

                                          Main verbs (tell you the action taking place, sing and jump)

 

                                                                                                         Primary auxiliaries (do, have, be)

Base form: infinitives (to sing, to think)

       

                                         Auxiliary verbs (give extra info about main verb, can effect meaning)

 

Modal auxiliaries (can, could, will, would, might, must, may, shall, should)

 

Types of auxiliaries:

Deontic – (certainty) – must, will, can.

Epistemic – (not certain/more choice) – may, might.

An imperative is a command.

Verb phrases – is built around a head word, the main word.

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

Liverpool will beat man city.                       Strongest

Liverpool must beat man city.

Liverpool should beat man city.

Liverpool might beat man city.

 

 

Verbs can tell you when something happens:

Present tense	Base form + S inflection (sings)
Past tense	Base form + ed inflection (jumped) yet sing – sang
Future tense	Modal auxiliary – will or shall + base form – will sing

Active and passive voice

Active – Ahmed kicked the ball (focus is on Ahmed, the subject of the sentence).

Passive – the ball was kicked by Ahmed (focus of sentence changes). Makes the sentence seems more formal.

 

Clauses and voice

If you modify a verb, you create a verb, you create a verb phrase.

Adverb defines the verb (she ran quickly).

Two types of auxiliary –

1. Primary auxiliary: be, do, have, was, has etc. often help distinguish text.
2. Modal auxiliary:   may, could, might, will, can, should.

In the same way that words form phrases, phrases form larger structures called clauses. Groups of words centered around a verb phrase.

Clauses will include:

• Subject
• Verb
• Object

Coordinated clause

Two clauses are joined together by using a conjunction (and, but, furthermore etc.)

However …

Coordinated clauses must make sense on their own if you remove the conjunction.

For example:

I went to town and met my friends.

1. I went to town.
2. I met my friends.

Subordinate clause

There will be a main clause (a unit that can stand on its own and make complete sense) and by phrases that only make sense when linked to the main clause.

Although I went into town, I didn’t meet my friends.

Active voice

The actor/agency responsible for carrying out the verb is placed in the subject position (usually at the start)

Beastly fox seriously injures baby!

 

Passive voice

Use it because…

• We don’t know the subject
• We don’t want to talk about the subject
• Subject is not the focus of the story

Example:

Passive – taxes rise after riots.

Active – local council raises tax after riots.

 

Passive – 500 killed by storm.

Active – storm killed 500 people.