Mr Cliffiord Grammer

GRAMMER

 

 

NOUNS

 

A noun is a word to identify any class of people, place or things. Put simply, a noun is a naminh word.

 

COMMON NOUN - a noun that can be perceded by the word "the" and that represents one or all members of a class. (table, house, woman, town)

PROPER NOUN - names of unique individuals, events or places. (Mr Clifford, London, Islam)

CONCRETE NOUN - a noun that names something you can see, hear, smell, taste or touch.(chair, cake, computer)

ABSTRACT NOUN - a noun that names an idea or a concept.(courage, jealousy, love, hate)

COLLECTIVE NOUN - refers to a group of things or people. (a swarm of bees, a crowd of people, a flight of stairs, a dazzle of zebras)

NOUN PHRASE - made up of a noun and any words that modify that noun - determiners, adjectives, prepositions. (Goat = the goat, the hungry goat, the hungry goat in the field)

 

Noun Phrases

Whenever you modify (change) a noun this becomes a noun phrase. Essentially, you have changed the meaning of the noun in some way. We see this in news papers a great deal.

-Plane crash!

-A horrific plane crash!

-The most horrific plane crash ever!

 must, will, can = deontic modal verbs (certain)

may, might, could = epistemic modal verbs (more choice)

an imperative is a command (clean)

imperative + modal = you must clean your room.

verb phrase = built around the head word, the main verb.

 

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

Verbs can also tell you when something happens:

Present tense = base form + 's' inflection (sings)

Past tense = base form + 'ed' inflection (jumped, what happens to sing? sang)

Future tense = modal auxiliary (will, shall, might) + base form -will sing.

 

Verbs can be created through active and passive voice:

Active voice = Ahmed kicked the ball (focus is on Ahmed, the subject of the sentence)

Passive voice = The ball was kicked by Ahmed (focus of sentence changed, sounds more formal)

Clauses

A clause will include:   subject, verb object (SVO

MITCHELL (subject)   RAN UP (verb phrase)   THE HILL (object)

Coordinated clauses

This is when two clauses are joined by using a conjunction. However, coordinated clauses must make sense on their own if you removed the clause.

I went to town and met my friends.

- I went to town.

- I met my friends.

Subordinated clause

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

-I couldn't do the word, however many times I tried.

-As tired as I was, I still did the work.

SENTENCE TYPES

There are 4 types of sentences:

- Imperative (demand)

- Declaratives (statement of fact)

- Interrogative (question)

- Exclamatory (if it has an '!' on the end)