Home Linguistics: Basic Grammatical Terminology Review Educ 4683 Dr. David Piper  Dr. David Piper & Krista Yetman

Home Select for Review Select for Review Definitions of terms Word classes Nouns, pronouns & determiners Adjectives, verbs & adverbs Prepositions, conjunctions & exclamations Subject, predicate & object Transitivity Other rules & definitions

Home Definitions of Terms: Spoken English may be thought of in terms of 4 levels

Home Word Classes Examples

Home Nouns, determiners & pronouns Click button of choice: Nouns Determiners Pronouns Skip to Adjectives

Home Nouns (in English) singularpluralNouns can be singular or plural (‘s’) i.e: ant + s = ants, city + s = cities, glass + s = glasses, mouse + s = mice, life + s = lives, deer + s = deer masculine f eminineneuterNouns are either masculine (man, bull, boxer), f eminine (woman, mare, actress), or neuter (table, flower, book) possessiveNouns can be possessive i.e.: boy’s, boys’, Charles’s commonproperNouns are common (book, fly, tree) or proper (Erica, Acadia University, Nigerian, French) Return to Noun menu

Home Determiners: 5 Types Return to Noun menu

Home 8 types of Pronouns: Select below Personal Possessive Reflexive Demonstrative Interrogative Relative Distributive Indefinite Skip pronouns Return to Noun menu

Home Personal pronouns: these reflect number and case, and are divided into first, second & third person Pronoun Menu

Home Possessive pronouns: mine (singular) yours (singular) his (singular, masculine) hers (singular, feminine) its (singular, neuter) ours (plural) yours (plural) theirs (plural) Pronoun Menu

Home Reflexive pronouns Pronoun Menu

Home Demonstrative pronouns: used to indicate closeness or remoteness from speaker SPEAKER This is a book. That is a book. Those are books. These are books. Pronoun Menu

Home Interrogative pronouns: Questions words Who Whom Whose Which What Pronoun Menu

Home Relative pronouns: these introduce clauses that that which which who who whom whom whose whose I’ve just sat on the hat I bought. I’ve just sat on the hat that I bought. The letter he sent has not arrived. The letter which he sent has not arrived. John was the man ate the pie. John was the man who ate the pie. The people on we rely are kind. The people on whom we rely are kind. The boy father died has runaway. The boy whose father died has runaway. Pronoun Menu

Home Distributive pronouns (often these pronouns are followed by ‘of you’ or ‘of them’) Pronoun MenuAll Both Each Either Neither Some

Home Indefinite pronouns Pronoun Menu any - I don’t want any jelly beans. some. - Take some. so - I don’t think so. anyone - Has anyone eaten the beans? Someone - Someone was eating them. Such - Such is way of the world!

Home Adjectives, verbs & adverbs: Select below The brown dog runs quickly. Adjectives Adjectives Verbs Verbs Adverbs Adverbs Skip to prepositions

Home Adjectives: Words that describe nouns Return to adj., verb & adv. menu

Home Verbs! Verbs! Verbs! (select from menu below) Verbs! Verbs! Verbs! (select from menu below) Past tense Present tense General Info Future tense Auxiliary verbs Return to adj., verb & adv. menu

Home Adverbs Return to adj., verb & adv. menu These words can modify verbs: She sang loudly. Sentences: Certainly, we shall win. Adjectives: She was exceptionally pretty. And other adverbs: She sang very loudly. These words can also be: comparative (earlier) i.e.: She arrived earlier than Joe. superlative (most often) about time (soon) about place (near) about reason (since) about manner (well) about condition (if) question words (when)

Home Verb: General Info. Verb: General Info. There are regular & irregular verbs. Regular verbs can take the endings: ‘s’, ‘ing’ and ‘ed’. Irregular verbs can take the ‘ing’ endings. Return to adj., verb & adv. menu

Home Verbs: Present (non-past) tense Main Usage To express truths, proverbial wisdom, realities i.e.: Wax makes crayons. Occurs in spontaneous commentaries i.e.: sport commentaries Chosen for formulaic utterances i.e.: I declare... To describe habitual occurrences i.e.: He advises... Return to adj., verb & adv. menu

Home Verbs: Past tense Past tense is formed by adding ‘ed’ or ‘d’ to the base form. Past tense does not change according to person or number. Refers to actions, states or events which took place before. Is used in dependent clauses to refer to possibility. Is used in indirect speech i.e.: He said that he sang. Return to adj., verb & adv. menu

Home Verbs: Future ‘tense’ There really is no future tense in English but reference to the future may be made in the following or many other ways: a) will/shall + base form of verb I shall go to London next week. b) going to + base form of verb I’m going to drive to Halifax tomorrow. Return to adj., verb & adv. menu

Home Auxiliary verbs: These are also known as ‘helping verbs’ Return to adj., verb & adv. menu These are verbs which help make information more precise... Gives specific info about the (head)verb: I am painting. Painting is the headverb, while am is the auxiliary verb. Auxiliary verbs are also used in questions: Do you like art? (do is auxiliary, like is headverb) In negatives: Don’t eat it! (don’t is auxiliary, eat is headverb) For emphasis: You will paint.

Home Prepositions, conjunctions & exclamations: Select below Prepositions Conjunctions Exclamations Skip to subject & predicate

Home Prepositions: There is a reason the word ‘position’ is in preposition… A preposition is a word that describes the relationship between things (other words). The man is beside the boy. The radio is on the table. The girl is in front of the woman. The boy’s feet are in his shoes under the table. Return to Preposition menu

Home Conjunctions: Joining words Return to Preposition menu

Home Exclamations! Return to Preposition menu These are often referred to as ‘involuntary interjections’: Wow! Hey! Ouch! Oh! Occasionally words & phrases are exclamations: You fool! That silly dog! What a mess! How you’ve grown!

Home Subject, predicate & object Subject Predicate Object Skip to Transivity

Home Subject Return to Subj., Pred. & Obj. Menu

Home Predicate: The verbal unit of a sentence Return to Subj., Pred. & Obj. Menu

Home Object: A noun-like unit which usually comes last in the predicate, following the main (transitive) verb. Return to Subj., Pred. & Obj. Menu Predicate

Home Transitivity Nominals Intransitive verbs Transitive verbs Active voice Passive voice Skip to additional info

Home Nominals Return to Transivity The term nominal is used to comprehend nouns, pronouns, proper names & noun phrases. Verbs may be classified by the number of nominals they require. For example: ‘arrive’ requires only one nominal, so is called a ‘one-place verb’. The elephant arrived. Subject (nominal) One-place verb: only needs one nominal

Home Intransitive verbs Return to Transivity One-place verbs are intransitive because they do not take an object (they only need one nominal). For example: John died. (This is all you need to explain what happened to John). John died. Subject (nominal) Intransitive verb

Home Transitive Verbs Return to Transivity Two-place and three-place verbs are transitive because they take a subject and an object (they require at least two nominals). For example: The verb ‘hit’ requires two nominals (we need to know what is hit), therefore is a transitive verb. The blue car hit the yellow car. Subject Object Transitive verb

Home Active voice: We say that a sentence is active when the subject is the agent of the action. Return to Transivity Amy baked the pie. (active) The pie was baked by Amy (passive) Notice that the object of the active sentence (the pie) becomes the subject of the passive sentence. *An active sentence must have at least two nominals.

Home Passive voice: We say that a sentence is passive when the subject receives the action. Return to Transivity The violin was played by Rupert. (passive) In the passive sentence, the violin is the subject which receives the action. Rupert played the violin. (active) *A passive sentence may only have one nominal i.e.: The violin was played.

Home Additional Information: Meanwhile, if you have any remaining questions about basic grammatical terms, please note them down and bring them to class for discussion. Hope all this was useful…Try to enjoy the course! The information in this PowerPoint has been very basic. It has been designed to provide you with basic definitions only. Many of these definitions will be covered in more detail, and elaborated, within the course itself. END