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A. All English words are one (or more) of the eight Parts of Speech:
noun
pronoun
adjective
verb
adverb
preposition
conjunction
interjection
1. A common noun is the name of any one class of persons, places, or things:
E.g., Abraham Lincoln; Lancaster, Ohio; The United States Court of Appeals for the
Sixth Circuit.
3. Nouns are described in case and number. English now has three cases:
subjective, objective, and possessive, and two numbers: singular and plural. The
subjective and objective cases are generally used for the grammatical subject of a
sentence and the grammatical object(s) in a sentence, respectively. Differences in the
form of words to indicate the subjective and the objective case are now found usually
only in pronouns. (I = subjective; me = objective) The possessive case is signified by
the addition of 's to a noun.
C. A pronoun is a word used in place of a noun to avoid repetition (and to preserve
sanity). English has roughly 7 kinds of pronouns:
D. The antecedent of a pronoun is the word or words for which the pronoun stands. A
pronoun must agree with its antecedent in person (1st, 2d, 3d), number (singular or
plural), and gender.
You should present this offer to your client and then call me with her decision. I hope
that she will accept it.
E. An adjective is a word that is added to a noun or pronoun. There are two main kinds
of adjectives, descriptive and limiting.
1. A descriptive adjective expresses either the kind, condition, or quality of the noun or
pronoun.
2. A limiting adjective limits the idea expressed by the noun in quantity or membership
in a class.
3. Note that many of the forms that we usually think of as pronouns are in many
instances limiting adjectives:
Relative -- We agreed until it came to putting him on the stand, at which point we no
longer saw it the same way.
F. A verb is the part of speech that asserts something about a noun, asks a question,
or expresses a command. Verbs are traditionally described in five categories: person,
number, tense, voice, and mood. For example, "I slept" is the first person, singular,
past, active, indicative. There are roughly four classes of verbs in English: transitive,
intransitive, linking, and auxiliary.
5. The most common linking verb or copula is the verb "to be." It simply joins the
subject to the predicate noun or adjective and has no predicative force of its own (apart
from the assertion of existence).
6. Verbs such as "feel," "smell," "taste," etc., are also linking verbs, but with a little
more independent predicative force. They are followed by an adjective not an adverb.
I feel bad.
[not badly--unless you mean to say that your sensory apparatus does not work well]
7. Auxiliary verbs are signifiers of tense or mood that help other verbs to make some
of their forms.
1. Adverbs that modify verbs are usually adverbs of time (then, now, often), manner
(gently, frequently), or place (here, there, everywhere).
2. Adverbs that modify adjectives or other adverbs are often adverbs of degree (very,
exceedingly, greatly).
H. A preposition is a word specifically paired with (lit. "placed before") a noun or a
pronoun in order to create phrases that have quasi-adverbial force. These are known as
prepositional phrases.
1. A coordinating conjunction (and, or, but, etc.) connects words, phrases, or clauses
of equal rank .
After the trial date was set, they made an offer of settlement.
K. A phrase is a group of related words that does not express a complete thought. A
phrase contains neither an expressed grammatical subject nor a finite predicate--but a
participial phrase will usually have a grammatical object.
[for = preposition; days = object of the preposition; seven = adjective modifying "days."]
3. A participial phrase itself contains no expressed subject, but must modify (as an
adjective) some other noun in the sentence, often the expressed subject of the
sentence. The participial phrase may well have an expressed object with other
attendant information.
Rejecting a more traditional view of federalism, the Court seemingly expanded the
several states' immunity to suit beyond the bounds that most commentators had
expected.
2. The predicate of a sentence is that which is said or asserted of the subject. The
simple predicate is the verb forms themselves; the complete predicate includes any
attendant modifiers.
3. The subject of the sentence usually comes first in English, but the predicate can
precede the subject:
N. A clause is a division of a sentence that has both a subject and a predicate.
Clauses are classified by their similarity of function to a part of speech, by their force
or purpose of expression, and by their rank relative to one another.
a. adjectival clauses
b. adverbial clauses
c. noun clauses
d. Two special sub-species of noun clauses occur with verbs of mental activity:
I watched the jury closely, but I could not discern its verdict.
P. A complex sentence is one that contains a single independent clause and one or
more dependent clauses.
Although I watched the jury closely, I could not discern its verdict.
After our expert had testified, I still didn't know what their expert would say, but I no
longer thought that it mattered.
R. Tense is the change in the form of a verb to show the time of the verb's action. The
three main divisions of time that a verb can indicate in English are present, past, and
future. Within each division there are further gradations of tense.
1. Present tense
2. Past tense
c. the past progressive or imperfect -- I was walking [action continuing in the past]
d. the past perfect or pluperfect -- I had walked [action in the past completed prior to
another past event]
3. Future tense
a. the simple future -- I will (or shall) walk [action in the future]
b. future perfect I will have walked [action in the future that will be completed prior to
another future event]
S. A verb's mood is a change in its form or in its use that indicates the manner in which
the force of the verb is intended. English has three moods: the indicative, the
subjunctive, and the imperative.
2. The subjunctive mood is used to express a mental action that is not asserted as a
fact or a mental attitude of the speaker to the audience. In practice this means that the
subjunctive is used chiefly in three ways:
T. Voice is a change in the form of a transitive verb that shows whether its subject is
the agent (or "doer") of its force or meaning or whether its subject is the object (or
receiver) of its force or meaning. English only has two voices: active and passive.
1. In the active voice the subject of the verb is the agent or doer.
2. In the passive voice the grammatical subject of the verb is its logical object. It may
help to remember that passive originally meant "experiencing" or "suffering." The
subject of a verb in the passive voice experiences or suffers the action denoted by the
verb.
U. Verb forms that are not finite, i.e., which do not by themselves constitute a definite
predicate are called verbals. English has three verbals: infinitives, participles, and
gerunds. Note that verbals may still be inflected for tense and voice.
2. The infinitive sign or marker, "to," is often omitted after auxiliaries and the verbs help,
make, let, see, and hear.
5. The gerund is a verbal noun that looks very much like a participle but is used very
much like an infinitive.