ARHS Grammar Notes

ARHS Grammar Notes

 

The Eight Parts of Speech

NOUN

1) a “thing”, in its concrete or abstract sense
2) person, place, thing / idea, quality, emotion
3) always a “subject” or “object”
4) forms plurals (usually with -s or -es)
5) often preceded by adjectives (incl. “the” and “a”)

PRONOUN
– a word which takes the place of a noun. Its antecedent is a noun.
EX.:

The door broke. It should be fixed. (“door” is the antecedent of “it”)Types of pronouns:
Personal: I/me, you, she/her, he/him, it, we/us, they/them (subj./obj)
Demonstrative: this/that , these/those
Relative: who which that (act as conjunctions)
Intensive: I myself make mistakes occasionally
Reflexive: He told himself to slow down
Indefinite: either/any/anyone/someone/everybody/both/each/one etc,
Interrogative: who/whom, whose which (when asking a question)

VERB

1)shows action (except the verb “to be”)
2) always forms a tense (past-present-future)
3) always has a “subject”

ADJECTIVE
– modifies (i.e. describes or limits) a noun.
Ex. The big cat is dangerous.

ADVERB

a) modifies a verb by showing the manner time or place of the verb’s action. Asking how-when-where? of the verb will lead you to adverbs.
Ex. Yesterday, the birds sang sweetly here.b) also, modifies another adverb or an adjective. Such adverbs are sometimes called intensifiers.
Ex. That very black cat screamed rather loudly last night.

PREPOSITION
– a word which shows a relation between a) the noun (or pron.) which always follows it and b) some other noun or verb in the sentence.

Ex. The man in the street shouted at the sailor. The combination of the preposition followed by a noun is called a “prepositional phrase”. Prepositional phrases always act like oversized adjectives or adverbs.
Ex. a) in the street – prep. adj. phrase (modifies “man”)
b) at the sailor – prep. adv. phrase (modifies “shouted”)

Some common prepositions:
in/after/through/with/over/under/by/of/at/for/into

CONJUNCTION– there are two types:

1)COORDINATE – and / but / or / for

It always joins 2 parts of speech or 2 phrases or 2 clauses of the same type (co = equal)
Ex. The girl and her cat stared and sighed through the evening and into the night, but they seemed quite happy nonetheless.

2) SUBORDINATE – only joins clauses, making one sentence out of two. The subordinate conj. (unlike the coord. conj.) makes the clause that it starts subordinate to the one it attaches to.
Some common sub. conjunctions: because/when/ where/before/that/until/unless/except/than/as/if/although

Ex. The dog barked. It was hungry. (2 sentences)
The dog barked because it was hungry. (2 clauses,1 sentence) The clause beginning with “because” is subordinate to the opening clause; it needs the opening clause to make sense. The subordinate conjunction is additional meaning andalways forms the first word in a subordinate clause.

INTERJECTION
-a word which is interjected (i.e. “thrown in”) to a sentence without any connection to the rest of the words. It is often for emphasis and so may be accompanied by an exclamation mark.
Example: Hey! are you listening?

Shucks, it warn’t nothin’.Well, I’ll think of something.

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Clauses

CLAUSE
– a group of words centered around a subject (noun or pronoun)+ Verb. A single such group of words makes a “simple” sentence. Two (or more)clauses will require one (or more) conjunction to make a complete sentence. Clauses joined by coordinate conjunctions add information, but do not make a relationship between the two clauses.

Example: The dog barked and it shivered in the cold. (NO rel.)
The dog barked because it shivered in the cold. (reason)
The dog barked as it shivered in the cold. (time)
The dog barked furiously although it shivered in the cold.(condition)

A principal clause is one that makes sense on its own.
A subordinate clause needs another clause to make sense.(and so is sometimes called a dependentclause)

A subordinate clause always relates to another clause in one of three ways: by acting as an adjective or an adverb or a noun.

Subordinate adjective clause:
The man who followed me looked dangerous.(modifies the noun “man”)Subordinate adverb clause
The man followed me while I returned from a movie.(modifies the verb “followed”)Subordinate noun clause:
a) I gave you what you wanted. (the “thing” given – the object of “gave”)
b) Whoever interrupts me will get a detention. (subj. of “will get’)

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SUBJECTS AND OBJECTS

Any noun or pronoun always functions as a “subject” or “object” when used in a sentence. There are 5 variations. Subjects do things. Objects do not.

1) Subject of the verb – the n. or pron. which every verb must have to perform its action. EX. The dog barked but the girl smiled.2) Subjective completion. – a n. or p. which follows any form of the verb “to be”(was/will be/am/is/were etc.). Since the verb has no action, it makes the n. which follows it the same thing as the subject before it. Ex. Our principal is Mr. Blum.3)(direct) Object of the verb – a n. or p. which receives the action of the verb.
(Note: every sentence must have a subject but need not have an object)
Ex. The dog bit the teacher on the leg.

4) Object of the preposition – any n. or p. following a preposition is always in the objective case ( i.e. is an “object”)
Ex. a) The dog bit the teacher on the leg.
b)Beside Bill and me roared a huge lion. (Objects of the prep. “Beside”)

5) Indirect object of the verb – any n. or p. which is sandwiched between the verb and the object of the verb.
Ex. I gave John the message. ( It always has the effect of being a prepositional phrase; e.g. I gave the message to John. The noun “message” is the direct object of the verb.)