Grammar Tips

Grammar Tips - Structure and Written Expression !!
Nouns: a person, place, thing, or idea

Pronouns: A pronoun is a word that takes the place of a noun.
Examples: he, she, his, it, her.Verbs:/ A verb is an action word.
Example: kicked, thought, are, felt.

Modifiers: used to describe another word
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Adjectives: describe nouns

Adverbs: describe adjectives, verbs, and other adverbs (many adverbs end in -ly)

Subject: The subject of a sentence is either a noun or a pronoun. It tells you who or what is performing the action.

Articles: a, an and the are all articles.
Articles are used before nouns; “a” and “an” are used as non-specific modifiers and “the” is used as a specific modifier.

For example: “I put the book on a table.”
“the book” shows that it was a specific book;”on a table” shows that it was not a specific table. If I said, “I put a book on the table”, I mean that I put “a non-specific book or any book” on “the table” which means that it was a specific table, one that I could point to or a specific table that I was referring to.

“An” is used in the similar manner as “a” except that it is used before nouns and adjectives starting with a vowel, such as “an orange” or “an eye” or “an apple” or “an intense storm”. “An” is not used before the letter “Y”; you would use “a”, such as “a yellow towel” or “a young man” or “a yapping dog”.

“A” and “an” are used to modify single nouns or adjectives modifying single nouns. “The” can be used for both single and plural modifiers; for example, “I put the books on the table” or “I put the book on the table.”

Prepositions: into, from, without, etc.
Note: the most common type of phrase on the TOEFL is the prepositional phrase.
Examples: “I went into the house”; “She read from the cookbook”.

Conjunctions: Conjunctions link words or word groups in a sentence. Examples: and, or, but, etc.
”I bought oranges, apples, and bananas.”
”We could go to the beach or to the park.”
”He would have gone to the movies but he was sick.”

Sentences: Sentences must have both a subject and a conjugated verb. It expresses a complete thought.
For example, “He went to the store”.
“He” is the subject, “went” is the verb, and “to the store” is the adverb clause telling where he went.
“Go!” is a complete sentence because it has a verb, “go” and “you” is the implied subject. Command sentences such as this don’t often have a stated subject but it is understood that “you” is the subject.

Flexible Verbs: Some words may look like verbs but do not act like verbs.
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Participate: this form of verb often ends in -ing or -ed and acts as an adjective. For example, “The talking doll was very pretty.” or “That baked pie smells delicious.”
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Gerund: this form of verb ends in -ing and acts as a noun. For example, “Listening to him was very educational.”
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Infinitive: the basic form of a verb but is not the main verb and can act as a noun, an adverb, or an adjective. For example,
as a noun: “To speak in front of an audience is very frightening to many people.”
as an adverb: “I plan to arrive at nine o’clock.”
as an adjective: “The work to be done was for the seminar.”

Advanced Grammar
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Phrases: A phrase is a group of words that act as a part of speech. It does not express a complete thought like a sentence.
Adverb phrase, “I went to the store.”
Adjective phrase, “The girl with blond hair sits beside me.”
Noun phrase, “To go on the trip was exciting.”
Prepositional phrase, “The book was written by the author”
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Clauses: independent or dependant clauses
an independent clause can stand on its own. For example, “I was afraid”.
a dependant clause cannot stand on its own. For example, “to go to school.”

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