ENGLISH GRAMMAR : Introduction

INTRODUCTION

PARTS OF SPEECH

¨         Nouns: A Noun is a name; as in pencil, London, Robert, beauty.

¨         Verbs: A verb is a word which tells us something about a person or thing. It is a ‘telling word’ or a ‘saying word’. It tells us what a person or thing does. It also tells us what a person or thing is or suffers (i.e. has done to it).

¨         Adjectives: An Adjective is a word which adds to the meaning of a Noun, that is, it tells something more about the Noun; as in black cat.

¨         Adverbs: An Adverb is a word which adds something to the meaning of a Verb, an Adjective or another Adverb.

Examples:	He speaks loudly.
	She is very good.
	He talks too loudly.

Examples:

The book is on the table.

Examples:	Two and two makes four.
	He is bad but you are good.

¨         Indirect Speech: We use Indirect Speech to repeat what another person says.

¨         The Articles: We use the Indefinite Article (‘a’ or ‘an’) before a singular countable noun and the Definite Article (‘the’) for something which is mentioned for the first time.

¨         Pronouns: A Pronoun is a word used for or instead of a Noun; it shows the person or thing without actually giving the name of the person or thing; as in he, she, it, and this.

¨         Prepositions: A Preposition is a word which joins Nouns and Pronouns to other words.

Examples:

The book is on the table.

¨         Conjunctions: A conjunction is a word used to join words or groups of words together; as

Examples:	Two and two makes four.
	He is bad but you are good.

¨         Possession: Possession or ownership makes use of Possessive Nouns (e.g. adding the apostrophe ‘ or ’ s), Possessive Adjectives (e.g. ‘my’) and Possessive Pronouns (e.g. ‘mine’) to show that something belongs to someone or something.