P R O N O U N S August 31, 2007

Despite philosopher Hobbes the Tiger’s comment to best friend Calvin, a pronoun is not a noun that’s lost its amateur status. A pronoun is a specialized kind of word that’s used in place of a noun. Even the prefix “pro-” means “for” in Latin, so you use it “for” a noun.

There are several different kinds of pronouns. We’ll examine two or three in detail, and save the rest for an advanced discussion.

 

SUBJECTIVE PERSONAL PRONOUNS

Definition: Subjective: These are pronouns that can be the subject of a verb. That is to say that whatever the verb is, this kind of pronoun “does” that verb. They ran. He is intelligent, I study, and so forth.

Definition: Personal: Personal pronouns are pronouns that can replace names of things or people.

• I, you, he, she, it, we, they

Test: Put it in front of a verb, and if it makes sense, it’s subjective. If it’s one of the above, it’s one of the subjective personal pronouns.

 

OBJECTIVE PERSONAL PRONOUNS

Definition: Objective: These are pronouns that can be the object of a verb. That is to say that whatever the verb is, this kind of pronoun “gets done to” by that verb. They ruined it. John hates everything, look at her, and so forth.

• me, you, him, her, it, us, them

Test: Put it after a verb or a preposition. If it makes sense, it’s objective. If it’s one of the above, it’s an objective personal pronoun.

 

MASS NOUN OR NONCOUNTABLE NOUN

Definition: A noun that is neither singular nor plural, but only comes in a large group, pile or pool.

• person – congress, parliament, Air Force,
• place – tundra, tropics,
• thing – china, water, milk, grass, hair
• idea – liberty, charity, faith, envy, gluttony

Test: You can put “the” in front of it, but you can’t make it plural.

 

RELATED VOCABULARY

• Singular: When there’s only one of the given noun, the noun is said to be singular
• Plural: When there’s two or more of the noun, the noun is said to be plural. The plural is usually – but not always – made with -s. (one car, six cars)

C L A U S E S July 18, 2007

Want to hear my favorite recent joke?    Q: What do you call Santa’s Helpers?
A: Subordinate Clauses

Hm. Well, funny or not, a clause is something easy to define in English:

Definition:  A clause is a series of words that group together naturally that contains a subject and a verb.

That’s it. No muss, no fuss. Doesn’t have to be a complete sentence. A complete thought, maybe, but not a complete sentence.

Examples:

• I am hungry.
• he came to the window.
• Dave drove here in his convertible.

Now these clauses also happen to be complete thoughts and complete sentences. These are called independent clauses.

Independent clauses are clauses that can also be complete sentences. Most of the clauses that we’ll be talking about in the next two or three entries will be independent clauses.

Now consider the following:

• that I am a teacher (subject and verb: I am)
• f they go to the store (SV: they go)
• since you went away (SV: you went)
• who I am (SV: I am)

Test:  Does it have a verb (something that can be done) and a subject (something that performed the verb)?  You’re done.  It’s a clause.
These are all clauses. Notice they all have subjects and verbs, as pointed out in the parentheses), but none of them are complete sentences.

There are several different types of dependent clauses. A dependent clause is a clause that is not an independent clause — or to put it another way, a dependent clause has to be hooked onto another sentence to make complete sense. It depends on that sentence. See?

We’ll talk about some of these in future posts also.

But that’s all a clause is. A subject, a verb, and maybe some other stuff. It’s the other stuff that makes it independent or dependent.

J O B S F O R W O R D S July 16, 2007

Let’s take a quick look now at parts of sentences.  Let me make a comparison:  we as people “are” things (American, hispanic, tall, blonde), and we can also “do” things (construction worker, doctor, teacher, lawyer, cowboy)

In the very same way, words can “be” things, and “do” things.  Put simply, nouns have certain functions in a sentence.  They can be subjects, direct objects, and so forth.

• The teacher instructs the students

Teacher, a noun if there ever was one, is the subject of this sentence.  That is, the teacher’s doing the work, whatever the work is (instructing, in this case).  Students, another noun, are being worked on.  They are being “done unto,” so to speak.  That makes them the direct object.

Other jobs that words can perform in sentences are verb, indirect object, prepositional phrase, infinitive, and the list goes on.  We’ll make sure we cover each and every one as we go.

V E R B S July 2, 2007

MAIN VERB

Definition:  A word that indicates action or something one can do.  If I can DO it, it’s probably a verb. 

Examples:  do, play, fly, see, sit, think, love, die, lift, stop, write, taste, be, smell, repair, indicate, conscript, bellow, blast, induce, disaffect, caramelize     

• She runs after the guy who stole her purse.
• Harry hates fish.
• My sons play bass and drums in a band.
• That family donates money to the church every year.
• Joel boils water for his coffee in the mornings.

Test:  If you can say, “They ________,” as in “they fly,” “they play,” “they die,” “they watch,” “they disaffect,” they induce,” or “they feel,” it’s probably a verb. 

LINKING VERB 

Definition: These are forms of BE (when used by itself) or certain sense verbs that connect nouns to create a definition or description or connect nouns with adjectives to create description. 

Examples of the sense verbs are seem, feel, taste, sound, smell, look.

• She is a teacher.
• Those cars are new.
• They were hard workers.
• She seems nice.
• That car smells new.
• Hospital food tastes bad.
• He looks old to me.
• You sound funny.

Test: Is it a verb that connects a noun with another noun?  Or a noun with an adjective?  Is it a form of BE or a sense verb?  It’s probably a linking verb.

&nbsb;

AUXILIARY OR HELPING VERB

Definition:  Forms of BE and HAVE that combine with main verbs to change the the tense and meaning of the verb.

Examples:  (helping verb) + main verb

• She (is) running after the guy who stole her purse.
• They (have) traveled to Florida every year since 1975.
• Harry (has) hated fish since 1956.
• My sons (are) playing bass and drums in a battle of the bands tonight.
• That family (is) donating money to the church this year.
• They (have) boiled water for their coffee in the mornings.

 Test: Combine a form of BE with the “–ing” form of the main verb and the form of HAVE with the “-ed” form of the main verb.

N O U N S June 27, 2007

There’s more than one kind of noun sitting out there. Let’s have a look at some.

 

COMMON NOUN

Definition: This is the word we use to refer to something. It is often something we can point to or talk about, and say, “That’s (a) _____.”

• person – president, mother, god, teacher, genius, boyfriend, janitor, friend, villian
• place – school, city, continent, building, street, mountain, ocean, park, igloo
• thing – chair, phone, tree, house, bicycle, milk, refrigerator, pliers, blackboard
• idea – laughter, freedom, envy, sight, insanity, altruism, ruthlessness, goofiness

Test: You can test to see whether a word is a noun by placing either an article (the, a, an) or similar word (some) in front of it and see if it makes sense (some water, the pencil, a business).

 

PROPER NOUN (ALSO PROPER NAME)

Definition: This is a specific name we assign to one person, one place, or one thing or group of things.

• person – President , Mr. Worthen, Tom, Marie, Dr. Stevens, Congressman Withers, Zeus, Nelly, Justin Hayward, Paris Hilton
• place – United States, Jefferson City, Hawaii, Earth, Kennedy Space Center, Smithsonian Institution, Wal-Mart, Zip Stop, McDonald’s
• thing – Voyager I, the USS Arizona, Cadillac DeVille, Kitchenaid Artisan, North Atlantic Treaty
• idea – European Union, Holy Roman Empire

Test: Is it the name of someone or something? It’s a proper noun and therefore capitalized.

 

MASS NOUN OR NONCOUNTABLE NOUN

Definition: A noun that is neither singular nor plural, but only comes in a large group, pile or pool.

• person – congress, parliament, Air Force,
• place – tundra, tropics,
• thing – china, water, milk, grass, hair
• idea – liberty, charity, faith, envy, gluttony

Test: You can put “the” in front of it, but you can’t make it plural.

 

RELATED VOCABULARY

• Singular: When there’s only one of the given noun, the noun is said to be singular
• Plural: When there’s two or more of the noun, the noun is said to be plural. The plural is usually – but not always – made with -s. (one car, six cars)

Parts of Speech – a Fast Overview June 25, 2007

In order to improve your writing, it is important to know and be able to identify how words go together and what functions they serve. It’s likely that no one is ever going to ask you, “Quick, what’s a noun,” but they may talk about a paper you’ve written and say something like, “The adjective you’ve used here doesn’t work with the noun it modifies,” and then, of course, you’ll need to know what they’re talking about. Some examples below might help you to understand what we’re talking about when we use those words.

Noun – A noun is a person, place, thing or idea.

• That desk is blue.
• The cars on the freeway usually travel fast.
• New York City is a beautiful place.
• Sensitivity is important these days.
• The president doesn’t usually declare wars.

Pronoun – Used in place of a noun (Latin “pro-” means “for”)

• I am the teacher of this class.
• This concert is dedicated to you, my fans.
• I know I left my book somewhere.
• They don’t want this.

Adjective – Adjectives are words that describe nouns. Descriptive words can also be said to “modify” because they add to or change the meaning of whatever is described.

• That’s a blue car.
• She’s a beautiful girl.
• He’s a mean teacher.
• My book is different than yours.

Verb – Usually said to be an “action” word, a verb is something that you can do or can be done.

• I sat on the floor and waited.
• He’s going to wash his car this weekend.
• The students listened closely to the recording.

Adverb - Adverbs are words that describe (or modify) verbs, adjectives or other adverbs.

• He says such incredibly stupid things.
• I fell down a sharply sloping hill.
• He was hard to understand because he spoke rapidly.

Prepositions – Prepositions are words that show relationships between objects. Usually the main noun in a sentence has some relationship to the noun to the right of the preposition. Abraham Lincoln was born in Illinois. Abraham Lincoln –> Illinois is the relationship in the sentence, and in shows the relationship.

• Over the river and through the woods to grandmother’s house we go.
• The food sat on the table in the living room.
• The light fixture is attached to the ceiling above the sofa.

Articles – Articles are a very specialized type of adjective. There are three in the English language: “a,” “an” and “the.”

• The computer sits on my desk.
• I need to borrow a pencil.
• An apple, an orange, and a pear all sit in a bowl on the desk.

Interjection – An interjection is a word that expresses emotion.

• Ouch! That hurts.
• Oh, I don’t know if that’s the right answer.
• Wow! Can you jump over the building, too?

Future posts will discuss each part of speech and discuss it in detail.

My students:  Now please return to Blackboard Discussion Area and answer the  Introduction to Parts of Speech thread.

Welcome to the Grammar Temple! June 25, 2007

Welcome to the world of grammar.  In this and following pages, I’m going to try and convey some idea of what grammar and punctuation means to the average individual, why it’s actually useful for you to know, and how to use it.

Why, you ask, am I adding yet more explanation to the dozens, even hundreds, of pages now available both in books and on the internet?  My reasoning is just this:  I hope to make it just a bit easier to understand.

So, with that explanation, on we go.