Saturday, August 29, 2015

Grammar: Week 1 -- The Sentence



WEEK 1

THE SENTENCE
A sentence is
– a unit of words
– simple, compound, complex, and compound-complex
– made of a subject and a verb, and a complete thought
Subject
– The simple subject is the singular noun or plural nouns that do the action of the verb.
– The complete subject is the simple subject with any modifiers.
Verb
– The simple verb may consist of one word or a group of words.  These are the action words of the sentence.
– The complete subject is also called the predicate.  It contains modifiers, direct objects, and indirect objects.
Fragment
– A fragment often looks like a sentence with a capital letter and an end punctuation.  However, it is missing a subject, a verb, or a complete thought.
The Run-on
– A Run-on sentence is two or more sentences improperly joined by wrong puncutaion, no punctuation, or a conjunction that needs help from some kind of punctuation. 
– Correcting a Run-on sentence
1.        Make two sentences.
2.        Join the two clauses by using a comma and a coordinating conjunction.
3.        Join the two clauses with a semicolon.
4.        Join the two clauses with a semicolon and a connector with a comma (but not a coordinating conjunction.
5.        Subordinate one of the clauses.






8 PARTS OF SPEECH
Verb
Verbs are commonly action words.  Verbs are in the following categories:
                Action, State of being, Linking, Groups of words
Verbs have voice
                Active:  the action of the verb is performed by the subject of the sentence.
                Passive:  the action of the verb is performed upon the subject of the sentence.
Agreement in number
                Singular subjects and singular verbs; plural subjects and plural verbs
All sentences have verbs
                Imperative sentences may appear to be missing the subject, but it is an understood “you.”
All verbs have four principal parts:
                1) present stem – e.g. look
                2) past tense – e.g. looked
                3) past participle – e.g. looked
                4) present participle – e.g. looking
Noun
– Nouns are words, phrases or clauses that name a person, place, thing, idea, or quality.
– Categories for nouns:  common, proper, compound, collective, as adverbs, concrete, abstract, countable, non-countable, verbal nouns (gerunds),
– A noun can be used in a sentence as a: subject, direct object, indirect object, object of a preposition, predicate noun

Pronoun
– A pronoun is a word used in place of a noun.  An antecedent is a word or group of words to which a pronoun refers.  If the antecedent is singular, the pronoun must be singular.  If the antecedent is plural, then the pronoun must be plural.
– The various types of pronouns:  Personal (Subjective case, Objective case, Possessive case), Reflexive or intensive, Demonstrative, Relative, Interrogative, Extended, Indefinite

Adjective
– An adjective is a word, phrase, or clause that modifies (changes, limits, describes, transforms, qualifies) a noun or pronoun.
– Adjectives anwer the following questions:  Which one? What kind of? and How many?
– Adjectives may be placed before the noun, after the noun, or after a state of being or linking verb.

Adverb
– An adverb is a word, phrase, or clause that modifies (changes, limits, describes, transforms, qualifies) a verb, an adjective, or another adverb.
– Adverbs answer the following questions:  How? When? Where? To what extent? How much? How often?


Preposition
– A preposition is a word that links a noun or pronoun with some other word (usually a noun or a verb).
– A preposition always comes before the noun (object of the preposition)
– Prepositional phrases can be adjectival or adverbial.


Conjunction
– A conjunction is a word or words used to join other words, phrases, or clauses.
– Coordinating conjunctions:  for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so (“FANBOYS”)
– Correlative conjunctions:  either … or; neither … nor; not only … but also; both … and; etc.
– Adverbial conjunctions:  although, if, because, since (these join subordinate clauses)


Interjection
– An interjection is a word or group of words expressing emotion or feeling.

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