English Grammar Fundamentals

Parts of Speech

• Nouns:
  • Proper nouns: names of specific people, places, or things (e.g. John, London, Amazon)
  • Common nouns: general terms for people, places, or things (e.g. dog, city, company)
  • Collective nouns: groups of people, places, or things (e.g. family, team, flock)
  • Abstract nouns: intangible concepts (e.g. happiness, freedom, love)
• Verbs:
  • Action verbs: express action or occurrence (e.g. run, eat, think)
  • Linking verbs: connect subject to additional information (e.g. be, seem, appear)
  • Helping verbs: used to help form the tense, mood, or voice of another verb (e.g. will, would, shall)
• Adjectives:
  • Describe nouns or pronouns (e.g. big, happy, blue)
  • Quantitative adjectives: describe quantity (e.g. five, tenth, several)
  • Demonstrative adjectives: point out specific nouns (e.g. this, that, these)
• Adverbs:
  • Modify verbs, adjectives, or other adverbs (e.g. quickly, very, well)
  • Describe manner, time, place, frequency, or degree
• Pronouns:
  • Replace nouns in a sentence (e.g. he, she, it, they)
  • Personal pronouns: refer to people or animals (e.g. I, you, he, she)
  • Possessive pronouns: show ownership or possession (e.g. my, your, his, her)
• Prepositions:
  • Show relationships between words or phrases (e.g. in, on, at, with)
  • Indicate location, direction, time, or manner
• Conjunctions:
  • Connect words, phrases, or clauses (e.g. and, but, or, so)
  • Coordinating conjunctions: connect words or phrases of equal importance (e.g. and, but, or)
  • Subordinating conjunctions: connect clauses of unequal importance (e.g. because, although, if)

Sentence Structure

• Simple sentences: one independent clause
• Compound sentences: two or more independent clauses joined by a conjunction
• Complex sentences: one independent clause and one or more dependent clauses
• Compound-complex sentences: multiple independent clauses and one or more dependent clauses

Verb Tenses

• Present tense: action happening now
• Past tense: action completed in the past
• Future tense: action will happen in the future
• Present perfect tense: action started in the past and continues up to the present
• Past perfect tense: action completed in the past before another action
• Future perfect tense: action will be completed in the future before another action

Clauses and Phrases

• Independent clause: has a subject and a predicate
• Dependent clause: does not have a subject or a predicate, or relies on an independent clause
• Phrase: a group of words that functions as a single part of speech
• Relative clause: begins with a relative pronoun (e.g. who, which, that) and provides additional information about a noun

Modality

• Modal verbs: express degrees of possibility, necessity, or obligation (e.g. can, could, may, might, shall, should, will, would)
• Modal auxiliaries: used to express modality (e.g. can, must, shall, will)