English Grammar Test

• Structure of English

Points to remember:

• Conjuncts are words and phrases joined by conjunctions, as exemplified by "Mochi is a girl who likes being alone but who makes a lot of noise" where the underlined phrases are relative clauses and conjuncts joined by "but".
• Gradable adjectives have comparative or superlative degrees (e.g., healthy-healthier-healthiest), while non-gradable adjectives do not (e.g., perfect).
• Passive sentences include auxiliary verbs and a past participle, where the subject is not the doer of the action.
• John Milton introduced 630 new words to the dictionary, making him the Greatest Neologist.

Fragment vs. Clause vs. Phrase:

• A fragment is missing a subject, verb, or complete thought.
• A clause includes a subject and a verb.
• A phrase functions as a single unit that forms a constituent but lacks a complete thought.
• "My active dog is a husky" can be a sentence or clause.
• "My active dog" is a fragment or phrase.
• Constituents are words or groups of words functioning as a single unit in a hierarchical structure.

Phrases:

Noun Phrase:

• Noun phrases can be structured as: Determiner + noun (the dog, my husky, an actress).
• Determiner + single modifier + noun (the gorgeous teacher, my sleepy cat, the awful singer).
• Determiner + series of modifiers + noun (the cute Persian cat, the big red hotdog).
• Modifier + noun (plastic bottle, menthol candy).

Other Noun Phrases:

• Appositive phrase: Donna, the Social Studies coach, is the best.
• Infinitive phrase: To give up is my last option.
• Gerund phrase: Teaching those who don't want to learn is hard.
• Participial phrase: Smiling from ear to ear, she accepted the proposal.

Verb Phrase:

• Structures include: Main verb + modifier (He drives recklessly).
• Auxiliary verb + main verb (He is eating).
• Modal + main verb (She will go to the hospital).
• Modal + auxiliary + main verb (It should be raining this month).
• Auxiliary verb + main verb + modifier/complement (She was sitting patiently).
• Verb phrases are classified as finite (containing a single verb, like "I fed my cats") or nonfinite (containing two or three verbs, like "Twirly has been going around the neighborhood").

Adjective Phrase:

• Consists of an adjective as the head and all modifying words around it, modifying a noun or pronoun.
• Attributive: The highly suspicious man was arrested.
• Predicative: Your blue eyes are absolutely enticing to me.

Adverb Phrase:

• Examples include: Next week, the LET results will be released.
• You write so legibly.
• Relates to manner, place, reason, or time.

Prepositional Phrase:

• Examples include: Get that thing out of my sight.
• You rant so much about your boss.
• I will turn you into a frog.

Adverbials:

• Examples include: The players arrived at the gymnasium.
• The cow jumped over the moon.
• Whenever he travels, he takes snapshots.
• Timmy smiled as if he won first place.

Conjunctural Phrase:

• Examples: Both Jack and Jill fell down the hill.
• For kids, reading is not as fun as watching the movie.
• Such was a relationship that could conquer anything.

Interjectional Phrase:

• Examples include: Bloody hell! You're Harry Potter.
• Oh yeah! This is one heck of a spaghetti.

Grammar Approaches:

• Prescriptive grammar condemns all styles except the "King's English" and dictates what should or should not be written (normative).
• Descriptive grammar is for everyday use (linguistic performance).
• Generative grammar (Chomsky) delves into "Mental grammar" and linguistic competence.
• Transformational grammar (Chomsky) explores how sentences are similar in the "underlying structure," such as active to passive or statement to question, with deep structure being an abstract representation.

Subordinating Conjunctions:

• Connect independent clauses to dependent clauses: However hard the situation is, you persevered to get your license.

Conjunctive Adverbs:

• Connect independent clauses: The bride thought the groom would not come; however, he came.

Conditionals:

• Zero conditional: general truths/scientific facts (present simple); If you freeze water, it becomes solid.
• First conditional: possible in the future (present simple + will/not + v.); If it rains, Joyce will take a taxi to work.
• Second conditional: hypothetical/unlikely (past simple + would + verb); If I won the lottery, I would build an animal shelter.
• Third conditional: different past (past perfect + would have + pp); If I hadn't been in love, I would have passed the exam.
• Inverted sentence: Verb appears before the subject, e.g., In the middle of the park is the gazebo.

Three Major Noun Cases:

• Nominative: subject of a verb, predicate nominative, appositive.
• Objective: dative (indirect object), accusative (direct object), object of a preposition.
• Possessive (Genitive Case): dog's bone, cat's paw.

Types/Classes of Adjectives:

• Coordinate adjectives: black and pink dress.
• Demonstrative adjectives: That heart used to be mine.
• Descriptive adjectives: He called his ex a lying bitch.
• Distributive adjectives: I don't want to hear any news about the pandemic.
• Rosmar bought every phone in the store.
• (each, every, either, neither, none, both, any, and one).
• Indefinite adjectives: Do you have many cats?
• Interrogative adjectives: What topic do you want?
• Possessive adjectives: Don't touch my Prada.
• Predicate adjectives: You are gorgeous.
• Proper adjectives: I love Japanese ramen.
• Quantitative/Numeral adjectives/Cardinal adjectives: I have two cats.
• Sequence adjectives: Your first take for the LEPT will be your last.
• Articles as adjectives: You are the apple of my eye.

Pronouns:

• Personal, Reflexive (She gave herself some comfort)
• Intensive/Emphatic (She herself gave the comfort)
• Demonstrative, Indefinite (few, none, all, some)
• Interrogative, Distributive (neither, either, each, everyone (one at a time))
• Reciprocal (We love each other)
• Relative (The subject, which has been making your head ache, will make you successful.)
• Possessive

Punctuating Abbreviations:

• Periods are always used in Latin abbreviations but not with contractions.
• US and UK abbreviations differ from each other. A period usually ends abbreviation of a title or names of institutions (Mr. Mrs. Co. Inc.), but can be omitted after professional and personal titles (Dr Mr Ms) and names of institutions and countries (USA RCBC DPWH).
• Three-initial of a person's name often used within institution may not have periods and are always unspaced but when the first and middle name initials used with surnames, may have space and periods.
• FDR = Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
• T.S. Eliot.

Word Formation:

• Repurposing is forming a word by taking it from one context and applying it to another context (e.g., computer mouse).
• Reduplication involves repetition or near-repetition of words or sounds (e.g., goody-goody, helter skelter, picnic, claptrap).
• Error includes misspellings, mishearings, mispronunciations, and mistranscriptions that led to forming new words like scramble.

Syntactic Structures:

• Predication: Rachel knew about Mondler.
• Modification: talking toy, student council, beautiful liar.
• Complementation.

Coordination:

• Examples include elliptical, split, and correlative structures
• Elliptical: I like black coffee not sweet.
• Split: Rather than giving up, he continued studying.
• Correlative: I offer not peace but war.

Methods of Achieving Cohesion [Halliday & Hassan, 1976]:

• Elliptical
• Referential
• Repetition
• Synonym
• Hypernym
• General word
• Substitution

Taxis:

• Dependence of clauses in a clause complex

Parataxis:

• "arranging side-by-side" without words that indicate conjunction and subordination
• Para sayo ang exam, ang pagpasa, ang lisensya.

Hypotaxis:

• "arranging under", "beneath", "arrangement" subordination of one clause to another

Common Sentence Errors:

• Dangling modifier: Having read the book, the movie will be blockbuster.
• Misplaced modifier: The minister chatted informally about the cost of living with several women.
• Squinting modifier: Government offices are open on Saturdays only in the country.
• Faulty parallelism: I like eating better than to bake.