Grammar Basics: Parts of Speech, Sentence Structure, and Tense

Grammar

Parts of Speech

• Nouns: Words that refer to people, places, things, and ideas
  • Proper nouns: Names of specific people, places, and organizations (e.g. John, London, Google)
  • Common nouns: General terms for things (e.g. dog, city, company)
• Pronouns: Words that replace nouns in a sentence
  • Personal pronouns: Replace nouns referring to people or animals (e.g. I, you, he, she, it)
  • Possessive pronouns: Show ownership (e.g. my, your, his, her, its)
  • Reflexive pronouns: Refer back to the subject (e.g. myself, yourself, himself)
• Verbs: Words that express action or a state of being
  • Action verbs: Express physical or mental action (e.g. run, think, read)
  • Linking verbs: Connect the 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: Words that describe or modify nouns or pronouns
  • Quantitative adjectives: Describe quantity (e.g. one, two, three)
  • Qualitative adjectives: Describe quality (e.g. big, happy, blue)
• Adverbs: Words that describe or modify verbs, adjectives, or other adverbs
  • Manner adverbs: Describe how something is done (e.g. quickly, loudly, wisely)
  • Time adverbs: Describe when something happens (e.g. yesterday, tomorrow, soon)
  • Place adverbs: Describe where something happens (e.g. here, there, everywhere)

Sentence Structure

• Clause: A group of words containing a subject and predicate
  • Independent clause: A complete sentence with a subject and predicate
  • Dependent clause: A clause that cannot stand alone as a complete sentence
• Phrase: A group of words that functions as a single part of speech
  • Noun phrase: A phrase that functions as a noun (e.g. the big red car)
  • Verb phrase: A phrase that functions as a verb (e.g. will eat)

Tense and Aspect

• Tense: A verb form that indicates when an action takes place
  • Present tense: Describes an action happening now (e.g. I am writing)
  • Past tense: Describes an action that happened in the past (e.g. I wrote)
  • Future tense: Describes an action that will happen in the future (e.g. I will write)
• Aspect: A verb form that indicates the duration or completion of an action
  • Simple aspect: Describes a completed action (e.g. I wrote)
  • Progressive aspect: Describes an ongoing action (e.g. I am writing)
  • Perfect aspect: Describes an action that started in the past and continues up to the present (e.g. I have written)