Grammar Overview and Parts of Speech

Grammar Overview

• Grammar encompasses the rules governing the structure and use of language. It dictates how words, phrases, and clauses combine to form meaningful sentences.

Parts of Speech

• Nouns: Words that name persons, places, things, or ideas (e.g., dog, city, happiness)
• Pronouns: Words that replace nouns (e.g., he, she, it)
• Verbs: Words that show action or state of being (e.g., run, is, think)
• Adjectives: Words that describe nouns (e.g., big, red, happy)
• Adverbs: Words that describe verbs, adjectives, or other adverbs (e.g., quickly, very, sadly)
• Prepositions: Words that show the relationship between a noun or pronoun and another word in the sentence (e.g., on, in, at)
• Conjunctions: Words that connect words, phrases, or clauses (e.g., and, but, or)
• Interjections: Words that express strong emotion (e.g., Wow!, Ouch!)

Sentence Structure

• Simple sentences: Contain a subject and a predicate (e.g., The dog barked.)
• Compound sentences: Join two or more simple sentences with a conjunction (e.g., The dog barked, and the cat ran.)
• Complex sentences: Contain an independent clause and one or more dependent clauses (e.g., Because the dog barked, the cat ran.)
• Compound-complex sentences: Combine characteristics of both compound and complex sentences (e.g., The dog barked, and the cat ran because it was frightened.)

Tenses

• Present tense: Describes actions happening now, generally, or repeatedly (e.g., I walk to school.)
• Past tense: Describes actions that happened in the past (e.g., I walked to school.)
• Future tense: Describes actions that will happen in the future (e.g., I will walk to school.)
• Perfect tenses: Indicate that an action is completed in relation to another action (e.g., I have walked to school, I had walked to school, I will have walked to school.)

Agreement

• Subject-verb agreement: The verb must agree with its subject in number (singular or plural) (e.g., The dog barks, The dogs bark.)
• Verb-object agreement: In some cases, the verb must agree with a direct object in number (e.g., He saw a bird, He saw many birds.)
• Pronoun-antecedent agreement: The pronoun must agree with its antecedent in number and gender (e.g., The dog barked. It barked loudly.)

Punctuation

• Commas: Used to separate items in a list, separate clauses in a compound sentence, and set off introductory phrases.
• Periods: Used to end statements.
• Question marks: Used to end questions.
• Exclamation marks: Used to add emphasis or show strong emotion.
• Quotation marks: Used to enclose direct quotations.
• Apostrophes: Used to show possession, contractions, and plurals of letters.

Common Grammar Errors

• Comma splices: Joining two independent clauses with only a comma.
• Run-on sentences: Joining two or more independent clauses without proper punctuation.
• Subject-verb disagreement
• Misplaced modifiers: Modifiers that are not placed correctly in relation to the word they modify.
• Pronoun agreement errors: Incorrect agreement in number, gender, and case of pronouns.
• Tense errors

Style

• Formal vs. informal writing styles: Formal writing uses more complex sentence structures and more precise word choices. Informal writing uses more colloquial language and simpler sentence structures.
• Active vs. passive voice: Active voice places the subject as the doer of the action. Passive voice places the subject as the receiver of the action.

Usage

• Understanding and applying the rules of grammar, vocabulary, and sentence structure. Proper usage requires an understanding of the context where a word or phrase is to be used, and how its form and sense can affect meaning in any given sentence. This includes consideration of appropriate tone and register in different communication situations.