Grammar Terminology

• Words and phrases joined by conjunctions are conjuncts
• Example: Mochi is a girl who likes being alone but who makes a lot of noise.
• Underlined phrases are relative clauses and conjuncts joined by “but.”
• Gradable adjectives possess comparative or superlative degrees
• Healthy, Healthier, Healthiest - gradable
• Perfect - non-gradable
• Passive sentences consist of auxiliary verbs + past participle
• The subject in a passive sentence doesn't perform the action.
• John Milton made a contribution of 630 new words to the dictionary
• A FRAGMENT is missing a subject, verb, and complete thought
• A CLAUSE is a phrase with a subject and a verb
• A PHRASE forms a constituent, but lacks a complete thought
• Example: "My active dog is a husky" is a sentence/clause; "My active dog" is a fragment/phrase
• A constituent is a word/group that functions as a single hierarchical unit

Noun Phrases

• Composed of a determiner + noun
• Example: 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
• 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

• Main verb + modifier. Example: He drives recklessly
• Auxiliary verb + main verb. Example: He is eating
• Modal + main verb. Example: She will go to the hospital
• Modal + auxiliary + main verb. Example: It should be raining this month
• Auxiliary verb + main verb + modifier/complement. Example: She was sitting patiently
• FINITE verb phrases contain a single verb, such as I fed my cats
• NONFINITE verb phrases contain two or three verbs, exemplified by Twirly has been going around the neighborhood

Adjective Phrase

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

Adverb Phrase

• Example: Next week, the LET results will be released
• Example: You write so legibly
• Can denote manner, place, reason, or time

Prepositional Phrase

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

Adverbials

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

Conjunctive Phrase

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

Interjectional Phrase

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

Grammar Approaches

• PRESCRIPTIVE attempts to condemn all styles except the "King's English"
• PRESCRIPTIVE tells us what SHOULD or SHOULD NOT be written and is normative
• DESCRIPTIVE involves grammar for everyday use (linguistic performance)
• GENERATIVE GRAMMAR (Chomsky) refers to "Mental grammar" and linguistic competence
• TRANSFORMATIONAL (Chomsky) showcases similar "underlying structures" in sentences
• Example: active to passive, statement to question
• Deep structure is (Chomsky's Transformational Grammar) abstract representation of the sentence
• Subordinating conjunctions connect independent clauses to dependent clauses
• Example: However hard the situation is, you persevered to get your license
• Conjunctive adverbs connect independent clauses
• Example: The bride thought the groom would not come; however, he came

Conditionals

• ZERO: General truths/scientific facts (present simple): If you freeze water, it becomes solid
• FIRST: Possible in the future (present simple + will/not + v.): If it rains, Joyce will take a taxi to work
• SECOND: Hypothetical/unlikely (past simple + would + verb): If I won the lottery, I would build an animal shelter
• THIRD: Different past (past perfect + would have + pp): If I hadn't been in love, I would have passed the exam
• Inverted sentences feature the verb before the subject
• Example: In the middle of the park is the gazebo

Three Major Noun Cases

• Nominative: Subject of a verb, Predicate nominative, and Appositive
• Objective: Dative (indirect object), Accusative (direct object), and 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 Pronouns
• Reflexive Pronouns [DO, IO, OP]: She gave herself some comfort
• Intensive/Emphatic Pronouns: She herself gave the comfort
• Demonstrative Pronouns
• Indefinite Pronouns (few, none, all, some)
• Interrogative Pronouns
• Distributive Pronouns [neither, either, each, everyone (one at a time)]
• Reciprocal Pronouns (We love each other.)
• Relative Pronouns (The subject, which has been making your head ache, will make you successful.)
• Possessive Pronouns

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: Using a word from one context in another
• Example: computer mouse
• Reduplication: Repeating or nearly repeating words/sounds
• Example: goody-goody, helter skelter, picnic, claptrap
• Error: Misspellings, mishearing, mispronunciations and mistranscriptions create new words
• Example: Scramble originated as a variant of scrabble but had separate meanings over time

Syntactic Structures

• Predication: Rachel knew about Mondler
• Modification: talking toy, student council, beautiful liar
• Complementation
• Coordination; 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: Mochi ate some fish. Twirly [] some chicken
• Referential: Huffle was barking. She was hungry
• The serpent ate the chicken

Cohesion

• Repetition: The serpent is dangerous
• Synonym: The snake is now under custody
• Hypernym: The animal is now being observed
• General word: The poor thing was just trying to eat
• Substitution: Changing to one (two, three, etc.), do, so
• Example: These dresses are on sale. Great! I'll take those three
• Example: You look great! So do you!
• Taxis describes clauses dependence in a complex unit
• Parataxis involves "arranging side-by-side" without conjunction/subordination words
• Example: Para sayo ang exam, ang pagpasa, ang lisensya
• Hypotaxis involves "arranging under," and subordination

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

Questions covering grammar terminology such as phrases, adjectives, and sentence structure. It focuses on defining grammatical elements and their functions within sentences, like elliptical clauses and verb phrases. It also covers concepts from Chomsky's Transformational Grammar.