Understanding English Grammar: Parts of Speech

• Grammar is the set of structural rules governing composition of clauses, phrases, and words in any given natural language.

Parts of Speech

• Nouns: Words that represent people, places, things, or ideas.
• Pronouns: Words that replace nouns to avoid repetition (e.g., he, she, it, they).
• Verbs: Words that express actions, occurrences, or states of being.
• Adjectives: Words that describe nouns or pronouns (e.g., big, red, fast).
• Adverbs: Words that modify verbs, adjectives, or other adverbs (e.g., quickly, very, well).
• Prepositions: Words that show the relationship between a noun or pronoun and other words in the sentence (e.g., in, on, at, to, from).
• Conjunctions: Words that connect words, phrases, or clauses (e.g., and, but, or, so, because).
• Interjections: Words that express strong emotions (e.g., Wow! Ouch! Help!).

Sentence Structure

• Subject: The noun or pronoun that performs the action of the verb.
• Predicate: The part of the sentence containing the verb and everything that follows.
• Clause: A group of words containing a subject and a verb.
  • Independent clause: Expresses a complete thought and can stand alone as a sentence.
  • Dependent clause: Does not express a complete thought and cannot stand alone as a sentence; it relies on an independent clause to complete its meaning.
• Phrase: A group of related words that does not contain a subject and a verb.

Types of Sentences

• Simple sentence: Contains one independent clause.
• Compound sentence: Contains two or more independent clauses joined by a coordinating conjunction (e.g., and, but, or) or a semicolon.
• Complex sentence: Contains one independent clause and one or more dependent clauses.
• Compound-complex sentence: Contains two or more independent clauses and one or more dependent clauses.

Verb Tenses

• Present tense: Expresses actions happening now or habitual actions.
• Past tense: Expresses actions that happened in the past.
• Future tense: Expresses actions that will happen in the future.
• Perfect tenses: Indicate completed actions (e.g., have/has/had + past participle).
• Progressive tenses: Indicate ongoing actions (e.g., be + present participle).

Subject-Verb Agreement

• Singular subjects take singular verbs.
• Plural subjects take plural verbs.
• Collective nouns can be singular or plural depending on whether they refer to the group as a unit or the individual members.
• Compound subjects joined by "and" usually take a plural verb.
• Compound subjects joined by "or" or "nor" take a verb that agrees with the subject closest to the verb.

Pronoun Agreement

• Pronouns must agree in number and gender with the nouns they refer to (antecedents).
• Singular antecedents take singular pronouns.
• Plural antecedents take plural pronouns.
• Use gender-neutral pronouns (e.g., they, them, their) when the gender of the antecedent is unknown or non-specific.

Punctuation

• Period (.): Marks the end of a declarative sentence.
• Question mark (?): Marks the end of an interrogative sentence.
• Exclamation point (!): Marks the end of an exclamatory sentence.
• Comma (,): Separates words, phrases, or clauses in a list; sets off introductory elements; separates independent clauses joined by a coordinating conjunction.
• Semicolon (;): Joins two closely related independent clauses; separates items in a list when those items contain commas.
• Colon (:): Introduces a list, explanation, or quotation.
• Apostrophe ('): Indicates possession or contraction.
• Quotation marks (" "): Enclose direct quotations.
• Hyphen (-): Joins words to form compound words or to divide words at the end of a line.
• Dash (—): Indicates a sudden break in thought or sets off parenthetical information.
• Parentheses ( ): Enclose additional information or explanations.
• Brackets ([ ]): Enclose editorial comments or corrections within a quotation.

Common Grammatical Errors

• Subject-verb disagreement: The verb does not agree in number with the subject.
• Pronoun-antecedent disagreement: The pronoun does not agree in number or gender with its antecedent.
• Misplaced modifier: A modifier is placed too far from the word it modifies, causing confusion.
• Dangling modifier: A modifier does not have a clear word to modify.
• Incorrect tense: Using the wrong verb tense to indicate time.
• Lack of parallel structure: Items in a list or series are not grammatically consistent.
• Comma splice: Joining two independent clauses with only a comma.
• Run-on sentence: Joining two independent clauses without proper punctuation or conjunction.
• Fragment: An incomplete sentence missing a subject or verb.
• Incorrect word usage: Using the wrong word (e.g., there/their/they're, to/too/two, affect/effect).