Download Grammar and Punctuation

Grammar and Punctuation
Grammar
Adjective - A describing word that gives more meaning to a noun, e.g. two dogs, best dress.
Adverb - A word that tells how, when, where or why something happened. Adverbs add meaning to verbs,
adjectives and other adverbs, e.g. Daren ran quickly. She walked uphill. He will arrive soon.
Antonym - A word that means the opposite of another word, e.g. hot – cold, quiet – noisy.
Clause - The group of words involved with a verb. A clause is a complete message or thought. It has a
subject and a verb or verb group, e.g. She played the drums. A clause may stand alone as a
sentence.
Compound word - A word made up of two or more words, e.g. football = foot + ball.
Conjunctions and connectives - Words that join words, phrases and clauses to make more complex
sentences, e.g. and, but, or, so, if, as, well, meanwhile, on the other hand
Homonym - A word that has the same sound and often the same spelling as another word, but a different
meaning, e.g. weak – week, no - know
Nouns and noun groups - A noun is a naming word. It is the name of a person, place, feeling or thing, e.g.
house, Michael, happiness, Darwin. A noun group is a group of words including noun that describes
a person, place or thing, e.g. The bicycle with the rusty wheels is for sale.
Object - The thing that is acted on, e.g. The man painted the chair. In some sentences, there is more than
one object, e.g. She gave Jack the book.
Phrase - A small group of words in a sentence or clause, e.g. She put her lunch on the bench. A phrase does
not contain a verb.
Preposition - A word that relates one thing or another, e.g. in, on, under, over, with, after, before, by, of. A
preposition is often followed by a noun or pronoun, e.g. The box is under the bed.
Pronoun - A word that stands in place of a noun, e.g. The film was long. It was boring, so we left early.
Sentence - A sentence can be a question (e.g. Are you ready?), statement (e.g. I am ready.) exclamation
(e.g. We are ready!) or command (e.g. Get ready.). A sentence makes sense on its own. It begins
with a capital letter and ends with a full stop, question mark or exclamation mark.
Speech - Direct or quoted speech uses quotation marks to show exactly what someone has said e.g., “It’s
hot for sport today.” Indirect or reported speech reports what someone has sad without repeating
the exact words, e.g. She said it was too hot to play sport.
Subject - The thing that acts, e.g. The dog chased the stick.
Syllable - A unit of sound within a word, e.g. a-maz-ing.
Synonym - A word with the same or similar meaning as another word, e.g. want – desire, small – little
Tense - Verbs have tense. This means they show wether something happens in the past (e.g., He ate peas),
present (e.g. He is eating peas. or future (e.g. He will eat peas)
Verbs and verb groups - A verb is a doing, thinking, feeling or saying word, e.g. They ran all day. She
thought it might rain. He said it was ready. Verbs also describe a state of being or having, e.g. The
bucket is full. Amelie had a fever. A verb is a group of words that describes something happening
and includes the main verb, e.g. He is going now. She should leave now. Sue is going to leave the
house.
Punctuation
Apostrophe (‘) - Apostrophes can show possession, e.g. Rover’s bowl. Possessive pronouns (her, his, its,
theirs, ours) don’t need apostrophes. Apostrophes can also show that letters have been left out,
e.g. hasn’t = has not, it’s = it is, we’ll = we will
Comma (,) - Commas show short pauses in writing. They separate a string of nouns (e.g., They ate apples,
oranges, pears and grapes), adjective and adverbs, (e.g., It was red, yellow, blue and gold) and
different parts of speech (e.g., I meet Doug, the new boy, by the gym). Commas are also used after
introductory words (e.g., By the way, it is no longer possible).
Exclamation mark (!) - Exclamation marks end sentences that show a strong emotion or reaction, e.g.
Wow! You really did that!
Full Stop (.) - Full stops show the end of a statement or command sentence, e.g. Sam walked around the
corner.
Question mark (?) - A question mark is needed at the end of a question, e.g. When will his dog stop?
Quotation marks (“…” or ‘…’) - Quotation marks show the exact words of a speaker (eg”I am ready now,”
he said) and the title of something (e.g. He sang ‘Waltzing Matilda’). Quotation marks are
sometimes called speech mark or inverted commas.