Download Grammar Review Notes – 1st quarter 2010

Grammar Review Notes
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Nouns
A noun is defined as a person, place, thing, or idea.
A noun answers the question who? or what? in a sentence.
All nouns will either be common or proper, either concrete or
abstract, and either singular or plural.
Nouns may also be collective (single word standing for a group
of things) and/or may be compound (two words put together to
create a new meaning, either hyphenated, separate, or
combined).
Nouns may happen in all parts of a sentence – as the subject, as
the object of a prepositional phrase, as a direct object, as an
indirect object, as a predicate nominative, etc.
Examples:
Common
dog
Proper
Spot
Concrete
yes
Singular
dog
Plural
dogs
Collective
pack (as in a pack of dogs)
Compound
dogpaddle
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Pronouns
A pronoun is a word that replaces a noun in a sentence.
Pronouns are used for variety and interest in speaking and
writing.
Like nouns, pronouns answer the question who? or what? in a
sentence.
Also like nouns, pronouns can happen in all parts of a sentence.
See list above.
Virtually every pronoun will have an antecedent. The antecedent
is the noun that a pronoun is replacing in the sentence.
Antecedents can be one or more words, can happen in the same
sentence or in sentences prior, and can occur virtually anywhere
in a sentence.
There are different sorts of pronouns including personal,
reflexive, intensive, demonstrative, relative, and indefinite.
Examples: (In these examples, the pronoun is in bold and the
antecedent is in italics.)
1. My dog ate his dog food while I was at school yesterday.
(Personal pronoun)
2. My dog lets himself out when needed by going through the
pet door. (Reflexive pronoun)
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Verbs
Verbs can be classified in three ways – action, linking, and
helping or auxiliary.
Often, two or more words working together make up a verb
phrase.
It’s important that you label all parts of the verb phrase when
asked to identify verbs in a sentence.
Remember that action verbs are a physical or mental action,
linking verbs link the subject to the predicate but do not show
action, and helping verbs work with main verbs to create a sense
of time. (It’s easiest just to memorize the most common linking
and helping verbs.)
Action verbs will often answer the question – what’s happening
in this sentence?
In compound or compound-complex sentences, there can be
more than one verb phrase.
Examples: (Action verbs will be shown in bold, linking verbs in
italics, and helping verbs underlined.)
1. Unfortunately, we often feed table food to our dogs.
2. Dogs should not eat some foods, especially chocolate and
grapes.
3. Some breeds of dogs bark a lot; it seems like all of our dogs
are barkers.
4. At least our dogs are friendly; they have never bitten
anyone…yet.
Adjectives
Adjectives are descriptor words that modify nouns and
pronouns.
Most often, an adjective happens just before the noun or
pronoun it modifies.
There are cases, though, when an adjective happens at the end of
the sentence (in the predicate) and modifies the subject of the
sentence.
Adjectives answer the questions which one? what kind? how
many? to what extent? about the nouns and pronouns they
modify.
The most common adjectives are articles – a, an, the.
Examples: (Adjectives are in bold and the words they modify
are in italics.)
1. The red dachshund that lives two streets away from us is
big and mean. (In this example, big and mean also modify
the noun dachshund that occurred at the beginning of the
sentence.)
2. On the other hand, Lowder is small, chunky, and
loveable.
3. When I get home from a long day of work, Lowder greets
me with a wagging tail, some happy barks, and a few
kisses if I get too close.