Linguistics: Basic Grammatical Terminology Review

1. Linguistics: Basic Grammatical Terminology Review Educ 4683 Dr. David Piper Home  Dr. David Piper & Krista Yetman

2. Definitions of terms Word classes Nouns, pronouns & determiners Adjectives, verbs & adverbs Prepositions, conjunctions & exclamations Subject, predicate & object Transitivity Other rules & definitions Select for Review Home

3. Definitions of Terms:Spoken English may be thought of in terms of 4 levels Home

4. Word Classes Home Examples

5. Nouns, determiners & pronouns Click button of choice: • Nouns • Determiners • Pronouns • Skip to Adjectives Home

6. Nouns (in English) • Nouns can be singular or plural (‘s’)i.e: ant + s = ants, city + s = cities, glass + s = glasses, mouse + s = mice, life + s = lives, deer + s = deer • Nouns are either masculine(man, bull, boxer),feminine(woman, mare, actress), or neuter(table, flower, book) • Nouns can be possessivei.e.: boy’s, boys’, Charles’s • Nouns are common(book, fly, tree) or proper(Erica, Acadia University, Nigerian, French) Home Return to Noun menu

7. Determiners: 5 Types Home Return to Noun menu

8. 8 types of Pronouns:Select below • Personal • Possessive • Reflexive • Demonstrative • Interrogative • Relative • Distributive • Indefinite • Skip pronouns Home Return to Noun menu

9. Personal pronouns:these reflect number and case, and are divided into first, second & third person Home Pronoun Menu

10. Possessive pronouns: • mine (singular) • yours (singular) • his (singular, masculine) • hers (singular, feminine) • its (singular, neuter) • ours (plural) • yours (plural) • theirs (plural) Home Pronoun Menu

11. Reflexive pronouns Home Pronoun Menu

12. Demonstrative pronouns:used to indicate closeness or remoteness from speaker Thisis a book. That is a book. SPEAKER Those are books. These are books. Home Pronoun Menu

13. Interrogative pronouns: Questions words Who Which Whom What Whose Home PronounMenu

14. Relative pronouns: these introduce clauses • that • which • who • whom • whose I’ve just sat on the hat that I bought. The letter which he sent has not arrived. John was the man whoate the pie. The people on whomwe rely are kind. The boy whosefather died has runaway. Home Pronoun Menu

15. Distributive pronouns(often these pronouns are followed by ‘of you’ or ‘of them’) Both All Each Either Neither Some Home Pronoun Menu

16. Indefinite pronouns -I don’t want anyjelly beans. - Take some. - I don’t think so. - Has anyone eaten the beans? - Someone was eating them. - Such is way of the world! Home Pronoun Menu

17. Adjectives, verbs & adverbs:Select below • Adjectives • Verbs • Adverbs The brown dog runs quickly. Home Skip to prepositions

18. Adjectives: Words that describe nouns Home Return to adj., verb & adv. menu

19. Verbs! Verbs! Verbs!(select from menu below) Past tense Present tense General Info Auxiliary verbs Future tense Home Return to adj., verb & adv. menu

20. Adverbs • These words can also be: • comparative (earlier) • i.e.: She arrived earlier than Joe. • superlative (most often) • about time (soon) • about place (near) • about reason (since) • about manner (well) • about condition (if) • question words (when) • These words can modify verbs: • She sang loudly. • Sentences: • Certainly, we shall win. • Adjectives: • She was exceptionally pretty. • And other adverbs: • She sang veryloudly. Home Return to adj., verb & adv. menu

21. Verb: General Info. • There are regular & irregular verbs. • Regular verbs can take the endings: ‘s’, ‘ing’ and ‘ed’. • Irregular verbs can take the ‘ing’ endings. Home Return to adj., verb & adv. menu

22. Verbs: Present (non-past) tense To describe habitual occurrences i.e.: He advises... Main Usage To express truths, proverbial wisdom, realities i.e.: Wax makes crayons. Occurs in spontaneous commentaries i.e.: sport commentaries Chosen for formulaic utterances i.e.: I declare... Home Return to adj., verb & adv. menu

23. Verbs: Past tense • Past tense is formed by adding ‘ed’ or ‘d’ to the base form. • Past tense does not change according to person or number. • Refers to actions, states or events which took place before. • Is used in dependent clauses to refer to possibility. • Is used in indirect speech i.e.: He said that he sang. Home Return to adj., verb & adv. menu

24. Verbs: Future ‘tense’ • There really is no future tense in English but reference to the future may be made in the following or many other ways: • a) will/shall + base form of verb • I shall go to London next week. • b) going to + base form of verb • I’m going to drive to Halifax tomorrow. Home Return to adj., verb & adv. menu

25. These are verbs which help make information more precise... Gives specific info about the (head)verb: I am painting. Painting is the headverb, while am is the auxiliary verb. Auxiliary verbs are also used in questions: Do you like art? (do is auxiliary, like is headverb) In negatives: Don’t eat it! (don’t is auxiliary, eat is headverb) For emphasis: You will paint. Auxiliary verbs:These are also known as ‘helping verbs’ Home Return to adj., verb & adv. menu

26. Prepositions, conjunctions & exclamations: Select below • Prepositions • Conjunctions • Exclamations • Skip to subject & predicate Home

27. Prepositions:There is a reason the word ‘position’ is in preposition… A preposition is a word that describes the relationshipbetween things (other words). • The man is beside the boy. • The radio is onthe table. • The girl is in front of the woman. • The boy’s feet are in his shoes under the table. Home Return to Preposition menu

28. Conjunctions: Joining words Home Return to Preposition menu

29. Exclamations! These are often referred to as ‘involuntary interjections’: • Wow!Hey!Ouch!Oh! Occasionally words & phrases are exclamations: • You fool! • That silly dog! • What a mess! • How you’ve grown! Home Return to Preposition menu

30. Subject, predicate & object • Subject • Predicate • Object • Skip to Transivity Home

31. Subject Home Return to Subj., Pred. & Obj. Menu

32. Predicate:The verbal unit of a sentence Home Return to Subj., Pred. & Obj. Menu

33. Object: A noun-like unit which usually comes last in the predicate, following the main (transitive) verb. Predicate *Please note: there are also indirect & direct objects Home Return to Subj., Pred. & Obj. Menu

34. Transitivity • Nominals • Intransitive verbs • Transitive verbs • Active voice • Passive voice • Skip to additional info Home

35. Nominals The term nominal is used to comprehend nouns, pronouns, proper names & noun phrases. Verbs may be classified by the number of nominals they require. For example: ‘arrive’ requires only one nominal, so is called a ‘one-place verb’. The elephantarrived. Subject (nominal) One-place verb: only needs one nominal Return to Transivity Home

36. Intransitive verbs One-place verbs are intransitive because they do not take an object (they only need one nominal). For example: John died. (This is all you need to explain what happened to John). Johndied. Intransitive verb Subject (nominal) Return to Transivity Home

37. Transitive Verbs Two-place and three-place verbs are transitive because they take a subject and an object (they require at least two nominals). For example: The verb ‘hit’ requires two nominals (we need to know what is hit), therefore is a transitive verb. The blue carhit the yellow car. Transitive verb Subject Object Return to Transivity Home

38. Active voice:We say that a sentence is active when the subject is the agent of the action. • Amy baked the pie. (active) • The pie was baked by Amy (passive) • Notice that the object of the active sentence (the pie) becomes the subject of the passive sentence. • *An active sentence must have at least two nominals. Return to Transivity Home

39. Passive voice:We say that a sentence is passive when the subject receives the action. The violin was played by Rupert.(passive) In the passive sentence, the violin is the subject which receives the action. Rupert played the violin.(active) *A passive sentence may only have one nominal i.e.: The violin was played. Return to Transivity Home

40. Meanwhile, if you have any remaining questions about basic grammatical terms, please note them down and bring them to class for discussion. Hope all this was useful…Try to enjoy the course! The information in this PowerPoint has been very basic. It has been designed to provide you with basic definitions only. Many of these definitions will be covered in more detail, and elaborated, within the course itself. Additional Information: Home END