Writing and Grammar

1. Writing and Grammar Your Road Map for Successful Writing Habits J. King 2010

2. Nouns and Pronouns

3. Common and Proper Nouns • A common noun names any one of a class of people, places, or things. • i.e. writer, order, building • A proper noun names a specific person, place, or thing. • i.e. Mark Twain, Odonata, White House

4. Count and Noncount Nouns • Count nouns refer to entities that are viewed as countable. Count nouns therefore have both a singular and a plural and they can be accompanied by determiners that refer to distinctions in number: • A ten • One student many students • Every those

5. Count and Noncount Nouns • Noncount nouns refer to entities that are viewed as a mass that cannot be counted; for example, bread, furniture, music. They are treated as singular and can be accompanied only by determiners that do not refer to distinctions in number: • Much • Your information • That

6. Noun Suffixes • A noun is a word that can be the only or main word in a noun phrase. WE cannot identify all nouns merely by their form, but certain suffixes can be added to verbs or adjectives to make nouns. Here are a few typical noun suffixes with words that exemplify them:

7. Noun Suffixes • -tion (and variants) education, relation, invasion, revision • -er, -or camper, speaker; actor, supervisory • -ing building, writing • -ity mentality, normality, reality, sanity • -ness happiness, compactness

8. Pronouns and Antecedents • Pronouns are words that stand for nouns or for words that take the place of nouns. • i.e. he, his, her, hers • Antecedents are nouns (or words that take the place of nouns) for which pronouns stand. • i.e. Michael said he lost his watch at the fair.

9. Personal Pronouns • Personal pronouns refer to the person speaking (first person), the person spoken to (second person), or the person, place or thing spoken about (third person).

10. Reflexive and Intensive Pronouns • A reflexive pronoun ends in –self or –selves and indicates that someone or something performs an action to, for or upon itself. Reflexive pronouns point back to a noun or pronoun earlier in the sentence. • An intensive pronoun ends in –self or –selves and simply adds emphasis to a noun or pronoun in the same sentence.

11. Reflexive and Intensive Pronouns

12. Reflexive and Intensive Pronouns • Reflexive: Joy helped herself to some turkey. • They poured themselves some milk. • Intensive: The mayor herself attended the carnival. • An intensive pronoun usually comes directly after its antecedent, but not always. • Frank fixed the refrigerator himself.

13. Demonstrative Pronouns • Demonstrative pronouns direct attention to specific people, places, or things. • Demonstrative pronouns come before or after their antecedents • Before: This is the person we want to hire. • After: Of all the celebrations in the world, that is my favorite.

14. Relative Pronouns • A relative pronoun begins a subordinate clause (A group of words that has both a subject and a verb but cannot stand alone as a sentence.) and connects it to another idea in a sentence. • Relative pronouns: that, which, who, whom, whose

15. Independent Clause vs. Subordinate Clause

16. Interrogative Pronouns • An interrogative pronoun is used to begin a question. • Interrogative pronouns: what, which, who, whom, whose • i.e. Which of the vegetables do you want? • i.e. Who will go with me to the park?

17. Indefinite Pronouns • Indefinite pronouns refer to people, places, or things, often without specifying which one.

18. Verbs

19. Action Verbs • An action verb that tells what action someone or something is performing • i.e. The kingrules. • i.e. Faminestruck the people.

20. Intransitive Verbs • Intransitive verbs are capable of expressing themselves without a complement to complete their meaning. • Example: The dog coughed. • We huddled under our ponchos through the opera in the rain. • John slouched past the fountain.

21. Transitive Verbs • Transitive Verbs are those that cannot complete their meaning without the help of a direct object. • Example: We bounced the idea around the saloon. • He yanked her out of her daze.

22. Transitive and Intransitive Verbs • An action verb is transitive if it directs action toward someone or something named in the same sentence. • An action verb is intransitive if it does not direct action toward someone or something named in the sentence. • Transitive: Pat carried her books to the lecture in Asia • Intransitive: The temperature fell quickly. • Transitive: Bill readsbooks about Asia. • Intransitive: Bill reads every night before going to bed.

23. Linking Verbs • A linking verb is a verb that connects a word at or near the beginning of a sentence with a word at or near the end. • The most common linking verb is some form of the verb be. • i.e. Sara is an astronaut. • i.e. He was glad.

24. The Forms of Be

25. Other Linking Verbs • The situation on board remained serious. • The astronauts grew anxious.

26. Linking Verb or Action Verb • A verb is functioning as a linking verb if am, are, or is can logically be substituted for the verb.

27. Helping Verbs • Helping verbs are verbs that can be added to another verb to make a single verb phrase. • Helping Verbs Other Than the Forms of Be

28. Recognizing Helping Verbs/Auxiliary Verbs • Verb Phrases

29. Adjectives and Adverbs

30. Adjectives • An adjective is a word used to describe a noun or pronouns or to give a noun or pronoun a more specific meaning. • The process by which an adjective describes a word or makes it more specific is called modification. • Adjectives must answer the question What kind? Which one? How many? Or How much? about the nouns and pronouns they modify.

31. Adjectives Answering Questions

32. Articles • Three adjectives—the, a, and an—are articles. The is called the definite article; a and an are called indefinite articles. • The definite article, the, indicates that the noun it modifies refers to a specific person, place, or thing. The indefinite articles, a and an, indicate that the nouns they modify refer to any one of a class of people, places, or things.

33. Attributive Adjectives • Adjectives are attributive (attributing a quality to what is denoted by a noun) when they are being used as premodifiers. • Example: You are the veryperson I was looking for. • Example: That is utternonsense.

34. Predicative Adjectives • Adjectives are predicative (part of the predicate) when they are being used as complements. • Example: I made the bed comfortable. • Example: We are happy to see you.

35. Central Adjectives • Central Adjectives can be used in all three functions. • She is an old woman. • She is old. • I consider her old.

36. Adjective Suffixes • -able, -ible -less • -al, -ial -ous, -eous, -ious • -ed -y • -ful • -ic • -ical • -ish • -ive, -ative

37. Nouns Used as Adjectives • A noun used as an adjective answers the question What kind? or Which one? About a noun that follows it. • Guitar music (What kind of music?) • Evening meal (Which meal?)

38. Proper and Compound Adjectives • A proper adjective is a proper noun used as an adjective or an adjective formed from a proper noun. • Examples: • Alcott novel, Chicago storm, Jeffersonian democracy, Mexican art • Adjectives made up of more than one word are called compound adjectives. • Examples: • far-off land, hard-shell crabs, farsighted leader, hardhearted neighbor

39. Adverbs • An adverb is a word that modifies a verb, an adjective, or another adverb.

40. Adverbs Modifying Verbs

41. Adverbs • An adverb is a word that can be the only or main word in an adverb phrase. The suffix –ly is commonly added to adjectives to make adverbs. • Calmly, frankly, lightly, madly, tearfully • If the adjective ends in –ic, the suffix is usually –ically • Economically, geographically, heroically, romantically

42. Adverbs (continued) • The suffix –wise is added to nouns to make adverbs. • Clockwise, lengthwise, moneywise, weatherwise • Many adverbs have no suffix: • Now, afterwards, here, outside, therefore, however

43. Adverbs (continued) • Adverbs modify and thus typically precede verbs and adjectives—the factory was well run, the man was extremely tired, etc. • Adverbs (adverbials): • Of time: at two o’ clock, now • Of manner: in a slip-shod way, haphazardly • Of frequency: every three weeks, repeatedly • Of duration: ad infinitum, eternally • Of location or direction: home, away, ahead • Of attitude toward an event or action: with contempt, frankly

44. Prepositions, Conjunctions, and Interjections

45. Prepositions • A preposition is a word that relates a noun or pronoun that appears with it to another word in the sentence. • Examples • About, behind, down ,off, till, toward, under, upon, since, through, inside, beyond, before, etc.

46. Conjunctions • A conjunction is a word used to connect other words or groups of words. • Coordinating Conjunctions connect similar kinds of words or similar groups of words. • Examples: and, but, for, nor, or, so, yet

47. Conjunctions (continued) • Subordinating Conjunctions: connect two complete ideas by making one of the ideas subordinate to the other. To subordinate means to “place below another in rank or importance”. • Examples: • Although, even though, unless, as long as, as soon as, etc.

48. Interjections • Interjections are used to express emotion. • Examples: Ouch, Wow, Oh, Uh, Whew, etc.

49. Particles

50. Particles • Words that do not change their form. • A function word that does not belong to any of the inflected grammatical word classes (such as nouns, pronouns, verbs, or articles). It is a catch-all term for a heterogeneous set of words and terms that lack a precise lexical definition • Examples: • At, away, by, for, the, to