Title: Basic Grammar for Language Classes
1Basic Grammarfor Language Classes
2Are you ready for some ACTION? Okay, what is
a verb?
- Its the working part of a sentence, mostly
action words - physical Action run, ski, cut
- Mental Action dream, hope
- not only actions but states of being be,
appear, seem, become
3Action verbs are INtransitive or transitive
- Intransitive means without direct objects
- Cyrus stood by the lacrosse goal.
- Transitive means a direct object is used
- Cyrus took Biology with mr. ODay
- Some verbs use direct objects or not
- cyrus ran a fast break. (transitive)
- cyrus was running fast. (intransitive)
4Verbs often have word order preferences
- a command
- Eat your food!
- vo
- Verb, object
- A statement
- We eat food.
- SVO
- Subject, Verb, Object
- A question
- Are you ready?
- Verb, subject,
- predicate
5What is an Infinitive?
- The word to before the verb makes an infinitive
- Present infinitive to laugh
- Perfect infinitive to have laughed
- It often completes another verb
- We want to watch a movie.
- We are able to get tickets.
6Infinitives are verbal nouns
- As nouns They are
- Subjects To see is to believe.
- Direct objects We like to paint.
- Subject complements To see is to believe.
7Do you know your conjugations?
- Conjugations are groups of verbs that share a
pattern of endings - Conjugations are a pattern of verb endings that
show the 6 personal subjects
- Personal Subjects
- sing. pl.
- 1st person I we
- 2nd person you you
- 3rd person he they
- she
- it
8A tense situation what up? Tense means
time
- English grammar
- Present I swim
- Past I swam
- Future I shall swim
- Has 6 tenses
- perfect
- I have swum
- Past perfect
- I had swum
- Future perfect
- I shall have swum
9some verbs help to form various tenses of other
verbs Auxiliary means helping
- The soldier did cross the river.
- A soldier is watching the bridge.
- Someone has destroyed the bridge.
10What are Nouns anyway?
- Persons
- Places
- Things
- Ideas
11Do you know gender???
- It might be
- Masculine,
- Feminine,
- Neuter,
- You know
12What is number?
- Singular
- Masculine,
- Feminine,
- Neuter
- N.B. English has no gender
- Plural
- Masculine,
- Feminine,
- Neuter
- N.B. english plurals are s, -es
13Do you know your articles?
articles point to a person, place, thing, idea.
A or an are indefinite they do not refer to
specific things. the is a definite article.
14What is the Case of Nouns, Pronouns?
- Possessive
- His job is difficult.
- Objective
- He sang it to them.
- Subjective/Nominative
- He hit the ball.
- He is a musician.
15Note the cases in pronounsPossessive objective s
ubjective
- his him he
- her her she
- its it it
- our us we
- your you you
- their them they
- whose whom who
16Case shows Function. Is a word the subject? If
yes, its nominativeif a word shows
ownership, then its possessiveIf a word
receives action from a verb, its objective case.
17what objects receive action?
- Direct objects
- What? or whom? after the action of a verb
- Indirect objects
- To whom, for whom, to what, for what the action
is done - Objects of prepositions
- Answers preposition what or whom
18now What about a Pronoun?
- Its a placeholder, replacing a noun .
- Personal- I, Me, You, she, we
- Reflexive- same as the subject I cut myself.
- Interrogative- makes questions who,what?
- Demonstrative- points to things, people
- this, that (singular), these, those (plural)
- Relative- refers to an earlier noun / pronoun
who, whose, whom, which, that - I saw the play that you were in.
19Whats the function of a conjunction?
- Introduce a clause
- Link two clauses
- Join any two words
- Two kinds of conjunctions
- Coordinating and, but, or,
- nor, yet,
for - Subordinating because, although,
while, unless, if, until, - (so) that, whenever
20Clauses are expressions with both a subject and
verb
- Dependent clauses do not stand alone
- Subordinate conjunctions introduce dependent
ideas - until, whenever, (so) that, if, unless, while,
although, because, since - Independent clauses express main ideas
21Adjectives are descriptive of qualities and
conditions
- foreign languages are different than English
because - Other languages require adjective noun
agreement - in number, case, gender
- Sp. casa blanca Fr. la maison blanche
22When things are compared, adjectives use special
forms
- when comparing 2 things, adjectives use the er
ending - John is taller than Aaron.
- Aaron is taller than pat.
- a quality in the greatest degree, uses
superlative adjectives - John is the tallest in class.