Basic English Grammar

Parts of Speech
1. Noun – People, Places, and things
2. Pronoun
3. Verb
4. Adjective
5. Adverb
6. Preposition
7. Conjunction
8. Interjection

NOUNS:
 A noun is a word that names something
Common Nouns – Nonspecific People, places and things.
Examples:
Man, Woman, Dog, City, Car, Ship, Pencil.
NOTE: They are not capitalized and are typically used in combination with articles (the and a/an)
and other determiners (your car, my dog, or our group).
Proper Nouns – Specific people, places, and things.
Examples:
People’s names, Cities, or Countries, Names of streets, Days of the week, Month of the Year.
NOTE: They are always spelled with a capital letter.
PRONOUNS:
 Replace nouns
 A pronoun is a word that stands in for a noun, often to avoid the need to repeat the same
noun over and over.
Three kinds of Pronouns:
Personal – I, she, he, it, we, they
Possessive – Mine, yours, his, hers, theirs
Demonstrative – these, that, those, this
NOTE: Always put the other person’s name first before using a pronoun in your sentence.
VERBS:
 Verbs are words that represent actions that are external (run, jump, work) and internal
(love, think, consider).
Types of verbs
Dynamic (action) verbs
Examples: walk, laugh, swim, play, eat, drink, sing, dance, talk, say
 There are a lot of actions that take place in our minds and feelings, which are not external.
Verbs that describe mental or internal actions are still dynamic verbs, but they’re not always
so obvious. These include “process verbs,” which describe actions of transition.
Examples: consider, guess, change, grow, live, endure, succeed, fail
Stative (state-of-being) verbs
 The opposite of dynamic verbs of action is stative verbs of being. Stative verbs describe a
subject’s state or feeling, including things they like and don’t like.
Examples: want, need, prefer, love, hate, like, dislike, seem, understand, know, believe, involve,
realize
Auxiliary (helping) verbs
 are used in English to change another verb’s tense, voice, or mood. When auxiliary verbs
are used, there’s always a main verb that represents the main action. However, the
auxiliary verb must still be conjugated correctly.
 if there's one person, place, or thing as the subject (not just one noun), then the verb is
conjugated in the singular. If there are multiple people, places, or things, then the verb is
conjugated in the plural.
Example sentence:
She is eating a banana.

They are playing in the yard.

Modal auxiliary verbs

 modal auxiliary verbs are not the main verb
 but they do change its meaning slightly
Examples:
can, may, could, should, would, must, ought, and might.
Example sentence:
I could swim across the Samal Island, but should I do it?

She must be the strongest person on the team, and might be the strongest person in the region.
Phrasal verbs
 are phrases that act as individual verbs
 often combining two or more words and changing their meaning
For example:
pick up means to grab or lift, very different from the definitions of pick and up alone.
Look forward to
Break down
Calm down

ADDITIONAL:
 VERBS can be changed from the present tense, to the past tense, and future tense.
 2 types of verbs
1) Regular verbs – follow a certain conjugation pattern.
2) Irregular verbs – Do not have a specific conjugation pattern.
Conjugating regular verbs:
WALK
Present tense: Walk
I walk to school every day.
Past tense: Walked
I walked to school yesterday.
Future tense: going to + verb or will + verb
Example sentence:
I am going to walk to school tomorrow.
I will walk to school tomorrow.

Conjugating irregular verbs:

RUN
Present tense: I run
Past tense: I ran

ADJECTIVE
 A word used to modify (describe) a noun or pronoun.
Example sentence:
That was a loud music.
ADVERB
 A word used to modify a verb
Example sentence:
The foodpanda arrived fast.

PREPOSITION
 A word placed before a noun to form a phrase modifying (describing) another word in the
sentence.
 The preposition indicates the relationship between the noun and the word the phrase
modifies.
about, above, across, after, against, along, among, around, at, before, behind, below, beside,
besides, between, beyond, by, down, during, except, for, from, in, inside, into, like, near, next, of,
off, on, onto, out, outside, over, past, since, than, through, to, toward, under, unlike, until, up, with,
and without.
Example sentence:
The shoes are beside the door.

CONJUNCTION
 A joining word.

A) Correlative Conjunction: A pair of conjunctions connecting grammatically equal elements.

Examples:
Either... or, Neither.. .nor, Whether... or, Not only... but also, and both.
Example sentence
Either pay me what you owe me or leave. ·Whether you pay me now or later is up to you.
Not only does she have a job, but she also tutors on weekends.

B) Coordinating Conjunction: Connects two words or parts of a sentence.

And, Or, But.
Example sentence:
It wasn't late, but it was starting to rain. Give me liberty or death.
C) Subordinating Conjunction: A word that introduces a subordinate clause and indicates its
relation to the rest of the sentence.

After, Although, As, As if, Because, Before, Even Though, If, Since, So That, Than, That, Though,
Unless, Until, When, Where, Whether, and While.

She went into the bank while I waited in the car. · He told me his life story as if he cared.

D) Conjunctive Adverb: An adverb used with a semicolon to connect independent clauses.

Consequently, furthermore, however, moreover, nevertheless, then, therefore, and thus.

She swallowed a lot of water; however, the lifeguard got to him quickly.
He had no money; consequently, he moved back home.

ARTICLE: a, an, the (modifies noun); definite article: the book, the tree; indefinite article: a book
(could be any book), a tree (could be any tree).
NOTE a/an distinction; an is used before a vowel sound
Example sentence:
Yesterday, I bought a blouse and a skirt

I saw an accident of a car.

INTERJECTIONS: A word expressing surprise or emotion. Oh· Hey· Wow· (some grammars
include them as parts of speech).