Saturday, August 26, 2017

ADJECTIVE ORDER

Adjectives can be used to describe lots of things, from physical size, age, shape, colour, material, to more abstract things like opinion, origin and purpose.
We can use adjectives together to give a detailed description of something.
Adjectives that express opinions usually come before all others, but it can sometimes depend on what exactly you want to emphasise.
For example: 


"That's a nice, big, blue bag." (You like the bag.)
"That's a nice blue." (You like the colour.)

When we group adjectives together there is a general (sometimes flexible) rule for the position of each type of adjective, these are:-
Position1st*2nd*3rd4th5th6th7th8th
OpinionSizeAgeShapeColourMaterialOriginPurpose
NiceSmallOldSquareBlackPlasticBritishRacing
UglyBigNewCircularBlueCottonAmericanRunning

You might swap adjectives that express an opinion and an adjective based on fact depending on what you wish to emphasise:-
For example:
  • "She had a long, ugly nose." emphasising the length of her nose.
  • "He was a silly, little man." emphasising that the man was silly.
This is just for fun as you wouldn't normally see so many adjectives in one description.
For example:
  • "She had a big, ugly, old, baggy, blue, stripey, cotton, British, knitting bag."
Does it matter if you get it wrong? Well outside of exams and tests, it won't kill you, but people reading or listening to you will find it odd if you mix up the order.

Friday, August 25, 2017

ENGLISH ADJECTIVES

When we compare things, people or even ideas we look at what makes them different from each other.
Comparative adjectives are used to show what quality one thing has more or less than the other. They normally come before any other adjectives.
!Tip - It's a good idea to learn opposites (antonyms) when learning adjectives.
For example:

TALL / SHORT

tallshort
The man on the left is taller than the man on the right. 

The man on the right is shorter than the man on the left.

!Note - Have you noticed that when we are comparing two things like this we put than between the adjective and the thing being compared.

FAST / SLOW

car bicycle
A car is faster than a bicycle. 

A bicycle is slower than a car.

For example:

BIG / SMALL

blue bag red bag
The red bag is bigger than the blue bag. 

The blue bag is smaller than the red bag.

For example:-
  • 'good' becomes 'better'
  • 'bad' becomes 'worse'
  • 'far' becomes 'farther' or 'further'

Saturday, August 19, 2017

CLAUSES

What is a clause?

A clause is a part of a sentence. There are two main types: independent (main clauses), dependent (subordinate clauses).

INDEPENDENT CLAUSES

An independent clause is a complete sentence; it contains a subject and verb and expresses a complete thought in both context and meaning.
For example: The door opened.

Independent clauses can be joined by a coordinating conjunction to form complex or compound sentences.

CO-ORDINATING CONJUNCTIONS

and
but
for
or
nor
so
yet

For example: Take two independent clauses and join them together with the conjunction and: " The door opened." "The man walked in." = The door opened and the man walked in.

DEPENDENT CLAUSES

A dependent (subordinate) clause is part of a sentence; it contains a subject and verb but does not express a complete thought. They can make sense on their own, but, they are dependent on the rest of the sentence for context and meaning. They are usually joined to an independent clause to form a complex sentence.
Dependent clauses often begin with a a subordinating conjunction or relative pronoun (see below) that makes the clause unable to stand alone.

SUBORDINATING CONJUNCTIONS

afteralthoughasbecause
beforeeven ifeven thoughif
in order that
once
provided that
rather than
since
so that
than
that
though
unless
until
when
whenever
where
whereas
wherever
whether
while
why

RELATIVE PRONOUNS

that
which
whichever
who
whoever
whom
whosewhoseverwhomever
For example:
The door opened because the man pushed it.
Dependent clauses can be nominal, adverbial or adjectival.
A nominal clause (noun clause) functions like a noun or noun phrase. It is a group of words containing a subject and a finite verb of its own and contains one of the following: that if whether

Friday, August 18, 2017

PERSONAL PRONOUN/DETERMINER

Possessive

Lynne's
Lynne's
My
Mine
Your
Yours
His
His
Her
Hers
Its
Its
Our
Ours
Their
Theirs
Whose
Whose
For example:-
  • This is Lynne's web site. It's my website! It's mine!
  • It's not Zozanga's web site. It's not his website! It's not his!
  • Have you seen her book? It's her book. It's hers.

Genitive Case

You should still use the "of" form of the possessive / genitive case when talking about things that belong to other things.
For example:-
  • The door of the car. You can also say, "the car door".
  • The top speed of the car is 1000 km/hr. You might also hear, "the car's top speed" in advertising, because they like to humanise things.
  • The content of the website. You can also say, "the website content", or "the website's content".
  • Go to the top of the page.
You may still hear someone say something like "The father of the bride," but it could equally be; "The bride's father."

Saturday, August 12, 2017

POSSESSIVE CASE / GENITIVE CASE

There are different ways to show ownership of something. To show possession you can use nouns to modify other nouns.
(For purposes of clarity, we distinguish between the genitive case and the possessive case here.)
The good news is that the genitive case "of" is used less and less in English today. Hooray!

Possessive Case

The possessive case is used to show ownership. The possessive pattern or mark ('s) is generally used when indicating a relation of ownership or association with a person, rather than a thing. (Linguistically speaking it is a form of genitive case.)
Singular nouns take -'s.
For example:-
  • Bob's presentation.
  • Lynne's web site kept growing larger and larger.
There are, as ever, exceptions to this rule. When a group of people is involved or animals.
For example:-
  • The members' forum. 
  • The dogs' tails.
Companies are often treated like people.
For example:-
  • Coca Cola's latest advertising campaign.
Irregular plural nouns that don't end in s take -'s.
For example:-
  • The children's toys.
  • The people's court.
Plural nouns that end in " s " take an apostrophe at the end ( ' ).
For example:-
  • The girls' dresses.
People's names that end in "s" you can write (') at the end, or add ('s).
For example:-
  • Charles' job was on the line.
or
  • Charles's job was on the line.
Try to avoid sounding like hissing Sid though. When an added - s would lead to three closely bunched s or z sounds just use an apostrophe at the end.
  • The map of Ulysses' journey.
If you have to show joint ownership, give the possessive form to the final name only.
  • Abbott and Costello's famous baseball sketch.
Pronouns and determiners are inflected to show the possessive / genitive case.

Friday, August 11, 2017

Objective / Accusative Case

First you need to know what an object is. If the subject of a sentence is doing something to someone, that someone or something becomes the object of the sentence.
Now it might help you if you know what the term "case" means. It's the grammatical function of a noun or pronoun, thankfully almost extinct in the English language, but we haven't buried it yet.
A noun or pronoun is in the objective case when it is used as a direct object, an indirect object, or an object.
A noun which is directly affected by the action of a verb is put into the objective case. In English we call this noun the "direct object" which is a little more descriptive of its function. It's the direct object of some action.
  • Robert fixed the car.
In the example above, the "car" is in the objective case because it's the direct object of Robert's action of fixing.
Pronouns are inflected to show the objective case
.

PERSONAL PRONOUN

Objective/Accusative
Referring to the object in a sentence
Me
You
Him
Her
It
Us
Them
Whom
For example:
  • The web site gave Lynne a headache.
  • Mum gave us the money.
  • She gave him the book.
.

Saturday, August 5, 2017

SUBJECTIVE / NOMINATIVE CASE

Used especially to identify the subject of a finite verb.
A noun or pronoun is in the subjective when it is used as the subject of the sentence or as a predicate noun. In the following examples, nouns and pronouns in the subjective case are italicized.
A noun in the subjective case is often the subject of a verb.
For example:
  • "The tree fell on my car", "the tree" is in the nominative case because it's the subject of the verb "fell".
Pronouns are inflected to show the subjective case

PERSONAL PRONOUN

Subjective/Nominative
Referring to the subject in a sentence.
I
You
He
She
It
We
They
Who
For example:
  • Lynne owns this web site.
  • I hope to finish my homework tomorrow.
  • She enjoyed her English lessons.
  • He is an idiot. (The word idiot is a predicate noun because it follows is; a form of the verb "be")
.

Friday, August 4, 2017

CASE

Case is the grammatical function of a noun or pronoun. There are only three cases in modern English, they are subjective (he),objective (him) and possessive (his). They may seem more familiar in their old English form - nominativeaccusative and genitive. There is no dative case in modern English. Yippee!
First more good news. You cannot really go wrong here, we got rid of most of our cases and as a result English is easier than many other languages because nouns and some indefinite pronouns (anyone, someone, everyone, and so on) only have a distinctive case form for the possessive. There are a few remnants of old English though, and pronouns have distinctive forms in all three cases and should be used with a bit more care.
The pronoun cases are simple though. There are only three:-
1. Subjective case: pronouns used as subject. 

2. Objective case: pronouns used as objects of verbs or prepositions. 
3. Possessive case: pronouns which express ownership.