Grammar Notes Part 1

PARTS OF SPEECH                                                                                              

1.  NOUN

A noun is the name of a person, place, thing, idea, or quality.

Examples:  Aiman, Syahid, boy, girl, children; Proton Waja, Acer , classrooms, notebooks; freedom, intelligence; hope, anger, joy

2.  PRONOUN

A pronoun is usually a substitute for a noun. The noun is called the "antecedent" (but an indefinite pronoun has no antecedent).

Examples:

  a.  Personal pronouns:  I, mine, me; you, yours; he, his, him; she, hers, her; it, its; we, ours, us; they, theirs, them.

  b.  Interrogative pronouns:  who, whose, whom, which, what

  c.  Relative pronouns (include):  who, who, whose, which, that;  whoever, whomever, whichever

  d.  Demonstrative pronouns:  this, that, these, those

  e.  Indefinite pronouns (include):  all, another, any, anybody, anyone, anything, both, each, either, everybody, everyone, everything, many, neither, nobody, no one, none, one, others, some, somebody, someone, such

  f. Intensive or reflexive pronouns:  myself, yourself, himself, herself, itself, ourselves, themselves

3.  VERB

A verb expresses an action or a condition (a state of being).

Examples:  Harith will eat the burger.  (action)                  Zuliah is happy.  (condition or state of being)

                    Aiman won’t eat the burger.                         Ameira isn’t happy.

                    Will Harith eat the burger?                           Is Zuliah happy?

4.  ADVERB     

An adverb describes a verb, adjective, or other adverb. Adverbs usually tell how (for example: slowly), when (e.g., lately), where (e.g., there), how much (e.g., very), or why (e.g., therefore).

Example:  He always chews his gum loudly.

5.  ADJECTIVE

An adjective describes or limits a noun.

Examples:  tall, young, pretty, light, blue, new, white  (The tall, young, pretty girl is wearing a light blue dress with her new white shoes.)  (NOT:  ...a light dress blue with her new shoes white.)

Adjectives and adverbs have three degrees of comparison:  positive, comparative, superlative.  Examples:

Mariam has a smart child.  Salmah has a smarter child.  Naemah has the smartest child.

Azman is an intelligent student. Sofian is more intelligent than Azmant.  Rafiq is the most intelligent student.

The blued car is expensive.  The red car is less expensive.  The yellow car is the least expensive.

I’m a good painter.   She’s a better painter.   He’s the best painter.

I’m a bad singer.  She’s a worse singer.   He’s the worst singer.

6.  PREPOSITION

A preposition usually  shows the relationship between a noun or pronoun and another part of a sentence.

There are many prepositions, including:  about, above, across, after, against, along, among, around, as, at, before, behind, below, beneath, between, beyond, beside, besides, by, down, during, except, from, for, in, inside, into, like, near, next, of, off, on, out, out of, outside, over, past, round, since, than, through, till, to,  toward, towards, under, underneath, unless, until, upon, up, with, within, without.

Examples:  My pencil is under my desk by my foot.         Maznah drove from Ipoh to Kuala Lumpur.

  

7.  CONJUNCTION

A conjunction connects words, phrases, and clauses.

Coordinate conjunctions connect words, phrases, and clauses of equal value:  and, or, nor, but (and sometimes for).  e.g., The rabbit and the cat are hungry.

Correlative conjunctions occur in pairs:  both-and, either-or, neither-nor, not only-but also.  e.g., Both the fish and the snake are thirsty.

Subordinate conjunctions connect unequal clauses (dependent clauses with independent clauses). They include:  after, although, as, because, before, if, since, than, though, unless, until, when, where, while.   e.g.,After they ate, they had dessert.

8.  INTERJECTION

An interjection is a word that expresses feeling or emotion; usually it is followed by an exclamation mark.

Examples:  Oh!  Ah!  Wow!  Darn!  Gosh!  Golly!  Gee!  Ow!  Ouch!  Yikes!  Yippee!  Hooray!  Boo!   Whew!