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What is Grammar?
The word “ Grammar” has been derived from French
word “gramaire” or Latin word “grammatical” or
Greek word “grammatika” which means “relating to
letter” or according to F.R Palmer the word grammar
means “to write” “Grammar is the system of rules by
which words are formed and put together to make
sentence” or grammar is the branch of linguistic
which deal with the relationship between words and
the structure of sentence”
Ten Types of Grammar
Linguists are quick to remind us that there are
different varieties of grammar--that is, different ways
of describing and analyzing the structures and
functions of language.
Comparative Grammar
The analysis and comparison of the grammatical
structures of related languages. Contemporary work
in comparative grammar is concerned with "a faculty
of language that provides an explanatory basis for
how a human being can acquire a first language . . ..
In this way, the theory of grammar is a theory of
human language and hence establishes the
relationship among all languages."
Generative Grammar
The rules determining the structure and
interpretation of sentences that speakers accept as
belonging to the language. "Simply put, a generative
grammar is a theory of competence: a model of the
psychological system of unconscious knowledge that
underlies a speaker's ability to produce and interpret
utterances in a language."
Mental Grammar
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The Parts of
Speech
Traditional grammar classifies words based on eight parts of
speech: the verb, the noun, the pronoun, the adjective, the
adverb, the preposition, the conjunction, and the
interjection. Each part of speech explains not what the word
is, but how the word is used. In fact, the same word can be a
noun in one sentence and a verb or adjective in the next.
The next few examples show how a word's part of speech
can change from one sentence to the next, and following
them is a series of sections on the individual parts of speech,
followed by an exercise
What is a Noun?
A noun is a word used to name a person, animal, place,
thing, and abstract idea. Example .Aslam, Pen, Peshawar etc.
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.
1. Noun Gender
Many common nouns, like "engineer" or "teacher," can refer
to men or women. Once, many English nouns would change
form depending on their gender -- for example, a man was
called an "author" while a woman was called an "authoress"
-- but this use of gender-specific nouns is very rare today.
Those that are still used occasionally tend to refer to
occupational categories, as in the following sentences.
Saeed was a very prominent eighteenth-century actor.
Nadeem was at the height of her career as an actress in the
1780s.
The manager was trying to write a want ad, but he couldn't
decide whether he was advertising for a "waiter" or a
"waitress"
2. Noun Plurals
Most nouns change their form to indicate number by adding
"-s" or "-es", as illustrated in the following pairs of sentences:
When Aslam was small he rarely told the truth if he thought
he was going to be punished.
Many people do not believe that truths are self-evident.
There are other nouns which form the plural by changing the
last letter before adding "s". Some words ending in "f" form
the plural by deleting "f" and adding "ves," and words ending
in "y" form the plural by deleting the "y" and adding "ies," as
in the following.
Possessive Nouns
In the possessive case, a noun or pronoun changes its form
to show that it owns or is closely related to something else.
Usually, nouns become possessive by adding a combination
of an apostrophe and the letter "s."
You can form the possessive case of a singular noun that
does not end in "s" by adding an apostrophe and "s," as in
the following sentences:
1) The red suitcase is Cassandra's.
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2) The only luggage that was lost was the prime minister's.
3) The exhausted recruits were woken before dawn by the
drill sergeant's screams.
4) The miner's face was covered in coal dust.
• You can form the possessive case of a singular noun
that ends in "s" by adding an apostrophe alone or by
adding an apostrophe and "s," as in the following
examples:
1) The bus's seats are very uncomfortable.
2) The bus' seats are very uncomfortable.
3) The film crew accidentally crushed the platypus's eggs.
4) The film crew accidentally crushed the platypus' eggs.
5) Felicia Hemans's poetry was once more popular than Lord
Byron's.
6) Felicia Hemans' poetry was once more popular than Lord
Byron's.
2) .Common Nouns
A common noun is a noun referring to a person, place, or
thing in a general sense -- usually, you should write it with a
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Inflection Of Verb:
The great majority of Verb contains six inflection forms. For
example the verb ( go)
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1. He goes.
2. He went.
3. They go.
4. He, She.They (shall, will, should, would) go.
5. He, She (is) they are going.
6. He, She (has) they have gone.
In 3 and 4 we have used “Go” twice called Syncretism.
Function Of Verb:
Verb as head,restrict,the range of others elements in the
clause. The base form head verb phrase,function in various
kind of clauses’
1. Open the door. (Imperative/ commond)
2. clauses may also function as compliment to the Modle
Auxillary, can,may etc. e.g He may be here soon.
3. Clauses may also take infinitives ( ) e.g It is
important to read both the copies.
Dependents:
Verb takes a wider range of dependents. For example a
transitive verb takes a direct object as dependent.
1. She is eating a Pumpkin.(direct object)
2. He Gave her a diamond ring.(Direct object/Indirect.
Object)
3. She considered him a fool.( object/ object
compliment).Because “Foll” can not take place of subject in
Passive voice so it can not be an object.
Lexical Morphology:
Verb can be derived from other parts of speech in a number
of ways.For example, by adding,”ISe,Ify “to an adjective.
1. National (Noun) __________Nationalise. (Verb)
2. Private (N) _____________Privatise. (V)
3. Synthesis (N) ____________Synthesise (V)
4. Beauty (N) _____________Beautify. (V)
5. Object (N) ______________Objectify. (V)
The subject is built around the noun "piece," with the other
words of the subject -- "a" and "of pepperoni pizza" --
modifying the noun. "Piece" is the simple subject.
Inflection:
Most of the adjective take inflection for grad ability with a
three term paradigm. For example.
Positive__________Comparative_______________Superlative.
Tall Taller
Tallest
Young Younger
Youngest.
The comparative and Superlative degree may be expressed
either inflectionally or analytically i.e. more/most.
Function:
Adjective function as head of adjective phrase. Broadly they
have three main functions.
1) Attributive (2) Predicative (3) Post posed
Attributive:
Where it comes before a noun or verb. e.g. ( An
intelligent girl).
Predicative:
Where it comes after the Verb. e.g. (The girl is
intelligent).
Post posed:
Post posed comes immediately after the noun and
before Verb.e.g.(Some one intelligent published the book).
Dependents:
Most adjective are gradable. Syntactically they take degree
expression as dependents i.e. “Too, Er, Est, More, Most, a
bit”etc
All adjective are not gradable, and such adjectives represent
categorical rather then scale properties. For example, (1)
Atomic Scientist (2) Medical Student.
Lexical Morphology:
A number of suffixes derive adjective from nouns e.g.
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Suffixes. Nouns._____Adjectives.
1. Full__________________Beauty____________Beautiful.
2. Less__________________Motion____________Motionless.
3. Ly___________________Friend____________Friendly.
4. Like__________________Child_____________Child like.
5. Al___________________Politics____________Political.
What is an Adverb?
An adverb can modify a verb, an adjective, another adverb,
a phrase, or a clause. An adverb indicates manner, time,
place, cause, or degree and answers questions such as
"how," "when," "where," "how much".
While some adverbs can be identified by their
characteristic "ly" suffix, most of them must be identified by
untangling the grammatical relationships within the
sentence or clause as a whole. Unlike an adjective, an
adverb can be found in various places within the sentence.In
the following examples, each of the highlighted words is an
adverb:
The seamstress quickly made the mourning
clothes.
In this sentence, the adverb "quickly" modifies the verb
"made" and indicates in what manner (or how fast) the
clothing was constructed.
The midwives waited patiently through a long labour.
Similarly in this sentence, the adverb "patiently" modifies
the verb "waited" and describes the manner in which the
midwives waited..
• Here the adverb "more" modifies the adverb
"expeditiously."
• Unfortunately, the bank closed at three today.
In this example, the adverb "unfortunately" modifies the
entire sentence.
The Six Types of Adverbs
1.Adverbs of Manner:” Adverbs of manner
provide information on how someone does something.
For example: “Jack drives very carefully”.
Adverbs of Manner: Adverbs of manner are placed after the
verb or entire expression (at the end of the sentence). For
example: Their teacher speaks quickly.
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What is a Preposition?
A preposition links nouns, pronouns and phrases to other
words in a sentence. The word or phrase that the preposition
introduces is called the object of the preposition.
A preposition usually indicates the temporal, spatial or
logical relationship of its object to the rest of the sentence as
in the following examples:
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What is a Conjunction?
You can use a conjunction to link words, phrases, and
clauses, as in the following example:
I ate the pizza and the pasta.
Call the movers when you are ready.
Co-coordinating Conjunctions
• You use a co-coordinating conjunction ("and," "but,"
"or," "nor," "for," "so," or "yet") to join individual words,
phrases, and independent clauses. Note that you can
also use the conjunctions "but" and "for" as
prepositions.
In this example, the co-coordinating conjunction "for" is used
to link two independent clauses.
Subordinating Conjunctions
• A subordinating conjunction introduces a dependent
clause and indicates the nature of the relationship
among the independent clause(s) and the dependent
clause(s).
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What is an Interjection?
An interjection is a word added to a sentence to convey
emotion. It is not grammatically related to any other part of
the sentence. You usually follow an interjection with an
exclamation mark. Interjections are uncommon in formal
academic prose, except in direct quotations.
The highlighted words in the following sentences are
interjections:
Ouch, that hurt!
Oh no, I forgot that the exam was today.
Hey! Put that down!
I heard one guy say to another guy, "He has a new car, eh?"
I don't know about you but, good lord, I think taxes are too
high!
Subject: The subject is the agent of the sentence in the
active voice; it is
The person or thing that does the action of the sentence,
and it normally
Precedes the verbThe subject may be a single
noun.Example: “Coffee is delicious.”
“Milk contains calcium.”
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Mood
1) Indicative mood expresses a simple statement of fact,
which can be positive (affirmative) or negative
I like coffee.
I do not like coffee.
2) Interrogative mood expresses a question.Why do you
like coffee?
3) Imperative mood expresses a command .Sit down!
4) subjunctive mood expresses what is imagined or
wished or possible
The
President ordered that he attend the meeting.
Voice
Voice shows the relationship of the subject to the action. In
the active voice, the subject does the action (cats eat
mice). In the passive voice, the subject receives the action
(mice
Are eaten by cats). Among other things, we can use voice to
help us change the focus of
Attention.
Aspect
The action or state referred to by the verb is completed (and
often still relevant),
For example:
I have emailed the report to Jane. (so now she has the
report)
(This is called perfective aspect, using perfect tenses.)
The action or state referred to by the verb is in progress or
continuing (that is,
Uncompleted), for example:
We are eating.
(This is called progressive aspect, using progressive
[continuous] tenses.)
Determiner:
A determiner is a word that determines noun use. it is a word
such is “a, the, this, each, some, either, my, and,
your,” that appears before any descriptive and decides the
kind of reference that a man has.
There are three classes of determiners:
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1. Pre-determiner:
Pre-determiner comes before a determiner. or in more
technical Word Pre-determiner a word which proceeds and
qualifies another determiner, as “both, dose in, both my
hand”
Examples: (all, both, half, double, twice, three, one-third etc)
1. All this money
2. Both my hand.
3. Half this milk.
2. Central determiner:
Central determiner comes in the center of a pre-determiner,
such as “an, the, those”
Examples:
1. All those work.
2. Both these sisters.
3. Post-determiner:
These are items which follow determiner but proceed
adjectives, such as “other, two, first,”
There are three types of post-determiner (1) Cardinal
Numerals (2) Ordinal Numerals (3) Quantifiers.
Examples:
1. Cardinal Numerals (One, two three……..)
2. Ordinal Numerals (first, second, third…..)
3. Quantifiers. (Many, few, several, much, little,)
The Verb Phrases:
A verb phrase consists of a main verb preceded by one or
more helping verbs. These helping verbs work together with
main verb as a unit. For example
1. Is leaving. 2. Had seemed. 3. May become. .4. Could
jump.5.Should move? Etc
Direct Object:
A direct object is the word or phrase in the sentence that
indicates somebody or something directly affected by the
action of the verb, such as “Cat” in “She fed the cat”
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Indirect Object:
Indirect is the person or thing action is done to. If function as
the recipient of the action shown by a verb and its direct
object, for example “the cat” in “she gave the cat a meal”
Object Complement:.
An object complement is the complement that refers to
object. It is a noun, Pronun,or adjective that is a complement
of a verb and qualifies its direct object, For example,
“Angry” in “He make me angry”
1. He made them happy.
2. They elected him their leader.