Professional Documents
Culture Documents
? You won't get a promotion until you will have been working here as long as Tim.
Not Correct
? You won't get a promotion until you have been working here as long as Tim.
Correct
AND REMEMBER Non-Continuous Verbs / Mixed Verbs
It is important to remember that Non-Continuous Verbs cannot be used in any
continuous tenses. Also, certain non-continuous meanings for Mixed Verbs cannot
be used in continuous tenses. Instead of using Future Perfect Continuous with these
verbs, you must use Future Perfect .
Examples:
? Ned will have been having his driver's license for over two years. Not Correct
? Ned will have had his driver's license for over two years. Correct
ADVERB PLACEMENT
The examples below show the placement for grammar adverbs such as: always,
only, never, ever, still, just, etc.
Examples:
? You will only have been waiting for a few minutes when her plane arrives.
? Will you only have been waiting for a few minutes when her plane arrives?
? You are only going to have been waiting for a few minutes when her plane
arrives.
? Are you only going to have been waiting for a few minutes when her plane
arrives?
ACTIVE / PASSIVE
Examples:
? The famous artist will have been painting the mural for over six months by the
time it is finished. ACTIVE
? The mural will have been being painted by the famous artist for over six months
by the time it is finished. PASSIVE
? The famous artist is going to have been painting the mural for over six months by
the time it is finished. ACTIVE
? The mural is going to have been being painted by the famous artist for over six
months by the time it is finished. PASSIVE
NOTE: Passive forms of the Future Perfect Continuous are not common.
Bare infinitive- In grammar, infinitive is the name for certain verb forms that exist
in many languages. In the usual (traditional) description of English, the infinitive
of a verb is its basic form with or without the particle to: therefore, do and to do, be
and to be, and so on are infinitives. As with many linguistic concepts, there is not a
single definition of infinitive that applies to all languages; however, in languages
that have infinitives, they generally have most of the following properties:
-In most of their uses, infinitives are non-finite verbs.
-They function as other lexical categories ? usually nouns ? within the clauses that
contain them, for example by serving as the subject of another verb.
-They do not represent any of the verb's arguments (as employer and employee
do).
-They are not inflected to agree with any subject, and their subject, if they have
one, is not case-marked as such.
-They cannot serve as the only verb of a declarative sentence.
-They are the verb's lemma, citation form, and/or name; that is, they are regarded
as its basic uninflected form, and/or they are used in giving its definition or
conjugation.
-They do not have tense, aspect, moods, and/or voice, or they are limited in the
range of tenses, aspects, moods, and/or voices that they can use. (In languages
where infinitives do not have moods at all, they are usually treated as being their
own non-finite mood.)
-They are used with auxiliary verbs.
.
Case- In grammar, the case of a noun or pronoun indicates its grammatical function
in a greater phrase or clause; such as the role of subject, of direct object, or of
possessor. 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 -
nominative, accusative and genitive. There is no dative case in modern English.
Yippee!
Collective nouns- Collective nouns are nouns that refer to things or people as a
unit. Examples: family, police, class, team, crew etc.
Collective nouns can be used in both the singular form and the plural form.
Rules for Using Collective Nouns:
- Singular Collective Noun (Singular collective nouns refer to one unit of people or
things, Singular collective nouns are used like singular nouns.)
- Plural Collective Nouns (Plural collective nouns refer to two or more units of
people or things, Plural collective nouns are used like plural nouns )
Common noun ? a noun that may be preceded by an article or other limiting
modifier and that denotes any or all of a class of entities and not an individual.
Common nouns can be subcategorized as count nouns and mass nouns. A common
noun begins with a lowercase letter unless it is at the beginning of a sentence.
Contrast with proper noun.
Examples of sentences with common nouns:
? The black dog is in my yard.
? His anger knows no limits.
complement ? is any word or phrase that completes the sense of a subject or an
object.
? object complement is a complement that is used to predicate a description of the
direct object. Examples:
We elected him chairman.
? subject complement is a complement that is used to predicate a description of the
subject of a clause. Subject complements have two subgroups: predicate adjectives
and predicate nouns. Examples:
I am not yet experienced.
I am a teacher.
Complement is obligatory, as contrasted with adjuncts, which are optional.
conjunction ? is a word that links words, phrases, or clauses. There are three types
of conjunctions:
? coordinating conjunctions: may join single words, or they may join groups of
words, but they must always join similar elements: e.g. subject subject, verb phrase
verb phrase, sentence sentence. (e.g. for, and, because, but, or, yet, so, nor)
? correlative conjunctions: also connect sentence elements of the same kind:
however, unlike coordinating conjunctions, correlative conjunctions are always
used in pairs.
(e.g. either. . .or; both. . . and; neither. . . nor; not only. . . but also)
? subordinating conjunctions: the largest class of conjunctions, connect subordinate
clauses to a main clause. (e.g. as, although, before, even if, since, that, unless,
when)
? conjunctive adverbs: join independent clauses together (e.g. also, indeed, next,
thus)
copular verb ? in other words linking verb; links a subject to a complement.
Linking verbs must be followed by a complement in order to make the sentence
complete. The complement can be a subject complement or an adverbial, and
occurs in two sentence types which are of the Subject-Verb-Complement (SVC)
and Subject-Verb-Adverbial (SVA) pattern.
These are two groups of linking verbs:
? resulting linking verbs: become, get, grow, fall, prove, run, turn
? current linking verbs: appear, be, feel, lie, look, remain, seem, smell, sound, stay,
taste
degree of comparison ? the degree of comparison of an adjective or adverb
describes the relational value of one thing with something in another clause of a
sentence. An adjective may
? simply describe a quality (the positive), e.g. This house is big.
? compare the quality with that of another of its kind (comparative degree), e.g.
This house is bigger than that one.
? compare the quality with many or all others (superlative degree), e.g. This is the
biggest house in this street.
deictic word (deixis) ? word or phrase that can only be understood from the context
of the text or utterance. E.g. Tom?s interview was about to start and he was feeling
nervous about it.
Here, from the context, we know that he refers to Tom and it refers to the
interview.
descriptive genitive ? the word in the genitive case is being used as an adjective,
describing an attribute or quality to the head noun. It doesn?t show a possession.
For example:
A women?s college (a college for women)
The degree of doctor (a doctoral degree)
ditransitive verb ? is one that takes both a direct object and an indirect object. e.g.
He gave her a letter. (?The letter? is the direct object, what he gave, and ?her? is
indirect object, the person he gave it to)
ergative verb ? is a verb that can be both transitive and intransitive, where the
subject of the intransitive verb is the same as the object of the transitive verb. For
example, 'open' is an ergative verb because you can say 'The door opened' or 'She
opened the door'.
Ergative verbs can be divided into several categories:
? Verbs suggesting a change of state ? break, burst, melt, tear
? Verbs of cooking ? bake, boil, cook, fry
? Verbs of movement ? move, shake, sweep, turn
? Verbs involving vehicles ? drive, fly, reverse, sail
finite forms of the verb ? are the forms where the verb shows tense, person or
number. For example: I go; she goes; he went.
genitive of measure ? describe a person or thing by indicating measure (day, year,
pound, etc.) Examples: ten day?s absence; five dollars' worth of candy; the height
of the tower
GROUP GENITIVE a construction in which the genitive ending 's is added to an
entire phrase, esp. when added to a word other than the head of the noun phrase, as
the woman who lives across the street's in That is the woman who lives across the
street's cat or the people next-door's in The people next-door's house is for rent.
Also called group' posses"sive.
INFLECTION / INFLEXION Inflection , also spelled 'inflexion', is a system in
which words' forms are altered by an affix. Nouns in English can be changed to
show plurality, the 3rd person singular of most verbs is inflected by the addition of
-s, etc.
Grammar word change: a change in the form of a word, often an addition at the
end of it, that indicates a particular grammatical function, e.g. the "s" added to
most English nouns when they are plural
Grammar altered form of word: an altered form of a word, e.g. one showing a
change in tense, mood, gender, or number, or the part of the word that changes in
this way
INTERJECTIONAn interjection is a word or short phrase used in speech to gain
attention, to exclaim, protest or command. Interjections can be used to show
emotion such as surprise or shock.
Interjections are often found at the beginning of a sentence, especially in speech,
and are commonly followed by an exclamation mark or a comma.
1. exclamation expressing emotion: a sound, word, or phrase that expresses a
strong emotion such as pain or surprise but otherwise has no meaning
2. comment made abruptly: something said loudly and abruptly, or something
inserted in a text, especially something that interrupts what is being said or
discussed
INTRANSITIVE VERB An intransitive verb is an action verb (that is, it is neither
a linking verb nor an auxiliary verb) which does not have a direct object.
The action is still being done, but it is not being done to anything or anyone else.
Most verbs can be both intransitive and transitive depending on the sentence. The
verb to go, however, is always intransitive.
In most dictionaries the abbreviation v.i. means "verb, intransitive."
Transitive: He runs a large corporation.
(The verb runs has a direct object, corporation.)
Intransitive: He runs around the block daily.
(There is no direct object.)
MASS NOUNS A mass noun has no plural form, often referring to a substance.
EG: butter; smoke; money - These nouns have no plurals.
Mass nouns are also called uncountable.
A mass noun is a noun whose referents are not thought of as separate entities.
It may have distinguishing features such as the following:
* The inability to take a plural form
* Cooccurrence with some determiners (such as some and much), but not others
(such as the English many)
Discussion
Some nouns may permit treatment as either count or mass nouns.
Example:
In English, salad may be treated as either a count or mass noun, as evidenced by
the acceptability of the following expressions:
* many salads
* much salad
Examples (English)
The word furniture is a mass noun. It cannot take the plural suffix -s:
# * furnitures
In addition, it can occur with some determiners, but not others:
# the furniture
# much furniture
# some furniture
# * a furniture
# * many furnitures
MODAL VERBS Modal verbs are used to express ideas such as possibility,
intention, permission, obligation and necessity. is a type of auxiliary verb that is
used to indicate modality. The use of auxiliary verbs to express modality is a
characteristic of Germanic languages. Its primary function is to express mood.
CAN, COULD, WILL, WOULD, SHALL, SHOULD, OUGHT TO, DARE , MAY
MIGHT, MUST, USED TO, NEED, HAD BETTER are some examples.
eg: I would have told you, if you had wanted me to.
eg: Yes, I can do that.
MONOTRANSITIVE VERB A monotransitive verb is a verb that takes two
arguments: a subject and a single direct object. For example, the verbs buy, bite,
kill, break, and eat are monotransitive in English. a two-place verb which occurs
with a direct object in addition to the subject.
MOOD
1. a set of categories for which the verb is inflected in many languages, and that is
typically used to indicate the syntactic relation of the clause in which the verb
occurs to other clauses in the sentence, or the attitude of the speaker toward what
he or she is saying, as certainty or uncertainty, wish or command, emphasis or
hesitancy.
2. a set of syntactic devices in some languages that is similar to this set in function
or meaning, involving the use of auxiliary words, as can, may, might
3. any of the categories of these sets: the Latin indicative, imperative, and
subjunctive moods
Mood shows the attitude of the speaker or the writer to the action or state described
by the verb.
1) The Indicative is the verb used in ordinary statements and questions:
She went home.
Has she called yet?
2) The Imperative is used to give orders and instructions:
Go home.
Come and see me.
3) The Subjunctive is used to express doubts, wishes, etc. It is not used much in
English any more and exists in a few phrases:
If I were you, I'd speak to her about it straightaway.
Be that as it may
MUTATION 1.the act or process of changing.
2.a change or alteration, as in form or nature.
3.Phonetics. umlaut.
4.Linguistics. (in Celtic languages) syntactically determined morphophonemic
phenomena that affect initial sounds of words.
NON-FINITE VERB The non-finite forms of a verb have no tense, person or
singular plural. The infinitive and present and past participles are the non-finite
parts of a verb; To do; doing; done
A non-finite verb has no subject, tense or number. The only non-finite verb forms
are the infinitive (indicated by to), the gerund or the participle.
For example:-
I lived in Germany to improve my German. (To improve is in the infinitive form -
improve is non-finite).
In linguistics, a non-finite verb (or a verbal) is a verb form that is not limited by a
subject and, more generally, is not fully inflected by categories that are marked
inflectionally in language, such as tense, aspect, mood, number, gender, and
person. As a result, a non-finite verb cannot generally serve as the main verb in an
independent clause; rather, it heads a non-finite clause.
By some accounts, a non-finite verb acts simultaneously as a verb and as another
part of speech; it can take adverbs and certain kinds of verb arguments, producing
a verbal phrase (i.e., non-finite clause), and this phrase then plays a different role?
usually noun, adjective, or adverb?in a greater clause. This is the reason for the
term verbal; non-finite verbs have traditionally been classified as verbal nouns,
verbal adjectives, or verbal adverbs.
English has three kinds of verbals:
1. participles, which function as adjectives;
2. gerunds, which function as nouns; and
3. infinitives, which have noun-like, adjective-like, and adverb-like functions.
Each of these kinds of verbals is also used in various common constructs; for
example, the past participle is used in forming the perfect aspect (to have done).
NON-TERNMINATIVE VERBS The division of verbs into terminative and non-
terminative depends on the aspectual characteristic in the lexical meaning of the
verb which influences the use of aspect forms.
Terminative verbs besides their specific meaning contain the idea that the action
must be fulfilled and come to an end, reaching some point where it has logically to
stop. These are such verbs as sit down, come, fall, stop, begin, open, close, shut,
die, bring, find, etc.
Non-terminative, or durative verbs imply that actions or states expressed by these
verbs may go on indefinitely without reaching any logically necessary final point.
These are such verbs as carry, run, walk, sleep, stand, sit, live, know, suppose, talk,
speak, etc.
The end, which is simply an interruption of these actions, may be shown only by
means of some adverbial modifier:
He slept till nine in the morning.
The last subclass comprises verbs that can function as both terminative and non-
terminative (verbs of double aspectual meaning). The difference is clear from the
context:
Can you see well? (non-terminative)
I see nothing there. (terminative)
Noun: A noun is a word used to name a person, animal, place, thing, and abstract
idea. A noun can function in a sentence as a subject, a direct object, an indirect
object, a subject complement, an object complement, an appositive, an adjective or
an adverb.
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.
Most nouns change their form to indicate number by adding "-s" or "-es". 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,". Other
nouns form the plural irregularly.
In the possessive case, a noun 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."
There are many different types of nouns: the proper noun, the common noun, the
concrete noun, the abstract noun, the countable noun (also called the count noun),
the non-countable noun (also called the mass noun), and the collective noun.
You always write a proper noun with a capital letter, since the noun represents the
name of a specific person, place, or thing. The names of days of the week, months,
historical documents, institutions, organisations, religions, their holy texts and their
adherents are proper nouns. A proper noun is the opposite of a common noun.
(Jamaica, Monday, etc)
A common noun is a noun referring to a person, place, or thing in a general sense --
usually, you should write it with a capital letter only when it begins a sentence. A
common noun is the opposite of a proper noun. (town, summer, neighbourhood,
etc)
A concrete noun is a noun which names anything (or anyone) that you can perceive
through your physical senses: touch, sight, taste, hearing, or smell. A concrete noun
is the opposite of a abstract noun. (judge, file, clerk, etc)
An abstract noun is a noun which names anything which you can not perceive
through your five physical senses, and is the opposite of a concrete noun.
(childhood, justice, schizophrenia, etc)
A countable noun (or count noun) is a noun with both a singular and a plural form,
and it names anything (or anyone) that you can count. You can make a countable
noun plural and attach it to a plural verb in a sentence. Countable nouns are the
opposite of non-countable nouns and collective nouns. (table, tree, baby)
A non-countable noun (or mass noun) is a noun which does not have a plural form,
and which refers to something that you could (or would) not usually count. A non-
countable noun always takes a singular verb in a sentence. Non-countable nouns
are similar to collective nouns, and are the opposite of countable nouns. (oxygen,
furniture, etc)
A collective noun is a noun naming a group of things, animals, or persons. You
could count the individual members of the group, but you usually think of the
group as a whole is generally as one unit. You need to be able to recognise
collective nouns in order to maintain subject-verb agreement. A collective noun is
similar to a non-countable noun, and is roughly the opposite of a countable noun.
(jury, committee, class, etc)
Nouns of Multitude:Nouns of multitude are pluralia tantum judging by their
pattering. Though singular in form they are used with determiners that pattern
either with all nouns or with plural nouns only and always take a plural verb:
CATTLE, FOLK, GENTRY, ARMY, MILITIA, KINDRED, PEOPLE, POLICE,
VERMIN, YOUTH. In other words noun of multitude is the name of something
that contains many individual things or people.
Numeral:A numeral is a word, functioning most typically as an adjective or
pronoun, that expresses a
? number, and
? relation to the number, such as one of the following:
Quantity
Sequence
Frequency
Fraction
Here are some kinds of numerals:
A cardinal numeral is a numeral of the class whose members are
-considered basic in form
-used in counting, and
-used in expressing how many objects are referred to.(one, ten, eighty)
A distributive numeral is a numeral which expresses a group of the number
specified.
-By the dozen
-In pairs
A multiplicative numeral is a numeral that expresses how many fold or how many
times.
-once
-twice
-thrice
An ordinal numeral is a numeral belonging to a class whose members designate
positions in a sequence.
-First
-Second
-Third
A partitive numeral is a numeral that expresses a fraction.
-half
-third
Object:Object is word that follows verb and completes the verb's meaning. Object
is always noun or pronoun. Two kinds of objects follow verbs: direct objects and
indirect objects.
To determine if a verb has a direct object, isolate the verb and make it into a
question by placing "whom?" or "what?" after it. The answer, if there is one, is the
direct object:
The advertising executive drove a flashy red Porsche.
Objective Case:Objective case is the case or function of a pronoun when it is the
direct or indirect object of a verb, the object of a preposition, the subject of an
infinitive, or an appositive to an object. The objective (or accusative) forms of
English pronouns are me, us, you, him, her, it, them, whom and whomever.
In other words when a pronoun is the object of the verb or preposition it is in the
objective case.
Examples:
To know her was to love her.
That which does not kill us makes us stronger.
The news hit them hard. (direct object of hit)
Objective Genitive:In grammar, an objective genitive is a use of the genitive case
to express an objective relationship. In objective genitive the genitive modifies a
noun from which we can infer an action worked on the genitive modifier: Mary?s
engagement, your father?s illness, his tormentors, the Hundred Years' War, a man's
world.
Ordinals:In linguistics, ordinal numbers are the words representing the rank of a
number with respect to some order, in particular order or position (i.e. first, second,
third, etc.). Its use may refer to size, importance, chronology, etc. They are
adjectives and, at least in English, precede the nouns they are modifying.
Ordinal numbers are alternatively written in English with numerals and letter
suffixes: 1st, 2nd or 2d, 3rd or 3d, 4th, 11th, 21st, 477th, etc.
Participle:In linguistics, a participle is a derivative of a non-finite verb, which can
be used in compound tenses or voices, or as a modifier. Participles often share
properties with other parts of speech, in particular adjectives and nouns.
English verbs have two participles:
? called variously the present, active, imperfect, or progressive participle, it is
identical in form to the gerund; the term present participle is sometimes used to
include the gerund. The term gerund-participle is also used.
? called variously the past, passive, or perfect participle, it is usually identical to
the verb's preterite (past tense) form, though in irregular verbs the two usually
differ.
The present participle in English is active. It has the following uses:
forming the progressive aspect: Jim was sleeping.
modifying a noun, with active sense: Let sleeping dogs lie.
modifying a verb or sentence: Broadly speaking, the project was successful.
The present participle in English has the same form as the gerund, but the gerund
acts as a noun rather than a verb or a modifier. The word sleeping in Your job
description does not include sleeping is a gerund and not a present participle.
The past participle has both active and passive uses:
forming the perfect aspect: The chicken has eaten.
forming the passive voice: The chicken was eaten.
modifying a noun, with active sense: our fallen comrades
modifying a noun, with passive sense: the attached files
modifying a verb or sentence, with passive sense: Seen from this perspective, the
problem presents no easy solution.
As noun-modifiers, participles usually precede the noun (like adjectives), but in
many cases they can or must follow it:
The visiting dignitaries devoured the baked apples.
Please bring all the documents required.
The difficulties encountered were nearly insurmountable.