Outline of, and Notes on, Understanding the English Language

 

PART II: THE GRAMMAR OF BASIC SENTENCES

 

Chapter 2: Sentence Patterns

 

o Form Classes (see Ch. 11): Nouns, Verbs, Adjectives, and Adverbs. The open classes of words that provide the vocabulary of the language. These classes are “open” because new words are always being added to them.

 

o Structure Classes (see Ch. 12): Words like determiners (an, the) and prepositions (of, over) that explain the grammatical or structural relationships of the form classes. These smaller classes are “closed” because we rarely add new words to them.

 

o Inflection : An alternation of the form of a word by adding affixes, as in dogs from dog, or by changing the form of a base, as in spoke from speak.

 

o Noun : A word that can be made plural and/or possessive. It occupies the headword position in a noun phrase, and is usually signaled by a determiner (an article, possessive noun, pronoun, or demonstrative pronoun).

 

o Participle : A verb form that can function independently as an adjective, as the past participle baked in We had some baked beans, and is used with an auxiliary verb to indicate tense, aspect, or voice, as in the sentence The beans were baked too long. [Middle English, from Old French, from Latin, partaker].

 

o Verb : A word that can be used in present and past tenses; it has both an –s or and an –ing form.

 

o Transitive verb : A verb that requires a direct object to be complete (from Latin, to go over.) “The cat chased the mouse.”

 

o Intransitive verb : A verb that requires no direct object to be complete. “Mary laughed.”

 

o Direct object : Simply put, the thing that receives the action of the verb. In the sentence, “We ate the peanuts,” the word peanuts is the direct object, the thing that got ate.

 

o Indirect object : Simply put, the thing that receives the direct object. For example, in the sentence, “We gave Bill a ride home,” a ride home is the direct object, the thing that was given. While Bill received the ride, so he’s the indirect object. (Often, but not always, the indirect object is a person and the direct object is a thing.)

 

o Linking verb : A verb that requires a subject compliment: “The students are diligent.” (The subject compliment diligent renames the subject students.) The following are always linking verbs: Any form of the verb be (am, is, are, was, were, has been, are being, might have been, etc.), become, and seem. Appear, feel, grow, look, prove, remain, smell, sound, taste, and turn are sometimes linking verbs; sometimes they are action verbs. NOTE: OUR BOOK’S SENTENCE PATTERNS SEPARATE THE “BE” VERBS FROM OTHER LINKING VERBS.

 

o Linking verb test: If you can substitute am, is, or are, and the sentence still sounds logical, it’s a linking verb. For example, “The pizza smells good”; “The pizza is good”—linking verb. “I smell the pizza”; I am the pizza”—action verb.

o Adjectives and some adverbs can be marked by the comparative ending, -er, or the superlative, -est. If the word has two or more syllables, look for the comparative more or the superlative most. They can also combine with a qualifier, such as very.

 

o Adjective test : The _______ NOUN is very ______. Adjectives indicate which one, how many, what kind of.

 

o Adverbs often end in –ly. Other adverbs include then, now, soon, here, there, afterwards, and often. Adverbs indicate where, when, why, how (manner), how often, how long.

 

o Prepositional Phrases are made up of a preposition and an object. When a prepositional phrase modifies a noun, it is adjectival. When a prepositional phrase modifies a verb, it is adverbial, telling when, where, why, how, how often, to what extent, and so on.

 

o Particle : A word that combines with a verb to form a phrasal verb: look up, look into, put up with. Phrasal verbs form idioms. An idiom is a phrase whose meaning can’t be predicted by the meaning of its parts.

 

o The Be Patterns Pattern I: NP be ADV/TP “The students are here.” Pattern II: NP be ADJ “The students are diligent.” Pattern III: NP1 be NP1 “The students are scholars.” Pattern IV: NP V-lnk ADJ “The students seem diligent.” Pattern V: NP1 V-lnk NP1“The students became scholars.”

 

o The Intransitive Verb Pattern Pattern VI: NP V-int “The students rested.”

 

o The Transitive Verb Patterns Pattern VII: NP1 V-tr NP2 “The students studied their

assignment.” Pattern VIII: NP1 V-tr NP2 NP3 “The students gave the professor

their homework Pattern IX: NP1 V-tr NP2 ADJ “The students consider the teacher

intelligent.” Pattern X: NP1 V-tr NP2 NP2 “The students consider the course a

challenge.”

 

Chapter 3: Expanding the Main Verb

 

o Present Participle : The –ing form of the verb. “He is laughing.” “He was eating.”

 

o Past Participle : The –en form of the verb. “He has eaten.” “He has laughed all day.”

 

o Auxiliaries : Structure class words that mark verbs. They include forms of have and be, as well as the modals, such as will, shall, and must.

 

o The Five Verb Forms base form (present): laugh eat –s form (3rd per. present. singular.): laughs eats –ed form (past): laughed ate –ing form (present participle): laughing eating –en form (past participle): laughed eaten

 

o Modal Auxiliary : The auxiliary that occupies the opening slot in the verb-expansion rule and may affect what is known as the mood of the verb, conveying probability, possibility, obligation, and the like.

 

o The Six Major Modal Auxiliaries :

 

Present : will shall can may Past : would should could might

 

No Past Form : must ought to

 

o The Verb Expansion Rule : Tense, Modal Auxiliaries, (have + -en), (be + -ing), Main Verb

 

T (M) (have + -en) (be + -ing) MV

 

o Subjunctive Mood : An expression which uses the base form, not the inflected form, and no modal auxiliaries.

In that clauses , it conveys strong suggestions or commands: “We suggest that Mary go with us.”

 

In if clauses , it conveys wishes or statements contrary to fact and uses were: “If I were you, I’d go.”

 

o Traditional Verb Forms and the Verb Expansion Rule

 

Simple Present : “I live in Rexburg.” (Historical, habitual, or timeless present.)

Base form and –s form

 

Present Progressive : “I am working in town.” (Present action of limited duration.)

Pres + be + -ing + MV

 

Simple Past : “I moved to Denver.” (Specific point in time.) Past + MV

 

Past Progressive : “The baby was crying when you called.” (Past action of limited duration.)

Past + be + -ing + MV Present Perfect : “The leaves have turned yellow.” (A completed action

extending from the past to the present.) Pres + have + -ed + MV

 

Past Perfect : “The speaker had finished talking when I arrived.” (Past action completed before another past action.)

Past + have + en + MV

Present Perfect Progressive : “The police have been looking for the Bill since Monday.” (Past action continuing into the present.)

Pres + have + -en + be + -ing + MV

 

Past Perfect Progressive : “I had been thinking of her when she called.” (Continuing past action completed before another past action.)

Past + have + -en + be + -ing + MV

 

o The Stand-in Do : In contemporary English, we can say, “Bill goes,” but we don’t say, “Bill goes not.” Therefore, the negative marker needs an auxiliary or a form of be; otherwise, a form of do stands in: “Bill may not go” (aux.); Bill is not going” (form of be); “Bill doesn’t go” (form of do).

 

o Active Voice : “The boys ate the pizza.” The subject, boys, is doing the action of eating. The subject is active.

 

o Passive Voice : “The pizza was eaten by the boys.” Here the subject, pizza, is being acted upon. The subject is passive.

 

o Changing Active to Passive : 1) The direct object (the pizza) becomes the subject; 2) be + -en is added to the active verb; 3) (optional) the original subject becomes

the object of the preposition by. Here’s an example without step three: “Hitler exterminated the Jews” becomes “The Jews were exterminated.”

 

Chapter 4: Transforming the Basic Patterns

 

o Interrogative Sentences are questions. There are yes-no questions and interrogative word questions (why, where, when, who, what, and how).

 

o The Stand-in do in Questions : Just as the negative marker needs an auxiliary, a form of be, or the Stand-in do, some questions work the same way. This applies to yes-no questions and questions that ask what, how often, or why. For example, “Will Jane go?” uses an auxiliary; “Is Bill going?” uses a form of be; and “Does Alice go?” requires do support. Emphatic sentences also use the Stand-in do: “He does live there.”

 

o Imperative Sentences , or commands, take the base form of the verb without auxiliaries: “Be careful.” “Help yourself.”

 

o The Exclamatory Transformation includes a shift in word order that focuses special attention on a complement: “What a helpful librarian we have!”

 

o Expletive : An empty/filler word or phrase in a sentence that contributes no real meaning and plays no grammatical role in the basic pattern. Also used to describe an expression of profanity (From Latin, to fill).

 

o The There Transformation uses the expletive there to introduce the sentence. It also includes a shift in word order. “A fly is in my soup” becomes “There is a fly in my soup.”

 

o The Cleft Sentence : In one kind of cleft sentence, the main subject is it with a form of be as the main verb: “It was Mary who wrecked her motorcycle.” Another kind of cleft sentence uses a what clause in the subject position: “What Mary

wrecked was her motorcycle.” Sometimes what shifts the original verb phrase into the subject position: “What caused the accident was a branch in the road.”

 

PART III: EXPANDING THE SENTENCE

 

Chapter 5: Modifiers of the Verb: Adverbials

 

o Adverbials : Any structure, no matter what its form, that functions as a modifier of a verb. As for location, there is really no fixed spot for most adverbials.

 

o The Adverbs of Manner —the –ly words—are the most movable of all the adverbials: “Suddenly, the wind shifted”; “The wind suddenly shifted”; “The wind shifted suddenly.” In each of these examples, the wind shifted “in a sudden manner.” Hence the name, adverbs of manner.

 

o Other single-word adverbs include : now, then, nowadays, today, often, always, sometimes, seldom, never, here, there, everywhere.

o All Prepositional Phrases function either adjectivally or adverbially. Some prepositional phrases have modifiers that qualify or intensify them: “The house was built directly over the water.” In this case, an –ly adverb qualifies the prepositional phrase over the water.

o Nouns and Noun Phrases that Function Adverbially make up a short list designating time, place, manner, and quantity. For example, “We walked home”; “I travel a great deal”; “He arrived this evening.”

o Infinitives are the most common form of the verb in the adverbial role. An infinitive is made of the base form of the verb with to: “Mom cashed a check to give Jody her allowance.” (The entire phrase in italics is the infinitive.)

 

o Dangling Infinitives occur when the infinitive phrase has no stated subject. For example, “To keep farm machinery in good repair, a regular maintenance schedule is needed.” We don’t know who is keeping the machinery in good repair—the subject is missing. A correct version would read: “To keep farm machinery in good repair, farmers need a regular maintenance schedule.” Now farmers is the subject of the introductory infinitive phrase.

 

 

o Participial Phrase : A participle (the –ing or –en form of the verb) together with its compliments and modifiers that functions adjectivally or adverbially: “My uncle made a fortune selling real estate”; Betsy went swimming”; “Standing near a huge puddle, Jan got splashed.”

o A Clause is a form: a group of words with a subject and a predicate.

 

o An Independent Clause can stand alone as a sentence: “I saw Bill.”

 

o A Dependant Clause cannot stand alone as a sentence: “When I saw Bill.” (Standing alone, it’s a sentence fragment.)

 

o A Complex Sentence is any sentence that includes a dependant clause: “I was surprised when I saw Bill.”

 

o A Compound Sentence is any sentence with two or more independent clauses: “I saw Bill, and I was surprised.”

 

o A Compound-Complex Sentence is any sentence with a dependant clause and more than one independent clause: “I was surprised when I saw Bill, but he acted like nothing was wrong.”

 

o A Subordinate Clause is introduced by a subordinating conjunction, such as after, because, before, since, so, until, when and while.

 

Chapter 6: Modifiers of the Noun: Adjectivals

 

o The Noun Headword : The noun signaled by the determiner. The noun that occupies the subject slot in a sentence diagram. In the sentence, “The little Jones boy won a prize,” the noun headword is boy.

 

o Determiners include articles (the, an, a) possessive nouns (Bill’s hat, dog’s collar), possessive pronouns (his socks, your drink), demonstrative pronouns (that ring, this cup), and numbers (two boys, fifty cars).

 

o Hyphens and Compound Adjectivals : –ly adverbs (such as highly and carefully) do not take hyphens when combined with another modifier—“a highly charged incident,” “a carefully chosen material.” Other adverbs (such as well and fast) do take hyphens—“a well-dressed man,” “a fast-moving train.” Hyphens are also used when the first modifier applies to the second, and not to the headword—“two-word verbs,” “all-around athletes.” When a complete phrase comes before the headword, hyphens are also used—“my back-to-back exams,” but not when the phrase comes after—“My exams were back to back.”

 

o The Relative Clause is a dependant clause. In its adjectival function, it identifies the noun or pronoun it modifies, and almost always appears immediately after it—“The arrow that has left the bow never returns.”

 

o Relative Pronouns : Relative clauses are set off by relative pronouns; for example, who, when, whom, which, or that. A relative pronoun renames the headword of the noun in which it appears. In the example above, that renames arrow.

 

o Relative Adverbs : Use where for places—“This is the town where I was born; when for times—“She came on Tuesday, when the weather was good,” and why for reason—“That is the reason why I go.” In many cases, the relative can be dropped—“This is the reason I go.”

 

o Dangling Participle : A verb in search of a subject. Consider this error: “Having found the rent reasonable, the apartment turned out to be perfect.” Who found the rent reasonable? Certainly not the apartment!

 

Chapter 7: The Noun Phrase Functions: Nominals

 

o Nominal : Any structure that functions as a noun phrase normally functions.

 

o Appositive : A structure (usually a noun phrase) that adds information to a sentence by renaming another nominal: “My best buddy, Rich, lives in Iowa.”

 

o Gerund : An –ing verb functioning as a nominal: “I enjoy jogging”; “Running is a good exercise.” Gerunds name actions, behaviors, states of mind, or states of being.

 

o Dangling Gerund : When the subject of a gerund is not stated or clearly implied: “Upon seeing the stop sign, the car screeched to a halt.” Here, the car did not fail to see the sign; we assume the driver did. A revision would be: “Upon seeing the sign, Jill brought the car to a screeching halt.”

 

o Nominal Infinitive Phrases , like gerunds, name actions, behaviors, or states of being. They use the base form of the verb with to: “To remain neutral on the issue is difficult.”

 

o Nominal Clauses : Like all clauses, nominal clauses have a subject and a verb. Nominal clauses fill noun phrase slots and are introduced by that or interrogative words such as what: “I wonder what prompted their action.”

 

o Interrogatives such as what, who, whose, which, where, when, why, and how can introduce nominal clauses—as in the previous example where it serves as the direct object.

 

Where is an interrogative adverb in the sentence “Where you are going is no business of mine.”

Who is the interrogative pronoun in “Who will be at the party remains a mystery.”

Who can also lead off a clause in the direct object slot: “I don’t know who that stranger is.”

Which and what can serve as determiners, as in, “I can’t decide what brand I should buy.”

A nominal clauses with interrogatives can also be object of a preposition: “She knows a lot about how computers work.”

Or they can serve as appositives: “The dean’s question, why the students didn’t object sooner, was not answered.”

Chapter 8: Sentence Modifiers

 

o Vocative : A noun or noun phrase of direct address, considered a sentence modifier: “Mike, is that you?” “Ladies and gentleman, may I have your attention?”

 

o Interjection : A word considered independent of the main sentence, often punctuated with an exclamation point: “Oh! Is that what you meant?”

 

o Subordinate Clauses : A dependant clause introduced by a subordinating conjunction such as if, since, because, and although.

 

o Punctuating Subordinate Clauses : Always use a comma when the subordinate clause precedes the main clause. If the subordinate clause follows the main

clause, the rule is this: Use no comma if the idea in the main clause is conditional upon the idea in the subordinate clause. For example, “I’ll go if you promise to be nice.” Said another way: If the subordinate clause “defines” the situation, it will not be set off with commas; if it simply “comments,” it will take a comma.

 

o Elliptical Clauses : Subordinate clauses with words left out, words that are “understood.” For example, “Chester is older than I (am old)”; “When (you are) planning your trip, make sure to use a map.”

 

o Absolute Phrases : Another kind of sentence modifier, an absolute phrases is a noun phrase that includes a postnoun modifier. One kind of absolute phrase suggests a condition: “The weather being warm, we decided to have a picnic.” The other adds a detail or a point of focus to the idea in the main clause: “He spoke quietly to the class, his voice trembling.”

 

o Sentence Appositives : A phrase that renames, or encapsulates, an entire sentence: “He waved his hand in circles, his favorite gesture.”

 

Chapter 9: Coordination

 

o Punctuating Coordinating Elements

 

No comma with the ordinary conjunction: “I saw Bill and Wanda last Friday.”

An exception occurs with but, partly because it often introduces an elliptical clause: “I worked hard all night, but (I) just couldn’t finish my paper.”

Another exception occurs when the writer wants to give emphasis to the second element in the coordinating pair: “I didn’t believe him, and said so.” [Note that the elliptical I could be there, too.]

Use commas for lists: “I talked to Bill, Frank, and Joe about the trip.” Note: Some editors omit the second comma in a sentence like the

one above, but this often causes confusion. Most usage experts prefer the comma before the conjunction.

Use commas according to the FANBOYS rule, when two independent clauses are joined by a coordinating conjunction—for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so: “I saw Bill, and he said Wanda was feeling much better.”

An exception can occur when the two clauses are short: “October came and the tourists left.”

 

o Subject-Verb Agreement

 

When noun phrases in the subject slot are joined by and or by the correlative both-and, the subject is plural: “My brother and his roommate are coming to lunch.”

However, the coordinating conjunction or and the correlatives either-or and neither-nor do not have the additive meaning of and. In compound subjects with these conjunctions, the verb is determined by the closer noun: “Neither the speaker nor the listeners were intimidated by the protestors.”

The phrases as well as, in addition to, or along with are parenthetical. They are not treated as part of the subject: “The sidewalks, as well as the driveway, need to be fixed.”

 

o Parallel Structure : A structure is parallel when all the coordinating parts are of the same grammatical form: “I like to go camping, swimming, and hiking.”

o Faulty Parallelism is an error that occurs when an element is out of form: “I like to go camping, swimming, and to hike.” Parallelism can be tested by individually matching each element in the list with the rest of the sentence: “I like to go swimming; I like to go camping; I like to go to hike.” That sounds odds, so we know it’s a case of faulty parallelism.

 

PART IV: WORDS AND WORD CLASSES

 

Chapter 10: Morphemes

 

o Form Classes (see Ch. 11): Nouns, Verbs, Adjectives, and Adverbs. The open classes of words that provide the vocabulary of the language. These classes are “open” because new words are always being added to them.

 

o Structure Classes (see Ch. 12): Words like determiners (an, the) and prepositions (of, over) that explain the grammatical or structural relationships of the form classes. These smaller classes are “closed” because we rarely add new words to them.

 

o Inflection : An alternation of the form of a word by adding affixes, as in dogs from dog, or by changing the form of a base, as in spoke from speak.

 

o Morpheme : A sound or combination of sounds with meaning.

 

o Base : The morpheme that gives a word its primary meaning: helping, reflect.

 

o Affix : A word meaning “to attach.” A prefix or suffix that is added to a word to change its meaning, grammatical role, or form class: (prefix) unlikely, (suffix) unlikely.

 

o Bound Morpheme : A morpheme that cannot stand alone as a word: helping, react, concise.

 

o Free Morpheme : A single morpheme that is also a complete word: act, over, merit.

 

o Inflectional Suffixes : Limited to eight in number, these are morphemes added to the form classes to change their grammatical role:

 

Noun Inflections : -s plural and –’s possessive. Verb Inflections : -s, -ing, -ed, and –en. Adjective (and some adverb) Inflections : -er and –est.

 

o Derivational Affix : A morpheme that is added to a form-class word, either to change its class (friend friendly) or to change its meaning (legal illegal). The word “derive” means “formed or developed from something else.” Derivational affixes help us derive new words. Hence, message can become messaging, as in the phrase “instant messaging.” We have no rules to explain how derivational affixes are formed.

 

o Allomorph : A variation of a morpheme, usually determined by its environment—where it is in relation to other words. For example, the plural –s has the same meaning in cats, dogs, and churches, but it makes three different sounds—“s,” “z,” and “əs.” Examples of allomorphs include wife wives, leaf leaves, elf elves.

 

o Homonyms : Words with different meanings that happen to have the same spelling and sound: saw (the tool) and saw (the past tense of see). This principle applies to morphemes, too. The word bell and the bound morpheme bell in the word rebellion sound and look alike, but their meaning is different. The former is Old English and the latter is from a Latin word meaning war.

 

o Homophones : A subclass of homonyms, this word is used to describe words with identical sounds which differ in both spelling and meaning: to/too/two, sale/sail, new/knew.

 

Chapter 11: The Form Classes

 

o The Form Classes are nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs.

o Possessive Plurals : Add only an apostrophe to possessive plurals: the dogs’ collars, the leaders’ directions, the Vanderbilts’ estate.

 

o Possessives for Singular Proper Nouns Ending in -s :

 

UEG says the usual procedure is to add -’s: Ross’s cat, the Jones’s house. But there are exceptions, “when the singular has more than one syllable and more than one /s/ or /z/ sound in the last syllable: Jesus’ followers, Texas’ laws.

 

UEG also says, “some writers prefer to add only the possessive mark . . . [as in Ross’ cat]; both spellings are acceptable.”

 

The Brief Penguin says add the -’s (Iris’s coat), but notes some exceptions: Herodotus’ travels, Jesus’ sermons (455).

 

However, the MLA Handbook, which is our primary standard for papers in English classes, simply says, “to form the possessive of any singular proper noun, add an apostrophe and an s” (91). For example, Venus’s beauty, Dickens’s reputation.

 

o Collective Nouns : Nouns such as family, choir, and majority—any noun that names a group of individual members—can be singular or plural, depending on context and meaning: “The family have all gone their separate ways.” “The whole family is celebrating Christmas at home.”

 

o Other Singular-in-form Nouns , such as remainder, rest, and number, also have a plural meaning in certain contexts, depending on the modifiers. “The rest of the books are missing.” “A number of customers have come early.”

 

o Certain Indefinite Pronouns follow the same rule: “Some of the books were missing.” “All of the cookies were eaten.”

 

o None is singular or plural, depending on the modifier: “None of the guests want to leave.” “None of the cake was eaten.”

 

o Semantic Features of Nouns

 

Proper Nouns are nouns with a specific referent: Aunt Hattie, Empire State Building, London. They are usually are written with an initial capital letter.

 

Countable Nouns can be signaled by the indefinite article, a, and by numbers: a house, an experience, two eggs, three problems.

 

Non-countable Nouns refer to what might be called an undifferentiated mass—wood, water, sugar—or abstractions—justice, love, indifference. Non-countable nouns do not take the indefinite article a.

 

o Functional Shift : The conversion of one word class to another. He bottled the wine (noun to verb). She lowered the curtain (adjective to verb). Let’s take a swim (verb to noun).

 

o Subclasses of Adjectives

 

Predicate Adjective : The adjective that functions as a subject compliment: “The children were awake”; “That candy is delicious.”

 

Attributive Adjective : The adjective in the pre-noun position: “my new coat”; “the big attraction.”

 

 

Chapter 12: The Structure Classes

 

o The Structure Classes : Contrasted with the form classes are the structure classes, the smaller, categories of words that include determiners, auxiliaries, qualifiers, prepositions, conjunctions, interrogatives, expletive, and particles. While the form classes are “open”—new words are added to them every day—the structure classes are mostly “closed”—they remain constant from generation to generation.

 

o Determiners include articles (the, a, an), possessive nouns (John’s, son’s, etc.), demonstrative pronouns (this, that, etc.), numbers (one, two, etc.), possessive nouns (my, whose, etc.), and indefinite pronouns (few, some, etc.).

 

A and an are indefinite articles because they indicate something we’re not sure about. If I say, “a tree,” we don’t know for sure which tree I’m talking about. The noun is indefinite.

 

In contrast, demonstrative pronouns function like someone pointing a finger at—or demonstrating—which noun is being referred to. If I say, “that tree,” I mean a particular tree that my audience can clearly see.

 

o Auxiliary : One of the structure class words, a marker of verbs. Auxiliaries must include forms of have and be, as well as all the modals, such as will and must.

 

o Qualifier : A structure-class word that qualifies or intensifies an adjective or adverb: “We worked rather slowly”; “We worked very hard.”

 

o Prepositions : (meaning “placed before”) A structure-class word found in preposition to a nominal. Some prepositions are simple (above, in, of, etc.) and some are phrasal (according to, instead of, etc.).

 

o Conjunctions

 

Coordinating Conjunctions : The FANBOYS words—for, and, nor, but, or, yet, and so. (Note: UEG does not include so in this list, but most sources do. UEG calls so a subordinating conjunction.)

 

Correlative Conjunctions : A two-part conjunction that expresses a relationship between coordinated structures—both-and, either-or and neither-nor, not only-but also.

 

Conjunctive Adverbs : Conjunctions that connect two sentences with adverbial emphasis, such as however, therefore, and nevertheless. Other adverbial prepositional phrases function in the same transitional way—of course, for example, on the other hand, in other words, in fact, in conclusion, etc. They are often moveable:

“However, I had a lot of work to do.” “I had a lot of work to do, however.” “I, however, had a lot of work to do.”

 

Subordinating Conjunctions : Conjunctions that show a relationship between two ideas when one of them is dependant or subordinate. They come in both words and phrases like when, as long as, although, even though, because, while, etc.

 

o Subordinate Clauses can come before or after the main clause: “We decided to walk because we missed the bus”; “Because we missed the bus, we decided to walk.” (Notice that the two clauses are separated by a comma when the because clause starts the sentence, but not when it ends the sentence.)

 

o Relative Pronouns —like who, which, that—and relative adverbs—where, when, why—perform a connective role, joining clauses with nouns: “The price that we pay has gone up”; “Nothing fun ever happens in the town where I grew up .”

 

o Interrogatives introduce questions. The list of interrogatives includes who, whose, whom, which, what, how, why, when, and where.

 

o Expletives —sometimes defined as “empty words”—act as simple operators that allow us to manipulate sentence variety.

 

There allows us to delay the subject: “There is a fly in my soup.” That introduces a nominal clause: “I hope that our exam is easy .” The expletive or introduces an explanatory appositive: “The African

wildebeest, or gnu, resembles an ox.” (This or should not be confused with the conjunction or.)

As introduces certain object complements: “We elected him as president.” If and whether (or not) serve as nominalizers, turning yes/no questions

into nominal clauses: “I wondered if the test will be easy .”

 

Diagramming Expletives : Because expletives serve no grammatical function, they are placed on pedestals made of dashes. (See pages 286 and 287 in UEG for examples.)

 

o Particles combine with verbs to produce phrasal verbs (made up, looked into, find out).

 

Chapter 13: Pronouns

 

o Pronoun : A word that stands for a noun or nominal in a sentence: “Doctors have their concerns with this new law.”

 

o Antecedent : The noun or nominal that the pronoun stands for: “Doctors have their concerns with this new law.”

 

o Pronoun-Antecedent Agreement : Making sure that the pronoun and its antecedent agree in number and gender.

 

o Reflexive Pronoun : A pronoun formed by adding –self or –selves to a form of the personal pronoun. For example, myself, herself, itself.

 

o Intensive Pronouns : A pronoun that serves as an appositive to emphasize a noun or pronoun: “I myself prefer chocolate.”

 

o Reciprocal Pronouns : Each other and one another are reciprocal pronouns. Each other generally refers to two nouns and one another to three or more:

 

“They do each other’s chores.” “The students in the class helped one another with the project.”

 

o Demonstrative Pronouns function like someone pointing a finger at—or demonstrating—which noun is being referred to. If I say, “that tree,” I mean a particular tree that my audience can clearly see.

 

o The Relative Pronouns who, which, and that introduce relative clauses: “That is the man who stole my bike.”

 

o Interrogative Pronouns (who, whose, whom, which, and what) introduce questions.

 

o Indefinite Pronouns include words like enough, more, each, and some. Many of these words function as determiners.