1. Linguistics: Basic Grammatical Terminology Review
Educ 4683
Dr. David Piper
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 Dr. David Piper & Krista Yetman

2. Select for Review Prepositions, conjunctions & exclamations
Subject, predicate & object
Transitivity
Other rules & definitions
Definitions of terms
Word classes
Nouns, pronouns & determiners
Adjectives, verbs & adverbs
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3. Definitions of Terms: Spoken English may be thought of in terms of 4 levels
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4. Word Classes
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Examples

5. Nouns, determiners & pronouns
Click button of choice:
Nouns
Determiners
Pronouns
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6. Nouns (in English)
Nouns can be singular or plural (‘s’) i.e: ant + s = ants, city + s = cities, glass + s = glasses, mouse + s = mice, life + s = lives, deer + s = deer
Nouns are either masculine (man, bull, boxer), feminine (woman, mare, actress), or neuter (table, flower, book)
Nouns can be possessive i.e.: boy’s, boys’, Charles’s
Nouns are common (book, fly, tree) or proper (Erica, Acadia University, Nigerian, French)
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7. Determiners: 5 Types
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8. 8 types of Pronouns: Select below
Personal
Possessive
Reflexive
Demonstrative
Interrogative
Relative
Distributive
Indefinite
Skip pronouns
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9. Personal pronouns: these reflect number and case, and are divided into first, second & third person
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Pronoun Menu

10. Possessive pronouns: Pronoun Menu mine (singular) yours (singular)
his (singular, masculine)
hers (singular, feminine)
its (singular, neuter)
ours (plural)
yours (plural)
theirs (plural)
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Pronoun Menu

11. Reflexive pronouns
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Pronoun Menu

12. Demonstrative pronouns: used to indicate closeness or remoteness from speaker
This is a book.
That is a book.
SPEAKER
Those are books.
These are books.
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Pronoun Menu

13. Interrogative pronouns: Questions words
Who
Which
Whom
What
Whose
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Pronoun Menu

14. Relative pronouns: these introduce clauses
that
which
who
whom
whose
I’ve just sat on the hat that I bought.
The letter which he sent has not arrived.
John was the man who ate the pie.
The people on whom we rely are kind.
The boy whose father died has runaway.
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Pronoun Menu

15. Distributive pronouns (often these pronouns are followed by ‘of you’ or ‘of them’)
Both
All
Each
Either
Neither
Some
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Pronoun Menu

16. Indefinite pronouns Pronoun Menu - I don’t want any jelly beans.
- Take some.
- I don’t think so.
- Has anyone eaten the beans?
- Someone was eating them.
- Such is way of the world!
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Pronoun Menu

17. Adjectives, verbs & adverbs: Select below
The brown dog
runs quickly.
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18. Adjectives: Words that describe nouns
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19. Verbs! Verbs! Verbs! (select from menu below)
Past tense
Present tense
General Info
Auxiliary verbs
Future tense
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20. Adverbs Return to adj., verb & adv. menu These words can also be:
comparative (earlier)
i.e.: She arrived earlier than Joe.
superlative (most often)
about time (soon)
about place (near)
about reason (since)
about manner (well)
about condition (if)
question words (when)
These words can modify verbs:
She sang loudly.
Sentences:
Certainly, we shall win.
Adjectives:
She was exceptionally pretty.
And other adverbs:
She sang very loudly.
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21. Verb: General Info. Return to adj., verb & adv. menu
There are regular & irregular verbs.
Regular verbs can take the endings: ‘s’, ‘ing’ and ‘ed’.
Irregular verbs can take the ‘ing’ endings.
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22. Verbs: Present (non-past) tense
To describe habitual occurrences i.e.: He advises...
Main Usage
To express truths, proverbial wisdom, realities i.e.: Wax makes crayons.
Occurs in spontaneous commentaries i.e.: sport commentaries
Chosen for formulaic utterances i.e.: I declare...
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23. Verbs: Past tense Return to adj., verb & adv. menu
Past tense is formed by adding ‘ed’ or ‘d’ to the base form.
Past tense does not change according to person or number.
Refers to actions, states or events which took place before.
Is used in dependent clauses to refer to possibility.
Is used in indirect speech i.e.: He said that he sang.
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24. Verbs: Future ‘tense’
There really is no future tense in English but reference to the future may be made in the following or many other ways:
a) will/shall + base form of verb
I shall go to London next week.
b) going to + base form of verb
I’m going to drive to Halifax tomorrow.
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25. Auxiliary verbs: These are also known as ‘helping verbs’
Auxiliary verbs are also used in questions:
Do you like art?
(do is auxiliary, like is headverb)
In negatives:
Don’t eat it!
(don’t is auxiliary, eat is headverb)
For emphasis:
You will paint.
These are verbs which help make information more precise...
Gives specific info about the (head)verb:
I am painting.
Painting is the headverb, while am is the auxiliary verb.
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26. Prepositions, conjunctions & exclamations: Select below
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27. Prepositions: There is a reason the word ‘position’ is in preposition…
A preposition is a word that describes the relationship between things (other words).
The man is beside the boy.
The radio is on the table.
The girl is in front of the woman.
The boy’s feet are in his shoes under the table.
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28. Conjunctions: Joining words
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29. Exclamations! Return to Preposition menu
These are often referred to as ‘involuntary interjections’:
Wow! Hey! Ouch! Oh!
Occasionally words & phrases are exclamations:
You fool!
That silly dog!
What a mess!
How you’ve grown!
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30. Subject, predicate & object
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31. Subject
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32. Predicate: The verbal unit of a sentence
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33. Object: A noun-like unit which usually comes last in the predicate, following the main (transitive) verb.
Predicate
*Please note: there are also indirect & direct objects
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34. Transitivity Nominals Intransitive verbs Transitive verbs Active voice
Passive voice
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35. One-place verb: only needs one nominal
Nominals
The term nominal is used to comprehend nouns, pronouns, proper names & noun phrases.
Verbs may be classified by the number of nominals they require.
For example: ‘arrive’ requires only one nominal, so is called a ‘one-place verb’.
The elephant arrived.
Subject (nominal)
One-place verb: only needs one nominal
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36. Intransitive verbs Return to Transivity
One-place verbs are intransitive because they do not take an object (they only need one nominal).
For example:
John died. (This is all you need to explain what happened to John).
John died.
Intransitive verb
Subject (nominal)
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37. Transitive Verbs Return to Transivity
Two-place and three-place verbs are transitive because they take a subject and an object (they require at least two nominals).
For example:
The verb ‘hit’ requires
two nominals (we need
to know what is hit) ,
therefore is a transitive
verb.
The blue car hit the yellow car.
Transitive verb
Subject
Object
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38. *An active sentence must have at least two nominals.
Active voice: We say that a sentence is active when the subject is the agent of the action.
Amy baked the pie. (active)
The pie was baked by Amy (passive)
Notice that the object of the active sentence (the pie) becomes the subject of the passive sentence.
*An active sentence must have at least two nominals.
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39. Passive voice: We say that a sentence is passive when the subject receives the action.
The violin was played by Rupert. (passive)
In the passive sentence, the violin is the subject which receives the action.
Rupert played the violin. (active)
*A passive sentence may only have one nominal
i.e.: The violin was played.
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40. Additional Information:
The information in this PowerPoint has been very basic. It has been designed to provide you with basic definitions only. Many of these definitions will be covered in more detail, and elaborated, within the course itself.
Meanwhile, if you have any remaining questions about basic grammatical terms, please note them down and bring them to class for discussion. Hope all this was useful…Try to enjoy the course!
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