Basic Grammar Review: POS

nouns

person, place, thing or idea. Ej: *lion, spectators, glass, desire*

proper nouns

used to name a specific person, place, or thing. These begin with a capital letter. Ej: *Sarah, Los Angeles, Mars, Cafe Río*

common nouns

used to name non-specific people, places, or things. Ej: *house, dog, broom, happy*

concrete nouns

represent things you can see, hear, smell, or feel. Ej: *grass, paper, perfume, Susie, Golden Gate Bridge*

abstract nouns

represent ideas or emotions; you cannot perceive them with your senses. Ej: *Religion, happiness, anger, Buddhism*

collective nouns

represent a group of things or people without being plural (although they can also be made plural). Ej. *Family, group, orchestra, audience, flock, bunch, herd.* 

pronouns

Replaces a noun Ej: *I, you, he, she, them, they, we, us, him, her, it*

relative pronouns

begin adjective clauses. Ej: *which, whom, whose, who, that*

antecedent

is the word the pronoun is standing in for. Ej: Mary baked her (*Mary’s)* famous lasagna for dinner. *Mary* is the antecedent where is substituted by the word her. 

personal pronouns

are the most commonly used pronouns. 

* First Person: *I, me, my, mine (singular), we, us, our, ours (plural)*
* Second Person: *you, your, yours (both singular and plural)*
* Third Person:  *he, him, his, she, her, hers, it, its, (singular); they, them, their, theirs (plural)* 

demonstrative pronouns

point things out. Ej: *this, that, these, those*

interrogative pronouns

 used to ask questions. Ej: *which, who, whose, whom, what.* 

intensive / Reflexive Pronouns

personal pronouns with -self. Ej: *myself, ourselves, yourself, yourselves, himself, herself, itself, themselves.* 

indefinite pronouns

do not refer to a specific noun. Ej: *everyone, anyone, no one, somebody, anybody, everybody, everything, something, anything, nothing, none, few, many, several, all, some*

Conjunctions

Are joining words. They join words, phrases (a short group of related words), or even sentences together. 

subordinating conjunctions

Joining words such as: Ej. *although, since, if, because, until, when, whenever, before, after*

coordinating conjunctions

Connect, or join, two or more things. Ej. *For, And, Nor, But, Or, Yet, So* (FANBOYS)

prepositions

Words we use before nouns or pronouns to show their relationship with other words in the sentence. Ej: *behind (the tree), across (Maple Street), down (the stairs)*

verbs

a word used to describe an action, state, or occurrence, and forming the main part of the predicate of a sentence. Ej: *hear, become, happen.*

action verbs

expresses something that a person, animal, object, or process in nature (such as a storm) can do rather than expressing a state of being. Ej: *run, walk, jump*

linking verbs

don’t show an action but rather describe the subject. Ej: *be, seem*

transitive verb

have a direct object Ej. They *played* baseball (*Played* what? Baseball is the direct object, so *played* is transitive)

intransitive verb

don’t have a direct object. Ej. They *played* in the yard (*Played* what or who? The sentence doesn’t tell you. No direct object, so *played* is intransitive)

irregular verbs

 a verb that does not follow the usual rules of grammar. Ej: “*eat”* is an irregular verb because its past tense is “*ate”* and its past participle is “*eaten”*, not “*eated.”*

active voice

the subject performs the action denoted by the verb. Ej: *The dog chases the ball.* (Notice how the subject, dog, is performing the action, chase, on the target of the action, ball.)

passive voice

used to show interest in the person or object that experiences an action rather than the person or object that performs the action. Ej: *The ball was thrown by the pitcher.* (the ball (the subject) receives the action of the verb, and was thrown is in the passive voice.)

adverbs

a word that tells how, when, or where something happens; tells information about a verb, adjective, or another adverb. Usually end in -ly. Ej. She ran *quickly*. (*Quickly* describes how she ran.) / He is *extremely* intelligent. (*Extremely* describes the adjective intelligent)

adjectives

Tells us more about a noun. Describes the noun. Ej: *green slow, five, stinky, tall, round*

comparative adjectives

Shows comparisons. Ej: *older, safer, louder, more beautiful*

superlative adjectives

Shows comparisons. Ej: *oldest, safest, loudest, most beautiful*

demonstrative adjectives

* Ej. *this, that, these, those*

proper adjectives

begin with a capital letter Ej. *Thanksgiving, Italian, Catholic*

articles

Ej. *a, an the*

interjections

words that don’t add anything grammatically to the sentence; they are usually exclamatory words, but not always. Ej. *wow, ouch, well, oh*