Syntax (short)

Nouns

• common nouns

chair, remark, cat, man

• proper nouns (names)

John, Susan, Monday, Westminster

Lexical Verbs

be, was, come

Regular verbs have 4 forms!

Adjectives

• attributive

• predicative

• can be modified by very + Steigerung

Adverbs

alone

he will arrive tomorrow

modification of an adjective or adverb

she is absolutely stunning

• three formal types of adverbs

simple: just, here
compound: somewhere, hereby

derivational: oddly, nicely

Determiners

• Stand before nouns

• Define the reference of nouns

• Subclasses

• identifiers: define something further

a, the, my, this

• quantifiers: express a certain amount of something

a lot of, many, few

Auxiliary Verbs

primary auxiliaries

be, have, do

• can also be full verbs

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modal auxiliaries

can, could, may, might, will, would, shall, should, must

• no infinitive

• no participle

• not marked for 3rd pers. sg. pres

—> Auxiliaries are always used together with a full verb and precede it

will be walking, have gone, do not look

Pronouns

i, you, mine, myself, each other, which, who, this, some

Prepositions

• Complemented by nouns

• Express temporal, logical or local relationship

after breakfast

with him

in the car

---

• simple preposition

about, at, behind

• complex preposition

apart from, instead of, in spite of

Conjunctions

• Connect Clauses

  • coordinating conjunction

  and, or, but

  • subordinating conjunction

  because, if, since, although