, GRAMMAR I
UNIT 1: THE UNITS OF ENGLISH GRAMMAR
❖ The clause: coordinate clauses and subordinate clauses.
❖ Kinds of sentences: simple, compound and complex sentences.
❖ The phrase: the noun phrase, the verb phrase, the adjective
phrase, the adverb phrase and the prepositional phrase.
❖ The morpheme.
❖ Sentence types: statements: affirmative and negative.
❖ Questions: yes-no questions, Wh-questions, Echo questions, tag
questions.
❖ Commands: without a subject, with subject (you), exclamations.
CLAUSE: A clause has a subject and a verb. The sentence “We stayed at
home” is a single main clause. The sentence “We stayed at home because it
rained” has two clauses. “We stayed at home” is the main clause, and
“because it rained” is the sub-clause or subordinate clause.
MAIN CLAUSE: A main clause has a subject and a verb and can stand on
its own since it conveys a complete meaning. E.g.: “I phoned yesterday.”
SUB-CLAUSE OR SUBORDINATE CLAUSE: It also has a subject
and a verb but cannot stand on its own. A sub-clause functions as part of
the main clause. For example, it can be the object of the main clause, e.g.:
“I knew that you were away”, or it can be an adverbial, e.g.: “I phoned you
yesterday because I wanted a chat”.
A sub-clause with an infinitive or ing-form has no subject, e.g.:
⮚ I went out to get some fresh air
⮚ I can’t help worrying.
CONJUNCTION: a word such as “and”, “but”, “because”, “when”, or
“that”, which links two clauses, e.g.:
⮚ I believe that it’s true.
,COORDINATING CONJUNCTION: a linking word (“and”, “but”, “or”),
which joins two clauses of equal value, that is to say, two main clauses or
two subordinate clauses, e.g.: “He laughed but she cried”.
SUBORDINATING CONJUNCTION: a linking word such as “while”,
“although”, “if”, which links a subordinate clause and a main clause, e.g.:
⮚ She cried because she was happy.
SENTENCE: A sentence can be a statement, e.g.: “I waited for you”, a
question, e.g.: “Did you wait for me?”, an imperative, e.g.: “Wait for me”, or
an exclamation, e.g.: “How silly!” The sentence consists of one or more
clauses, e.g.: “I waited for you”, or “I waited for you, but you didn’t come”.
A written sentence begins with a capital letter and ends with a full stop (.), a
question mark (?), or an exclamation mark (!).
SIMPLE SENTENCE: A simple sentence (sometimes called an
independent clause) is a sentence that contains only one subject and a
predicate (a verb). It may also have other elements: an object, a complement,
or an adverbial. Here are some examples:
Subject Verb
My friend is waiting
Nothing happened
Subject Verb Object
The company sells mobile phones
The dog has eaten my homework
Subject Verb Complement
This colour is nice
The old cinema became a nightclub
Subject Verb Adverbial
The concert is tomorrow
The Olympics are every four years
Subject Verb Object (I.O.) Object (D.O.)
We should give the children some money
Sarah sent me a fax
Subject Verb Object (D.O.) Complement
The project kept everyone very busy
The group made Simon their spokesman
Subject Verb Object (D.O.) Adverbial
I put my credit card in my wallet
The police got the car out of the river
, COMPOUND SENTENCE: A compound sentence is a sentence that has
at least two independent clauses joined by a comma, semicolon or
conjunction.
⮚ E.g.: I waited for you, but you didn’t come.
COMPLEX SENTENCE: A complex sentence has an independent
clause and at least one dependent clause.
⮚ E.g.: When the cake is brown, take it out of the oven.
PRONOUN: A pronoun is a word that functions like a noun phrase, e.g.:
“you” (personal pronoun), “ourselves” (reflexive/emphatic pronoun), “theirs”
(possessive pronoun), or “which” (relative pronoun.)
NOUN: A noun is a word that names something either a person, place, or
thing. In a sentence, nouns can play the role of subject, direct object, indirect
object, subject complement, object complement, appositive, or adjective.
APPOSITION: In sentences such as “The next day, Thursday, was fine and
dry” and “My cousin Maria gave it to me”, the two noun phrases are in
apposition; they both have the same grammatical function and both
mean the same thing.
VERB: A verb is a kind of word that tells about an action or a state. It is
the main part of a sentence: every sentence has a verb. In English, verbs are
the only kind of word that changes to show past or present tense.
ADJECTIVE: An adjective is a word that describes or clarifies a noun.
Adjectives describe nouns by giving some information about an object's size,
shape, age, color, origin or material.
ADVERB: An adverb is a word that expresses ideas such as “how”,
“when”, “where”, “to what degree” something happens.
PREPOSITION: A preposition is a word or set of words that indicates
location (in, near, beside, on top of) or some other relationship between a
noun or pronoun and other parts of the sentence (about, after, besides,
instead of, in accordance with).
PHRASE: A phrase is a word or a group of words that functions as a
part of a clause. In the sentence “My friend is leaving on Friday”, the noun
