November 21, 2024




Grammar is the study of how we arrange words to make proper sentences. There are two levels of grammar: word-level grammar and sentence-level grammar. Word-level grammar covers verbs and tenses, nouns, adverbs, etc. And sentence-level grammar covers phrases, clauses, reported speech, etc.

Some Definitions of Grammar:

    • the study of the way the sentences of a language are constructed; morphology and syntax.
    • these features or constructions themselves: English grammar.
    • an account of these features; a set of rules accounting for these constructions: a grammar of English.
    • Generative Grammara device, as a body of rules, whose output is all of the sentences that are permissible in a given language, while excluding all those that are not permissible.
    • prescriptive grammar.
    • knowledge or usage of the preferred or prescribed forms in speaking or writing:

Taken from https://www.dictionary.com/browse/grammar

Word-level Grammar

9 Parts of Speech

These 9 parts are the words that you use to make a sentence.
Verbs and Verb Tenses
Action verbs, express what is happening (do, work). State verbs express a situation (be, have).
Nouns
Nouns represent people (engineer, Philips, etc.), places (city, America, etc.), and things (football, flute, etc.).
Adjectives
An adjective is a word that tells us more about a noun (small, beautiful, happy, etc.).
Adverbs
Adverbs tell us more about verbs, adjectives, or adverbs (very, slowly, fast, etc.).
Determiners are articles and some other words such as the, a, an, this, some, etc. that start a noun phrase.
Prepositions
A preposition expresses the relationship of a noun or pronoun to another word (on, in, from, etc.).
Pronouns
Pronouns are small words that take the place of a noun (you, ours, I, etc.).
Conjunctions
Conjunctions join two parts of a sentence (and, but, though, etc.).
Interjections
Short exclamations with no real grammatical value (ah, dear, oh, etc.)

Sentence-level Grammar

Phrases
The five main types of phrases in English.

What is a Sentence?
When is a sentence not a sentence?

The 4 Types of Sentences
Declarative, Interrogative, Imperative, Exclamative.

The 4 Types of Sentence Structure
Simple, compound, complex, and compound-complex sentences.

Linking, Intransitive and Transitive Verbs
To understand sentence construction, it helps to know about these verbs.

Direct Object
The direct object receives the action of the verb directly.

Indirect Object
The indirect object receives the direct object.

Reported Speech
Here is the structure that we use to “report” what another person has said.

Parenthetical Expression
Words added to a sentence without changing its meaning or grammar.

Grammatical Category
Including number, case, gender, tense, aspect, etc.