BASIC GRAMMAR TERMINOLOGY

A. PARTS OF SPEECH (= types/ categories of words)

When you're talking about grammar, it's useful to know some basic terms. The following are
called parts of speech:

1. Verbs

Verbs are often called ‘action/doing words'.

For example:

 The horse jumped the fence.

 The child wants more biscuits.

 Stop the car!

2. Nouns

Nouns are the names of people, places, things and ideas.

For example: dog, computer, river, flock, London, Anne, hope, poverty

3. Adjectives

Adjectives describe nouns.

For example:

 She wore a blue dress.

 The small dog barked at me.

 A cool breeze made her shiver.

 4. Adverbs

Adverbs give us extra information about how, where or when a verb happens. In English, most
adverbs end in -ly.

For example:

 He drove slowly.

 The teacher spoke loudly.

 They sang beautifully.

 I know him well.

An adverb can also modify an adjective, e.g.: She has extremely blue eyes.

An adverb can even modify another adverb, e.g.: He drove excruciatingly slowly.

5. Pronouns

Pronouns are usually small words which stand in place of a noun, often to avoid repeating the noun.
They include words such as I, you, them, which, who,…

6. Prepositions

Prepositions come before nouns or pronouns and usually show a connection.

For example:

 Your pen is on the desk.

 The children went to the park.

 We rested under the tree.

 Jim hid behind the door.

7. Conjunctions

Conjunctions link words, sentences or parts of a sentence together.

 The rug is blue and cream.

 The road was busy, since it was rush hour.

 I closed the door but I didn't lock it because I thought she was still inside.

8. Articles

There are two kinds of article: definite (“the”) and indefinite a(n).
 B. GRAMMATICAL FUNCTIONS

Words can have different functions/ “jobs” within a sentence.

Three important functions are:

1. SUBJECT

The subject is the person or thing DOING the action of the verb.

For example: The boy is running.

The dogs ate all their food.

2. OBJECT

The object is the person or thing UNDERGOING the action of the verb, i.e. something is being
done to it:

For example: I will send the letter.

The cook prepared a delicious meal.

3. INDIRECT OBJECT

The indirect object is the person or thing RECEIVING something. Very often, English expresses this
with “to/ for”.

For example: The cook prepared a delicious meal for his guests.

The postman handed the parcel to my neighbour.

Did you say something to me?

His colleagues gave him a lovely retirement present.