Subject-Verb Agreement
Subjects and verbs must AGREE with one another in number (singular or plural). Thus, if a subject is singular, its verb must also be singular; if a subject is plural, the verb should also be plural. This helps in the proper balancing of the grammar. Also, in terms of the indefinite pronouns like anyone, everyone, someone, they always require the singular verb. Subject-verb agreement plays a very important role in the formation of the right sentences. The basic rules hence should be taken into consideration and sentences should be formed with the actual subject-verb agreement.
The Verb
Verbs are words that express action and tells about a person or a thing doing any activity or sometimes, its state. Verb is considered to be the most important part of the speech. The fact that a sentence can be grammatically correct with only one verb in it speaks a lot. There are mainly three forms of verbs – transitive verbs, intransitive verbs and linking verbs. Verbs can also be auxiliary, strong or weak. Some transitive verbs have two objects – direct and indirect. Direct object denotes the name of something or someone while an indirect object denotes the person to/of something is done.
Determiners
Determiners have often been mistaken with adjectives. Let’s clear this confusion and study what is a determiner and how is it different from adjectives. Determiners do not tell anything about things or persons, only helps in pointing them out. Adjectives are used to describe whereas determines are used to determine. Determiners contain several classes of words like articles (a, an, the) possessive adjectives (his, their, my) and numerals (first, third, two, seven). Determiners can also be of quantity and number like some, many, any, much. Therefore, all determiners are adjectives but not all adjectives are determiners.
The Adjective Degree of Comparison
As we know, adjectives describe nouns. But what is the degree of comparison in adjectives? Adjectives also change their form or degree to show the extent of the quality of the noun. Any adjective, of whichever type changes their forms for the purpose of comparison. The three degrees are positive, comparative and superlative. A positive degree shows the presence of the quality without any comparison. The comparative degree indicates a higher degree of the quality and is the cause of two subjects/objects being compared. The superlative degree shows the highest degree and is used when more than two objects/subjects are compared.
The Adjective
Students are often confused with adjectives. Here, we will answer what is an adjective. An adjective is a word used to describe the quality or extent of nouns or pronouns. They can be placed before or after the noun. There are 8 kinds of adjectives – quality (tells us about the quality), quantity (tells us about the amount), numeral (indicates the number), distributive (one at a time), demonstrative (referring to), interrogative (questioning nouns), possessive (indicating ownership) and proper (proper nouns as adjective). Examples are black cat, Indian boy, her book, very beautiful etc.
The Personal Pronouns Number, Gender and Case
Personal pronouns are used to omit the repetitive use of the name of a person or animal. They can be classified on the basis of number: singular – represents single nouns (I, you, mine, that), plural – represents plural nouns (We, they, yours, and these). On the basis of gender: masculine – denote masculine nouns (He, his, himself), feminine- denotes feminine nouns (She, her, herself), Common – denotes common nouns (They, theirs), neuter – represent neuter nouns (It, its). On the basis of case: nominative- substitutes nominative nouns (I, we, they), objective- substitutes objective nouns (me, us, them), possessive – substitutes possessive nouns (mine, our, theirs)
The Pronoun
Pronouns are words that are substitute of nouns. They function exactly as nouns. Just like nouns, pronouns can be object, subject, object complement, subject complement, noun phrases etc. Pronouns are used in almost every sentence of our daily life and it has made our speech much more meaningful and easy. Some commonly used nouns that we speak everyday are – he, she, them, they, it, that, we, you, I, myself, these, this, those, which, who, him, her, me, us, that, whom. Supposedly, if we say, ‘Sara is here’ and if we begin the next sentences with Sara, every time we talk about her, it will be too monotonous. Here comes a pronoun. After the first instance, ‘she’ is used to denote her. This makes the sentences much more meaningful.
The Noun and its Case
We all know what a noun is. In this section, we will study noun and its case. The relation in which a noun or a pronoun is associated with some other word in a sentence is called its case. There are five cases of a noun: Nominative – Noun is the subject, Objective – Noun is the object, Vocative – Noun is used to name someone or something, Dative – Indirect Object of the verb, Possessive – Noun denotes possession and ownership. To find the nominative and objective verb, we ask the question ‘who’ or ‘what’. And for possessive verb, we ask the question ‘whose’?
The Noun and its Gender
In this section, we’ll discuss noun and its gender. Along with number and usage, every noun has a gender too. Based on that, noun can be classified into four types – masculine noun: when the noun represents a male member of a species. For example: Man, father, priest, boy, lion, feminine noun: when the noun denotes a female figure of a species. For example: Woman, mother, priestess, girl, lioness, common noun: when the noun represents a member of a species without specifying the gender. For example: Child, parent, teacher, employee, neuter noun: when the noun doesn’t denote any gender whatsoever. For example: Chair, pencil, phone, stone.
Noun can function as a subject, object, appositive, object complement but the amount of nouns or pronouns being used in a sentence determines the number of the noun.
Based on the same, noun can be categorized into 2 types – Singular and Plural.
A noun is called singular when there is only one object or subject being denoted. For example – The chair is broken.
On the other hand, a noun is called plural when there are more than one or a collection of objects or subjects being used. For example – The chairs are broken.