12 Grade Grammar

 In this chapter you will review or learn about:

 Adjectives
 Adverbs
 Conjunctions
 Interjections
 Nouns
 Prepositions
 Pronouns
 Verbs
 In this chapter, you’ll review parts of speech
so that you have a standard way to describe
how words are put together to create
meaning.
 The parts of speech are arranged in
alphabetical order for easy reference.
 In later chapters, you will learn how to correct
errors caused by misusing these parts of
speech.
 English is a very flexible language. A word’s
meaning is derived not only from how it is
spelled and pronounced but also from how it
is used in a sentence. As you review the parts
of speech, remember that the way a word is
used in a sentence determines which part of
speech it is. For example:
 Noun: I ate a fish for dinner.
 Verb: We fish in the lake on every Tuesday.
 Adjectives are words that describe nouns and
pronouns. Adjectives answer the questions:
What kind? How much? Which one? How
many? For example:
 What kind? red nose gold ring
 How much? more sugar little effort
 Which one? second chance those chocolates
 How many? several chances six books
 There are four kinds of adjectives: common
adjectives, proper adjectives, compound
adjectives, and indefinite adjectives.
 Common adjectives describe nouns or
pronouns.
 strong man
 green plant
 beautiful view
 Proper adjectives are formed from proper
nouns.
 California vegetables.
 Mexican food.
 Compound adjectives are made up of more
than one word.
 far-off country
 teenage person
 Indefinite adjectives don’t specify the
specific amount of something.
 all another any
 both each either
 few many more
 most neither other
 several some
 Follow these guidelines when you use adjectives:
 Use an adjective to describe a noun or a pronoun.
▪ Jesse was unwilling to leave the circus.
 Use vivid adjectives to make your writing more
specific and descriptive.
▪ Take a larger slice of the luscious cake.
 Use an adjective after a linking verb. A linking verb
connects a subject with a descriptive word. The most
common linking verbs are
be, seem, appear, look, feel, smell, sound, taste, becom
e, grow, remain, stay, and turn.
▪ Chicken made this way tastes more delicious.
 Predicate adjectives are adjectives separated
from the noun or pronoun by a linking verb.
Predicate adjectives describe the subject of
the sentence.
 The weather was cold all week.
 Articles are words that combine with a noun
to indicate the type of reference being made
by the noun. There are three articles: a, an,
the.
 The is called a “definite article” because it
refers to a specific thing.
 A and an are called “indefinite articles”
because they refer to general things. Use a
with consonant sounds; use an before vowel
sounds.
 Adverbs are words that describe verbs,
adjectives, or other adverbs. Adverbs answer
the questions: When? Where? How? or To
what extent?
 When? left yesterday begin now
 Where? fell below move up
 How? happily sang danced badly
 To what extent? partly finished eat completely
 Most adverbs are formed by adding -ly to an
adjective. For example:
Adjective Adverb
Quick Quickly
Careful Carefully
Accurate Accurately
 Here are some of the most common non-ly
adverbs:
 afterward almost already also
 back even far fast
 hard here how late
 long low more near
 never next now often
 quick rather slow soon
 still then today tomorrow
 too when where yesterday
 Follow these guidelines when you use
adverbs:
 Use an adverb to describe a verb.
▪ Experiments using dynamite must be done carefully.
 Use an adverb to describe an adjective.
▪ Sam had an unbelievably huge appetite for chips.
 Use an adverb to describe another adverb.
▪ They sang so clearly.
 Conjunctive adverbs are used to connect
other words and to link ideas and paragraphs.
 accordingly again also
 besides consequently finally
 for example furthermore however
 indeed moreover otherwise
 on the other hand nevertheless then
 therefore
 Conjunctions connect words or groups of
words and show how the words are related.
There are three kinds of conjunctions:
 coordinating conjunctions
 correlative conjunctions
 subordinating conjunctions.
 Coordinating conjunctions link similar words
or word groups. There are seven coordinating
conjunctions:
 for and nor but or yet so
 Use this mnemonic to help you remember
the seven coordinating conjunctions:
 FANBOYS (for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so).
 Correlative conjunctions also link similar
words or word groups, but they are always
used in pairs. Here are the correlative
conjunctions:
 both…and
 either…or
 neither…nor
 not only…but also
 whether…or
 Subordinating conjunctions link an independent
clause (complete sentence) to a dependent clause
(fragment). Here are the most often used
subordinating conjunctions:
 after although as
 as if as long as as soon as
 as though because before
 even though if in order that
 since so that though
 till unless until
 when whenever where
 wherever
 Interjections show strong emotion. Since
interjections are not linked grammatically to
other words in the sentence, they are set off
from the rest of the sentence with a comma
or an exclamation mark. For example:
 Oh! What a shock you gave me with that gorilla
suit.
 Wow! That’s not a gorilla suit!
 A noun is a word that names a person, place,
or thing. Nouns come in these varieties:
common nouns, proper nouns, compound
nouns, and collective nouns.
 Common nouns name any one of a class of
person, place, or thing.
 girl city food
 Proper nouns name a specific
person, place, or thing. Proper nouns are
always capitalized.
 Barbara New York City Rice-a-Roni
 Compound nouns are two or more nouns that
function as a single unit. A compound noun
can be two individual words, words joined by
a hyphen, or two words combined.
 Individual words: time capsule
 Hyphenated words: great-uncle
 Combined words: basketball
 Collective nouns name groups of people or
things.
 audience
 family
 herd
 crowd
 In grammar, possession shows ownership. Follow
these rules to create possessive nouns.
 With singular nouns, add an apostrophe and an s.
▪ dog → dog’s bone
▪ singer → singer’s voice
 With plurals ending in s, add an apostrophe after the s.
▪ dogs → dogs’ bones
▪ singers → singers’ voices
 With plurals not ending in s, add an apostrophe and an s.
▪ men → men’s books
▪ mice → mice’s tails
 Here are the guidelines for creating plural nouns.
 Add s to form the plural of most nouns.
▪ cat → cats computer → computers
 Add es if the noun ends in s, sh, ch, or x.
▪ wish → wishes inch → inches box → boxes
 If a noun ends in consonant -y, change the y to i and
add es.
▪ city → cities lady → ladies
 If a noun ends in vowel -y, add s. Words ending in -quy
don’t follow this rule (as in soliloquies).
▪ essay → essays monkey → monkeys
 Prepositions link a noun or a pronoun following it to
another word in the sentence. Use this chart to help
you recognize some of the most common
prepositions:
about above across after against along
amid around as at before behind
below beneath beside between beyond but
by despite down during except for
from in inside into like near
on onto of off opposite out
outside over past since through to
toward under underneath until upon with
 A noun or pronoun always follows a preposition.
A prepositional phrase is a preposition and its
object. A prepositional phrase can be two or
three words long.
 on the wing in the door
 However, prepositional phrases also can be
much longer, depending on the length of the
preposition and the number of words that
describe the object of the preposition.
 near the violently swaying oak trees
 on account of his nearly depleted bank account
 A pronoun is a word used in place of a noun or
another pronoun. Pronouns help you avoid
unnecessary repetition in your writing and
speech. A pronoun gets its meaning from the
noun it stands for. The noun is called the
antecedent.
 Although Seattle is damp, it is my favorite city.
 There are different kinds of pronouns. Most
of them have antecedents, but a few do not.
 The word antecedent comes from a Latin
word meaning “to go before.” However, the
noun does not have to appear before the
pronoun in a sentence. It often
does, though, to keep sentences clear and
avoid misreadings.
 Personal pronouns refer to a specific person, place,
object, or thing.
Person Singular Plural
First I, me, mine, my we, us, our, ours
Second you, yours, yours you, yours, yours
Third he, him, his, she, they, them, their,
her, hers, it, its theirs

 Possessive pronouns show ownership. The possessive

pronouns are: your, yours, his, hers, its, ours, their,
theirs, whose.
 Is this beautiful plant yours?
 Yes, it’s ours.
 Don’t confuse personal pronouns with
contractions. Personal pronouns never have
an apostrophe, while contractions always
have an apostrophe. Use this chart:
Pronoun Contraction
yours you’re (you are)
its it’s (it is)
their they’re (they are)
whose who’s (who is)
 Reflexive pronouns add information to a
sentence by pointing back to a noun or pronoun
near the beginning of the sentence. Reflexive
pronouns end in -self or -selves.
 Tricia bought herself a new car.
 All her friends enjoyed themselves riding in the
beautiful car.
 Intensive pronouns also end in -self or -selves
but just add emphasis to the noun or pronoun.
 Tricia herself picked out the car.
 Demonstrative pronouns direct attention to a specific
person, place, or thing. There are only four
demonstrative pronouns: this, that, these, those.
 This is my favorite movie.
 That was a fierce rain storm.
 Relative pronouns begin a subordinate clause. There
are five relative pronouns: that, which, who, whom,
those.
 Jasper claimed that he could run the washing machine.
 Louise was the repair person who fixed the machine after
Jasper washed his sneakers.
 Interrogative pronouns ask a question. They
are: what, which, who, whom, whose.
 Who would like to cook dinner?
 Which side does the fork go on?
 Indefinite pronouns refer to people, places,
objects, or things without pointing to a
specific one. The most common indefinite
pronouns are listed in the chart on the next
slide.
Singular Plural Singular or Plural
another someone both all
anyone anybody few any
each anything many more
everyone either others most
everybody little several none
everything neither some
much no one
nobody one
nothing somebody
other something
 Verbs name an action or describe a state of
being. Every sentence must have a verb.
There are three basic types of verbs: action
verbs, linking verbs, and helping verbs.
 Action verbs tell what the subject does. The action
can be visible (jump, kiss, laugh) or mental
(think, learn, study).
 The cat broke Louise’s china.
 Louise considered buying a new china cabinet.
 An action verb can be transitive or intransitive.
Transitive verbs need a direct object.
 The boss dropped the ball.
 The workers picked it up.
 Intransitive verbs do not need a direct object.
 Who called?
 The temperature fell over night.
 To determine if a verb is transitive, ask
yourself “Who?” or “What?” after the verb. If
you can find an answer in the sentence, the
verb is transitive.
 Linking verbs join the subject and the predicate.
They do not show action. Instead, they help the
words at the end of the sentence name or
describe the subject.
 The manager was happy about the job change.
 He is a good worker.
 Many linking verbs can also be used as action
verbs.
 Linking: The kids looked sad.
 Action: I looked for the dog in the pouring rain.
 To determine whether a verb is being used as
a linking verb or an action verb, substitute
am, are, or is for the verb. If it makes sense,
the original verb is a linking verb.
 Helping verbs are added to another verb to
make the meaning clearer. Helping verbs
include any form of to be, do, does, did,
have, has, had, shall, should, will, would,
can, could, may, might, must. Verb phrases
are made up of one main verb and one or
more helping verbs.
 They will run before dawn.
 They still have not yet found a smooth track.
 English has eight parts of speech:
 Adjectives Nouns
 Adverbs Prepositions
 Conjunctions Pronouns
 Interjections Verbs
 The way a word is used in a sentence
determines what part of speech it is.