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Noun..........................................................................................................................................4
Number......................................................................................................................................4
Proper noun..............................................................................................................................5
Common Noun..........................................................................................................................5
Collective noun.........................................................................................................................6
Abstract noun...........................................................................................................................6
VERB AND AUXILIARY...............................................................................................6
Preposition................................................................................................................................7
Conjunction..............................................................................................................................7
Articles......................................................................................................................................8
SENTENCE STRUCTURE...........................................................................................9
Structure of a simple sentence.................................................................................................9
PRESENT TENSE......................................................................................................10
S A V rules..................................................................................................................11
Possessive case.................................................................................................................11
Universal Auxiliaries............................................................................................................11
PRESENT CONTINUOUS TENSE............................................................................12
When to use.............................................................................................................................12
Rules.................................................................................................................................12
SIMPLE PRESENT TENSE.......................................................................................13
Rules.................................................................................................................................13
Subject
Auxiliary Verb................................................................................................13
Universal Auxiliaries........................................................................................................13
PRESENT PERFECT TENSE....................................................................................14
Rules.................................................................................................................................14
Subject
Auxiliary verb form.......................................................................................14
Universal Auxiliaries........................................................................................................14
Subject
Auxiliary Verb form.....................................................................................23
Universal Auxiliary..........................................................................................................23
FUTURE PERFECT CONTINUOUS TENSE.............................................................24
Rules.................................................................................................................................24
Subject
Auxiliary Verb form......................................................................................24
Universal Auxiliaries........................................................................................................24
EXERCISES FOR GRAMMAR..................................................................................24
Grammar
Parts of Speech
Every word in the English language belongs to a particular family or group or
category named Part of Speech.
There are in all ten parts of speech in the English language. This means that
every English word would fall under one of these parts of speech. They are:
Noun, Pronoun, Verb, auxiliary, adjective, Adverb, Preposition, Conjunction,
Article and Interjection.
Noun
Noun is a word used for person, place or thing. Every noun has number, gender
and kind.
Number
There are singular nouns and plural nouns as shown below:
Singular
Girl
School
Pencil
Box
Watch
Fish
Knife
Wife
Thief
Victory
Plural
girls
Schools
Pencils
Boxes
Watches
Fishes
Knives
Wives
Thieves
Victories
In order to get the plural, we add the letter S to some nouns, letters es to
some, ves to such nouns that end in f and ies to the nouns that end in y.
For some nouns, the plural spelling is altogether different like the following:
Man
Woman
Foot
Oasis
men
women
feet
oases
Kiss
kisses
Some nouns have the same form for singular and also for plural as shown
below:
sheep, deer, series, corps, swine, species, and means.
Some nouns are used only in the plural even if the noun referred and used is in
single quantity as shown below:
Scissors, tongs, pincers, spectacles, drawers, breeches and arrears.
Some are used only in singular form though they sound like plurals in terms of
spelling. The following are the examples:
News, innings, ethics, civics, physics, athletics, economics.
We write the plurals for the compound words in a different way as shown
below:
Son-in-law
Daughter-in-law
Brother-in-law
Man-of-law
Passer-by
Looker-on
Footman
sons-in-law
daughters-in-law
brothers-in-law
men-of-war
passers-by
lookers-on
footmen
Add an apostrophe and the letter s to get the plurals of letters, figures and
symbols.
Nouns are of four kinds as follows:
Proper noun
The name of a particular person or place is called a proper noun, they are unique
and we cannot use that name to any other person or place. Here are the
examples:
Rajendran, Narayanan, Nirmala, Samuel.
Common Noun
A noun used for any person or place. Here are some examples:
Man, Teacher, student, graduate.
Collective noun
It is a noun used for a group of persons or animals or things taken together and
considered as one single unit. Here are the examples:
Crowd, mob, herd, family, army.
Abstract noun
It is a noun used for quality or action or state as shown in the following
examples:
Quality honesty, wisdom, truth, bravery
Action theft, movement, hatred
State youth, slavery, boyhood, manhood
Preposition
Preposition is a word that shows the relationship between any two words in a
sentence. The two words may be
A noun/pronoun
A verb
An adjective/adverb
and
Or
and
Or
and
a noun/pronoun
a noun/pronoun
a noun/pronoun
Whether a single word or phrases or pairs, the job of a conjunction is to join two
simple sentences.
Articles
Article is a word we use to refer to the number of a noun. For a singular noun
we use the article A or AN. AN is used for a noun that starts with a vowel or
vowel sound. Examples are:
An umbrella, an egg, an elephant
For all other single nouns, use A. A and AN are also known as indefinite article
because it will refer to any single noun like, a doctor, a book, a pencil, an
instructor, an engineer and so on.
We also use A and AN before an adjective if that adjective describes a single
noun.
Here are some examples:
An intelligent student never has any doubts.
A good boy will always obey his parents.
Ronald is an excellent football player
No one could find an immediate solution to the problem.
Use A or AN for every common noun if it appears in the middle of a sentence as
shown below:
It was an earthquake.
Wont she be a good dancer for our entertainment programme?
Use A or AN as applicable, in expressing quantity or certain numbers as shown
in the examples given below:
A lot of, a dozen, a couple of runs, an occasional cup of coffee, a hundred, a
thousand, a million.
Use A or AN before half when it follows a whole number like this,
One and a half kilo (But, dont use a if only is to be pronounced
k = half kilo. half a kilo is wrong English)
Whereas, with other numbers, a must be used as shown below:
a third, a quarter, a fifth
Sentence structure
Structure of a simple sentence
We may divide every simple sentence into two distinct parts the grammar part
and Meaning part. One makes mistakes only in the grammar part and seldom in
the meaning part; or, one cannot make any serious mistakes in the meaning part
at all. The meaning part has nothing to do with the grammar part. We can take
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the grammar part of one sentence and attach it to the meaning part of another
sentence and vice versa. Here are some examples:
Mani could have beaten up/this poor street dog.
Grammar part
meaning part
Isaac loves/the small children in his colony.
We can swap the meaning part like this,
Mani could have beaten up/ the small children in his colony
Isaac loves/this poor street dog.
The new sentences sound meaningful all right.
The grammar part is different for each tense. And the English language uses in
all 18 tenses. Each of these tenses has its own grammar rules. Once you master
these grammar rules, you could never make any mistake in composing an
English sentence.
The grammar rules themselves are very simple indeed and very simple to
remember too. The grammar part is divided into three sections SUBJECT,
AUXILIARY and VERB. In short, S-A-V.
The meaning part consists of OBJECT AND COMPLEMENT or both in any
combination. We will indicate this part henceforth as, O/C.
Thus the formula for a simple sentence will be like this,
S A V O/C
Do note that an English sentence must have S-A-V or S-A.V. It need not have
O/C at all. But, without O/C you may only get a small meaning out of S-A-V. It
is the O/C parts that give the full meaning of a sentence. A simple sentence is
one that is self-contained in meaning. In other words, there must be the O/C
parts in the sentence.
Present Tense
When to use
We use it to denote the existence of or give information about yourself, another
person or thing that we see before our eyes or hear about, in present time.
We use it to convey information about the things and qualities we and the third
persons possess in present time
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(This is an important tense because most of what we say about people, things or
about ourselves will always be in the present tense)
S A V rules
Subject
Auxiliary
Verb form
I
He, she, it
We, You, They
AM
IS
ARE
AM
IS
ARE
HAVE
HAS
HAVE
HAS
Possessive case
I, WE, YOU, THEY
HE, SHE, IT
Universal Auxiliaries
All persons
am/is/are USED TO
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Auxiliary
AM
IS
ARE
Verb
Present ending in-ing
- do
- do
Universal Auxiliaries
All persons
can be
May be
Could be
Would be
Should be
Must be
Shall be
Will be
Need be
Ought to be
Am/is/are going to be
Am/is/are/can be/may be/ could be/
Would be/should be/ must be/
Shall be/will be/ought to be/
USED TO
GETTING/BECOMING
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Auxiliary
DO
DOES
Verb
Present form
Present form
Universal Auxiliaries
All persons
can
May
Could
Would
Must
Ought to
Will
Shall
Dare
Need
Can/may/would/should/must/ought to/
Will/shall GET/BECOME/BE USED TO
Do/does/can /may/would/should/must/
Ought to/ will/ shall KEEP
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Present form
Auxiliary
verb form
HAVE
HAS
P.P form
Universal Auxiliaries
All persons
MAY HAVE
P.P. form
Has/have/may have got/
Become/been USED TO
Past form
learned
talked
rested
washed
punished
locked
improved
landed
dried
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Past Participle
learnt
talked
rested
washed
punished
locked
improved
landed
dried
Dont ever get used to drugs during your college life, ok?
Have you been used to late night during your school days?
Jonathan has got used to bad language, hasnt he?
We may have contacted malaria during our overnight stay in the forest.
Auxiliary
verb form
HAVE BEEN
HAS BEEN
Present in - ING
- do
Universal Auxiliaries
All persons
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Past Tense
We use the past tense,
a) To denote the existence of or give information about yourself,
another person or what we saw before eyes in the past time.
b) To give information about the things/qualities a person (s)
possessed in the past time. (Possessive case)
Rules
Subject
I, He, She, It
We, You, They
Auxiliary
was
were
Verb form
was
were
had
had
was/were USED TO
Possessive case
All persons
Universal Auxiliaries
All persons
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Auxiliary
verb form
I, He, She, It
We, You, They
was
were
did KEEP
Was/were getting/
Becoming USED TO
Universal Auxiliaries
All Persons
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Auxiliary
Verb form
All persons
DID
present form
Universal Auxiliaries
All persons
could
Would
Did USE TO
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Auxiliary
Verb form
All persons
had
P.P form
had become/got/been
USED TO
Universal Auxiliary
All persons
Auxiliary
verb form
All persons
Had Been
Present in ING
had kept
Had been getting/
Becoming USED TO
- do
use only the verbs
shown in bold.
Universal Auxiliaries
All persons
What had our principal been planning about the sports programme?
He had been planning it on a grand scale.
The children had been driving the parents crazy actually.
He hadnt been distributing these notices to all students
Your wards had kept guessing about their future, hadnt they?
They had kept driving you mad surely during holidays.
Had you been getting used to the rowdy students in this school?
Some of us hadnt been becoming used to their hostile attitude.
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Future Tense
We use future tense to talk about an action we propose to do in some future
time. The action is only in your mind as an intention. This action will take
shape only at a later time. Thus, in a future tense sentence, we cannot see any
action whatever though it uses auxiliaries and verbs separately.
We make a future tense statement only in present time.
Rules
Subject
Auxiliary
Verb form
All persons
will, shall
Present form
Universal Auxiliaries
All persons
could
present form
Would
Might
Will/shall/might/would/could Use only get/
GET/BECOME/BE USED TO become/be as verbs.
I
We, You, They
He, she, it
am going to
are going to
is going to
Present form
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Auxiliary
verb form
All Persons
Will be
Shall be
Universal Auxiliaries
All Persons
could be
Present form + ING
would be
Might be
Shall/will/could/would/
might KEEP
Will be/shall be/could be/
Would be/ might be getting/
Becoming USED TO
use only the verbs
Getting and Becoming
Auxiliary
Verb form
All persons
will have
Shall have
P.P form
Universal Auxiliary
All persons
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Auxiliary
Verb form
All persons
Universal Auxiliaries
All persons
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