Language Use and Vocabulary Flashcards
Nouns that are generic names for people, places, and things. Common nouns are not usually capitalized.
Common Nouns
Examples of common nouns:
People: boy, girl, worker, manager
Places: school, bank, library, home
Things: dog, cat, truck, car
Nouns that name specific people, places, or things. All proper nouns are capitalized.
Proper Nouns
Nouns that are the names for a group of people, places, or things that may act as a whole.
Collective Nouns
Collective nouns usually require an article, which denotes the noun as being a single unit. For instance, a choir is a group of singers. Even though there are many singers in a choir, the word choir is grammatically treated as a single unit. If we refer to the members of the group, and not the group itself, it is no longer a collective noun.
words that are used to stand in for nouns. They may be classified as personal, intensive, relative, interrogative, demonstrative, indefinite, and reciprocal.
Pronouns
Personal: Nominative is the case for nouns and pronouns that are the subject of a sentence. Objective is the case for nouns and pronouns that are an object in a sentence. Possessive is the case for nouns and pronouns that show possession or ownership.
Intensive: I myself, you yourself, he himself, she herself, the (thing) itself, we ourselves, you yourselves, they themselves
Relative: which, who, whom, whose
Interrogative: what, which, who, whom, whose
Demonstrative: this, that, these, those
Indefinite: all, any, each, everyone, either/neither, one, some, several
Reciprocal: each other, one another
verb whose action indicates a receiver.
Transitive verb
verbs that do not indicate a receiver of an action
Intransitive Verbs
Transitive: He drives a car. | She feeds the dog.
Intransitive: He runs every day. | She voted in the last election.
Verbs that show what the subject is doing.
Action Verbs
A verb that links the subject of a sentence to a noun or pronoun, or they link a subject with an adjective.
Linking Verbs
You always need a verb if you want a complete sentence. However, linking verbs on their own cannot be a complete sentence.
Common linking verbs include appear, be, become, feel, grow, look, seem, smell, sound, and taste. However, any verb that shows a condition and connects to a noun, pronoun, or adjective that describes the subject of a sentence is a linking verb.
Action: He sings. | Run! | Go! | I talk with him every day. | She reads.
Note: Some verbs are followed by words that look like prepositions, but they are a part of the verb and a part of the verb’s meaning. These are known as phrasal verbs, and examples include call off, look up, and drop off.
These verbs may be in active voice or passive voice
Transitive Verbs
The difference between active voice and passive voice is whether the subject is acting or being acted upon. When the subject of the sentence is doing the action, the verb is in active voice. When the subject is being acted upon, the verb is in passive voice.
Active: Jon drew the picture. (The subject Jon is doing the action of drawing a picture.)
Passive: The picture is drawn by Jon. (The subject picture is receiving the action from Jon.)
Verb _______ is a property of a verb that indicates when the action being described takes place (past, present, or future) and whether or not the action is completed (simple or perfect).
Tense
Describing an action taking place in the present (I talk) requires a different verb tense than describing an action that took place in the past (I talked). Some verb tenses require an auxiliary (helping) verb. These helping verbs include am, are, is | have, has, had | was, were, will (or shall).
Present: I talk
Present perfect: I have talked
Past: I talked
Past perfect: I had talked
Future: I will talk
Future perfect: I will have talked
When you need to change the form of a verb, you are _________ a verb
conjugating
The key forms of a verb are present tense (sing/sings), past tense (sang), present participle (singing), and past participle (sung). By combining these forms with helping verbs, you can make almost any verb tense
There are three moods in English
indicative, the imperative, and the subjunctive.
The indicative mood is used for facts, opinions, and questions.
Fact: You can do this.
Opinion: I think that you can do this.
Question: Do you know that you can do this?
The imperative is used for orders or requests.
Order: You are going to do this!
Request: Will you do this for me?
The subjunctive mood is for wishes and statements that go against fact.
Wish: I wish that I were famous.
Statement against fact: If I were you, I would do this. (This goes against fact because I am not you. You have the chance to do this, and I do not have the chance.)
word that is used to modify a noun or pronoun
Adjective
An adjective answers a question: Which one? What kind? or How many? Usually, adjectives come before the words that they modify, but they may also come after a linking verb.
Which one? The third suit is my favorite.
What kind? This suit is navy blue.
How many? I am going to buy four pairs of socks to match the suit.
adjectives that are used to distinguish nouns as definite or indefinite.
Articles
A, an, and the are the only articles. Definite nouns are preceded by the and indicate a specific person, place, thing, or idea. Indefinite nouns are preceded by a or an and do not indicate a specific person, place, thing, or idea.
Note: An comes before words that start with a vowel sound. For example, “Are you going to get an umbrella?”
Definite: I lost the bottle that belongs to me.
Indefinite: Does anyone have a bottle to share?
Adjectives that are _______ can show the comparison between things
__________ adjectives can also show comparison, but they do so in a different way
Relative
Absolute
Let’s say that you are reading two books. You think that one book is perfect, and the other book is not exactly perfect. It is not possible for one book to be more perfect than the other. Either you think that the book is perfect, or you think that the book is imperfect. In this case, perfect and imperfect are absolute adjectives.
