English Grammar: Quick Reference Guide

This English Grammar Reference Guide helps you quickly understand important grammar concepts, and is a good place to revise important topics related to English Grammar.

Parts of Speech

A sentence is made up of words, and these words can be placed in different classes known as parts of speech.

These divisions are made according to the use of the word, i.e. what work the word does in the sentence.

Another important thing to remember is that the same word can take the form of one part of speech (for example noun) in one sentence and it can be another part of speech (for example a verb or adjective) in another sentence.

Learning about Parts of Speech helps understand how to use words together to make sentences, to form grammatically correct sentences, and to know how to correctly punctuate sentences.

 

There are Eight Parts of Speech:

1. Noun: Name of person, animal, place or thing.
2. Pronoun: A word that is used in place of a noun.
3. Adjective: Tells us more about the noun.
4. Verb: Word that shows an action, occurrence, or state of being.
5. Adverb: Word/s that tells us more about the verb, adjective, or other adverb or a word group.
6. Preposition: Shows the relation between a noun/pronoun and some other word in the sentence.
7. Conjunction: Joins words, group of words, or sentences.
8. Interjection: Word which expresses some sudden feeling.

 

Noun: A naming word (name of thing, place, animal, etc) is called a noun. Example: The rose is a beautiful flower. Here, the nouns are rose and flower.

Pronoun
A word that is used instead of a noun is called a pronoun. sometimes instead of using the same noun over and over again, another word is used instead of the noun. This is done to make the sentence simpler.
Example:
a. Rajat is a good boy. Rajat does his homework every day.
b. Rajat is a good boy. He does his homework every day.
Not how the pronoun ‘he’ has replaced the noun Rajat.

More example of pronouns: I, we, you, he, she, it, they, me, us, him, her, them, my, mine, his.

Adjectives
A describing word is known as an adjective. Such a word describes or tells you more about a person, place or thing. Since the name of a person, place or thing is known as a noun, we can say that an adjective describes a noun.
Example: The cruel giant lived in a big castle by the sea.
Adjectives: cruel, big
More example of adjectives: tiny, cunning, heavy, brave, naughty, golden, ripe, soft, curly, strong, green, fast

Verbs
Doing verbs are known as verbs. A doing word tell us what somebody or something does.
Example: Jack ran down the hills
Verbs: ran
More example of verbs: rowed, cried, saw, gave, answered, rang, ran, loves, jumped, go

Adverbs
Words that tell us something more about verbs are called adverbs.
Example: How did the the giant laugh? the giant laughed loudly
Adverbs: loudly
Example: How did Aman run? Aman ran fast
Adverbs: fast

A, An, The (Using articles)
“A”, “An” and “The” are called articles, here’s how to use them.

• A is used with consonant sounds, it comes before words that do not begin with a vowel.
• An is used with vowel sounds, it comes before words that begin with a vowel – that is a, e, i, o, u
• The is used with things that are one of their kind.

Examples:
There is a vase on the table
We saw an Ostrich at the zoo
Ben ate a slice of bread and an egg which was boiled

How and when to use ‘the’.

Look at these two sentences.
a. Look for an empty packet
b. Out the book in the empty packet
In the first sentence, an empty packet does not refer to a particular empty packet; it means any empty packet. But in the second sentence, the book refers to a particular book and the empty packet refers to a particular empty packet that is lying there.
So ‘the’ is used when you want to refer to a particular thing.

More example of using ‘the’
We took a left from the school to reach the zoo.

This, That, These, Those
This is used for a person, place or thing that is near us.
That is used for a person, place or thing that is far from us.
These: Same as This but used for more than one.
Those: Same as That but used for more than one.

Examples

• This is my pencil
• These are my crayons.
• That is my cycle.
• Those are my friends.

Have/Has
We use has for one person or animal
We use have for more than one person or animal.
We also use have with I and you.

A tiger has sharp teeth
Elephants have huge trunks
Tom has a dog
Jack and Jill have a dog.
I have a dog.
You have a dog.

Prepositions
The words between, in, on, above all tell you where a person or thing is. words like these are called prepositions.

The words In , On, Under and Near are used as prepositions showing the position of the object/person with respect to another object/person.
For example, put a pencil in various positions and make sentences to inform where is the pencil.

• The pencil is in the drawer.
• The pencil is on the table.
• The pencil is under the desk.
• The pencil is near the duster.

Conjunctions
Conjunctions are joining words, used to join two sentences. The joining words ‘and’ and ‘but’ are commonly used as conjunctions.
Example:
Shaan tasted the soup. He liked it
Shaan tasted the soup and he liked it.

Rohan dropped the glass. It did not break.
Rohan dropped the glass but it did not break

We usually use ‘but’ when we want to connect two ideas that are different from each other. The word ‘but’ is used when the second sentence says/does something that is not what we would expect after reading the first one. In the above example we expect glass to break when it is dropped, However, in this case the glass did not break.So, the joining word but has been used to tell that even though Rohan dropped the glass, the glass did not break.

Types of Sentences
A sentence is a group of words that tells you something or asks a question. A sentence starts with a capital letter. A sentence ends with an end mark (A full stop, question mark and an exclamation mark are end marks).

• Some sentences ask us something; they end with a question mark.
• Some sentences show feelings like being excited, happy or surprised; they end with an exclamation mark.
  Example: We won!
• Some sentences tell us something; they end with a full stop.

Capital Letters & Punctuation

• The names of towns, cities, countries, continents, like all proper nouns, begins with capital letters followed by small letters.
• A sentence always begins with a capital letter and ends with a full stop or question mark.
• When you ask a question, you end the sentence with a question mark and now a full stop.

Silent Letters

Say aloud the words honest, knee and wrong. When we say them aloud, we say onest, nee and rong respectively. We do not pronounce the h, k and w sounds in these words. These letters are silent.

Nouns

Naming Words and Special Words

Naming words are names of persons, names of animals or birds, names of places, names of things. For example:

• Persons: Gardener, Tailor, Barber.
• Animals/Birds: Lion, Pigeon, Cow
• Places: Market, Hotel, Street
• Things: Bench, Banana, Train

Naming words are of two types: Common names and Special names. Examples: Boy and Girl are common names. Shaurya and Sakshi are special names. Dog is a common name; Moti is a special name.

All naming words are nouns!

Nouns can further be divided into different kinds:

COMMON NOUN

Common Noun is a noun which is a general name for the same kind of things, persons or places. A common noun does not refer to any particular thing, person or place.

Example: I have a book of puzzles.
Common Nouns: book, puzzles
More example of common nouns: child, book, flower, city, country, day, river, tree, man, insect, teacher, book, bag, cap, tent, bird, chair

PROPER NOUN

A special or personal name given to a particular person, place or thing is called a Proper Noun. A Proper Noun always begins with a capital letter.

Example: Amit picked up the book
Proper Noun: Amit, Common Noun: book
More example of proper nouns: Richa, Chennai, Taj Mahal, New Zealand, Sunday, Rohit, the Bible, Bangalore, China, the Ganga etc.

COLLECTIVE NOUN

Collective Nouns are group names which refer to a collection of persons, things, animals etc. A Collective Noun stands for a group of people, things, animals etc. taken together as a whole.

Examples: flight of birds, litter of puppies, troop of children / soldiers, host of angels, sheaf of corn, band of musicians / robbers, brood of chickens, cloud of flies, coven of witches, clutch of eggs, swarm of bees, pride of lions, album of photographs, troop of monkeys, chest of drawers, crew of sailors, rookery of penguins, leap of leopards, muster of peacocks, suite of rooms, gaggle of geese, suite of clothes, gang of of thieves / workmen, library of books, bouquet of flowers, rope of pearls, host of angels, nest of snakes, troupe of actors, kindle of kittens, block of apartments, Fleet of ships, bouquet of flowers.

MATERIAL NOUN

Different substances or materials are used to make different things. The name of the substance or material used to make anything is called a Material Noun. For example: wood, cotton, silk, gold, clay, copper etc.

ABSTRACT NOUN

Abstract Nouns are names of qualities or actions which we can think about, but which we cannot see or touch. For example: childhood, health, bravery, love etc.

Countable Noun
Things that we can count are called countable nouns. Countable nouns may be one or many: book-books, cat-cats.
Things that we cannot count are called uncountable nouns. Nouns, such as sugar, milk, water and grass are examples of uncountable nouns.

A noun is countable if you can:

• put a/an before it (a cottage)
• put a number before it (four bags)
• make it plural or more than one (bags)

Examples:
The old lady was carrying four bags
The pot was full of porridge
In the above examples, bags and porridge are naming words. We can count bags but we cannot count porridge.

Reflexive Noun
WE sometimes do actions that turn back on us. We use reflexive pronouns to show that these actions turn back to the doer.

Example:
The boy hurt himself.
The goblin bought himself a pair of shoes.

I – myself, You – yourself
He – himself, She – herself
It – itself
WE – ourselves, They – themselves

More examples of reflexive nouns.

My dog hurt himself.
She bought herself a book.
My parents made themselves some soup
My friends and I enjoyed ourselves at the picnic.

Tenses in English Grammar

English tenses are grammatical forms that inform about the time when actions or events occur. Understanding the basics of English tenses is important for effective communication in both spoken and written contexts. Here’s more about the different types and forms of English tenses.

There are three main categories of tenses: past, present, and future. Each category further has four main types: simple, continuous (or progressive), perfect, and perfect continuous (or progressive).

Simple present: Simple present tense indicates everyday actions and routines, general truths. Here are some examples:

• Positive: Wilbur invents flying machines. Aeroplanes are flying machines.
• Negative: Wilbur does not invent flying machines. Trains are not flying machines.
• Interrogative: Does Wilbur invent flying machines? Are rocket flying machines?

 

Present continuous: Present continuous tense denotes an action that is happening at the time of speaking. Here are some examples:

• Positive: Wilbur is inventing a flying machine.
• Negative: Wilbur is not inventing a flying machine.
• Interrogative: Is Wilbur inventing a flying machine?

 

Simple past: Simple past talks about actions that have already happened.

• Positive: Wilbur invented a flying machine
• Negative: Wilbur did not invent a flying machine
• Interrogative: Did Wilbur invent a flying machine?

 

Present continuous: Present continuous indicates an action that was happening at some time in the past.

• Positive: Wilbur was inventing a flying machine.
• Negative: Wilbur was not inventing a flying machine.
• Interrogative: Is Wilbur inventing a flying machine?

 

Simple future: Simple future indicates an action that has not yet happened.

• Positive: Wilbur is going to invent a flying machine. Wilbur will fly in his machine.
• Negative: Wilbur is not going to invent a flying machine. Wilbur will not fly in his machine.
• Interrogative: Is Wilbur going to invent a flying machine? Will Wilbur fly in his machine?

 

Future continuous: Future continuous indicates an action that will be happening in the future.

• Positive: Wilbur will be inventing a flying machine.
• Negative: Wilbur will not be inventing a flying machine.
• Interrogative: Will Wilbur be inventing a flying machine?

 

Direct Speech vs Indirect Speech

Direct Speech

When something is being repeated exactly as it was, we may quote his actual words. Usually in between a pair of inverted (“ ”) commas.
Eg – He said, “I am busy now”.

Indirect Speech

When we report what a person says without quoting his/her exact words and omit the use of inverted commas. We always answer the reported speech in the past tense. In indirect speech we use ‘that’ instead of using inverted commas.

Eg – He said, “I am busy now”.
Eg – He said that he was busy then.

Important point to remember while changing from Indirect to Direct speech

• The actual words of the speaker are put within Inverted commas.
• The first word of the Reported Speech (actual words of the speaker) begins with a Capital letter.
• The Reported Speech is separated by a comma from the Reported Verb.

Important point to remember while changing from Direct speech to Indirect Speech

• Inverted commas are not used; but the Reported Speech is generally introduced by the conjunction, ‘that’.
• The comma separating the Reported Verb from the Reported Speech is removed.
• The tense of the Reporting Verb is never changed
• The Question mark (?) and the Mark of Exclamation (!) are not used.
• Interrogative, Imperative and Exclamatory sentences are put as statements.

Change of Tenses from Direct to Indirect Speech

Rule 1. If the Reporting Verb is in the Present or Future tense, the tense of the Verb in the Reported Speech is not changed at all.
Eg – He says, “I am ready.”
He says that he is ready
Eg – He will say, “I am ready”.
He will say that he is ready.

Rule 2. If the Reporting Verb is in the Past tense, the tense of the Verb in the Reported Speech is changed into one of the forms of the Past tense.

i) Simple Present becomes Simple Past
eg – He said, “I write a letter.”
He said that he wrote a letter.

ii) Present continuous becomes Past continuous
eg – He said, “I am writing a letter.”
He said that he was writing a letter.”

iii) Present Perfect becomes Past Perfect
eg – He said, “I have written a letter”.
He said that he had written a letter.

iv) Simple Past becomes Past Perfect

v) Past Continuous becomes Past Perfect Continuous

vi) Past Perfect and Past Perfect Continuous remains unchanged.

vii) Will changes into would, Shall into should or would, Can into could, May into might

Rule 3. If the Reported Speech express some universal truth or habitual action, the tense of the Verb in the Reported Speech is not changed into the corresponding past, but remains exactly as it is;

Universal truth
Eg – He said, “Two and three makes five”.
He said that two and three makes five.

Habitual Action
Eg – He said, “I go to temple every Tuesday”.
He said that he goes to temple every Tuesday.

Note: When the Reporting Verb ‘say’ takes an indirect object it is changed into ‘tell’ in the Indirect Speech.
Eg – “We shall go home,” he said to me.
He told me that they would go home.

Rule 4. In the Reported Speech, the words expressing nearness of time or place are changed into words showing distance.
Eg – He said, “It is raining now”.
He said that it was raining then.

Note: If this, now, here, etc refer to the same object, time or place that is present to the speaker while speaking, then no change is made in the adjective or adverb in the Indirect Speech, as,

Eg – He said, “I will do it now or never.”
He said that he would do it now or never.
Eg – She said, “My book is here.”
She said that her book was here.
Eg – “This is the house I like,” he said.
He said that this was the house he liked.

Rule 5. The Noun and Pronoun in Vocative Case are turned into objects in the Indirect Speech.

Eg – The teacher said, “Arun, you should try harder.”
The teacher told Arun that he should try harder.

If the person addressed reports the speech, the Second Person is changed to First.

Eg – He said to me, “You are a clever boy.”
He told me that I was a clever boy.

If the pronoun he or she stands for different persons, the names of the persons referred to are inserted in brackets after the pronouns. Besides, Nouns could be used instead of Pronouns whenever possible.

Eg – Arun said to Amit, “I want your pen.”
Arun told amit that he (Arun) wanted his (Amit’s) pen.

Homographs, Homophones, & Homonyms

Homographs, Homophones, & Homonyms can be confusing to understand. Learn the difference between words that sound similar but may have different meanings.

Homophone

Homo means same. Phone means sound.

So these words sound the same but have different spellings and meanings.

Examples:

• bye, buy, by
• board, bored
• week, weak

Homographs

One word, Two Meanings.

These words may or may not sound the same, have same spelling but two different meanings.

Example:

• bow (it can be a noun as in bow and arrow, or it can be a verb as in ‘to bow in front of the king’ ).
• pitcher (it could mean an athlete or some container).
• ruler (scale or a king)
• minute (pronounced differently)

Homonyms

These can be both – homophone and a homograph, or either one or the other.

Some people view homonyms as an umbrella term that includes both homographs and homophones.

Some however view homonyms as those words that are both homographs as well homophones.