Grammar Simplified

Grammar Simplified

Paul James

Copyright 2015 by Paul James

Smashwords Edition

Contents

Introduction

Nouns

Verbs

Articles

Pronouns

Pronoun Categories

Pronoun Cases

Adverbs

Adjectives

Conjunctions

Prepositions

Clauses and Phrases

Restrictive and Nonrestrictive Clauses

Sentence Structure

Making Sentences Parallel

Possessive Rules

Passive and Active Voices

Using Homophones

Writing or Spelling a Number

Comma Rules

Punctuation Rules

Introduction

Like it or not grammar is an essential part of written communication, not only does it improve the clarity of your writing, but it also increases readers’ confidence in your ideas. The focus of this book is not merely memorizing every single grammar rule. But instead, the focus is to help you to apply the basic principles so you can avoid making mistakes in your writing. In this book, you will learn about the different parts of speech, possessive rules, when to write and spell numbers, and much more. I have intentionally kept this book short to focus on application, rather than just memorizing rules. Let’s begin.

Parts of Speech

Nouns

Nouns are probably the easiest parts of speech to identify. A noun is the name of a person, place, thing, or idea. In other words, nouns are anything that exists that can be named. Nouns answer the questions What is it? and Who is it? in a sentence, and the subject of a sentence is likely to be a noun. Let’s look at some examples to further understand nouns. For example, someone asks the question of who likes the new facilities, and you answer: The employees like the new exercise facilities. In this example, the words employees and facilities are the nouns. The first word, employees, is the name of a group of people, and this noun is the subject of this sentence. The second word, facilities, is also a noun because it is the name of a place and answers the question What do the employees like?

Concrete and Abstract Nouns – Common Nouns

In our previous example, the words employees and facilities are also examples of concrete nouns. These types of nouns are called concrete because we can experience them with our five senses; we can see them, hear them, smell them, taste them, and feel them. So, regarding the first word, employees, it is a concrete noun because we can see, touch, and hear employees. The same is true for the second example, facilities; this is something that we can also see, touch, and experience.

Another class of nouns is the abstract noun, and these are the opposite of concrete nouns. We cannot experience abstract nouns with our senses. For example, let’s examine the statement Compassion is necessary for empathy. In this example, the words compassion and empathy are examples of abstract nouns because we can’t touch, see, hear, taste, or smell compassion or empathy. However, it is possible for us to witness an act of compassion, though we cannot see compassion itself. Both abstract and concrete nouns are referred to as common nouns because these nouns are generic and are used regularly in speech.

Proper Nouns

Proper nouns are the opposite of common nouns, and they are distinctive in two ways. First, they name something specific, and secondly, they begin with a capital letter regardless of where they occur in the sentence. For example, Paul and Richard like to meet at Zak’s Gym. In this example the words Paul, Richard, Zak, and Gym are the nouns. The first two nouns answer the question of Who? and What? This makes them the subject of the sentence. The second pair of nouns answers the question of Where? In this example it is at Zak’s Gym. These nouns are capitalized because they refer to a specific place and two specific people.

Another example of proper nouns is when you are talking about a specific landmark, town, or country. For example, Hotel Victoria is in Chelsea, London. So, in this example, we are talking about a specific hotel a specific area and city. Once again, these are all proper nouns and also need to be capitalized.

When to Capitalize

In most cases, it is easy to figure out when you need to capitalize, but there are some tricky situations where you will need to think quickly about the sentence before capitalizing. For example, let’s examine the statement Tell Mom that I will be home late. In this example, the word Mom has replaced a name, like Tracy or Claire; therefore, it must be