English Grammar: Introduction and its elements
Posted on : 03-08-2018 Posted by : Admin

Introduction

Grammar is something related to sentence formation and word usage. It is very important to know and learn Grammar to speak and write flawlessly in English. Also regular practice will definitely make you perfect in English. This initiative will not only help you speak and write in English but also help you with your competitive exam preparation. We hope our work will help you score good in your exams.

 

The Sentence

The chief component of communication in any language is a Sentence. It helps in expressing the thought in a complete way. A sentence is a group of words with complete meaning.

For example:

India is a beautiful country.

What is your name?

Write a poem.

How awesome she is!

All the above examples are sentences as they are Group of words and they have a meaning too.

A sentence generally comprises of a subject and a predicate which are linked up grammatically. A sentence consists of few words which are grouped to express a question, a request, a command or any idea and much more.

Subject and Predicate play a very prominent role in making a good and meaningful sentence. Every complete sentence consists these two parts, a subject and a predicate.

Subject: It tells what/whom the sentence is all about. It can be a noun or a pronoun and all the words which describe what the rest of the sentence is talking about.

Predicate: The rest of the sentence apart from subject is called predicate. It tells what the subject is doing. It includes verb and all the words in the sentence that tell you what the subject is or is doing.

Though there are plenty of grammar rules the main ones are with reference to the sentence structure and the parts of the speech. The way, the parts of the speech are put together gives out the whole essence and meaning to the sentence.

Basic rules for a sentence

  • A sentence must express complete thought.
  • A sentence must contain a subject.
  • A sentence must contain a predicate.

Examples of a sentence, (The subject is given in blue color and the predicate is given in green color)

Rama  caught the ball.

Dolly and her mother went shopping.

Rahul  answered all the questions in the Exam.

Let us examine the following group of words,

Jumps up high

A big fat cat

Runs to the house

These are not sentences, because they are not complete, they either do not have a subject or a predicate. For example “Jumps up high”, this group of words does not have any subject, we do not know who or what jumps up high. It seems incomplete. Hence, it is not a sentence.

Similarly, “A big fat cat”, this group of words does not have a predicate. We do not know what is this cat doing and so it is incomplete. Hence, even this is not a sentence.

And so is the case with the third sentence “Runs to the house”, which also do not have a subject and we do not know who or what runs to the house.

All these groups of words are called as sentence fragments or phrases. They are parts of the sentence and not a complete sentence as they do not contain subject or predicate or do not express a complete thought.

 

Parts of the speech

The next step after knowing about sentence structure is to know about the parts of the speech. Parts of the speech are also very important grammar rules which can help in making a sentence meaningful.

The following are eight main parts of the speech,

  1. Noun: The names of person, place, animal, thing, idea, activity, feeling etc. It can be singular/plural.
  2. Pronoun: The words which are used instead of noun Eg: I, You, he, she…
  3. Verb: The words which shows the action. Verbs also specifys the tenses changing their form from past to present to future.
  4. Adjective: It describes the quality of the noun or pronoun. It modifies noun or pronoun.
  5. Adverb: It describes the quality of the verb. It modifies the verb and also gives more information about it.
  6. Preposition: It gives the association between nouns or pronouns. They are used to show the time at a location, the direction, the location, the reason and so on.
  7. Conjunction: It connects two words, clauses or phrases
  8. Interjection: It shows emotions Eg: Hurray, Alas, Yeah…

 

Other important Grammar elements

Articles

These are special group of adjectives which point to nouns. Articles always appear in front of the nouns. There are two types of articles Definite articles (The), Indefinite articles (A, An).

Indefinite article “An” is always used in front of the nouns which start with a vowel.

Indefinite article “A” is used in front of the nouns which start with a consonant.

Definite article “The” is always points to a specific person or a thing within a group.

Punctuation

Last but not the least, understanding punctuation is also important to gain a complete knowledge of English grammar guidelines and rules, 

  • Every sentence must begin with a capital letter or upper case letter. 
  • Names of people, books, magazines, movies, locations, specific places, etc. should be capitalized. 
  • Organizations and compass points must also be capitalized. 
  • A punctuation mark is a must for every sentence. Punctuation marks include exclamation mark, or question mark or a full stop…
  • Colons are used to divide a sentence from a list of items or between two sentences when the second one explains the first or to introduce a long direct quote.
  • Semicolons are placed before conjunctive adverbs like “therefore”, “however”, “hence”, “consequently”. Semicolons are also used to divide list of items if there are commas within each part of item.   
  • Commas are used to separate items in a series. They help to give a pause in a sentence. They are also used after the name of person being addressed
  • Parentheses separate the information which is not actually needed to explain the main theme. Parentheses may enclose usual items, numbers and letters.           
  • Apostrophes are used to create possessive forms for singular and plural nouns (especially for nouns referring to people). Apostrophe is also used to show contractions and to create some plural forms.

Now that we have seen some English grammar rules, let us begin our journey to become an Expert in English Grammar.

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