Grammar Notes

Nouns
● People, Animals, Things, Places, Ideas

Countable Nouns Uncountable Nouns

People, Animals and Concrete Things Ideas, Emotions and Abstract Things (e.g.
(e.g. table) music)

Liquids and Materials

Have Singular and Plural Forms No Plural Form

Boy – boys Furniture

Church – churches Food

Leaf – leaves

Baby – babies Unit in front to count

Tooth – teeth/ goose – geese e.g. Plates of food

Child – Children (Irregular)

Sheep

Can have all these words in front: Can have all these words in front:

-many -much

-few -little

-a/an

Verbs
– Actions or states OR occurence
-e.g. Run (Action)
-e.g. Am (State) – I am happy.
-e.g. The frog became a prince. (occurrence)

Verb Forms
Base Singular Simple Past Past Participle Present
Present Participle

Sit Sits Sat Sat Sitting

Eat Eats Ate Eaten Eating

Cut Cuts Cut Cut Cutting

Drink Drinks Drank Drunk Drinking

Whenever a verb comes after the word ‘to’, it will be in base form.

10 types of Editing Errors

Type of Error Basic Definition Examples Error

Singular/Plur Countable nouns will have Boy → Boys There are many boy
al (Sg/Pl) singular and plural forms. in the class.
Based on the context, the
correct form should be used.

Determiner Words which come before a Articles I ate a apple.

noun and tell us a bit more - A, An, The
about the noun. Demonstratives That boys are noisy.
- This, These,
That, Those
Quantifiers
- Some, Many, There is few water
Much, Little, left.
Less, Few
etc...

Verb Form Verbs talk about actions, Action - Run He was run to catch
(VF) states or occurrences. State - Am the bus.
Occurence - become

Subject Verb A noun is the subject of a Talk → Talks Tom talk a lot in
Agreement sentence. That noun must class.
(SVA) agree with the verb. If it is a
singular noun, then the verb
will usually have ‘s’ at the
 back.

Pronoun (Pr) A pronoun replaces a noun I, We, Me, Us Sally took hers bag.
after the noun is introduced. He, Him, His
She, Her, Hers
It, Its
They, Them,

Preposition A preposition talks about the At, In, On, From, To, I am walking on the
(Prep) relationship between two Into, With, By, river.
nouns (e.g. direction, Along,Under, Over
position)

Conjunction A conjunction connects two And, But, Either, Or, Ali is intelligent but
(Conj) clauses/phrases. Neither, Nor, For, As, helpful.
Although, If, Since

Adjective An adjective describes a Base: Tall (1 noun) Ram is the taller in

(Adj) noun in terms of its qualities, Comparative: Taller the class.
appearance. There are 3 (2 nouns)
forms of an adjective if it is Superlative: Tallest
gradable. (More than 2 nouns)

Word Class A content word usually Patient (Adjective) I am running out of

changes form based on its Patiently (Adverb) patient.
word class (noun, verb, Patience (Noun)
adjective, adverb)

Word Form Sometime a word may have History - Historian I am going to take a
two forms in the same word (both are Nouns) Historian course.
class depending on the
context.

Exceptions to Singular/Plural
Sheep
Deer
Fish
Aircraft

Advice vs Advise
Advice is a noun. I gave you advice.
Advise is a verb. I advised you.

Nominalisation (Turning verbs into nouns)

+ity: Able -->Ability
+ness: Good → Goodness
+ion: Complete → Completion
+ure: Depart → Departure
Noun Test:
-Can have ‘a’ ‘an’ or ‘the’ in front of a noun.
-The departure (noun)
-The depart (verb)

Verb Test
-Can add ‘ing’ to the word
-Take → Taking

Simple Past

-Finished past actions

-e.g. I watched a movie yesterday.

Regular Verbs (+ed)

-e.g. Watch → watched
-e.g. Play → played
-e.g. Study → studied

Irregular verbs
- Eat → ate
-Run → Ran
-Say → Said
-Sleep → Slept
-Write → Wrote
-Am/Is → was
-Are -->were
-Has → Had
-Do → Did

Determiners & Pronouns

Determiners Pronouns
-Come before nouns -Replace Nouns

A/An/The I, We, You, They, It, He, She

This/That/These/Those Me, Us, You, Them, It, Him, Her
One, Two, Many, Few, Some, Little, Much Mine, Ours, Its, Yours, Theirs, His, Hers
First, Second… Myself, yourself, Itself, Ourselves,
Each, every, all, half, themselves, himself, herself
What, Which, Whose
Determiners

1. Articles A = general countable noun There is a boy.

                        

An =general countable noun which starts with a vowel There is an apple.

                        

The = specific noun/plural nouns The boys are

noisy.
 
The boy is quiet.

2. Quantifiers One, two, three, many, few = countable nouns  = There are three
show number boys.

   

Little/Much = uncountable nouns There is little

water.
=show amount

3. Possessives My, His, Her, Their, Its This is my bag.

-show possession  

4. This – singular, near Pass me that

Demonstratives book.
That- singular, far

These-plural, near

Those –plural, far

Pronouns

Person Singular Subject Plural Subject Singular Object Plural Object

1 st
I We Me Us

I helped Tom. We helped Tom. Tom helped me. Tom helped us.
 2nd
You You You You

You helped Tom You helped Tom. Tom helped you. Tom helped you

3rd
He/She/It They Him/Her/It Them

He/She/It helped They helped Tom helped Tom helped

Tom Tom him/her/it them.

Conjunctions
– Combine phrases and sentences

-and, but, either, or, neither, nor, since, while, because, as, so, yet

-FANBOYS

For, and, nor, but, or, yet, so

Conjunction Function Example

And combining 2 phrases Tom is smart and responsible.

which are NOT
contrasting (opposites)

But combining 2 phrases Tom is smart but lazy.

which are
CONTRASTING

Yet combining 2 phrases Tom is smart yet lazy.

which are
CONTRASTING

Or combining 2 options You can have chocolate or vanilla. (cannot

which may not be have both)
together.
as well as Works like ‘and’ Charis as well as Jennies bought the
assessment books.

Although Same meaning as ‘but’ Although Dawn woke up early, she was
late.
‘Although’ comes at the
start of a sentence. ‘but’ Dawn woke up early, but she was late.
comes at the middle

So that To combine an adjective She was so hungry (adjective) that she

with an action. (noun) ate (verb) three bowls of porridge.

So (adjective) that (noun)

(verb)

If Combine a condition and If you reach by 9am (condition), you will

a result. The positions of gain entry into the zoo (result.)
the condition and result
are interchangeable. If you want to gain entry into the zoo
(result), you must reach by 9am
(condition)

Unless Combine a condition with Unless you can swim (condition), you
a negative result. OR a must not enter the pool. (negative result)
negative condition with a
result. Unless you cannot swim (negative
condition), you must enter the pool
(result).

While To show contrast While Peter is smart, he is lazy.

While Peter was studying, Tom was

playing.
To show two actions
happening at the same
time
Neither…nor To show that both options Neither (Noun) nor (Noun)….
are negative.
Neither Peter nor Tom will pass the exam.

*Note that ‘neither’ is already negative so

you cannot have ‘not’ in the same
sentence.

Neither Peter nor Tom will not pass the

exam. [Wrong]