Chapter 16
General English / English 1
Noun
 A person, place, or thing
 Common nouns refer to general people, places or
things (ex. actor, small town, car) – usually not
capitalized, however they can be (e.g. Ferris wheel,
driving a Ford)
 Proper nouns refer to specific people, places, or things
(ex. Bruce Willis, Bardstown, Ford Mustang) – usually
these will be capitalized
 Remember, common is general, proper is specific
 Used to replace nouns so that you don’t have to keep
repeating the nouns
 “John Jacob Jingleheimer Smith woke up this morning.
John Jacob Jingleheimer Smith stretched and walked
to the kitchen. John Jacob Jingleheimer Smith cooked
eggs for breakfast.” Clearly, this would become tedious.
 “John Jacob Jingleheimer Smith woke up this morning.
He stretched and walked to the kitchen. He cooked
eggs for breakfast.” This would be much less
frustrating.
 Subjective pronouns are used when the noun they are
replacing is the subject of the sentence: I, you, we, he,
she, it, they – often at the beginning of the sentence
 “The Vice President and I ate dinner with the Prime
Minister.”
 Objective pronouns are used when the noun they are
replacing is either the direct or indirect object: me,
you, us, him, her, it, them - often at the end of the
sentence
 “The Prime Minister ate dinner with the Vice President
and me.”
 Possessive pronouns are used to show ownership or
possession: my, mine, your, yours, his, her, hers, its,
our, ours, their, theirs
 Do not use an apostrophe with possessive pronouns –
it changes their meanings
 Relative pronouns are used to describe a noun or
pronoun: who, whom, whomever, whose, which, that
 The angry dog only wanted the bone that belonged to
him to be returned.
Adjective
 Describes a noun (beautiful, noisy, pungent, sour, soft)
Verb
 An action or a state of being
 A gerund is a verb being used as a noun (e.g. jogging)
Adverb
 Describes a verb
 Adverbs usually end with –ly (ex. slowly, menacingly)
“Good” is an adjective; “well” is an adverb. When
someone inquires about your state of being (e.g. “How
are you doing?”) the proper term to use is “well.”
“I am doing good.” (You’re doing good what? Deeds?
Business? Good describes a noun, remember.)
“I am good.” (So you are the personification of goodness
then?)
“I am doing well.” (“Doing” is a verb, and thus requires
an adverb to describe it.)
“I am well.” (Well is an adverb, and thus properly
describes your state of being.)
In order for a sentence to be a true, complete sentence,
the sentence must have both a subject and a verb
phrase.
The subject of the sentence will always be a noun.
The verb phrase tells you what the subject is doing.
The shortest sentence: “I am.” (‘I’ is the subject, ‘am’ is
what ‘I’ is doing)
 Incomplete
“Going to bagpipe practice.” (Who is going to bagpipe
practice?)
“All the pretty flowers.” (And?)
 Without both subject and verb, the phrase is
considered a sentence fragment – not a complete
sentence
 Complete
“I am going to bagpipe practice.”
Outback Mack taught his son how to wrestle a bear.
 The subject is who or what is performing the action
 The predicate contains the verb, the direct object, and
the indirect object
 The verb is what the subject is doing
 The direct object can be found by asking: subject +
verb + what?
 The indirect object receives the direct object
The subject of a sentence is the person, place, or thing
that is performing the action in the sentence.
Bonnie bought both boats. (Who bought both boats?
Bonnie did. Bonnie is the subject.)
The simple subject of a sentence is subject by itself. The
complete subject is the subject and all of the adjectives
used to describe it.
Beautiful Bonnie bought both boats.
It doesn’t matter how many adjectives are added on, the
rule remains.
Beautiful, bubbly, brilliant, busy Bonnie bought both
boats.
Sometimes in a sentence, particularly in a command, the
subject will be unstated; in these circumstances, the
subject is understood to be “you.”
Example: Go to the store and pick up some eggs. (If
someone said this to you, you would understand that
they were telling you to pick up eggs, and so they
would not have to say “you.”)
A preposition describes position in time and space.
Example: over, under, before, after, beside, in front of,
behind, later, earlier
“A preposition is anywhere a mouse can go.”
A prepositional phrase tells you when and where the
sentence is occurring.
Before breakfast, beautiful, bubbly, brilliant, busy
Bonnie bought both boats.
A prepositional phrase is not an integral part of a
sentence; it can be removed from the sentence, and
the sentence will still make sense. The prepositional
phrase only gives a sense of context to the sentence.
If a prepositional phrase is at the beginning of a
sentence, it will have a comma after it. If it is in the
middle, there will be a comma before and after it. If it
is at the end, it will not be separated by a comma.
Before breakfast, beautiful, bubbly, brilliant, busy
Bonnie bought, below blowing breezes, both boats by
Blue Bay.