ENGLISH
Years 9 and 10
ARRANGING WORDS
punctuation, word classes, sentence structure
Workbook
+
Interactive Web based Learning
Neil Riley
©2011 Live-wire Learning. Photocopying Prohibited. ISBN 978-0-9922465-0-1
Page 1
Introduction
Neil Riley has taught English for 35 years and was Head of English at Southland Boys' High School.
He is currently teaching English and French and is the CEO and general editor of Live-wire Learning.
Live-wire Learning is New Zealand's most comprehensive on-line learning resource for secondary
school students providing detailed teaching material and graded questions in English from Years 7-12.
The goal of your teachers and school is that you become a self-directed life-long learner. Teachers
will help you achieve this but you have to help yourself as well. Like any sport, computer game or
cultural activity where practice makes perfect, you have to practise your English and literacy skills.
This book and eLivewire is designed to help you to practise.
Our aim with this first book in the series is provide hard copy notes (which you can refer to in the
years ahead) from our site and some easy exercises that you can complete in class, so that then you
can practise this skill on line in your own time. Once you have mastered the easier Achieved-Only
versions of a module on line, you can then challenge yourself with the harder Merit and Excellence
level questions in the normal modules.
As a students you can now
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go on line and use the eLivewire programme to practise your knowledge and understanding
of this material with Achieved level questions, gain success and confidence
get instant feedback from the hundreds of online questions + explanations to accelerate your
learning
re-sit modules to improve your score out of 10 and your 'working at' level
extend yourself
track your record of learning and your place on the leader board (see our home page)
refer to the relevant modules or Glossary to make notes on the Key Terms
use the definitions modules to rehearse key terms
We hope that this resource will motivate and equip you to succeed in this subject.
For instructions to access the web site, turn to the inside back cover.
All the best for your learning.
No material in this publication may be reproduced in any form without the permission of the publishers.
ISBN 978-0-9922465-0-1
© 2010 Livewire Learning
Invercargill, NEW ZEALAND
For further information contact
Neil Riley
General Editor
Live-wire Learning Ltd
3 Avenal Street
Invercargill, NZ 9810
[email protected]
www.livewirelearning.co.nz
©2011 Live-wire Learning. Photocopying Prohibited. ISBN 978-0-9922465-0-1
Page 2
Table of Contents
Topic
Page
Punctuation
1.
Capital Letters and Full Stops
4
2.
The Apostrophe
7
3.
The Colon, Semicolon, Hyphen and Dash
10
4.
The Comma
13
5.
The Question, Exclamation and Quotation Mark
15
Word Classes
6.
Nouns
17
7.
Pronouns
22
8.
Adjectives
25
9.
Adverbs
26
10.
Conjunctions and Prepositions
28
11.
Verbs Part 1
29
12.
Verbs Part 2 – The Active and Passive Voice
31
Sentence Structure
13.
Subjects and Objects, Phrases and Clauses
34
14.
Simple, Compound, Complex, Compound-complex
36
15.
Minor, Exclamatory, Imperative, Rhetorical, Tag
39
16.
Direct and Indirect Speech
40
Index of Terms andPage References
43
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2. The Apostrophe
The Apostrophe In Summary
'90s, I'll go, she's busy,
1. Shows the removal of a number, a
letter or letters from a word.
a. The girl's cell phone = 1 girl
b. The girls' cell phones = more than 1
girl
c. The man's cell phone = 1 man
Apostrophe ' d. The men's cell phones = 2+ men,
vowel change for plural
e. Henare and Anaru's race horse was
doing very well. = joint owners
f. Syd's and Anna's parents came to the
wedding. = individual parents
g. James's OR James'
2. Shows possession, or ownership.
The Apostrophe In Detail
There are two totally different uses for the apostrophe:
Use 1 – Contractions are when the apostrophe replaces a missing letter.
The apostrophe is used to show the removal of a number, a letter or letters from a
word, for the purpose of shortening the word for easier and/or quicker speech. The
existence of that letter must still be acknowledged, so that is why the apostrophe is
inserted in the place of the missing letter.
Worked example 1:
I am = I'm
You are = you’re
He is = he’s
The 1990s = the '90s
Challenge yourself – rewrite the following sentences using contractions.
1. We are going to town but I think we will get bored.
2. I would have done that job if you had asked me.
3. They will come to your party if they have been invited.
Use 2 – Possession is where the apostrophe shows possession, or ownership.
In English, unlike other languages we can use apostrophes to show that someone or
something owns something. We can write: the boy's shoes instead of the shoes of the
boy.
a. Possession with words that form their plural by adding –s. Most nouns in English
form their plural by adding -s or -es. Note the rule for these words when they own
something.
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Worked examples 2:
The girl's cell phone is on the dresser.
Who owns the cell phone? The girl (singular) does. We put the apostrophe after girl.
The girls' cell phones are on the table.
Who owns these cell phones? The girls (plural) do. We put the apostrophe after girls. Notice the difference in the position of the apostrophe between the singular girl’s and the plural - girls'.
b. Possession with words that form the plural differently. There are a number of words
that form the plural by changing a vowel in the word eg man - men.
Worked examples 3:
The men's cell phones.
Who own the cell phones? Men do. We put the apostrophe after the owners - men.
Note these examples
woman  women  the women's gloves
ox  oxen  the oxen's hooves
child  children  the children's shouts
mouse  mice  the mice's droppings
Note: apostrophes do NOT occur every time the plural form of a word is used.
c. Possessives adjectives – my, your, his, her, its, our, their – do not require
apostrophes.
Nor do possessive pronouns – words like mine, yours, his, hers, its, ours, theirs.
Worked examples 4:
The Bible was returned to its stand after the reading was finished.
The dog reluctantly returned to its kennel.
That book's hers. = That book is her book.
Notice here that its is used in a possessive sense. Watch out for this irregularity as
NO apostrophe is ever used with its to show possession.
d. Joint ownership – when two or more people own something.
Worked example 5: Henare and Anaru's race horse was doing very well in the
lead up to the Melbourne Cup.
Who owns the race horse? Henare and Anaru do. We put the apostrophe after
the last noun to show that they jointly own it.
But
Worked example 6: Syd's and Anna's parents came to the wedding.
Whose parents came to the wedding? Syd's parents came and so did Anna's, so
there were four parents there altogether. We put the apostrophe after both of the
nouns to show that both Syd and Anna each have their own set of parents.
e. Apostrophes showing possession when words end in -s, -x, -z. When a word ends in
one of these letters, it can be hard deciding whether to add an 's' after the apostrophe.
In words of one syllable, we usually add an 's'.
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Worked example 7:
a. James's folder or James' folder.
Either is possible.
b. The ox's ears.Liz's bike.
These are the most common forms.
c. Jesus' teaching
For others, like 'Jesus' or 'James', you go by the sound. If it sounds too hissy,
leave the 's' out. 'Jesus' teaching' sounds better than 'Jesus's teaching'.
Challenge yourself –
a. rewrite the following phrases according to the pattern.
Follow this pattern: the golf club of the boy  the boy's golf clubs
a. the golf clubs of the ladies 
b. the hats of the men 
c. the horns of the ox 
d. the horns of the oxen 
e. the children of Maree and Eru 
f. the holiday home of the Rileys and Coles 
b. insert or delete apostrophes where appropriate
1. It is too soon to know whether the Prime Ministers speech has had the desired
effect. Its impact ll be seen in next Fridays poll.
2. Brian and Helen Blacks, and Greg and Sarah Browns children were the only
ones to turn up to the party. Our's wouldve gone but they had to go to another
childs place.
COMPUTER WORK - Log on to Live-wire Learning and test your understanding.
MODULE
First Attempt
/10
Working at
Second
Attempt /10
Working at
Using the Apostrophe – Achieved Only
Using the Apostrophe
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Page 6
14. Simple, Compound, Complex, Compound-complex
A. Sentences in Summary
Clause: a group of words that has a subject and a verb.
The children caught the train
a. independent /
main clause
Clauses that can stand on their
own are called independent or
main clauses.
because they missed the bus.
Clauses that cannot stand on their
b. dependent /
own but need the main clause to
subordinate clause
help them are called dependent or
subordinate clauses. They work
under the main clause.
Sentence: an independent clause that begins with a capital letter and ends with a full stop, an
exclamation mark or a question mark and contains a subject and verb.
subject
verb
A simple sentence has one
simple sentence
(an independent or
independent or main clause - it
The dog barks.
main clause)
can stand by itself and form a
sentence.
Independent clause
+
Independent clause
A compound sentence is two or
compound sentence
The dog barks and strains at its
more simple sentences
(independent/main clauses) joined
leash.
together by coordinating
conjunctions like 'and', 'but', 'or'.
Independent clause + Dependent clause
A complex sentence has one
complex sentence
The dog barks because it is hungry
independent/main clause and one
and angry.
or more dependent clauses.
Independent clauses
+
A compound-complex sentence
compound-complex
has two or more independent
sentence
The dog barks and strains at its
Dependent clause
clauses and one or more
leash because it is hungry and
dependent clauses.
angry.
Sentences in Detail
1. Definition of a Sentence
A sentence begins with a capital letter and ends with a full stop, an exclamation mark
or a question mark and contains a subject and verb. It expresses a complete thought
subject
verb
Worked example 1: The dog barks.
When we are writing, we have to write in complete sentences. However, it is
important when writing to vary the sentence structures you use in order to help your
writing flow better and to make it more interesting for your reader.
Talking, though, is a different
matter. In the examples here,
some of the sentences do not have
subjects and verbs eg 'Fantastic',
'Police check.' and we call them
minor sentences.
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B Main Sentence Types
Simple, compound, complex, and compound-complex sentences are four of the major
types of sentences. The minor sentence will be covered in another module.
1. The Simple Sentence
A simple sentence has one independent/main clause - it can stand by itself and form
a sentence.
a. The simplest sentence just has
- a subject / an agent - someone or something that does something.
- a finite verb - an action that occurs.
subject
verb
Worked example 2: The dog barks.
b. A simple sentence can also be quite long and have an object, as well as adverbs and
adjectives.
phrase
independent clause with subject + verb
adjectival phrases
Worked Example 3: Bending, he observed the crushed unit, deep teeth marks penetrating
noun phrase
delicate instruments and mashed amongst them, the crystalline wiring and comp circuits.
This worked example only has one subject 'he' and a finite verb 'observed' .
2. The Compound Sentence
A compound sentence is two or more simple sentences (main clauses) joined together
by a conjunction such as 'and','or','but'.
a. We use compound sentences to avoid too many short sentences. This is what too
many short simple sentences look and sound like:
Worked Example 4: I went to the pantry. I opened the door. I took out some biscuits. I ate
only one.
Notice how the writing is choppy and how 'I' is repeated.
To avoid this we join sentences together using coordinating conjunctions such as 'and,
but', or sometimes the comma or semicolon (;).
Worked Example 5: I went to the pantry and opened the door. I took out a packet of
biscuits but ate one.
This now becomes two compound sentences. Each part of the sentence has a subject
and verb and it can make sense on its own. We could also, of course, write it as:
I went to the pantry, opened the door, took out a packet of biscuits and ate one.
3. Complex sentence
A complex sentence has one main clause and one or more subordinate clauses. (They
can be adverbial, adjectival or noun clauses.)
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Worked Example 6: The cat was sick because she ate her fluffy toy.
independent
clause
dependent clause - adverb clause of reason
(explaining why the cat was sick. It cannot stand on its own; it
needs the main clause to help it make sense.)
The cat was sick
because she ate her fluffy toy.
Worked Example 7: It was the present that we'd given her for Christmas.
independent
clause
It was the present
dependent clause - adjectival clause
(describing the present. It cannot stand on its own; it needs the
main clause to help it make sense.)
that we'd given her for Christmas.
Worked Example 8: After the cat recovered, we threw the toy away.
dependent clause - adverbial clause of time
main clause
(shows when it occurred. It cannot stand on its own; it
4. Compound-Complex
Sentence
needs the main clause
to help it make sense.
A
compound-complex
and one
or more
After the cat recovered, sentence has two or more main clauses
we threw
the toy
away.
subordinate clauses.
Worked Example 9: I brought along the chicken dish and Dicken brought along the dessert,
even though I had asked him earlier in the day not to.
independent clauses
dependent clause
I brought along the chicken
even though I had asked him earlier in the day
dish and
not to.
Dicken brought along the dessert
Challenge yourself - for each sentence identify the subject and verb; then indicate
whether the clause is dependent or independent; finally identify the sentence type.
1. This is a complete sentence.
2. A new thing is happening in the coffin and burial business.
3. People can now buy coffins made from untreated timber which means that the environment is
not harmed.
4. Can you go to the shop and purchase some food before afternoon tea, please.
5. For his initiation the new apprentice had to go to the hardware store where he was to ask for
and purchase a left-handed screw driver.
COMPUTER WORK Log on to Live-wire Learning and test your understanding.
MODULE
First
Attempt /10
Working at
Second
Attempt /10
Working at
Sentence Structure 2: Simple, Compound, Complex
©2011 Live-wire Learning. Photocopying Prohibited. ISBN 978-0-9922465-0-1
Page 9
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