Grammar and Revision Guide Table of Contents Looking For: Page: Grammar Glossary 1 Function of Phrases 5 Word Choice 6 Commas 11 Fragments and Run-Ons 15 Verb Tenses 19 Semi-Colons, Colons, and Dashes 21 Active and Passive Voice 26 Sentence Variety 31 GRAMMAR GLOSSARY A COMMA: a punctuation mark used between items in a series, after an introductory clause or ABBREVIATION: a shortened form of a word, prepositional phrase, or to set off appositives and usually followed by a period. nonessential phrases, etc. ACTIVE VOICE: a verb is active if the subject of COMMON NOUN: a word that names a person, the sentence is performing the action. place, or thing. ADJECTIVE: a word that describes; an adjective COMPLEMENT: a word that completes the modifies a noun or pronoun. meaning of an active verb (direct object, indirect ADJECTIVE CLAUSE: a clause that modifies a object, predicate adjective, and predicate noun or pronoun. nominative). ADVERB: a word that describes a verb, COMPLEX SENTENCE: one independent clause explaining where, when, how, or to what extent; and one or more subordinate clauses. an adverb modifies a verb, adjective, or adverb. COMPOUND ADJECTIVE: an adjective formed by ADVERB CLAUSE: a clause that modifies a verb, two words separated by a hyphen and treated as adjective, or another adverb. one word. ANTECEDENT: a word or group of words that a COMPOUND COMPLEMENT: two or more words pronoun refers to or replaces. used as direct objects of the same verb, objects of the same preposition, predicate nominatives APOSTROPHE: a punctuation mark used in or predicate adjectives of the same verb, or contractions to replace a letter, or added to the indirect objects of the same understood last letter of a noun followed by an s to indicate preposition. possession. COMPOUND-COMPLEX SENTENCE: two or more APPOSITIVE: a noun, pronoun, or phrase that independent clauses an one or more subordinate identifies or extends information about another clauses. noun or pronoun in a sentence. COMPOUND NOUN: a noun composed of more C than one word. CAPITALIZATION: using a capital letter for words COMPOUND PREPOSITION: a preposition that begin sentences, titles, or for proper nouns. composed of more than one word. CLAUSE: a group of words that has a subject and COMPOUND SENTENCE: a sentence consisting predicate. of two or more independent clauses. CLOSING: in a letter, the words preceding the COMPOUND SUBJECT: two or more subjects that signature at the end of a letter. share the same verb. COLLECTIVE NOUN: a singular noun that names COMPOUND VERB: two or more verbs that share a group of persons or things. the same subject. COLON: a punctuation mark used to introduce a CONJUNCTION: a word that connects words or series, before a list, between hour and minute, groups of words (and, or, nor, but, yet, for, so, after the salutation in a business letter, etc. etc.). 1 CONTRACTION: a word formed by combining two G words and using an apostrophe to replace any missing letters; inappropriate for formal essays. GERUND: a verbal ending in –ing used as a noun. D GERUND PHRASE: a gerund with all of its DASH: a punctuation mark used to set off abrupt modifiers. changes in thought, an appositive, a parenthetical expression, or an appositive that H contains commas. HELPING VERBS: a verb that precedes the main DECLARATIVE SENTENCE: a sentence that verb (am, is, are, has, have, had, shall, will, can, makes a statement. may, should, would, could, might, must, do, did, does). DEMONSTRATIVE PRONOUN: a pronoun used to point out a specific person, place, thing, or idea HYPHEN: punctuation mark (-) used to divide (this, that, these, those). words at the end of a line, between certain DEPENDENT CLAUSE: another name for a numbers, to separate compound nouns and subordinate clause. adjectives, and between some prefixes and their roots. DIRECT OBJECT: a noun or pronoun that receives the action of the verb. I DIRECT QUOTATION: the exact words spoken. IMPERATIVE SENTENCE: a sentence that gives a E command or makes a request. INDEFINITE PRONOUN: a word that refers to an ELLIPTICAL CLAUSE: a subordinate clause in unnamed person or thing (all, anybody, anything, which a word or words are omitted, but both, each, someone, everyone) understood. INDEPENDENT CLAUSE: a clause that expresses ELLIPSIS: a punctuation mark consisting of three a complete thought and can stand alone as a periods (…) used to indicate the omission of sentence. words or a pause. INDIRECT OBJECT: a noun or pronoun that ESSENTIAL PHRASE OR CLAUSE: necessary to precedes a direct object and answers the the meaning of a sentence and therefore not set questions to whom, for whom, to what, or for off with commas; also known as restrictive what. clause. INFINITIVE: a verbal that begins with to that is EXCLAMATION POINT: a punctuation mark (!) used as a noun, adjective, or adverb. used after an interjection and at the end of an exclamatory sentence. INFINITIVE PHRASE: an infinitive with its object and modifiers. EXCLAMATORY SENTENCE: expresses strong emotion and ends with an exclamation point. INTERJECTION: a word that is used to express strong feeling that is not related grammatically to EXPLETIVE: a word inserted in the subject the rest of the sentence. position of a sentence that does not add to the sense of the thought. INTERROGATIVE SENTENCE: a sentence that asks a question and ends with a question mark. INTRANSITIVE VERB: a verb that does not require an object. 2 INVERTED ORDER: a sentence that does not P follow the typical order of a sentence (subject- verb-object). PARALLELISM: arranging words and phrases consistently to express similar ideas. IRREGULAR VERB: a verb that does not form the past tense or past participle by adding –ed or –d PARENTHETICAL EXPRESSION: words that are to the present tense. not grammatically related to the rest of a sentence and set off by parentheses. L PARTICIPIAL PHRASE: a participle with its LINKING VERB: a verb that links the subject with modifiers and complements. a predicate nominative or a predicate adjective PARICIPLE: a verbal ending in -ing, -ed, -d, or an (is, became, remain, look, appear, seem). irregular form that is used as an adjective. LOOSE SENTENCE: an independent clause PARTS OF SPEECH: the eight parts of speech are followed by a dependent clause. verb, noun, adjective, adverb, preposition, M interjection, and conjunction. PASSIVE VOICE: indicates that the subject MODIFIERS: words that describe or provide more receives the action of the verb in a sentence. meaning to a word; modifiers include adjectives, adverbs, articles, prepositional phrases, verbals, PERIOD: a punctuation mark (.) used at the end and clauses. of a declarative or imperative sentence or an abbreviation. N PERIODIC SENTENCE: a dependent clause NOMINATIVE PRONOUN: a pronoun used as a followed by an independent clause. subject or predicate nominative. PERSONAL PRONOUN: refers to a particular NONESSENTIAL PHRASE OR CLAUSE: not person, place, thing, or idea (I, me, we, us, you, necessary to the meaning of a sentence and, he, him, she, her, it, they, them). therefore, set off with commas. PHRASE: a group of related words that do not NOUN: a word that names a person, place, thing, have a subject or verb. or idea. POSSESSIVE PRONOUN: a pronoun form used to NOUN CLAUSE: a subordinate clause used as a show ownership (my, mine, our, ours, your, yours, subject, direct object, object of a preposition, his, hers, its, their). appositive, or predicate nominative. PREDICATE: a word or group of words that tells O something about the subject. PREDICATE ADJECTIVE: an adjective that OBJECT OF PREPOSITION: the noun or pronoun modifies the subject in the sentence with a with its modifiers that follows a preposition. linking verb. OBJECTIVE CASE: pronouns used as direct PREDICATE NOMINATIVE: a noun or pronoun that objects, indirect objects, or as objects of a identifies, renames, or explains the subject in a preposition. sentence with a linking verb. OBJECTIVE COMPLEMENT: a noun or adjective PREFIX: a word part added to the beginning of a that renames or describes a direct object. word to change its basic meaning. 3 PREPOSITION: a word that shows the compound sentence that are not joined by relationship between a noun or pronoun and conjunctions, before certain transitional words another word in a sentence. (however, furthermore, therefore), and between items in a series if the items contain commas. PREPOSITIONAL PHRASE: a group of words that begins with a preposition, ends with a noun or SENTENCE: a group of words with a subject and pronoun, and is used as an adjective or adverb. verb that expresses a complete thought. PRONOUN: a word that takes the place of one or SENTENCE FRAGMENT: a group of words that more nouns. lacks either a subject or a verb that does not express a complete thought. PROPER ADJECTIVE: a capitalized adjective formed from a proper noun. SERIES: three or more words or phrases in succession separated by commas or semicolons. PROPER NOUN: a capitalized noun that names a particular person, place, thing, or idea. SIMPLE PREDICATE: the verb; the main word or phrase in the complete predicate. PUNCTUATION: punctuation marks include apostrophe, colon, comma, dash, ellipsis, SIMPLE SENTENCE: a sentence that is one exclamation point, hyphen, period, question independent clause. mark, quotation mark, and semicolon. SUBJECT: a word or group of words that names Q the person, place, thing, or idea the sentence is about. QUESTION MARK: a punctuation mark (?) used SUBORDINATE CLAUSE: a clause that cannot to indicate a question or to end an interrogative stand alone as a sentence because it does not sentence. express a complete thought. QUOTATION MARKS: a punctuation mark (“”) SUFFIX: a word part added to the end of a word used at the beginning and end of a direct that changes its meaning.