Is To Be Grammar Examples

Its simplicity makes the formalism amenable to rigorous mathematical study. Pronouns referring to one person or thing are singular (I, me, he, it, etc.) as are corresponding possessive adjectives and some determiners (my, his/her/its, this, etc.). Pronouns referring to more than one person or thing are plural (we, us, they, etc.) as are corresponding possessive adjectives and some determiners (our, their, these, etc.). An obvious way to extend the context-free grammar formalism is to allow nonterminals to have arguments, the values of which are passed along within the rules.

This allows natural language features such as agreement and reference, and programming language analogs such as the correct use and definition of identifiers, to be expressed in a natural way. E.g. we can now easily express that in English sentences, the subject and verb must agree in number. In computer science, examples of this approach include affix grammars, attribute grammars, indexed grammars, and Van Wijngaarden two-level grammars.

A word, phrase, or clause that describes or qualifies the meaning of a word. Modifiers include adjectives, adverbs, adverbs, prepositional phrases, participial phrases, some infinitive phrases, and adjective and adverb clauses. Problems arise with dangling modifiers where the agent of the action is not clear. I'd wager you use auxiliary verbs and modal auxiliary verbs without giving them a second thought, so I'm mindful that this page has covered a lot of gumpf that you don't really need. Well, that's true provided we're talking about working in English. If you start learning a foreign language, it won't be too long before you'll be unpicking how they express tense, voice and mood.

And, do you know what's a good starting point for that? A that-clause is a subordinate clause which begins with 'that'. That-clauses often function as direct objects of verbs (e.g. 'I hope that you have a nice time') or complements of adjectives (e.g. 'I am glad that you came'). Clauses of this type where 'that' is omitted (e.g. 'I hope you have a nice time', 'I am glad you came') are still described as that-clauses (sometimes specifically as 'zero that-clauses'; see zero).

A preposition is a word which typically precedes a noun, noun phrase, or pronoun and expresses a relationship between it and another word in the sentence. After, at, by, for, from, in, on, to, andwith are all common prepositions in English. Prepositions often express position (e.g. 'her bag was under the chair'), direction (e.g. 'he looked at me'), or time (e.g. 'they arrived on Sunday'). Some prepositions are made up of more than one word, for example out of and up to. Old English, which was an inflected language, possessed a dative case, and it survived into the Middle English period but then fell almost entirely out of use.

The nearest equivalent in modern standard English, the objective case, is marked only in the objective pronouns me, him, etc., which are used as indirect objects in sentences such as 'I gave him the book'. The objective pronouns reflect a merger of the dative and accusative forms. The grammar of a language includes basic axioms such as verb tenses, articles and adjectives , how questions are phrased, and much more. It would simply make no sense—people require grammar to communicate effectively. A word or phrase used to link parts of a text so that the reader finds it clear to understand. Typical cohesive devices are pronouns ; prepositions, conjunctions, and adverbs (to show contrast, addition, ordering, etc.); and ellipsis .

Other types of words may also introduce relative clauses. For example, where and when can be used as relative adverbs, in sentences such as 'This is the house where I grew up'. In some languages, the form of a word varies according to its grammatical function (e.g. whether a noun is singular or plural, or whether a verb is in the present or past tense). These forms are called inflections, and a word which possesses such forms is said to be inflected. For example, in English the word walked is inflected, showing the past tense form of walk; the suffix -ed is an inflectional suffix. In some inflected languages, the dative case is typically used to indicate nouns and pronouns which function as the indirect object of a verb.

Old English, which was an inflected language, possessed an accusative case, and it survived into the Middle English period, but then fell almost entirely out of use. The nearest equivalent in modern standard English, the objective case, is marked only in the objective pronouns me, him, etc., which are used as direct objects in sentences such as 'I like him'. The objective pronouns reflect a merger of the accusative and dative forms.

Unlike countable nouns, non-countable nouns have no specified numbers and do not use indefinite articles a or an. Another type of non-countable noun is the abstract noun, which is also always singular. Here are some sentences that include non-countable nouns. Modal auxiliary verbs combine with other verbs to express ideas such as necessity, possibility, intention, and ability. In each example below, the verb phrase is in bold and the modal auxiliary verb is highlighted. Along is the adverb particle in this sentence, joining with move to form the phrasal verb move along.

It is almost unnecessary to use along in the example, and we could still fully understand the meaning of the sentence without it. Grammarians don't often agree on the reasons for these things, but it's enough to say that these phrasal verbs that use adverb particles have become more common over time. It might seem unnecessary to have them, but language would be a lot less fun if we didn't. Auxiliary verbs are used to form tenses or passive forms of other verbs.

See also modal verb.Learn more about auxiliary verbs. In other words, we use articles to point out or refer to nouns in conversation and writing. If you are referring to a specific noun, use the definite article 'the'. If you are referring to a noun that could be any member of a group of nouns, use one of the indefinite articles 'a' or 'an'. To choose the appropriate indefinite article, pay attention to the sound that the noun begins with. A simple tense is formed by a verb used on its own.

In English, the two simple tenses are the simple present (e.g. walk in I walk to work) and the simple past (e.g. walked in I walked to work). Most verbs in modern English are only marked for singular and plural in the third person present tense forms, i.e. he/she/it runs vs. they run . A participle is a form of a verb used with auxiliary verbs in complex constructions or alone in non-finite clauses. There are two types of participle in English, past and present. An auxiliary verb is one of a small category of verbs which have a grammatical rather than a lexical role; they are used in combination with other verbs, for example to form particular tenses and constructions.

For instance, have is an auxiliary verb in 'They have sold their house', where it is used in combination with the main verb sold. By contrast, have is a main verb in 'They have a lovely house', where it has lexical meaning ('own, possess') and is not used to support another verb. More complex sentences also have other elements, including adjectives, adverbs, prepositions and conjunctions.

In English grammar, "inflection" is the broad umbrella term for changing a word to suit its grammatical context. You've probably never heard this word before, but you actually do it all the time without even thinking about it. For example, you know to say "Call me tomorrow" instead of "Call I tomorrow"; you've changed the noun "I" to fit the context (i.e., so it can be used as a direct object instead of a subject). Grammatical rules in English explain how letters form words, words become phrases or sentences, in what order they must come in a sentence and why. English grammar teaches the ropes to its learners by explaining and exemplifying each topic relevant to using the English language correctly. A modal verb is an auxiliary verb which is used with another verb to talk about possibility, probability, permission, intention, etc.

The main modal verbs are can, could, may, might, must, ought, shall, should, will, would. The syntactic principles of a language may insist on some order of words or may allow several options. For instance, English sentences normally must have words in the order Subject-VerbObject. In Whales eat plankton, 'whales' is the subject, 'eat' is the verb, and 'plankton' is the object. Japanese sentences allow the words to occur in several possible orders, but the normal arrangement is Subject-Object-Verb.

Irish sentences standardly have words in the order Verb-Subject-Object. Even when a language allows several orders of phrases in the sentence, the choice among them is systematically regulated. For example, there might be a requirement that the first phrase refer to the thing you're talking about, or that whatever the first phrase is, the second must be the main clause verb. Even a casual review of your writing can reveal uses of the verb "To be" that are unnecessary and that can be removed to good effect.

In a way, the "To be" verb doesn't do much for you — it just sits there — and text that is too heavily sprinkled with "To be" verbs can feel sodden, static. This is especially true of "To be" verbs tucked into dependent clauses and expletive constructions ("There is," "There were," "it is," etc.). Note that the relative pronoun frequently disappears as well when we revise these sentences. In English grammar, a word that is used to modify a noun is known as an article.

Understand the definition and use of articles, examine definite and indefinite articles, and explore article usage with examples. A plural form of a noun is generally used to refer to more than one person, thing, or group. The perfect is a verb construction which typically indicates that an action took place or a situation existed before some stated or implied time.

An object is a noun, noun phrase, pronoun, or clause which forms the complement of a transitive verb and typically refers to something or someone that is affected by the action denoted by that verb. In some inflected languages, the nominative case is used to indicate nouns and pronouns which function as the subject of a verb. In the context of modern English, these are now generally regarded as belonging to the subjective case, and the term 'nominative' is no longer widely used in this context.

Modal verbs are a type of auxiliary verb used to express meanings such as necessity, possibility, and obligation. The main modal verbs in modern English are can/could, may/might, must, shall/should, will/would. Other verbs such as ought and need share some characteristics with modal verbs.

In some inflected languages, the accusative case is used to indicate nouns and pronouns which function as the direct object of a verb. Language governing the sounds, words, sentences, and other elements, as well as their combination and interpretation. The word grammar also denotes the study of these abstract features or a book presenting these rules.

In a restricted sense, the term refers only to the study of sentence and word structure , excluding vocabulary and pronunciation. American grammar has a longstanding tradition of change — borrowing words from other languages and testing out different forms of expression — which could explain why many find it confusing. Although most people no longer call early education "grammar school," it's still an important topic of study. And as more people have access to updated information about the subject, it's become easier to follow the rules. If you can't tell which verb is correct right away, consider reading more grammar resources. These five hacks are sure to improve your writing and vary your sentence style.

You can also learn more about subject-verb agreement with an article that lists 20 important grammar rules. Needless to say, basic English grammar rules play an important role in learning English, both written and spoken. Without grammar rules, you can sometimes make yourself understood with short and simple expressions. However, you may fail most of the time with more complicated expressions that require the correct orders or structures of words. Pronouns and nouns change form depending on whether they are the subject (i.e., the actor) or the direct or indirect object (i.e., the thing being acted upon) of a sentence. Morphology takes care of the word formations, meaning-making as well as usage in sentences to accurately express what people feel.

As an example, grammar will explain the rules to add prefixes and suffixes to existing words including a demonstration as to how the meanings change with such additions. A regular word, such as a noun or a verb, has inflections that follow the normal rules. For instance, the noun cat has a regular plural with -s , and the verb to love forms its tenses in the normal way (loved; loving). Find out more about regular and irregular verbs. A change in the form of a word to show its grammatical function in a sentence, for example the tense of a verb (e.g. I walked; she had) or the plural of a noun (e.g. potatoes; children).

Read more about verb tenses and forming plurals of nouns. A noun that refers to something that can be counted and has both singular and plural forms, such as cat/cats, woman/women, family/families. Learn more about countable and uncountable nouns.

However, there is another aspect of grammar in which languages differ more radically, namely in morphology, the principles governing the structure of words. Languages do not all employ morphology to a similar extent. In fact they differ dramatically in the extent to which they allow words to be built out of other words or smaller elements. The English word undeniability is a complex noun formed from the adjective 'undeniable', which is formed from the adjective 'deniable', which is formed from the verb 'deny'.

Some languages permit much more complex word-building than English; others permit considerably less. One sometimes hears people say that such-and-such a language 'has no grammar', but that is not true of any language. Every language has restrictions on how words must be arranged to construct a sentence. Every language has about as much syntax as any other language. For example, all languages have principles for constructing sentences that ask questions needing a yes or no answer, e.g.

The formalism of context-free grammars was developed in the mid-1950s by Noam Chomsky, and also their classification as a special type of formal grammar (which he called phrase-structure grammars). What Chomsky called a phrase structure grammar is also known now as a constituency grammar, whereby constituency grammars stand in contrast to dependency grammars. In Chomsky's generative grammar framework, the syntax of natural language was described by context-free rules combined with transformation rules. In modern English the subjunctive is fairly uncommon, and many of the meanings formerly expressed by the subjunctive are now expressed by modal verbs such as might, could, and should.

The subjunctive survives mainly in fixed expressions such as If I were you, God help you, Long live the Queen, and Perish the thought. In modern English the relative pronouns are who, whom, which, and that. For example, in 'This is the man who called yesterday', who called yesterday is a relative clause introduced by the relative pronoun who.

A relative pronoun is a pronoun which introduces a subordinate clause giving more information about the person or thing referred to by that pronoun. A clause introduced by a relative pronoun is called a relative clause. A pro-form is a word which stands in for a more specific word or expression. Pronouns (such as I, me, he, him, etc.) are a type of pro-form. Other pro-forms in English include the verb do in uses such as 'He started laughing, and I did too' and the adverb so in uses such as '"Is Susan coming?