5: Grammar and Usage
- The field of grammar
- Schools of grammatical thought
- Prescriptive versus descriptive grammar
- “Standard” English
- Parts of speech
- Nouns generally
- Common nouns
- Proper nouns
- Mass nouns
- Properties of nouns
- Noun case
- Noun number
- Noun gender
- Noun person
- Plurals generally
- Plural form with singular sense
- Plural-form proper nouns
- Anomalies of the plural
- Function of case
- Common case, nominative function
- Common case, objective function
- Genitive case
- The “of”-genitive
- Joint and separate genitives
- Distributive possessives
- Appositives—definition and use
- Nouns as adjectives
- Nouns as verbs
- Adverbial functions
- Pronouns defined
- Antecedents of pronouns
- Adjective as antecedent
- Pronouns without antecedents
- Four properties of pronouns
- Pronoun number and antecedent
- Exceptions regarding pronoun number and antecedent
- Pronoun with multiple antecedents
- Pronoun case
- Pronouns in apposition
- Nominative case misused for objective
- Seven classes of pronouns
- Form of personal pronouns
- Identification of personal pronouns
- Changes in form of personal pronouns
- Agreement of personal pronoun with noun
- Personal pronouns and gender
- Personal pronoun case
- Personal pronoun after linking verb
- Personal pronoun after “than” or “as–as”
- Special uses of personal pronouns
- Generic singular “they”
- Referential singular “they”
- Uses and forms of possessive pronouns
- Possessive pronouns versus contractions
- Basic uses of reflexive and intensive pronouns
- Demonstrative pronouns defined
- Reciprocal pronouns generally
- Interrogative pronouns defined
- Referent of interrogative pronouns
- Relative pronouns defined
- Relative pronouns with personal pronouns
- Positional nuances of relative pronouns
- Antecedent of relative pronouns
- Remote relative clauses
- Omitted antecedent of relative pronoun
- Relative pronoun and the antecedent “one”
- Genitive forms for relative pronouns
- “Whose” and “of which”
- Compound relative pronouns
- “Who” versus “whom”
- Indefinite pronouns generally
- Adjectives defined
- Proper adjectives
- Articles defined
- Definite article
- Indefinite article
- Indefinite article in specific reference
- Choosing “a” or “an”
- Articles with coordinate nouns
- Effect of article on meaning
- Omitted article and zero article
- Article as pronoun substitute
- Basic rules for position of adjectives
- Adjective after possessive
- Adjective modifying pronoun
- Predicate adjective
- Date as adjective
- Three degrees of adjectives
- Comparative adjectives
- Superlative adjectives
- Forming comparatives and superlatives
- Equal and unequal comparisons
- Noncomparable adjectives
- Participial adjectives
- Coordinate adjectives
- Phrasal adjectives
- Exceptions for hyphenating phrasal adjectives
- Adjectives as nouns
- Adjectives as verbs
- Other parts of speech functioning as adjectives
- Verbs generally
- Transitive and intransitive verbs
- Ergative verbs
- Regular and irregular verbs
- Linking verbs
- Phrasal verbs
- Principal and auxiliary verbs
- Verb phrases
- Contractions
- Infinitives defined
- Uses of the infinitive
- Split infinitive
- Dangling infinitive
- Participles generally
- Participial phrases
- Gerunds
- Distinguishing between participles and gerunds
- Fused participles
- Dangling participles
- Dangling gerunds
- Five properties of verbs
- Active and passive voice
- Progressive conjugation and voice
- Verb mood
- Indicative mood
- Imperative mood
- Subjunctive mood
- Subjunctive versus indicative mood
- Present subjunctive mood
- Past subjunctive mood
- Past-perfect subjunctive mood
- Verb tense
- Present tense
- Past-indicative tense
- Future tense
- Present-perfect tense
- Past-perfect tense
- Future-perfect tense
- Progressive tenses
- Mixing different tenses
- Verb person
- Verb number
- Agreement in person and number
- Agreement of indefinite pronouns
- Relative pronouns as subjects
- False attraction to predicate noun
- Misleading connectives—“as well as,” “along with,” “together with,” and the like
- Agreement in first and second person
- Auxiliary verbs generally
- Modal auxiliaries
- “Can” and “could”
- “May” and “might”
- “Must”
- “Ought”
- “Should”
- “Will” and “would”
- “Do”
- “Have”
- Forms of “be”-verbs
- Conjugation of “be”-verbs
- Adverbs generally
- Sentence adverbs
- Adverbial suffixes
- Adverbs without suffixes
- Simple and flat adverbs
- Phrasal and compound adverbs
- Positive adverbs
- Comparative adverbs
- Superlative adverbs
- Irregular adverbs
- Noncomparable adverbs
- Placement of adverbs
- Adverbs that modify words other than verbs
- Adverbs that modify intransitive verbs
- Adverbs and linking verbs
- Adverb within a verb phrase or infinitive
- Use and misuse of “only.”
- Prepositions generally
- Simple and compound prepositions
- Phrasal prepositions
- Participial prepositions
- Prepositional phrases generally
- Prepositional function
- Placement of prepositional phrases
- Refinements on placement
- Ending a sentence with a preposition
- Clashing prepositions
- Elliptical prepositional phrases
- Pronoun case in prepositional phrases
- Prepositions and functional variation
- Use and misuse of “like”
- “Of” phrase and verb agreement
- Avoiding overuse of prepositions
- Cutting prepositional phrases
- Cutting unnecessary prepositions
- Replacing prepositional phrases with adverbs
- Replacing prepositional phrases with genitives
- Using active voice to eliminate prepositions
- Idiomatic uses of prepositions
- Shifts in prepositional idiom
- List of words and the prepositions construed with them
- Conjunctions defined
- Simple versus compound conjunctions
- Coordinating conjunctions
- Correlative conjunctions
- Subordinating conjunctions
- Special uses of subordinating conjunctions
- Adverbial conjunctions
- Beginning a sentence with a conjunction
- Beginning a sentence with “however”
- Conjunctions and the number of a verb
- Omitting “that”
- Interjections defined
- Use of interjections
- Interjections and functional variation
- Words that are exclusively interjections
- Syntax defined
- Statements
- Questions
- Some exceptional types of questions
- Directives
- Exceptional directives
- Exclamations
- Simple sentence
- Compound sentence
- Complex sentence
- Compound-complex sentence
- Importance of word order
- The basic SVO pattern
- All seven syntactic patterns
- Variations on syntactic order
- Clauses
- Relative clauses
- Appositive clauses
- Conditional clauses
- Ellipsis generally
- Negation generally
- The word “not”
- The word “no”
- Using pronouns and adverbs for negation
- Using “neither” and “nor”
- Negative interrogative and imperative statements
- Double negatives
- Other forms of negation
- “Any” and “some” in negative statements
- Expletives generally
- Expletive “it”
- Expletive “there”
- Parallel structure generally
- Prepositions and parallel structure
- Paired joining terms and parallel structure
- Auxiliary verbs and parallel structure
- Grammar versus usage
- Glossary of problematic words and phrases
- Making conscious choices
- Maintaining credibility
- Evolving standards
- Common areas of biased language
- Labels
- Person, not characteristic
- Person-first versus identity-first
- Ableism
- Gender-neutral nouns
- Gender-specific labels as adjectives
- Options for gender neutrality in pronoun use
- Uses of singular “they”
- Stability and renewal