Tag: adjective

Determiners

Determiners

Determiner is a word used in front of a noun or a pronoun to tell us something about it. Unlike an adjective, it does not, ‘describe’ a noun or pronoun.

Determiners are divided into the following categories:

  • Articles (a, an, the) as in a dog, an aero plane, the chocolates.
  • Demonstrative Determiners (this, that, these, those) as in this pen, that house, these girls, those boys.
  • Possessive Determiners (my, your, his/her/its, our, their) as in my friends, your house, her dress, its colour, our duty, their plans.
  • Numbers (one, two, three, four etc., first, second, third, fourth etc.) as in two roads, four boys, second child)
  • General Determiners (all, another, any, both, each, either, enough, every, few, fewer, less, little, many, most, much, neither, no, other, several, some) as in all students,  enough food, both parents, few people, little water, no money).

Basic Sentence Patterns

Basic Sentence Patterns

To learn a language (in our case English), it helps if we know the basic sentence patterns. And if we are able to make basic sentences, transformations become easy i.e. from affirmative to negative and interrogative; active to passive or simple to compound and complex (use of more than one finite verb).

A Basic Sentence is the smallest grammatical structure that can make sense. It is affirmative in form and has only one finite verb. Negative, interrogative, imperative and exclamatory sentences are simply not basic sentences. Similarly, sentences in passive voice are not basic. A basic sentence can be expanded into any imaginable length or changed into any other forms. It has a fixed word order i.e. noun phrase comes first and then verb phrase.

Pattern 1: Noun Phrase (NP) + Verb (intransitive)

  1. Birds fly.
  2. Dogs bark.
  3. Stars twinkle.
  4. Snow falls.
  5. The water level increased.

Pattern 2: NP + Verb (be-type & become-type) + NP

  1. Raj is a doctor.
  2. Sheila became a nurse.
  3. She turned an artist.
  4. He remained a clerk.
  5. Mr. Brown looks a gentleman.

Pattern 3: NP + Verb (be-type & become-type) +Adjective Phrase

  1. Rene is honest.
  2. He became mad.
  3. Minnie looked beautiful.
  4. John appeared handsome.
  5. The crowd turned nasty.

Pattern 4: NP + Verb (be-type) + Adverbial

  1. Bob is here.
  2. The monkey is on the tree.
  3. They are all upstairs.
  4. Nobody is there.
  5. The cat is under the table.

Pattern 5: NP +Verb (have-type) + NP

  1. My mother has a beautiful umbrella.
  2. Mr. Mehta has a car.
  3. The pen costs ten rupees.
  4. Students lack discipline.
  5. He has a fit body.

Pattern 6: NP + verb (transitive) + NP

  1. The horse kicked the cat.
  2. The hunter killed the lion.
  3. Children like chocolates.
  4. A barber cuts hair.
  5. I play chess.

Pattern 7: NP + Verb (transitive) + NP (Indirect Object) + NP (Direct Object)

  1. My friend wrote me a letter.
  2. They sent us a gift.
  3. He taught us English.
  4. My grandmother told me a story.
  5. We showed them our house.

Pattern 8: NP + Verb (transitive) + NP (Direct Object) + NP (Object Complement)

  1. The people elected her the Prime Minister.
  2. The manager appointed her secretary.
  3. They named their daughter ‘Sweetie’.
  4. The war made him a millionaire.
  5. Everybody considers him a gentleman.

Pattern 9: NP + Verb (transitive) + NP + Adjective Phrase

  1. She likes her tea hot.
  2. Exercise keeps our body fit.
  3. He opened the door wide.
  4. The Sun keeps us warm.
  5. They painted the house white.

Comparisons

  • Study the following sentences:
  1. John is a tall boy.
  2. John is taller than Jack.
  3. John is the tallest boy in the class.

 

  • The first sentence is a statement. We are not comparing John with any other boy. We simply say that John is a tall boy.
  • In the second sentence, we use the word taller. It shows comparison between two boys John and Jack. We show that one is taller than the other.
  • In the third sentence, we use the words the tallest. It shows that no one in the class is as tall as John. He is the tallest boy in the class.

 

  • Let us look at some more examples:
  1. Grandfather is older than grandfather.
  2. Fanny is prettier than Lizzy.
  3. The poor are happier than the rich.
  4. Tina’s dress is more beautiful than Kuku’s dress.
  5. An elephant is bigger than a lion.

These sentences show comparisons between two things. We use the -er form of the word or we use more. We also use the word than.

 

  • Now look at these sentences:
  1. The whale is the largest animal.
  2. This is the finest silk.
  3. Sam is the fastest child I have ever seen.
  4. The giraffe has the tallest neck.
  5. He is the most intelligent boy in the class.

 

We show comparison among more than two objects by using the –est form of an adjective – smallest, shortest, bravest. Sometimes, we use most with the adjective – most beautiful, most interesting. We also use the with the –est form.