Tag: pronoun

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).

Prepositions

  • Read the following sentences:

Joy keeps his room very neat and clean. His clothes are in the cupboard. His books are on the shelf. There is a small table near his bed. His bag is on the table. His toys are under the bed.

In these sentences, the words in, on, near, under show the relation of one thing to another. Such words are called Prepositions.

 

  • Let us look at some more sentences:
  1. The book is on the table.
  2. The book is under the table.
  3. The book is near the table.
  4. The book is in the table.
  5. The book is above the table.
  6. The book is below the table.
  7. The book is beside the table.
  8. The book is behind the table.

 

Each of the above sentences has a word (in italics) that shows the relation between the book and the table. All these words are Prepositions.

A Preposition is a word which is used before a noun or a pronoun to show its relation with another noun or pronoun.

  • Some common Prepositions:

In, on, under, near, behind, over, into, in front of, between, above, below, for, since, beside, with, from, after, before, up, down, of, by, at etc.

Use of is, am are, was, were

Look at the following sentences:

  1. I am a girl.
  2. He is a lazy boy.
  3. She is a teacher.
  4. It is a ball.
  5. This is her purse.
  6. That is his bat.
  7. Molly is in the kitchen
  8. We are sisters.
  9. You are late.
  10. These boys are hungry.
  11. Those girls are tall.
  12. There are many birds on the tree.
  13. There were ten students in the class.
  14. They are very rich.
  15. Mary and Anne are friends.

 

The words is, am, are, was, were, help us to say something about the noun or pronoun. These words are also called Verbs. They say or tell what a person, animal or thing is. Was/were show past activity i.e. what happened in the past. We use was as the past form of am and is. We use were as the past form of are.

 

Study this:

I am  

ten years old.
We

You

They

The girls

The boys

  

are
She

He

Mary

Jack

  

is

 

  • We use is with he, she, it, this, that and singular nouns like Mary, Jack, boy, girl, etc. We write is for one.
  • Am is always used with I.
  • We use are with we, you, they, these, those and plural nouns like boys, students, children, animals etc. We write are for many.
  • Are/were is also used with you when it is singular. Example:

Teacher: Mary, you are a good girl.

Teacher: Mary, why were you absent yesterday?