Grammatical terms you need to know
Basic types of words in English
Introduction
You will know many of these grammatical terms already. But my guess is you won’t know all of them. There are many more of these words.
The first reason to know these terms is so that we can think about and talk about writing.
The second reason is so you can break down and analyse your writing to help improve it.
We are not learning grammatical terms for their own sake. We are learning these terms to help our writing. Grammar gets very complicated, very quickly and even defining these basic word types is difficult.
People have long arguments about grammar. We are not interested in being correct on these complicated issues but on having a working knowledge in a way that is useful for us and our writing.
Let’s get started.
Summary of basic grammatical terms
These terms let us talk about, think about, analyse, edit and improve writing.
A noun is a word used to name a person, thing or abstraction. (butcher, car, love).
A noun phrase is a noun consisting of several words (fax machine, reason to live)
A pronoun is a noun that stands in for other nouns (he, she, it, they).
A common noun is a name of a general type of thing – and which is not capitalised (woman, river, street).
A proper noun is a name of a specific thing – and which is capitalised (Susan, Amazon, Silver Street).
An adjective is a word used to describe a noun (hot, small, friendly).
A verb is a doing or a being word (acts, hits, ran, is, was selling).
A verb regardless of the tense (present or past etc) is described using the “to” version – known as “the infinitive” (“to act”, “to be selling”).
An adverb is a word describing a verb (quickly, endlessly, accidentally)
The definite article is the name for “the” (think: it’s definitely that one).
The indefinite article is the name for “a” or “an” (think: it’s not definitely that one).
A preposition is a word that “positions” a verb and which can change the meaning of the verb, e.g. run in, run out, run over, run through)
A conjunction is a joining word or a word that joins sentences and phrases (e.g. “and”, “but”, “because”).
A gerund is the “-ing” form of a verb used as a noun (e.g. “Diving always frightened me”)
Many words can be used in multiple ways – for example, as nouns or verbs – depending on context. The word alone will not often be limited to just one of these categories. Think of the word “mark” for example.
Nouns
Nouns are words that name people, places, objects and abstractions
Examples include: butcher, talk, I, they, chips, courage, fax machine, it, abstraction, noun, whistle, street, Oak Road, Wembley Stadium, hanger-on, etc.
As you can see, some nouns consist of more than one word. Occasionally nouns have dashes – or hyphens – in the middle. Some nouns have capital letters others don’t.
We will discuss verb’s later. But for now let’s understand verbs simply as actions.
You can see that some words can be either nouns or verbs depending on the context. For example, if I wrote, “The run was very tiring.” then “run” is being used as a noun. However, if I wrote “We run whenever we can”, then “run” is being used as a verb. Context can decide whether a word is being used as a noun – or indeed a verb.
Noun phrase
A noun phrase or a compound noun is a type of noun which consists of several words.
Take this example: “The final game was exciting.” Here the final game is a noun phrase.
Take another example, “It revealed the truth we all knew.” In this sentence “the truth we all knew” is being used as a noun phrase.
Noun phrases can be quite confusing because as you can see they can include verbs.
Pronouns
A pronoun is a special type of general-purpose noun that stands in for her another noun.
Examples of nouns include it, she, he, they, then, himself, itself, herself, then,.
Pronouns are used so that we do not have to constantly repeat the noun which will become very distracting for the reader.
An example use of a pronoun is as follows the man had been walking for several hours. He was very tired.
There are a number of types of pronouns – but we don’t have to explore this more.
Common nouns and proper nouns
A common noun is a noun used to name a general type of an object or person or thing.
A proper noun is a noun used to name a specific example of an object or person or thing.
Proper nouns are capitalised. Common nouns are not.
Examples of common nouns include man, woman, planet, river, street.
Examples of proper nouns include Dave, Susan, Earth, the Amazon, oak street.
As you can guess, depending on context a noun can be a common noun or a proper noun. For example, it is the planet Earth. Or it is the earth beneath my feet. Or take another example, he got a mark of 50% or his name was Mark.
Adjectives
adjectives are words used to describe a noun.
Examples of adjectives include red, small, heavy, London- based, friendly et cetera.
Verbs
Verbs are words which denote action or being. One way to remember is the childish rhyme: “A verb is a doing or a being word. If you do it or you are it then the word is a verb.” Please say this alound.
Examples of verbs include: activates, hits, feels, runs, is running, was running, did, is, was, being, etc.
Verbs can get complicated. Apparently there are 12 verb tenses and at least 5 types of verb, depending on how you name them. But we’re not that interested in this!
Naming verbs using the “to” version – or the infinitive
Because there are so many types, when we name a verb being used in a sentence, we use the “to” version of the verb. This is a special base form of the verb also known as the “infinitive”.
Example
In the sentence is “He runs” the verb is “to run”.
In the sentence is “He ran” the verb is “to run”.
When the verb “to be” is used with another verb then this is used to name the verb.
In the sentence is “He is running” the verb is “to be running”.
In the sentence is “He was running” the verb is “to be running”.
Adverbs
Adjectives are words used to describe a verb.
Examples of adverbs include long, tiring, boldly, knowingly, endlessly, funny, etc.
Definite articles and indefinite articles
The indefinite article means “a” or “an”.
The definite article means “the”.
It’s fairly easy to remember that “a” is not definite, but “the” is definitely that one .
This might seem like a very long way of saying “a” and “the”. But I assure you it can stop things from being confusing.
Prepositions
A preposition places (“or pre-positions”) a verb
Prepositions can greatly change the meaning of a verb.
For example, in the sentence “it runs out” that means “there is no more of it”. In the sentence “it runs over” then that can mean “it lasted longer than it should have”.
Examples of prepositions include: in, off, about, under, inside, up to, in place of, etc.
So for example we have: it runs in, it runs about, it runs under, it runs inside, it runs up to, it runs in place, it knows of …, it jumps off
Conjunction
A conjunction is a joining word or a word that joins sentences and phrases.
Examples include “and”, “but”, “because”.
Gerunds
A gerund is the “-ing” form of a verb used as a noun.
For example, in the sentence “Running is my favourite sport”, “running” is a gerund.
Summary again
These terms let us talk about, think about, analyse, edit and improve writing.
A noun is a word used to name a person, thing or abstraction. (butcher, car, love).
A noun phrase is a noun consisting of several words (fax machine, reason to live)
A pronoun is a noun that stands in for other nouns (he, she, it, they).
A common noun is a name of a general type of thing – and which is not capitalised (woman, river, street).
A proper noun is a name of a specific thing – and which is capitalised (Susan, Amazon, Silver Street).
An adjective is a word used to describe a noun (hot, small, friendly).
A verb is a doing or a being word (acts, hits, ran, is, was selling).
A verb regardless of the tense (present or past etc) is described using the “to” version – known as “the infinitive” (“to act”, “to be selling”).
An adverb is a word describing a verb (quickly, endlessly, accidentally)
The definite article is the name for “the” (think: it’s definitely that one).
The indefinite article is the name for “a” or “an” (think: it’s not definitely that one).
A preposition is a word that “positions” a verb and which can change the meaning of the verb, e.g. run in, run out, run over, run through)
A conjunction is a joining word or a word that joins sentences and phrases (e.g. “and”, “but”, “because”).
A gerund is the “-ing” form of a verb used as a noun (e.g. “Diving always frightened me”)
Many words can be used in multiple ways – for example, as nouns or verbs – depending on context. The word alone will not often be limited to just one of these categories. Think of the word “mark” for example.