Grammar - CCEA

• Words are grouped by their function in a sentence
• Nouns name things, people or ideas; verbs are the ‘doing’ or ‘being’ part of a sentence; adjectives are describing words
• A main clause contains a verb and has one main idea; it can form a complete sentence
• A subordinate clause does not have a verb; it adds extra information to a sentence
• Sentences are built from subjects and verbs and sound complete; they can be simple, compound or complex depending on how clauses are used

Words can be grouped according to their function, or what they ‘do’, in a sentence. Words are grouped into the following main classes:

• nouns
• adjectives
• verbs
• adverbs
• prepositions
• connectives

Nouns are by far the largest category of words in English. They signify all kinds of physical things both living and inanimate. They also signify imagined things like ‘a ghost’; and ideas or concepts, such as ‘love’, ‘guilt’ or ‘fate’.

They are divided into three main groups:

• concrete nouns
• abstract nouns
• proper nouns

Concrete nouns signify things, either in the real or imagined world. If a word signifies something that can be detected with the senses, then it is a concrete noun, for example:

• table
• football
• candle
• car
• building
• phone

Examples in full sentences:

• The football lay discarded on the pitch.
• The candle glowed in the darkness.
• The crowd cheered in excitement.

Abstract nouns refer to concepts and exist as ideas, rather than objects you can touch, for example:

• love
• hope
• intelligence
• hate
• courage

Examples in full sentences:

• There was hope in his eyes as he looked up.
• Intelligence can be measured in several ways.
• He was full of courage as he walked towards the battlefield.
• Love is all around but hate hides in the shadows.

Proper nouns are also called naming nouns. They refer to the actual name of an individual example of a common noun. Names of people, places, companies, institutions, rivers (and more) are all proper nouns. Proper nouns begin with a capital letter.

Example in a sentence:

• Ryan had never been to Belfast before that Saturday.

Further examples:

Pronouns take the place of proper nouns in a sentence.

• I
• he
• she
• it

Examples:

• Sarah was tired. = She was tired.
• Dev bought a new bike. = He bought a new bike.
• The coffee was expensive. = It was expensive.

An adjective is a describing word that adds qualities to a noun or pronoun. An adjective normally comes before a noun. For example:

• The greedy man counted each shiny coin in his money pile; he rubbed his grubby hands excitedly.

An adjective can also come after a noun or pronoun. For example:

• He was extremely greedy.
• My mother seemed to be uncertain.

Adjective phrases are describing phrases. For example:

• The exceedingly tasty pie sat on the table.
• The incredibly high price of tickets put her off the festival.
• She was intelligent but extremely arrogant.

A verb lies at the heart of a sentence. It describes the action or state of the subject. It is the ‘doing’ or ‘being’ part of the sentence. For example:

• Abigail ran through the field.
• Jane tore off the wrapping paper.

Some verbs can also link extra information about their subject to an adjective. For example:

• The cake was delicious.
• Noah appeared unwell.

Adverbs give extra detail about other words. They can add detail to a verb, to an adjective or even to a whole sentence. Like adjectives, they can be single words or phrases. An adverb describes how, when or where something happens (and they often end in ‘-ly’). For example:

• The dog growled menacingly.
• There were several seagulls squawking nearby.
• The seagulls suddenly pounced on the family’s picnic.
• The family could hardly move.
• It was a very nice day.

Prepositions are short words and phrases that give information about place, time and manner – like on, under, near, below, by, at or in.

Examples of prepositions within a sentence:

• She first put it on the table but then hid it under her bed.
• He’s coming at 6pm.

A preposition can also be used at the start and end of a sentence. For example:

• After ten o’clock, no shops were open in the town.
• At the stroke of six, he walked away.

You can join sentences, clauses and phrases together using connectives, or joining words. Some common connectives include and, but, so and then’. Using these can make your writing flow. For example:

• He was seventeen years old. He lived in Armagh. = He was seventeen years old and he lived in Armagh.
• She was cold. She didn’t put her jacket on. = She was cold but she didn’t put her jacket on.

Be adventurous with connectives and aim to use some of the following:

• whilst
• beforehand
• afterwards
• firstly
• finally
• although
• moreover
• since
• despite
• consequently
• because
• instead
• when
• nevertheless
• furthermore

A sentence:

• is basically built from a subject and a verb
• contains at least one main idea
• sounds complete
• starts with a capital letter
• ends with a full stop or equivalent

In a sentence, the verb describes the main action or state of the subject. Different types of verbs have different functions:

• to show action – eg run, play, skip, discuss
• to show state – eg think, consider, wish
• to help out the main verb (auxiliary verbs) – eg do, have, is
• to show likelihood or possibility (modal verbs) – eg might, could, would, should

Verbs also show the time frame of the action (past, present, future):

• past – eg the game finished at 4 o’clock
• present – eg he runs to work or he is eating his breakfast
• future – eg the Johnsons will celebrate Christmas in style

In most sentences, the verb comes after its subject. The subject is usually a noun (a person, place or thing). For example:

• he ran
• their pet Siamese cat mewed
• the day was long

A sentence is built up from words. Sometimes words are grouped together in phrases.

A phrase acts as a single unit of meaning. For example:

• “their pet Siamese cat”
• “the fast-paced Hollywood film”

A phrase can be replaced by a single word – eg the phrase “pet Siamese cat” would be replaced by the single word ‘cat’ and still have the same basic meaning. We use phrases to add more detail to our writing.

A main clause contains a verb and has one main idea. It can form a complete sentence. This is called a main clause.

Examples:

• the cat mewed
• his car broke down at the station
• the girl laughed loudly

Other clauses do not have verbs and therefore do not function as independent sentences. These are subordinate clauses and add extra information to a sentence. A sentence that includes both a main and a subordinate clause is known as a complex sentence. For example:

• the cat, which was balanced on the fence, mewed
• his car, described by his girlfriend as a ‘rust-bucket’, broke down at the station
• the girl, whose name he could never remember, laughed loudly

Notice how the subordinate clause makes no sense on its own. It depends on the main clause to make sense.

Also notice that the subordinate clause is separated by commas.

Simple sentences

These are sentences built from just one major clause. These have one main verb attached to the subject. The subject can be one word or a phrase.

• Example 1 - Spiders spin webs.
• Example 2 - The shaggy-haired Siberian Wolfhound sat outside.

Compound sentences

A compound sentence joins more than one major clause with a conjunction (such as ‘and’, ‘but’, ‘or’). For example:

• It was raining and James had forgotten his coat.
• Sophie had seen a parrot before but she had never seen an owl.
• Ross could go to school or he could go to the library.

Complex sentences

A complex sentence includes a major clause and at least one subordinate clause. The term ‘complex’ here can be confusing. It does not mean the same as complicated. In fact some ‘complex’ sentences are very short and simple in meaning, eg “The cat mewed, until it was let in.”, whereas a simple sentence can be long and complicated in appearance, eg “The wild, ferocious Siberian Wolfhound from London’s Regent Park zoo escaped six weeks ago.”

In the following examples, the clauses are in bold. Notice how the major clause works without the subordinate clause:

• The girl, who had long blonde hair, stood at the window.
• While he does his homework, Jack listens to the radio.

Many verbs use an object as well as a subject.

For example:

• Maya plays the piano
• Mr Bell drank three coffees that day

Like the subject, the object is usually a noun (‘the piano’) or a noun phrase, (‘the big, black piano’). Verbs that take objects describe some kind of action rather than a state of being.

For example:

• Maya plays the big, black piano.
• Olivia watches television.

Some verbs do not need an object to make sense, eg:

• Conor screamed.
• Noah laughed.
• Saresh ran.

For a sentence to be complete, there are certain rules that you can use as a guide.

Capital letters and full stops

Ensure that every sentence starts with a capital letter and ends with a full stop. If a sentence expresses surprise or shock, you can end it with an exclamation mark. Interrogative sentences that ask questions, should finish with a question mark.

Tense

Verbs are the active part of the sentence. They can also show time scale, letting the reader know whether something is meant to take place in the past, present or future. This is known as the ‘tense’ of a verb. For example:

Present tense – something that is happening now:

• The fire burns brightly.
• The car runs well.
• The mobile phone is ringing.
• The girl is dancing.

Past tense – something that has already happened:

• The fire burned and billowed clouds of smoke.
• She wrote in the book before she left the house.
• After his exams had finished, Stan rushed out of school, shouting ‘Freedom!’

Future tense – something that hasn’t happened yet:

• The fire will burn well, once lit.
• The car will run well when it has been fixed.
• The exam starts next Wednesday.
• The exam season is starting next month.

Using tenses in your writing

If you are writing a story, the past tense can be easier to manage. It allows you to refer to events and add detailed descriptions, whereas present tense requires much more skill.

For example, Charles Dickens uses past tense in Hard Times when describing a room in a school:

The scene was a plain, bare, monotonous vault of a school-room, and the speaker’s square forefinger emphasised his observations by underscoring every sentence with a line on the schoolmaster’s sleeve. The emphasis was helped by the speaker’s square wall of a forehead, which had his eyebrows for its base, while his eyes found commodious cellarage in two dark caves, overshadowed by the wall. The emphasis was helped by the speaker’s mouth, which was wide, thin, and hard set. The emphasis was helped by the speaker’s voice, which was inflexible, dry, and dictatorial.

Hard Times, Charles Dickens

Novelists such as Suzanne Collins use present tense to create fast-paced and lively narratives. For example, her novel The Hunger Games is written entirely in the present tense:

When I wake up, the other side of the bed is cold. My fingers stretch out, seeking Prim's warmth but finding only the rough canvas cover of the mattress. She must have had bad dreams and climbed in with our mother. Of course, she did. This is the day of the reaping.

The Hunger Games, Suzanne Collins

For short pieces of descriptive writing, present tense can be a good choice. You can draw the reader into an experience. For example:

The morning is still cold and dark when we walk out to the vehicle. It’s Central Australia’s way of telling us we shouldn’t be outside yet. But Nigel’s pick-up splutters to life and the headlight beams reveal that the outback bushland is still there, spinifex grass being tousled by the pre-dawn wind. He begins driving, and within ten minutes we’ve parked up at the foot of Kings Canyon.

An Alternative to Uluru, Ben Lerwill

Aim to be clear and precise in your writing and avoid writing in the way you would speak to friends. If possible, read your work aloud to check for sense, tense and appropriate tone.

Sample question