The+Grammar

= The Grammar =

Here are the main parts to remember involving grammar.


Finally, here is some information about the grammar in the English Language. Grammar is the body of rules that describe the structure of phrases and sentences of any language.


 * Sentences
 * Clauses
 * Subjects
 * Predicates
 * Articles
 * Objects


 * The Period
 * The Question Mark
 * The Exclamation Mark
 * The Comma
 * The Semicolon
 * The Colon
 * The Dash
 * <span style="font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif;">The Hyphen
 * <span style="font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif;">The Ellipsis
 * <span style="font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif;">The Bracket
 * <span style="font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif;">The Slash
 * <span style="font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif;">The Quotation Marks
 * <span style="font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif;">The Apostrophe
 * <span style="font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif;">The Parenthesis
 * <span style="font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif;">The Interrobang
 * <span style="font-family: 'Arial Black',Gadget,sans-serif;">The Guillemet

=__<span style="color: #0000ff; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 170%;">Sentences __= <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;">A sentence is an expression in natural language in the field of linguistics. It is generally defined as a phrase with at least one word that relates to all the other words in the complete phrase. A sentence can be used to express a statement, question, exclamation, request, command, or suggestion. According to András Kornaiin, the maximum limit for a sentence to be complete is just above 15 words There are 4 structures of a sentence. A **simple sentence** consists of just an independent clause. A **compound sentence** is two independent clauses separated by a semicolon or a conjunction with a comma. A **complex sentence** is a dependent clause with an independent clause. Finally, a **complex-compound** sentence is a compound sentence with a dependent clause. There are also 4 purposes of a sentence. A **declarative sentence** is the most common purpose that makes a statement. An **interrogative sentence** asks a question and usually requests an answer. An **exclamatory sentence** states an exclamation. Lastly, an **imperative sentence** commands someone to do something and usually doesn't have a subject because you are saying it directly to the subject.



=__<span style="color: #0000ff; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 170%;">Clauses __= <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;">A clause is the smallest possible phrase that can express something. In the English language, it is a group of words that consists of a subject and a predicate. A **dependent clause** is a clause that has all of the components of a complete sentence, but it leaves you "hanging" which means that you don't know the effect or cause of the action. These typically start with a subordinating conjunction like "because" and "although". **Independent clauses** are expressions that don't leave you "hanging" and it doesn't start out with a subordinating conjunction. This is also called a simple sentence and it can stand alone.

=__<span style="color: #0000ff; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 170%; line-height: 33px;">Subjects __= <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;">The subject is almost always a noun or pronoun. It is one of two main single units of a clause, the other being a predicate. The job of the subject is to say who is doing something or is something. It has been contradicted as a part of speech, but what is different between the two is that subjects classify a phrase and the parts of speech just classifies words in general.

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=__<span style="color: #0000ff; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 170%;">Predicates __= <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;">The predicate is the other of two main single units of a clause, the other being a subject. The predicate modifies the subject by explaining what the subject is doing through the main verb and any words and phrases accompanying the verb, or it tells you what the subject is like. If words like were and will are somewhere in the sentence, then those words are considered part of the predicate since it describes when and if the person is going to be something or do something. Predicates are sometimes organized as prepositional phrases when there is a preposition in the predicate.

=__<span style="color: #0000ff; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 170%;">Articles __= <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;">An article is used to specify a noun by its significance. The only **definite article** used in the English language is //the//. //The// is used to describe one specific subject without generalization. The other articles are **indefinite articles**. These are the words //a//, //an//, and sometimes //some//. The indefinite articles //a// and //an// are distinguished by the beginning letter of the following word. If the letter is a vowel (a, e, i, o, u), you use //an//. A couple examples are //an ear// and //an annoyance//. If the beginning letter is any other letter in the alphabet, you use //a//. A few examples are //a car//, //a boat//, and //a pencil//. One interesting fact about "the" is that it can be pronounced two different ways. It can be pronounced with a schwa (the a sound in about) and with a long e (as in n//ee//d). The pronunciation with schwa is the most commonly used while the long e is used with words beginning with vowels, pronouns, or just to end emphasis.

=__<span style="color: #0000ff; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 170%;">Objects __= <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;">An object is the part of a sentence and predicate that the verb is performing on by the subject. Take the sentence, //<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;">Emily lost the keys //<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;">. //<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;">Emily //<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;"> is the subject, //<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;">lost //<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;"> is the verb, and //<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;">the keys //<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;"> is the object in which the subject, Emily, lost. Unlike most parts of grammar, a sentence can be complete without the object. If you took out "the keys" and left it as "Emily lost", the new sentence would still be grammatically correct and complete. Objects can be classified into certain groups. In the sample sentence I just explained, "the keys" is a **<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;">direct object **<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;"> because it is specifically stating what the verb is performing upon. An **<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;">indirect object **<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;"> would be any pronoun since it is not talking about anyone specific. An **<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;">oblique object **<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;"> is a shortened or changed way of saying a complete phrase with an object. For example, you could say "his success" or "for his success". A **<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;">prepositional object **<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;"> is an object responding to the detailed action of the verb in a prepositional phrase. In "We listened to the radio.", the full phrase of the verb is "to listen to". "Radio" is the object in the prepositional phrase.

==<span style="color: #000080; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;">Now that I have gone through the grammatical parts of the average sentence, I am going to tell you all about various forms of punctuation! Punctuation marks are the symbols that indicate the emphasis and organization of a sentence. This also help you imagine the sentence in your head or read it out loud in many different ways. For example, if you don't put any punctuation in the phrase "eat shoots and leaves" this is stating that something eats the shoots and leaves of plants. If you put a comma anywhere between eats shoots and leaves, you could either be stating that you eat first, shoot later, then leave, or you could be saying you eat shoots and then you leave. ==

=__<span style="color: #0000ff; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 170%;">The Period __= <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;">A period is used at the end of a sentence when saying a command or declaring a statement. The period can also be used to state an **indirect question**. This is when you state a question within a sentence without actually asking it. One example would be "The teacher asked why Maria had left out the easy excercises.". **Abbreviations** are used with period as well, but not most of them. The abbreviations that don't use periods are called **acronyms**. One rule to using abbreviations in a sentence is how you end the sentence. If you have the abbreviation at the end of a statement, just leave it with the second period in the abbreviation. If you say anything else that is not a statement, you leave the second period there and add on the appropriate punctuation.



=__<span style="color: #0000ff; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 170%;">The Question Mark __= <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;">A question mark is used at the end of a direct question. One type of question that is both a statement and a question is called a **tag question**. This is a question like //They're not doing very well, are they?//. Notice the last two words of the question. It is either a positive or negative tag and then a pronoun. The positive tags go with a negative statement and the negative tags go with a positive statement. However, if you are speaking in a matter of sarcasm, this is an exception where the positive goes with positive and negative goes with negative. An **indirect question** is not really asking a question, so don't put a question mark at the end of one of these. **Rhetorical questions** are questions, but they are not meant to be answered. One example is "How else should we end them, after all?". When using a question in quotation marks, put the question mark after the last quotation mark. Some questions are in a series of **brief questions**. When you do this, it is like a list, but each comma would be replaced with a question mark and the word following the question mark would begin with a capital letter. In an italicized or underlined title, the question mark would be under the effect too. In a **polite request**, there would not be a question mark and it would end with a period. This usually begins with a word like //would//.



=__<span style="color: #0000ff; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 170%;">The Exclam ____<span style="color: #0000ff; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 170%;">ation Mark __= <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;">Exclamation marks are used at the end of interjections, commands, or **emphatic declarations**. Exclamations marks are also sometimes used to close questions asked with excessive emotion. Exclamation marks are also used for, although uncommon, emphasizing a word in a sentence. You would put it in parenthesis next to the word you want to emphasize. If the exclamation mark is used in italics or underline, then you would put the mark under the same effect.

=__<span style="color: #0000ff; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 170%;">The Comma __= <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;">A comma is used to seperate two or more phrases from each other. They are also used for **compound sentences** that start with a **dependent clause** and then an **independent clause**. This also works for two independent clauses, but you have to use a conjunction after the comma like I just did in this sentence. Commas are also used to place **parenthetical phrases** inbetween them. In stories with dialogue, the comma is used right before a character speaks. Some uncommon uses for the comma are expressing contrast and to avoid confusion in a sentence.

=__<span style="color: #0000ff; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 170%;">The Semicolon __= <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;">Semicolons have the function of a comma, period, and colon; it can be used for all purposes. They can be used to start an extremely long list of something and organize the list by sections. Semicolons are used to put together two independent clauses most commonly.

=__<span style="color: #0000ff; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 170%;">The Colon __= <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;">A colon is mostly used to start a long list of something that is said after an independent clause. It can also be used right before an explanation or confession of someting relating to the clause before it. It can be used to start a quote from something after a clause, too.



=__<span style="color: #0000ff; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 170%;">The Dash __= <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;">A dash usually has a similar function to parenthesis. It adds a small and significant note to a sentence; this usually reveals something. It is also used to break a sentence and add a sudden change of emotion, thought, or tone. Although it's rare, dashes are used to omit someone's name from a list due to legal reasons.

=__<span style="color: #0000ff; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 170%;">The Hyphen __= <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;">The hyphen is a lot like a dash, but it has a slightly different purpose. Hyphens are used to create some **<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;">compound words **<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;"> and to write out numbers like //<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;">twenty-nine //<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;"> and //<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;">ninety-eight //<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;">. They are also used less commonly to create catchy phrases such as //<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;">on-the-fly //<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;"> and to add prefixes to words like //<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;">ex-husband //<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;">.

=__<span style="color: #0000ff; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 170%;">The Ellipsis __= <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;">This is a form of punctuation that I'm sure you've seen before, but you never knew the name of it. The ellipsis is a device that can be used (like a dash) to omit words from a sentence to shorten it. However, it is mostly used for creating a pause before or after a character says something in his/her dialogue. This can also be used at the beginning of a sentence after a period; you would just have a space after the period like usual. The ellipsis can also be used in quotes in brackets to show that you have added the ellipsis and it was not there in the original text.

=__<span style="color: #0000ff; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 170%;">The Bracket __= <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;">Brackets have a very similar use to parenthesis for the most part. However, they can be used for many different things. If you decide to change a letter or pronoun for a word, you place the changed word inbetween brackets. If you use [sic], you are pointing out that something was misspelled. So, you would put this, with a space, after the misspelled word. Brackets are also used to place a phrase that would usually fit in parenthesis inside another pair of parenthesis. This adds even more emphasis to the quote already in parenthesis.

=__<span style="color: #0000ff; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 170%;">The Slash __= <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;">The Slash is used to present two words as choices between one or the other. It has a similar purpose to the conjunction or. Also, it can represent two words as having similarities to each other and to give notice to both words surrounding the slash.

=__<span style="color: #0000ff; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 170%;">The Quotation Marks __= <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;">Quotations marks are mostly used in stories when a character is talking. It is also used surrounding the title of a story, but underlines are used more often than quotation marks. If you use a question mark or exclamation mark with quotation marks when someone is talking, you place them inside the quotation marks. If you are asking who said a quote, you put the question mark after the last quotation mark.

=__<span style="color: #0000ff; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 170%;">The Apostrophe __= <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;">Apostrophes are used to state posession of something, make contractions, and is used in some plurals. When saying posession, if you are saying that one person own something, you put an apostrophe inbetween the last letter of the original word and add an s after it. If you are saying that more than one person owns something and the subject ends with an s, you would just add an apostrophe after the s. When using it for plurals, you usually place it after a letter or number, and you add an s.



=__<span style="color: #0000ff; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 170%;">The Parenthesis __= <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;">Parenthesis are used to de-emphasize a phrase because it doesn't have that much of a significance for belonging in the sentence. This means that the full sentence can work without the added phrase. Sometimes, the phrase inside a parenthesis is ended with a form of punctuation to present it as a sentence.

=__<span style="color: #0000ff; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 170%;">The Interrobang __= <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;">The interrobang is a combination of the question mark and the exclamation mark. It can be used to express a question with great surprise or emotion or say an exclamation while questioning how its possible. When the mark is represented as one mark instead of a question mark with an exclamation mark, the interrobang is morphed together, so it looks like an exclamation mark with a question mark squiggle coming out of the middle. If you really want to emphasize the surprise of your question/exclamation, you just add as many more as you want to. The interrobang was established in 1962, so it is one of the very few newer punctuation marks. In other languages such as Spanish and Galician, the interrobang is flipped upside down like the question marks and exclamation marks.

=__<span style="color: #0000ff; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 170%;">The Guillemet __= <span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;">The guillemet **<span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;">(gē-(y)ə-'mā) **<span style="background-color: #ffffff; font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;"> originated in France as an alternate form of quotation marks. Like quotation marks, they indicate speech. In many languages, this is a standard form of punctuation used when people are speaking in text. Guillemets are also used outside of punctuation to fast forward on a video player, as a chevron on road signs, and as a replacement for an ellipsis--when you replace the ellipsis with the guillemet, you only use one of them. Even though there isn't a guillemet on the average English keyboard, you can still type by holding the shift button while pressing the comma and period button.

= __<span style="color: #0000ff; font-family: 'Palatino Linotype','Book Antiqua',Palatino,serif; font-size: 170%;">My Overall Evaluation __ = <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;">As you can see, I have gathered most of my data from my website about this page. I found a website other than Wikipedia (gladly) for the punctuation sections, and I got lots of information on all of the more common punctuation marks. For the guillemet and interrobang, I did go on Wikipedia, but that's because those are the ones that are more uncommon and less used. The only punctuation marks that I didn't know about //was// the interrobang and guillemet. Those were really interesting to learn about, especially the form of the interrobang when not using //?!// or //!?//. <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;">About the grammar sections of this page, I knew about almost all of those parts of expressions. However, I have heard of the //object//, <span style="font-family: Georgia,serif; font-size: 120%;">but I didn't know what exactly it was and what purpose it serves in a sentence. Overall, this was my second favorite page to create; my first favorite is the //Three Major Sets of Dialects// page which is number 4.

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