When you see a phrase in a sentence, and you can’t be sure which word it’s referring to, chances are it’s a dangling modifier. Having nothing to modify, the phrase just “dangles” without purpose (hence its name). Modifiers usually apply to the nearest noun to them. When writers leave out the noun or noun phrase […]

The subjunctive mood is a way of talking about unreal or conditional situations. You can also use it to describe desires, wishes, needs, or intentions. You’ll often see it as the format for idioms and expressions. Unreal Situations The most common use of the subjunctive mood to express imaginary or hypothetical situations. It’s often used […]

An infinitive is the most basic form of a verb. You’ll usually see it with the word to, as in to eat or to think. An infinitive phrase is an infinitive plus complements and modifiers. To eat vegetables daily and to think about a solution are infinitive phrases. While infinitives themselves are verbs, infinitive phrases […]

When writers use very similar wording across several sentences or lines of poetry, it’s known as parallel sentence structure. Doing this creates rhythm and balance. Parallel sentence structures are also known as parallelisms. Simple parallelisms may be as short as words or phrases. More complex ones may combine entire clauses or sentences. Parallel sentence structures […]

Prepositional phrases are the kinds of things you use all the time without thinking about them. They’re groups of words that begin with a preposition and end with an object. Prepositions are words like about, across, after, for, and in. You’ll see them in simple prepositional phrases, like about zebras, after school, and with friends. […]

The four types of sentence structures are simple, compound, complex, and compound-complex. The quantity and arrangement of clauses determines the makeup of each type of sentence structure. A clause is a grouping of words with both a subject and a verb that can (but doesn’t always) form a sentence. If the clause can form a […]

Spoilers: We’ll be diving into who vs. whom in this one! The first thing we should mention is that relative pronouns introduce relative clauses. A relative clause is a type of dependent clause (a clause that can’t stand by itself as a complete sentence). It adds extra information to a sentence. The five relative pronouns […]

Let’s say you want to describe a noun (a person, place, or thing). You can use an adjective, as in “Jane’s hair is long,” but what if you want to describe the way Jane’s hair compares with Natalie’s? That’s where comparative adjectives come in. Comparative adjectives highlight the differences between two nouns. They let you […]

Lexical verbs are the main verbs (or action words) in a sentence. They can show the subject’s action or express a state of being. They fall into several categories: transitive, intransitive, linking, dynamic, and static. Transitive and Intransitive Verbs A transitive verb expresses action, and needs a direct object to receive that action. “Alice sees […]

For starters, Adjectives are words that describe nouns or pronouns. They answer questions like what kind, how many, and which one? The three main types of adjectives are descriptive adjectives, quantitative adjectives, and demonstrative adjectives. Descriptive Adjectives Descriptive adjectives describe the characteristics of a noun. They can tell you about a noun’s size, color, shape, […]