Instituto Superior San Nicolás de Bari

English Grammar

Profesora:
GEMMA OLIVERA

2023
English Grammar Practice
PROFESORA: Gemma Olivera
FUNDAMENTACIÓN: Las siguientes guías tienen como objetivo presentar a los
alumnos una introducción del contenido básico gramatical necesario para la correcta
utilización de la lengua inglesa dentro de ciertas situaciones determinadas. Se
presentarán teoría y ciertos problemas de estructuras, específicos de la lengua, con la
intención de que los estudiantes puedan resolverlos.
OBJETIVO GENERAL:
Finalizado el cursillo, los alumnos podrán:
 Contar con los contenidos básicos de gramática de la lengua inglesa lo que les
permitirá resolver diversos problemas lingüísticos durante su cursado y carrera
profesional.
CONTENIDOS
1. PARTS OF SPEECH
2. THE VERB PHRASE
3. THE NOUN PHRASE
4. ADJECTIVES
5. ADVERBS
 CHAPTER 1: PARTS OF SPEECH
The structures realising sentence elements are composed of units which can be referred
to as parts of speech. Each part of speech explains not what the word is, but how the
word is used. In fact the same word can be a noun in one sentence, and a verb or an
adjective in the next.

Introduction to words
Biber, Conrad and Leech (2002:14) state that “Words are generally considered to be the
basic elements of the language. They clearly show up in writing and they are the items
defined in dictionaries.”
A word falls into one grammatical word class or “part of speech” or another. Thus, the
orthographic word early, for example, can be either of two grammatical words:

(i) An adjective as in

He is an early bird.

(ii) An adverb as in

He gets up early.

Classification of words according to their main function and grammatical

behaviour.
A. Lexical or content words
Lexical or content words are the ones which carry semantic or lexical meaning. They
are the main carriers of information in a text. They are members of open classes, so their
number is permanently growing. They can work as head of phrases. From the
phonological point of view, they tend to be stressed. They include nouns, lexical verbs,
adjectives and adverbs.
B. Functional or structural words
Functional or structural words usually indicate meaning relationships and can help us
interpret units containing lexical words, by showing the way in which the units are
related to each other. They belong to closed classes, so they have a very limited and
fixed membership. From the phonological point of view, they are generally unstressed.
These words include pronouns, determiners, auxiliary verbs, prepositions or
conjunctions.
Lexical Word Classes
NOUNS
We use nouns for the purpose of identification. Semantically, a noun commonly refers
to concrete, physical entities (people, objects, substances). They can also denote abstract
entities, such as qualities and states. Nouns may be classified into countable (chair,
desk, table, pen, book, etc.), uncountable (sugar, water, money, information, advice,
etc.), collective (forest, constellation, army, choir, etc.), proper (Martin, Stella, London,
Argentina, etc.). Nouns have inflectional suffixes for plural number, and for genitive
case, although some nouns are uncountable and have no plural forms, as in the case of
news, money, happiness, etc. Nouns can have more than one morpheme, as in teapot,
bookshelf, brotherhood, etc.

LEXICAL VERBS
We should make a distinction between lexical verbs (write, play, clean, speak, etc.) and
auxiliary verbs (be, have, do, can, must, should, etc.). Lexical verbs get different forms
to show tense, aspect and voice. They can occur on their own, as a single-word verb
phrase acting as the core part of the clause.

ADJECTIVE
Semantically, we can define an adjective as the word that describes or denotes the
quality of people, things or abstractions. Adjectives can occur as the head of an
adjectival phrase. They are most commonly used as modifiers preceding the head of a
noun phrase or as predicatives. Some adjectives are gradable, that is, they can be used in
the comparative or superlative form, and they can be modified for the degree or level of
the quality. Adjectives are invariable: they do not change their form whether the noun
they qualify is singular or plural, feminine or masculine.

ADVERBS
An adverb can modify a verb, an adjective or another adverb. Adverbs contribute
meaning of various sorts to sentences. They are closely connected with the verb in a
sentence. While the verb describes the state of things or the activity, an adverb adds the
information about such things as the manner, place and time of the state or action.
Function Word Classes
PRONOUNS
Pronouns fill the position of a noun or a whole noun phrase in a text. The reference of a
pronoun is usually made clear by its context. Biber, Conrad and Leech (2002:26-27),
distinguish eight major classes of pronouns:
 Personal pronouns: They refer to the speaker, the addressee(s), and other
entities (he, she, they, etc.).
 Demonstrative pronouns: They refer to entities which are “near to” v. “away
from” the speaker’s context (this, that, these, those, etc.).
 Reflexive pronouns: They refer back to a previous noun phrase, usually the
subject of the clause (himself, herself, themselves, etc.).
 Reciprocal pronouns: They refer to a previous noun phrase to indicate that
there is a mutual relationship (one another, each other).
 Possessive pronouns: They are closely related to possessive determiners, and
usually imply a missing noun head (his, hers, theirs, etc.).
 Indefinite pronouns: They have a broad, indefinite meaning. Some of them are
compound words consisting of a quantifier + general noun. Others consist of a
quantifier alone (much, little, some, everything, nothing, etc.).
 Relative pronouns: They introduce relative clauses and nominal relative
clauses (that, which, who, what, etc.).
 Interrogative pronouns: They are used to ask questions about unknown entities
(which, what, who, whose, etc.).

AUXILIARY VERBS
There are two kinds of auxiliary verbs:
1. Primary auxiliaries (be, have, do); they have inflections like lexical verbs, but
are normally unstressed.
2. Modal auxiliaries (can, could, may, might, will, would, shall, should, must); they
are largely concerned with expressing “modality,” such as possibility,
probability, prohibition, necessity, prediction, expectation, etc.
Auxiliary verbs are added to main verbs to help them build verb phrases. They precede
the main or lexical verb in a verb phrase. Some common auxiliaries have contracted
forms, which are usually used in speech.
DETERMINERS
Determiners are words that are used before a noun which acts as head of the noun
phrase. They are used to help clarify the meaning of the noun; they limit the noun that
follows it. According to Biber, Conrad and Leech (2002:26), the most important
determiners are the following:
I. The definite article “the”, which indicates that the referred is assumed to be
known by the speaker and the person being spoken to.
II. The indefinite article “a(n)”, which makes it clear that the referent is one
member of a class.
III. Demonstrative determiners (this, that, such, etc.), which indicate that the
referents are “near to” or “away from” the speaker’s immediate context.
IV. Possessive determiners (my, your, his, her, their, etc.), which tell us who or what
the noun belongs to.
V. Quantifiers (many, few, little, a lot of, plenty of, a number of, etc.), which
specify how many or how much of the noun there is.
VI. Numerals: There are two parallel sets of numerals: cardinals, which answer the
question “How many?” and ordinals, which answer the question “Which?” and
serve to place entities in order or in a series.

PREPOSITIONS
Prepositions connect words to other parts of a sentence and have a close relationship
with the word that follows, which is usually a noun. They are linking words that
introduce prepositional phrases. Most prepositions are short, invariable forms such as at,
on, in, into, next, under, etc.

CONJUNCTIONS
Conjunctions are words that join two units. They may be classified into:
I. Coordinating conjunctions or coordinators, which are used to indicate a
relationship between two units such as phrases or clauses. They combine two
equal elements, that is, elements which have the same syntactic role and are at
the same level of the syntactic hierarchy. The most common coordinators are
and (used to add information), but (used to express contrary information, not
what is expected), or (used to express alternatives), and so (used to express
consequence or result).
 II. Subordinating conjunctions or subordinators, which add a less important idea
to the main clause making the less important idea dependent on the main clause.
Biber, Conrad and Leech (2002) explain that “they are linking words that
introduce clause elements known as dependent clauses – clauses which cannot
stand alone without another clause, called the main clause.” The subordinator
shows the connection of meaning between the main clause and the subordinate
clause. While in the case of coordination the two elements that linked have the
same status, in the case of subordination, the dependent clause starting with the
subordinator is embedded (or included) in the main clause.

ACTIVITIES
1) Identify the part of speech (noun, verb, determiner, etc.) of each word in the
following proverbs:
a) Charity begins at home.
b) Ask a silly question and you get a silly answer.
c) Bad news travels fast.
d) Experience is the best teacher.
e) A golden key can open any door.
f) After a storm comes a calm.
g) Every dog has his day.

2) Read the following text and fill in the charts by grouping the same parts of
speech.
London is a shoppers’ paradise. Its best known store is Harrods, which can supply
anything to anyone anywhere. “Enter a different world”, it says on the doormat and this
is what you do when you visit it. Harrods was the first store in the world that installed
an escalator. Although in the beginning it was just a small grocer’s shop, it is the
world’s most celebrate store. Harrods moved abroad and opened branches in Japan,
Hong Kong, Singapore and Taiwan, as well as airport shops in most major European
cities. Today around 35.000 people visit it every day. It sells everything from clothes to
caviar. You can also find the biggest hair and beauty salon in Europe. January and July
are very busy months for Harrods because they are sale times. “All things, for all
people, everywhere” is the store’s motto.
(Adapted from Evans and Dooley, 1991:21)
Nouns Adjectives Adverbs Lexical verbs Auxiliary verbs Prepositions Pronouns Conjunctions
3) Write meaningful, accurate and appropriate sentences of about ten words using
the following lexical items as indicated.
1- paper (as noun, adjective and verb)
………………………………………………………………………………………….
………………………………………………………………………………………….
………………………………………………………………………………………….
2- watch (as noun and verb)
…………………………………………………………………………………………
…………………………………………………………………………………………
3- near (as preposition, adjective and verb)
…………………………………………………………………………………………
…………………………………………………………………………………………
…………………………………………………………………………………………
Bibliography

Biber D., Conrad S. and Leech G. (2002). Longman Students Grammar of Spoken and
Written English. Essex: Pearson Education Limited.
Negrelli F. (2009). An Introduction to English Grammar Practice. Universidad
Nacional de Córdoba.