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  • A Short History of 'You'
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    A Short History of ‘You’

    “What’s wrong with you?” posits the Oxford Dictionaries. But, seriously, what’s up with the oddness that is the second person personal pronoun in English: you. Spanish has six ways of referring to you: tú, vos, usted, vosotros, vosotras, and ustedes. German has eight: du, dich, dir, ihr, euch, Sie, Ihnen. Why does English have only […] More

  • Using Demonstrative Determiners as Determinatives
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    Using Demonstrative Determiners as Determinatives

    Demonstrative determiners belong to a closed class of words call determiners. Determiners provide information such as familiarity, location, quantity, and number about a noun, pronoun (rarely), or noun phrase. Demonstrative determiners express grammatical number and deixis, or proximity. The demonstrative determiners in English are this, that, these, and those. Do not confuse the demonstrative determiners […] More

  • Third Person Singular Simple Present Verbs
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    Third Person Singular Simple Present Verbs

    The simple present tense in English expresses habits and routines, general facts and truths, and thoughts and feelings. In all but the third person singular, the simple present form is identical to the base form of the verb, which is defined as the infinitive without the p-word to. The following sections explain how to form […] More

  • The English Demonstrative Pronoun System
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    The English Demonstrative Pronoun System

    Demonstrative pronouns are a type of pronoun that take the place of another word, phrase, or clause. Like demonstrative determiners, demonstrative pronouns also provide additional information about the proximity of the word, phrase, or clause replaced by the pronoun. The four demonstrative pronouns in English grammar are: this that these those Demonstrative pronouns are pronouns […] More