The other day I read a tweet that made some claims about adverbs: “The -s in “unawares,” as in “they were caught unawares,” is completely distinct from the pluralizing -s. It’s an adverb suffix, and it’s also in “always” and “nowadays,” and in “nights,” “weekends,” etc., as in “they work nights/weekends.” #FunWithMorphology” The -s in […] More
Are the words yesterday, today, and tomorrow adverbs or nouns? Oxford Living Dictionaries identifies all three words as an adverb first and a noun second. Etymonline lists yesterday as a noun and adverb but today and tomorrow as only adverbs. Wiktionary defines today and tomorrow as adverbs first and nouns second but yesterday as a […] More
Notional grammars define adjectives as “words that describe nouns.” Big, cute, green, small, and wonky are prototypical adjectives. In big bully, The baby is cute, and I painted the wall green, each adjective describes a noun. Big describes the noun bully, cute describes the noun baby, and green describes the noun wall. However, stating that […] More
Determinatives are words and phrases that express additional information such as definiteness, proximity, quantity, and relationships about a noun phrase or verb phrase in the form of a present participle. Both determiners and noun phrases perform the grammatical function of determinative. Determiners include articles, demonstratives, interrogatives, possessives, quantifiers, and numerals. Only possessive nouns, possessive noun […] More
Punctuation marks are a convention of written language that ensure the clarity of writing for both readers and writers. There are three punctuation rules for using apostrophes as punctuation marks in written American English: Possessive nouns Contractions and omissions Pluralized lowercase letters and words as words The following sections explain and provide examples of the […] More
Traditional grammars define nouns as “words that refer to people, places, things, and ideas.” Pronouns are a subcategory of nouns. Noun phrases are phrases formed by a noun functioning as the phrase head plus any determinatives, modifiers, and complements. In English, prototypical nouns and noun phrases perform eleven grammatical functions: Noun phrase head Subject Subject […] More
Possessive nouns are nouns that indicate a possession of or some other relationship to another word or phrase. In the English language, the affixation of the possessive clitic (‘s [apostrophe s] or s’ [s apostrophe]) forms possessive nouns. Possessive nouns perform the grammatical function of determinative in English grammar. Learn how to form and pronounce […] More
In traditional treatments of grammar, nouns are defined as words that denote a person, place, thing, or idea. A noun phrase is a phrase that consists of a noun functioning as the head of the phrase plus any modifiers, complements, or determiners. A pronoun is a word that stands in for a noun or noun […] More
Notional grammars define nouns as “words that name people, places, things, and ideas.” Noun phrases are phrases that consist of a noun or pronoun plus any modifiers, complements, and determiners. Grammatical Forms Grammatical Form of English Nouns explains the internal structures that distinguish nouns from other grammatical forms, which include number and possession. Types of […] More
