English notes
Amy arrived
My friend Amy arrived early, so we went straight to the local beach.
Key:
___
= Determiner
___
= Noun
___
= verb
___
= Adjective
___
= Adverb
___
= Conjunction
___ =
Pronoun
___
= Preposition
Nouns:
“The major thoroughfare
were already lit by the new gas,
this was not the bright
and even glare of the
late Victorian period,
the light flared and
diminished, casting a flickering light across the streets
and lending to the houses
and pedestrians a
faintly unreal or even theatrical quality.”
What is a noun?
A word used to identify any class of people, places or
things. A noun is a naming word
Types of nouns:
Common- preceded by “the” (Concrete + abstract)
Proper- nouns for unique individuals
Concrete noun - something we can see, hear, smell, taste,
touch
Abstract noun – A name/idea/concept
Collective noun – Refers to a group of things or people
Noun phrase – a noun and any words that modifies the noun
Noun phrases ext:
Whenever you modify a noun, it becomes a noun phrase. This
changes the meaning of the noun E.G
Plane crash- Standard
Horrific plane crash- worse
The most horrific plane crash- The worst outcome
Noun importance-
- Work as lexical cohesion-Word glue
- Create an emotional response
- Can paint a picture
Adjectives:
“The weary painter took off his blue, green and white overalls and ate a day old Chinese meal because he felt ravenous”
Adjectives are words and phrases
that modify or describe nouns or pronouns
Functions of adjectives:
- Descriptive
- Evaluative
- Emotive
- Attributive
- Predictive
- Comparative
- Superlative
Modal verbs:
Deontic = certainty
Epistemic= some room for
freedom/choice
 |
You must walk Command
intensity
You will walk
You can walk
You might walk
Verb phrases: Built around
the main verb
- Modal auxiliaries can be placed along any continuum to show the degrees of strength
Verbs tell us when something
happens:
Present tense – Has the –s
inflections (sings, dances)
Past tense – Base form +ed
inflection (jumped)
Future tense – Modal auxiliary
will or shall + base form (will sing)
Auxiliary verbs: Primary
auxiliary (be, have, was, has)
These distinguish tense E.G: he
was running, he has run, he will be running
Modal auxiliary: (may, could,
might, will, can, should)
Shows possibility/necessity
Clauses:
In the same way that words form
phrases, phrases form larger structure called clauses. These are groups of
words centred on a verb phrase.
Subject- The key focus
Verb – Includes adverbs and
auxiliaries
Object – Identifies the object
being acted on
- I awoke ( S, V )
- I turned on the TV (S, V, O)
- Paul left his friend an Ipod (S, V, O, O)
Co-ordinated clauses- Two
clauses joined together by using a conjunction
Co-ordinated clauses must make
sense on their own if you remove the conjunction
“I opened my window because I was
hot”
Subordinated clauses:
A clause that means that there
will be a main clause followed by a phrase that can only make sense when linked
to the main clause.
“I went to Nandos despite the
fact it wasn’t cheeky”
Active + Passive voice:
Active voice – Ahmed kicked the
ball – aggressive connotations
Passive voice – The ball was
kicked by Ahmed - softer
Active voice: Gives prominence to the actor/agency. Focuses
on positives or negatives
Prime minister saves deal
Prime minister shags pig
(both active but convey positive
and negative views towards the prime minister)
Passive voice: Used when
we don’t know the subject, don’t want to talk about the subject or when the
subject is not the focus
“John Lennon shot dead”
