Parts of Speech: Nouns, Pronouns, Determiners - English Grammar Review (1/3)

Hi everyone. It's Jennifer.

Since I'm an English teacher, it won't surprise you to know that I love grammar.

But I know that many others don't love this subject.

In fact, some people react very negatively to grammar terminology.

So starting off this lesson immediately with examples of determiners and noun modifiers

won't excite the majority of you.

So let's try to ease into this grammar lesson, okay?

Tell me what's the best vacation you ever had?

Here are some photos from one of my more recent family vacations. Do you recognize any of the places?

People say that a picture is worth a thousand words, and while it's true that an image can be very powerful,

photos can't completely replace daily communication like email and phone calls.

And no university professor is going to accept a photo instead of a written essay, just as no boss is going to accept

a series of photos instead of a written report.

We have to use words like these

And we have to put them in the right order

to build sentences.

Understanding syntax, helps me build this sentence:

Last summer my family visited a few national parks in South Dakota and Wyoming

Knowing how to put words in the proper order is called syntax

If you want to be effective in your communication, take the time to learn syntax.

To help you, I'm going to review all the parts of speech in English.

We'll break each category down, and I'll give plenty of examples.

This lesson will be about how words function in a sentence. If you understand the function of a word,

you'll be more confident about the word order in every sentence you say or write.

Let's start. I don't want to overwhelm you with terminology, so we'll break this lesson into three parts.

In part one, we'll talk about nouns, pronouns, and determiners.

In part two, we'll look at verbs, adjectives, and conjunctions.

In part three, we'll look at adverbs, prepositions, and interjections.

I should note that some sources don't include determiners. That's why you may hear about eight parts of speech

rather than nine. I feel determiners are important,

and I'd like you to understand what they are and what they do, so I'm including determiners in my list.

Let's begin our review.

Every conversation is about something or someone.

We need to talk about people and things, so we use nouns.

Nouns are the subjects of our sentences.

Nouns can be people,

places,

animals, or things -- either concrete or abstract.

As subjects, nouns can begin a sentence.

Proper nouns are names of specific people and things.

Proper nouns must be capitalized.

Common nouns are names of everyday things.

These nouns are not capitalized.

Here's another way to look at nouns. They can either be countable or uncountable.

This is important to understand because the number of things influences other word forms in a sentence.

Here's a quick check. Can you sort the nouns into two groups, countable and uncountable?

Here are the answers.

If you need more practice, you can watch my lessons on countable and uncountable nouns.

I'll put the links in the video description.

If a noun is countable, we can use either the singular or plural form.

Plural nouns can be either regular or irregular.

I'll include a link to an odor lesson that I have on the pronunciation

of regular plural endings -s and -es.

"Tourists" is an example of a regular plural noun.

"Buffalo" is an example of an irregular plural noun.

We can also talk about collective nouns. They refer to a group, but collective nouns function as singular nouns.

At least, that's true of American English.

"Family" is a good example.

We haven't talked about all the parts of speech yet,

but I need to state briefly now that nouns can also function as objects.

That means that nouns can also follow verbs and prepositions.

The object of a verb is called a direct object.

The object of a preposition is called an indirect object.

When we speak or write at length we don't usually repeat the same noun over and over again:

Buffalo are large animals. Buffalo can run very fast, and when buffalo run, buffalo are very dangerous.

That sounded wordy, right?

Instead we use pronouns.

Pronouns are words that replace nouns, so we sound less repetitive.

We can only use pronouns when the reference is clear.

So first we use a noun, and as we continue to speak or write,

we can refer back to that person or thing with a pronoun

Pronouns can be subjects or objects, just like nouns.

Let's talk about personal pronouns first.

Subject pronouns are:

Object pronouns are:

We also have possessive pronouns:

Can you identify the types of pronouns I'm using?

Do you understand what each pronoun refers back to? Look.

Here's an interesting note: The subject pronoun IT doesn't always refer back to something.

IT can be a "dummy" subject. It's just a placeholder.

Sometimes we need the subject pronoun to make a statement about something that simply is

It's three o'clock.

It's cold outside.

It's time to go.

We also have reflexive pronouns:

And we have demonstrative pronouns:

Demonstrative pronouns can easily function as subjects or objects: This is fun. I love this.

But reflexive pronouns are a bit different.

They can be objects. For example:

Reflexive pronouns can also help us emphasize a subject

For example:

Do you know what reciprocal pronouns are?

Don't worry. If you don't know the term. I bet you know these pronouns. It's a very short list.

each other / one another

Reciprocal pronouns help us explain actions that are given and received equally.

For instance:

And finally, we have relative pronouns, like who, which, and that.

I hope you've watched my series on adjective clauses to understand how relative pronouns function within a sentence.

Okay. We've covered nouns and pronouns. Let's take the time to talk about determiners.

Before I start naming different determiners, let me show you some more photos from my family vacation.

Determiners tend to be short words that help us determine what or who we're talking about.

We place a determiner before a noun.

Determiners include articles. numbers and quantifiers,

demonstrative determiners,

and possessive determiners.

Articles include the indefinite article and the definite article.

As for the indefinite article, remember we use A before consonant sound and AN

before a vowel sound.

As for the definite article, we say THE ("thuh") before a consonant sound and

the ("thee") before a vowel sound.

Sometimes we use no article, so we can talk about a zero article.

I have a series of lessons on articles, so you may want to check out the video description for those links.

Numbers and quantifiers help us talk about how much or how many?

Some quantifiers can only be used with countable nouns like MANY and SEVERAL.

Other quantifiers can only be used with uncountable nouns like MUCH and A LITTLE.

Demonstrative determiners are also called demonstrative adjectives.

You know these words: this, that, these, those.

Remember we use THIS and THESE for things that are close to us in time or space.

We use THAT and THOSE for things that are more distant.

We've already talked about THAT, THIS, THESE, and THOSE as pronouns,

so you can see that some words fit into more than one word class

Finally, we have possessive determiners, which some call possessive adjectives.

They include:

Help me build some sentences with determiners. Put the missing words in the right place.

Note that once we put a determiner together with a noun, we have a phrase.

A phrase is a group of words that functions as a unit in a sentence.

For example, we can have a noun phrase. That noun phrase can be a subject or an object.

For example, in sentence 1 "my daughter" is the object of a preposition.

Okay. I think that's a pretty good start.

We'll continue with more parts of speech in part two. If you're eager to continue this grammar lesson,

please like this video. As always, thanks for watching and happy studies!

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