To all from six to sixty, who have wept tears of anguish at paradoxes, seeming idiocies, infuriating exceptions, illogical spellings and incomprehensible idioms of the English language, I dedicate this Article.
Let's start by looking into tribes of words.
Pronouns: Take a sentence like, "Mary Brown was invited to a party at Mr.
Jones's house to celebrate the birthday of Mr.
Jones's daughter, Jane.
Jane had just left school.
" Obviously the constant repetition of names can be very confusing and so we substitute a pronoun which stands in place of the name.
In the case of the above sentence, pronouns would be used like this: "I was invited to a party at Mr.
Jones's house to celebrate the birthday of his daughter Jane, who had just left school.
" Pronouns can be subdivided into many smaller groups, each with its own particular function.
1.
PERSONAL PRONOUNS: This group consists of words which stand in place of the name of persons or a thing.
The are: I, thou, he, she, it, one, we, you, they.
(Nominative case- when the word is the subject.
) Me, thee, him, her, it, one, us, you, them.
(Accusative case-when the word is the object.
) 2.
RELATIVE PRONOUNS: These pronouns relate an adjective or describing clause to the noun or pronoun which it describes.
They are: which,Who, whom, that, what.
Example: This is the boy to whom i lent my bicycle.
Care should be taken not to confuse the relative pronoun 'that' with the conjunction 'that'.
The relative pronoun can be replaced by the word 'which' and the conjunction cannot.
Examples: This is the book that i borrowed from you.
(relative pronoun) I told him that i had borrowed the book from you.
(conjunction).
It will be found, quite often, that a word can be one part of speech in one sentence and become another part of speech in another sentence.
It is the way in which a word is used that determines what part of speech it is.
There are numerous pronouns which i will not be able to express what their functions are, like: possessive pronouns E.
g: I-mine we-ours thee-thine you--yours he-his they-theirs she--hers demonstrative pronouns E.
g: this, that, these, and those.
interrogative pronouns E.
g: who, whom, which, what.
reflexive pronouns E.
g: myself, yourself, himself, herself, ourselves, yourselves, themselves.
and distributive pronouns E.
g: each, all, many, few, either.
You will need to go and study the remaining Tribes of Words yourself, you can find them in modern English text books all around you.
They are: Verbs, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, and interjections.
In my next Article, we will treat laying the foundations in English language.
Thx for reading..
..
Let's start by looking into tribes of words.
Pronouns: Take a sentence like, "Mary Brown was invited to a party at Mr.
Jones's house to celebrate the birthday of Mr.
Jones's daughter, Jane.
Jane had just left school.
" Obviously the constant repetition of names can be very confusing and so we substitute a pronoun which stands in place of the name.
In the case of the above sentence, pronouns would be used like this: "I was invited to a party at Mr.
Jones's house to celebrate the birthday of his daughter Jane, who had just left school.
" Pronouns can be subdivided into many smaller groups, each with its own particular function.
1.
PERSONAL PRONOUNS: This group consists of words which stand in place of the name of persons or a thing.
The are: I, thou, he, she, it, one, we, you, they.
(Nominative case- when the word is the subject.
) Me, thee, him, her, it, one, us, you, them.
(Accusative case-when the word is the object.
) 2.
RELATIVE PRONOUNS: These pronouns relate an adjective or describing clause to the noun or pronoun which it describes.
They are: which,Who, whom, that, what.
Example: This is the boy to whom i lent my bicycle.
Care should be taken not to confuse the relative pronoun 'that' with the conjunction 'that'.
The relative pronoun can be replaced by the word 'which' and the conjunction cannot.
Examples: This is the book that i borrowed from you.
(relative pronoun) I told him that i had borrowed the book from you.
(conjunction).
It will be found, quite often, that a word can be one part of speech in one sentence and become another part of speech in another sentence.
It is the way in which a word is used that determines what part of speech it is.
There are numerous pronouns which i will not be able to express what their functions are, like: possessive pronouns E.
g: I-mine we-ours thee-thine you--yours he-his they-theirs she--hers demonstrative pronouns E.
g: this, that, these, and those.
interrogative pronouns E.
g: who, whom, which, what.
reflexive pronouns E.
g: myself, yourself, himself, herself, ourselves, yourselves, themselves.
and distributive pronouns E.
g: each, all, many, few, either.
You will need to go and study the remaining Tribes of Words yourself, you can find them in modern English text books all around you.
They are: Verbs, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions, conjunctions, and interjections.
In my next Article, we will treat laying the foundations in English language.
Thx for reading..
..
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