Grammar

COMPARISONS OF QUANTITY

To show difference: more, less, fewer + than
To show no difference: as much as , as many as, as few as, as little as

ADVERBS OF MANNER

RULE:
Adverbs of manner tell us how something happens. They are usually placed after the main verb or after the object.

EXAMPLES:
He swims well, (after the main verb)   
He ran... rapidly, slowly, quickly..    
She spoke... softly, loudly, aggressively..   
 James coughed loudly to attract her attention.    
He plays the flute beautifully. (after the object)   
 He ate the chocolate cake greedily.

RULE:
If there is a preposition before the object, e.g. at, towards, we can place the adverb either before the preposition or after the object.

EXAMPLES:
The child ran happily towards his mother.    
The child ran towards his mother happily.

RULE:
Sometimes an adverb of manner is placed before a verb + object to add emphasis:

EXAMPLES:
He gently woke the sleeping woman.

 RULE:
(We want to know what happened slowly, who did it slowly, why they did it slowly)  However, adverbs should always come AFTER intransitive verbs (=verbs which have no object).

EXAMPLES:
The town grew quickly   
 He waited patiently 
Also, these common adverbs are almost always placed AFTER the verb:     
well     badly     hard     fast

RULE:
The position of the adverb is important when there is more than one verb in a sentence. If the adverb is placed after a clause, then it modifies the whole action described by the clause. 
Notice the difference in meaning between the following pairs of sentences:     

She quickly agreed to re-type the letter (= her agreement was quick)    
She agreed to re-type the letter quickly (= the re-typing was quick)    
He quietly asked me to leave the house (= his request was quiet)    
He asked me to leave the house quietly (= the leaving was quiet)

ADVERBS: How adverbs are formed

Rules:              1. In most cases, an adverb is formed by adding '-ly' to an adjective
                        2. If the adjective ends in '-y', replace the 'y' with 'i' and add '-ly'
                        3. If the adjective ends in -'able', '-ible', or '-le', replace the '-e' with '-y'
                        4. If the adjective ends in '-ic', add '-ally':
                        5. Some adverbs have the same form as the adjective
                        6. 'Well' is the adverb that corresponds to the adjective 'good' 
Examples:      

	Adjective	Adverb
1.	cheap	cheaply
	quick	quickly
	slow	slowly
2	easy	easily
	angry	angrily
	happy	happily
	lucky	luckily
3.	probable	probably
	terrible	terribly
	gentle	gently
4.	basic	basically
	economic	economically
	tragic	tragically
5.	early	late
	fast	near
	hard	straight
	high	wrong
6.	good	well

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ADJECTIVES: Form and function

Rules:               1. Adjectives are invariable:
They do not change their form depending on the gender or number of the noun.
     A hot potato                                       Some hot potatoes

                        2. To emphasise or strengthen the meaning of an adjective use 'very' or 'really':
                            A very hot potato                               Some really hot potatoes

ADJECTIVES: Position of adjectives

Rules:              1. Usually in front of a noun: A beautiful girl.
                        2. After verbs like "to be", "to seem" , "to look", "to taste":
                        3. After the noun: in some fixed expressions
                        4. After the noun with the adjectives involved, present, concerned:

Examples:         1.        The beautiful girl
2.        The girl is beautiful
           You look tired
           This meat tastes funny.                      
3.        The Princess Royal
           The President elect
           A court martial
4.        I want to see the people involved/concerned (= the people who have something  s         to do with the matter)
          Here is a list of the people present (= the people who were in the building or atg      s         the meeting)

 

DETERMINERS: Function and classes of Determiners

Function:         Determiners are words placed in front of a noun to make it clear what the noun refers to.  The word 'people' by itself is a general reference to some group of human beings. If someone says 'these people', we know which group they are talking about, and if they say 'a lot of people' we know how big the group is.  'These' and 'a lot of' are determiners in these sentences.

Classes:           Definite and Indefinite articles
the, a, an
Demonstratives
this, that, these, those
Possessives
my, your, his, her, its, our, their
Quantifiers
a few, a little, much, many, a lot of, most, some, any, enough, etc.
Numbers
one, ten, thirty, etc.
Distributives
all, both, half, either, neither, each, every
Difference words
other, another
Question words
Which, what, whose
Defining words
which, whose
The following words are pre-determiners. They go before determiners, such as articles: such and what, half, rather, quite