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Traditional grammarians define a noun as "a person, place, thing, or idea."
Child designates a person; therefore, child is a noun.
Similarly, democracy designates an idea; therefore, democracy is a noun.
In addition, nouns can be identified by the presence of signal words such as the.
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Verbs have traditionally been defined as words that show action or state of being.
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•Subjects
and verbs must AGREE with one another in number (singular or plural). Thus, if a subject is singular, its verb must also be singular; if a subject is plural, its verb must also be plural.
•In present tenses, nouns and verbs form plurals in opposite ways:
• nouns ADD an s to the singular form,
• BUT
• verbs REMOVE an s from the singular form.
•
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•There are three main verb forms for showing time or tense:
•Simple tense does not use auxiliary verbs
•refers to specific time period during which
something happens OR something happened and is over OR something will happen
• Simple present (action goes on now): I sit
• Simple past: (action happened and is over): I sat
• Simple future (action will happen): I will sit
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A complete sentence needs only two elements:
a subject - predicate unit AND a complete thought
In other words, a simple sentence is actually the SAME thing as an independent clause.
Dependent clauses or phrases are called fragments because they are missing one or more parts needed to make a sentence.
Therefore, they are only pieces or fragments of complete sentences.
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Copyright 2011 © Terry Hudson
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Sometimes two independent clauses (simple sentences) can be joined to form another kind of sentence: the compound sentence.
Two major errors can occur when constructing compound sentences.
Writers make the error of the Comma Splice when they try to separate the two independent clauses in a compound sentence with a comma alone.
A comma is not a strong enough punctuation mark to separate the two independent clauses by itself; thus, using it causes the clauses to be spliced together.
Example of a comma splice:
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Writers make the error of the Fused Sentence by joining two independent clauses into a compound sentence without using any punctuation between them.
No punctuation between the two independent clauses causes them to "fuse" into an INCORRECT compound sentence.
Example of a fused sentence:
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•1. by adding a comma and an appropriate coordinating conjunction
•
•
• 2. by placing a semicolon between the two clauses
•
•
•3. by adding the needed punctuation and an appropriate conjunctive adverb
•
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Another way to repair a comma splice or fused sentence is to make each independent clause into a simple sentence.
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A prepositional phrase embellishes a sentence and more fully explains things.
Examples of prepositions: about, above, among, at, because of, before, behind, beside(s), but, by, except, for, in, near, of, on, since, throughout, to, upon, with without, etc.
In a prepositional phrase, a preposition sits in front of (is “pre-positioned” before) its object. For example: “to the store,” “up the hill,” “by the office.”
A prepositional phrase should not be confused with a subject or verb; it can never be a subject or verb.
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Copyright 2011 © Terry Hudson