A word class that describes, identifies or quantifies a noun or a pronoun.
Different types of adjectives include:
- number or quantity adjectives (for example, ‘twelve’, ‘several’)
- possessive adjectives (for example, ‘my’, ‘his’)
- descriptive adjectives (for example, ‘beautiful’, ‘ancient’)
- comparative adjectives (for example, ‘shorter,’ ‘more difficult’)
- classifying adjectives (for example, ‘wooden’ (box), ‘passenger’ (vehicle).
A word class that may modify a verb (for example, ‘beautifully’ in ‘she sings beautifully’), an adjective (for example, ‘really’ in ‘he is really interesting’) or another adverb (for example, ‘very’ in ‘she walks very slowly’). In English many adverbs have an -ly ending.
word or group of words that modifies or contributes additional, but non-essential, information about a sentence or a verb.
Adverbials are classified on the basis of the kind of meaning involved including:
- time (for example, ‘yesterday’ in ‘I spoke with him yesterday’)
- duration (for example, ‘for several years’ in ‘they have lived together for several years’)
- frequency (for example, ‘three times a year’ in ‘the committee meets three times a year’)
- place (for example, ‘in Brisbane’ in ‘we met in Brisbane’)
- manner (for example, ‘very aggressively’ in ‘he played very aggressively’)
- degree (for example, ‘very deeply’ in ‘he loves her very deeply’)
- reason (for example, ‘because of the price’ in ‘we rejected it because of the price’)
- purpose (for example, ‘to avoid embarrassing you’ in ‘I stayed away to avoid embarrassing you’)
- condition (for example, ‘if I can’ in ‘I’ll help you if I can’)
- concession (for example, ‘although she was unwell’ in ‘she joined in although she was unwell’).
Adverbials usually have the form of:
- adverb group: a group/phrase includes an adverb as the head word and answers questions such as 'how?' or 'where?' or 'when?' (for example, ‘it ran extremely quickly’, ‘it ran quicker than a cheetah)
- a prepositional phrase (for example, ‘in the evening’ in ‘she'll be arriving in the evening’)
- a noun group/phrase (for example, ‘this morning’ in ‘I finished it this morning’)
- a subordinate clause (for example, ‘because he had an assignment to finish’ in ‘He didn’t go out because he had an assignment to finish’). In some schools of linguistics, such subordinate clauses are treated as dependent on, rather than embedded in, the main clause.
A group of words which includes an adverb, and modifies a verb, an adjective or another adverb. (for example, ‘The air was warm, stirred only occasionally by a breeze’.)
A recurrence of the same consonant sounds at the beginning of words in close succession (for example, ‘ripe, red raspberry’).
A comparison between one thing and another, typically for the purpose of explanation or clarification.
A word opposite in meaning to another (for example, ‘empty’ is an antonym for ‘full’; ‘cold’ is an antonym for ‘hot’).
A punctuation mark used to indicate either possession or omission of letters and numbers.
The two main uses of apostrophes are:
- apostrophe of possession indicates that a noun owns something (for example, ‘the student’s work’, ‘David’s phone’). Plural nouns that end with -s have an apostrophe added after the -s (for example, ‘the teachers’ staff room’).
- apostrophe of contraction replaces omitted letters in a word (for example, ‘isn’t’, ‘don’t’, ‘he’s’).
Articles indicate specificity of nouns. The three English articles are the, a and an.