Verb, It's the Action Word

The simplest way to describe a verb is as the action word in a sentence. The verb makes the noun do something. That is why we need the verb. If the verb wasn't there, the noun would just be stuck, in a rut, with nothing to do.

All cheesiness aside, the verb is important. It indicted what the noun is doing in many different ways.

While verbs are our main source of action words but they are not necessarily always action. They may indicate other notions, such as, a sense, a perception, a mental state or a connecting function. This can be seen when someone "feels" something or "expects" something. These are not inherent actions but more of an action that is a state of mind.

All verbs can take on the form of the present participle through adding the suffix of -ing, to the base form. The present participle is usually added to another verb. The phrase "present participle" does not indicate a time structure to the verb, it is only through the sentence structure that time is indicated, for example "I was dancing" verses "I am dancing". "Dancing" does not show when it occurred.

The past participle has a suffix of -ed or -en to the base form. The past participle also has irregular words that do not hold to the standard pattern but instead must be memorized for understanding.

Verbs have more subcategories and indicators that I will update in more detail in the next couple of weeks.

The Noun

We all learn about nouns pretty early on in education. We are asked, "What is a noun?" and we are taught that the answer is: a person, place or thing. But, nouns are so much more. Nouns also include the concept of ideas.

You heard that right!

Nouns are more than person, place and thing but also IDEAS. Crazy, right?

Ok, let's move forward. Those are the basics of the definition of nouns, but nouns need a little more identification. We can use its inflectional markings. These are typically suffixes that attach to words to indicate number and possession.

Singular nouns have no special inflectional markings. We already know when we talk about, a child, a guitar, a fan, or a dog, that this all indicates there is only one of the object being mentioned. Plural nouns are a different story. Here, a suffix of -s or -es will be added to the noun to indicate that there is more than one, such as, books, towels, maps, houses.

The trouble really comes when there are exceptions to these rules. Many words do not change easily from their singular form to plural. Some words have a change in vowel sound, such as man to men and goose to geese. There are other irregular plural nouns that must be memorized because they do not follow any specific pattern. An example of this would be the noun ox. The assumption would be have the plural as oxes but it is actually oxen. This can be confusing for one first learning of plural nouns.

Nouns can also be identified by their ability to "have" something. By adding a -'s to the end of a noun it shows its ability to be possessive. There is no irregular possessive nouns. Even is the plural of the word irregular, the possessive is not. So we end up with "the dog's bone" or "the girl's backpack." A noun can take possession of something else.

Nouns can further be divided in to categories. There are common nouns and proper nouns. Common nouns are your normal everyday nouns that have no need of special treatment. Proper nouns, however, need that special treatment that the common nouns lack. You gotta CAPITALIZE your proper nouns. Well, you need to capitalize in the sense that the first letter in your proper noun needs to be capitalized, not actually the entire word. That could be awkward. Your proper nouns that need capitalization are specific nouns, typically names of people or places. Jessica, for example, is an excellent proper noun.

Concrete nouns and abstract nouns differentiate between nouns that can be visualized, such as, sheet, television, clock, verses nouns that cannot, for example, sincerity.

Animate and inanimate nouns differentiate between people and animals and things that are not alive.

Animate nouns can be further categorized into human and nonhuman nouns.

Nouns are essential to understand within the English language because they are the subject, or the "what" is being references or discussed in the sentence structure.

Why Grammar?

Someone, somewhere decided in some point in history to make up a bunch of arbitrary rules to control the English language.

Or at least that is how is has seemed to those of us who do not show the utmost expertise in sentence structure.

There is a method to the madness, I promise. It just takes a bit of practice and our use of grammar will improve. As with any skill, practice makes perfect.

So, let's get down to business.

Why Grammar?

First, we need to have the understanding that the goal here is to discuss Standard American English. This is the English that is used in the United States. This is to be sure we are all on the same page.

It all started back in the late 15th century. English was originally only a spoken language. French and Latin were mainly used when formally communicating in writing. Since it was oral only, it was not important to have an established written standard. However, when the printing press was introduced it became possible to communicate to a great number of people making a need to have a written language that could be read and understood by the people. Even though English became the standard, there was not a standard to how it was represented while written down. These inconsistencies in between authors and printers made things confusing.

In the 18th century there is the emergence of the Age of Reason where an influential group of writers set out to make rules for the English language. They were highly influenced by classical Greek and Latin, they aimed to make the English less chaotic. Frustrated by how meanings of words changed and new words regularly came into existence they sought to make English permanent, unmoving and logical.

These writers did well to begin the process of standardizing grammar, but they lacked the understanding that language is an ever-changing concept. New words are created and meanings shift. Those who understood this began to focus on collecting the information of words and produced the dictionary in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Grammar, though, does have some rules we attempt to follow to make English understandable, readable and writable. That is why we study it. It is gain understanding that can help in communicating to others in writing and when speaking and to be clear in the information that is being delivered.

The goal of this blog is to find a way to make grammar understandable and maybe even a little enjoyable.

So let's go on this journey together, and maybe by the end you can wear a shirt like this with confidence!

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