- •1. Kinds of nouns
- •2. Gender
- •3. Plurals
- •4. Uncountable nouns
- •5. Possessive case
- •Adjectives
- •1. Kinds of adjectives
- •2. Participles used as adjectives
- •3. Position of adjectives: attributive and predicative use
- •9. Comparison of adjectives
- •Adverbs
- •1. Kinds of adverbs
- •2. Form and use
- •3. Some words are both adjectives and adverbs:
- •4. Comparative and superlative adverb forms
- •5. Constructions with comparisons.
- •6. Position of adverbs
- •3. Uses of the Present Continuous Tense
- •4. Verbs not normally used in the Continuous Tenses
- •5. See, feel, look, smell and taste used in the continuous
- •6. The Continuous and Non-Continuous Uses of Certain Verbs
- •The simple present tense
- •1. Form
- •2. Spelling Notes
- •3. Uses of the Simple Present Tense
- •4. Other Uses of the Simple Present Tense
- •The past and perfect tenses the simple past tense
- •1. Form
- •2. Spelling Notes
- •3. Uses of the Past Simple Tense
- •4. Used to Indicating Past Habit
- •The past continuous tense
- •1. Form
- •2. Main Uses of the Past Continuous Tense
- •3. Other Uses of the Past Continuous Tense
- •The present perfect tense (simple and continuous)
- •1. Form
- •2. The Present Perfect Used for Past Actions Whose Time is not Definite
- •3. The Present Perfect Used for Actions Occurring in an Incomplete Period
- •4. The Present Perfect (Simple and Continuous) Used for Actions and Situations Continuing up to the Present
- •5. Special Structures in the Present Perfect
- •The past perfect tense (simple, continuous)
- •1. Form
- •3. Past and Past Perfect Tenses in Time Clauses.
- •4. Past Perfect Tense in Main Clause
- •The future
- •1. Future Forms
- •2. The simple present used for the future
- •4. The Present Continuous as a Future Form
- •5. The be going to form
- •6. The Future Simple
- •7. The Future Continuous
- •8. The Future Perfect
- •9. The Future Perfect Continuous
- •The passive voice
- •1. Form
- •2. Various Structures Expressed in the Passive
- •3. Active Tenses and Their Passive Equivalents
- •4. Get in the Passive
- •5. Questions in the passive
- •6. Uses of the Passive: Active or Passive
- •7. The Passive is Used:
- •8. Passive Sentences with or without by:
- •9. Passive with the Verbs Having Two Objects
- •10. Special Passive Patterns
- •11. Verbs Which Cannot be Used in the Passive
- •1. Modal Auxiliary Verbs: General
- •2. Modal Auxiliary Verbs With Perfect Infinitives
- •3. Can, could and be able for ability
- •4. May and Can for Permission
- •5. May and Can for Possibility
- •6. Could as an Alternative to May/Might
- •7. Can in Interrogative and Negative Sentences
- •8. Can Used to Express ‘Theoretical Possibility’
- •9. Set Phrases with Can, May, Might
- •10. Must and Have for Deduction and Assumption
- •11. Must and have to: forms
- •12. Difference between have to and have got to Forms
- •13. Difference between must and have to in the Affirmative
- •14. Need not and must not in the Present and Future
- •15. Must, have to and need in the Interrogative
- •17. Needn’t have done Compared with didn’t have/need to do
- •18. Ought and Should for Obligation
- •The infinitive
- •1. Forms
- •2. Infinitive without to
- •3. The Infinitive Represented by its to
- •4. Split Infinitives
- •5. The Infinitive Used as a Connective Link
- •6. Functions of the infinitive
- •7. The Infinitive as Subject of a Sentence
- •8. The Infinitive as Complement of a Verb
- •9. The Infinitive as Object of a Verb
- •10. The Infinitive as Object of an Adjective
- •11. The Infinitive after Interrogative Conjunction
- •12. The Infinitive as Adverbial Modifier
- •A. TheInfinitive as Adverbial Modifier of Purpose
- •B. The Infinitive asAdverbial Modifier of Result
- •13. The Infinitive as Attribute
- •14. Active and Passive Infinitive with Similar Meaning
- •15. Objective-with-the-Infinitive Construction
- •16. Nominative-with-the-Infinitive Construction
- •19. The Infinitive as Parenthesis
- •The gerund
- •1. Form and Use
- •2. Functions of the Gerund
- •3. Verbs Followed by the Gerund
- •Note that:
- •5. Gerunds after Prepositions
- •6. The Verb mind
- •7. Gerunds with Passive Meaning
- •8. The Gerund: Special Cases
- •Infinitive and gerund constructions
- •1. Verbs and Adjectives Which May Take either Infinitive or Gerund
- •M. Accustomed, afraid, ashamed, certain, interested, sorry, sure, used
- •The participles
- •1. The Present (or Active) Participle
- •2. Present Participle after verbs of sensation
- •I saw him enter the room, unlock a drawer, take out a document, photograph it and put it back.
- •4. Go, come, spend, waste, be busy
- •5. A present participle phrase replacing a main clause
- •6. A present participle phrase replacing a subordinate clause
- •7. The perfect participle (active)
- •8. The past participle (passive) and the perfect participle (passive)
- •9. Participles used as adjectives before and after nouns
- •10. Misrelated participles
- •Reported speech
- •1. Main points
- •2. Statements in reported speech 1. If you want to report a statement, you use a ‘that’-clause after certain verbs. The most useful are:
- •Tense changes
- •Indirect speech is usually introduced by a verb in the past tense. Verbs in the reported clause have to be changed into a corresponding ‘more past’ tense.
- •1. Past Simple and Past Continuous in time clauses do not normally change. The verb in the main clause can either remain unchanged or become the past perfect:
- •5. Time and place expressions in reported speech
- •6. Modals in reported speech
- •7. Reported questions
- •8. Questions beginning Shall I/we…? Such questions can be of different types:
- •9. Reported orders/requests/advice/suggestions, etc.
- •14. Let’s, let him/them in indirect speech 1. Let’s usually expresses a suggestion and is reported by suggest in reported speech:
- •15. Exclamations and yes/no
- •16. Reported speech: mixed types
- •Contents
4. Uncountable nouns
A.1. Names of substances considered generally:
bread coffee dust glass ice oil paper soap water wood etc.
2. Abstract nouns:
advice experience horror pity
beauty fear information relief
courage help knowledge suspicion
death hope mercy work
3. Also considered uncountable in English:
accommodation furniture scenery shopping
baggage luggage traffic weather
behaviour permission travel
camping parking work
B. Uncountable nouns are always singular and are not used with a/an. These nouns are often preceded by some, any, no, a little etc. or by nouns such as bit, piece, slice etc. + of:
a bit of news a grain of sand
a bar(cake) of soap a piece of advice
a drop of oil a sheet of paper
C. Many of these nouns can be used either countable or uncountable but with some difference in meaning:
paper I bought a paper (=a newspaper).
I bought some paper to write on.
hair There’s a hair in my soup! (=one single hair)
She has beautiful hair.
experience We had many interesting experiences during our holiday. (=things that happened to us)
You need experience for this job. (=knowledge of
something because you have done it before)
D. Remember these things:
travel only has a general meaning (‘the activity of travelling in general’); a particular movement from one place to another is called a journey or a trip:
I like travel. but How was your journey?
Note these pairs of countable and uncountable nouns:
I’m looking for a job. I’m looking for work.
What a lovely view! What lovely scenery!
5. Possessive case
A. Form
1.’s is used with singular nouns and irregular plural nouns (i.e. not ending in s):
a man’s job men’s job
a woman’s intuition women’s intuition
a child’s room children’s room
the butcher’s (shop), the people’s choice
2. An apostrophe (’) only is used with plural nouns ending in s:
a girls’ school the parents’ house the Smiths’ car
3. Classical names ending in s usually add only the apostrophe: Archimedes’ Law Sophocles’ plays
4. Other names ending in s can take ’s or the apostrophe alone:
Yeats’s (or Yeats’) poems
5. With compounds, the last word takes the ’s:
my sister-in-law’s parents
6. ’s may be added not only to a single word but to a whole group of words:
Henry the Eighth’s wives
Mr and Mrs Smith’s children
the Prime Minister of England’s residence
7. ’s can also be used after initials:
the MP’s speech the VIP’s escort
B.Use of the possessive case
The possessive case can be used in several different ways: to talk about possession, relationship, physical features and characteristics, non-physical qualities, and measurements.
It is chiefly used of people, animals and countries. But it can be also used:
1. Of ships and boats: the ship’s bell
2. In time expressions: a week’s holiday today’s paper
in two years’ time tomorrow’s weather
ten minutes’ break two hours’ delay
a ten-minute break, a two-hour delay are also possible, but with another punctuation: We have ten minutes’ break / a ten-minute break.
3. In expressions of money + worth:
$1’s worth of stamps ten pounds’ worth of ice-cream
4. With for + noun + sake: for heaven’s sake for goodness’ sake
5. In some set phrases:
a pin’s head journey’s end a needle’s point duty’s call
6. Sometimes certain nouns can be used in the possessive case without the second noun which usually denotes a building (a school, a church, a hospital, a house, a shop, an office, a surgery etc.):
You can buy it at the chemist’s. He went to the dentist’s.
Names of the owners of some businesses can be used in the same way:
Sotheby’s Claridge’s
But some very well-known shops call themselves without the apostrophe: Harrods.
7. Names of people can be used similarly to mean ‘....’s house’:
We’ll have a party at Bill’s.
8. Possessive case can be used as a pronoun, with no following noun (with the same kind of meaning as mine, yours, etc.):
‘Whose is that?’ - ‘Virginia’s’
Escalation is neither in Russia’s interests nor in the West’s.
9. Double possessive.
Note the special construction: of + possessive
He’s a friend of my father’s.(=one of my father’s friends)
He turned up wearing an old coat of Patrick’s.
In other cases it is safer to use of + noun construction.
C. of + noun is used for possession
1. When the possessor noun is followed by a phrase or clause:
I met the wife of the man who lent us the money.
(the underlined expression is too long to be followed be ’s)
2. With inanimate ‘possessors’, except those listed in A above:
the walls of the town the roof of the church
However, it is often possible to replace these expressions by the others:
the town walls the church roof
The first noun becomes an adjective and cannot be plural:
the roofs of the churches = the church roofs
Unfortunately these replacements are not always possible so it is recommended to use of when in doubt.