- •Class nouns
- •Names of persons
- •Geographical names
- •Miscellaneous proper names
- •Set expressions
- •Some syntactic relations
- •Parts of the day
- •Names of seasons and names of meals
- •"School, college, bed, prison, jail; sea; town, wind, weather, life"
- •Names of diseases and names of languages
- •Certain adjectives, pronouns and numerals
- •The oblique moods subjunctive I
- •Subjunctive II
- •The conditional mood
- •In complex sentences. Real conditions.
- •The suppositional mood
- •The verbals the triple nature of the participle, its tense and voice
- •The functions of p1 & p2
- •The objective participial construction
- •The subjective participial construction
- •The nominative absolute participial construction, the prepositional absolute participial construction
- •The absolute constructions without a participle
- •Double nature of the gerund, its tense and voice
- •Predicative constructions with the gerund
- •The use of the gerund
- •The functions of the gerund
- •The gerund & the participle. The gerund & the infinitive. The gerund & the verbal noun
- •The double nature of the infinitive, its tense, aspect and voice
- •The functions of the infinitive
- •The objective-with-the-infinitive construction
- •The subjective infinitive construction.
- •Syntax the word order
- •Position of the object, the attribute, the adverbial modifiers
- •The subject
- •"It" as the subject of the sentence
- •The predicate
- •The compound verbal predicate. Mixed types
- •Agreement of the predicate with the subject
- •The object
- •The complex object. The cognate object
- •The attribute
- •The adverbial modifier
- •Detached parts of the sentence. The independent elements
- •The simple sentence
- •The compound sentence
- •The complex sentence
- •Attributive and adverbial clauses
- •The rules of the sequence of tenses
- •Indirect speech (statements, questions)
- •Indirect orders and requests, offers, suggestions and advice, indirect exclamations
Class nouns
The Indefinite Article. 1) When the object expressed by a noun belongs to a certain class (She has a cat). 2) With a predicative noun, when the speaker denotes that the object belongs to a certain class (She will be a doctor). After the conjunction "as" the predicative noun is often used without any article (She was engaged as secretary). 3) When the noun is used in a general sense (implying the meaning of "every") (An artist lives hundreds of lives). 4) When the indefinite article preserves its original meaning of "one" (I couldn't say a word). In the plural forms the pronoun "some" is used instead of the article (I've bought her some flowers; They invited some friends…).
The Definite Article. 1) When the speaker singles out the object from all the other objects of a given class: the speaker and the hearer know what is meant (How did you like the movie?); the speaker uses an attribute pointing out a particular object (The house which stands down the hill); the situation itself makes the object definite (The wedding was marvelous – the bride and the bridegroom were truly happy). 2) The noun denotes a unique object (The moon is staring through the trees). 3) The noun is used in a generic sense (The telephone was invented by Bell).
NOUNS OF MATERIAL AND ABSTRACT NOUNS
No article is used with nouns of material in general sense (Gold is used for many purposes). The Definite Article is used when a definite part of the substance is meant (it's modified by a particularizing attribute or it's clear from the situation) (The dog ate the meat with pleasure)."Some" is used when an indefinite part of the substance is meant (He cut some bread and put it on the table).
No article is used with abstract nouns used in general sense (Hope is something that helps us to get through). The Definite Article is used with an abstract noun when it's modified by a particularizing attribute or it's clear from the situation (The courage he's been feeling for quite a time helped him today). The Indefinite Article is used when the abstract noun denotes a certain kind of quality, feeling, state, etc. (You possess a wit of your own) and with the nouns "period, population, distance, height, salary, etc." followed by "of + numeral + noun" (The fireball was hanging at the height of ten meters).
Names of persons
No article is used with names of persons (David Coverdale is the founder of Whitesnake). Nouns denoting military ranks and titles followed by names of persons (Lord Henry). Nouns expressing relationship followed by names of persons (Uncle Tom was a great storyteller), and nouns expressing relationship (plus "nurse, cook, baby") not followed by a name, but used by a member of the family (When does father come home, mum?), but if other people's relation is meant then the definite article is used (The son resembles the father in many ways).
The Definite article is used with names denoting the whole family (The Smiths are quite odd people). Names modified by a particularizing attribute (It wasn't the Julia I knew two years before). Common nouns denoting professions followed by names of persons (The singer Halford is known all over the world). When the name is modified by adjectives and participles (The surprised John remained standing there), excluding the adjectives "old, young, poor, dear, little, honest, lazy" (Little Mary had a big house), and "certain" (I hear that a certain Mr.Palmer has bought your house).
The Indefinite article is used when names of persons denote a member of a family (He's an Osbourne) or when used as common noun (He's a Casanova; He's the Raphael of music).