Tense and Time Time refers to when an event happens: past, present, or future. Tense, however, is a grammatical system used to express time and related meanings. English traditionally identifies two grammatical tenses in terms of verb form: present and past. Future time is usually expressed through constructions involving auxiliaries and other forms. Present Forms…

Non-Finite Verbs: Infinitives, Gerunds and Participles A finite verb is marked for tense and can normally function as the main verb of a clause: She works here. They worked yesterday. A non-finite verb does not itself carry the normal tense and agreement marking of a finite verb. The major non-finite forms are infinitives, gerunds, and…

Articles: A, An and The English has three articles: a an the There is also the zero article, meaning that no article is used. Articles help express whether a noun is being presented as general, specific, known, or identifiable. A and An A and an are indefinite articles. They normally occur with singular countable nouns…

Aspect and Mood Aspect describes how an action or situation is viewed in relation to its duration, completion, repetition, or progression. Mood expresses the speaker’s attitude toward the proposition, such as certainty, possibility, necessity, or hypotheticality. Aspect English commonly expresses four aspectual patterns. Simple aspect presents an event or state without emphasizing its internal progression:…

Understanding Verbs and Verb Types A verb is a word that expresses an action, event, process, condition, or state. Verbs are central to English sentences because they tell us what the subject does, experiences, or is. She writes every day. The children played outside. The situation changed quickly. He knows the answer. They are happy….

Determiners, Quantifiers, Demonstratives and Possessives A determiner is a word or expression that helps identify, limit, quantify, or specify a noun. Determiners normally occur before nouns: the book my car this house some information three students They help answer questions such as: Which one? Whose? How many? How much? Is it specific or general? Major…

Articles: A, An and The English has three articles: a an the There is also the zero article, meaning that no article is used. Articles help express whether a noun is being presented as general, specific, known, or identifiable. A and An A and an are indefinite articles. They normally occur with singular countable nouns…

Pronouns and Their Uses A pronoun is a word that can stand for, refer to, or substitute for a noun phrase. Instead of saying: Ahmed went to Ahmed’s office because Ahmed had forgotten Ahmed’s keys. we can say: Ahmed went to his office because he had forgotten his keys. Pronouns make communication more efficient, but…

Countable, Uncountable and Collective Nouns One of the most important distinctions in English grammar is between countable and uncountable nouns. Countable Nouns A countable noun refers to something that can be counted as individual units. one book, two books one student, five students one apple, ten apples Countable nouns can normally have: singular and plural…

Nouns: Types, Number, Gender and Case A noun is a word used to name a person, place, thing, animal, idea, quality, activity, or state. Nouns are among the most important elements of English because they commonly function as the subject, object, complement, or object of a preposition in a sentence. For example: The teacher explained…