Simple grammar cheat sheet

Grammar

• the rules of language
  • especially for written language

Punctuation

• printed marks that indicate breaks, pauses, or other meanings in a sentence
• includes, period, comma, colon, semicolon, apostrophe, parentheses, etc.

Syntax

• word order and arrangements
• and rules for how word order and arrangements create meaning

Semantics

• meaning as created by grammatical rules and syntactical (syntax) arrangments of sentences

Parts of Speech

• categories for the role of a word in a sentence
• such as adjective, adverb, noun, verb, etc.
• many words can operate across or as different parts of speech
  • ex., an "attributive noun" acts as an adjective that modifies another noun ("dog food")

PARTS OF SPEECH

Part of Speech	Definition	Category	Other
Adjective	modifies nouns	modifier
Adverb	modifies verbs and adjectives	modifier
Article	identifies a known or unknown noun ("the" or "a"/"an")	modifier
Conjunction	joins or contrasts words and sentence parts	grammatical
Determiner	identifies specificity (these), quantity (five), amount (some), possession (our), sufficiency (enough) or a noun	modifier
Interjection	an exclamation or abrupt remark (What?, Yes!)	grammatical
Noun	a person, place or thing	grammatical
Preposition	identifies a relationship between a noun or a verb and another noun ("on the table", "to the store")	modifier
Pronoun	references a noun or a person (I, you, he/she/it, we, they, etc.)	grammatical
Verb	indicates action or existence	grammatical

Modifier

• a word or set of words that "modify" or change, add to, qualify, or describe another word or another part of a sentence
• some parts of speech are modifiers:
  • adjective, adverb, article, determiner, preposition
• phrases and clauses can also act as modifiers
  • "relative" or "adjective" clause modifies another word or sentence part
    • ex. "The pizza was so cheezie, which made a mess"
  • adverbial, participial, prepositional and other phrases modify another word or sentence part
    • "Given extra time, he was able to finish"
    • "I take biology on Tuesdays"

Sentence Parts

Subject

• a noun
• the actor
• i.e., the person place or thing that does the action
• in grammar, "subject" is in the sense of "to subject" or "to force into submission"
  • as in the "doer" of the sentence, the actor that causes the action
• also related to the word "subjective," which means "from the perspective of"

Verb

• word that expresses an action ("make") or existence ("be")
• infinitive = "to" + the verb , as in "to make"
  • infinitives express the action in general but not the action itself
  • infinitives can operate as nouns or adjectives
    • as in "I want to go" ("to go" = the object of the verb "want")

Predicate

• expresses what happens to the subject
• i.e., = the verb + the result or outcome of an action

Object

• the recipient of the action
  • i.e.,
• direct object
• indirect object

Sentence

• a grammatically complete thought
  • contains a subject & verb/predicate

Clause

• part of a sentence
• has a subject & verb

Independent clause

Phrase

• two or more words that
  • do not contain a subject & verb
  • form a distinct grammatical unit ("constituent")