Clear Answers for Common Questions

Grammar is a field of linguistics that involves all the various things that make up the rules of language. Subfields of linguistics that are considered a part of this field include syntax, phonetics, morphology, and semantics. Grammar is also used as a term to refer to the prescriptive rules of ...

Structural grammar is a means of analyzing written and spoken language. It is concerned with how elements of a sentence such as morphemes, phonemes, phrases, clauses and parts of speech are put together. Under this form of linguistic analysis, it is how these elements work together that is most important ...

Transformational grammar is an approach to the use of grammar in communications that involves a logical and analytical process to fully grasp the meaning behind the words selected. From this perspective, it goes beyond the process of structural grammar, which tends to focus on the proper construction of sentences as ...

In linguistics, the theory of universal grammar holds that there are certain basic structural rules that govern language that all humans know without having to learn them. This is one way to explain how humans acquire language — if the brain is already primed to understand certain sentence structures, it ...

A modal verb or auxiliary verb is a verb, which modifies another verb, so that the modified verb has more intention in its expression. In essence the modal verb expresses modality, the way in which something is being said. Modal verbs are common in most languages of Germanic origin, including ...

Have you felt sad, been elated, or been a good friend lately? If so, a sentence describing you would refer to your state of being, or directly connect you to the thing you were. Such a sentence includes what is called a copular verb or linking verb. When the subject ...

The use of first, second, and third person creates the perspective or "point of view" of a piece of writing. Writing in first person uses the personal pronouns "I," "we," "me," and "us," and the possessive forms "my," "mine," "our," and "ours;" while second person uses "you," and the possessives ...

Writers and speakers primarily use verbs to indicate a type of action, such as "to fly," or to indicate a general state of existence like "to live." A special type of verbs, known as a copula or linking verb, describes the subject of the sentence, commonly through the term "to ...

Writing a paper, blog, report or memo is only half the battle. Many people consider a document finished when they have reached the end of their thoughts. However, evidence to the contrary shows that most written documents could benefit from enhanced editing skills. In fact, editing is the other half ...

Most professional authors will agree that there is no single correct way improving writing skills, and that doing so is an individual process that is different for everyone. Even so, they consistently mention a few tips as being especially helpful, including looking at grammar and punctuation, paying attention to the ...

There is a subtle but important difference between the use of that and which in a sentence, and it has to do primarily with relevance. Grammarians often use the terms "restrictive" and "non-restrictive" when it comes to relative clauses. A relative clause provides additional information about the noun it ...

While it is never advisable to use the word "never" when it comes to English grammar rules, many grammarians still considered it unacceptable to start a sentence with and, but or because. In their opinion, doing so creates a sentence fragment, not a complete sentence. "And," "but" and "because" are ...

Punctuation rules may be troublesome to learn, but they certainly make your writing much easier to read. Generally, we add punctuation to signify certain things and the most vital of these is to indicate natural pauses in what we are reading. This is perhaps the most important thing about punctuation ...

In American English, there are several instances where you would use “an” instead of “a” to speak or write correctly. Both “an” and “a” are called indefinite articles because they don't tend to be as specific as other forms of articles like “the.” If you say, “I was talking ...

Like many niggling details in grammar, the difference between "good" and "well" is both simple and complex. Basically, "good" is an adjective, while "well" is an adverb, but the usage of these words gets much more complicated than this, thanks to a little detail known as linking verbs. If you ...

Generally referred to as the subjunctive mood or tense, the subjunctive refers to a form of verb that qualifies the existence of the subject as being somewhat dependent or doubtful. It is a grammatical phenomenon that occurs in many different languages. In terms of use, the subjunctive can be employed ...

Single and double quotation marks are two different forms of a common typographic mark, and knowing when to use them can be a bit tricky at first. Matters of style are always up for a great deal of debate, and the choice of single or double quotation marks is largely ...

A preposition is a word used to show the relationship of a noun to something else, usually a location in space or time. A preposition is one type of a larger grammatical category referred to as adpositions. Virtually all adpositions in English are prepositions — with a few exceptions that ...

Technically speaking, it is not always incorrect to end a sentence with a preposition, although, in most cases, sentences can be rewritten to avoid a preposition at the end. The only time you absolutely should not put a preposition at the end a sentence is when there is no direct ...

While not one of the traditional eight parts of speech in the English language, a gerund is a specific type of word applied to English grammar. The word stems from a verbal, or a verb form, but does not act as a verb in a sentence. There are three types ...

The difference between "then" and "than" is fairly simple, but many people, including experienced English speakers, have difficulty with these two words. In fact, the two words are totally different parts of speech, used in entirely different ways; the confusion is probably linked to the fact that they sound very ...

Grammatical gender is a system in the grammar of some languages in which nouns are classified as belonging to a certain gender — often masculine, feminine, or neuter — and other parts of speech connected to the noun, such as adjectives or articles, must agree. For example, in English, nouns ...

The greengrocers' apostrophe occurs whenever a writer attempts to pluralize a word by using an apostrophe plus "s" instead of the proper plural ending. A handmade sign in a local grocery store might advertise "Apple's Two Dollars a Pound" or "Orange's $3.99 a Bag", for example. The ...

English speakers live in a subject-object universe, which is an important thing to remember when dealing with pronouns such as "who" and "whom." In order to use these two words properly in a sentence, speakers need to know the difference between a subject and a direct object. "Who" usually ...

The difference between bring and take, two important verbs, is often confused. The main point is that you should look at these verbs in reference to your or another speaker’s location. When the speaker wants something to come to him, he may ask another person to “bring” that item ...

A contraction is a written form in which a number of words are combined into a new word. Usually, they form when two words are used in conjunction with high frequency, although some languages, such as French, make use of them to keep the spoken sound of a sentence flowing ...

Style guidelines are precise directions for how language should be used and are an important tool for writers. Famous examples include the Chicago Manual of Style and the Associated Press Stylebook, but individual companies, institutions, and organizations also have their own guidelines. Style guidelines are extremely important because they lay ...

A copula is a special type of verb in English, though in other languages other parts of speech may serve in this role. The verb acts as a connector between the subject of the sentence and some sort of modifier. Because of this role, in English, it is often also ...

A dictionary is a reference book that focuses on defining words and phrases, including multiple meanings. The most frequently used type is a language dictionary that includes the majority of frequently used words in a language. These books are made for different types of users: scholars, office workers, schools, and ...

Dumb quotes are punctuation marks that look the same whether they are opening or closing a quotation. They are straight quotation marks that resembled teardrops. Smart quotes that open a quotation or title appear as solid “66s", while closing ones look like “99s". When the typewriter was still prevalent, straight ...

A run-on sentence joins at least two independent clauses without a conjunction or adequate punctuation. An independent clause has a subject and a verb, and could essentially be a sentence by itself. For example one might write, “I like ice cream it tastes really good.” There are essentially two ...

An adverb is a modifying part of speech, targeting anything other than a noun. Not all languages use adverbs to accomplish this, as the role may be filled by other parts of speech, but English uses them widely. In English, many of these words end with the -ly suffix, usually ...

A gender neutral pronoun is a pronoun which does not associate a gender with the person or creature being discussed. Some languages, such as English, have no truly neutral third person pronoun available, and women especially have criticized this, as many writers use “he” when referring to a generic individual ...

The homonym can be viewed as a subset of homographs. The homonym can also be considered a subset of homophones. While homograph means words that are spelled the same, and homophone means words that sound the same, homonym means words that have both the same sound and spelling, but are ...

Hyphens are a notoriously tricky punctuation mark. English is a fairly inconsistent language and the student is not helped by the constant trend of evolution of the rules. To ensure absolute correctness when using hyphens, keep a good dictionary nearby, for knowing when to hyphenate compound words is not a ...

Syntax looks at the rules of a language, particularly how the various parts of sentences go together. While similar to morphology, which looks at how the smallest meaningful linguistic units, called morphemes, are formed into complete words, syntax examines how fully formed words fit together to create complete and understandable ...

A comma splice is a frequently committed type of grammatical error. Whenever two independent clauses are joined together with a comma, the result is a splice. In most instances, this is considered incorrect. You cannot fix a comma splice simply by removing a comma; removing the comma will merely turn ...

The homonyms there, their, and they're are frequently confused in English writing. Although readers will be able to understand the intention most of the time, learning how to use them correctly can prevent confusion. The words actually have entirely different meanings, since one can be used in multiple ways ...

Pidgin is a very basic language that is used to communicate between cultures. It is never the first language of a speaker, and it usually involves a blend of words and concepts from at least two, and sometimes more, cultures. Pidgin is characterized by being simple and easy to understand ...

As a simple definition, a noun is any word that names a person, place, or thing. This definition is somewhat vague, and many people also include that nouns can signify an event or idea. A noun is one of the major parts of speech, along with verbs, adjectives, adverbs, prepositions ...

Homophones, or words that sound the same but have different meanings and spellings, are some of the more difficult words for English language learners. They can also cause native English speakers to stumble, producing such writing atrocities as "righting a letter," or inquiring after a friend's "sun and daughter ...

The difference between a possessive pronoun and a possessive adjective is best understood when the definitions of each are clear. A pronoun is a term used in place of a noun: she, you, they, we, and it. An adjective is used to modify or describe a noun: Ugly dog, beautiful ...

An adjective is a word which acts to modify a noun in a sentence. While adjectives play a large role in many languages -- such as English -- many other languages have no adjectives at all. In English the set of adjectives is fairly well understood, though some people include other parts ...

Most people should be familiar with the concept of a proper noun, referring to the specific name of a person, place or thing. A proper noun would always be capitalized: Shakespeare, Los Angeles, Honda, etc. In this same manner, a proper noun can be converted into a proper adjective in ...

The difference between "everyday" and "every day" is quite simple, and there is an easy rule of thumb that people can use to determine which phrase would be suitable. In short, "everyday" is an adjective that describes something ordinary or commonplace, while the phrase "every day" means "each day." Confusing ...

The most commonly used letter in the English language is the letter “e”. This is the case in the general language, in fiction and non-fiction writings, journalism, religious works like the Bible, and even in Morse code. The most common consonant in English is “t.” With “e” being so ...

A noun can be a person, place, thing, entity or idea, but a proper noun is even more specific. It gives the actual name of the person, place, or thing. There are usually certain words that you’ll always be able to identify as a proper noun, including countries and ...

The differences between i.e. and e.g. are more significant than many think, and misuse of the two abbreviations is common. Both are abbreviations for Latin terms. The first, i.e., is short for id est, which transliterates as "that is" or "in other words." The second, e.g ...

Sic is a Latin word which means "so" or "thus." It is often used in print to indicate that something has been reproduced accurately, especially in transcripts. When used in print, this word is usually placed in brackets, like this: [sic]. The use of brackets indicates that the word is ...

Leetspeak or leet is a substitution cipher created by computer users by replacing Latin letters with various codes that are meant to imply the same thing. The term is derived from the word “elite,” and leetspeak was originally used by computer hackers. The concept has entered the mainstream, and is ...