Essential grammar terminology

If you do not understand grammar terminology, you may have a tough time learning grammar. This is particularly true in the case of intermediate and advanced level students because instructors usually expect them to understand these terms and do not bother to explain them.

In order to help with this problem, we will provide an overview of the most common grammar terms in this lesson.

Determiner

Determiners are of very many kinds. The most common types of determiners are articles, possessives and demonstratives.

Here is an overview

Articles: a, an and the

Possessives: my, his, your, their, our, her

Demonstratives: this, these, that and those

Quantifiers are also determiners. Examples of common quantifiers are: much, many, all, both, half, any, some, more, less, few etc.

Determiners serve the same purpose as adjectives. They go before nouns and modify their meaning.

Some children

Few worries

More students

Both hands

Less butter

I eat less meat and more vegetables now.

There were few students in the class.

Whose is this bag?

Connective adverb

Connective adverbs are words like firstly, secondly, furthermore, in addition, therefore etc. Note that these words are also called conjunctive adverbs and transitional adverbs.

Connective adverbs do not connect two clauses. They merely go at the beginning of a sentence and establish a connection with the previous sentence. In writing, connective adverbs are separated with a comma.

• She was tired. Therefore, she took a break.
• We are desperately short of food. Furthermore, we need medicines and shelter.