Search results
Results From The WOW.Com Content Network
The English pronouns form a relatively small category of words in Modern English whose primary semantic function is that of a pro-form for a noun phrase. [1] Traditional grammars consider them to be a distinct part of speech, while most modern grammars see them as a subcategory of noun, contrasting with common and proper nouns.
Personal pronouns in Early Modern English; Nominative Oblique Genitive Possessive; 1st person singular I me my/mine [# 1] mine plural we us our ours 2nd person singular informal thou thee thy/thine [# 1] thine plural informal ye you your yours formal you 3rd person singular he/she/it him/her/it his/her/his (it) [# 2] his/hers/his [# 2] plural ...
E-Prime (short for English-Prime or English Prime, [1] sometimes É or E′) denotes a restricted form of English in which authors avoid all forms of the verb to be.. E-Prime excludes forms such as be, being, been, present tense forms (am, is, are), past tense forms (was, were) along with their negative contractions (isn't, aren't, wasn't, weren't), and nonstandard contractions such as ain't ...
Some verbs are formed from nouns and adjectives by conversion, as with the verbs snare, nose, dry, and calm. The base form is used in the following ways: It serves as the bare infinitive, and is used in the to-infinitive (e.g. to write); for uses see § Non-finite forms below.
Although English pronouns can have subject and object forms (he/him, she/her), nouns show only a singular/plural and a possessive/non-possessive distinction (e.g. chair, chairs, chair's, chairs'); there is no manifest difference in the form of chair between "The chair is here." (subject) and "I own the chair."
A verb together with its dependents, excluding its subject, may be identified as a verb phrase (although this concept is not acknowledged in all theories of grammar [23]). A verb phrase headed by a finite verb may also be called a predicate. The dependents may be objects, complements, and modifiers (adverbs or adverbial phrases).
A pronoun substitutes a noun or a noun phrase, with or without a determiner: it, this. A prop-word: one, as in "the blue one" A pro-adjective substitutes an adjective or a phrase that functions as an adjective: so as in "It is less so than we had expected." A pro-adverb substitutes an adverb or a phrase that functions as an adverb: how or this way.
The pronouns are marked with object case morphology, but they function semantically as the subjects of the infinitival verbs to their right, i.e., they acquire their theta roles from the verb to their right. Many ECM-verbs allow the same meaning to be expressed with a full object clause (a finite clause), e.g.: Tom believes that he is innocent.