Grammar

Types of Pronoun with Definitions and Examples

4th January 2020 By Edify English Leave a Comment

Types of Pronoun with Examples

The pronoun is a word that is used in place of a noun while writing a sentence. To avoid repetition of the same noun many times in a sentence, the pronoun is used. Now let us know the various types of pronouns with examples.

Types of Pronoun

There are many types of pronouns such as the following:

Personal Pronouns
possessive Pronouns
Reflexive Pronouns
Demonstrative pronouns
Relative Pronouns
Interrogative pronouns
Reciprocal pronouns
Universal Pronouns
Distributive Pronouns
Indefinite pronouns

Types of Pronouns in detail:

Personal Pronouns

There are three persons in English grammar. Personal pronouns are the pronouns that speak about the three persons. They are:

First person- that is the person who is speaking. The pronouns used are I, WE.

Second Person- that is the person spoken to. The pronoun used is YOU.

Third person- they are persons other than the two. The pronouns used are HE, SHE, IT, THEY.

Forms of Personal Pronouns

The various forms of all the personal pronouns in the nominative, accusative, and possessive cases are described in the following table:

Case/ Person	Nominative	Accusative	Possessive
First Person	I We	Me Us	My, Mine Our, ours
Second Person	You	You	Your, Yours
Third Person	He She It They	Him Her It Them	His Her, Hers Its Their, Theirs

Reflexive Pronouns

When a pronoun consists of a reflection of the self, it is a reflexive pronoun. For example,

He hurt himself.

She herself turned up to the event.

Note: We can only use the reflexive pronoun as a reflection of the subject, but not instead of the subject.

I wanted to join the party. (Myself should not be used instead of I).

Demonstrative Pronouns

These pronouns demonstrate and point out to the objects that are spoken in the sentence. For example,

This, these, that, those, such, etc.

This is the pen you are searching for.

New York’s roads are better than those of any other city.

It is true that the USA is the richest country in the world.

Indefinite Pronouns

When the pronoun describes a general phenomenon and no one specific in a sentence, that is an indefinite pronoun. For example,

One, all, some, no one, nobody, somebody, any, other, many, anyone, everyone, someone etc.

One should be careful about one’s behavior in the class.

Distributive Pronouns

Distributive pronouns describe one thing at a time in a sentence. It is important to note that the distributive pronoun is always singular. Each, either, neither are some examples of distributive pronouns.

Neither of the two was present in the class. (Were should not be used)

Either this or that option fits the schedule. (The plural ‘fit’ should not be used)

Relative pronouns

A relative pronoun is a word that is related to the noun mentioned before in the sentence. The relative pronoun also works as a conjunction in the sentence, thus acting as a link between various sentences.

He works in that room which is also like his bedroom.

The man whose bike was stolen came to the police station today.

It is the best movie that I ever watched.

I have a friend whom I treat as my teacher.

Interrogative Pronouns

Interrogative pronouns are used for asking questions in the sentences. Examples of such pronouns are what, who, which, when, where, why, etc.

These are the various types of pronoun. We provided more chapters and more exercises and rules about pronouns and their usage which will improve your understanding of pronouns.

Click here for more information on pronouns.

Types of Adjectives – Introduction to Adjectives

16th December 2019 By Edify English Leave a Comment

What is an Adjective?

An adjective is a word which describes the quality of the noun/ pronoun in the sentence. The adjective may be used either attributively, i.e., along with the noun or predicatively, as part of the predicate of the sentence. In this article lets see various types of adjectives.

Attributive Adjective: There are dark clouds.
Predicative Adjective: The clouds are dark.

Types of Adjectives

Adjective of Quality

This adjective describes the quality of the noun in the sentence.

Example:

She has beautiful eyes.
The food is delicious.

Adjective of Quantity

This adjective shows the quantity of the thing mentioned in the sentence.

Example:

I bought some apples.
There is not much sense in what he said.

Adjective of Number

It shows the number of the noun/pronoun that is mentioned.

Example:

There are sixteen pens in the bag.
He is the first person to achieve that record.

Demonstrative Adjective

This type of adjective points out which person or thing is meant in the sentence.

Example:

This chair is made of iron.
That type of behavior is not allowed.
What do you want?

Adjectives used as Nouns

Some adjectives are used as plural nouns. They denote a class or section of people.

Example:

“The Poor” means the section of poor people.
“The employed” means employed people.

Adjective Phrases

In some sentences, there will be a group of words which do the job of an adjective. That’s called an adjective phrase.

Example:

That’s an idea with a difference.
She wore a ring made of gold.

Now that we have discussed the types of adjectives, lets understand degrees of comparison in brief.

DEGREES OF COMPARISON

“Degrees of Comparison” is the most important topic related to adjectives. While comparing the attributes of nouns or pronouns, the degrees of adjectives change accordingly. There are three types of degrees of comparison.

Positive Degree

This is an adjective in its simple form. When describing the Quality of a noun without comparing anyone, positive degree is used.

Example:

This is a small town.

Comparative Degree

Comparative degree is used when two nouns or pronouns are compared. It indicates the higher degree of the quality than the positive degree.

Example:

This town is smaller than that town.

Superlative Degree

It indicates the highest degree of adjectives and is used when two or more things are in comparison.

Example:

This is the smallest town in the country.

[In the above three examples, the adjective “small” is used in varying degrees accordingly “Small- Smaller- Smallest”].

Rules for changing Degrees of Comparison

While changing positive to comparative, most of the adjectives add an ‘er’ to the positive degree and ‘est’ while changing into superlative.

Positive	Comparative	Superlative
Fast	Faster	Fastest
Dirty	Dirtier	Dirtiest
Clean	Cleaner	Cleanest
Small	Smaller	Smallest
Big	Bigger	Biggest
Nice	Nice	Nicest
Fine	Finer	Finer
Costly	Costlier	Costliest
Tiny	Tinier	Tiniest
Funny	Funnier	Funniest
Tiny	Tinier	Tiniest
Large	Larger	Largest

Some adjectives use the adverbs more and most while changing into comparative and superlative degrees respectively.

Positive	Comparative	Superlative
Difficult	More Difficult	Most Difficult
Intelligent	More Intelligent	Most Intelligent
Important	More Important	Most Important

Some adjectives do not go by the above rules and use different words for comparative and superlative degrees. Here are some of them:

Positive	Comparative	Superlative
Good	Better	Best
Bad	Worse	Worst
Little	Less	Least
Much	More	Most
Late	Later	Latest, Last
In	Inner	Innermost
Up	Upper	Uppermost

While comparing the two adjectives of the same person, ‘er’ should not be used in comparative degree.

Example:

Mohan is ‘more wise’ than strong. [In normal circumstances, the word WISER is used in comparative degree But here in this sentence, both the adjectives are of the same person (Mohan). Hence ‘more wise’ should be used.]

While converting some adjectives from positive degree to comparative, some adjectives should be accompanied by the preposition ‘to’ instead of ‘than’.

They are: Inferior, Superior, Prior, Anterior, Posterior, junior, senior.

Example:

India’s performance is superior to Australia’s.
He is junior to me.

Double comparatives and superlatives should never be used.

For example, “Apples are more sweeter than mangoes” should never be used. The comparative degree of sweet is sweeter. Hence “Apples are sweeter than mangoes” is correct.

More varieties and rules are learnt while solving practice exercises.

For more on grammar click here

Like us on Facebook

Difference between Common Noun and Proper Noun

23rd October 2019 By Edify English Leave a Comment

The Noun is simply a naming word. It is classified into four kinds. Common, Proper, Collective, and Abstract Nouns. Among these common and proper nouns have a close relation. In this article, let’s understand the basic difference between a common noun and a proper noun.

Difference between Common noun and Proper noun

A common noun is a name given in common to many proper nouns of a similar class or kind. Thus the name of the common quality of many proper nouns is a common noun. For example, Rama, Ravi, John, Krishna, James are the proper names of different people. But we can observe that common quality among them, i.e, they are Men / Boys. Hence the nouns Men or Boys is a Common Noun. Let us see some example sentences

Rama is a great king
New York is a beautiful city
Ravi is a good boy
Sita is a good girl
IFB is a good Air Conditioner

Observe the above sentences- you have proper and common nouns at the start and the end respectively. Thus the name given in common to a group of the same class or kind is ‘common’ and the name given in particular to one person or item of the group is ‘proper’. Some more examples of common and proper nouns are:

Bike (Common Noun) – Pulsar (Proper Noun)
Coffee Shop (Common Noun) – Star Bucks (Proper Noun)
Laptop (Common Noun) – Mac Book (Proper Noun)
company (Common Noun) – Google (Proper Noun)
Social network (Common Noun) – Facebook (Proper Noun)

Another important difference is that a proper noun generally has a capital letter at the beginning the latter need not necessarily start with a capital letter. We can write– man but not ashoka (the first letter must be capitalized) irrespective of the position of the word in the sentence. This is how we generally identify a proper noun.

For More on Nouns, click here

For more article on grammar, click here

Like us on Facebook

Active Voice and Passive Voice with Examples

9th May 2019 By Edify English Leave a Comment

Voice ( active voice and passive voice ) is one of the most important concepts in English grammar, and is fundamental for every English language learner in order to get a good grasp over the subject.

Active Voice and Passive Voice Rules

Before going into the rules of conversion from active to passive voice and vice versa, one needs to understand a few terms.

Subject: The doer of action in the sentence is the subject. Subject indicates what the sentence is about.

Object: Object is the word on which the action is performed by the subject. In active voice, the sentence starts with the subject and ends with the object. In passive voice, the sentence starts with the object and the subject comes towards the end of the sentence.

So, in a nutshell,

If the subject of a sentence does something, then the sentence is said to be in active voice.
If something is done to the subject in a sentence, it is said to be in passive voice.

‘BE’ forms of the verb: Recognition of the verb form is extremely important while converting a sentence from active voice to passive voice. It can be determined through these 8 be- forms of the verb tenses.

If the Active voice sentence is in	The ‘be’ form in the passive
Present Tense	am, is are
Past Tense	was, were
Future Tense	be
Continuous tense (Present/Past/Future)	being
Perfect tense	Been

Rules for changing a sentence from active voice to passive voice:

The positions of the subject and the object of the sentence are interchanged.
In passive voice, always the third form of the verb (past participle) should be used along with it’s ‘be’ form.
In passive voice, the subject is preceded by the preposition ‘by’.
According to the tense of the sentence, helping verbs (auxiliary verbs) are used in passive voice. There will be no change in tense from active voice to passive voice.

The following are the changes occurred in the pronouns while converting a sentence from active to passive voice:

Active voice	Passive Voice
I	Me
We	Us
You	You
He	Him
She	Her
It	It
They	Them

Using the above principles, let us convert a sentence from active voice to passive voice.

Active voice: He sings a song. (He- Subject, sing- verb, a song- Object)

Passive voice: A song is sung by him. (The be- form ‘is’ is used before the verb since the sentence is in simple present tense.)

Now, let us take a simple sentence and write passive voice for all the tenses of that sentence.

Eg. Harry eats an Apple.

Now let us write the 12 tenses for this sentence and convert them into passive voice.

Tense	Active Voice	Passive Voice.
Simple Present	Harry eats an apple.	An apple is eaten by Harry.
Present Continuous	Harry is eating an apple.	An apple is being eaten by Harry.
Present Perfect	Harry has eaten an apple.	An apple has been eaten by Harry.
Present perfect continuous	Harry has been eating an apple.	— No Passive Voice —
Simple Past	Harry ate an apple.	An apple was eaten by Harry.
Past continuous	Harry was eating an apple	An apple was being eaten by Harry.
Past Perfect	Harry had eaten an apple.	An apple had been eaten by Harry.
Past perfect Continuous.	Harry had been eating an apple.	— No Passive Voice—
Simple Future	Harry will eat an apple	An apple will be eaten by Harry.
Future Continuous	Harry will be eating an apple.	— No Passive Voice —
Future Perfect	Harry will have eaten an apple.	An apple will have been eaten by Harry.
Future Perfect Continuous	Harry will have been eating an apple.	— No Passive Voice —

Note: The following tenses cannot be changed in passive voice:

Present Perfect Continuous Tense
Past Perfect Continuous Tense
Future Continuous Tense
Future Perfect Continuous Tense.

Exercise: Convert the following sentences into passive voice:

I will deposit the money.
Mark has traveled the world.
I have seen him.
They cancelled the appointment.
Michael creates music.

Some other cases:

How to transform sentences with two objects?

If any given sentence in active voice contains two objects, take either of the two objects and convert into passive voice.

For example, “Rahul gave a book to Martin”.

In this sentence, there are two objects, i.e., Martin and a book. Hence this sentence can be converted into passive voice by taking either of those two objects into consideration. Hence, it leads to either of the two following outcomes:

A book was given to Martin by Rahul.
Martin was given a book by Rahul.

Exercise: convert the following sentences into passive voice:

He wrote her a letter. (Objects: Her, a letter).
Brielle will present me a gift. (Objects: (Me, a gift).
The company offered Justin a job. (Objects: A job, Justin.

Can there be a Passive voice without using “by”?

Yes. Sometimes we use passive voice to intentionally hide the subject. Also, there will be circumstances where the use of the subject is unnecessary. Sometimes the subject is unknown. While converting such sentences, the subject, and hence the preposition ‘by’ are not needed in the passive voice.

For example, the sentence “People speak English” can be written as “English is spoken” instead of “English is spoken by people”.

In the same way,

They stole a car can be written as A car was stolen.
The police arrested the thief can be written as the thief was arrested.

‘By’ is not accompanied with some verbs in passive voice.

The verbs know, married, engaged should be followed by

He knows her becomes she is known to him.
Michelle married Barack becomes Barack is married to Michelle.

The verbs satisfy, impress, fill should be followed by

His dance satisfied the audience becomes the audience was satisfied with his dance.
He impressed her becomes She was impressed with him.

The verbs surprised, wondered, amazed, astonished, puzzled should be followed by

Her presence surprised him becomes He was surprised at her presence.
How to transform imperative sentences into passive voice?

Let’s take a command as an example. “Open the Door.” In order to change this sentence into passive voice, the following structure should be used:

Let + Object + be + Verb 3 (V3)

Applying this structure into the example, the passive voice will be “Let the door be opened.”

Similarly, the following imperative sentences are converted into passive voice as follows:

Call the witness will be changed into let the witness be called.
Do your homework will be changed into let your homework be done.
Eat the food will be changed into let the food be eaten.

How to change the voice of Interrogative sentences?

Let us take an example of an interrogative sentence, “Is he driving the bus?”

First, change the sentence into a positive sentence, which makes it “he is driving the bus”.

Then, change into passive voice. It becomes “The bus is being driven by him”.

Finally, make this sentence into interrogative by placing the helping verb before the subject. It will be “Is the bus being driven by him?”

Similarly,

Is he selling his car? becomes Is his car being sold by him?
Do you watch Soccer? becomes Is Soccer watched by you?
Why does he love her? Becomes Why is she loved by him?
Have you watched that film? becomes Has that film been watched by you?
Who killed Osama becomes By whom was Osama killed?

Exercises

Can you solve this problem?
Have you found the address?
Who broke the window?
Who teaches English in your school?

The ‘shall’ in the ‘I’ and ‘We’ in active voice is changed into ‘will’ in passive voice.

For example,

Active Voice: I shall buy a car.

Passive voice: A car will be bought by me.

Active voice: We shall postpone the meeting.

Passive voice: The meeting will be postponed by us.

The various concepts of active voice and passive voice can be mastered by practicing lots and exercises.

Click here for exercises on Active and passive voice.

Learn other English Grammar Topics

Like us on Facebook

Present Tense – Kinds, Structure, Example Sentences

6th May 2019 By Edify English 2 Comments

Present tense is used in every sentence that expresses an action that is happening currently. The four tenses in present tense are as follows.

1. Simple Present Tense

Structure: Subject + Verb 1 (V1) + Object

It used to express:

A habitual action.
- I go for a walk everyday in the morning.
- Raju attends mathematics class every evening.
- He goes to his grandfather’s village every month.
- Federer plays Tennis on Sundays.
- I take my dinner at 8pm.
To express universal truths.
- The sun rises in the east.
- Two plus two equals
- Water boils at 100 degrees Celsius.
To describe a future incident that is planned, or certainly is going to happen.
- India plays the world cup cricket this year.
- The President attends the award ceremony this evening.
- That school reopens on the first of June.
If two actions of the future are being talked in a single sentence, one of the actions should be in simple present and the other in simple future tense.
- They shall go when the car arrives.
- Ravi shall eat once the food arrives.

Tip: Whenever the following words are present in the sentence, this particular tense should be used.

Usually	Frequently	Rarely	Seldom
Never	Often	Sometimes	Generally
Always	Everyday	Every week	Monthly
Yearly	Daily	Every month

Note: Some verbs should be expressed in simple present tense and never in present continuous tense. They are:

Love	Hate	Dislike	Like
Understand	Know	Believe	Forget
Agree	Disagree	Own	Belong
Possess	Hear	See	Smell
Taste	Feel	Have	Consist

2. Present Continuous Tense

Structure: Subject + is/am/are + Verb 1 + ing + Object

I – Am, We – Are, You – Are, He – Is, She – Is, It – Is, They – Are

It is used to denote an action that is currently happening.

I am currently working on a project.
The teacher is writing on the blackboard.
She is cooking
That man is mowing the lawn.
They are watching the picture.

Any action that is planned to happen in the near future is also written in this tense.

I am meeting my professor after this lecture.
I am cooking my dinner tonight.

3. Present Perfect Tense

Structure: Subject + has/ have + verb 3 (V3) + Object

It is used to describe the actions that are just completed.

I have just watched a movie.
The bus has just begun.
Ram has just finished his work.
They have just gone out.

Clue: If the sentences have “just, just now, already, so far, yet, recently, ever, lately” in them, this particular tense should be used.

4. Present Perfect Continuous Tense

This tense is used to express any action that has started in the past and is still continuing in the present

Structure: Subject + has/have + been + Verb 1 + ing + object

I have been walking on this path for 2 years.
We have been listening to music since 8 PM.
They have been waiting for their flight for an hour.
It has been crawling on the floor since 2PM.

This tense is mainly used to highlight the time period of the action that is happening.

For remaining Tenses Click here

Like us on Facebook

Examples of Proper Nouns Used in Sentences

14th January 2019 By Edify English 3 Comments

Noun is one of the eight parts of speech in English Language. It is simply defined as the Naming Word. A noun in a sentence is used to represent the names of Persons, place and thing. There are basically four kinds of Nouns. Proper Nouns, Common Nouns, Collective Nouns, Abstract Nouns. In this article lets see examples of proper nouns, common nouns, collective nouns and abstract nouns.

Examples of Proper Nouns used in Sentences

Examples of Proper Nouns:

Proper Nouns in a sentence are used to name a particular Person, Place or thing. The proper Noun in a sentence always starts with a Capital Word. In this article lets see the example sentences of proper nouns, common nouns, collective nouns and abstract nouns.

Click here to see the example sentences of all kinds of Nouns

Click here to learn more about Nouns

For other Grammar topics Click here

10 Examples of Noun Sentences of Various Kinds

13th January 2019 By Edify English 3 Comments

Hello everyone. Now that we have learnt Nouns topic, its time to analyse the topic using example sentences. If you haven’t learnt the basics of Nouns, this article is for you. In this article, lets discuss 10 examples of Noun Sentences in all categories of Nouns.

10 Examples of Noun Sentences :

There are four Kinds of Nouns basically. They are,

Proper Nouns
Common Nouns
Collective Nouns
Abstract Nouns

10 Examples of Proper Nouns

Asoka was a wise king.
Sita is a good girl.
London is on the bank of the river Thames
Kalidasa is the Shakespeare of India
Paris is the capital of France
China is the most populous country in the world
Bill Gates is the richest person in the world
Ronald Ross was awarded the Nobel Prize for his work on the transmission of malaria.
Rama Killed Ravana
Antarctica is the coolest country in the world.

10 Examples of Common Nouns

Tiger as the National Animal of India
The book is on the table
Sita is a good girl.
Kolkata is a beautiful city.
India is the second most populous country in the world.
Kalidasa is the Shakespeare of India
Hummingbird is the smallest bird in the world.
Blue Whale is the largest aquatic animal.
Burj Khalifa is the tallest building in the world
Trees are good for the environment

10 Examples of Collective Nouns

The French army was defeated at the battle of Waterloo.
The police dispersed the crowd
The jury found the prisoner guilty
A herd of cattle is passing
I found a bunch of keys on the road
Rama has a beautiful family.
United States has the world’s largest fleet.
Suguna is one of the active members of the team.
The committee consists of eminent jurists.
Knesset is the name of the Parliament of Israel

10 Examples of Abstract Nouns

Rama is known for his kindness
Childhood is the best part in my life
Death is inevitable for all.
He is unfortunately accused in the theft
Honesty is the best policy
Hanuman is the symbol of loyalty
The Mona Lisa is the most beautiful painting of all time.
The Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery in the United States
He has a a thirst for knowledge
He got a medal for bravery

Click here to learn more about Nouns

For other Grammar topics Click here

The Noun Case – Nominative, Objective and Possessive

13th January 2019 By Edify English Leave a Comment

The Noun Case : Consider the following sentence,

Ahmed threw a ball.

In the above sentence, Ahmed is the subject and it is the answer to the question, ‘Who threw the ball?’ The rest of the sentence threw the ball is the predicate and the the answer to the question, what did Ahmed throw? is a ball.. Hence ball is the object. In this article lets discuss the Noun Case in detail.

The Noun Case

There are three Noun Cases in English.

Nominative Case
Objective Case
Possessive Case

Nominative Case

When a noun or a pronoun is used as the subject, it is said to be in the Nominative Case. To find the Nominative in the sentence, put who or what before the verb.

For example: In the sentence, the dog bit the boy, the dog is the subject and it is the answer to the question What bit the boy? Hence it is said to be in the Nominative Case.

Objective Case

When a Noun or a Pronoun is used as the object of a verb it is said to be in the Objective Case. To find the object in the sentence, put whom or what before the verb and the subject.

For example: In the sentence, the horse kicked the boy, the subject is the horse and the answer to the question whom did the horse kick is the boy. Hence in the above sentence the noun boy is the object and it is said to be in Objective Case.

The noun which comes after a preposition in a sentence is also said to be in the objective case.

Possessive Case

Consider the following sentence, this is Sita’s book.

Here, the form of the noun Sita is changed to Sita’s to show the ownership or possession. Hence ‘Sita’ is said to be in the Possessive Case. The possessive in a sentence answers the question, ‘Whose?’ Whose book is this? – Sita’s.

Click here to learn more about Nouns

For other Grammar topics Click here

Pronouns – Definition and Classification

11th January 2019 By Edify English Leave a Comment

What are Pronouns?

Definition: Pronoun is word that substitutes the noun in a given sentence. In other words it acts as a replacement for a noun.

Classification of Pronouns:

They are classified into eight types. They are:

Personal
Possessive
Reflexive/ Intensive
Relative
Demonstrative
Indefinite
Interrogative
Reciprocal

Let us see each of them in detail.

1. Personal Pronoun:

These refer to the speaker or speakers, called first person, and include the following

I, my, mine, me, myself,

We, our, ours, us ourselves.

Those spoke to are said to be in second person and include the following

You, your, yours, yourself, yourselves

Those spoken about are said to be in the third person an include the following

He, his, him, himself,

She, her, hers, herself,

It, its, itself

They, their, theirs, them, themselves.

Impersonal Pronoun:

These substitute Nouns which are in the Neuter gender.

It, its, itself

They, their, theirs, them, themselves.

Antecedent: The noun/ Pronoun or phrase which the Pronoun is referring to is called its antecedent.

Example: The boy bought a nice flower bouquet. He gifted it to his friend. Here, boy is the antecedent for he, and flower bouquet is the antecedent for it.

2. Possessive Pronoun:

Some of the personal pronouns listed above can be categorized as Possessive as they show to whom something belongs. They are:

My, mine, your, yours, his, her, hers, its, our, ours, their and theirs.

Example: The mobile is mine. Here mine denotes to whom the mobile belongs.

3. Reflexive Pronoun:

Myself, yourself, yourselves, himself, herself, itself, ourselves and themselves are compound personal pronouns formed by combining My, your, him, her, it, our, them. with self or selves. These are called reflexive pronouns.

Example: He hurt himself while hitting the dog.

4. Relative Pronoun:

These join the dependent clause to the independent clause. They are,

Who, whose, whom which and that.

Example: He found his ring that he had lost in the gathering.

5. Demonstrative Pronoun:

These are the pronouns which point out something. They are,

This, that, these and those.

These are also called Definite Pronouns.

Example: This is my book.

Indefinite Pronoun

Any, anybody,anyone, anything, both, each, either, everybody, everything, many, neither, nobody, none, no one, one, other, others, some, somebody, someone are called Indefinite Pronouns.

6. Interrogative Pronoun:

These ask questions. They are:

Who, whom, whose, which, and what.

The compounds formed by suffixing the above pronouns with ever also belong to this category. They are: Whoever, whomever, whichever, and whatever. They can also be used as relative type and sometime they may act as adjectives as well.

Example: Whom do you wish to take with you?; Who will receive the delegates from the airport?

7. Reciprocal Pronoun:

Each other, One another are called reciprocal pronouns.

Example: They love each other.

Click here for other Grammar Topics

Improve your Vocabulary

Noun Gender – Explained with examples

9th January 2019 By Edify English Leave a Comment

Living beings are generally of either the male or female sex. When we compare the nouns Boy & Girl or Hero & Heroine, what do we notice? The first word in the pair is the name given to the class of male and the second word is of the class of female. In this article lets discuss the the Noun Gender topic in detail.

The Noun Gender

The word ‘Gender’ comes from the Latin ‘Genus’ meaning kind or sort. Gender of Nouns is basically of four types.

Masculine
Feminine
Common
Neuter

Lets see what each of these represent.

Masculine Gender

A noun denoting a male being is said to be of the Masculine Gender. For example, Rama, John, Boys, Lion – these are Masculine Gender as they denote a male being.

Feminine Gender

A noun denoting a female being is said to be of the Feminine Gender. For example, Lioness, Heroine – these are Feminine Genders as they denote a female being.

Common Gender

A Noun denoting either a male or a female is said to be of the Common Gender. For example: Parent, child, student etc. – these are of Common Gender as they are used in common to both the Masculine and Feminine Genders.

Neuter Gender:

A noun that denoting a thing that is neither male nor female is said to be of Neuter Gender. in other words a thing with out life are considered Neuter Gender.For Example: Book, Pen, Room, Tree etc.

Thus in English, the gender of a Noun is based on the sex or the absence of sex but not on the form of the noun as in case of other languages.

Personified Nouns and their Gender

Some objects having no life are often Personified i.e., they are treated as living beings. We see this kind of personification in Poetry commonly.

Masculine Gender is often applied to objects representing for strength and violence. For example, ‘Sun’ is often treated as masculine gender.
Feminine Gender is applied to objects representing beauty, gentle nature etc. For example, ‘Moon’ is generally treated as Feminine Gender.

Click here to learn more about Nouns

For other Grammar topics Click here