Parts Of Speech

Collective Nouns – Definition and Examples

8th July 2020 By Edify English Leave a Comment

Hello reader! Welcome. We all know that noun is one of the elements of parts of speech in the English language. It is important to learn in detail about all the different types of parts of speech. Among nouns, one of the important types is the collective noun. In this article, we are going to see in-depth notes about the collective nouns, its definition, rules, and some examples.

Definition of Collective Nouns

Any noun that represents a specific group of people or things is called a Collective Noun. In short, a noun that refers to a collection of common nouns is a collective noun. There are many examples of collective nouns. Some of them are:

Rules

The most important rue of a collective noun is that it is usually singular. Hence, the helping verb is/was comes after the collective noun instead of are/were. For example,

The committee agrees to the decision.
The class commences at 10 AM.
The legislature passes the bills.

However, when the individual noun of the collective nouns is mentioned in a form or in spirit, the plural is used.

The committee members are discussing the verdict.
The students in the class are dispersing.

Some More Examples

The following are some examples of a collection of people:

A troop of soldiers
A panel of Judges
A gang of robbers
A crowd of protestors
A company of actors

The following are some examples of a collection of things:

A bouquet of flowers
A string of pearls
A galaxy of stars
A pile of sand
A bunch of keys
A row of buildings
A junction of roads
A packet of chocolates
A box of crackers

While using collective nouns, it is important to use proper verbs and pronouns to make sure the sentence is grammatically correct. As mentioned above, some collective nouns are singular and some are mentioned in the plural. So, be careful while writing a sentence with collective nouns.

Possessive Pronouns and Possessive Adjectives

1st July 2020 By Edify English Leave a Comment

Hello reader! In this chapter, let us delve into the concept of possessive pronouns and possessive adjectives, their meanings, rules, and some examples related to them. Let’s get started!

We all know that a pronoun is any word that is used instead of a noun. A possessive pronoun is a form of the pronoun that denotes ownership of something in the sentence. For example,

It is his car.
That group invited me to their party.

It is interesting to note that possessive pronouns are also similar to possessive adjectives, which describe the possessions of a noun in the sentence. For example,

That car is mine / That is my car. (The word ‘mine’ is an adjective while ‘my’ is a pronoun).

Possessive Pronouns and Possessive Adjectives

A thin line of difference exists between possessive pronouns and possessive adjectives. The following are the differences between the two for the three persons of personal pronouns.

Possessive Pronouns	Possessive Adjectives
My, Our	Mine, Ours
Your	Yours
His, Her, Its, Their	His, Hers, its, theirs

Rule: A common confusion exists while writing the possessive pronoun. That is the presence of an apostrophe (‘) and s to the pronoun while describing the possessive case. However, while writing about the possession of any pronoun, ‘s should not be used. Let us see this example.

The dress is her’s (Incorrect) /// The dress is hers (Correct).
The box is missing it’s lid (Incorrect) /// The box is missing its lid (Correct).
Is that pen your’s? (Incorrect) /// Is that pen yours? (Correct).

Difference between It’s and Its

Another area where many people make a mistake is between the use of it’s and Its. As discussed above, it’s is a contracted form of it is, and its is a possessive pronoun. For a clear explanation on this and for more examples, see this article on its vs it’s.

In the same manner,

Their = Belonging to them /// They’re = they are
Your = belonging to you /// You’re = You are
Whose = Belonging to who /// Who’s = Who is

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Transitive and Intransitive Verbs with examples

17th February 2020 By Edify English Leave a Comment

A verb is a word which denotes the action that happens in any sentence. Verbs are of many types, but the most important and fundamental of them are the Transitive and Intransitive Verbs. In this lesson, let us discuss what these the kinds of verbs are along with their examples.

What is a Transitive Verb?

In a sentence, if the action denoted by the verb is related to the object directly, it is known as a transitive verb. Simply put, it passes over the action done by the subject to the object. For example,

Brazil won the World Cup.

In this sentence, the verb “won” is directly related to the object “World Cup” and is passed on from the subject “Brazil”. Hence, the verb “won” is a transitive verb. We can find an answer in this sentence to “who won?” and also to “Who won what?”.

Some more examples for Transitive Verb sentences are:

The kid hit the wall.
He has learnt his lesson.
She found her lost pen.
My father gave me a gift on my birthday.
I gave my sister a mobile phone.
The manager discussed the company strategies with his employees.

All the highlighted words are the verbs in the sentences and each verb has a relation to the object mentioned next to it.

What is an Intransitive verb?

An intransitive verb is a verb which does not pass on from the subject to the object. In such verbs, the words next to the verb are not objects in a way, and only emphasize the verb’s action or a state of being. For example,

The sun rises in the East.

In this sentence, the meaning of the verb “rises” cannot be passed on to the latter part “in the East”. Hence ‘rises’ is an Intransitive Verb.

Some more examples for Intransitive verbs are as follows:

She slept on the sofa.
He is a man.
The moon shone brightly in the night.
He speaks
I don’t feel
The bus stopped
The crocodile fights

The meaning and essence of the verbs mentioned above do not get passed on to the objects in the sentences, and hence are used as intransitive verbs.

Verbs Used both as Transitive and Intransitive

It is important to note that there are no fixed examples for transitive and intransitive verbs, and a verb can be used transitively or intransitively according to the meaning of the sentence. Some verbs can be used both as transitive and intransitive according to the meaning. Here are some examples for verbs of such cases:

Please ring the bell. (Transitive)
The bell is ringing loudly. (Intransitive)

In the same way,

The driver stopped the car. (Transitive)
The train stopped abruptly. (Intransitive)

Note: Sentences where verbs are used intransitively cannot be changed into passive voice.

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Types of Verbs – Stative | Auxiliary | Transitive | Intransitive

7th February 2020 By Edify English Leave a Comment

# Types of Verbs

A Verb is a word that denotes Action or State / Condition or Possession of the subject in the sentence. A verb describes what is done by the subject, or what is done to the subject, or simply what the subject is. It is the most important part of speech and the tense of the verb changes the tense of the entire sentence.

Examples of verbs

Sam sat on the sofa (Tells what the subject did)
The door is broken (tells what is done to the subject)
He is a doctor (Tells what the subject is)

Types of Verbs

The following are the important types of verbs

Main Verbs and Auxiliary Verbs

A main verb is the verb that shows the action or state or possession of the subject, while the auxiliary or helping verb is used to express the tense, and ask questions, etc.

For example,

In the sentence “I am driving a car”, the main verb is “drive” as it denotes an action the subject performs and the auxiliary verb is “am” because it denotes the tense of the main verb. Similarly,

She has boarded her flight.
I shall answer that question

Stative and Action Verbs

Stative verbs are the verbs that express the state of the subject, while the action verbs describe the action performed by the subject. For example,

She likes Tea (Here, ‘like’ is a state and not an action performed. Hence it is a stative verb.)
He owns a house.
Gabriel is walking on the pavement (“Walking” is an action performed. Hence it is an action verb).
Rocky helped that blind man.

*We cannot express Stative verbs in Continuous form i.e; we should never say ‘she is liking tea very much’, it should be ‘She likes tea very much’

Transitive and Intransitive Verbs

A transitive verb denotes an action done by the subject in relation to the object. For example,

England won the World Cup.
He kicked the football.

An intransitive verb denotes an action where the subject’s action does not pass on to the object. For example,

The sun shines brightly.
The child is crying profusely.

Some important examples of transitive verbs are as follows:

The iceberg sank the ship.
The pilot stopped the plane.
He spoke a lie.
The donkey kicked him.
I feel numbness in my hand.

Some important examples of Intransitive Verbs are as follows:

The train started suddenly.
The ship sank in the ocean.
Some cats fight very fiercely.
He spoke loudly.
This dog never barks.

Reflexive Verbs

In some sentences, the subject and object refer to the same person. In such sentences, the verb is said to be used reflexively. For example,

Please keep quiet.
Make yourself comfortable.
He killed himself with a knife.
The person identified himself in the crowd.

Regular and Irregular Verbs

In English, the general rule for writing the past and past participle forms of the verb is to add ‘ed’ or ‘d’ to the verb. The verbs whose past and past participle tenses of the verb conform to this rule are known as regular verbs. For example,

The past and past participle forms of Raise are “raised” and “raised”. It is a regular verb. Similarly, Cook, Walk, laugh etc.

Irregular verbs are those that do not follow this rule and have different words for past and past participle tenses. For example,

Go (Past and Past participle are ‘went’ and ‘gone’)
Do (Did- Done)
Become (became- become)
Bring (Brought- brought)

Primary and Modal Auxiliaries :

Auxiliary verbs discussed above can be further classified into Primary auxiliaries and Modal Auxiliaries

Primary Auxiliaries:

These are ‘Be-forms’, ‘Have-forms’ and ‘Do-forms’

Be-forms:

Am, is, are, was, were, will be, shall be, can be, may be etc are called Be-form auxiliaries

Have-forms:

Have, has, had. will have shall have can have may have etc. are called Have-form auxiliaries.

Do-forms:

Do, Does, Did are called Do-form auxiliaries.

Modal Auxiliaries

These are used to express different moods like ability, possibility, obligation, advice, wish etc. They are:

Will, shall, can,may, would, should, could, might, must, have to, had to , ought to etc.

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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.

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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.

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Noun – Definition and Classification with examples

7th January 2019 By Edify English Leave a Comment

Nouns are the first among the eight parts of speech in English Language. In this article lets discuss the Definition and Classification of Noun. For Introductory article on Parts of Speech Click Here

Nouns : Definition – Classification

Definition of a Noun:

A Noun is simply a naming word. It is a word used to refer the name of

A person (Particular or referred to in common)
A place (Particular or general)
A thing (referred to the same kind or class )
A collection of things
A notion

For example: Joe is a talented boy who lives in Visakhapatnam which is often referred to as City of Destiny

In the above sentence, the Nouns are: Joe- A person, Boy – a class of persons Visakhapatnam – a particular Place, Destiny – a notion.

Classification of Nouns:

Nouns are classified in different ways. The following are some of the common classifications.

Kinds of Nouns:

Proper Nouns
Common Nouns
- Collective Nouns
- Abstract Nouns

Proper Nouns: It is the name of a particular place or a person. It is one’s own. Hence a proper Noun is one’s own name.

Example: Rama is a great King. Here Rama is a proper noun that denotes the name of a particular person.

Remember that Proper Nouns are always written with a capital letter at the beginning.

Common Nouns: It represents a name given in common to every person or thing (the word thing is used to represent anything that we can think of) of the same class or kind.

Example: New York is a beautiful city. Here city is a Common noun.

Sometimes Proper Nouns are used as Common Nouns.

For example, in the sentence Kalidasa is called the Shakespeare of India, Shakespeare is used as a Common Noun whereas Kalidasa is still a Proper Noun. In the sentence Shakespeare doesn’t represent a Person but the common quality or the class of being great dramatists.

Collective Noun: It is the name used to denote a number of persons or things taken together.

Example: The french army was defeated at the battle of waterloo. Here, Army (Collection of Soldiers) is a common.

Some more examples: Crowd, Flock, Herd, Family etc.

Abstract Noun: It is the name of quality, action, or state considered apart from the object to which it belongs.

Example: Hanuman is known for his loyalty. Here the word Loyalty is an abstract noun that shows the quality of Hanuman.

Abstract Nouns are formed from adjectives, verbs and some common nouns. For example, Goodness is formed from the adjective- good.

For example:

Obedience is formed from obey (verb)
Slave is a common noun and the word Slavery is an abstract noun.

Another Classification of Nouns:

Another classification of nouns is whether they are countable or uncountable.

Countable Nouns: Countable nouns are the names of things which we can count.

Example: Book, Pencil, Oranges etc.

Uncountable Nouns: Uncountable nouns are the names of the things which we cannot count. Example : Honesty, Purity, Milk etc. Uncountable nouns denote substances and abstracts.

Countable Nouns have plural forms whereas Uncountable nouns do not.
We can say ‘Pens’ but we cannot say ‘Oils’.

The rules to be followed while using nouns will be covered in the next article.

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Parts of Speech in English Language

3rd January 2019 By Edify English Leave a Comment

Parts of Speech in english language explain different ways words can be used in different contexts. Every word in the English Language functions as at least one Part of Speech. Some words can serve as two or more parts of speech based on the context. The same word can be a Verb in one sentence and a Noun or an Adjective in other sentence. This is an introductory article on Parts of speech.

Parts of Speech

Typically there are Eight Parts of Speech in English language.

Noun
Pronoun
Verb
Adjective
Adverb
Preposition
Conjunction
Interjection

Introduction to the Eight Parts of Speech in English Language

Noun : A Noun is a word used to name a person, animal, place, thing, and an abstract idea or a notion.

Example: Donald Trump, New York, Tiger, Book, Happiness.

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Pronoun : A Pronoun is a word that replaces a Noun or a group of words used as a Noun. In other words it acts as a substitute for a Noun.

Example: I, We, You, He, She, It, They

Verb : Verbs are the most important words in a sentence. They denote the action or indicate the state of being or existence of the subject.

Example: My brother is a doctor; The cap looks good; She is playing chess.

Adjective : An Adjective is a word that modifies the Noun or Pronoun. It describes the quality, state or action that a Noun or Pronoun refer to.

Example: Ramu is a good boy; He looks ugly in the dress

Adverb : Adverbs are used to say how/ where/ when something happens or even how often something happens. In other words, it enhances the information that we got from the adjective, or a verb or another adverb in a sentence.

Example: He played extremely well in the match.

Preposition : A preposition is a word that begins with a prepositional phrase and shows the relationship between its object and another word in the sentence.

Example: About, On, Beside, Along, For etc.

Conjunction : A Conjunction is a word that joins sentences, words and clauses.

Example: Krishna and Rama play cricket.

Interjection: An interjection is a word used to convey emotions.

Example: Alas! the ex-president is no more.

The detailed explanation on all the Parts of Speech, their classification, usage and related topics will be covered in separate articles.

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