Hello and welcome back to the quiz world. How are you doing today? We hope that you are well. How good is your grasp of English grammar? Do you think you can get a good score on the quiz we prepared? Get down to the questions we have for you and try for the perfect result.
English grammar is a set of rules and guidelines that assure the correct use of the English language. It helps preserve the accuracy of the language by guiding its new learners and current users toward typical language use. We prepared a short manual to help you understand the English grammar and hopefully get a good score on our quiz.
Let’s start with the most basic definitions. What is a word? According to traditional grammar, it is the basic unit of language. It can be complex to describe, but it is possible to classify words according to their action and meaning.
A word is a speech sound or a combination of two or more speech sounds in both written and verbal language. In language, a word serves as a symbol to represent/refer to something/someone to communicate a specific meaning.
Morphology is a department of linguistics that studies the formation of words and their relationship to other words in the same language. The branch of linguistics that explores the meaning of words is named lexical semantics.
There are several criteria for a speech sound – or a combination of speech sounds – to be called a word. Firstly, there must be a potential pause in speech and space in written form between two words. If we use two words in a sentence, there must be a pause after pronouncing each of them.
Secondly, every word has to contain at least one root. A root word is a word or word part that forms the basis of new words by adding prefixes and suffixes. To give you an example, the words such as ‘astronaut’ ‘astrophysics’ or ‘astronomy’ have ‘astro’ as a mutual root. If you break ‘astronaut’ into ‘astro’ and ‘naut’ – these sounds will not be words anymore.
Finally, every word must have a meaning. If a sound doesn’t have a meaning in the English language, it cannot be an English word.
A sentence is the largest unit of any language. In English, it begins with a capital letter and ends with a full-stop, a question mark, or an exclamation mark. Generally, a sentence is a word or group of words that expresses a complete idea by making a statement/order, asking a question, or exclaiming.
Here are some examples. ‘The weather is nice’ is a statement. ‘Is the weather nice?’ is a question. ‘What nice weather!’ is an exclaiming.
Ideally, a sentence should have at least one subject and one verb. You could have a hidden subject of a sentence, but the verb must always be visible and present in the sentence. We can call the verb the sentence’s heart. For example, in the sentence ‘Make it happen.’ – the subject ‘you’ is hidden, but the verb ‘make’ is visible.
What are the parts of speech? They are the categories into which we classify words according to their functions in sentences, such as nouns or verbs. In English, there are eight parts of speech: noun, pronoun, verb, adjective, adverb, preposition, conjunction, and interjection.
A noun is a person, place, thing, idea, or concept. Proper nouns refer to capitalized official names of people or things. For example, I love Captain Jack Sparrow. Suzy is a good girl.
A pronoun stands in for a noun in a sentence. For example,​ we love Captain Jack. Suzy is a good girl, and she works very hard.
A verb shows an action or an ongoing condition. It tells you what happens in a sentence. For example, Suzy works very hard. I love Angelina Jolie.
An adjective modifies or describes a noun in a sentence. For example, Suzy is a good girl. Tommy is a diligent student. An adjective specifies which one, how much, what kind, and more.
An adverb modifies or describes adjectives, verbs, and other adverbs. It answers the questions of when, where, how, and why. For example, Suzy sings quietly. He is running fast.
A preposition gives context to nouns in relationship to other nouns or pronouns. For example, we are close to my home. Germany is in Europe. Somewhere over the rainbow.
A conjunction connects nouns, noun phrases, clauses, or sentences. For example, I like pizza, but I like ice cream more. Tommy likes reading and playing sports.
An interjection is an abrupt pause in speech, usually used to express emotions. For example, whoops, I did it again! Oh, that must be awful. Ouch, that hurts!
We covered some of the English grammar, but there is a lot more to learn on this topic. Are you ready to find out how good your English grammar is? Take the quiz to discover your score. Don’t worry if you don’t know the answers to all questions – you can always retake the quiz!