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Grammar Vitamins #4----Subject/Predicate, Sentence Combining, CaPiTaLiZaTiOn. |
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Subjects and Predicates-Grammar Vitamin
Every group of words that forms a sentence has a subject and a predicate. Subject: The subject is the person(s), place(s), thing(s), or idea(s)that the sentence is about. It includes all the words that identify the noun. Predicate: The predicate includes the verb or verbs that tell us what the subject does or is. It also includes all the words that tell or ask something about what the subject does or is. *Any sentence can be split into the subject and the predicate! For examples: Subject Predicate Pearl Jam Sang. We were Cheering. Underline the subject and circle the predicate in the following sentences: 1. The mountain rumbled and shook mightily. 2. Europe and the United States produce most board games played in Canada. 3. One notable exception is the board game called Trivial Pursuit. 4. This game, which has been extremely successful, was invented by a group of Canadians in the early 1980's. 5. Since then, it has been copied and sold all over the world. 6. All of the people who originally invented the game are now millionaires. 7. Many versions of the original game are available, aimed at people of different ages with different interests. 8. Each member of a team answers trivia questions and moves a game piece around a board. 9. Winning and losing is less important than having fun and learning a thing or two. 10. Thanks to the success of trivial pursuit, game inventing is flourishing in Canada. Grammar Vitamin: Sentence Combining. Reminder: A sentence is a group of words that expresses a complete thought. A sentence may simple, compound, or complex. 1. Simple sentences: Contain only one subject and one predicate. Examples: Fred dithered The dog sniffed the rose. The camper in the tent studied the map of the area. 2. You can combine two simple sentences that have an element in common by using a conjunction (and, or, nor, for, but, so, yet). We call sentence parts that can be joined like this COMPOUNDS. There are four different types of compound sentences. Compound Subject: Harry was jittery. Grace was jittery.---Harry and Grace were jittery. Compound Verb: The dolphins swam. The dolphins jumped.---The dolphins swam and jumped. Compound Predicate: Sunhil ran for the bus. He couldn't catch it.---Sunhil ran for the bus but he couldn't catch it. Compound Object: Jessica carried the cheese. She also carried the bread.---Jessica carried the cheese and bread. Combine each pair of sentences into one sentence and indicate which type of compound sentence you have created. 1. Jack was on the soccer team. Jennifer was on the soccer team. 2. The children played in the sun all day. The children swam in the sun all day. 3. Claudine tried to take swimming lessons. All the spaces were taken. 4. Norman wanted to be on the basketball team. He also wanted to play soccer. |
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Grammar Vitamin-Capitalization One of the purposes of capitalization is to call attention to particularly important words. Of course, you always capitalize the beginning of sentences and names. However, there are some other capitalization rules that writers need to know. Rules of Capitalization: 1. Capitalize proper nouns and adjectives: Proper nouns: names of specific people, places, things or ideas. For example: Victoria, Professor Susan Hill. * You should also capitalize all titles. Even those used without people's names (Queen of England). Proper adjectives: an adjective formed from a proper noun. For example: Pacific Ocean, Andean Mountains. 2. Always capitalize the pronoun "I." 3. Capitalize words indicating family relationships only when the words are used as names or parts of names. For examples: "Dad and Nana are looking forward to the arrival of Uncle Hal. 4. Capitalize the names of races, languages, nationalities, and religions and any adjectives formed from these names. For example: Cress, Hinduism, French, Peruvian, Inuit, Canadian, Bible, Koran. Correct any capitalization errors in the following sentences. 1. for some reason, it seems europeans have always been fascinated by tibet; I know my parisian uncle, doctor louis st cyr, loves to read about it. 2. Tibet is an isolated, mountain region in the southwest of china; it is situated on a large, high plateau between the kunlun mountains and the himalayas. 3. Before the chinese invasion in 1951, the tibetan people were followers of budda and practiced a unique form of buddism; now, their spiritual and political leader, the dalai lama, lives in exile in india, and the monasteries are closed. 4. Until recently, the land was inaccessible to non-tibetans due to tibetan and chinese government policies. |
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