English Grammar at a Glance by Laura Jensen
An architect builds with wood, stone, glass, and plaster, using each material according to its special qualities
to create a building that is beautiful and functional. Parts of speech are the language equivalents of wood,
stone, glass, and plaster; they are the basic building blocks of English. To build beautiful sentences, you
need to understand what jobs each part can do and how the parts all fit together to express an idea clearly. In
other words, you need to know how a word, phrase, or clause functions within a sentence, and you need to
know the grammar rules for combining that word, phrase, or clause with other building blocks. If you
understand that, then—like a skillful architect--YOU can build masterpieces!
Words
Phrases
Each word has its own part
of speech (its job) in a
sentence.
A phrase is more than one
word but does not contain a
subject and a verb.
Parts of Speech:


o
Verb phrases
Pronouns

Prepositional

Adjectives
phrases
Function as adverbs
or adjectives

Articles

Verbs

Adverbs
Independent (main) clauses:
Every sentence must
have at least one of these!
Appositives
Nouns

(1)
Noun phrases


Clauses
All clauses have a subject and a verb.
Verbals:
The main part of these
phrases is made from a
verb but functions as
another part of speech-not as a verb—in the
sentence.
(2)
Dependent
(subordinate) clauses:
Dependent clauses cannot be complete
sentences alone; they must be attached to
independent clauses. (In other words, they
“depend” on the main clause in order to be
complete.)
There are three kinds:
A. Adjective clauses
The whole clause functions as
an adjective; it comes after the
noun it modifies.
There are three kinds:


Prepositions
Conjunctions:
There are two kinds:
o coordinating
and
o subordinating.
o Participial
phrases—function
as adjectives.
B.
The whole clause functions as
an adverb, e.g., tells why, how,
or when something happens.
o Gerund phrasesfunction as nouns.
C.
o Infinitive
phrases—function
as nouns, adverbs,
or adjectives.
Adverb clauses
Noun clauses
The whole clause functions as
a noun—e.g., a subject or object—
within another clause.