English Language (All Classes)

What is a sentence? A sentence is a group of words that expresses a complete thought. A complete thought is clear. A sentence always begins with a capital letter. It ends with a full stop (.), a question mark (?) or an exclamation mark (!). Examples: Ted sent me a letter. Jane slept soundly. Sentence […]

A participle is a verb form that always acts as an adjective. There are two types of participles: (a) The past participle – it is usually formed by adding –d, or -ed to the present tense. Examples: Fooled, the shopkeeper bought fake products. (Fooled is a past participle modifying the noun shopkeeper) Shaken, he dashed

A gerund is a verb form used as a noun. It is formed by adding -ing to the present these of a verb. Gerunds can be used as subjects, direct objects, objects of prepositions, and complements. Examples: Subject: Fishing is a popular activity in Nyanza Province. (Fishing is a gerund, the subject of the verb

A prepositional phrase is made up of a preposition, the object of the preposition, and all the words between them. It often functions as an adjective or adverb, but it can function as a noun as well. Examples: We carried the fruits in our school bags. (adverb telling where) The plane flew through the cloud.

A verb phrase consists of a main verb and its helping verbs. It can function as the predicate of a sentence. The predicate tells what the subject does or is. (It tells something about the subject). Examples: John was born in Malindi. This problem may have contributed to the collapse of the economy. Without highly

A noun phrase consists of a noun and all its modifiers. It can function as a subject, object, or complement in the sentence. The modifiers may include articles, prepositions and adjectives. Examples: (a) Noun phrases as subjects The lazy old man sleeps all day long. Some school boards reward teachers who produce good results. (b)

A phrase is a group of words without a subject or a predicate or both and does not express a complete thought. Therefore, a phrase can never stand on its own as a complete sentence. Using different kinds of phrases enables a writer or a speaker to create informative and descriptive sentences that vary in

An idiom is a phrase that has a special meaning as a whole. The meaning of an idiom is different from the meanings of its separate words. Examples: It was raining cats and dogs. The idiom raining cats and dogs does not mean that cats and dogs were falling out of the sky! It means “raining

Antonyms are words that have opposite meanings. Antonyms also add variety to your writing. Examples: Cold-hot heavier – lighter fearful – brave. Some words have more than one antonym. Some of these antonyms can be formed by adding a prefix to a base word. Examples: Kind – cruel, unkind like – hate, dislike Examples of common antonyms

Synonyms are words that have almost the same meaning but different spelling and pronunciation. Examples: Slender – thin               finish – end                  sick –ill Some words have several synonyms. For example, happy has such synonyms words like light-hearted, pleased, and cheerful. Synonyms help vary the writing, just like pronouns do. For example, the word happy and

Homophones are words that sound the same but have different spellings and meanings. Example: She will buy music composed by my favourite artist. Homophones are often confused when writing by many students because of similarity in pronunciation. Examples of common homophones in English More examples of homophones Exercise Give the homophones and the meanings of

Homographs are words which are spelled the same but have different meanings. They usually appear as separate entries in a dictionary. Examples: The man dug a well in his compound. They worked well together. In the first sentence, the noun well means “a spring of water”. In the second sentence, the adverb well means “in a

What is a suffix?. A suffix is a word part that is added to the end of a base word to form a new word or to change its meaning. Example: Enjoy + able = enjoyable. Each suffix has its own meaning. The suffix “able” means “capable of”. Hence enjoyable means “capable of being enjoyed”. Common

PREFIXES.

A prefix is a word part that is added to the beginning of a word to form another word or to change its meaning.

The word to which the prefix is added is called the base word.

Examples:

Prefix base word, new word, un. friendly, unfriendly, pre, pay, prepay

A prefix changes the meaning of the base word.

An interjection is either a single word or short groups of words that is used to express a feeling or emotion. Interjections can express such feelings as urgency, surprise, relief, joy, or pain. An interjection that expresses strong emotion is often followed by an exclamation mark. An interjection that expresses mild emotion is usually followed

A conjunction is a word that connects words or groups of words. Like prepositions, conjunctions show a relationship between the words they connect. But, unlike prepositions, conjunctions do not have objects. There are 3 main categories of conjunctions; (1) Coordinating conjunctions (2) Subordinating conjunctions (3) Correlative conjunctions Coordinating Conjunctions Coordinating conjunctions connect related words, groups

A preposition is a word that shows the relationship between other words in a sentence. Examples: The cat lay under the table. The preposition under connects the verb lay with table. Under points out the relationship between lay and table. Hence a preposition is a word that links another word or word group to the

A prepositional phrase consists of a preposition, its object and any words that modify the object. Examples: The school children waited for the green light. In this sentence, the preposition is for, its object is light, and the modifier, or adjective, is green. The entire preposition phrase modifies the verb waited. Sometimes two or more nouns

Many adverbs are formed by adding -ly to an adjective. Examples: Slow + -ly = slowly quiet + -ly = quietly Sometimes the addition of -ly to an adjective may require changing the spelling in the adjective. Examples: Easy + -ly = easily (y changes to i) Full + -ly = fully (ll changes to l). Other

We have seen that we can use adjectives to compare people, things or places. Adverbs can also be used to compare actions. And like adjectives, we use the comparative form of an adverb to compare two actions and the superlative form of an adverb to compare more than two actions. Examples: ONE ACTION: Maree swims fast.