English

A noun is a word for a person, place, or thing. (You might like to think of nouns as “naming” words.) Everything we can see or talk about is represented by a word that names it. That “naming” word is called a noun.

Here are some more examples of common nouns and proper nouns:

 

Common Noun	Proper Noun
Boy	Sam
Sailor	Adam
Lawyer	Sarah
Town	Milton Keynes

Most of the time, a pronoun is used to replace a noun. The following are all pronouns: he, she, they, none, and which. There are lots more. They are used to make sentences less cumbersome and less repetitive.

There are several different types of pronoun

Personal pronouns (e.g., he, they)
Demonstrative pronouns (e.g., this, these)
Interrogative pronouns (e.g., which, who)
Indefinite pronouns (e.g., none, several)
Possessive pronouns (e.g., his, your)
Reciprocal pronouns (e.g., each other, one another)
Relative pronouns (e.g., which, where)
Reflexive pronouns (e.g., itself, himself)
Intensive pronouns (e.g., itself, himself)

A verb is a “doing” word. As below a verb can express:

A physical action (e.g., to walk, to write, to eat).
A mental action (e.g., to think, to guess, to consider).
A state of being (e.g., to be, to exist, to appear).

The tense of a verb is determined by when the action has taken place. The three tenses are:

• Past Tense
• Present Tense
• Future Tense

An auxiliary verb accompanies a main verb to help express its tense, mood, or voice. The most common auxiliary verbs are be, do, and have .

Here are some examples of auxiliary verbs expressing tense

• I have been sitting here since 7 o’clock.
• Sarah was waiting for the shark to reappear.
• John will have broken the record by then.

Here are some examples of auxiliary verbs expressing voice:

• Unfortunately, our ice cream has been eaten by the cat.
• The broadband will be disconnected tomorrow.

Here are some examples of auxiliary verbs being used to express mood:

• If he should arrive, tell him to leave.
• If he were to arrive in the next 10 minutes, we would still be on track.