The Oxford Comma (sometimes known as the Serial Comma or the Harvard Comma) causes a lot of debate and controversy in grammatical circles. On the one hand is British English where a list of items in a sentence are separated by commas unless there is a coordinating conjunction (usually and […]
Continue ReadingObjects in English Grammar
In an English sentence usually the subject of a sentence does something to an object. The object is the thing or person which is affected by the subject and the verb. Patricia ate the cake. The subject of this sentence is Patricia. She is the ‘star actor’. The verb is […]
Continue ReadingObject Complements in English Grammar
A typical English statement has this form: {subject} + {verb} + {object} Churchill + enjoyed + breakfast. We + considered + his answer. The object comes last. If we add a word or phrase to the object to add some more information or describe it further, then this is known […]
Continue ReadingObject Clauses in English Grammar
In general when we look at an English sentence to see who is doing what to whom (grammatically speaking), we can say that the subject does something to the object: {subject} + does something to + {object} Jesse Owens + won + 4 gold medals. I + believe + your […]
Continue ReadingLexical Chunks
A Lexical Chunk is a unit of language which is made up of two or more words. Here are a few examples of lexical chunks: Good morning. Nice to see you! What’s the time? Other lexical chunks can include phrasal verbs, idioms, collocations and so on. Lexical chunks are the […]
Continue Reading