Category: ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE

POETRY

Poetry is a form of literary expression that uses language to evoke emotion, convey meaning, and create beauty through the use of various techniques such as meter, rhyme, imagery, metaphor, and symbolism. It often...

DECLENSION

DECLENSION

Declension (otherwise known as the inflection of nouns and pronouns) is the change in form of nouns and pronouns to indicate person, number, case; and gender. Specifically, noun declension refers to the change in...

ADJECTIVES

ADJECTIVES

Adjectives are words that modify nouns or noun-equivalents and fellow adjectives. The italicised words below are some examples of adjectives: Professor Stefano is a seasoned scholar. He is prolific. He has produced many good...

VOICE

VOICE

Voice refers to the form which a transitive verb assumes to show whether it acts or is acted upon. This implies that the verb has two voices: active and passive. The active voice is...

ADVERBS

ADVERBS

Adverbs are words that describe or modify verbs, adjectives, other adverbs, sentences, and sentence items, such as phrases and clauses, except nouns and nominals. Examples: Chinwe danced gracefully. Your food is almost/nearly ready. You...

PREPOSITIONAL IDIOMS

PREPOSITIONAL IDIOMS

Broadly speaking, prepositional idioms refer to the idiomatic use of prepositions after verbs, adjectives, verbal-nouns, etc, and with idiomatic phrases introduced by a preposition. Three striking differences exist between the idiomatic (prepositional idioms) and...

ADVERB IDIOMS

ADVERB IDIOMS

These function as adverbs and, as such, many of them can be replaced by simple adverbs. Some examples appear below: From the foregoing, it is evident that many adverb idioms begin with prepositions and...

VERB IDIOMS

VERB IDIOMS

Verb idioms are variously referred to as group verbs, multi-word verbs or phrasal verbs, or action/being referent idioms. Some begin with verbs and end with adverb particles or prepositions [e.g. get at (reach), get...

NOUN IDIOMS

NOUN IDIOMS

A noun idiom is a unique noun phrase with a unique meaning. It can be replaced by another noun phrase, usually a noun and its modifier(s), with a corresponding meaning. It normally begins with...

NOUNS AND NOMINALS

NOUNS AND NOMINALS

The word “noun” is derived from the Latin word. “nomen”, which means name. Nouns are traditionally defined as names of persons, places, things, animals, days, months, associations, ideas, qualities, states, or actions. Examples Persons:...

SYNTAX

SYNTAX

Syntax, a very important branch of grammar, means the ordering or arrangement of words (from Greek syn “together” and taxis “arranging”) in a sentence and the grammatical rules governing this arrangement, the classification of...

THE INFINITIVE

THE INFINITIVE

(Verb-noun, verb-adjective, and verb-adverb)   Form The infinitive, derived from the Latin word infinitus, means infinity, unlimited, without end. It is, therefore, the form of the verb which is not limited by number or...

THE GERUND

THE GERUND

THE GERUND (a verb-noun: verb in appearance but noun in action)   Form The gerund ends in -ing. (e.g. singing, swimming, teaching). It is the present. participial form of a verb employed as a...

PROSE

PROSE

Although drama and narrative poetry can be classified as fiction, the term fiction (or prose- fiction) is frequently associated with novels and short stories. For this reason, Fiction may be defined as a narrative...

DRAMA

DRAMA

Drama is a story told in action by actors on a stage before an audience. Aristotle defined it as imitated human action. Most dramatic works can be classified as tragedy, comedy, tragicomedy, or melodrama....

THE COLON

THE COLON

The colon (:) and the semicolon differ greatly in use. The semicolon is a strong separator almost equal to a period, and is used only between equal parts. The colon is an introducer: calling...

THE SEMICOLON

THE SEMICOLON

The semicolon (;) is regularly a strong comma or a weak period. 1) The semicolon is used between two main clauses not joined by one of the simple co-ordinating conjunctions – ‘and’. ‘but’. ‘or’....

THE COMMA

THE COMMA

The comma (,) denotes a short pause. Commas are used for the following. 1. To separate items in a list or series; January, February, and March are the first three months of the year....

NOMINALS

NOMINALS

Nominals are words (such as pronouns and gerunds), phrases, or clauses which perform the functions of nouns. Functions: subject, direct object, indirect object, predicate noun, object complement, object of a preposition, etc. Kinds: There...

MODIFIERS

MODIFIERS

Modifiers are words that describe or qualify other words. Generally speaking, all adjectives and adverbs are called modifiers in contemporary English. Even adjective phrases and clauses, as well as adverb phrases and clauses, fall...

CASE

CASE

In English, case refers to (the change in) the position or form of a noun (or pronoun) that indicates the grammatical relationship of the noun (or pronoun) to other words in the sentence. When...