English Grammar Collins Cobuild Gg

Contents

Introduction viii

Howto use.-this Grammar xii

Glossary of grammatical terms xiv

Chapter! Referring to people and things i

Nouns 3

Countable nouns * Uncountable nouns • Singular nouns • Plural nouns

• Collective nouns * Proper nouns * Nouns that are rarely used alone •Adjectives used as nouns • Nouns referring to males orfemales /

• -ing nouns • Compound nouns

Pronouns 3T

Personal pronouns • Possessive pronouns • Reflexive pronouns

• Generic pronouns • Demonstrative pronouns • Indefinite pronouns

• Reciprocal pronouns • Relative pronouns • Interrogative pronouns

Determiners 4S

Definite determiners: the • Definite determiners: this, that, thesesnd those

• Possessive determiners: my, your, their, etc. «The possessive form: apostrophe s (’s) • Indefinite determiners: all, some. manyetc.

• Indefinite determiners: a and an * Other indefinite determiners

Chapter 2 Giving information about people and things 71

Adjectives 73

Qualitative adjectives • Classifying adjectives • Colour adjectives

• Showing strong feelings • Postdeterminers • Adjectives that are only used in front of a noun «Adjectives that always follow a linking verb

« Position of adjectives in noun phrases • -ing adjectives • -ed adjectives

• Compound adjectives

Comparatives 98

Superlatives • . ioo

Saying things are similar 103

Talking about different amounts of a quality 106

Saying things are different ' in

Noun modifiers 114

Talking about amounts of things ’ пб

Numbers ■ . 126

Cardinal numbers • Ordinal numbers • Fractions • Measurements • Age Approximate amounts and measurements j 139

Expanding the noun phrase 141

with prepositional phrases • with adjectives • Nouns followed by to-infinitive, -ed participle, or-ing participle

Chapters Types of verb •. 149

Intransitive verbs ■ 153

Transitive verbs • • • 156

Reflexive verbs . 160

Delexical verbs: verbs with little meaning . * • 162

Verbs that can be used both with and without an object 167

Verbs that can take an object or a prepositional phrase 170