English Grammar Rules for Nouns & Adverbs
Nouns are crucial elements to forming a complete sentence because they can function as the subject. Although they are not necessary, adverbs add variety to sentences by giving the reader additional information. Using nouns and adverbs correctly requires knowing which roles they can fill in a sentence, and understanding the grammar rules for their usage.
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Nouns
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A noun is a person, place, thing or idea. Nouns take three different roles within a sentence. A noun can be the subject of the sentence, the direct object or the indirect object, or be possessive. The subject of the sentence is the person or thing that does the action, and the direct object of the sentence is the one that receives the action. An indirect object in the sentence is whom or what the action is being done for or to. A possessive noun indicates whom something belongs to.
For example, in the sentence, "Bob handed Lisa's note to Jim," "Bob" is the subject because he is the one doing the handing, and "note" is the direct object because it is being handed. "Jim" is the indirect object because Jim is being handed the note, and the preposition "to" is what links Jim to the rest of the sentence. "Lisa's" is the possessive noun.
Adverbs
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Adverbs are words that describe adjectives, verbs, and adverbs. Adverbs are similar to adjectives; the difference between them is that adjectives describe nouns and pronouns, which adverbs never modify. Adverbs usually answer the questions how, when, or where. While not always the case, words that end in "ly" tend to be adverbs. If you're not sure if a word is an adverb, look at what word it is describing.
For example, in the sentence, "She spoke loudly," "loudly" has to be an adverb because it describes the verb, "spoke." But if you change the sentence to "She was loud," "loud" is not an adverb because it describes the pronoun "she."
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Subject-Verb Agreement
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When a noun is the subject of a sentence, the noun and verb must have subject-verb agreement. This means that singular subjects must have singular verbs, while plural subjects must have plural verbs. When two singular subjects are linked by either, or, neither or nor, use a singular verb to describe them. When a singular subject is linked to a plural subject, put the plural subject last and use the plural form of the verb.
Adverbs: Grammar Rules
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While many adverbs end in "ly," you shouldn't always use the form that does. Most adverbs that answer the question "how" end in "ly," but there is a special case when adverbs describe the senses. When the verb is not used actively to describe senses, such as taste, touch, or smell, don't attach "ly" to the adverb.
For example, in the sentence, "The roses smell sweet," you don't use "sweetly" because the roses don't actually do the smelling, it is just how they smell.
"Good" and "well" are common, confusion-causing words. "Good" is an adjective, and "well" is an adverb, so you use "well" according to the rules for adverbs, and "good" when you would use an adjective.
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