Articles

Articles are used to introduce nouns.  There are three articles:

1) indefinite articles ("a" and "an").  We use these when:
a) the noun is not specific or we are mentioning the noun for the first time:

- e.g. "A woman is walking down the street." (I do not know who she is, and I am mentioning her for the first time)
- e.g. "I put an apple on the table." (It could be any apple, and I am mentioning this specific apple for the first time.)

b) the non-specific noun is singular and countable:

- e.g. "A giraffe, an emu, and a horse are in my front yard." (We can easily count each one of these animals, and I am mentioning for the first time that they are in my yard.)

2) definite article ("the"). We use these when:
a) the noun is specific:

- e.g. "The house next to my house is red." (We know specifically the house about which we are talking.)

b) we have previously mentioned the noun:

- e.g. "The giraffe, the emu, and the horse are still in my front yard." (I mentioned the giraffe, the emu, and the horse in example 1b; you have already heard about them.)

3) zero articles (i.e. we do not use "a," "an," or "the" and we make non-count nouns plural). We use these when:

a) we are speaking of a type of noun in general:

- e.g. I like apples. 

b) the noun is non-count and non-specific:

- e.g. Coffee stimulates the nervous system.

Resources

University of Victoria and The University of Texas at Austin have good, simple explanation of articles.  Purdue OWL has a good sheet on how to use articles.

Adjectives

Adjectives describe nouns.  They help us identify or quantify an noun.  As we can see in this section from Jack Kerouac's On the Road, adjectives generally appear before the noun that they describe, but they can also appear after the noun, particularly with forms of the verb to be:

Her hair was long and lustrous black; and her eyes were great big blue things with timidities inside.  I wished I was on her bus. A pain stabbed my heart, as it did every time I saw a girl I loved who was going the opposite direction in this too-big world.

Possessive adjectives (my, your, his, her, its, our, their) describe to whom an item belongs.   If we look at that passage again, we can see that "her" describes "hair," the second "her" describes "eyes," the third "her" describes "bus," and "my" describes "heart":

Her hair was long and lustrous black; and her eyes were great big blue things with timidities inside.  I wished I was on her bus. A pain stabbed my heart, as it did every time I saw a girl I loved who was going the opposite direction in this too-big world.

Demonstrative adjectives (this, that, these, those) specify which object and how far away that object is.  Again, if we look back to the Kerouac passage, we can see that "this" tells us which "world":

Her hair was long and lustrous black; and her eyes were great big blue things with timidities inside.  I wished I was on her bus. A pain stabbed my heart, as it did every time I saw a girl I loved who was going the opposite direction in this too-big world.

As always, Schoolhouse Rock has a good video for adjectives:

Resources

 The University of Ottawa, Towson University, and Capitol Community College have good pages on adjectives in general.  University of Victoria has a good page on the order of adjectives.

Purdue OWL has a good exercise on distinguishing between adjectives and adverbs.  Englishmaven has a test on identifying adjectives in a sentence.

Nouns

Nouns are people (Wayne Gretzky, Prime Minister Pierre Elliot Trudeau, Lawren Harris, the woman), places (Northlands Colosseum, Ottawa, Algonquin Park, the school), or things (a hockey puck, legislation, paint brushes, a desk).

Nouns can be concrete or abstract.  Concrete nouns are available to the senses; we can touch, taste, see, smell, or hear them such as apples, sugar, a book, or the ocean.  Abstract nouns are not available to the senses; they are ideas or concepts such as love, frustration, psychology, or happiness.

There are also proper nouns.  Proper nouns are the name of an person, place, or thing and always begin with a capital letter: Anna, Canada, or Otago University.

Nouns sometimes can be very easy to identify in a sentence by their articles; nouns often follow "a," "an," (indefinite articles) or "the" (definite article).  If you look at the following sentence, you can see that each word that follows a definite or indefinite article is a noun:

The woman walked to the store and bought a fresh carrot and some oranges.

You can see that there are two exceptions here.  First, though "fresh" follows "a," it is not the noun; rather, it describes the noun, "carrot."  Sometimes there may be a describing word (an adjective) between the definite or indefinite article and the noun.

Second, you can also see that there is another noun ("oranges") that is not preceded by a definite or indefinite article.  When nouns are plural (i.e. there is more than one of them--here "some oranges"), they do not follow "a," "an," or "the."  Nouns can follow other words like possessive adjectives (my jacket, your hat, her pants, or its colour) or another noun indicating possession (Michael's friend or the elephant's trunk).

As always, Schoolhouse Rock has a good video:

Resources:

D'Youville College has a good online test for proper nouns.  MyEnglishGrammar has an ok exercise to help you identify nouns.

Dangling Modifiers

When using a present participle (an "ing" verb such as "using" at the beginning of this sentence) in a phrase to begin a sentence, you should place the subject of that "ing" verb immediately after the comma that ends the phrase.  Let's look at a couple of examples:

1) Waiting for the bus, I saw my friend.

2) Waiting for the bus, my friend saw me.

In both sentences, the modifying phrase is "waiting for the bus." "Waiting" is the present participle.  The person who is "waiting" differs in each sentence.  In sentence 1, "I" (the subject immediately the modifying phrase) am waiting.  In sentence 2, "my friend" (the subject immediately after the modifying phrase) is waiting.  When writers do not have the correct subject for the participle, the modifier is said to be "dangling."  The dangling modifier can be comical or confusing:

3) When applying for jobs, my CV speaks for itself.

In sentence number 3, "my CV" is "applying" for jobs.  To fix dangling modifiers, you need either to make the participle a complete verb or to put the correct subject immediately after the comma:

4) When I apply for jobs, my CV speaks for itself.

Quite frequently, we can find dangling modifiers in articles; in fact, the following article by Pierre LeBrun of ESPN (Nov. 25, 2011) about the NHL Winter Classic inspired me to write this post:

Gretzky told ESPN.com via text that he spoke with Sather this week. It was a "nice conversation," Gretzky said, but his answer remained the same.

Speaking of Gretzky, he is still owed about $8 million to $9 million from his Coyotes contract. The NHL met with former Coyotes owner Jerry Moyes in a mediation session on Tuesday. The league launched a lawsuit against Moyes in March 2010. Should mediation eventually produce an agreement, Gretzky will finally be paid the money he's owed, and frankly, it's long overdue.

Having said that, a source told ESPN.com the mediation session between Moyes and the league did not go swimmingly, so, at this point, it's anyone's guess when this will be resolved.

In the second paragraph here, Gretzky (the "he" that follows the comma) is speaking of Gretzky--which I do not think is the case.  The third paragraph is a bit more difficult to understand: "that" in "having said that" seems to refer to the previous paragraph, which means that the "source" who had "said that" might also be Gretzky.  Certainly we can guess what LeBrun means, but we do well not to have others guess at the meaning our writing.

Dangling modifiers also commonly occur with past participles (i.e. eaten, taught, walked) and infinitives ("to" plus a verb such as "to fix").


Resources

The Purdue OWL has a good section on dangling modifiers, as does the University of Ottawa.  The University of Toronto has a good little tutorial on how to fix dangling modifiers.

Towson University and Capital Community College have good exercises that cover all types of dangling modifiers.

Subjects and Verbs

Sentences need both a subject and a verb.  In its simplest form, a subject is who or what does the main action in the sentence.  The verb is the action that the subject does. 

Example 1: Kevin spikes volleyballs.

To find the subject, ask yourself who or what does something?  In example 1, Kevin is doing something; Kevin is the subject.

To find the verb in that sentence, ask yourself what is Kevin doing?  Kevin spikes; spikes is the verb.

Subject: Kevin

Verb: spikes

Example 2: Kevin spikes volleyballs at Michael.

Follow the same procedure as above to find the verb.  Here, there are two people in the sentence: Kevin and Michael.  Which one of them is doing something? Kevin.

What is Kevin doing? Kevin still spikes.

Subject: Kevin

Verb: spikes

Example 3: Kevin spikes volleyballs at Michael that Kim pumped up.

Follow the same procedure as above.  Here, there are three people in the sentence: Kevin, Michael, and Kim.  Which of them is doing or has done something? Kevin and Kim.

Separate those two parts of the sentence:

Kevin spikes volleyballs at Michael.

That Kim pumped up.

Which of those two sentences is complete (i.e. it can exist by itself)?  Kevin spikes volleyballs at Michael. (“That Kim pumped up” cannot be a sentence by itself; it depends on the first part of the sentence for sense.)  Kevin is still the subject of this sentence.

What is Kevin doing? Kevin spikes.

Subject: Kevin

Verb: spikes

Example 4: Kevin and Dan spike volleyballs at Michael.

Again, follow the same procedure.  Here, there are three people in the sentence: Kevin, Dan, and Michael.  Which of them is doing something? Kevin and Dan.

What are Kevin and Dan doing: Kevin and Dan spike.

Subject: Kevin and Dan

Verb: spike

The subject does the main action in a sentence.  The subject can be singular or plural.   The verb is the main action that the subject does.

Resources

St. Cloud State University explains subjects and verbs well;  DeAnza College has a fairly thorough explanation; and D’Youville College has a much shorter one as well as two quizzes.  GrammarBook has a good quiz.