Intermediate Grammar Project: UCI

Intermediate Grammar Project: UCI

This is my work on Intermediate Grammar Project from University of California.

Past Participle

The form of a verb, typically ending in -ed in English, which is used in forming perfect and passive tenses and sometimes as an adjective, e.g. looked in "have you looked"?, lost in "lost property".

For regular verbs, we normally add "ed" to form its past participle. Unfortunately for irregular verbs there are no rules and it is just a matter of practice.

List of common irregular verbs:

Verb	Past Participle
be	been
beat	beaten
become	become
begin	begun
bet	bet
blow	blown
break	broken
bring	brought
build	built
burst	burst
buy	bought
catch	caught
choose	chosen
come	come
cost	cost
cut	cut
deal	dealt
do	done
draw	drawn
drink	drunk
drive	driven
eat	eaten
fall	fallen
feed	fed
feel	felt
fight	fought
find	found
fly	flown
forget	forgotten
freeze	frozen
get	got, gotten
give	given
go	gone
grow	grown
hang	hung
have	had
hear	heard
hide	hidden
hit	hit
hold	held
hurt	hurt
keep	kept
know	known
lay	laid
lead	led
leave	left
lend	lent
let	let
lie	lain
light	lit
lose	lost
make	made
mean	meant
meet	met
pay	paid
put	put
read	read
ride	ridden
ring	rung
rise	risen
run	run
say	said
see	seen
sell	sold
send	sent
set	set
shake	shaken
steal	stolen
shine	shone
shoot	shot
show	shown
shut	shut
sing	sung
sink	sunk
sit	sat
sleep	slept
slide	slid
speak	spoken
spend	spent
spring	sprung
stand	stood
stick	stuck
swear	sworn
sweep	swept
swim	swum
swing	swung
take	taken
teach	taught
tear	torn
tell	told
think	thought
throw	thrown
understand	understood
wake	woken
wear	worn
weave	woven
win	won
write	written

Present Perfect

This tense is formed by have/has + the past participle.

The present perfect is used to indicate a link between the present and the past. The time of the action is before now but not specified, and we are often more interested in the result than in the action itself.

Some examples extracted from ef website:

• Actions started in the past and continuing in the present:

1. They haven't lived here for years.
2. She has worked in the bank for five years.
3. We have had the same car for ten years.
4. Have you played the piano since you were a child?

• When the time period referred to has not finished:

1. I have worked hard this week.
2. It has rained a lot this year.
3. We haven't seen her today.

• Actions repeated in an unspecified period between the past and now:

1. They have seen that film six times
2. It has happened several times already.
3. She has visited them frequently.
4. We have eaten at that restaurant many times.

• Actions completed in the very recent past (with just):

1. Have you just finished work?
2. I have just eaten.
3. We have just seen her.
4. Has he just left?

• When the precise time of the action is not important or not know:

1. Someone has eaten my soup!
2. Have you seen 'Gone with the Wind'?
3. She's studied Japanese, Russian, and English.

Present Perfect Progressive

The present perfect continuous tense (also known as the present perfect progressive tense) shows that something started in the past and is continuing at the present time. The present perfect continuous is formed using the construction has/have been + the present participle (root + -ing).

Example: I’ve been decorating the house this summer. The focus is on the action – decorating – and the action is unfinished.

Adverbs for Present Perfect

The present perfect tense is commonly used with the indefinite time adverbs never, ever, before, yet, already.

• Have you ever been to the USA?
• I have never seen a kangaroo.
• I have seen her before.
• They have already arrived.
• She has not received the parcel yet.

Stative Verbs

A stative verb is a verb used primarily to describe a state or situation as opposed to an action or process. Common examples include be, have, like, seem, prefer, understand, doubt, and know. Also known as a stative, state verb, or static verb. Contrast this with a dynamic verb. Stative verbs usually don't occur in the progressive aspect or the imperative mood.

List of stative verbs:

• agree
• appear
• astonish
• be
• believe
• belong
• concern
• consist
• contain
• deny
• depend
• deserve
• disagree
• dislike
• doubt
• feel (=have an opinion)
• fit
• hate
• have
• hear
• imagine
• impress
• include
• involve
• know
• lack
• like
• look (=seem)
• love
• matter
• mean
• measure (=have length etc)
• mind
• need
• owe
• own
• please
• possess
• prefer
• promise
• realise
• recognise
• remember
• satisfy
• see
• seem
• smell
• sound
• suppose
• surprise
• taste
• think (=have an opinion)
• understand
• want
• weigh (=have weight)
• wish

Some verbs can be both stative and dynamic:

• be
• think
• have
• see
• taste

Examples of stative sentence:

1. This soup tastes great
2. The coffee tastes really bitter

Example of non-stative sentence (dynamic sentence):

1. The chef is tasting the soup

Past Perfect

The past perfect, also called the pluperfect, is a verb tense used to talk about actions that were completed before some point in the past.

We use the verb had and the past participle for the past perfect.

Examples:

1. John had gone out when I arrived in the office.
2. I had saved my document before the computer crashed.
3. When they arrived we had already started cooking.
4. He was very tired because he hadn't slept well.

In the examples above, it doesn't matter which event is mentioned first, the tense makes it clear which one happened first.

Modals

Modal verbs are helping/auxiliary verbs that express ideas like ability, permission, possibility, and necessity. One of the most important things to remember is that modal verbs are always combined with other verbs to show complete meanings, but combining correctly is often a challenge for English learners. This is because we have single-word modals (can, could, may, might, must, shall, should, will, would) and phrasal modals (be able to, be going to, be supposed to, had better, have to, have got to, ought to, used to).

Phrasal Modals

Modal phrases (or semi-modals) are used to express the same things as modals, but are a combination of auxiliary verbs and the preposition to.

1. I have to go.
2. Maybe we ought to explore the mountain a little,' said Ginger to Steve
3. He is not able to be with us
4. It was supposed to last for a year and actually lasted eight.
5. He used to help us
6. He's got to help us
7. He's going to help us
8. He's able to help us
9. He had better help us

Ability Modals

We use can, be able to and could to show that someone has (or doesn’t have) an ability to do something:

Present/future ability	Negative
Alan can swim well.	Jackie cannot play piano.
I can meet you after school.	We can’t visit Vancouver this weekend.
I am able to speak two languages.	I am not able to speak Arabic.
Brenda is able to run quickly.	Stacey isn’t able to finish a marathon.
You are able to program a computer.	We aren’t able to make a reservation tonight.

Modals of Possibility

We use the modals could, might and may to show that something is possible in the future, but not certain:

1. They might come later. (= Perhaps/Maybe they will come later.)
2. They may come by car. (= Perhaps/Maybe they will come by car.)
3. If we don’t hurry we could be late. (= Perhaps/Maybe we will be late)

We use could have, might have and may have to show that something was possible now or at some time in the past:

1. It’s ten o’clock. They might have arrived now.
2. They could have arrived hours ago.

Advice Modals

Modal Verbs are used to give advice or suggestions. There are two modal verbs for advice: should and would:

Subject + Should + Base Verb: Should is used for advice in the present:

1. You should eat healthy food.
2. You should exercise every day.

Should + Have + Past Participle: Should is used for advice in the past:

1. You should have gone to the party.
2. She should have studied more often.

The modal verb "would" is used to give advice. In this situation, the speaker is giving hypothetical advice as if he/she were the listener:

1. If I were you, I would return the book.
2. If I were you, I would not wear that jacket.

Preference Modals

Would rather:

1. I would rather stay home.
2. I would rather play tennis.

Would rather + than:

1. I would rather go to the beach than study on such a nice day.
2. I would rather be rich than poor.

Prefer:

1. I prefer hot chocolate to tea.
2. I prefer drinking hot chocolate to drinking tea.
3. I prefer to drink hot chocolate rather than drink tea.

Would prefer:

1. Would you prefer spaghetti or fish for dinner?
2. Would you prefer to catch a bus or take a taxi home after the party?

Modals of Impossibility

We use the negative can’t or cannot to show that something is impossible:

1. That can’t be true.
2. You cannot be serious.

We use couldn’t/could not to talk about the past:

1. We knew it could not be true.
2. He was obviously joking. He could not be serious.

Adjectives

Adjectives are words that describe the qualities or states of being of nouns: enormous, doglike, silly, yellow, fun, fast. They can also describe the quantity of nouns: many, few, millions, eleven.

1. They have a beautiful house.
2. The unhappiest, richest man.
3. A red apple.

Adjective Participles

Some participles can be used as adjectives in either the present or past form. Present Participle (-ing) is used to describe something or someone. Past Participle (-ed) is used to describe how people feel about something or someone:

1. I watched an interesting TV about American history last night.
2. This film is boring. Let's stop watching it.
3. I'm interested in American history.
4. I'm bored of my job. I want to find another one.