Essay Sample on Grammar Exercise: Impressive Results with Some Challenges

Introduction

The results from the grammar exercise were generally good, and I knew the responses to most of the questions. I knew the answers to 80% of the paper, which included questions on punctuation, apparent pronoun reference, subject-verb agreement, sentence fusion using adverbs, correct use of pronouns, proper use of adjectives, correct use of verb forms and participles. However, I had challenges in some parts of the exercise, including identifying whether a verb or pronoun should be plural or singular in a sentence where the verb comes before the subject and in cases of collective pronouns, respectively. I also had a challenge with dangling modifiers.

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Verb agreements are wholly dependent on the nature of the subject: whether the subject is plural or singular. Thus, when the subject is singular, then the verb needs to be singular, and if the subject is plural, the verb is also plural (Chele, 35). That is why, when a verb precedes a subject, one reads the whole sentence to determine if the verb should be singular or plural by identifying the subject as singular or plural. For example, Mum's blue cups, which she uses for visitors only, are dirty.

The use of pronouns in plural or singularity depends on the sense of the collective noun, and collective nouns are singular in general. Therefore, when using pronouns alongside collective nouns, the pronouns are used in their singular form unless the collective term is used in the plural to refer to various groups. For instance, furniture is a collective noun; thus, pronouns sued along it have to be collective. For example, the furniture in his house is made from high-quality wood and, therefore, very expensive'' (Woods, Np). The rule for the pronoun agreement with collective nouns is that collective nouns are always in the singular form, and thus the pronouns should be in the singular form.

Dangling modifiers are a phrase that modifies a word that is unclear in a sentence, and makes the meaning of the sentence ambiguous since they make it unclear what is being referred to in a sentence. In the presence of the subject being referred to, then the modifier is not dangling. Riles for identifying dangling modifiers is that they mostly appear at the beginning of a sentence and that there is no indication of the referenced noun or pronoun (Jumaa, 170). For example, in the sentence "to receive treatment, bills need to be paid," the word to receive treatment is a dangling modifier because there is no indication of who is receiving the treatment. However, in the sentence "to receive treatment, John needs to pay the bills," the words to receive payment are not dangling because the reference is identified as John.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the rule of grammar and pronunciation makes it easy for one to understand the correct use of elements of grammar in sentence composition. Remembering the rules is critical to learning grammatical correctness and applying in sentence composition writing and English learning. It makes it easy to identify mistakes in sentences since, without the knowledge of the rules, all the sentences seem correct, which can be confusing.

Works Cited

Chele, Mampoi Irene. "An analysis of subject agreement errors in English: the case of third-year students at the national university of Lesotho." Ghana Journal of Linguistics 4.1 (2015): 32-40.Retrieved from: https://www.ajol.info/index.php/gjl/article/viewFile/119789/109247

Jumaa, Ahmed Adel Nouri. "Dangling Modifiers in English." Alustath 2.205 (2013): 167-180. ISSN: 0552265X 25189263

Woods, Geraldine. How to select pronouns for collective nouns. Retrieved on 28 January 2020 from https://www.dummies.com/education/language-arts/grammar/how-to-select-pronouns-for-collective-nouns/