Dissecting Grammar

Teacher: Lai Muhammed is the Minister of Information, isn’t it? Students: Yes it is. Teacher: Abu, you were not in school yesterday, isn’t it? Abu: Yes, it is. Hello lovers of English grammar. Welcome. Today, I will talk on the topic of question tag. A question tag is a yes or no question that is asked immediately after a statement. It is used to change a statement into a question. As you can see from the conversations above, the question tag poses a lot of problems to some people. These problems arise as a result of the fact that most people are oblivious of the fact that there are rules that guide its use. People often fall into the trap of using “isn’t it” as a question tag for every statement they make. In the first example, the teacher is guilty of that.  If you will spare time to read this post to the end, you will, no doubt, be happy that you have, indeed, learnt something. Before I continue, I want you to take a second look at the conversations between

“Some” and “any” are both quantifiers and determiners that are used to show the quantity or number of something or people. You can use “some ” and “ any” when the number is either not known or not very important. They are both used with countable and uncountable nouns, as well as with singular and plural nouns. They usually modify the nouns they quantify. Examples 1.      I have some money with me here. (The amount is not relevant) 2.      Have you got any friends in Lagos? (“Friends” is a plural countable noun) 3.      I need to take some water now.(“Water” is singular uncountable noun) Now, how then do we really distinguish between “ some ” and “any ”? Take a look at this… Ø “ Some” is used in positive affirmative sentences. Examples 1.      It’s good to have some friends around in times of trouble. 2.      I really need some rest now. Please Note: An affirmative sentence is simply a positive sentence without the negation “ not. ” The sentences a

Hello friends, I hope your weekend was good. Today on Dissecting Grammar, I would like to clarify some issues relating to the use of the above quantifiers. Many times, people use “few”, “a few” and “little”, “a little” interchangeably without knowing that they (the people) are actually wrong. Please pay attention to this analysis and I promise you will never regret being here. I want you to have it in mind that “few” and “little” are quantifiers that simply means “some but not enough” while “a few” and “a little” means “not enough at all”. While “few” and “little” are used in a positive sense, “ a few” and “a little” have a negative connotation. Examples I saw a few persons at the venue of the occasion. (Some, a small number) I saw only few persons at the venue of the occasion. (A small number, not enough) Nigeria has a little money coming in this year. (Some, a small number) Nigeria has little money to spend this year. (Not much, almost nothing) Now, let’s

A quantifier is a word or, sometimes, a phrase that indicates the number or amount of something referred to. It tells us about the quantity of a noun. It usually comes before the noun it quantifies. In English, quantifiers are categorized under determiners. There are simple quantifiers (e.g, all, many, some, etc) and there are complex quantifiers (e.g, a lot of, a few, etc). I will make effort, in this article, to explain the proper use of three quantifiers that are often misused. How to Use “many”, “much” and “a lot of” The above quantifiers are used to talk about something that exists in large quantity. ‘Many’ is used with countable nouns. Example ·         Many persons have been reported killed by the Nyanya bomb blast. ‘Much’ is used with uncountable nouns. Example ·         He has much grain in his store. ‘A lot of’ can be used for both countable and uncountable nouns. Examples ·         There is a lot of food in the house. (Used with uncountable n

In English, we often place some syllables or elements of words before other words to form new words entirely. This ‘little’ part of a word is what is referred to as a prefix. For instance, ‘dis’, when placed before ‘agree’, will give you a new word ‘disagree.’ We can therefore say that ‘dis’ is a prefix. Now, I want you to know that there are positive prefixes and there are negative prefixes. A positive prefix consolidates the meaning of the root word it is used with. For example, ‘em’ is a positive prefix. When you use ‘em’ with the root word ‘power’, you will have ‘empower.’ You can see that the meaning of power does not necessarily change, rather it gets more consolidated. The focus of today’s article is on ‘Negative Prefixes.’ Just sit back and enjoy. I have titled this discussion, “What is a Negative Prefix?” A negative prefix, unlike the positive prefix, is a syllable or other elements of words used before root words to completely change the meaning of the root words. Wh