grammar games
Grammar in the language subject
The number of people who speak Spanish in the world is approaching 600 million, there is a reason why it is the second most spoken language. Given such data, there are almost no explanations why in Primary School the category of core subject is given to Spanish Language and Literature; in addition to having their individual space between the competitions of the stage.
Regardless of what has been said and whether Spanish is our mother tongue or not, it is clear that communication between human beings is very rich and varied thanks to languages that also allow us to be used as oral communication and written communication.
All of the above are a few of the many arguments that could be given to justify seeing each other class after class for years, not only in Primary, with the Spanish language as the object of study. The most knowledgeable, back in middle school or high school, say that this is the metalinguistic function of language: a technical way of saying that we recreate ourselves in our communication code par excellence.
Within everything we talk about it, there are the types of words according to their syntactic function. So then let’s talk about verbs, adjectives, nouns, adverbs and other little words that help us form meaningful statements, to be able to be understood and not Martians.
Types of words according to their function in the sentence
When thinking about which group to start with, it would possibly be preferable for those words that we learn first: nouns.
Nouns or names
A good number of human beings start speaking with the words “dad” and “mom.” Its affective connotations are well worth it. Although this subjective dimension of language is important and fascinating, we will focus on what types of words are: nouns.
The nouns They are words that designate things, people, animals or places (they name them). The noun classes They are studied in opposing pairs, creating the following categories into which a word can fit: common noun either Propper noun (identifies anyone or identifies a single thing or living being), individual noun or collective noun (identifies a single individual or a group), concrete noun or abstract noun (something perceptible by the senses or not), animate noun or inanimate noun (beings with life or without life of their own).
Furthermore, nouns have gender (male and female) and number (singular and plural). Although there are exceptions such as epicene nouns that serve for both (examples: baby and panther) and nouns that serve the same for singular and plural (examples: umbrella and birthday).
Adjectives
After the nouns, we dedicate ourselves to qualifying the named things and thus arrive the adjectives and, within them, the adjectives qualifiers that we use them both to praise or define and to insult (these are not very grateful). In turn, adjectives can be in different degrees: positive (those that children call “normal”), comparative (those that we don’t like when we lose: more… than, less… than and as much… as) and superlatives (these distinguish one above the others, the more/the most and the least/the least, or are intensified with very or the suffixes -érmo or -ísimo).
Pronouns and determiners
These types of words lead us to the pronouns whose mission is to replace the nouns in the sentences. The best known are personal pronouns that, depending on how many people they refer to and/or who they speak, they will be of one type or another. Due to their importance, they are all listed in the following table:
There are other types of pronouns that are sometimes also determining: when their function, instead of being substitutes, focuses on accompanying or specifying the noun. In this way they become determinants. In the following diagram you will find the types of determiners that we have and, if you look closely, you will see that some have an asterisk: those are the ones that can also function as pronouns. Don’t get lost and miss any…
Verbs
In no way could we forget the verbs (I’m sure you were missing them). They are important in any sentence; Well, without them we would not know what they do. subjects that we talked about. In our language, these types of words are the most difficult to study because each verb is conjugated and has a derived word for each person (1st, 2nd and 3rd of the singular or plural), time (present, past and future) and mode (indicative, subjunctive and imperative). Also we have regular and irregular verbs Because not all its forms follow the same scheme, there are exceptions such as the famous “anduve”. However, it is easier to figure out which words are verbs, since they are categorized into three conjugations: those that end in -AR (1st conjugation), those that end in -ER (2nd conjugation) and those that end in -IR (3rd conjugation). conjugation).
In case you haven’t gotten dizzy yet, we remind you that we also have non-personal forms: infinitive, gerund and participle. We love these and they are easier to learn; although, sometimes, it is difficult for us to know their names.
One possibility is not to give as much prominence to the subject of the sentence as to the action. At this point the prayer instead of being in active voicewe say that it is in passive voice.
The adverbs
These words as such are reserved to be studied more specifically when we begin to be true specialists in Primary, back in the higher years. The reason is that there are many, very different ones and their functions in the sentence also give a lot of play. In any case, the best known are: adverbs of manner, adverbs of place and adverbs of time. To these are added those of affirmation, denial, doubt,…
Other types of words studied in primary school
In this section we are going to mention words such as conjunctions, interjections and demonyms.
Conjunctions are links between parts of speech or between words. How many times a day do we use the conjunction AND or OR? Take the test and you will see how these words are widely used, although they are studied less.
For their part, interjections usually involve exclamations and, sometimes, writing them brings us complications. Why is it difficult for you to know how to write “ouch!”? However, it is the first thing that comes out when we catch a finger… well… this and others…
There was no way we could leave out the prepositions, which usually go unnoticed until the unit arrives in which the teacher says: “You have to learn this list by heart.” Generation after generation we end up doing it fast and everything or needing to recite the entire list to make sure if a word we have encountered is a word or not.
Finally, to review only the types of words that we see, fundamentally, in Primary, we have demonyms. These words generate a feeling of belonging and the desire to tell other people things about the place where we were born, raised or currently live. They are great for interculturality and for making us confused or making us laugh when we are not able to determine some. In Spain, people from Huelva, Teruel and Ciudad Real, for example, usually smile because they know that they are going to make us think… What is happening to you? It’s not worth cheating or being from there… From now on, these guys no longer catch us: Huelva, Teruel and Ciudad Realeño. We will have to continue studying these words to know the origin of more people from around the world. You already know you can do it in !
Types of complements according to their function in the sentence
Different types of words have a function within the sentence, starting with their location in the subject (protagonist of the sentence) or in the predicate (the rest of the sentence whose main word is the verb and can be of two types: verbal or nominal).
Within the predicate we call each set of words with the same function a complement. In this way, when we begin to do more complete syntactic analysis, we learn qualifiers such as direct object, indirect object, attribute and circumstantial object. These are the best known, although there are some more.
For us to better understand or remember, below is a sentence parsed. It gets easier the more you practice. Take the test and you’ll see.
Types of sentences according to the speaker’s intention
It is essential if we want to understand the study of language as a means to communicate and think better, knowing the distinction of each type of sentence according to the attitude or intention of the speaker. It is not the same to come across interrogative sentences as exclamatory sentences or declarative sentences. Depending on the type of our interlocutor or ourselves, we act differently.
In the diagram that appears below, you can see the different classes we are talking about.
We could continue commenting on many more things, for example: continue with the paragraph until we reach the analysis of the complete text, as Primary students do. However, we are going to stop here to make way for the discovery of the different options for the Grammar that offers. There may be more than one surprise and more than one surprised at everything you are capable of doing and how you overcome level by level all the challenges that our games propose.