Exercises in Traditional English Grammar

Click on the name of an exercise to begin. Instructions are included. The skills addressed increase in sophistication as you go down the list.   If you see a button labeled "Next" or one with an arrow => at the end, click on it to reach another exercise in the sequence. Occasionally exercises will invite you to review earlier issues before proceeding. This site is under continual construction.

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I. Understanding Sentence Structure

Standard Curriculum	Special Topics
1. The Sentence as a Structure
2. "Parsing": Some Useful Vocabulary and Concepts
3. Identifying Parts of Speech: Word Classes	3a. Verbs
	3b. Auxiliary Verbs
	3c. Adjectives
	3d. Adverbs
	3e. Prepositions
	3f. Adjectives and Possessives
	3g. Pronouns
	3h. Parsing Pronouns
4. Working with Verbs	4a. Consistency in Tense
	4b. Choosing the Right Form
5. Analyzing the Sentence: Verbs, Subjects, Direct Objects	5a. Verbs (1)
	5b. Verbs (2)
	5c. Subjects
	5d. Direct Objects
	5e. Questions
6. Word Groups: Phrases & Clauses, the Basics	6a. Phrases and Clauses
	6b. Independent and Dependent Clauses
7. Focusing on What Matters by Screening Out Secondary Word Groups	7a. Recognizing What Is Secondary
	7b. Types of Phrase
	7c. Achieving Emphasis by Strengthening the Primary Words
8. Sentence Structure: Review or Fast-Track Introduction	8a. Identifying Subjects, Verbs, Direct Objects
	8b. Introducing Subordinate Clauses as Main Sentence Elements
	8c. Working with Subordinate Clauses as Main Sentence Elements
9. Sentence Patterns: Learning to See the Top Words	9a. Review of Simple Subjects and Verbs
	9b. Intransitive and Linking Verbs
	9c. Transitive Verbs and Direct Objects
	9d. Indirect Objects
	9e. Objective Complements
	9f. Complements vs. Objects

II. Improving Sentence Variety

1. Relative Clauses: The Basics (who/whom, which, that)

2. Relative Clauses: Advanced (whose, for whom, the best of which, etc.)

3. Punctuating Restrictive and Nonrestrictive Elements

4. Appositives (a common type of sentence fragment)

5. Subordinate Clauses

6. Infinitive Phrases
   
   
7. Absolute Phrases

III. Fine-Tuning Grammar

1. Parallelism in Correlative Constructions

2. Parallelism in Lists

3. Pronoun Case

4. Participles: Use and Abuse

5. Misrelated Modifiers (only, not, even)

6. Avoiding Sexist Language Sensibly

7. Gerunds and Gerund Phrases

IV. Reading Poetry

1. Untangling Syntax in Older Poetry

2. A Short Course in Elizabethan Grammar (Early Modern English Grammar)

 
 

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