Collins Primary Grammar, Punctuation and Spelling

Sadly, Jackie can’t come on Friday.

Prepositions

A preposition is a word that is used before a noun or a pronoun to describe how things are related or connected to each other. For example, prepositions can tell you:

• where a person or thing is:

a cat in the garden

a book on the table

a sock under the bed

Other prepositions like this include:

• the movement of something or someone:

The train came into the station.

We pushed through the crowd.

Other prepositions like this include:

• they also show how things are related in time:

I haven’t seen my auntie since last week.

Conjunctions

A conjunction is a word that is used to join two words or two parts of a sentence together. There are two main types of conjunction.

Co-ordinating conjunctions

A co-ordinating conjunction joins two things that are as important as each other:

I love fish and chips.

It was dry so I walked home.

You can have a biscuit or a cake.

She has neither mother nor father.

It can also show a contrast between two things:

Joe is having a birthday party but he hasn’t invited me.

Subordinating conjunctions

A subordinating conjunction introduces a clause which is less important than the main part of the sentence:

The teacher was angry because the pupils would not pay attention.

Mark read his book while he waited for his mum to arrive.

I must tell you some exciting news before we get started.

Some dogs go a bit crazy when it’s windy.

Pronouns

A pronoun is a word that is used in place of a noun. You use a pronoun instead of repeating the name of a person, place or thing:

Rachel lives next door to me. Rachel is in my class.

> Rachel lives next door to me. She is in my class.

That is the book I am reading just now. The book is very funny.

> That is the book I am reading just now. It is very funny.

I like to sit in the garden. The garden is very sunny.

> I like to sit in the garden. It is very sunny.

Personal pronouns

You use a personal pronoun instead of the subject or object of a sentence:

She is good at maths.

Nobody likes him.

Possessive pronouns

You use a possessive pronoun to show that something belongs to a person or thing:

We had to move out when our house was flooded.

I think the blue jacket is mine.

The dog buried its bone in the garden.

Relative pronouns

You use a relative pronoun instead of a noun to join two different parts of a sentence. The relative pronouns are who, whom, whose, which and that. They introduce information about a noun in an earlier part of the sentence. This noun is known as the antecedent. You use who, whom and whose when the antecedent is a person, and which and that when it is not a person.

who: You use who when the antecedent is the subject of the second clause.