120 Grammar Lessons 41-43

 41. Conjunctions 

One conjunction is enough to join two clauses. 

English does not require a second conjunction. 

• Incorrect: Though he is old but he is healthy. 

• Correct: Though he is old he is healthy. OR He is old but he is healthy. 

• Incorrect: As he was fat so he ran slowly. 

• Correct: As he was fat he ran slowly. OR He was fat so he ran slowly. 

• Incorrect: If you work hard then you will succeed. 

• Correct: If you work hard you will succeed. 

• Incorrect: Because he is clever therefore he gets good marks.

 • Correct: Because he is clever he gets good marks. 

42. Correlatives ( A word or concept that has a mutual relationship with another word or concept.)

When the correlatives either...or, neither...nor, both...and, not only...but also are used, you must see that they are placed before words of the same part of speech. 

• Incorrect: The car either dashed against a dog or a goat. (verb-noun) 

• Correct: The car dashed against either a dog or a goat. (noun-noun) 

• Incorrect: Neither he would eat nor allow us to eat. (noun-verb) 

• Correct: He would neither eat nor allow us to eat. (verb-verb) 

• Incorrect: Neither he smokes nor drinks. (noun-verb) 

• Correct: He neither smokes nor drinks. (verb-verb) 

43. Dead and died

Dead is an adjective. 

It is used to modify a noun.

 • He is dead. (NOT He is died.) 

• A dead man (NOT A died man) Died is the past tense and the past participle of the verb die.

 • He has died. (NOT He has dead.) 

• He died last year. (NOT He dead last year.) 

44. Determiners 

Articles (a/an, the), possessives (my, your, his, her, their, our etc.) and demonstratives (this, that, these and those) are called Group A determiners.

Note that we cannot put two Group A determiners together. 

We can say my cat, the cat or that cat, but not the my cat or my that cat. In order to put together the meanings of a possessive and an article or a demonstrative, we use a structure with of. 

• He is a friend of mine. (NOT He is a my friend.) 

• These shoes of mine pinch me terribly. (NOT These my shoes pinch me terribly.) 

• Those dirty fingers of yours have stained the walls. (NOT Those your dirty fingers have ...)