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A Dark Tragedy

in Grammar Land

nce upon a time and long ago, there was a


peaceful and happy kingdom called Grammar
Land. Throughout all the world, the people
of Grammar Land (the Grammarians) were
well known to have the greatest and best
understanding of English grammar, spelling and
pronunciation.

As a result, the kingdom of Grammar Land flourished -- it had the best


economy, the finest art, the strongest soldiers and technology, and even
the most beautiful princesses, who also were masters and teachers of
English grammar. As you might expect, Grammarians took great pride in
their perfect usage of English. After all, a kingdom with the best command
of language was sure to be the strongest in many other areas of life as well.
The king, knights, princesses, merchants, teachers and artists of Grammar
Land all took great pleasure in each and every English conversation with
one another. All was well in the land, and it seemed nothing could disturb
their excellent way of life.

Then, without warning, tragedy struck.

Suddenly, an awful shrieking could be heard from the skies above


Grammar Land -- it was the terrible dragon KONGLISH of the
Ungrammatical Land, heading straight for the royal castle! What did
he want, the Grammarians wondered? How and why would Konglish
attack? It had been many, many years since anyone had seen Konglish. It
had been so long, in fact, that young Grammarians scarcely believed of
his existence, thinking he was only a made-up bedtime story told by the
elders of Grammar Land; a fairy tale designed to frighten children into
diligently studying English every day.

The Grammarians cowered in fear, hiding in their houses and anywhere


else they might be safe from his fiery rage. Hopefully, they prayed, the
dragon would just go away without incident, back to the Ungrammatical
Land...

Unfortunately, Konglish had other plans. Mounting a cunning surprise


attack, the fierce dragon swept in, kidnapping the twelve beautiful
princesses of Grammar Land from the castle! Wasting no time,
Konglish swiftly whisked the lovely and well-spoken princesses back to
Ungrammatical Land, holding them prisoner. To make matters worse, he
dispersed the princesses throughout Ungrammatical Land to make any
attempt at a rescue even more impossible.

The king of Grammar Land was devastated. Without the princesses, the
great culture and perfect English of Grammar Land might be lost forever.
The king immediately enacted a plan to rescue the twelve princesses and
return them to their rightful home.

Adventuring through Ungrammatical Land and rescuing the princesses


would be no easy task! Everyone was sure that whoever would go to
Ungrammatical Land would need to be equipped with perfect English in
order to survive. The king of Grammar Land, wise in the ways of the evil
Konglish, knew many battles would lie ahead for whatever brave warriors,
magicians and English experts would accept the quest. With dangerous
monsters and ungrammatical demons lying ahead, the king vowed to
destroy the evil and ungrammatical dragon Konglish, rescue the twelve
princesses, and restore perfect English to Grammar Land once and for all!

Although the king was resolute in his plan to rescue the princesses, he
was in despair. He wondered aloud, Who in Grammar Land will be brave
enough to accept such a dangerous quest to rescue the princesses? Great
riches and noble titles shall be bestowed upon all men who are brave
enough to help! To aid in the quest, the king turned to the faithful and
brave families of Grammar Land, including legendary grammar crusader
Professor Hoho and his heroic Grammar Knights.

#001: The Ten Different word Families


of Grammar Land
efore our story continues, lets review the history of the ten families
of Grammar Land. What are the ten families? They are the Verbs, the
Nouns, the Adjectives, the Adverbs, the Pronouns, the Auxiliary Verbs,
the Conjunctions, the Articles, the Prepositions and the Interjections.
Of the ten great families in Grammar Land, some are considered major
and others are regarded as minor.
The Major word families (Verb, Noun, Adjective and Adverb) are major because these word families
are open and new people can easily join these families. This means the number of people in these
families is often growing larger. There are always a lot of immigrant word people who want to join
these major families. As they are open to newcomers, the major families take word knights from
other families, but only if they are willing to change their form and appearance to fit their new
family. For example, people from the Noun family can become members of the Adjective family
if they add suffixes to their name such as -ly, -ful, -cal and so on. We will talk about words which
change families later in more detail.
The Verbs, the Nouns, the Adjectives, and the Adverbs are very powerful and brave; most of them do
the most important jobs in Grammar Land. The bravest and most powerful boys from these families
often go on to become honorable Grammar Knights. After they become Grammar Knights and are
used in sentences, they change their names, and they are given titles of nobility. They become: Sir
Subject, Sir Verb, Sir Object and last but not least, Sir Complement.

Each word family has a colorful set of combined symbols that shows their favorite family animals,
their family motto and other details, including their favorite family colors. These symbols, combined
into a single image, are known as a family crest. These crests can tell you the function of a word
family, and they are really cute as well!
Before we talk about which knights you often find in sentence groups, lets take a look at the crests
of each family. The following are the beautiful crests of the four Major word families. Arent they
adorable?
6

Professor Hohos Grammar Story - Book 1: A Dark Tragedy in Grammar Land

The Four Major Word Families:

the Verbs, the Nouns, the Adjectives and the Adverbs

The Verbs

go
get
like
dig
operate
write
draw
walk
grow
start
drive
...
The Verbs are masters of action. They describe
an action, state or occurrence. The Verbs
usually function as Sir Verb in a sentence.
However, they can also be transformed into
Nouns, Adjectives and Adverbs.

The Adjectives
good
cool
happy
honest
many
royal
blue
magical
natural
true
smart
...
The Adjectives are masters of description.
As describing words, the Adjectives usually
work to qualify (modify) Nouns and Noun
Phrases, giving information or detail to
them.

The Nouns
name
picture
food
cloth
building
car
train
bag
beauty
book
beer
...

The Nouns refer to people, places and


things as well as states of existence or ideas.
The Nouns always give names to everything
they find. They can act as Sir Subject, Sir
Object and Sir Complement.

The Adverbs

well
happily
honestly
fortunately
greatly
soon
very
often
however
therefore
...
The Adverbs are masters of modification.
They can modify Verbs, Adjectives, Nouns,
other Adverbs or even clauses, phrases and
sentences. The Adverbs express manner,
place, time, frequency, degree, level of
certainty, etc.
Story#001: The Ten Different Word Families of Grammar Land

Well, those are the crests for the Major word families! Dont you want to know more about what they
do and who they are? Dont worry! Well talk about the families, individual knights and the small
and/or big word groups one by one later in this book.

Now, lets move on to the Minor families. Unlike the four Major word families, the six Minor word
families are closed, which means people from other families cannot join the families and become
members of them.
Even though the name minor makes these families sound less important than major ones, these
traditional and more conservative families have their own special and important qualities and
functions. Here are their family crests with brief descriptions of their family values:

The Six Minor Word Families:

the Auxiliary Verbs, the Pronouns, the Prepositions, the Articles, the Conjunctions
and the Interjections

The Auxiliary Verbs

The Pronouns

may
will
would
should
must
might
can
could
...

The Auxiliary Verbs are Verbs that add a


functional or grammatical meaning to the
Verbs or to a sentence. They are also known
as Helping Verbs.

you
one
mine
some
any
they
them
that
those
myself
...
The Pronouns are substitutes for Nouns or
Noun Phrases, which means they can work
as a Noun or a Noun Phrase.

Professor Hohos Grammar Story - Book 1: A Dark Tragedy in Grammar Land

The Prepositions
against
from
with
in
on
within
at
toward
beneath
under
...
The Prepositions usually explain the spatial
or temporal relationship between the
Nouns and Noun Phrases in a sentence.
As their name suggests, they are positioned
before the Nouns or Noun Phrases (Gerunds)
to make adverbials.

The Conjunctions

and
but
or
because
when
if
though
unless
that
...
The Conjunctions connect words, sentences,
phrases or clauses. They are connectors,
connecting whole ideas together.

The Articles
a
an
the

The Articles appear before Nouns or Noun


Phrases to indicate volumic and numerical
scope, and whether we are referencing a
specific Noun or not. The Articles are also
members of the Determiners group.

The Interjections

Cheers!
Hooray!
Ouch!
Wow!
Hi!
Good-bye!
Oh!
Aww!

The Interjections express particular


emotions such as excitement, surprise,
anger, happiness and so on. They sometimes
stand as a single word and they dont have to
be used in complete sentences.

We now have an idea of the four Major and six Minor families. Going forward, we will study the
families of Grammar Land in depth, and hear more about the exciting history of Grammar Land as
well!
Story #001: The Ten Different Word Families of Grammar Land

#001: Word Groups


In English, there are ten word-classes, or parts of speech. These ten classes can be divided into two
rather big groups: major and minor word classes.

1. Major word classes: open classes to which we can add new words. Here, new nouns and verbs
are continually being made. The openness of major word classes will be talked about later on in
[Grammar #003: The Openness of Major Word Groups], page 32.
[ TA B L E #001-1:
Major word classes ]

Ma j o r
Wo rd C l a s s

D e s cr i p t i o n /F un ct i o n

E x am p le

Book 1, 2, 3

Ve r b

to d escr ibe action, state


and occur rence

m ake, go, l i ke, wave,


f o r m , p l ay, ex t e n d , g row

Book 5

No u n

to ref er to and g ive


names to p eop le, p laces
and thing s

f o o d , d i s h , l e g, p i ct ure,
cl o t h e s , d e l ive r y

Book 7, 9

Adjec t ive

to d escr ibe and qualify


nouns and noun p hrases

h ap py, an g r y, h un g r y,
d e ad , p o o r, p e r f e ct

Book 8, 9

Adverb

t o m o d i f y ve r b s ,
a d j e c t ive s, n o un s a n d
o t h e r a dve rb s o r c l a use s,
p h ra s e s a n d se n t e n c e s

we l l , g re at ly, h ap p i ly,
an g r i ly, p o o rly, p e r f ec tly

2. Minor word classes: closed classes to which we cannot add new words.
[ TA B L E #001-2:
Minor word classes ]

10

Minor
Wo rd C l a ss

D e sc r ip t io n / F u n c t io n

Book 4

Au xi l i ar y
Ver b

to ad d a f unc ti onal or
g rammati c al m eani ng to
ver b s or a s entenc e

c a n , may, sh o u ld , will ,
mig h t , wo u ld

Book 6

Pronoun

to s ub s ti tute f or nouns
or noun p hras es

a ny b o dy, sh e, t h ey,
wh ic h , yo u , t h is, t h a t

Book 5, 12

Article

to indicate volumic and


numerical scope, and indicate
whether we are referencing a
specific noun

a, an, the

Book 10

P re po s i t i o n

to exp l ai n the sp ati al or


temp oral rel ati onshi p
b etween nou ns and nou n
p hrases

in , a t , in sp it e o f , o f ,
wit h , wit h o u t , t o, a ga i n s t ,
f o r, b e c a u se o f

Book 11

C o n jun c tio n

to c onnec t word s ,
s entenc es , p hras es or
c l aus es

wh e n , b e c a u se, if ,
a lt h o u g h , p rov id in g,
u n le ss, a n d , bu t , t h a t

In te rje c tio n

to ex p res s p ar ti c ul ar
em oti ons s uc h as
ex c i tement or s ur p r i s e

wow, o u c h , o h , a h , gos h ,
h e llo, go o d - bye

Professor Hohos Grammar Story - Book 1: A Dark Tragedy in Grammar Land

Example

Every word in English belongs to at least one word group. These word families may not seem to be
very important right now, but they are quite important when trying to understand more advanced
English sentence structures. For beginners who might have trouble noticing differences between
word groups, see the Korean Translation Book .
.
If you are having difficulty understanding things so far, dont worry! Repetition and reading often are
the keys to understanding a new language. Reading the stories in this book repeatedly will enhance
your understanding of grammar structures, and in time, you will begin to assimilate information
and understand the flow of English grammar just as a native speaker does.

Professor Hohos
Useful Study Tips
#001: Always use a dictionary and a thesaurus when reading!

Dont be afraid to use your

dictionary or thesaurus when


you encounter unfamiliar English

words while reading! You should

keep both books with you at


all times. In addition, there are
many

good

dictionaries

and

thesauruses online, if carrying

books around is too difficult. Try


dictionary.com or thesaurus.com!

Even I use these websites when


reading, and so do other native
speakers of English.

a dictionary is a reference book


which provides definitions for words
a thesaurus is a reference book
that groups words together according
to similarity of meaning, giving you
the synonyms and antonyms for any
word

Grammar #001: Word Groups

11

[Grammar #001: Word Groups] talked about the 10 major and minor
word groups. Next, lets read a story about a team project crisis occurring
at school. The goal is to determine to which word families the red words
belong. You can refer to the Korean translation on the next page for help. Fill
in the blanks of the table with the red words from the paragraph.

Team Project Crisis


My classmates and I were given a homework assignment by our
English professor to give a ten minute presentation, all in English.
While I am quite confident about my English level and believe I
will do fine on presentation day, one of my group members has
not contributed anything to the project. She rudely ignored her
responsibility to prepare a speaking script and help with making
a professional-looking PowerPoint slideshow, so I and the other
group members are really angry with her. Additionally, she is
not answering our text messages, and the final presentation is
tomorrow at 9 AM! What should we do? Ugh, I am worried about
failing English class because of her!

[ ]
[ #001: ] 10 / . ,
.
()
. ( ) .
.

12

Professor Hohos Grammar Story - Book 1: A Dark Tragedy in Grammar Land


10
() , ! ,
,
. ,

. ,
,
9! ? ,
F .

1) Nouns

2) Verbs

3) Adjectives

4) Adverbs

5) Articles/Determiners

6) Pronouns

7) Prepositions

8) Conjunctions

9) Auxiliary Verbs

10) Interjections

A full Korean translation and answers to exercise questions


are provided in the Korean Translation Book.

Grammar #001: Word Groups - Exercise

13

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