Nouns, Adjectives and
Adverbs
Dr. Erna Dyah Kusumawati
FH UNS 2021
Words that function as the name of something.
Types of English Noun
NOUNS Common Proper
Countable Uncountable
concrete Abstract
Compound Collective
Common Proper
Generally used to name Used to name a specific
Nouns people, places or things. (or individual), person,
place or thing.
Without being specific
Ex: Aisyah, Jakarta,
Ex: boy, fruit, house, Merapi, Saturnus ,
bridge, cat, etc. Indonesia
Countable Uncountable
Nouns that cannot be
counted
Nouns that can be Refer to substances
counted (wood, paper, gold,),
Type of Nouns Singular vs plural forms liquids (milk, oil, juice),
abstract ideas
Can be used with (happiness, time,
numbers/a/an information)
Ex: bike, chair, student ex;. Rain, cheese (slices
Penambahan s/es of cheese), blood, wood,
air.
Happinesses, times
Concrete Abstract
Opposite eof concrete
noun
Material noun
No physical existence
Refer to people/things
Refer to ideas,
Type of Nouns that exist physically and
emotions, and concepts,
can be detected by
senses (see, smell, hear, that we cannot see,
touch, or taste) touch, hear and smell/
taste
Ex. Dog, moon,
tangerine, shoes Love, time, fear,
freedom, hate, justice
Two or more words that
Compound
create a noun Collective
One word or joined by
the hyphen or written as A word that refer to a
separate words set of group of people,
Types of Ex. Rainfall, mother-in- animals or things.
law, credit card, bus Ex: flock, stack, bunch,
Nouns stop, sub-paragraphs team
Pronounced by Followed by of + plurals
emphasising on the first noun (a bunch of
word . flowers), except for
She took her mother-in- people
law to hospital
yesterday.
Mother-in-law
A word that modifies or explain a noun or pronoun. An
adjective comes before the noun it modifies.
Ex : a poor man, handsome lawyer, smart lawyer
The tragic news was printed on the front page of the
newspaper
The old man is selling used books to the needy children
She is a living (adj) witness (N) to the crime; saksi hidup ,
Adjective Witness
She is a boring speaker, but she is a fascinating teacher
A dead man was found in front of a school
His shirt was stained with fresh blood
Two policemen took the body to a nearby hospital
Several physicians gave their professional statements
The old man died because of a heavy blow to his head
Formed by adding “ly” to an adjective,
example : briefly, fully, specifically, slowly.
Note:
Not all words ending “ly” are adverbs,
Adverbs ex: brotherly, fatherly, lovely, neighborly, lovely, etc are
adjectives.
Whereas, words such as : very, much, little, almost, often etc,
which do not have ly endings are adverb
Modify verbs
The presiding judge does not depend
fully on the testimony
Adverbs Modify adjectives
Function The corporation needs a highly trained lawyer
Qualify other adverbs
The defense lawyer spoke extremely well in front on the jury
Active vs Passive Voices
Sentences may take either the active or the passive voice, or use a
combination of the two.
The term ‘voice’ refers to the relationship between a clause’s
subject and its verb.
When using the active voice the subject of the sentence acts upon
the object through the verb in such a way as to make the
relationship between subject and object clear.
For example: I broke your priceless painting.
Meaning
In this sentence, I is the subject, broke is the verb and painting is
the object.
The active voice makes it clear who broke the painting – it is brisk
and direct.
When using the passive voice, the subject of the sentence is
merely acted upon by something unknown.
For example: Your priceless painting was broken.
Legal drafters have a tendency to use passive forms rather than
active forms because this form creates an indirect and formal
tone with which lawyers instinctively feel comfortable.
Example:
A meeting is to be called.
John Smith will call a meeting.
Pros and cons However, overuse of the passive can lead to lack of clarity. The
examples given above leave it unclear as to who is going to call the
meeting or who broke the painting. It also leads to less effective
and less forceful communication with the reader.
By contrast, sentences using the active voice tend to be shorter,
brisker and more direct. In general, when writing in English for
any purpose it is better to use the active voice.
1. Where it is more important to focus attention on the thing being
acted upon in the sentence.
What happened to my priceless painting? Your priceless painting was
broken.
Here, the emphasis is on the painting having been broken. The
information about who broke it, when, how and why can come later.
2. When the actor in the sentence is not important. This situation
When passive often arises in scientific writing.
For example:
voice can be At the beginning of the experiment, exactly 20 ml of acid was added
useful? to the beaker, causing effervescence.
It would be possible to rephrase this using the active voice, to include
the actor:
At the beginning of the experiment, Tiffany Bryan added exactly 20
ml of acid to the beaker, causing effervescence.
However, it was not Tiffany Bryan who caused the effervescence, but
the addition of 20 ml of acid to the beaker. Consequently, mentioning
Tiffany distracts the reader from the main message of the sentence.
Sentence Pattern and
Complex Sentence
Active voice: S + V+ O
Subject: the doer
A subject is essential in English sentence structure
Verbs are traditionally described as ‘doing’ words. They are
Building usually essential to clause structure.
sentence Verbs may be classified either as main or auxiliary. Auxiliary verbs
are traditionally described as ‘helping verbs’, and include be, do
and have.
The object is usually a noun phrase. In a simple declarative
sentence, it follows the verb. The object is usually said to be
‘affected’ by the verb.
In more complex sentences, it may be necessary to introduce
other parts of speech. These include:
1. Adjectives:
An adjective is a word used to describe a noun or make its
meaning clearer.
For example: A green car. An efficient engine.
Complex Adjectives go before the nouns they qualify.
For example: The commercial lawyer drafted the sales contract.
sentence 2. Adverbs
Adverbs are words or phrases that add more information
about place, time, manner or degree to an adjective, verb,
other adverb or sentence (e.g. greatly, very, fortunately,
efficiently).
Adverbs may be added to modify the meaning :
The commercial lawyer efficiently drafted the sales contract
3. Linking clauses
In order to build more complex sentences, it is necessary to
find ways of linking clauses together.
a) by using prepositions (in, at, on, to, from etc.) or
conjunctions (and, or, but, since, when, because, although
etc.).
The commercial lawyer efficiently drafted the sales contract
for the company, but the client requested various
Complex amendments and additions.
Sentences b) Punctuation can be used to coordinate clauses in a sentence.
The commercial lawyer efficiently drafted the sales contract,
her assistant sent it to the client and the client approved the
draft.
c) By using relative pronouns (e.g. who, whom, whose, which,
that) provide a convenient means of linking sentences
together.
The commercial lawyer efficiently drafted the sales contract,
which the client read and approved.
When relating the subject of a sentence with the main verb,
the basic rule is that
Subject –Verb a singular subject takes a singular verb,
agreement while a plural subject takes a plural verb.
The difficulty lies in knowing whether the subject and verb
are singular or plural.
Rules:
1 When the subject of a sentence is composed of two or more nouns
or pronouns connected by and, use a plural verb.
The attorney and her assistant are in court today.
2 Two singular subjects connected by or or nor require a singular
verb.
Subject and My lawyer or my accountant is attending the meeting today.
verb 3 Two singular subjects connected by either/or or neither/nor
require a singular verb.
agreement
Neither my lawyer nor my accountant is available.
4. When a singular subject is connected by or or nor to a plural
subject, put the plural subject last and use a plural verb. For
example:
Your signature as well as those of the other parties go at the
bottom of the document.
5. In circumstances where the subject is separated from the verb by
words such as along with, as well as, besides or not, disregard these
expressions when deciding which verb form to use.
My lawyer, along with my accountant and one of his colleagues, is
expected to arrive later.
Subject and 6. The pronouns each, everyone, every one, everybody, anyone,
anybody, someone and somebody are singular and require singular
Verb verbs.
agreement Each of the candidates is capable of doing the job well.
7. The phrase the number should be followed by a singular verb, but
the phrase a number should be followed by a plural verb.
The number of different companies involved in this process is five.
A number of different companies are involved in this process
8. A singular verb should be used with sums of money or time
periods.
Subject and Five years is a long time to wait for a court hearing.
Verb 9. Nouns ending in ‘s’ normally, but not always, require plural verbs.
The words news and mathematics, among others, require singular
Agreement verbs.
• The news is very bad today – apparently mathematics is an even
more difficult subject than was previously thought.
Regarding your letter dated 17 November about clause 5 of the
contract.
Working long into the night to prepare for the upcoming tort exam.
Sentence is
Even though the barrister for the defence had the better arguments
not sentence ? and was a more persuasive speaker.
After six hours waiting to be called into court, the case was
adjourned.
Writing Practice
Write what do you feel studying in the faculty of
law, what do you like or what do you dislikes from
it and why? Do you have good time for almost a
What to do for year in the faculty? Do you like the subjects? What
are you favourite subjects or maybe lectures so
this week? far?
Please write one or 2 paragraphs!
Try to pay attention to the grammar and sentence
structure as we have learned together for the past
3 weeks!
Deadline: 20 March, 12 pm.
