This English grammar has been specially designed for readers with limited learning time, who wish to gain command of all the important points of grammar needed for everyday speech and comprehension, yet who do not wish to be unnecessarily burdened with archaic, highly literary, or seldom used forms. Summarizing all the major constructions, principles, and basic terminology, this book will provide readers with a firm foundation in essential English grammar. The text proceeds in easy, natural steps, beginning with simple sentence structure and advancing logically to more difficult constructions. More than 600 practice exercises and solutions make this an excellent home-study text. Organized with clarity and emphasizing explanation rather than rote memorization, this selective grammar can be used effectively as a course supplement, as an introduction for beginners, or as a reference for students and teachers.
This is not the first time I've read this book and it won't be the last. However, it has been a few years since I'd read it from cover to cover. Last night, it just felt right.
Essential English Grammar reviews the basic parts of a sentence and how they function. It's a great reference guide and teaching tool. The book includes insight into sentence structure and includes practice work. As a blogger, writers, and even a reader, I've found this book to be a fantastic resource.
p.s. Essential English Grammar does not teach punctuation rules or any of that jazz. This book strictly tells you what a sentence should be and how words should behave within said sentence.
The demonstrative pronouns of English are this (plural these), and that (plural those), as in these are good, I like that. Note that all four words can also be used as determiners (followed by a noun), as in those cars. They can also form the alternative pronominal expressions this/that one, these/those ones.
The interrogative pronouns are who, what, and which (all of them can take the suffix -ever for emphasis). The pronoun who refers to a person or people; it has an oblique form whom (though in informal contexts this is usually replaced by who), and a possessive form (pronoun or determiner) whose. The pronoun what refers to things or abstracts. The word which is used to ask about alternatives from what is seen as a closed set: which (of the books) do you like best? (It can also be an interrogative determiner: which book?; this can form the alternative pronominal expressions which one and which ones.) Which, who, and what can be either singular or plural, although who and what often take a singular verb regardless of any supposed number.