CSET English

Bildungsroman

A story in which the protagonist undergoes growth throughout the entire narrative, generally starting off by being removed or chased from their home. Their growth is often impeded by opposition of their desires by other characters. Example: Les Miserables.

Suffix

A suffix is a morpheme which is added after a root morpheme in the formation of a word.

Pragmatics

A technical term meaning, roughly, what the person speaking or writing actually meant, rather than what the words themselves mean. Large language practices

Cultural Pluralism

A term used when smaller groups within a larger society maintain their unique cultural identities, and their values and practices are accepted by the wider culture provided they are consistent with the laws and values of the wider society.

Chiasmus

A type of rhetoric in which the second part is syntactically balanced against the first. Greek X Example: "There's a bridge to cross the great divide. . . . There's a cross to bridge the great divide. . . ." Coleridge: Flowers are lovely, love is flowerlike.

Anagram

A word or phrase made by transposing the letters. Ex: cask to sack; weird to wired.

Inflection

A grammatical change in the form of a word (more accurately of a lexeme), which leaves the 'base meaning' and the grammatical category of the word unchanged. In English, inflections are restricted to the endings of words (i.e. suffixes). Other languages may show changes elsewhere.

Periodic Structure

A sentence in which the main clause or its predicate is withheld until the end; for example, Despite heavy winds and nearly impenetrable ground fog, the plane landed safely.

Lyric

(from Greek lyra "song") Short verse poem about a "lyric moment." or a moment in time. The lyric form is as old as Egypt (surviving examples date back to 2600 BCE), and examples exist in early Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. Common traits of the lyric: a short poem (usually no more than a dozen lines long) written in stanzas designed to be set to music (In classical Greece, the lyric was a poem written to be sung, accompanied by a lyre.) without plot (unlike a ballad, there is no chronology of events) expresses the feelings, perceptions, and thoughts of a single poetic speaker (not necessarily the poet) intensely personal, emotional often written about a moment of contemplation and appreciation has the form and musical quality of a song The term "lyrical" can also be applied to any prose or verse characterized by a spontaneous outpouring of intense feeling. Remember that it is one speaker who will express this feeling. Types of lyrics include the sonnet, ode and elegy.

Deus Ex Machina

(literally "god out of a machine")) is an improbable contrivance in a story. The phrase describes an artificial, or improbable, character, device, or event introduced suddenly in a work of fiction or drama to resolve a situation or untangle a plot (such as an angel suddenly appearing to solve problems). The term is a negative one, and it often implies a lack of skill on the part of the writer.

Lexeme

A 'meaning entity' (eat, eats, eating, eaten, and ate form a single lexeme)

Grapheme

A 'spelling unit'. For example -tion behaves more-or-less as a single grapheme in words like function.

Ballad

A ballad is a relatively short narrative poem, written to be sung, with dramatic action (a plot). Ballads tell of love, death, the supernatural, or a combination of these. The theme is often tragic. Common traits include: the beginning is often abrupt, the story is told through dialogue and action, language is simple or "folksy", contains repetition (usually a refrain is repeated, with small variations), quatrains of iambic tetrameter alternating with iambic tetrameter.

Approximant

A phone in which the tongue partly closes the airway, but not enough to cause a fricative. Ex: "lap" and "woo"

Phone

A phone is a 'unit sound' of a language in the sense that it is the minimal sound by which two words can differ. For example, the English word feed contains three phones since each can be independently substituted to form a different word.

Bilabial

A phone produced by the closure or partial closure of both lips. See the diagram of a head. The English sounds represented by the letters p in pit and b in bad are bilabial stops, produced by stopping and then releasing the air flow out of the mouth by closing the lips.

Dental

A phone produced when the tongue touches the teeth. See the diagram of a head. The English sounds beginning the words this and think are alveolar fricatives, produced by partially stopping the air flow out of the mouth by touching the tongue on the teeth.

Phoneme

A phoneme is the smallest unit (sound) of language which serves to distinguish words from one another. A minimally distinctive set of sounds in a language; sound sequences which differ in a single phoneme can constitute different words. Thus the pairs tip-dip and trip-drip show that English has two distinct phonemes, which we can write as /t/ and /d/, since substituting one for the other produces a different word. However, the pronunciation of /t/ (and /d/) is not the same in each pair: the tongue is further back in the mouth when /t/ is followed by /r/. Hence there are at least two phones corresponding to the /t/ phoneme. However there are no two English words in which the ONLY difference is that the 't sound in trip' is replaced by the 't sound in tip' -- these two sounds are allophones of the same phoneme. English speakers do not need to recognize the difference between them.

Prefix

A prefix is a morpheme which is added before a root morpheme in the formation of a word.

Periphrasis

Adding in superfluous words to extend the message you are trying to give - "beating around the bush", so to speak.

Infinitive Noun Phrase

An Infinitive Phrase is a group of words consisting of an infinitive and the modifier(s) and/or (pro)noun(s) or noun phrase(s) that function as the actor(s), direct object(s), indirect object(s), or complement(s) of the action or state expressed in the infinitive, such as: We intended to leave early.

Malapropism

An act or habit of misusing words ridiculously, esp. by the confusion of words that are similar in sound.

Action Verb versus Linking Verb

An action verb shows what something does, a linking verb shows what something is. Ex: The bear eats a fish versus the bear is hungry (hungry is linked to bear)

Hyperbaton

An inversion of normal word order. A generic term for a variety of figures involving transposition (see below), it is sometimes synonymous with anastrophe.

Assonance/Consonance

Assonance is the repetition of vowel sounds but not consonant sounds as in consonance. Example: fleet feet sweep by sleeping geeks.

Allegory

Extended metaphor in which objects, persons, and actions in a narrative, are equated with the meanings that lie outside the narrative itself with underlying moral, social, religious, or political significance. Have a literal and symbolic meaning.

Parse

To analyse a sentence using a grammar, including deciding whether it is valid and what its structure is according to the grammar.

Genitive

Genitive is an alternative word for possessive, i.e. the genitive case marks the noun or pronoun as the possessor of something. In English, the genitive case of a noun is shown in writing by adding an s together with an appropriately positioned apostrophe. Thus of the boy becomes boy's, of the boys becomes boys'. The genitive or possessive pronouns are my, your, his, her, its [without an apostrophe!], our, their.

Cacophony

Harsh, discordant sounds. Opposite of euphony.

Aspiration

If a phone is accompanied by a 'puff of air' it can be said to be aspirated. The 'p sound' in the English word pit is, and is thus slightly different from the 'p sound' in spit, which is not.

Fricative

If during the production of a phone, air is made to pass through a narrow passage, a 'friction' sound or fricative is produced (i.e. a more-or-less 'hissing' sound). English examples are the 'f sound' in fee or the 'sh sound' in she.

Dipthong

If the tongue moves significantly during the production of a vowel phone, the result is a diphthong. A diphthong sounds like a rapid, blended sequence of two separate vowels. An example in English is the vowel sound in the word kite, which is like a rapid combination of a kind of 'a sound' and a kind of 'i sound'.

Active Voice

In a sentence using active voice, the subject of the sentence performs the action expressed in the verb.

Anastrophe

Inversion of the normal syntactic order of words, for example: To market went she. (Used in Woolf's "The Lighthouse")

Code Switching

the practice of alternating between two or more languages or varieties of language in conversation.

Auxiliary

One of a small set of verb-like words which can precede a main verb in a verb phrase. The auxiliaries and verbs are sometimes said to form a 'verb group' or 'compound verb'. Examples of auxiliaries are "do" in I really do not know, or "may" in I may see him tomorrow. Auxiliaries have verb-like properties, and may show changes in number, person and tense.

Dactyl

One stressed syllable followed by two unstressed syllable. Ex: POetry, SYLlable, and SUDdenly "HALF a league, HALF a league,/ HALF a league ONward" (from Charge of the Light Brigade by Tennyson)

Assimilation

Particularly in rapid speech there is a tendency for neighbouring phones to become more similar, presumably to make pronunciation easier. For example, although the words Aston and Asda are both written with an s, the second word is normally pronounced as if spelt Azda. The reason seems to be that [s] and [t] are both voiceless, whereas [z] and [d] are both voiced. The sequence fricative followed by stop is easier to say if both have the same voicing.

Bibliomancy

Prediction based on a Bible verse or literary passage chosen at random.

Spoonerism

the shuffling of the first letters of words to make different words and therefore change the actual meaning of the sentence, or else produce a humerous, non-sensical sound. Ex: Rather than "I have to blow my nose", "I have to nose my blows". Or, in an example by Strong Bad, rather than "this is a cellular telophone", "this is a tellular cellophone".

Morpheme

the smallest meaningful unit of language that cannot be broken into smaller parts that cannot be further divided (e.g., in, come, -ing, forming incoming ). a morphological element considered with respect to its functional relations in a linguistic system. consists of allomorphic groups having semantic similarities and definable features of distribution

Alliteration

Repetition of initial sounds in neighboring words. Ex: "lady lounges lazily". Ancient poets often used this instead of rhyme (3 instances in every line of Beowulf)

Internal Rhyme

Rhyming within a line. Example: I awoke to black flak.

Passive Voice

the subject is acted upon; he or she receives the action expressed by the verb. The agent performing the action may appear in a "by the..." phrase or may be omitted. Ex: The boy was bitten by the dog *You can recognize passive-voice expressions because the verb phrase will always include a form of be, such as am, is, was, were, are, or been. The presence of a be-verb, however, does not necessarily mean that the sentence is in passive voice. Another way to recognize passive-voice sentences is that they may include a "by the..." phrase after the verb; the agent performing the action, if named, is the object of the preposition in this phrase.

Anaphora

Some words in a sentence have little or no meaning of their own but instead refer to other words in the same or other sentences. Also one of the devices of repetition, in which the same phrase is repeated at the beginning of two or more lines.

Subordinating Conjunction

Subordinating conjunctions join two parts of complex sentences--independent clauses to dependent clauses. Commonly used subordinating conjunctions: "because"

Metonymy

Substituting a word for another word closely associated with it. Example: bowing to the sceptered isle. (Great Britain)

Euphemism

the substitution of an agreeable or less offensive expression in place of one that may offend or suggest something unpleasant to the listener;[1] or in the case of doublespeak, to make it less troublesome for the speaker.[citation needed] It also may be a substitution of a description of something or someone rather than the name, to avoid revealing secret, holy, or sacred names to the uninitiated, or to obscure the identity of the subject of a conversation from potential eavesdroppers. Ex: "If any of you so much as thinks the word 'parlay', I'll have your guts for garters." - Pirates of the Carribean.

Universal Grammar

the theory of the genetic component of the language faculty, usually credited to Noam Chomsky. The basic postulate of UG is that a certain set of structural rules are innate to humans, independent of sensory experience. With more linguistic stimuli received in the course of psychological development, children then adopt specific syntactic rules that conform to UG.

Progressive Aspect

Takes the form of "to be" (was, am, will be) and changes the verb to an "ing" verb to indicate it is ongoing. AKA Continuous Aspect. Ex: "I am walking" (present progressive) or "I was walking" (past progressive) or "I will be walking" (future progressive)

Verisimilitude

The appearance of truth; the quality of seeming to be true. Something that has the appearance of being true or real.

Pathetic Fallacy

The attribution of human traits to nature or inanimate objects. a literary term for the attributing of human emotion and conduct to all aspects within nature. It is a kind of personification that is found in poetic writing when, for example, clouds seem sullen, when leaves dance, or when rocks seem indifferent.

Simple Aspect

The bare tense of whatever you are doing. Ex: "I walk" or "I will walk" or "I walked"

Begging the Claim Fallacy

The conclusion that the writer should prove is validated within the claim. Example: Filthy and polluting coal should be banned. Arguing that coal pollutes the earth and thus should be banned would be logical. But the very conclusion that should be proved, that coal causes enough pollution to warrant banning its use, is already assumed in the claim by referring to it as "filthy and polluting."

Idiolect

The language used by one individual is sometimes called an idiolect. A dialect or language can then be regarded as a collection of mutually intelligible idiolects.

Denotation

The literal meaning of a word, the dictionary meaning. Opposite of connotation.

Anapest (adj. anapestic)

two unstressed syllables followed by a stressed syllable. Ex: underSTAND, interRUPT, and overCOME " 'twas the NIGHT before CHRISTmas when ALL through the HOUSE/ not a CREAture was STIRring not EVen a MOUSE" (Anapestic Tetrameter)

Antrhopomorphism

used with God or gods. The act of attributing human forms or qualities to an entities which are not human. Specifically, the describing of gods or goddesses in human forms and possessing human characteristics such as jealousy, hatred, or love.

Epistrophe

The repetition of a word at the end of successive clauses or sentences.

Polysyndeton

The repetition of connectives or conjunctions in close succession for rhetorical effect, as in the phrase here and there and everywhere.

Compound Prepositions

These prepositions are called compound prepositions, or multisyllabic prepositions. Formed when they preface a preposition to a noun. Like most prepositions, they have both literal and figurative meanings. "The boys ran around the bench"

Genetic Fallacy

This conclusion is based on an argument that the origins of a person, idea, institute, or theory determine its character, nature, or worth. Example: The Volkswagen Beetle is an evil car because it was originally designed by Hitler's army. In this example the author is equating the character of a car with the character of the people who built the car. However, the two are not inherently related.

Moral Equivalence Fallacy

This fallacy compares minor misdeeds with major atrocities. That parking attendant who gave me a ticket is as bad as Hitler. In this example, the author is comparing the relatively harmless actions of a person doing their job with the horrific actions of Hitler. This comparison is unfair and inaccurate.

Hasty Generalization Fallacy

This is a conclusion based on insufficient or biased evidence. In other words, you are rushing to a conclusion before you have all the relevant facts. Example: Even though it's only the first day, I can tell this is going to be a boring course. In this example, the author is basing his evaluation of the entire course on only the first day, which is notoriously boring and full of housekeeping tasks for most courses. To make a fair and reasonable evaluation the author must attend not one but several classes, and possibly even examine the textbook, talk to the professor, or talk to others who have previously finished the course in order to have sufficient evidence to base a conclusion on.

Slippery Slope Fallacy

This is a conclusion based on the premise that if A happens, then eventually through a series of small steps, through B, C,..., X, Y, Z will happen, too, basically equating A and Z. So, if we don't want Z to occur, A must not be allowed to occur either. Example: If we ban Hummers because they are bad for the environment eventually the government will ban all cars, so we should not ban Hummers

Post hoc ergo propter hoc Fallacy

This is a conclusion that assumes that if 'A' occurred after 'B' then 'B' must have caused 'A.' Example: I drank bottled water and now I am sick, so the water must have made me sick. In this example, the author assumes that if one event chronologically follows another the first event must have caused the second. But the illness could have been caused by the burrito the night before, a flu bug that had been working on the body for days, or a chemical spill across campus. There is no reason, without more evidence, to assume the water caused the person to be sick.

Red Herring Fallacy

This is a diversionary tactic that avoids the key issues, often by avoiding opposing arguments rather than addressing them. Example: The level of mercury in seafood may be unsafe, but what will fishers do to support their families? In this example, the author switches the discussion away from the safety of the food and talks instead about an economic issue, the livelihood of those catching fish. While one issue may affect the other it does not mean we should ignore possible safety issues because of possible economic consequences to a few individuals.

Ad hominem Fallacy

This is an attack on the character of a person rather than his or her opinions or arguments. Example: Green Peace's strategies aren't effective because they are all dirty, lazy hippies. In this example, the author doesn't even name particular strategies Green Peace has suggested, much less evaluate those strategies on their merits. Instead, the author attacks the characters of the individuals in the group.

Ad Populum Fallacy

This is an emotional appeal that speaks to positive (such as patriotism, religion, democracy) or negative (such as terrorism or fascism) concepts rather than the real issue at hand. Often this is an appeal that presents what most people, or a group of people think, in order to persuade one to think the same way. Getting on the bandwagon is one such instance of an ad populum appeal. Example: If you were a true American you would support the rights of people to choose whatever vehicle they want. In this example, the author equates being a "true American," a concept that people want to be associated with, particularly in a time of war, with allowing people to buy any vehicle they want even though there is no inherent connection between the two.

Straw Man Fallacy

This move oversimplifies an opponent's viewpoint and then attacks that hollow argument. People who don't support the proposed state minimum wage increase hate the poor. In this example, the author attributes the worst possible motive to an opponent's position. In reality, however, the opposition probably has more complex and sympathetic arguments to support their point. By not addressing those arguments, the author is not treating the opposition with respect or refuting their position.

Circular Argument Fallacy

This restates the argument rather than actually proving it. Example: George Bush is a good communicator because he speaks effectively. In this example, the conclusion that Bush is a "good communicator" and the evidence used to prove it "he speaks effectively" are basically the same idea. Specific evidence such as using everyday language, breaking down complex problems, or illustrating his points with humorous stories would be needed to prove either half of the sentence.

Conjunction

Unite words, phrases, and clauses. Most common: and, or, but

Amplification

Use of bare expressions, likely to be ignored or misunderstood by a hearer or reader because of the bluntness. Emphasis through restatement with additional detail to increase its worth and understandability. Ex: Original, The thesis paper was difficult. After, The thesis paper was difficult: it required extensive research, data collection, sample surveys, interviews and a lot of fieldwork.

Perfect Aspect

Used in reference to something already finished, i.e. a period of time between past and present by adding "have", before the past by adding "had", and slightly before the future by adding "will have" Ex: "I have walked" (perfect), "I had walked" (past perfect), "I will have walked" (future perfect)

Derivational Suffix

Used to make (or derive) new words. In particular, they are used to change a word from one grammatical class to another. For example, the noun "pore" can be changed into an adjective by adding the suffix -ous, resulting in the adjective "porous" 'having pores'.

Aspect

Verbs can show not only the time location of an action (by grammatical tense), but also features such as whether the action is thought of as completed or continuing. Tense Present Past Aspect None I run I ran Progressive I am running I was running Perfect I have run I had run Perfect Progressive I have been running I had been running

Perfect Progressive

We use the perfect progressive aspect to talk about an action that was once ongoing, but has since completed, like "I had been waiting for twenty minutes.".

Syllepsis

When a single word that governs or modifies two or more others must be understood differently with respect to each of those words. A combination of grammatical parallelism and semantic incongruity, often with a witty or comical effect. Not to be confused with zeugma. EX: "I finally told Ross, late in the summer, that I was losing weight, my grip, and possibly my mind."

Apostrophe/ Authorial Intrusion

When an absent person, an abstract concept, or an important object is directly addressed. Example: With how sad steps, O moon, thou climbest the skies. Busy old fool, unruly sun. Etymology: Latin, from Greek , literally, act of turning away, from apostrephein to turn away, from apo- + strephein to turn : the addressing of a usually absent person or a usually personified thing rhetorically Authorial Intrusion: Discussions directed to the reader and constituting a substantial break in the narrative illusion of reality are termed authorial intrusions. While ordinary descriptions are not authorial intrusions, substantial essays addressed to the reader are.

Semantics

Word/sentence meaning (e.g.: the subtle difference in meaning between the verbs "need" and "want") Used as a technical term for the meaning of words and sentences.

Correlative Conjunctions

Work in pairs to connect parts of a sentence. Ex: either/or neither/nor both/and as/so whether/or

Aphorism

a brief saying embodying a moral, a concise statement of a principle or precept given in pointed words. Example: Hippocrates: Life is short, art is long, opportunity fleeting, experimenting dangerous, reasoning difficult. Pope: Some praise at morning what they blame at night. Emerson: Imitation is suicide Franklin: Lost Time is never Found again.

Foil

a character that contrasts second character that highlights certain qualities of that first character. Ex: Stan Laurel is a foil to Oliver Hardy; Lou Costello is a foil to Bud Abbott;

Coordinating Conjunction

a conjunction placed between words, phrases, clauses, or sentences of equal rank (so only independent clauses with each other), e.g., FANBOYS (For, and, Nor, But, Or, Yet, and So) Could technically be split into two sentences.

Inflectional Ending

a group of letters added to the end of a word to change its meaning. Some inflectional endings are: -s. bat. bats.

Fable

a literary genre: a succinct fictional story, in prose or verse, that features animals, legendary creatures, plants, inanimate objects, or forces of nature that are anthropomorphized (given human qualities, such as the ability to speak human language) and that illustrates or leads to a particular moral lesson (a "moral"), which may at the end be added explicitly as a pithy maxim.

Caesura

a natural pause or break. Example: England - how I long for thee!

Asyndeton

a stylistic scheme in which conjunctions are deliberately omitted from a series of related clauses. Examples are veni, vidi, vici and its English translation "I came, I saw, I conquered." Its use can have the effect of speeding up the rhythm of a passage and making a single idea more memorable. More generally, in grammar, an asyndetic coordination is a type of coordination in which no coordinating conjunction is present between the conjuncts.

Auxiliary Verb

a verb used in forming the tenses, moods, and voices of other verbs. Ex:. DO you want tea? or He HAS given his all.

Indefinite and definite articles

a/an: indefinite articles the: definite article

Epithet

an adjective or descriptive phrase expressing a quality characteristic of the person or thing mentioned. "old men are often unfairly awarded the epithet "dirty."" (nickname/label)

Modal Verb

an auxiliary verb that expresses necessity or possibility. English modal verbs include must, shall, will, should, would, can, could, may, and might.

Speech Act

an utterance considered as an action, particularly with regard to its intention, purpose, or effect. (linguistics)

Infix

insert (a formative element) into the body of a word. A strong definition of an infix might be a morpheme which is added inside a root morpheme in the formation of a word. In a language like English, infixes, so defined, do not occur, since the root morpheme is indivisible.

Faulty Parallelism

occurs when the elements put into pairs and series "go in different directions" because they do not have the same form. In other words, nouns should be coordinated with nouns, verbs with verbs, adjectives with adjectives, adverbs with adverbs, phrases with phrases, and clauses with clauses.

Trochee (adj. trochaic)

one stressed syllable followed by one unstressed syllable Ex: LOVer, LOOKing, and NUMbers "TYger Tyger BURNing BRIGHT,/ IN the FORests OF the NIGHT" (Considered trochaic even though it is missing the last unstressed syllable)

Iamb (adj. iambic)

one unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable Ex: deLIGHT, beLONG, and perCHANCE "but SOFT! what LIGHT through YONder WINdow BREAKS?" (iambic pentameter)

Intonation

refers to changes in the tone or frequency of sounds during speech. For example, in English the tone usually falls at the end of a statement and rises at the end of a question, so that You want some coffee. and You want some coffee? can be distinguished by tone alone. In some languages (e.g. Chinese, Thai), sequences containing the same phones but with different intonation patterns correspond to different words.

Diction

the choice of language used by the speaker or writer. For instance a young adult uses different words, language, style depending on to whom s/he is speaking or writing.