A Level English Language - Grammar (sentences)
inflection
an word ending such as -ed or -s o -ing added to change a tense or number or in the case of nouns to make a plural; a bound morpheme; a suffix
auxiliary verb
assists the main verb; primary ones 'do', 'have' and 'be' denote changes of tense
simple sentence
has only one clause
third person
he/she/it (singular); they (plural) in subject position
subject of a sentence
this normally performs the action (verb) of a sentence and can be a single word or a phrase
compound sentence
two or more clauses usually joined to the main clause by the coordinating conjunctions 'and' or 'but'
grammatical word class
word classes that convey little meaning but instead glue the words together in a grammatical unit: prepositions, determiners, conjunctions, pronouns
second person
you (singular) or you (plural) in subject position
subordinating conjunctions
these signal the start of a subordinate clause
first person
I (singular) or we (plural) in subject position
complement
a clause element that tells you more about the subject or the object
main clause
a clause that can stand on its own grammatically
subordinate clause
a clause that depends on the main clause to exist; cannot stand alone
imperative sentence
a command - a type of sentence where the subject is usually left out and which functions as an order
sentence
a complete grammatical unit which makes sense and can stand on its own
clause
a complete grammatical unit which makes sense, usually made up of subject and verb; same as a simple sentence
interrogative sentence
a question - a type of sentence indicated by the swapping round of subject and verb or by the use of question words or simply by the use of a question makr
minor sentence
a sentence that has some missing elements, such as the subject of the verb, making it technically ungrammatical
passive sentence
a sentence when the object of the verb is foregrounded rather than the subject (which may be omitted altogether)
active sentence
a sentence where the subject/agent of the verb is foregrounded
compound-complex sentence
a sentence which has three or more clauses, one of which is a subordinate clause and one is a coordinate clause
declarative sentence
a statement - a type of sentence which gives information, where the subject typically comes in front of the verb
verb phrase
a syntactic unit composed of at least one verb, any auxiliaries and its dependents—objects, complements and other modifiers—but not always including the subject.
copular verb
a verb that takes a complement (such as 'seems', 'appears' or a form of the verb to be 'is', 'was', 'are' etc
suffix
a word ending which is placed after the stem of a word; usually shows tense or person of verb or number of noun
word
made up of one or more morphemes
exclamative sentence
makes a statement (just like a declarative sentence), but it also conveys excitement or emotion; ends with an exclamation mark (!)
post-modification
modification that comes after the head noun (or after a phrase or clause)
pre-modification
modification that comes before the head noun (or before a phrase or clause)
plural
more than one of something
adverbial (phrase)
more than one word that functions as a adverb in a sentence
singular
one of something
free morpheme
part of a word that has a meaning and can stand alone and has a dictionary definition
bound morpheme
part of a word that has a meaning but cannon stand alone (eg the prefix 'un-')
morpheme
smallest unit of meaning; can be a word or part of a word
grammar
the building blocks of sentences (words, phrases, clauses etc) and how they go together to mean something to the reader or listener
head word
the main word in a phrase
syntax
the order in which the elements of the sentence are placed
agent
the person or thing which enacts the verb in the sentence; the subject
inflectional morphology
the study of processes that distinguish forms of words in certain word classes such as verbs, nouns; focuses on inflections
morphology
the study of the structure of words
object of a sentence
the thing acted upon by the verb; receives the action of the verb and usually comes after it, except in a passive sentence
determiner
these give an idea of number or status (eg posession) of nouns
coordinating conjunctions
these signal the start of a coordinate clause (essentially a main clause joined to another main clause)