A Level English Language - Grammar

auxiliary verb

assists the main verb; primary ones 'do', 'have' and 'be' denote changes of tense

primary auxiliary verbs

be, have, do

irregular verb

change their form when changing from present to past tense

morphological derviation

creating a new word which has a new meaning out of an old word or affix (prefix or suffix) eg: 'nicely' from 'nice'

material verb processes

describe actions or events; dynamic verbs

verb

describes an action or state; a' doing' or 'being' word

modification

description in the form of words, phrases or whole clauses that alters our understanding of the thing described

possessive determiner

determiner which shows who the noun belongs to, eg: her, their, my, our etc

superlative adjective

expresses the highest level of the quality represented by the adjective; generally made by adding'-est' to the base adjective

comparative adjective

form of an adjective that designates comparison between two things, generally made by adding the suffix '-er'

simple sentence

has only one clause

complex sentence

has two or more clauses, one of which is a subordinate clause

third person

he/she/it (singular); they (plural) in subject position

compound sentence

two or more clauses usually joined to the main clause by the coordinating conjunctions 'and' or 'but'

relative pronoun

used to connect a clause or phrase to a noun or pronoun; the most common are: who, whom, which, whoever, whomever, whichever, and that.

interrogative pronoun

used to make asking questions easy: wh- question words: who, what, where, why, when, whose, how

mental verb process

verbs that describe perception thought or speech ; a type of stative verb

relational verb process

verbs that describe states of being or are used to identify; a type of stative verb

progressive tense

where the action described by the verb is continuous

perfect tense

where the action describes the verb is complete or has been completed

grammatical word class

word classes that convey little meaning but instead glue the words together in a grammatical unit: prepositions, determiners, conjunctions, pronouns

lexical word class

word classes that convey the meaning (semantics) in a sentence

preposition

words that indicate place or relationship of one thing to another in a sentence

conjunction

words that join individual words and phrases

noun

words which name people, places, things, ideas and concepts

second person

you (singular) or you (plural) in subject position

modifier

a word that describes a noun or verb (can be an adjective, adverb or noun)

adjective

a word that modifies a noun

adverb

a word that modifies a verb, telling you how, where, when and how frequently an action takes place; can also modify an adjective

collective noun

a word that refers to a group or collection of things; often of animals

pronoun

a word that stands in for a noun

intensifier

an adverb that modifies an adjective such as 'really' or 'very'

tag question

an interrogative clause added to the end of a sentence to make it into a question, eg: isn't it?; didn't we?

noun phrase

a group of words with a noun as the head word

prefix

a morpheme or unit of meaning that is added to the start of a word to create a new word

abstract noun

a noun which refers to ideas and concepts that only exist in the mind rather than a tangible thing

subordinating conjunctions

these signal the start of a subordinate clause

indefinite article

'a' or 'an'

first person

I (singular) or we (plural) in subject position

coordinate clause

a clause beginning with a coordinating conjunction

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, made up of words and phrases, same as a simple sentence

definite article

a determiner that indicate a specific noun 'the'

demonstrative pronoun

a pronoun that is used to point to something specific within a sentence; it replaces a noun, eg: this, that, these, those

possessive pronoun

a pronoun which indicates who the object belongs to

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

modal auxiliary verb

a sub-category of auxiliary verb that expresses degrees of possibility, probability, necessity or obligation

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

phrase

made up of usually more than one word but not a complete grammatical unit unlike a clause

exclamative sentence

makes a statement (just like a declarative sentence), but it also conveys excitement or emotion; ends with an exclamation mark (!)

epistemtic modal auxiliary verb

modal verb use relating to belief and knowledge (will, might)

deontic modal auxiliary verb

modal verb use relating to obligation and permission (should)

post-modified

modification that comes after the head noun (or after a phrase or clause)

pre-modified

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

proper noun

names; words for specific people, places or things

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-')

reflexive pronoun

pronouns that refer back to the subject of the sentence or clause. They either end in -self, in the singular form, or -selves, in the plural form.

concrete noun

refer to tangible things we can experience with the 5 senses: touch, taste, see, hear, smell etc

subject of a sentence

this normally performs the action (verb) of a sentence and can be a single word or a phrase

indefinite pronoun

replace nouns without specifying which noun they replace. Singular: another, anybody, anyone, anything, each, either, everybody, everyone, everything, little, much, neither, nobody, no one, nothing, one, other, somebody, someone, something. Plural: both, few, many, others, several.

morpheme

smallest unit of meaning; can be a word or part of a word

dynamic verb

sometimes referred to as "action verbs"; usually describe actions we can take, or things that happen; suggest a change takes place; material verb processes

regular verb

take a regular '-ed' inflection when changing from present to past tense

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

main verb

the verb that carries the main meaning or process in a verb phrase (and therefore in a clause/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)