141
4. Other grammatical terms A-Z
Active
: In English, most statements are made using the
active
voice
. In an active statement,
the
subject
is
the
doer
of
the action expressed
by
means
of
the
verb.
For
example
The
students
were studying English
.
Apposition
: Normally a direct sequence of two nouns, with no intervening preposition,
which both
refer
to
the
same
entity :
Examples:
Prince
William
/
The
car,
a
Jaguar,
..
The
painting,
a
work by
Rembrandt,....
In English, except in titles (such as
Doctor Jekyll
), the second or "apposed" noun requires a
determiner, normally an article. Apposition should not be confused with compound nouns, in
which two nouns placed next to each other
refer to different things; for example
The shop
window
Aspect
: In English,
verbs
can be expressed in two aspects, the
simple
aspect (such as
I drink
)
or the
progressive
aspect (such as
I am drinking
).
Attributive
: An
adjective
that is
attributive
is one that is placed in front of the noun it
qualifies (as in
A
good
book
) .Contrast with adjectives following a copular verb such as
be
,
which are called predicative adjectives (as in
This book is
good
)
.
Auxiliary
: A verb that comes before a main verb to designate a tense, a modality or the
passive voice. The basic auxiliaries are
be
and
have
:
modal auxiliaries are
will, shall, may,
might, must, can, be able to
and their other forms.
Catenative verbs
or
consecutive verbs
. Verbs that can be followed directly by a second verb,
with no intervening noun or pronoun (as in
I like playing football
). See
►
Consecutive verbs
Communication
: the object of speech or writing. Communication cannot be successful unless
the
producer
(speaker, writer) and the
receiver
(listener, reader) are using the same
language
code
. The code consists of two elements : vocabulary (words) and grammar (how
those words are organised).
Comparative
: a particular meaning that is given to an
adjective
or
adverb
either by adding
-
er
to the end of an adjective, or by adding
more
before an adjective or adverb.
Complement
: the main element of the predicate after the verb. See
object
above.
Conjunctive adverb
: A type of
connector
,
a type of
sentence adverb
used to express a
particular
relationship
between
a
first
clause
and
a
second
clause
that
follows.
Examples:
Therefore,
however,
similarly
.
See
►
Conjunctive adverbs
Connector
: a word that links two similar items (words, phrases, clauses) . Connectors are
either conjunctions or conjunctive adverbs. See
►
conjunctions
Coordination
: linking two or more elements with similar status in the sentence.
Copular verb
: a verb whose
complement
is not an object, but a description of the
subject. Examples:
The car is
red
, I feel
sick
, The children became
very excited
.
Declarative
: A declarative
sentence is a normal sentence, which is neither an interrogative
sentence (question), nor an exclamation, nor an imperative . A declarative sentence can be
affirmative
or
negative.
Examples:
The man is sitting on a chair,
and
The man is not sitting on a chair
are both
declarative statements.
Determiner
:
Determiners
are used at the start of a
►
noun phrase
. The most common
determiners are
►
articles
; but
determiners also include
►
demonstratives
,
►
numerals
,
142
or
►
possessive
determiners. All nouns or noun phrases require a determiner unless they are
used as generalisations.
Examples:
The man
is
eating his dinner,
and
That man
is
eating
chips.
No determiner is required before
chips
, which is used as a generalisation. For more on this,
see
►
count and non-count nouns.
Ellipsis
: a statement that is reduced to a minimum number of words, by the elimination of
words whose meaning can be implied or inferred. For example the
"the man in the garden
" can
be understood as an ellipsis of
"the man
who is
in the garden".
Or the simple
expression
"London"
can exist as an elliptical sentence in reply to the question
"Where do you
live?" –
the elliptical sentence implying the meaning
"
I live in
London."
Endings
: Also called suffixes, endings are grammatical or functional
morphemes
that are
added to the end of word to inflect or change its meaning. Compared to many languages,
English has relatively few endings. There are actually only three common endings in English
that are used to make inflected forms
of a word, without changing its category. These are
-
ing, -ed,
and
-s
for verbs, and
-s
for nouns. Other endings are used to change the grammatical
category of a word, for example
-ness
or
-ity
that form nouns from adjectives, or
-ful or -
less
that form adjectives from nouns.
Finite verb
: a finite verb is a verb that is dependent on a subject, and is, after the subject, the
other essential element of any clause or sentence. Finite verbs have tense, number (singular or
plural) and person (1st, 2nd or 3rd). They are different to non-finite verbs, notably participles
and infinitives, which cannot be the main verb of a clause or sentence.
Gerund
: a Gerund is a type of
-ing word
. To distinguish gerunds from present participles,
see
►
Gerunds
.
Gradable
: adjectives are called
gradable
if they can be modified by an
intensifier
such
as
very, quite or extremely
. Most adjectives are gradable, but some are not. For example we
can say
A
rather
expensive car
or
The children became
very
excited
, but we cannot say
John
has a very electric car
.
A car is electric, or it is not electric. It cannot be
very electric
, or
quite
electric
. Sometimes people use intensifiers to modify adjectives that are in theory ungradable:
this is usually done for emphasis. In theory one cannot grade the adjective
impossible
.
Something is either
impossible
, or it is not
impossible
; yet
people often qualify the
adjective
impossible
with adverbs such as
quite, absolutely
or
really
.
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