Grammar key terms

the smallest grammatical unit

morpheme that can stand on its own as a word

morpheme that cannot stand on its own as a word, but combines with other to create a new word

a group of words centred around a head word

the central word in a phrase which gives the phrase its name (eg, noun phrase) and may be modified by other words

adding of additional words to provide more detail to a head word in a phrase either before it (pre-modification) or after it (post-modification)

a group of words centred around a verb, which may be either grammatically complete (main clause) or incomplete (subordinate clause)

a clause where the agent (doer) of an action is the subject

a clause where the patient (the entity affected by an action) is in the subject position, and the agent either follows or is left out

how the time of an event is marked (usually through verb inflection) past, present & future

another element of marking the time of an event, by specifying whether they are progressive (ongoing) or perfective (completed)

joining of two or more independent clauses via co-ordinating conjunctions. Single words and longer phrases can also be co-ordinated

the joining of two or more clauses where the only one is independent (the main clause) and the others dependent (subordinate clause / clauses)

the grammatical category into which words can be placed, including noun, adjective, verb, adverb, determiner, pronoun, preposition, conjunction

offer a judgement on the noun being described (eg, awful)

usually end in -er or have more in front of them (make comparisons) (eg, prettier)

express the highest degree of a quality and usually end in -est (eg, smartest)

come before the noun they modify (eg, available rooms)

come after the noun (with a verb in between) (eg, do you know if this room is available)

come immediately after the noun (eg, is this room available?)

describe the way in which something is done (eg, the man kissed me passionately)

tell us the time that something happens, or its frequency (eg, i’ll see you tomorrow)

focus attention on what follows them (eg, I am particularly annoyed but my day was mostly okay)

focus attention on what follows them to the exclusion of all other possibilities (eg, you are only interested

where something happens (eg, I left my keys somewhere)

connect together words or clauses that have ‘equal’ status (eg, ‘I like you and you like me’)

connect clauses that have ‘unequal’ status (eg, ‘If you eat cheese, I’ll spit on you’)

come before a noun (eg, ‘look at that idiot’)

indicate the possession, the come before the noun being possessed (eg, this is my face)

things that exist physically (eg, the table had four legs)

things that do no exist physically - ideas, emotions (eg, my love for you’)

almost always begins with a capital letter, names of people, places etc (eg, Ella loves to visit Dublin’)

refer to groups (eg, your class is filled with idiots)

take the place of people (eg, I went to work and met him)

shows ownership (eg, this house is mine, not yours’)

refer back to a previous noun or pronoun, and end in -self or -selves (eg, you can suit yourself)

allow us to indicate the thing or person we’re referring (this, that, these, those)

who, what, why, where, when, whatever

immediately follow the nouns to which they refer (eg, this is the lady whom I love)

describe physical actions (eg, ‘I kissed him’)

describes states or feelings (eg, ‘I am irritated)

end in -ing and express action in progress (eg, ‘he was hitting me’)

express completed action (eg, he had been hitting me’)

type of auxiliary verb and express necessity or possibility (can, should, will, could)

group of words that, together, function as an adjective in a sentence (head word will be an adjective) (eg, ‘you are disgustingly ugly’)

group of words that together function as an adverb in a sentence (head word will be an adverb) (eg, ‘he left the meeting very quickly’)

group of words that, together, function as a noun in a sentence (head word will be a noun) (eg, ‘I jumped aboard the bright red bus’)

group of words that, together, function as a verb in a sentence (head word will be a verb) (eg, she greedily gobbled the doughnuts’)

can form a complete sentence on its own (must contain a verb) (eg, I like eating chocolate)

a main clause in a compound or compound-complex sentence (eg, ‘I like eating Krispy Kreme doughnuts and you enjoy them too’)

when a coordinate clause forms a sentence on its own, you can call it a stranded coordinate clause (But he’s loved it!’)

is a clause that doesn’t make sense on its own, and needs to be paired with one or more main clauses to form a complete sentence (must contain verb) (eg, ‘Although I like children, I couldn’t eat a whole one’)

contains one main clause (eg, ‘you are a fat rat’)

two or more main clauses often joined by coordinating conjunctions (eg, you are a fat rat but I like you all the same’)

contains one main clause and one or more subordinate clauses (eg, ‘although Mrs Greaves enjoys the music of Taylor Swift, she’d never buy one of their albums’)

two or more main clauses and one or more subordinate clauses (eg, ‘if you want to know the truth, I like to eat my creme eggs whole and eat another one later minutes later’)

statements (eg, ‘Paris is the capital of France’)

instructions or commands (always begin with a verb) (eg, ‘go to hell, you fat chicken wing’)

questions (eg, ‘would you like cream with your coffee’)

exclaim (eg, ‘oh my god!’)

missing out of a word or words in a sentence (eg, ‘missing man found alive’)

word or phrase that tries to avoid saying something unpleasant

opposite of euphemism, word or phrase that draws attention to the unpleasantness of the meaning

is exaggeration for effect

phrase whose meaning cannot be worked out from the meanings of the individual words that make it up

when part of something stands in for a whole or the whole stands in for a part (eg, ‘we need all hands on deck!’ - all hands refers to workers)

when one thing stands in for something else that it represents (eg, ‘The White House stopped the law passing’ - the White House represents the US government)

when a writer / speaker repeats a sentence structure - usually for persuasive effect (eg, ‘If we build it, they will come; if they come, we will succeed’)

when a writer / speaker makes use of the second person to ‘synthesise’ a relationship with the reader (eg, ‘working smarter and harder for a better future for you’)