English Grammar Glossary


Agreement - Subjects and verbs must agree in person and number; a pronoun and its antecedent must agree in person, number and gender. Antecedent - A word coming before a pronoun and for which the pronoun stands. Appositive - A substantive (a word or group of words used as a noun) placed beside another substantive and denoting the same person or thing. Article - The indefinite articles 'a' and 'an' and the definite article 'the'. Auxiliary - A "helping verb" used to make the form of another verb. Case - Nominative, possessive, and objective - inflectional forms of nouns and pronouns to show their use in a sentence. Clause - A group of words containing a subject and a verb. Adjective clause - A dependent clause used as an adjective. Adverbial clause - A dependent clause used as an adverb. Dependent (subordinate) clause - A clause used as a noun, adjective, or adverb and dependent on some other element in the sentence. Independent (main) clause - A clause which expresses a complete thought or idea. Relative clause - A dependent clause introduced by a relative pronoun. Comparison - A term used to describe the changes in the forms of adjectives or adverbs to show degrees of quality or quantity: positive, comparative, superlative. Conjunctive Adverb - an adverb used to join main clauses in a sentence. Coordinate - Having equal rank, as two main clauses in a compound sentence. Dangling Constructions - A subordinate construction which cannot easily and certainly be linked to another word or group of words it modifies. Demonstratives - This, that, these, those when used as pointing words. Direct Address - A noun or pronoun used parenthetically to point out the person addressed. Direct and Indirect quotations - A direct quotation is an exact quotation of a speaker's or writer's words. In indirect discourse the speaker's or writer's thought is summarized without direct quotation. Direct Object - Receives directly the action of a transitive verb. Gerund - A verbal used as a noun. (Gerunds end in -ing). Idiom - An expression established by usage and peculiar to a particular language. Indirect Object - Receives indirectly the action of a transitive verb. Infinitive - A verbal usually preceded by 'to' and used as a noun, adjective, or adverb. Linking Verb - A verb that shows the relation between the subject of a sentence and an adjective or a noun in the nominative case. Nonrestrictive Modifier - A modifying phrase or clause that is not essential to pointing out or identifying the person or think modified. Nonrestrictive modifiers are set off by commas. Object of a Preposition - A substantive that follows the preposition. Parenthetical Expression - An inserted expression that interrupts the thought of a sentence. Participle - A verbal used as an adjective. Parts of Speech - The classification of words on the basis of their function in the sentence. The eight parts of speech are: 1. Noun - The name of a person, place or thing. A collective noun names a group by using a singular form. A common noun is the name of any person, place or thing. A proper noun is the name of a particular person, place or thing. 2. Pronoun - A word used in place of a noun. 3. Adjective - A word used to describe or limit a noun or pronoun. 4. Verb - A word or phrase used to assert an action or state of being. 5. Adverb - A word used to describe or limit the meaning of a verb, an adjective, or another adverb. 6. Conjunction - A word used to connect words, phrases, and clauses. 7. Preposition - A word used to relate a noun or pronoun to some other word in the sentence. 8. Interjection - A word used to express emotion. Person - The form of a pronoun and verb used to indicate the speaker (first person - I am); the person spoken to (second person - you are); or the person spoken about (third person - he is). Phase - A group of related words lacking both subject and predicate and used as a noun, adjective, adverb, or verb. Phrases are classified as prepositional, participial, gerund, infinitive, and verb phrases. Predicate - The part of a sentence or clause that makes a statement about the subject. The predicate consists of the verb and its complements and modifiers. Predicate Adjective - An adjective in the predicate that completes the meaning of the subject. Predicate Noun - A noun in the predicate that refers to the subject. Principal Parts - The three forms of a verb from which the various tenses are derived: Present Infinitive, Past Tense, Past Participle. Restrictive Modifier - A modifying phrase or clause that is essential to pointing out or identifying the person or thing modified. Restrictive modifiers are not set off by punctuation marks. Sentence - A group of words expressing a unit of thought and normally containing a subject and predicate. Tense - The time or the state of the action expressed by a verb. Verbal - A word derived from a verb but used as a noun or adjective (or sometimes as an adverb). Voice - The property of a verb that shows whether the subject acts (Active Voice) or is acted upon (Passive Voice).