A

Abstract Noun

Abstract nouns do not exist in a physical sense. Abstract nouns are often concepts or emotions, such as ‘independence’ or ‘love.’ Compare ‘concrete noun.’ It is one of the eight types of noun.

Accent

This has two meanings. The first is to describe a particular way of speaking that might involve variations on how certain vowels or consonants are pronounced, such that it gives an indication of someone’s country of origin, region of origin or social class. Compare dialect.
The second meaning is to describe short lines or symbols that are added to letters, often to indicate a modification in how these letters are pronounced, such as é or à.

Accusative

This describes the case of a noun when it is the direct object of a verb.

Active Voice

Referring to verbs, the active voice refers to when the subject of the verb is causing the action to happen. For example, “The dog eats the fish,” where ‘the dog’ is causing the action to happen to ‘the fish,’ the recipient of the action. Compare passive voice.

Adjective

An adjective is a describing word. It gives more information about a noun, such as ‘black’ in “a black cat,” or ‘large’ in “a large table.”

Adverb

Adverbs provide more information about a verb, an adjective or another adverb that can relate to manner, degree or place. For example, in the sentence “I am running quickly,” ‘quickly’ is the adverb that gives us more information about how the verb is being carried out.

Affix

An affix is a morpheme that is added to a word, either at the beginning (prefix) or at end of the word (suffix) in order to change the meaning or the grammatical function of the word.

Article

An article is used to determine whether a noun in a sentence is either known to the audience (the definite article) or non-specific and general (the indefinite article). For example, when we say, “The dog is in the kitchen,” we are making the assumption that the listener knows which dog we mean. ‘The’ in this case represents the definite article. On the other hand, one might say, “A dog is a type of mammal.” This is general and non-specific. We are referring generally to any dog in this instance. ‘A’ represents the indefinite article.

Aspect

The aspect of a verb is a sub-category of tense. It expresses how a verb is performed in relation to time and the completeness of the action. A verb always has a tense, but it doesn’t always have a defined aspect. For instance, “The dog eats the fish,” is in the present tense with no defined aspect. Sometimes this is called the simple aspect, so you may encounter the term ‘simple present tense.’ Similarly, “The dog ate the fish,” is the simple past tense. However, we may want to express whether we action has been completed or not and how it relates to the present time. For this, there are three aspects. First, the progressive (or continuous) aspect. This means that the action is ongoing. Second, the perfect aspect. This means the action is complete. Third, the progressive perfect aspect. This indicates that the action started in the past and continues into the present

Auxiliary Verb

Auxiliary verbs are those that can be used to help provide additional contextual meaning to a main verb. For example, they may convey tense (such as past tense or future tense) or they may be used to describe the modality of the main verb from the perception of the speaker (such as ability, permission, likelihood, obligation, desire, want or need). In the phrase, “I have played,” ‘have’ is an auxiliary verb as it is helping to put the verb into the perfect past tense. In the phrase, “I can play,” ‘can’ is an auxiliary verb as it expresses the ability of the speaker to be able to perform the action.

B

Bare Infinitive

This is an infinitive form which does not include the preposition ‘to,’ such as, “He can run,” instead of “He can to run.”

Base Form

This is the form of the word to which we can attach grammatical endings. For instance ‘cold’ is the base form of the adjective expressing lack of heat, to which we can add ‘-er’ to create the comparative ‘colder;’ or ‘-est’ to create the superlative ‘coldest.’ In the case of verbs, the base form is often referred to as the verb stem.

C

Cardinal Number

Cardinal numbers, or cardinals, express a quantity (one, two, three, etc.), as opposed to a position, which requires an ordinal number (first, second, third, etc.).

Case

The subject that carries out the action of a verb is referred to as being in the nominative or subjective case in a sentence, while the object of the verb is in the objective or accusative case. A noun which is impacted by the action is the direct object. If the noun is merely the recipient of the action, it is an indirect object. Indirect objects do not impact whether the action can take place or not, they are merely involved in some way. This is described as the dative case.

Clause

There are two types of clauses: main (or independent) clauses and subordinate (or dependent) clauses. A main clause must form a standalone statement, which means it requires a subject (the person, animal or object that we are talking about) and a predicate (what we want to say about the subject). In other words, at least one noun and an associated verb.

A subordinate clause is one that is dependent on a main clause in order to complete the meaning. It therefore cannot stand alone. For example, “The dog is in the kitchen,” is a main clause. “It is hungry,” is also a main clause.

However if we said “Because it is hungry,” on its own, then we have a subordinate clause, because information is missing to make this clause make sense. Therefore “The dog is in the kitchen because it is hungry,” is now a sentence, with complete meaning, made up of a main independent clause (“The dog is in the kitchen”) and a subordinate, or dependent, clause (“because it is hungry”).

Collective Noun

A noun that describes a collection of individual people, animals or objects. For instance, ‘the police’ is a collective noun, made up of many individuals. ‘Family’ is another example. It is one of the eight types of noun.

Common Noun

A noun that does not identify a specific individual, person or place. For example, ‘city’ is a common noun, while ‘London’ is a proper noun. It is one of the eight types of noun.

Comparative

This is when one thing is being compared to another, such as, “This house is colder than that house,” or, “This car is moving more slowly than that car.”

Compound Noun

These are nouns that have been created from two individual words, such as ‘dining room,’ ‘check-in,’ ‘wishing well’ or ‘ice cream.’ It is one of the eight types of noun.

Compound Word

Compound words are when two words have come together to form a new separate meaning. For example, ‘air’ refers to the atmosphere around us, while a ‘port’ can be any location of embarkation and disembarkation. Bring them together, and we have ‘airport’ – a closed compound word. Similarly, ‘can-opener’ has been coined as the word for a device to open tinned foods. This is a hyphenated compound word. Lastly, ‘ice cream’ is an example of an open compound word.

Concrete Noun

Concrete nouns exist in the physical world. For example, ‘dog,’ ‘table’ or ‘air’ are all concrete nouns. Compare ‘abstract noun.’ It is one of the eight types of noun.

Conditional Mood

This refers to a mood of verb which is being used to describe an action that would occur should another condition be fulfilled. For example, ‘would play’ in the sentence, “He would play football if he had the time.”

Conjugation

Conjugation refers to how the form of a verb changes based on person, number or tense through the use of inflections. It can also include forms of verbs that are made up of multiple parts, such as ‘is eating,’ or ‘has eaten.’ Conjugations are usually presented in the form of tables.

Conjunction

Conjunctions are words that bind ideas together, such as ‘and,’ ‘or,’ ‘but,’ ‘although.’

Consonant

When we speak, air flows through the mouth and we alter the shape of our mouths or lips to create different sounds. In the case of vowels, we do not block the airflow. In the case of consonants, on the other hand, we might block the flow of air with our lips, tongue or teeth.

Continuous Aspect

This is a verb formation that indicates that an action was taking place on an ongoing basis over a period of time. For example, “She was playing tennis,” which means that it was an ongoing activity, compared to “She played tennis,” which is limited to a completed activity.

Countable Noun

A noun that can have a quantity applied.  For instance ‘one dog,’ ‘two dogs,’ etc. It is one of the eight types of noun. Compare with ‘uncountable noun.’

D

Dative

This describes the case of a noun when it is the indirect object of a verb. Compare nominative and accusative.

Declension

When you read a grammar book, inflections for nouns, pronouns, adjectives, adverbs and articles are presented in a table form to show how the words change according to their meaning or function. These tables are showing the system of endings, which is declension.

Definite Article

See article.

Demonstrative Determiner

The demonstrative determiners in English are ‘this’ and ‘that.’ These provide more context about the location of the noun in relation to the speaker (i.e. this one here and that one there).

Dependent Clause

See subordinate clause.

Descriptive Grammar

Native speakers of a language frequently break the rules of grammar. If they speak with an accent or dialect, they may not follow the same rules as other speakers. In order to explain these differences we might treat grammar as a descriptive discipline. Unlike prescriptive grammar, there is no notion of right or wrong use of language, but concepts such as syntax and morphology are used to describe how speakers are forming their language. Compare prescriptive grammar.

Determiner

A determiner is a type of word that goes directly in front of a noun to provide more contextual information about it. It can tell you something about the location of the noun in relation to the speaker, something about its amount, or information about ownership. The words ‘a,’ ‘an’ and ‘the’ are also a type of determiner, known as articles.

Dialect

A dialect describes a way of speaking that comprises modifications to a language in terms of grammar, pronunciation and vocabulary. As it involves more extensive changes to grammar and vocabulary, it is more distinct than an accent but as it is still mutually intelligible to other speakers of the same language, it is not distinct enough to be classified as a language in its own right.

Direct Object

A noun which is impacted by the action of a verb is the direct object, said to be in the accusative case. For example, in the sentence, “The dog eats the fish in the kitchen,” ‘the fish’ is the direct object. ‘The dog’ is doing the eating, so it is the subject, ‘the fish’ is being eaten, so it is the direct object of the verb, and ‘the kitchen’ could be left out of the action, so it is the indirect object.

E

Emphatic Form

This term, also sometimes called the emphatic mood or less accurately emphatic tense, is sometimes used to describe a verb formulation used to convey emphasis, such as turning “I sing,” into “I do sing.”

F

First Person

The first person refers to yourself, or yourself and others. Imagine you are telling a story from your own perspective and you are talking about yourself. This is the first person and you would use ‘I’ in the narrative, such as “I awoke early.” This is the first person singular. If you are including others within your perspective, you would say “We awoke early,” which could be you and someone else, or you and a number of other people. This is the first person plural. The first person is represented by the pronouns ‘I’ and ‘we.’

Future Tense

This refers to a verb whose form indicates that the action being described is to happen in the future, such as, “The bus will arrive at nine o’clock.”

G

Gender

A noun can be masculine (such as ‘king’), feminine (such as ‘queen), or something neutral (such as ‘table’). In English, we follow natural gender, which means that once we introduce a noun, we then use the pronouns ‘he’ and ‘she’ for those words with obvious gender (or where the natural gender is known), but most words are neuter and referred to as ‘it.’ This is different from grammatical gender, whereby every noun can be either masculine or feminine (in languages such as French and Spanish); or masculine, feminine or neuter (as in German). In the case of grammatical gender, the words for ‘it’ will match the grammatical gender rather than the natural gender of the word.

Gerund

This is when the present participle is being used as a noun. For example, in the sentence, “His singing is annoying,” ‘singing’ is a gerund.

Grammar

Grammar describes where we put words in a sentence (the word order) and what we do to those words so that they convey meaning accurately.

Grammatical Gender

See gender.

H

Homonym

A homonym is a word that is spelled the same as another word but that has a different meaning. For example, ‘nail’ can either mean a metal fastener, or it can refer to the hard covering of a fingertip or toe.

I

Idiom

An idiom is a phrase in which not all of the words retain their original linguistic meaning. For example, in the phrase, “It’s raining cats and dogs,” there are no cats and dogs actually involved. In this case, their actual meaning expresses the notion of it raining ‘heavily.’

Imperative Mood

This mood of verb is used to express a command or give an order. or example, if you say to the dog, “Eat the fish,” then you are giving a command with the verb in the imperative mood. n English, the imperative is formed by using the bare infinitive.

Imperfect Tense

The imperfect tense, is used to describe a verb whose form relates to a repeated or habitual action in the past, or an action that took place continually over an undetermined period of time (so there is no explicit beginning or end). For example: “I was sleeping,” or “I used to swim.”

Indefinite Article

See article.

Independent Clause

See main clause.

Indicative Mood

A verb in the indicative mood represents a fact or the action being described is real. For example, “I am here,” is a statement of reality, whereas “I wish I were there,” is not. Compare subjunctive mood.

Indirect Object

A noun which is impacted by the action of a verb is the direct object. However, if the noun is merely the recipient or beneficiary of the action, it is an indirect object. Indirect objects do not impact whether the action can take place or not, they are merely involved in some way. For example, in the sentence, “The dog eats the fish in the kitchen,” ‘the kitchen’ is the indirect object. ‘The dog’ is doing the eating, ‘the fish’ is being eaten and ‘the kitchen’ could be left out of the action, so it is the indirect object. Compare direct object.

Inflection

An inflection describes the change that we make to a word in order to convey a grammatical function. For example, the ‘-s’ that is added to ‘dog’ to form the plural ‘dogs’ is an inflection. There are eight regular inflections in English.

Infinitive

This refers to the part of a verb in its base form, so it doesn’t indicate any actor, nor does it have any endings that indicate time (referred to as tense). In English, it is often expressed as ‘to + the verb,’ for example ‘to go,’ ‘to eat,’ and ‘to play’ are all examples of infinitives. In French, the infinitive form of the verb takes the endings -er, -re, or -ir. In German, it is the form of the verb that ends in -en.

Interrogative

Interrogative refers to any statement, phrase or sentence clause that functions as a question. It is constructed by either using an inverted form of ‘to do’ plus a bare infinitive, or by inverting the subject and the verb. For example, “Do you eat fish?” and “Can you swim?” Alternatively, interrogative words can be used to form a question statement, such as ‘which,’ ‘what,’ ‘how,’ ‘why’, ‘when,’ ‘where,’ ‘who’ and ‘whose.’

Intransitive Verb

An intransitive verb does not require a direct object. For example, in the sentence were “I am eating,” the verb ‘to eat’ is being used intransitively. Other intransitive uses of verbs include, “I smile,” or “He lives.” Compare transitive verb.

Irregular Verb

An irregular verb is one whose form cannot be determined by applying the usual patterns of endings. For example, ‘drink’ becomes ‘drank’ in the past tense and not ‘drinked,’ which means ‘to drink’ is an irregular verb. See regular verb.

L

Lexicography

This is the art of compiling a word list or dictionary.

Linking Verb

A verb can be described as a linking verb when it is used to describe the state of existence of something. These are usually verbs that relate to appearance, such as, “He looks angry,” or other verbs that relate to sensory perception, such as, “It smells funny,” or, “It tastes good.” The verb ‘to be’ is the most frequently used linking verb, in phrases such as, “It is cold,” while ‘to become’ is another example, such as, “She becomes a doctor.”

M

Main Clause

A main clause (or independent clause) must form a standalone statement, which means it requires a subject (the person, animal or object that we are talking about) and a predicate (what we want to say about the subject). In other words, at least one noun and an associated verb. For example, “The dog is in the kitchen,” is a main clause. “It is hungry,” is also a main clause.

Modality

Modality is the way in which an activity might be done or how something might exist from a speaker or writer’s point of view. It may express, for example, ability, fondness, permission, likelihood, obligation, desire, want or need. See modal verb.

Modal Verb

A specific type of auxiliary verb, modal verbs allow us to express modality. These verbs may express, for example, ability, fondness, permission, likelihood, obligation, desire, want or need. In English, ‘can,’ ‘will,’ ‘shall,’ or ‘must’ are all examples of modal verbs, which are followed by the bare infinitive.

Mood

The form of a verb may change according to whether the action it refers to is a factual statement (indicative), a supposed statement (subjunctive), a question (interrogative), an instruction (imperative) or if it depends on another action being fulfilled (conditional). These are called moods.

Morpheme

This is the smallest possible linguistic unit that carries meaning. For example, the word ‘kind,’ which might describe how a person behaves, is made up of one morpheme. However, ‘kindness,’ the act of being kind, is made up of two morphemes, ‘kind’ and ‘-ness.’ We could have added ‘un-‘ instead, to give us ‘unkind.’ Or we could use both ‘un-‘ and ‘-ness’ to give us a word with three morphemes, ‘unkindness.’

N

Natural Gender

See gender.

Nominative

This describes the case of a noun when it is the subject of a verb. Compare accusative.

Noun

A noun is a word that gives a name to something, such as an idea or concept (such as ‘love’), or an object, person or place (such as ‘table’, ‘queen’ or ‘London’). There are eight types of noun: countable, uncountable, common, proper, concrete, abstract, compound and collective.

Number

A noun is described as having a number. In English, this is either one, such as ‘a dog,’ described as a singular noun, or more than one, ‘dogs,’ described as a plural noun.

O

Object

The recipient of the action of a verb is known as the object. For example, in the sentence, “The dog eats the fish,” the ‘fish’ is the direct object, as it is the fish that is being eaten. Compare subject.

Ordinal Number

Ordinal numbers, as the name suggests, put items into an order. So instead of one, two and three, we have first (as in the top position), second, third. In other words, ordinal numbers allow us to place an item in a list, usually by adding ‘-th’ to the number, such as fourth, sixth, seventh etc.

Orthography

Orthography refers to the writing system of a language. It describes which letters or letter combinations should be used to represent specific words, and the conventions that should be followed when forming sentences, including capitalization, hyphenation and punctuation.

P

Passive Voice

The passive voice refers to when the subject of the sentence is the recipient of the action of a verb. For example, “The fish is eaten (by the dog) is in the passive voice.” The passive voice is created by using the verb ‘to be’ and a past participle, in this example, ‘eaten.’ Compare active voice.

Past Participle

The past participle is a word derived from a verb that can be used to describe a completed action in the past. For regular verbs, it is created by adding ‘-(e)d’ to the end of the verb stem. For example, ‘open’ becomes ‘opened,’ as in ‘the opened jar of honey.’ In this case, the past participle is being used as an adjective. The past participle is also used to convey a completed action as part of the perfect tense. For example, in the phrase, “I have opened the jar of honey,” ‘opened’ is the past participle.

Past Perfect Tense

The past perfect tense is formed in English by using the past tense of the auxiliary verb ‘to have’ followed by the past participle, such as, “I had played football.”

Past Tense

This describes a verb whose form indicates that an action is relevant to a past time. For example, “She played tennis,” is an example of a verb in the past tense, as it is relevant to a past action and is not relevant to the current time. Similarly, “She was playing tennis,” means that the event took place over a period of time in the past, which is known as the continuous past tense.

Perfect Aspect

This refers to a verb form that conveys a completed action that was completed in the recent past. For example, compare, “The dog ate the fish,” to “The dog has eaten the fish.” In both cases, the action is complete, but the second statement suggests a recentness that is not implied in the first. It is formed by using ‘to have’ and the past participle of a verb.

Perfect Progessive Aspect

This refers to a verb form that conveys an action that started in the past but with the implication that it has a link to the present. For example, we might say, “The dog has been eating fish,” as a precursor to adding a present impact, such as, “… and so it has bad breath.” It is formed with the phrase ‘has been’ or ‘have been’ (or ‘had been’) followed by the present participle.

Perfect Tense

The perfect tense, or the present perfect tense, is formed in English by using the present tense of the auxiliary verb ‘to have’ followed by the past participle. It is used in English to convey the idea of a completed action that is in the past, or that started in the past but that may still be relevant to the present. For example, “I have played football,” means that the event is complete, but there is no notion of whether the action is habitual, or ongoing, or is referring to a single instance of the action.

Person

There are three grammatical categories relating to the personal perspective of the speaker. Imagine you are telling a story from your own perspective and you are talking about yourself. This is the first person and you would use ‘I’ in the narrative, such as “I awoke early.” The second person reflects those who are being addressed from the speaker’s perspective and is represented by ‘you.’ For the first and second person perspectives, there is a relationship between the speaker and the person. If the person, animal or thing being referred to is outside of this speaker-audience relationship at this time, then we use the third person, represented by ‘he,’ ‘she,’ ‘it,’ or ‘they.’ Whether an action being described is in the first, second or third person governs the form of the verb.

Philology

This is the study of language through historical sources, considering the relationships between literature, linguistics and the historical or cultural context.

Phrasal Verb

A phrasal verb is when another word type is added to a verb to give it another meaning. For instance, the basic meaning of ‘to get’ is ‘to obtain.’ However when combined with another word, such as the preposition ‘by’ it takes on a new meaning, ‘to get by, to cope.’ Similarly, a noun may be used. We can add ‘place’ to ‘take’ and create ‘to take place,’ or in other words, ‘to occur.’ We can expand this further and say ‘to take the place of,’ meaning ‘to replace.’

Plural

Plural refers to a type of noun where more than one instance of the noun is being referred to. For example, ‘dog’ is a noun with a singular number, while ‘dogs’ is described as a plural noun, i.e. there is more than one. Compare number.

Possessive

The possessive, or possessive case indicates ownership of one noun over another. For example, in the phrase, “The dog’s bone,” the bone belongs to the dog, which is indicated with the suffix ‘-‘s.’

Predicate

The predicate refers to the part of a clause that is not part of the subject. For example, in the clause, “The dog eats the fish in the kitchen,” ‘the dog’ is the subject phrase and ‘eats fish in the kitchen’ is the predicate.

Prefix

A prefix is a morpheme which can be added to a word to change the meaning of the word. For example, ‘un-‘ can be added to ‘kind’ to make ‘unkind,’ where ‘un-‘ is the prefix. In this case, the ‘un-‘ makes a new word with an opposite meaning. Compare affix.

Preposition

A preposition tells you where something is in relation to something else or when something happened. In terms of expressing where something is, prepositions can relay a static location or movement. For example, ‘in’ in the sentence, “London is in the United Kingdom,” is an example of a preposition expressing a fixed location. On the other hand, “I am coming into London,” expresses movement. Common prepositions include ‘at,’ ‘in,’ ‘on,’ ‘of,’ ‘by,’ ‘with,’ ‘under,’ ‘over,’ ‘around,’ ‘to,’ and ‘from.’

Prescriptive Grammar

Prescriptive grammar is the approach used in schools – it presents grammar as a list of rules that must be learned and sentences are either grammatically correct according to these rules, or that are not. Taking this approach to learning grammar for a foreign language also makes sense as it offers the best chance of being understood accurately when speaking it. Compare descriptive grammar.

Present Participle

The present participle is a word derived from a verb that can be used to describe an ongoing action in the present. It is typically formed by adding ‘-ing’ to the end of the verb stem. For example, ‘singing,’ ‘drinking’ and ‘running’ are all examples of the present participles.

Present Tense

This describes a verb whose form indicates that an action is relevant to the current time. For example, “She sings,” is an example of a verb in the present tense, as it is relevant to the current time. Similarly, “She is singing,” means that it is both present and currently happening, which is known as the continuous present tense.

Progressive Aspect

The progressive (or alternatively continuous) aspect means that the action to which a verb form refers is ongoing. For example, “She is singing,” means that the action is ongoing. This is the present progressive, or present continuous. We can describe an ongoing action in the past with the form, “She was singing,” where there is no defined start or end point. It is formed by using the verb ‘to be’ and the present participle (i.e. the ‘-ing’ form of a verb).

Proper Noun

A noun that identifies a specific individual, person or place. For example, ‘Jenny,’ ‘Peter,’ and ‘Paris’ are all proper nouns. These start with a capital letter in English. It is one of the eight types of noun.

Pronoun

A pronoun stands in place of a noun in order to avoid repetition. For example, ‘it’ in the sentence: “The table is in the kitchen. It is large and made of wood.” Other pronouns include ‘I,’ ‘you,’ ‘he,’ ‘she,’ ‘we’ and ‘they.’

Prose

This is simply a way of referring to ordinary written language, in contrast to poetry.

Q

Quantifier

A quantifier is a type of determiner that tells you how much or how many of something there is. They include words such as ‘some,’ ‘any,’ ‘all,’ ‘much,’ ‘more,’ and ‘few.’

R

Reflexive Verb

A reflexive verb is one which reflects back on itself. It is a verb which you ‘do to yourself,’ so to speak, or which the subject does to itself. For example, ‘I wash myself’ and ‘she washes herself’ are both examples of reflexive verbs, where the subject and the object are the same.

Regular Verb

A regular verb follows a set pattern of predictable endings when it is being formed for different uses. For example, ‘I play’ in the present tense becomes ‘I played’ in the past tense. Similarly, ‘I watch’ becomes ‘I watched.’ On the other hand, ‘I drink’ becomes ‘I drank’ and this is therefore irregular.

S

Second Person

The second person reflects those who are being addressed from a speaker’s perspective and is represented by ‘you.’

Sentence

A sentence consists of at least one main clause and can include further related subordinate clauses to form a group of words that together conveys a completed thought or idea.

Singular

Singular refers to a type of noun where only one instance of the noun is being referred to. For example, ‘dog’ is a noun with a singular number, while ‘dogs’ is described as a plural noun, i.e. there is more than one. Compare number.

Stem

The part of a word that relays its actual meaning is called the stem. It is a form of the word to which we can attach endings. For example, ‘play’ is the stem of the verb ‘to play,’ to which we can add endings such as ‘-s,’ in the case of ‘plays,’ or ‘-ed,’ such as in ‘played.’

Subject

Whoever is carrying out the action of a verb is known grammatically as the subject. For example, in the sentence, “The dog eats the fish,” the ‘dog’ is the subject, as it is doing the eating. Compare object.

Subjunctive Mood

The subjunctive mood means that the verb is expressing something uncertain or unreal from the perspective of the speaker: it could be a wish, desire or an imagined state that is dependent on some external condition, such as “I wish I were there.” In this case, it is an unreal scenario, as opposed to “I am here.” Compare indicative mood.

Subordinate Clause

A subordinate clause is one that is dependent on a main clause in order to complete the meaning. It therefore cannot stand alone. For example, “The dog is in the kitchen,” is a main clause. “It is hungry,” is also a main clause. However if we said “Because it is hungry,” on its own, then we have a subordinate clause, because information is missing to make this clause make sense on its own. Therefore “The dog is in the kitchen because it is hungry,” is now a sentence, with complete meaning, made up of a main independent clause (“The dog is in the kitchen”) and a subordinate, or dependent, clause (“because it is hungry”). Compare main clause.

Suffix

A suffix is a morpheme which can be added to a word to change the meaning or the grammatical function of the word. For example, ‘kindness,’ the act of being kind, is made up of two morphemes, ‘kind’ and ‘-ness.’ The ending ‘-ness’ is a suffix, changing the adjective ‘kind’ into a noun, ‘kindness.’ Suffixes are often used as inflections. Compare affix.

Superlative

This refers to when we describe a noun as having more of a specific quality than any other, such as, “This is the biggest house on the street.”

Syllable

A syllable is a unit of sound that contains only one vowel sound. For example: ‘pen,’ ‘cat,’ ‘dog.’ A syllable may be written with more than vowel, such as, ‘home,’ or ‘loud,’ but in each case, there is only one vowel sound being pronounced. Words can be monosyllabic, as in the examples just provided; or polysyllabic, such as ‘homecoming,’ which has three syllables, or louder, which has two. A syllable may have any number of consonant sounds, but can only ever have one vowel sound.

Syntax

Syntax describes the word order rules we adhere to when making sentences, in order that the sentence makes sense.

T

Tense

The form of a verb can relay information about when and how an action occurs in relation to time using tense and aspect. For example, “She sings” is an example of the present tense, it is relevant to the current time. “She is singing,” means that it is present and currently happening, so it is the present tense with a progressive (or continuous) aspect. Verbs can also be in the past or future tense, such as “She sang,” or “She will sing.”

Third Person

The third person refers to a statement about another person or noun who is neither you, nor a person you are addressing. It is represented by the pronouns ‘he,’ ‘she,’ or ‘it,’ if the reference is to a singular person or thing (third person singular), or ‘they,’ if there is more than one person or thing (third person plural).

Transitive Verb

A transitive verb has a direct object. In the sentence “The dog eats the fish,” the verb is being used transitively. The fish is being eaten, so it’s the direct object. If you can answer the question “What is being acted on?” then the verb is being used transitively. Compare intransitive verb.

U

Uncountable Noun

A noun that is impossible to count.  For example, ‘water,’ or ‘air.’ It is one of the eight types of noun. Compare with ‘countable noun.’

V

Verb

Verbs convey a state or an action. For example: ‘to run,’ ‘to sing,’ ‘to play.’ Verb forms can be governed by factors such as person (who is doing the action), tense (when or how the action is taking place in relation to time) or mood (whether the verb is a factual statement, a supposed statement, a question or an instruction).

Vocabulary

The collection of agreed words and compound words come together to form the vocabulary of a language – so vocabulary specially refers to the list of what those words are for a given language.

Voice

Referring to verbs, the voice of the verb construction can be described as either active or passive, depending on whether the subject is causing the action or is on the receiving end of the action. The active voice refers to when the subject of the verb is causing the action to happen. For example, “The dog eats the fish.” The passive voice refers to when the subject of the sentence is the recipient of the action of the verb. For example, “The fish is eaten (by the dog).” In the second case, the passive voice is created by using the verb ‘to be’ and a past form of the verb, called the past participle, in this example, ‘eaten.’

Vowel

When we speak, air flows through the mouth and we alter the shape of our mouths or lips to create different sounds. In the case of vowels, we do not block the airflow. In the case of consonants, on the other hand, we might block the flow of air with our lips, tongue or teeth. This means, in English, ‘a’, ‘e’, ‘i’, ‘o’ and ‘u’ are all vowels.

W

Word

Words are the fundamental building blocks for languages. They represent the smallest unit of speech to have some conventional agreed meaning among a group of speakers of a language and to which other grammatical rules of the language can be applied.