Term Definition

one of two voices in English; a direct form of expression where the

active voice subject performs or "acts" the verb; see also passive voice
eg: "Many people eat rice"
part of speech that typically describes or "modifies" a noun
adjective
eg: "It was a big dog."
adjective clause seldom-used term for relative clause
word or phrase that adds information to a sentence and that can be
adjunct removed from the sentence without making the sentence ungrammatical
eg: I met John at school.
word that modifies a verb, an adjective or another adverb
adverb
eg: quickly, really, very
dependent clause that acts like an adverb and indicates such things as
adverbial clause time, place or reason
eg: Although we are getting older, we grow more beautiful each day.
statement that expresses (or claims to express) a truth or "yes"
affirmative meaning; opposite of negative
eg: The sun is hot.
language unit (morpheme) that occurs before or after (or sometimes
affix within) the root or stem of a word
eg: un- in unhappy (prefix), -ness in happiness (suffix)
agreement logical (in a grammatical sense) links between words based on tense,
(also known as case or number
"concord") eg: this phone, these phones
word, phrase or clause that is replaced by a pronoun (or other
antecedent substitute) when mentioned subsequently (in the same sentence or later)
eg: "Emily is nice because she brings me flowers."
noun phrase that re-identifies or describes its neighbouring noun
appositive eg: "Canada, a multicultural country, is recognized by its maple leaf
flag."
determiner that introduces a noun phrase as definite (the) or indefinite
article
(a/an)
feature of some verb forms that relates to duration or completion of
time; verbs can have no aspect (simple), or can have continuous or
aspect
progressive aspect (expressing duration), or have perfect or perfective
aspect (expressing completion)
auxiliary verb verb used with the main verb to help indicate something such as tense
(also called "helping or voice
verb") eg: I do not like you. She has finished. He can swim.
unmarked form of the verb (no indication of tense, mood, person, or
aspect) without the particle "to"; typically used after modal auxiliary
bare infinitive
verbs; see also infinitive
eg: "He should come", "I can swim"
basic form of a verb before conjugation into tenses etc
base form
eg: be, speak
case form of a pronoun based on its relationship to other words in the
 sentence; case can be subjective, objective or possessive
eg: "I love this dog", "This dog loves me", "This is my dog"
verb that causes things to happen such as "make", "get" and "have"; the
causative verb subject does not perform the action but is indirectly responsible for it
eg: "She made me go to school", "I had my nails painted"
group of words containing a subject and its verb
clause
eg: "It was late when he arrived"
form of an adjective or adverb made with "-er" or "more" that is used to
comparative,
show differences or similarities between two things (not three or more
comparative
things)
adjective
eg: colder, more quickly
part of a sentence that completes or adds meaning to the predicate
complement
eg: Mary did not say where she was going.
noun that is made up of more than one word; can be one word, or
compound noun hyphenated, or separated by a space
eg: toothbrush, mother-in-law, Christmas Day
sentence with at least two independent clauses; usually joined by a
conjunction
compound sentence
eg: "You can have something healthy but you can't have more junk
food."
concord another term for agreement
structure in English where one action depends on another ("if-then" or
conditional "then-if" structure); most common are 1st, 2nd, and 3rd conditionals
eg: "If I win I will be happy", "I would be happy if I won"
to show the different forms of a verb according to voice, mood, tense,
number and person; conjugation is quite simple in English compared to
conjugate many other languages
eg: I walk, you walk, he/she/it walks, we walk, they walk; I walked,
you walked, he/she/it walked, we walked, they walked
word that joins or connects two parts of a sentence
conjunction eg: Ram likes tea and coffee. Anthony went swimming although it was
raining.
word that has meaning in a sentence, such as a verb or noun (as
opposed to a structure word, such as pronoun or auxiliary verb); content
content word words are stressed in speech
eg: "Could you BRING my GLASSES because I've LEFT them at
HOME"
verb form (specifically an aspect) indicating actions that are in progress
continuous
or continuing over a given time period (can be past, present or future);
(also called
formed with "BE" + "VERB-ing"
"progressive")
eg: "They are watching TV."
shortening of two (or more) words into one
contraction
eg: isn't (is not), we'd've (we would have)
thing that you can count, such as apple, pen, tree (see uncountable
countable noun noun)
eg: one apple, three pens, ten trees
 illogical structure that occurs in a sentence when a writer intends to
modify one thing but the reader attaches it to another
dangling participle
eg: "Running to the bus, the flowers were blooming." (In the example
sentence it seems that the flowers were running.)
sentence type typically used to make a statement (as opposed to a
declarative sentence question or command)
eg: "Tara works hard", "It wasn't funny"
defining relative
clause relative clause that contains information required for the understanding
(also called of the sentence; not set off with commas; see also non-defining clause
"restrictive relative eg: "The boy who was wearing a blue shirt was the winner"
clause")
demonstrative
pronoun or determiner that indicates closeness to (this/these) or
pronoun
distance from (that/those) the speaker
demonstrative
eg: "This is a nice car", "Can you see those cars?"
adjective
part of a sentence that contains a subject and a verb but does not form a
complete thought and cannot stand on its own; see also independent
dependent clause
clause
eg: "When the water came out of the tap..."
word such as an article or a possessive adjective or other adjective that
typically comes at the beginning of noun phrases
determiner
eg: "It was an excellent film", "Do you like my new shirt?", "Let's buy
some eggs"
saying what someone said by using their exact words; see also indirect
direct speech speech
eg: "Lucy said: 'I am tired.'"
noun phrase in a sentence that directly receives the action of the verb;
see also indirect object
direct object
eg: "Joey bought the car", "I like it", "Can you see the man wearing a
pink shirt and waving a gun in the air?"
question that is not in normal question form with a question mark; it
occurs within another statement or question and generally follows
embedded question statement structure
eg: "I don't know where he went," "Can you tell me where it is before
you go?", "They haven't decided whether they should come"
verb form that has a specific tense, number and person
finite verb
eg: I work, he works, we learned, they ran
"if-then" conditional structure used for future actions or events that are
first conditional seen as realistic possibilities
eg: "If we win the lottery we will buy a car"
incomplete piece of a sentence used alone as a complete sentence; a
fragment does not contain a complete thought; fragments are common
fragment in normal speech but unusual (inappropriate) in formal writing
eg: "When's her birthday? - In December", "Will they come? -
Probably not"
 purpose or "job" of a word form or element in a sentence
eg: The function of a subject is to perform the action. One function of
function
an adjective is to describe a noun. The function of a noun is to name
things.
future continuous tense* used to describe things that will happen in the future at a
(also called "future particular time; formed with WILL + BE + VERB-ing
progressive") eg: "I will be graduating in September."
tense* used to express the past in the future; formed with WILL HAVE
future perfect + VERB-ed
eg: "I will have graduated by then"
tense* used to show that something will be ongoing until a certain time
future perfect in the future; formed with WILL HAVE BEEN + VERB-ing
continuous eg: "We will have been living there for three months by the time the
baby is born"
tense* used to describe something that hasn't happened yet such as a
future simple prediction or a sudden decision; formed with WILL + BASE VERB
eg: "He will be late", "I will answer the phone"
noun form of a verb, formed with VERB-ing
gerund
eg: "Walking is great exercise"
adjective that can vary in intensity or grade when paired with a grading
gradable adjective adverb ; see also non-gradable adjective
eg: quite hot, very tall
adverb that can modify the intensity or grade of a gradable adjective
grading adverb
eg: quite hot, very tall
hanging participle another term for dangling participle
helping verb another term for auxiliary verb
form of verb used when giving a command; formed with BASE VERB
imperative only
eg: "Brush your teeth!"
pronoun does not refer to any specific person, thing or amount. It is
indefinite pronoun vague and "not definite".
eg: anything, each, many, somebody
group of words that expresses a complete thought and can stand alone
independent clause
as a sentence; see also dependent clause
(also called "main
eg: "Tara is eating curry.", "Tara likes oranges and Joe likes
clause")
apples."
noun phrase representing the person or thing indirectly affected by the
action of the verb; see also direct object
indirect object
eg: "She showed me her book collection", "Joey bought his wife a new
car"
indirect question another term for embedded question
indirect speech saying what someone said without using their exact words; see direct
(also called speech
"reported speech") eg: "Lucy said that she was tired"
infinitive base form of a verb preceded by "to"**; see also bare infinitive
eg: "You need to study harder", "To be, or not to be: that is the
 question"
change in word form to indicate grammatical meaning
inflection eg: dog, dogs (two inflections); take, takes, took, taking, taken (five
inflections)
common word that expresses emotion but has no grammatical value;
interjection can often be used alone and is often followed by an exclamation mark
eg: "Hi!", "er", "Ouch!", "Dammit!"
(formal) sentence type (typically inverted) normally used when asking
interrogative a question
eg: "Are you eating?", "What are you eating?"
interrogative pronoun that asks a question.
pronoun eg: who, whom, which
verb that does not take a direct object; see also transitive verb
intransitive verb
e.g. "He is working hard", "Where do you live?"
any reversal of the normal word order, especially placing the auxiliary
verb before the subject; used in a variety of ways, as in question
inversion formation, conditional clauses and agreement or disagreement
eg: "Where are your keys?","Had we watched the weather report, we
wouldn't have gone to the beach", "So did he", "Neither did she"
irregular verb verb that has a different ending for past tense and past participle forms
see irregular verbs than the regular "-ed"; see also regular verb
list eg: buy, bought, bought; do, did, done
lexicon, lexis all of the words and word forms in a language with meaning or function
lexical verb another term for main verb
verbs that connect the subject to more information (but do not indicate
linking verb
action), such as "be" or "seem"
main clause another term for independent clause
main verb any verb in a sentence that is not an auxiliary verb; a main verb has
(also called "lexical meaning on its own
verb") eg: "Does John like Mary?", "I will have arrived by 4pm"
modal verb auxiliary verb such as can, could, must, should etc; paired with the bare
(also called infinitive of a verb
"modal") eg: "I should go for a jog"
word or phrase that modifies and limits the meaning of another word
modifier eg: the house => the white house, the house over there, the house we
sold last year
sentence type that indicates the speaker's view towards the degree of
mood reality of what is being said, for example subjunctive, indicative,
imperative
unit of language with meaning; differs from "word" because some
morpheme cannot stand alone
e.g. un-, predict and -able in unpredictable
verb that consists of a basic verb + another word or words (preposition
and/or adverb)
multi-word verb
eg: get up (phrasal verb), believe in (prepositional verb), get on with
(phrasal-prepositional verb)
 form which changes a "yes" meaning to a "no" meaning; opposite of
negative affirmative
eg: "She will not come", "I have never seen her"
nominative case another term for subjective case
non-defining
relative clause that adds information but is not completely necessary;
relative clause
set off from the sentence with a comma or commas; see defining
(also called "non-
relative clause
restrictive relative
eg: "The boy, who had a chocolate bar in his hand, was still hungry"
clause")
adjective that has a fixed quality or intensity and cannot be paired with
non-gradable
a grading adverb; see also gradable adjective
adjective
eg: freezing, boiling, dead
non-restrictive
another term for non-defining relative clause
relative clause
part of speech that names a person, place, thing, quality, quantity or
concept; see also proper noun and compound noun
noun
eg: "The man is waiting", "I was born in London", "Is that your car?",
"Do you like music?"
clause that takes the place of a noun and cannot stand on its own; often
noun clause introduced with words such as "that, who or whoever"
eg: "What the president said was surprising"
any word or group of words based on a noun or pronoun that can
function in a sentence as a subject, object or prepositional object; can
noun phrase (NP) be one word or many words; can be very simple or very complex
eg: "She is nice", "When is the meeting?", "The car over there beside
the lampost is mine"
change of word form indicating one person or thing (singular) or more
number than one person or thing (plural)
eg: one dog/three dogs, she/they
thing or person affected by the verb; see also direct object and indirect
object
object
eg: "The boy kicked the ball", "We chose the house with the red
door"
case form of a pronoun indicating an object
objective case
eg: "John married her", "I gave it to him"
one of the classes into which words are divided according to their
part of speech function in a sentence
eg: verb, noun, adjective
verb form that can be used as an adjective or a noun; see past participle,
participle
present participle
one of two voices in English; an indirect form of expression in which
passive voice the subject receives the action; see also active voice
eg: "Rice is eaten by many people"
past tense tense used to talk about an action, event or situation that occurred and
(also called "simple was completed in the past
past") eg: "I lived in Paris for 10 years", "Yesterday we saw a snake"
 tense often used to describe an interrupted action in the past; formed
past continuous with WAS/WERE + VERB-ing
eg: "I was reading when you called"
tense that refers to the past in the past; formed with HAD + VERB-ed
past perfect
eg: "We had stopped the car"
tense that refers to action that happened in the past and continued to a
past perfect
certain point in the past; formed with HAD BEEN + VERB-ing
continuous
eg: "I had been waiting for three hours when he arrived"
verb form (V3) - usually made by adding "-ed" to the base verb -
typically used in perfect and passive tenses, and sometimes as an
past participle
adjective
eg: "I have finished", "It was seen by many people", "boiled eggs"
verb form (specifically an aspect); formed with HAVE/HAS + VERB-
perfect
ed (present perfect) or HAD + VERB-ed (past perfect)
grammatical category that identifies people in a conversation; there are
three persons: 1st person (pronouns I/me, we/us) is the speaker(s), 2nd
person
person (pronoun you) is the listener(s), 3rd person (pronouns he/him,
she/her, it, they/them) is everybody or everything else
pronoun that indicates person
personal pronoun
eg: "He likes my dogs", "They like him"
multi-word verb formed with a verb + adverb
eg: break up, turn off (see phrasal verbs list)
phrasal verb
NB: many people and books call all multi-word verbs "phrasal verbs"
(see multi-word verbs)
two or more words that have a single function and form part of a
phrase
sentence; phrases can be noun, adjective, adverb, verb or prepositional
of a noun or form indicating more than one person or thing; plural
plural nouns are usually formed by adding "-s"; see also singular, number
eg: bananas, spoons, trees
grammatically correct placement of a word form in a phrase or sentence
in relation to other word forms
position
eg: "The correct position for an article is at the beginning of the noun
phrase that it describes"
basic state of an adjective or adverb when it shows quality but not
positive comparative or superlative
eg: nice, kind, quickly
adjective (also called "determiner") based on a pronoun: my, your, his,
possessive adjective her, its, our, their
eg: "I lost my keys", "She likes your car"
case form of a pronoun indicating ownership or possession
possessive case
eg: "Mine are blue", "This car is hers"
pronoun that indicates ownership or possession
possessive pronoun
eg: "Where is mine?", "These are yours"
predicate one of the two main parts (subject and predicate) of a sentence; the
predicate is the part that is not the subject
eg: "My brother is a doctor", "Who did you call?", "The woman
 wearing a blue dress helped me"
affix that occurs before the root or stem of a word
prefix
eg: impossible, reload
part of speech that typically comes before a noun phrase and shows
some type of relationship between that noun phrase and another
preposition
element (including relationships of time, location, purpose etc)
eg: "We sleep at night", "I live in London", "This is for digging"
multi-word verb that is formed with verb + preposition
prepositional verb
eg: believe in, look after
-ing form of a verb (except when it is a gerund or verbal noun)
present participle eg: "We were eating", "The man shouting at the back is rude", "I saw
Tara playing tennis"
tense usually used to describe states and actions that are general,
present simple (also habitual or (with the verb "to be") true right now; formed with the basic
called "simple verb (+ s for 3rd person singular)
present") eg: "Canada sounds beautiful", "She walks to school", "I am very
happy"
present continuous tense used to describe action that is in process now, or a plan for the
(also called "present future; formed with BE + VERB-ing
progressive") eg: "We are watching TV", "I am moving to Canada next month"
tense that connects the past and the present, typically used to express
experience, change or a continuing situation; formed with HAVE +
present perfect VERB-ed
eg: "I have worked there", "John has broken his leg", "How long have
you been in Canada?"
tense used to describe an action that has recently stopped or an action
present perfect continuing up to now; formed with HAVE + BEEN + VERB-ing
continuous eg: "I'm tired because I've been running", "He has been living in
Canada for two years"
progressive another term for continuous
word that replaces a noun or noun phrase; there are several types
pronoun including personal pronouns, relative pronouns and indefinite pronouns
eg: you, he, him; who, which; somebody, anything
noun that is capitalized at all times and is the name of a person, place or
proper noun thing
eg: Shakespeare, Tokyo, EnglishClub.com
standard marks such as commas, periods and question marks within a
punctuation sentence
eg: , . ? ! - ; :
determiner or pronoun that indicates quantity
quantifier
eg: some, many, all
final part of a tag question; mini-question at end of a tag question
question tag
eg: "Snow isn't black, is it?"
question word another term for WH-word
reciprocal pronoun pronoun that indicates that two or more subjects are acting mutually;
there are two in English - each other, one another
 eg: "John and Mary were shouting at each other", "The students
accused one another of cheating"
reduced relative construction similar to a relative clause, but containing a participle
clause instead of a finite verb; this construction is possible only under certain
(also called circumstances
"participial relative eg: "The woman sitting on the bench is my sister", "The people
clause") arrested by the police have been released"
pronoun ending in -self or -selves, used when the subject and object are
reflexive pronoun the same, or when the subject needs emphasis
eg: "She drove herself", "I'll phone her myself"
verb that has "-ed" as the ending for past tense and past participle
regular verb
forms; see also irregular verb
see regular verbs list
eg: work, worked, worked
adverb that introduces a relative clause; there are four in English:
relative adverb
where, when, wherever, whenever; see also relative pronoun
dependent clause that usually starts with a relative pronoun such as who
or which, or relative adverb such as where
relative clause
eg: "The person who finishes first can leave early" (defining), "Texas,
where my brother lives, is big" (non-defining)
pronoun that starts a relative clause; there are five in English: who,
relative pronoun
whom, whose, which, that; see also relative adverb
reported speech another term for indirect speech
restrictive relative
another term for defining relative clause
clause
"if-then" conditional structure used to talk about an unlikely possibility
second conditional in the future
eg: "If we won the lottery we would buy a car"
largest grammatical unit; a sentence must always include a subject
(except for imperatives) and predicate; a written sentence starts with a
capital letter and ends with a full stop/period (.), question mark (?) or
sentence
exclamation mark (!); a sentence contains a complete thought such as a
statement, question, request or command
eg: "Stop!", "Do you like coffee?", "I work."
list of items in a sentence
series
eg: "The children ate popsicles, popcorn and chips"
of a noun or form indicating exactly one person or thing; singular nouns
are usually the simplest form of the noun (as found in a dictionary); see
singular
also plural, number
eg: banana, spoon, tree
situation where a word or phrase comes between the particle "to" and
split infinitive the verb in an infinitive; considered poor construction by some
eg: "He promised to never lie again"
Standard English "normal" spelling, pronunciation and grammar that is used by educated
(S.E.) native speakers of English
structure word word that has no real meaning in a sentence, such as a pronoun or
auxiliary verb (as opposed to a content word, such as verb or noun);
 structure words are not normally stressed in speech
eg: "Could you BRING my GLASSES because I've LEFT them at
HOME"
one of the two main parts (subject and predicate) of a sentence; the
subject is the part that is not the predicate; typically, the subject is the
subject first noun phrase in a sentence and is what the rest of the sentence "is
about"
eg: "The rain water was dirty", "Mary is beautiful", "Who saw you?"
subjective case
case form of a pronoun indicating a subject
also called
eg: Did she tell you about her?
"nominative"
fairly rare verb form typically used to talk about events that are not
certain to happen, usually something that someone wants, hopes or
subjunctive imagines will happen; formed with BARE INFINITIVE (except past of
"be")
eg: "The President requests that John attend the meeting"
subordinate clause another term for dependent clause
affix that occurs after the root or stem of a word
suffix
eg: happiness, quickly
superlative, adjective or adverb that describes the extreme degree of something
superlative adjective eg: happiest, most quickly
subject-verb-object; a common word order where the subject is
SVO followed by the verb and then the object
eg: "The man crossed the street"
syntax sentence structure; the rules about sentence structure
special construction with statement that ends in a mini-question; the
whole sentence is a tag question; the mini-question is a question tag;
tag question
usually used to obtain confirmation
eg: "The Earth is round, isn't it?", "You don't eat meat, do you?"
form of a verb that shows us when the action or state happens (past,
present or future). Note that the name of a tense is not always a guide to
tense
when the action happens. The "present continuous tense", for example,
can be used to talk about the present or the future.
"if-then" conditional structure used to talk about a possible event in the
third conditional past that did not happen (and is therefore now impossible)
eg: "If we had won the lottery we would have bought a car"
action verb that has a direct object (receiver of the action); see also
transitive verb intransitive verb
eg: "The kids always eat a snack while they watch TV"
uncountable nouns
thing that you cannot count, such as substances or concepts; see also
(also called "mass
countable nouns
nouns" or "non-
eg: water, furniture, music
count")
way in which words and constructions are normally used in any
usage
particular language
V1, V2, V3 referring to Verb 1, Verb 2, Verb 3 - being the base, past and past
 participle that students typically learn for irregular verbs
eg: speak, spoke, spoken
word that describes the subject's action or state and that we can change
verb or conjugate based on tense and person
eg: (to) work, (to) love, (to) begin
form of a verb that shows the relation of the subject to the action; there
voice
are two voices in English: active, passive
question using a WH-word and expecting an answer that is not "yes" or
WH-question "no"; WH-questions are "open" questions; see also yes-no question
eg: Where are you going?
WH-word
word that asks a WH-question; there are 7 WH-words: who, what,
(also called
where, when, which, why, how
"question word")
order or sequence in which words occur within a sentence; basic word
word order
order for English is subject-verb-object or SVO
question to which the answer is yes or no; yes-no questions are "closed"
yes-no question questions; see also WH-question
eg: "Do you like coffee?"
"if-then" conditional structure used when the result of the condition is
zero conditional always true (based on fact)
eg: "If you dial O, the operator comes on"