English Language Flashcards
Proper nouns
Specific names of people and places, written with capital letters at the start.
e.g.: “America,” “Danny”
Abstract nouns
Things or concepts you can’t touch.
e.g.: “happiness,” “shyness,” “romance”
Common nouns
Most nouns, those which are not proper or abstract.
e.g.: “car,” “jacket,” “cinema”
Verbs
Words indicating action or change
e.g.: “to kiss,” “to sing,” “to eat”
Subject of a verb
The person or thing who is carrying out the action of the verb.
e.g.: In “Danny kissed Sandy,” Danny is the subject.
Object of a verb
The person or thing that the verb is being carried out upon.
e.g.: In “Danny kissed Sandy,” Sandy is the object.
Verb phrase
In order to express some of the different tenses (past, present, etc.), a verb can become a verb phrase, incorporating auxiliary verbs to indicate timing.
e.g.: “had been kissing” is a verb phrase
Modal verbs
A subgroup of auxiliary verbs that express how likely or possible an event is.
e.g.: “may,” “must,” “can”
Adjectives
They modify and describe nouns.
e.g.: “shiny” in “shiny car”
Adjectival phrases
When adjectives themselves are modified.
e.g.: “Impressively shiny car”
Adverbs
They tell us how, where, or when something is done. In other words, they describe the manner, place, or time of a verb. Many of them are created simply by adding an “ly” to the end of an adjective.
e.g.: “slowly”
Pronouns
Words that replace nouns in a sentence, to make them less combersome and less repetitive.
e.g.: “he,” “she,” “they”
Conjunctions
Words that are used to link other words, phrases, and clauses.
e.g.: “when,” in “tell me when you are ready”
Articles
Used to refer to specific or particular nouns
e.g.: “a,” “an,” and “the”
Indefinite article
An article which refers to any member of a group.
e.g.: “a” in “a boy kissed her”
Definite article
An article used when the specific subject is known.
e.g.: “the” in “the boy kissed her”
Prepositions
Words that link nouns, pronouns and phrases to other words in the sentence. They usually indicate relationships in time or space.
e.g.: “under,” “above,” “behind,” “at,” “for”
Interjections
Words added to a sentence to convey emotion. They are not grammatically related to any other part of the sentence. They’re often followed by an exclamation mark.
e.g.: “Ouch!” “Hey!”
Clause
Sentences are made up of one or more of these. It is a group of words that includes a verb and usually also a subject. There are also two types (main and subordinate).
Main clause
Complete unit of sense and must contain a verb and a subject. Every sentence must contain one of these.
e.g.: “it was cold,” in “it was cold, reminding her of Danny”
Subordinate clause
These are dependent on main clauses and do not have to be a complete unit of sense.
e.g.: “reminding her of Danny,” in “it was cold, reminding her of Danny”
Gerund
Verbs which take on the function of a noun.
e.g.: “fighting” in “fighting is fun”
Relative pronouns
Join clauses together and begin subordinate clauses (called a relative clause).
e.g.: “who,” “whom,” “which,” “that”
Restrictive relative clauses
Identify what is being referred to by the previous noun. Also known as “defining.”
e.g.: “that I wore then” in “The shirt that I wore then was pink.”
Nonrestrictive relative clauses
Provide info about the noun but are not essential to the meaning of the sentence. They’re found between commas. Also known as “nondefining.”
Note: only “which” can be used in these contexts.
e.g.: “the sweater, which was pink, …”
Dangling participle
A clause containing a present participal with no subject, followed by a main clause with a subject different from the subject of the participle. They are inelegant and should be avoided at all costs.
e.g.: “having read the book, the bottle of wine was opened” is incorrect
Split infinitive
When an infinitive of a verb is split by an adverb.
e.g.: the Star Trek quote, “to boldly go,” is technically incorrect.
Reflexive pronouns
Pronouns that refer back to the subject of the sentence. They are used when the subject and object of a sentence are the same.
e.g.: “oneself,” “himself,” “yourself,” “themselves”
Period
Divide sentences from other sentences. They are the strongest form of punctuation.
Question mark
Used in place of periods when the sentence is a question.
Exclamation mark
Used after words, phrases, or sentences that are exclamatory, horatory (e.g. giving encouragement or advice), particularly enthusiastic, or full of wonder or contempt.
Colon
Used to introduce lists or separate main clauses in a sentence where the following clause explains, paraphrases, or gives an example of the preceding clause.
e.g.: “She had such a short temper: she lost control and smacked me.”
Semicolon
Used between two main clauses when they are connected together more strongly than warrants a period (to avoid a comma splice). They are also used to divide up lists if commas aren’t clear enough to mark divisions.
When you have a conjunctive adverb linking two independent clauses (moreover,nevertheless,however, etc.), you should use one of these.
e.g.: “I ordered a cheeseburger for lunch; life’s too short for a diet.“
Dashes
Used to indicate a pause or to introduce a list or explanation. Pairs of them are often used in the place of parentheses or commas.
This punctuation is a bit more emphatic than colons. When you want to generate strong emotion in your writing or create a more casualtone, use these.
e.g.: “He is afraid of two things—spiders and senior prom.”
Parentheses
Used to separate extra information or explanations from the rest of the sentence.
Comma
Used as light divisions to make the structure and meaning of sentences clear, for example in lists. They are also used to mark nonrestrictive clauses.
You CANNOT link two main clauses using one of these– you must use a conjunction instead.
Apostrophe
Used to indicate posession. Also used to indicate missing letters.
Rememer that “its” is possessive and “it’s” means “it is”
Quotation mark
Used to indicate quotations and direct speech.
e.g.: “‘It wasn’t me,’ she answered.”
Hyphen
Used in some compound words, or to connect words that would look awkward or unclear if they were put together to make one word. They are also used to link words used to describe an attribute of the noun.
e.g.: “well-known villain,” “in-depth investigation,” “mind-blowing”
