grammar Flashcards
morpheme
smallest unit of meaning
root/base
a morpheme in a word that gives the word its principle meaning e.g. woman in womanly
prefix
a bound morpheme that can be added to the beginning of a base e.g. un(healthy)
suffix
an bound morpheme that occurs after the base e.g. (capital)ism
plurality
making a word plural, often by adding an -s ending
tense
how the time of the event is marked e.g. past present and future
person
a category used in the classification of pronouns, possessive determiners, and verb forms, according to whether they indicate the speaker (first person), the adressee (second person), or a third party (third person)
deixis
pointing via language, can be spatial (relating to place), temporal (relating to time), personal (pronouns), ideological (attitude, elevation), exophoric (outside the text), endophoric (inside the text),
free morpheme
can stand alone in a specific meaning e.g. eat, date, weak
bound morpheme
morphemes that cannot stand alone with meaning
declarative
a grammatical mood where the subject is followed by a verb in a sentence which expresses a statement e.g. the balloon flew over the mountain
interrogative
used in questions that require an answer, indicated by a question mark interrogative adverbs e.g. when, where, how
imperative
a grammatical mood expressing a directive using a verb in the base form with no subject i.e. a command e.g. come here
exclamatory
using, containing or expressing an exclamation, indicated by an exclamation mark
modal auxiliary
used with the base form of another verb to express distinctions of mood e.g. can, could, might ,shall, should, will, would, must
modals
give the mode, manner or form of another word e.g. modal auxiliaries
phrase
a group of words that has no finite verb
modification
adding of additional words to provide more detail to a head word in a phrase
clause
a group of phrases which usually has a tensed verb phrase
sentence
a grammatical structure made up of one or more clauses, marked by a capital letter and a full stop
subordination
joining two or more clauses where only one is independent and the other is dependent
active voice
the subject of the sentence performs the action
aspect
element of marking the time of an event by specifying whether they are progressive of perfective
coordination
joining of two or more independent clauses via coordinating conjunctions
head word
the main word in a phrase
passive voice
the subject of the sentence receives the action
sentence function
the purpose a sentence fulfils in communication
word class
the grammatical category into which words can be placed, including noun, adjective, verb, adverb, determiner, pronoun, preposition, conjunction
verb
express action, state or relation between two things
noun
referring to persons, place, things, states, or qualities
adjective
modify nouns and pronouns, describing a quality of the word they are describing
adverb
modify verbs and clauses
adverbial
a word or phrase functioning as an adverb
modal auxiliary
any of the group of auxiliary verbs that are used with the base form of another verb to express distinctions of mood
superlative
the highest degree of the comparison of adjectives and adverbs e.g. smallest
