Grammar Definitions Flashcards
Demonstrative
Points to something in particular
4 in total (This, that, these, those)
Can be used as Determiners
Determiners
Come before nouns to classify them 3 categories: (Definite: the, my, this, that) (Indefinite: a, all, some, every, each) (‘Wh’ Words: what, which, whose)
Semantic
Simple definition
Register
How a word is typically used
Eg: formal, informal, colloquial
Connotation
Positive or negative meaning
Collocation
How words are usually used together
Phonology
Study of phonetics and pronunciation
Phoneme
Unit of sound
Orthography
Letter formation
Idiomatic
Natural to a native-speaker
Informal
Colloquial
Receptive skills
Reading, listening
Productive skills
Speaking, writing
Adjective
Gives more info about a noun or pronoun
Adverb
Gives more info about a verb
Definite article
The
Indefinite article
A or an
Name the two ‘aspects’ in English
Continuous progressive
Perfect
(Gives more info about a verb in relation to time)
Auxiliary verb
Used with other Verbs to create questions, negatives and tenses (Eg: Be, Do, Have)
Base form of verb
Infinitive without ‘To’
Clause
Can be full or part sentence, generally contains:
Subject and finite verb relating to subject or object
Collective noun
Noun relating to group of things
Eg: The Police
Comparative adjective
Adjective that compares 2 things
Eg: Taller
Complex sentence
One that contains main clause and subordinate one(s)
Compound noun
Combination of 2 words to describe something (Eg: Headache)
Name the 4 Conditional verb forms
First conditional (I will come if I can) - likely Second conditional (I would go if..) - unlikely Third conditional (I would have called...)- past that can’t be changed Mixed conditional (Referring to different timeframes)
Conjunction
Used to connect phrases, clauses or sentences (Eg: but, because, and, or, so, yet etc)
Countable noun
Has both singular and plural forms
Demonstrative adjective
Explains if something is near or far
Eg: This table, that book
Demonstrative pronoun
Replaces a noun and describes if it is near or far
Eg: This, that, these, those
Dependent preposition
A ‘prep’ always used with a particular verb, noun or adjective
(Eg: interested IN, depend ON etc)
Exponent
Example of a grammar point
What are the 4 Future forms?
…with ‘going to’ (I am going to see)
…with present continuous (I am seeing)
…with present simple (I see him at 4pm)
…with ‘will’ or ‘shall’ (I will see)
Gerund
-ING form of verb acting as a noun
Infinitive of purpose
Explains WHY something is/was done
Eg: in order to…
Intransitive
A verb which does not take a direct object
Eg: She cried
Noun
A person, place or thing
Object
The thing affected by the action of the verb
Object pronoun
Word that replaces an object noun
Eg: him, her, it
Present participle
- ING form of verb
Used to create tenses and adjectives
Past participle
- ED form of verb
Used to create tenses or adjectives
Particle
Small adverb or preposition that doesn’t change its form
Eg: after
Passive sentence
Something is done TO the subject
Active sentence
Something is done BY the subject
Personal pronoun
Used instead of names
Eg: I - Subject; Me - object; You - S or O; he/she, him/her; We, us; They/Them
Phonology
The study of sounds
Phrase
Group of words that do not form a whole sentence (Eg: the Green car)
Possessive adjective
Shows who something belongs to
Eg: My…
Possessive pronoun
Replaces a noun and shows ownership
Eg: Mine
Preposition
Used in front of nouns, pronouns & gerunds
Shows the relationship between noun and other words in sentence
Proper noun
Name of person or place
Quantifier
Word or phrase used with a noun to show amount (Eg: much, a lot of)
Question tag
Phrase used at end of statement to make it a question
Regular verb
Adds -ED in the past simple and past participle
Relative pronoun
Introduces a relative clause, Eg:
“The book WHICH I’m reading
Reported speech
Speech reported by another person
Reporting verb examples
Tell, advise, suggest
Subject
The person or thing doing the action or (in passive sentences) receiving it
Superlative adjective
Compares more than 2 things, Eg:
He is the TALLEST boy in the class
Transitive
A verb which takes a direct object, Eg
He HIT the ball
Used to
A structure to show something happened in the past but no longer
Verb
Used to describe an action, state or process
Verb pattern
Form of words following a verb, Eg
He advised ME TO GET there asap
Antonym
Opposite of another word
Chunk
Groups of words commonly found together
Eg: Phrasal Verbs, idioms, collocations
Compound
When two or more nouns, Verbs, adjectives or prepositions are used together
Homonym
A word with the same spelling and pronunciation as another word but a different meaning
Homophone
A word that sounds the same as another word but has a different meaning and spelling
Idiom
A group of words with a different meaning to that of the individual words
Lexis
Vocabulary: individual words or sets of words
Lexical set
Groups of words with same topic
Phrasal Verbs
Part of speech made up of more than one word, with a different meaning to the individual words (Eg: Look after)
Prefix/suffix
Group of letters added to start or end of word to create new word
Root/base word
Basic word to which prefixes or suffixes can be added to create new word, Eg:
Photograph, photographer, photographic
Synonym
Word which has the same, or virtually same, meaning as another word
Word family
A group of words that come from the same root (Eg: economy, economist, economic)
Connected speech
When words join to form a connected stream of sounds
Contrastive stress
Stress used on a word in a sentence for emphasis or contrast
Contraction
A shorter form of a group of words, Eg
You have = You’ve
Diphthong
A vowel combination used by moving from one vowel to another
Minimal pair
Two words only differentiated by one change in sound (Eg: hit, heat)
Functional exponent
The word that indicates the purpose of what the speaker is saying(Eg: Let’s is an exponent of suggestion)
