Key Terms Flashcards
What is the ‘Active Voice’?
Active voice means that a sentence has a subject that acts upon its verb. Passive voice means that a subject is a recipient of a verb’s action.
Active Voice:
He bought a car.
I ate an apple
Passive:
A car was bought by him
An apple was eaten by me
What is an ‘Adverbial’?
Adverbials are words that we use to give more information about a verb. They can be one word (angrily, here) or phrases (at home, in a few hours) and often say how, where, when or how often something happens or is done, though they can also have other uses.
Examples:
I left school immediately
I left school after lunch
When the bell rang, I left
What are the two types of Apostrophe?
There are two types of apostrophe, one shows there is a letter
(or letters) missing, one shows possession (that an object
belongs to somebody or something)
e.g. That is becomes that’s when the letter I is missed out
The girl’s pens. The apostrophe shows the pens belong to
the girl.
What is an ‘Antonym’?
a word opposite in meaning to another (e.g. bad and good ).
What is an ‘Article’?
Articles are words that define a noun as specific or unspecific.
Examples:
After the long day, the cup of tea tasted particularly good.
(By using the article the, we’ve shown that it was one specific day that was long and one specific cup of tea that tasted good).
After a long day, a cup of tea tastes particularly good.
By using the article a, we’ve created a general statement, implying that any cup of tea would taste good after any long day.
What is an ‘Auxiliary Verb’?
Auxiliary (or Helping) verbs are used together with a main verb to show the verb’s tense or to form a negative or question. The most common auxiliary verbs are have, be, and do.
Examples:
Does Sam write all his own reports?
The secretaries haven’t written all the letters yet.
Terry is writing an e-mail to a client at the moment.
What is a ‘Clause’?
A clause is a group of words that includes a subject and a verb. A clause can be distinguished from a phrase, which does not contain a subject and a verb.
Example:
e.g., in the afternoon, drinking from the bowl).
What is ‘Cohesion’?
The term ‘cohesive devices’ refers to the conjunctions, connectives and pronouns used to link the parts of a piece of writing. Using the same verb tense throughout a text also offers ‘cohesion’.
Example:
an attempt has been made to link clauses, sentences and paragraphs so that the writing ‘hangs together’.
What is a colon
The colon is used to separate two independent clauses when the second explains or illustrates the first
Example:
I have very little time to learn the language: my new job starts in five weeks.
A college degree is still worth something: a recent survey revealed that college graduates earned roughly 60% more than those with only a high school diploma.
All three of their children are involved in the arts: Richard is a sculptor, Diane is a pianist, and Julie is a theater director.
What is a ‘Complement’?
It’s a word, clause, or phrase that’s needed to complete a given expression.
Examples:
For example, “Every morning is a gift.” In this sentence, “every morning” is the subject, “is” is the linking verb, and “a gift” is the complement. It completes the idea. Without it, we wouldn’t understand what every morning is.
Another example would be, “The air smells beautiful.” In this sentence, “the air” is the subject, “smells” is the linking verb, and “beautiful” is the complement. Let’s explore the different kinds of complements, as well as how to spot them in a sentence.
What is ‘Compounding’?
In English grammar, compounding is the process of combining two words (free morphemes) to create a new word (commonly a noun, verb, or adjective). Also called composition, it is from the Latin for “put together”.
Examples:
Compounds are written sometimes as one word (sunglasses), sometimes as two hyphenated words (life-threatening), and sometimes as two separate words (football stadium). Compounding is the most common type of word-formation in English.
What is ‘Continuous’?
We use continuous aspect:
for something happening before and after a specific time:
He’s getting on the train. (before and after the moment of speaking)
It was a quarter past ten. We were watching the news on television.
What is ‘Coordination’?
In English grammar, coordination is the joining of words, phrases, or clauses of the same type to give them equal emphasis and importance
Example:
The common conjunctions and, but, for, or, not, yet and so to join the elements of a coordinate construction.
What is a ‘determiner’
A determiner is a word that goes before a noun and identifies the noun in further detail.
What is a ‘finite verb’?
A finite verb shows agreement with a subject and is marked for tense
I love parades
She loves parades
He loved parades
