Language Features Flashcards
Collective Noun
a count noun that denotes a group of individuals (e.g. assembly, family, crew ).
Abstract Noun
a noun denoting an idea, quality, or state rather than a concrete object, e.g. truth, danger, happiness.
“the website contains considerably more abstract nouns than hard facts”
Determiner
a modifying word that determines the kind of reference a noun or noun group has, for example a, the, every.
Adverb
a word or phrase that modifies the meaning of an adjective, verb, or other adverb, expressing manner, place, time, or degree (e.g. gently, here, now, very ). Some adverbs, for example sentence adverbs, can also be used to modify whole sentences.
Pronoun.
a word that can function as a noun phrase used by itself and that refers either to the participants in the discourse (e.g. I, you ) or to someone or something mentioned elsewhere in the discourse (e.g. she, it, this ).
Noun
a word (other than a pronoun) used to identify any of a class of people, places, or things ( common noun ), or to name a particular one of these ( proper noun ).
Proper Noun
a name used for an individual person, place, or organization, spelled with an initial capital letter, e.g. Jane, London, and Oxfam.
Verb
a word used to describe an action, state, or occurrence, and forming the main part of the predicate of a sentence, such as hear, become, happen.
Common Noun
a noun denoting a class of objects or a concept as opposed to a particular individual.
Concrete noun
a noun denoting a material object rather than an abstract quality, state, or action, e.g. dog, building, tree.
“the list consisted of 20 high-frequency concrete nouns”
Preposition
a word governing, and usually preceding, a noun or pronoun and expressing a relation to another word or element in the clause, as in ‘the man on the platform’, ‘she arrived after dinner’, ‘what did you do it for ?’.
Adjective
a word naming an attribute of a noun, such as sweet, red, or technical.
Imperative
denoting the mood of a verb that expresses a command or exhortation, as in come here!.
Superlative
(of an adjective or adverb) expressing the highest or a very high degree of a quality (e.g. bravest, most fiercely ).
Main Clause
a clause that can form a complete sentence standing alone, having a subject and a predicate.
Modal Verb
an auxiliary verb that expresses necessity or possibility. English modal verbs include must, shall, will, should, would, can, could, may, and might.
Sentence fragment
Sentence fragments are groups of words that look like sentences, but aren’t. To be a sentence, groups of words need to have at least one independent clause. An independent clause is any group of words that contain both a subject and a verb and can stand on its own
Protagonist
the leading character or one of the major characters in a play, film, novel, etc.
Antagonist
a person who actively opposes or is hostile to someone or something; an adversary.
Subordinate Clause
a clause, typically introduced by a conjunction, that forms part of and is dependent on a main clause (e.g. ‘when it rang’ in ‘she answered the phone when it rang’).
Monologue
a long speech by one actor in a play or film, or as part of a theatrical or broadcast programme.
Oxymoron
a figure of speech in which apparently contradictory terms appear in conjunction (e.g. faith unfaithful kept him falsely true ).
Hyperbole
exaggerated statements or claims not meant to be taken literally.
Colloquial
(of language) used in ordinary or familiar conversation; not formal or literary.
Lexis
the total stock of words in a language.
Semantic Field
a lexical set of semantically related items, for example verbs of perception.
Pathetic Fallecy
Technique where the environment (usually the weather) reflects the emotions of the main character.
Connotations
An idea or image which is suggested by a word, which is not its dictionary meaning, eg the connotation of ‘desk’ might be school.
Literary device
Any method an author uses to add meaning or interest to a text, such as metaphors, similes or alliteration.
Synecdoche
A type of metaphor where you use part of something to refer to the whole. For example, in the phrase ‘all hands on deck’, the hands are people and the deck is the ship.
Ominous
Suggestive of danger to come.
Dialect
The language of a particular subset of English speakers - often those living in a particular place - having its own unique diction, vocabulary, spelling and even grammar.
Active Voice
one of two voices in English; a direct form of expression where the subject performs or “acts” the verb; see also passive voice
eg: “Many people eat rice”
Adjunction
word or phrase that adds information to a sentence and that can be removed from the sentence without making the sentence ungrammatical
eg: I met John at school.
Affirmative
statement that expresses (or claims to express) a truth or “yes” meaning; opposite of negative
eg: The sun is hot.
Affix
language unit (morpheme) that occurs before or after (or sometimes within) the root or stem of a word eg: un- in unhappy (prefix), -ness in happiness (suffix)
antecedent
word, phrase or clause that is replaced by a pronoun (or other substitute) when mentioned subsequently (in the same sentence or later)
eg: “Emily is nice because she brings me flowers.”
appositive
noun phrase that re-identifies or describes its neighbouring noun
eg: “Canada, a multicultural country, is recognized by its maple leaf
Aspect
feature of some verb forms that relates to duration or completion of time; verbs can have no aspect (simple), or can have continuous or progressive aspect (expressing duration), or have perfect or perfective aspect (expressing completion)
Bare infinitive
unmarked form of the verb (no indication of tense, mood, person, or aspect) without the particle “to”; typically used after modal auxiliary verbs; see also infinitive
eg: “He should come”, “I can swim”
Base Form
basic form of a verb before conjugation into tenses etc
eg: be, speak
Causative verb
verb that causes things to happen such as “make”, “get” and “have”; the subject does not perform the action but is indirectly responsible for it
eg: “She made me go to school”, “I had my nails painted”
Comparative
form of an adjective or adverb made with “-er” or “more” that is used to show differences or similarities between two things (not three or more things)
eg: colder, more quickly
Complement
part of a sentence that completes or adds meaning to the predicate
eg: Mary did not say where she was going.
Concord
another term for agreement
Conditional
structure in English where one action depends on another (“if-then” or “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”
Past Perfect
tense that refers to the past in the past; formed with HAD + VERB-ed
eg: “We had stopped the car”
Past participle
verb form (V3) - usually made by adding "-ed" to the base verb - typically used in perfect and passive tenses, and sometimes as an adjective eg: "I have finished", "It was seen by many people", "boiled eggs"
Person
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 (pronoun you) is the listener(s), 3rd person (pronouns he/him, she/her, it, they/them) is everybody or everything else
Subjective Case
case form of a pronoun indicating a subject
eg: Did she tell you about her?
Subjunctive
fairly rare verb form typically used to talk about events that are not certain to happen, usually something that someone wants, hopes or imagines will happen; formed with BARE INFINITIVE (except past of “be”)
eg: “The President requests that John attend the meeting”
Suffix
affix that occurs after the root or stem of a word
eg: happiness, quickly
SVO
subject-verb-object; a common word order where the subject is followed by the verb and then the object
eg: “The man crossed the street”
Syntax
sentence structure; the rules about sentence structure
Tag question
special construction with statement that ends in a mini-question; the whole sentence is a tag question; the mini-question is a question tag; usually used to obtain confirmation
eg: “The Earth is round, isn’t it?”, “You don’t eat meat, do you?”
Third Conditional
“if-then” conditional structure used to talk about a possible event in the past that did not happen (and is therefore now impossible)
eg: “If we had won the lottery we would have bought a car”
Transitive Verb
action verb that has a direct object (receiver of the action); see also 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 countable nouns
eg: water, furniture, music
Usage
way in which words and constructions are normally used in any 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
Voice
form of a verb that shows the relation of the subject to the action; there are two voices in English: active, passive
WH-question
question using a WH-word and expecting an answer that is not “yes” or “no”; WH-questions are “open” questions; see also yes-no question
eg: Where are you going?
Yes-No question
question to which the answer is yes or no; yes-no questions are “closed” questions; see also WH-question
eg: “Do you like coffee?”
Word order
order or sequence in which words occur within a sentence; basic word order for English is subject-verb-object or SVO
Plot
The events of a story
Symbolism
the use of symbols to represent ideas or
qualities.
Motif
a pattern or recurring idea in an artistic work.
Slang
Informal words to be used mostly in speech with a particular social group.
Jargon
Specialist language for the topic
Colloquial
General informal language. Understood by all unlike slang
Narative Writing Definition
A narrative or story is a report of connected events, real or imaginary, presented in a sequence of written or spoken words, or still or moving images, or both.
Definition of Descriptive writing
DEFINITION OF DESCRIPTIVE WRITING. DESCRIPTIVE WRITING is the clear description of people, places, objects, or events using appropriate details. An effective description will contain sufficient and varied elaboration of details to communicate a sense of the subject being described.
