Syntax Vocabulary

Question 1

Syntax

Answer 1

the arrangement of words and phrases to create well-formed sentences in a language

Question 2

Constituent

Answer 2

a word or a group of words that function as a single unit within a hierarchical structure

Question 3

Phrases

Answer 3

a group of words (or possibly a single word) that functions as a constituent in the syntax of a sentence, a single unit within a grammatical hierarchy

Question 4

Prominalization

Answer 4

the process or fact of using a pronoun instead of another sentence constituent (such as a noun or noun phrase)

Question 5

Pro-form

Answer 5

pronoun

Question 6

Movement

Answer 6

Testing if some constituents can be moved to somewhere else in the sentence without changing its meaning or its grammaticality

Question 7

Coordination test

Answer 7

combining words or groups of words into a single unit using the preposition “and”, and then confirming that they still behave exactly like each of the nouns would individually

Question 8

Gapping

Answer 8

an ellipsis in which a verb is removed in one, or more, of a series of coordinations

Question 9

Sentence fragment

Answer 9

a word, phrase, or clause that usually has in speech the intonation of a sentence but lacks the grammatical structure usually found in the sentences of formal and especially written composition

Question 10

Structural ambiguity

Answer 10

the potential of multiple interpretations for a piece of written or spoken language because of the way words or phrases are organized

Question 11

Noun phrase

Answer 11

a phrase that has a noun (or indefinite pronoun) as its head or performs the same grammatical function as a noun

Question 12

Prepositional phrase

Answer 12

a group of words containing a preposition, a noun or pronoun object of the preposition, and any modifiers of the object

Question 13

Adjective phrase

Answer 13

a group of words that describe a noun or pronoun in a sentence

Question 14

Verb phrase

Answer 14

the portion of a sentence that contains both the verb and either a direct or indirect object

Question 15

Adverb phrase

Answer 15

a group of two or more words that function as an adverb in a sentence

Question 16

Determiner

Answer 16

a word or affix that belongs to a class of noun modifiers that expresses the reference, including quantity, of a noun

Question 17

Subordinate clause

Answer 17

a group of words that has both a subject and a verb but cannot stand alone as a sentence

Question 18

Main clause

Answer 18

clauses that can stand on their own

Question 19

Predicate

Answer 19

the portion of a clause, excluding the subject, that expresses something about the subject

Question 20

Subject-verb agreement

Answer 20

the subject of a sentence must always match the verb describing its action

Question 21

Clause

Answer 21

a syntactic unit that consists minimally of a verb phrase and its subject.

Question 22

Sentence

Answer 22

the largest syntactic units and they are made up of one or more clauses

Question 23

Case

Answer 23

a grammatical category determined by the syntactic or semantic function of a noun or pronoun

Question 24

Transitive verb

Answer 24

a verb that takes a direct object

Question 25

Intransitive verb

Answer 25

a verb or clause that is unable to take a direct object

Question 26

Ditransitive

Answer 26

describes a verb or clause which takes two objects

Question 27

Direct object

Answer 27

a grammatical relation that exhibits a combination of certain independent syntactic properties

Question 28

Indirect object

Answer 28

a grammatical relation that is one means of expressing the semantic role of goal and other similar roles

Question 29

Adverbial clause

Answer 29

a clause that has an adverb-like function in modifying another clause

Question 30

Adjunct

Answer 30

an optional constituent of a construction

Question 31

Complement

Answer 31

a constituent of a clause, such as a noun phrase or adjective phrase, that is used to predicate a description of the subject or object of the clause

Question 32

Predicative complement

Answer 32

also called the subject complement because it restates or describes the subject

Question 33

Omission

Answer 33

deleting one or more sounds (such as a vowel, a consonant, or a whole syllable) in a word or phrase

Question 34

Passivization

Answer 34

the transformation of a sentence from an active form to a passive form

Question 35

Syntactic function

Answer 35

the grammatical relationship of one constituent to another within a syntactic construction

Question 36

Slang

Answer 36

unconventional words or phrases that express either something new or something old in a new way

Question 37

Grammar

Answer 37

the system of principles, conditions, and rules that are elements or properties common to all languages – the essence of human language

Question 38

Didactics

Answer 38

the teaching and learning of foreign languages in an institutional setting

Question 39

Interrogatives (wh-pronouns)

Answer 39

a pro-form that is used in questions to stand for the item questioned (who, what, where, when, why, how)

Question 40

Tree diagram

Answer 40

In a tree diagram, a sentence is divided into two parts: a subject and a predicate. They are made up of noun phrases or verb phrases. These are groups of words that include a noun or verb and any words that add as modifiers. The subject is a noun phrase while a predicate is usually a verb phrase