terminology Flashcards
Proper Nouns
specific people
and places: Paris, Andrew, Venus
Concrete Nouns
things that exist
physically:
computer, house, dog
Abstract Nouns
things that do not exist physically;
feelings, ideas and qualities.
Collective Noun
groups of people, animals or objects: team, family, flock, gaggle, litter, herd
Pre-modifying adjectives
Come before a
noun to describe it
Post-modifying adjectives
Come after the
noun to describe it
Comparative Adjectives
Compare one noun to another e.g.
bigger, smaller
Superlative Adjectives
The adjective is the least or the most
e.g. ‘biggest’,
‘strongest’
Noun Phrase
Nouns modified by adjectives that
could be replaced by a pronoun e.g. ‘the beautiful
animal was kept in a cage’
Dynamic verbs
A verb you can
physically see e.g. running, walking
Stative Verbs
A verb that is a
state not an action e.g. thinking,
wondering
Transitive verbs
A type of dynamic verb that requires a noun e.g. ‘she
kicked the ball
Intransitive verbs
Don’t require a
noun e.g she
sneezed, she
laughed
Infinitive verbs
A verb you can’t tell the tense from e.g. to wake, to run, to love
Finite verbs
A verb you can tell the tense of e.g.
she was waiting
Auxiliary verbs
These help us
understand the
tense of another
verb. There are only three – be, do,
have.
Modal Auxiliary verbs
These tell you the necessity of
possibility attached to a verb e.g.
should, could,
would, may, might
Adverbs
Modify verbs by
telling us the
manner, time,
place, frequency, degree, quantity or evaluation of a
verb
Pronouns
Replace the noun in a sentence. Harry went to school
becomes he went to school, the
pronoun replaces Harry.
Personal Pronouns
Replaces the
subject or object in a sentence e.g. I, we, me, him
Reflexive pronoun
Indicate object of a verb is the same as the subject of the sentence e.g. ‘-
self/-selves in
themselves’ like in ‘they were going to do it themselves
Indefinite pronouns
Do not refer to any specific person of thing e.g.
‘someone’
‘anything’
‘everything
Demonstrative Pronouns
They tend to point to something e.g. ‘that’, this’ (but if it comes before a
noun it isn’t the
pronoun)
Possessive pronouns
Show possession
(hers, ours, mine)
only when not
placed before the noun.
Interrogative
pronoun
Show possession
(hers, ours, mine)
only when not
placed before the noun.
Relative Pronouns
Act as linking words in a sentence
always placed
immediately AFTER the noun they refer to e.g. whom, who, whose, which, that. (The man, whohad decided to go
home, was walking very quickly)
Person
First person involves you personally (I,
we, me, us, our,
my)
Second person is
you, your, yours
only
Third person
involves other
people e.g. he,
she, they, them,
their
Articles
There are only three articles and they
are either definite (the) or indefinite (a or an)
Determiners
Often confused
with pronouns, they are always before the noun, not after it e.g. this car is
new. They tell us
which ‘thing’ is
being referred to.
Quantifiers
Are a type of
determiner that
show quantity e.g. he had ‘a few
cows’, he ‘did not have enough milk’
Prepositions
A word that tells
you where or when something is in
relation to
something else e.g. inside, outside,
after, before
Coordinating Conjunctions
join like with like
(i.e., they join a
noun with another noun, an adjective with another
adjective etc.). The most common ones are and, but, and or.
Subordinating Conjunctions
Subordinating
conjunctions join
subordinate clauses to main clauses.
Common examples are although,
because, if, since, unless, until, and
while.
