English language grammar

English Paper 1 revision

Descriptivism

A linguistic approach which focuses on language as it is, rather than how it should be.

Prescriptivism

The attitude or belief that one variety of a language is superior to others and should be promoted as such.

Forgrounding

an attention-grabbing strategy

Parallelism

The formation of patterns

Deviation

The breaking of patterns

hot spots

the most meaningful part of a text

semantics

The branch of linguistics that studies the meaning of words, their historical and psychological development, their connotations, and their relation to one another.

Linguistic rank scale

morpheme, word, phrase, clause, sentence, utterance, paragraph, text

pre-modification

Modifying that occurs before the head noun

post-modification

A modifying phrase or lexical item that occurs after the head noun in a noun phrase.

proper noun

a SPECIFIC person, place, thing, or idea

concrete noun

A thing that can be seen, heard, smelled, touched, or tasted

abstract noun

names ideas, qualities, and feelings that can't be seen or touched.

collective noun

names a group of people, animals, or things

adjective

a word that modifies a noun or pronoun

comparative adjective

adjectives used to compare two things. Usually using the suffix -er and the word 'than'. i.e. faster than or slower than

superlative adjective

The extreme degree of comparison of adjectives. Used when comparing three or more things. Usually using the suffix -est, or the word 'most'. i.e. most beautiful, or highest

Adverb

A word that modifies a verb, an adjective, or another adverb

Pronoun

A word that takes the place of a noun

Determiner

adds detail or clarity to a noun, e.g. the, my, some

Preposition

provides connections between words, often showing a sense of place or time, e.g. in, on, between, during

Conjunction

A word used to join words or groups of words

Dynamic verbs

Verbs referring to actions, events or bodily sensations and that express some kind of action. They can be used in the progressive/continuous form e.g. His leg is hurting him; They're eating their supper; It's changing shape.

Stative verb

A word that represents a process that is often only mental

lexical verb

Conveys a precise semantic meaning eg, go play, remember

Auxilliary Verb

assists the main verb; primary auxiliary verbs do, have and be denote changes of tense

Modal auxiliary verb

a sub-category of auxiliary verb that expresses degrees of possibility, probability, necessity or obligation:

can, may, will, shall, must, could, might, would, should

active voice

The subject of the sentence performs the action

passive voice

The subject of the sentence receives the action.

Circumstance adverbs

words which modify verbs, giving details of circumstances such as time, manner, frequency, degree and place

subject pronouns

pronoun used as the subjects of a sentence:

I, you, he, she, it, we, you, they

object pronouns (list)

pronoun used as the object of a sentence:

me, you, him, her, it, us, you, them

reflexive pronoun

Refers to the subject and directs the action of the verb back to the subject; pronoun that ends in -self or -selves

Demonstarative pronoun

point out the relationship between the speaker and other people or things

interrogative pronoun

pronoun that asks a question; examples: who, whom, whose, what, which

relative pronoun

Allow you to add more detail to the nouns, which these pronouns follow immediately after:

that, which, whom, who, whose

Articles

a, an, the

Possessives (determiners)

Show ownership (my, your, her, our)

demonstrative (determiners)

this, that, these, those

Quantity determiners

some, many, no, each, every

Indefinite determiners

Indicate a non-specific amount, e.g. all, some, many, several

subject

who or what the sentence is about

object

usually follows the subject and verb in a sentence, describing something affected by the verb

direct object

a noun or pronoun that receives the action of the verb

indirect object

tells to whom or for whom the action of the verb is done; example: Jack showed the DOG kindness.

Predicate

the part of a sentence or clause containing a verb and stating something about the subject

predicator

Head of a verb phrase, the function of the verb: I (saw) you

subject complement

the word or clause that follows a linking verb and complements, or completes, the subject of the sentence by either renaming it or describing it

Adverbial

the part of the predicate which gives us information about time, place, manner and reason

object complement

This is an adjective or noun that follows and modifies a direct object.

simple sentence

a sentence consisting of only one clause, with a single subject and predicate.

compound sentence

a sentence with two or more coordinate independent clauses, often joined by one or more conjunctions

complex sentence

A sentence that includes one independent clause and at least one dependent clause.

Minor sentence

A sentence without a verb

independent clause

has a subject and a predicate and can stand alone as a sentence

subordinate clause

a clause, typically introduced by a conjunction, that forms part of and is dependent on a main clause

relative clause

cannot stand alone, conains a subject and a verb; begins with a relative pronoun (who, whom, whose, that, or which) or a relative adverb (whre, when, why); functions as an adjective (answers, "What kind?", "How many?", "Which one?"

non-finite clause

Clause which has a participle or infinitive as its verb; To open the door use the key

adverbial clause

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