Advanced English Grammar

Open (Form) Classes

noun, verb, adjective, and adverb; open membership and can be identified by their form, having particular ending or suffixes

Past Tense

The form of the verb usually denoting a specific past action, state, or event. Regular verbs take an -ed ending (talked, raced); irregular verbs vary in spelling (were, wrote)

Inflections

A suffix that is added to the open classes to change their grammatical role in some way. Nouns have two inflectional suffixes (-s plural and -'s possessive); verbs have four (-s, -ing, -ed, and -en); adjectives and some adverbs have two (-er and -est).

Possessive-case

The inflected form of nouns (John’s, the dog’s) and pronouns (my, his, your, her, their, whose, etc.), usually indicating possession or ownership

Base form

The simplest form of a verb, without any inflections or endings, used as the dictionary entry. It is the form used in the present tense for most verbs.

present participle

verbs that end in -ing

past participle

verbs that end in -ed

Noun

a word that can be made plural and/or possessive; it occupies the headword position in the noun phrase; it is usually signaled by a determiner

Verb

a word that can show tense, such as present and past

Noun phrase

the noun headword with all of its attendants pre- and post-noun modifiers

Headword

The key word in a phrase that determines the grammatical nature of the phrase, often a noun or verb, around which other words are organized.

Phrase

a word or a combination of words that constitute a unit of the sentence

Determiner

One of the closed-class words, a signaler of nouns. Determiners include articles (a, the), possessive nouns and pronouns (e.g., Chuck’s, his), demonstrative pronouns (this, that, these, those), and indefinite pronouns (e.g., many, each)

Articles

one of the determiner classes; the indefinite a or an signals only countable nouns; the definite the can signal all classes of nouns

Demonstrative pronoun

The pronouns this (plural these) and that (plural those), which function as nominal substitutes and as determiners. They include the feature of proximity: near (this, these) and distant (that, those)

transitive verb

requires at least one complement, the direct object, to be complete. With only a few exceptions, transitive verbs are those that can be transformed into the passive voice

intransitive verb

a verb that requires no compliment to be complete

modifiers

A word, phrase, or clause that adds information to another structure, thereby changing, or modifying, its meaning: In Mexico researchers visited a huge pyramid.

qualifier

A closed-class word that qualifies or intensifies an adjective or adverb: We worked rather slowly.

derivational affixes

A suffix or prefix that is added to an open-class word, either to change its class (fame—famous) or to change its meaning (legal—illegal; boy—boyhood)

subject complement

“completer of the verb”; the nominal or adjectival that follows a linking verb, renaming or describing the subject: Pam is the president.

A noun is a word’s_, while a subject is a word’s _.

DNA, function

Be patterns

Pattern 1: subject + being verb + adverbial (The weasel is in his den.)

Pattern 2: subject + being verb + subject compliment; can be a noun phrase (I am an optimist.) or an adjectival phrase (The winters are very cold.)

Referent

the thing (or noun) that a word refers to or stands for

Linking Verb Pattern

Pattern 3: all verbs other than be completed by a subject complement; subject + linking verb + noun OR adjectival phrase

common linking verbs: become, remain, seem, appear

Intransitive Verb Pattern

Pattern 4: Emphasis on the predicate with no compliments (Cameras flashed.); they may have modifiers: Cameras flashed quickly.

Basic Transitive Verb Pattern

Pattern 5: verbs in which the action is directed to, or transmitted to, an object (the complement) subject + transitive verb + direct object: Weasels stalk rabbits.

Transitive Patterns with TWO compliments

Pattern 6: an indirect object precedes the direct object: Marie sent Damon a gift. (The IO and DO can be flipped too)

Pattern 7: an object compliment follows a direct object: I found the play exciting.

object compliment

a noun phrase that has the same referent as the direct object or an adjective phrase that describes the referent

coordination

A way of expanding sentences in which two or more structures of the same form serve as a unit.

parallelism

A coordinate structure in which all the coordinate parts are of the same grammatical form: I’ll take either a bus or a taxi (parallel noun phrases). Also known as parallel structure.

gerund

an -ing verb when used as a noun

serial comma

oxford comma

climax

the arrangement of words, phrases, or clauses in the order of increasing scope, length, or importance

correlative conjunctions

A two-part conjunction that expresses a relationship between the coordinated structures: either–or, neither–nor, both–and, not only–but also

compound sentence

a sentence with two or more independent clauses

conjunctive adverb

A conjunction that connects two independent clauses with an adverbial emphasis, such as however, therefore, moreover, and nevertheless

transitional phrase

A prepositional phrase used to relate ideas in adjacent sentences

semi-colon formula

comma+conjunction that connects compound sentences

dependent/subordinate clause

A clause that functions as an adverbial, adjectival, or nominal

nominal clause

A dependent clause that functions as a noun phrase normally functions: Annie says “something.”

complex sentence

a sentence that includes a dependent clause

adverbs of manner

-ly adverbs

end focus

The common rhythm pattern in which the prominent stress falls on or near the final sentence unit.

elliptical clause

A clause in which a part has been left out but is understood: When (you are) planning your essay, be sure to consider the audience; The subject of the main clause is always the understood subject of the elliptical clause as well.

appositives

A structure, usually a noun phrase, that describes or further identifies a nominal structure, usually another noun phrase: My neighbor, a butcher at Weis Market, recently lost his job.

sentence appositive

a noun phrase that renames or encapsulates the idea in the sentence as a whole, offering a conclusion about the sentence as a whole in the form of a noun phrase. It is usually punctuated with the dash: The musical opened to rave reviews and standing-room-only crowds—a smashing success.

anticipatory it

The use of the pronoun it in subject position that puts the noun clause or verb phrase subject in predicate position: Pleading with him is no use → It’s no use pleading with him.

anastrophe

the reversal of the normal order of a sentence

absolute phrase

A subject–predicate construction without a tense-carrying verb. The absolute phrase is related to the sentence as a whole, providing a detail or cause: She sat quietly, her hands folded in her lap.

Polysyndeton

A figure of speech describing the addition of conjunctions in a series: I took exams in biology and psychology and history—all in one day.

asyndeton

A figure of speech describing the omission of a conjunction: “I came, I saw, I conquered.”

isocolon

A figure of speech describing the repetition of grammatical forms: “government of the people, by the people, and for the people.”

anaphora

A figure of speech describing repetition at the beginning of successive sentences: “Mad world! Mad kings! Mad composition!”

antithesis

The juxtaposition of contrasting ideas: “I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.”

lexical cohesion

The continuity of text created by the use of repeated or related words.

foregrounding

Within a paragraph, the placement of important information in the position of prominent focus.

parallelism

A coordinate structure in which all the coordinate parts are of the same grammatical form: I’ll take either a bus or a taxi (parallel noun phrases).

Rhythm

the pattern of stress in the spoken language

stress

The study of the rhythm and intonation of language, which are determined by pitch, stress (loudness), and juncture (pauses). Also known as Prosody.

end focus

The common rhythm pattern in which the prominent stress falls on or near the final sentence unit.

it or what-cleft

A sentence variation using an it-clause or what-clause to shift the sentence focus: Lightning caused the fire → It was lightning that caused the fire; What caused the fire was lightning. Also known Cleft sentence

expletive

A word that carries no meaning but enables the writer or speaker to shift the stress in a sentence: A fly is in my soup → There is a fly in my soup.

there-transformation

A variation of a basic sentence in which the expletive there is added at the beginning and the subject is shifted to a position following be: A fly is in my soup →There is a fly in my soup.