A Level English Language - Grammar (sentences)

active sentence

a sentence where the subject/agent of the verb is foregrounded

adverbial (phrase)

more than one word that functions as a adverb in a sentence

agent

the person or thing which enacts the verb in the sentence; the subject

auxiliary verb

assists the main verb; primary ones 'do', 'have' and 'be' denote changes of tense

clause

a complete grammatical unit which makes sense, usually made up of subject and verb; same as a simple sentence

declarative sentence

a statement - a type of sentence which gives information, where the subject typically comes in front of the verb

determiner

these give an idea of number or status (eg posession) of nouns

exclamative sentence

makes a statement (just like a declarative sentence), but it also conveys excitement or emotion; ends with an exclamation mark (!)

first person

I (singular) or we (plural) in subject position

grammar

the building blocks of sentences (words, phrases, clauses etc) and how they go together to mean something to the reader or listener

grammatical word class

word classes that convey little meaning but instead glue the words together in a grammatical unit: prepositions, determiners, conjunctions, pronouns

head word

the main word in a phrase

imperative sentence

a command - a type of sentence where the subject is usually left out and which functions as an order

inflectional morphology

the study of processes that distinguish forms of words in certain word classes such as verbs, nouns; focuses on inflections

interrogative sentence

a question - a type of sentence indicated by the swapping round of subject and verb or by the use of question words or simply by the use of a question makr

morpheme

smallest unit of meaning; can be a word or part of a word

morphology

the study of the structure of words

object of a sentence

the thing acted upon by the verb; receives the action of the verb and usually comes after it, except in a passive sentence

passive sentence

a sentence when the object of the verb is foregrounded rather than the subject (which may be omitted altogether)

plural

more than one of something

second person

you (singular) or you (plural) in subject position

simple sentence

has only one clause

singular

one of something

subject of a sentence

this normally performs the action (verb) of a sentence and can be a single word or a phrase

suffix

a word ending which is placed after the stem of a word; usually shows tense or person of verb or number of noun

third person

he/she/it (singular); they (plural) in subject position

verb phrase

a syntactic unit composed of at least one verb, any auxiliaries and its dependents—objects, complements and other modifiers—but not always including the subject.

word

made up of one or more morphemes

free morpheme

part of a word that has a meaning and can stand alone and has a dictionary definition

bound morpheme

part of a word that has a meaning but cannon stand alone (eg the prefix 'un-')

sentence

a complete grammatical unit which makes sense and can stand on its own

pre-modification

modification that comes before the head noun (or before a phrase or clause)

post-modification

modification that comes after the head noun (or after a phrase or clause)

inflection

an word ending such as -ed or -s o -ing added to change a tense or number or in the case of nouns to make a plural; a bound morpheme; a suffix

complement

a clause element that tells you more about the subject or the object

compound sentence

two or more clauses usually joined to the main clause by the coordinating conjunctions 'and' or 'but'

subordinate clause

a clause that depends on the main clause to exist; cannot stand alone

main clause

a clause that can stand on its own grammatically

syntax

the order in which the elements of the sentence are placed

minor sentence

a sentence that has some missing elements, such as the subject of the verb, making it technically ungrammatical

compound-complex sentence

a sentence which has three or more clauses, one of which is a subordinate clause and one is a coordinate clause

copular verb

a verb that takes a complement (such as 'seems', 'appears' or a form of the verb to be 'is', 'was', 'are' etc

subordinating conjunctions

these signal the start of a subordinate clause

coordinating conjunctions

these signal the start of a coordinate clause (essentially a main clause joined to another main clause)