Principles of Linguistics Theory

Phrase

In everyday speech, a phrase may be any group of words, often carrying a special idiomatic meaning; in this sense, it is roughly synonymous with expression.

Subject

The subject in a simple English sentence, such as John runs, John is a teacher, or John was hit by a car, is the person or thing about whom the statement is made, in this case 'John'.

Gerund

Verb form that functions as a noun.

Semantics

The linguistic and also philosophical study of meaning-in-language, programming languages, formal logics, and semiotics.

Interjections

A word or expression that occurs as an utterance and expresses a spontaneous feeling or reaction. Breaks the flow of a sentence to demonstrate emotion.

Verb

A word that in syntax conveys an action, an occurrence, or a state of being.

Bound Morpheme

A morpheme that appears only as part of a larger word.

Pronouns

A word that substitutes for a noun or noun phrase. Examples: Them, their, they, she, he, etc.

Future Tense

A verb form that generally marks the event described by the verb as not having happened yet, but expected to occur in the future.

Morphology

The study of words, how they are formed, and their relationship to other words in the same language.

Noun Phrase

Or nominal phrase is a phrase which has a noun as its head word, or which performs the same grammatical function as such a phrase.

Present Perfect Tense

A grammatical combination of the present tense and the perfect aspect is used to express a past event with present consequences. Has just taken place or is continuing to happen.

Language Family

Group of languages related through descent from a common ancestor, called the proto-language of that family.

Interrogative Sentence

Sentences that ask questions. Must end in a question mark.

International Phonetic Alphabet

An alphabetic system of phonetic notation based primarily on the Latin alphabet.

Adjectives

A describing word, the main syntactic role of which is to qualify a noun or noun phrase, giving more information about the object signified.

Participle

A form of a verb that is used in a sentence to modify a noun, noun phrase, verb, or verb phrase, and then plays a role similar to an adjective or adverb.

Imperative Sentence

A sentence that commands.

Morpheme

Is the smallest grammatical unit in a language.

Part of Speech

A category of words that have similar grammatical properties.

Suffix

An affix which is placed after the stem of a word.

Appositive

A grammatical construction in which two elements, normally noun phrases, are placed side by side, with one element serving to identify the other in a different way.

Idioms

A grammatical construction in English that doesn't have a specific rule to follow. It's simply the way we talk.

Past Tense

A grammatical tense whose principal function is to place an action or situation in the past time.

Clause

The smallest grammatical unit that can express a complete proposition. “When it rained, they came inside.” This sentence contains two.

Homophones

Same pronunciation but different meanings, and sometimes spelled differently—examples: to and two, bear and bare.

Homographs

Exact spelling, regardless of their pronunciation, and different meanings. Examples: bow and bow, bass and bass, lead and lead.

Phonological Rules

The way phonologists predict how a speech sound will change depending on its position in various speech environments.

Phonetics

Concerned with speech sounds in isolation.

Phonology

The study of how speech sounds change and behave when in a syllable, word, or sentence.

Lexical Morpheme

Content words that refer to the real world. Nouns, adjectives, and verbs. Examples: table, kind, jump.

Function Morphemes

Indicate relationships within a language. Conjunctions, pronouns, prepositions, articles, and demonstratives. Examples: And, an, those, through.

Derivational Morphemes

Prefixes or suffixes are added to a word to create a new word or change the meaning of an existing word.

Inflectional Morphemes

Bound suffixes are added to words (nouns, verbs, adjectives, or adverbs) to indicate grammatical information like tense, number, possession, or comparison, without changing the word's basic meaning or part of speech. Examples: adding ‘s’ to cats, ‘ed’, ‘es’, ‘ing’.

Syntax

The ordering of words to convey meaning and create impact. Collect - Analyze - Arrange.

Nuance

A subtle difference or distinction, often in meaning, expression, or sound. It's a small detail that can make a big difference in how something is perceived. A good example is the difference between the words "house" and "home" – while both describe a place to live, "home" carries more emotional weight and a sense of belonging. 

Declarative Sentence

Complete sentence that states some idea or claim. Don’t show a strong type of feeling, usually with one main idea.

Exclamatory Sentence

Sentences that always end with an exclamation mark. Show excitement and intense feelings.

Concrete Noun

Nouns that you can experience directly with your senses. Examples: Car, human, garden, water.

Abstract Nouns

Nouns that represent emotions or other intangible experiences. Examples: Love, patriotism.

Adverb

Describe verbs and adjectives. Frequently end in “ily”. It provides additional information about the action, quality, or degree of something, often answering questions like how, when, where, and to what extent. 

Preposition

Describes relationships between different nouns or pronouns. Examples: In, on, at, to, from, with, of, by, and between.

Conjunction

A word that connects words, phrases, or clauses in a sentence. Examples: And, but, or, because, although.

Present Tense

Used to describe current actions, things that happen habitually or regularly, or general truths. Examples:

Perfect Tenses

Perfect tenses in English grammar indicate actions that are completed or perfected, and they are formed using the auxiliary verb "have" (or "has") along with the past participle of the main verb.

Past Participle

Can modify nouns, providing descriptive information. A verb form, typically ending in "-ed" for regular verbs or with irregular endings (like "-en", "-n", or "-t") for irregular verbs.

Past Perfect Tense

Describes an action that was completed before another action in the past. It's formed by using the auxiliary verb "had" followed by the past participle of the main verb. For example, "I had finished my homework before my friend called" indicates that finishing homework happened before the friend's call. 

Future Perfect Tense

Expresses an action that will be completed before another specific point in the future. It is formed by using "will have" followed by the past participle of the main verb. For example, "By next year, I will have finished my studies". 

Collocation

A pair or set of words that are commonly put together. Examples: fast food, put on, put away, taken by surprise, turn up.

Linguistics

The study of language and its structure.