VCE English Language 2026 Unit 3 AOS 1 Short Answer Questions

What is a noun?

A noun is a word for a person, place or thing. It can be concrete/common, abstract, collective, or proper.

What is a verb?

An open class word that expresses states, actions or processes.

What is a primary auxiliary verb?

A verb that precedes the participle (lexical) verb in a verb phrase. Eg. The children HAVE finished the movie.

What is a modal verb?

An auxiliary verb that refers to obligation, possibility and prediction. Eg. Must, should, would, can, may.

What is an adjective?

A word that describes or modifies a noun.

What is an adverb?

A word that describes the action of a verb, or acts as an intensifier or modifier to adjectives or other adverbs.

What is a preposition?

A closed class word that denotes a positional relationship between nouns.

What is a pronoun?

A closed class word that replaces/stand in for a noun or a noun phrase.

What is a conjunction?

A word that joins or connects two words, phrases or clauses.

What is a determiner?

A lexical item that specifies the number and definiteness of a noun.

What is lexicology?

Lexicology is the study of words.

What is a content or ‘open class’ word?

A content word is a word that carries lexical meaning, referring to something in the real world. This includes nouns, verbs, adverbs and adjectives.

What is a function or ‘closed class’ word?

A function word is a word that carries only grammatical meaning. Includes pronouns, prepositions and conjunctions.

What are the six Jakobson’s functions?

Referential, Phatic, Emotive, Metalinguistic, Connative and Poetic.

What is a referential function?

Referential function is the use of language to convey facts, information or knowledge.

What is a phatic function?

Phatic function us the use of language to maintain social relationship. It includes small talk and ordinary interactions.

What is an emotive function?

A text with emotive function intends to express emotions, feelings and attitudes.

What is metalinguistic function?

A text with metalinguistic function is designed to discuss language itself.

What is conative function?

A text with conative function intends to persuade or influence the reader, often using commands or requests.

What is poetic function?

A text with poetic function intends to convey artistic expression. Includes poetry, storytelling, or wordplay.

What are the four sentence types?

Declarative, imperative, interrogative and exclamative.

What is the function of a declarative sentence?

To make statements.

What is the form of a declarative sentence?

Basic clauses, where the subject precedes the verb.

What is the function of an imperative sentence?

To direct or order.

What is the structure of an imperative sentence?

They do not typically contain a subject, and the usually begin with the verb, which is always in base form.

What is the function of an interrogative sentence?

To question.

What is the structure of an interrogative sentence?

Interrogative sentences have subject-auxiliary inversion.

What is the function of an exclamative sentence?

To express an exclamation.

What is the form of an exclamative sentence?

It begins with what or how.

What is morphology?

Morphology is the study of the internal structure of words and the processes by which words are formed. Morphemes are the smallest unit of linguistic meaning or function.

What is a morpheme?

A morpheme is a meaningful morphological unit of language that cannot be further divided.

What is a root/stem morpheme?

The most basic stem of a word.

What is a free morpheme?

A free morpheme is a morpheme that can stand alone as a word.

What is a bound morpheme?

A bound morpheme is a morpheme that cannot stand alone.

What is a prefix?

A prefix is a word, letter or number placed before another.

What is a suffix?

A suffix is a letter, syllable or group of syllables added at the end of a word to change its meaning, give it grammatical function or form a new word.

What is an infix?

An infix is a formative element inserted in a word.

What is an inflectional morpheme?

An inflectional morpheme is a suffix that can be added to the end of a word to convey grammatical meaning, such as tense, person, number, possession, comparative and superlative.

What is a derivational morpheme?

A derivational morpheme is an affix that derives a new word or new form of an existing word by changing its word class.

What are phonetics and phonology?

The study of sounds.

What are discourse and pragmatics?

They way language is related to context.

What is semantics?

Semantics is the meaning of language.

What is syntax?

Syntax is the way that words are grouped or combined.

What is lexicology?

Lexicology is the study of whole words.

What are words made of?

One or more morphemes.

What are phrases made of?

One or more words.

What are clauses made of?

One or more phrases.

What are sentences made of?

One or more clauses.

What are the different types of phrases?

Noun phrases, verb phrases, adjective phrases, prepositional phrases and adverbial phrases.

What is the structure of a noun phrase?

A noun phrase usually begins with a determiner and has a noun or a pronoun as its head word. It can be the subject or the object of the sentence, and can include a modifier.

What is the structure of a verb phrase?

A verb phrase usually has a lexical verb as its head word. It can be made up of one lexical verb, or one or more auxiliary verbs and a lexical verb. Eg. ‘May have seen.’

What is a prepositional verb phrase?

A verb phrase that has a verb and a preposition and must be followed by a noun phrase. Eg., ‘He STOOD AGAINST it.’

What is a phrasal verb phrase?

A verb phrase that has a verb and an adverb, a verb and a preposition, or a verb and adverb and prepositional. Eg. ‘I have GONE OFF that'.’ They can be separated by nouns and pronouns. Eg. ‘It is looking a lot like Christmas.’

What is an adjectival phrase?

A phrase that has an adjective as its head word.

What are prepositional phrases?

Phrases where the head word is a preposition, normally followed by a noun phrase.

What is an adverbial phrase?

A phrase with an adverb as its head word. Eg. The child laughed LOUDLY’.

What is a lexeme?

A word.

What is the subject of a sentence?

The noun phrase that agrees with the verb and does the action of the verb phrase.

What is the object of a sentence?

The noun phrase that receives the action of the verb phrase. It can be direct or indirect.

What is a lexical verb?

The most important verb in a verb phrase. It cannot be modal or auxiliary.

What is the complement clause element?

A phrase relating directly to the subject or object, where the subject or object and the phrase following it are the same thing.

What are the different clause elements?

Subject, verb, object, complement, adverbial.

What is an independent clause?

A clause that is grammatically complete on its own, also known as the main clause. It can contain a subject and a verb phrase.

What is a dependent clause?

A clause that cannot stand alone, and must connect to a main clause to be grammatically complete. It is also known as a subordinate clause.

What is the structure of a simple sentence?

It has only one verb phrase, and is an independent clause.

What is the structure of a compound sentence?

It has two or more independent clauses, and is joined by coordinating conjunctions or a semi-colon.

What are the coordinating conjunctions?

For, And, Nor, But, Or, Yet and So.

What is the structure of a complex sentence?

It has one independent clause and one or more dependent clauses. The clauses are joined by subordinators and not coordinators.

What are some examples of subordinators?

Since, As, Although, Because, While, Before, Even Though, When.

What is the structure of a compound-complex sentence?

It has two or more independent clauses and one or more dependent clauses, which are joined by coordinators or semi-colons or subordinators.

What is a gerund?

A term that refers to the ‘ing’ form of a verb when it functions as a noun. Eg. ‘I enjoy swimming.’

What are infinitives?

Verbs with the word ‘to’ in front of them. Eg. to join, to read, to go.

What are the factors in textual coherence?

Formatting, Logical Ordering, Inference, Conventions and Consistency.

What is commonisation?

When a proper noun enters the general lexicon as a common noun. Example ‘Band-aid’ is now any adhesive bandage.

What is an archaism?

An old or old-fashioned expression, such as ‘merry’, or ‘jolly’.

What is obsolescence?

The loss of lexical items from a language. The word ‘mickle’ used to mean much or great.

What is a broadening of denotation?

The expansion of contexts in which a word can appear. ‘Holiday’.

What is a narrowing of denotation?

When a word comes to mean only a part of what it originally meant. The word ‘deer’ used to refer to any animal but now only refers to one type of animal in the Cervidae family.

What is a shift in denotation?

The total alteration of the context for a word. ‘Awful’ once meant ‘inspiring awe or wonder’, and now means something horrible or very unpleasant.

What is elevation of connotation?

The erosion of unpleasant overtones on a word. ‘Sophisticated’ once meant ‘mixed or impure’ and now means ‘worldly or wise’.

What is deterioration of connotation?

The acquisition of negative associations. ‘Villain’ previously meant ‘peasant’ but now means ‘evil person’

What is a neologism?

A new created word.

What are some examples of morphological change?

Abbreviations, Shortenings, Compounding, Affixation, Backformation, Blends, Contractions.

What is an abreviation?

When a series of words is reduced to a string of letters. There are acronyms, like ‘ANZAC’, and initialisms like ‘FBI’.

What is shortening?

Dropping the beginnings or endings from words in order to create a shorter form for easier use. E.g ‘App’.

What is compounding?

The combination of two or more free morphemes to form a new word. ‘Snowball’.

What is a contraction?

When two words are shortened and combined, e.g ‘Can’t’ and ‘I’ve’.

What is the lexical change process of borrowing?

When one language adopts a lexeme from another language. ‘Restaurant’ from French.

What is phonological patterning?

Features such as alliteration, assonance, consonance, onomatopoeia, rhythm and rhyme. They demonstrate a poetic function.

What are assonance and consonance?

The repetition of vowel sounds and the repetition of consonants.

What are Connected Speech Processes?

Elision, assimilation, vowel reduction and insertion. They crate informality and signal a close tenor.

What is elision?

The omission of certain vowels and consonants. For example, ‘scenry’ (scenery), ‘Satday’ (Saturday), ‘Wha’ (What).

What is assimilation?

When sounds are changed to be more like the ones nearby. E.g. ‘Woncha’ (Won’t you), ‘Didya’ (Did you), ‘Gedit’ (Get it).

What is vowel reduction?

When unstressed sounds are changed to a ‘schwa’. E.g. ‘Ya’ (you).

What is insertion?

The insertion of an extra sound into a word. E.g. ‘Athalete’ (Athlete), ‘Umbarella’ (Umbrella).

What are blends?

When words are formed by shortening and joining two lexemes, e.g. ‘Brunch’, ‘Bromance’, ‘Frenemy’.

What is the hypocoristic use of suffixes?

The adding of a diminutive ending such as ‘ie’, ‘-y’, or ‘-o’ to a word. Often recognised within Standard Australian English.

What is nominalisation?

When a word is formed into a noun to create an abstract quality or a more formal, impersonal style. E.g. ‘Decision’, ‘Prohibition’, ‘Beauty’.

What are the features of spoken discourse?

Paralinguistic Features, Discourse Particles, Openings and Closings, Overlap, Non-fluency features, Adjacency Pairs, Minimal Responses.

What are paralinguistic features?

Vocal effects such as sighing, coughing and laughter.