Metalanguage

Phonetics

The study of how speech sounds are physically produced, transmitted, and perceived

Phonology

The study of how speech sounds function and are organized within a particular language

Phoneme

The smallest unit of sound in a language that can distinguish meaning between words

Morphemes

The smallest meaningful units in a language

Root

The core part of a word that carries its main meaning

Stem

The base form of a word to which affixes can be added

Free

A morpheme that can stand alone as a word

Bound

A morpheme that must attach to another word to have meaning

Affix (prefix, suffix, infix)

A morpheme added to a word’s root or stem to change its meaning or function (prefix at the start, suffix at the end, infix inside)

Inflectional

Affixes that change grammatical form without changing word class or core meaning

Derivational

Affixes that create a new word or change a word’s class or meaning

Nouns, including pronouns

Words that name people, places, things, or ideas, with pronouns replacing nouns

Verbs, including auxiliary verbs and modal verbs

Words that express actions or states, with auxiliary verbs helping form tenses and modals expressing possibility, necessity, or ability

Adjectives

Words that describe or modify nouns

Adverbs

Words that modify verbs, adjectives, or other adverbs, often describing manner, time, or degree

Prepositions

Words that show relationships between nouns/pronouns and other words in a sentence

Conjunctions (coordinators, subordinators)

Words that connect clauses or words, with coordinators linking equal elements and subordinators linking dependent clauses

Determiners

Words that introduce nouns and clarify reference, quantity, or possession

Function words and content words

Function words provide grammatical structure, while content words carry main meaning

Phrases

Groups of words that function as a single unit within a sentence

Noun phrase

A phrase centered around a noun that includes modifiers

Verb phrase

A phrase containing a main verb and its auxiliaries or complements

Adjective phrase

A phrase that modifies a noun with an adjective as its head

Adverb phrase

A phrase that functions as an adverb, modifying verbs, adjectives, or other adverbs

Prepositional phrase

A phrase beginning with a preposition and ending with its object

Sentence structures

The way clauses are combined to form sentences

Sentence fragments

Incomplete sentences lacking a main clause

Simple

A sentence with one independent clause

Compound

A sentence with two or more independent clauses joined together

Complex

A sentence with one independent clause and at least one dependent clause

Compound-complex

A sentence with multiple independent clauses and at least one dependent clause

Declarative

A sentence that makes a statement

Imperative

A sentence that gives a command or request

Interrogative

A sentence that asks a question

Exclamative

A sentence that expresses strong emotion

Semantic domain/field

A set of words related by meaning within a particular topic area

Inference

A meaning that is understood but not explicitly stated in the text

Connotation

The emotional or cultural associations a word carries beyond its literal meaning