ENG 3U Grammar Glossary

Vocabulary flashcards covering fundamental English grammar terminology, clause structures, and sentence parts from the ENG 3U Grammar Glossary.

Subject

The person or thing that is doing the action, or is the focus of the sentence.

Predicate

The part of a sentence or clause containing a verb (action) and stating something about the subject.

Complete sentence

A sentence that must have a subject, a predicate, and a complete thought.

Independent clause

A synonym for a complete sentence.

Contraction

A word structure in which the subject or the predicate might be hiding.

Conjunctions

Words used to connect clauses or sentences or to coordinate words in the same clause (e.g., and, or, but).

Subordinating conjunctions

Conjunctions that introduce a subordinate clause (e.g., although, because) and make a sentence dependent instead of complete.

Dependent clause

A group of words with a subject and a verb that does not express a complete thought, cannot stand alone, and is not a complete sentence.

AAAWWUBBIS

An acronym for subordinating conjunctions: after, as, when, while, until, before, because, if, since.

Helping verbs (auxiliary)

Verbs that help the main action verb in a sentence (e.g., "am", "is", "has").

Phrase

A group of words that contains either just a subject or a predicate, and therefore cannot stand alone.