metalanguage

Common Nouns

General types of nouns include people, places or objects.

Proper Nouns

Nouns that are used for specific people, places or important objects.

Concrete Nouns

Nouns (items) that can be physically observed (with the 5 senses)

Abstract Nouns

Nouns that cannot be physically observed, include concepts and feelings.

Count Nouns

Nouns that can be pluralised.

Non-count Nouns

Nouns that cannot be pluralised and are always singular

Modifiers

Adjectives (noun modifiers included) or adverbs which modify nouns (adjectives) or verbs (adverbs)

Attributive Adjectives

\_____ describe nouns and normally come before the noun. (e.g. scary monster, enormous house)

Predicative Adjectives

Adjectives that follow a linking verb (not an auxiliary verb). (e.g. she was delighted, the giraffe is hungry)

Comparative Adjective

Adjectives that are used to compare objects (e.g. better, harder, younger)

Superlative Adjectives

Adjectives that describe the highest or lowest limit of an object (e.g. best, hardest, youngest)

Infinitives

The suffix to added to the back of any root verb

Root forms

The base form of a verb that have not been conjugated or include suffixes or prefixes

Regular Verbs

Verbs that follow the predictable pattern of morphological change (e.g. walk → walks → walked → walking) (the infinitive stays the same and the word is inflected)

Irregular Verbs

Verbs that don’t follow the predictable pattern of morphological change (e.g. read → reads → read → reading) (more obvious one: cut → cuts → cut → cutting)

Lexical Verb

Verbs that have a meaning assigned to them. Most of the verbs are in this group. (e.g. run, walk, flew…..)

Auxilary Verb

Verbs that don’t have a meaning assigned to them and are put before lexical verbs to support them. They give a verb more meaning but are not adverbs. (e.g. should not leave, is flying, can cook)

Modal Verb

Auxiliary verbs that express ideas such as probability (it might rain later)obligation (you must come later)ability (I can come later)advice (You should come later)requests (Can you come later)

Tense

A form of a verb that allows you to express time. (Past, Present)

Aspect

The nature of the action that is described by the speaker. It can be simple tense (expresses habits and facts) (Rover eats bones)complete/perfect tense (expresses complete actions) (Rover has eaten a bone)progressive tense (expresses ongoing actions) (Rover is eating a bone)perfect progressive (expresses the end of ongoing actions) (Rover has been eating a bone

Perfect/Complete Aspect

Expresses whether an action has, is or will be completed

Progressive Aspect

Expresses ongoing actions (currently progressing)

Perfect Progressing

Says whether an event or action is, was, or will be continually occurring (progressive) but that it is, was, or will be completed at a later time, or that it relates to a later time (perfect).

Simple Aspect

A verb without aspects

Voice

Form of a verb indicating the relationship betwen the participants (subject, object, pariticpant) in a narrated event or the events itself

Active Voice

When the subject is the one performing the action

Passive Voice

When the subject of the sentence is acted on by the verb

Agentless Passive

When there is an action occurs but no subjects are included

Circumstance Adverbs

Adverbs that modify verbs and add information about time, frequency, place or manner

Degree Adverbs

Adverbs which modify adjectives or other adverbs and add information about how much or how little an adjective of the adverb is (to what degree)

Sentence Adverbs

Adverbs which modify whole sentences. They give context on the writer/speaker’s attitude

Other Adverbs

Adverbs which play other roles such as

Pronoun

Words which are used in place of nouns or noun phrases to avoid reptition

Personal Pronouns

Pronouns which are used in place of a particular person or thing in a sentence

Relative Pronouns

Pronouns are pronouns that connect a noun or pronoun to an adjective clause Who, whom, what, which, and that are all relative pronouns.

Possessive pronouns

Pronouns which indicate ownership

Reflexive Pronouns

Pronouns that end in -self or -selves which refer back to a person or thing

Interrogative Pronouns

Pronouns which are used to ask questions and indiciates an unknown and prompts an answer as to what that unknown is (most of the time).

Indefinite Pronouns

Pronouns which don’t refer to a person or thing in particular. They are used for generalising groups or people or things.

e.g. anything, something, anyone, everyone

Demonstrative Pronouns

Pronouns which are used to point at specific things or people. this that these those

Determiners

Modifying words which are place before a noun to provide information such as quantity, ownership, specificity

Articles

Determiners which are used to indicate whether a noun is specific or general. There are two types of these determiners: Definite (the)Indefinite (a, an)

Demonstratives

Determiners that specify a noun which are used to distinguish one item or another

e.g. This, that, these, those

Possessives

Determiners which indicate ownership of an object

Quantifiers

Quantifiers indicate quantities but not specifics (several, some, few)

Distributives

A group of words in English grammar that is used to talk about specific members of a group or individualising the members in that group. (e.g. all, both, each, every, neither)

Numerals

Numbers (e.g. 1, 2, 3, first, second, third). They are considered a different class from quantifiers

Indefinite Elements

Determiners that express quantity or indefinite ideas of quantity (e.g. more, every, some)

Prepositions

A word or group of words that indicate the relationship between other words e.g. of, for, with, on

Conjunctions

Part of speech that connect words, phrases, clauses or sentences

Co-ordinating Conjunction

Words which join terms of equal weight. Can be remembered with FANBOYS

FANBOYS

for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so

Correlative Conjunctions

Pairs of words that work together to connect things together. e.g. he goes I go

Subordinating Conjunctions

Words which can show the relationship between clauses e.g. it was raining, enjoyed the walk

Interjections

Interjections are emotion words which can come alone. Examples: Really? Wow! Shhh!

Morpheme

The smallest unit in language, a base word that cannot get any smaller (cannot be divided any further without altering its meaning) e.g.

Roots

The centre of words to which other morphemes are attached to

Affixes

Prefix Suffix Infixes

Prefix

An affix that go before the root

Suffixes

An affix that goes after the root

Infixes

Affixes that go inbetween roots (informal english)

Inflectional Morphemes

Morphemes which don’t change the basic meaning but indicate tense, aspect, pluarity, possession etc.

Derivational Morphemes

Morphemes that change the basic meaning of the word or change the word class (e.g. sail (v) to sailor (n))

Bound Morphemes

Morphemes which are bound to words and cannot be used alone

Free Morpehemes

Morphemes which can act alone as a word

Phrase

A group of words that express a concept and function as a single constiteunt (section) of a sentence

Noun Phrase

A phrase which consists of a noun and its modifiers

Verb Phrase

A phrase which consists of a verb and its auxilaries

Phrasal Verb

A verb phrase where the verb is collected with a preposition or adverb

Adjective Phrase

A phrase which consists of an adjective and all its modifiers

Prepositional Phrase

A phrase which consists of a preposition and a noun or pronoun (plus any modifiers)

Complex Phrases

A phrase where one type of phrase can be embeded within another

Clauses

A combination of noun phrase/s and verb phrase/s

Main Clause

An independant clause which can stand alone as a complete sentence

Subordinate Clause

A dependent clause which cannot stand alone as a complete sentence is is combined with a main clause to make sense

Subject

The person or thing that performs the action

Object

A thing (noun) that is affected by the verb (can be directly or indirectly affected)

Complement

Phrases which give additional information about the subject or object. The sentence won’t make sense with them removed.

Adverbial

Phrases which give additional information about time, manner and place. The sentence will make sense if they are removed, just less information will be conveyed.

Relative Clause

Clauses which start with a relative pronoun that are generally used to give more information about a noun phrase. Sentences can stand alone without this clause

Verbless Clause

A clause that lacks verbs (often due to ellipsis)

Predicate

What is said about the subject. It contains a verb and any other information (such as object, complement or adverbial)

Simple Sentences

Sentences which contain one verb phrase and one noun phrase

Compound Sentences

A sentence with at least two main clauses, joined by a coordinating conjunction or a semicolon.

Complex Sentences

Sentences which contain a single main clause and at least one subordinate clause, joined by a subordinating conjunction

International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)

An alphabet system based primarily on latin script with word sounds associated with certain scripts

monophthongs

simple vowels where the tongue does not move when said

diphthongs 

complex vowels where the tongue moves places to pronounce different parts (e.g. tie, pay)

consonants

sounds that are made by constricting the airflow in some way

voiced consonants

consonants which cause a buzzing or humming sound in the throat

voiceless consonants

consonants which dont cause a vibration (humming or buzzing) in your throat

place of articulation 

"The 'Place of Articulation' is the point of contact, where an obstruction occurs in the vocal tract between an active, moving articulator (typically one part of the tongue) and a passive articulator (typically one part of the roof of the mouth). The 'Manner of Articulation' gives the consonant its distinctive sound."

manner of articulation

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