A Short Grammatical Glossary (under construction—please report errors and omissions)

ablaut: a change of a vowel, original caused by a change in stress or accent, which signals a difference of meaning or function. Survives in MnE in str. verbs like sing, sang, sung. Also called gradation.

accusative case: the nominal form proper to a direct object of a verb.

active voice: see voice.

adjective: a word used to modify (describe, specify) the meaning of a noun or more rarely a pronoun (e.g. the red car, that house etc.).

adverb: a word used to modify (describe, specify) the meaning of a verb, an adjective (e.g. the red car drove slowly by, very red, rather slowly). Adverbs answer the questions how, when, where, why etc. They are classed as descriptive, proper, demonstrative, indefinite, possessive, numerical, and interrogative.

agreement: in an inflected language the required correspondence between words in number, case, gender, or person (e.g. I am, you are etc.).

analytic language: a language that depends on word order and function words to signal grammatical structure.

anomalous verb: a verb that deviates from regular patterns, for example, by sharing the features of more than one class.

antecedent: the noun for which a pronoun stands.

apposition: a syntactic relation between two usually adjacent expressions having the same function and relation to other elements in a sentence, the second expression identifying or supplementing the first (e.g. Susan, my wife’s sister, lives next door).

appositive: an appositional phrase (e.g. my wife’s sister above)

article: a function word which acts like an adjective by singalling that the following noun is a particular individual (definite article, e.g. the student) or a member of a class (indefinite article, e.g. a professor).

aspect: a category of verb inflection denoting the completion, duration, repetition etc. of the action expressed by the verb; MnE uses collocations rather than inflections to signal aspect (e.g. burn down vs. burn, used to go vs. went, was speaking vs. spoke).

auxiliary verb: a verb that accompanies the main verb (in the form of an infinitive or a participle) to indicate tense, mood, voice, or aspect (e.g. I would have left, if I had known). See also modal auxiliary.

cardinal numeral: one, two, three etc.

case: in an inflectional language the use of word form to indicate grammatical function of a noun, pronoun, or adjective (e.g. he vs. him vs. his, she vs. her: In the sentence he gave her his ball the forms of the pronouns—as well as the word order—indicate the grammatical functions of the pronouns used). See nominative, accusative, genitive, dative.

clause: a group of words containing a subject and a predicate. See main (or independent) clause and subordinate (or dependent) clause.

collocation: a fixed combination of words whose combined meaning may not be derivable from the meanings of the individual words that comprise it (e.g. to run through a rehearsal).

comparative degree: an adjectival or adverbial form indicating the greater (or lesser etc.) of two.

complement: a word or phrase used after a verb of incomplete predication to complete the construction. See direct object, subjective complement, objective complement.

conjugation: in an inflectional language the system of changes in verbs, by means of suffixes, internal changes and auxiliaries, to indicate differences of person, tense, mood, voice etc.

conjunction: a function word used to connect words, phrases or clauses. See coordinating conjunction and subordinating conjunction.

coordinating conjunction: a word connecting words, phrases or clauses, of equal rank (e.g. and, but, or etc.).

copula: a verb that connects a subject with a subject complement.

dative: the nominal form proper to the indirect object of a verb.

declension: in an inflectional language the system of changes in nouns, pronouns, or adjectives to indicate person, number, or case.

demonstrative: one of a small group of pronominal or adjectival function words that point to a particular person or thing (e.g. this is my book, that book is mine, these, those).

direct object: the person or thing directly affected by the action of the verb (e.g. the girl stroked the cat).

function word: a word used primarily to indicate the relationships between or functions of other words (e.g. conjunctions, articles, prepositions, and some adverbs.)

gender: in an inflectional language a grammatical category loosely associated with sex.

genitive case: the form proper to a possessive noun, pronoun, or adjective (e.g. my, mine, your, yours).

gerund: a present participle that functions as a noun.

gradation: see ablaut.

imperative mood: the mood of a verb expressing a command.

impersonal verb: a verb denoting action by an unspecified agent, having no subject or the dummy subject it.

indicative: the mood of a verb reporting a fact.

indirect object: the person or thing indirectly affected by the action of the verb (e.g. she gave him a pat).

infinitive phrase: a phrase comprising an infinitive, sometimes plus a complement (e.g. to err is human, to miss class is to court failure).

infinitive: the form of a verb which is not inflected to indicate person, tense, mood etc., hence the form cited in a dictionary. In MnE it is normally preceded by the infinitive marker to (e.g. to see).

inflection: variation in the form of a word to indicate a change in meaning or in grammatical relationships with other elements in the sentence. Also spelled inflexion.

inflectional (or inflective) language: a language whose words change their forms to show grammatical function and connection.

instrumental: the nominal form proper to a noun denoting the agent or means by which an action is performed.

interjection: a word usually standing alone or inserted into a sentence which expresses feelings.

interrogative: questioning.

interrogatives: pronouns such as what, who, etc. or adverbs such as where, how, etc. which signal interrogation.

intransitive verb: a verb which needs no complement to complete its meaning (e.g. to meditate).

main clause: a clause which can stand alone as a sentence (e.g. the class took notes).

modal auxiliary: one of a small number of auxiliary verbs indicating possibility or obligation etc. (e.g. may, might, should must, can could, will, would) which combine with an infinitive unmarked by to. Thus he must go vs. he ought to go.

modifier: a word or group of words which changes the meaning of another word

mood: an inflectional verbal category indicating the force of an assertion. See indicative mood, subjunctive mood, imperative mood.

morpheme: the smallest unit of meaning in a language, comprising bound morphemes which cannot stand alone (dis-appear) and free morphemes which can (appear).

nominative case: the form proper to the subject of a clause.

noun: a word which names a person, place, or thing.

number: the form of a noun, pronoun or verb which indicates whether the reference is to a singular or a plural entity.

objective complement: a complement describing or identifying the object (e.g. they made him president).

ordinal numeral: first, second, third, etc.

part of speech: a class of words with the same or similar potential to enter into grammatical combination. Traditionally the parts of speech have been divided in the following: nouns, pronouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, articles, conjunctions, prepositions, and interjections.

participial phrase: a phrase comprising a participial, sometimes plus a complement (e.g. driving [a car] is dangerous; having slept, he felt refreshed).

participle: a verbal which combines with auxiliary verbs to form periphrastic tenses or functions as an adjective, in the latter case often retaining some of the attributes of a verb, such as tense and the capacity for taking an object. See present participle, past participle.

passive voice: see voice.

past participle: a verbal; the third principal part of a verb (e.g. the blown fuse, the fuse had blown). See principal parts.

past perfect tense: the form of the verb indicating an action prior to another action (e.g. I have gone).

periphrasis (periphrastic): a term used in grammatical description to refer to the use of separate words instead of inflections to express the same grammatical relationship.

person: see personal endings and personal pronouns.

personal endings: verb inflections to show whether the subject is the speaker (1^st person), the addressee (2^nd person) or someone or something else (3^rd person).

personal pronoun: a pronoun whose form indicates whether reference is to the speaker(s) (1^st person), to the addressee (2^nd person), or the person(s) or thing(s) spoken about (3^rd person). Thus I, you, he, she or it; we, you, they.

phrase: a group of words which functions as a grammatical unit.

pluperfect tense: the form of a verb indicating an action prior to another action in the past (e.g. I had gone).

plural: more than one.

positive degree: the base form of an adjective or adverb, as opposed to the comparative (greater of two) or superlative (greatest of three or more).

predicate adjective: an adjectival subjective completion.

predicate noun: a nominal subjective completion.

predicate: the verb in a sentence or clause together with its objects, complements, and modifiers; the word or words in a sentence which express what is said about a subject.

prefix: a morpheme added at the beginning of a word.

preposition: a function word often preceding a noun phrase, relating that phrase to the other parts of the sentence (e.g. the man in the moon, the house down the street).

prepositional phrase: a phrase introduced by a preposition (e.g. in the moon, down the street).

present participle: a verbal constructed by adding the ending ing to the present tense form of a verb (e.g. the blowing wind, the wind was blowing).

present tense: the form of the verb that indicates a time other than past. See tense. Also spelled preterite.

preterit tense: the form of the verb that indicates past time. See tense. Also spelled preterite.

preterit-present verb: in OE a verb whose present tense forms were originally past tense.

principal part: one of the forms of a verb from which all the other inflected forms can be made by regular changes. In MnE verbs have three principal parts: present, preterit, past participle. Thus jump, jumped, jumped; buy, bought, bought; sing, sang, sung; go, went, gone.

progressive tense: a verbal form indicating that an action is ongoing, whether in the present, the past or the future.

prosody: the stress or pitch patterns that give a language its perceived rhythms.

relative (subordinating) conjunction: a conjunction introducing a clause which depends on the main clause (e.g. when, since, because etc.: when I saw you coming, I hid).

relative pronoun: a pronoun used to introduce a relative clause (e.g. who, whom, what, which: the man whom you saw was my father).

sentence: a main or independent clause; a group of words expressing a complete thought.

singular: one.

strong adjective: in OE an adjective that is not preceded by a demonstrative, numeral, or possessive adjective.

strong verb: historically a verb whose principal parts are distinguished by changes of a internal vowels (a process known as ablaut or gradation). Thus drive, drove, driven; sing, sang, sung, etc.

subject: the word or group of words in a clause about which something is said; the subject of the predication.

subjective complement (or completion): a complement describing or identifying the subject (e.g. she is the principal, he looks happy).

subjunctive mood: a verb category indicating uncertainty, hope, desire, supposition etc. (e.g. if I were you, I ask that my name be withdrawn).

subordinate clause (dependent clause, relative clause): a clause which cannot stand alone as a sentence, introduced by a relative pronoun or a relative (or subordinating) conjunction. See relative pronoun and relative (subordinating) conjunction.

substantive: a noun, or another word or words that functions as a noun.

suffix: a morpheme added at the end of a word.

superlative: an adjectival or adverbial form indicating the greatest (or least etc.) of three or more. See positive degree and comparative degree.

syntax: the part of grammar concerned with arranging words within constructions, distinguished from morphology, the structure of the morphemes of words.

synthetic language: a language that depends on inflections to signal grammatical structure.

tense: the form of a verb indicating the time of the action. In Germanic languages only two tenses can be signaled without auxiliary verbs, the present and the preterit: you run, you ran; all other tenses are periphrastic: you will run, you have run, you have been running etc. See present tense, preterit tense, past perfect tense, pluperfect tense.

transitive verb: a verb which takes a direct object (e.g. he read a book).

verb: a word used to assert something about a person, place, or thing.

verbal: either pertaining to a verb or a word derived from a verb but with a different function (e.g. a participle).

voice: the form of the verb which indicates whether a subject is acting (active voice) or being acted upon (passive voice). Active voice: the cat scratched the dog; passive voice: the cat was scratched by the dog.

weak adjective: in OE an adjective that is preceded by a demonstrative, numeral, or possessive adjective.

weak verb: historically a verb whose principal parts are distinguished by the addition of a “dental” suffix (e.g. jump, jumped, jumped).