Grammar Terms
A glossary of English grammatical and linguistic terms, with definitions, explanations and example sentences
This glossary of English grammar terms relates to the English language.
Some terms here may have additional or extended meanings when applied to other languages. For example, “case” in some languages applies to pronouns and nouns.
In English, nouns do not have case and therefore no reference to nouns is made in its definition here.
| Term | Definition |
|---|---|
| active voice | one of two voices in English; a direct form of expression where the subject performs or “acts” the verb; see also passive voice eg: “Many people eat rice” |
| adjective | part of speech that typically describes or “modifies” a noun eg: “It was a big dog.” |
| adjective clause | seldom-used term for relative clause |
| adjunct | word or phrase that adds information to a sentence and that can be removed from the sentence without making the sentence ungrammatical eg: I met John at school. |
| adverb | word that modifies a verb, an adjective or another adverb eg: quickly, really, very |
| adverbial clause | dependent clause that acts like an adverb and indicates such things as time, place or reason eg: Although we are getting older, we grow more beautiful each day. |
| affirmative | statement that expresses (or claims to express) a truth or “yes” meaning; opposite of negative eg: The sun is hot. |
| affix | language unit (morpheme) that occurs before or after (or sometimes within) the root or stem of a word eg: un- in unhappy (prefix), -ness in happiness (suffix) |
| agreement (also known as “concord”) |
logical (in a grammatical sense) links between words based on tense, case or number eg: this phone, these phones |
| antecedent | word, phrase or clause that is replaced by a pronoun (or other substitute) when mentioned subsequently (in the same sentence or later) eg: “Emily is nice because she brings me flowers.” |
| appositive | noun phrase that re-identifies or describes its neighbouring noun eg: “Canada, a multicultural country, is recognized by its maple leaf flag.” |
| article | determiner that introduces a noun phrase as definite (the) or indefinite (a/an) |
| aspect | feature of some verb forms that relates to duration or completion of time; verbs can have no aspect (simple), or can have continuous or progressive aspect (expressing duration), or have perfect or perfective aspect (expressing completion) |
| auxiliary verb (also called “helping verb”) |
verb used with the main verb to help indicate something such as tense or voice eg: I do not like you. She has finished. He can swim. |
| bare infinitive | unmarked form of the verb (no indication of tense, mood, person, or aspect) without the particle “to”; typically used after modal auxiliary verbs; see also infinitive eg: “He should come“, “I can swim“ |
| base form | basic form of a verb before conjugation into tenses etc eg: be, speak |
| case | form of a pronoun based on its relationship to other words in the sentence; case can be subjective, objective or possessive eg: “I love this dog”, “This dog loves me“, “This is my dog” |
| causative verb | verb that causes things to happen such as “make”, “get” and “have”; the subject does not perform the action but is indirectly responsible for it eg: “She made me go to school”, “I had my nails painted” |
| clause | group of words containing a subject and its verb eg: “It was late when he arrived“ |
| comparative, comparative adjective |
form of an adjective or adverb made with “-er” or “more” that is used to show differences or similarities between two things (not three or more things) eg: colder, more quickly |
| complement | part of a sentence that completes or adds meaning to the predicate eg: Mary did not say where she was going. |
| compound noun | noun that is made up of more than one word; can be one word, or hyphenated, or separated by a space eg: toothbrush, mother-in-law, Christmas Day |
| compound sentence | sentence with at least two independent clauses; usually joined by a conjunction eg: “You can have something healthy but you can’t have more junk food.” |
| concord | another term for agreement |
| conditional | structure in English where one action depends on another (“if-then” or “then-if” structure); most common are 1st, 2nd, and 3rd conditionals eg: “If I win I will be happy”, “I would be happy if I won” |
| conjugate | to show the different forms of a verb according to voice, mood, tense, number and person; conjugation is quite simple in English compared to many other languages eg: I walk, you walk, he/she/it walks, we walk, they walk; I walked, you walked, he/she/it walked, we walked, they walked |
| conjunction | word that joins or connects two parts of a sentence eg: Ram likes tea and coffee. Anthony went swimming although it was raining. |
| content word | word that has meaning in a sentence, such as a verb or noun (as opposed to a structure word, such as pronoun or auxiliary verb); content words are stressed in speech eg: “Could you BRING my GLASSES because I’ve LEFTthem at HOME“ |
| continuous (also called “progressive”) |
verb form (specifically an aspect) indicating actions that are in progress or continuing over a given time period (can be past, present or future); formed with “BE” + “VERB-ing” eg: “They are watching TV.” |
| contraction | shortening of two (or more) words into one eg: isn’t (is not), we’d’ve (we would have) |
| countable noun | thing that you can count, such as apple, pen, tree (see uncountable noun) eg: one apple, three pens, ten trees |
| dangling participle | illogical structure that occurs in a sentence when a writer intends to modify one thing but the reader attaches it to another eg: “Running to the bus, the flowers were blooming.” (In the example sentence it seems that the flowers were running.) |
| declarative sentence | sentence type typically used to make a statement (as opposed to a question or command) eg: “Tara works hard”, “It wasn’t funny” |
| defining relative clause (also called “restrictive relative clause”) |
relative clause that contains information required for the understanding of the sentence; not set off with commas; see also non-defining clause eg: “The boy who was wearing a blue shirt was the winner” |
| demonstrative pronoun demonstrative adjective |
pronoun or determiner that indicates closeness to (this/these) or distance from (that/those) the speaker eg: “This is a nice car”, “Can you see those cars?” |
| dependent clause | part of a sentence that contains a subject and a verb but does not form a complete thought and cannot stand on its own; see also independent clause eg: “When the water came out of the tap…” |
| determiner | word such as an article or a possessive adjective or other adjective that typically comes at the beginning of noun phrases eg: “It was an excellent film”, “Do you like my new shirt?”, “Let’s buy some eggs” |
| direct speech | saying what someone said by using their exact words; see also indirect speech eg: “Lucy said: ‘I am tired.'” |
| direct object | noun phrase in a sentence that directly receives the action of the verb; see also indirect object eg: “Joey bought the car“, “I like it“, “Can you see the man wearing a pink shirt and waving a gun in the air?” |
| embedded question | question that is not in normal question form with a question mark; it occurs within another statement or question and generally follows statement structure eg: “I don’t know where he went,” “Can you tell me where it is before you go?”, “They haven’t decided whether they should come“ |
| finite verb | verb form that has a specific tense, number and person eg: I work, he works, we learned, they ran |
| first conditional | “if-then” conditional structure used for future actions or events that are seen as realistic possibilities eg: “If we win the lottery we will buy a car” |
| fragment | incomplete piece of a sentence used alone as a complete sentence; a fragment does not contain a complete thought; fragments are common in normal speech but unusual (inappropriate) in formal writing eg: “When’s her birthday? – In December“, “Will they come? – Probably not“ |
| function | purpose or “job” of a word form or element in a sentence eg: The function of a subject is to perform the action. One function of an adjective is to describe a noun. The function of a noun is to name things. |
| future continuous (also called “future progressive”) |
tense* used to describe things that will happen in the future at a particular time; formed with WILL + BE + VERB-ing eg: “I will be graduating in September.” |
| future perfect | tense* used to express the past in the future; formed with WILL HAVE + VERB-ed eg: “I will have graduated by then” |
| future perfect continuous | tense* used to show that something will be ongoing until a certain time in the future; formed with WILL HAVE BEEN + VERB-ing eg: “We will have been living there for three months by the time the baby is born” |
| future simple | tense* used to describe something that hasn’t happened yet such as a prediction or a sudden decision; formed with WILL + BASE VERB eg: “He will be late”, “I will answer the phone” |
| genitive case | case expressing relationship between nouns (possession, origin, composition etc) eg: “John’s dog“, “door of the car“, “children’s songs“, “pile of sand“ |
| gerund | noun form of a verb, formed with VERB-ing eg: “Walking is great exercise” |
| gradable adjective | adjective that can vary in intensity or grade when paired with a grading adverb ; see also non-gradable adjective eg: quite hot, very tall |
| grading adverb | adverb that can modify the intensity or grade of a gradable adjective eg: quite hot, very tall |
| hanging participle | another term for dangling participle |
| helping verb | another term for auxiliary verb |
| imperative | form of verb used when giving a command; formed with BASE VERB only eg: “Brush your teeth!” |
| indefinite pronoun | pronoun does not refer to any specific person, thing or amount. It is vague and “not definite”. eg: anything, each, many, somebody |
| independent clause (also called “main clause”) |
group of words that expresses a complete thought and can stand alone as a sentence; see also dependent clause eg: “Tara is eating curry.“, “Tara likes oranges and Joe likes apples.” |
| indirect object | noun phrase representing the person or thing indirectly affected by the action of the verb; see also direct object eg: “She showed me her book collection”, “Joey bought his wife a new car” |
| indirect question | another term for embedded question |
| indirect speech (also called “reported speech”) |
saying what someone said without using their exact words; see direct speech eg: “Lucy said that she was tired“ |
| infinitive | base form of a verb preceded by “to”**; see also bare infinitive eg: “You need to study harder”, “To be, or not to be: that is the question” |
| inflection | change in word form to indicate grammatical meaning eg: dog, dogs (two inflections); take, takes, took, taking, taken (five inflections) |
| interjection | common word that expresses emotion but has no grammatical value; can often be used alone and is often followed by an exclamation mark eg: “Hi!”, “er”, “Ouch!”, “Dammit!” |
| interrogative | (formal) sentence type (typically inverted) normally used when asking a question eg: “Are you eating?”, “What are you eating?” |
| interrogative pronoun | pronoun that asks a question. eg: who, whom, which |
| intransitive verb | verb that does not take a direct object; see also transitive verb e.g. “He is working hard”, “Where do you live?” |
| inversion | any reversal of the normal word order, especially placing the auxiliary verb before the subject; used in a variety of ways, as in question formation, conditional clauses and agreement or disagreement eg: “Where are your keys?”,”Had we watched the weather report, we wouldn’t have gone to the beach”, “So did he”, “Neither did she” |
| irregular verb see irregular verbs list |
verb that has a different ending for past tense and past participle forms than the regular “-ed”; see also regular verb eg: buy, bought, bought; do, did, done |
| lexicon, lexis | all of the words and word forms in a language with meaning or function |
| lexical verb | another term for main verb |
| linking verb | verbs that connect the subject to more information (but do not indicate action), such as “be” or “seem” |
| main clause | another term for independent clause |
| main verb (also called “lexical verb”) |
any verb in a sentence that is not an auxiliary verb; a main verb has meaning on its own eg: “Does John like Mary?”, “I will have arrived by 4pm” |
| modal verb (also called “modal”) |
auxiliary verb such as can, could, must, should etc; paired with the bare infinitive of a verb eg: “I should go for a jog” |
| modifier | word or phrase that modifies and limits the meaning of another word eg: the house => the white house, the house over there, the house we sold last year |
| mood | sentence type that indicates the speaker’s view towards the degree of reality of what is being said, for example subjunctive, indicative, imperative |
| morpheme | unit of language with meaning; differs from “word” because some cannot stand alone e.g. un-, predict and –able in unpredictable |
| multi-word verb | verb that consists of a basic verb + another word or words (preposition and/or adverb) eg: get up (phrasal verb), believe in (prepositional verb), get on with (phrasal-prepositional verb) |
| negative | form which changes a “yes” meaning to a “no” meaning; opposite of affirmative eg: “She will not come”, “I have never seen her” |
| nominative case | another term for subjective case |
| non-defining relative clause (also called “non-restrictive relative clause”) |
relative clause that adds information but is not completely necessary; set off from the sentence with a comma or commas; see defining relative clause eg: “The boy, who had a chocolate bar in his hand, was still hungry” |
| non-gradable adjective | adjective that has a fixed quality or intensity and cannot be paired with a grading adverb; see also gradable adjective eg: freezing, boiling, dead |
| non-restrictive relative clause | another term for non-defining relative clause |
| noun | part of speech that names a person, place, thing, quality, quantity or concept; see also proper noun and compound noun eg: “The man is waiting”, “I was born in London“, “Is that your car?”, “Do you like music?” |
| noun clause | clause that takes the place of a noun and cannot stand on its own; often introduced with words such as “that, who or whoever” eg: “What the president said was surprising” |
| noun phrase (NP) | any word or group of words based on a noun or pronoun that can function in a sentence as a subject, object or prepositional object; can be one word or many words; can be very simple or very complex eg: “She is nice”, “When is the meeting?”, “The car over there beside the lampost is mine” |
| number | change of word form indicating one person or thing (singular) or more than one person or thing (plural) eg: one dog/three dogs, she/they |
| object | thing or person affected by the verb; see also direct object and indirect object eg: “The boy kicked the ball“, “We chose the house with the red door“ |
| objective case | case form of a pronoun indicating an object eg: “John married her“, “I gave it to him“ |
| part of speech | one of the classes into which words are divided according to their function in a sentence eg: verb, noun, adjective |
| participle | verb form that can be used as an adjective or a noun; see past participle, present participle |
| passive voice | one of two voices in English; an indirect form of expression in which the subject receives the action; see also active voice eg: “Rice is eaten by many people” |
| past tense (also called “simple past”) |
tense used to talk about an action, event or situation that occurred and was completed in the past eg: “I lived in Paris for 10 years”, “Yesterday we saw a snake” |
| past continuous | tense often used to describe an interrupted action in the past; formed with WAS/WERE + VERB-ing eg: “I was reading when you called” |
| past perfect | tense that refers to the past in the past; formed with HAD + VERB-ed eg: “We had stopped the car” |
| past perfect continuous | tense that refers to action that happened in the past and continued to a certain point in the past; formed with HAD BEEN + VERB-ing eg: “I had been waiting for three hours when he arrived” |
| past participle | verb form (V3) – usually made by adding “-ed” to the base verb – typically used in perfect and passive tenses, and sometimes as an adjective eg: “I have finished“, “It was seen by many people”, “boiled eggs” |
| perfect | verb form (specifically an aspect); formed with HAVE/HAS + VERB-ed (present perfect) or HAD + VERB-ed (past perfect) |
| person | grammatical category that identifies people in a conversation; there are three persons: 1st person (pronouns I/me, we/us) is the speaker(s), 2nd person (pronoun you) is the listener(s), 3rd person (pronouns he/him, she/her, it, they/them) is everybody or everything else |
| personal pronoun | pronoun that indicates person eg: “He likes my dogs”, “They like him“ |
| phrasal verb | multi-word verb formed with a verb + adverb eg: break up, turn off (see phrasal verbs list) NB: many people and books call all multi-word verbs “phrasal verbs” (see multi-word verbs) |
| phrase | two or more words that have a single function and form part of a sentence; phrases can be noun, adjective, adverb, verb or prepositional |
| plural | of a noun or form indicating more than one person or thing; plural nouns are usually formed by adding “-s”; see also singular, number eg: bananas, spoons, trees |
| position | grammatically correct placement of a word form in a phrase or sentence in relation to other word forms eg: “The correct position for an article is at the beginning of the noun phrase that it describes” |
| positive | basic state of an adjective or adverb when it shows quality but not comparative or superlative eg: nice, kind, quickly |
| possessive adjective | adjective (also called “determiner”) based on a pronoun: my, your, his, her, its, our, their eg: “I lost my keys”, “She likes your car” |
| possessive case | case form of a pronoun indicating ownership or possession eg: “Mine are blue”, “This car is hers“ |
| possessive pronoun | pronoun that indicates ownership or possession eg: “Where is mine?”, “These are yours“ |
| predicate | one of the two main parts (subject and predicate) of a sentence; the predicate is the part that is not the subject eg: “My brother is a doctor“, “Who did you call?”, “The woman wearing a blue dress helped me“ |
| prefix | affix that occurs before the root or stem of a word eg: impossible, reload |
| preposition | part of speech that typically comes before a noun phrase and shows some type of relationship between that noun phrase and another element (including relationships of time, location, purpose etc) eg: “We sleep at night”, “I live in London”, “This is fordigging” |
| prepositional verb | multi-word verb that is formed with verb + preposition eg: believe in, look after |
| present participle | -ing form of a verb (except when it is a gerund or verbal noun) eg: “We were eating“, “The man shouting at the back is rude”, “I saw Tara playing tennis” |
| present simple (also called “simple present”) | tense usually used to describe states and actions that are general, habitual or (with the verb “to be”) true right now; formed with the basic verb (+ s for 3rd person singular) eg: “Canada sounds beautiful”, “She walks to school”, “I am very happy” |
| present continuous(also called “present progressive”) | tense used to describe action that is in process now, or a plan for the future; formed with BE + VERB-ing eg: “We are watching TV”, “I am moving to Canada next month” |
| present perfect | tense that connects the past and the present, typically used to express experience, change or a continuing situation; formed with HAVE + VERB-ed eg: “I have worked there”, “John has broken his leg”, “How long have you been in Canada?” |
| present perfect continuous | tense used to describe an action that has recently stopped or an action continuing up to now; formed with HAVE + BEEN + VERB-ing eg: “I’m tired because I‘ve been running“, “He has been living in Canada for two years” |
| progressive | another term for continuous |
| pronoun | word that replaces a noun or noun phrase; there are several types including personal pronouns, relative pronouns and indefinite pronouns eg: you, he, him; who, which; somebody, anything |
| proper noun | noun that is capitalized at all times and is the name of a person, place or thing eg: Shakespeare, Tokyo, EnglishClub.com |
| punctuation | standard marks such as commas, periods and question marks within a sentence eg: , . ? ! – ; : |
| quantifier | determiner or pronoun that indicates quantity eg: some, many, all |
| question tag | final part of a tag question; mini-question at end of a tag question eg: “Snow isn’t black, is it?” |
| question word | another term for WH-word |
| reciprocal pronoun | pronoun that indicates that two or more subjects are acting mutually; there are two in English – each other, one another eg: “John and Mary were shouting at each other“, “The students accused one another of cheating” |
| reduced relative clause (also called “participial relative clause”) |
construction similar to a relative clause, but containing a participle instead of a finite verb; this construction is possible only under certain circumstances eg: “The woman sitting on the bench is my sister”, “The people arrested by the police have been released” |
| reflexive pronoun | pronoun ending in -self or -selves, used when the subject and object are the same, or when the subject needs emphasis eg: “She drove herself“, “I’ll phone her myself“ |
| regular verb see regular verbs list |
verb that has “-ed” as the ending for past tense and past participle forms; see also irregular verb eg: work, worked, worked |
| relative adverb | adverb that introduces a relative clause; there are four in English: where, when, wherever, whenever; see also relative pronoun |
| relative clause | dependent clause that usually starts with a relative pronounsuch as who or which, or relative adverb such as where eg: “The person who finishes first can leave early” (defining), “Texas, where my brother lives, is big” (non-defining) |
| relative pronoun | pronoun that starts a relative clause; there are five in English: who, whom, whose, which, that; see also relative adverb |
| reported speech | another term for indirect speech |
| restrictive relative clause | another term for defining relative clause |
| second conditional | “if-then” conditional structure used to talk about an unlikely possibility in the future eg: “If we won the lottery we would buy a car” |
| sentence | largest grammatical unit; a sentence must always include a subject (except for imperatives) and predicate; a written sentence starts with a capital letter and ends with a full stop/period (.), question mark (?) or exclamation mark (!); a sentence contains a complete thought such as a statement, question, request or command eg: “Stop!”, “Do you like coffee?”, “I work.” |
| series | list of items in a sentence eg: “The children ate popsicles, popcorn and chips“ |
| singular | of a noun or form indicating exactly one person or thing; singular nouns are usually the simplest form of the noun (as found in a dictionary); see also plural, number eg: banana, spoon, tree |
| split infinitive | situation where a word or phrase comes between the particle “to” and the verb in an infinitive; considered poor construction by some eg: “He promised to never lie again” |
| Standard English (S.E.) | “normal” spelling, pronunciation and grammar that is used by educated native speakers of English |
| structure word | word that has no real meaning in a sentence, such as a pronoun or auxiliary verb (as opposed to a content word, such as verb or noun); structure words are not normally stressed in speech eg: “Could you BRING my GLASSES because I’ve LEFT them at HOME” |
| subject | one of the two main parts (subject and predicate) of a sentence; the subject is the part that is not the predicate; typically, the subject is the first noun phrase in a sentence and is what the rest of the sentence “is about” eg: “The rain water was dirty”, “Mary is beautiful”, “Whosaw you?” |
| subjective case also called “nominative” |
case form of a pronoun indicating a subject eg: Did she tell you about her? |
| subjunctive | fairly rare verb form typically used to talk about events that are not certain to happen, usually something that someone wants, hopes or imagines will happen; formed with BARE INFINITIVE (except past of “be”) eg: “The President requests that John attend the meeting” |
| subordinate clause | another term for dependent clause |
| suffix | affix that occurs after the root or stem of a word eg: happiness, quickly |
| superlative, superlative adjective | adjective or adverb that describes the extreme degree of something eg: happiest, most quickly |
| SVO | subject-verb-object; a common word order where the subject is followed by the verb and then the object eg: “The man crossed the street” |
| syntax | sentence structure; the rules about sentence structure |
| tag question | special construction with statement that ends in a mini-question; the whole sentence is a tag question; the mini-question is a question tag; usually used to obtain confirmation eg: “The Earth is round, isn’t it?”, “You don’t eat meat, do you?” |
| tense | form of a verb that shows us when the action or state happens (past, present or future). Note that the name of a tense is not always a guide to when the action happens. The “present continuous tense”, for example, can be used to talk about the present or the future. |
| third conditional | “if-then” conditional structure used to talk about a possible event in the past that did not happen (and is therefore now impossible) eg: “If we had won the lottery we would have bought a car” |
| transitive verb | action verb that has a direct object (receiver of the action); see also intransitive verb eg: “The kids always eat a snack while they watch TV” |
| uncountable nouns (also called “mass nouns” or “non-count”) |
thing that you cannot count, such as substances or concepts; see also countable nouns eg: water, furniture, music |
| usage | way in which words and constructions are normally used in any particular language |
| V1, V2, V3 | referring to Verb 1, Verb 2, Verb 3 – being the base, past and past participle that students typically learn for irregular verbs eg: speak, spoke, spoken |
| verb | word that describes the subject’s action or state and that we can change or conjugate based on tense and person eg: (to) work, (to) love, (to) begin |
| voice | form of a verb that shows the relation of the subject to the action; there are two voices in English: active, passive |
| WH-question | question using a WH-word and expecting an answer that is not “yes” or “no”; WH-questions are “open” questions; see also yes-no question eg: Where are you going? |
| WH-word (also called “question word”) |
word that asks a WH-question; there are 7 WH-words: who, what, where, when, which, why, how |
| word order | order or sequence in which words occur within a sentence; basic word order for English is subject-verb-object or SVO |
| yes-no question | question to which the answer is yes or no; yes-no questions are “closed” questions; see also WH-question eg: “Do you like coffee?” |
| zero conditional | “if-then” conditional structure used when the result of the condition is always true (based on fact) eg: “If you dial O, the operator comes on” |
* note that technically English does not have a real future tense
** some authorities consider the base form of the verb without “to” to be the true infinitive
brain-perks 