# English in Use/Glossary


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Absolute --- Not immediately dependent on the other parts of the
sentence in government.

Abstract --- Considered apart from any application to a particular
object.

Abstract noun --- A noun that denotes an idea, emotion, feeling, quality
or other abstract or intangible concept.

Active verb --- A verb that expresses action as distinct from mere
existence or state.

Adjective --- A word that modifies a noun or describes a noun's
referent.

Adjunct --- A clause in a sentence that amplifies its meaning.

Adverb --- A word that modifies a verb, adjective, or various other
types of words, phrases, and clauses.

Adverb of cause --- Adverbs of cause are *why, wherefore* and
*therefore*.

Adverb of degree --- Adverbs of degree are those which answer to the
question, how much? how little? or to the idea of more or less.

Adverb of manner --- Adverbs of manner are those which answer to the
question, how? or, by affirming, denying, or doubting, show how a
subject is regarded.

Adverb of place --- Adverbs of place indicate where something happens.

Adverb of time --- Adverbs of time are those which answer to the
question, when? how long? how soon? or how often?

Affirmative --- An answer that shows agreement or acceptance.

Agreement --- Rules that exist in many languages that force some parts
of a sentence to be used or inflected differently depending on certain
attributes of other parts.

Antecedent --- A word, phrase or clause referred to by a pronoun.

Aorist --- A temporal feature of the verb which denotes the speaker\'s
standpoint of the event described by the verb, as from outside of the
event and seeing it as a completed whole.

Aphaeresis --- The loss of letters or sounds from the beginning of a
word, such as the development of special from especial.

Apocope --- The loss or omission of a sound or syllable from the end of
a word.

Apposition --- A construction in which one noun or noun phrase is placed
with another as an explanatory equivalent, both having the same
syntactic function in the sentence.

Appositive --- Of or being in apposition.

Archaism --- The adoption or imitation of archaic words or style.

Arrangement --- Relative position of words in a sentence.

Article --- A part of speech that indicates, specifies and limits a noun
(*a*, *an*, or *the* in English).

Attribute --- A word that qualifies a noun.

Auxiliary --- A verb that accompanies the main verb in a clause in order
to make distinctions in tense, mood, voice or aspect.

Capital --- An uppercase letter.

Cardinal adjective --- A cardinal number used as an adjective.

Case --- A category of nouns, pronouns, or adjectives, specialized
(usually by inflection) to indicate a particular syntactic relation to
other words in a sentence.

Clause --- A word or group of words ordinarily consisting of a subject
and a predicate.

Collective noun --- A noun which, though singular, refers to a group of
things or animals.

Common adjective --- A common adjective is any ordinary epithet, or
adjective denoting quality or situation: as, *good, bad, peaceful,
warlike, eastern, western, outer, inner*.

Common noun --- A noun that can be preceded by an indefinite article,
and denotes any member, or all members of a class; an ordinary noun such
as *dog* or *city*.

Comparative degree --- Adverbial or adjectival forms modified by *more*
or ending in *er*, used when comparing two things.

Comparison --- The ability of adjectives and adverbs to form three
degrees.

Compound --- A lexeme that consists of more than one stem; for example
*laptop*, formed from *lap* and *top*.

Compound adjective --- A compound adjective is one that consists of two
or more words joined together, either by the hyphen or solidly: as,
*nut-brown, laughter-loving, four-footed; threefold, lordlike,
lovesick*.

Compound personal --- A compound personal pronoun. compound personal
pronouns are *myself, yourself, himself, herself, itself*.

Compound relative --- Compound relatives are *whoever, whosoever,
whichever, whichsoever, whatever, whatsoever*.

Compound sentence --- A compound sentence is a sentence which is
composed of at least two independent clauses.

Conjugation --- In some languages, one of several classifications of
verbs according to what inflections they take.

Conjunction --- A word used to join other words or phrases together into
sentences.

Conjunctive adverb --- An adverb that connects two clauses.

Consonant --- A sound that results from the passage of air through
restrictions of the oral cavity; any sound that is not the dominant
sound of a syllable, the dominant sound generally being a vowel.

Continuous tense --- Expressing an ongoing action or state.

Declension --- A way of categorizing nouns, pronouns, or adjectives
according to the inflections they receive.

Defective verb --- A verb with an incomplete conjugation; for example,
one that can only be conjugated in certain persons and numbers.

Definite article --- An article that introduces a noun and specifies it
as the particular noun that is being considered; in English, the only
definite article is the.

Diaeresis --- A diacritic placed over a vowel letter indicating that it
is sounded separately, usually forming a distinct syllable, as in
*naïve, Noël, Brontë*.

Ellipsis --- The omission of a grammatically required word or phrase
that can be implied.

Enallage --- The substitution of one grammatical form for another one.

Finite verb --- A verb that is inflected for person and for tense
according to the rules and categories of the languages in which it
occurs.

First-future tense --- The first-future tense is that which expresses
what will take place hereafter.

Gender --- A division of nouns and pronouns (and sometimes of other
parts of speech), such as masculine, feminine, neuter or common.

Gerund --- A verbal form that functions as a verbal noun. In English, a
gerund has the same spelling as a present participle, but functions
differently.

Government --- That power which one word has over another, to cause it
to assume some particular modification.

Grammar --- A system of rules and principles for speaking and writing a
language.

Hyperbaton --- An inversion of the usual or logical order of words or
phrases, for emphasis or poetic effect.

Imperative mood --- The grammatical mood expressing an order.

Indefinite article --- A word preceding a noun to indicate that the noun
is new or unknown. In English it can be a (before a consonant sound) or
an (before a vowel sound) in the singular; in the plural an article
isn\'t used at all, or the pronoun some is used instead.

Independent clause --- A clause that can stand by itself as a
grammatically viable simple sentence.

Indicative mood --- The mood of a verb used in ordinary factual or
objective statements.

Infinitive --- The uninflected form of a verb. In English, this is
usually formed with the verb stem preceded by \'to\'.

Infinitive mood --- The infinitive of a verb is its basic form with or
without the particle *to*.

Inflection --- A change in the form of a word that reflects a change in
grammatical function.

Interjection --- An exclamation or filled pause; a word or phrase with
no particular grammatical relation to a sentence, often an expression of
emotion.

Interrogative --- A word (pronoun, pronominal adjective, or adverb)
implying interrogation, or used for asking a question: *why, who, when*,
etc.

Introductory phrase --- A phrase or clause that introduces a sentence.

Irregular comparison --- Comparison of adjectives which cannot be
compared regularly.

Irregular verb --- A verb that does not follow the normal rules for its
conjugation.

Italic characters --- A typeface in which the letters slant to the
right.

Letter --- A symbol in an alphabet.

Liquid --- An *l* or *r* sound.

Mimesis --- The representation of aspects of the real world, especially
human actions, in literature and art.

Mood --- A verb form that depends on how its containing clause relates
to the speaker's or writer's wish, intent, or assertion about reality.

Morphology --- The forms of word formation.

Multiplicative adjective --- An adjective which expresses the
multiplicity.

Mute --- A letter that, in a particular word, does not correspond to any
sound in the word\'s pronunciation.

Neuter verb --- A verb that expresses neither action nor passion, but
simply being, or a state of being.

Nominative --- Giving a name; naming; designating; said of that case or
form of a noun which stands as the subject of a finite verb.

Non-finite verb --- A verb form that is not limited by a subject and,
more generally, is not fully inflected by categories that are marked
inflectionally in language, such as tense, aspect, mood, number, gender,
and person.

Note of exclamation --- Punctuation used to denote excitement, surprise
or shock; exclamation point.

Note of interrogation --- The punctuation mark \"?\", used at the end of
a sentence to indicate a question.

Noun --- A word that can be used to refer to a person, place, thing,
quality, or idea; one of the basic parts of speech in many languages,
including English.

Number --- Of a word or phrase, the state of being singular, dual or
plural, shown by inflection.

Numeral --- A numeral adjective.

Numeral adjective --- An adjective that expresses a definite number: as,
*one, two, three, four, five, six*.

Object --- The noun phrase which is an internal complement of a verb
phrase or a prepositional phrase. In a verb phrase with a transitive
action verb, it is typically the receiver of the action.

Objective --- Of, or relating to a noun or pronoun used as the object of
a verb.

Ordinal adjective --- An ordinal number used as an adjective.

Paragoge --- The addition of a sound, syllable or letter to the end of a
word, either through natural development or as a grammatical function.

Parenthetical phrase --- A phrase in the sentence which is not essential
to the meaning of the sentence.

Parsing --- To resolve into its elements, as a sentence, pointing out
the several parts of speech, and their relation to each other by
government or agreement; to analyze and describe grammatically.

Participial adjective --- A participle used as an adjective, such as
drowning in the drowning man and drowned in the drowned man.

Participle --- A form of a verb that may function as an adjective or
noun.

Part of speech --- The function a word or phrase performs in a sentence
or phrase.

Passive voice --- A grammatical voice in which the subject receives the
action of a transitive verb.

Past participle --- A past participle is usually identical to the
verb\'s past tense form, though in irregular verbs the two usually
differ.

Past perfect tense --- Tense of verb conjugated by adding had before the
past participle of a verb.

Perfect tense --- A tense that expresses action completed at the present
time; in English it is formed by using the present tense of have with a
past participle.

Period --- The punctuation mark (".") indicating the end of a sentence
or marking an abbreviation.

Person --- A linguistic category used to distinguish between the speaker
of an utterance and those to whom or about whom he is referring;
implemented in most languages by a variety of pronouns.

Personal --- Denoting person; as, a personal pronoun.

Personification --- A figure of speech, prosopopeia, in which an
inanimate object or an abstraction is given human qualities.

Phrase --- A word or group of words that functions as a single unit in
the syntax of a sentence, usually consisting of a head, or central word,
and elaborating words.

Pleonasm --- A phrase in which one or more words are redundant as their
meaning is expressed elsewhere in the phrase.

Plural --- A word in the form in which it potentially refers to
something other than one person or thing; and other than two things if
the language has a dual form.

Possessive --- A pronoun in the possessive case.

Potential mood --- A verbal construction or form stating something is
possible or probable.

Predicate --- The part of the sentence (or clause) which states
something about the subject.

Prefix --- That which is prefixed; especially one or more letters or
syllables added to the beginning of a word to modify its meaning; as,
*pre* in *prefix*, *con* in *conjure*.

Preposition --- A closed class of non-inflecting words typically
employed to connect a noun or a pronoun, in an adjectival or adverbial
sense, with some other word.

Propositional phrase --- A phrase that has both a preposition and its
object or complement; may be used as an adjunct or a modifier.

Present participle --- The present participle is identical in form to
the gerund.

Present tense --- The form of language used to refer to an event,
transaction, or occurrence which is happening now (or at the present
time), or an object that currently exists.

Preterit --- The preterite tense, simple past tense: the grammatical
tense that determines the specific initiation or termination of an
action in the past.

Progressive form --- A form of a verb in which its gerund (or present
participle) is used with any form of the verb *to be*. Examples: I am
defining. It had been snowing.

Pronominal --- Of, pertaining to, resembling, or functioning as a
pronoun.

Pronominal compound --- An adjective *herein, therein, wherein*.

Pronoun --- A type of noun that refers anaphorically to another noun or
noun phrase, but which cannot ordinarily be preceded by a determiner and
rarely takes an attributive adjective.

Proper adjective --- An adjective derived from a proper noun, such as
*British* derived from *Britain*.

Proper noun --- The name of a particular person, place, organization or
other individual entity.

Prosthesis --- The prepending of phonemes at the beginning of a word
without changing its morphological structure, as in *nother* from
*other*.

Quotation --- A fragment of a human expression that is being referred to
by somebody else.

Radical --- Of or pertaining to the root of a word.

Redundant verb --- A verb which has two forms for past tense.

Regimen --- A syntactical relation between words, as when one depends on
another and is regulated by it in respect to case or mood; government.

Regular comparison --- Adjectives are regularly compared, when the
comparative degree is expressed by adding *er*, and the superlative, by
adding *est* to them.

Regular verb --- A verb which conjugates regularly. In English, a verb
which uses an *ed* suffix to form its past participle.

Relation --- Reference of word to other words.

Relative --- A relative pronoun. Relative pronouns are *who, which,
what, that, whoever, whosoever, whichever, whichsoever, whatever,
whatsoever*.

Remote --- Not directly related.

Roman characters --- A serifed style of typeface. Upright, as opposed to
italic.

Second-future tense --- The second-future tense is that which expresses
what will have taken place at some future time mentioned.

Semivowel --- A sound in speech which has some qualities of a consonant
and some qualities of a vowel. A letter which represents a semivowel
sound, such as *w* or *y* in English.

Sentence --- A grammatically complete series of words consisting of a
subject and predicate, even if one or the other is implied, and
typically beginning with a capital letter and ending with a full stop.

Sign --- An auxiliary, suffix, etc. that modifies a word.

Small letters --- The minuscule or small letters (*a*, *b*, *c*, as
opposed to the uppercase or capital letters, *A*, *B*, *C*).

Subject --- The word or word group (usually a noun phrase) that is dealt
with. In active clauses with verbs denoting an action, the subject and
the actor are usually the same.

Subjunctive mood --- A verb inflected to indicate that an act or state
of being is possible, contingent or hypothetical, and not a fact.

Superlative degree --- The form of an adjective that expresses which of
more than two items has the highest degree of the quality expressed by
the adjective; in English, formed by appending *est* to the end of the
adjective (for some short adjectives only) or putting *most* before it.

Supposition --- An assumption, conjecture, speculation or something
supposed.

Syllepsis --- A figure of speech in which one word simultaneously
modifies two or more other words such that the modification must be
understood differently with respect to each modified word; often causing
humorous incongruity.

Synaeresis --- The contraction of two vowels into a diphthong or a long
vowel.

Syncope --- A missing sound from the interior of a word, for example by
changing *cannot* to *can\'t* or *Hawai\'i* from the root name
*Hawaiki*.

Syntax --- A set of rules that govern how words are combined to form
phrases and sentences.

Tense --- Any of the forms of a verb which distinguish when an action or
state of being occurs or exists.

Thing sui generis --- In a class of its own; one of a kind.

Tmesis --- The insertion of one or more words between the components of
a compound word.

Understood words --- Words that are omitted by ellipsis.

Unstressed numeral --- A numeral in which *one* is replaced with
indefinite article.

Verb --- A word that indicates an action, an event, or a state.

Verbal --- A verb form which does not function as a predicate, or a word
derived from a verb.

Voice --- A particular mode of inflecting or conjugating verbs, or a
particular form of a verb, by means of which is indicated the relation
of the subject of the verb to the action which the verb expresses.

Vowel --- A sound produced by the vocal cords with relatively little
restriction of the oral cavity, forming the prominent sound of a
syllable. A letter representing the sound of vowel; in English, the
vowels are *a*, *e*, *i*, *o*, *u*, and sometimes *y*.

## References

-   Wiktionary, the free
    dictionary
-   Wikipedia, the free
    encyclopedia
-   \"The Grammar of English
    Grammars\"
