Drawn from our extensive Glossary of Grammatical and Rhetorical Terms, this collection provides a quick review of the basic terminology used in the study of traditional English grammar. For a more detailed examination of the word forms and sentence structures introduced here, click on any of the terms to visit a glossary page, where you will find numerous examples and expanded discussions.
100 Key Grammatical Terms
- Abstract Noun to Exclamatory Sentence (page one, below)
- Future Tense to Objective Case (page two)
- Participle to Word Class (page three)
- Abstract Noun
A noun (such as courage or freedom) that names an idea, event, quality, or concept. Contrast with concrete noun. - Active Voice
The verb form or voice in which the subject of the sentence performs or causes the action expressed by the verb. Contrast with passive voice. - Adjective
The part of speech (or word class) that modifies a noun or a pronoun. Adjective forms: positive, comparative, superlative. Adjective: adjectival. - Adverb
The part of speech (or word class) that is primarily used to modify a verb, adjective, or other adverb. Adverbs can also modify prepositional phrases, subordinate clauses, and complete sentences. - Affix
A prefix, suffix, or infix: a word element (or morpheme) that can be attached to a base or root to form a new word. Noun: affixation. Adjective: affixable. - Agreement
The correspondence of a verb with its subject in person and number, and of a pronoun with its antecedent in person, number, and gender. - Appositive
A noun, noun phrase, or series of nouns used to identify or rename another noun, noun phrase, or pronoun. - Article
A type of determiner that precedes a noun: a, an, or the. - Attributive
An adjective that usually comes before the noun it modifies without a linking verb. Contrast with predicative adjective. - Auxiliary
A verb that determines the mood or tense of another verb in a verb phrase. Also known as a helping verb. Contrast with lexical verb. - Base
The form of a word to which prefixes and suffixes are added to create new words. - Capital Letter
The form of an alphabetical letter (such as A, B, C) used to begin a sentence or proper noun; an uppercase letter, in contrast to lower case. Verb: capitalize. - Case
A characteristic of nouns and certain pronouns that expresses their relationship to other words in a sentence. Pronouns have three case distinctions: subjective, possessive, and objective. In English, nouns have only one case inflection, the possessive. The case of nouns other than the possessive is sometimes called the common case. - Clause
A group of words that contains a subject and a predicate. A clause may be either a sentence (an independent clause) or a sentence-like construction within a sentence (a dependent clause). - Common Noun
A noun that can be preceded by the definite article and that represents one or all of the members of a class. As a general rule, a common noun does not begin with a capital letter unless it appears at the start of a sentence. Common nouns can be subcategorized as count nouns and mass nouns. Semantically, common nouns can be classified as abstract nouns and concrete nouns. Contrast with proper noun. - Comparative
The form of an adjective or adverb involving a comparison of more or less, greater or lesser. - Complement
A word or word group that completes the predicate in a sentence. The two kinds of complements are subject complements (which follow the verb be and other linking verbs) and object complements (which follow a direct object). If it identifies the subject, the complement is a noun or pronoun; if it describes the subject, the complement is an adjective. - Complex Sentence
A sentence that contains at least one independent clause and one dependent clause. - Compound-Complex Sentence
A sentence that contains two or more independent clauses and at least one dependent clause. - Compound Sentence
A sentence that contains at least two independent clauses. - Conditional Clause
A type of adverbial clause that states a hypothesis or condition, real or imagined. A conditional clause may be introduced by the subordinating conjunction if or another conjunction, such as unless or in case of. - Conjunction
The part of speech (or word class) that serves to connect words, phrases, clauses, or sentences. The two main types of conjunction are coordinating conjunctions and subordinating conjunctions. - Contraction
A shortened form of a word or group of words (such as doesn't and won't), with the missing letters usually marked by an apostrophe. - Coordination
The grammatical connection of two or more ideas to give them equal emphasis and importance. Contrast with subordination. - Count Noun
A noun that refers to an object or idea that can form a plural or occur in a noun phrase with an indefinite article or with numerals. Contrast with mass noun (or noncount noun). - Declarative Sentence
A sentence in the form of a statement (in contrast to a command, a question, or an exclamation). - Definite Article
In English, the definite article the is a determiner that refers to particular nouns. Compare to indefinite article. - Demonstrative
A determiner that points to a particular noun or to the noun it replaces. The demonstratives are this, that, these, and those. A demonstrative pronoun distinguishes its antecedent from similar things. When the word precedes a noun, it is sometimes called a demonstrative adjective. - Dependent Clause
A group of words that has both a subject and a verb but (unlike an independent clause) cannot stand alone as a sentence. Also known as a subordinate clause. - Determiner
A word or a group of words that introduces a noun. Determiners include articles, demonstratives, and possessive pronouns. - Direct Object
A noun or pronoun in a sentence that receives the action of a transitive verb. Compare to indirect object. - Ellipsis
The omission of one or more words, which must be supplied by the listener or reader. Adjective: elliptical or elliptic. Plural, ellipses. - Exclamatory Sentence
A sentence that expresses strong feelings by making an exclamation. (Compare with sentences that make a statement, express a command, or ask a question.)
NEXT:
- Future Tense to Objective Case (page two)
- Participle to Word Class (page three)
