Grammar

Glossary of English Grammar Terms
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 |logical (in a grammatical sense) links between words based on tense, case or number |
|(also known as "concord") |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...