Glossary

active voice. The standard form of a clause, in which the actor or cause (if there is one) is the grammatical subject: A rabbit bit him (as opposed to the passive voice: He was bitten by a rabbit).

adjective. The grammatical category of words that typically refer to a property or state: big, round, green, afraid, gratuitous, hesitant.

adjunct. A modifier which adds information about the time, place, manner, purpose, result, or other feature of the event or state: She opened the bottle with her teeth; He teased the starving wolves, which was foolish; Hank slept in the doghouse.

adverb. The grammatical category of words that modify verbs, adjectives, prepositions, and other adverbs: tenderly, cleverly, hopefully, very, almost.

affix. A prefix or suffix: enrich, restate, blacken, slipped, squirrels, cancellation, Dave’s.

agreement. Alterations of the form of a word to match some other word or phrase. In English a present-tense verb must agree with the person and number of the subject: I snicker; He snickers; They snicker.

AHD. The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language.

anapest. A foot with a weak-weak-STRONG meter: Anna LEE should get a LIFE; badda-BING!; to the DOOR.

antecedent. The noun phrase that specifies what a pronoun refers to: Biff forgot his hat; Before Jan left, she sharpened her pencils.

article. A small category of words which mark the definiteness of a noun phrase, including the definite article the and the indefinite articles a, an, and some. The Cambridge Grammar subsumes articles in the larger category determinative, which also includes quantifiers and demonstratives like this and that.

auxiliary. A special kind of verb which conveys information relevant to the truth of the clause, including tense, mood, and negation: She doesn’t love you; I am resting; Bob was criticized; The train has left the station; You should call; I will survive.

backshift. Changing the tense of a verb (usually in indirect or reported speech) to match the tense of the verb of speaking or believing: Lisa said that she was tired (compare with Lisa said, “I am tired.”) Traditionally called sequence of tenses.

Cambridge Grammar. The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language, a 2002 reference book written by the linguists Rodney Huddleston and Geoffrey Pullum in collaboration with thirteen other linguists. It uses modern linguistics to provide a systematic analysis of virtually every grammatical construction in English. The terminology and analyses in this book are based on the Cambridge Grammar.

case. The marking of a noun to indicate its grammatical function, including nominative case (for subjects), genitive case (for determiners, including possessives), and accusative case (for objects and everything else). In English, case is marked only on pronouns (nominative I, he, she, we, and they; accusative me, him, her, us, and them; and genitive my, your, his, her, our, and their), except for genitive case, which can be marked with the suffixes ’s on singular noun phrases and s’ on plural ones.

classic prose. A term introduced by the literary scholars Francis-Noël Thomas and Mark Turner in their 1994 book, Clear and Simple as the Truth, to refer to a prose style in which the writer appears to direct the reader’s attention to an objective, concrete truth about the world by engaging the reader in conversation. It contrasts with practical, self-conscious, contemplative, oracular, and other styles.

clause. The phrase type that corresponds to a sentence, whether it stands alone or is embedded in a larger sentence: Ethan likes figs; I wonder whether Ethan likes figs; The boy who likes figs is here; The claim that Ethan likes figs is false.

coherence connective. A word, phrase, or punctuation mark that signals the semantic relation between a clause or passage and one that preceded it: Anna eats a lot of broccoli, because she likes the taste. Moreover, she thinks it’s healthy. In contrast, Emile never touches the stuff. And neither does Anna’s son.

complement. A phrase that is allowed or required to appear with a head, completing its meaning: smell the glove; scoot into the cave; I thought you were dead; a picture of Mabel; proud of his daughter.

conjunction. The traditional term for the grammatical category of words that link two phrases, including coordinating conjunctions (and, or, nor, but, yet, so) and subordinating conjunctions (whether, if, to). Following the Cambridge Grammar, I use the terms coordinator and subordinator instead.

coordinate. One of two or more phrases in a coordination.

coordination. A phrase consisting of two or more phrases with the same function, usually linked by a coordinator: parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme; She is poor but honest; To live and die in LA; Should I stay or should I go?; I came, I saw, I conquered.

coordinator. The grammatical category of words that link two or more phrases with the same function, such as and, or, nor, but, yet, and so.

definiteness. A semantic distinction marked by the determiner of a noun phrase, indicating whether the content of the head noun is sufficient to identify the referent in context. If I say I bought the car (definite), I am assuming that you already know which car I’m talking about; if I say I bought a car (indefinite), I’m introducing it to you for the first time.

denominal verb. A verb derived from a noun: He elbowed his way in; She demonized him.

determinative. The name used in the Cambridge Grammar for the grammatical category of words that can function as determiners, including articles and quantifiers.

determiner. The part of a noun phrase that helps determine the referent of the head noun, answering the question “Which one?” or “How many?” The determiner function is carried out by articles (a, an, the, this, that, these, those), quantifiers (some, any, many, few, one, two, three), and genitives (my mother; Sara’s iPhone). Note that determiner is a grammatical function; determinative a grammatical category.

diction. The choice of words. Not used here to refer to clarity of enunciation.

direct object. The object of the verb (or, if the verb has two objects, the second of the two), usually indicating the entity that is directly moved or affected by the action: spank the monkey; If you give a muffin to a moose; If you give a moose a muffin; Cry me a river.

discourse. A connected sequence of sentences, such as a conversation, a paragraph, a letter, a post, or an essay.

ellipsis. Omission of an obligatory phrase that can be recovered from the context: Yes we can __! Abe flossed, and I did __ too; Where did you go? __To the lighthouse.

factual remoteness. Whether a proposition refers to a remote possibility, namely a state of affairs that is untrue, highly hypothetical, or extremely improbable. The difference between If my grandmother is free, she’ll come over (an open possibility) and If my grandmother had wheels, she’d be a trolley (a remote possibility).

foot. A sequence of syllables pronounced as a unit and with a specific rhythm: The SUN / did not SHINE. / It was TOO / wet to PLAY.

genitive. The technical term for what is loosely called “possessive” case, namely the case of a noun which functions as a determiner, such as Ed’s head or my theory. Marked in English by the choice of certain pronouns (my, your, his, her, their, and so on) and, with all other noun phrases, the suffix ’s or s’: John’s guitar; The Troggs’ drummer.

gerund. The form of the verb with the suffix –ing, often functioning like a noun: His drinking got out of hand.

government. A traditional grammatical term covering the ways in which the head of a phrase may determine the grammatical properties of other words in the phrase, including agreement, case-marking, and the selection of complements.

grammatical category. A class of words that are interchangeable in their syntactic positions and in the way they are inflected: noun, verb, adjective, adverb, preposition, determinative (including articles), coordinator, subordinator, interjection. Also called a part of speech.

grammatical function. The role that a phrase plays inside a larger phrase, including subject, object, predicate, determiner, head, complement, modifier, and adjunct.

head. The word in a phrase that determines the meaning and properties of the whole phrase: the man who knew too much; give a moose a muffin; afraid of his own shadow; under the boardwalk.

hypercorrection. The overextension of a poorly grasped prescriptive rule to examples in which it does not apply, as in I feel terribly; They planned a party for she and her husband; one fewer car; Whomever did this should be punished.

iambic. A weak-STRONG meter: MiCHELLE; aWAY; To BED!

indicative. A term from traditional grammar for the mood of ordinary statements of fact, in contrast to subjunctive, imperative, interrogative, and other moods.

indirect object. The first of two consecutive objects of a verb, usually indicating a recipient or beneficiary: If you give a moose a muffin; Cry me a river.

infinitive. The plain, untensed form of the verb, sometimes (but not always) appearing with the subordinator to: I want to be alone; She helped him pack; You must go.

inflection. The modification of the form of a word according to its role in the sentence, including the declension of nouns (duck, ducks, duck’s, ducks’) and the conjugation of verbs (quack, quacks, quacked, quacking). Not to be confused with intonation or prosody.

intonation. The melody or pitch contour of speech.

intransitive. A verb that does not allow a direct object: Martha fainted; The chipmunk darted under the car.

irrealis. Literally “not real”: a form of the verb that indicates factual remoteness. In English it is marked only on the verb be: If I were a rich man, as opposed to If I was sick, I’d have a fever. In traditional grammars, it tends to be conflated with the subjunctive.

main clause. The clause that expresses the principal assertion of a sentence, and in which subordinate clauses may be embedded: She thinks [I’m crazy]; Peter repeated the gossip [that Melissa was pregnant] to Sherry.

metadiscourse. Words that refer to the current discourse: To sum up; In this essay I will make the following seventeen points; But I digress.

meter. The rhythm of a word or set of words, consisting of a pattern of weak and strong syllables.

modal auxiliary. The auxiliaries will, would, can, could, may, might, shall, should, must, and ought. They convey necessity, possibility, obligation, future time, and other concepts related to modalities.

modality. Aspects of meaning relevant to the factual status of a proposition, including whether it is being asserted as fact, suggested as a possibility, posed as a question, or laid out as a command, a request, or an obligation. These are the meanings expressed by the grammatical system for mood.

modifier. An optional phrase that comments on or adds information to a head: a nice boy; See you in the morning; The house that everyone tiptoes past.

mood. Distinctions among the grammatical forms of a verb or clause that convey the semantic distinctions of modality, including the distinctions between an indicative statement (He ate), a question (Did he eat?), an imperative (Eat!), a subjunctive (It’s important that he eat), and, for the verb be, an irrealis (If I were you).

morpheme. The smallest meaningful pieces into which words can be cut: walk-s; in-divis-ibil-ity; crowd-sourc-ing.

nominal. Something nouny: a noun, pronoun, proper name, or noun phrase.

nominalization. A noun formed out of a verb or an adjective: a cancellation; a fail; an enactment; protectiveness; a fatality.

noun. The grammatical category of words that refer to things, people, and other nameable or conceivable entities: lily, joist, telephone, bargain, grace, prostitute, terror, Joshua, consciousness.

noun phrase. A phrase headed by a noun: Jeff; the muskrat; the man who would be king; anything you want.

object. A complement that follows a verb or preposition, usually indicating an entity that is essential to defining the action, state, or situation: spank the monkey; prove the theorem; into the cave; before the party. Includes direct, indirect, and oblique objects.

oblique object. An object of a preposition: under the door.

open conditional. An if-then statement referring to an open possibility, one that the speaker does not know to be true or false: If it rains, we’ll cancel the game.

participle. A form of the verb without a tense, which generally needs to appear with an auxiliary or other verb. English has two: the past participle, used in the passive voice (It was eaten) and perfect tense (He has eaten), and the gerund-participle, used in the progressive present tense (He is running) and in gerunds (Getting there is half the fun). Most verbs have regular past-participle forms, formed by the suffix –ed (I have stopped; It was stopped), but about 165 have irregular forms (I have given it away; It was given to me; I have brought it; It was brought here). All gerund-participles in English are formed with –ing.

part of speech. Traditional term for a grammatical category.

passive voice. One of the two major voices in English. A construction in which the usual object appears as the subject, and the usual subject is an object of by or absent altogether: He was bitten by a rabbit (compare the active A rabbit bit him); We got screwed; Attacked by his own supporters, he had nowhere else to turn.

past tense. A form of the verb used to indicate past time, factual remoteness, or backshift: She left yesterday; If you left tomorrow, you’d save money; She said she left. Most verbs have regular past-tense forms, formed by the suffix –ed (I stopped), but about 165 have irregular forms (I gave it away; She brought it). Also called the preterite.

person. The grammatical distinction between the speaker (first person), the addressee (second person), and those not participating in the conversation (third person). Marked only on pronouns: first person I, me, we, us, my, our; second person you, your; third person he, him, she, her, they, their, it, its.

phoneme. A minimal unit of sound, consisting of a spoken vowel or consonant: p-e-n; g-r-oa-n.

phrase. A group of words that behaves as a unit in a sentence and which typically has some coherent meaning: in the dark; the man in the gray suit; dancing in the dark; afraid of the wolf.

predicate. The grammatical function of a verb phrase, corresponding to a state, an event, or a relationship which is asserted to be true of the subject: The boys are back in town; Tex is tall; The baby ate a slug. The term is also sometimes used to refer to the verb that heads the predicate (e.g., ate), or, if the verb is be, the verb, noun, adjective, or preposition that heads its complement (e.g., tall).

preposition. The grammatical category of words that typically express spatial or temporal relationships: in, on, at, near, by, for, under, before, after, up.

pronoun. A small subcategory of nouns that includes personal pronouns (I, me, my, mine, you, your, yours, he, him, his, she, her, hers, we, us, our, ours, they, them, their, theirs) and interrogative and relative pronouns (who, whom, whose, what, which, where, why, when).

prosody. The melody, timing, and rhythm of speech.

quantifier. A word (usually a determinative) which specifies the amount or quantity of a head noun: all, some, no, none, any, every, each, many, most, few.

relative clause. A clause that modifies a noun, often containing a gap which indicates the role the noun plays inside that phrase: five fat guys who — rock; a clause that — modifies a noun; women we love —; violet eyes to die for —; fruit for the crows to pluck —.

remote conditional. An if-then statement referring to a remote possibility, one that the speaker believes to be false, purely hypothetical, or highly improbable: If wishes were horses, beggars would ride; If pigs had wings, they could fly.

semantics. The meaning of a word, phrase, or sentence. Does not refer to hairsplitting over exact definitions.

sequence of tenses. See backshift.

subject. The grammatical function of the phrase that the predicate is saying something about. In active sentences with action verbs it corresponds to the actor or cause of the action: The boys are back in town; Tex is tall; The baby ate a slug; Debbie broke the violin. In passive sentences it usually corresponds to the affected entity: A slug was eaten.

subjunctive. A mood, marked mainly in subordinate clauses, which uses the plain form of the verb, and indicates a hypothetical, demanded, or required situation: It is essential that I be kept in the loop; He bought insurance lest someone sue him.

subordinate clause. A clause embedded in a larger phrase, as opposed to the main clause of the sentence: She thinks I’m crazy; Peter repeated the gossip that Melissa was pregnant to Sherry.

subordinator. A grammatical category containing a small number of words that introduce a subordinate clause: She said that it will work; I wonder whether he knows about the party; For her to stay home is unusual. It corresponds roughly to the traditional category of subordinating conjunctions.

supplement. A loosely attached adjunct or modifier, set off from the rest of the sentence by pauses in speech and by punctuation in writing: Fortunately, he got his job back; My point—and I do have one—is this; Let’s eat, Grandma; The shoes, which cost $5,000, were hideous.

syntax. The component of grammar that governs the arrangement of words into phrases and sentences.

tense. The marking of a verb to indicate the time of the state or event relative to the moment the sentence is uttered, including present tense (He mows the lawn every week) and past tense (He mowed the lawn last week). A tense may have several meanings in addition to its standard temporal one; see past tense.

topic. A sentence topic is the phrase that indicates what the sentence is about; in English it is usually the subject, though it can also be expressed in adjuncts such as As for fish, I like scrod. A discourse topic is what a conversation or text is about; it may be mentioned repeatedly throughout the discourse, sometimes in different words.

transitive. A verb that requires an object: Biff fixed the lamp.

verb. The grammatical category of words which are inflected for tense and which often refer to an action or a state: He kicked the football; I thought I saw a pussycat; I am strong.

verb phrase. A phrase headed by a verb which includes the verb together with its complements and adjuncts: He tried to kick the football but missed; I thought I saw a pussycat; I am strong.

voice. The difference between an active sentence (Beavers build dams) and a passive sentence (Dams are built by beavers).

word-formation. Also called morphology: the component of grammar that alters the forms of words (rip ripped) or that creates new words from old ones (a demagogue to demagogue; priority prioritize; crowd + source crowdsource).

zombie noun. Helen Sword’s nickname for an unnecessary nominalization that hides the agent of the action. Her example: The proliferation of nominalizations in a discursive formation may be an indication of a tendency toward pomposity and abstraction (instead of Writers who overload their sentences with nouns derived from verbs and adjectives tend to sound pompous and abstract).