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Term
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Definition
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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"
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part of
speech that typically describes or "modifies" a noun
eg: "It was a big dog."
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adjective
clause
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adjunct
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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.
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word that
modifies a verb, an adjective or another adverb
eg: quickly, really, very
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adverbial
clause
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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.
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statement
that expresses (or claims to express) a truth or "yes" meaning; opposite
of negative
eg: The sun is hot.
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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)
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agreement
(also known as "concord")
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logical
(in a grammatical sense) links between words based on tense,
case
or number
eg: this phone, these phones
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antecedent
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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."
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appositive
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noun phrase
that re-identifies or describes its neighbouring noun
eg: "Canada, a multicultural country, is recognized by its maple
leaf flag."
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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)
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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.
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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"
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basic form
of a verb before conjugation into tenses etc
eg: be, speak
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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"
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causative
verb
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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"
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group of
words containing a subject and its verb
eg: "It was late when he arrived"
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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
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part of a
sentence that completes or adds meaning to the predicate
eg: Mary did not say where she was going.
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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
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compound
sentence
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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."
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Concord
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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"
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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
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word that
joins or connects two parts of a sentence
eg: Ram likes tea and coffee. Anthony went swimming although it
was raining.
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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 LEFT
them at HOME"
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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."
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shortening
of two (or more) words into one
eg: isn't (is not), we'd've (we would have)
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thing that
you can count, such as apple, pen, tree (see uncountable
noun)
eg: one apple, three pens, ten trees
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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.)
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declarative
sentence
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sentence
type typically used to make a statement (as opposed to a question or command)
eg: "Tara works hard", "It wasn't funny"
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defining relative clause
(also called "restrictive relative clause")
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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"
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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?"
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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..."
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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"
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saying
what someone said by using their exact words; see also indirect
speech
eg: "Lucy said: 'I am tired.'"
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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?"
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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"
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verb form
that has a specific tense, number and person
eg: I work, he works, we learned, they ran
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"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"
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Fragment
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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"
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Function
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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.
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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."
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tense*
used to express the past in the future; formed with WILL HAVE + VERB-ed
eg: "I will have graduated by then"
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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"
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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"
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genitive
case
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case
expressing relationship between nouns (possession, origin, composition etc)
eg: "John's dog", "door of the car", "children's
songs", "pile of sand"
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noun form
of a verb, formed with VERB-ing
eg: "Walking is great exercise"
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adverb
that can modify the intensity or grade of a gradable
adjective
eg: quite hot, very tall
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hanging
participle
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helping
verb
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form of
verb used when giving a command; formed with BASE VERB only
eg: "Brush your teeth!"
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pronoun
does not refer to any specific person, thing or amount. It is vague and
"not definite".
eg: anything, each, many, somebody
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independent clause
(also called "main clause")
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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."
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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"
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indirect
question
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indirect speech
(also called "reported speech")
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saying
what someone said without using their exact words; see direct
speech
eg: "Lucy said that she was tired"
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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"
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Inflection
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change in
word form to indicate grammatical meaning
eg: dog, dogs (two inflections); take, takes, took,
taking, taken (five inflections)
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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!"
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(formal)
sentence type (typically inverted) normally used when asking a question
eg: "Are you eating?", "What are you eating?"
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pronoun
that asks a question.
eg: who, whom, which
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Inversion
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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"
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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
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lexicon,
lexis
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all of the
words and word forms in a language with meaning or function
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lexical
verb
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verbs that
connect the subject to more information (but do not indicate action), such as
"be" or "seem"
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main clause
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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"
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auxiliary
verb such as can, could, must, should etc; paired with the bare
infinitive of a verb
eg: "I should go for a jog"
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modifier
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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
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sentence
type that indicates the speaker's view towards the degree of reality of what
is being said, for example subjunctive, indicative, imperative
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unit of
language with meaning; differs from "word" because some cannot
stand alone
e.g. un-, predict and -able in unpredictable
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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)
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form which
changes a "yes" meaning to a "no" meaning; opposite of affirmative
eg: "She will not come", "I have never seen
her"
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nominative
case
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non-defining relative clause
(also called "non-restrictive relative clause")
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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"
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non-restrictive
relative clause
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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?"
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noun
clause
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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"
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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"
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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
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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"
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case
form of a pronoun indicating an object
eg: "John married her", "I gave it to him"
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one of the
classes into which words are divided according to their function in a
sentence
eg: verb,
noun,
adjective
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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"
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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"
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tense
often used to describe an interrupted action in the past; formed with
WAS/WERE + VERB-ing
eg: "I was reading when you called"
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tense that
refers to the past in the past; formed with HAD + VERB-ed
eg: "We had stopped the car"
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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"
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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"
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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
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pronoun
that indicates person
eg: "He likes my dogs", "They like him"
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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)
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Phrase
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two or
more words that have a single function and form part of a sentence; phrases
can be noun,
adjective, adverb, verb or prepositional
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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
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Position
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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"
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Positive
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basic
state of an adjective or adverb when it shows quality but not comparative
or superlative
eg: nice, kind, quickly
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adjective
(also called "determiner") based on a pronoun: my, your, his, her,
its, our, their
eg: "I lost my keys", "She likes your car"
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case
form of a pronoun indicating ownership or possession
eg: "Mine are blue", "This car is hers"
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pronoun
that indicates ownership or possession
eg: "Where is mine?", "These are yours"
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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"
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affix
that occurs before the root or stem of a word
eg: impossible, reload
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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 for digging"
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multi-word
verb that is formed with verb + preposition
eg: believe in, look after
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-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"
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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"
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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"
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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?"
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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"
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progressive
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noun that
is capitalized at all times and is the name of a person, place or thing
eg: Shakespeare, Tokyo, EnglishClub.com
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standard
marks such as commas, periods and question marks within a sentence
eg: , . ? ! - ; :
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Quantifier
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final part
of a tag
question; mini-question at end of a tag question
eg: "Snow isn't black, is it?"
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question
word
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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"
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reduced
relative clause
(also called "participial relative clause")
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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"
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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"
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verb that
has "-ed" as the ending for past tense and past participle forms;
see also irregular
verb
eg: work, worked, worked
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reported
speech
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restrictive
relative clause
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"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"
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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."
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Series
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list of
items in a sentence
eg: "The children ate popsicles, popcorn and chips"
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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
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split
infinitive
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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"
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Standard
English (S.E.)
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"normal"
spelling, pronunciation and grammar that is used by educated native speakers
of English
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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"
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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", "Who saw you?"
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case
form of a pronoun indicating a subject
eg: Did she tell you about her?
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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"
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subordinate
clause
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affix
that occurs after the root or stem of a word
eg: happiness, quickly
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adjective
or adverb that describes the extreme degree of something
eg: happiest, most quickly
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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"
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Syntax
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sentence
structure; the rules about sentence structure
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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?"
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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.
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"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"
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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"
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thing that
you cannot count, such as substances or concepts; see also countable
nouns
eg: water, furniture, music
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Usage
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way in
which words and constructions are normally used in any particular language
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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
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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
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form of a
verb that shows the relation of the subject to the action; there are two
voices in English: active,
passive
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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?
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WH-word
(also called "question word")
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word that
asks a WH-question;
there are 7 WH-words: who, what, where, when, which, why, how
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order or
sequence in which words occur within a sentence; basic word order for English
is subject-verb-object or SVO
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question
to which the answer is yes or no; yes-no questions are "closed"
questions; see also WH-question
eg: "Do you like coffee?"
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"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"
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