Conventions of Standard English

A
absolute construction	A construction that consists of a noun and a modifier and modifies the rest of the sentence, rather than a single element of the sentence
active voice	A property of transitive verbs whereby the subject of the verb is the agent of the action. The verb ate in Mike ate the watermelon is in the active voice.
adjective	A word that modifies a noun. Adjectives are distinguished chiefly by their suffixes, such as -able, -ous, and -er, or by their position directly preceding a noun or noun phrase.
adverb	A word that modifies a verb, an adjective, or another adverb.
affix	A word element, such as a prefix or suffix, that can only occur attached to a base form.
agreement	Correspondence in gender, number, case, or person between words
antecedent	The word, phrase, or clause to which a pronoun refers.
appositive	A noun or noun phrase that is placed next to another to help explain it. The composer in The composer Beethoven lived in Bonn is an appositive.
article	A word that indicates that the word which follows it is a noun and that specifies the noun's application. The indefinite articles are a and an. The definite article is the.
aspect	A property of verbs that designates the relation of the action to the passage of time, especially in reference to completion, duration, or repetition.
attributive	A word, such as an adjective or a noun, that is placed adjacent to the noun it modifies, as city in the city streets.
auxiliary verb	A verb, such as have, can, or will, that accompanies the main verb in a clause and helps to make distinctions in mood, voice, aspect, and tense.

B
base form	The form of a word to which affixes or other base forms can be added to make new words, as mystify in mystifying, build in rebuild, and writing in skywriting.

C
case	The form of noun, pronoun, or modifier that indicates its grammatical relationship to other words in a clause or sentence. In English only pronouns are differentiated by case. English pronouns have three cases: Nominative or Subjective (she), Objective (him), and Possessive (his).
clause	A group of words containing a subject and a predicate and forming part of a compound or complex sentence.
collective noun	A noun, such as flock or team that refers to a collection of persons or things regarded as a unit.
common noun	A noun, such as book or dog, that can be preceded by the definite article and that represents one or all of the members of a class.
comparative degree	The intermediate degree of comparison of adjectives, as better, sweeter, or more wonderful, or adverbs, as more softly.
comparison	The modification or inflection of an adjective or adverb to indicate the positive, comparative, and superlative degrees.
complement	A word or group of words used after a verb to complete a predicate construction; for example, the phrase to eat ice cream in We like to eat ice cream is the complement.
complex sentence	A sentence that consists of at least one independent clause and one dependent clause, such as When I grow up, I want to be a doctor.
compound-complex sentence	A sentence consisting of at least two coordinate independent clauses and one or more dependent clauses, as I wanted to go, but I decided not to when it started raining.
compound sentence	A sentence of two or more coordinate independent clauses, often joined by a conjunction, as The problem was difficult, but I finally found the answer.
concord	Agreement.
conditional	Of, relating to, or containing a clause that expresses a condition, that is, a circumstance that is necessary for something else to happen. Conditional clauses usually begin with if, unless, provided that, or a similar conjunction. Conditional sentences are sentences that contain conditional clauses: If it starts to rain, we will have to leave. We cannot go to the beach unless he lends us his car.
conjunction	A word, such as and, but, as, and because, that connects words, phrases, or clauses.
construction	A group of words arranged to form a meaningful phrase, clause, or sentence.
coordinating conjunction	A conjunction, such as and, but, or or, that connects grammatical units that have the same function.
correlative conjunction	Either of a pair of conjunctions, such as either … or or both … and, that connect two parts of a sentence and are not used adjacent to each other. The second of the pair is always a coordinate conjunction.
count noun	A noun that can be referred to as a single entity, can occur in the plural, and can be used in a phrase with a or an. Chair and experience are count nouns. Furniture and helium are not.

D
dangling participle	A participle with no clear grammatical relationship to the subject of the sentence.
definite article	A word that restricts or particularizes a noun. In English the definite article is the. It identifies a noun that has already been referred to (I found the book under the chair). It helps specify a particular thing (I am reading about the development of the polio vaccine). It also indicates a noun that stands as a typical example of its class (The Golden Retriever is an ideal pet.
degree	One of the forms used in the comparison of adjectives and adverbs. For example, sweet is the positive degree, sweeter the comparative degree, and sweetest the superlative degree of the adjective sweet.
demonstrative	Specifying or singling out the person or thing referred to. The demonstrative adjectives are this, these, that, and those.
dependent clause	A clause that cannot stand alone as a full sentence and functions as a noun, adjective, or adverb within a sentence.
descriptive clause	A nonrestrictive clause.
determiner	A word belonging to a group of noun modifiers (which include articles, demonstrative adjectives, possessive adjectives and words such as any, both, or whose) and occupying the first position in a noun phrase or the second or third position after another determiner.
dialect	A variety of a language distinguished by pronunciation, grammar, or vocabulary and shared by a group that is set off from others geographically or socially. The term dialect is sometimes used to refer to a variety of language that differs from the standard literary language or speech pattern of the culture in which it exists.
diminutive	A word, name, or suffix that indicates smallness, youth, familiarity, affection, or contempt. Booklet, lambkin, and nymphet are diminutives. The suffixes -et, -let, and -kin are diminutive suffixes.
direct object	The noun, pronoun, or noun phrase referring to the person or thing that receives the action of a transitive verb. In mail the letter and call him, letter and him are the direct objects.
disjunctive	Serving to establish a relationship of contrast or opposition. But in sad but wiser is disjunctive.
double negative	A construction that employs two negatives, especially to express a single negation.

E
elliptical	Characterized by the omission of a word or phrase that is necessary for a complete grammatical construction but is not necessary for understanding. In the sentence While cleaning the desk, he found an old photograph, the clause while cleaning the desk is elliptical in that it stands for while he was cleaning the desk.
epicene pronoun	A pronoun that has one form for both masculine and feminine antecedents.

F
finite	Limited by person, number, tense, and mood. A finite verb can serve as the predicate of a sentence or as the initial verb in a verb phrase that is the predicate.
function word	A word such as a preposition, conjunction, or article that has little meaning on its own and chiefly indicates a grammatical relationship.
future perfect tense	The verb tense that expresses action completed by a specified time in the future and that is formed by combining will have or shall have with a past participle.
future tense	The verb tense that expresses action that has not yet occurred or a state that does not yet exist.

G
gender	1.A category used in the selection or agreement of nouns, pronouns, and adjectives with modifiers, words being referred to, or grammatical forms. Grammatical gender may be arbitrary, or it may be based on characteristics such as sex or the quality of being animate. In English grammatical gender applies only to pronouns, which normally coincide with the sexual identity of their antecedents. In other languages, abstractions and inanimate objects may be grammatically masculine or feminine. In German, for example, the word for fork is feminine, the word for spoon is masculine, and the word for knife is neuter. 2.Sexual identity.
gender-neutral	Free of explicit or implicit reference to biological gender or sexual identity, as the term police officer instead of policeman.
genitive case	The case that expresses possession, measurement, or source.
gerund	A noun derived from a verb and retaining certain features of verbs; in English gerunds end in -ing, as singing in We admired the choir's singing.
grammar	1.The system of inflections, word order, and word formation of a language. 2.The system of rules that allows the speakers of a language to create sentences. 3.A set of rules setting forth the current standard of usage in a language. 4.Writing or speech judged in relation to this set of rule.

H
head	The word in a construction that has the same grammatical function as the construction as a whole and that determines relationships of agreement to other parts of the construction or sentence. The word variety is the head of the phrase a wide variety of gardening tools in the sentence You can buy a wide variety of gardening tools at that store.

I
imperative	The verbal mood that expresses a command or request. Stop in Stop running and Give in Give me a break are in the imperative mood.
imperfect tense	The tense of a verb that shows, usually in the past, an action or a condition as incomplete, continuous, or coincident with another action or condition.
indefinite article	An article that does not fix the identity of the noun it modifies. In English the indefinite articles are a and an. They are typically used when the noun has not been mentioned before and so is unfamiliar: A waiter appeared and asked to take our order.
indefinite pronoun	A pronoun such as any or some that does not specify the identity of its object.
independent clause	A clause in a complex sentence that contains a subject and a verb and can stand alone as a complete sentence.
indicative	The verbal mood used to make statements.
indirect object	An object indirectly affected by the action of the verb, as me in Sing me a song and the turtle in He feeds the turtle lettuce.
infinitive	A verb form that functions as a noun while retaining certain verbal characteristics, such as modification by adverbs. It is called the infinitive because the verb is not limited or "made finite" to indicate person, number, tense, or mood. In English the infinitive may be preceded by to, as in We want him to work harder and To cooperate means to be willing to compromise, or it may appear without to, as in We may leave tomorrow and She had them read the letter. The infinitive without to is called the bare infinitive.
inflection	1.A change in a word that expresses a grammatical relationship, such as case, gender, number, person, tense, or mood 2.A word form or element that is involved in this change. In English most inflections are affixes, such as -s, which indicates the plural of many nouns (dogs), or -ed, which indicates past tense in many verbs (relaxed). Some English inflections involve a change in the base form of the word to indicate past tense or the past participle, as spoke and spoken from speak.
intensive	Tending to emphasize or intensify, as the adverb so in The music was so beautiful or the pronoun yourself in How can you ask me to help when you haven't done anything yourself?
intransitive verb	A verb that does not require or cannot take a direct object, as sleep or meditate.
irregular	Departing from the usual pattern of inflection, derivation, or word formation, as the present forms of the verb be or the plural noun children.

L
linking verb	A verb, such as a form of be or seem, that identifies the predicate of a sentence with the subject.

M
main clause	An independent clause.
main verb	A verb that expresses an action or a state. Main verbs can be inflected to show tense, number, person, and mood. They are distinguished from auxiliary verbs, which cannot be inflected. Swim is the main verb in the sentence I could have swum a mile today.
mass noun	A noun, such as sand or honesty, that denotes a substance or concept that cannot be divided into countable units. Mass nouns are preceded in indefinite constructions by modifiers such as some or much rather than a or one.
modifier	A word, phrase, or clause that limits or qualifies the sense of another word or word group.
mood	A property of verbs that indicates the speaker's attitude toward the factuality or likelihood of the action or condition expressed. Mood determines whether a sentence is a statement, a command, or a conditional or hypothetical remark. English has three moods: indicative, imperative, and subjunctive.

N
nominative case	The case of a pronoun used as the subject of a finite verb (as I in I wrote the letter) or as a predicate nominative (as we in It is we who have made the mistake).
Non-count noun	A mass noun.
nonrestrictive clause	A dependent clause that describes but does not identify or restrict the meaning of the noun, phrase, or clause it modifies, as the clause who live in a small house in The Smiths, who live in a small house, have ten cats. Nonrestrictive clauses are normally set off by commas.
noun	A word that is used to name a person, place, thing, quality, or action and can function as the subject or object of a verb, as the object of a preposition, or as an appositive.
number	The indication of whether a word is singular or plural. Number in English nouns is usually indicated by inflection, that is, by the presence or absence of the suffix -s or -es.

O
object	A noun or word acting like a noun that receives or is affected by the action of a verb or that follows and is governed by a preposition.
objective case	The case of a pronoun used as the object of a verb or preposition. The pronoun him is in the objective case.
objective complement	A noun, pronoun, or adjective serving as complement to a verb and qualifying its direct object, as governor in They elected him governor.

P
parallelism	The use of identical or equivalent syntactic structures in corresponding clauses or phrases.
participle	A form of the verb that can serve as an adjective or is used with an auxiliary verb to indicate tense, aspect, or voice. In English the present participle ends in -ing, and the past participle ends in -ed or is an altered base form, as ridden from ride or spoken from speak.
passive voice	A property of verbs whereby the subject receives the action or effect of the verb. In the sentence The house was built in a month, the verb build is in the passive voice.
past participle	A verb form indicating past or completed action or time that is used as an adjective and is used with auxiliary verbs to form the passive voice or the perfect and pluperfect tenses. In English the past participle is formed by the addition of the suffix -ed or by altering the base form of the verb, as spoken from speak.
past perfect tense	The pluperfect tense.
past tense	The verb tense used to express an action or a condition prior to the time it is expressed.
perfect tense	A verb tense expressing action completed prior to a fixed point of reference in time. English has two perfect tenses: the present perfect and the past perfect, or pluperfect.
person	Any of the pronoun forms or verb inflections that distinguish the speaker (first person), the individual addressed (second person), and the individual or thing spoken about (third person).
personal pronoun	A pronoun designating the person speaking (I, me, we, us), the person spoken to (you), or the person or thing spoken of (he, she, it, they, him, her, them).
phrase	Two or more words occurring in sequence that form a grammatical unit that is less than a complete sentence.
pluperfect tense	A verb tense used to express action completed before a stated or implied past time. In English the pluperfect tense is formed with the past participle of a verb and the auxiliary verb had, as had learned in He had learned to skate before his fourth birthday.
plural	1.A grammatical form that designates more than one of the things specified. In English most plurals are formed by adding -s or -es to nouns. Some words, like sheep and deer, can have plural meaning but have no plural form: The deer are in the field again. A few words form their plurals by the addition of -en: children; oxen. 2.A verb form that expresses the action of a plural subject.
positive degree	The simple, uncompared degree of an adjective or adverb.
possessive	A form of a noun or pronoun that indicates possession. In English the possessive of singular nouns is usually formed by the addition of an apostrophe and s.
possessive case	The case of a pronoun that indicates possession. The pronoun my is in the possessive case. Pronouns in the possessive case are often considered adjectives.
predicate	One of the two main parts of a sentence containing the verb, objects, or phrases governed by the verb, as opened the door in Jane opened the door or is very sleepy in The child is very sleepy.
predicate adjective	An adjective that follows a linking verb and modifies the subject, as hot in The sun is hot.
predicate nominative	A noun or pronoun that follows a linking verb and refers to the same person or thing as the subject, as firefighter in Jim was a firefighter.
prefix	An affix put before a word to alter its meaning. The element dis- in disbelieve is a prefix.
preposition	A word, such as in or to, or a group of words, such as in regard to, that is placed before a noun or pronoun and indicates a grammatical relation to a verb, adjective, or another noun or pronoun.
prepositional phrase	A phrase that consists of a preposition and its object and functions as an adjective or an adverb.
present participle	A participle expressing present action, formed by adding the suffix -ing to verbs and used as an adjective and with the auxiliary verb be to make progressive tenses.
present perfect tense	A verb tense expressing action completed at the present time, formed by combining the present tense of have with a past participle, as in He has spoken.
present tense	The verb tense expressing action in the present time, as in She writes and She is writing.
principal parts	The forms of a verb that are necessary to derive other forms. In English these are the infinitive, the past tense, the past participle, and the present participle.
progressive	A verb form that expresses an action or condition in progress. In English progressive verb forms employ a form of the verb be and a present participle of the main verb, as in He is walking, He has been walking, He had been walking.
pronoun	A word that functions as a substitute for a noun or noun phrase.
proper noun	A noun used as a name for a specific individual, event, or place and usually having few possibilities for modification.

R
reflexive pronoun	A pronoun used as the direct object of a reflexive verb. Reflexive pronouns end in -self or -selves.
reflexive verb	A verb whose subject is identical with its object, as dressed in She dressed herself.
regular	Conforming to the usual pattern of inflection, derivation, or word formation. A plural ending in -s is a regular plural.
relative clause	A dependent clause introduced by a relative pronoun, as which is downstairs in The stereo, which is downstairs, has four speakers.
relative pronoun	A pronoun that introduces a relative clause and refers to an antecedent. Who, whom, whose, which, and that the relative pronouns.
restrictive clause	A dependent clause that identifies the noun, phrase, or clause it modifies and limits or restricts its meaning, as the clause who live in glass houses in People who live in glass houses should not throw stones.

S
singular	1.A grammatical form that designates a single person or thing or a group of things considered as a single unit. 2.A verb form that expresses the action or state of a grammatically singular subject.
split infinitive	An infinitive with an element, usually an adverb, interposed between to and the verb, as to boldly go..
strong verb	A verb such as drink, ride, or speak, that forms its past tense by a change in the vowel of the base form and that forms its past participle by a change in vowel and sometimes by adding -n or -en.
subject	The noun, noun phrase, or pronoun in a sentence or clause that denotes the doer of the action or what is described by the predicate. In some sentences the subject is not a doer but is acted upon. This is true for sentences with verbs in the passive voice and for verbs with a passive meaning, such as undergo in She underwent surgery to repair her shoulder.
subjunctive	The verbal mood that expresses the speaker's attitude about the likelihood or factuality of the situation and is also used in conditional clauses, in that clauses making a command or expressing an intention, and in other clauses..
subordinate clause	A dependent clause.
subordinate conjunction	A conjunction, such as after, because, if, and where, that introduces a dependent clause.
substantive	A word or group of words functioning as a noun, as wealthy in Only the wealthy can afford to belong to that club.
suffix	An affix added to the end of a word, forming a new word or serving as an inflectional ending, as -ness in gentleness, -ing in walking, or -s in sits.
superlative degree	The extreme degree of comparison of an adjective or adverb, as best and brightest.
syntax	1.The system of rules whereby words are combined to form grammatical phrases and sentences. 2.The pattern of word arrangement in a given phrase or sentence.

T
tense	A set of verb forms that indicates the time (as past, present, or future) and the continuance or completion of the action or state.
transitive verb	A verb that requires a direct object to complete its meaning, carrying the action of the verb from the subject to the object. In the sentence She played the waltz, play is a transitive verb. In the sentence She plays beautifully, play is not transitive.

V
verb	A word that expresses existence, action, or occurrence.
voice	A property of verbs that indicates the relationship between the subject and the action of the verb.

W
weak verb	A verb that forms its past tense and past participle by adding a suffix that ends in -d, -ed, or -t, as start, have, and send.

__________	A.	A word element, such as a prefix or suffix, that can only occur attached to a base form.
__________	B.	A construction that consists of a noun and a modifier and modifies the rest of the sentence, rather than a single element of the sentence.
__________	C.	A word that indicates that the word which follows it is a noun and that specifies the noun's application. The indefinite articles are a and an. The definite article is the.