Grammatical Terms Starting with A

Grammatical Terms are difficult to understand but we are giving such usage grammar that will clarify many of your doubts like grammer or grammar because this is a complete grammar list of items.

Glossary of Grammatical Terms

1.Absolute adjective. An adjective with a meaning that is generally not capable of being intensified or compared, such as unique or perfect tor square.

2. Careful writers avoid such usages as “very perfect” or “more unique.”

3. Absolute phrase. A noun phrase related to the sentence as a whole that includes a post noun modifier (often a participial phrase). One kind of absolute explains a cause or condition (” The weather being warm, we decided to have a picnic”); the other adds detail or a point of focus to the idea in the main clause (“He spoke quietly to the class, his voice trembling”).

4. Accusative case. The Latin term denoting the case of nouns and pronouns functioning as direct objects and as objects of certain prepositions.

5. Active voice. A feature of transitive verb sentences in which the subject is generally the agent and the direct object is the goal or objective of the action. Voice refers to the relationship of the subject to the verb. See also Passive voice.

6. Adjectival. Any structure, no matter what its form, that functions as a modifier of a noun—that is, that functions as an adjective normally functions. See Chapter 6.

7. Adjectival clause. See Relative clause.

8. Adjective.One of the four form classes, whose members act as modifiers of nouns; most adjectives can be inflected for comparative and superlative degree (big, bigger, biggest); they can be qualified or intensified (rather bid very big); they have characteristic derivational endings such as -ow (famous), -ish (childish), -fie! (graceful), and -my (complimentary).

9. Adjective Phrase. A modified adjective, such as an adjective with a qualifier (very happy, extremely happy), a comparative or superlative word (more generous, most generous), or with a compliment (happy to see you, happy that you could come).

10. Adverb.One of the four form classes, whose members act as modifiers of verbs, contributing information of time, place, reason, manner, and the like. Like adjectives, certain adverbs can be qualified (very quickly, rather fast); some can be inflected for the comparative and superlative degree (more quickly fastest); they have characteristic derivational endings such as -ly (quickly), -wise (lengthwise), and -ward (backwards).

11.Adverbial. Any structure, no matter what its form, that functions as a modifier of a verb—that is, that functions as an adverb normally functions. See Chapter 5.

12. Adverbial objective. The traditional label is given to the noun phrase that functions adverbially: “Joe went home”; “It was cold last night.”

13. Adverb phrase. A modified adverb, such as an adverb with a qualifier (very quickly rather quickly), or with more or most (more quickly most anxiously).

14. Affix. A morpheme, or meaningful unit, that is added to the beginning (prefix) or end (suffix) of a word to change its meaning or its grammatical role or its form class: (prefix) unlikely; (suffix) unlikely.

15. Agent. The initiator of the action in the sentence, the “doer” of the action. Usually, the agent is the subject in an active sentence: 7ohn groomed the dog”; “The committee elected Pam.” In a passive sentence, the agent may be the object of the preposition by: “Pam was elected by the committee.”

16. Agreement. (1) Subject-verb. A third-person singular subject in the present tense takes the -s form of the verb: “The dog barks all night”; “He both-en the neighbours.” A plural subject takes the base form: “The dog’s bark”; “They bother the neighbours.” (2) Pronoun-antecedent. The number of the pronoun (whether singular or plural) agrees with the number of its, antecedent: “The boys did their chores”; “Each girl did her best.”

17.Allomorph. A variation of a morpheme, usually determined by its environment. For example, the three allomorphs of the regular plural morpheme are determined by the final sound of the nouns to which they are added. Is/ «us; dogs; and /az/ churches.

18. Ambiguous. I Ito isonfziaion in which a structure has more than one possible I tag. Source ow be lexical (“She is blue”) or structural (“Vo-umg related ran by. Boring;’) or both (“The detective looked had).

19. Antecedent. I he noun or nominal that a pronoun stands fin.

20. Anticipatory it. The use of the pronoun it in subject position in order to delay the actual subject: “Jr was Mary who had the accident in Phoenix.” See also a cleft

21. Appositive.A structure, often a noun phrase that renames another structure: “My neighbour, a butcher at Weis Market, recently lost his job.” Clauses (“It is nice that you could come”) and verb phrases (“My favourite hobby, collecting stamps, is getting expensive”) can also function as appositives.

22. Article. One of the determiner classes, including the indefinite a, or an, which signals only countable nouns, and the definite the, which can signal all classes of nouns.

23. Aspect.  The perfect (have + en) and progressive (be + ing) auxiliaries, which denote such features of verbs as completion, duration, and repetition—time elements not related to past, present, or future.

24. Attributive adjective. The adjective in pronoun position: “my new coat”; “the big attraction.” See also Predicative adjective.

25. Auxiliary. One of the structure-class words, a marker of verbs. Auxiliaries include forms of having and be, as well as the modals, such as will,  shall, and must, and the “stand-in auxiliary” do.

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