Know Your Grammar
Active voice:
A form of verb in which the subject is
performing the action, e.g. The student
completed the assessment.
Adjective:
An adjective describes something and is used
before a noun to modify it or after a verb to
complement it, e.g. The delectable cake.
Adverb:
An adverb can modify a verb, an adjective,
another adverb or whole clause. Often, but not
always, end in –ly, e.g. He unexpectedly jumped
up.
Adverbial:
A word or phrase, which is used like an adverb
to modify a verb or clause. Usually describes
when, where, why or how something is done,
e.g. The aeroplane landed in the middle of the
night.
Antonym:
Two words with opposite meanings, e.g. light/
dark
Apostrophe:
To indicate possession or omission, e.g. Sonia’s
bag/ It’s a week until my birthday.
Article:
The most common form of determiner; can
either be definite or indefinite, e.g. The chair
(definite)/ A house (indefinite)
Auxiliary verb:
Modal verbs with be, have and do, e.g. Adam
was doing his homework in his room.
Clause:
A group of words including a subject and a
verb. You can have both dependent and
independent clauses,
e.g. When it was raining this morning I still had
to walk to school. dependent clause independent clause
Cohesion
When it is clear how a text fits together.
Compound
When two or more words are joined to create
a new meaning, e.g. ice cream, brother-in-law,
snowball.
Conjunction
Links two words or phrases. Can either
be subordinating (e.g. because, although,
therefore) or coordinating (e.g. and, so, but).
Determiner
Specifies a noun as known or unknown. It goes
before the modifier. Examples of determiners
are articles and possessives, e.g. My parents
are very strict.
Ellipsis
Omission of a word or phrases that might be
expected, e.g. During lunch time, we played
football…and then went back to class.
Etymology
A word’s history and origins.
Finite verb Modify/Modifier
Every sentence (usually) has at least one verb A word or phrase that makes meaning more
that is either past or present tense. These verbs specific, e.g, The vegan restaurant won an
are finite, e.g. The cat escaped over the fence. award.
Fronted Morphology
A word or phrase that is placed before the verb A word’s internal make-up – its root words/
in a sentence. When we do this with adverbs, we prefixes/suffixes.
call them fronted adverbials, e.g. Everywhere
she looked, there was mess.
Noun
Naming words that can be used after
Homonym determiners. There are many types of noun,
Two words that look and sound the same but e.g. The garden.
have different meanings, e.g. bark (The sound a
dog makes/ the outer layer of a tree).
Noun phrase
A phrase with a noun as its head, e.g. The
Infinitive friendly dog wanted to be stroked.
The basic form of the verb, used as the ‘head’
word in the dictionary, e.g. To run, to sing, to
Object
jump.
Usually, a noun/pronoun/ noun phrase that
comes straight after the verb, e.g. The student
Inflection wrote the assignment.
Adding –ed to walk or change child to children –
this produces an inflection of the word.
Passive Sentence
This is where the subject undergoes the action
Intransitive verb of the verb, e.g. The assignment was written by
Does not need an object to complete its the student.
meaning, e.g. It happened yesterday (only
requires the verb to make sense).
Past tense
Verb form used to talk about something, which
Main clause has already happened, e.g. The rain poured
A sentence has at least one main clause that down.
can stand alone, e.g. Despite the bad weather,
they still went for a walk.
Possessive
This can be a noun with an apostrophe or a
Modal verbs possessive pronoun, e.g. Her book/ Emma’s
Used to change the meaning of other verbs, e.g. birthday gift.
We might be able to go on holiday this year.
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Prefix Stress
Added at the beginning of a word to create a A syllable pronounced more forcefully than its
new one, e.g. Unhappy. surrounding syllables.

Preposition Subject
Describes location/position/relations of time, The person or thing that is being discussed,
e.g. in, at, before, above, inside. described or dealt with, e.g. The manager spoke
to the customer.

Progressive
The progressive verb is used to describe events
in progress. Combines the participle with a form
of the verb, e.g. I was running.
Subordinate clause
A clause subordinate to another part of the
sentence, e.g. After the storm, there was a lot
of damage.

Pronoun
Used in place of the noun, e.g. You need to be Suffix
home by 9pm. Added to the end of a word to create a new
word. Cannot stand-alone, e.g. preventable.

Received pronunciation
A regionally neutral accent used by a minority Syllable
of speakers in England. Usually used in A ‘beat’ in a word.
dictionaries.

Synonym
Register Two or more words with similar meanings, e.g.
Different varieties of the same language used angry/ infuriated
for different purposes.

Relative clause
A type of subordinate clause that modifies the
noun, e.g. They caught the person who stole
the money.
Transitive verb
Needs at least one object in the sentence to
complete its meaning, e.g. The student asked if
he could borrow a pen.

Verb
Root word Action words that have a tense, e.g. Run, think,
A word, which can stand alone without a prefix dance, sit.
or suffix. They often have other words in their
‘family’.
Word class
Every word belongs to a word class, which helps
Standard English us to understand how that word can be used,
The form of English used worldwide in both e.g. verb, noun, adjective, adverb.
speech and writing.
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