Grammar Vocabulary

In this section, you can learn some of the key grammar vocabulary terms that are essential for English learners to know.

active voice

the form of a verb in which the subject performs the action. In the sentence, 'The hunter killed the lion' the subject performs the action.

adjective

a word that describes a noun or pronoun. In the phrase, 'reliable car' 'reliable' is an adjective.

adverb

a word that gives more information about a verb, adjective or another adverb such as 'quickly' in 'We have to walk quickly' or 'very' in 'She was very upset.'

article

the words 'a' and 'an' (the indefinite article) or 'the' (the definite article)

auxiliary verb

a verb such as 'be', 'do' and 'have' used with another verb to form tenses, questions and negatives. 'Has' is an auxiliary verb in the sentence 'She has completed her training.'

clause

a group of words that consists of a subject and a verb. The sentence 'If you see her give her this book has two clauses.

conjunction

a word such as 'and', 'but', or 'because' that joins words, phrases or clauses

infinitive

the basic form of a verb as 'go' or 'run'.

interjection

a word or phrase used for expressing a sudden or strong feeling. 'Oh!', 'Wow!', 'Ouch!' are interjections.

modal verb

an auxiliary verb such as 'can', 'may' or 'must' that is used with another verb to express possibility, permission, necessity, etc.

noun

a word that refers to a person, thing, place or quality. 'Engineer', 'stone' and 'beauty' are all nouns.

object

a noun, noun phrase or pronoun that is affected by the action of a verb. In the sentence ' I love my country', my country is the object of the verb.

participle

the present participle ('-ing' form) and the past participle ('-ed' form) of a verb.

part of speech

one of the grammatical groups. The main parts of speech are noun, pronoun, adjective, adverb, pronoun, preposition, conjunction and interjection.

passive voice

the form of a verb in which the subject is affected by the action of the verb. In the sentence ' The lion was killed by the hunter,' 'was killed' is in the passive voice.

phrase

a small group of words without a finite verb. 'The tall building' and 'the man in the hat' are phrases.

predicate

the part of a sentence that contains the verb and its object such as 'sent the letter' in 'Anna sent the letter'.

preposition

a word that usually comes before a noun or pronoun to show place, position, time or method. The preposition 'on' in "The books are on the desk' shows place. The preposition 'at' in 'We left at 2 o'clock' shows time.

pronoun

a word that is used instead of a noun. I, me, you and it are all examples of pronouns.

sentence

a set of words that express a statement, question, instruction or exclamation. In written English sentences start with a capital letter and end with a full stop (.), a question mark (?) or an exlamation mark (!).

subject

a noun, noun phrase or pronoun that performs the action of a verb. In English, the subject usually comes before the verb. 'The children' is the subject of the sentence 'The children are playing in the park.'

tense

The form of a verb that is used to show the time at which the action or state happens (the past/present/future tense).

verb

a word such as (to) eat, (to) run that expresses an action, event or state.