interrogative pronoun one of the pronouns who, whose, whom, what, and which when they are used to ask questions.
intransitive verb a verb that is used to talk about an action or event that only involves the subject and so does not have an object; e.g. She arrived… I was yawning.
inversion changing the word order in a sentence, especially changing the order of the subject and the verb.
irregular not following the normal rules for inflection. An irregular verb has a past form and/or -ed participle that is formed in a different way from the regular ending.
lexical verb another name for main verb.
linking verb a verb that links the subject and complement of a clause; e.g. be, become, seem, appear. Also sometimes called copula.
main clause a clause that is not dependent on, or is not part of, another clause.
main verb any verb that is not an auxiliary verb. Also called lexical verb.
mass noun (in this grammar) a noun that is usually an uncountable noun, but that can be used as a countable noun when it refers to quantities or types of something; e.g. … two sugars… cough medicines.
measurement noun a noun that refers to a unit of size, volume, weight, speed, temperature, etc.; e.g. mile, litre, degree.
modal an auxiliary verb that is used with a main verb to indicate a particular attitude, such as possibility, obligation, prediction, or deduction; e.g. can, could, may, might. Also called modal auxiliary or modal verb.
modifier a word or group of words that come in front of a noun; e.g. …a beautiful sunny day… …a psychology conference.
negative used for describing a sentence that uses a word like not, never, or no one to indicate the absence or opposite of something, or to say that something is not the case; e.g. I don’t know you… I’ll never forget. The opposite is affirmative.
negative word a word such as never and not which expresses a negative meaning.
nominal relative clause a subordinate clause that functions as a noun and often begins with what or whatever; e.g. What he said was true.
nominal that-clause a subordinate clause that functions as a noun and begins with that; e.g. He showed that it was true.
non-defining relative clause a relative clause that gives more information about someone or something, but that is not needed to identify them; e.g. That’s Mary, who was at university with me. Compare with defining relative clause.
non-finite the non-finite forms of a verb are the infinitive and participle forms; e.g. to take, taking, taken.
noun a word that refers to people, things, and abstract ideas such as feelings and qualities; e.g. woman, Harry, guilt.
noun phrase a group of words that acts as the subject, complement, or object of a clause, or as the object of a preposition.
noun modifier a noun used in front of another noun, as if it were an adjective; e.g. …a car door… a steel works.
number the way in which differences between singular and plural are shown; e.g. flower/ flowers, that/those. See also cardinal number and ordinal number.
object a noun phrase that refers to a person or thing, other than the subject, which is involved in or affected by the action of a verb. See also direct object and indirect object. Prepositions are also followed by objects.
object complement a word that is used to describe the object of a clause and that occurs with verbs such as make and find; e.g. It made me tired… I found her asleep.
ordinal number a number that is used to indicate where something comes in an order or sequence; e.g. first, fifth, tenth, hundredth.
participle a verb form used for making different tenses. See -ed participle and -ing participle for more details.
partitive a word that gives information about the amount of a particular thing; e.g. pint, loaf, portion.
passive verb forms such as was given, were taken, had been made, where the subject is the person or thing that is affected by the action. Compare with active.
past form the form of a verb, often ending in -ed, that is used for the past simple.
past participle another name for -ed participle.
past perfect the use of had with an -ed participle to refer to past events; e.g. She had finished.
past perfect progressive the use of had been with an -ing participle to refer to past events; e.g. He had been waiting for hours. Also called past perfect continuous.
past progressive the use of was or were with an -ing participle, usually to refer to past events; e.g. They were worrying about it yesterday. Also called past continuous.
past simple the use of the past form of a verb to refer to past events; e.g. They waited… It fell over.
past tense a tense used to describe actions or events that took place in the past. See tense for more details.
perfect form a verb form with have and an -ed participle; e.g. I have met him… We had won.
performative verb a verb that states explicitly what action the speaker is performing when he or she uses it; e.g. apologize, resign, christen.