English Linguistic Terms

Active sentence

A sentence where the action is expressed through the active (default) form of the verb, as opposed to passive forms of verbs.

Active verb form

A verb which expresses an activity or event.

Adjective

A modifying constituent that describes a property, quality, or status of a noun (e.g., blue, good, democratic, imaginary).

Adverb

A word that modifies (i.e., further specifies the meaning of) a verb, an adjective, another adverb, or a whole sentence (e.g., easily, very, now, probably).

Adverbial

Any linguistic structure that performs the function of an adverb.

Adverbial (clause)

A finite or nonfinite subordinate clause that performs an adverbial function in relation to its superordinate (main) clause.

Affirmative

Grammatically not negative, that is, grammatically positive.

Agent

The person or thing that performs the action described by the verb. In an active sentence, the agent coincides with the subject of the sentence. In a passive sentence, the agent may be either expressed as an agentive prepositional construction using the prepositions by, through, with, or via or omitted altogether.

Agreement

The requirement for the predicate to be marked for person and number in accordance with the person and number of the subject.

Antecedent

A referent that identifies the person or thing referred to by a pronoun.

Aspect

The temporal viewpoint from which an event is presented, such as perfective vs. imperfective.

Attributive modifier

A premodifying (or rarely postmodifying) adjective positioned immediately before (or after) the noun that it depends on and modifies, i.e., its head.

Auxiliary verb

Case

Clause

Clitic

Complement

Complex sentence

Concessive clause

Conditional clause

Conjunct

Conjunction

Constituent

Converb

Coordination

Copula

Copular marker

Counterfactual conditional clause

Definite article

Demonstrative pronoun

Derived word

Determiner

Direct object

Discourse connective

Distributive numeral

Distributive plural

Distributive singular

Echo question

Ellipsis

Finite clause

Finite verb

Generic noun

Genitive case

Head

Imperative sentence

Imperfective verb form

Indefinite article

Indirect question

Indirect statement

Inflection

Intonation contour

Intonational phrase

Intransitive verb

Lexical word

Lexicalized expression

Linking verb

Main clause

Modality

Modifier

An optional word, phrase, or clause that describes, qualifies, or defines its head, the constituent that the modifier both modifies and depends on.

Nominal

Nominal sentence

Nonspecific noun

Noun clause

Noun compound

Noun phrase

Number

Object

Optative verb

Ordinal numeral

Participle

Passive

Perfective

Person marker

Phrasal verb

A type of idiomatic verb phrase that consists of a verb and a preposition-turned-particle and forms a semantic unit.