Glossary

Adjective

A word that gives more information about a noun.
e.g., brown, lovely, short, proven, soft, annoying.

Adverb

A word that gives more information about a word other than a noun.
e.g., quietly, then, slowly, deeply, there, most words which end with ‘ly’.

Articulation

The orchestrated movement and positioning of the mouth and vocal organs required to produce intelligible speech.

Auxiliary

A type of verb which is used to ‘help’ a participle or the infinitive of another verb to form a compound tense.
e.g., would, can, might.

Cardinal

Standard numbering.
e.g., 1, 2, 3 (See Ordinal).

Compound

A type of verb tense which is made up of more than one word, and is formed using one or more auxiliary verbs.
e.g., had been, would have gone, could do.

Conditional

The name of a mood in which the tenses require a condition to be met for the action of the verb to occur.

Conjugation

Lit. ‘Joining Together’. In grammar, this word is used to refer to the act of joining different endings to the stem of a verb, or to differentiate the different endings of the infinitive forms of verbs.
eg. In Portuguese, ‘ar’ verbs are ‘first conjugation’; ‘er’ and ‘or’ verbs are ‘second conjugation’, and ‘ir’ verbs are ‘third conjugation’.

Definite Article

The.

Diacritic; Diacritical Mark

An extra symbol that is placed above or below a letter to modify the pronunciation or clarify the meaning of a word.

Diphthong

A pair of vowels which is pronounced as a single syllable.

Gerund

See Present Participle.

Imperative

The name of a mood and its tense in which the verb is issued as a command or request.

Imperfect Indicative

The tense which deals with actions that took place in the past, but were ongoing for a period of time and where the time of completion of the action is not specified.
e.g., I was running, we were thinking, they were going, he was walking.

Impersonal

Not relating to a ‘person’ (in the grammatical sense – see ‘person’).

Impersonal Infinitive

The basic form of a verb from which all other forms and tenses are derived. Usually simply referred to as ‘the infinitive’.

Indefinite Article

A, an, some.

Indicative

The name of a mood in which all of the tenses imply certainty of action.

Infinitive

The basic form of a verb from which all other forms and tenses are derived (also known as the impersonal infinitive). Also the name of a mood which contains the personal and impersonal infinitive tenses.

Irregular Verb

A verb which does not follow standard rules for conjugation.

Mood

The category to which one or more tenses belong. All tenses that are categorized according to the same mood have certain characteristics in common.
e.g. all tenses that belong to the ‘subjunctive’ mood, carry some degree of uncertainty.

Noun

The name of an object, concept, or entity.
e.g., (a) walk, house, microphone, concept, thinker, proposition, (an) attack.

Noun Phrase

A noun, along with one or more modifiying words, which could be represented by a single pronoun.
e.g., world champion, guiding principle, baseball cap.

Ordinal

Numbering according to order.
e.g., 1^st, 2^nd, 3^rd (See Cardinal).

Object

The person or thing having the verb ‘done’ to/for/on them (whom).

Participle

A word which is formed from a verb, but can be used as an adjective, or noun.

Past Participle

A word formed from a verb which can be used as an adjective or in a compound verb tense to provide a description or describe a completed action – usually formed by adding the letters ‘ed’  to the stem of a verb in English.

Past Tense

See Preterite Indicative.

Person

In grammar, this word is used to denote the party or parties who perform the action denoted by a verb.
i.e. first person = I/we
second person = you
third person = he/she/it/they.

Preposition

A word or group of words which place a noun or noun phrase in space or time.

e.g., in, at, on, in front of, with reference to.

Present Indicative

The tense which deals with actions being performed at the present time – either directly or as a general rule.
e.g., I run, we think, they go, he walks.

Present Participle

A word formed from a verb which can be used as an adjective or in a compound verb tense to provide a current or ongoing description – always derived by adding the letters ‘ing’ to the stem of a verb in English. Also known as the ‘gerund’.

Present Tense

See Present Indicative.

Preterite Indicative

The tense which deals with actions that were performed directly in the past.
e.g., I ran, we thought, they went, he walked.

Pronoun

A small word to replace a noun – usually to avoid repetition.

e.g., you, him, them, it, she, thou.

Proper Noun

An abstract name assignment.

e.g., Fred, Emily, Paris, Brazil.

Radical Changing

A type of verb whose stem can change in spelling or pronunciation, depending on person, plurality, or tense.

Reflexive

Causing the subject and object to refer to the same individual.

Regular Verb

A verb which follows standard rules for conjugation.

Simple

A grammatical feature which is made up of a single word.

Stem

The part of the basic form of a verb which characterizes all of its forms, and usually does not change in spelling or pronunciation (see ‘radical-changing’).

Subject

The person or thing ‘doing’ the verb (who).

Subjunctive

The name of a mood in which all of the tenses carry some degree of uncertainty.

Tense

The placement of a verb in time or circumstance.

Triphthong

A group of 3 vowels which are pronounced together as a single syllable.

Verb

A word denoting an action or process being carried out.

e.g., to walk, to think, to love, to work, to go, to be.