DESCRIBING LANGUAGE AND LANGUAGE SKILLS
Part of speech
A way of categorising words according to their grammatical function and meaning, e.g. noun, verb, adjective, pronoun, adverb, preposition, conjunction.
Pronoun
A word that replaces or refers to a noun or noun phrase just mentioned.
A demonstrative pronoun is a word which refers to a noun (phrase) and shows whether it is near or far from the speaker, e.g. this, that, these, those.
An object pronoun is a word which replaces an object noun or an object noun phrase, e.g. him, her.
Personal pronouns are words, which are used instead of the name of a person, e.g. I (subject pronoun), me (object pronoun).
Possessive pronouns are used to replace a noun and shows something belongs to someone, e.g. the house is mine.
A reflexive pronoun is used when the object of a sentence refers to the same person or thing as the subject of the sentence, e.g. He cut himself.
A relative pronoun introduces a relative clause, e.g. the book which I’m reading is interesting.
Adverb
An adverb describes or gives more information about how, when, where, or to what degree etc something is done, e.g. he worked quickly and well.
Adverbial
A word, phrase or clause acting as an adverb e.g. in the sentence She cut the paper as carefully as she could, the underlined part is an adverbial.
Noun
A person, place or thing, e.g. elephant, girl, grass, school.
A collective noun is a noun that refers to a group of people or things, e.g. the police, the government.
A common noun is a noun that is not the name of a particular person, place or thing, e.g. table, book.
A compound noun is a combination of two or more words, which are used as a single word, e.g. a flower shop, a headache.
A countable noun has a singular and plural form, e.g. book books.
A plural noun is more than one person, place or thing and can be regular or irregular, e.g. boys, women.
A proper noun is the name of a person or place, e.g. Robert, London.
An uncountable noun does not have a plural form, e.g. information.
Noun phrase A single word or a group of words that act as the subject, object or complement in a sentence or utterance. It usually contains a noun and words occurring before or after the noun that modify it, e.g. in the sentence ‘The tall shy-looking girl on the right is my sister.’ the underlined words make up noun phrases.
Adjective
An adjective describes or gives more information about a noun or pronoun, e.g. a cold day. A comparative adjective compares two things, e.g. He is taller than she is.
A demonstrative adjective shows whether something is near or far from the speaker, e.g. this (near), that (far).
An -ing/-ed adjective describes things or feelings. An -ing adjective describes things or people, e.g. The book is very interesting. An -ed adjective describes feelings, e.g. I am very interested in the book.
A possessive adjective shows who something belongs to, e.g. my, our.
A superlative adjective compares more than two things, e.g. He is the tallest boy in the class.
Gradable/ungradable A gradable adjective or adverb can be measured in degrees. Non-gradable adjectives or adverbs cannot be. Examples of gradable adjectives are ‘exciting, solid, interesting’. They can be qualified by words such as more, rather, quite which show degree. Examples of ungradable adjectives are ‘perfect, alive, salaried’.
Determiner
A determiner is used to make clear which noun is referred to, or to give information about quantity, and includes words such as the, a, this, that, my, some, e.g. That car is mine.
Preposition
A word used before a noun, pronoun or gerund to connect it to another word, e.g. He was in the garden.
Article
An article can be definite (the), indefinite (a/an) or zero (–), e.g. I was at (-) home in the sitting room when I heard a noise.
Conjunction (also known as connecotr)
A conjunction (or connector) is used to connect words, phrases, clauses or sentences, e.g. I like tea but I don’t like coffee because it’s too strong for me.
Co-ordinating conjunction. Conjunctions which link two main clauses or two other grammatical units which have the same grammatical status. ‘and’ and ‘but’ are examples of co-ordinating conjunctions e.g. He was keen but lazy; He played football and tennis.
Subordinating conjunction A conjunction that links a main clause with a subordinate clause e.g. though, while, because.
Verb
A word used to show an action, state, event or process, e.g. I like cheese; He speaks Italian.
An auxiliary verb is a verb used with other verbs to make questions, negatives, tenses, etc. e.g. be, do, have.
A modal verb is a verb used with other verbs to show ideas such as ability or obligation or possibility. They include can, must, will, should, e.g. I can speak French, but I should study even harder.
Semi-modal A verb that has a modal meaning but does not have all the grammatical features of modal verbs. Examples of semi-modals are ought to, be able to, used to.
The base form of a verb is the infinitive form of a verb without ‘to’, e.g. go.
The infinitive form is the base form of a verb with ‘to’. It is used after another verb, after an adjective or noun or as the subject or object of a sentence, e.g. ‘I want to study.’, ‘It’s difficult to understand.’
An irregular verb does not follow the same pattern as regular verbs. Each irregular verb has its own way of forming the past simple and past participle, e.g. go– went (past simple)gone (past participle).
A regular verb changes its forms by adding -ed in the past simple and past participle, e.g. walk – walked.
A reporting verb is a verb such as tell, advise, suggest used in reported speech to report what someone has said, e.g. Jane advised John to study harder.
Dynamic verbs (some authors call them action verbs) Verbs referring to actions, events or bodily sensations and that express some kind of action. They can be used in the progressive/continuous form e.g. His leg is hurting him; They’re eating their supper; It’s changing shape.
State (stative) verbs Verbs which describe a state or situation rather than an action. They tend not to be used in the progressive/ continuous e.g. to want, to contain.
Verbs of perception Verbs related to the senses or emotions, e.g. hear, see, smell, taste, feel. These verbs follow distinctive grammatical patterns.
Finite verb A part of the verb which shows time or person e.g. in the sentence ‘He goes away, laughing, ‘goes’ shows time and person whereas ‘laughing’ shows neither. See non-finite verb.
Non-finite verb A part of the verb which does not show time or person, e.g. the infinitive (He needed to have a holiday), the present participle (Not understanding the question, he gave the wrong answer). See finite verb.
Verb phrase The part of a sentence containing a main verb and any other verbs that qualify it, e.g. He must have heard me; Those fantastic things couldn’t have been made by machine.
A multiword verb is made up of a verb and one or more particles (adverbs and/or prepositions). The meaning of a multiword verb is not the same as the meaning of the individual verbs and participles that make it. One multiword verb may have more than one meaning, e.g. Get your coat on and then we can leave (wear), How are you getting on with that job (progressing). See: phrasal verb.
A phrasal verb is a type of multiword verb which is made up of a verb + an adverb particle, e.g. look after – A mother looks after her children. See: multiword verb.
Phrasal verbs are very common in English, especially in more informal contexts. They are made up of a verb and a particle or, sometimes, two particles. The particle often changes the meaning of the verb.
I called Jen to see how she was. (call = to telephone)
They’ve called off the meeting. (call off = to cancel)
In terms of word order, there are two main types of phrasal verb: separable and inseparable.
Separable phrasal verb A phrasal verb in which the particle can be separated from the verb, e.g. He looked up a word. / He looked a word up. See phrasal verb. With separable phrasal verbs, the verb and particle can be apart or together.
They’ve called the meeting off.
OR
They’ve called off the meeting.
However, separable phrasal verbs must be separated when you use a personal pronoun.
The meeting? They’ve called it off.
Here are some common separable phrasal verbs:
I didn’t want to bring the situation up at the meeting.
(bring up = start talking about a particular subject)Please can you fill this form in?
(fill in = write information in a form or document)I’ll pick you up from the station at 8 p.m.
(pick up = collect someone in a car or other vehicle to take them somewhere)She turned the job down because she didn’t want to move to Glasgow.
(turn down = to not accept an offer)
Some phrasal verbs cannot be separated.
Who looks after the baby when you’re at work?
Even when there is a personal pronoun, the verb and particle remain together.
Who looks after her when you’re at work?
Here are some common non-separable phrasal verbs:
I came across your email when I was clearing my inbox.
(come across = to find something by chance)The caterpillar turned into a beautiful butterfly.
(turn into = become)It was quite a major operation. It took months to get over it and feel normal again.
(get over = recover from something)We are aware of the problem and we are looking into it.
(look into = investigate)
Some multi-word verbs are inseparable simply because they don’t take an object.
I get up at 7 a.m.
Phrasal verbs with two particles are also inseparable. Even if you use a personal pronoun, you put it after the particles.
Who came up with that idea?
(come up with = think of an idea or plan)Let’s get rid of these old magazines to make more space.
(get rid of = remove or become free of something that you don’t want)I didn’t really get on with my stepbrother when I was a teenager.
(get on with = like and be friendly towards someone)Can you hear that noise all the time? I don’t know how you put up with it.
(put up with = tolerate something difficult or annoying)The concert’s on Friday. I’m really looking forward to it.
Despite you WON’T be asked to know the phrasal verbs. We want to share with you a list and their meaning (Phrasal Verbs Activity Book). There is a hard copy of the original book in Aprende ID’s library for you in case you want to study them.
(look forward to = be happy and excited about something that is going to happen)
Verb pattern The form of the words following the verb, e.g. He advised me to get there early. (advise + object pronoun + to + base form).
Tense
A form of the verb that shows whether something happens in the past, present or future.
Future with going to
I’m going to visit my aunt on Sunday. It’s going to rain.
Future with present continuous (also known as present progressive)
He is meeting John for dinner at eight tomorrow.
Future with present simple
The plane leaves at 9.00 next Saturday.
Future with will or shall
I’ll help with the cleaning. It will be lovely and sunny tomorrow
Past continuous (also known as past progressive)
I was watching TV all evening.
Past perfect continuous (also known as past perfect progressive)
I had been studying for three hours so I felt tired.
Past perfect simple
After I had phoned Mary, I went out.
Past simple
I went on holiday to France last year.
Present continuous (also known as present progressive)
I am working in London now.
Present perfect continuous (also known as present perfect progressive)
I have been studying for three years.
Present perfect simple
I have known him for a long time.
Present simple
He drives to work every day.
We highly recommend you to ask for the diagnostic test on Grammar structures or to buy English Grammar In Use with Answers and CD ROM: A Self-study Reference and Practice Book for Intermediate Students of English. There are at least two hard copies of the original book in Aprende ID’s library for you to use it.