Grammar and Punctuation Terms
Adjective: Changes nouns. It describes the quality, state or action that a noun refers to.
i) Adjectives can come before nouns: a new bike.
ii) Adjectives can come after verb: (be, become, seem, look, etc) that car looks fast.
iii) They can be modified by adverbs: a very expensive car.
iv) They can be used as complements to a noun: the extras make the car expensive.
Adverbs: Most adverbs in English are formed by adding -ly to an adjective. An adverb is a
word that modifies the meaning of a verb, an adjective, another adverb or a noun.
i) Adjectives ending -l still take -ly; careful-carefully.
ii) Adjectives ending -y change to -ily; lucky-luckily.
iii) Adjectives ending -ble change to -bly; responsible-responsibly.
Capital Letters: In writing, letters can be written two ways; T or t, for instance. T is a capital letter, or
upper case, and t is lower case. Capital letters are used at the beginning of a Sentence and for a Proper
Noun. A proper noun is a noun which refers to a specific thing. For example: people, person,
those people, that person, etc., are all common nouns. A proper noun would refer to a
specific person, such as Ryan, Kylie, Dr Halloway, etc.
Clause: Part of a sentence that usually contains a subject and a verb. It is usually connected
to the other part of the sentence by a conjunction. It is not a complete sentence on its own.
Conjunctions: A word like AND, BUT, WHEN, OR, etc., which connects words, phrases
and clauses.
Consonant: B;C;D;F;G;H;J;K;L;M;N;P;Q;R;S;T;V;W;X;Z are the English consonants. A consonant is a
sound formed by stopping the air flowing through the mouth. The opposite is a vowel.
Determiners: A determiner is used with a noun and restricts the meaning by limiting the
reference of the noun.
Euphemism: A euphemism is when you substitute language that is less direct and vague for
another that is considered to be harsh, blunt, or offensive.
Grammar: A description of the rules of the structure of a language; the way words combine,
the order they come in, the way they change according to their relationship to other words
and how they build up into units like a sentence.
Homophones: Words that are spelled differently but sound the same.
Metonymy: A word or phrase that is used to represent something it is closely associated
with.
Noun: A word used to refer to people, animals, objects, substances, states, events, feelings
or any nameable things.
Onomatopoeia: A word which imitates the sound it represents, such as bang, whoosh or
crack.
Oxymoron: Combining two terms that are normally contradictory.
Palindrome: A word or phrase that is spelled the same way forwards or backwards.
Phrase: A group of words that go together, but do not make a complete sentence.
Prefixes: Groups of letters that can be placed before a word to modify its meaning.
Pronoun: A word that substitutes a noun or noun phrase with a generalising term (e.g. it,
these, that, those, each, you, her etc.).
Punctuation: The symbols used in written language to indicate the end of or the type of a
sentence or a clause.
Sentence: A group of words beginning with a capital letter and ending with a full-stop,
exclamation or question mark in written language, containing a verb.
Tense: Used to show the relation between the action or state described by the verb and the
time, which is reflected in the form of the verb.
Verb: One of the major grammatical groups, and all sentences must contain one. Verbs refer
to an action or a state.
Vowel: A;E;I;O;U are the English vowels. A vowel is a sound made by pushing air out
through the mouth. Y is sometimes used as a vowel. The opposite is a consonant.
Zeugma: A word used to link two words or phrases.