“Language Arts Terms & Definitions”
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Subject of a Sentence: the person/thing doing the action of the sentence; the subject of the sentence is either a
noun or pronoun
Noun: a person, place, or thing
Proper Noun: a specific person, place, or thing – capitalized
Common Noun: a general person, place, or thing – NOT capitalized
Pronoun: a word that takes the place of (or replaces) a noun; these are specific words such as “he”, “she”, “it”,
“they”, etc. (See your “Pronoun” notes for more information and a long list of pronouns). The only “PROPER
PRONOUN” (must be capitalized all the time) is the word “I”.
Verb: the action of the sentence; it is what the subject is doing. A fancy word for “verb” is “predicate”.
Regular verb: a verb where its past tense ends in the letters “ed”
Irregular verb: a verb where its past tense DOESN’T end in “ed”
Present tense: an action that is currently happening
Past tense: an action that has already happened
Past participle tense: a verb tense where “has”, “have”, or “had” comes before the main action verb
(“has jumped”, etc.)
Future tense: a verb tense that describes what will happen eventually
Helping verb: a verb that is not an action but “helps” (is connected with) an action verb in a sentence
(ex: Jeremy is jumping. “Is” = helping verb)
Linking verb: a helping verb all by itself as the only verb in a sentence; its
purpose is to link a subject to the quality (usually an adjective)
the subject takes on or is (ex: Stacey is tired. “Is” = linking
verb; it tells us what quality adjective that Stacey is)
Conjunction: a linking or connecting word (and, but, or, so, yet)
Adjective: a word that describes (modifies) a noun; it’s a description of the characteristics of a noun (thing) – ex:
a tall boy - Answers the questions: Which one? What kind? How many? Colors and numbers are usually also
adjectives in most cases.
 Be sure to separate a list of adjectives with a comma! (except for after the ARTICLE ADJECTIVES of
“a”, “an”, “the”).
 NEVER, EVER put a comma after the last adjective immediately before a noun (Ex: “A tall, swift, boy
fell to the ground.”)
 Proper Adjective: an adjective that MUST be capitalized (Swiss cheese, Chinese food)
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Interjection: a nonsense word/phrase or sound that is usually followed by a comma or an exclamation point
(“Woohoo!” Or “Holy smokes!”)
8. Preposition: a word that links objects to other nouns and pronouns (typically describes more detail); a
prepositional phrase is a group of words that begins with a preposition and ends with either a noun or pronoun
and this phrase just gives more detail about the subject and action of a sentence (The boy flew across the room.).
Think of a “cloud” when forming prepositional phrases.
9. Adverb: a word that describes either a verb, an adjective, or another adverb; it will answer either
“How?”, “When?”, “Where?”, or “How often?” about the word it describes. Typically
adverbs end in the letters “ly”, but not all “ly” words are adverbs.
(Example: “Yesterday, a bird ate its worms swiftly and quickly.”)
10. Contraction: A contraction is the use of two words combined together with an apostrophe; the
apostrophe also indicates that a letter or more is being left out. Examples include
“don’t” (“do not”), “couldn’t” (“could not”), etc. ONE EXCEPTION: “can’t” is
from the two words “can” & “not”, but it is only one word (“cannot”).
11. Abbreviation: A word that is shortened from its original form and has a period after it.
Examples of this include the following: “Dr.” for “Doctor”, “Mr.” for “Mister”,
“St.” for “Street”, etc.
12. Vowel: A letter that is one of the following: “A”, “E”, “I”, “O”, or “U”
13. Consonant: A letter that is NOT one of the five (5) vowels (“A”, “E”, “I”, “O”, or “U”)
14. Double Negative: This is where a sentence includes two (2) forms of the word “NO” in it; this is
NOT allowed (it’s improper).
 To avoid/fix this problem, a writer must do one of the following:
a. Change one of the negatives to a positive (example: “I do not want no candy.” This should be, “I
do not want any candy.”)
b. Delete (take out/get rid of) one of the negatives completely (example: “I do not want any candy.”
This could be, “I want no candy.” It could also be, “I do not want candy.”)
 Words such as “barely”, “hardly”, & “rarely” are considered “negatives” when putting sentences
together. (example: “I could not hardly move.” Wrong. It should be, “I could hardly move.”) With this
kind of sentence, the best way to change it is by GETTING rid of the “true” negative (“not”).