Grammatical Terminology

Start with key terms

Begin with The grammar of English, a flashcard deck covering terms such as morpheme, word, phrase and clause. Work through the cards and try to explain each term before checking it. Then return to any terms you find hard to distinguish.

The Grammar deck offers another route through terminology, with cards on topics including the subjunctive mood, action verbs, antecedents and conjunctions. You can use it to practice a different selection of terms after the first deck.

See how concepts connect

Move from the flashcards to a mind map titled Grammatical Metalanguage. The maps with this title cover grammatical criteria and parts of speech; one also shows subsentential, sentential and suprasentential levels of grammar. Compare the terms you practiced with the way they appear in a map.

Another map on classes of units covers words, morphemes, groups and clauses. It includes finite and non-finite clauses and independent and dependent clauses. Use its branches to organize terms that you have met in the flashcards.

Practice without a quiz

This topic page has no quizzes. The flashcards and maps can still be used together: study a group of cards, look for related ideas in a map, then return to the cards and explain the connections in your own words. Focus on a few terms at a time rather than trying to cover every resource at once.

Use the topic within the unit

Grammatical Terminology is a section of Syntax and Grammar in Linguistics and philology. The terminology resources give you a way to work with language used in the unit, from parts of speech to classes of clauses. Choose a deck or map that matches the terms you want to practice.