English Language Terms

Description

Some terms needed for English Lang exam
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Flashcards by ekimlauretta, updated more than 1 year ago
ekimlauretta
Created by ekimlauretta almost 10 years ago
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Resource summary

Question Answer
"The graceful swan" - what is this an example of? Pre-modified noun phrase
What does the term 'pleonasm' mean? Using excess words for clear meaning ("burning fire" for example). Can be used as a literary effect!
Antonym The opposite of another word (antagonist is the antonym to protagonist)
Synonym Same or similar meaning to another word eg. buy and purchase
Polyseme A word that has a different BUT related meaning to another eg. "man" can refer to the human species (man vs animal), the male of human species (man vs female) or the adult male of the human species (man vs boy)
Auxiliary verb "Helping verbs" that are used to add functional or grammatical meaning to the clause (expressing tense, aspect, modality, voice, emphasis)
Give examples of modal auxiliaries can, could, may, might, must, should, would, could, will, shall etc
Name the FIVE clause elements subject, verb, object, complement, adverbial
How can you tell that "Jane appeared tired" is a subject-verb-complement? It has a copular (linking) verb! "To appear". There are only a few copular verbs, some include: to be, to seem, to become, to appear
Anaphoric reference A reference that refers back to something in the text e.g. "as stated previously"
Cataphoric reference These are references to the future eg. "Here comes our award winning host... it's John Doe!
Collocation Two or more words that often go together. The combinations are natural to NATIVE SPEAKERS OF THE LANGUAGE. eg. "tall, dark and handsome" "fish and chips" "fast food" are examples
Connotations Emotional/cultural associations which some word carries. Can be negative or positive.
What is a creole? A language that has been mixed by two parent languages and becomes native to the speaker. They come from colonised areas and are based on the nearest language + English/Portuguese/Spanish/French
Comparative adjective Compares two noun Eg. "better" "older" "bigger"
Superlative adjective "Best" "Poorest" etc
Complex sentence Are made up of an independent AND (at least one) dependent clause
Compound sentence Two independent clauses joined by a coordinating conjunction
Contractions "I've", "I'll" etc "can't", "couldn't" and "isn't" are negative contractions
Name the three types of determiners Articles, demonstrative and possessive
Disjunct An adverb that expresses the writer's attitude eg. "unfortunately" "honestly"
Dysphemism Purposely being vulgar to shock or offend eg. "I'm going for a piss" rather than "Excuse me for a moment"
Ellipsis One or more grammatical elements have been omitted eg. "Catch you later" rather than "I'll catch you later"
Euphemism Words or phrases used to refer to taboo topics (sex, death, excretion) in a polite way. Eg. "He kicked the bucket"
Finite verbs A verb that has tense, number and subject. "I live in Germany"
Non-finite verb A verb that has no subject, tense or number. Often the infinitive, or past/present participles
Idioms/Idiomatic expressions - A phrase that has a figurative meaning, rather than a literal meaning. - Often cultural based. - Some are more "transparent" than others
Direct object (used in transitive constructions) Come straight after the verb and answers the questions "Who?" or "What?"
Types of morphemes Free and bound
Minor sentence Do not have a verb but still make sense. "What time is it?" (Simple) "Three." (Minor)
Pronoun Substitutes for a noun/noun phrase. Instead of "Emily went shopping. Emily bought a dog. Emily called the dog Mary." --> "Emily went shopping. SHE bought a dog. SHE called IT Mary."
Possessive pronoun My, mine, his, hers, your, yours, their, its
Demonstrative pronoun this, that, these, those
Personal I, you, he, she, we, it, you, you (pl), them
Antithesis Two opposites introduced in the same sentence for contrasting effect
Irony The use of words to convey a meaning opposite of its literal meaning
Personification Where a non-living object has been given human qualities eg. "The chair danced"
Metaphor Figure of speech that says one thing is another thing
Repetition Repeating a word or phrase
Anaphora A word or phrase is repeated at the beginning of neighbouring sentences
Traductio A word is repeated, but scattered throughout the text
Tripling/Rule of three/Triadic list Common repetition technique. A list of three eg. "Tall, dark and handsome" "She was sent to inspire, educate and entertain me"
Declarative sentence mood A statement. Often ending with a period (.)
Exclamatory mood A sentence usually ending in an exclamation mark (!) "That was so silly!"
Imperative mood A command/order "Shut the door."
Interrogative mood A question. "Who are you?"
Sub-ordinate clause A dependent clause that relies on another clause to make sense. They cannot stand on their own.
Relative clause A type of subordinate clause. "Jay, who owned a cat, lived on a farm." Often have who, that, which
Intransitive verb Does not need an object for it to be grammatically correct. "We arrived at the bookshop" "At the bookshop" is an adverb, not an object
Transitive verb Need an object to make it grammatically correct. "The shelf held three books." "The shelf held" does not make sense on its own and thus needs "three books" (a direct object)
Name the types of nouns Common, proper, abstract, concrete and collective
What type of noun is "dog"? Common
What type of noun is "Mr. Mosby"? Proper noun
What type of noun is "happy"? Abstract
What are these? "A lodge of beavers" "A tribe of monkeys" "A bed of oysters" Collective nouns
Dynamic verbs Verbs that are about moving and physically doing them eg. "dance" "shook"
Stative verbs Verbs which are about thought processes such as "love" or "deserve"
Adverbs Modify verbs and end in -ly
Adjective Modify a noun and are descriptive
Prepositions "on", "about", "under" etc
Conjuctions Also known as connectives - connect clauses. "And", "because", "however" etc
Interjections Mostly found in dialogue. "Oh!" is an example
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