Appendix A: Glossary of Grammatical Terms

This glossary provides definitions of grammatical terms used throughout this guide.

How to Use This Glossary

• Main entries are listed alphabetically by the primary term
• English synonyms are listed in parentheses after the main term
• See references direct you from synonyms to the main entry
• Multilingual translations are provided for each main entry

Alphabetical Entries

A

Ablative

(ablative case)

A case expressing separation, source, means, agent, or location. Present in Latin; absent in Greek (functions absorbed by genitive and dative). English uses prepositions for these meanings: He was killed by the enemy (agent); She cut it with a knife (means); He came from Rome (source).

Accusative

(accusative case; objective case [in English pronouns])

The case of the direct object and the object of certain prepositions (especially those indicating motion toward). In English, visible only in pronouns: She saw him; Give it to me; Whom did you call?

Active Voice

(active)

The voice in which the subject performs the action: The dog bit the man.

Contrast: Passive voice, Middle voice

Adjective

(descriptive word; modifier)

A word that modifies a noun, expressing a quality or attribute: the tall soldier.

See also: Attributive, Predicative

Adverb

A word that modifies a verb, adjective, or other adverb: He ran quickly.

Agent

(doer)

The performer of an action, especially in passive constructions: The letter was written by the secretary.

Agreement

(concord)

The requirement that related words share grammatical features (gender, number, case, person): The boy runs (subject-verb agreement); She likes herself (pronoun-antecedent agreement). In inflected languages, adjectives agree with nouns in gender, number, and case.

Antecedent

The noun or noun phrase to which a pronoun or relative clause refers: The man who came — man is the antecedent of who.

Aorist

(simple past; preterite [Spanish]; passé simple [French])

A past tense viewing the action as a simple, complete event without reference to duration. The default narrative past in Greek; equivalent to the Spanish pretérito indefinido and French passé simple. In English, the simple past (He wrote the letter) has aorist-like function, contrasting with the progressive (He was writing).

Contrast: Imperfect (emphasises duration/repetition)

Apodosis

(then-clause; consequence clause; main clause of conditional)

The main clause in a conditional sentence (the consequence): If it rains, we will stay home.

See: Protasis

Article

(determiner - partial overlap)

A word that marks a noun as definite (the) or indefinite (a, an). Latin has no articles.

Types: Definite article, Indefinite article

Aspect

The grammatical expression of how an action is viewed: as ongoing (imperfective), complete (perfective), or resulting in a state (stative). Compare: I wrote (complete action) vs. I was writing (ongoing action) vs. I have written (completed with present relevance).

See also: Imperfective, Perfective, Progressive

Attributive

(attributive position)

An adjective position directly modifying a noun within a noun phrase: the tall man.

Contrast: Predicative (the man is tall)

Auxiliary Verb

(helping verb)

A “helping” verb used to form compound tenses, passive voice, or other constructions: I have written; She is running; It will happen.

C

Case

(grammatical case)

A grammatical category indicating the function of a noun, pronoun, or adjective in a sentence: I (nominative/subject) vs. me (accusative/object) vs. my/mine (genitive/possessive). Latin, German, and Greek have extensive case systems; English retains case only in pronouns.

Types: Nominative, Accusative, Genitive, Dative, Ablative, Vocative, Locative

Clause

A syntactic unit containing a subject and a finite verb: The cat sat on the mat (one clause); The cat sat on the mat because it was tired (two clauses).

Types: Independent (main) clause, Dependent (subordinate) clause

Comparative

(comparative degree)

The degree of adjectives and adverbs expressing greater quantity: taller, more beautiful.

See also: Positive, Superlative

Complement

(subject complement; object complement)

A word or phrase that completes the meaning of a verb. - Subject complement: She is a doctor. - Object complement: They elected her president.

Compound Tense

(analytic tense; periphrastic tense)

A tense formed with an auxiliary verb + participle: I have written; She was running.

Contrast: Simple tense (synthetic)

Concord

See: Agreement

Conditional

(conditional sentence; conditional mood)

A sentence type or verb form expressing conditions and consequences: If it rains, we will stay home.

See also: Protasis, Apodosis

Conjugation

1. The pattern of inflection for verbs: walk, walks, walked, walking
2. A class of verbs following the same pattern (Latin has 4 conjugations; Spanish and French have 3)

Conjunction

A word that connects words, phrases, or clauses: and, but, because, when.

Types: Coordinating, Subordinating, Correlative

Continuous

See: Progressive

Copula

(linking verb)

A verb that links the subject to a complement rather than expressing action: be, seem, become, appear.

D

Dative

(dative case)

The case of the indirect object (“to/for whom”): I gave him the book = I gave the book to him. Present in Latin, German, and Greek. English uses word order or prepositions to/for instead of case endings.

Declension

1. The pattern of inflection for nouns, pronouns, and adjectives: man, man’s, men, men’s
2. A class of nouns following the same pattern (Latin has 5 declensions; Greek has 3)

Definite Article

See: Article

The word the in English; marks a noun as specific or known.

Demonstrative

(demonstrative pronoun; demonstrative adjective)

A word pointing to a specific referent: this, that, these, those.

Dependent Clause

See: Subordinate Clause

Deponent

A verb with passive (or middle) form but active meaning: Latin sequor (I follow).

Determiner

(specifier)

A word that specifies a noun: articles (the, a), demonstratives (this, that), possessives (my, your), quantifiers (some, many).

Direct Object

See: Object

The entity that directly receives the action of a transitive verb: She wrote a letter.

F

Feminine

See: Gender

Finite Verb

(tensed verb)

A verb form marked for person and number that can serve as the main verb of a clause: writes, wrote.

Contrast: Non-finite (infinitive, participle, gerund)

First Person

See: Person

The speaker: I, we.

Future Tense

The tense expressing action that will occur after the present: I will write tomorrow. English forms the future with auxiliaries; Latin, French, and Spanish have synthetic future forms.

G

Gender

(grammatical gender)

A classification system for nouns that determines agreement patterns. Grammatical gender is often arbitrary: German das Mädchen (the girl) is neuter; French la table (the table) is feminine. English has natural gender only (he/she/it); Latin, German, and Greek have three genders.

Types: Masculine, Feminine, Neuter

Genitive

(genitive case; possessive case)

The case expressing possession and related relationships (“of”). In English: the king’s or of the king.

Gerund

(verbal noun)

A verbal noun. In English, the -ing form used as a noun: Writing is difficult.

Gerundive

(future passive participle)

A Latin verbal adjective expressing necessity: amandus (needing to be loved).

H

Helping Verb

See: Auxiliary Verb

I

Imperative

(imperative mood; command form)

The mood expressing commands: Write!

Imperfect

(imperfect tense; past progressive; past continuous)

A past tense expressing ongoing, repeated, or habitual action: I was writing; I used to write.

Contrast: Aorist/Preterite (completed event)

Imperfective

See: Aspect

Aspect viewing action as ongoing, in progress.

Indefinite Article

See: Article

The words a and an in English; marks a noun as non-specific.

Independent Clause

See: Main Clause

Indicative

(indicative mood)

The mood expressing factual statements and questions: She writes every day; Did he arrive? The indicative is the default mood in all languages.

Indirect Object

See: Object

The recipient or beneficiary of an action: She gave him a book.

Indirect Statement

(reported speech; oratio obliqua)

Reporting what someone said without direct quotation: He said that he would come (vs. direct: He said, “I will come”). Latin uses accusative + infinitive; Greek uses various constructions depending on the main verb.

Infinitive

The basic, unconjugated verb form: to write.

Inflection

(inflexion)

The modification of words by endings to express grammatical categories: walk → walks, walked, walking; I → me, my, mine. Latin, Greek, and German are highly inflected; English relies more on word order and prepositions.

Intransitive

A verb that does not take a direct object: She sleeps.

Contrast: Transitive

L

Linking Verb

See: Copula

Locative

(locative case)

A case expressing location. Vestigial in Latin (domī = at home); merged with other cases in most languages.

M

Main Clause

(independent clause; principal clause)

A clause that can stand alone as a complete sentence: She arrived early, although she was tired — She arrived early is the main clause.

Contrast: Subordinate clause

Masculine

See: Gender

Middle Voice

A Greek voice where the subject acts on or for itself: λούομαι (I wash myself).

Modal Verb

A verb expressing possibility, necessity, permission, or ability: can, must, may, should, will.

Modifier

A word or phrase that describes or limits another word: the tall man (adjective modifies noun); She ran quickly (adverb modifies verb); extremely tall (adverb modifies adjective).

Mood

(mode)

The grammatical expression of the speaker’s attitude toward the action: He writes (indicative — fact); Write! (imperative — command); If he were here… (subjunctive — hypothetical).

Types: Indicative, Subjunctive, Imperative, Optative

N

Neuter

See: Gender

Nominative

(nominative case; subject case)

The case of the subject. In English, visible in pronouns: I (not me), he (not him).

Non-finite

See: Finite Verb

Verb forms not marked for person: infinitives, participles, gerunds.

Noun

(substantive)

A word denoting a person, place, thing, or concept: soldier (person), Rome (place), book (thing), freedom (concept).

Noun Clause

(nominal clause; complement clause)

A clause functioning as a noun (subject, object, or complement): I know that she is coming.

Number

(grammatical number)

The grammatical category distinguishing quantity: book (singular) vs. books (plural). Ancient Greek also had a dual number for pairs.

Types: Singular, Plural, Dual (Greek)

O

Object

(direct object; indirect object)

The recipient of a verb’s action: She wrote a letter (direct object); She gave him a letter (indirect object — the beneficiary).

Objective Case

See: Accusative

The English term for accusative case in pronouns.

Optative

A Greek mood expressing wishes and potential: εἴθε γράφοι (would that he were writing).

P

Paradigm

A complete set of inflected forms for a word, shown in a table: am, is, are, was, were, been, being is part of the paradigm of be.

Parsing

(grammatical analysis; syntactic analysis)

The systematic analysis of a sentence into its grammatical components: identifying The soldier as subject, wrote as verb, a letter as direct object.

Participle

(verbal adjective)

A verbal adjective: the written word; the running water.

Types: Present participle, Past participle, Future participle, Perfect participle

Particle

A small, uninflected word that adds meaning or emphasis but doesn’t fit other categories: indeed, therefore, not. Greek ἄν marks potential or unreal conditions; Latin -ne signals a question.

Passive Voice

(passive)

The voice in which the subject receives the action: The man was bitten by the dog.

Contrast: Active voice

Past Continuous

See: Imperfect

Past Participle

A participle with passive or perfect meaning: written, broken, loved.

Past Perfect

See: Pluperfect

Past Progressive

See: Imperfect

Past Tense

See: Preterite, Imperfect, Perfect, Aorist

Perfect

(perfect tense; present perfect)

A tense expressing completed action, often with present relevance: I have written.

Perfective

See: Aspect

Aspect viewing action as a complete whole.

Person

(grammatical person)

The grammatical category distinguishing speaker (1st: I, we), addressee (2nd: you), and others (3rd: he, she, it, they).

Phrase

A group of words functioning as a single grammatical unit, without a subject + finite verb: the tall soldier (noun phrase); in the garden (prepositional phrase); very quickly (adverb phrase).

Types: Noun phrase (NP), Verb phrase (VP), Adjective phrase (AP), Adverb phrase (AdvP), Prepositional phrase (PP)

Pluperfect

(past perfect)

A tense expressing action completed before another past action: I had written.

Plural

See: Number

More than one.

Positive

(positive degree)

The basic degree of adjectives and adverbs, without comparison: tall (vs. taller, tallest).

Possessive

(possessive case; possessive adjective; possessive pronoun)

Expressing ownership: my, your, his, her, its, our, their, whose; mine, yours, etc.

See also: Genitive

Predicate

The part of a clause that says something about the subject (verb + its complements and modifiers): The soldier wrote a letter in the garden.

Predicate Adjective

See: Predicative

Predicative

(predicate position)

An adjective linked to a noun by a copula verb: The man is tall.

Contrast: Attributive (the tall man)

Preposition

A word that combines with a noun to form a phrase expressing relationships: in, on, with, from.

Present Participle

A participle with active and ongoing meaning: writing, running, coming.

Present Tense

The tense expressing action happening now or as a general truth.

Preterite

(simple past; aorist)

A past tense expressing completed action without reference to the present: He wrote the letter yesterday (vs. He has written which connects to the present). Called passé simple in French, Präteritum in German.

See also: Aorist

Principal Parts

The key verb forms from which all other forms can be derived: English write, wrote, written; Latin has 4 principal parts (scrībō, scrībere, scrīpsī, scrīptum); Greek can have 6.

Progressive

(progressive aspect; continuous)

Aspect expressing ongoing action: I am writing; I was writing.

See also: Imperfective

Pronoun

A word that substitutes for a noun: he, she, it, they, who.

Types: Personal, Demonstrative, Relative, Interrogative, Indefinite, Reflexive, Possessive

Protasis

(if-clause; condition clause)

The subordinate clause in a conditional sentence (the condition): If it rains, we will stay home.

See: Apodosis

R

Reflexive

(reflexive pronoun; reflexive verb)

Referring back to the subject: myself, yourself, himself, herself, itself, ourselves, themselves.

Relative Clause

A clause that modifies a noun, introduced by a relative pronoun: the book which I read.

Relative Pronoun

A pronoun introducing a relative clause: who, whom, whose, which, that.

S

Second Person

See: Person

The addressee: you.

Sentence

A complete utterance consisting of one or more clauses: The cat sat. (simple); The cat sat and the dog barked. (compound); The cat sat because it was tired. (complex).

Types: Simple, Compound, Complex, Compound-complex

Simple Past

See: Preterite, Aorist

Singular

See: Number

One.

Stative

See: Aspect

Aspect viewing action as a resulting state: I have written (it’s done and the result stands).

Subject

The noun or pronoun performing the action or being described: The soldier wrote a letter; She is happy.

Subject Complement

See: Complement

Subjunctive

(subjunctive mood)

A mood expressing wish, possibility, doubt, or purpose: If I were rich…

Subordinate Clause

(dependent clause)

A clause that cannot stand alone; it depends on a main clause: …because he was tired.

Types: Adverbial, Relative, Noun clause

Substantive

See: Noun

Superlative

(superlative degree)

The degree expressing the greatest quantity: tallest, most beautiful.

Syntax

The rules governing how words combine to form phrases, clauses, and sentences: English requires subject-verb-object order (She wrote the letter); Latin allows freer word order because case endings show function.

T

Tense

The grammatical expression of time: I write (present), I wrote (past), I will write (future). Some languages have more tenses; English uses auxiliaries to create compound tenses.

Third Person

See: Person

Others (not speaker or addressee): he, she, it, they.

Transitive

A verb that takes a direct object: She wrote a letter.

Contrast: Intransitive

V

Verb

A word expressing an action or state: write (action), be (state), seem (state).

Vocative

(vocative case)

The case of direct address: O Marce! (O Marcus!)

Voice

The grammatical expression of the relationship between subject and action: The dog bit the man (active — subject acts); The man was bitten by the dog (passive — subject receives action). Greek also has a middle voice for actions affecting oneself.

Types: Active, Passive, Middle

Reverse Lookup: English Synonyms

Previous: Chapter 7: Parsing Complex Sentences

Next: Appendix B: Language Summaries