Grammar Vocabulary

This is a short list of grammar terms and definitions. We have a longer list of grammar terms here.

active voice
In the active voice, the subject of the verb does the action (e.g. They killed the President). See also Passive Voice.

adjective
A word like big, red, easy, French etc. An adjective describes a noun or pronoun.

adverb
A word like slowly, quietly, well, often etc. An adverb modifies a verb.

article
The "indefinite" articles are a and an. The "definite article" is the.

auxiliary verb
A verb that is used with a main verb. Be, do and have are auxiliary verbs. Can, may, must etc are modal auxiliary verbs.

clause
A group of words containing a subject and its verb (for example: It was late when he arrived).

conjunction
A word used to connect words, phrases and clauses (for example: and, but, if).

infinitive
The basic form of a verb as in to work or work.

interjection
An exclamation inserted into an utterance without grammatical connection (for example: oh!, ah!, ouch!, well!).

modal verb
An auxiliary verb like can, may, must etc that modifies the main verb and expresses possibility, probability etc. It is also called "modal auxiliary verb".

noun
A word like table, dog, teacher, America etc. A noun is the name of an object, concept, person or place. A "concrete noun" is something you can see or touch like a person or car. An "abstract noun" is something that you cannot see or touch like a decision or happiness. A "countable noun" is something that you can count (for example: bottle, song, dollar). An "uncountable noun" is something that you cannot count (for example: water, music, money).

object
In the active voice, a noun or its equivalent that receives the action of the verb. In the passive voice, a noun or its equivalent that does the action of the verb.

participle
The -ing and -ed forms of verbs. The -ing form is called the "present participle". The -ed form is called the "past participle" (for irregular verbs, this is column 3).

part of speech
One of the eight classes of word in English - noun, verb, adjective, adverb, pronoun, preposition, conjunction and interjection.

passive voice
In the passive voice, the subject receives the action of the verb (e.g. The President was killed). See also Active Voice.

phrase
A group of words not containing a subject and its verb (e.g. on the table, the girl in a red dress).

predicate
Each sentence contains (or implies) two parts: a subject and a predicate. The predicate is what is said about the subject.

preposition
A word like at, to, in, over etc. Prepositions usually come before a noun and give information about things like time, place and direction.

pronoun
A word like I, me, you, he, him, it etc. A pronoun replaces a noun.

sentence
A group of words that express a thought. A sentence conveys a statement, question, exclamation or command. A sentence contains or implies a subject and a predicate. In simple terms, a sentence must contain a verb and (usually) a subject. A sentence starts with a capital letter and ends with a full stop (.), question mark (?) or exclamation mark (!).

subject
Every sentence contains (or implies) two parts: a subject and a predicate. The subject is the main noun (or equivalent) in a sentence about which something is said.

tense
The form of a verb that shows us when the action or state happens (past, present or future). Note that the name of a tense is not always a guide to when the action happens. The "present continuous tense", for example, can be used to talk about the present or the future.

verb
A word like (to) work, (to) love, (to) begin. A verb describes an action or state.

 

Universal Grammar

universal grammar (UG) (noun): a theory in linguistics usually credited to Noam Chomsky that suggests that the ability to learn grammar is built into the human brain from birth regardless of language

In the 1960s, linguists became interested in a new theory about grammar, or the laws of language. The theory was popularized by an American linguist named Noam Chomsky who often focused on the effortless language learning of young children.

Chomsky didn’t believe that exposure to a language was enough for a young child to become efficient at understanding and producing a language. He believed that humans are born with an innate ability to learn languages. According to Chomsky’s theory, the basic structures of language are already encoded in the human brain at birth.

This “universal grammar theory” suggests that every language has some of the same laws. For example, every language has a way to ask a question or make something negative. In addition, every language has a way to identify gender or show that something happened in the past or present.

If the basic grammar laws are the same for all languages, a child needs only to follow the particular set of rules that his peers follow in order to understand and produce their native language. In other words, his environment determines which language he will use, but he is born with the tools to learn any language effectively.

Written for EnglishClub by: Tara Benwell

 

Parts of Speech

What is a Part of Speech?

We can categorize English words into 9 basic types called "parts of speech" or "word classes". It's quite important to recognize parts of speech. This helps you to analyze sentences and understand them. It also helps you to construct good sentences.

• Parts of Speech Table
• Parts of Speech Examples
• Parts of Speech Quiz

Parts of Speech Table

This is a summary of the 9 parts of speech*. You can find more detail if you click on each part of speech.

part of speech	function or "job"	example words	example sentences
Verb	action or state	(to) be, have, do, like, work, sing, can, must	EnglishClub is a website. I like EnglishClub.
Noun	thing or person	pen, dog, work, music, town, London, teacher, John	This is my dog. He lives in my house. We live in London.
Adjective	describes a noun	good, big, red, well, interesting	My dogs are big. I like big dogs.
Determiner	limits or "determines" a noun	a/an, the, 2, some, many	I have two dogs and some rabbits.
Adverb	describes a verb, adjective or adverb	quickly, silently, well, badly, very, really	My dog eats quickly. When he is very hungry, he eats really quickly.
Pronoun	replaces a noun	I, you, he, she, some	Tara is Indian. She is beautiful.
Preposition	links a noun to another word	to, at, after, on, but	We went to school on Monday.
Conjunction	joins clauses or sentences or words	and, but, when	I like dogs and I like cats. I like cats and dogs. I like dogs but I don't like cats.
Interjection	short exclamation, sometimes inserted into a sentence	oh!, ouch!, hi!, well	Ouch! That hurts! Hi! How are you? Well, I don't know.

 

20 Grammar Rules

Here are 20 simple rules and tips to help you avoid mistakes in English grammar. For more comprehensive rules please look under the appropriate topic (part of speech etc) on our grammar and other pages.

1. A sentence starts with a capital letter and ends with a period/full stop, a question mark or an exclamation mark. see Punctuation

• The fat cat sat on the mat.
• Where do you live?
• My dog is very clever!

2. The order of a basic positive sentence is Subject-Verb-Object. (Negative and question sentences may have a different order.)

• John loves Mary.
• They were driving their car to Bangkok.

3. Every sentence must have a subject and a verb. An object is optional. Note that an imperative sentence may have a verb only, but the subject is understood.

• John teaches.
• John teaches English.
• Stop! (i.e. You stop!)

4. The subject and verb must agree in number. A singular subject needs a singular verb; and a plural subject needs a plural verb.

• John works in London.
• That monk eats once a day.
• John and Mary work in London.
• Most people eat three meals a day.

5. When two singular subjects are connected by or, use a singular verb. The same is true for either/or and neither/nor.

• John or Mary is coming tonight.
• Either coffee or tea is fine.
• Neither John nor Mary was late.

6. Adjectives usually come before a noun (except when a verb separates the adjective from the noun).

• I have a big dog.
• She married a handsome Italian man.
• (Her husband is rich.)

7. When using two or more adjectives together, the usual order is opinion-adjective + fact-adjective + noun. (There are some additional rules for the order of fact adjectives.)

• I saw a nice French table.
• That was an interesting Shakespearian play.

8. Treat collective nouns (e.g. committee, company, board of directors) as singular OR plural. In BrE a collective noun is usually treated as plural, needing a plural verb and pronoun. In AmE a collective noun is often treated as singular, needing a singular verb and pronoun.

• The committee are having sandwiches for lunch. Then they will go to London. (typically BrE)
• The BBC have changed their logo. (typically BrE)
• My family likes going to the zoo. (typically AmE)
• CNN has changed its logo. (typically AmE)

9. The words its and it's are two different words with different meanings.

• The dog has hurt its leg.
• He says it's two o'clock.

10. The words your and you're are two different words with different meanings.

• Here is your coffee.
• You're looking good.

11. The words there, their and they're are three different words with different meanings.

• There was nobody at the party.
• I saw their new car.
• Do you think they're happy?

12. The contraction he's can mean he is OR he has. Similarly, she's can mean she is OR she has, and it's can mean it is OR it has, and John's can mean John is OR John has.

• He is working
• He has finished.
• She is here.
• She has left.
• John is married.
• John has divorced his wife.

13. The contraction he'd can mean he had OR he would. Similarly, they'd can mean they had OR they would.

• He had eaten when I arrived.
• He would eat more if possible.
• They had already finished.
• They would come if they could.

14. Spell a proper noun with an initial capital letter. A proper noun is a "name" of something, for example Josef, Mary, Russia, China, British Broadcasting Corporation, English.

• We have written to Mary.
• Is China in Asia?
• Do you speak English?

15. Spell proper adjectives with an initial capital letter. Proper adjectives are made from proper nouns, for example Germany → German, Orwell → Orwellian, Machiavelli → Machiavellian.

• London is an English town.
• Who is the Canadian prime minister?
• Which is your favourite Shakespearian play?

16. Use the indefinite article a/an for countable nouns in general. Use the definite article the for specific countable nouns and all uncountable nouns.

• I saw a bird and a balloon in the sky. The bird was blue and the balloon was yellow.
• He always saves some of the money that he earns.

17. Use the indefinite article a with words beginning with a consonant sound. Use the indefinite article an with words beginning with a vowel sound. see When to Say a or an

• a cat, a game of golf, a human endeavour, a Frenchman, a university (you-ni-ver-si-ty)
• an apple, an easy job, an interesting story, an old man, an umbrella, an honorable man (on-o-ra-ble)

18. Use many or few with countable nouns. Use much/a lot or little for uncountable nouns. see Quantifiers

• How many dollars do you have?
• How much money do you have?
• There are a few cars outside.
• There is little traffic on the roads.

19. To show possession (who is the owner of something) use an apostrophe + s for singular owners, and s + apostrophe for plural owners.

• The boy's dog. (one boy)
• The boys' dog. (two or more boys)

20. In general, use the active voice (Cats eat fish) in preference to the passive voice (Fish are eaten by cats).

• We use active in preference to passive.
• Active is used in preference to passive.

 

What is Grammar?

And why grammar is your friend...

grammar (noun): the structure and system of a language, or of languages in general, usually considered to consist of syntax and morphology

Grammar is the system of a language. People sometimes describe grammar as the "rules" of a language; but in fact no language has rules*. If we use the word "rules", we suggest that somebody created the rules first and then spoke the language, like a new game. But languages did not start like that. Languages started by people making sounds which evolved into words, phrases and sentences. No commonly-spoken language is fixed. All languages change over time. What we call "grammar" is simply a reflection of a language at a particular time.

Do we need to study grammar to learn a language? The short answer is "no". Very many people in the world speak their own, native language without having studied its grammar. Children start to speak before they even know the word "grammar". But if you are serious about learning a foreign language, the long answer is "yes, grammar can help you to learn a language more quickly and more efficiently." It's important to think of grammar as something that can help you, like a friend. When you understand the grammar (or system) of a language, you can understand many things yourself, without having to ask a teacher or look in a book.

So think of grammar as something good, something positive, something that you can use to find your way - like a signpost or a map.

*Except invented languages like Esperanto. And if Esperanto were widely spoken, its rules would soon be very different.

 

Nobel prize for physics goes to trio behind quantum computing chips

The 2025 Nobel prize in physics has gone to John Clarke, Michel Devoret and John Martinis, whose work has led to the development of today's quantum computers

By Alex Wilkins

The 2025 Nobel prize in physics has been awarded to John Clarke, Michel Devoret and John Martinis for their work on showing how quantum particles can mysteriously tunnel through matter, a process that helped produce the superconducting quantum technology that forms the backbone of today’s quantum computers.

“I’m completely stunned,” Clarke told the Nobel committee upon hearing he had received the prize. “It had never occurred to me in any way that this might be the basis of a Nobel prize.”

Quantum particles have a variety of strange behaviours, such as their probabilistic nature and the fact that they can only have specific energy levels, rather than a continuum. This leads them to sometimes behave in unexpected ways, such as tunnelling through an apparently solid barrier. Such oddities were discovered by physicists like Erwin Schrödinger in the first decades after quantum mechanics began.

While the implications of these behaviours were clearly profound, underpinning, for example, the theory of nuclear decay, scientists could only observe them in single particles and simple systems. It was unclear whether more complex systems, such as electronic circuits, previously only described by classical physics, were also subject to these rules. Quantum tunnelling effects, for instance, seemed to disappear when looking at large-scale systems.

In 1985, Clarke, Martinis and Devoret, then all based at the University of California, Berkeley, set out to change that. They measured the properties of charged particles moving through superconducting circuits called Josephson junctions, a device that won British physicist Brian Josephson the 1973 Nobel prize in physics. These junctions use wires that have zero electrical resistance and are separated by an insulating material.

The researchers showed that particles moving through these junctions acted as a single particle and took on distinct energy levels, a distinctly quantum effect, and also registered a voltage that would be impossible without it having jumped over the insulating boundary, a clear example of quantum tunnelling.

This discovery, and its help in understanding how to manipulate superconducting quantum systems similar to this, revolutionised the field of quantum science, allowing other scientists to test precise quantum physics on silicon chips.

Free newsletter

Nouns

 Nouns

Main article: English nouns

Many common suffixes form nouns from other nouns or from other types of words, such as -age (shrinkage), -hood (sisterhood), and so on,[3] though many nouns are base forms containing no such suffix (cat, grass, France). Nouns are also created by converting verbs and adjectives, as with the words talk and reading (a boring talk, the assigned reading).

Nouns are sometimes classified semantically (by their meanings) as proper and common nouns (Cyrus, China vs frog, milk) or as concrete and abstract nouns (book, laptop vs embarrassment, prejudice). A grammatical distinction is often made between count (countable) nouns such as clock and city, and non-count (uncountable) nouns such as milk and decor. Some nouns can function both as countable and as uncountable such as "wine" in This is a good wine.

Countable nouns generally have singular and plural forms. In most cases the plural is formed from the singular by adding -[e]s (as in dogs, bushes), although there are also irregular forms (woman/women, foot/feet), including cases where the two forms are identical (sheep, series). For more details see English plural. Certain nouns can be used with plural verbs even though they are singular in form, as in The government were ... (where the government is considered to refer to the people constituting the government). This is a form of synesis, and is more common in British than American English. See English plural § Singulars with collective meaning treated as plural.

English nouns are not marked for case as they are in some languages, but they have possessive forms, through the addition of -'s (as in John's, children's) or just an apostrophe (with no change in pronunciation) in the case of -[e]s plurals (the dogs' owners) and sometimes other words ending with -s (Jesus' love). More generally the ending can be applied to noun phrases (as in the man you saw yesterday's sister); see below. The possessive form can be used either as a determiner (Manyanda's cat) or as a noun phrase (Manyanda's is the one next to Jane's).

The classification of the possessive as an affix or a clitic is the subject of debate. It differs from the noun inflection of languages such as German, in that the genitive ending may attach to the last word of the phrase. To account for this, the possessive can be analysed, for instance as a clitic construction (an "enclitic postposition") or as an inflection of the last word of a phrase ("edge inflection").