Grammar terms
Subject - A noun or noun substitute about which something is asserted or asked in the predicate.
John is a good student.
They were happy to hear the news.

Verb - Denotes action, occurrence, or existence.
Run, jump, did, is, were, etc.

Verbals:
Gerund - A verbal that ends in -ing and functions as a noun.
Borrowing money is a mistake.
Drinking before driving is dangerous.
Participle - A verb form that may function as part of a verb phrase (was laughing, had finished) or as a modifier (a finished product; the players, laughing at their mistakes.....)
Infinitive - Verbal used primarily as a noun, usually in present tense and usually preceded by the word to.
Hal wanted to open the present.
She failed to stop on time.

Pronoun - Takes the place of nouns. (he, she, it, we, they, etc.)

Relative pronoun - Refers to a noun elsewhere in the sentence.
Leslie is the one who likes to bowl.
The board postponed its decision.

Antecedent - A word or word group a pronoun refers to.
Like their trainers, animals can be polite or rude.
Reversing its earlier position, the board approved the project.

Agreement - Correspondence in number or person of a subject and verb.
(a boy asks, boys ask, the woman did it herself, the man did it himself)

Clause - A sequence of related words within a sentence.
Essential or restrictive clause - Limits the word referred to by imposing conditions.
Every drug condemned by doctors should be removed from the market.
All children under 12 years of age eat free.
Non-essential or non-restrictive clause - Not necessary to the meaning of the sentence, can be omitted.
My best friend, John, understands me.
The teacher, Mrs. Smith, gave extra credit.

Sentence fragment - A group of words which do not express a complete thought; i.e. they are not grammatically independent.
The boy on the sofa.
Over the mountain and through the woods.

Run-on sentence - Connecting two independent clauses together using only a comma, using only a coordinating conjunction (and, but, etc.), or using neither.
It is already midnight, I am running late.
I love going to the University and I love going to the football games.

Sentence - A group of words (containing both a subject and a predicate) that express a complete thought; i.e. they are grammatically independent.
I have a headache.
The party at the DKE house lasted until dawn.
What was her name?

Inverted sentence - One in which the usual or expected word order is changed.
At the head of the class stands the professor.

Dependent clause - A clause which serves as an adverb, an adjective or a noun in the sentence. A dependent clause cannot stand alone and maintain its full meaning.
I want to go to Tut’s Place because I am getting hungry.

Independent clause - A clause which can stand alone in its meaning. An independent clause often functions as the main clause in the sentence.
I want to go to Tut’s Place because I am getting hungry.

Coordinating conjunction - One of the seven connectives used to connect and relate words and word groups of equal grammatical rank (and, but, for, or, nor, so, yet).

Modifier - A word or word group that describes, limits, or modifies another.
The blue sky ...
He studied vigorously ...
The doorway at the bottom of the stairs ...

Parallelism - Using grammatically equal and corresponding words or word groups together in a sentence or paragraph.
Wrong: She like running, cooking and to swim.
Correct: She likes running, cooking and swimming.

Eight parts of speech:
Noun - Names of objects and concepts (tree, freedom, fruitcake, Lincoln Memorial ...)
Pronoun - Words that substitute for nouns (he, you, her, they, we, it ...)
Verb - Expressions of action or states of being (kicking, was, wonder, talk ...)
Adjective - Words that generally modify nouns (bright, gray, flowing ...)
Adverb - Words that generally modify verbs (quickly, steadily, lightly ...)
Conjunction - Words that connect together words, phrases, and clauses (but, and, because, yet, so ...)
Preposition - Words that go with nouns and pronouns to modify other nouns, pronouns and verbs (at the crossroads, in the middle, over the rainbow ...)
Interjection - Words expressing strong emotion (wow, hooray ...)
Extras


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