Syntax Vocabulary Practice

Question 1

Misplaced Modifier

Answer 1

A phrase or clause placed awkwardly in a sentence so that it appears to modify or refer to an unintended word.

Question 2

Independent Clause

Answer 2

A group of words that contains a subject and verb and expresses a complete thought.

Question 3

Dependent Clause

Answer 3

A group of words that contains a subject and verb but does not express a complete thought.

Question 4

Sentence Fragment

Answer 4

A sentence that is missing either its subject or its main verb.

Question 5

Preposition

Answer 5

A word or group of words used before a noun, pronoun, or noun phrase to show direction, time, place, location, spatial relationships, or to introduce an object. Some examples of prepositions are words like “in,” “at,” “on,” “of,” and “to.

Question 6

Prescriptivism

Answer 6

The idea that traditional norms of language usage should be upheld.

Question 7

Parlance

Answer 7

A particular way of speaking or using words, especially a way common to those with a particular job or interest.

Question 8

Nativism

Answer 8

Political policy of promoting the interests of native inhabitants against those of immigrants, including the support of immigration-restriction measures.

Question 9

Empiricism

Answer 9

A theory that states that knowledge comes only or primarily from sensory experience.

Question 10

Tacit

Answer 10

Understood or implied without being stated.

Question 11

Constituent

Answer 11

A word or a group of words that function as a single unit within a hierarchical structure.

Question 12

Pronominalisation

Answer 12

The process or fact of using a pronoun instead of another sentence constituent (such as a noun or noun phrase).

Question 13

Pro-form

Answer 13

A word, substituting for other words, phrases, clauses, or sentences, whose meaning is recoverable from the linguistic or extralinguistic context.

Question 14

Movement (Linguistics)

Answer 14

A syntactic rule for moving a piece of structure within the tree, giving rise to dis- placement situations where a word or constituent appears in some position other than where we would expect it.

Question 15

Sentential

Answer 15

Syntactic units larger than a word.

Question 16

Coordination Test

Answer 16

A test of the constituent status of a given string.

Question 17

Pronominal phrase

Answer 17

An expression consisting of one or more words forming a grammatical constituent of a sentence.

Question 18

Gapping

Answer 18

An ellipsis in which a verb is removed in one, or more, of a series of coordinations.

Question 19

Tree Diagrams

Answer 19

The notation that most syntacticians use to describe how sentences are organized in the mental grammar.

Question 20

Structural Ambiguity

Answer 20

When a phrase or sentence has more than one underlying structure, or when the potential of multiple interpretations for a piece of written or spoken language because of the way words or phrases are organized.

Question 21

Parts-of-Speech

Answer 21

There are eight parts of speech in the English language: noun, pronoun, verb, adjective, adverb, preposition, conjunction, and interjection. The part of speech indicates how the word functions in meaning as well as grammatically within the sentence. An individual word can function as more than one part of speech when used in different circumstances.

Question 22

Analogous

Answer 22

Comparable in certain respects, typically in a way which makes clearer the nature of the things compared.

Question 23

Phrase Structure Rules

Answer 23

This ability to make these judgments is based on the constraints specific to one’s language that govern how phrases may be constructed. Judged as grammatical and ungrammatical.

Question 24

Subordinate Clause

Answer 24

Has a subject and a verb, but it cannot stand alone (not independent) as a complete sentence.

Question 25

Matrix Clause

Answer 25

A clause that contains a subordinate clause, also called a higher clause. In terms of function, a matrix clause determines the central situation of a sentence.

Question 26

Main Clause

Answer 26

Also known as in independent clause, superordinate clause, or base clause) is a group of words made up of a subject and a predicate that together express a complete concept.

Question 27

Predicate

Answer 27

One of two main parts of a sentence or clause. (The other main part is the subject.) It is usually defined as a word group that comes after the subject to complete the meaning of the ​sentence or clause. The predicate is the portion of the sentence that contains the verb (or verb phrase); in very short, simple sentences, it might be only a verb.

Question 28

Adverbial

Answer 28

An individual word (that is, an adverb), a phrase (an adverbial phrase), or a clause (an adverbial clause) that can modify a verb, an adjective, or a complete sentence.

Question 29

Subject-Verb Agreement

Answer 29

A syntactic process which requires subject and verb to share the same person and number features.

Question 30

Canonical

Answer 30

The most basic or standard form of an expression, relating to word formation and phrase building.

Question 31

Transitive Verbs

Answer 31

A verb that transfers its action to something or someone. They are not just verbs that can take an object; they demand objects. Without an object to affect, the sentence that a transitive verb inhabits will not seem complete.

Question 32

Intransitive Verbs

Answer 32

Opposite of a transitive verb, it does not require an object to act upon.

Question 33

Ditransitive Verbs

Answer 33

Verbs with two arguments in addition to the subject: a “recipient” or “addressee” argument, and a “theme” argument. Typical ditransitive verb meanings are ‘give’, ‘sell’, ‘bring’, ‘tell’. Since different ditransitive verbs occur in different constructions in many languages, only a single verb meaning was taken into account for this chapter: the verb ‘give’, which is probably the most frequent ditransitive verb in all languages.

Question 34

Passivation

Answer 34

The transformation of a sentence from an active form to a passive form.

Question 35

Complement (Linguistics)

Answer 35

A word, phrase, or clause that is necessary to complete the meaning of a given expression. Complements are often also arguments (expressions that help complete the meaning of a predicate).

Question 36

Predicative Complement

Answer 36

Completes the meaning of a sentence by giving information about a noun. Predicative complements follow linking verbs (i.e., verbs that do not denote an action but instead connect a noun to information about it).

Question 37

Sketchy

Answer 37

Someone who acts suspicious, unpredictable and odd in normal situations. Someone who lacks common sense and is overly secretive.

Question 38

Spenserian

Answer 38

A sonnet named for Edmund Spenser 1552-1599, a 16th century English Poet. The Spenserian Sonnet inherited the tradition of the declamatory couplet of Wyatt / Surrey although Spenser used Sicilian quatrains to develop a metaphor, conflict, idea or question logically, with the declamatory couplet resolving it.

Question 39

Flatlander

Answer 39

A term used in various hilly or mountainous regions of North America, particularly Vermont, to denote an outsider, someone who doesn't belong.

Question 40

Chaucerian

Answer 40

Characteristics of the writings of Geoffrey Chaucer. Related to an imitator of Chaucer, especially one of a group of 15th-century Scottish writers who took him as a model; an admirer of Chaucer's works, as well a specialist in the study or teaching of Chaucer.