AF8: Glossary

use correct spelling

Level 5 Grammatical function word – Function words (or grammatical words) are words that
Across a range of writing
have little lexical meaning or have ambiguous meaning, but instead serve to express
· correct spelling of
– grammatical function words grammatical relationships with other words within a sentence, or specify the attitude or mood
– almost all inflected words of the speaker. e.g. the, a, he, him, she, her, are, is, well. however, yes, OK etc.
– most derivational suffixes and prefixes
– most content/lexical words
Inflected endings - A change to the end of a word to indicate tense, number or other
· likely errors
– occasional phonetically grammatical features. ed/ing/s/es/est.er etc
plausible spelling of unstressed syllables in content words
– double consonants in prefixes Derivational suffixes and prefixes – give related words different meanings and/or show
that they belong to different word classes
e.g.Suffixes prince/princess, happy/happiness (adjective and noun), spoon/spoonful (noun
and adjective), normal/normalise (adjective and verb) etc.
e.g. Prefixes re-write, ex-teacher, anti-slavery, unimportant etc

Content/lexical words - Words which are not function words are called content words (or
lexical words): these include nouns, verbs, adjectives, and most adverbs,

Unstressed syllables in content words- Content words are words representing an action,
object, attribute, or state. The grammatical categories for content words are: nouns, main
verbs, adverbs, adjectives and question words.

Double consonants in prefixes – Double consonants after Latin prefixes beginning <a-, co-
e-, i-, o-, su->: addict, address
Level 4 Grammatical function word – Function words (or grammatical words) are words that
Across a range of writing
have little lexical meaning or have ambiguous meaning, but instead serve to express
· correct spelling of
– most common grammatical grammatical relationships with other words within a sentence, or specify the attitude or mood
function words, including adverbs with -ly formation of the speaker. e.g. the, a, he, him, she, her, are, is, well. however, yes, OK etc.
– regularly formed content/lexical words, including those
with
Morpheme -The smallest unit of meaning. Suffixes and prefixes are morphemes.
multiple morphemes
– most past and present tense inflections, plurals Single morpheme - house
· likely errors Two morphemes – House/s, hous/ing, house/d
– homophones of some common grammatical function Three or more morphemes/ multiple morpheme -House/keep/ing, un/happi/ness
words
– occasional phonetically plausible spelling in
content/lexical words Homophones – words which have the same sound as another, but different meaning or
 different spelling e.g. read/reed, pair/pare, write/right/rite etc.

Content/lexical words - Words which are not function words are called content words (or
lexical words): these include nouns, verbs, adjectives, and most adverbs,

Inflected endings - A change to the end of a word to indicate tense, number or other
grammatical features. ed/ing/s/es/est.er/ly etc
Level 3 Grammatical function word – Function words (or grammatical words) are words that
In most writing
have little lexical meaning or have ambiguous meaning, but instead serve to express
· correct spelling of
– some common grammatical relationships with other words within a sentence, or specify the attitude or mood
grammatical function of the speaker. E.g. the, a, he, him, she, her, are, is, well. however, yes, OK etc.
words
– common content/lexical
Content/lexical words - Words which are not function words are called content words (or
words with more than
one morpheme, including lexical words): these include nouns, verbs, adjectives, and most adverbs,
compound words
· likely errors Morpheme -The smallest unit of meaning. Suffixes and prefixes are morphemes.
– some inflected endings, e.g. past tense,
Single morpheme - house
comparatives, adverbs
– some phonetically Two morphemes - Houses, housing, housed
plausible attempts at Three or more morphemes/ multiple morpheme -House/keep/ing, un/happi/ness
content/lexical words
Inflected endings - A change to the end of a word to indicate tense, number or other
grammatical features. ed/ing/s/es/est.er/ly etc

Content/lexical words - Words which are not function words are called content words (or
lexical words): these include nouns, verbs, adjectives, and most adverbs,
Level 2 Grammatical function word – Function words (or grammatical words) are words that
In some forms of writing
have little lexical meaning or have ambiguous meaning, but instead serve to express
· usually correct spelling of
– high frequency grammatical relationships with other words within a sentence, or specify the attitude or mood
grammatical function of the speaker. E.g. the, a, he, him, she, her, are, is, well. however, yes, OK etc.
words
– common single
Content/lexical words - Words which are not function words are called content words (or
morpheme content/lexical words
· likely errors lexical words): these include nouns, verbs, adjectives, and most adverbs,
– inflected endings, e.g.
past tense, plurals, Morpheme -The smallest unit of meaning. Suffixes and prefixes are morphemes.
adverbs
Single morpheme - house
– phonetic attempts at
vowel digraphs Inflected endings - A change to the end of a word to indicate tense, number or other
grammatical features. ed/ing/s/es/est.er/ly etc

Digraph - Two letters representing one phoneme th, ch,

Vowel digraph - ar, ai, ae, ee etc.
Level 1 Morpheme -The smallest unit of meaning. Suffixes and prefixes are morphemes.
In some writing, usually with support
Single morpheme - house
· usually correct spelling
of Two morphemes - Houses, housing, housed
- high frequency single Three or more morphemes/ multiple morpheme -House/keep/ing, un/happi/ness
morpheme words
- non-inflected
Word division - When it is necessary to divide words, always break them between syllables.
grammatical words
· likely errors Remember, however, that not all syllable breaks are acceptable end-of-line breaks. In
- word division general, divide words according to pronunciation.
- phonetically plausible
attempts at single and
multiple morpheme
words
- use of letter names to
approximate syllables
and words