GLOSSARY

active voice: refers to the organisation of a clause so the “do-er” of the action comes first, eg “The
children washed the windows” as opposed to “The windows were washed by the children”
which is in the passive voice. Refer to passive voice.

agreement: describes the relationship between two elements of the language where the form of one
determines the form of another. One type of agreement is subject-verb agreement where,
for example, a plural subject requires a plural verb (“ Chairs were smashed”) and a
singular subject requires a singular verb (“A chair was smashed”). Note that in clauses of
the type “There is …”, agreement occurs with the first element in the participant
immediately following the verb, eg “There is a table and two chairs in that room”, “There
are two chairs and a table in that room”

antonym: words having the opposite or contrasting meaning to a given word.

circumstance the element of a clause (expressed by adverbial phrase/group or prepositional phrase)

: which gives information about the process in a clause. This information is about when,
where, how, why, with what, or with whom the process occurred, eg
(place) She knocked the clock off the shelf
(time) She knocked off early.
(with whom) He left with his friend
(how - means) She left by car.
(how - comparison) He opened it like an expert
(how - quality) She opened it carefully.
(why) The man died of heart failure.

clause: a unit of meaning grouped around a verb/process: often referred to as the basic building
block of language.

(independent - always finite) I finished my work.

(independent - 2 finite clauses) I had something to eat // and then I finished my
work.
(dependent and finite) I finished my work even though I was tired.
(dependent and non-finite) I finished my work after having something to eat.
(dependent, finite and included) My boss, who's moving to another department soon,
is having
a farewell party.
(dependent, finite and included) I had something to eat and then, even though I was
tired,
finished my work.
(dependent, non-finite and included) I had something to eat and, being tired, went to
bed.

A dependent clause is in a relationship of dependency with either another dependent

clause or an independent clause. A sentence must have at least one independent clause.
“Because we ran out of petrol, (dependent) we had to walk to the town” (independent)
We had to walk to the town (independent) because we ran out of petrol (dependent)
after the fuel line got a leak” (dependent)

Included clauses are separated by commas from the clauses they interrupt.

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cohesive grammatical tools or linguistic structures which tie together elements of a text, making it
resource: cohesive. These include:
conjunctions that join sentences: Therefore, However
pronouns that link to other parts of the text: The house was incredible. You should’ve
seen it”
synonyms and antonyms: “The tenants were not happy at all. So the landlord and all of
the residents of the building gathered in the office below”.

conjunction: a word whose primary function is to join two parts of the language together and indicate
the relationship between them. Conjunctions can relate bits of language in different ways:
- additive: and
- comparative: though
- temporal: after
- consequential: since
They also function to join clauses at different levels:
- to join clauses to make a sentence: linking and binding conjunctions
- to sentences : cohesive conjunctions
- to join paragraphs to organise the text: rhetorical conjunctions
Linking conjunctions join two clauses forming a relationship of independence, eg “We
bought the car on Saturday but we couldn’t pick it up until Tuesday”.
Binding conjunction join two clauses forming a relationship of dependence (hence the
notion of ‘binding’), eg “We went and bought the car after we’d asked the bank for a loan”.
The bound clause can be moved to the front of the sentence, eg “After we’d asked the
bank for a loan, we went and bought the car”.

embedded a clause that is embedded in another, acting either as:

clause: - a qualifier in a noun group: “The woman who won the race is my mother” or as
- a participant itself: “Winning the race has been a life-long goal”, “Being good isn’t easy”
"What I need is a massage"
- a nominal group in a Circumstance: " Because of what he did, he was forced to resign.
An embedded clause is rank shifted and functions at the rank of group.

foreground: make the focus or the orientation by placing at the beginning of a sentence, paragraph or
text, eg
- foregrounding the time: “After five minutes, place the mixture in the oven”
- foregrounding the process: “Place the mixture in the oven after five minutes”
- foregrounding the non-human participant in the process: “The mixture was placed in the
oven after five minutes” "Evaporation is a process …."
- foregrounding the human participant in the process: “We placed the mixture in the oven
after five minutes”
Foregrounding appropriately is one of the requirements for a text to be coherent.
At the text level foregrounding refers to the theme of the whole text, usually found in the
introductory paragraph, which foregrounds what the rest of the text will be about.
At the paragraph level foregrounding refers to the theme of the paragraph, usually found in
the topic sentence.

formulaic: this refers to expressions that are so common at certain stages of an exchange that they
can be memorised and used almost instinctively, eg “Good morning”, “Bye”, “Excuse me”,
“Thank you”, “How’re ya going?”.

modality: this refers to the elements of the language that express the speaker’s judgement or
assessment of certainty, obligation, usuality and inclination.
These include:
modal finites may, might, should, could: “That might be the one”
mood adjuncts really, probably, certainly, always, never: “She always wins” "It's probably
him"
comment adjuncts (expresses some degree of modality about the whole clause):
“Perhaps you could sign here”, Unfortunately, I fell at the last hurdle. Luckily, I don't
have to sit for the test again.
attributive relational clauses “I am certain he’s the one”, “I can certainly help”
nominalisations “The likelihood of your winning is nil, mate”

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 mental processes I think, I believe, I hope, I think: “I think I’d better go” “I believe that’s
right”
or a combination of these “I suppose I could have said that”, “I always have to help” “I
would probably help”, “I always have to help” “I wonder if you could possibly see
your way clear to signing this for me”

Nominal- the process of changing verbs, adjectives or conjunctions into nouns, eg

sation: “The crowd applauded wildly” can have its process nominalised and so get “The crowd’s
wild applause was breathtaking”.
"Because the river was broad we were not able to cross it" can have the adjective
nominalised and so get "The river's breadth prevented the crossing"
" The street flooded because of the rain, " can have the conjunctions nominalised and so
get "The result of rain was flooding."

noun group: a group of words in which the head word is a noun and all the other words serve to
specify, or enumerate or describe or classify or qualify that noun,
“Some of the beautifully wrapped Christmas presents under the tree had
been opened”
enumerates specifies describes classifies head word qualifies

A describer (or epithet) is a word (usually an adjective) in a noun group whose function is
to describe the quality of the head word of the group, eg “The pretty flowers were placed”
“We drove down the long and winding road”

Epithets can have an attitudinal aspect: That bloody officer; a brilliant first novel.
Epithets can also have intensifiers, which alter the degree of the epithet, and are
expressed with adverbs "a somewhat unlikely person" "a quite stunning view"

A classifier classifies the Thing. More than one classifier can be used (with no punctuation
between them) and can be realised by adjectives (degradable bags), nouns (bird house)
or verbs (distilling process)

A qualifier is the element of the noun group that comes after the head word and whose
function is to
qualify the head word, eg
“A verb that contains a preposition is often a phrasal verb”
“The house at the end of the street was said to be haunted”

participants: the things (animate and inanimate things and abstract phenomena) directly involved with
the process of the clause. They can be expressed as a nominal group or embedded
clause eg “The woman brushed her hair away from her face” “The test tube was heated
slowly” “The reasons for the changes were not presented” “I can’t accept your
excuses” "What the man broke was the clock"
The participant can also be an attribute expressed by an adjective " She is incredible"

passive refers to the organisation of a clause so the “done to” rather than the “do-er” of the action
voice: comes first, eg “The car was washed by the children, wasn’t it?” as opposed to “The
children washed the car, didn’t they?” which is in the active voice.
The passive voice is used when:
a) the speaker/writer wishes to foreground the goal of the action, eg
“The dried ingredients are added to the mixture” “The car gets serviced at the garage”
“Taxes were raised after the election”
b) the actor (doer of the action) is unimportant (the one who adds the mixture), or unknown
(the one who services the car) or wishes to remain unknown (the one who raises the
taxes).

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phrasal verbal groups which contain a preposition but still have only one meaning and where the
verbs: process or meaning of the verbal group changes with the deletion or change of
preposition:
“She put her off just as she was getting ready to swing” (distracted)
“They put out the fire before it could spread” (extinguish)
“Put up your hand” (raise)
“The things I have to put up with” (endure)

processes: the verbal group of a clause that express the processes of:
action(material, behavioural): kicked, ran, drove, smiled, sneezed, listened
sensing (cognition, affection, perception): believe, think, know, realise, hope, feel, hate,
enjoy hear, see, notice, feel, like, worry
saying (verbal): told, said, replied, exclaimed
relating (identifying, attributive, possessive, existential): are, is, become, turn into, mean,
represent, consist of, has, includes

reference one kind of cohesive resource where a pronoun is used as a substitute for a noun group.
items: Pronouns include items such as I, me, he, she, they, you, these, this, it, their, them.
Other reference items include the definite article (The election), determiners (don't do
that) and comparative forms (that's better).
See also cohesive resources.

relative a clause which begins with a relative pronoun (who, which, that, whose, whom), eg
clause: “The lift, which had only just been fixed, stopped between menswear and furniture”
“The lift got fixed after about an hour, which was one hour too late for me”
Such non-defining relative clauses are included clauses.
Defining relative clauses such as in "The man who gave me the money was my brother"
are embedded clauses which modify the head noun.

synonym: a word with a similar meaning to another, eg house, home, dwelling, abode, residence.

tense: the setting in time of a clause, eg

past: “I ate”, “I was eating my dinner …”
present: “I am eating”, “I know what you mean”
future: “I will eat”, “I’m going to have it later”
verbal groups: a verb or group of verbs that encode the process, eg study, was studying,
will be studying, would have been studying, tried to study.
Primary tenses: present past and future
Secondary tenses: past prefect, present perfect etc

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