{"id":2504,"date":"2015-11-25T10:45:06","date_gmt":"2015-11-25T18:45:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/?p=2504"},"modified":"2020-12-10T13:44:42","modified_gmt":"2020-12-10T21:44:42","slug":"a-review-of-english-grammar-terms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/a-review-of-english-grammar-terms\/","title":{"rendered":"A Review of English Grammar Terms"},"content":{"rendered":"

You probably already know a lot of helpful grammar<\/a> terms. In this post, I\u2019m going to assume you know what verbs<\/em>, nouns<\/em>, adjectives<\/em>, adverbs<\/em>, and prepositions<\/em> are. You likely also know what a gerund<\/em> is (a word that has an \u2013ing<\/em> suffix). And I bet you can distinguish between a subject<\/em> and an object<\/em>.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s good that you\u2019ve learned these terms. Understanding the language of grammar instruction can help you understand your English teachers and the tutorials on self-study websites like Magoosh. And learning grammar terms in your second language can help you gain a much deeper understanding of reading and writing in any language!<\/p>\n

Below, I\u2019ve listed some grammar terms that are a little more complicated than the simpler terms I mentioned in the first paragraph above. Some of these terms may be new to you. Other terms may be ones you think<\/em> you already know. But do you really fully understand these terms? Read carefully to check your knowledge.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Phrase:<\/h2>\n

In grammar studies, a phrase<\/em> is a group of words that work together to perform a certain grammar function. Phrases all have a certain central word<\/em>, a word that holds the most important meaning in a phrase.<\/p>\n

There are three very common types of phrases in English grammar studies. A noun phrase<\/em> is a phrase that is based on a single noun. (EX: the brown cat<\/strong>, her car<\/strong>, an ant<\/strong>). A verb phrase<\/em> is based on a verb. (EX: quickly running<\/strong>, climbing <\/strong>up a tree, was looking<\/strong>). And a prepositional phrase<\/em> revolves around a preposition. (EX: up<\/strong> a tree, into<\/strong> a hole, against<\/strong> the plan).<\/p>\n

In these examples, notice that it\u2019s possible for one kind of phrase to be inside another kind of phrase. It\u2019s also possible for a phrase to be just one word. In \u201cCats chase mice,\u201d cats<\/strong> and mice<\/strong> are one-word noun phrases, and chase<\/em> is a one-word verb phrase.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Sentence:<\/h2>\n

This grammar term looks simple, but looks can be deceiving. I\u2019ve found that a lot of my students misunderstand the term sentence<\/em>, sometimes describing a phrase or paragraph as a sentence.<\/p>\n

A sentence is longer than a phrase and shorter than a paragraph. In English writing, a sentence is very clearly defined; a sentence begins with a capital letter and ends with a period. Sometimes there may be other punctuation, such as a question mark (?) or an exclamation point. Read this paragraph carefully, and you\u2019ll see that it has four sentences, including this one.<\/p>\n

In formal academic writing, a sentence will always have a subject and predicate<\/em><\/a>. Where this gets tricky is when two sentences are joined together by a semicolon or a conjunction word such as \u201cand\u201d or \u201cbut.\u201d Here are two examples:<\/p>\n

It was raining; he couldn\u2019t go outside to play.
\nSo he stayed inside; does that mean he didn\u2019t play baseball as planned?<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was raining\u201d has a subject and predicate. \u201cHe couldn\u2019t go outside to play\u201d also<\/em> has a subject and predicate. The same is true for \u201cso he stayed inside\u201d and \u201cdoes that mean he didn\u2019t play baseball as planned?\u201d So in the examples above, you might wonder if you\u2019re looking at two sentences, or four.<\/p>\n

Linguists could probably have a long debate over exactly how many sentences appear above. But as a learner of English, you can safely treat the two examples above as just two sentences. Let capitalization and punctuation be your guide.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Paragraph and passage:<\/h2>\n

A paragraph<\/em> is a group of sentences, put together because they all relate to a main idea. Often\u2014but not always\u2014a paragraph will have a clear topic sentence<\/em> that expresses the main idea.<\/p>\n

Sometimes, a single sentence can be treated as a paragraph, grouped apart from other groups of sentences.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve found that students I work with sometimes refer to a whole paragraph as a \u201csentence,\u201d or look at a whole paragraph when the instructions on exams like the TOEFL and GRE tell them to just look at a sentence.<\/p>\n

Students also occasionally confuse paragraph for passage<\/em>. A passage can actually be longer or shorter than a paragraph. The term passage simply describes any text a student or test-taker has been asked to read.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You probably already know a lot of helpful grammar terms. In this post, I\u2019m going to assume you know what verbs, nouns, adjectives, adverbs, and prepositions are. You likely also know what a gerund is (a word that has an \u2013ing suffix). And I bet you can distinguish between a subject and an object. It\u2019s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":80,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13603],"tags":[],"ppma_author":[13630],"class_list":["post-2504","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-grammar"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nA Review of English Grammar Terms - Magoosh Blog \u2013 TOEFL\u00ae\ufe0f Test<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/a-review-of-english-grammar-terms\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A Review of English Grammar Terms\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"You probably already know a lot of helpful grammar terms. 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It\u2019s […]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/a-review-of-english-grammar-terms\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Magoosh Blog \u2013 TOEFL\u00ae\ufe0f Test\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/facebook.com\/MagooshTOEFL\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:author\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/MagooshEnglishLearning\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2015-11-25T18:45:06+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2020-12-10T21:44:42+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/files\/2016\/09\/Facebook-SEO-Default.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"628\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"David Recine\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@MagooshTOEFL\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@MagooshTOEFL\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"David Recine\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/a-review-of-english-grammar-terms\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/a-review-of-english-grammar-terms\/\",\"name\":\"A Review of English Grammar Terms - Magoosh Blog \u2013 TOEFL\u00ae\ufe0f Test\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2015-11-25T18:45:06+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/#\/schema\/person\/fa2be5405a605e37f4199c90e2236768\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/a-review-of-english-grammar-terms\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/a-review-of-english-grammar-terms\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/a-review-of-english-grammar-terms\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"A Review of English Grammar Terms\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/\",\"name\":\"Magoosh Blog \u2013 TOEFL\u00ae\ufe0f Test\",\"description\":\"Online TOEFL Preparation\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/#\/schema\/person\/fa2be5405a605e37f4199c90e2236768\",\"name\":\"David Recine\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/de262e64bb4e3e488753d8c58ff3cc70\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/b70c17ee6f3ef87dc4cc5dbdebda911d6dd30dfe15845e4b1d459a3e1b33ef98?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/b70c17ee6f3ef87dc4cc5dbdebda911d6dd30dfe15845e4b1d459a3e1b33ef98?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"David Recine\"},\"description\":\"David is a Test Prep Expert for Magoosh TOEFL and IELTS. 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Additionally, he's helped students with TOEIC, PET, FCE, BULATS, Eiken, SAT, ACT, GRE, and GMAT. David has a BS and MA from the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire and an MA from the University of Wisconsin-River Falls.","sameAs":["https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/MagooshEnglishLearning","https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/david-recine\/","https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/channel\/UCra3KQoJlOP7RYwaCyH2qew"],"knowsAbout":["TOEFL","IELTS","TOEIC","PET","FCE","BULATS","Eiken","SAT","ACT","GRE","GMAT"],"knowsLanguage":["English","Italian"],"jobTitle":"Content Creator","worksFor":"Magoosh","url":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/author\/davidr\/"}]}},"authors":[{"term_id":13630,"user_id":80,"is_guest":0,"slug":"davidr","display_name":"David Recine","avatar_url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/b70c17ee6f3ef87dc4cc5dbdebda911d6dd30dfe15845e4b1d459a3e1b33ef98?s=96&d=mm&r=g","user_url":"","last_name":"Recine","first_name":"David","description":"David is a Test Prep Expert for Magoosh TOEFL and IELTS. Additionally, he's helped students with TOEIC, PET, FCE, BULATS, Eiken, SAT, ACT, GRE, and GMAT.\r\n\r\nDavid has a BS from the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire and an MA from the University of Wisconsin-River Falls. His work at Magoosh has been cited in<a href=\"https:\/\/scholar.google.com\/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C50&q=Recine+magoosh&btnG=\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> many scholarly articles<\/a>,<a href=\"https:\/\/minds.wisconsin.edu\/handle\/1793\/65479\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> his Master's Thesis<\/a> is featured on the<a href=\"https:\/\/www.readingwithpictures.org\/2013\/09\/research-highlight-teaching-english-language-learners-with-comics\/\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> Reading with Pictures<\/a> website, and he's presented at the<a href=\"https:\/\/www.witesol.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/2014-WITESOL-Program-FINAL-10-28-14.pdf\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> WITESOL (link to PDF)<\/a> and<a href=\"https:\/\/issuu.com\/interoff\/docs\/nafsaregionv_2014conference\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"> NAFSA<\/a> conferences. David has taught K-12 ESL in South Korea as well as undergraduate English and MBA-level business English at American universities. He has also trained English teachers in America, Italy, and Peru.\r\n\r\nCome join David and the Magoosh team on<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/channel\/UCra3KQoJlOP7RYwaCyH2qew\"> Youtube<\/a>,<a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/MagooshEnglishLearning\"> Facebook<\/a>, and<a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/magooshenglish\/?hl=en\"> Instagram<\/a>, or connect with him via<a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/david-recine\/\"> LinkedIn<\/a>!"}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2504","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/80"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2504"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2504\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2504"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=2504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}