Grammar

Don't know your adverb from your preposition? Learn more about word classes in this section.

past continuous	tense often used to describe an interrupted action in the past; formed with WAS/WERE + VERB-ing eg: "I was reading when you called"
past perfect	tense that refers to the past in the past; formed with HAD + VERB-ed eg: "We had stopped the car"
past perfect continuous	tense that refers to action that happened in the past and continued to a certain point in the past; formed with HAD BEEN + VERB-ing eg: "I had been waiting for three hours when he arrived"
past participle	verb form (V3) - usually made by adding "-ed" to the base verb - typically used in perfect and passive tenses, and sometimes as an adjective eg: "I have finished", "It was seen by many people", "boiled eggs"
perfect	verb form (specifically an aspect); formed with HAVE/HAS + VERB-ed (present perfect) or HAD + VERB-ed (past perfect)
person	grammatical category that identifies people in a conversation; there are three persons: 1st person (pronouns I/me, we/us) is the speaker(s), 2nd person (pronoun you) is the listener(s), 3rd person (pronouns he/him, she/her, it, they/them) is everybody or everything else
personal pronoun	pronoun that indicates person eg: "He likes my dogs", "They like him"
phrasal verb	multi-word verb formed with a verb + adverb eg: break up, turn off (see phrasal verbs list) NB: many people and books call all multi-word verbs "phrasal verbs" (see multi-word verbs)
phrase	two or more words that have a single function and form part of a sentence; phrases can be noun, adjective, adverb, verb or prepositional
plural	of a noun or form indicating more than one person or thing; plural nouns are usually formed by adding "-s"; see also singular, number eg: bananas, spoons, trees
position	grammatically correct placement of a word form in a phrase or sentence in relation to other word forms eg: "The correct position for an article is at the beginning of the noun phrase that it describes"
positive	basic state of an adjective or adverb when it shows quality but not comparative orsuperlative eg: nice, kind, quickly
possessive adjective	adjective (also called "determiner") based on a pronoun: my, your, his, her, its, our, their eg: "I lost my keys", "She likes your car"
possessive case	case form of a pronoun indicating ownership or possession eg: "Mine are blue", "This car is hers"
possessive pronoun	pronoun that indicates ownership or possession eg: "Where is mine?", "These are yours"
predicate	one of the two main parts (subject and predicate) of a sentence; the predicate is the part that is not the subject eg: "My brother is a doctor", "Who did you call?", "The woman wearing a blue dress helped me"
prefix	affix that occurs before the root or stem of a word eg: impossible, reload
preposition	part of speech that typically comes before a noun phrase and shows some type of relationship between that noun phrase and another element (including relationships of time, location, purpose etc) eg: "We sleep at night", "I live in London", "This is for digging"
prepositional verb	multi-word verb that is formed with verb + preposition eg: believe in, look after
present participle	-ing form of a verb (except when it is a gerund or verbal noun) eg: "We were eating", "The man shouting at the back is rude", "I saw Tara playingtennis"
present simple(also called "simple present")	tense usually used to describe states and actions that are general, habitual or (with the verb "to be") true right now; formed with the basic verb (+ s for 3rd person singular) eg: "Canada sounds beautiful", "She walks to school", "I am very happy"
present continuous(also called "present progressive")	tense used to describe action that is in process now, or a plan for the future; formed with BE + VERB-ing eg: "We are watching TV", "I am moving to Canada next month"