Syntax Terminology

Any clause is made up of a subject and a predicate.

  • Subject: the nominal that owns predicate, and which is generally the topic of the clause.
    • Agent: the noun which performs the verb or holds the state.  Most of the time (in Active Voice), the subject and the agent are one and the same.  However, for Passive Voice, the subject is instead a patient.
    • Subject Modifier: a modifier the provides more information about the subject; usually attributive adjectives, but may also be other modifiers that follow the subject noun.
  • Predicate: what the subject does, is, or has.
    • Verb String: the action, event, or state; expressed through tense, voice, and mood; may be affirmative or negative.
      • Main Verb: the action, event, or state (in the most basic sense)
      • Auxiliary Verb: a helping term that communicates tense, voice, or mood and which may be used for emphasis.
      • Negator: an adverb that makes the verb string negative: usually not or never.
    • Argument: a word or phrase that completes the meaning of the predicate initated by the verb.
      • Direct Object: a patient nominal that a transitive action verb acts upon; alternatively: the nominal featured in the state introduced by the stative verb.
      • Indirect Object: a patient nominal that receives the direct object or that otherwise “benefits” (not necessarily positive) from the action verb.
      • Verbal Complement: a verb that is carried out, attempted, regarded, exemplified, etc. by way of the main verb; the second half of Verb Patterns.
      • Subject Complement: a term following a Linking Verb that ties back to the subject.
        • Predicative Nominal: a nominal that either equates to or categorizes the subject.
        • Predicative Modifier: an adjective, adpositional phrase, or other modifier that describes or specifies the subject.
    • Verb Modifier: an adverb, adpositional phrase, Adverbial Clause, or other modifier that provides more information about the verb.

The term ‘verb phrase’ is ambiguous: some linguists use it to refer to the main verb, its auxiliaries, and any direct modifiers, while other linguists make it synonymous with ‘predicate’.  To avoid any confusion, Insights rarely uses ‘verb phrase’, opting instead for ‘verb string’ to refer to the verb and the elements closest to it.

Phrase Terminology
  • Nucleus or Head: the term that dictates the type of phrase and it’s general meaning.
  • Phrasal Complement: words or phrases that complete the meaning of the phrase and that add more details to its meaning.
    • A nominal complement might be called a phrasal object or an ‘object of a [nucleus]’ (for example: object of a preposition)
Adjuncts

Adjuncts are modifier words or phrases that are not grammatically essential to a phrase or clause (although restrictive modifiers at least essential to providing meaning).

Glossary Terms

These are terms you’ll find throughout the articles on Insightsopedia.  Hover over a term (on desktop) or click on it (on mobile) to reveal the definition.

Functional Elements

Here on Insightsopedia, we often mention grammatical elements in broad terms: nominals, verbs, modifiers, and linkers.  Each of these are defined by how they are used within a sentence.  While there is a strong relationship between a word’s lexical class (part of speech) and these broader categories, there are also exceptions when a word is used in a different role than what it’s meaning would usually dictate, as with verbals, substantive determiners (which act like nominals), attributive nouns (which act like adjectives), etc.

Nominals

Noun-like words or phrases that represent concrete or abstract things that can take action or states, that can be interacted with, or both.  Commonly includes lexical nouns, noun phrases, pronouns, Gerunds, and Content Clauses.  May also include substantive determiners, substantive adjectives, nominalized deverbals, and Full Infinitive phrases.

Verbs

Words that indicate actions, events, or states.  These are almost always lexical verbs, and they may be accompanied by auxiliary verbs.  Occasionally, we may use nouns or terms from other lexical classes and verbify them (like when using ‘Google’ as a verb).

Modifiers

Words that provide more information about other words or phrases, usually by describing them with more details, by categorizing them, or by specifying which one(s) among many.  Adjectives, adverbs, adpositional phrases, Adverbial Clauses, and Relative Clauses are all common modifiers.  Others include attributive nouns and Full Infinitive phrases.

Linkers

Connecting words that link together different elements (or sometimes concepts).  Coordinating conjunctions link elements of the same type together, while subordinating conjunctions and adpositions introduce new clauses or phrases.  Linking Verbs connect subjects to their complements.  Conjunctive Adverbs link a sentence to the greater context.

Note that phrases contain multiple words that belong to different lexical classes.  But when they work together, the clause as a whole serves as a unified functional element.  For example, a prepositional phrase contains a linker and usually a nominal, but as a whole it serves as a modifier.  A noun phrase might contain nouns and modifiers, and perhaps even linkers, but as a whole it serves as a nominal.