4. More Grammatical Terms Affix - a verbal element joined to a word to form a new word, for example: heroine, unhappy. See Prefix, Suffix. Agent - one who instigates or causes or performs the activity of the verb; the role of the semantic subject of the sentence. Agreement - see Concord Apposition - a noun or pronoun is in apposition with another when it refers to the same person or thing and is mentioned immediately after it (often offset by commas) to identify or describe it. E.g.: John, my neighbour, called to see me. I spoke to my neighbour, John. Case - one of the forms of a noun or pronoun, which expresses its relation to some other word, and (loosely) the relation itself. English uses two cases: the unmarked common case, and the genitive case. For just six pronouns the common case is split into subjective and objective: I/me, we/us, he/him, she/her, they/them, and who/whom. Clause - a combination of words having a subject (stated or implied) and a predicate. See also Compound and Complex Sentence. Complex Sentence - a construction having more than one clause, one being the main clause and the other(s) subordinate clause(s) which form sentence element (s) of the main clause. E.g.: Show (S) me (O;) [what (O d ) you (S) did (V)](O d ). Compare with Compound Sentence. Compound Sentence a construction having more than one clause which are coordinate, i.e. two or more simple sentences linked together with conjunction(s) to form one larger complex sentence. E.g.: John rang the bell. I opened the door. I opened the door when John rang the bell. Compare with Complex Sentence. Concord - the agreement between words in case, number, gender, and person, and in particular between the grammatical subject and the verb. E.g.: The window is open. The windows are open. [3.c.ii] Conjugation - the change of form of verbs to express tense, mood, etc. [3] Declension - the change of form of nouns and pronouns to express different grammatical relations. See Case. Etymology - the facts relating to the formation and derivation of words; the expounding of the elements of a word with their modifications of form and sense. Exclamation - See Interjection [2.g]. Finite Verb - expresses the activity of a clause or sentence, [l.b, 2.i, 3] Gender - in English, nouns and pronouns express natural (as opposed to grammatical) gender, i.e. the masculine gender denotes a male, feminine denotes a female, neuter denotes neither sex, and common denotes either or both. Examples of this last are: I, doctor, committee. Genitive - a grammatical form of a noun or pronoun, expressing its relation to another word as source, possessor, etc.. The form usually manifests with an 'apostrophe-s', e.g. the book 's author, the author 's book. It may generally be rephrased with the preposition 'of, e.g. the author of the book, the book of the author. Gerund - a non-finite verb form that functions as a noun. It usually ends in '-ing'. E.g.: Writing a textbook is more difficult than teaching orally.
