lexicology

Lexicology is the study of words.

A lexeme is typically one word, or sometimes a few words together.

word class	abbreviation
noun	n
pronoun	pn
verb	v
auxilliary verb	aux
modal verb	mod
adjective	adj
adverb	adv
preposition	prep
conjuncion	conj
determiner	det
interjection	interj

noun

Nouns refer to names of concepts.

A noun is something that can take the word “a/the” in front of it, or can form a plural.

Common nouns refer to things generally. They are lower case and can be modified by adjectives and determiners.

Proper nouns are specific rather than generic, and are capitalized. They are not usually modified by adjectives or determiners.

Differences between lexicon and lexis. Lexis is the vocabulary of an individual. Lexicon is the vocabulary of the language.

proper noun

A proper noun is always capitalised.

collective noun

A collective noun include the names for groups of things. For example, people, family, government, herd, swarm.

pronoun

Pronouns replace nouns and noun phrases, and lets us avoid repeating nouns. Pronouns include “me, you, him, her, them, us ,it”.

pronoun type	description	example
subject	Replaces a noun that is the subject.	They were good at sport.
object	Replaces the noun that is the object.	The teacher liked it.
reflexive	Contains the suffix -self or -selves.	He made it himself.
possessive	A possessive thing that stands on its own.	The cat is mine.
interrogative	Introduce a question. What, who, which, when, why, how.	Who are you?
relative	Which, what, who, whom, whose, that.	The train that is red.
demonstrative	Refers

adjective

An adjective is a word that describes something.

Tell if you can say “most adjective”.

verb

Verbs express actions.

Tell if you can say “to verb”.

tense and aspect	example	meaning
simple present	I write books.	a general action or truth
present progressive	I am writing a book.	an action that is continuing now
present perfect progressive	I have been writing a book.	past action that is ongoing and not completed
present perfect	I have written a book.	past action completed but is commented upon in the present
simple past	I wrote a book.	action that was completed in the past
past progresiive	I was writing a book.	an action in the past that was a continuing action at the time being described
past perfect progressive	I had been writing a book.	an action that was continuing up until a time in the past and is not being continued right now
past perfect	I had written this book last week.	past action that had occurred / been completed before another past action
simple future	I will write a book.	a prediction or promise about an action in the future
future progressive	I will be writing a book.	an action that is likely to be continuing at a future time
future perfect progressive	Tomorrow I will have been writing this book for a week.	an action that is ongoing and is likely to be completed before a future point in time
future perfect	I will have written this book by next week.	a future action or occurrence that is likely to happen before another future occurrence or point in time

A participle is a form of verb that has many functions.

Past participle is the verb form when you say “has” or “have” verb. For example, I had finished the book.

The infinitive form of a verb allows the verb to be used as a noun, adjective or adverb. For example: I want to go home.

modal verb

A modal verb is used to change the meaning of another verb. Main modal verbs include can, could, may, might, must, shall, should, will and would.

auxiliary verb

Auxiliary verbs are helping verbs. It supports the main verb of a sentence by showing the tense..

primary auxiliary verb

The words “have, be, do” are auxiliary verbs if they are the additional verb in a sentence.

For example: I am going. He has gone. They have finished the book.

modal auxiliary verb

Called modals for short.

A modal is a modal auxiliary verb. A modal auxiliary verb expresses the possibility, ability, intent, obligation, or necessity of an action occurring. A modal auxiliary verb can take the “n’t” ending.

Semi-modals behave like modals but they are phrases.

• ought to
• need to
• have to
• dare to

For example, shall, can, will, would, could, should, must, may, might…

adverb

Adverbs help to describe, modify or qualify verbs, adjectives or adverbs.

Adverbs can express elements such as time, place and manner; cause and effect; degree; certainty; frequency; and comment.

For example, only, verb, never, too, much, quite, maybe, there, ago.

preposition

A preposition expresses a relationship between a noqun phrase and another element in a sentence.

If you can put the word in the phrase ”_ the wall”.

For example, of, through, under, over, against.

conjunction

A conjunction links words, phrases, clauses and sentences together, enabling the formation of compound and complex sentence structures, and the demonstration of relationships between words or phrases from the same class.

coordinating conjunction

A coordinating conjunction joins two or more independent clauses.

Coordinating conjunctions. There are seven coordinating conjunctions in English. For, and, nor, but, or, yet, so. A mnemonic is FANBOYS.

For example. The cake was small but it was sweet. “But” is a coordinating conjunction.

subordinating conjunction

They join clauses that are dependent on some other clauses for the main idea.

determiner

A determiner gives us information about nouns, about number, definiteness, and possession.

• the - a known noun
• a - a non-specific noun
• this
• that
• these
• those

quantifier

A quantifier is a determiner that expresses quantity or amount. For example: All apples are yum. Several apples are yum.

• all
• any
• some
• no / none
• every
• each
• either
• neither
• both
• much
• many
• more
• most
• few
• fewer
• fewest
• little
• less
• least
• enough
• several
• plenty of (informal)
• a lot of (informal)
• lots of (informal)

numbers

• one, two, three, four, five, etc. (These are determiners when they modify a noun; they can also be nouns themselves.)
• first, second, third, fourth, fifth, etc. (These are determiners when they modify a noun; they can also be adverbs.

interjection

For example, wow, ouch, yikes, welp.