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The following definitions are provided to give you a brief and simple explanation of some of the most common parts of grammar.

Active voice - form of the verb in which the subject is the doer of the act or performs the action: John caught the ball. The subject, John, did the act.

Adjective - a word that modifies, describes, or limits a noun or a pronoun: tall man, beautiful music, red rose.

Adverb - a word that modifies a verb, an adjective, or another adverb: He played skillfully. The adverb skillfully modifies the verb played by telling how he played.

Antecedent - the word, phrase, or clause referred to by a pronoun: Jennifer lost her purse. The antecedent of the pronoun her is Jennifer.

Apostrophe — a punctuation mark that is like a comma in appearance but goes to the top of the line and is used to show possession, plurals of letters and numbers, and the omission of a letter or letters in contractions: Sam’s farm, P’s and Q’s, isn’t.

Article — the words a, an, and the are called articles and usually function as adjectives.

Collective noun — a noun that names a group: family, committee, company, herd, flock.

Comma — a punctuation mark (,) used within a sentence to separate parts in order to add clarity and meaning.

Comma splice — a comma splice occurs when two independent clauses are incorrectly connected with a comma. Only a semicolon can join independent clauses to form compound sentences.

Incorrect: Gertrude’s favorite vacation area is Hilton Head, Louise prefers to go to the Bahamas.

Correct: Gertrude’s favorite vacation area is Hilton Head, but Louise prefers to go to the Bahamas.

Correct: Gertrude’s favorite vacation area is Hilton Head; Louise prefers to go to the Bahamas.

Contraction — the combination of two words to form one word, with one or more letters omitted and an apostrophe indicating the omission: is not = isn’t; we will = we’ll; will not = won’t.

Coordinating conjunction — coordinate means equal rank. A coordinating conjunction is used to connect or link not only sentences but also words and groups of words of equal rank. The coordinating conjunctions are and, but, or, for, so yet, nor.

Correlative conjunction — pairs of words that serve the same function as coordinating conjunctions: either…or, both…and, neither…nor, not only…but also.

Dangling modifier — a modifying word, phrase, or clause in a sentence in which it is not clear what the modifier refers to: The man was trying to repair his automobile with a broken finger. The modifying phrase in that sentence is said to dangle because its placement makes it refer incorrectly to automobile. It should read: The man with the broken finger was trying to repair his automobile.

Demonstrative adjective — this, that, these, and those are called demonstrative adjectives when they come immediately before nouns.

Demonstrative pronoun — this, that, these, and those are called demonstrative pronouns when they point to a particular person, place, thing, or group: This is the best melon I have ever tasted.

Direct object — the person or thing that receives the action of a transitive verb: Mark hit the ball. In that sentence, ball is the direct object because it received the action (hit) performed by Mark.

Ellipsis — the omission of one or more words in a sentence, marked by three periods or dots: We arrived early…but no one met us. Ellipses are commonly used when words or sentence are omitted in exact quotations of printed matter. Note that the correct form of an ellipsis is: .(space).(space).(space) (. . .). If an ellipsis appears at the end of a sentence, there are four periods. (. . . .) Also note that ellipses are not used as a pause in a sentence; ellipses represent omissions only.

Gender — the classification of nouns and pronouns as masculine, feminine, and neuter. In English, there are relatively few gendered nouns. Some examples are blond and blonde, in reference to a man and a woman, respectively. Others: fiancé, fiancée. Gendered nouns are generally lifted from the Romance languages (French, Spanish) in which an article (le, la) designating masculine or feminine precedes the noun.

Gerund — a verb that ends in ing but functions as a noun: Walking is good exercise.

Grammar — spelled without the letter "e"; the study of the rules that govern the accepted structure of a language.

Indefinite pronoun — a pronoun that does not refer to any particular person, place, or thing: none, most, all, everyone, each, etc.

Indirect object — the person or thing for whom or for which or to whom or to which an act is done. It usually comes just before the direct object in a sentence: Mark gave him the ball. The word him is the indirect object; ball is the direct object. Simply, the receiver of the direct object.

Infinitive — a verbal formed by a verb that is usually preceded by the word to, which is the "sign of the infinitive": to go, to believe, to wander, to guess.

Interjection — an exclamation, or a word or words "thrown in," with no grammatical relation to the remainder of the sentence. It may express strong feeling: Well! Oh!

Irregular verb — a verb that does not form its past tense and past participle with the addition of d, ed, or t: drink, drank, drunk; fly, flew, flown; swim, swam, swum.

Misplaced modifier — a modifier placed in a sentence in such a manner as to give unintended meaning: He was fined $50 for a traffic violation in municipal court this morning. With the modifying phrase placed as it is in that sentence, the sentence appears to say that the traffic violation was committed in court. To be correct, the phrase should come immediately after fined $50: He was fined $50 in municipal court this morning for a traffic violation.

Mixed metaphor — unrelated comparisons in the same sentence: Always the politician, he straddled the fence on issues while keeping his ear to the ground for public opinion. While not incorrect, this sentence seems bulky and clichéd, which, for clarity’s sake, should be avoided.

Noun — name of a person, place, thing, or idea.

Parallel structure — similar grammatical construction in a sentence: The car ran well on level roads, but it sputtered going upgrade. A shift in voice can result in a lack of parallel structure: A person can work hard all day picking tomatoes, but very little money is earned.

Parenthetical expression — a word or words not essential to the meaning of the sentence and set off from the rest of the sentence by a comma or commas: In fact, I hardly knew him. He was, to tell the truth, an undesirable resident. If removed, these italicized remarks would not affect the sentence’s meaning.

Passive voice — the voice in which the verb makes its subject the receiver of the action. Passive: The ball was caught by John. Active: John caught the ball. Passive voice is generally more bulky than active, and for clarity and ease-of-reading, the active voice is more often used. In some instances the passive is preferred; however, these instances are rare.

Personal pronoun — the form of a pronoun that shows its person. The singular nominative personal pronouns are I for first person, you for second person; and he, she, and it for third person.

Possessive pronoun — a personal pronoun that shows possession or ownership: my pen, her dress, your car, their misfortune.

Preposition — the first word in a prepositional phrase. A preposition expresses a relation to another word in the sentence and governs the case of the noun or pronoun called its object: into the water, beside the table, with her.

Pronoun — a word that stands for a noun that may be used in place of a noun: Janice told us her address.

Proper noun — the name of a specific person, place, or thing. Proper nouns are always capitalized.

Reciprocal noun — a pronoun that shows a mutual relationship: each other, one another.

Reflexive pronoun — a pronoun that ends with self and refers back to its antecedent: Louise assured herself that she was right.

Regular verb — a verb that forms the past tense and the past participle by adding d, ed, or t.

Run-on sentence — a compound sentence with incorrect punctuation or lack of punctuation or use of an improper connective joining the independent clauses.

Sentence fragment - a group of words, such as a dependent clause or a participial phrase, that does not express a complete thought.

Shift — the change from one tense, voice, mood, subject, person, or number to another in the same sentence. If you begin a sentence in past tense, be sure to finish it in the past tense.

Split infinitive — an infinitive with one or more words between the sign to and the verb: to strongly believe, to awkwardly dance. Note that the MLA has endorsed split infinitives and they are no longer considered grammatically incorrect; however, check with your professor to see what he/she prefers.

Verb — the part of speech that asserts an action or assumes a relation and is an essential part of every sentence.

Definitions from Elements of English Grammar: Rules Explained Simply by Harold VanWinkle.