GLOSSARY
Ambiguity—The possibility of more than one meaning.
Apposition—When the meaning of a noun or pronoun is made clear or
emphatic by the use of another noun or pronoun the two are said to be in
apposition, e. g., John, the old pressman.
Auxiliary Verb—A verb used to help to express the meaning of another
verb by showing its voice, mood or tense.
Clause—A group of words consisting of a subject and predicate with
their modifiers and forming a part of a sentence: a sentence within a
sentence.
Collective Noun—A noun indicating a collection of units considered as a
whole, e. g., crowd.
Compound Words—Words made up of two or more words used together to
express one idea.
Context—The entire writing from which a text or passage is taken.
Correlative—A term applied to pairs of conjunctions or other words or
phrases which imply or involve each other.
Diction—The choice and use of words.
Grammar—The science that treats of the principles that govern the
correct use of language in either spoken or written form; the science of
the sentence and its elements.
Heterogeneous Sentences—Sentences containing unrelated ideas or dealing
with a variety of separate things.
Hypothesis—A supposition, or imaginary state of things assumed as a
basis for reasoning.
Hypothetical Clause—A clause containing a supposition.
<a name="Page_53">[Pg 53]Metaphor—A figure of speech in which one thing is likened to another by
speaking of it as if it were that other, or calling it that other.
Noun Clause—A clause used as a noun.
Object (of a Verb)—The thing acted on.
Participial Construction—A participle and its modifiers used as the
subject or object of a verb.
Phrase—An expression, consisting usually of but a few words, denoting a
single idea, or forming a separate part of a sentence.
Predicate (of a Sentence)—That which is said of the subject. See
subject.
Principal Verb—The verb in the main statement of a sentence.
Pronominal Adjective—An adjective used as a pronoun.
Rhetoric—The art of perfecting man's power of communicating to others
his mental acts or states by means of language: art of discourse.
Subject (of a Sentence)—The thing spoken about in the sentence. See
predicate.
Subject (of a Verb)—The thing acting.
Subordinate Clause—A clause explaining or otherwise modifying the main
statement of the sentence.