English glossary 5

English Glossary 5

Phrasal verb – A verb made up of a main verb and a particle (an adverb).

Piano – A term used to describe speech that is articulated quietly.

Portmanteau word – A word formed by combining two or more words (i.e. “slithy” meaning “lithe” and “slimy” in Lewis Carroll’s fantasy poem Jabberwocky).

Post-modification – Lexical items that follow the head in a phrase (the path down the mountain).

Pragmatics – The study of how context influences a speaker’s or writer’s lexical choices.

Prefix – A bound morpheme that occurs before a free morpheme (un-,re-,dis-).

Progressive – An aspect used to describe an event which is in progress. It is made up of to be + present participle (the girl is eating, the girl was eating).

Prosodic features – The use of pitch, volume, pace and rhythm to draw attention to key elements of spoken language.

Pun – Word play which uses the different meanings of a word or two words with similar forms and different meanings for comic effect.

Rallentando – A term used to describe speech that is getting slower.

Reflexive pronoun – A grammatical function word ending in –self or –selves in which the subject and object are directly related (I cut myself).

Register – A variety of language defined according to use. It can be described in terms of mode (speech or writing format); manner (participants, levels of formality); and field (content).

Relative pronoun – A grammatical function…