Aspect Indicates the speaker’s perspective on time as indicated in a verb phrase,
particularly whether an action is treated as finished or is still in progress or still
relevant to the moment of speaking. English has two aspects: perfect and
progressive (sometimes known as continuous).
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Perfect; Progressive
Assertion Is associated with both positive and negative clauses (he is in financial
difficulties
; that is just not true). Assertions convey the truth of the
communication.
Attributive Refers to the role of an adjective phrase as a modifier before a noun
(she had a huge suitcase). The attributive function is in contrast with the
predicative function (her suitcase was huge).
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Predicative
Auxiliary Refers to a closed set of verbs (be, do and have) that are usually
followed by a lexical verb. They typically help to denote grammatical contrasts
of aspect, voice, polarity and clause type (e.g. interrogative):
He
was working over there.
I
don’t like garlic.
Have you been home?
Back channelling Verbal and non-verbal vocal devices used to provide feedback
and other supportive responses between speakers, normally as a way to
encourage the speaker to continue. Vocalisations, words and phrases such as
mm
, uhum, yeah, right are typical back-channelling devices.
Backgrounding A device used to make something less important. For example,
nominalised forms (
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Nominalisation
) can be used to conceal or purposefully
make less important a cause or an agent. Backgrounding is contrasted with
foregrounding:
The
closure of the factory caused 200 workers to lose their jobs.
(agent backgrounded)
Meteorcorp closed the factory and 200 workers lost their jobs.
(agent ‘Meteorcorp’ foregrounded)
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Foregrounding
Backshift Refers to the process when there is a shift of tense. For example, when
an indirect report is perceived as referring to the past, the tense in the reported
clause usually changes to a past form of the tense of the direct report:
‘Robert
is part of a consortium,’ Mrs Johnson said to her.
Mrs Johnson told her that Robert
was part of a consortium.
(present simple ➛ past simple)
‘I
will go,’ he said.
He said he
would go.
(‘future’ will ➛ ‘future-in-the-past’ would)
892 | Glossary
Cambridge Grammar of English
‘I
can do it on Monday.’
She said she
could do it on Monday.
(modal verb can ➛ modal verb could)
Base form The form of verb used to mark the present tense form (People always
look at me.) and the infinitive with or without to (Let me look.).
Base is also a term that refers to the form of a word which cannot be broken
down into further grammatical parts and where an affix can be added:
works =
work (base) + -s (inflection)
playful =
play (base) + -ful (suffix)
unusual =
usual (base) + un- (prefix)
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Word formation
Blend A type of abbreviation in which parts of existing words are combined
to form a new word: (smog = blend of smoke and fog; heliport = blend of
helicopter and
airport).
Boosting A technique used to express a claim or viewpoint more assertively.
Boosting is principally realised through a range of adverbial and prepositional
constructions (certainly, inevitably, unquestionably, definitely, emphatically,
without doubt
) and modal and related expressions (must, for sure/for certain,
it is
/was clear/obvious/indisputable/etc. that …):
Yet utilities and transport
unquestionably provide a service rather than a
commodity.
In the early nineteenth century this was
without doubt true of much of the Nord
region and the Normandy textile area.
Case A grammatical category that marks the function of a noun or pronoun, for
example as subject (also known as nominative case: the boy, he, I, who), object
(also known as accusative case: him, me, whom) or genitive (also known as
possessive: the boy’s, his, mine, whose).
Cataphora (adjective = cataphoric) A process where a word or a phrase points
forward to another and marks the relationship between what is being said and
what is about to be said:
It’s delicious,
that cake
.
(It refers forward to that cake)
Cataphora is contrasted with anaphora.
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Endophora; Exophora
Catenative A verb phrase which includes a verb such as appear to, come to, fail
to
, get to, happen to, manage to, seem to or tend to followed by a lexical verb.
It expresses modal and aspectual meanings:
Do you
happen to know Suzie’s number?
We
seem to have been this way before.
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