Cambridge Grammar of English Hardback with cd-rom a comprehensive Guide

Û

Noun; Non-count noun

Unmarked

Û

Marked

---

Utterance Refers to a communicative unit in speech that is both communicatively

and pragmatically complete. An utterance may consist of single words, phrases,

clauses or clause combinations spoken in context. There are four utterances in

the following example:

1 A: But he’s trying to send us an email and I’m having some trouble with the

computer you see.

2 B: Right.

3 A: You know.

4 B: Yeah.

The term ‘utterance’ is contrasted with ‘sentence’ in written language.

Vague language Words or phrases with very general meanings (thing, stuff, or

whatever, sort of, or something, or anything

) which deliberately refer to people

and things in a non specific, imprecise way. Purposefully vague language is very

common in informal spoken language:

Does he think I’m stupid 

or something?

She’s 

sort of interested.

Û

Softening

Verb In a clause, the verb is an obligatory and the most central element. It

denotes actions, events, processes and states. Verbs are either regular (cough,

coughs, coughing, coughed

) or irregular (speak, speaks, spoke, speaking,

spoken

). There are three main grammatical classes of verb: lexical (walk, love,

put, cook

), auxiliary (do, be, have) and modal (can, must, will). Lexical and

auxiliary verbs indicate contrasts of tense, person and number:

She 

walk

s

too quickly for me. 

(lexical verb walks in present tense, agreement in person and number with

subject she)

He 

has been a good friend.

(auxiliary verb has, agreement of tense, person and number)

We 

must get there early.

(modal must: no inflection for tense, person or number)

Verb phrase A phrase with a lexical verb as its head:

I 

asked you.

We 

should have 

phoned

you. 

A verb phrase introduces the predicate part of a clause, indicates the clause

type, and shows contrasts in tense, aspect, voice and mood. 

Û

Complex verb phrase

Vocative A noun phrase used to directly address the listener or reader, normally

in the form of a personal name, title or term of endearment:

Paul, can you help us?

This is for you, 

daddy.

928 | Glossary

Cambridge Grammar of English

---

Voice Gives information about the roles of different participants (agent or

recipient) in an event. Voice may be active or passive. Voice changes the

semantic relationship between the grammatical subject and object of a verb.

Active voice: My sister cooked the meal. 

(grammatical subject as doer/agent)

Passive voice: The meal was cooked by my sister. 

(grammatical subject as recipient of the action)

Volitional Expresses a meaning of willingness, usually by means of modal verbs

such as will or would in offers and requests:

I would be grateful if you 

would lend me a pound.

Wh-clause A declarative clause that is introduced by question words who(m),

whose, what, when, where, which, why

or how. A wh-clause is often used as a

direct object after verbs such as advise, ask, inform, remind, show and tell and

in cleft sentences:

I asked him 

why he came.

(as direct object)

Could you please advise me 

what I should do.

(as direct object)

It was an elderly lady 

who had this house.

(in cleft sentence)

Wh-cleft A wh-cleft contains given information but shifts the focus of a clause to

the end to indicate new and important information. This is especially common

in spoken language: