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

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541 Index for individual terms not in the Glossary

Glossary | 905

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Header Headers are a type of fronting which serve an orienting function in

spoken utterances. They involve placing a noun phrase or a clausal

construction at the front of a clause, followed by one or more pronouns which

refer back to the noun phrase. A header indicates the main topic of the clause:

That leather coat, 

it

looks really nice on you.

Walking into that room, 

it

brought back a lot of memories.

Headers are contrasted with tails. The terms ‘left dislocation’ and ‘pre-posed’

are sometimes used to refer to headers.

Hedging A linguistic strategy used to avoid sounding too authoritative or direct.

This can be achieved through negation, through short hedged replies, or by

using expressions such as kind of, sort of, probably, actually, really:

Sorry, but I do

n’t really feel like going out tonight. 

A: I suppose you’ve made up your mind to buy the roses?

B: No, not necessarily.

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Softening

Historic present tense The use of present tense form for past reference. This

occurs particularly in narratives, stories or jokes, usually for purposes of

dramatising important events:

Emma, this friend of mine, brought these photographs out of the family

through the years and he

’s looking at them, and he said ‘Oh!’ 

Then suddenly he 

picks up the book and tears it into pieces. It was amazing, I

couldn’t believe it.

Homograph, homophone, homonym These terms describe relationships of

similarity between words. Homographs are words which have the same spelling

(sometimes with different pronunciations) but different meanings:

saw 

(noun and past tense verb); row (/rə/ and /ra/)

Homophones are words which have the same pronunciation but different

meanings:

meat–meet, flour–flower, bare–bear

Homonyms are unrelated words which share the same pronunciation and

spelling:

rose 

(flower and past tense of verb rise)

bank 

(river bank and financial institution)

mole 

(mark on a person’s skin and small animal)

Honorific Words such as sir or madam. They are often respectful and deferential.

Hypercorrect A term used to describe excessive care in the production of speech

or writing in order to sound educated and native-like which can lead to over-

generalisation of rules:

The chips smell nice.

(hypercorrect: The chips smell nicely.)

906 | Glossary

Cambridge Grammar of English

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Imperative A clause type which is typically associated with directives,

commands, orders, instructions, etc. It consists of the base form of the verb,

typically with no overt subject, + any other required elements:

Get some kitchen paper, quick!

Sign here, please.

Indefinite article, indefinite pronoun Indefinite article refers to the determiner

a/an

that is used to express an indefinite meaning:

Give me 

a pen, please.

I went for 

an eye test.

An indefinite pronoun is a pronoun that expresses a non-specific or 

non-definite meaning (someone, anybody, everything, many, one, more, all).

Indicative A form of clause mood which expresses the factual or ‘indicative’

meaning of stating or questioning. It is the most frequent form and involves all

the choices of person, tense, number, aspect, modality and voice (It’s a nice

day. 

Are we going out?).

Indicative is contrasted with imperative and subjunctive.

Indirect interrogative clause Refers to the use of wh-clause, a clause with

if/whether

or a nominal clause as object in a sentence. In order to avoid being

too assertive or threatening, a direct interrogative is not used:

Tell me 

what you want for dinner.

Could I possibly ask 

why you’re unable to attend?

I asked 

whether she wanted to stay overnight.

Indirect object Refers to the indirect recipient or beneficiary of an action which

has a direct recipient. An indirect object (

IO

) always co-occurs with a direct

object (

DO

):