Grammar Terms

Gerund
A form of verb ending in –ing. Consider the verb read, and consider this example: I enjoy reading books. Here read stands in its gerund form reading, and reading exhibits verbal properties: in this case it takes the object books.

In English a verb phrase governed by a gerund can occupy any noun-phrase position. For example, it can be subject, a direct object or the object of a preposition.

Study the following sentences.

Smoking is injurious to health. (Subject)
I like reading. (Object)
I am not interested in reading. (Object of the preposition)

Gradable
An adjective or adverb exhibiting a property which can be present to a greater or lesser degree. Gradable adjectives and adverbs can be modified by degree modifiers like more, most, very and rather. Not all adjectives and adverbs are gradable. Examples of some non-gradable adjectives and adverbs are: alive, principal, round, perfect and immediately. You cannot, for example, say more alive or most perfect.

Grammar
The label grammar refers to the branch of linguistics dealing with the structures of words and sentences. Grammar is commonly divided into two – morphology (word structure) and syntax (sentence structure).

Grammatical morpheme
A morpheme which has little or no meaning but which serves a grammatical function. English examples include of and the.