Download Year 5 - Crossley Fields

Year Five Jargon Buster!
Below is a list of grammatical terms your child will be learning about in
Year Five. We have included a definition and an example for each of the
terms.
Noun: A noun is a name of a person, place, animal or thing. Common nouns are the names given
to general categories, such as ‘girl’, ‘city’, ‘dog’ and ‘car’. Proper nouns are the specific names of
people, places, animals and things, as ‘Beth’, ‘Edinburgh’, ‘Lassie’ and ‘Mercedes’. Concrete
nouns name items we can see and touch, while abstract nouns name things that exist only in our
minds, such as ‘beauty’, ‘truth’ and ‘justice’. Nouns are an important element in a clause, because
they are used to name the subject or object of the verb. For example, in the phrase ‘Max ate
chips’, ‘ate’ is the verb, ‘Max’ is the subject and ‘chips’ is the object.
Adjective: Adjectives tell you more about a noun (for example: ‘the red dress’).
Verb: A verb is the word that indicates what is happening in a clause or a sentence. It’s the most
important word class because without verbs nothing could happen.
Suffix: A suffix is a letter or letters added at the end of a word to turn it into a different word. For
example: ‘-ed’ is added to the end of the word ‘look’ to make the new word ‘looked’.
Cohesion: Cohesion refers to the devices used to structure and order a text or sentence and give
it meaning. Grammatical cohesive devices include conjunctions and prepositions, which make
links within and between sentences; adverbials, which act like signposts in a text, indicating, for
example, time and sequence; nouns, noun phrases and pronouns, which refer backwards and
forwards between sentences. For example: ‘Katy knocked on the door. Her mum opened it.’
Clause: A clause is a group of words that can be used either as a whole sentence or as an
important part of a sentence. It is built around a verb.
Relative clause: A relative clause is a type of subordinate clause, introduced by a relative
pronoun. For example: ‘Flora, who was an explorer, set off for the jungle’.
Relative pronoun: A relative pronoun, such as ‘who’, ‘whose’, ‘which’, ‘that’, ‘where’ and ‘when’,
is a word that opens a subordinate clause by referring back to the noun or noun phrase which
precedes it. The clause adds extra detail and therefore has an adjectival function.
Adverb: Adverbs are generally defined as words that can tell you more about what happens in a
sentence by adding to the meaning of the verb. They can answer the questions ‘how?’ (‘happily’),
‘when?’ (‘always’) or ‘where?’ (‘here’). However, adverbs have many other functions.
For instance, adverbs of degree, such as ‘very’ or ‘extremely’, answer the question ‘how much?’
They can tell you more about an adjective (‘very happy’) or another adverb (‘extremely quickly’).
Adverbs such as ‘possibly’, ‘probably’ and ‘maybe’ express degrees of possibility. Like modal
verbs, they are often used to avoid being too definite when making a point. They help to ‘cover’ the
speaker/writer by suggesting that you cannot be sure of a fact, or there may be some exceptions
to the point being made.
For example: ‘CO2 emissions are probably a major cause of global warming.’ Adverbs such as
‘also’, ‘however’ and ‘therefore’ are frequently used to make cohesive links between sentences.
They usually come at or near the beginning of a new sentence. In informal speech and writing we
often use coordinating conjunctions, such as ‘and’, ‘but’ and ‘so’, instead of these more formalsounding adverbs.
Year Five Jargon Buster!
Modal verb: Modal verbs come before the main verb to suggest degrees of possibility, ability or
obligation.
Prefix: A prefix is a group of letters we can add to the beginning of the word in order to change it
into another word. For example: ‘un-’, ‘super-’, ‘mini-’.
Adverbial: A phrase that acts like an adverb is known as an adverbial. A fronted adverbial is one
that comes at the start of a sentence.
Parenthesis: A parenthesis is a word, phrase or clause that has been inserted into a sentence as
an explanation, aside or afterthought. It is usually marked off by brackets, commas or dashes. You
can take it out and the sentence will still make complete sense. For example: ‘The wolf – a huge,
slavering beast – prowled around the field’.
Brackets: Brackets are punctuation marks that keep words cordoned off from the rest of the
sentence. The enclosed words add extra information to, but are not essential to, the meaning of
the sentence.
Dash: A dash is a punctuation mark that shows a sharp break in a sentence.
Ambiguity: Ambiguity is where there is a doubtful or double meaning, or where the meaning is not
clear. Sometimes this is intentional, but often it is not. Ambiguity can be caused by inadequate or
incorrect punctuation.
Year 5: Detail of content to be introduced
Word
Converting nouns or adjectives into verbs using suffixes [for example, –ate;
–ise; –ify]
Verb prefixes [for example, dis–, de–, mis–, over– and re–]
Sentence
Relative clauses beginning with who, which, where, when, whose, that, or an
omitted relative pronoun
Indicating degrees of possibility using adverbs [for example, perhaps, surely]
or modal verbs [for example, might, should, will, must]
Text
Devices to build cohesion within a paragraph [for example, then, after that,
this, firstly]
Linking ideas across paragraphs using adverbials of time [for example, later],
place [for example, nearby] and number [for example, secondly] or tense
choices [for example, he had seen her before]
Punctuation
Brackets, dashes or commas to indicate parenthesis
Use of commas to clarify meaning or avoid ambiguity
Terminology
for pupils
modal verb, relative pronoun
relative clause
parenthesis, bracket, dash
cohesion, ambiguity