Level One: Lexis and Semantics

• word class


  a group of words that fulfil the same kind of role and function in speech and writing
• noun


  a word that names a thing or concept
• verb


  a word that shows a state of being, action

  or concept
• adjective

  a word that modifies a noun
• adverb

  a word that modifies a verb, an adjective or another adverb
• pronoun

  a word that substitutes for a noun
• determiner


  a word that adds detail or clarity to

  a noun (e.g. the, my, some)
• preposition


  a word that shows connections between other words often showing a sense of place or time (e.g. in, on, between, during)
• conjunction 


  provides connections between the

  larger structures, phrases, clauses and sentences (see Unit 6, e.g. ‘and’, ‘but’, ‘because’)
• types of nouns:

  • proper; names of people or places
  • abstract; states, feelings and concepts with no physical appearance
  • concrete; refer to objects with physical existence (pluralised and non countable)
• types of verbs:

  • material; show actions or events (e.g. hit, jump, build, wash)
  • relational; identify properties or show states of being (e.g. be, appear, seem, become)
  • mental; show internal processes (e.g. think, believe, wish)
  • verbal; external process of communicating through speech (e.g. say, shout, scream, whisper)
  • stative; describe a state or condition that is stable or unlikely to change (e.g., “ know,”  “feel,” “believe”).
• types of adjectives and adverbs:

  • base; basic form modifying (post or pre) another word (e.g. big, interesting, carefully)
  • comparative; compare two instances either adding -er or using more
  • superlative; compare two instances, identifying the best example (e.g. biggest, most)
• types of pronouns:

  • personal; refer to people, differentiated in terms of person 1st 2nd 3rd, number singular and plural and gender male or female
  • demonstrative; orientate the reader or listener towards a person, object or idea (e.g. this, these, that, those)
  • indefinite; refer to a person, object or idea that is non specific (e.g. somebody, anybody, everything)
• types of determiners:

  • articles; shows if something is definite (the) or indefinite (a/an)
  • possessives; show ownership (my, your, her, our)
  • qualifiers; specific (one, two) or non-specific (some, any, a few) qualities of a noun
• types of conjunction:

  • co-ordinating; link words or larger structures such as phrases and clauses when they are equal (e.g. and, but, or, yet)
  • sub-ordinating; link clauses together to show one is dependent on another (e.g. because, although, while, for)
• semantic field


  a group of words related to the same subject
• collocates


  words that typically appear together
• fixed expression

  a well-used group of words that becomes accepted nd used as one long structure