Glossary (Version 8.4)

A word class that describes a kind of situation such as a happening (for example, ‘climbed’ in ‘She climbed the ladder’) or a state (for example, ‘is’ in ‘The koala is an Australian mammal’).

Verbs are essential to clause structure: all clauses contain a verb, except in certain types of ellipsis (for example, ‘Sue lives in Sydney, her parents in Melbourne’, where there is ellipsis of ‘live’ in the second clause).

Virtually all verbs have contrasting past and present tense forms. Some are signalled by inflections such as ‘-s’ and ‘-ed’. For example:

  • walks (present tense)
  • walked (past tense).

Other verbs have irregular forms that signal a change in tense. For example:

  • present – ‘am/is/are’ and past – ‘was/were’
  • present participle ‘being’ and past participle ‘been’.

Auxiliary verbs and modal verbs are two types of verbs:

  • auxiliary verbs are also referred to as ‘helping’ verbs. They precede the main verb; for example, ‘draw’ (main verb) ‘has drawn’ (auxiliary verb assisting)
  • modal verbs express a degree of probability (for example, ‘I might come home’) or a degree of obligation (for example, ‘You must give it to me’, ‘You are not permitted to smoke in here’).

Visual components of a text such as placement, salience, framing, representation of action or reaction, shot size, social distance and camera angle.

In the literary sense, voice can be used to refer to the nature of the voice projected in a text by an author (for example, ‘authorial voice’ in a literary text, or ‘expert voice’ in an exposition).