Writing Guide: Grammar

Description of the structure of a language, consisting of the sounds (see phonology); the meaningful combinations of these sounds into words or parts of words, called morphemes; and the arrangement of the morphemes into phrases and sentences, called syntax.

[Gr.,=significant] in general, the study of the relationship between words and meanings. The empirical study of word meanings and sentence meanings in existing languages is a branch of linguistics; the abstract study of meaning in relation to language or symbolic logic systems is a branch of philosophy.

From Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics
A traditional term for the study of the rules governing the way words are combined to form sentences in a language. In this use, syntax is opposed to morphology, the study of word structure.

[Lat.,=point], the use of special signs in writing to clarify how words are used; the term also refers to the signs themselves. In every language, besides the sounds of the words that are strung together there are other features, such as tone, accent, and pauses, that are equally significant (see grammar and phonetics).

From Good Word Guide
Words can be grouped into classes, commonly called parts of speech, which share the same grammatical function within sentences.

Grammatical part of speech for what someone or something does, experiences, or is. Verbs are of crucial importance to the construction of the sentence. The rules governing the correct use and spelling of verbs are complex, involving consideration of number, voice, mood, aspect, and tense.

From Good Word Guide
Nouns are the names of things, places, or people. The main division of nouns is into ‘countable’ and ‘uncountable’: countable nouns are those which can be preceded by a or the, or by a number or word denoting number . . . Uncountable nouns are nouns of mass.

Grammatical part of speech for words that describe noun (for example, new, as in ‘a new hat’, and beautiful, as in ‘a beautiful day’).

From Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics
A term used in the grammatical classification of words to refer to a heterogeneous group of items whose most frequent function is to specify the mode of action of the verb.