An essential reference for students and teachers, The Grammar Dictionary covers over 250 terms using examples drawn from real-life texts that range from the works of Shakespeare, Mark Twain and Emily Dickinson to current works from Time magazine and The Scientist. It gives detailed and accessible information on familiar terms such as "noun," "subject" and "predicate;" and also on more obscure but equally important ones such as "absolute construction," "aspect" and "modality." Terms are drawn from traditional grammar and the most recent work in universal grammar