Literary Devices Part 3

Front 1

Predicate Noun/Nominative

Back 1

A predicate noun is a noun (or noun phrase) that is used to predicate a description or identification of the subject.

Example: He is a good man. Or He became a mathematician.

Front 2

Loose Sentence

Back 2

A loose sentence is a type of sentence in which the main idea (independent clause) comes first, followed by dependent grammatical units such as phrases and clauses. The meaning of a loose sentence can be easily understood in the very beginning of the sentence, unlike a periodic sentence.

Front 3

Antecedent

Back 3

a preceding circumstance, event, object, style, phenomenon, etc.

Front 4

Subject Complement

Back 4

a word or a group of words, usually functioning as an adjective or noun, that is used in the predicate following a copula and describes or is identified with the subject of the sentence, as sleepy in The travelers became sleepy.

Front 5

Predicate Adjective

Back 5

A predicative adjective is not part of the noun phrase headed by the noun it modifies; rather, it is the complement of a copulative function that links it to the noun.

Example: The bag is red, the ball is round.

Front 6

Periodic Sentence

Back 6

a sentence that, by leaving the completion of its main clause to the end, produces an effect of suspense, as in Unable to join the others at the dance because of my sprained ankle, I went to a movie.

Front 7

Clause

Back 7

a syntactic construction containing a subject and predicate and forming part of a sentence or constituting a whole simple sentence.

Front 8

Chiasmus

Back 8

a reversal in the order of words in two otherwise parallel phrases, as in “He went to the country, to the town went she.”