Glossary ablaut

Germanic – one of the branches of Indo-European, from which are descended,amongst others, the present-day languages English, Dutch, Frisian, German,Danish, Icelandic, Norwegian and Swedish.

government – process by which one phrase has control over another, forexample a verb may determine the case assigned to an object.

gradation, qualitative and quantitative – see ablaut.

hypotaxis – where one syntactic unit is linked to another by means of subordination.

iambic pentameter – metrical verse form where each line is based upon a template of five feet, each consisting of an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed syllable; naturally almost all poets vary the form of the line.

Indo-European – the language family from which are descended not only the Germanic languages, but a very wide range of languages throughout Europe and many parts of the Middle East and Indian sub-continent.

infinitive – usually taken as the basic or unmarked non-finite verbal form.