PART OF SPEECH

There are thousands of words in any language. But not all words have the same job. For example, some words express "action". Other words express a "thing". Other words "join" one word to another word. Parts of speech are those words that make a sentence, phrase or clause which helps us in speaking, reading, writing english in grammatical form. There are nine parts of speech. They are articles, nouns, pronouns, adjectives, verbs, conjuctions, prepositions, and interconjuctions. A word caution, however; a word can be more than one part of speech.

N

oun

A noun is a word that identifies:

·        a person (woman, boy, doctor, neighbour)

Tom Hanks is very versatile.

·        a thing (dog, building, tree, country)

Dogs can be extremely cute.

·        an idea, quality, or state (truth, danger, birth, happiness).

It is my birthday.

Nouns are classified in several ways:     

·       Nouns can be singular or plural

è Singular nouns name only one person, place, thing or idea. (One apple, a pencil, the book)

è Plural nouns name two or more persons, places, things or ideas. Most singular nouns (Not ALL) are made plural by adding –s. For example, (pencil is a singular noun. The word pencils is a plural noun.)

·       Proper Nouns

è A proper noun is a name that identifies a particular person, place, or thing. They are always capitalized!

-          People’s names and titles à King Henry, Mrs. Smith

-          Names for deity, religions, religious followers, and sacred books à God, Allah, Buddha, Islam, Catholicism, Christians

-          Races, nationalities, tribes, and languages à African American, Polish-American, Black, Chinese, Russian

-          Specific Places like countries, cities, bodies of water, streets, buildings, and parks

-          Specific organizations à Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)

-          Days of the week, months, and holidays

-          Brand names of products

-          Historical periods, well-known events, and documents à Middle ages, Boston Tea Party, Magna Carta

-          Titles of publications and written documents

·     Common Nouns

They are not capitalized unless they are the first word in the sentence.

·     Collective Nouns

Collective nouns are nouns that are grammatically considered singular, but include more than one person, place, thing, or idea in its meaning.

-          Words like team, group, jury, committee, audience, crowd, class, troop, family, team, couple, band, herd, quartet, and society.

-          Generally, collective nouns are treated as singular because they emphasize the group as one unit.

-          The committee is going to make a decision. 

·    Concrete Nouns

A concrete noun is a noun which refers to people and to things that exist physically and can be seen, touched, smelled, heard, or tasted.

-          Examples ; include dog, building, coffee, tree, rain, beach, tune.

·     Absract Nouns

An abstract noun is a noun which refers to ideas, qualities, and conditions - things that cannot be seen or touched and things which have no physical reality.

-          Examples; truth, danger, happiness, time, friendship, humour.

·     Count      

It refers to anything that is countable, and has a singular and plural form.

-          Examples:  kitten, video, ball

·     Mass

This is the opposite of count nouns. Mass nouns are also called non-countable nouns, and they need to have “counters” to quantify them.

-          Examples of Counters: kilo, cup, meter

-          Examples of Mass Nouns: rice, flour, garter

·     Nouns can be Gerunds

A gerund is the –ing form of the verb and is used as a noun.

-          Examples:

§  Running is good for you
Running is the noun/gerund and is is the verb.

§  My crying upset him.
Crying is the subject and upset is the verb 1

P

ronoun

A pronoun is a word that replaces a noun. They eliminate the need for repetition. 

-          For Example:

§  Kate was tired so she went to bed.

§  Michael took the children with him.

§  Kieran’s face was close to mine.

§  That is a good idea.

§  Anything might happen.

 There are several types of pronouns.

·       Personal Pronouns 

Refer to specific persons or things. They can be divided into various different categories according to their role in a sentence, as follows:

·       Subjective Pronouns

The personal pronouns I, you, we, he, she, it, and they are known as subjective pronouns because they act as the subjects of verbs:

-          She saw Catherine.

-          We drove Nick home.

-          I waved at her.

-          She knew the grammar rules very well

·       Objective pronouns

The personal pronouns me, you, us, him, her, it, and them are called objective pronouns because they act as the objects of verbs and prepositions:

-          Catherine saw her.

-          Nick drove us home.

-          She waved at me.

-           

Here’s a table setting out the different forms:

	SINGULAR		PLURAL
	subjective	objective	Subjective	objective
first person	I	me	We	us
second person	You	you	You	you
third person	he/she/it	him/her/it	They	them

Notice that the personal pronouns you and it stay the same, whether they are being used in the subjective or objective roles.

·       Possessive Pronouns

Indicate ownership or possession.

-          Singular: my, mine, your, yours, hers, his, its

-          Plural: yours, ours, theirs,

o   For Example: She returned my pencil to me because it was mine. 

·       Reflexive Pronouns 

This kind of pronoun is used to refer back to the subject. Some of the reflexive pronouns are: yourself, myself, ourselves, himself, herself, themselves, and itself.

-          For Example:

o   Sandra never forgets to send a copy of the email to herself.

o   He promised to repair the broken fence, however, we ended up fixing it ourselves.

·       Intensive Pronouns

          Emphasize a noun or another pronoun.

-          Singular: myself, yourself, himself, herself, itself 

-          Plural: ourselves, yourselves, themselves

o   For Example à  I saw Brad Pitt himself at the mall.

Here, himself emphasizes the antecedent, Bradd Pitt.

·       Reciprocal Pronouns

Express shared actions or feelings. They are; Each other, One another

-          For Example à  Yan Ko and Tai help each other with their homework.

-          Leon and his girlfriend dance with one another when they go clubbing.

·       Indefinite Pronouns 

Refer to non-specific persons and things.

All, another, any, anybody, anyone, anything, both, each, either, everybody, everyone, everything, few, many, neither, nobody, none, no one, nothing, one, several, some, somebody, someone, something

-          For Exampleà    Many believe that UFO’s exist, but nobody can prove it.

-          No one can be sure if aliens really exist, but only few wonder if Elvis is still alive.

·       Demonstrative Pronouns 

The function of this kind of pronoun is to point to a noun. Examples are: this, these, that, and those. The pronouns “this” and “these” points to things that are nearby while the other two are for things that are far. Aside from proximity, you must also consider the number of things you are pointing out. For singular nouns, “this” and “that” should be used, while for plural nouns “these” and “those” are appropriate.

-          Examples:

o   That is the car that I’ll buy for my birthday.

o   The speaker is pointing out to a singular noun that is far from him/her.

o   She said she wanted these.

·       Interrogative Pronouns 

As the title implies, the function of this kind of pronoun is to ask questions. Examples of interrogative pronouns are: who, what, which, whom, whoever, whatever, whichever, and whomever.

-          Examples:

o   Who wrote the book 1984?

o   What did the doctors say?

·       Relative Pronouns

Introduce dependent clauses and refers to a person or thing already mentioned in the sentence (i.e. the antecedent).

Who, whoever, whom, whomever, whose, which, that

-          For Example à  The English that we learn in class will help us pass English 1101. 

-          that we learn in class is the adjective clause that describes English. And, that is the relative pronoun.

-          Q: Which English?
A: The English that we learn in class—as opposed to the English we learn around our friends.

A

 dverbs

Some adverbs refer to a whole statement and not just a part of it. They are called sentence adverbs and they act as a comment, showing the attitude or opinion of the speaker or writer to a particular situation. Sentence ad verbs often stand at the beginning of the sentence. Here are some examples:

-          Clearly, there have been unacceptable delays.

It is clear that there have been unacceptable delays

-          Sadly, the forests are now under threat.

It is sad that the forests are now under threat

-          Curiously, he never visited America.

It's curious that he never visited America.)

The sentence adverbs are used to convey the writer or speaker's opinion that it is clear/sad/curious that something happened or is the case. If you compare the way clearly, sadly, and curiously are used in the next three sentences, you can easily see the difference between the meaning of the sentence adverbs and the 'ordinary' adverbs:

-          He spoke clearly and with conviction.

He spoke in a clear way and with conviction

-          She smiled sadly.

She smiled in a sad way

-          He looked at her curiously.

He looked at her in a curious/inquisitive way

Comparative and superlative adverbs

Many adverbs can have three different forms, the positive, the comparative, and the superlative:

Positive	Comparative	Superlative
Loudly	more loudly	most loudly
Fast	faster	fastest
Well	better	Best

The comparative form is used for comparing two actions or states:

-          She ate her lunch more quickly than Joe (did).

-          Can’t we go any faster?

-          The company performed better this year (than last year).

-          I made my cough sound worse than it actually was.

The superlative is used for comparing one action or state with all the others in the same category:

-          The first stage of a divorce passes the most quickly.

-          We need people who are determined, not just those who can run the fastest.

-          He’s playing the kind of role that suits him best.

-          Worst of all, we didn’t have the rights to our own films.

Note that it’s not possible to have comparatives or superlatives of certain adverbs, especially those of time (e.g. yesterday, daily, then), place (e.g. here, up, down), and degree (e.g. very, really, almost).

Adverbs can be used in three positions in a sentence or clause:

-         front (perhaps they’ll arrive this evening)

-         mid (she hardly knew him)

-         end (I left the bedroom and ran downstairs)

·       Front position

The main types of adverbs that can be used in this position are those that:

-          begin a sentence or clause that’s linked in meaning to another:

·       People tend to put on weight in middle age. However, gaining weight is not inevitable.

·       I’ll begin with an overview of the product. Secondly, I’ll talk about projected sales.

-          refer to time or frequency:

·       Afterwards, we went out for a walk.

·       Sometimes she wonders what life’s all about.

-          refer to place:

·       There goes my bus!

·       Up he ran, soon disappearing from view.

·       comment on the rest of the sentence or clause (sentence adverbs):

·       Luckily, our meal lived up to expectation.

·       Clearly, more research is needed.

·       Mid position

This term refers to adverbs that can be used in the middle of a sentence or clause. The main kinds of adverbs found in this position are those that:

-          refer to frequency:

·       We always meet for coffee on Saturday.

·       She’s never been to Sweden.

-          refer to manner:

·       He carefully avoided my eye.

·       I slowly walked into town.

·       make the meaning of a verb, adjective, or other adverb stronger or weaker:

·       She nearly fell asleep at her desk.

·       These ideas are very complicated.

-          Comment on the rest of the sentence or clause:

·       When we first heard this story, frankly, we couldn’t believe it.

-          focus on part of a sentence or clause:

·       I’m only going to stay in New York for a week.

·       Tina can’t just drop all her commitments.

End position

The main types of adverbs which can be used at the end of a sentence of clause are those that:

-          refer to manner:

·       It's an interesting plot twist, and one that works well.

·       For some reason, his career progressed slowly.

-          refer to time or frequency:

·       The troops flew home yesterday.

·       They’re sending hundreds of texts to each other monthly.

-          refer to place:

·       They’re sitting at the table over there.

·       There was a sudden burst of laughter from the people who could see outside.

A

 djective

One of the most important components of a sentence is the adjective. This part of speech is so common that people use it almost automatically, both in speech and in writing. For you to understand the concept of adjectives better this article will answer the following questions:

-          What is an adjective?

-          What are the functions of adjectives?

-          What are the different kinds of adjectives?

-          What are the degrees of adjectives?

Aside from answering the basic questions and defining the related terms, various examples will also be included in this  short write-up.

What is an Adjective and its Functions?

An adjective is a part of speech which describes, identifies, or quantifies a noun or a pronoun. So basically, the main function of an adjective is to modify a noun or a pronoun so that it will become more specific and interesting. Instead of just one word, a group of words with a subject and a verb, can also function as an adjective. When this happens, the group of words is called an adjective clause.

-          For example: My brother, who is much older than I am, is an astronaut.

o   In the example above, the underlined clause modifies the noun ”brother.” But what if the group of words doesn’t have a subject and a verb? What do you think the resulting group of words will be called?

-          If you think it’s called an adjective phrase, you are right. As you might recall, phrases and clauses are both groups of words and the main difference is that clauses have subjects and verbs, while phrases don’t.

o   For example: She is prettier than you.

What are the Different Kinds of Adjectives?

Now that you already know the answer to the question, “What is an adjective?” you should know that not all adjectives are the same. They modify nouns and pronouns differently, and just like the other parts of speech, there are different kinds of adjectives. These are:

·       Descriptive Adjectives

Among the different kinds of adjectives, descriptive adjectives are probably the most common ones. They simply say something about the quality or the kind of the noun or pronoun they’re referring to.

-          Examples:

o   Erika is witty.

o   She is tired.

o   Adrian’s reflexes are amazing.

·       Adjectives of Number or Adjectives of Quantity

As the name suggests, this kind of adjective answers the question, “How many?” or “How much?”

-          Examples:

o   Twenty-one students failed the exam.

o   The plants need more water.

·       Demonstrative Adjectives

Demonstrative adjectives point out pronouns and nouns, and always come before the words they are referring to.

-          Examples:

o   I used to buy this kind of shirts.

o   When the old man tripped over that wire, he dropped a whole bag of groceries.

·       Possessive Adjectives

Obviously, this kind of adjectives shows ownership or possession. Aside from that, possessive adjectives always come before the noun.

-          Examples: 

o   I can’t answer my seatwork because I don’t have a calculator.

o   Trisha sold his dog.

o    

·       Interrogative Adjectives

Interrogative adjectives ask questions and are always followed by a noun.

-          Examples:

o   What movie are you watching?

o   Which plants should be placed over here?

What are the Degrees of Adjectives?

There are only three degrees or levels of adjectives (also known as degrees of comparison) namely, positive, comparative, and superlative. When you talk about or describe only a single person, place, or thing, you should use the positive degree.

-          Examples:

o   She is a beautiful lady.

o   It was a memorable trip.

If on the other hand, you are comparing two persons, places, or things, it is appropriate to use the comparative degree of the word. Normally, you will need to add “-er” to transform the word into its comparative form or add the word “more.” Also, the word “than” should be added after the adjective in the comparative degree.

-          Examples:

o   This swimming pool is bigger than that one.

o   Ashley is more intelligent than Aldrin.

Note: For words ending in “y,” you should first change the “y” into “i,” and then add “-er” (e.g., lovely-lovelier; pretty- prettier; tasty- tastier)

Lastly, if you are comparing more than two things, the superlative form of the adjectives should be used and the word “the” should be added before the adjective. In order to transform the adjective into its superlative form, you just have to add the suffix “-est” or the word “most.”

-          Examples:

-          That is by far, the tallest tree I have ever seen in my entire life.

-          This is the most crucial match of the season.

Note: For words ending in “y,” you should first change the “y” into “i,” and then add “-est” (e.g., lovely-loveliest; pretty- prettiest; tasty- tastiest)

V

erb

Verbs generally express action or a state of being. There are several classifications for verbs- action verbs,/linking verbs, main verbs/auxiliary verbs, transitive/intransitive and phrasal verbs.

·       Action verbs show action.

Verbs are more than just words that express an action done physically like:

-          run, jump, dance, write, kick, etc.

In reality, verbs may also refer to an action done mentally such as:

-          think, ponder, guess, imagine, wonder, etc.

·       Linking Verbs link the subject to an adjective.

As the name suggests, a linking verb is a kind of verb that links a subject to the complement. A complement is the part of a sentence which modifies or provides more information about the subject.

-          Examples of linking verbs are:

o   am, is, was, are, were, has been, might have been, become, etc.

The words listed above are just some of the “true linking verbs.” They are called that way because they have no other functions but to serve as linking verbs. However, just like some people, certain verbs also have dual personalities. Take a look at the two sentences below:

-          Irine tasted the exotic food.

-          The exotic food tasted great!

In the first sentence, you can easily say that the italicized word is an action word done by Irine. However, in the second sentence, the same word has a different function. It serves as a linking verb that connects exotic foodwith the word, great.

·       Multi-Part Verb

Main verbs can stand alone.

Auxiliary verbs, also called helping verbs, serve as support to the main verb.

-          The most common auxiliary verbs are:

o   Have, has, had

o   Do, does, did

o   Be, am, is, are, was, were, being, been

o   Should, could, will, would, might, can, may, must, shall, ought (to) 

-          For example:

o   Ray has run everyday.

o   Run is an action verb. The subject can actually "do" it.

o   Has is the helping verb. It helps the main verb run to be present perfect tense.

o   I was given a two-week notice by the sales agent.

The sentence above is written in the passive voice.  Was is the auxiliary verb and given is the main verb.

o   It must have been raining very hard.

The main verb is raining and the auxiliary verbs are must have been.

·       Verbs can be transitive or intransitive.

Transitive Verbs require a direct object in order to make sense.

-          For Example:

o   Yolanda takes aspirin for her headaches. 

Here, takes is a transitive verb since the sentence Yolanda takes has no meaning without its direct object aspirin. 

Intransitive Verbs do not need direct objects to make them meaningful.

-          For Example:

o   Julio swims. 

The verb swim has meaning for the reader without an object.

Caution: A verb can be either transitive or intransitive depending on its context.

-          For Example:

o   The cars race. – Here, raceis intransitive. It does not need an object.

My father races horses. – Here, races is transitive. It requires the object horses in order to make sense.

·       Verbs can be phrasal.

Phrasal verbs are made up of a verb and a preposition. The preposition gives the verb a different meaning than it would have by itself. For example, the verb look has a different meaning from the phrasal verb look up (in the dictionary).

-          Some more examples:

o   call up, find out, hand in, make up, put off, turn on, write up.