subject: British Academics - Parts of Speech [print this page] British Academics - Parts of Speech British Academics - Parts of Speech
The termpart of speech is how a word is utilized. Traditionally in the English language, it is defined as the classification of words. Words are classified under: nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, pronouns, articles, prepositions, conjunctions and interjections. In addition, words are also classified into major parts of speech which include the nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs.
Knowing the classification of a word enables you to use it properly. In addition, knowing the classification of words will also allow you to pronounce words correctly and enhance your communication skills..
Below are the different parts of speech and how they are widely defined.
Nouns
Nouns are commonly defined as "names of persons, places, or things"
Albert Einstein won his nobel prize in 1921. person
Albert Einstein was born in Germany. - place
Albert Einstein wanted to read a lot of books. - thing
Noun or noun phrases are either proper or common. Proper nouns are specific names of persons, places, or things; these nouns are capitalized, while common nouns are not. If a noun is only one, it is defined as a singular noun. Plural nouns on the other hand are persons, places, and things that are more than one.
Pronoun
A pronoun is an identifying word used in replace of a noun and inflected in the same way nouns are, also, a pronoun is defined as a closed set of names for what a word or symbol denotes.
This must not continue.
I was glad to find the bus pass in my drawer.
You are surely the strangest child I have ever met.
After reading the book, Judy threw it inside the box.
Adjective
An adjective is a word that modifies a noun or a pronoun by describing, identifying, or quantifying words.
what kind
The truck-shaped balloon floated over the treetops.
The small boat foundered on the wine dark sea.
The coal mines are dark and dank
Verb
A verb is a word that conveys or expresses an action; the verb perhaps is the most important part of the sentence. The verb includes the use of a tense. A tense describes when an action was performed. When we say present tense, this describes that the action is happening now. A past tense on the other hand conveys that the action has already happened, lastly, a future tense verb presents an action that will happen.
I bought an apple at the market this afternoon. past tense
I am eating the apple that I bought from the market. -present tense
I will be buying more apples later. future tense
Adverb:
An adverb describes a verb and can modify a verb, an adjective, a phrase, a clause and another adverb. It describes a verb by telling when and how. The three types of adverbs are manner, place, and time.
The seamstress quickly made the uniforms.-manner
The office was closed at threetoday.-time
The party is going to take place here.- place
Many adjectives end with the suffix "-ly". Most of these adverbs are formed by attaching lyto the end of the adjective, like this:
Adjective: Adverb:
Slow Slowly
Delightful Delightfully
Hopeless Hopelessly
Aggressive Aggressively
Conjunction
A conjunction is used to link words, phrases, and clauses, as in the following example:
Co-coordinating conjunctions are used to join individual words, phrases, independent clauses. This includes the following: and, but, or, not, nor, for, so, or yet. But and for can also be used as prepositions.
I ate the pizza and the pasta
Call the movers when you are ready
Subordinating conjunctions introduces a dependent clause and states the nature of the relationship of the dependent and independent clause. The most common are: after, because, if, than, till, when. While, until, that, once, how, although, as, before, since, though, when and whether.
She was sobbing because she lost a friend.
After she learned to drive, Rona felt more independent.
Correlative conjunctions always appear in pairs use them to link equivalent sentence elements. The most common correlative conjunctions are: bothand, eitheror, neithernor, not onlybut also, soas, whetheror
Bring either an ice cream or a cake at the party.
Both my grandfather and my father worked in the steel plant.
Preposition
A preposition describes a relationship between other words ( a noun or pronoun ) to another word in a sentence or to show how something is situated or related to something else.
We visited a friend at the hospital in Georgetown Medical Center.
He has worked at the farm since childhood.
Interjection
An interjection is a word that when added to a sentence conveys emotion. It is not linguistically related to any other part of the sentence. It is usually punctuated by an exclamation point(!) or followed by a comma (,)
