Parts of speech

1) Noun

A noun is a word that identifies:

1. A person (man, girl, engineer, friend)

2. A thing (horse, wall, flower, country)

3. An idea, quality, or state (anger, courage, life, luckiness)

There are different types of nouns namely:

1. Proper proper nouns always start with a capital letter and refers to specific names of
persons, places, or things.
Examples: Volkswagen Beetle, Shakeys Pizza, Game of Thrones
2. Common common nouns are the opposite of proper nouns. These are just generic
names of persons, things, or places.
Examples: car, pizza parlor, TV series
3. Concrete this kind refers to nouns which you can perceive through your five senses.
Examples: folder, sand, board
4. Abstract- unlike concrete nouns, abstract nouns are those which you cant perceive
through your five senses.
Examples: happiness, grudge, bravery
5. Count it refers to anything that is countable, and has a singular and plural form.
Examples: kitten, video, ball
6. 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
7. Collective refers to a group of persons, animals, or things.
Example: faculty (group of teachers), class (group of students), pride (group of lions)

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 2) Verb

A verb describes what a person or thing does or what happens. For example, verbs describe:

1. An Action Jump, Stop, Explore

2. An Event Snow, Happen

3. A Situation Be, Seem, Have

4. A Change Evolve, Shrink, Widen

There are several types of verbs:

1. Action verbs.
He runs. He plays. They study.

2. Linking Verbs link the subject to an adjective.

she is beautiful.
The linking verb is links the adjective beautiful with the subject.

Some verbs can stand alone. Like: play, sleep. However, auxiliary verbs, also called helping
verbs, serve as support to the main verb. The most common auxiliary verbs are: Have, has,
had, do, does, did, should, could, will, would, might, can, may, must, shall, ought (to). Also,
Be, am, is, are, was, were, being, been when describing actions not states.

For example:

Fai must exercise everyday

Exercise is an action verb. Must is the helping verb.

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3. Transitive or intransitive.

Transitive Verbs require a direct object to make sense.

Maha takes aspirin for her headaches.

Here, takes is a transitive verb since the sentence Maha takes has no meaning without its

direct object aspirin.

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

Nada 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:

The cars race. Here, race is 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.

4. Phrasal verbs.

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: find out, hand in, make up, put off, turn on, write up

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 3) Adjective

An adjective is a word that describes a noun, giving extra information about it. Adjectives

can specify the quality, the size, and the number of nouns or pronouns. For example:

1. an exciting adventure
2. a green apple
3. a tidy room

Adjectives can be used to make comparisons.

For most adjectives of one or two syllables, you can add er. For example, greater,
faster, stronger.
For adjectives longer than two syllables, you should use the word more. For
example, He was more intelligent than his sister was.

Adjectives can also be used as superlatives.

For adjectives of one or two syllables you can add est to the end of an adjective. For
example, the loudest, the coolest, the smartest.
If an adjective is three syllables or longer, you must use the words the most. For
example: Mona is the most intelligent person in the world!

When adjectives are used together, they are arranged in a certain order.
Opinion Size Age Color Origin Material

Pretty Big New Blue Puerto Rican Leather

Tall Thin Old Purple Wood

Expensive Small Ancient Black Chinese Silk

Never use both an er ending and the word more or an est ending and the
word most.

For example, I am the most happiest when my students learn.

Instead, it should be: I am the happiest when my students learn.

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 4) Adverb

An adverb is a word thats used to give information about a verb, adjective, or other
adverb. They can make the meaning of a verb, adjective, or other adverb stronger or
weaker, and often appear between the subject and its verb (She nearly lost everything.)

The teacher carefully graded the homework.

Carefully is an adverb that modifies the action verb to grade.

Tahani was extremely enthusiastic about doing her homework.

Extremely is an adverb that modifies the adjective enthusiastic.

Yara ran out of the classroom very quickly.

Very is an adverb that modifies the adverb quickly.

Types of Adverbs:

1. Relative Adverbs introduce questions and dependent adverbial clauses. They answer
the questions When? and Where? They are: When Where
When I was young, I liked to play outside.
Q: When did I like to play outside? A: When I was young.

2. Adverbs of Frequency indicate answer the question how often? They are: Always,
usually, often, sometimes, rarely, never.
The students in ESOL 98 always study very hard.
They rarely forget to do their homework.

Adding ly changes adjectives to adverbs. However, here are some irregular adjective
and adverb forms. For example:

Adjective Adverb Comparing Two Comparing Three Or More

Bad Badly Worse Worst
Good Well Better Best
Little Less Least
Much Many More Most

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You need an adjective after linking verb not an adverb!

May feels bad (guilty) when he has to leave class.

Here, bad is an adjective that modifies the proper noun Tai.
It is an adjective because it follows the linking verb to feel.

May feels badly (to the touch) after swimming in a chlorinated pool. Her skin is really dry.
Here, bad is used in its adverbial form since it follows an action verb, to feel.

5) Pronoun

Pronouns are used in place of a noun that is already known or has already been
mentioned. This is often done to avoid repeating the noun. For example:

Laura left early because she was tired.

Anthony brought the avocados with him.

Personal pronouns are used in place of nouns referring to specific people or things, for

example I, me, mine, you, yours, his, her, hers, we, they, or them. They can be divided into

various different categories according to their role in a sentence, as follows:

1. 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.

2. 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.

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 PLURAL
SINGULAR
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

She looked at me

3. possessive pronouns

The personal pronouns: mine, yours, hers, his, ours, and theirs are known as possessive
pronouns: they refer to something owned by the speaker or by someone or something
previously mentioned. For example:

That book is mine.

Lolas eyes met hers.
Ours is a family farm.

4. Reflexive pronouns

Reflexive personal pronouns include myself, himself, herself, itself, ourselves,

yourselves, and themselves. These are used to refer to the subject of the clause in which they
are used:

I fell and hurt myself.

Daisy prepared herself for the journey.
The children had to look after themselves.

5. 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.

6. Demonstrative Pronouns are also considered noun markers. They "point" towards
nouns. this, that, these those
That woman attends Gainesville College.
That points out which woman.
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 7. Interrogative Pronouns introduce questions. Who, Whom, Whose, Which, What.

Who is going on vacation? To whom will the teacher give an "A"?

What are you doing?

8. Relative Pronouns introduce dependent clauses and refers to a person or thing already
mentioned in the sentence Who, whoever, whom, whomever, whose, which, that

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.

6) Preposition

A preposition is a word such as after, in, to, on, and with. Prepositions are usually used in

front of nouns or pronouns and they show the relationship between the noun or pronoun and

other words in a sentence. They describe, for example, the position of something, the time

when something happens, or the way in which something is done.

7) Conjunction

A conjunction (also called a connective) is a word such as and, because, but, for, if, or, and
when. Conjunctions are used to connect phrases, clauses, and sentences.

For , And, Nor, But, Or, Yet, So ,Bothand, neithernor, whetheror , eitheror ,
not onlybut also.

8) Determiner/Articles:

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A determiner is a word that introduces a noun, such as a/an, the, every, this, those, or many

(as in a dog, the dog, this dog, those dogs, every dog, many dogs).

The determiner the is sometimes known as the definite article and the determiner a (or an) as

the indefinite article.

9) Exclamation

An exclamation (also called an interjection) is a word or phrase that expresses strong

emotion, such as surprise, pleasure, or anger. Exclamations often stand on their own, and in

writing they are usually followed by an exclamation mark rather than a full stop.

Oh!, wow!, Ouch! Oops! Hey!

Words can be more than one part of speech. For example:

I sat on the sofa.

Above, sofa is used as a noun (object of the preposition).

I slept on the sofa bed.

But, here sofa is used as an adjective to modify the noun bed.

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