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Parts of speech There are eight parts of speech in the English language: noun, pronoun, verb, adjective, adverb, preposition, conjunction, and interjection. A part of speech indicates how the word functions in meaning as well as grammatically within the sentence. An individual word can function as more than one part of speech when used in different circumstances. Understanding parts of speech is essential for determining the correct definition of a word
1. Noun: Anoun is a kind of word that is usually the name of something such as a person, place, thing, quality, or idea. Types of noun There are several different types of noun, as follows: Common noun A common noun is a noun that refers to people or things in general, e.g. boy, country, bridge, city, birth, day, happiness. Proper noun A proper noun is a name that identifies a particular person, place, or thing, e.g. Ali, Africa, London, Monday. In written English, proper nouns begin with capital letters. Concrete noun 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.
Abstract noun 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, e.g. truth, danger, happiness, time, friendship, humour. Abstract Nouns are formed: (1) From Adjectives; as, Kindness from kind; honesty from honest. [Most abstract nouns are formed thus.] (2) From Verbs: as, Obedience from obey; growth from grow. (3) From CommonNouns; as, Childhood from child; slavery from slave.
Material noun Material noun refers to a material or substance from which things are made such as silver, gold, iron, cotton, diamond and plastic. Collective nouns Collective nouns refer to groups of people or things, e.g. audience, family, government, team, jury. In American English, most collective nouns are treated as singular, with a singular verb: The whole family was at the table.
Countable and Uncountable nouns Nouns can be either countable or uncountable. Countable nouns (or count nouns) are those that refer to something that can be counted. A countable noun is a separate object. It is a separate unit. We can clearly count the number of units of a countable noun. An example is “apple”. A countable noun has a singular form (when there is one unit). Example: I have one apple. It also has a plural form (where there is more than 1 unit) For regular nouns, we usually form the plural by adding “s” – Example: I have two apples.
Uncountable nouns (or mass nouns) An uncountable noun is not a separate object or unit. We cannot count uncountable nouns. It is a large solid mass or liquid without clear boundaries. An example is “water” We cannot count water. We do NOT say “I have 3 waters” – It does not make sense. Water is a liquid and is just one big amount all together. Uncountable nouns only have a singular form. Example: I have some water. There is no plural form for uncountable nouns. I have some waters. We cannot use the indefinite article (“a” / “an”) Example: I have a water. Uncountable nouns are therefore names of materials, gases, liquids, concepts, collections, mass objects without boundaries. Examples: sugar, butter, oxygen, rice, pasta, salt, bread, milk, water
Compound Noun Compound nouns are words for people, animals, places, things, or ideas, made up of two or more words. Most compound nouns are made with nouns that have been modified by adjectives or other nouns. Compound nouns are sometimes one word, like toothpaste, haircut, or bedroom. These are often referred to as closed or solid compound nouns. Sometimes compound nouns are connected with a hyphen: dry-cleaning, daughter-in-law, and well-being are some examples of hyphenated compound nouns. Sometimes compound nouns appear as two separate words: full moon, Christmas tree, and swimming pool are some examples of compound nouns that are formed with two separate words. These are often referred to as open or spaced compound nouns.
Compound Nouns Exercise • Choose the word that makes each of these nouns into a compound noun. • Fund __________ (A – driver, B – seat, C – raiser) • News __________ (A– paper, B – story, C – travels) • Sun ____________ (A– day, B – glasses, C – heat) • Child ___________ (A – hood, B – ren, C – play) • Door ___________ (A– frame, B – handle, C – way
Possessive Nouns • Possessive nouns demonstrate ownership over something else. The best way to spot them is to look for an apostrophe. Here are some examples: • Ali’s imagination ran wild as she daydreamed about her trip to Muree. • Ireland's landscape is truly breath taking. • The kids' toys are in the basket • Gender-specific Noun • A gender-specific noun refers specifically to a male or a female. In English, the gender of most nouns is neuter. However, if a noun refers to something obviously male or female, then its gender will be masculine or feminine. For example: • queen, vixen (female fox), bitch (female dog), sow (female pig) • (The grammatical gender of these nouns is feminine.) • king, uncle, drake (male duck), (The grammatical gender of these nouns is masculine.)
Common Gender Noun: • A noun that denotes either a male or a female is said to be of the Common Gender; as • Parent, child, friend, pupil, servant, thief, relation, enemy, cousin, person, orphan, • student, baby, monarch, neighbour, infant. • Neuter Gender: • A noun that denotes a thing that is neither male nor female (i.e., thing without life) is • said to be of the Neuter Gender; as, • Book, pen, room, tree. • [Neuter means neither, that is, neither male nor female]
Verbal noun Nouns derived from verbs (e.g., a building, an attack) It was a lovely building.Their arrival has been delayed. That was an awful decision by the referee.
2-Pronouns: Pronounsare used in place of a noun often to avoid repeating the noun. For example: Hina was tired so she went to bed. Ali took the children with him. He brought a glass of water for me. That is a good idea. Anything might happen.
Personal pronouns • Personal pronouns are used in place of nouns referring to specific people or things, for example, • I, we, they, you, he, she,me, mine, you, yours, his, her, hers, , or them. • They can be divided into various different categories according to their role in a sentence, as follows: • subjective pronouns • objective pronouns • possessive pronouns • reflexive pronouns
Subjective pronouns: The personal pronouns I, you, we, he, she, it, and theyare known as subjective pronouns because they act as the subjects of verbs: She saw her. We drove Ali home. I waved at her. Objective pronouns The personal pronouns, me,you, us, him, her, it,and themare called objective pronouns because they act as the objects of verbs: Huma saw her. Ali drove us home. She waved at me.
Here’s a table setting out the different forms: Notice that the personal pronouns youand itstay the same, whether they are being used in the subjective or objective roles.
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. John’s eyes met hers. He is Our family friend.
Reflexive pronouns: Reflexivepersonal pronouns include myself, himself, herself, itself, ourselves, yourselves, and themselves. These are used to refer back 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.
Relative Pronouns: Relative pronouns make up another class of pronouns. They are used to connect relative clauses to independent clauses. Often, they introduce additional information about something mentioned in the sentence. Relative pronouns include that, what, which, who, and whom. Traditionally, who refers to people, and which and that refer to animals or things. The woman didn’t leave a message who called earlier. All the dogs that got adopted today will be loved. My car, which is nearly twenty years old, still runs well.
Demonstrative Pronouns: That, this, these and those are demonstrative pronouns. They take the place of a noun or noun phrase that has already been mentioned. This is used for singular items that are nearby. These is used for multiple items that are nearby. The distance can be physical or metaphorical.
Indefinite Pronouns Indefinite pronouns are used when you need to refer to a person or thing that doesn’t need to be specifically identified. Some common indefinite pronouns are, one, other, none, some, anybody, everybody, and no one. Interrogative Pronouns: Interrogative pronouns are used in questions. The interrogative pronouns are, who, what, which, whometc.
Reciprocal Pronouns: A reciprocal pronoun is a pronoun which is used to indicate that two or more people are carrying out or have carried out an action of some type, with both receiving the benefits or consequences of that action simultaneously. There are only two reciprocal pronouns. each other and one another. Both of them allow you to make sentences simpler. They are especially useful when you need to express the same general idea more than once.
Intensive Pronouns: An intensive pronoun is almost identical to a reflexive pronoun. It is defined as a pronoun that ends in self or selves and places emphasis on its antecedent by referring back to another noun or pronoun used earlier in the sentence. For this reason, intensive pronouns are sometimes called emphatic pronouns. Ben built a boat for himself. Reflexive pronoun My mother bakes our family’s bread herself. Intensive pronoun
Generic Pronoun: Also known as common-gender pronoun. In English grammar, a generic pronoun is a personal pronoun (such as one or they) that can refer to both masculine and feminine entities. Also called a common gender pronoun, an epicene pronoun, and a gender-neutral pronoun. One, you, we and they are generic personal pronouns. We can use one, you, we and they to refer to ‘people in general’. One should never go to sleep with an electric heating pad turned on. Theycan use the Internet without understanding cookies. (or You can use … or We can use …) You usually need a raincoat in Ireland. It rains a lot. We tend to avoid talking about money.
Distributive pronoun • Distributive pronoun is a pronoun • which denotes persons or things of group separately, • that's why they always become singular and followed by the singular verbs. • This pronoun is used to indicate all the members of representative group. Some of the distributive pronouns are like each, either, neither, everyone, any, none, no one, etc • Each boy was given a prize. • Either road leads to the railway station. • Neither accusation is true.
