How to Determine the Part of Speech

How to Determine the Part of Speech

Only interjections (Hooray!) have a habit of standing alone; every other part of speech must be contained within a sentence and some are even required in sentences (nouns and verbs). Other parts of speech come in many varieties and may appear just about anywhere in a sentence.

To know for sure what part of speech a word falls into, look not only at the word itself but also at its meaning, position, and use in a sentence.

For example, in the first sentence below, work functions as a noun; in the second sentence, a verb; and in the third sentence, an adjective:

• Bosco showed up for work two hours late.
• The noun work is the thing Bosco shows up for.
• He will have to work until midnight.
• The verb work is the action he must perform.
• His work permit expires next month.
• The attributive noun [or converted adjective] work modifies the noun permit.

Learning the names and uses of the basic parts of speech is just one way to understand how sentences are constructed.

Dissecting Basic Sentences IN ENGLISH GRAMMAR

Dissecting Basic Sentences

To form a basic complete sentence, you only need two elements: a noun (or pronoun standing in for a noun) and a verb. The noun acts as a subject and the verb, by telling what action the subject is taking, acts as the predicate. 

• Birds fly.

In the short sentence above, birds is the noun and fly is the verb. The sentence makes sense and gets the point across.

You can have a sentence with just one word without breaking any sentence formation rules. The short sentence below is complete because it's a command to an understood "you".

• Go!

Here, the pronoun, standing in for a noun, is implied and acts as the subject. The sentence is really saying, "(You) go!"

Constructing More Complex Sentences USING MORE PARTS OF SPEECH IN ENGLISH GRAMMAR

Constructing More Complex Sentences

Use more parts of speech to add additional information about what's happening in a sentence to make it more complex. Take the first sentence from above, for example, and incorporate more information about how and why birds fly.

• Birds fly when migrating before winter.

Birds and fly remain the noun and the verb, but now there is more description. 

When is an adverb that modifies the verb fly. The word before is a little tricky because it can be either a conjunction, preposition, or adverb depending on the context. In this case, it's a preposition because it's followed by a noun. This preposition begins an adverbial phrase of time (before winter) that answers the question of when the birds migrate. Before is not a conjunction because it does not connect two clauses.

 

NOUN AND ITS TYPES IN ENGLISH GRAMMAR

In English grammar, a noun is a part of speech (or word class) that names or identifies a person, place, thing, quality, idea, or activity. Most nouns have both a singular and plural form, can be preceded by an article and/or one or more adjectives, and can serve as the head of a noun phrase.

A noun or noun phrase can function as a subject, direct object, indirect object, complement, appositive, or object of a preposition. In addition, nouns sometimes modify other nouns to form compound nouns. To understand how to recognize and use nouns, it's helpful to learn about the different types of nouns in English.

Common Noun

A common noun names any person, place, thing, activity, or idea. It's a noun that is not the name

English grammar, a pronoun and its types

·         Demonstrative Pronouns

·         Indefinite Pronouns

·         Interrogative Pronouns

·         Reflexive Pronouns

·         Intensive Pronouns

·         Personal Pronouns

·         Possessive Pronouns

·         Reciprocal Pronouns

·         Relative Pronouns

·         Source

 

In English grammar, a pronoun is a word that takes the place of a noun, noun phrase, or noun clause. The pronoun is one of the traditional parts of speech. A pronoun can function as a subject, object, or complement in a sentence.

Unlike nouns, pronouns rarely allow modification. Pronouns are a closed word class in English: new members rarely enter the language. To understand how to recognize and correctly use pronouns, it can be helpful to review the types of pronouns that exist in English.

Demonstrative Pronouns

A demonstrative pronoun points to a particular noun or to the noun it replaces. "These pronouns

A verb is the part of speech / A Verb and its types

A verb is the part of speech (or word class) that describes an action or occurrence or indicates a state of being. Verbs and verb phrases usually function as predicates. Verbs can display differences in tense, mood, aspect, number, person, and voice.

There are two main classes of verbs: lexical verbs (also known as main verbs), which aren't dependent on other verbs, and auxiliary verbs (also called helping verbs). As with lexical versus auxiliary verbs, many types of verbs come in opposites, as explained below.

Lexical vs. Auxiliary

Lexical verbs—also called full verbs—convey the semantic (or lexical) meaning 

Distinguishing Between Adverbs and Adjectives / english grammar

Distinguishing Between Adverbs and Adjectives

Sometimes the same word can be both an adjective and an adverb. To distinguish between them, it is important to look at the context of the word and its function in a sentence. 

For instance, in the sentence, "The fast train from London to Cardiff leaves at 3 o'clock," the word fast modifies and comes before a noun, train, and is, therefore, an attributive adjective.

An adverb is a part of speech in english grammar / and adverb and its types

An adverb is a part of speech (or word class) that's primarily used to modify a verb, adjective, or other adverbs and can additionally modify prepositional phrases, subordinate clauses, and complete sentences. Put another way, adverbs are content words that provide information about how, when, or where something happens. Adverbs are also called intensifiers because they intensify the meaning of the word or words they are modifying, notes Your Dictionary.

An adverb that modifies an adjective—as in quite sad—or another adverb—as in very carelessly—appears immediately in front of the word it modifies, but one that modifies a verb is generally more flexible: It may appear before or after—as in softly sang or sang softly—or at the beginning of the sentence—Softly she sang to the baby—with the position of an adverb typically affecting the meaning of the sentence. Adverbs can modify a verb or adjective in several ways, by providing information about emphasis, manner, time, place, and frequency.

Adverbs of Emphasis

Adverbs of emphasis are used to give added force or a greater degree of certainty to

An adjective and its types / An adjective is a part of speech in english grammar

An adjective is a part of speech (or word class) that modifies a noun or a pronoun. In addition to their basic (or positive) forms (for example, big and beautiful), most adjectives have two other forms: comparative (bigger and more beautiful) and superlative (biggest and most beautiful). Adjectives often—but not always—serve as modifiers, providing additional information about another word or word group, such as a noun or noun phrase. But adjectives can also themselves act as nouns in a sentence.

Learning a few basic grammatical rules and recognizing the various types of adjectives will have you correctly using these important parts of speech in no time. Below are the main types of adjectives you are likely to encounter in English, together with accompanying explanations for each.

Absolute Adjectives

An absolute adjective—such as supreme or infinite—is an adjective with a meaning that cannot

The 9 Parts of Speech / English Grammar

The 9 Parts of Speech / English Grammar

Read about each part of speech below and get started practicing identifying each.

Noun

Nouns are a person, place, thing, or idea. They can take on a myriad of roles in a sentence, from the subject of it all to the object of an action. They are capitalized when they're the official name of something or someone, called proper nouns in these cases. Examples: pirate, Caribbean, ship, freedom, Captain Jack Sparrow.

Pronoun

Pronouns stand in for nouns in a sentence. They are more generic versions of nouns that refer only to people. Examples:​ I, you, he, she, it, ours, them, who, which, anybody, ourselves.

Verb

Verbs are action words that tell what happens in a sentence. They can also show a sentence subject's state of being (is, was). Verbs change form based on tense (present, past) and count

Attributive and Predicative Adjectives in english grammar

Attributive and Predicative Adjectives

An attributive adjective usually comes before the noun it modifies without a linking verb. For example, take this sentence from Maya Angelou's work "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings":

"In those tender mornings, the Store was full of laughing, joking, boasting, and bragging."

The word tender is an attributive adjective because it precedes and modifies the

Absolute Adjectives in English Grammar

Learning a few basic grammatical rules and recognizing the various types of adjectives will have you correctly using these important parts of speech in no time. Below are the main types of adjectives you are likely to encounter in English, together with accompanying explanations for each.

Absolute Adjectives

An absolute adjective—such as supreme or infinite—is an adjective with a meaning that cannot be intensified or compared. It is also known as an incomparable, ultimate, or absolute modifier. English Language Centres gives this example of an absolute adjective:

• He is dead.

In the sentence, the word dead is an absolute adjective. The person is either dead or he is not, says