PARTS OF SPEECH

I INTRODUCTION
Every language has thousands of lexical items. If every one of
the
lexical items in a language behaved in its own unique grammatical
way, the language would be impossible to describe and probably
impossible to learn. But languages do not behave in such a way. In
every language, almost all of the lexical items fall naturally into a
small number of classes, and the words in each class behave
grammatically in much the same way. Linguists often call these
classes word classes or lexical categories, but the traditional
term is parts of speech.
The ancient Greek grammarians recognized eight parts of speech
for their language. The Roman grammarians who followed them
recognized a slightly different list of eight classes for their own
language, Latin. Over the centuries, European grammarians
proposed several different lists for English and other languages,
though curiously the total number of classes recognized was eight in
almost every proposal. By the early twentieth century, grammarians
of English had agreed on a set of eight parts of speech: noun,
pronoun, adjective, verb, adverb, preposition, conjunction and
interjection. This list of categories became the orthodox view of
English and of other languages, and it was almost universally taught
in schools in the English-speaking world.
 Everyone already knows a lot about grammar and uses it correctly most of the
time. Whenever people read, write, speak, or listen, they are using their knowledge of
grammar. How did they learn it? When they were learning to talk, they learned the
names of things (vocabulary), the different forms of a word (sings, sang, singing,
sung, songs), and they learned how to put them into sentences in the right order
(syntax) so they would be understood and get what they wanted.

A. WHAT IS GRAMMAR?
Dictionaries define grammar as the rules and explanations which deal with the
forms and structure of words (morphology1), their arrangement in phrases and
sentences (syntax2), and their classification based on their function (parts of speech).
Like many dictionary definitions, this makes grammar sound more difficult than it
really is. Your sentence probably looks something like this.
1. The man is throwing the ball.
2. The pitcher is going to throw the ball.
You might even have written
3. The ball is being thrown by the pitcher.
Whatever you wrote, it probably include the word ball, the action throw, and a word
that meant a man. You certainly didnt write
Ball throwing man the the is.
That wouldnt make sense and obviously fall under the Chomsky no sense sentence,
thus, people hearing or reading your message would be confused. You wrote the
sentence the way you did because you already know and use the basic rules of
grammar. Heres what probably happened at lightning speed in your head. First, you
saw the picture, and your brain understood the ideas the picture presented. Then you
thought the names (vocabulary) for the things you just saw and arranged them (syntax)
in an understandable order. Finally, you translated each sound in each word into letters
(spelling) and wrote the entire sentence. In fact, you probably started your sentence
with a capital letter and ended it with a period (punctuation).

B. WHAT ARE THE PARTS OF SPEECH?

Although English has hundreds of thousands of words, everyone can be

placed into at least one of eight groups, or classifications. The system of classifying
words based on their function is known as the parts of speech.

The parts of speech is divided into two groups: Open and Close Classes
Open Class Close Class
Noun Pronoun
Verb Preposition
Adjective Conjunction
Adverb Interjection
The first class is called open class because the words gives room for expansionism
whereby an a noun be transformed into a verb or an adjective with the use of
affixation (prefixes and suffixes) or derivations all in a bit to enrich the vocabulary of
the English language.
Example: beauty (noun)
beautiful (adjective)
beautifully (adverb)
beautify (verb)
On the contrary, close classes (preposition, conjunction, pronoun, interjection,
determinant) dont leave room for any expansion to migrate from one class to another
explaining why a conjunction can never take a prefix or a suffix to become a pronoun.
 Learning about the eight parts of speech will help us understand the grammar
explanations of some of the mistakes we make and figure out how to correct them.
Because some words can be used in several different ways, we have to look at what a
word is doing in a specific sentence before we can classify it (name its part of speech).
For example, look at these sentences.
He ran fast so he wouldnt be late. (describes how he ran...adverb)
They will fast to raise money for UNICEF. (tells about an action...verb)
Their fast lasted for three days. (names a thing...noun)
The word fast is spelled the same, but it functions differently in each sentence.

II THE BASICS OF PARTS OF SPEECH

A. NOUNS

Words that name people, places and things are called nouns. In other instances, it
can describe sensation, ideas or a concept, organization. Nouns can name persons
(teacher, child), places (river, restaurant), things (car, suitcase), or concepts
(happiness, balance). Nouns function as subjects and objects in
sentences (The teacher lost his briefcase). Nouns can usually be made plural (one cat,
two cats), but there are some exceptions known as non-count nouns which cannot be
made plural in the normal sense because they name a quality that is not countable
(meat, sand). Proper nouns name specific persons, places, things, or concepts
(Jessica, Nevada, Supreme Court, Islam) and are, therefore, capitalized. Collective
nouns name groups (team, flock, jury) but are usually considered singular because
they represent the unit as a whole.
EXAMPLES OF NOUNS
PEOPLE cashier Carol boys

PLACES: province New Brunswick lake

THINGS: ANIMALS: cat Dalmatian bug

OBJECTS: fork television car

SUBSTANCES: iron air gold

ACTIONS: (a) race (the) dance (the) hits

MEASURES: kilogram centimetre day

QUALITIES: happiness honesty beauty

B. VERBS

Verbs are among the most important words, for they move the meaning of sentences
along by showing action (look, run), occurrence (become, happen), or a state of being
(be, live). They are the part of speech that can tell time in that they have tense. They
can indicate that something has already happened, that it is currently happening, or
that it will happen at a later time. In addition to changing form to show time, verbs can
change depending on what form of person is doing the action (first person, I run;
second person, you run; third person, she/he/it runs), and whether the verbs subject is
singular or plural (one dog plays, two dogs play). When identifying verbs, look for
words that can change form to past, present, and future. If the word can change tense,
its a verb. It characteristics are as follow:
A sentence is not a sentence without at least one verb. A verbs usually tell about an
action, they are often found in the middle of Verb phrases can be interrupted by small
words like not, never, always sentences, may consist of one word, Verb phrases may
have up to five words, Verbs change their form to tell about actions taking place at
different times. For example, We walked to the store yesterday can be changed to show
the action happening in the future. We will walk to the store tomorrow. The word
walked became will walk; therefore, they are verbs.
I have finished the laundry.
Have you written that letter?
They had already bought her present.
I have never seen anything like that before.
Paul can do anything.
Tracy will be buying her wedding dress in New York.
My dad thought that he could sell his old car for more.
She might have been being chased before her car smashed into the bridge

Some special verbs are a little more difficult to find because they do not show
any action. When you find the words am, are, is, was, and were used in a sentence
between two nouns, you have found one of these special kinds of verbs. My sister is a
nurse; I am a teacher; our father was a millwright.
Sometimes these special verbs are used to show how a person is feeling or to
describe a quality.
Alex and Jim were unhappy with their marks.
She is beautiful and talented.
They were always honest.

Learning to identify verbs takes lots of practice. Complete Exercises 5, 6, and 7 in the
Practice Exercise Booklet. Find more exercises if necessary and use them until you
feel satisfied that you can accurately pinpoint verbs in most sentences.
C. ADJECTIVES
Adjectives modify (limit the meaning of) nouns and pronouns, usually by
describing, identifying, or quantifying those words. They are the show-and-tell
words that show what nouns and pronouns are like. For example, adjectives can
perform their show-and-tell act on the noun car and make it into a black car, or an
old car, or a fast new car, or a wrecked car; they can even make it into two cars. In
addition to their basic forms, most descriptive adjectives have other forms that are
used to make comparisons: small, smaller, smallest; foolish, more foolish, most
foolish, less foolish, least foolish. Adjectives typically appear either
before the noun or pronoun they modify or after a linking verb (The car is black).
Example;
the white, puffy clouds
a happy, carefree child
some tall, stately trees
a rich dark chocolate layer cake
five huge leafy bushes
Adjectives also tell how many, as in many people, several candies, and four
children. Words which limit the noun by telling which one or ones are also
adjectives. Such adjectives include this, that, these, and those, as in this car, that coat,
these boots, and those houses. These are demonstrative adjectives.
This book belongs to Pete; those pencils are Teds.
This and those are adjectives because they come in front of the nouns book and
pencils. This and those modify or limit the meaning of the nouns book and pencils.
The words this, that, these, and those can be used as either adjectives or
pronouns. Compare these two sentences to clarify the difference between their use as
adjectives and pronouns.
This belongs to Pete; those are Teds. (pronouns)
Pete bought this Ford, and Ted bought that Chevy. (adjectives)
This and those are pronouns in the first sentence because there are no nouns in the
sentence for them to modify. The nouns they stand for or replace were probably
mentioned in an earlier sentence. In the second sentence, this modifies the proper noun
Ford; that modifies the proper noun Chevy.

D. ADVERB

Adverbs have a similar function to adjectives, except that instead of modifying

nouns, adverbs modify, limit, or describe verbs, adjectives, other adverbs, or entire
clauses. They usually answer the questions Where? When? Why? How? To what
degree? or Under what conditions?
Example: The car accelerated rapidly.

In this example, rapidly further describes the verb (the cars action), telling us how the
car accelerated. Many adverbs have an ly ending, though some do not (always, never,
very, well, not), and some words that end in ly are not adverbs but adjectives
(friendly, lovely).

We have just seen that adjectives modify nouns and pronouns. Another type of
describing word or modifier is the adverb. Adverbs limit, change, or alter the
words they modify.
1. ADVERBS MODIFY VERBS
He is driving.
This sentence tells you only that a person is doing an action. If an adverb is
added, you will find out how he is driving, where he is driving, or when he is
driving.
How is he driving? He is driving quickly.
Where is he driving? He is driving away.
When is he driving? He is driving now.

2. ADVERBS MODIFY ADJECTIVES

In the following sentence, the noun sunset is described as beautiful. What

part of speech is the word beautiful.
The campers saw a beautiful sunset.
Beautiful is an adjective modifying the noun sunset. If you want to tell how
beautiful it was, you can add something in front of the adjective.
The campers saw a very beautiful sunset.
The campers saw a truly beautiful sunset.

When a word is added that expresses how beautiful the sunset was, or to
what extent it was beautiful, that word is called an adverb. Thus very and truly are
adverbs modifying the adjective beautiful.

E. PREPOSITIONS

Preposition are joining words, sometimes called connectives, which are used
to show a time, place, or ownership relation between two nouns/pronouns or a noun
and a verb. Prepositions and the nouns/pronouns that follow them are always grouped
together and treated as a single grammar unit, called prepositional phrases.
preposition + noun or pronoun = prepositional phrase
Time: after + the party = (after the party)
Place: under + the table = (under the table)
Ownership: of + our town = (of our town)
Prepositions are always the first word in a prepositional phrase. Prepositional
phrases are used to add more detail to a sentence. The following sentence gives no
details about the person or her actions:
The girl walked.
Where did the girl walk? Perhaps she walked around the building:
The girl walked around the building.
The word around is a preposition which tells the relationship between the
girl walked and the building. Other prepositions show different relationships
between the girl walked and the building: Consider these prepositions.
The girl walked through the building.
The girl walked into the building.
The girl walked behind the building.
The girl walked to the building.
The girl walked beside the building.
The girl walked near the building.

In each sentence above, the prepositional phrases give more information

about the verb walked by telling where she walked. Adverb phrases can also be used
to tell how, in what way, when. Anything that modifies a verb is an adverb; therefore,
these prepositional phrases, telling where she walked, are called prepositional adverb
phrases.
F. CONJUNCTIONS

Conjunctions, like prepositions, show the relationship between parts of a sentence.

They connect words or groups of words to each other, and therefore allow the writer to
communicate more sophisticated ideas to the reader. There are several kinds of
conjunctions that perform slightly different tasks. The seven coordinating
conjunctions join equivalent structurestwo or more nouns, pronouns, verbs,
prepositions, conjunctions, phrases, or clauses that have equal weight. There are seven
coordinating conjunctions: for, and, nor, but, or, yet, sothe first letters of which
create the often-used acronym fan boys. Correlative conjunctions appear in pairs,
such as bothand, eitheror, neithernor, just asso, not onlybut also,
whetheror. Subordinating conjunctions (sometimes called dependent words)
introduce subordinate (dependent) clauses and connect them to independent clauses.
Common subordinating conjunctions include although, because, if, unless, while,
since, before, after. Conjunctions, like prepositions, are also joining words or
connectives. Conjunctions are used to join words, phrases, or clauses 5. Conjunctions
can be found in any position in a sentence except the very end. Before you can really
understand clauses, you will need to work through Module 6, Part of the Sentence. For
the purpose of this module, you can use the elimination method to find conjunctions. It
works like this: identify all the words you can in a sentence, those that are left over are
probably conjunctions. Look at these examples.
When lightning struck the old barn, it burned quickly

G. INTERJECTION

Interjections express surprise or emotion or attract attention: oh, ouch, ah, hey.
Interjections often stand alone, as fragments, and even when they are included in a
sentence, they are not related grammatically to the rest of the sentence. Interjections
are used mostly in speaking; in writing, they are used mostly in dialogue and are
always followed by an exclamation point or comma.

III-CONCLUSION.
The English language being one of the most widely spoken language in the
world, it is but obvious that a better mastery of it extends to the parts or components
that make up the language. The grammar of the language has evolves over time to
making some classes of words not to be static within the same paradigm; but words
classes can exchange characteristics within the same paradigm making their learning
easier. While open class of words are prone to expansionism, close classes in
themselves remain confined within their scope of operation as well as they cannot
precede or come after certain close language items. Example, a determinant cannot
come after the head noun it qualifies but an adjective can be post or ante placed. It is
thus, within the context of the afore-mentioned peroration, to ascertain the beauty of
the English Language that when I wind my watch in the morning, I start it but when I
wind this write up, I end it.
IV. A SKETCHY DISPLAY OF THE ENGLISH PARTS OF SPEECH
.
V-BIBLIOGRAPHY:

Arscott, D. (n.d.) Good English: the witty, in-a-nutshell, language

guide. Lewes, Sussex : Pomegranate Press. (Highly recommended.
The first section, Nuts and bolts, page 3, is a brief summary of the
main parts of speech.)

For a complete summary of all grammatical categories of language,

the reader is referred to Crystal, D. (1987) The Cambridge
Encyclopedia of Language Cambridge : CUP p. 95